That looks way better, but still if I would have to spend a ton of cash to get the base then your fixed version. Did you fix the breasts too? Anyway I wonder why they did not have you modle her..lol Anyway I just buy your Irina for Stephanie Petite at that point. The body is way better.

You have to remember, also, when converting, that the Canadian dollar is slightly less than the American dollar. When I was in Toronto, I had to keep reminding myself that things weren't expensive, at all, they were merely the same price, after conversion. :) (Whee, I loved the TTC!)

ehh, not that much. its around 20 cents right now, but our taxes nearly make up for that.

Your taxes didn't seem any worse than American taxes when I was up. Although it was a little weird paying taxes on a meal...

This is insignificant in comparison to the real issues attendant to this premature release, but as a point of amusement, it's notable that while Renderosity staff sternly frowns on "clone" accounts, one was created for member "Renda" so that "she" could self-promote. It's cool by me that the boss gets to bend the rules now and then, but "do as I say, not as I do" somehow doesn't carry the same quality of authority as the setting of a good example. Just a thought. ;-)

Blackhearted I too wish you had modelled Renda, 'cos what you've done with Irina is wonderful. Makes SP3 even more delightful to play with. 8) Catlin

Blackhearted wrote: "(and dont say daz studio, that doesnt even qualify as 'alpha' software, let alone beta)." While that may have been true in the past, the last couple releases of D/S have been pretty good. Not perfect mind you but certainly useable and better than P4 IMO. I haven't opened P4 in a couple months and do most of my meger renders with D/S now. While I would not even attempt to compare D/S with P6, it IS a viable app that is better in most respects than P4. And using your own logic, since its just being launched, should be given support in the name of competition. How long has Poser been around? If we should give Renda a break in the name of her hopefully becoming competition in the future, then why not give D/S the same break? D/S is still in Beta, is free and is already better than P4 in many ways. Give it another year or two and it MAY just compete with Poser. If you take a gander over at the DAZ forums there are more and more D/S users that have never owned Poser and they are buying content. Small % at the moment granted, but a growing number of community members are D/S users.

Damn, Gabe. That's some good work.

Irina is nice, worth it for me. Finally got to ply with Jim's Jessie, worth every cent and I always increase the head size on mil figures. Blackhearted, if you make the morph for V3 as the Renda one, let me know when I can buy it. I will not buy Renda, not because of the bad JP's or the bad mesh. Because of the price. The base is way out of line. Seems most already have her being merchants, no one seems to admit buying her. R'sity would do better giving the base to everyone, the Daz V3 thing. Isn't that what everyone tells new merchant? "Give us some free stuff to check your work before we think about buying any of your products." Well, that's what I've read many many times the past few years. If you did give the base away, at least Blackhearted would make a s sale, I do like that morph, hint, hint (pointing to first paragraph) Good luck with her, your going to need it.

That image in Post #73 is nicely posed, but the model looks odd. One of her thighs looks a lot fatter than the other.

With all due respect, can I ask why everyone seems to think Blackhearted's morph is the only thing that salvages Renda? Just my opinion, but it's gives one specific look, quite similar to Irina and his previous character sets, and is a little expensive for being just a morph. Does it hide her flaws well, and that's what makes it essential? Like I said, this isn't intended to be criticism of Gabe's work. I think it's admirable that he was one who pointed out Renda's early problems, and he took a big chance releasing his morph for a figure that wasn't quite ready for the public. Thanks, take care. SnowS

For me, even Gabe's morph set doesn't salvage her for me. And I agree on the expensive part...for everything that is attached to Renda. There is really a clone account for Renda? That rather sucks now doesn't it?

"There is really a clone account for Renda?" Yes, check the Product Showcase. Perhaps "shill" would be a better term than "clone" in this case since it isn't publicly known who "RProductions" is, besides vaguely "Renderosity." I know it's not the biggest deal but I find this practice of pretending that meshes are real people to be patronizing and childish. Given that the staff would not permit other merchants to get away with that sort of promotion (and just imagine the community reaction!) it seems a tad ... well, let's say "cheesy" to be nice. :-)

"With all due respect, can I ask why everyone seems to think Blackhearted's morph is the only thing that salvages Renda?" I don't think anyone said it does that, I think people just like the character morph. I don't think much can salvage her. I'm in Canada, do you think I would pay about $40 my money just for the base? I may be crazy but I'm not stupid.

