zombietaggerung posted at 3:43 AM Mon, 16 September 2024 - #4489379

Glad to help :)

Now the only frustration is getting it! I have been trying to purchase it and for some reason, everytime It goes to the paypal pop up...it just cycles...

zombietaggerung posted at 9:58 PM Sat, 14 September 2024 - #4489351

This one is the best one I've seen: https://uzilite.gumroad.com/l/LNQpI It's for G3 but autofits fine to G8.

That is perfect!
Thank you! Oh and it is uzilite too!

OMG that looks similar to cinder spire ships!
Oh if someone made one of those....

Torquinox posted at 9:09 PM Wed, 21 August 2024 - #4488621

gohanf22 posted at 2:36 PM Wed, 21 August 2024 - #4488617

What is really irritating me is that they are pushing for people to buy these new Models that come out for gen 9 that are for certain IPs, like how is DAZ getting away with selling those?

Their big Star Trek and Dark Knight sets both got pulled. I've heard vendors say they get the bulk of their money for a product in the first week. So, if an item lasts a week in the store, I guess the vendor got paid for the items sold. Obviously, any store offers paid EL items for the money. It's a nudge-nudge-wink-wink thing.

Some vendors sell products that look infringing to me and it's under commercial license. And the store selling the products often doesn't seem to care. It's up to the copyright holder to say "Stop that!" Perhaps the copyright holder is busy? No idea. In any case, all that becomes Buyer Beware! 

I had noticed certain things going missing from the "new release" sections.

But I also know there are things available that are direct copies of IP materials.

They werent all released with big fan fair as they did with a certain space western, or marvel release, but they are definitely copies.

As for the artists, that is pretty sad to hear. As it cant be much they are making.
Ill say it again, I rather give 100% of my purchasing power to the artist directly.

I am so thankful to see I am not the only one on the “naughty” list at Daz forums.

DeeceyArt posted at 11:02 AM Thu, 15 August 2024 - #4488395

I don't see Genesis 9 as a "debacle" at all. Does it have issues? Yes, but so does any other figure out there. My main complaint about G9 is that they have now separated the high definition versions out from the base model.

And the bundle stacking and pricing is a great concern. The number of posts that people make about how cheaply they got stuff is pretty depressing. The more everyone looks for bargain basement prices, the less you will see content creators making things for figures, because it will no longer be worth the many hours that are put into making content.  "Biting the hand that feeds you" is a saying that comes to mind.

While pricing is getting steep, the one thing I dont really do is complain about the price of good items.
I know how much a good computer can suck from the energy bill from rendering…I don't want to think of how much it costs just in electricity, to work on sculpting, building, texturing, morphing….a set/figure/item.
I know that when I am running photoshop, Dazstudio(or which ever program I am twiddling in) etc...there is a rather pronounce spike in my daily usage.
So for those creating the items we use as a matter of appreciation and convenience(yes, it is convenient for us to buy an outfit rather than each time making each item), it must cost quite abit to do make.
I may have to wait for a sale, but that is just the way of it at this point.
I though, I would rather give the money directly to the artists that makes the lovely sets though. Because I doubt they are getting 100% of what I pay daz for.

Torquinox posted at 8:56 AM Sat, 10 August 2024 - #4488271

@DarkElegance Thank you :) I should probably read that article.

There are a few articles out on it. It's due to the fact that genAI gets its “materials” from the web. What is posted, to "learn" from. But as the web gets saturated with AI gen images and text, it starts “learning” from that genAI material. Causing issues with the outputs. It literally is “eating itself”. (I believe popular mechanic has an article on the text AI and it's starting to have issues in regard to this)

They have done studies that show that with a "limited training field" for GenAI, it gets…well…corrupted.
So if Daz is claiming its AI engine is only, trained on its own images, it should then start “eating itself” faster than one of the big web-wide genAI engines.

Bejaymac posted at 7:19 AM Sun, 11 August 2024 - #4488300

Main issue is that DAZ have a strict "no attacks" policy on the forums.

