here is a simple math word problem... It takes a month of roughly 10 hour days to create a mid sized clothing set. (let's say 220 hours) minimum wage where I live is $10.75 an hour. multiply that with 220 hours, you get $2365 (by the way, making a minimum wage does not pay my bills, I need to generate twice that at least.) to get $2365, you have to give a brokerage $2365 as well, so you have to sell $4730 worth of product. if an average mid sized set sells for $12.00 (after a 30% discount and cupons), you have to sell about 400 (394) pieces (in two seeks intro period) to make minimum wage.

When you have customers asking for a product, only about a third of forum people actually go and buy a product they asked for (lot of them find a reason why it is not exactly what they wanted). Vendors know this we get to see who is buying what and how much, in our sales reports.

So, in order for a vendor to make a risk of supporting a new figure, they would have to see about 1500 people asking for something, very loudly.

Now the reality of product sales... I just said that it would take about 400 sales to make certain numbers. Most "top sellers" at DAZ or at Rendo make about 100-200 sales during the intro period of a single product. For the rest they count on the rest of the year and a back catalog to bolster the sales. With a new figure, you have no reasonable way to believe this will happen, and no back catalog of product for that figure to pick up the gap.

If a vendor fails, and has to quit making content because they had to get a different job to make ends meet, you lost a vendor... they go out of business (end result to a customer is, they still don't get what they want.

Now if a vendor showed up and said, I don't care about your bills or well being, you are not being very nice not buying my content, the way customers talk about vendors frequently... the world in forums as we know it would pretty much end....

Customer is not always right, if customer demands put business survival at risk, they are not a customer that can be accommodated. In marketing speak it means "They are not your target market, cut your losses and go elsewhere." "Customer is always right" is a marketing technique, where a business will accommodate small requests, even those that seem unreasonable on the surface, because the effect on the long run is increased business that offsets the cost of occasionally go out of your way.

With trying to support a new figure with clothing and content, to start with, what is asked of a vendor is not a small favor, it is asking him to put several months of income at risk. It is a lot different magnitude than asking Nordstroms to return a $300 pair of boots no questions asked. $300 for nordstroms is probably 0.00001% of their value. To put that in Rendo or DAZ vendor dollars, that would be like asking for ONE dollar discount from a vendor, on one product. Sure, just about anyon would accomodate that. because it doesn't cost a lot and it builds good will.

If you showed up at nordstroms, and asked for several milion dollars, and made a racket in their store because they are not going to offer it, you would most likely be escorted out by security guards or cops.

Lot of customers, who seem to know just about everything about this business, and tend to be extremely eager to tell you all about it, routinely have an extremely skewed perception about the financial reality of the business. Of course, anyone that mentions that gets written off as a greedy SOB vendor who hates their customers.

Perhaps many people requested something, but it takes many many many many more for a vendor to pay their rent. That is only possible with DAZ figures, and even there it is bare minimum. For many of us this is a full time job, and no one Is going to risk not paying their rent because there are 20 or 30 users that want something. Being a content maker isn't a job that creates a lot of extra money, that leaves no room for supporting smaller markets. Lot of vendors are barely making a minimum wage, So it is not the matter of don't be greedy it's the matter of survival.

Block of customers who insist on things have a very skewed perception of how much a vendor is able to do. It's all about customer is always right and a corollary to it is I don't care if your house goes into foreclosure as long as I get what I want for my hobby.

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh but this is The reality we are all dealing with in this business. Community is just a marketing front, in reality this is a business.

I'm very happy with my gtx 970 when it comes to price and performance mix!

Indirect lighting turned on will do that when diffuse strength is higher than about 0.8.

Wooo hooo, I'm happy dancing across the forums and websites :)

Fabi, for some of the ERC functions in Poser you can use "Dial Training". Nerd 3D has a good video on how to do it, I forget at the moment if it is at his website or on Smith Micro Youtube channel.
Which ERC operations are you trying to do?

Over the years, I'm yet to see a forum change that people actually liked.... then they eventually get used to it and few years later a new one comes along, then that is the one everyone hates.
Its having to change and get used to new stuff that most people hate, especially when it is imposed on them.

You can draw an alpha mask of where you want your road to go, then use a blender node to combine the additional road texture with other nodes already existing on the ground.