I don't think his (Blackhearted's) morphs salvage Renda, he just made her butt look good. Still to close to Vicky 1 with ugly boobs and face and horrible icky bendy parts..lol.. To bad so sad. With all the talent here you think they come out with something ground breaking... sigh........

"..and is a little expensive for being just a morph." if you factor in the $75 beforehand, sure. but $15.99 for a complete custom morph that took me over a week (and im not new to morphing)? if you think so, then dont buy it - but i think its fair considering the work i did on her and in relation to other products in the marketplace. i make just over $9 on each sale. while i was morphing her i also remorphed countless polys of the mesh to 'flow' better with the lines of the body, as well as smooth many poky triangles. ive said it before and ill say it again - if someone is waiting for me to start pumping out $5 products then dont hold your breath, frankly i find the current state of marketplace pricing - like the daz .99 cent thing - its absolutely #%@$ing insulting to the content creator, and id rather go flip burgers at mcdonalds than make 50 cents on something ive busted my ass working on. to those people saying 'the only reason i would buy renda is for blackhearted's morph' - i really appreciate it, but please dont. i get a ton of emails saying 'i only bought the mil girls because of nia' or 'i only bought SP3 because of irina', and its the highest form of praise but all it does is depress me. i dont want my customers shelling out large sums of money for expensive characters they wouldnt use if it werent for my products, its wasteful. from now on ill stick to something like V3 that is free and everyone has already. unfortunately at the time i created irina i didnt know that daz would be dumping V3 for free, and jacking SP3s price through the roof. i also had no idea that renda would be so expensive, and honestly i feel a little betrayed by it. if you can afford it and you like renda, buy her. if you like my morph, buy it. but please dont buy $75 of something you dont want just for a $15 morph - i promise i have something much better planned for V3. im not a huge fan of V3 simply because im so tired of the marketplaces and our creativity being stunted by totally revolving around her and her default body, but its not like we have a lot of other options. cheers, -gabriel

"he just made her butt look good. Still to close to Vicky 1 with ugly boobs and face and horrible icky bendy parts..lol" redux looks like V1? have you had your eyes checked lately? dont make me diig up V1 and do a comparison, please.. im so tired :) i dont know if thats how you meant it, but if you did its pretty darn insulting. what on earth is wrong with her boobs or face?

Blackhearted. I agree. Everything does revolve to much around V3. I've gotten so tired of that shapes influence on other characters I could scream.

I personally feel that Blackhearted's Redux morph for Renda is excellent. So much so that I have put off finishing up an outfit and texture/character set for M3 to start working on a new outfit for Redux, which I had originally planned on making for V3, but have realized now that it will look much better on Redux. E.D.

but $15.99 for a complete custom morph that took me over a week (and im not new to morphing)? if you think so, then dont buy it - but i think its fair considering the work i did on her and in relation to other products in the marketplace. i make just over $9 on each sale. while i was morphing her i also remorphed countless polys of the mesh to 'flow' better with the lines of the body, as well as smooth many poky triangles. ive said it before and ill say it again - if someone is waiting for me to start pumping out $5 products then dont hold your breath, frankly i find the current state of marketplace pricing - like the daz .99 cent thing - its absolutely #%@$ing insulting to the content creator, and id rather go flip burgers at mcdonalds than make 50 cents on something ive busted my ass working on. Some rhetorical questions from a Marketing/Accounting Standpoint: How much would you sell one set for outright? If you are making $9/sale, how many would you need to sell to make that amount? If you sell 1000, that is $9000 you made. If you sell it outright for $9000 or less, you make all your money upfront which allows you more resources for future development. If you sell 10,000 you would only need to make $0.90 on each one to make the same money. I am not sure if my source is accurate or even would have knowledge of this, but I they said that some of the $1 Items sold during these recent sales at DAZ and PP sold well over 10,000 units in the couple of days. That is marketing. How many of us bought something for $0.99 or 90% off that we still have not installed? That is the power of that type of marketing. I understand your position, but that is what put many small retailers out of business, and others grew to meet their new sale demands. I have a friend that sells Printer Parts for as little as a dollar profit per part. This was a new approach for them to clear some older inventory. They can not keep up with the orders and are constantly looking for new suppliers to meet the demand. His number of sales increased by a factor of over 100 and his profits have doubled over what he expected. All this, just for reducing the price. Granted, this approach will not work for people supporting other products, but original Props and Figures would and could sell. (Or things for the base figures that are free.) So, unless you are supporting a niche figure, expect these types of sales to continue.

