Quote - I think we need a forum for product reviews where negativity is allowed and buying the product is not necessarily a requirement.  Perhaps it could be anonymous somehow.  Each product released would get it's own thread, and when some thoughtless merchant releases another "thigh-high boots, skirt, vented tank-top" clothing pack, keen observers of the market can say "Really???  No, REALLY???" and maybe even post pics and links of past items which are the same thing or something that could easily have been made by using transmaps of something already existing.

An element of being called out...a gentle public shaming.  I know that as a society we've moved away from the possibility of shame and discomfort as a motivator to do better, maybe it's time to bring it back?  Ultimately it's up to people not to buy the same thing repeatedly, but in a world without repercussions merchants are free to goad the situation. 

Like a poll system maybe?

Quote - > Quote - You know, maybe if the marketplace wishing well were "REQUIRED READING" for all merchants, it might be a busier place. I'm just sayin'. Some folks may not even know it's there at all if they're like me and link directly to the Poser Forum only for their daily reading.

I for one didn't realise it was there. Link please? I can't seem to find it.

www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showforum.php

William i 100% agree with you.... and i have been thinking the exact same thing for a while now....

I should also add one observation i have noticed, a lot of the textures on new 3d mesh releases are pretty basic and almost crappy looking... almost makes me think its done on purpose to get people to buy the "hyper attitude mk X ultra lethal pathogen turbo edition" texture add on packs !!! :|

Quote - William i 100% agree with you.... and i have been thinking the exact same thing for a while now....

I should also add one observation i have noticed, a lot of the textures on new 3d mesh releases are pretty basic and almost crappy looking... almost makes me think its done on purpose to get people to buy the "hyper attitude mk X ultra lethal pathogen turbo edition" texture add on packs !!! :|

That could also be because modelers are not always the best texturers and vice versa...lol. Those that do both very well are rare or they have a partner ;o).

Laurie

Quote - > Quote - You know, maybe if the marketplace wishing well were "REQUIRED READING" for all merchants, it might be a busier place. I'm just sayin'. Some folks may not even know it's there at all if they're like me and link directly to the Poser Forum only for their daily reading.

I for one didn't realise it was there. Link please? I can't seem to find it.

The presence of such a forum does not necessarily translate into useful data for a vendor trying to determine if there is enough of a market to justify the time spent in creating, testing, uploading, and marketing such a product--let alone the investment by a brokerage in marketing a product on a vendor's behalf.

Suggestions are easy to make, but really useful data comes from sales. Speaking from a vendor's perspective, there is a suprisingly wide discrepancy between what is suggested and what actually sells.

If you like a particular product, then purchase it and let the vendor know that you purchased it. Aside from making the vendor feel good about helping you with a product that you liked enough to spend your hard-earned money on, it gives the vendor useful information on how much demand there is for products of that type.

Now all that having been said, there is an incredible variety of elements out there if you are prepared to look for it. I have found 1930s-style clothing and hairstyles, science-fiction outfits, pirate gear, western gear, and so forth--I can't remember the last time that I invested in a straight hairstyle or a lingerie set.

Quote - > Quote - The more choice the merrier... Don't have to buy any of it but I'd prefer 1000 different styles and variations of the same thing to choose from rather than just 1

If the stuff didn't sell then the it wouldn't be produced, somebody is buying it therefore there's a markey for all the choice and variations therefore asking for it to be reduced is going to leave those people with less choice surely...?

I fantasize that the variations would come by working on the product that's already been released.  Transmaps, displacment, morphs and new textures (of course.)  Instead, I have a cr2 folder with...let's see..40 mini-skirts.  Of these, probably 30 are standard, non-descript mini-skirts. 

Remember, we're talking about an article of  clothing that is essentially a cylinder with one group and the simplest UV mapping possible.

Edited to add:  40+mini-skirts is not even counting the Long skirts that just could've been tranmapped into minis, or the full dresses that could be transmapped to be all three

Only 40 I assume you are talking about v4 now :o) Not sure how many skirts I have, less than 40 but I know I have three who are good to work with; bends well with the legs, have handles to override and adjust and the needed morphs to fit the characters.

