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Poser - OFFICIAL F.A.Q (Last Updated: 2024 Nov 29 7:57 am)



Subject: Is Genesis Killing DAZ?


Gareee ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 3:56 PM

Yeah, yeah.. .take my jokes seriously. ;)

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.


blondie9999 ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 4:54 PM

Quote - For short: Genesis / DS is just the next step in a consistent DAZ strategie which started off in say year 2000 or so, and introduced the (V3M3S3) UniMesh geometries in the first place. DAZ aims at the games /apps / virtual life markets which are expected to meet the retail markets within a few years from now, thanks to MS kinetix etcetera.

Development of the Unimesh had nothing to do with aiming at the game market.  The purpose was to eliminate the wasted effort of making separate figures completely from scratch.  DAZ pursued that further in the Mil 4 figures by seting up the "secondary" figures as morphs of the main figures, rather than as stand-alone figures.  And with Genesis, DAZ has simply taken that a step further by having all the figures as morphs of Genesis.


Glitterati3D ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 5:23 PM

Quote - > Quote -  

I will never understand people not shopping somewhere out of principle, like their not shopping there will really make a difference. Because it really doesnt. There are always new people coming in to buy where others leave. The only ones they hurt is themselves for cutting off their nose to spite their face by refusing to buy stuff that could really help them make better art. But again, its not my place to change their opinions. If they feel what they are doing is good for them, then fine, more power to them.

 

Rawn

On the whole I agree with you and the reason I do not shop at Daz at present because there is nothing there that I want/need that  iahve not already purchased.

On the wider issue there are places where I will not shop on principle and I know that  my decision has no impact on the company but I sleep just a little easier in bed at night.  There are also companies I do not invest in, do they miss my money - not one bit but I do not want to see workers abused so I can make a quick buck.  It may be a strange outlook life but I am happy with it.

There are lots of companies I don't do business with, just based on my personal belief system.  I'm sorry, but I don't spend money with companies that are morally repugnant to me.  I just don't encourage bad behavior with my hard earned dollars.


RawArt ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 5:40 PM

Quote - > Quote - > Quote -  

I will never understand people not shopping somewhere out of principle, like their not shopping there will really make a difference. Because it really doesnt. There are always new people coming in to buy where others leave. The only ones they hurt is themselves for cutting off their nose to spite their face by refusing to buy stuff that could really help them make better art. But again, its not my place to change their opinions. If they feel what they are doing is good for them, then fine, more power to them.

 

Rawn

On the whole I agree with you and the reason I do not shop at Daz at present because there is nothing there that I want/need that  iahve not already purchased.

On the wider issue there are places where I will not shop on principle and I know that  my decision has no impact on the company but I sleep just a little easier in bed at night.  There are also companies I do not invest in, do they miss my money - not one bit but I do not want to see workers abused so I can make a quick buck.  It may be a strange outlook life but I am happy with it.

There are lots of companies I don't do business with, just based on my personal belief system.  I'm sorry, but I don't spend money with companies that are morally repugnant to me.  I just don't encourage bad behavior with my hard earned dollars.

 

Which is fine if it helps you sleep at night....just don't kid yourself that the companies lose sleep over it.

I know rebok isn't losing sleep over me not buying shoes from them LOL


LaurieA ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 5:47 PM · edited Sun, 05 August 2012 at 5:47 PM

Well, actually I won't buy from a company I don't like either ;). And I'm certain they don't lose sleep over it...lol.

Having said that, I still buy from Daz. I like their stuff. Always did, but I don't buy anything Genesis because I'm a Poser user. That's just the way it is ;). Me by myself may not make them lose sleep, but there are a lot of us who use Poser and find less and less there to get our interest. That they may lose sleep over ;).

Laurie

(who still loves Asics)



Glitterati3D ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 5:47 PM

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - > Quote -  

I will never understand people not shopping somewhere out of principle, like their not shopping there will really make a difference. Because it really doesnt. There are always new people coming in to buy where others leave. The only ones they hurt is themselves for cutting off their nose to spite their face by refusing to buy stuff that could really help them make better art. But again, its not my place to change their opinions. If they feel what they are doing is good for them, then fine, more power to them.

 

Rawn

On the whole I agree with you and the reason I do not shop at Daz at present because there is nothing there that I want/need that  iahve not already purchased.

On the wider issue there are places where I will not shop on principle and I know that  my decision has no impact on the company but I sleep just a little easier in bed at night.  There are also companies I do not invest in, do they miss my money - not one bit but I do not want to see workers abused so I can make a quick buck.  It may be a strange outlook life but I am happy with it.

There are lots of companies I don't do business with, just based on my personal belief system.  I'm sorry, but I don't spend money with companies that are morally repugnant to me.  I just don't encourage bad behavior with my hard earned dollars.

 

Which is fine if it helps you sleep at night....just don't kid yourself that the companies lose sleep over it.

I know rebok isn't losing sleep over me not buying shoes from them LOL

I didn't suggest anyone loses sleep over any decision I make.  Except me, of course.

However, it is far more impactful in a small industry with a tiny customer base.


FutureFantasyDesign ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 5:49 PM · edited Sun, 05 August 2012 at 5:51 PM

My issue was the fact of having to re-purchase all of the same content I already own to use Genesis the way it was designed... not that rich, or even interested. I used to go to Daz each morning to check the fast grab and pick up a product or two. Now there is not even a reason to go. And the prices are much higher for the same items I have already (*thank goodness) bought. And anything new has the dreaded Genesis Only label attached. To all vendors that might consider making Genesis products, remember to do a poser version too, sell it seperately and keep customers and $$$ in your pocket!

I think that they may have just shot themselves in the foot.

~A~

Is there water in your future or is it being shipped away to be resold to you?
Water, the ultimate weapon...

www.futurefantasydesign.com


vintorix ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 5:56 PM

It is not the companies that loose it is the people who refuse to learn new tools and new technique who loose.

 


LaurieA ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 6:09 PM · edited Sun, 05 August 2012 at 6:10 PM

Quote - It is not the companies that loose it is the people who refuse to learn new tools and new technique who loose.

Yep, we all have mud for brains. Except you vintorix...who is up on everything, right? ;)

By the way it's 'lose'. One O. I know English isn't your first language, but that was just for future reference.

Laurie



Glitterati3D ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 6:23 PM

Quote - It is not the companies that loose it is the people who refuse to learn new tools and new technique who loose.

 

No one is refusing to do anything; they are making choices.


grichter ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 6:29 PM

What I haven't seen mentioned that I think impacts all vendors not matter which store they choose to sell from, what software and characters they choose to support is the general overall world wide economy. It sucks big time in the EU, USA and Asia.

A lot of the forum traffic is off, store volume down, etc, etc, because people have had to park their hobby because they can't afford it like they could in the past.

Another factor is runtime bloat. When the economy got tuff, people looked at what they had invested in V4 content, and glupped-rebelled-froze up over the concept of trying to keep up and the money it would take fill up new runtime to the same level.

Gary

"Those who lose themselves in a passion lose less than those who lose their passion"


vintorix ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 6:44 PM

"Yep, we all have mud for brains. Except you vintorix...who is up on everything, right? ;) By the way it's 'lose'. One O. I know English isn't your first language, but that was just for future reference."

And how many languages do you speak Laurie?

There are rules in this forum not to do personal attacks but you constantly attack me, the moderators never interfere. Perhaps you have special permission?

At least I don't write with the maturity of a seven year old.

