I thought I'd post this here instead of the DAZ forum because, well, this isn't controlled by DAZ.

I've noticed DAZ seems to be posting new items and sales, but I have been getting lots of errors in DAZ Studio, and haven't heard ANY response from DAZ in WEEKS regarding a trouble ticket I opened. In fact, after about 3 weeks, I contacted them asking, "What's up? I haven't heard anything."

I got an auto-reply back saying if I didn't reply (to the auto reply), they would assume my problem is fixed and close my ticket.

In the past, customer support has been slow to answer (usually a week), but 3, 4 or more weeks???

I'm really tempted to drive to their HQs and look around to see if anyone is still there.

Hi, I'm sorry to hear that you couldn't get the help you need from Daz. U was in a similar situation. I bought a product from Daz in August. The product was giving me missing files error. I was able to pin point the missing files and sent a ticket to Daz. I got a autoreply after resending the ticket a week later, and then another generic reply that they're looking into it. I wanted to return the product within the 30 days of purchase, however, I was able to contact the Publishing Artist of that product myself and was able to resolve the issue. He explained that Daz has purchased the product outright, but packaged it wrongly. My ticket is still open, and it's been 2 months. I understand you're frustrations, but the last few years, Daz' customer service has gone downhill. I don't know if this help. I joint a Discord service a few months ago, where fellow Daz Users/Artists/Vendor chat with each other, helping each other with issues and sharing art ideas. More often than not, I find my answers at this Discord server faster than roaming the various 3D forums. I can't guarantee you'll find all the answers instantly, but at least there are people with similar issues that can share ideas.

I don't know if this link is allowed. Moderators, please take it off if it's not allowed. Thank you and good luck. https://disboard.org/server/578543104492306432

Thanks for the information. I will check out that forum.

Gone down hill? I left DAZ years ago for just these reasons. DAZ is well known for going full steam ahead and never looking back. So pretty well ignoring issues with content; But then DAZ is just a sales platform not a content creator. If you have issues with content it is best to go right to the actual creator.

The best part of DAZ was the founder, who left to start another CG content site because DAZ turned in to something he didn't recognize.

You can bring up topics like this on Daz boards. People do all the time! I think Daz is having some sort of growing pains. They're putting out more products than ever and trying to do more with their products. Plus they have new demands placed on them thanks to changes in NVidia's graphics cards. Add in the pandemic and it means some stuff slips by. I think they're doing the best they can, and all this will get sorted over time. At least I hope it will!

A Daz staff member "DAZ_Rob" Reccently boasted in the forums they were so busy that they had to " take on new staff".?

Indeed they are attempting to grow there user base beyond the still render portrait & pin-up girl crowd with their new export plugins to Maya ,Blender, C4D, Max etc.

As the front page of the main daz site would indicate, Daz is desparately trying to rebrand themselves and a content resource for the professional CG /Gaming communities

But if you look at their new forums for those apps, it is the same still render portrait & pin-up girl crowd. posting the same early 20's ,Ideal BMI, white genesis girls largely staring into the void of an empty universe.......

Except rendered Blender or Unreal engine etc, instead of DS IRay.?

You can only grow your user base by bringing in new buyers

The professional game companies like ubisoft are using Blender,Maya Max etc but they are creating custom content from scratch for each game title certainly not wasting time with bloated genesis figures chucked out from Kiddie pool toys like Daz studio. .

And the casual hobbiests doing still portraits & pinups, are likely already Daz customers ,waiting for the next big 50% discount sale and saving up for a bigger GPU to keep pace with NIVIDIA and ridiculous 4-8K textures being used in many Daz store products. ?

That's quite a post, Wolf! :D I've no doubt they need a little extra staff. I've no doubt customers are waiting for discounts. That's part of the game here and there.

You surely know Marvel has used Daz for pre-vis on its movies and people use Daz for lots of things. I know some people want to use Daz assets in their indie games. That's done more easily now, I guess. But if I were a vendor there I would not provide the interactive license for that. Daz has discounted those to nothing.

I don't know what protections Daz actually provides against license abuse. I recall they've showed you the pointy end of the stick for making clothing mannequins. But that was before the big inter-program compatibility push. I wonder if that would be such a big deal now?

I would not throw stones at the pinup or stills crowd. They've kept things going for decades! Plus there is a lot of interesting not-pinup content here and at Daz. And I enjoy a good pinup. ;)

The Iray/GPU thing is a problem, but how long did 3D rendering technology seemingly sit still? A long time, I think. Now it's moving forward, but it's moving forward in a big jump and there are research and hardware costs. The pricing on all that will surely produce a divide in the market, especially now. And yet, prices may come down a bit when AMD strikes back in a more meaningful way and when NVidia reaches the limits of this growth spurt.