The problem is that the only way to know if an item is good to work with is to buy it or if you have bought something from the creator before.

Worse; I have over 40 long skirt and dresses; MFD is used more than 90% of the time, the Moroccan dream dress a little the rest is perhaps rendered with once. Still looking for one who poses better than MFD, yes the Moroccan dream dress has better controls but the poses end up looking to stiff, would pay a lot for something like mfd with better control, but would not know before buying and testing.  

Recently I actually missed a skimpy outfit for V4:o) I needed a minimal loincloth for her and I didn’t have anything useable, Ended up using one from V3 in combination with a belt.  

Ok, well if were putting a moritorium on stuff, by all means lets put a moritorium on the following as well.

Vendors putting !, !! or worse yet !!! in front of your directory names for the poser runtime.  If I think your item is so gosh darned impressive that it should appear at the top of my runtime, I'll rename it accordingly.  I spent a lot of time in grade school learning the alphabet, and I'd like to get some actual use out of it - thanks.

Also using vanity naming conventions.  If your outfit is called say "Alice Dress" and the name of the directory in the Character section is "Alice Dress by Whoever" then why in the name of hades would you name the mat directory "Artist Who've I've Never Heard of MAT", or worse yet "My Third Party Texture Set with no mention of the outfit it's actually for MAT".  Ok, if I only have 3 or 4 mat file directories in that runtime, sure I'll track it down pretty easy.  But if your like most and have 30 or 40 mat file directories in that runtime, not having the name of the outfit directory and the name of the mat file directory at least somewhat related is a royal pain in the keester, and it's not like I'm going to remember which artist I bought the "Alice Dress" outfit from 6 months from now.  Same with the texture file directory names.  Finding them in Poser is possible but it's also a pain, so please for goodness sake try to name them something that actually has some relation to the name of your item, burying it under your artist name pretty much gaurantees I'll have to do some serious looking to find a specific texture or mat file I want to edit 3 months down the road when I've long since forgotten who I bought "Alice Dress" or "Mike's Mighty Pants" from.  Your a vendor of 3d artwork who I might have purchased one or two things from all total, your not a rockstar or someone famous who's name and works will be permantly etched into my conciousness.   Please start conducting yourself accordingly.

Ok, so that's not to say that you need to forgo using your artist name completely - but a directory called "Alice Dress by Vendor" is a heck of a lot easier to locate than a directory where I have Vendor Name as the main directory, then subdirectories underneath, same with your character/pose file directory names in the poser runtime. 

As to the overabundance of "skank wear" for V4, I guess I can't really blame the vendors for making what seems to sell the most.  I think that as a community the best way to combat this is with the ratings system - if you buy a product that is not skank wear and it's well made and useful, give the artist some really positive feedback.  Tell people why you like the product and that it's a good value for the money.

This gets those products noticed, and they start selling better.   Truth be told I don't think you'll probably see a huge shift in market forces anytime soon, but it's certainly worth the effort I think.  Just my 2 cents worth, as usual I could be wrong :)

Those are excellent addtions to the moratorium

...and adding this:  I have a shirt, shoe, pant, etc directory.  Please stop naming your junk "Shoe.cr2" or "Pants.Cr2"  Geez!

It's kind of hard to please everybody - I have a very rigid convention of putting anything I do myself under a *Flesh Forge directory.  If a user wants to move it they're welcome to, but something I always hate as a user is inconsistent directory names, and another is having everything off the top level of the directory.  Maybe if you only had 40 or 50 things in your entire runtime then you'd be happy having everything off the top level but damn, that would drive me insane.  At least having stuff grouped by author's name I can make some kind of sense out of what I'm looking for (as long as it's consistent).

Quote - It's kind of hard to please everybody - I have a very rigid convention of putting anything I do myself under a *Flesh Forge directory.  If a user wants to move it they're welcome to, but something I always hate as a user is inconsistent directory names, and another is having everything off the top level of the directory.  Maybe if you only had 40 or 50 things in your entire runtime then you'd be happy having everything off the top level but damn, that would drive me insane.  At least having stuff grouped by author's name I can make some kind of sense out of what I'm looking for (as long as it's consistent).

