Ok, ladies and gentelman, this may or may not ruffle some feathers but i want to voice my oppinion and if anyone doesn't like it i undstand. For a while now i have been using renderosity as my source for 3d info, poser stuff, and the galleries to showcase my work and see what others are doing. What i have seen usually amazes me at the quality and quantity of it. I have also seen it go from being a community built on sharing to one built on, "How quick can i get my item into the marketplace?". Maybe i have no right to complain about someone wanting to make a few bucks off their hard work, but i do think they still need to share with the community that helps support them. So i'm calling on all modelers, a challenge if you will....share with the community for christmas. The Challenge: Make one model/texture/item for the poser community and share it for free. One item that's "marketplace" sellable. See if you still enjoy seeing others use your things as much as i do. That's all. Thanks.

I agree with you. If I knew how to make my own models/textures/items... I would share them all, without a price attatched (Like anyone would pay for them) lol. Tis the season. Either way, Merry Christmas to all. :0)

Oh oh oh... what a cool texture! Lemme see its... drat, a texture for something in the Marketplace. Wow!!! A really awesome prop for... shoot!, something else in the Marketplace. OMG! Look at that skin! Its sooo real looking its...darn!!, another shameless plug for the "you know what"... Oh look at those... add ons for items in the Marketplace. What a GREAT idea for a character! Why hasn't anybody thought of this before?!? I can just imagine what I can do with this. I'll un-zip it and... "requires (insert items here) from the Marketplace." :_( sniff

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/index.ez?viewStory=1036

first ,as scifiguy says ,many have done so. second , the people who sell items get only half of the money,and the rest is for keeping this place running.And thats what counts in my opinion. And I think the things here are very lowpriced compared to other places where you can buy for other 3d-programs.

Hmmm yes now if you would bother to go to the front page then you would see that i and a load of other venders have done this for xmas. And as for selling them ppl who make items do so as its part of there living and have to sell them as for me it takes maybe a week or 2 to make an item and thats alot of man hours cheers dolly

First, my thanks to the modellers of both freestuff and marketplace items. They fill a void I have in either talent and/or time. I always thought that, compared to other 3d sites, that r'osity had more than its fair share of freestuff. It would be nice however, that when a free item is posted that requires a marketplace item to work, that some mention is made of what is needed.

I'm sure there are a lot of folks that would like to do more for free ... I know I would! However, it's getting more and more difficult to find sites that will host free files without socking you for bandwidth charges. My ISP, for example, allows 6 gigs of bandwidth a month and charges 10 cents for each additional megabyte. Though that seems like a lot, it isn't when you consider how many downloads a good item can generate in a month. Let's say I create a cool model with textures that ends up being a 12 meg file. And let's say, conservatively, that 1000 people download that file in a month (that's not unreasonable ... some of the more popular downloads can be as high as 3000 or more a month). Anyway, if I put that 12 meg file on my own site, and 1000 people download it, I'd have to pay $600 for that free item that I'm giving away. Being a disabled self-employed person, that is unfortunately impossible for me to do. So, when artists put an item up for sale in the store, half of the proceeds of the sale go for the costs involved in hosting, bandwidth usage, and other necessities for keeping the communities here running smoothly. Is that such a bad thing?

Can I just add to dmtyler's comments, speaking only as a lurker, but having watched things quite closely for a while now, I've seen a number of sites get pulled out from beneath the artists feet BECAUSE of the volume of free stuff they gave away. Give credit where its due, a little encouragement is worth a ton of criticism

dmtyler really helped clarify just what goes into providing free stuff. Renderosity doesn't host the Free Stuff. The artist/creator has to either find a Free Site or pay for the costs of giving away something. Now think of it. If you want to be generous and give something away, would you appreciate having to pay for your generosity? You've already given of your time and talent. That's enough. Some kind people have offered to donate some of their own web site space to host some of the free stuff. That is extremely generous. I have to say the sheer amount of Free Stuff at Renderosity still exceeds any other site I've visited, and I prefer this as my online community home. I've resigned myself to the fact that more artists need to make a living or pay expenses, and that more artists will "go commercial." I am very thankful that their prices are very affordable. I sincerely hope that those low prices will translate into "volume sales," and that the artists will receive enough profit to make their ventures worthwhile.