The giant textures issue is a different problem. Daz QA lets all that go, but I doubt anyone wants gigabyte downloads for throw pillows. Vendors need to be a little more realistic about how their products are used. The part I don't like is, I see compression artifacts in some of these big textures. So, they're offering more resolution than many people need while overcompressing their map files to keep the per-file size down. I think there is room for improved optimization!

Anyway, I find your outlook interesting. Thanks for that :)

LOL So DAZ hasn't really changed in 5 years.

Torquinox I've been banned from the DAZ forums 3 times for bringing up these topics. I can guarantee you none of this is new at DAZ. My opinion is DAZ customers and content producers are an ouroboros.

Just how many lace teddies does Victoria need?

From what I can tell, Vicky needs all the lace teddies she can get. But she also has plenty of sensible attire. I've seen serious complaints that new outfits aren't sexy enough. No pleasing everyone. And as various vendors have said here and there, they need their products to sell in order to make money.

You got banned 3 times? Sounds awful, but you got back in a few times, too. :D IDK what you said to get banned or when that happened. The best I've managed to do so far is get a a few posts deleted, maybe a thread once. NBD, really. It's hard to get along on a forum! There are misunderstandings. People have moments and they wig out. And these are all nice, pleasant forums!

I balance some of the weird things that happen against Daz's generosity, especially during lockdown. I still think they really are doing their best. Things happen that people don't like. People disagree with decisions, people make mistakes, people get disillusioned. I try my best to give the benefit of the doubt. That's all I can do or say about that. And I hope the issues from the OP and others get resolved.

I got back in because of the multiple Emails I had from game alpha testing.

But ya, the demand for slut wear has always out stripped the demand for street wear. You can always tell what movie is in the top slot by the number of produces produced in that theme. When the pirates of the Caribbean was in, there was a new pirate outfit by some one every week or so. But just try to find a pair of bib overalls or a hunting jacket. Same thing every time a new star wars movie comes out. Thing is it is really too easy to make Studio content now. The app is set up to do a lot of it automatically. Practically anyone that wants to take a month or so to learn how to do it, can.

Yet try to find those geographed genitalia on DAZ.Or a fixed version for geneses so they can be used in carrara with out redoing the UVs. That is top of my list of gripes about DAZ. They tend to see only forward and never look back. So there is a very slim chance DAZ will fix broken content; or even remove it from the store knowing it's broke. The UVmapping on Genests male genitalia has been screwed up since it dropped. Never fixed and DAZ is still selling it in the big essentials pack. Hell of a note for the people that bought the bundle FOR the genitalia. Why fix 1 when 2 is up? Why fix 2 when 3 is up? DAZ once had a plug in up for 18 months knowing it was broken. Took multiple people getting refunds on it and threatening lawsuits for them to pull it. And the way it looks DAZ has not changed.

But DAZ wasn't always like this. At one time I conversed regular with the founders. DAZ bought out a company that then took over DAZ and both the founders ended up leaving; one starting his own content store and developing a competing figure. .Dawn https://hivewire3d.com/ Need to book mark that, 2 of my favorite content artists are there;Lisa's Botanicals, and Ken Gilliland.

I got banned because I am a carrarest not a Dazzy. And DAZ was [expleative} carrara hard at the time. My opinion DAZ bought carrara to get the IDK{?} for poser 5-7 and then when DAZ realized they couldn't strip any more out of carrara for Studio they abandoned it, as well as a few hundred customers that used carrara. DAZ did not see us as valued customers. Mostly because we could make or mod what we needed. Thing is I have 36 pages of DAZ content. Imagine what I'd have if DAZ hadn't have abandoned Carrara. And I wasn't the only carraest throwing money at DAZ.

Man, this is weird for me. I don't normally carry a grudge.

You make a lot of good points, a lot to consider.

It seems reasonably easy to set up content in DS, but it still takes modeling and texturing skills to make the content in the first place. It might make sense to make some bib overalls and a hunting jacket.

Carrara has not been well treated, no. It's a deep and well-sorted program with a lot to recommend it, but I think we're all going to die of old age before they update it. At this point, I doubt they have the resources to do anything with it. They'd need to hire a team, and the new Carrara would likely be an entirely different program.

Those other mis-steps are annoying. It's the sort of thing that happens in companies, and who knows why? You could be right about all of it, and It's probably best to let the grudge go.

To be honest I wouldnt be surprised if Daz is being bitten by its own decisions. Yes a centrally managed system doling out files a la Daz Central would cut down on copyright protection problems but it is doing it in the most expensive way possible to imagine. Even an Amazon server farm makes me wait minutes just to get up a favourites list of a couple of hundred items. A central index for thousands of multigigabit daz directories of users is just using so much server processor/ network packet / switch time that I would guess the Daz Central versus the store are fighting each other for resources

Daz Central is just a different front end, underneath it's essentially the same as Install manager (which is still available).

