Quote - > Quote - Will, if you read correctly, ThunderStone was referring to the site, not the merchants. He even praises them for the freebies.

If you note, I work at Pretty3D's site as an admin. I know all about people who try and make a living out of this, but that still does not excuse putting a required $5 purchase in order to get what their creators intended to be free.

Where I admire what the creators do (as does TS), I simply cannot excuse that way this was handled.

Thanks for the comment. I was typing while you posted, LOL

And by the way Will, I downloaded your gazebo. Thanks... And I do mean it.

Your welcome TS , hope you enjoy ;o)

~Will

I see. I understand completely.

I was, however, in no way condoning what Renderosity did and was not saying that I expect you or anyone else to pay for something to get something else advertised as free. My point was that it seemed you were trivializing that any of us make money off our work and ... well.. with all the frustration from this failed promotion... perhaps all of us are quick to jump and need to be cautious not to say things a ceratin way. Perhaps I took what you were trying to say out of context. or more likely you were angry at the decision and aimed it at the admins and I took it wrongly. For that I apologize..

Anyway, I was as shocked and as disappointed as everyone else when I read last night that there was a $5 minimum to get something that I and others created for free and under the impression that they'd be delivered to everyone who wanted them for FREE. I vented my frustrations over it with my fiance last night and she understood , so I am thankful she kinda patted me on the back and said "shut up and go to sleep, the world will still be spinning when you wake up" LOL

I agree that to require a fee to get something does not make it FREE. I don't think anyone likes it when businesses tell you something is free but then tell you that you have to pay some fee or another. It is certainly an unwise and unethical move.

I apologize for any misunderstanding on my part. It is still early and I need my coffee. :o)

~Will

There is a link to my freebie in a thread I posted in the FREE STUFF forum. It can be downloaded and is available immediately.

It will also be available in a couple days in my FREE STUFF section.

I knew nothing about the $5 min until I arrived home late last night and, sometimes I can be slow, but never that slow. I recall mumbling to fiance over the phone..."Ummmm when did they tack on $5 for something I intended to be free?"

So I stayed up for the next couple hours getting it uploaded to fileden, to my free stuff section and to the free stuff forum. Ughhh.. I should've been in bed.

This was a very unwise decision by the powers that be. I have left mine in the "trick or trreat" section however, just so those who may wish to get it there can as well. It may also eliminate the possibility of my 5gb of bandwidth at Fileden from being swallowed up too quickly.

Thanks everyone.

~Will

You are all very welcome. ;o)

~Will

Quote - Yes, it was a shame and R'osity handled it badly. I just emptied my cart and swore that I will never fall for such a flim flam again. I don't have money to spend on (to me) trivialities being that I live on a fixed income. I am always grateful for those freebies and the people who put them up are on my short list of prayers each day.  But what R'osity did, was inexcusable and downright mean. I guess that was the trick... :sad:  First comes the treats... :woot: then the tricks :sad: Guess greed does gets rather lame after a while.

Although I understand the very reasons that everyone is upset and am not excusing the way things were handled, some merchants either make a living off their creations that they sell or supplement their income just so they can make ends meet. Most of us ARE NOT getting rich off our endeavors and also lived on FIXED incomes. We work very hard at creating the items we create and it is offensive to me and to them that you have, in not so many words, spit on the work we do and in our faces by calling  our creations "trivialities".  If you are grateful for those "freebies" that we work VERY VERY hard to create, then you should respect our work and what some of us do to make our income or extra income. The modeling alone on the freebie, that I put up, cost me around 36 work hours of my time and that does not include the texturing, poserizing, and testing which was nearly another 24 work hours. If in, your opinion, our creations that give to our livlihood and feed our families are "trivialities" then consider what your work and job means to you before you use such words to describe ours. Renderosity and the recent issues involving the "trick or treat" scandal aside, it seems you have lumped the merchants into the pool of "greed", you so seem to despise. We also work for a living and we also have "fixed" incomes.

Thank you,
~Will

Quote - thank you huge keihan this is awesome

You are welcome ;o)

~Will

Quote - I am sorry keihan, if I made it sound as if I am after you for "bashing"!