Now that you got me going, I'd like to make a suggestion. Is there a person out there who has access to web site space that could be obtained cheaply? Space that could be devoted to the fine artists who wish to give away their products? Is there perhaps a web site host who would donate such space? Or is there a web site host that is inexpensive enough that maybe a bunch of artists could get together to share the costs, and host their stuff together on the site? Think about it. There may be a better alternative than what we've used in the past.

I regularly get attacked for saying this, but IMO the pricing model is all wrong. Where does the money paid for bandwidth eventually go? Bandwidth isn't a resource that costs so much per gigabyte to make, and I don't believe that users ought to be charged for consuming something that has no cost. Particularly not when it's the web site owner that pays, while it's the people who download that actually consume the bandwidth. So any popular site becomes a victim of its own popularity. Returning to the original post, yes and no. There's such a rush to put stuff in the market these days that a lot of stuff goes in that really isn't worth the asking price. So it won't sell, no big deal. The author would have done everybody include himself/herself a favour by sharing, though. On the other hand, some of the stuff in the marketplace really is of very high quality and very reasonably priced and I have no problem with that at all.

The post isn't attacking people for putting stuff in the Marketplace, it's about people who ask a bunch of questions, take everything they can, then use it to immediately make a buck off of those people who'd spent so much time helping them. Most of the vendors spend time here giving their expertise for free, so there's no shame in them having retail models. It's the people who take everything they can: models, textures, advise, etc. and try to sell stuff without contributing anything to the site at all that this is addressed to. As for a lot of Freestuff items being connected to retail items, I'm just as guilty as anyone for that. There's some retail items that I like so much, I'm inspired to make stuff for them. I have no relationship with the vendors, except as a customer, but if I find work something up for a product, I see no reason not to share it once I'm done. Think of it this way: some vendor items have so many free items connected to them, that you're effectivly getting the product at an incredibly low price due to the expanded versatility.

Well this topic did what i thought it would...make me a villain...lol. I know how the marketplace works and it's prefectly alright to put things in it to help pay for the site, but i think sometimes people lose site of the sites purpose as well is all. Anyways forget i said anything...lol

ron ... In regards to wisesource, the home page says that that price covers 2500MB of transfer a month (a lot less than my 6000MB per month). I couldn't find any info on what happens when downloads from wisesource exceed that amount, but I suspect that there is an additional charge per MB, just as there is with my ISP. That's where my $600 comes in ... it's to pay for the amount of downloading that exceeds the 6000MB that I'm alloted per month.

Hang on a minute. I don't think you're a villain! You asked a legitimate question, and it sparked a debate in which a lot of useful information came out. That's what the forum is for isn't it? This is the kind of discussion that really needs to be had over a beer, if you lived anywhere near me, I'd happily buy you one. best wishes (I mean it!) peejay

I agree Peejay ... I don't think rudy is a villian at all for starting this thread. A good discussion always looks at more than one side of an issue. 8-)