I don't mind subdirectories at all, I use them quite extensively in fact, but my pet peeve is the folks that name their cr2 or pp2 directories one thing, usually with the name of the outfit, and their MAT file directory something completely unrelated, making it pretty much impossible to find later on without opening a dozen unrelated directories till you find what your looking for.

As it is the best way I've found to keep my runtimes organized, when I do go to install something, is that I install it into a "dummy" runtime, I just made a directory called "Load" that is empty.  When I do purchase something, I install it into this directory, then take a look at the directory structure the artist used.  I rename them to suit my own conventions, the move the entire thing over to an actual runtime, which empties out the "load" directory and gets it ready for the next install. That way I'm not searching through trying to find where it installed the new stuff, works fairly well.  Also gives me a chance to delete all of those damn readme files that I never read anyway and would otherwise just be occupying valuable hard drive space for no good purpose.

And ya, your right, everybody's organizational structure and thought process is different, I'm not expecting everyone to follow my own preferred naming conventions, that would just be silly.  Nope, all I'm hoping for is a bit of common sense when the artist does get around to chosing their own directory names.  Having a directory in the character portion of the runtime called "Alice Dress" and all of the mat files in the pose section under "Artist Name that doesn't appear in Character directory" with no mention of the fact that these are mat files for the "Alice" dress is really irritating and just downright silly.

My other personal fav is the folks that put things under directories like V4 Clothes or M4 Morphing Clothes.  Umm.. ya.  Like that is the only set of clothes I have for either character.  No mention of what type of clothes they are, etc.. just V4 Clothes.   Personally I've always found that to be a bit arrogant.  It's as if the artist was saying, "My set of clothes was the only one worth buying for V4.  You don't need any others". 

Lol.. so no, all in all I don't expect huge changes there, but when the opportunity presents itself I think one should put a "bug in someone's ear" about stuff like this, hopefully a few artists read through this and thought to themselves, you know what, he's got a point :)

People might put them in M4 Morphing Clothes since that is a folder that DAZ started and people don't want to add another folder when one already exists. I always put all M4 clothes into that folder anyway so I can find it easier. Same for the V4 Clothes. Putting it into a common area makes things more able to be found so that is why some people might follow that. I might not remember that the dress is called Alice Dress but if it is in the Clothes folder I might be able to find it.

You can have folders inside of folders so the M4 Morphing Clothes can contain every outfit you have for M4 and it is a common source. Or you could have M4 Clothes, M4 Fantasy Clothes, M4 Sci-Fi Clothes, M4 Modern Clothes and put all the things in the individual folders.

Quote - Also using vanity naming conventions.  If your outfit is called say "Alice Dress" and the name of the directory in the Character section is "Alice Dress by Whoever" then why in the name of hades would you name the mat directory "Artist Who've I've Never Heard of MAT", or worse yet "My Third Party Texture Set with no mention of the outfit it's actually for MAT".  Ok, if I only have 3 or 4 mat file directories in that runtime, sure I'll track it down pretty easy.  But if your like most and have 30 or 40 mat file directories in that runtime, not having the name of the outfit directory and the name of the mat file directory at least somewhat related is a royal pain in the keester, and it's not like I'm going to remember which artist I bought the "Alice Dress" outfit from 6 months from now.  Same with the texture file directory names.  Finding them in Poser is possible but it's also a pain, so please for goodness sake try to name them something that actually has some relation to the name of your item, burying it under your artist name pretty much gaurantees I'll have to do some serious looking to find a specific texture or mat file I want to edit 3 months down the road when I've long since forgotten who I bought "Alice Dress" or "Mike's Mighty Pants" from.  Your a vendor of 3d artwork who I might have purchased one or two things from all total, your not a rockstar or someone famous who's name and works will be permantly etched into my conciousness.   Please start conducting yourself accordingly.

I agree completely, but would reinforce this a bit more forcefully.  Having purchased quite a few things over the years, I now select items, in large part, based on their user friendliness.

