O.K., I'm home from work now, and I've had a chance to look this thread over again.

Zev0 and Razor, I owe you both an apology. Zev0, I took your earlier post to infer that I made a declarative statement about a different artist making G3F -- that I had made a statement to the effect that "this is a fact" -- and it's obvious that I misread the intent of that comment. And Razor, for me getting on a high horse about it.

Let me just say in my defense, it was very early, I had just woken up and was still on auto-pilot, I was caffeine-deprived, and was trying to squeeze in some computer time as I was getting ready to go to work, so I was not as attentive as I ought to have been, and not as civil as I usually try to be, and again, I do apologize. I am not a morning person (I usually prefer to stay up 'til 2 or 3 A.M. and then get up around the crack of noon), and early mornings are not a good time for me to be trying to have a conversation with anyone about anything.

Razor42 posted at 5:20AM Thu, 05 November 2015 - #4237022

I don't think it's personal Morpheon. Just two artists disagreeing about which brush fibers are best :)

But I would have to say I'm with Zev0 on this one, G3F base looks like an evolution of the base mesh from G2F not something totally different IMO. You did make a few rather large calls, and of course they are your opinion and you're entitled to them. But I wouldn't expect others not to disagree.

Blandness and appeal are subjective qualities that mean different things to different people, and the fact is that I'm less impressed by my first impressions of G3F than I was with my first impressions of the original Genesis. That may have a lot to do with the fact that G3F appears as more of an incremental change over previous Genesis figures than the original Genesis was over V4, and other than what artists like JPayne and Balassa are doing with G3F, I'm still waiting to be blown away by her. And Zev0, yourself, and others are more than welcome to disagree with my opinions.

Zev0 posted at 4:45AM Thu, 05 November 2015 - #4237011

So does G2 look different to G3? Yes, but not to the extreme to say its from a different artist.

I never said that it WAS from a different artist -- I said it looked like it COULD be from a different artist, which was definitely my impression when I first loaded her up in DS. Two very different statements. You may not like me, dude, but don't twist my words.

Zev0 posted at 9:48PM Wed, 04 November 2015 - #4236978

The figure bases were created by the same person. Also do not confuse a figure base to a character. G2F & G3F are figure base platforms, generic, no special features ie blank canvas, no name. V7 or V6 are characters built on those bases, and characters are developed by different artists. The question is, what is Pauline? Is she a generic figure base platform or a character?

So who's confusing base figures? I -- and I assume most people reading this thread -- already KNOW that G2F and G3F are base figures, and after reading the thread over at RDNA, it looks like Paulette is a base figure, too. I simply said that G2F and G3F look different enough that they could have been developed by different artists or different teams of artists. G2F is much more realistic-looking right out of the box (so to speak), while G3F looks even blander and less appealing than the original Genesis did. At first glance, the only visual improvement she had (aside from a couple of extra joints in the upper chest and neck) was that her throat and the top of her feet are a little more natural-looking. I know JPayne is not using a stock G3F for his artwork, but worked-up copy of V7, and he's getting 'way better results out of her than just about anyone else I see using her. I see a lot of renders of V7 where her skin look less like actual human skin (certainly less V6's skin did) and more like a slightly-deflated ballon or mylar bag, with an odd crinkly look to it.

I'm not a big fan of the previous Poser people, and while I'm not exactly blown away by the couple of images I've seen of Paulette, I've also seen worse (much, much worse) and it would nice to have Poser figure I could really get behind.

Yeah, but I wasn't terribly impressed with G3F at first glance, either. JPayne has gotten some beautiful results out of her, but I'm still waiting to be impressed by most of what I see done with her. G2F right out of the box looks pretty good, but not G3F -- I don't know this for certain (it's one of those things I meant to look into and never got around to doing), but I've wondered if G2F and G3F were created by two different artists or sets of artists, they're so different-looking from each other. I do have to admit, tho', that I think pretty much all of the Poser people to date are ghastly-looking things -- clunky knees, elbows, and shoulders, and I can't look them in the face for very long. If this IS a new Poser person, it's definitely an improvement. Give her to someone like Blackhearted and see what he can do with her.

Black__Days posted at 5:31PM Wed, 04 November 2015 - #4236968

wheatpenny posted at 9:20PM Wed, 04 November 2015 - #4236940

(but I'll hang on to my 4.8 installer for the first little while till I decide if I'm going to keep 4.9...

This brings up an interesting question. Are there places to get the older version installers still? I happen to have my 4.5 installer, but neither 4.6 or 4.7. Also, what were the specific last version numbers of 4.5, 4.6, and 4.7?