I wasn't aiming this at you, it was meant for all those people out there who judge an image by the tool used to create it. So I hope you eccept my excuses if I hurt you by accident.

The point I was trying to make is, the moment you find a tool that fits in your hand and that does what you want to do why should anybody bother?

Here and at other places there is always this kind of "I use X and you use Y, so you are not an artist!"-attitude (liberately exxagerated!) which tends to drive me crazy. When I see a picture that makes me go "Wow! Beautiful!" I don't care much about the tool(s) used.

Personally I would love to see the gallery with only a 2D, 3D, traditional art and photography section to avoid that kind of  feelings.

As a matter of fact, you did well to correct the false statement in an earlier post.

With all this said, as I do love to use D|S, I actively try to promote this app and if it's for the only reason that it is the free entry card for the voyage into the adventure of story telling!

Again keihan, my excuses if I did hurt you!

Oh no, it's no problem really. No need to apologize. Yes, it is always the artist and not the tools and that is a point I was making as well, maybe not all that clearly tho ;o)

And if you love D|S and what it is capable of by all means promote the heck out of it ;o) LOL. I hope to one day see D|S break some barriers and see some major (much needed) new developments in Poser too, but I hope they (both appz) don't stray too far away from certain standards or the entire content market may divide and fall. I think DAZ is aware of this and that is why they still build their content upon the Poser standards. Both applications have one common denominator, they use the same content and that creates a symbiotic relationship.

Quote - Keihan, I am not sure about D|S being entry level, does that exist in 3D? But evidently it is (luckily) still under development, as most software I know (Photoshop CS3 next step CS 4?, Vue6 next step Vue 7, Poser 7 now Poser Pro).

But anyway as an artist, it is the final image that counts, no need bashing at others because they do not use your tool, pencil, brush, canvas, paper, axe, chainsaw .....

An  entry level program is a program that offers individuals a starting point into a various field. This particular field being 3D. Yes, some people do use D|S professionally. For example PSP is an entry level raster based program (tho it has some vector capabilities), it doesn't have nearly the power of Photoshop, but like you and D|S, I prefer it's intuitive interface better. I can work faster and it does what I need it to do. I don't need anything more than that as I am sure most DAZ users feel the same about D|S. PSP isn't as full-featured, nor does it have all the bells and whistles of  Photoshop or other top painting apps, but it can do the job if the artist is insightful enough. But none of this is what i am talking about. I am simply pointing out some facts over misinformation and I don't see how that is "bashing" anyone.

As for more info, Poser is not "my" tool. I am a content creator. Poser (and, incidentally, D|S) is my targeted application for the content that I create. I could just as easily target Maya, 3DS Max, Cinema 4D, Lightwave, Softimage, etc etc..

My real tools are Rhinocerous 3D, Hexagon (from DAZ incidentally), Okino Polytrans, UVmapper Pro, CR2builder, Paint Shop Pro, My Fuji 7.0MP Digital Camera (for photorealistic textures) and the list goes on and on. The only time spent inside Poser is putting it all together for the end user and doing promo images (if I do them myself).

I have been in this industry long enough to know a little history about the applications being discussed and I just find it difficult to remain quiet when it seems that there are a lot of biased opinions being strewn about rather than real facts about the subject matter. I saw Bryce, itself, change hands a few times. How many know Bryce's history? It was also owned by Metacreations along with Poser 4. Eventually Corel ended up aquiring Bryce, then DAZ thereafter. I have never even used Bryce, myself. Personally, I don't like the whole arguement of this vs this because it is subjective. I am not a render artist, but I have seen some awesome Renders come out of D|S and I have seen some equally awesome renders come out of Poser. I have seen awesome renders out of Bryce and Vue as well that also blow me away.

With all that said and , once again, I am not bashing any users nor am I bashing any applications, their developers, etc.. etc.. What I am challenging, however, is misinformation. Misinformation such as the statement included in my prior post from a member who I'll not name (as it is irrelevant) .."there are tons of content  available for daz and it's characters that poser plain and simple hasn't produced"... that statement is simply, NOT true.  I see many opinionated statements as such being slung around as if they are fact, not only in this forum but others as well. If the reverse were true, I'd certainly say so, but in this incident it is not.

