Timberoo posted at 6:27 PM Sat, 9 November 2024 - #4491194

They'll delete a lost just because they don't agree, doesn't have to be offensive or against TOS. 

Yes it does.

The weightmap is always a modifier, it's just that it cannot do anything if the slider value is already zero. In general the sliders in the Surfaces pane would have the maximum value you wanted anywhere on that surface, or even on the whole model, and then you would use a weightmap to reduce that in the areas that didn't need the maximum value.

The node is just for accessing the weightmaps, they actually belong to the dForce modifier itself and they modifiy whichever proeprties they apply to (by multiplication - so if the dynamic strength is set to 0 in the surface properties then no weight map can make it non-zero, but if the strength is set to 100% then a weightmap can set the actual strength on a vertex to any value from 0 to 100%).

Don't forget that the last few rounds of new nVidia chips have had a gap of a few months before iray can use them at all - unless this time is different I wouldn't expect to buy one of the new series for use in DS until later in the year (the actual wait hasn't been consistent enough to make a guess at how long it might be this time).

darken666 posted at 4:18 PM Sun, 20 October 2024 - #4490587

RHaseltine posted at 2:03 PM Sun, 20 October 2024 - #4490582

darken666 posted at 10:06 PM Sat, 19 October 2024 - #4490552

RHaseltine posted at 5:24 PM Sun, 13 October 2024 - #4490292

DarkElegance posted at 4:13 PM Sun, 13 October 2024 - #4490286

Removal of posts, ignored by support and having their concerns twisted around...

Very few posts have had to be removed, none for objecting to Premier per se.

Gaslight much?

Fact, certainly compared to some other contentious issues.

And yet I've gotten more “We’ve removed your post because it referenced or quoted a deleted post" emails than any time since the DRM mess.

I've seen whole threads removed and only the most neutral or favorable posts moved over to the only permitted thread. 

A casual glance at the threads on Premier would show that we do not remove posts for not liking it.

We did merge a number of threads on Premier with the main ones, mainly the premier Questions thread in the Commons, which is the likely explanation for most of the disappeared threads you noticed.

darken666 posted at 10:06 PM Sat, 19 October 2024 - #4490552

RHaseltine posted at 5:24 PM Sun, 13 October 2024 - #4490292

DarkElegance posted at 4:13 PM Sun, 13 October 2024 - #4490286

Removal of posts, ignored by support and having their concerns twisted around...

Very few posts have had to be removed, none for objecting to Premier per se.

Gaslight much?

Fact, certainly compared to some other contentious issues.

There is a thread by Man Friday on the Daz forums listing the changes (though I think the version in Premier is slightly tweaked, at least in UI).

darken666 posted at 4:02 PM Sat, 19 October 2024 - #4490531

You've clearly forgotten what happened when they released Connect and the encrypted products. The possibility of Connect leading to subscription content was brought up then, but was moderated out, you may have forgotten since moderators like yourself were busy deleting any posts that mentioned the possibility. Also DAZ only agreed to the compromise after a lot of backlash, and they were practically forced into it because they had no intention of listening to customers till they spoke with their wallets. It wasn't swift or painless. 

We probably removed speculative claims, yes, as we do - otherwise people just amplify them and build on them (see this thread for an example). And my recollection is that, while you are correct about the scale of the backlash, the change to time-limiting Connect-only status was pretty brief.

It is clear, however, that any attempt I make to correct specific misapprehenions is simply feeding into the overall conspiracy theory so I will concede the field henceforward.

darken666 posted at 3:34 PM Sat, 19 October 2024 - #4490527

Do you think we're stupid? Obviously there was a subscription element in Connect, because that's exactly what they're using it for. 

