Let's face it: with this lockdown seeing the real possibility of extending until the fall, vendors are definitely going to see sales drop like a very heavy stone as more and more people are out of work and cannot spend discretionary income like they once had.

As such, some of you might want to reconsider your adamancy of sticking to one platform or the other for your products. Yes, Poser dynamic cloth and DAZ's equivalent wont move easily from one to the other, but static props? Even if it's just exporting out of DAZ using the software's Poser conversion tools with only basic textures, at least you're guaranteed some sales in that second platform, and all it takes is a few minutes' export time. The same can be said for going from Poser to Studio, with minor tweaks to the texture files... something a lot of vendors used to do, I might add.

And yes, the conversion result wont be as glossy or brilliant as the original, so price it accordingly. If your Studio version has a whole bunch of iRay bells and whistles, and your Poser conversion is pretty basic by comparison (and therefore doesnt render quite as well), then price it accordingly. The community is resourceful: it can find ways of glossing up your product, trust me. If you build in Vue, create an exported .obj version as well and sell that alongside your Vue-only original.

The more or less bottom line: we dont have the luxury anymore of saying something should be just one thing or the other. The market share on all this is gonna narrow down the longer this goes on. But to say "Oh, it takes weeks to remake the textures!" becomes moot when all you need to do is just put a lesser-than-fab version out there for the "other side" to purchase.

Just a thought. Have a good day, and stay safe, everyone.

I would not be able to talk myself into knowingly releasing 1 product that is inferior to another. I would fiddle with it until I felt they were both of the same quality...

There's more than texturing - the objects I make often work in Poser but distort in Daz Studio. In order to support Daz Studio I have to remove features from the products or put them together like a puzzle instead of doing a boolean operation - which will take 10x longer. (When you push one object into another and tell the software to subtract the one object and leave a hole - that sequence in the software I use doesn't play nicely with Daz Studio.)

It's learning all of how Superfly materials work and then having to learn how all of Iray materials work.

It's learning all the new features of Daz Studio as well as Poser, instead of just one.

It's setting up every scene twice - because Poser / Daz can't read each other's scenes - that's not a few minutes export time - that's hours / days of work.

It's rendering 6 - 10 images in Superfly and then having to render 6 - 10 images in Iray as well (Iray on my machine takes 3 - 5 hours per render because what I make has a lot of glass / reflections / metal in it - that's an extra week just to make the store listing).

And then selling 3 props more...

Were these normal times, I would agree with you, but sadly they're not. We're going to lose a lot of vendors because their sales simply wont be enough to make it viable anymore. Yes, the exported product — whatever it might be — will be "inferior", but as long as the customer knows this in advance and is charged accordingly, I sense that most here would be willing to make the sacrifice to ensure that vendors such as yourself are still here when this is all over. I know I would have zero problems buying something that would be of lesser quality if it kept some of these good folk afloat — and that to me anyway should be the priority. When this is over, we can revisit some of them, if the market dictates as such, but for now, let's make sure you good ladies and gentlemen are still here to do it. :-)

Why would I, as a customer buy an inferior product? I most definitely would not spend money on something that is not of good quality. I would always pay more for something I know is of high quality and no money for something that is not. Making products for Daz Studio is different from making products for Poser. You can not just move from one program to the other and start making content. It is not as easy as you might think it is.

@ Raindroptheelf... look at my response directly above yours. To be searingly blunt, the profit margin around here for most vendors is pretty thin in the first place. This health crisis is going to make it worse, and we may lose a lot of them in the process. Our vendors have been damn good about keeping prices down for their customers. Now maybe it's time we returned the favour. If you have some other idea how that can be accomplished, put it out there.

SeanMartin posted at 1:18PM Sun, 05 April 2020 - #4385501

@ Raindroptheelf... look at my response directly above yours. To be searingly blunt, the profit margin around here for most vendors is pretty thin in the first place. This health crisis is going to make it worse, and we may lose a lot of them in the process. Our vendors have been damn good about keeping prices down for their customers. Now maybe it's time we returned the favour. If you have some other idea of how that can be accomplished, put it out there.

