I have looked at different threads and forums and really don't see what the big deal is with V4 Elite. Is the mesh refined in a way to give it better textures? Will my other V4 clothing work with her? Is she just another  morph?
To me this seams like a waste of money and I will not purchase, until someone can tell me what the deal with her is?

It's all in the elite release threads.

It's 3 new full body shaped based off real model scans, and textures derived from ungodly high res digital model images done with a 36 megapixel camera for ultra fine detailing.

They also included new special dshaders for Poser and DS.

It's targetted really at professional users, and the developement costs were extremely high, hence the product cost is also high.

So it is just another useless morph.

Quote - So it is just another useless morph.

Useless is pretty much a matter of opinion isn't it?

I'm sure there are people find them plenty useful.

Plus, it's more than morphs, it's textures, shaders, and shader presets.

If you notice, they're now putting updates in the store for clothing packages you may already have for V4 so that they fit "Elite" so not only do you have to buy the Elite packages but you also have to pay to update your clothing items, that's how I see it anyway!!
Even for pros it sounds like a major rip off!!
Just my opinion, that's all!!

The big deal is on DAZ's side. There are a lot of much cheaper textures available with at least the same quality and without texture stretching. 

Quote - The big deal is on DAZ's side. There are a lot of much cheaper textures available with at least the same quality and without texture stretching. 

I agree with you on this. I have several textures I use that I am happy with for V4. As for the morphs I can make my own if needed by a few clicks and turn of some dials. I miss the good ole days of V2 with morphs built in. 
I am finding myself going back and using V3 and V2 more and more lately.

Quote - It's targetted really at professional users, and the developement costs were extremely high, hence the product cost is also high.

Perhaps this is why I am having such huge issues with the hype of the elite stuff.  I have a hard enough time rendering out the 4000x4000 textures on bodies, clothes and hair doing my HOBBY as it is.

Daz makes a lot of money!!! Plat club members alone is probably a fortune, to charge that amount of money to make back what they spent is rather insane a bit... dont you think?  We truly support Daz with all we buy on a daily and weekly basis and to turn around and have to pay for updates on clothes because 3 new morphs were added to an existing character seems off the cuff for me. 

Quote - > Quote - It's targetted really at professional users, and the developement costs were extremely high, hence the product cost is also high.

Perhaps this is why I am having such huge issues with the hype of the elite stuff.  I have a hard enough time rendering out the 4000x4000 textures on bodies, clothes and hair doing my HOBBY as it is.

Daz makes a lot of money!!! Plat club members alone is probably a fortune, to charge that amount of money to make back what they spent is rather insane a bit... dont you think?  We truly support Daz with all we buy on a daily and weekly basis and to turn around and have to pay for updates on clothes because 3 new morphs were added to an existing character seems off the cuff for me. 

For what many people spend at Daz, I think Daz is just shooting them in the foot with  V4 Elite. They are starting to alienate there customers by releasing shoddy products (AKA V4 had issues when it was released and issues with A4 morphs).

The big deal is indeed on DAZ's side.... V4 elite is just another way to make money from something that really isn't worth the money in the first place at all.

Just because you are a hobbyist do you expect that every user is?  Personally I think DAZ is trying to now reach both ends of the market, hobbyist and professional, and frankly it's about time.

I find the morphs and textures quite useful and will definitely be using them in my upcoming contracts. 

Sorry.... I'm not a hobbyist at all, use Poser for business mainly, but I'm guilty of making some hobby stuff with it for myself also.

The whole point of reaching pro's is by releasing quality content and that's where DAZ is lacking when it comes to most things related to V4. Releasing shoddy products is far from what Pro's are looking for.

Besides I'm not in the market segment of pro's DAZ is trying to reach at all.

Look at the costs for higher end 3d content for professional use, comapre them to the LOW prices Daz charges for Elite, and get back to me when you realise how UNDERPRICED poser content really is.

I create poser content for a living.. abotu half my products have never made me over $9 a hour developing them. In comparison, if I went "pro" doing 3d content for commercials, films n such I could easily increase my income by no LESS then 5 times as much.

I do this because I liek doing it, and can do whatever the hell I please, but the low selling price of poser content is really hurting and driving away many poser content creators.

When everything else you see around you is going up 30% or more in cost, it only stands to reason that content creators, including Daz will HAVE to raise prices in order to survive.

Imagine waking up tomorrow, with NO Daz, NO Rendo, NO RDNA, and only CP for whatever new poser content might come out, because they sell the actual program.

