naw - no worries i was upset a while back when a competing merchant released a similar product with the exact same name about a month after mine, because i spent time promoting her and 'branding' her. i privately messaged that merchant and got nothing but rudeness in return. this is a hair product - not a competing product at all, not a texture/character but hair. looks great, danae - itll sell well. cheers, -gabriel (Blackhearted)

"Not at all. Where did you get this idea from? Downloading an image for personal pleasure doesn't even give you a "fair use" defense. It's like saying that stealing 1,000 is OK as long as you don't spend it." um, no. what a horrible example. stealing $1,000 would deprive someone - wether an individual or company - of that money, since currency is finite. downloading an image does not deprive the owner of the image, it merely makes a copy. if you insist on using the money argument, then use it properly: counterfeiting $1,000 would be somewhat of a better example, although still inaccurate. so what youre saying is, that during my last visit to an art gallery when i photographed a variety of sculptures and paintings, ive committed a copyright infringement? and ive also somehow 'deprived' those artists of their work? when an artist creates a work and submits it to a gallery - wether digital or traditional - they are not simply 'contributing' to their viewers, its a give & take situation. they provide the art, the viewers provide the feedback, recognition, fame, money, etc etc for it. to treat them like unruly children and remove their ability to save the work for non-profit, later personal viewing is disrespectful and ungrateful. if someone is so against it, then they should refrain from posting their art in public galleries and just paint it and keep it locked up in a safe at home where noone can ever see it. (ack had to wait 9 hrs to post this, damn power outages)

"Taking an image without permission from the creator is copyright infringment!!"" not if they upload it to a public gallery like this. if it were, wed all be in violation of their copyright since every single one of our computers downloads the image to the hdd (via caching) when we view it.

"No, it's not even a copyright violation. That only comes in if you DO something with the image. Wrong! A copyright is in place the minute a piece is created. Like it or not. Read the Digital Copyright Act. Taking an image without permission from the creator is copyright infringment!!" he didnt say there was no copyright on the image. but by simply saving it to your harddrive you have not violated their copyright - a copyright violation has not taken place.

i liked the way the old hot sellers was laid out. when you clicked on it, it took you through the top selling products of all time here, in their order of sales. now, when you click top sellers, its only RECENT top sellers. which isnt all bad, but there should be an option to also sort it as top sellers from day 1.

"I think what Renderosity needs is a full-time "critic" to help wade through the morass in the marketplace -- just as a film critic wades through the large number of bad movies that come out every year." umno. renderosity is so fucking cliquish (just look at the hot20) that i shudder to think how full of corruption such a system would be were it to exist. think the hot20 is bad? well - imagine what it would be like with money at stake. "But 1,200 merchants here? Really? " almost. 1107 right now. thats up from under 400 just a year and a bit ago. both a good and bad thing, IMHO. cheers, -gabriel

" It's relatively simple to prevent all image theft " i think you mean its relatively simple to deter some image theft. stopping it is a joke. even 90% is being very hopeful. there are at least a dozen ways around it. and besides - 'no right click' javascripts dont work in all browsers, and especially dont work if you simply disable scripts in your browser. punishing everyone for a few isolated cases of image theft is only going to serve to alienate the rosity memberbase, and the real thieves will laugh at these changes and go on doing what they have been. in fact these 'no-rightclick scripts' are most often a huge inconvenience to legitimate users since they disable honest right-clicking (not just innocent saving of images but also copy and pasting text and URLs from the comments, etc). i think that a simple auto-generated copyright notice underneath the image would do much more than this no right-click script - like the one on deviantart. -gabriel

pooka i dont think anyone is referring to the types of items in the marketplace here, but the quality and value level of some of them. even though i may not buy military vehicles, i still recognise that yours and kurokumas are an asset to the marketplace because of their quality. 'junk' would be if you had put them together in a few hours from poser primitives and textured them with solid material settings. it has nothing to do with the item, but the way its put together and priced.

umm, no - im not 'quality biased' against items that i dont buy. theres a lot of very well done stuff out there - was just looking at a car model that looks amazing for under $20, theres a wicked mech model, etc. i wouldnt normally use this type of thing in my renders, but i recognise the top notch quality and im considering buying them. what you make has nothing to do with quality. i could model something as simple as a high-res wine glass, set it up with morphs and excellent material settings, and i am positive i could market it based on its top notch quality. however, there are a lot of things in the store where its evident that people didnt put much time or consideration into, aside from an attempt to make a quick buck. "You also have to take into account the level of ability each person has. When I started with Poser, I bought light sets. Why? Because I didn't have a clue how to set up lights in my graphics. Now, I probably wouldn't buy a light set. For one thing, there are wonderful free light sets available and, for another, I can set up my own to my satisfaction (may not look like much of an improvement to someone else but I don't do graphics for other people). Same thing with textures and models. I don't do either so I buy them. If I ever got to a point of being able to do either, I would probably buy less. Oh well. I have a limit to my talent. I don't hurt you by buying what I need that is something you think is beneath you. " i agree. i would still buy a light set, however, if it were sufficiently complex enough and priced so that it would be valuable to me by saving my time. if it would take me 4 hours to put together just some of the light sets i need, then the $5 or 10 it costs in the store is worth it to me. but thats how i started out. i would create things for myself - my light sets, tattoos, textures, etc were just things that i had made for my own use and had been using for months. when people started commenting and saying that i should sell them, i finally did and they sold very successfully. btw - i dont just think that freestuff should be used as an 'initiation' for merchants before they get into the MP, but also as a continuing thing as a gift to customers. im working on several new things to put in freestuff actually (but need to find some place to host them), and i always update my older products even though it doesnt make me any money to do so - just as a gift to those that bought them. cheers, -gabriel