As a bit of a dinosaur, I must admit I use DS4.21 in pretty much the same way as I did DS0.7. The new rendering capability of iRay is nice, but 3DL could do good stuff with effort and attention to detail. LiquidRust showed that years ago (see this 3DL image (https://www.renderosity.com/gallery/items/1040363/testing-lips-and-eye-relfections)). The controllers like 'Right Fingers Grip' save time, but they don't mirror at all, so this is useless for someone like me producing occasional pose sets - and makes me keep on being a dinosaur. The problems that so many have with DIM loaded content and DAZ Central content has convinced me to install stuff the same way I did for DS 0.7 - manually. That way I know who's at fault if it doesn't work. Also, not using the content databases means that I can move stuff around to suit my organisation method.

I am unconvinced by G9. It appears to be worse than G8 for everything except portrait close-ups. G8 Clothing & hair seem to fit G9 worse and more erratically than G3 fits G8, especially after a save & exit then re-load. The joints look like rubber and few PA's seem to be able to get decent muscle definition from the base mesh and rely excessively on HD morphs to get the details already present in the G8 base mesh - it's just ridiculous to make such a massive backwards step while pretending it's a step forwards. I rather feel G9 is a case of the Emperor's New Clothes, people unwilling to admit they've made a mistake. I look forward to G10. Maybe one or two lessons will have been learnt, even if the problems have never been admitted/acknowledged.

As for the skimpwear. That, I fear, is likely to be an enduring feature of all figure animation/rendering programs. Early 20's female characters are much easier on the eye than grumpy old men like me. Take a look at TV adverts, and assess whether 'Early 20's Females' are over-represented (regardless of ethnic origin). I think you will find they are, and these early 20's females will enhance the image/animation/product in an attractive way - it's all described as the 'Halo Effect'. 

Regards,

Richard.

It's interesting the read the history and other experiences.

I quit using their forums last year as frankly it was useless for me to try and get any timely information. Tech Support: Hmmm, they try. They've a Sysiphusian task, caught between management and the programmers. But their arrogance regarding no documentation, which the entire planet apparently knows about judging by youtube postings, is not really excusable.

I use the FBX exporter a lot, and a recent update actually made it worse. The OBJ exporter is rock solid so is truly a Pre-set. Not so with the FBX exporter. You have to check usually reset the options EACH TIME!!!  A real time waster. Have they fixed it?  No. I made comments about that & got censored.  They said I was making "personal attacks".  ??!!?  Interesting, since I don't know anyone to make personal attacks against, nor mentioned any names as I don't know anyone!  I only made comment about the SOFTWARE as it has regressed and gotten worse, AS ANY USER LONG TIME SHOULD!

But the kicker was some months back. I posted a new topic, simply asking about getting a particular product's expressions & morphs to export. I got a reply & replied to that. Checked an hour or so later, and my original posting was gone! I could see the original reply, but any reply I made went into the ether. And then the reply vanished too.

So I guess must be officially persona non grata and didn't know it.  Fine. Don't know, and frankly don't care, not worth my time or effort at this point.

But I still buy their products; they'll take my money but not my questions. ;)

If ya want to talk dinosaurs: Step Right Up!

I export everything out to Lightwave, which is another saga these days. But to do what Daz does with expression morphs, I edit geometry and rename those morphs to get a single control. But the result is that I've a LOT more control over surfacing, lighting, DoF, Motion Blur, etc. A number of other packages can as well of course, but I've a fair amount invested in auxiliary tools (several you can't even get now), & I've gotten my pipeline to where I can handle everything except dForce hair. Blender handles that well, so have to knuckle down & learn Blender.

I'm passing on the Gen 9 stuff too. Gen 9 makes that all the more complicated and so far I've seen very few new characters to make it worth the effort.

I'm not investing in Genesis 9 right now,  mainy because Gen8 had so many great characters that my library has all the variety it needs to tell my stories.

I'm also using 4.16 primarily for rendering and runs well on my system.  I do have 4.21 installed for testing on another computer,  but that's it.

I think the whole market is going through transformations right now,  facing challenges with everything from introduction of AI to the slowing down of the economy. 

G9 feels like a big step backwards from G8 in a lot of ways, much harder to make content for and the over-reliance on high subdivision to get any basic anatomy details. Going back to the androgynous base shape and the simple tube topology of very old figures is baffling.

I don't frequent the DAZ forums very much. I post only very rarely. I'm disappointed that there are very few male clothes for Genesis 9. I don't want pirates, etc. I don't do female pinups either. DAZ made a big claim that Genesis 9 males could wear female clothes. I posted that this wasn't realistic. They deleted my post.

I sometimes complain about "Vanity" folders because it's so hard to find my content. I never keep track of vendor's names. I get some replies from the PAs that tells me their content experience is totally different from mine. Since they're PAs, most of their content is installed under PAs names.

I submitted  a ticket about a problem with a scene from Moonshine's diner. I got a reply announcing a fix, two years later.