Rudi, Peejay beat me to it. Starting a debate is a GOOD thing! We've certainly been, as a community, chewing over this free vs. vended thing for a while, and that's as it should be. The Marketplace serves some functions other than the obvious: The Marketplace seems to be some folks' first essays into the 'Net economy, and it's a nice sheltered way to do so, and gets your product right in front of the the people who want it--a HARD thing to do on the 'Net! i've looked into what it would cost me to vend independently, and that's about 22 to 25% of my list price, roughly. AND after that, i'd have to work like a dog to get it in front of the Poser users who would want it, with no guarentee of success whatsoever, AND i'd have to take care of all the fraud stuff & chargebacks. Given that Renderosity has operating costs and my time is also money, the 50% brokerage fee is not unreasonable. It's true that i went commercial in an attempt to recoup some of the time & money spent on this delicious hobby. Now, an alternative way to spin your challenge is that if one makes free samples of one's wares, thus providing some lagniappe to our customers, then Freestuff becomes a nice way to show generosity and get your name before people, marketing-wise. See how it works for DAZ! It is easy to get sucked into the "commercial goods only" frame of mind and not want to put out free stuff any more, as part of a fear of lost income, but we vendors must resist that fear, and view free stuff at least as an investment, if not something more cheery and fun. So, Rudi, i do market, but i also remember the old adage about "Giving back to the Net." It's just good practice. --Nan

Well I am soon to be going into my first commercial venture I do have stuff out for free and all, would have more but I can never update my website S But I saw it like this. I was only going to do something for sale if it was well worth it, was something that I put a lot of time into (about 2 months for the one I hope to have up) and was something that most people couldn't or wouldn't do. That being said I was only going to do it if I had a ten to one ratio of free to pay stuff. Getting hit with an almost $5,000 doctor bill has sort of put that on the back burner for the momemnt but I will try to keep those ratios. Think I may have to play catch up on the freestuff though. All that being said when peope texture and make stuff for the stuff that is in the store it only bumps up the value of the that item. I have been cutting back on my purchases but have also been swayed to getting somethign when there is 20 outfits for that one mesh that someone created but only if they are cool and I would still use them. But I also try to give back as much as I can by helping out and all. Take care and later

I'm sorry about Wise Source. Bandwidth can be costly, and the ISP would have to pay for anything above the stated minimum. He needs to make a profit.

Storage isn't usually the problem these days, as you say, it's bandwidth that costs. Many of the sites boasting huge storage amounts charge you a mint for the bandwidth. It's kindof like giving away the razor blade but selling the safety razor. :^)

" - What happened to "content wants to free"?" -Content providers want to eat! " -- from interview w/ Jakob Nielsen about the commercialization of the www. Rudi, it's an extremely interesting discussion you've started - or re-started, 'cause we've seen it quite a few times already. I won't reiterate the pros and cons, it's been done eloquently enough above. But I will offer a double-sided practical suggestion that might bring more freestuff items and creators on stage. Personally, I have had the good fortune to have my humble freestuff items hosted by Shadowcat, who's been extremely generous with her bandwidth and time. At my end of things, I have done all I can to keep the d/l size of my items as small as possible (less than 500K zip for a clothing figure including doc and poses). This is both to ease my troubled conscience at dumping the hosting work (and expense) on Cat, but also because I know how I feel when browsing freestuff on a 56K modem, and being turned off by those multi-megabyte d/l's. My own models may err on the low-rez side, but some freestuff models have tons of vertices that make no discernible difference in the surface appearance (or increase the morphing opportunities) - going just a bit easier on the subdiv'ing and smoothing will go a long way towards more bandwidth-friendly models. Compressing you OBJs can cut'em to almost half the size WITHOUT losing anything. Ditto for 2D stuff - I know that good tex's, need a lotta pixels, and that JPG loses information in compression, but JPG WAS invented for a purpose ;o) My suggestion : well, if you have space and bandwidth to spare - share ;o) If you're doing freestuff that other people host - keep those file sizes small. And if you've got money to spare - buy ;o) Keeps the pro contributors out there in business.

I'm still in the "Freestuff" state of creating. And I agree about the items in the freestuff that require an item that is in the Marketplace and they don't make it clear before you download it. For the bandwidth problem I'd suggest "ValueWeb". I used to host my website with "ValueWeb". They're pretty good with bandwidth Their standard account gives 10GB of bandwidth and 150MB disk space for about $19 a month. The reason I quit using them was because they didn't have a feature that I needed (MySQL). Sorry about the advertising, but this host has provided a good amount of disk space and bandwidth. But anyway... later all.