You should be able to download the current 4.8 build from your Content Library. Do it soon before DAZ releases the Public Build of DS 4.9, and the 4.8 build is gone for good. Earlier versions are gone for good from the DAZ site. (You can probably still find them somewhere, but telling you where and how to look for them might get me in trouble with the moderators here -- the DAZ moderators weren't too happy when I gave the same advice to someone there once.)

Anyone with any sense should back-up ALL of their content that they purchased from DAZ NOW. I myself have two 1 TB external hard-drives that are duplicates of each other -- one that sits on my desk and that I use just about every day, and the other sits in a water & fire-proof strong box, just in case. If the files on one go bad, I can rebuild them from the other, and should the unforseen ever occur, I wouldn't lose more than a few days worth of downloads. I'm telling you this now because I think it's foolish to trust that DAZ will honor their promises that the ZIPs and DIM downloads will remain beyond the immediate future -- they keep saying that there are "no immediate plans" to discontinue them, but in the next sentence, they'll tell you that they "can't make any promises about future developments". If you're the type who doesn't keep a copy stored safely and close at hand, and thinks that you'll always be able to download something via ZIP or DIM should you ever want or need it, you may be sadly disappointed in the not-so-distant future, when your only option will be through DAZ Connect and that same content is downloaded to your hard-drive in encrypted form. (My guess is that DAZ will come up with some song-and-dance about how it was a waste of resources to keep three separate download systems running simultaneously, or that the code from one or both of the older systems interferes with the code for DAZ Connect so they're taking it out -- something to that effect that gives them an opening to scuttle it, and when people start to complain, they'll already have plausible deniability by reminding everyone that they "can't make promises about future developments".)

"Then DAZ is going to lose some PA's since some have expressed the opinion on the Message boards that they do not want their product encrypted."

Must have missed those when I was still following that thread, or they posted such after I dropped out. The only content creator I was aware of was Zev0, and he was all for it.

JasonGalterio posted at 5:23PM Mon, 02 November 2015 - #4236546

DAZ is obviously investing money into the DRM transition, but while leaving the same items non-DRMed. So then what is being gained for DAZ?

Items are only remaining unencrypted for the immediate future, and anything downloaded via DIM and ZIPs are unencrypted. DAZ promises (for whatever THAT'S worth) that these methods will be available for at least a few years yet, but at some point, new content will become DAZ Connect-downloadable only (my guess is that Michael 7 kicks it all off). I would look for DAZ to kill the ZIPs and DIM entirely as soon as possible after that, leaving only DAZ Connect (with its content-encrypting ways) as the only means to download content from the DAZ store. It's already been stated openly in the DAZ forums that DAZ Connect encrypts key files of everything that passes through it, so even older pre-DRM content (V4 and M4, for example) will be encrypted if downloaded through it. To encrypt some items but not others would be for DAZ to tell one content creator that their work is worthy of whatever protection their DRM can provide, but that another content creator's work is not, and I can see a revolt happening if they were to do that.

parkdalegardener posted at 5:15PM Mon, 02 November 2015 - #4236490

I already have G1 and G2 running as Poser native. No DS needed. Took 10 minutes. I have props from DAZ that were in Studio formats when purchased. They are working in Lightwave, Poser, and Vue. Took less than 5 minutes. I have G3 running in Lightwave with a Lightwave rig. That too almost 45 minutes. It has a facial rig and uses the same skinning method as Studio.

And at some point in the next couple of weeks, I would love to talk to you about how you accomplished that. Since I'm starting out as a Poser noob, I haven't used DSON at all, and in looking through some threads about it, I keep coming up on references that it isn't even necessary. I would love to be able to expand my options by continuing to use Genesis and Genesis 2 in Poser and possibly Blender.

Razor42 posted at 1:34AM Mon, 02 November 2015 - #4236476

I have to say there does seem to be a conflict with the point that the DRM encryption is easy to circumvent, but I'm going to lose my content from it being encrypted. Either >the DRM is ironclad and content is totally pirate proof and you may lost your content. Or in the event of a disaster there will be enough innovative individuals to help you >restore their functionality. You can't have both.

My opinion is pretty obvious and my faith in Daz3D has yet to be misplaced but only you can decide what's right for you.

The last thing I'll say (for now, anyways -- I REALLY gotta get to bed).

The likelihood of DAZ simply disappearing (or even just the servers) is pretty small, but disasters do happen. (New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina, the Japanese Tsunami, just about any earthquake or wildfire in California, etc.) And that's just the Acts of God-kind of stuff. Then there's the financial stuff -- I don't know how old you are, but you may or may not know about how the video game industry in the 1980s was nearly wiped out and the damage it did to some companies (Atari, Activision, etc.) that you wouldn't have thought were vulnerable (or at least would have thought were better able to weather such events). DAZ may look good on paper now -- many companies do -- and then next week, you see that they're in bankruptcy court, because they or a parent company are on the ropes financially, and all the assets -- buildings, vehicles, furnishings, SERVERS, etc. -- get seized and sold off.

