My immediate impression is that his hips are a little TOO narrow and his feet a little too big. But other than that.. WOW!

yes, he looks very good doesn't he.

Thanks for all the comments ladies (and gents). I'll respond later today (don't have the time right now). Some points I needed to ask for clarification on, especially in the thighs. Feel free to draw on the images if you have a pen tablet, and repost, to point out what you mean.

Hope you're liking him so far.

~Shane

Quote -Agreed. Thinner ankles. He looks proportionally on the short side. Size 14 feet might be Hobbit-ous already on him.

hehe. Ok well according to Dr Geep's measuring stick, Lucas is 6' 1" tall, in PP2014. Not sure if the measuring stick works the same in p10/2014 as it does/did in older versions. If someone has a link to another measuring device then I'll measure him with that. 

(actually he's just shy of 6'1", closer to 6'-3/4")

Poser's scale and measuring has always been confusing. Never understood why everything is soo tiny compared to everything else. But anyway.

~Shane

I always say Human eye balls are 1 inch so how many eyes tall is he ?

Quote - I always say Human eye balls are 1 inch so how many eyes tall is he ?

That's why heads are used as a gauge for height in the art world. You can guesstimate the amount of heads high with a pencil, your finger and a squint, but it would be ridiculous to count out the number of eyeballs.

Laurie

OK, I hope this helps explain what I meant by "he looks short proportionally."

An average human male has a 9" tall head. Your guy looks like he has an average sized head (maybe a tad small proportionally but it looks good).

Here's a link to Harvard to back up the 9" thing. It's elsewhere on the web, too.

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~loebinfo/loebinfo/Proportions/humanfigure.html

So with that in mind, I attached an image measuring out Lucas, using the exact pixels in the image you posted. He comes in just shy of 5'7". You may have him scaled taller in Poser, but 5'7" would be his proportional height. (It also supports RorrKonn's eyeball theory because an approximation of the size of the eyeball in the socket looks to be right at an inch, so he's right around 67 eyeballs - lol.)

That doesn't take into account camera angle or any fisheye effect that might be going on in your render. It looks pretty much like a nondistorted render (?).

Does this help at all? I hope it does. (insert sheepish smile here)

Given the height, the inseam looks nice & proportional. The waist might be a tad narrow. I couldn't measure the feet based on the angle.  I can put other measurements on there if you'd like. (like width of thigh, etc.)

Other than that, the best test is to measure a real, live human man with similar structure...or do the same thing I did with a reference photo.

Thanks Andolaurina. This has been a help. But now I'm a bit stumped.

Lucas' head is actually closer to 10" tall/long, from chin to head crown. Assuming that Dr Geep's measuring stick is still accurate. 

He also falls pretty close into the classical proportions of 7.5 head lengths tall. (2nd image coming in next post). 

His shoulders are still a bit narrow, yes. I usually go by the 2 head lengths wide rule, but I've still somehow shrunk them so his shoulders are about 1.75 head lengths wide at the moment. 

~Shane

Quote - OK, I hope this helps explain what I meant by "he looks short proportionally."

An average human male has a 9" tall head. Your guy looks like he has an average sized head (maybe a tad small proportionally but it looks good).

Here's a link to Harvard to back up the 9" thing. It's elsewhere on the web, too.

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~loebinfo/loebinfo/Proportions/humanfigure.html

So with that in mind, I attached an image measuring out Lucas, using the exact pixels in the image you posted. He comes in just shy of 5'7". You may have him scaled taller in Poser, but 5'7" would be his proportional height. (It also supports RorrKonn's eyeball theory because an approximation of the size of the eyeball in the socket looks to be right at an inch, so he's right around 67 eyeballs - lol.)

That doesn't take into account camera angle or any fisheye effect that might be going on in your render. It looks pretty much like a nondistorted render (?).

Does this help at all? I hope it does. (insert sheepish smile here)

Given the height, the inseam looks nice & proportional. The waist might be a tad narrow. I couldn't measure the feet based on the angle.  I can put other measurements on there if you'd like. (like width of thigh, etc.)