I looked at this response and I answered:) I do not see that a Vendor would create something that is not of the best quality that they can provide. How do you actually know what the profit margin for most of the vendors at Renderosity is? I, for example, have no Idea. I also would believe that it depends on each Vendor, how much they sell, earn. If you provide good quality products you will be selling. I believe that most of the Vendors will think like PandaB5 in that, they can not make themselves create something inferior to sell to customers. You also make it sound easy to move across the programs to provide for both. You can not create something in one program and it works in the other. That is not how it works.

I think vendors know or will figure out what's right for them. I don't expect them to disappear. Also, some transitions don't work. There is no magical way to bring a g8 character across to Poser, and likely the same for Poser figures. That being said, I would be thrilled if Fantasy Armor for Lafemme appeared in a daz-compatible format.

Thank you Sean, for the idea. Suggestions are always welcome. But, I am kind of the same mind as PandaB5 and Raindroptheelf. A long time ago, I figured out that my models have to last the purchasers for years, so they ought to be as good as I can possibly make them.

And here is kind of an interesting observation for you - a cautionary tale......

From time-to-time (on a pretty regular basis), I receive requests to convert some of my Vue models to the more generic *.obj or *.fbx file formats. (Typically, so that they can be used in Poser or Daz.) Sometimes, it is easy to do so, and other times, very difficult because maybe the flowers or trees have to modelled from scratch, instead of using Vue's built-in vegetation tools. So, it takes a LOT of time and effort to make those conversions. While in the process of making those conversions, I often ask the requester for more information about their exact needs. Half the time, the requester never follows up with a reply, and they seemingly vanish into thin air. And then, when I do make and publish the conversion (as in the recent "sticks" package one person has been bugging me about for a year - sigh!), the person requesting the conversion never does make the purchase. Typically, some excuse such as "my computer died and now I don't want that product any longer."

In looking at my work over the last eighteen months, fully half the people that requested a conversion to another format never did purchase the converted model set. Fortunately, I have caught on to some of these "ghost requesters" after spending only a week working, and stopped before I spent too much time on some of these. On the other hand, I am quite stupid because one person requested me to first convert my Lakota Tipis, which he never purchased, and then to make "sticks" to his exact specifications - which he also never purchased. And, seemingly never intends to do so. How did I fall for this guy's requests twice?

All I can figure is that most people who see something they want that is in a file format different than what they can use, are basically acting on a whim when they request you to re-make the model into a format they can use.

So, admittedly, I am not a Poser or Daz vendor, but I can't help but be a bit sceptical of the market for converted products. Just based on my experience with making such.

I would just appreciate vendors offering 3dlight and Iray versions. Some of us are still using old computers but want to buy new things. With only iray options those are off the table for me. I buy only 3dlight items. Same for Superfly , cannot use. I think most vendors make the prices very reasonable. If it's a little out of my price range I wait until I can catch it on sale. If all vendors think everything has to be only the biggest , brightest and newest I will eventually not have much to buy that I can actually use. LOL

I'm not a vendor here, but I have sold some items over on Gumroad, and I pretty regularly make freebies. I only support Daz mainly because the base program is free. I do my best to support both Iray and 3DL, but I have no way of supporting Poser. I can't afford it. And there would be no point in using a free trial, because then what happens when the trial runs out and I still cannot afford the license for Poser? Not to mention, It's not that simple to go between the programs. It's more than just "a few minutes export time". You'd have to make sure the scaling is correct for the different programs, any morphs would have to be adjusted/corrected for the different environments. And if it was a clothing item, then fits would have to be made for ALL the necessary figures. It's really not as easy as it seems. And while, yes these are very unique times, people will make an effort to buy the things they want when they want them, job security notwithstanding. It doesn't seem particularly fair to Vendors/content creators to have to learn a whole new program's environment, just because of the current economic environment. Especially if they are using this as a full time job. Then they also have to consider weather or not the extra time required to create the morphs, shaders, textures, material presets, thumbnails, and promos for a program with which they have no comfort or familiarly is worth the financial return they may or may not get.