If you do not start the folder name for a texture set with the exact name of the character for which it is intended, I am highly unlikely to buy your items.  I am tired of renaming folders just so months later I can determine what something applies to without a relational database.  This also goes for vendors who like to put everything under a folder of their name - I understand you are proud of your work, and want me to associate it with your name, but I want to find things later and your name is little help.

My thoughts:

First, I agree 100% with TG: just because people say they want something doesn't mean they'll buy. Case in point: would dphoadley purchase that hair that he keeps posting images of? Or will he complain that the $10 price is too expensive?
I don't mean to pick on him specifically, but this seems to be the number one excuse from requesters: they want a certain, specific item, but then don't want to pay for it when a merchant makes it. Well, if customers aren't going to buy what they request, why should merchants make things on request in the first place?

Second, the complaint about merchants using "!!" in their folder name is an old one and it's been brought up many times. By this point, I'm surprised that we're not seeing folder names with 30 exclamation points. After all, the merchant has to force his folder to the top of the library somehow. :rolleyes:

Poser has supported nested folders since version 5, so there's no need to name every folder "Add On for John's Product By John": just create a folder with your name, then put a folder beneath it with the product's name. I know it may sound shocking, but customers will prefer a standard naming scheme better than randomly searching for a folder.

Third, the biggest issue of all: you say you want a moratorium on skirts and other clothing? That would be fine, but how do you stop the customers from buying? In my opinion, the only way to change what the merchants are making is to change the market: when customers stop buying V4 clothing, merchants will learn there's no money to be made, so they'll stop making those kinds of products.

Quote - [
As it is the best way I've found to keep my runtimes organized, when I do go to install something, is that I install it into a "dummy" runtime, I just made a directory called "Load" that is empty.  When I do purchase something, I install it into this directory, then take a look at the directory structure the artist used.  I rename them to suit my own conventions, the move the entire thing over to an actual runtime, which empties out the "load" directory and gets it ready for the next install. That way I'm not searching through trying to find where it installed the new stuff, works fairly well.  Also gives me a chance to delete all of those damn readme files that I never read anyway and would otherwise just be occupying valuable hard drive space for no good purpose.

That's how I've done it for quite some time.  Also run CorrectReference at the same time because there are still missing/misdirected files from a lot of products.

And speaking of readme files (which are, of course, inevitably named "readme" because hey, it's not like anyone else would ever use that name, would they?), I can understand not putting them outside the runtime directory.  But buried down in the runtime directory so you never see it except by accident because who the hell looks in their character folder for a readme file?  That's annoying.

Yeah I put all my documentation under RuntimeReadme with a filename that is (hopefully) obviously related to what item it's for.  I don't follow the DAZ practice of using the "ReadMe's" directory (makes me cringe to read it).

despite what many people seem to assume, this forum and others like it represent only a small fraction of Poser users - the tip of a very large iceberg.  the vast majority of Poser products are purchased by an 'invisible majority' - people who never post in the forums, never post an image, and you have never heard of.

even if every single person that posted in a request thread purchased the product (and they wont - far from it), you are still looking at a fraction of a percent of the Poser market.  while it may be lucrative for not-yet-established merchants to make niche products catering to request threads, the sad reality that most of them soon realize is that they stand to make very little money for the time invested. almost every merchant i have spoken to has some experience earlier in their career where they made some obscure or niche product based on requests and enthusiastic urging, then had it sell pitifully -- to top it all off often the requestee doesnt even buy it.
...not to mention then the poor merchant is stuck with something like 'Candy - Photorealistic Hairy V4 character with Armpit Hair and Wild '70s Bush' in their store.

so the decision between making mainstream products that cater to 90% of the poser market and making niche products that cater to at most 1-2% is pretty straightforward -- and you cant really blame merchants who have bills to pay for making it. not many have the luxury to so severely limit their potential market. most often the only niche products youll see are from hobbyists who do not need the money and are making products primarily catering to personal interests/passions.
that said, i do believe that if you make mainstream products they should still be different (whether it be style, quality, function, whatever) than everyone elses, otherwise whats the point.

youd get more niche products made if people would actually make some sortof minor commitment to buy, so that the poor merchant that goes out of their way to make it actually gets compensated for their time. this would be an excellent venue for less established merchants to have some guaranteed income and build up a name for themselves.