Other than that, the best test is to measure a real, live human man with similar structure...or do the same thing I did with a reference photo.

So I'm not real sure what I should do. 

~Shane

Quote - So I'm not real sure what I should do. 

 

~Shane

You should stick to YOUR vision! We can give inputs, but ultimately it's your model, and real live humans rarely live up to standardized descriptions anyway. I'm short and fat. A Poser model of me would look like a carricature, yet.. I'm here and alive L

I would at least broaden his shoulders.

Forgot to mention - I wasn't familiar with the 9-eyes tall concept. I have heard the head being 5-eye widths wide at the temples tho. But eyes are usually a bit wider than 1 inch. Varies from face to face. So instead of using precise units of measurement like inches or feet, I tend to go by units that are more specific to the figure - such as 7.5 heads tall, since one person's head can be taller or shorter than another person's head. 

Examples:

5 eye widths wide from temple to temple for the face

Mouth corners (usually) pupil to pupil

1 head length from shoulder to elbow

1 head length from elbow to wrist

Face length: length of hand from wrist to tip of middle finger = length of face from chin to top of forehead crest (not the crown as that is the highest point of the skull)

Ears length = distance from bottom of nose/septum to eyebrows, and half to 3/4 wide

Hips = 1.25 head length wide on men, 1.5+ on women

Feet = 1 hand length (wrist to middle tip) from heal to balls of toes (not including toes)

The list goes on. These are proportions I learned years ago in figure drawing basics. Think I was still in high school if not younger. Course that doesn't mean they are as accurate as other measurements or methods. Thing is you can try them on yourself and they are usually correct, so that's why I stick to them the most.

~Shane

I have 15 year old ratio's made of display tags set to wireframe with cubes.
for the back , side , top etc etc views.
I also have mannequins made of spheres for humans,dragons etc etc.

Got a back , side , top etc etc views to place drawings or photos on. jpgs.

Anyways the point is I have a lot of ratio tools.

Even have low polycount base meshes I've made over the years.
like The boxed hand ya saw on Chrome .

The point is no matter how you do it, lines,spheres,jpgs etc etc.
I would know the ratio before I started.

Shane, 

I agree with TG. Just do him like you want. I was just trying to explain my comment on the proportion stuff, that's all.

Actually, I do wonder if it's a camera angle/distortion issue...it's possible.

I just gave you the proportion map because I thought it might help me explain why he looked short to me.

You know I like him already, so I'm happy with whatever you choose to do. :)

About the 10" head using Dr. Geep's scale, if you scale him down in Poser to have a 9" head, does that make him around 5'7"? If so, you could just make his head 1" less tall & leave him the height that he is in Poser...that might give you the "taller guy" look you're after.  ;) 

It's almost 1 in the morning here, so I hope what I'm typing is making sense.

Quote - Forgot to mention - I wasn't familiar with the 9-eyes tall concept. I have heard the head being 5-eye widths wide at the temples tho. But eyes are usually a bit wider than 1 inch. Varies from face to face. So instead of using precise units of measurement like inches or feet, I tend to go by units that are more specific to the figure - such as 7.5 heads tall, since one person's head can be taller or shorter than another person's head. 

Examples:

5 eye widths wide from temple to temple for the face

Mouth corners (usually) pupil to pupil

1 head length from shoulder to elbow

1 head length from elbow to wrist

Face length: length of hand from wrist to tip of middle finger = length of face from chin to top of forehead crest (not the crown as that is the highest point of the skull)

Ears length = distance from bottom of nose/septum to eyebrows, and half to 3/4 wide

Hips = 1.25 head length wide on men, 1.5+ on women

Feet = 1 hand length (wrist to middle tip) from heal to balls of toes (not including toes)

The list goes on. These are proportions I learned years ago in figure drawing basics. Think I was still in high school if not younger. Course that doesn't mean they are as accurate as other measurements or methods. Thing is you can try them on yourself and they are usually correct, so that's why I stick to them the most.