When people talk about a culture change at DAZ, they're talking about a very real thing. Maybe DAZ is all hugs and kisses when you're visiting them in their offices, but I'm one of those who noticed a switch, and my experience with them has been a pretty mixed bag, which is precisely why I (and a lot of other people) are a lot less willing to offer them the kind of trust you seem to be -- and certainly not the kind of trust that the scheme they're proposing requires. DAZ MAY do this or that IF they will or IF they can; and if they can't, then MAYBE somebody else will do this or do that (again, IF they can or IF they will) -- that's a lot of ifs and maybes -- too many to be comfortable.

Risk mitigation is PRECISELY why I'm firing up Poser now -- it's my transition tool away from DAZ Studio, with the certainty of salvaging at least SOME value rather than risking losing ALL value in DAZ's encryption scheme. And I wasn't kidding when I said I spent about $400 (or more) a month at DAZ. That money will now be going towards a new rig, a license for ZBrush 4R7 and possibly Substance Painter & Substance Designer, as well as subscriptions to Photoshop and Digital-Tutors. I'll even pick up some stuff here at Rendo that I've had on my wish-list for a while -- but not for anything that is for DS-only content and not from anyone who still sells at DAZ. It's gonna have to hurt before DAZ will listen to reason, and the only way to do that is to starve the beast.

That's it -- I'm off to bed. Have a good one, and thanks for the conversation...

Sorry, guy, but it's way too late and I have to be to work way too early. Have a good one...

Razor42 posted at 1:18AM Mon, 02 November 2015 - #4236472

Though no content 'period' works in a bricked Poser including your own files.

A six month window to get up to speed with a new app with whatever content you can port versus no window and all your content encrypted and someone else holding the key? Is that even really a choice?

Unless of course daz3d are true to there word and remove the encryption in worst case scenario or an enterprising programmer can script a decrypter for the files in the event the licensing preventing that is void. ( If that worst case happened to DAZ3D)

Gee -- wouldn't that be a form of piracy? Because if someone else WERE to take possession of DAZ's servers, they'd also likely retain the rights to the content on it. And anyways, isn't that probably what's going to happen here in the next few weeks or months? Some enterprising individual is going to start posting hacked copies of DS with the encryption spoofed or bypassed in such a way that DS either doesn't bother looking for an encryption key or thinks that all keys (or even no keys) are still good keys. Then, once they figure out how to copy and distribute the files of any piece of encrypted content, anyone with a copy will be able to use that content with a defanged version of DS. That is, IF they don't figure out a way to simply decrypt the content itself.

Razor42 posted at 1:00AM Mon, 02 November 2015 - #4236471

Forgive me I thought your issue was what happens to your content if Daz3D becomes unviable. Which rational leads to the question of, if you migrate to Poser what happens to your content if SM becomes unviable. I wasn't talking about bottom lines I was talking about risk mitigation.

Also just my opinion but speculating about ways to pirate content is probably inadvisable.

Sorry -- it's storming here pretty good right now, and the power went out briefly.

As far as risk mitigation goes, if SM goes down for good, I will at least have the option of porting what Poser content I can to other apps (Max, C4D, etc.), and LOTS of Poser content is other app compatible (especially if I shop beforehand with the very consideration in mind); on the other hand, if DAZ goes down for good, any DRM content I have is also likely gone for good, because there is absolutely no guarantee that DAZ will or even can distribute a decryption key or unencrypted copies of my content, so the likelihood that ALL OF IT will be gone for good is way better then the likelihood I'll get it in an unencrypted format. It's a guarantee of some recoverable value versus the very real possibility of losing all value, with DAZ on the losing end of that scale.

Not advising people on how to pirate content, merely illustrating the fallacy of DAZ thinking leaving in the ability to export DRM content to other apps will keep their DRM secure. Security experts demonstrate all the time how to take down aircraft, how to rob banks, etc., and they're not thieves or terrorists, nor do they condone or encourage the actions of those who are. The exposures that they do are done in the interest of risk mitigation -- same thing here.

Razor42 posted at 12:43AM Mon, 02 November 2015 - #4236454

if you have DS installed and unlocked or a backup of of 4.8. your content will always be usable in DS.

You will NOT be able to simply roll-back your DS installation after the encryption goes live. If your post-encryption copy of DS locks you out, any encrypted content will NOT function in an earlier version, because the ability to decrypt that content does not exist in earlier versions.