"I submitted  a ticket about a problem with a scene from Moonshine's diner. I got a reply announcing a fix, two years later."

YIKES!

ronaldknights posted at 5:48 PM Mon, 23 October 2023 - #4476711

I'm disappointed that there are very few male clothes for Genesis 9. I don't want pirates, etc. I don't do female pinups either. DAZ made a big claim that Genesis 9 males could wear female clothes. I posted that this wasn't realistic. They deleted my post.

The marketing of Genesis 9 as unisex is wishful thinking. The reality is that vast majority of content for the figure is what I would consider to be traditionally female clothes. Lots of high heels, blouses, skirts, lingerie and the like. When something is modeled after a men's garment it usually is lacking the details, like a collar band on a men's woven collared button up shirt.

Genesis 9, whether by intent or without realizing it, is optimized for the Daz3D volume customers - people who render women with breasts. The mesh has baked in cleavage between and under the breasts that I haven't seen anyone ZBrush away. 

It makes sense that their largest customer base would be their main focus, but they really don't like anyone saying that in the forums. 

Thumbnails for content are overrated anyway. Just keep clicking on all of the dead icons you see and eventually you'll find what you're looking for, without all of that pesky information, guidance, visual cues and SMART content slowing your workflow down.

pjz99 posted at 4:34 AM Sat, 30 September 2023 - #4475569

G9 feels like a big step backwards from G8 in a lot of ways, much harder to make content for and the over-reliance on high subdivision to get any basic anatomy details. Going back to the androgynous base shape and the simple tube topology of very old figures is baffling.

THIS ! 
You've nailed it.

I have lost all hope in the DAZ support and definitely in the forums.
I have at least 3 support tickets now open since last July.
One was a fairly important one about a vdb product(the entire render came out great, except the VDB which looked like it was in minecraft! And to this day, I can't get it to work. No matter how ramped up the settings are or what settings I use. It comes out horrifically pixelated as it it was an 8 bit graphic). Another was about a set of eyes…that after posting in technical, found out the issue has been reported since 2018, and they do not fix it nor reply to support.
As for the forums? I made the very sad mistake of making a post(and yes I have the screenshot) of saying (in regard to IP rights and fan products) "Some companies will go after you, some wont."
I mentioned it tends to be based on how close visually an item was.
(seriously, the post was about 3 lines. Not even a paragraph)
This got my post removed and a warning. (I kid you not). I then tried to post again, to get a warning that my posts were being moderated. I wrote to the admins as I went through the TOS and -nothing- was in there about this kind of post. To be told, "Its not explicitly in the TOS, but its the moderators feeling that it was inappropriate"
So basically, even if something is not against ToS, they can just remove it and warn you. Leaving customers not even knowing what is and isn't allowed to be said.
Needless to say, I stopped posting to their gallery and have seriously cut down what I purchase. I purchase items that I can not find on other sights now. But due to some of their issues with pricing, discounts, and replies from the forums...I have given it a skip on purchasing some items. Which, I know, hurts the artist more than the site. Which I dont like to do but...

Timberoo posted at 2:45 PM Wed, 22 November 2023 - #4478052

ronaldknights posted at 5:48 PM Mon, 23 October 2023 - #4476711

I'm disappointed that there are very few male clothes for Genesis 9. I don't want pirates, etc. I don't do female pinups either. DAZ made a big claim that Genesis 9 males could wear female clothes. I posted that this wasn't realistic. They deleted my post.

The marketing of Genesis 9 as unisex is wishful thinking. The reality is that vast majority of content for the figure is what I would consider to be traditionally female clothes. Lots of high heels, blouses, skirts, lingerie and the like. When something is modeled after a men's garment it usually is lacking the details, like a collar band on a men's woven collared button up shirt.

Genesis 9, whether by intent or without realizing it, is optimized for the Daz3D volume customers - people who render women with breasts. The mesh has baked in cleavage between and under the breasts that I haven't seen anyone ZBrush away. 

It makes sense that their largest customer base would be their main focus, but they really don't like anyone saying that in the forums. 

Gen9 is a pain. I have just about every morph package/correction package, and the under arms particularly are a pain.
I have yet to use it in a single render.

Also, the lack of realistic items is getting annoying. We all know about the "Naked vicki in a temple" Trope....but we are now in 2024 and it's not all breasts and latex now.
Trying to find realistic military gear for a female is a joke. Trying to find a fantasy outfit that doesn't have her running in high heels is like finding a needle in a haystack. (Trust me when I say, you are -not- going to run over cobblestone streets in stilettos. I live in Scotland, and cobblestones are the death of high heels)
I love the female form, but there is a time when you dont want her breast on display and her looking like a pin-up.
And I also have to agree with the lack of sufficient male items.

I really felt good about DAZ, maybe 20 years ago. But in the decades since, it's just been a regular nightmare.

I can't find stuff because DAZ insists on creating its own insane way of handling the alphabet. When I buy a shirt, I don't want to look under the PA's name to find it. I never remember a PAs name.

