No matter how good a figure is, it will never take off well unless it has supporting products.

You could make the most realistic figure, with great bending, and easy to pose, that renders like a dream. But unless you have a ready made catalog for it when it is released, people will not have any use for it.

I have been through several new base figure releases in my time as a product maker, and it takes about a year for the market to start to really adopt the new figure as something worthwhile for their runtimes. So that means for that first year, not many product makers are going to take that gamble on slow sales....and as such, there will not be many new products for that figure.

Without the new products for the figure, the interest in that figure dies away. That is the cycle of death for new figures. We have seen that with several "new" poser figures in recent history.  It is not because the figure was all that bad (well..ok..some were LOL). But nobody wants a figure that only has 2 dresses, and a half dozen skins. It is really not that usable.

What saved DAZ and allowed them to keep sales strong with their genesis line is that they were able to make it so that much of the previous generation stuff still worked "decently" (not perfectly...but decently) on the new generations. So there really was no time where the figures could not be dressed and posed and look fresh in a scene.

Independent figures do not have that luxury.

HW made a sincere attempt with Dawn to have a number of product makers attempt to back her with products, that is why she has done better than a number of new figures......but in the end, she just didn't hold up to popularity like the daz figures, and the market returns were pretty low (speaking of my personal experience that is...and is not meant as a reflection on her market sales as a whole)

Characters do not sell themselves. Even if something is well made, you still have to catch the customers eye. So apart from making a good character, a product maker has to also become their own marketing person, and ensure that they have the tools to properly market the figure.

The main thing is to make promo pictures that capture both the eye and the imagination of the customer. Simply showing details is not enough. Show the "character", give the figure life and personality. Place them in interesting shots that can inspire the customer. You have to "Sell" the character with everything you have in your promos, because if the customer looks in the store and sees the same old shots over and over again, then they wont bother to take the time to look......you have to draw them in, and make it interesting enough for them to want to click.

Rawn

Not just duplicated...but they are coming every day all week.

I am getting them too

I believe that the point of my original post was missed.

The point is both softwares CAN be discussed together, and mentioning both softwares in a post is not argumentative, and causing app wars. They are so very similar that there should be no problem at all taking about both of them. Many people (myself included) use both programs and have been developing for both programs for many years. There is no issues where sides must be chosen and lines drawn. THAT is where the discomfort in the forums grows.

Back in the day we would openly talk about any program, be it poser or bryce, or max, etc, and no one cared. If something was not of interest to them they simply skipped the tread. But now some people feel like they have to play forum cop and tell people what they are allowed to talk about and what they are not allowed to talk about. It would be a much nicer environment if people would get off their high horse and respect the moderators enough to let them do their job, and let people talk. What good are forums if people are not allowed to talk. That is a big reason why people are no longer coming in as much as they used to.

@**Rawnrr ** Until you showed up, no software had been mentioned, .

....................................

Allow me to direct your attention to the second post in this thread.

The problem is the real troublemakers apparently dont realize that they are the problem..and they are still here in this thread even.

I don't often come to these forums anymore due to the likes of those who insist on berating any comments I make simply because they hate daz and I sell at daz. I have been posting and helping this community longer than most of these people have even been around, I enjoy helping people solve their problems. Yet because of a couple peoples own personal vendettas against anything daz, it makes this place very uncomfortable.

In the REAL world there is no conspiracy, and people happily use both Poser and DS and really do not have problems talking about both programs. There is no need in civilized discussion to force a wedge between the two. Both programs are closely related as are the products that are shared by both programs, so it is only natural that both get discussed together. That is how human beings share information.

This place used to be a community for sharing. Now all these fanatics try to use this place to push their vendettas and make this place uncomfortable for any open discussions. It is like a software version of racism....very disgusting.

But I dont get bullied out by ignorance like that ...if I can help someone here, I will keep doing so.

It does not take long to look through forums if you skim past the nonsense and look for industry specific threads...thats why I came into this one, the title caught my eye, and there were good questions posted by the OP....it is sad that some people are trying to throw in personal attacks just to get the thread locked because they dont like anything daz related.....well wether you like it or not, daz is a part of this industry and has a significant place in poser world.

"Could scripts be written to allow scene setup in Poser and rendering in DS/iRay ?"

That is a good question, and really should be looked into by someone good with writing scripts for poser (way out of my league).

Rawn

Actually DAZ PA's like to keep up with what is happening on most forums. It gives us information on the state of the industry and provides ideas for the future growth.

So I would not take it as someone personally stalking you...it is just general information hunting.

But you have to admit...the nonsense you put out sometimes can really be entertaining, so hard to forget.

You could make it as a clothing item, then include a preset to turn the base figure invisible underneath it.

That would probably the the most efficient approach.

.

"Completely correct. Keep u with trends.
The new trends for Poser being Dusk and Down, Rex and Roxie, and M4/V4."

However if this person intends to sell at DAZ, then the poser trends are really not going to be too helpful. (though I find it funny that you list M4/V4 under "NEW" trends LOL)

.

Two years is a very long development cycle.

Like all tech, things go out of date pretty quick. Suggestions made 2 years ago will likely have little relevance now.

Even two years ago, V4 sales were slowing down and genesis sales are climbing. Now with G2 figures, the sales on G2 stuff is 1000 times better than sales on V4 stuff. So to remain viable in the marketplace, you really have to keep up with the trends.

Morphs first, then textures for me

"To all:
Roll back in time. 10 years ago, V/M4 was the only possibility. Content creators where few, and they "rightfully so" made very good money."

.........

well...that is not really true. I have been in the market longer than 10 years, and the number of sales back then are no where near as high as they are now. There really was not good money to be made back then. There were less than a handful who could make a living off of product development. Now there are significantly more full time developers, and some of us are making good money with it.

The market has grown, but so has the quality of the figures, and also what kind of quality people have come to expect from their products. What would have passed as high quality even a couple years back just wont do anymore. People only want the best. (rightfully so)

Rawn

There you go turning it into a poser vs D/S battle again.

You must know that leads to nothing but thread locking.