 

 


WandW ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 6:51 PM

Hmmm... Looks like it might be time for some cat photos, but this is interesting... 😄

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/04/penis-snake-photos-amazon-brazil-atretochoana-eiselti_n_1742088.html

 

Do I need a Nudity flag for a link to a naked snake?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Wisdom of bagginsbill:

"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
“I could buy better software, but then I'd have to be an artist and what's the point of that?"
"The [R'osity Forum Search] 'Default' label should actually say 'Don't Find What I'm Looking For'".
bagginsbill's Free Stuff... https://web.archive.org/web/20201010171535/https://sites.google.com/site/bagginsbill/Home


Glitterati3D ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 7:00 PM

Quote - Hmmm... Looks like it might be time for some cat photos, but this is interesting... 😄

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/04/penis-snake-photos-amazon-brazil-atretochoana-eiselti_n_1742088.html

 

Do I need a Nudity flag for a link to a naked snake?

ROFL, yes you need flags.  Lots and lots of flags.  How you expect the snake to wave them, however, is unanswerable.


LaurieA ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 7:23 PM

Quote - "Yep, we all have mud for brains. Except you vintorix...who is up on everything, right? ;) By the way it's 'lose'. One O. I know English isn't your first language, but that was just for future reference."

And how many languages do you speak Laurie?

There are rules in this forum not to do personal attacks but you constantly attack me, the moderators never interfere. Perhaps you have special permission?

At least I don't write with the maturity of a seven year old.

Nope, I don't have special permission. I should get a three day walk just like everyone else. In fact, I'll do you a favor and give myself a three day walk. Maybe in that time you'll learn not to speak to everone else like they don't know better than you what they should be using and do it in a way that makes them sound stupid for doing it.

Laurie



nemesis10 ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 7:23 PM

I am currently a user of both PoserPro 2012 and Daz Studio 4.5 on my mac running Mountain lion; I've used Poser since Poser 2 and Daz Studio since Daz Studio 2.  I can't say that I have the insight that the various vendors do but I have made my peace with both companies at this time.  I love the look of Poser renders and have always been a fan of the quirkiness  of Kai Krauss interfaces (It makes me smile when people here mention how they can't get used to the interface of Daz Studio which is closer to other 3D programs and prefer the idiosyncratic Kai Krause interface of Poser).  If I were to offer a critique, I would ask if it would have killed SmithMicro to support a mac supported tkinter for scripts and ask Daz3d to make an effort to make some of the genesis clothing less "rubbery" looking but on the whole, I am happy with both efforts.  I buy from pretty much all of the stores.  I am especially pleased that I can open most of my legacy Poser stuff in Daz Studio, that often vendors make stuff for both characters so I can render in both programs, and find that when one tweets shading rate, they both render at about the same speed with similar quality.  It is also nice that there will be parity in Reality (one can use LuxRender with Reality for both platforms but, boy, what an enhancement in work flow speed).  I remember enough of the launches of the various sites (as well as being aware of the economies of scale now and the legacy stuff that clogs the pipes) to look forward to Daz3d's site being 100%.  Bryce, the big issue is that it is old enough that finding people to work on its innards is a problem. I don't like this strife; I think it is important for both communities to remember that we are all rendering together and need to direct this religious zeal outward rather than inward.


wimvdb ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 7:38 PM

Quote - "Yep, we all have mud for brains. Except you vintorix...who is up on everything, right? ;) By the way it's 'lose'. One O. I know English isn't your first language, but that was just for future reference."

And how many languages do you speak Laurie?

There are rules in this forum not to do personal attacks but you constantly attack me, the moderators never interfere. Perhaps you have special permission?

At least I don't write with the maturity of a seven year old.

 

Who has the maturity (and knowledge) of a seven year old?

Grow up and learn to read

 


Eric Walters ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 8:27 PM

 Very succinct. I agree with more than 90% of your comments.

The only reason I have any interest in Genesis-is the ground breaking content from Mec4D i.e., the fiber hair and facial hair. It works really well with the Morph follower capability-which allows it to move properly in conjunction with morphs. Take a look at her current Neanderthal character- fantastic. True-SOMEONE might be able to figure out something comparable with the hair room-but I've yet to see it.

The other benefit WAS that Genesis bends much more naturaly than V4.  I spent many hours as a beta tester putting V4-WM and the clothing converter app through their paces to assist Cage, Phantom, Shvrdavid and others in Weight Mapping V4 so she bends nearly as naturally as Genesis.

 

Quote - Genesis isn't killing DAZ - DAZ is killing DAZ.

The company leadership continues to make the same bone-headed moves that they have been making for a number of years. 

DAZ does not learn from their mistakes.  The scary part is that they may not view them as mistakes. 

DAZ really thought everyone who shopped at DAZ would just dump their Poser workflows for DS4 because DS4 had genesis.  A year later, DS4 still doesn't have documentation, all core features out of beta, etc.  It is still a half completed piece of software that can't be finished as long as Daz refuses to get to feature freeze.

Imckenzie, you are not the only one that has notices that DAZ wants to build a closed ecosystem like Apple.  Don't point that out in the DAZ forums though, your post will be swiftly deleted.  More on that later.....

The problem is that DAZ has absolutely no clue as to WHY the Apple ecosystem works like it does.  The Apple ecosystem works because everything in it "just works".  Apple has an OCD approach to fit and finish.  Can anyone with a straight face say that about anything that DAZ makes?  I didn't think so.

 

Lets start with Business Processes....

If DAZ has a business plan, they need to start following it.  The customer base has been drug pillar to post with changes in strategic direction  Re: The "It's Not Fair" thread in the old forum.  DAZ (for once) laid out how they were going to handle sales in the future.  It lasted all of about 90 days and they were back to "sales all the time" - after stirring up the natives.

Killing revenue streams - Making DS4P available for free after attempting (apparently unsuccessfully) to sell it guarantees that no one will EVER pay for it.  People know they can just wait a couple of months and DAZ will give it away.  And why did they do that?  Because nobody was buying the Content Creation Tools.  How do I know that?  I counted the genesis specific products.  From the release of DS4 to the beginning of March Madness, there were 300 items for sale (or free) at DAZ.  That is everything, to include bundles.  It is hard to create content when there isn't actually any documentation available to help with said content creation.  That is why I believe they gave it away for 4 months, and have gone back to giving it (and Bryce and Hexagon away).

Maybe if we ignore the customers, they will leave us alone....

Speaking of not talking (or listening) to the customer base.  Anytime something bad happens, DAZ reps are nowhere to be found.  They don't like dealing with angry customers so they dump that off to the forum admins.  Take for example the latest website fiasco - At no point has anyone from the top of the foodchain shown up and attemped to calm the waters.  And we are going on 90 days now.  The "leadership" of Daz works under the belief that they have an infinite amount of goodwill with the customer base.  Not a good assumption, because people are starting to vote with their feet.

Of course, DAZ could have stopped the sales of Poser 9/2012 in it's tracks had they simply thought about what they were doing.  At no time in the runup to the release of DS4, did DAZ ever warn the Poser community that the new flagship figure wouldn't work in Poser.  Then DAZ was constantly stating in their forums that they had no intentions of creating a schism in the DS/Poser community.  Any post that called them on that BS was immediately deleted.

Software......

1.  DAZ is too cheap to spend money for developer seats for OSX or Windows.  How do I know this?  Because DAZ is CONSTANTLY blind-sided by changes in the operating systems.  This is why, for example Carrara, Bryce & Hexagon don't work with OSX 10.8 - If they had developer liscences (at $99 per year for OSX), they would have had access to betas, and could have made patches.  Oh wait, that leads to the next issue.