 

~Shane

Ya I've heard a lot of that also.and the golden main.
and what makes a female beautiful.I have difficulty making a beautiful female face.
Got monsters down thou ,LOL

I'm a fantasy Artist ,So I've never done realism.
Not implying you should follow these rules ,just talking.
DC , Marvel Hero's rules are. head 5 eyes wide ,7 eyes tall .body 8 heads tall.
Think they might have gotten that from the Greeks.
Posetta n most DAZ Poser meshes follow that rule also.

of course this makes Superman 4 feet 8 inches tall ,in real life.

I read somewhere that Poser changed it's measuring somewhere between Poser4 and 7 or 8??? Dr. Geeps measuring stick may be outdated ...

There are some free scaling thingies:

http://www.sharecg.com/v/68008/browse/11/Poser/Police-Line-up-Wall

http://www.sharecg.com/v/46049/browse/11/Poser/Height-Scale

http://www.sharecg.com/v/41322/browse/11/Poser/Poser-dial-driven-measuring-tools

http://www.sharecg.com/v/40765/browse/11/Poser/Poser-height-measuring-rulers

Quote - Forgot to mention - I wasn't familiar with the 9-eyes tall concept. I have heard the head being 5-eye widths wide at the temples tho. But eyes are usually a bit wider than 1 inch. Varies from face to face. So instead of using precise units of measurement like inches or feet, I tend to go by units that are more specific to the figure - such as 7.5 heads tall, since one person's head can be taller or shorter than another person's head. 

Examples:

5 eye widths wide from temple to temple for the face

Mouth corners (usually) pupil to pupil

1 head length from shoulder to elbow

1 head length from elbow to wrist

Face length: length of hand from wrist to tip of middle finger = length of face from chin to top of forehead crest (not the crown as that is the highest point of the skull)

Ears length = distance from bottom of nose/septum to eyebrows, and half to 3/4 wide

Hips = 1.25 head length wide on men, 1.5+ on women

Feet = 1 hand length (wrist to middle tip) from heal to balls of toes (not including toes)

The list goes on. These are proportions I learned years ago in figure drawing basics. Think I was still in high school if not younger. Course that doesn't mean they are as accurate as other measurements or methods. Thing is you can try them on yourself and they are usually correct, so that's why I stick to them the most.

 

~Shane

This approach sounds fine to me - certainly relative to making a base figure, I'd have thought. Same stuff I learnt in life and anatomy drawing classes.

While real people can, I think, deviate a bit... and of course suffer all sorts of postural and biological asymmetry issues(!) as well as proportional oddities ...the above is a pretty reasonable law of averages I suppose...

...and since most people using Poser are probably after a more classically beautiful base model, using these classical drawing derived "rules of thumb" is pretty valid I guess?

Also, while I remember to ask... are you still tinkering with a female variant of your Lucas mesh, in tandem with Lucas? Or is that on hold till Lucas is done?

Either way, just curious to know.

Ultimately it would be nice to have a pair... not to mention some new kids.

But I'd say what is more urgently needed, for me at least, in my Poser figure collection, is a nice new male figure... 

Quote - I read somewhere that Poser changed it's measuring somewhere between Poser4 and 7 or 8??? Dr. Geeps measuring stick may be outdated ...

There are some free scaling thingies:

http://www.sharecg.com/v/68008/browse/11/Poser/Police-Line-up-Wall

http://www.sharecg.com/v/46049/browse/11/Poser/Height-Scale

http://www.sharecg.com/v/41322/browse/11/Poser/Poser-dial-driven-measuring-tools

http://www.sharecg.com/v/40765/browse/11/Poser/Poser-height-measuring-rulers

Cool links - thanks :-)

Quote - > Quote - So I'm not real sure what I should do. 