No company is stable in these troubled times, and everyone and every company is struggling with increased costs, a lousy economy,  and how to deal with them.

Heck, elcetricty and heatin costs are supposedly going up 25-30% this year.. How do you expect companies like Rendo and Daz make that additional money?

Quote - Sorry.... I'm not a hobbyist at all, use Poser for business mainly, but I'm guilty of making some hobby stuff with it for myself also.

The whole point of reaching pro's is by releasing quality content and that's where DAZ is lacking when it comes to most things related to V4. Releasing shoddy products is far from what Pro's are looking for.

Besides I'm not in the market segment of pro's DAZ is trying to reach at all.

I don't consider these textures and morphs shoddy.  In a quality render set up they work very well for me (I'm a Poser user not a D|S user).

On the flip side Gareee is correct, are Content creator's expect to keep their prices low when everything else is increasing?

*On the flip side Gareee is correct, are Content creator's expect to keep their prices low when everything else is increasing?

*Why not? My boss isn't going to compensate me for the increasing prices either and I know enough people around here who are in the same boat.

They sure can raise prices, but most people can't afford the prices asked already so let alone afford higher priced items. Also there's market demand....
 
Personally I don't buy at DAZ, why should I? I can get similair good quality  items elsewhere for half price and that's what matters to me in the end. There are a few exceptions, but since DAZ & their PA's are raising prices at a whole I don't even buy from those people anymore. It's amazing how many good & pleasant alternatives I do find since I've decided not to shop at DAZ anymore and dance to their music, I prefer playing my own music. I also rather have it that the content creator get's all of the money instead of DAZ taking half of it, so I prefer to buy at a content creator's personal store, if they have one.

*Imagine waking up tomorrow, with NO Daz, NO Rendo, NO RDNA, and only CP for whatever new poser content might come out, because they sell the actual program.

*That almost sounds like heaven, except for RDNA I like their alternative content.

See, as a Content Creator I offer products as low as I feel I can personally do so at my time and investments.

This means I have some very low cost items, but I also have higher priced items as well.

As a business owner (we own a construction company and my husband also creates custom furniture) we have given raises to our employees, and we equally have raised prices for our customers.

If your "business" is such where you require content to complete it then the "boss" will either add it to their budget or it will be a consideration in your contracts.

but then I just fell for your handle again Benjamin and in general I know better than to converse with you on these subjects.

Quote - Just because you are a hobbyist do you expect that every user is?  Personally I think DAZ is trying to now reach both ends of the market, hobbyist and professional, and frankly it's about time.

I find the morphs and textures quite useful and will definitely be using them in my upcoming contracts. 

No I do not expect that, I am however entitled to an opinion, and I never said I was knocking anybody who feels they need to buy these for professional purposes either. More power to them.

"Personally I don't buy at DAZ, why should I? I can get similair good quality  items elsewhere for half price and that's what matters to me in the end. "

If you don't buy from them, how can you even make a fair comparison?

Please show me better poser dinosaurs then Digital I's, as an example.. or better textures for digital I's dinos then Rawart3d's.

True! Or dinoraul's. Fact is, I've seen NO dinos or animals to equal DAZ quality that didn't
cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars. CP animals are occasionally good, most of the
time good only for distance shots. But they are cheap, which makes them good for that.

Go to Turbosquid to see what pro have to pay for poor quality and high quality. Elite is STILL
cheap compared to that. I'll have to buy a bit less, which is probably a good thing. :)

Greywolf

I just can;t see myself cutting myself off from any content I might want, regardless of which store carries what. I don;t belive in store or "brand" loyaltyat all.. ford, chevy, apple, windows, ect. I'll jump ship to anything I want, if it serves my purpose, because "brands" are never loyal to US and companies are never loyal to US either.

i think the part of the Elite stuff that bothers me is the fact you need to upgrade your clothing to FIT. That also means, I am assuming here, that the rest of the stuff that you have purchased for V4 will not fil..and a lot of it will not have upgrade morphs. So then you play around trying to fit the stuff.

Also, I have yet to see a convincing render using these new textures. most are not even close to decent, and there seems to be a lot of problems even loading the stuff and getting it to work. OK, I've seen a couple of very good renders, but the textures, for all the hype, don't appear to me any better than, and in my opinion, not as good as, a lot of textures sold here, or by Rebelmommy, maskedit, and a couple of others.

I was very close to buying the bundle, its still in my cart in fact, but I keep asking myself, what's the point. One of the things I like to do is create realistic looking renders, but these don't seem that great to me.