As for "real world" clothing for males or females: I was delighted when I discovered Genesis 8. There were all sorts of fantastic "mature" male & female characters, and clothes to go with them.

That must have been a fluke, because Genesis 9 is sorely lacking.

 

DAZ Moderators are now even closing threads now.  I posted a thread about when Gen 9 to Gen 8 Conversion tool is coming cause I WILL NOT support Degeneracy ever.  That model is a clear pandering tactic.  I can't wait till i really start learning Blender/Lightwave/Zbrush cause I will leave DAZ and let it just sink...

Tired of this bs...

Daz Moderators close threads? That's been going on forever.

ronaldknights posted at 12:51 PM Fri, 19 July 2024 - #4487497

I really felt good about DAZ, maybe 20 years ago. But in the decades since, it's just been a regular nightmare.

I can't find stuff because DAZ insists on creating its own insane way of handling the alphabet. When I buy a shirt, I don't want to look under the PA's name to find it. I never remember a PAs name.

As for "real world" clothing for males or females: I was delighted when I discovered Genesis 8. There were all sorts of fantastic "mature" male & female characters, and clothes to go with them.

That must have been a fluke, because Genesis 9 is sorely lacking.

 

I have to say that is true. Both the search function(its a nightmare and its no better in the program)
And Its true that there are some nice mature male figures/clothing for gen 8.
But Gen9? It takes more work to make gen9 look decent than it does working with gen3 or 8.

gohanf22 posted at 11:24 AM Sun, 21 July 2024 - #4487525

DAZ Moderators are now even closing threads now.  I posted a thread about when Gen 9 to Gen 8 Conversion tool is coming cause I WILL NOT support Degeneracy ever.  That model is a clear pandering tactic.  I can't wait till i really start learning Blender/Lightwave/Zbrush cause I will leave DAZ and let it just sink...

Tired of this bs...

Yes they do!
There was one about the legality of the “fan” products and the ED licence.  People were getting removed left, right, and centre. Then after they released a whole swarm of plain ole rip-offs, they finally (I think it got to 18 pages) Just removed the entire thread.

Many of us just wanted to know if the complete copies were actually working with the companies that own them, or if they were just plain ole rip-offs. That was it! Just “hey is it legal for you to do this” (particularly with Star Wars, Star Trek, Project red/cyberpunk/edge runner, etc) I suggested that “Perhaps they can say “made in conjunction with/in partnership with” so customers know it is ok to purchase(as they have had to remove things in the past)
And did they answer? NOPE. Did they penalize customers asking? YES, and removed/warned them for “insinuating daz had done something wrong” and then they just removed the thread all together.

While I can see them not wanting a bunch of questions about the legality of their products posted in their forums, if it were licensed you would expect them to post that in the description. If someone were to report to Disney, I imagine there could be some trouble at least for not crediting them.

And a post I did in an OLDER thread was deleted and again was asking when Gen 9 to Gen 8 Morph Conversion Tool was coming.  Yeah they literally succumbed to the damn ESG/DEI bs...

...or just have a ToS rule against bumping/reposting.

So, since Richard's here, I guess we can talk about him to his face. That's always better. I don't hate you Richard, but we ain't friends. I'm going to leave this snippet here by itself in case it violates any rules.

I recall, back before Daz decided DS could be a universal exporter to other softwares, we could get threads closed or deleted by even talking about Blender in a positive light. I suspect Daz might have still thought about maybe updating Carrara beyond 8.5. O course, that never happened and now DS is a universal exporter care of built-in exporters and bridge plug-ins. Times change!

As for the odious paid-for EL items, those are odious wherever they're offered, regardless of site or vendor. Why? Because the subtext says, "We're going to sell you these items that we're not authorized to make or sell (because, let's face it, if these sites had official licensing arrangements, they would boast of their licensing arrangements and show the requisite official logos!) - And you are going to pay us for these items, and you are not allowed to use these items to make a profit for yourself."  Yeah! And of course, Richard or Frank would definitely delete my post and send me a nastygram for saying all this - Not that I care. As I said, paid for EL items are odious and I would never buy one. And I did say things like this over their and they did get deleted. >_>

And who knows? My posts may also be deleted here and I might also get a nastygram, but that's just how it goes. I don;t mean any harm, but truth is a weapon.

Anyway, the unknown part of the EL license is, what's enforcement mechanism? Is Daz or another site going to lawyer up and come after a customer for selling pictures made with EL items? That would be interesting! Daz reps will not discuss that topic. Imagine that! And the related truth is, all the products of all the sites are available for (often free) download from sites that are beyond the legal reach of any US company. Piracy, plain words. I am a merciless bargain hunter, but I don't steal content. Yet, I know these places exist and I know of the limitation because I have accidentally found such sites, dutifully reported them, and been told the pirates are beyond reach.