 

~Shane

 

You should stick to YOUR vision! We can give inputs, but ultimately it's your model, and real live humans rarely live up to standardized descriptions anyway. I'm short and fat. A Poser model of me would look like a carricature, yet.. I'm here and alive L

He he. With my muckle heid, probaby merited for a bloke who is well over 6ft as opposed to my 5'10"... a poser model of me would probably look like a giant toddler ;-)

He is YOUR model. I LIKE what you've done with him. Go with YOUR gut.

AmbientShade, I've been missing you!

How's Lucas coming along now? 

I, too, am curious!

me too!

I hope Lucas didn't run off with Dawn...

lol.

He's still in the bacta tank.

Updates will come soon. Thanks for asking :)

~Shane

Thanks for the update! :)

And you've sooned us it's the one year anniversery of an update alert

might be time to see some images hint hint...

Everybody from this thread send AmbientShade a PM to help push this thing

I never new about this figure of his and it does look good.  Thumbs-up to him for keeping at it and I genuinely hope he finishes it, would be a shame not to after all that work.

Hmm. 

Over 10,800 views on this thread since it started, and hasn't even been updated in a year. That's a lot. I wonder how many are original, but it's impossible to know. If I had a dollar for every view Lucas would be done by now. lol. 

And really that's the thing - because we're all slaves to that evil green paper, and I have to do what pays me, so I can continue having a place to live and a regular meal. And what pays me lately has been private commissions which I've been pretty busy with because they have to come first before anything else I want to do. So I just haven't had much time in between to work on him in the last several months. I wish I could work on him full time, I definitely want to, but my wallet just won't allow for that. 

I don't have a lot to say right now, because I haven't progressed very far since the last time I posted. Truthfully, I was kind of hoping this thread would stay buried and forgotten, at least until I was better prepared for updating it, whenever that might be. Looking back through it, most of the WIPs I've posted are pretty embarrassing to look at now.

Eh, whatever. The fact is, I don't have the resources or the free time to work on him consistently right now. Most of my time is spent on doing work for other people. I pull him up to do tweaks here and there when I think about it and have an hour or two to spare, but that's about it. And the negativity that always gets thrown at 3rd party figures, and male figures in particular, has done a lot to make me less interested in trying to finish him anytime soon. I don't know what I'll do with him at this point. Maybe he'll just remain in my own runtime, or serve as a portfolio piece. I've even thought about just selling him on Squid or some place similar. There is a lot I want to do with him - I have put a lot of thought into his design, even when I can't work on him, and I have very specific ideas for what I want him to be capable of. I have no intention of letting him be just another figure, there's no point in that, as there are so many already. But at this point I can't promise anything. I'm just one guy with limited resources and contacts. I've tried getting other content artists interested in him but they just aren't. Maybe once I have the time to show them more of his development they will change their minds. For now he just has to remain a pet project that I work on when I have a few hours to spare. 

I know it's probably frustrating for those out there who are interested in him, and I apologize for that (and I really do thank you all for that interest), but I'm not going to release a figure that I feel is sub-par, just so I can say that he's out there, while watching him collect dust on the scrap pile of all the other non-daz figures that have come and gone with barely a mention.

Anyway, here is a screen shot for you all. I will let you know when I'm able to do something more with him. I've been thinking about some different options but nothing solid yet. 

Thanks for showing your continued interest, it is much appreciated and inspiring. Sorry I can't offer more right now.

Great model! :D

Just curious.. how much would someone have to pay you to 'comission' you to finish this model?

Kickstarter might be a way, if enough people are interested..

"Kickstarter might be a way, if enough people are interested"

Only if the result included more IP rights than an EULA

Thanks DreaminGirl. :)

I have been thinking seriously about kickstarter, for a while actually. I don't have any numbers to give you right now tho, as I haven't actually started researching and calculating what all it would take. 

Jim, can you explain what you mean?

He won't be an open-source figure, if that's what you mean. I have to protect my own IP. However I try to be pretty flexible, and I don't intend on the EULA for him to be as strict as others have been in the past. 