Quote - I'll go away now and leave this discussion to you artists and venders, and crawl back under me rock.

LOL don't do that... hehe

Just a friendly discussion going on ... some people's barks are worse than their bites :o)

Quote - .. there are tons of content  available for daz and it's characters that poser plain and simple hasn't produced. this i think will be a major  draw for daz in the long haul  
    

Huh? Most of DAZ's original content is targeted at Poser. Always has been.

Take a closer look at V4 for instance. "Readscript" ,contained within the figure INJ/REM files (which, incidentally, is built upon the Poser hierarchy), is a Poser exclusive construct. It is merely usable in D|S. If DAZ was designing figures soley targeted to it's own application, the construct would be much different since DAZ script (which files save as from D|S) is closely related to Javascript not Poser script. However, the figure files still follow the Poser hierarchy.

The only thing in the V4 package which is exclusive to D|S are the material presets and shaders which are separate files from the figure files that the charcter is built upon.

D|S has a much better rendering engine and loads more quickly, but it is lacking greatly in the content creation category. That should be "GREATLY" with all caps.. ;o) . So, naturally most content that you are buying for DAZ Studio was built in Poser and upon Poser standards, so I don't understand how there is "tons of content  available for daz " versus Poser. I am a content creator and have been since 2001 and that just makes little sense. Content has been around for Poser for ages and continues to multiply (99.9% of DAZ's content is targeted at Poser and has been since Zygote's inception and eventually DAZ's split from Zygote).

It doesn't matter to me which tool an artist uses to create their digital art, it has no bearing on the final production. I don't harbor any misgivings about D|S and have had many of my own complaints over Poser. However, they are just tools of the trade. But misinformation is never a good idea just because you like one tool over another; there is little basis for fact when it is simply a personal preference and opinion. I once knew a guy who could carve intricate totem poles with a chainsaw.. later on I discovered a guy who could do even better with an axe.

One can't exclude the fact that D|S is an entry level program still under development. It has only been on the scene a few years. I don't use it to design my content because it doesn't have the tools necessary and also has a convoluted scripting (which files save under). I do test my content in D|S however, to ensure compatibility. Where Poser and DAZ part company is DAZ is a tool for producing digital imagery whereas Poser is a design tool. I don't produce digital imagery (renders and such... except for product images) so I really don't have much use for D|S at the moment (except for testing). I don't even use Poser for that purpose. But I guarantee you that if you take a poll of content creators (even the DAZ team themselves), you'll find most of them inside Poser creating the much of the content that you are using in D|S. 

Quote - While it's great to see some vendor response to this I believe there might be some misunderstanding as to what I have implied as to the definition of "tested". As previously mention specific D|S material presets are not expected, most Studio users simply want to know if the product will load properly and be usable. Five to ten minutes of testing tops. Just a simple loading and quick render would do the trick.

Yes, D|S is material/shader challenged. The burden of this falls on the artist and I personally don't expect every vendor to slave over more material tinkering in a different app. Only a quick test as I mentioned above to see if it will be usable then a short mention of it on the product description. Something like -

*Works in DAZ|Studio but will require some surface editing.

*or

*Will not work in DAZ|Studio due to _________________.

*I really don't think that's asking for that much more extra work for what could turn into some extra sales. For what it's worth I rarely use the D|S presets that come with DAZ sold products, most are little more than starting points but there are a few exceptions.

For the record I don't expect anyone to... ahem... artificially cripple their products nor do I think they would be crippled as it is. They might actually look pretty darn good in the right hands. Artists are more powerful than applications when they try to be.