2.  The programmers at DAZ couldn't program their way out of a paper bag.  They have been developing software since 2005 and they STILL DO NOT KNOW HOW TO ISSUE A SERVICE PACK.

3.  DS4 upon release wasn't finished, in fact, it still isn't.  They simply announced that the last beta was the production version, which generated a number of WTF posts from beta testers.  It had the smell of a panic release with so many uncompleted (and undocumented functions).  Poser 9/2012 feature set (especially the ability to weight map legacy figures) appears to have spooked DAZ.

4.  Don't get me started with their other software.  I got screwed on Cararra 6, Bryce, and Hexagon (which didn't run on OSX for 4 YEARS - but DAZ would happily sell it to unsuspecting mac users without warning them that it wouldn't run under 10.5 or 10.6.

 

Genesis Part 1 - Technical Issues

**
**

The first technical screwup was the belief that SmithMicro would rewrite Poser to use a propritary file format that was documented to DAZ standards. File formats that they are still creating, DSON being the latest.

And just who would be expected to support this?  SmithMicro, not DAZ.  I could certainly see DAZ rewriting code that just happened not to work properly in Poser ("We're adding cool features and they all work just fine in DS, you should be using that instead of Poser" will be the excuse.)  Sorry, but I lived through both "DOS ain't done til 1-2-3 won't run" and the nightmare that Win16 support was in OS/2 - MicroSoft changed the Win16 API every 2 weeks until IBM gave up trying to support it.

Then there was the tackyness of DAZ telling Poser users that they needed to badger SM to add support for genesis into Poser.  This is coming from the same folks who never added any support in DS for any Poser 5 or later feature.  Interestingly, I haven't seen a similar campaign to get other companies to rewrite their 3d apps to use genesis natively.  Not even Cararra.... Oops.

No one from DAZ has ever explained what problem genesis solves for the customer base - other than giving vendors a new mesh to remake clothing for.  Genesis solves a problem for DAZ - 1 mesh instead of 2.  Which would make since if they actually tried to fix the problems in their figures, but they seem to have stopped doing that with the release of V4.2 back in 2006.  On the other hand, there is an entire cottage industry devoted to provided fixes for DAZ figures that DAZ was too lazy to address.

**
**

Genesis Part Duex - Sales Issues

Genesis has been a marketplace failure.  I was around when V4 rolled out the door - the DAZ gen3  products disappeared in about 90 days. 

The DAZ Gen 4 figures work in Cararra, DS, and Poser.  The genesis figure works in DS, Poser to a very limited extent, if the customer is willing to roll their sleeves up (and very, very few are willing to do it.), - I don't know about Cararra - I do know that the new, weight mapped Alyson 2 works in Cararra - I saw some shots with Anastasia in it.

Genesis came out a year ago, and if you want genesis products, for the most part, you are shopping at DAZ, because genesis products are few and far between anywhere else.  For example, Sickleyield has developed about 90% of the genesis clothing available here at 'Rosity.  Hell, Miki has more clothing at 'Rosity, RNDA and Content Paradise than genesis has at those sites.

 

Vendors -

1.  The clothing vendors at DAZ for the most part are not making new clothing for genesis, they are converting Gen4 clothing to genesis.  As I said over in one of the DAZ forums:

"I am not all that interested in buying Grace Pumps for Genesis, when I paid good money for Grace Pumps for V4, or Pharaoh for Genesis when I already purchased Pharaoh for V4/M4, or Boudoir Bliss for Genesis Female when I already purchased Boudoir Whispers for V4, or Liquid Halo On Sky 16 for Genesis when I already bought Liquid Halo On Sky 16 for V4 or the Morphing Fantasy Dress for Genesis when I already own the Morphing Fantasy dress for V4, A3, V3, SP3, Laura, The Girl, .... well you get the idea."

2.  The character creators are just recycling the same characters and look over and over - as an example, you have 3 Thorne & Sarsa characters, you have all of them.

 

 

The Website......

"The DAZ website rollout is like a living monument to the Dunning-Kruger effect."

I can't put it any more succently than that.

 

The Forums......

The moderators got much more heavy-handed once the new website flopped out the door.  Posts and entire threads were being deleted as quickly as they were posted.  For about the first 30 days only the "kool-aid" drinkers could expect their posts to stay up.  The moderators are about as unprofessional as they come.

The Platinum Club.....

DAZ needs to rename it the "DAZ Originals Club" because that is all that it is good for now.



Zev0 ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 8:44 PM · edited Sun, 05 August 2012 at 8:53 PM

Eric on that note you might want to check out my future product for Genesis. It is also Fibre technology. That is why Genesis is so cool. Endless possibilities and on the fly Morph following capabilities. I could never do this on M4.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2853055

My Renderosity Store


3doutlaw ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 8:49 PM

I contributed greatly to any woes Daz may be having, thanks to Jack Tomalin, Lisa's Botanicals, and the $1.99 PC sale.  Most I spent on content in a long time!  :blink:  (still recovering...)

I like Genesis...I don't like Daz Studio, thus I am Genesis-less.  C'est la vis!


lmckenzie ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 9:02 PM

"Poser has kept Daz alive all these years..."

An interesting take. One could do 'It's a Wonderful Life' and imagine where Poser would be today if Zygote hadn't spun off DAZ to do Poser content.

"There are 3 program that can handle poser-files, Poser, Daz and C4D."

Vue and Carrara?

I'm less concerned about any one company than I am about the market as a whole. I can use something other than DS/Poser IF there is a useable, affordable application and useable affordable content. I want to see the market expand a lot and I really don't see that happening with Poser alone. If DAZ can attract different types of users, that's a good thing overall. If the market grows, then we'll hopefully see a third player as well. If that third party's product suits me better, I'll use it. Loyalty and nostalgia are all well and good but IMO they sometimes blind us to the big picture. I want to see a time when this stuff isn't overly dependent on DAZ' at times less than stellar effort at juggling software and content or Poser's less than reassuring ownership history or internal fugure development yada yada. I don't see that happening without a bigger pie to attract more new companies. Maybe something like iClone or MakeHuman will breakout but meanwhile, I hope that DAZ/Poser will take chances and look beyond the niche. They may fail but as someone said, 'Bankruptcy is to capitalism what hell is to Christianity.' :-)

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken


DustRider ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 9:10 PM

I really don't think Genesis is killing DAZ, in fact, before the launch of the new web site/forum, there was a lot of interest in Genesis, and a lot of new users. What is hurting DAZ ...... is DAZ.

 I am continually amazed at DAZ3D's outstanding ability to shoot themselves in the foot, and then be totally amazed that it "hurts". But what I find truly amazing about it is that they do it over and over, and apparently expect different results each time.

 The forums were their software support and documentation. They were easy to monitor and find new topics you were interested in. Now they are such a dis-organised mess I find it frustrating and not very enjoyable to spend any time there (which means that there is less chance that I will spend money there as well). It's almost like they (DAZ) have this unique talent to succeed, but also have a great compulsion to self destruct. They get a lot of new users with the software givaway, then they try to chase everyone (new and old) off by rolling out a new website that clearly wasn't ready for prime time. Now, not only is the software lacking good documentation, but they crippled their forums that provided much of the information needed to assist people in using their products. I really don't get it.