MGC, just an FYI, i use over 2 gigs of bandwidth a day now with my freestuff downloads section. 10gigs of bandwidth my not get you too far...be carefull. :)

Well i look at this as just an insite to what takes place at my fav Site and home page Renderosity! I've been here when the Doors to this Place first opened and alone with other artist i have always given my stuff away for free but with the web sites for free hosting changed so did my way of looking at this whole free stuff thing! if it wernt for my friend rudipooimf i would have nothing to give to the people for free! i've been to all the sites that give ya free space and after the band width is used for the month they shut down the downloads that is the way it is the net! I have even thought of selling my stuff to help pay for the bandwidth also! But whats he's saying was just through Christmas people thats all ! Now some of the stuff im seeing in the market looks like it was made in 5 seconds or less ! what im saying is if your gonna sell it make it worth the time and effort! if it's not a good sales pice then offer it for free then move along to the next iteam then that way Renderosity does not have a bunch of just stuff that sit's and collects dust! And if people make a kewl iteam for a Market place Iteam's Please make it known so people dont buy what they can't use! Well i've said enough here so i'll end with Marry Christmas Every body! Have Fun! PeaceOut!

One thing I have always hated about downloading free stuff is when the downloads don't work. I've gotten involved in a long-standing argument with people "at another web site," who insisted that the problem was with my computer, even the version of Internet Explorer that I use. At the time I worked as a Technical Support Engineer for MSN, and I knew their claims were absolute bull-tickey. But I gave into them anyway, and went to great efforts to try and get a different version of Internet Explorer. I even installed other browsers. The end result was the same. I couldn't get the downloads in question. Then out of desperation I tried my wife's computer and got the downloads. Then it appeared I could download from mine. In the end it didn't matter which computer or browser I used, the results were hap-hazard. Later the person in question admitted he had been dumped by his free web host for excessive bandwidth. The web host had severely crippled his effectiveness before that event. Now I don't let anyone tell me that it's my fault. I know better. As for free vs commercial: I would hope that Renderosity tests this stuff at least as well as DAZ before it is sold. If they don't, then I'd hesitate to buy anything till I've asked others if they've bought it, and how it works.

"MGC, just an FYI, i use over 2 gigs of bandwidth a day now with my freestuff downloads section. 10gigs of bandwidth my not get you too far...be carefull. :) " Ouch... 2 gigs a day. Jeez, I wish I could get that many downloads in a week when I had my freestuff up. 5GB was usually enough for me.

Ron, Renderosity has taken a more and more active role in testing products before they are accepted in the store. There's quite the laundry list of things you have to have ready before they'll take your items. Personally, i'm all for some kind of quality control. i also applaud them for doing that while not making judgements about artistic quality--as opposed to item quality. It's very much free-market in that respect. One may or may not like a texture or mesh, but at least all the seams are required to match up and the mesh is supposed to behave reasonably.

The marketplace has the little 'R' logo on items which (I think) denotes that it is available only here. Perhaps something similar to indicate that a commercial product is needed to use the item. One site I know has a special section devoted to 'product related' freebies.

Excuse me, but most of the time I've seen a reference in the very "freebie product description" that lets me know if a product is designed to go with, or "complment" a commercial product. In fact, I can't think of one instance when that has NOT happened. Maybe you can show me one?! What's wrong with making a freebie that supports a commercial product? Once I've invested money on the product itself, I don't always have money to buy all the other supporting products, such as textures, or clothes right away. I am very thankful for freebies that help out in this regard.

The more freebies a commercial product has, the more likely I am to buy it. If I have a choice between, say, Sharkey's wings with 30 free textures, and someone else's wings with two free textures, I am going to get Sharkey's. There are two reasons for this: one, it saves me time texturing items. Two, if a product has a lot of freebies for it, it usually means that it is good.

I also tend to buy items from people who have provided quality freebies, past or present.