I would buy if the things I was looking for and sometimes needed were available but since they are not my wallet stays closed. I realize I am just one number in the marketing machine but it is what it is. Most of what is offered in many of the marketplaces I use little of or have no need for especially copy after copy of basically the same item done to death. I am not attacking or trying to be rude it is a fact.

Then it's more to the point that you all follow your convictions and stop purchasing items you disagree with. If you really ARE the majority, most vendors will get the idea very quickly and be forced to make products you approve of. When working on my own, I do make more normal clothing than I do when working with others and they really are the poorer sellers. If I had to depend on their sales for food I would quickly starve. In truth the vendors don;t drive the marketplace, the buyers do... vendors make skimpy pin up or fantasy clothing because that is what sells. If your "normal" clothing was the more profitable product you can bet your bottom dollar that, that is what every vendor would be bending over to make!

Instead of whole outfits, which often leave little choice but to include a skirt or a pair of panties...what I really want are single pieces of clothing that are unique and versatile. 

Here's an example of one fine piece of clothing done right

http://www.contentparadise.com/productdetails.aspx?id=12012

And another:
http://market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=72971&keyword=bootleggers

Things can (and should lol) be sexy as long as they're not redundant.  The textures should be extremely detailed and realistic like these two.  Morphs should be organic and not just stretchy, "Morphing Clothes" rips.  (How many shirts do you see that, when you scale up breasts, create two hemispheres of fabric without the midsection coming forward?  Terrible!)

Yeah it would be nice if that was practical.  It is an immense amount of work to hand-craft morphs into a model of any real complexity that fit any one particular morph, and when morphs are done by hand they will never mix well.  Tell you what, take any of my freebie outfits that are very complex (I recommend the Demonatrix outfit, for which I didn't do any morphs) and do a fit by hand for any particular morph.  Make sure all the rings are not incorrectly deformed.  Then multiply that by about a hundred.  And for any two morphs, I guarantee you they won't mix well.

You can't expect a thousand hours of labor to go into an item that the vendor is going to make four to eight bucks on per copy.

Um...kinda missing the point, aren't you? 

Is your argument that things should just be crappy and that's cool?  By the way, Freebies are different from store product, wouldn't you say?

No, I'm saying that if you want high quality perfect morphs, then you must accept either very simple models or a very high price.  You are not going to get all three things (high complexity model, perfect morphs, low price).  Part of your gripes earlier were that you are bored with bland miniskirt models, and your own example just earlier was Connie's mad-comlex boot model.  The freebie I just mentioned to give you a reference point for a high-complexity model that you are free to modify and distribute morphs for, if you feel like doing them by hand :)  I'd never sell a model like that simply because the morphs would be wayyyyyy too much work.

Ah, okay, I see now.  A higher price is acceptable for something very well made.

Sure - how high though?  The problem is, you can't really put a price on that - the vendor will.  There's a good chance that the vendor's valuation of their time spent (let alone the broker's +100%) is not going to match your valuation of a typical Poser garment.  Would you pay 100 to 150 bucks for a Poser outfit with perfect morphs?  Because it would take easily 10 times as much time and labor to do them by hand, for a complex model.

I don't disagree, it would be great if morphs were an easy part of the process, but really they're by far the most labor-intensive if you don't automate the task, and even if you do them by hand they will never mix well (unlike with automation).

A lot of it is what the market will bear... I just purchased Lady-Littlefox's "Victorian Innocence" complete ensemble at a price unheard-of here-abouts, and I don't regret a single penny of it (paid full price!). The quality of this item is incredibly good: a standard to strive for.

I will pay top dollar for quality, but Rendo/RDNA top dollar, not Turbo-Squid top dollar. There are limits: those are mine.

proper clothing is tailored/fitted to the specific character you make it for, not simply floating 3" away from the skin with basic morphs that were added with a 3rd party utility.