 I understand that they are working hard to fix everything, but WHY didn't they do most of this work prior to going live? Do they like looking incompetent? Or ..... maybe they really are incompetent? I honestly doubt that they are incompetent, because they do come up with some outstanding products, and seem to understand and be able to follow through with good business practices ...... most of the time. It's almost like they have a sort of Jeckell and Hyde syndrom going on. Maybe they need to hire a GIBIO on their management team (Good Idea ... Bad Idea Officer) to run their ideas by before making big decisions.

 I know I'll probably get flamed for this, but Genesis really is a step forward. If you give it a go with an open mind, it's hard not to see the advantages it provides. But, going with the Jeckell and Hyde theme, DAZ comes out with a new product that provides many of the things that Poser Content users have asked for over the years, but they totally botch providing good detailed instructions and scripts for using their new product in Poser. Even though it's not simple, and without some changes to Poser (i.e. CC Subd) Genesis won't have all the features it does in DS, but Genesis is usable in Poser (see http://www.daz3d.com/shop/genesis-to-poser-cr2/). If DAZ would have provided something lke the "Genesis to Poser CR2" when Genesis was released, a lot of the negetivity would have been reduced. So we have "Good Idea - Genesis", "Bad Idea - alienating a large portion of your customers by not providing good support for using your new product in Poser".

But DAZ has had a history of being their own worst enemy. Obviously the new management has only enhanced these tendancies. The new web site is a prime example.

__________________________________________________________

My Rendo Gallery ........ My DAZ3D Gallery ........... My DA Gallery ......


Winterclaw ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 9:12 PM

Quote - I'd say DAZ's own bungles hurt them far more than Genesis ever could.

 

Yeah, but that's a problem that's difficult to seperate from the release of Gene and I think Gene has cause Daz a few bungles.

WARK!

Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.

 

(using Poser Pro 2014 SR3, on 64 bit Win 7, poser units are inches.)


Winterclaw ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 9:14 PM

Quote - It is not the companies that loose it is the people who refuse to learn new tools and new technique who loose.

There are better tools with better support.   That's the problem. 

WARK!

Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.

 

(using Poser Pro 2014 SR3, on 64 bit Win 7, poser units are inches.)


gagnonrich ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 9:19 PM

I was looking at the top selling products at the MarketPlace here and at RDNA and none of them are for Genesis (although some things, such as hair, is compatible). My cursory look does seem to indicate that Genesis hasn't taken off the way previous DAZ figures did. It didn't take long for Victoria 4 to bury Victoria 3, nor was it a long time for V3 to eclipse V2. It was only a few months before new commercial V3 content became almost nonexistent once V4 was out. Genesis has been out longer than that and still isn't doesn't appear to be widely supported outside of the DAZ store. It has to be hurting DAZ financially. Poser users, that normally have a feeding frenzy for new DAZ figures, weren't biting for Genesis because that figure is not compatible with Poser. Roughly half of the DAZ store is devoted to figure content. Since Poser/DAZ Studio are mostly used for pinup art, a disproportionate amount of purchases goes to figure content. Since Poser users haven't adopted the Genesis figures the way they did the DAZ 4th Generation figures, DAZ is losing money

People getting into posing software are generally going to start with DAZ Studio because it's free. It comes with Genesis and enough content to give a beginning 3D artist a place to start. If those beginning artists like the results they get using the software, they're eventually going to buy some figures, morphs, clothing, hair, and models. Initially, they'll start with the DAZ store, but they'll eventually branch out to other content markets. The more advanced those users get, the more likely they're going to search and find that there is a lot of excellent content outside of, as well as in, DAZ stores. The fact that Genesis isn't selling well here is an indication that those numbers are a lot smaller than the number of Poser users buying content.

As I said in the original post, Genesis is a great idea. If Smith-Micro had come up with it, people here would love it. Buy a clothing item for one figure and it works on every other figure in Genesis. Wardrobe Wizard only works on supported figures and the market primarily drives those figures to adult females. If PhilC doesn't think there's enough money to warrant the effort to add support for a new figure, WW cannot be used for that figure. If somebody wants to do a Planet of the Apes type image with a costumed gorilla, Genesis will accommodate that, but not WW because the time it takes to create the WW plug-in isn't worth the small number of expected sales. Genesis also means one texture fits all and one morph fits all (some may need tweaking, but the Genesis design simplifies the process). If a Genesis user wants to create a race of alien figures, Genesis makes the job a whole lot easier and that race will have access to all the clothing in the Genesis line. Until Poser does something similar, Poser is at a disadvantage. Considering that most Poser users are creating sexy images that have no marketable value outside of low-paying porn sites, that's not an issue for most Poser users. I haven't played around with Genesis figures, so I don't know how well the idea compares to the reality, but it's certainly a forward step in this niche software market. The problem isn't Genesis.

The problem was abandoning figure content for Poser. Figure content is where the money is. Locking out a large proportion of the buying market was a bad marketing decision. It was probably based on overly optimistic expectations that the market would shift to the better technology. It didn't. Instead of letting Genesis gradually shift Poser buyers over to DAZ Studio, DAZ took an aggressive all or nothing approach and seem to be far closer to the "nothing" side of the scale than the "all" side.

A more cautious approach would have been to release V5/M5 as Genesis figures with a promise that Poser versions would be out in a couple months so that they can optimize the meshes for use with Poser. It would be extra work, but the extra money brought in by Poser users should more than cover the conversion costs. After all, this has been a very profitable strategy all the way up to V4/M4. All the clothing, textures, and character morphs bought by Poser users would be compatible with Genesis because the Poser and Genesis meshes would be identical. The Genesis figures would have more flexibility than the Poser figures, but at least Poser users would have new figures that would presumably be a little better than the ones they have now.

When V6/M6 would roll out a few years later, Poser users would have bought a ton of content that works with Genesis as well as Poser. Poser users would have had a few years of seeing DAZ Studio users doing a whole lot more with that content than what can be done with Poser. DAZ Studio users would not have to repurchase all their V5/M5/Genesis content to work with V6/M6. Poser users would have to do that or run a separate program to convert the clothing to V6/M6 instead of having it work natively in DS without any extra work; run a separate program to convert textures; and be stuck not having another program to convert character morphs to the new figures. Poser users would eventually start wondering if they're backing the right software. DAZ should still put out a Poser version of V6/M6 and continue doing so until the additional sales stopped supporting the cost to make it worth the effort to convert the new figures for Poser. In the end, businesses are about making money and decisions that lose a lot of money aren't usually the best. DAZ is a content driven company--not a software company even though they've tried to enter that arena. To survive, DAZ has to produce content that people want to buy. Adopting a business strategy that does the reverse surprisingly isn't as beneficial as it might otherwise seem.

Oddly, DAZ is sticking to their guns and not releasing Poser versions of any of their new figures. That's a bit inexplicable in light of the fact that the overall figure market has not embraced Genesis. Any time DAZ feels like it, they can release a Poser version of V5/M5. It probably won't be as successful as it would have been had it been done earlier. There are clearly a lot of negative emotional attachments to DAZ abandoning Poser figure releases. A free Poser V5 with a big sale of Genesis content that works with the figure will go a long way to healing emotional wounds. There will no doubt be some folks that will be too upset to even download the free figure. All I can say is: "Calm down. DAZ doesn't love you. Smith-Micro doesn't love you. Microsoft doesn't love you. Apple doesn't love you. They all have one thing in common. They love your money." Don't get emotionally involved in software or other products because it only clouds one's judgments in making purchasing decisions.

