Quote - I'm personally skeptical that any open discussion can take place with DAZ using the internet forum medium.  (Disclaimer: I have had substantive discusions with Rand and Dan by email.)

---We are here... this is a discussion... BELIEVE, Kerwin! :D

So a few questions for Rand and Dan to think about:

• How can DAZ hope to recapture the goodwill of the Poser customer base through an uncontrolled policy of censorship and bans on their own forums?   This is where the discussion should have been taking place.  Why come here to a third parties forums when you're unwilling to discuss the issues in your own house, so to speak?   When will you revamp your forum policies so that you can get feedback from all your customer base?

---Forums are a tricky business. I am here because i sensed a need to be here. I am not neglecting our own forum.

Even with as much goodwill as I have to the customer base, I am in full support of banning and censoring. Some people just cant be reasoned with and insist on ranting, bullying and generally making things unpleasant for everyone. Those people get banned. Just for the sake of being candid... I will mention that nobody promised unrestricted free speech on the forums. It is not a right. You may use the forums only as long as you follow our Terms of Service. We have indisputably had situations where the banning and censoring was overzealous and unfair... and we are working on a new strategy that will hopefully improve the environment there. My position on this is that we need to state plainly in black and white with big letters what the rules are,  stick to them... and apply them fairly... end of story.  In my opinion, there really is no more complex plan needed than that.

• As a former DAZ PA, I felt strongly pressured by DAZ to stop work on V4/M4 series products and focus all my efforts on DS4 & Genesis.   Since DAZ as a Broker is always at the concent of DAZ to accept a product, this is clearly attempting to drive PAs in a specific direction.   Shouldn't DAZ just be clear about this?
• DAZ's PA process and how it selects what to broker is fundamentally opaque.   There seems to be no written criteria as to what DAZ wants from PAs and has to be obtained purely from folklore and statements by PA team managers in a non-public forum.   Shouldn't DAZ make clear what they want to broker, for what tehcnologies, in a public way?   

---I will not speak to PA issues or any other topics that are based in how we run the store here on Renderosity's forum... 

• Why was Poser compatibility such a low priority in the Genesis release cycle?   Should DAZ have made that an up front need?   Much of the angst now felt by customers and PAs alike is that the compatibility appears (I am not saying it is, but appears) to be of a low priority.

---Appearances evidently CAN be deceiving, because this has been a very high priority. But really... does Coke try to work with Pepsi to create a new flavor together? We are businesses... COMPETING BUSINESSES. Nobody should have had any expectation that we would do anything other than compete. Having said that... Against all Laws of nature, DAZ 3D and the guys at SM (who are great guys)  have reached out to communicate and work together.  As I have stated earlier in this forum We talked with Smith Micro about Genesis over a Year before DS4 was released and have steadily tried to get them to Join us in the Effort to push this new technology. They have been very cooperative, They do not have to work with us and could have told us to pound sand, but they have been very cool and I think its safe to say that everyone wants full compatibility.  

• Why has the necessary documentation and SDKs been so absense, that third parties have been somewhat disabled from filling the gap?   (I applaud D3D's work at moving morphs, at least one way, into DS4.)   A major discouragement is that the DSF format is poorly documented and is not, at least as of today, likely to be fully stable.   This disables thrid parties from improving Genesis to Poser (and vice-versa).  Should DAZ put a much higher priority on documentation and format stability to reduce the risks for 3rd parties. 

---We have been bad at Documentation. This is a known issue. The fact that 3rd parties CAN create for our software is a BONUS, not the intent of our efforts. We want to accomodate developers and want to assist in all the ways we can. but those efforts are secondary to our own developmental priorities. The fact is that there are many developers, Dimension 3D included, that had little trouble getting stuff done. He is a real Pro. Paolo is another. We have gone out of our way on many occasions to work one-on-one well above and beyond normal customer service to assist Plug-In Developers as well. DAZ is putting great priority on Docs and format stability... but not to reduce risk for third parties... that is yummy icing.

• DAZ and its followers frequently excoriate (always wanted to use that word in a post) SM for not adopting DAZ technologies.   Has DAZ adopted capsule zones and dependent parameters in DS4?  PMDs?  Can you please show us your roadmap to make DS4 more compatible with existent poser technologies.

---We have not, to my knowledge, had anthing NEAR the request for those things as we have had to bring Genesis to Poser. Having said that. I do not know if those who are communicating have talked about Poser tech in Studio... they may well have.  We also do not excoriate Smith Micro. Our users may... but they are not under our control.

• While we're on the subject of technology, what about shader tree/map compatibility with poser?   For me this has been near the #1 reason why DS4 has trouble with existing Poser content created by 3rd parties (including some DAZ brokered artists.)

---The Shader systems are not compatible because they are different on a fundamental level. The only solution would be to completely convert everyone to one or the other, which is extremely unlikely... or to have two side by side systems... even more unlikely.  We are at a dead end on that one. The disclaimer I am making on this is that this is how i recall it being explained to me by Rob. Human Error may be a factor in my relation of it.

• When will DAZ support preview of realistic light fall-offs in DS4?   How about preview of those falloffs?   The dependency on plugins for lighting features is a productivity killer.

---Viewport improvements including this one have been planned and are on the very long list of things we would like to do, but we are not in a phase where we will be adding new features for a while until we get some other things done.

I'm not saying these things to be mean to DAZ.   I wish DAZ well and continue to by content from DAZ almost every week, but my own journey as longtime customer of DAZ, becoming a PA, and then becoming an ex-PA have made me keenly sensitive to the business and technical issues raised above.   DAZ has asked to command a premium price for its content, and to win my business it needs to start acting like a premium business.

 

Cheers!

-Kerwin

 

[Wow!  Nearly 20 posts at Renderosity in 12 years!   I'm becomming dangerously outspoken! :) ]

 

edited by Bantha