 Vendor selling for 1.000

That is 500 for the site
500 for the vendor.

Vendor has to declare income.
Vendor pays taxes.

Vendors net income 250. (from the 1.000 his buyers paid)
IF he /she is lucky !

Vendor wanna survive?
He/she needs to sell for 10.000 EACH Month to get 2.500 net each month.

 

yeah, that's pretty close to how it works.  Taxes vary, and vendor percentages can vary, but also sales numbers can vary.... each product is a bit if a gamble too. You think people will like it and they don't, or the other way around.

yeah, making content can be very time consuming. Any tools you can get hold of to speed things up are big necessity.
DAZ studio has done a pretty decent job at making built-in tools that help content makers.  Poser - not so much. You heavily depend on third party stuff to speed up your production... and there are so many third party things out there, it can take time to find a good one too.
It is super easy to spend more time making things then you will get paid for them.
You don't get paid for learning curves.

But... most of this is true in any production environment. 3D or non 3D, you have to work efficiently, and strive for competence (competence and efficiency often go hand in hand)

Interesting article Moriador.

Curious, is there a particular benefit anyone participating here can site for restricting oneself to only creating Poser/DS content? 

For that matter, is there a particular benefit to only being a content creator? For someone interested in making a living from their work as a freelance artist, is it not more beneficial to take advantage of all the avenues of revenue that an artist has available to them? Focusing the majority of ones time on one or two areas of course has its advantages, but should it be exclusive? If there's a market for rendered images, or animation sequences, or 2D illustrations, if the skills are there, why not incorporate those aspects as well to increase the revenue, and along the way maybe learn new skills? I always try to think outside the box with whatever I'm pursuing. And I think mindset plays a very important part in whether you'll be successful, whatever it is you're trying to do. You basically have to convince yourself that failure is not an option.  

Once you find a groove there is very little reason to branch out a lot. Being a content creator is like any other business, you find a sweet spot that works... and like any market, you have to follow changes and developments to adjust. Customers in poserdom like frequent releases - coincidentally, there are a few other businesses where customers like a degree of predictability. For example what they are teaching us in art school, for people who want to be gallery artists, and freelance illustrators, and concept artists - having product consistency works, in gallery artists it is expected. Too many different pieces, and it becomes hard for your gallery to market them, and you end up with fewer sales. If you develop a following they will like a degree of predictability... like if stonemason made a character, my first reaction would be huh? Then I would be, it better be really good, now that he is changing things. Other makers who have done characters and clothing and small environments, I'd likely be little more open to a variety.
Same goes for picking up work as a freelancer... it is harder to get work from a first time client then from a repeat client who already likes your work. It is entirely possible to have more than one successful focus of work, but not too many that you spread yourself too thin. Every market takes some time and effort to break into, then when you break in, you start making more money with equal or lesser time investment.... and get to really professional pay rates (like $80 to $100 per hour base for freelance work).

Also what I noticed as you get older, you really need to have that base, as your energy levels are lesser to constantly look at and experiment with a significant amount of new things. You sort of build yourself in the early years of your career, and in later years reap the benefits of that investment. Learning new things need not fall by the wayside in the process. Computer related stuff has enough new stuff even if you stick to just a few choice disciplines.  I've always made more money when I focused on achieving a good level of expertise to stand out from the crowd at least a little bit. At the same time, I did retain a hefty dose of versatility....  Finding the balance of the two (and few other things in the mix) is the key. Also people can have a variety of interests and strengths they may want to cater to.

Ah, found it. I've been looking for this link for a long time.

Anyway, BadKittehCo mentioned something about "getting a following". I think she's really on to something.

http://kk.org/thetechnium/2008/03/1000-true-fans/

To be sure, to get 1000 such fans in a milieu the size of Poserdom is quite a feat. However, if you succeed, you'll make a living.

I always try to take a critical look at my own buying habits. There are three content creators whose stuff I will by, almost no matter what it is, because I know it will be great, and in part I want to encourage them to make more, when I buy things that I'm a little iffy about. It almost becomes a 'collect them all' game. Those three happen to be three of the most well known and successful content makers in this market. 