OK I'm done now. Just had to get all that off my chest.

RedPhantom posted at 7:07 AM Mon, 22 July 2024 - #4487540

While I can see them not wanting a bunch of questions about the legality of their products posted in their forums, if it were licensed you would expect them to post that in the description. If someone were to report to Disney, I imagine there could be some trouble at least for not crediting them.

The issue was that the items were not “similar” but -exact- copies. They used the fonts for the genre/companies, they used trademarked names etc.
All we were asking was, "Hey, are you working -with- the companies or....?"

But no one ever got an answer. Then the star trek stuff vanished.
As I know things like the Tolkien stuff is -very- tightly regulated(and daz does not show up on their site as allowed vendors, nor does the daz parent company) it was something that should be asked.
The same for the Star Wars stuff. You need to be licensed to sell items that are associated with them. But again, no listing for daz or its parent company on that list.
If I am spending my money, I have a right to go "hey, is...this actually supporting the people that actually created it?"
I dont want to spend my money to then find out, it was useless.

Never mind I already ended up in a bother as I bought this armour(its nice too). No mention of any association with a game.
Used it a few times till someone asked "Oh is that a crysis fan piece"

Left me abit speechless. I was not familiar with the game. The moment I peeked at it, it is an almost straight rip of the game.

THAT is one of the biggest issues.
People being blind sided. Just post if it is in “partnership with” and guess what? No one is going to question it

Torquinox posted at 11:33 AM Mon, 22 July 2024 - #4487547

Anyway, the unknown part of the EL license is, what's enforcement mechanism? Is Daz or another site going to lawyer up and come after a customer for selling pictures made with EL items? That would be interesting! Daz reps will not discuss that topic. Imagine that! And the related truth is, all the products of all the sites are available for (often free) download from sites that are beyond the legal reach of any US company. Piracy, plain words. I am a merciless bargain hunter, but I don't steal content. Yet, I know these places exist and I know of the limitation because I have accidentally found such sites, dutifully reported them, and been told the pirates are beyond reach.

OK I'm done now. Just had to get all that off my chest.

BINGO!
Just clarify! That was all we were asking.
As a consumer, we have that right!
Because I bet 10 to 1 if I went and made a site that was a straight rip of Daz, down to the logo they would hop up legally!

That and the bloody support tickets!
When an item has been complained about and filed since 2018...and NOT fixed..that is an issue a consumer has a right to complain about!
When I have outstanding support issues for just about a -year-...that is a valid complaint.
I cant use the items, I cant get my money back...makes for a valid complaint.

But what happens? You get your threads removed, you get warned, etc.

Here is the novel idea...
Just...answer the questions and the “issue” (not really an issue is it?) goes away.

Hiding? Deleting forums? Makes it look like they are guilty as heck!

RHaseltine posted at 9:23 AM Mon, 22 July 2024 - #4487542

...or just have a ToS rule against bumping/reposting.

Or just...here my out...its a crazy idea.
Have a brutally clear ToS.

Only delete and warn when there is an -actual- ToS Violation.

Answer valid concerns of customers.
Stop deleting things that are asking valid questions.
And stop treating your customers like they are an enemy that needs to be shut up.

Its a novel idea...I know!
But...just answer valid concerns and no one will have the concerns!
SO simple.

It saves some of us having to write Disney, project red, Tolkien etc to ask!

DarkElegance posted at 11:44 AM Mon, 22 July 2024 - #4487548

THAT is one of the biggest issues.
People being blind sided. Just post if it is in “partnership with” and guess what? No one is going to question it

If there is a partnership, it's well-hidden with no press releases, no fanfare, no sign of partnership or licensing deal. Everyone should question it.

Torquinox posted at 7:42 PM Tue, 23 July 2024 - #4487693

DarkElegance posted at 11:44 AM Mon, 22 July 2024 - #4487548

THAT is one of the biggest issues.
People being blind sided. Just post if it is in “partnership with” and guess what? No one is going to question it

If there is a partnership, it's well-hidden with no press releases, no fanfare, no sign of partnership or licensing deal. Everyone should question it.

And that was why so many of us were going "Eh....is this ok?"
The "droid" that is an exact of R2d2....Lets not mention that "droid" is owned now. The wee android was exact. That brings to mind a whole slew of questions as per the Disney site, it states you have to have a licence to sell products that are associated with Star Wars.
(Lets not touch the marvel stuff yet)
I mean according to the site…. You have to get permission.

https://www.disneystudiolicensing.com/
(you can find the link for Star wars and Marvel)
So, my concern was(valid) did they get that permission? If so, why not just post it!?
Just say, proudly, "Hey, we are now able to sell licensed fan items for...."

Consumers have a right to know that. No ToS circumvents law. That is a -fact-.
Paint it as "fan art" or not. If they don't have permission, that is an issue for those that falsely believe they are purchasing items in good faith.