When someone puts up money in the development phase he's either an owner to some degree or He's a mark

Cause he's aint a client, a user or a customer

Quote - When someone puts up money in the development phase he's either an owner to some degree or He's a mark Cause he's aint a client, a user or a customer

No, that's not how kickstarter works. It's crowd-source funding. People interested in the project pay a certain amount up front, towards the total amount needed for the project to be completed, and receive certain incentives or special gifts based on the amount they pay towards the total cost. A reward level can be as little as $1, or as much as whatever the project's creator(s) set them at. The rewards offered generally correspond to the amount sponsored. 

If the minimum funding of the entire project amount isn't reached by a certain deadline (I think it's 45 days on average), then no one pays anything or is owed anything. But if the project is fully funded, then they get their reward level when the project is complete. (there's no maximum funding - people can still pledge money even after the project has been funded, as long as there is still active days left on the ticker). 

None of the sponsors paying own any rights to the project (unless those rights are granted by some level of the sponsor rewards, which would be determined by the project's creator). They're only entitled to what their level reward offers them.

So basically it's like pre-ordering, and has the advantage that the sponsors get access to the project's end result before anyone else does, along with whatever else is offered them by the person/people/group that are working on the project. 

Any manner of rewards can be set up, it just depends on what the project is and what it's creators are willing or able to offer. 

But anyway, if I do go with kickstarter, I want to make sure he is at a more advanced stage than he currently is, to attract more interest, cause kickstarter campaigns are time-sensitive. They don't just run on endlessly.  But they can be relaunched if they weren't fully funded the first time. 

This is not the forum for this conversation IMO

It's fine, Jim. I was just explaining to you how the process works, and because DreaminGirl brought it up. 

Admin do not currently seem to have a problem with discussing kickstarter here. I've already checked on it with other threads that talked about kickstarter projects before. If they do I'll remove it. They just don't want commercial links posted to outside sources. So far I have not been told otherwise. And I'm not advertising anything anyway, all of that is just hypothetical. 

I'm interested in how kickstarter works and whether you lose the rights to your product when you put something into a kickstarter program.  I think it is more on topic than a lot of things discussed here.  Please tell us more.

Sure Esther. 

You keep the rights to anything you put on the site. Its your project, your IP. I haven't seen any 3D content on it so far. There are a lot of comics tho. Pretty much anything you can create and distribute. Some of the top funded projects have been video games. One was the Pebble smart watch, kind of like a smart phone. The inventor earned millions from backers on kickstarter. They used to have a page that showed the highest funded projects to date but I think they've redesigned the site a bit since last time I was there so not sure where that page is now. 

that sounds like a really good thing.

Lucus is looking great, so anything you can do do get him finished woudl be good.  and seeing you get to keep your rights to him, this sounds ideal.

Quote - This is not the forum for this conversation IMO

You know, technically, you're right.  But IMHO, this points out a problem with current rules.  Supposedly, commercial and freebie posts are banned.  But lots of people get exceptions to this rule and are able to post about developing commercial products (like this one) or freebies (like Antonia).  The argument is that they're relevant to the community.   Which is, IMHO, a good argument.  But I find it kind of arbitrary what's considered relevant to the community and what isn't.   I think it might be nice if there were more information about what development information we can share and solicit and what we can't.  I'm sure I'm not the only vendor who would like ask the community questions, but can only ask them on other sites more open to product discussions.  Or share information about my work where people discuss the technologies behind it, but have to wait until there's a specific discussion about that technology to maybe not get censured.  And just personally, it seems to me that certain people get passes on posting about products and freebies, while the rest of us get censured immediately and told to take it elsewhere.