At some point, DAZ has to publically confess their sins. Blatantly obvious mistakes don't get better with age. Obviously, the longer it takes to make an apology, the harder it gets to admit a mistake, and the harder it is for the public to accept. It's still better than continuing to ignore a problem. DAZ doesn't have to apologize for Genesis. They have to apologize for abandoning Poser users. There were probably good reasons for doing it. Without those reasons made public, there seems to be increasing ill will. DAZ has to acknowledge the website debacle. Not releasing Poser versions of V5/M5 was a bad marketing call. Unleashing an immature/incomplete website to the public was just plain dumb. The first time I encountered it, I
got the weekly freebie and couldn't download it for a week. I don't get too upset over free stuff, but there were a lot of people that paid for content they couldn't get. The forums were completely unavailable for a long time. The site still isn't as functional months later as the one it replaced. Somebody in DAZ management needs to eat some crow over this one. It's still better admitting what went wrong and moving on instead of ignoring the mistake. People make mistakes. It happens. Over time, apologies get accepted and forgiveness sets in. Nothing has happened that is so horrible or irreversible that it cannot be forgiven.

One thing I don't understand is why the DAZ store doesn't have more content for their Poser compatible figures by outside merchants. Looking at the New Releases showed only one pose pack for V4/M4 without anything for Genesis. The disparity between what the DAZ store is selling versus what everybody else is selling seems to point to either a mandate or massive incentives for third parties to create Genesis content. There would probably be a legal nondisclosure statement to prevent outside discussions of such things. Without any edicts from DAZ, one would expect that more third party content creators would be marketing Gen4 figure content in similar proportions to other stores. DAZ Original content may focus on Genesis, but other content creators in the store would normally produce content that they think will sell. If outside creators are being forced to produce content for the DAZ store that won't sell as well as what they could make elsewhere, the natural thing is going to be for them to seek other stores for their wares. I'm not paying enough attention to the market to know if that kind of exodus has happened.

It'll be interesting to see what the future holds for DAZ. The company can stubbornly adhere to their current direction or do something different. Enough time has lapsed that some measure can be taken of their current approach. If the intent was to nudge Poser users to switch to DAZ Studio, the general consensus here indicates that's not happening. The funny thing is that DAZ is competing against DAZ. It's not even a fight with another company's figure. People are continuing to buy Victoria 4 products. Since DAZ doesn't seem to be releasing V4 content, Poser customers are patronizing other stores. A "buy this or shop somewhere else" approach is only benefitting other stores. It's hard to imagine that continuing to ignore Poser users for another year will be any more a winning strategy than it has to date.

When DAZ stopped producing figure content for Poser users, a lot of their Poser customers either spent less time browsing for content in DAZ stores or stopped altogether. More than one poster has said that the money they routinely spent at DAZ is money they're now spending at Renderosity. The online store that people browse in will be the store that they make purchases from. A Poser user browsing the Renderosity MarketPlace for V4 content is more likely to buy a prop they come across there than to take the time to search other stores for other versions of that prop. Some users will search other stores. Some will just make a spur-of-the-moment purchase. The store the person didn't go to didn't make any money.

As I've stated, I have no stake in this matter. I don't use Poser enough right now to be overly involved in marketplace squabbles. I was curious about the things I saw.

I was looking at the top selling products at the MarketPlace here and at RDNA and none of them are for Genesis (although some things, such as hair, is compatible). My cursory look does seem to indicate that Genesis hasn't taken off the way previous DAZ figures did. It didn't take long for Victoria 4 to bury Victoria 3, nor was it a long time for V3 to eclipse V2. It was only a few months before new commercial V3 content became almost nonexistent once V4 was out. Genesis has been out longer than that and still isn't doesn't appear to be widely supported outside of the DAZ store. It has to be hurting DAZ financially. Poser users, that normally have a feeding frenzy for new DAZ figures, weren't biting for Genesis because that figure is not compatible with Poser. Roughly half of the DAZ store is devoted to figure content. Since Poser/DAZ Studio are mostly used for pinup art, a disproportionate amount of purchases goes to figure content. Since Poser users haven't adopted the Genesis figures the way they did the DAZ 4th Generation figures, DAZ is losing money

 

People getting into posing software are generally going to start with DAZ Studio because it's free. It comes with Genesis and enough content to give a beginning 3D artist a place to start. If those beginning artists like the results they get using the software, they're eventually going to buy some figures, morphs, clothing, hair, and models. Initially, they'll start with the DAZ store, but they'll eventually branch out to other content markets. The more advanced those users get, the more likely they're going to search and find that there is a lot of excellent content outside of, as well as in, DAZ stores. The fact that Genesis isn't selling well here is an indication that those numbers are a lot smaller than the number of Poser users buying content.

 

As I said in the original post, Genesis is a great idea. If Smith-Micro had come up with it, people here would love it. Buy a clothing item for one figure and it works on every other figure in Genesis. Wardrobe Wizard only works on supported figures and the market primarily drives those figures to adult females. If PhilC doesn't think there's enough money to warrant the effort to add support for a new figure, WW cannot be used for that figure. If somebody wants to do a Planet of the Apes type image with a costumed gorilla, Genesis will accommodate that, but not WW because the time it takes to create the WW plug-in isn't worth the small number of expected sales. Genesis also means one texture fits all and one morph fits all (some may need tweaking, but the Genesis design simplifies the process). If a Genesis user wants to create a race of alien figures, Genesis makes the job a whole lot easier and that race will have access to all the clothing in the Genesis line. Until Poser does something similar, Poser is at a disadvantage. Considering that most Poser users are creating sexy images that have no marketable value outside of low-paying porn sites, that's not an issue for most Poser users. I haven't played around with Genesis figures, so I don't know how well the idea compares to the reality, but it's certainly a forward step in this niche software market. The problem isn't Genesis.

 

The problem was abandoning figure content for Poser. Figure content is where the money is. Locking out a large proportion of the buying market was a bad marketing decision. It was probably based on overly optimistic expectations that the market would shift to the better technology. It didn't. Instead of letting Genesis gradually shift Poser buyers over to DAZ Studio, DAZ took an aggressive all or nothing approach and seem to be far closer to the "nothing" side of the scale than the "all" side.

 

A more cautious approach would have been to release V5/M5 as Genesis figures with a promise that Poser versions would be out in a couple months so that they can optimize the meshes for use with Poser. It would be extra work, but the extra money brought in by Poser users should more than cover the conversion costs. After all, this has been a very profitable strategy all the way up to V4/M4. All the clothing, textures, and character morphs bought by Poser users would be compatible with Genesis because the Poser and Genesis meshes would be identical. The Genesis figures would have more flexibility than the Poser figures, but at least Poser users would have new figures that would presumably be a little better than the ones they have now.

 

When V6/M6 would roll out a few years later, Poser users would have bought a ton of content that works with Genesis as well as Poser. Poser users would have had a few years of seeing DAZ Studio users doing a whole lot more with that content than what can be done with Poser. DAZ Studio users would not have to repurchase all their V5/M5/Genesis content to work with V6/M6. Poser users would have to do that or run a separate program to convert the clothing to V6/M6 instead of having it work natively in DS without any extra work; run a separate program to convert textures; and be stuck not having another program to convert character morphs to the new figures. Poser users would eventually start wondering if they're backing the right software. DAZ should still put out a Poser version of V6/M6 and continue doing so until the additional sales stopped supporting the cost to make it worth the effort to convert the new figures for Poser. In the end, businesses are about making money and decisions that lose a lot of money aren't usually the best. DAZ is a content driven company--not a software company even though they've tried to enter that arena. To survive, DAZ has to produce content that people want to buy. Adopting a business strategy that does the reverse surprisingly isn't as beneficial as it might otherwise seem.