It's a valid concern. One, I would have thought, Daz would have supported. Because they are against piracy. Yet here again, is the issue of IP rights in Daz and no one there willing to say "yes, we have the rights"

Then there is the LOTR stuff.
https://www.middleearth.com/faq.html

According to that..

"I want to make and sell merchandise using names, likenesses, quotes, or descriptions from The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings books and films.  Do I need to obtain permission or enter into a license?
Yes, permission and a license are definitely required.   If you would like to pursue a license, please refer to our Licensing Guidelines Page to see if your business might qualify for a license. We will review your request carefully.  We must caution you that we do not enter into licensing arrangements with every interested party, but we will consider carefully whether your business is a good fit for our brand and we will respond in a timely manner."

So, where is the "We have proudly procured a licence to sell items from the movies/books of LotR" announcement? I mean, the sales would increase if those announcements were made!


Its so simple. Just...clarify for your paying customers.
So...simple.

I pretty much stopped going when they rolled out ads on the forum and gallery - I've had at least one friend there tell me that they basically started doing it without announcing it, and in response they pulled their gallery images down because they were based on a home tabletop game and they'd posted in good faith that it wouldn't get advertising placed on them after the fact. And I more recently poked around and found they've been dabbling with a generative art engine, which pretty much finished me with them.

I'm still debating whether I keep using the software (I blocked internet for it at the firewall so it can't "phone home" in case they're pulling images to feed into that engine), switch back to Poser again (expensive upgrade for me now and requires abandoning content I've paid for), or even just abandon the whole thing 25 year old content archive and go back to sketchtablets and building my own 3D in Blender.

SydneyInPeril posted at 6:51 PM Fri, 2 August 2024 - #4487984

I pretty much stopped going when they rolled out ads on the forum and gallery - I've had at least one friend there tell me that they basically started doing it without announcing it, and in response they pulled their gallery images down because they were based on a home tabletop game and they'd posted in good faith that it wouldn't get advertising placed on them after the fact. And I more recently poked around and found they've been dabbling with a generative art engine, which pretty much finished me with them.

The ads are gone

I'm still debating whether I keep using the software (I blocked internet for it at the firewall so it can't "phone home" in case they're pulling images to feed into that engine).

The Daz Loras are generated solely from Daz-owned store images, not gallery imags nor locally stored images.

RHaseltine posted at 7:00 PM Fri, 2 August 2024 - #4487985

SydneyInPeril posted at 6:51 PM Fri, 2 August 2024 - #4487984

I pretty much stopped going when they rolled out ads on the forum and gallery - I've had at least one friend there tell me that they basically started doing it without announcing it, and in response they pulled their gallery images down because they were based on a home tabletop game and they'd posted in good faith that it wouldn't get advertising placed on them after the fact. And I more recently poked around and found they've been dabbling with a generative art engine, which pretty much finished me with them.

The ads are gone

That's well and good. I've already left and don't really intend to come back for a while. My recommendation for the management over there is to make public announcements of changes like that in the future, on both the website and the forum, before they go live and blindside people. Especially the ones that smack heavily of "Number Go Up" revenue grabs like the Temu ads were.

I'm still debating whether I keep using the software (I blocked internet for it at the firewall so it can't "phone home" in case they're pulling images to feed into that engine).

The Daz Loras are generated solely from Daz-owned store images, not gallery imags nor locally stored images.

There was no immediate indication where the training data was coming from, and given the way the Generative Image Engine thing really got traction you can understand where if there's no real immediately clickable announcement/press release about what it's being trained on, directly on the page indicating it's a thing available, that anyone who sees it immediately assumes the worst case scenario for what it's been trained on.

Needless to say, I don't plan on removing the internet block from the software if I continue using it, and I'm not planning on buying any more product from DAZ right now. Management is making some really poor decisions lately in what appears to be an attempt to grasp desperately at additional revenue streams, all of which are severely impacting the core customer experience, even if they seem like they shouldn't be having any impact from management's perspective.

In fact daz was very clear that the images used were its own store images in their blogs and, as I recal, in the emails.

SydneyInPeril posted at 6:51 PM Fri, 2 August 2024 - #4487984

I pretty much stopped going when they rolled out ads on the forum and gallery - I've had at least one friend there tell me that they basically started doing it without announcing it, and in response they pulled their gallery images down because they were based on a home tabletop game and they'd posted in good faith that it wouldn't get advertising placed on them after the fact. And I more recently poked around and found they've been dabbling with a generative art engine, which pretty much finished me with them.

I'm still debating whether I keep using the software (I blocked internet for it at the firewall so it can't "phone home" in case they're pulling images to feed into that engine), switch back to Poser again (expensive upgrade for me now and requires abandoning content I've paid for), or even just abandon the whole thing 25 year old content archive and go back to sketchtablets and building my own 3D in Blender.