I see ssgbryan post about how terrible vendors are about feedback, and I find it really unfair when I'm very sure he's missed products that fit his interests because they weren't made by top merchants or found in his searches.  I see thread after thread complaining about niche support (males, everyday items, etc.), but no way for merchants to let as many people as possible know when they support those niches.   Dawn got announced here, but I can't just let people here know when I release a product for her.  So I get to put time and effort into Dawn products, promote them, make banner ads for them, post about them in multiple places and galleries, and generally do my best to market them, then see ssgbryan post that there's "nothing" coming out for Dawn.  How are new figures supposed to get any long term support when you've got no place to let people know you're supporting them after the initial release threads are unstickied?

Why should vendors be interested in supporting a male figure by single creator when they won't have a way to let most of the people interested in him know about supporting products?  When there's no way to create forum buzz for his products?  I mean sure, at release time, they'll probably get a pass.  There will probably be some sort of thread here to post to, maybe even a sticky.  But what about 3 months later?  Or 6 months?  How can vendors support a niche market when we have no way to communicate with that market?

I totally understand wanting to stop this forum from filling up with ads.  I don't get the freebie ban, but I do understand what the rule against commercial posts is trying to achieve.  But the seemingly unintended consequence is to break almost all ties between people who post, "Why isn't there more [niche content type]?" and the people who try making niche content and get few or even no sales.  It doesn't help to make other forums for such announcements when almost all their traffic is other people making announcements.

I think vendors might be more interested in supporting new figures like this one if there were permanent ways to reach the people interested in them, and to entice people who could be.

agree it is a bit arbitary.

new human figures have been one of the things that have always been considered okay to post about inforums because they are so important to the community.

Yeah, and I get that.  But here's the cycle:  Someone announces a new figure.  Tons of people are interested.  Let's say the figure has a perfect release and great initial support.  That figure is still one of many.  The stickies get unstickied, the main thread goes silent or becomes unweildy, and there's no good way for vendors to tell anyone about their products any more.  Customers don't really hear about the figure any more.  Vendors find their supporting content sales falling off, even though they're doing everything they can to promote content for that figure.  So they stop supporting that figure and go back to the same old.  Months later, someone posts, "Whatever happened to (fill in the blank)?"  People come up with all kinds of quality issues and things done wrong, when in point of fact, every figure has short-comings and no one's ever going to be able to make a perfect figure.  Certainly not someone who's never made a figure for the content community before.  There's a big difference between making a regular product and making a platform for future development.  But the biggest problem is that vendors want money and freebie makers want downloads and maybe some recognition, and none of them are getting any of that because no one knows about their work.

When new figures get a pass, but their supporting content doesn't, there's heavy disincentives to supporting the figure once the initial "pass" is expired.  For that matter, the same is true of any non-standard content.   Whether it's a new figure, new technology, or just a style of content people don't ordinarily buy, you have all the disadvantages of going outside the mainstream without any of the ways to reach people complaining that there's nothing beyond the mainstream.  Or, just as importantly, to entice people who haven't looked outside the mainstream.

well I disagree.  Yes no figure is perfect, but the newer figures have failed because they haven't been good enough.  No matter how much content antonia had, I never would have used her except maybe as a background figure because of her low polys and her mouth that was too straight around the edges.  And michelle never looked as defined (ie a bit puffy like apollo max) as I would have hoped for.  Dawn's mouth always has those little pointy bits out the sides, and her chin is hard to morph away.  A good enough figure will get support, and advertising the figure will advertise the content because people will go looking for the content.

Hi KobaltKween. Sorry you have been given that impression. I'm not sure why that is. 

There is a Marketplace Showcase forum here on Renderosity, specifically for Renderosity vendors to show their latest products. Granted, it doesn't seem to get much traffic.

There is also a general Free Stuff forum, for the same purpose.  

You are right, they don't want the Poser forum to fill up with ads for the market place, because this forum is intended to discuss Poser and its functions, and because there is a forum already for ads to the marketplace. 

Mr. Sparky posts threads about his latest freebies here in the Poser forum all the time and has been doing so long before I became moderator. I've never had a problem with that, or with anyone else who wants to show their threads on items they've created. I've never been told it's not allowed and no one has ever complained to me about it, from the user community or from admin. 

I can't speak for what previous moderators have done. 