 

Oddly, DAZ is sticking to their guns and not releasing Poser versions of any of their new figures. That's a bit inexplicable in light of the fact that the overall figure market has not embraced Genesis. Any time DAZ feels like it, they can release a Poser version of V5/M5. It probably won't be as successful as it would have been had it been done earlier. There are clearly a lot of negative emotional attachments to DAZ abandoning Poser figure releases. A free Poser V5 with a big sale of Genesis content that works with the figure will go a long way to healing emotional wounds. There will no doubt be some folks that will be too upset to even download the free figure. All I can say is: "Calm down. DAZ doesn't love you. Smith-Micro doesn't love you. Microsoft doesn't love you. Apple doesn't love you. They all have one thing in common. They love your money." Don't get emotionally involved in software or other products because it only clouds one's judgments in making purchasing decisions.

 

At some point, DAZ has to publically confess their sins. Blatantly obvious mistakes don't get better with age. Obviously, the longer it takes to make an apology, the harder it gets to admit a mistake, and the harder it is for the public to accept. It's still better than continuing to ignore a problem. DAZ doesn't have to apologize for Genesis. They have to apologize for abandoning Poser users. There were probably good reasons for doing it. Without those reasons made public, there seems to be increasing ill will. DAZ has to acknowledge the website debacle. Not releasing Poser versions of V5/M5 was a bad marketing call. Unleashing an immature/incomplete website to the public was just plain dumb. The first time I encountered it, I

got the weekly freebie and couldn't download it for a week. I don't get too upset over free stuff, but there were a lot of people that paid for content they couldn't get. The forums were completely unavailable for a long time. The site still isn't as functional months later as the one it replaced. Somebody in DAZ management needs to eat some crow over this one. It's still better admitting what went wrong and moving on instead of ignoring the mistake. People make mistakes. It happens. Over time, apologies get accepted and forgiveness sets in. Nothing has happened that is so horrible or irreversible that it cannot be forgiven.

 

One thing I don't understand is why the DAZ store doesn't have more content for their Poser compatible figures by outside merchants. Looking at the New Releases showed only one pose pack for V4/M4 without anything for Genesis. The disparity between what the DAZ store is selling versus what everybody else is selling seems to point to either a mandate or massive incentives for third parties to create Genesis content. There would probably be a legal nondisclosure statement to prevent outside discussions of such things. Without any edicts from DAZ, one would expect that more third party content creators would be marketing Gen4 figure content in similar proportions to other stores. DAZ Original content may focus on Genesis, but other content creators in the store would normally produce content that they think will sell. If outside creators are being forced to produce content for the DAZ store that won't sell as well as what they could make elsewhere, the natural thing is going to be for them to seek other stores for their wares. I'm not paying enough attention to the market to know if that kind of exodus has happened.

 

It'll be interesting to see what the future holds for DAZ. The company can stubbornly adhere to their current direction or do something different. Enough time has lapsed that some measure can be taken of their current approach. If the intent was to nudge Poser users to switch to DAZ Studio, the general consensus here indicates that's not happening. The funny thing is that DAZ is competing against DAZ. It's not even a fight with another company's figure. People are continuing to buy Victoria 4 products. Since DAZ doesn't seem to be releasing V4 content, Poser customers are patronizing other stores. A "buy this or shop somewhere else" approach is only benefitting other stores. It's hard to imagine that continuing to ignore Poser users for another year will be any more a winning strategy than it has to date.

 

When DAZ stopped producing figure content for Poser users, a lot of their Poser customers either spent less time browsing for content in DAZ stores or stopped altogether. More than one poster has said that the money they routinely spent at DAZ is money they're now spending at Renderosity. The online store that people browse in will be the store that they make purchases from. A Poser user browsing the Renderosity MarketPlace for V4 content is more likely to buy a prop they come across there than to take the time to search other stores for other versions of that prop. Some users will search other stores. Some will just make a spur-of-the-moment purchase. The store the person didn't go to didn't make any money.

 

As I've stated, I have no stake in this matter. I don't use Poser enough right now to be overly involved in marketplace squabbles. I was curious about the things I saw.

My visual indexes of Poser content are at http://www.sharecg.com/pf/rgagnon


Gareee ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 9:36 PM

"Dunning-Kruger effect"

I lernt something today. Thanks!

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.


3anson ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 10:09 PM · edited Sun, 05 August 2012 at 10:13 PM

contrary to what some keep saying, Genesis is NOT compatible with Poser.

  1. DS4 HAS to be installed to even get at the figure.

  2. to get it INTO  Poser you have to jump through several hoops.

  3. even when you have done that, the resulting .cr2 is not fully functional.

  4. clothing does not work in Poser, unless it is heavily modified using DS4 tools.

  5. even then, it is a bit hit and miss whether it will function correctly.

  6. hair also has to be heavily modified with DS tools to even get it to conform to Genesis in Pose

  7. rigging of Genesis, its clothing and the hair likely require joints etc to be tweaked with Poser's own tools after importing.

to sum it up, you have to be well versed with DS rigging tools and the rigging tools in Poser,  just to use a crippled version of Genesis in Poser.

so what is the point?

to get better bends?

there are weightmapped figures available to use in Poser that do bend much better than the gen3/gen 4 figures we are used to.

they are not 'perfect' but then neither is Genesis. otherwise why would sets of 'fix morphs' be appearing in store for it?

 

 


Janl ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 10:41 PM

Quote - At some point, DAZ has to publically confess their sins. Blatantly obvious mistakes don't get better with age. Obviously, the longer it takes to make an apology, the harder it gets to admit a mistake, and the harder it is for the public to accept. It's still better than continuing to ignore a problem.

People make mistakes. It happens. Over time, apologies get accepted and forgiveness sets in. Nothing has happened that is so horrible or irreversible that it cannot be forgiven.

 

If you are waiting for an apology then you will have a long time to wait. I doubt Daz ever thinks it makes mistakes.

One of the PAs has said here that people don't matter to Daz. Lots of people have said that only money matters and as far as I can see that is true of most businesses except most businesses do try to make out that their customers are important to them. For a super example of a customer focused company look at Luxology.

I do not think Genesis will kill Daz but it will add a little more pain to the pain caused by, IMO, bad decisions and treating their customers with contempt. Only time will tell what ultimately happens.


ssgbryan ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 10:47 PM

Quote - "Dunning-Kruger effect"

I lernt something today. Thanks!

 

It explains a lot doesn't it.



gagnonrich ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 10:52 PM

Quote - most businesses do try to make out that their customers are important to them.

Whenever I'm on hold by a company's customer support line for half an hour, constantly hearing the recorded line to please hold because my business is important to them, I really do feel important ;)

Sorry about the double pasted post. Pasting from Word resulted in triple spacing, so I pasted into NotePad, copied that and pasted over the selected text here in the text box and didn't know that it pushed it down instead of replacing it. I found the mistake too late to edit it myself and only a mod can clean it up now.