I stopped posting complete in the galleries. Which is sad, as some beautiful artists post there. But the mentality of their moderators, the fact that "support"(we will use that term loosely) is just about non-existent(yes, I can say that, as I have open support tickets that have had no reply since last july), I have no interest in supporting it more than I have to. Again, which is sad, as some great artists have their products there.

As for the GenAI, there is -nothing- they can say or do, that will make that ok. Almost every major company is turning their back on Gen AI for a reason.
The fact they think by stating "its trained from store images" is a "this makes it better" is boggling.
Talk about(literally) Missing the bigger picture.

As for the program, well, I hate to say it, but I now prefer it over poser. I have both up to date at the moment and...Daz does perform better(even with the bugs and issues) Than poser.

What is turning people away, is how they treat customers. The open censorship, the open favouritism, the fact they have zero respect for IP rights...it just bad business.
As I noted before, one of the products I have been trying to get help with, has had complaints since 2018. Is it fixed? Nope. Have they replied? Also, Nope. And yes, I even went into my tickets and tried to post a reminder of "hey, can I get a reply?"
And....silence.

RHaseltine posted at 3:34 PM Sat, 3 August 2024 - #4488013

In fact daz was very clear that the images used were its own store images in their blogs and, as I recal, in the emails.

It should have said so on the page for the generative engine. Not in a blog (that not everyone will have read) or in emails (which not everyone will have received, I know I never got any).

Basically, the indication of what the engine is trained on wasn't posted as visibly as it should have been. Hence, we have to make assumptions, and the assumption trained into us that it's being trained on whatever happens to be vacuumed up, whether it be from everywhere, or from all site posted content via changes to the TOS.

I will also comment that @DarkElegance has a view pretty close to my own. I like Studio over Poser. But my friend has had experiences regarding the mentality of the moderators when they pushed back on the advertising on the gallery thing, that they told me made it felt like they were being expected to couch 100% of their commentary in a very non-aggressive way or shut up, which caused them to delete all of their content in response and walk away from it.

SydneyInPeril posted at 9:48 PM Sun, 4 August 2024 - #4488048

RHaseltine posted at 3:34 PM Sat, 3 August 2024 - #4488013

In fact daz was very clear that the images used were its own store images in their blogs and, as I recal, in the emails.

It should have said so on the page for the generative engine. Not in a blog (that not everyone will have read) or in emails (which not everyone will have received, I know I never got any).

Basically, the indication of what the engine is trained on wasn't posted as visibly as it should have been. Hence, we have to make assumptions, and the assumption trained into us that it's being trained on whatever happens to be vacuumed up, whether it be from everywhere, or from all site posted content via changes to the TOS.

I will also comment that @DarkElegance has a view pretty close to my own. I like Studio over Poser. But my friend has had experiences regarding the mentality of the moderators when they pushed back on the advertising on the gallery thing, that they told me made it felt like they were being expected to couch 100% of their commentary in a very non-aggressive way or shut up, which caused them to delete all of their content in response and walk away from it.

In regards to the moderators...OH BOY!
I pushed back and after abit I pushed back -[Hard]-. Even showing examples of posts "worse" than mine, that were allowed up...going so far as to show PAGES of them. But they refused to acknowledge it or even consider that maybe, they were wrong.
What kills me is the post that started it was so...simple.

"Some companies will go after you, some wont" (In regard to IP rights and infringement)
I then stated
"It would depend on how close something looks"

THAT...got me warned, post removed and for a bit there “Moderated”.
(Btw, yes...I have the screenshots. Yes I still have all the emails in the exchanges.)

It was noted to me that "any insinuation that Daz is doing something wrong" is the issue.
But when I went through the TOS....nothing about what my post stated.
To which it was then put that it wasnt specifically noted, but that the moderator felt it was bad. (basic para-phrasing)

THAT...told me all I needed to know that when it comes to their customers...they are stone set that they are right no matter what, even when they are wrong.

Such as support tickets that are a year old. Yet they refuse to do anything. To fix it, to give the money back...anything.
You remotely question anything, you get censored..and censored hard.
So in that, I 100% agree with @SydneyInPeril.

I will also say, that having seen that, having heard about that, having watched DAZ scramble like a desperate junkie looking for their fix in the pursuit of revenue streams, I've been really not interested in spending a lot of money on the hobby. Granted, I have a lot of hobbies, so letting one lay fallow is never out of the question.

But it impacts my desire to even buy content here for the software. For either software.

In my experience, forum moderators are not your friends. They are to enforce forum and company rules, since in many ways the website owner can be made responsable for forum post.
Forum moderators also make sure, that no forum posts or threads are damaging the website owner's business model.
Just house rules.
So what do you expect?
You don't like DAZ moderation?
That's fine, you don't have to.
Just don't believe, it would be better here.
It isn't, neither at rotica or RenderHub.
DeviantArts is different as they don't seem to have an active moderation. 
Instead you'll see MAGA fascist all over at DA in their forum threads.