Daz has weaned their buyers to expect every single V4 morph in every single item of clothing. why? would you rather have one 'universal' item of clothing that fits everything equally poorly, or have something with a limited amount of morphs that looks/fits a character like real clothing should?  why do people need 'obese' and 'emaciated' morphs for a string bikini or a suit of armor? for the 1% of people who want to do an anorexic or morbidly obese beach or gladiator render?

buyers have conditioned the marketplace into what it is right now:  a merchant releases the exact same leotard mesh over and over again - just with slightly different cutouts each time - with 100 different 'textures' that are actually all just minor hue adjustments in photoshop - and customers eat it up like candy because its $5. they gush about how great the merchant is for selling items for so little.
those same customers will gleefully buy 5 of these crappy items for $5, but if another merchant were to put one single high quality outfit that took 10x as long to make up for $25, those same customers would balk and say 'its too expensive'.  so what does that second merchant do? he lowers his quality so he can compete at the lower prices.
the entire marketplace attitude for the last 6-7 years has been wanting more and more for less and less money - despite exponentially increasing poser/D|S product complexity and a plummeting US dollar. well, somethings got to give - and that something is quality.

Quote - proper clothing is tailored/fitted to the specific character you make it for, not simply floating 3" away from the skin with basic morphs that were added with a 3rd party utility.

Daz has weaned their buyers to expect every single V4 morph in every single item of clothing. why? would you rather have one 'universal' item of clothing that fits everything equally poorly, or have something with a limited amount of morphs that looks/fits a character like real clothing should?  why do people need 'obese' and 'emaciated' morphs for a string bikini or a suit of armor? for the 1% of people who want to do an anorexic or morbidly obese beach or gladiator render?

buyers have conditioned the marketplace into what it is right now:  a merchant releases the exact same leotard mesh over and over again - just with slightly different cutouts each time - with 100 different 'textures' that are actually all just minor hue adjustments in photoshop - and customers eat it up like candy because its $5. they gush about how great the merchant is for selling items for so little.
those same customers will gleefully buy 5 of these crappy items for $5, but if another merchant were to put one single high quality outfit that took 10x as long to make up for $25, those same customers would balk and say 'its too expensive'.  so what does that second merchant do? he lowers his quality so he can compete at the lower prices.
the entire marketplace attitude for the last 6-7 years has been wanting more and more for less and less money - despite exponentially increasing poser/D|S product complexity and a plummeting US dollar. well, somethings got to give - and that something is quality.

I agree with this completely. The texture sets I've been seeing lately (and I single out those, because that's what I myself am best at ;o)) have been nothing more than pattern flood fills, 6, 8, 10 to a pack. I could do those too, but I'd feel terrible about it and so I'm still not a vendor. But then again, I would never 1. Release a texture pack with more than three good, quality textures and 2. I wouldn't sell them for 5 bucks. My time is worth something to me but I feel I may as well not bother with better textures for more when there are so many textures with triple the amount of sets for less (and less in quality as well). Blackhearted is right. People only see the price, not the quality. And if they see the quality, then the price turns them off. It's hard to win in that situation ;).

Sometimes you do get what you pay for.

Laurie

Oh, and while I'm on a rant...lol...another thing about textures. People seem to devalue texture artists as compared to modelers in this business, which I think is completely wrong. There's no less work, and in some cases, more work than in the modeling. And after all, a good texture can make a bad model look good and a bad texture can make a good model look like crap ;o). Something to remember ;o).

Perhaps the reason may be that people see texturing as easy, and I guess it is if all you're doing is flood fills. If you aren't, it's far from easy.

Laurie

Quote - People seem to devalue texture artists as compared to modelers in this business

this started to happen around the time that 'merchant resources' and 'texture bases' proliferated.

Quote - this started to happen around the time that 'merchant resources' and 'texture bases' proliferated.

And something I've never used...lol.

Laurie

Quote - Daz has weaned their buyers to expect every single V4 morph in every single item of clothing. why?

A huge portion of the appeal of Poser/DAZ|Studio and various Poser characters is the ability to customize the characters, I don't think the buyer base is going to just get bored with that.

I would like to add this : Don't need a " I set your morphs ++ dials for you " inj-files .This sucks .Come on, create some new custom morphs for V4 instead.