Personally, I've grown to like Aiko and Hiro in realistic mode. Makes a refreshing change. 'Course I happen to like Anime anyway but... grin

I don't think anybody sells 10,000 copies of a character.
I doubt if many even sell 1,000, and that only on a long-lasting character over a long period of time.
For most of us, getting past 100 is doing pretty good.
Some think selling past 10 is big time.
Some merchants never even sell 1 of an item.

Take your pick.

The 1st problem with making Poser stuff is that the number of people making things and trying to sell them is increasing far faster than the number of people using Poser. I often get the impression that the later hardly changes at all, while some do come in, other looose intrest and go away.

The next problem with making Poser stuff is that it isn't getting easier, rather the reverse, in fact. When I look at the first sets I did for sale, over 5 years ago, they seem so simple- maybe one alternate texture, no MATs, no JCM, no FIGs, few morphs, simple low poly figures and clothing. Now the standard is you include the sun and the moon, all for $9.95, on sale this week only for 30% off, too. I think I'm a lot better at this stuff than I used to be (I do it full time), but I still only produce about one set a month, on average.

So, what I'm trying to say is I don't think the low-price economic model is really valid for Poser products, after a point you are just driving the prices down, making all the producers poorer, not increasing sales.

Message edited on: 06/23/2005 20:46

Given that the staff would not permit other merchants to get away with that sort of promotion (and just imagine the community reaction!) it seems a tad ... well, let's say "cheesy" to be nice. They released a product that would never have passed testing if another merchant had submitted it, why shouldn't they pull other stunts that merchants wouldn't be allowed to do? bonni

I agree 110% Jim. I personally hate the 0.99 sales and the 1.00 sales. To me that says it's not worth more. That's why we give 70% to the vendors so they have the opportunity to make the biggest cut we can offer them. It's not fair to the creators to be buying up their products and selling them for a buck. I don't know of one person or company that has sold 10,000 copies of anything Poser related. Mark

In case anyone's wondering, I deleted my last post because I had a feeling that Blackhearted would take it the wrong way (I just agreed that I think there are real problems with Renda's face and breasts). As far as you thinking that DAZ Studio isn't even worthy of beta status, you ought to try it again before saying something like that. For me at least, it runs very smoothly and is much faster and easier to use than Poser ever was, and I've been using Poser since the first version. You sure you don't have an anti-DAZ attitude? ;) SnowS

im not going to get into a discussion on my pricing here, this whole renda issue has gotten me riled up enough, trust me you dont want to go there. lets just agree to disagree and drop it. suffice to say i will keep making my products and pricing them the way i see fit, and people either buy them or they dont depending on their individual preferences, budgets and tastes. i didnt exactly start selling here yesterday, so id like to think that i know what im doing. if daz wants to keep selling things at .69 cents, more power to them - but dont expect me to follow suit. snow, if you make $3 per sale on something youve spent months creating and are OK with that then thats your viewpoint and your opinion on whhat your time is valued at. i think you are cheapening your work and not being properly compensated for it, but im not going to argue the point becauuse arguing on the internet never results in anything constructive, and you never change the other persons mind - it just degenerates into bad blood. "i dont know if thats how you meant it, but if you did its pretty darn insulting. what on earth is wrong with her boobs or face? " i meant my redux morph. yeah, if she was comparing it to V1 im deeply insulted. the original renda has wierd boobs, but no wierder than V3. if people are insulting her body i dont understand why they accept V3's default mutated shape, theyre pretty much both the same. how about turning this sentiment into an anti shapeless-potato-body channel and urging your original figure developers to put out figures with more character and curves instead? and daz studio is alpha software, IMO. poser is beta :)