The price is pretty decent, though, especially at the sale price of $50 for the bundle. Even at full price, you're getting 3 texture sets, the morphs, and the poses. Its not that bad.

your previous clothing will fit, it just won't fit these morphs anymore than it fit the Aiko 4 ones.

thats what I meant..it won't fit the new ELITE morphs. And the fact they don;'fit the aiko morphs is yet another gripe. But, being real, how can you expect them to when they're different morphs. But there is the problem...either messing with the stuff to get it to fit, or upgrading for more money.
This, of cours, is all great for the vendors to make more money. And again, that's why most of the vendors are doing it, to make money...so it all makes sense from that point of view. From the user, however, its a never ending outflow of cash, and in these instances , pretty much for the same thing.

 For, me, its an end to the outflow. I have so much content that I can't even use it all ever in 10 lifetimes of Victorias. And I too, really like V3 more than V4, especially the way she now is with all the injections and stuff. I never did like that concept...she still eats up a ton of memory.

Quote - your previous clothing will fit, it just won't fit these morphs anymore than it fit the Aiko 4 ones.

*"thats what I meant..it won't fit the new ELITE morphs. And the fact they don;'fit the aiko morphs is yet another gripe."

*So everytime DAZ comes out with a new morph you expect them to update all of their V4 clothing?

Coldrake

*Personally I don't buy at DAZ, why should I?

*Sorry I should have said Personally I don't buy at DAZ anymore, why should I? But I also stated..... There are a few exceptions like Dinoraul, Faveral, Stonemason, Digital I & Gareee :-)

But by now even from them I don't buy anymore, I've got enough dinos, creatures, scifi & medieval items to keep me happy for ages to come. I lost interest in V4 quite quickly, a lot of the releases geared towards her look very similair to me. Same with the dinos & creatures, I'm not even looking at new releases anymore, my runtime is full enough of them. Scifi & medieval the same... these theme has been done extensively and a lot of the recent releases have been done in some form or shape before.

Basically I lost interest in the DAZ store, prices going up, most items released have been done in form or shape before and the themes they're catering to have been almost beaten to death. I don't believe in store or "brand" loyalty either..... But there are some brands I don't buy and stores I do never never visit, due to their policies or or just being overpriced.

Why would I when it comes to content want to buy similair items over and over again? Some time it just simply ends. I don't need to follow the next hype and buy everything I've bought for the previous figure all over again. I really don't need creatures or dino number 100, if I didn't even get around using creature/dino #99 & #98 & #97 ..... & #25. I really don't need the next scifi outfit or enviroment if I already have a hard time choosing from the ones in my runtimes. And so on and so on and so on. So, buying at DAZ is just becoming one big waste of money, since most of the new releases are in my runtimes already, perhaps slighty different, but still good enough to be used.

People can buy whatever they like, but I rahter use what I've got already and spent the money on something I don't have or something more usefull then the next figure or outfit that comes along. Many of us are buying and buying and never using it, I decided to quit the rat race and use what I've already got and actually make some images instead of always hunting for the next new item. Visiting these shops can take up so much time....... at time this poserverse seems more like on huge shopping mall then a community of 'artists'.

*"The big deal is on DAZ's side. There are a lot of much cheaper textures available with at least the same quality and without texture stretching."

*Texture stretching has nothing to do with the texture.

Coldrake

Quote - *
*Texture stretching has nothing to do with the texture.

In general you are right but when I publish promo renders where you can see the stretching, what's the benefit of this?

Or if you look at the textures, e. g. Lana, there are painted wrinkels on the buttocks, means, if you make a render from the backside, even with the figure bent down, you have those wrinkels that would diappear in reality.

Have a look at the texture (need to log onto artzone first).
It's really quite good.

http://artzone.daz3d.com/index.php?/gallery/user/vi/&mid=112058&aid=2155

Then this one (full size it)

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1706488

What do you think?

Ok i have bought it (Bundle)and i regret
because v4 elite always crash with P7pro and p7
because i don't like the new morphs
because you need magnets or update for clothes with new morphs
But i admit i like the textures specially Amy one

Just ask for a refund and your regrets are over.

perhaps they should include magnets or morphs, yes...I think that would be correct. I already bought the clothes once...shouldn't have to buy them again....in fact, quite a few merchants will update their line FREE to support thing like this. For instance, a lot of folks updated so the stuff would fit V4 when it came out...FREE.

And it was stated...why buy the same stuff oiver and over...I see that from DAZ as well. Hoe many copies of the MFD do you need?