I spent a lot of time pondering and analyzing this, trying to figure out what made them so successful, and how to take advantage of that in my own work.  Why shoot for the best.... well, if you don't shoot for the best you've already reduced your chances of success. Even if it takes more than one lifetime to get there, still shoot for the best.
Best in aesthetics, best in marketing, best in presentation, blah blah... identify components that are needed, and see what makes them great.

Having a following means people will buy your stuff before thinking.. then it will end up on a 'top sellers' list and it may be just enough to tip the scales of the skeptics, or those still thinking about it. you start having some popularity and visibility, it starts to feed on itself, people see other people buying it, and it adds polish to that 'ooog shiny' factor people in poserdom like. Everyone is playing with it, I better get it too, i want to be one if the in crowd.... ir 'it must be special'   

Sometimes people say, the leaders are important, you know who else is super important, the first few followers, they are the ones that make other people think the leader is worth following... out there on his/her own, the leader may just end up looking like a lone fool. Followers validate them.  (We dissected that concept in one of my sociology classes too, one that analyzes group dynamics. lot of marketing has to do with group dynamics - people do have some influence on each other, we don't exist in a vacuum - even though a lot of us would like to think we are independent thinkers....  eh, only to a degree. We all live in the same society and our brains are made of same human genetic crap - so there is a degree of predictability)

Lots to respond to. 

@BadKittehCo -- "Ha ha, I thought about Steve coopers Job for a minute, but I only have about 60-70% of the qualifications they need at best...." It's funny. When I talked to a job recruiter, he was handing me a bunch of job prospects, and I'm saying, "Wait -- this one requires five years experience, this one requires knowledge of x software, etc," and he said, "Nah, they just put all that in to discourage the chumps. No one expects you to have all those qualifications." Then I read an article that claimed that on average men who apply for jobs have 50% of the stated qualifications, while on average women have more than 90%. Could be that women feel they need to overcompensate by looking better on paper; could be that, thanks to our culture's particular method of handling romantic interactions means that men get a lot more practice aiming high and getting rejected; could be something else entirely. In your case, you can't relocate (and art school is cool!). Otherwise, you might be perfect for the job. :)

your bills. I doubt that most vendors are, or even expect to -- but I certainly don't claim to know.

I'd actually be much more interested in building a new knockout figure for Poser....  but they know that already... and I don't want to make one as a small time community effort, to have another figure die a slow painful death because of no marketing behind it.   I can certainly build something that is technically and aesthetically competitive. ;)

{Bad Kitteh}  "  I really like the content making and design aspect of things, what I really want to do is build up a small studio of content makers eventually.  "

  Eh?  What do you mean by that?

Different people can have different strengths even among vendors. If you work as a group and play to each person's strength, things can be made faster. Also if you have a reliable team of people, you can tackle larger commissions or larger more visible projects, for people who can pay professional level fees.
Like a small version of this kind of a place: http://www.blur.com/

moriador - in answer to your question theres no set figure, it all depends on things like the complexity of the project, time, often what both creator and artist think is a fair price.

Tunesy - now theres a general trusim there :)

RorrKonn - I can see how from reading the forums some folks might percive a lot of poser work is often about rendering porn masquerading under the name of art. But the reality is a good building set can sell equally well - or better - than a bit of skimpy clothing.

I was wondering what the range of costs might be -- if you have any idea. I mean, obviously, if I wanted to buy a model of an apple that would not be as costly as, say, your ruined city. :) I understand that much will depend on the particular artist as well. If I were to do something like this, naturally I'd want to make a profit on the deal -- but at the same time, I strongly, strongly believe that artists should be properly compensated, which is why it'd probably be a bad business for me to go into. But I think a marketing model that takes a lot of the risk away from the creators and puts it onto the sellers might well be extremely beneficial to some. At the moment creators do almost all the work, assume almost all the risk, but hardly make close to almost all the money. To me that seems very unfair.

Yes, content makers are definitely near the bottom of the food chain.
I'm not sure where one can find an affordable content maker that is not already working with the store? I tried with various modelers you can find 'out there in the world of 3D, and frankly, most are not affordable, even if you farm things out of the country. Maybe I'm looking on the wrong places.  Maybe it works better for a small but already established brokerage, and then you are sort of branding a brokerage.  Most brokerages also do this, offer content makers a 'buyout' option, for a set fee. Usually I find those to be much lower then what I can make on sets I make.