" In case anyone's wondering, I deleted my last post because I had a feeling that Blackhearted would take it the wrong way (I just agreed that I think there are real problems with Renda's face and breasts)." haha, sneaky bugger. i answered it anyway :) admittedly i havent tried the most recent versions of daz studio. but the ones i did try werent even remotely complete, and they didnt even really do anything. im not anti-daz, at all. but i am getting fed up with their business practices - everything from the .99 cent shit to forcing people like sixus1 out as competitors to the overly-restrictive licenses (even though vicky/mike would be jack @$#% without merchant support) to the whole 'offer a base product but then sell everything necessary for it to actually work separately in $30 packs'. ironically daz studio uses just this same concept :) ooh, were so generous and selfless, have thhis product we developed for free! then yoou load it up and realise it does @%#$ all, and you are going to have to buy all of their expensive plugins just to do anything with it. and im sad that the entire poser market revolves around vicky's deformed body simply because of the monopoly daz has in the original figure market. not only does 99% of clothing get modelled over that shape but it also influences the bulk of artwork. hell its at the point where someone like jim releases a properly proportioned model and people say 'her head is too big'. umno, vicky's head is too @$#%ing small! ive been telling people this for years, but theyve had vicky and her clones shoved doown their throats for so long that she has become the 'norm' -- hell, even an 'ideal'. its extremely depressing. so no, i dont 'hate daz'. but im sad that they have such a huge role in the community but they are just so damned aloof about everything and dont realise the negative impact a lot of their actions have on the community. i do this for a living, so i would be lying if i said that profit isnt a big motivator for me. but ive been a member here for a long time and im extremely loyal to rosity, so i do consiider how my actions - and the actions of others - affect poser. i want poser to be recognised, i want the marketplace to get a facelift, i want this political squabbling BS to stop and us all to do well - as artists and merchants. but in the direction were headed its not going to happen. people want merchants to start giving away products for .99 cents, do they realise how this is going to affect the quality level of the average poser product and attitude of the merchants? what typpe of merchants its going to attract? how many longtime talented merchants are just going to say @$#% this, and just go do something else rather than sell their work like at a flea market stall? bah, im going to stop before i get really riled up.

and my apologies about my typing. i used to have my trusty old IBM click keyboard, had it for about 15 years, but Rio made me get rid of it because she said i was 'too clacky' and she couldnt sleep. so i have this stupid modern thing now and i always end up typing liikkeee thhhiiisss on it. bloody thing.

LOL, didn't delete it fast enough. ;) Good posts, I actually like debating online because I'm one of the few who might actually change his mind if the other guy makes logical points.

My intention wasn't to argue about pricing, anyone should be able to charge whatever they want. My original intention with selling my poses was only to earn store credit, the problem came when I earned a little too much just to blow on Poser stuff when I'm lucky to make a new image every three months anyway. ;) As long as people are happy with my stuff, I'm happy too.

I still don't really see the problem with Vicki that you do, she's got a lot of body shaping morphs and third-party clothing items are beginning to include her morphs too. Maybe it seems like she always looks the same because the galleries here are full of images where she's NOT morphed to her potential. It's tough to make any figure that will appeal to anyone, I personally think that Jim Burton's figures look extremely thin. However, it's the ability of the figure to be customized that makes it a quality one and helps it appeal to the widest audience. I'm not sure if any female figure is ever going to be able to outdo Vicki in this department.

As strictly a figure posing and rendering package, DAZ Studio is certainly complete enough for me...though I suppose if you still consider Poser a beta, than D|S would be an alpha. ;)

Thanks for replying and good luck with this whole Renda issue.

SnowS edited for typing too, oops

Message edited on: 06/23/2005 21:51

Wow, that looks really nice. Gets my vote for best bending and best butt. :-)

But...is "Nesterenko" the same guy who made Alexa? The guy with the, uh, copyright issues?

Yes, butt, but he made Nadya before the Alexa fiasco. My point is that although I love Jim Burton and Blackhearted morphed/designed 3d people, they are usually the only ones making clothes for their own designed figures - whereas default V3 has 10 bagillion clothing items to choose from as well as other add-on goodies. As a buyer, I rarely invest a lot in these 'breakout' models until I see more than underwear and swimsuits being made for them. I've been burned too many times by breakout models that have zero sustained market support after the initial buzz.

and my apologies about my typing. i used to have my trusty old IBM click keyboard, had it for about 15 years, but Rio made me get rid of it because she said i was 'too clacky' and she couldnt sleep. so i have this stupid modern thing now and i always end up typing liikkeee thhhiiisss on it. bloody thing. If you use Windows, you can adjust the Repeat Delay, or use Sticky Keys (Handicap Settings) On Pricing... Yes, I do not want to get into that type of discussion either, that is why I said the questions were rhetorical. Note to Jim... If 100 is the threshold, then divide the numbers I used by 10 (100 at $9 is the same as 1000 at $0.90) I personally would buy a lot more items I really do not have an immediate need for if the Intro Price was something like $1. My Runtime and the recent promotions at DAZ and PP are proof of that. I think the only thing I passed on was two of the Characters/Textures for V3. I even bought items for figures I do not own, but have in my Wishlist (Poor David, I need some kind soul to buy me GCs so I can burying him in my Runtime! LOL )