Quote - *"thats what I meant..it won't fit the new ELITE morphs. And the fact they don;'fit the aiko morphs is yet another gripe."

*So everytime DAZ comes out with a new morph you expect them to update all of their V4 clothing?

Coldrake

 

And it was stated...why buy the same stuff oiver and over...I see that from DAZ as well. Hoe many copies of the MFD do you need?

You need it only once... but DAZ needs to make money again and again and how much easier can one make money by going this route?

Soon we'll have V4 Supurb.... then V4 Ultimate.... then comes V4 Pro.... after that we'll get V4 Pro Elite and so on.

Quote - And it was stated...why buy the same stuff oiver and over...I see that from DAZ as well. Hoe many copies of the MFD do you need?

You need it only once... but DAZ needs to make money again and again and how much easier can one make money by going this route?

Soon we'll have V4 Supurb.... then V4 Ultimate.... then comes V4 Pro.... after that we'll get V4 Pro Elite and so on.

This is why I am not going to buy Elite and going back to the older Vicky's.  If I have a piece of clothing I had purchased and now need to repurchase due to another friggin morph, I will use Wardrobe Wizard even if it states in the ELUA for the clothing cannot convert to or add morphs.
I don't care if these what 6 morphs (3 body and 3 head) are the greatest morphs to hit poserdome.

I don't need another morph set, how about spending more time getting M4 out or getting a version of Daz Studio that will allow character rigging in.  OR better yet How about an updated  version of Bryce that will allow animation that does not look choppy!

I have been a Bryce user before a poser user and I feel that Daz has let Bryce become unwanted ware because they are pushing more of Carrara and their "enhancements" of V4. I just hope that if or when they release M4 it will not be another clone of V4.

By the Way if Dan Farr does read this, why did you get rid of the Unimesh? It made it so much easier for someone with limited skills to create textures maps for their people.

Quote - Have a look at the texture (need to log onto artzone first).
It's really quite good.

http://artzone.daz3d.com/index.php?/gallery/user/vi/&mid=112058&aid=2155

What do you think?

Good example, how do you name that on the right shoulder?

Can anyone who's bought anything 'Elite' that includes the new shader, confirm or deny that the new shader only works with D|S? There seems to be a lot of confusion over this.

If it is D|S only, then I might just buy the body shapes, which are a tad pricey but may be useful. And since I already have Dimension 3D's Clothing Morph thing, and it works for all sorts of characters and outfits, I won't be paying to update clothing I've already bought.

DAZ's stuff is usually worth the money, but I can not find any real value in any of the Elite stuff.

Based on the images others have rendered with Elite, it looks like the textures might be worth it.
Two months from now the price may drop by at least $25-$50.

The textures come in Poser, DS and Carrara versions. The DS ones include the (also available separately if you don't want the textures) Elite Human Surface Shader, the Poser version comes as an .mc6 file, and is a shader similar to what you would get by using bagginsbill's free VSS system or FaceOff's Realism kits, and I haven't opened the Carrara ones.

I have opened in Carrara here  a testing example with Amy texture using carrara shader

cspear, to clarify, the Elite Human Surface Shader that comes with the textures is Daz Studio use only.   It's one of the reasons I did not purchase the bundle.  The other reasons are 1) I sure the heck don't need yet another pose pack and 2) I don't like the textures, especially now after seeing more renders with them.  (Is it just me or does anyone else think the extreme bump mapping...or maybe it's the shader...or both...of the faces make them look as if they've had sand paper taken to them to rough them up?  I know my own face isn't that rough...thankfully.  I want to tell these Elite ladies to go out and buy a good exfoliator or microdermabrasion kit.)  I did, howver, buy the morphs.  At least those are useful to me.

 I agree, the bundle is to much for the reasons you state. Yes the skin looks over done, rough, red around the nose (like she has a cold and has been blowing her nose all day), etc. What I find baffling is the price to content ratio. No different makeups or eye colors to match the set by what I am reading. No variations for the price. There are some really good PA's (character specialists) that in my opinion you get way more bang for the buck. I guess I might grab the shapes and that is it.

Too many people drinking the same cool-aid over there, with all their raving. I believe it was P.T. Barnhaum(sp) that said, "There is a sucker born every second!" or words close to that. 

They do have (over) Hype down to a cash register ringing science IMHO!
What I find really nutso, is how bad their QA has become and in some cases a total disregard to allowing the PA to submit corrections. But in the rare occassions that it occurs, lack of official notice to the fact that it has been corrected.