And if you want to link to your Renderosity store in your signature you can do so, as far as I'm aware. You just can't link to your store at DAZ or RDNA, or some other site. 

And if someone has asked (or complained) in a thread about the existence (or non-existence) of an item that you know exists, you can post about that as well. We do that all the time in this forum. If it doesn't exist on this site, then the link is only permitted when it is specifically requested. 

To be sure, I will check on some of these specific points that you bring up and will get back to you, but as far as I understand it right now, I don't have a problem with you or anyone else posting about your active projects here in this forum. There are many people who do that already. Some are vendors, some aren't.

To be safe, you could create your own sketchbook or wip thread (as I have done here, over 2 years ago, long before I became moderator, and no one ever told me I couldn't, or removed the thread). I think this would be fine, and would help to generate more interaction between our users and our content artists, which is what I feel that we need.

Let me talk to admin about this, (because I wasn't aware this was an issue for vendors until just now) and I'll get clarification on what is and is not acceptable. But really, I think the primary reasons are to try and keep the forums more structured and organized, not to try to stifle vendors or content artists. That would be rather self-defeating, IMO. 

I've been around here for years.
There cool with just about any kind of thread as long as ya don't get stupit with it.

I guess they half to have lawyers right the rules but where not lawyers and this isn't a court of law.

So ,so far the rules for this forum has always been just be cool about it.

Think that's a cool rule :) Don't you all ?

I am really glad that after spending a year promoting the value of Kickstarter to get content made that someone is actually going to look into using it.

About time.

Quote - So ,so far the rules for this forum has always been just be cool about it.

Well, there are some rules beyond that, but I will never discourage anyone here from posting their works in progress. In fact I encourage it, as it is helpful to a lot of people, and I'd like to see more people here sharing the things they are working on for Poser. That's part of what this forum is all about. 

We do have a developers forum, which never gets used.

We also have a Poser technical forum, and a Poser Python forum, both of them have barely a trickle of traffic and threads.

If I forced everyone to only post in those forums, this forum would be dead, since there would be nothing left to talk about here besides "what hair is this?" and OT threads, which actually are discouraged. 

Quote - Hi KobaltKween. Sorry you have been given that impression. I'm not sure why that is.

There is a marketplace showcase forum here on Renderosity, specifically for Renderosity vendors to show their latest products. Granted, it doesn't seem to get much traffic.

There is also a general Free Stuff forum, for the same purpose.  

You are right, they don't want the Poser forum to fill up with ads for the market place, because this forum is intended to discuss Poser and its functions, and because there is a forum already for ads to the marketplace.

There is also a general free stuff forum. I don't visit it but it is there.

I thought I mentioned posting in other forums.  Sorry for not being clear about that.  The problem is that those forums don't get traffic (as you noted). Those forums don't help because no one goes there.  It's like banning promotion in New York City and saying, "Here's place in Antartica for you to let people know about your work."

This is the most trafficked forum for Poser.  For positive interactions between content creators and users to happen, content creators have to be allowed to approach users.  Right now, we can't share our work.  We can't say, "Hey!  I'm working on something I find really exciting!"  Or, "I'd like to make something for Halloween.  What would you like?"

Or at least, we couldn't before.  I've seen many people told to take those threads to one of those other forums, where no one participated in them.  I appreciate that you personally encourage it, but it would be good to have some official clarification on that issue since that hasn't always been the case here.

Quote - Mr. Sparky posts threads about his latest freebies here in the Poser forum all the time and has been doing so long before I became moderator. I've never had a problem with that, or with anyone else who wants to show their threads on items they've created. I've never been told it's not allowed and no one has ever complained to me about it, from the user community or from admin.

I can't speak for what previous moderators have done.

Yes, people like Mr Sparky who have a reputation from before those rules got made have been consistently given a pass.  And some random people seem to get through every now and then.  But I remember when most content creators, including freebie creators, were consistently censured (politely and nicely, but censured) for posting about their content in this forum, including WIP threads.  Granted, not since you've been a moderator, but to be honest, I don't hang around here as much as I used to.

