Thank you Tima! I appreciate that.

Torquinox posted at 1:38 PM Fri, 18 October 2024 - #4490468

The economics now do not necessarily parallel conditions in the 1920s or  1930s.

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I will say, Germany in the 20s, in a certain way, is even closer. But we will not discuss politics or history here, my mistake for putting the thought in your mind. I think you underestimate the marketing mindset badly. If you had ever worked with them, you would understand the connection with DAZ. I do appreciate that the "scope" may be a bit broad for your taste. Please don't take that as an invitation to instruct those around you.

It seems to me this discussion is jumping the shark a bit. I've settled on a 4.22 build that suits me fine. I plan to stay there until all this settles down. It's quite impossible to say with any certainty what Daz will do going forward. They're privately held and can do a lot of whatever without telling anyone anything.

The economics now do not necessarily parallel conditions in the 1920s or  1930s. That was a common theme during Covid, that we'll be stuck in a depression. But it appears we are past that assessment. Some doom & gloomers say a depression could come in the 2030s, and that's only one possibility. There are some incredibly enormous variables, and this is simply not the place to delve into those. So, likely better to narrow the scope back to Daz and deal with the now

We have this Premier program. It does change the dynamics with respect to the relationship between Daz Co and Daz customers. For me, it has reduced my spending there. That's probably okay. I spent enough earlier in the year. My spending here dropped dramatically a few years ago and has never really recovered. Over there, it's still usually a better deal, with all the good and bad that entails. And objectively, I have a fair amount of stuff. It's a drop in the bucket compared to some folk, but I find it's a lot of stuff! And if I don;t buy another thing ever, I probably have enough stuff to make pictures in DS for the rest of my life. I'm not alone there.

To avoid getting charged that way, cancel your Daz+ account. It will run until its expiration date and you won't get charged when it expires. After you cancel, buttons will appear in the membership management page of Daz account for Auto Renew on Daz+ with expiration date shown and Choose Plan for Premier. Choosing that plan with time remaining on your Daz+ kills that time remaining. So, maybe don't press anything until everything has expired.

There are/were some personalized offers for converting Daz+ time into x months of Premier, but that seemed like a really bad deal. I passed on it.

I've been thinking, at some time in the future, for specific sales and promos, I might pay the membership for one month of something and then cancel it a few days later. The membership would last for that one month period and expire. I'd pick my times carefully. Could maybe get over that way. Or maybe I'm just done with all that. Not sure yet. For now, I still have residual Daz+ time. Not sure it matters.

I'm put off by all this, so I'm not in any hurry to buy anything from Daz now. So much for this year's Daz+ sale. What a mess!

Most any hair can be fitted to most any figure. Parent the hair to the head, adjust position, adjust morphs as needed. Pretty easy to do.

I agree with Wendy. There are Ways to Do Things! And there are online tutorials aplenty!

Thank you @msansing . Good on you and Rendo for making the effort!

I agree with, support, and second @Afrodite-Ohki's statement about AI art.

Let's be clear: Abstract art and Surreal art are not just weird, bizarre or left field (whatever that is). And they don't both go in the same box together. And none of this matters if there isn't going to be any attempt at clear definition or curation. People will still stick stuff wherever, at which point genre becomes irrelevant as a means of finding something. I see that in several genres.

Putting aviation and transportation with travel fails when one looks at what's actually in the travel gallery! Some pictures of places, a lot of pictures of people, some cars, some other stuff... It's all a mess and I still don't envy anyone the task of cleaning it up. Besides, aviation and transportation manage to stay on target more than maybe any other genre! Sure, there are some head-scratcher entries, but they are very few in number, especially compared to what I see in some of the other genres.

Sounds good. Thanks :)

It's a terrible idea! At least as described... I don't know why you're so determined to reduce the number of galleries in such a haphazard way. You might do better using some text and images with your genre galleries to educate your members, or post a reference page with an article describing the expectations. You can't make people read it, though some people will. You're probably a bit limited to what you can actually do with your categories by having a huge body of already-uploaded images. Nevertheless, you can make decisions about what happens going forward.

Just looking at surreal, weird, abstract, and alternative, you have compatibility issues. Lots of people don't really understand abstract art, what it is or what function it serves. Abstract is art more focused on the design aspect of the work - All compositions have underlying abstract designs that give them structure. An abstract work of art would emphasize that underlying structure, often dispensing with the conventional subjects of the work. Abstract art is not about objects, though there is such a thing as figurative abstraction. Even that is not just pictures of things assembled in a way that seems impossible - That's more for the surreal crowd. I've yet to see an online gallery of abstract work that would remain abstract without heavy curation.

Surreal art, on the other hand, is largely (not exclusively) art of the subconscious. It is deliberately and shamelessly weird. So, you can't higgledy-piggledy throw abstract and surreal in the same box as some surreal art is actually richly rendered illustration of objects. Yet even then, the objects may not be the point. See Magritte's Ceci n'est pas une pipe, among other works. That's more about the idea of how objects are translated into images of the object through the filter of the mind. We know the objects we see in images are not the actual objects, but we accept the visual representations. Similarly, one can render a cube, but that cube in the rendering is not a cube. It's a 2d representation of the cube. Even that - Not sure how much of that idea is actually surreal, but there is always some slop at the edges of any genre or movement - We have room to maneuver. Moving on...

The problem with lumping aviation, transportation, and military together is, not all military images involve aviation or transportation. Maybe military should be its own thing. Aviation is a form of transportation, so that can join transportation.

I see I'm the only one with anything to say about all this. Could be I'm the only one who cares? IDK. Back in the day, DA had a lovely, granular image classification system with volunteers assigned to keep the containers clean. They scrapped it all for the nebulous mess that is hashtag hell. Part of Eclipse - Can you imagine naming your site design after a phenomenon that blocks out the sun? Sort of fits in their case.

Anyway, glad to see you're not going that route. Still, simplification must be done carefully, with some nuance and caring for what goes into the galleries. I've no idea what "alternative" is supposed to contain, so I'm not really sure what you should do with that category. But maybe that should be defined or name-changed and refined so that it can serve a useful purpose without making a mess of some other genre. I don't envy you the task. Thanks for your time and attention. Cheers!

You might as well. No one here seems to know the difference anyway - plenty of overlap in all of them. You could also combine Aviation, Transportation and Military. I'm sure there are plenty of ways to reduce the number of genres.

Once one blocks the AI spammers and the folks posting 8 minor variations of the same render, it's not so bad. I can't really complain about the nudes or nudity - The store  is loaded with female figures and skimpwear. I've heard that's what sells and it stands to reason that's what people are rendering. We're shielded from the truly horrific, soul-searing, brain-melting stuff I've seen on other sites. Also, there is some good variation in style and goals in the galleries here. There are other sites where you see page after page after page of what might as well be the work of one creator because everyone is working in the same style with, apparently, the same end-goal.It's homogenous.

When I had my gallery here, I didn't get a huge amount of traffic, but I did get a good quality of interaction and even occasional notice from folks whose work I like and respect. That is probably the biggest reason I should get off my seat and start posting here again.

Thanks FirstBastion! I appreciate your candor.

DarkElegance posted at 1:55 AM Mon, 26 August 2024 - #4488784

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.

It doesn't seem to matter what the medium or market. For many who try to earn a living making art or being artistically creative, the artist's life is hard. Some find a place and make a go of it. Only an anointed few win big. They're the lottery winners. Many more try and fail.

Sounds like a plan, Doc Photon.