chaecuna posted at 3:25PM Fri, 22 January 2016 - #4250614

LPR001 posted at 3:20PM Fri, 22 January 2016 - #4250559

@chaecuna - X-files @Razor42 - Thanks for putting the FAQ here. It might help sort the wheat from the chaff :-)

Shitting your pants, dear LPR001? you have all the reasons to do so .

I see your links and and bet the link the relevant thread on DAZ forums where people are telling DAZ they are "upset".

The most important fact I noticed in that thread is that many of the no-way-I-am-going-away posters qualify themselves as graphic professionals and this is significant on two levels:

1 - professionals are certainly big buyers and their leaving will significantly hurt DAZ (and DAZ PAs) bottom line (definitely heartwarming);

2 - much more significant, starting from today there is a market vacuum in the "character studio" arena, a great business opportunity for some enterprising group to step in or, wet dream, for some good FOSS initiative. In any case, big big troubles for DAZ. It won't happen tomorrow but I think that we might see something interesting on the subject at SIGGRAPH 2017.

P.S.: My faith in human kind slightly increased today. It appears that, at least in the CG professional community, sheeple desperately looking for a master to brutalize them are a minority in a sea of sane people.

With regard to Point #1, every time DAZ3D has implemented a major change, we have gotten the same types of responses in the forums. Some people actually follow through, and some don't. IMHO only time will tell if this is just an immediate reaction to change (FUD), or a true final position, and if it is representative of the total user base. If you listened to forum posters when DS 4 and Genesis were introduced, DAZ3D was on a self destruct mission. The same was true when they introduce DIM, but it seems that time has so far, proved these predictions wrong.

Point #2 - Not that I wouldn't love to see DAZ/Poser figure support in Blender (or another free or low cost top quality software), I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it. I've been waiting for 15 years to see a viable FOSS alternative to Poser or DS. There have been several attempts at building a good importer for Blender, which have all died because it is simply not that easy (plus it seems that for the most part the Blender community isn't interested, and neither is the vast majority of the DS/Poser crowd). I definitely wouldn't expect any major announcements of a FOSS competitor to DS/Poser at SIGGRAPH next year (or any year) - it is really more of a professional/academic affair. True SM and DAZ do quite often have booths there, but from personal experience I can say that neither one is exactly thought of as being leaders in 3D software or technology (and as a general rule, the users tend to garner even less respect). Not that I wouldn't be quite happy if something were to happen - I just don't expect it.

I'm no big fan of DRM, or encrypted content for DAZ, but predictions of their demise based on forum posts IMHO is a bit over jealous. Only time will tell if it will be successful, a push, or less than successful. I think DAZ Connect however will generally have greater appeal to the "got to have it now" crowd, as "in app" purchases make it much simpler. It's impossible to determine from our point of view (forumites with no knowledge of the extent of their user base, their buying habits, and general demographics) if the DS user base will quickly adopt it, or pass it by. People who participate in the forums are only a fraction of the total user base.

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