"and im sad that the entire poser market revolves around vicky's deformed body simply because of the monopoly daz has in the original figure market. not only does 99% of clothing get modelled over that shape but it also influences the bulk of artwork. hell its at the point where someone like jim releases a properly proportioned model and people say 'her head is too big'. umno, vicky's head is too @$#%ing small! ive been telling people this for years, but theyve had vicky and her clones shoved doown their throats for so long that she has become the 'norm' -- hell, even an 'ideal'. its extremely depressing." I agree with that! I do model all my stuff currently over Ingenue Vickie, because I think her shape is the most ideal of all my figures, and also she is (by far) the smallest, I find it much, much easier to make clothing fit bigger, more well endowed figures- it is much easier to expand than shrink. So IV always gets her version first, even though the money is to be made in the V3 version. The path is usally IV -> GV -> V3, then IV -> Other figures. So I can surely see why Rendo looks like she was designed to wear V3's clothing, maybe with a Joint Injection Pose for the clothing. The downside of this setup is if they do JCM (later) they can't carry that over later to the clothing. I tried to do G J with JCJ, which actually would carry over, but I found proplems with that setup, and had to go back to JCM. I don't see how any female human Poser figure can match V3's bending (let alone better it) without using JCM, incidently.

i just lost an incredibly long post to renderosity's short timeout (youd think that after years of people complaining and posting about this they could extend it a little), so heres the abridged version. "If you use Windows, you can adjust the Repeat Delay, or use Sticky Keys (Handicap Settings)" first thing i tried, even in the BIOS. its the way that i type - i type pretty fast and i dont hold down the keys too long, its the way i hit thhem - it makes them bounce and thats what does the repeat. the old clicky keyboards never did this, but all of these 'squishy-keyed' keyboards produced in the last 8 years or so do, some worse than others. "My point is that although I love Jim Burton and Blackhearted morphed/designed 3d people, they are usually the only ones making clothes for their own designed figures - whereas default V3 has 10 bagillion clothing items to choose from as well as other add-on goodies." my point exactly. everyone makes clothing for V3's default body becauuse it is 'safe'... but its seriously stifling the MP and gallery renders because frankly, V3's default body is pretty bland (and im being nice). im working on ways to remedy this for my products, and more people are starting to support them... and there are options such as the tailor and wardrobe wizard, etc that make it a lot easier these days. on pricing: everyone in the poser market already takes all of these low prices for granted. are you aware how much non-poser 3D content sells for? a simple model with exclusive rights will go for several grand, and something with non-exclusive rights for several hundred, or over a grand. poser content, on the other hand, is incredibly difficult to produce. right from the get-go you have to model it with poser's retarded smoothing engine in advance (to counteract issues no other 3D app has), then you need to 'poserize' it by creating a host of poser text files and file hacks for it like CR2s, JCM, PBM, ERC, etc. if you create clothing, you have to model it with these same considerations then group it, conform it, replicate any JCMs that are on the figure, do fitting morphs for it, etc. in other 3D content most clothing distributed is just a simple mesh you can create in a cloth plugin in minutes, and all shaping and wrinkling and 'conforming' is handled automatically by the cloth plugin. the trend of lowering prices in the marketplace is being driven by one thing: bulk submissions. the reason prices are dropping is because the average marketplace product these days is junk, and people are mass submitting them at the lowest price possible to try and get some sales. a product price of .99 cents? a .49 cent cut? (even less at daz once they do their 'deductions'). did you even stop to consider what type of merchant demographic that attracts? i did, and everything i imagine is pretty negative. ive spoken to most of the top merchants at various sites about it, and all of them are upset, angry, offended or frustrated by the trend. do you truly realise that thhe drop from $20 pricing to .99-5.00 pricing doesnt come with any drawbacks? that its just a benefit to the customer? any customer can see that the bulk of products submitted to the MP these days are hastily slapped together junk submitted by a merchant for the sole purpose of making a handful of sales so they can get some store credit and buy a couple other $5 products. is this the type of product you want to be buying? one whose ultimate goal is to make 5-10 sales? many submit with such low expectations, and others submit with a 'lets see if this will sell' attitude that drives me absolutely crazy. as a merchant, when you submit a product, you should be damned certain it will sell - otherwise dont waste everyones time involved. do you realise what type of merchant attitide this fosters? there are up to 40 items submitted daily to the testing queue. there are just under 1900 merchants now, up from 1/5 that number just a couple of years ago. much of the marketplace consists of 'merchant resource packs', and most of the rest of $5 items. many merchants produce products in less than a single day. ive seen merchants bragging about producing 5 products in 5 days, producing a clothing pack for a figure a couple hours after it was released (and they didnt get it in advance), producing entire texture sets in a day, characters in an hour, etc. upon requesting a remap of a new original figure mere hours after its release the response was that some merchants were already 70% done creating textures for her. am i the only person that sees something wrong here? is this the type of product you want to buy? all that is happening is that more and more products are flooding into the marketplace as everyone and their sister becomes a merchant, and as prices lower merchants are turning to bulk submissions to try and make more profit. its turning the entire marketplace into a flea-market. other merchants are feeding this by churning out 'merchant resource packs' because theyve come to realise that 1900 merchants is an entirely new customer base on its own. the only reason im still here is because there are still a lot of customers who appreciate quality over quantity, style over bulk - enough to keep my mortgage paid. the moment renderosity customers lose their ability to discern between quality and slapped-together 'lets see if it will sell' bi-weekly bullshit - and im forced to sell for a .49 cent cut - ill walk, and get a day job. its just bloody insulting. cheers, -gabriel