The company, it's staff, the forum staff, the content creaters and even the user base is covered by this.

So you can't heavilly crit them, slag them off, make them look bad, or even make them look stupid.

Before you ask, yep I've had thousands of posts deleted over there, and for all of the above, as a result I'm probably going to be one of a small group, who are "Pre Moderated" on a permanent basis.

Can you tell me, if that is the principle, what the post:
"Some companies will allow it (under the ideal of fan art), some companies will nail you between the eyes.
(fair use is a defence, not a reason to use. Its suppose to be used in court to defend/explain why you have the right to use something)
It depends on the companies terms"

Was breaking the "No attack" policy? (keep in mind, this was in reply to posts above it, stating flat out that daz was breaking IP right)
BTW the topic of the thread had been in regards to the EL and to fan art.
NOTHING in that post, is wrong. It is factual and provable.
It did not attack anyone. It referred to the fact some companies like Nintendo will, very aggressively pursue almost anyone using their IP and some companies, don't care and will let their fan base make what ever.
INFACT....
Provably(as it was shown via the email chain that followed this)
There were posts in that 18 page thread that were far, far worse in stating flat out daz was wrong and those posts were allowed to stay.
(They finally, after releasing items clearly direct copies of movie and book characters and people were going "hold up, do you even have the permission to do this" they removed the entire thread.)

I have had posts removed that did flat out state "Hey you have made a mistake" and on those times, I held my hands up and had to keep my mouth shut, because I was shown the ToS point it violated.

But the above post....didnt break anything.
That, was when I decided I had enough of their “favouritism” and selective censorship and very selective use of the ToS.


And btw, the "No attack policy"? I made a post in reference to how their wording of certain "sales" was confusing. Particularly to those with things like dyscalculia. I then had to get posts taking the utter mick out of the fact "Oh Daz math is too hard"(an actual post quote).
I referenced in my post that being “inclusive” shouldn't just be products that show a character in a wheelchair but also take into account that some of their customer base is going to be ND(neurodivergent). And it had plenty of posts that made jokes about it.
So that "no attack policy" must be very selective. But it proves the point that the mods, base their exercise of ToS rules purely on personal likes and dislikes and not on what the TOS is actually saying.

SydneyInPeril posted at 9:02 AM Thu, 8 August 2024 - #4488173

Torquinox posted at 7:40 PM Tue, 6 August 2024 - #4488114

So, there is a layer of reality that has been excluded from the conversation. Daz will say they "trained the AI with their own data" but that's only the top layer of data, the frosting. The underlying layer is made of stolen data, the same as every other AI generator out there. There are no ethical data training sets. They're all based on mass theft. That's because it takes billions of images and enormous volumes of text and enormous computing power to make the ai "smart enough" to do anything with the layer of frosting on top, the actual Daz data.

It all goes back to the Laion data sets. It's well documented that those are made of stolen data. Of course, you're not allowed to say "stolen data" on Daz site because it implies that some company did something wrong - Which of course all the AI companies did when they stole everything from everyone on the internet to train their AIs under the false auspices of research and fair use. Now the AI companies are making money off it and the AI industry has billions and billions of dollars being pumped into it. This apparently makes it all ok because we're all just little people dumb enough to share our work on the internet. So, it's ok to steal from us. And it is theft. When a company takes our work and incorporates it into their AI training data sets without our consent or compensation, that's theft. It was also ok to steal from famous artists and from Stephen King, too.

There are a few artists attempting lawsuits, but who knows how those will go? I do not expect much in the way of legal remedy. It is known that AIs have a habit of regurgitating parts of or entire works in its output. And it is known that earlier models are used as the starting point for later models, and it is pretty much impossible to remove the stolen works from the data set. So, once it's in there, it's in there.