Quote - And if you want to link to your Renderosity store in your signature you can do so, as far as I'm aware. You just can't link to your store at DAZ or RDNA, or some other site.

Oh, I know.  And that's cool, but that's promoting yourself and not types of products.  It doesn't help us let people know we're developing something niche, nor help us act on feedback during development.

Quote - And if someone has asked (or complained) in a thread about the existence (or non-existence) of an item that you know exists, you can post about that as well. We do that all the time in this forum. If it doesn't exist on this site, then the link is only permitted when it is specifically requested.

Right.  Sorry if I wasn't clear, but I tried to acknowledge that already.  Point is, the problem already exists by then, and has already caused vendors to stop making that type of content.  By the time someone says, "Hey, why isn't there any...?" the answer is pretty much always, "I tried it, and it doesn't sell."  

Not to mention, since we can't really communicate with customers until they complain, well, it makes this forum a pretty negative experience and drives away content creators.  It's thread after thread of sticks with no carrots.  Vendors are people, too.

Quote - To be sure, I will check on some of these specific points that you bring up and will get back to you, but as far as I understand it right now, I don't have a problem with you or anyone else posting about your active projects here in this forum. There are many people who do that already. Some are vendors, some aren't.

To be safe, you could create your own sketchbook or wip thread (as I have done here, over 2 years ago, long before I became moderator, and no one ever told me I couldn't, or removed the thread). I think this would be fine, and would help to generate more interaction between our users and our content artists, which is what I feel that we need.

Let me talk to admin about this, (because I wasn't aware this was an issue for vendors until just now) and I'll get clarification on what is and is not acceptable. But really, I think the primary reasons are to try and keep the forums more structured and organized, not to try to stifle vendors or content artists. That would be rather self-defeating, IMO.

Thank you very much for checking.   I really appreciate it.  If I do post a thread, I'll wait for an official response.  Even if things are a bit different now and even if you personally got through, I saw admin and mods repeatedly forbid such threads.  When I see a rule repeated several times, well, I like see something official before breaking it.

You're right.  It has been self-defeating.  The policies have stifled vendors and content artists, whether that was the intention or not.  When both commercial and freebie posts were allowed, when the rules were less strict and more permissive, there was much more traffic, more people posting regularly, and many more positive positive posts.  I'm not advocating reverting to the old rules. There's no evidence that would improve the current state. But I have seen a correlation between stricter rules and fewer and more negative posts.  I've seen fewer and fewer content creators post, more people leaving either silently or publicly, a more uniform market with fewer niche products, and seen all but a dozen or so of my 200+ favorite artists stop posting even gallery images.  In the gallery, I see a much lower ratio of renders to photographs and 2D work, which indicates most of the loss of traffic is in the 3D community.

Nowhere has this change been more relevant than new figure development and releases.  I wish it wasn't true, but it really doesn't matter how good you make your figure and how many people think it's great before it's released (the ideal is always better than the actual).  If there isn't a steady positive, proactive, and visible support in the Renderosity community, well after the initial push and promotion phase, items for him won't sell enough for vendors and there won't be enough items for users.  Post hoc assessments will list flaws without comparison to the control (V4's flaws are myriad).  Considering M4 isn't supported well enough to avoid the "Why do vendors refuse to make M4 content?" threads,  I don't believe it's possible to make any figure, male or female, that so immediately dominates the market that its content won't get lost in the steady flow of mainstream releases once a special promotional period is over.  Its content would have to become the new mainstream, and I honestly don't think that will happen ever again.

DAZ came up in a vacuum and defined the content market.  Vicky's only competitor was Posette, which Vicky's creators had made themselves.  Anyone releasing a figure now has every artist and group that made a figure in at least the past two years to compete with.  It takes time to build a full library of supporting content.  And it's been a long, long time since the community was positive enough to foster independent innovation like it used to.