I agree, but what is most misunderstood is that D|S is the entry level program and not the other way around. It may well be on it's way to better functionality but it's not there as of yet. For the most part, as I had said in my prior post, I see it primarily as a marketing tool at the moment. A damn good one though. Not to say that it isn't a good program nor that it will not be developed into a premiere program. ;o)

It isn't difficult to make most items compatible though. Most items not relying on extensive use of material and rendering tricks or other app specific features (shaders, procedurals, displacements, deformers, dynamic hair.. etc etc) should work in D|S without much issue. For stand alone models and other mesh items the best idea is to be sure that one has the P4 material tree as well as any Shaders for P5 and up in their files. DAZ Studio uses the P4 material tree just fine and ignores the shaders. I only wish I could include a line that turns off that darn specular light and set it to black. D|S turns it on by default...ughh. But DAZ script is in an entirely different format than Poser's, it is more like Javascript from the looks of it, and thus trying to incorporate that info in a single file to be compatible with both apps seems futile ;o)

Quote - I think what gets most people upset is that the vendors are using a character that is primarily targeted to the DAZ user.

That's not neccesarily true. Those who started with 3D content (in Poser fashion) at a much later time than some of us might be under that impression though and I can understand that. DAZ Studio itself, however, is still in it's infancy. Hence DAZ pushing it more aggressively on their site. The push itself is not necessarily in an effort to push Poser off a cliff. It is more of a marketing ploy (and a good one to be honest). Offer it free as an entry level program, get people hooked and reel in content customers. The same applies to when they give away free figures such as V3, Aiko 3, V4 etc.. etc... I mean if you download the base figure for free, you are probably gonna need some morhs and clothing etc etc eventually, right? But those things aren't free... hooked. LOL.

The freebies also have another purpose.. they spawn new content from independent merchants such as myself. This, in turn, nurtures the symbiotic relationship between DAZ and content vendors, even if they aren't DAZ vendors.

At one time, DAZ content was exclusively directed at Poser and for a very very long time (much longer than it has been directed at D|S...obviously due to D|S being fairly new to the scene). And even up until recently (and maybe still) the majority of DAZ products were produced following the same conventions as Poser, not D|S. For example, 3rd generation Millenium figures follow the Poser file convention and the same "runtime" hierarchy. Just take a look at them and you'll see.

The majority of content creators, such as myself, still build primarily for Poser (maybe within Poser is probably a better way to put it) . Poser makes content creation much more streamlined although it is still a lot of work.

The majority of content is still primarily Poser content and will be for a long time to come. However, many of us do try to accomodate the best we can and with what time we have. Recently I have updated some of my older products to be compatible with Poser versions 5 thru 7 (they were originally created for P4) and have also tested them in D|S. My recent update to one of my popular products, VISIONS Props Pak (released in 2004 for P4), included many such changes.

Quote - This again!?!?!

One more time for all those D|S users who missed it the first three time I've said it...

"The vast majority of Poser content will work in DAZ|Studio. Be careful when the product "not tested in DAZ|Studio" description mentions use of the material room, lights, and the word dynamic when paired with hair or cloth."

It's just that simple!

As a matter of fact it's just that simple for vendors as well. D|S doesn't take up too much disk space and reads the same runtime structure, it would only a few minutes to load the product and do a simple test render. Most of those who bring up this complaint are not expecting an optimum D|S preset, they just want to know if everything will load properly and be usable. That is not asking for much IMO.

Vendors could look to the "Vendor of the Year" (x2) for some clue as how to properly address this inconvenient Poser-like application. Aery Soul's most recent product presentation, Classic Fantasy, had a link offering Studio users a means to work around the material room dependancy. I applaud them for having an associate test for D|S and recomend other vendors to do the same. A couple of my friends have been asked to test products in D|S and if the right relationships could be formed Studio presets could emerge to enlarge the market audience of products offered at non-DAZ market sites.

Studio might not be as capable as Poser in certain areas but it's certainly growing. It's also offered free by a large content site that happens to offer the most popular line of figures. Meanwhile the compared app changes hands every 18 months with the most recent parent severing ties with affiliate market sites. Some major vendors have recently moved over to DAZ from those affiliates. I don't have magic powers or own a crystal ball but it doesn't take that to see the future of D|S looks less questionable than that of the implied competition. What... 13 months till Poser Pro++ Super Duper?

The biggest problem I see is that to make our products compatible with every new version of software on the market .. or new addtion to hit the scene.. is time. Time is also money. The more problematic thing is that most purchasers like us to see our product reasonably priced, but if I have to spend countless hours creating new files or checking compatibilty in a large number of programs to meet the demands of the masses, then of course the clientel will have to pay the price for it. I already test in every Poser version and it has become a daunting task keeping up and making all the necessary changes for compatibility's sake.