That's the biggest frustration. There isn't a commitment to "delete it all and start over to placate the artists we screwed over", and anyone who thinks artists are "overpaid" are very much trying to jump on this and make it work - hell, anyone who thinks people are overpaid for anything are trying very very hard to jump on this and make it work.

It also shows how broken the entire copyright system is, since it pretty much is expecting the artists to go after the companies in court for enforcement, and otherwise is basically slanted in the direction of the biggest coffers. As long as the companies in question get to basically rake the internet, it takes away the biggest and best forms of advertisement from the artists because it's a serious risk to put anything on the internet because it will get fed into one of these engines without a lot of work to attempt to poison the input, and that only really works if enough artists agree to do the poisoning without so many doing it that all the engineers have to do is add a special case to inoculate against the poisoning. Granted, that was already a problem (just look at the art that gets downloaded and slapped on t-shirts!), but Generative Imagery Engines make the problem so much bigger because now an artist's style can be "emulated", and is much harder to point at in a court as a direct copyright violation.

I agree completely!

@Torquinox Very nice post in the issues with any generative AI model. They can not say it is trained purely on images they own. As if it did, it would start having issues with cannibalizing its own information. There is an amazing article on that that was posted to LinkedIn about that.

Nevertrumper posted at 11:14 AM Tue, 6 August 2024 - #4488106

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. 

You are aware, that 1-forum mods are there to uphold the ToS of a site, they keep abuse down and to make sure that posts adhere to the conversation thread. They are not there to abuse their power or unnecessarily censor customers. And 2-they are not supposed to allow their personal preference interfere with what is and isnt expressed, as long as it is within the ToS

Any professional forum I have been on, has adhered to those standards. If a site, a consumer site is so panic stricken, so fearing its customers as to have to slam the hammer down on someone saying,

“Some companies will go after you and some wont” in regard to fan art/IP that is a red flag of the biggest kind.

If customers simply asking (what is their legal and ethical right) if they have the valid IP right to sell materials on a specific Movie/book set(because it is not clear), scares them and makes them delete a forum post...red flag!

If they allow their own personal likes and dislikes to favour certain members and censure others, that is not PROFESSIONAL.

I am a forum moderator on a chat site, and we are NOT allowed to “I dont like that member, so I am going to chase their post” behaviour.
We are not allowed to base a decision if a post is "ok” or not, on if we “like” the person or not. If it doesn't break the ToS, it doesn't get removed. Its that simple.

They are standing on the statement they are “one of the biggest 3d marketplaces online”. Then they should act like it!
They should respect when their customers do the “Hey, uhm, you sure it's OK to sell that”? and simply(and proudly) go “Yes! We have procured the licence for....” and be done with it. Ends all speculation, promotes further sales, and shows they are being very proactive in both respect for the companies and in their customers.

Do they?
No!
Do they freak out, and go ban happy when someone dares to ask?
YES.
That is a red flag. End of.

If you are going to be in the public as a marketplace, that is not the same as some wee, personal gallery site that is held by a fan.
That is stepping up to cover things like consumer rights and laws. To step up and accept there are going to be questions you should be prepared to answer. There are going to be things like “Hey you messed up on this advert” (when they do).
If they can not handle that, perhaps....they need to do abit of self reflecting!

As for DA...I have gone up and questioned their leniency on underage images MANY times. I have questioned and challenged their leniency on copyright infringement etc. I still have my account there and still question certain behaviours of theirs.
This is not a "Daz" specific issue.

The moderators at Daz allow their personal friendships, likes/dislikes to colour their decisions. They have an issue with anyone even daring to say the site may make a mistake. Not even out right, doing something wrong! But just a mistake!
That...shows a very shaking base on fairness and legality.

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.

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.

SpookieLilOne posted at 2:04 PM Sun, 28 July 2024 - #4487824

https://www.renderosity.com/marketplace/products/152402/harmony-claws-and-rings-for-genesis-8-and-81-females

Those are good! But the set I had been looking at also came with toenails. So that they were long, curved and pointed.

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.

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!