My visual indexes of Poser content are at http://www.sharecg.com/pf/rgagnon


Janl ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 10:54 PM

Quote - Whenever I'm on hold by a company's customer support line for half an hour, constantly hearing the recorded line to please hold because my business is important to them, I really do feel important ;)

LOL... but far better than to be told if you hang up and never buy from them again they won't lose any sleep. LOL


Darboshanski ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 11:04 PM · edited Sun, 05 August 2012 at 11:05 PM

I think Genesis is a great concept. However, I can't use it because in order to use it I'd have to use DS and DS will not work in the 3D apps I use because DS files can't be read by my programs. For me that is a HUGE rub and a sad one because the ides of having one figure that can be many things is a great idea I just don't think DAZ even has the concept of what they have and how to make it work its full potential for them.

I too feel DAZ is hurting Daz I have two images in my head when it comes to DAZ and the leadership there. One of a bunch of hipsters sitting around with their ipads, DAZ coffee cups throwing darts at board and what the dart lands on is agreed upon as being  a great idea. And if the customers don't like it well too bad we are awesome. The other is a group of individuals that are not sure what to do, have great ideas, but do not have the personnel to make the exceptional ideas pop. It's a trial and error kind of a way of going about things.

Time will only tell what will come of it. There are a lot of factors at play here one large one being the world economy. Daz was once a very customer focused company that has slid down quite a bit. Genesis is great and a lot of people like it but it is still a very small percentage and you have to admit Genesis, at the moment, is very limited but I think that is the softare that supports it not the product itself.

My Facebook Page


AetherDream ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 11:07 PM

There are already a lot of really good and comprehensive posts that cover the issues with Daz's new figure and marketing approach, so I will not attempt to restate those problems.

For myself, I did give Genesis a go when DS4 gave away their software for free. I purchased some of the products for this new figure and tried out some renders. While the renders were good, they took an extreemly long time to complete. I can do a render on poser with v4 or GNDA on Poser with more figures in the scene and using SSS on the base figure and get results that I like much more in a matter of minutes, rather than a matter of hours. Limiting Genesis to their program forces users to use their program. I for one am a hobbyist and maybe have only 3 or 4 hours every week that I can spare for this hobby. Using DS4 would mean that It would take me weeks to have a completed scene that I could have done in a single session on Poser. It is nothing personal to Daz, but I do feel like they foolishly cut off their customer base out of some idea of converting users to thier software. I do not like to be strongarmed or pushed by any company for which I am a paying customer. The burden is on them to do what the customer wants, not to try to force the customer to do what they want them to do.

I calculated my spending at Daz. I used to spend about a thousand a year there. Now I distribute my money elswhere in the 3D market. I cannot help but think if there are a lot of other people out there who have done the same, it must be impacting Daz.  My PC will run out this December. I will not renew and in fact I have not used my store voucher in months. I used to look at Daz a couple of times a week. Now I look at Rendo and RDNA as well as other content sites a lot more frequently than I used to. The bulk of my spending is now at Renderosity. Nothing personal, but I am the customer, it is up to the company to try and get me to spend my money with them. If I feel like they are not meeting my needs then I move on and that is what I have done with Daz.

"People who attempt define what art is or is not, are not artists"---Luminescence


FutureFantasyDesign ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 11:17 PM

Quote - Hmmm... Looks like it might be time for some cat photos, but this is interesting... 😄

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/04/penis-snake-photos-amazon-brazil-atretochoana-eiselti_n_1742088.html

 

Do I need a Nudity flag for a link to a naked snake?

LOL!!! Much better then a cat at this particular moment!

Good One! ;)

~A~

Is there water in your future or is it being shipped away to be resold to you?
Water, the ultimate weapon...

www.futurefantasydesign.com


WandW ( ) posted Sun, 05 August 2012 at 11:51 PM

Quote -

As I said in the original post, Genesis is a great idea. If Smith-Micro had come up with it, people here would love it....

 

I like it, and I'd love it if it could be natively loaded in Poser.  The issue with Genesis clothing in Poser is that the animated joint centers aren't superconforming.  I've been hoping this would be fixed in each service pack, but it hasn't yet.  Unnfortunately Poser9/PP2012 release timing was governed in large part by SM's financial situation (that's why they did the presale coupon purchase thing so those revenues wouild be in Q3 2011), so SM had to freeze things up with Poser's features before Genesis was finalized...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Wisdom of bagginsbill:

"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
“I could buy better software, but then I'd have to be an artist and what's the point of that?"
"The [R'osity Forum Search] 'Default' label should actually say 'Don't Find What I'm Looking For'".
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Daja ( ) posted Mon, 06 August 2012 at 1:13 AM · edited Mon, 06 August 2012 at 1:16 AM

Daz is getting too pricey for my liking, I dont need to fill my runtimes with more and more fantasy. Gene is boring to use. I prefer V4/M4 as I have much invested in those figures, the problem is their website is unbareable to navigate, the forums are dead because they were reset and dumped all those useful threads and people are no longer posting. Sad they did it that way. They are getting to overthetop for me. Their new site is nothing but an eyesore. I stopped going there completely after being a long time user of eight years. Dead to me now. Thats why traffic is down. People like me, left.


gagnonrich ( ) posted Mon, 06 August 2012 at 1:21 AM

In my case, I stopped buying Poser content because my interests shifted to other things. That's just my nature. I get hot and heavy into a project, get a certain achievement out of it and move onto other areas to eventually go back to other things I enjoyed later. I never totally lose interest in something, so I'll still grab a DAZ weekly freebie, check Poser stores and look in forums every now and then, but not with the regular frequency I did when I was more absorbed with the software.

I was a member of the Platinum Club and dropped out when they stopped including a $30 voucher that helped offset the membership cost. I'd been thinking of dropping out a couple years before, but usually found enough stuff in the membership package and voucher to make it worth keeping. The voucher went away and so did my membership. Renewing an annual membership was $30 cheaper than starting a fresh subscription again. That was intended as a barrier to dropping the membership.

I found the higher start fresh club fee became a barrier to get back in. The next year, the $30 voucher was back. If I'm paying $30 more to rejoin, what's the point? Come to think of it, why should I want to pay extra for DAZ content by not being a member? That stopped me from even buying sale items because there was always the nagging thought that I could get it cheaper. DAZ saved a little money from me downloading a few models the $30 voucher would let me get and lost a few thousand dollars in purchases since I stopped being a member. I have no hard feelings over any of this. It mostly gave me a reason to start doing something I'd been telling myself to do for a while--which is to use the models I've bought and only buy something new I absolutely need at full price. The savings from sales for content I'll probably never use would never justify the cost of buying them.

I'm not a fan of club membership schemes since the club fees are what allow a club to lower prices. In some ways, it's a bit of a shell game because customers tend to forget that they helped subsidize the lower prices. I haven't joined any of my area's warehouse clubs in the US, but BJs sends me a trial membership a couple times a year that I'd use for a couple months. The last time I went, they recognized me and, even though the company sent me another trial, they wouldn't honor it because I'm only allowed one trial. Whatever. I did some searches on the net to see if I could match their prices for the items I'd buy during the trial and found that Amazon has a Subscribe & Save grocery program that saved me 10% or more on most of them and delivers them to my door on a flexible schedule. So, take that BJs! There's a certain satisfaction when a business pushes you to find an alternative and you find a better one. Besides, the company needs to change their name because they sound like a porn category.

My visual indexes of Poser content are at http://www.sharecg.com/pf/rgagnon


cspear ( ) posted Mon, 06 August 2012 at 6:55 AM

It's normal for a company that's very good and successful at one thing to attempt to be successful at others in order to grow its business. This involves taking risks, and the risk-assessment process needs the company to be brutally honest about its own strengths and weaknesses.