If Renderosity was more selective in the items they put into the store it would actually end up making more money for them. At the sametime, it would cut their expenses. The quality would go up, more people would buy, and the bandwidth costs for storing and serving the promotional images and pages would be a lot less.

Yes, butt, but he made Nadya before the Alexa fiasco.

But...wasn't there another incidence, even before the Alexa thing?

Maybe Wardrobe Wizard and/or dynamic clothing will make it easier for non-DAZ figures to prosper.

Is there any way people who have WW can share the clothing they've refitted with those who don't? Suitably encoded, of course. That might be a quick way to build up a wardrobe for nonstandard characters.

unfortunately the cloth room in poser needs to come a long way both in terms of speed, stability and intuitiveness before it becomes a viable alternative to conforming clothing. right now the only way i use it is with a second rig set up to run it, something that takes me 5 min to do in a proper cloth plugin takes hours in poser, and is likely to crash, and i cant afford to tie up my main system with something like that. id kill for renderosity to do a survey of its vast userbase to determine just what percentage of users use Poser4, PP, Poser5, and Poser6. i have a feeling that more are still using P4 than we assume.

I just want to clarify my Pricing Comments. I am not talking about the items that are always $1 or even $5. I am talking about the special Sales where a $20 Item is sold for $1 for a limited time (upon its release) With the proper marketing and announcements, these types of offers will generate more income than a straight discount release. Just by selling 10X the initial projected sales you can cut the needed profit margin to 1/10 of the normal profit margin and make the same amount of money. Tie this in with sales of normal discount of some addon products, like Morphs, Clothes, etc... and you will increase those sales. Granted, as a merchant, you can not do this at this site or other Marketplaces, but you can do it your own site store (just be sure you have the bandwidth to handle the demand!) This approach is similar to the Give the figure away, and sell the Add-ons. The advantage to this approach is by limiting the special price you increase the demand to get it now. Linked with other special promotions on related products (but not free or deep discount) you should be able to increase sales on those items as well. DAZ did this with the Skeleton and the Skeleton Textures and other Add-on Products for the skeletons. Even when they offered the last day for people to get the items they missed, they still made money, because items like the skeleton were more than the intial release since the initial 30% Sale had ended. I personally do not buy the cheap items, just because they are cheap, but I would buy items from well known artists at a deep discount, that I normally would not buy. BAT Labs is a good example. I think the items done are great and I will get the Limited, but I can not justify buying the items, because I have no great need for them and need to save my resources. Now, if the same items were offered for a day or two at a deep discount, I might buy them in hopes that I could use them in the future. The idea is that even if I buy 10 and only need 1, I paid the same amount for the 10 as the 1. Exclusive Items are not items of RO, DAZ, or any of the other common Marketplaces, and yes high price will limit the exposure of the items keeping them unique. Those type of items are custom orders most often and RO, DAZ and others are not really into that market. 3D Universe has an approach for that type of work that seems more suited.