I realize that there is the argument that you "reach a broader market and thus sales increase" by doing so. But to tell you the truth, I haven't seen it. My products sell well; they have always sold well and my newest additions (that have been made compatible with Poser 4-7 and D|S) sell no worse or better than my oldest products (some from around 2003). Nor do any of my newest additions seem to sell more in volume. So the gist is that I have put much much more work into my newer products, kept the same low price as I always have but haven't really reaped any more monetary benefits from doing so.

Also, to bring down a hammer on Poser is quite ridiculous. Poser users are still the largest market and Poser isn't going anywhere anytime soon even if Smith Micro drops the ball. We saw Poser 4 live on for many years, virtually unchanged, before the release of Poser 5 and instead of faultering or fizzling out, it's userbase had actually grown by leaps and bounds.

One cannot argue that DAZ Studio, itself, is little more than a clone. Perhaps the rendering engine may be a bit better but it's functionality is lacking. Also, what is lacking is it's ease of use for content creation. Most of us, content creators, prefer to focus much of our time and effort into content creation not fiddling with convoluted scripting languages to make files work properly for our products. Poser's scripting for files is easily understood and can be quickly learned, but in comparison finger through a DAZ script sometime. I often wonder if the nature of the confusing script used wasn't somehow intentional? Why is it that DAZ Studio can import Poser file formats and read Poser's scripting format and yet it cannot output something similar in convention? It couldn't be legal reasoning because we all create content using the same format. I'm not saying that they had to use the exact scripting format as Poser, but their convention is very far from the Poser convention. They were able to include a compiler which compiles to binary format, but they have made it fairly difficult for content creators outside of the DAZ circle and have certainly made it even that much more difficult to create one file that is compatible with both Poser and D|S. Instead, in instances, where shaders are relied upon heavily, a user may need to relearn quite a bit to create almost an entirely new product, just to meet compatibility.

So, if we are to do the work and aquire the knowledge to appease the masses so they can reap the benefits, then where are our benefits? 

So, with that in mind, as long as you have both trees in your file, you should be compatible in DAZ Studio. Both DAZ Studio and Poser 4 will ignore anything in the file that the software doesn't understand, so you can include the shader trees without fear.

The image shows the trees for one of the materials from my Gemini Bow and how they should appear in the file. Using this convention makes the bow compatible with Poser 4, Pro Pack and all other Poser Versions as well as DAZ Studio. It takes a bit of tedious hand editing of files and some tenacity but it isn't really too difficult.

The only thing I have yet to figure out is how to control that damn specular highlight in DAZ from my file (which is bright white and ON by default... grrrr)

I hope any of this helps.

~Will

NOTE: Of course if you use specific shader nodes in Poser that are a large part of the overall visual appeal of the product, then you may run into some roadbloacks. Displacement maps, items containing procedurals, etc etc... The best rule of thumb is to have someone test it in Poser 4 or DAZ Studio, if you know it works in Poser 4 then you have no real issues.

Quote -
 FAST will have it's own content type as well, because FAST will support features that neither Poser nor Daz studio currently offer, such as multiple indepedent bone structures, which will require a new file format that neither Poser nor Daz studio would be able to read (at least not at the current time).  However you will be able to integrate Poser and DS content seamlessly if I do my job right :)

Just curious what you mean by new file format. Will it be binary or script-like (like Poser). If it is script, Poser ignores anything in the file it doesn't understand. For example, I can produce my props in Poser 4, then do Poser 7 specific tweaks in the P7 material room... then simply move the P7 shaders to the P4 file .. now the file is compatible to both P4 and P7. P4 doesn't understand the shaders and, thus, ignores them.

Of course, it will depend on how large any script type file would be since we know that binary doesn't have to be interpreted and, therefore, is much faster. What I would have liked to seen in Poser is a compiler. That would be a content developers dream come true. You'd be able to still do all your edits by hand but compile the final file for actual use in Poser by the end user.