DAZ aren't the first company to allow over-confidence (some would say arrogance) into that process and come face-to-face with commercial reality a short time later.

Genesis is a brilliant piece of work. The trouble is that a big chunk of the potential customer base can't spend money on it because they use Poser, and - for whatever reason - will not switch to Daz Studio. Even if it's free. And the workarounds to get Genesis into Poser are simply not worth the effort.

This must be hurting DAZ, but it's probably not killing them.

In the next few days we should see SR3 for the latest version of Poser which is rumoured to support single-axis scaling. Perhaps, a little further off, there will be support for some version of Catmull-Clarke subdivision, but this will be on Smith Micro's terms, as it should be.

If / when that happens, we might see a Poser-optimised Genesis. I hope DAZ can hang on long enough to make it happen.


Windows 10 x64 Pro - Intel Xeon E5450 @ 3.00GHz (x2)

PoserPro 11 - Units: Metres

Adobe CC 2017


vintorix ( ) posted Mon, 06 August 2012 at 7:19 AM · edited Mon, 06 August 2012 at 7:34 AM

"latest version of Poser...will support support single-axis scaling.."

wow, exact what I have been waiting for so long! ;)

Every time Poser come out with a new functionality Daz comes with ten new.

After the gigantus effort of single-axis scaling, perhaps the team will find time to remove all dead weight that is lying around? Like "Animation Sets?

I know which company is young and forward and boisterous and which that is old and tired.

 

 

 


3anson ( ) posted Mon, 06 August 2012 at 7:39 AM

and which team actively engage with the users of the software?

SMITH MICRO'S POSER DEVELOPMENT TEAM!!!!!!!!!!

may i remind you that this is the POSER forum? not the daz studio forum?

a forum is supplied for those who use/wish to use Daz Studio, and that is not this one.

this one is for Poser users.


WandW ( ) posted Mon, 06 August 2012 at 7:49 AM · edited Mon, 06 August 2012 at 7:51 AM

Hmm.... The DAZ website is down...

 

...SM did say they would be rolling out a new Poser website this week...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Wisdom of bagginsbill:

"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
“I could buy better software, but then I'd have to be an artist and what's the point of that?"
"The [R'osity Forum Search] 'Default' label should actually say 'Don't Find What I'm Looking For'".
bagginsbill's Free Stuff... https://web.archive.org/web/20201010171535/https://sites.google.com/site/bagginsbill/Home


vintorix ( ) posted Mon, 06 August 2012 at 7:53 AM

3anson,

I am using both Daz and Poser and C4D too. I might look into Carrara. Unlike some I am interested in all programs that can handls poser-files.I don't want to be mastered by software but have an agenda of what I want to do and am looking for solutions for it. So you want to ban me from the Poser forum? Interesting. It put a new meaning to the word inbreeding.

 

 


RawArt ( ) posted Mon, 06 August 2012 at 8:02 AM

One thing I don't understand is why the DAZ store doesn't have more content for their Poser compatible figures by outside merchants. Looking at the New Releases showed only one pose pack for V4/M4 without anything for Genesis. The disparity between what the DAZ store is selling versus what everybody else is selling seems to point to either a mandate or massive incentives for third parties to create Genesis content. There would probably be a legal nondisclosure statement to prevent outside discussions of such things. Without any edicts from DAZ, one would expect that more third party content creators would be marketing Gen4 figure content in similar proportions to other stores. DAZ Original content may focus on Genesis, but other content creators in the store would normally produce content that they think will sell. If outside creators are being forced to produce content for the DAZ store that won't sell as well as what they could make elsewhere, the natural thing is going to be for them to seek other stores for their wares. I'm not paying enough attention to the market to know if that kind of exodus has happened.

 

Ok...this one was just funny.

The idea that DAZ can "force" pa's to make content for one or another figure LOL

PA's are a stubborn and head strong bunch, can't really force us one way or another.

Maybe instead of the paranoid conspiracy idea of why there is so much genesis content being offered at DAZ is simply because it is pretty easy to create for once you have figured out how to do so...and it sells well enough to continue developing for it. The m4/v4 market is saturated with products, there really is not much new and interesting that can be done for them without repeating things already in the market. But genesis is a new start, and with it, the products that get made can be used on many more figure shapes than could ever be used before, so the things made wont get out of date near as fast as anything made before.

The reason other stores are only begining to see some genesis stuff is also very simple. It takes a while for content creators to learn a new system for making things...and many content creators flatly refuse to take the time to learn new stuff, even moreso than content users have a tough time trying to use new programs in place of the old one they are so used to.

Change is hard...but it is also good.

 


monkeycloud ( ) posted Mon, 06 August 2012 at 8:08 AM

Quote - "Dunning-Kruger effect"

I lernt something today. Thanks!

He he... I learned something too.

I'd falsely assumed that everyone else knew about the Dunning-Kruger effect already.

😉


WandW ( ) posted Mon, 06 August 2012 at 8:17 AM

Quote - > Quote - "Dunning-Kruger effect"

I lernt something today. Thanks!

He he... I learned something too.

I'd falsely assumed that everyone else knew about the Dunning-Kruger effect already.

😉

Perhaps we were just in denial... :lol:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Wisdom of bagginsbill:

"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
“I could buy better software, but then I'd have to be an artist and what's the point of that?"
"The [R'osity Forum Search] 'Default' label should actually say 'Don't Find What I'm Looking For'".
bagginsbill's Free Stuff... https://web.archive.org/web/20201010171535/https://sites.google.com/site/bagginsbill/Home


vilters ( ) posted Mon, 06 August 2012 at 8:21 AM

If there was to be a "kill".
It will be filed as suicide by management.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!


Glitterati3D ( ) posted Mon, 06 August 2012 at 8:24 AM

Quote - 3anson,

I am using both Daz and Poser and C4D too. I might look into Carrara. Unlike some I am interested in all programs that can handls poser-files.I don't want to be mastered by software but have an agenda of what I want to do and am looking for solutions for it. So you want to ban me from the Poser forum? Interesting. It put a new meaning to the word inbreeding.

 

However, since you so clearly despise Poser, why are you here? Why do you use it?

Seriously, what reason do you come here unless just to irritate and annoy Poser users by repeatedly telling them how stupid, out of date, and useless they are?

Is it just that you need to tout your superiority to continue to FEEL superior?

 


basicwiz ( ) posted Mon, 06 August 2012 at 8:28 AM

As of this post, the trolling is to stop.

If you do not want to address what the original poster was asking, don't respond. There will be no more discussions of Poser vs Daz4 in this thread. Some members cannot stay away from making inflamatory remarks, and it spoils the thread for the rest.

I really think the thread has run its course. The next nasty comment from either side locks it.


WandW ( ) posted Mon, 06 August 2012 at 8:44 AM

Quote - I really think the thread has run its course. The next nasty comment from either side locks it.

 

The problem is that it is a tactic that some use to end discussions...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Wisdom of bagginsbill:

"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
“I could buy better software, but then I'd have to be an artist and what's the point of that?"
"The [R'osity Forum Search] 'Default' label should actually say 'Don't Find What I'm Looking For'".
bagginsbill's Free Stuff... https://web.archive.org/web/20201010171535/https://sites.google.com/site/bagginsbill/Home


vintorix ( ) posted Mon, 06 August 2012 at 8:46 AM

basicwiz,

May I ask, it is I who is trolling in your opinion? Do you want 5 pages bashing of Daz with no one defending them?

?

 

 

 

 

 


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