Attached Link: http://poserpros.daz3d.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=41811

Black Hearted, I was not saying your morphs looked like V1 I am saying the original mesh of Renda is so screwed up it reminds me of V1, but not really, more Like a V3 in looks, except the V3 has better mesh. I mean you must admit that the mesh on Renda is a mess, with all the bumps and Y's used. I mean her head has some bump in it. As far as the Y's in the mesh even vicky's have that. I just think that these mistakes in Renda not your morph are sad because who ever made Renda could have learned from all the mistakes made with Vicky and all of Daz's characters over the years. Not to mention her body is just not proportionate. Her ass looks deformed her torso is a little to long, weird ridges in her breast, ears to flat and small... ect ect.... And then to not release a free LE version to the public, is well, just bad business and art. Your body morph looks great, and Renda should have been that way from the begining, not as a after market product. Well I am sure someone will like her... Not me but hell. I hope to see a new female figure with a pretty face and nice body and lots of morphs..lol... someday for the poser market, I will pay 50.00 for that.

A quick clarification - the Platinum Club is $29.95 for the first month and $7.95 each additional month if you sign up for monthly membership. http://www.daz3d.com/program/platinum/ Back to lurking

Renewals for Annual is only $70, and you get a $30 Voucher for renewing in addition to the $5 Monthly Voucher. The Freak was Free, so was Stephenie (sp) for some, and people still buy them. The fact that something was cheaper in the past means nothing, if you need it or want it, you will buy it. Gas Prices go up and down, but because people need it, or want it so they can go places quickly they continue to buy it. People could ride bikes or walk, but they choose not to do that. People could give up Poser or 3D art, but they choose not to do that as well.

(Deleted a couple posts so's I can pull my head outta my rump numbers-wise. Here's the slightly revised and improved version:) In reponse to DAZ selling items at low prices as a "last-ditch effort"? It's not desperation, Gabe, honestly. The whole Platinum Club idea brings consistent income, regardless of whether or not someone buys anything at all at PC prices (A monthly membership comes to $117.40 a year, a lump-sum year-long purchase costs just under $100.) This is steady income, and members don't usually buy something one item at a time, but in groups of items, which means that the CC transactions are pretty much at a sane volume. It also means (usually) that folks who shell out for the PC membership are going to be buying enough items to at least justify the membership fees, which is a better guarantee than most contibuting merchants would get. A good parallel is PWFW. Folks buy an all-you-can-eat membership to past and future-term items from the place for a monthly, quarterly, bi-annual, or annual fee. The products by this two-person enterprise are decent and consistent in quality, volume, and release frequency. The average "price" of an item actually drops with each new item made, though admittedly mesh obsolescence tends to mitigate that a bit (I mean, have ye bought any clothes for the Zygote Nude Young Woman recently? They still got plenty.) PWFW has been around at least since 2001 that I know of (prolly earlier?), and has grown steadily with little more than word-of-mouth advertising. I've worked in companies with low-volume/high-margin economics (PDM's heavy structural steel fabrication facilities, where margins per unit can sometimes total over a million dollars), and comapnies with high-volume/low-margin (George's Foods, where any given facility has 250k chickens turned into cutlets each day - margins per unit hovering at maybe $0.10 per on average.) Both models can and do make a healthy living, so long as there is an intelligent plan and forethought put into the enterprise. /P

But...wasn't there another incidence, even before the Alexa thing? Yes. I wouldn't trust him. The Freak was Free, so was Stephenie (sp) for some, and people still buy them. Agreed. I didn't get Steph free. I paid for her. I also missed out on the free Freak. And will probably end up buying him, too. As for pricing, welcome to capitalism.

And I agree about the Platinum Club. I buy TONS more stuff from DAZ since I got the membership. I bought very little before getting it, and now I buy... um, a lot. A whole lot. Too much, really. :-/

"The Freak was Free, so was Stephenie (sp) for some, and people still buy them." I think with Steph 1 it went liek this - you bought Mike 2, you got her for free (in 2002 I think?) Can't remember if there any deals attached to SP3 - I just bought her outright. /P