Quote - > Quote - People seem to devalue texture artists as compared to modelers in this business

this started to happen around the time that 'merchant resources' and 'texture bases' proliferated.

ker-ching!  ^ This.

 mod hat on
I'm all for keeping this convo alive, it hasn't turned into a bash n' blame, and it's a healthy convo.

That said, don't advertise your store and think no one's noticing...we do.

 My 2 cents...
Am I the only person who's bought merchant resources just to learn from?  Like "huh, where should I put this on the map?"  

Other than that, it's been a while since anything in the MP anywhere has struck me as something I want to render.  I don't know what it is I want, to be honest.  I've had one image in mind that I want to render for months now, and It's not even 1/2 way finished.  I kind of like this slow-paced work...doing the textures for everything myself, modifying what I'm using, learning to really use the tools I have.  Feels kinda nice.

Quote -  My 2 cents...
Am I the only person who's bought merchant resources just to learn from?  Like "huh, where should I put this on the map?"  

Other than that, it's been a while since anything in the MP anywhere has struck me as something I want to render.  I don't know what it is I want, to be honest.  I've had one image in mind that I want to render for months now, and It's not even 1/2 way finished. ** I kind of like this slow-paced work... doing the textures for everything myself, modifying what I'm using, learning to really use the tools I have.  Feels kinda nice.**

That has got to be the neatest thing I've heard anyone say on this forum about how they build their scene / image. That image is going to be incredible to contemplate... sounds like art is a passion with you, Jen, of the slow-burning glow-embers rather than the straw-grass flash-burn.

And I relate. Scenes take ages to put together, and then I have like 40 million versions and all saved to Pz3s than take up space and I'll never open them again.
When you look up 'weird' in the dictionary, you see my face. :woot:

 :blushing: Oh, no!!  Pressure!!!

I'm actually learning a lot, and it's all because I decided to practice what I preach.  You don't have to have the latest and greatest of whatever product, you don't have to follow what other people are doing.  Art has this way of happening.  The idea for what I've been working on came in November, lol.  I started getting things around in February...and, by then, I could no longer fit behind my desk (thanks, Galen!  LOL!!)  Now that I can...well, my desk is covered in bottles and baby shoes :P

But, I still work on it, albeit slowly.  Heck, for all I know, I may never finish it.  But, I'm enjoying it so far.

Quote -   That said, don't advertise your store and think no one's noticing...we do.

did i miss something?

I have a gazillion unfinished renders and finished renders that never even see the light of day...lol. It's always been that way with me. I only put very few in the gallery ;o) My main goal lately seems to be making a scene with nothing except what I created myself in it. So far it's slow - I haven't created much...lol.

Laurie

Saved as pz3s? Thank goodness for terrabyte external drives, hey?

I don't make much either these days, but I do mess around with shaders a lot on really nice stuff... you get eye-popping results... eventually. :biggrin: Still, it's not what I would call art or really worth putting up in a gallery. Just got Photoshop CS3 at a great price, so I might learn to do a bit of post-processing and turn some of these raw renders into something less banal.

Quote - > Quote -   That said, don't advertise your store and think no one's noticing...we do.

did i miss something?

A couple folks took the time to say "don't like what's available, come to my store!!"  and nothing more.  (Totally different, btw, than saying "This is my method, and I am a vendor".

I guess those posts got deleted, which would be good.  I never saw those.

 You would be correct.  My post before was more of a "Hey, this happened.  Let's not do it anymore" type post, not "HEY, ALL YOU CREATORS, YOU CAN'T POST HERE".  Because that would just be silly.  

Hello :)
As a vendor and customer I also see the lack of things that could be interesting to see...
As Grappo, I also did lot of the things I sell or use in the renders just because they weren´t available as freebies or commercial products.
And I also feel bored of the infinite similar things that never show me a change or even an enhancement in the render settings... there are yet renders without shadows, AO, rim lights, etc...
And the thing about folds and details is another chapter... heads with growing silk ribbons ;)... skirts that break as if done with board... or as Gabe said: 3 inches floating around the body... necklaces that project shadows as if they were levitating over the skin... and more, shadows strong and defined as under a 1000 watts spot, but without melt the skin, blinding the eyes and decolorize the hair and clothings as bleach... I think there are some confussion here and the 3D has some rules... IMHO, just my oppinion.
I don´t have any problem with the fantasy and the NON figurative aspects of the reality and the art. Surrealism is ok, but all the artistic movements respect some details as privative rights of the proper identity of "art".