Manifestly there wasn't - and indeed they pretty switftly agreed it was a reasonable compromise to have things encrypted for a while (was it a year of six months?) and then make them available unencypted and through DIM. Connect was an anti-piracy measure, as well as a tool to make it easier to install missing content needed for a scene and to reduce the amount of data that needed to be downloaded for an update (just the changed files instead of the whole zip) among other things. But it did need to be able to validate orders to enable decryption on load (which it did by getting the order history from Daz, rather than sending information about isntalled files to Daz), and that provided a tool that could be used for the subscription-linked content with additons to the application (to ask if the user had a sub, plus whatever it uses to know which content is subscription-linked).

darken666 posted at 4:03 PM Fri, 18 October 2024 - #4490477

Really, we get it, Daz is going full Adobe and they're trying to do it slowly in hopes of not pushing customers into leaving en masse. They've got moderators trying to make it sound like everything's business as usual, pay no attention to the encroaching subscription features and content. Enjoy the happy cartoons, it's the last free update you'll ever get. Remove all criticism so it looks like everyone is happy with Premier and wants more stuff locked down in the subscription. 

You may get that, but it is not an accurate reflection of reality.

At this point I wouldn't put it past them to have a timebomb coded in 4.23 if not earlier versions so if you don't update each time there's a new release your program starts falling apart and when it eventually becomes subscription only, anyone who doesn't keep really old versions of Studio on hand will end up either subscribing or not being able to use their content anymore.

They tried moving to subscription content when they released the Connect DRM, but the backlash was too much then. Now they're trying again.

No they didn't - there was no subscription element in Connect, nor any suggestion that there would be.

darken666 posted at 3:33 PM Fri, 18 October 2024 - #4490473

RHaseltine posted at 3:25 PM Fri, 18 October 2024 - #4490472

darken666 posted at 4:17 PM Thu, 17 October 2024 - #4490431

RHaseltine posted at 3:51 PM Thu, 17 October 2024 - #4490430

There was a survey, the usual Survey Monkey thing sent out to a range of customers, and it did ask what people would like in an enhanced subscription service (I can't recall the wording, or how it was presented - possibly one of those arrange options in order of preference things). It was certainly discussed by the participants on the forums (and possibly here too).

So a loaded survey sent to a limited sample, designed to get the result that would let marketing do what they likely would have done anyway.

I can't recall the wording to comment on the first, but a fair number of regular customers did comment on it so I doubt it was greatly limited.

So you do expect us to believe that the survey indicated that everyone would be happy to see subscription content that they would never own and would have to pay rent for?

Because I find that very hard to believe. But then it's not like the actual results would be made public, so marketing could say they turned out any way they wanted.

If I can't recall the wording I can't recall the exact questions - so no, I  am not saying that (nor do I know what the answers to the survey were).  All I am doing is pointing out that your previous claim/speculation is certainly not wholly accurate:

> There's some claims there was a survey and customers actually asked for Premier. Makes me question how that survey was done and how loaded were the questions? Since it clearly wasn't all customers, how did Daz/Tafi pick who got a survey? You don't need a degree in statistics to tell you that you would get a different answer from a sampling of the top spenders than you might get from those who aren't buying hundreds of dollars worth of content every month.

darken666 posted at 4:17 PM Thu, 17 October 2024 - #4490431

RHaseltine posted at 3:51 PM Thu, 17 October 2024 - #4490430

There was a survey, the usual Survey Monkey thing sent out to a range of customers, and it did ask what people would like in an enhanced subscription service (I can't recall the wording, or how it was presented - possibly one of those arrange options in order of preference things). It was certainly discussed by the participants on the forums (and possibly here too).

So a loaded survey sent to a limited sample, designed to get the result that would let marketing do what they likely would have done anyway.

I can't recall the wording to comment on the first, but a fair number of regular customers did comment on it so I doubt it was greatly limited.

There was a survey, the usual Survey Monkey thing sent out to a range of customers, and it did ask what people would like in an enhanced subscription service (I can't recall the wording, or how it was presented - possibly one of those arrange options in order of preference things). It was certainly discussed by the participants on the forums (and possibly here too).

"Content that is removed due to letting a Premier subscription lapse is not guaranteed to be available on reinstating the membership at a later time" does not mean it definitely won't be, especially (I would hope) in the cases where a lapse was due to technical/account issues

Assuming the shell doesn't already have the  reight morph - it would still switch off when you unfitted the item, but you could then set it manually.