I agree, again, with Gabe about the morphs... Take me about 1.5 hours to do each one of the FBM that involve all the body parts... and test it in any pose that the normal body supports, and then also see if mixed with others there are poke... and all that work, probably never will be seen because not many people uses V4 with some FBM except Aiko or some breast change...

And about the textures... definately I pull my hat for the texturers.
I am not good at that. I am good at the shaders using alphas and grayscales and developing procedurals... but I would love to be as those that make textures that look as real embroideries or so...

I used to do those mentioned polls and for me worked ok due the closing of the market where I was selling my products before to start here. People told me what they still want and believe me, sometimes to make them happy pulls me to re-do things when in fact I would prefer to make new ones... but well, one of your ears can hear the people and the other can hear your soul :)

I really would love to see NEW things and maybe, more carefully crafted... There are some outstanding products that never get the exposure or the "fame" that IMHO they deserve.
Just my 2 cents... hope this don´t annoy nobody and if I did speech mistakes ( what is a sure thing) please forgive me because my fingers write english but my head thinks in spanish :)

See ya
fabi

Quote - proper clothing is tailored/fitted to the specific character you make it for, not simply floating 3" away from the skin with basic morphs that were added with a 3rd party utility.

Daz has weaned their buyers to expect every single V4 morph in every single item of clothing. why? would you rather have one 'universal' item of clothing that fits everything equally poorly, or have something with a limited amount of morphs that looks/fits a character like real clothing should?  why do people need 'obese' and 'emaciated' morphs for a string bikini or a suit of armor? for the 1% of people who want to do an anorexic or morbidly obese beach or gladiator render?

Says who? Proper clothing comes in all sizes in real life. You only see clothing in "Thin Chick" sizes in speciality stores or upscale stores, not Walmart! Does every string bikini need obese or emaciated morphs? No, but at least some of them should. Fat and emaciated people need clothes too. Not that I'm a fan of obese people in string bikini's or thongs, but they have the right to wear them.

As for DAZ being the culprit behind this expectation, sorry. The Market has demanded that these morphs be in everything, not the stores or outlet malls. People have chosen not to buy items that don't have what they want in them and the market merely reflects that choice.

Quote - I really would love to see NEW things and maybe, more carefully crafted... There are some outstanding products that never get the exposure or the "fame" that IMHO they deserve.
Just my 2 cents... hope this don´t annoy nobody and if I did speech mistakes ( what is a sure thing) please forgive me because my fingers write english but my head thinks in spanish :)

See ya
fabi

Fabi, I hold your opinion in the highest regard. Your renders (promo pictures and gallery) are superb and your mesh is spectacular in craftsmanship and cleanliness. I wish you gave lessons.

Whilst there are many who are starting to understand and embrace refining Poser techniques (including material management, light settings and overall composition) not only to improve their work but to overcome some of Poser's inherent shortcomings, most users want to pop a figure into the work area, throw an outfit on her, pose her with a sword and render her in a temple.

Well, so they should. They bought the product: have at it.

And if they are brave enough, pop the results in their gallery: sure.

My initial efforts were beyond lame, but I've been told to keep them there, so that you have a measure of progress. What does seem a bit disheartening is when the same images keep being submitted, no change, no evidence that the artist is trying new techniques, developing new skills.

Perhaps we need a WIP gallery... where people would only post images if they are actually developing some idea, are going somewhere with a scene (as opposed to just a quickie "wow, look what I did" type render).

It's an idea for a gallery, isn't it?

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?section_id=21&genre_id=

It's already there, ;)

"WIP" is a category in the current gallery format: what I was refering to was a gallery format that would allow editing and adding images to the same page, as it were (as opposed to separate pages, each with similar names so people can see the images are related).