umm.. yeah ive noticed people saying what merchants they buy this and that from - and id like to make a suggestion: in the interest of keeping this a constructive thread and not one long advertisement (and potential flamefest), can we keep merchant names out of it? because i see this deteriorating either into merchants getting into a huff over being included in some 'im not buying from them' category, or an opportunity for friends of merchants to shamelessly endorse their products.

spit - theres no way to 'tactfully' approach this discussion - no matter what, people's feelings are going to get hurt. there is a problem in the marketplace. but i do know that renderosity is working on it. i think a stricter set of guidelines as to what is accepted and what isnt is the way to go, also a stricter set of guidelines as to product promos. runtime DNA is going about it the right way. i think that, first off, 3 product promos should be NECESSARY, not optional. i think its owed to the customer to give them at least 3 previews of the product youre expecting them to spend their money on. i also think that at least a committee should look over the marketplace submissions and at LEAST give advice on the price. ie: if someone puts a set of 4 poses in the marketplace and expects $30 for it, you KNOW its not going to sell. i think some intervention on the part of the marketplace staff should be made there to advise the person to lower the price to something more realistic. the marketplace staff could also look over the products that arent selling so well, and perhaps give the merchant some feedback and suggestions - ie: how to present it, what possible improvements/upgrades can be made, etc. cheers, -gabriel

ford3auss, youre very right. you know whats frightening? when i started out here there were under 400 merchants. now that number has more than tripled in under two years. the average quality of products in the marketplace has dropped as well. not saying there arent good ones - in fact there are many talented new merchants. however, it seems to me that a lot of people are attracted to the marketplace by the lure of making easy money -- little do they know theres no such thing. meanwhile the massive deluge of these 'lets see if it sells' products is diluting the marketplace.

"and they never list the negative comments on the product page which is suspicious in my opinion. " i dont think that merchants should have the ability to toggle comment visibility. if some comment is truly inappropriate or untrue, or a flame attempt by someone who just doesnt like the merchant then a simple message to an admin will have it removed. i display every comment. i believe i have one thats negative - its on the way i organise my filestructure and names not the product itself - and i have that displayed with all the rest. cheers, -gabriel (Blackhearted)

youve kindof contradicted yourself. i dont disagree, but: youve pointed out that youre moving forward. your early stuff, released for free, you admit wasnt that great (ive never seen it so just going by what you say here). then you released at daz afterwards, and now have another product here. well - thats what i think every budding merchant should do. start out with freestuff - build up a userbase through there, and then when they feel they have items with real value put them up for sale in the MP. "If NO ONE would sell these products that MM is railing about, a lot of potentially good merchants would never even get the chance to become good." noones saying they shouldnt sell them - just that many of them really belong in freestuff. cheers, -gabriel

hmm.. i think were on different wavelengths here.. by 'poor quality', i dont refer to the type of items people create, or the amount of skill they have in creating them. im referring to pricing, and item value. someone might not be the greatest texture artist out there, but if they spend the time and create their product right, with no bugs or thrown-together stuff, and price it to give the customer fair value for their money - they will have a successful product. again, this ties into my annoyance with the 'marketplace experimentation' and 'lets see if itll sell' attitude. you dont just throw a product together and use the marketplace as a testing ground to see if people will buy it. its not a testing ground, its a store that many of us take very seriously. you dont have to be the most highly skilled person in the world to create a solid product, you just need to be willing to invest the time and effort, and price-position it to give the customer true value for their money. because thats what this all boils down to - value. thats why things like poses sell. sure, everyone can create them. but a lot of time goes into proper natural poses, and people are willing to spend a few bucks for the convenience of not having to spend that exhausting amount of time to get them right. some people would rather pay $5 to save that time, others on mere principal would rather do it themselves, or dont place such a high value on their time. when you create a product you need to keep the following things in mind: 1. is a product on this level, or a better one, already available for free? (ie: if you model a bankers lamp for poser, and theres already two much higher resolution, more realistic ones in freestuff, forget it). 2. would the average poser user be able to create this product on their own relatively easily? -and if they could... 3. would it be time-consuming for them to do so? you need to provide something thats not already out there for free. it needs to be a product that the average poser user cannot create for themselves easily (ie: a 'hi-res cube' or some simple object created from poser primitives is not a good idea). if they CAN create it themselves (ie: poses, presets, lights) then make sure that you are providing them with something that saves them time. because if you dont provide them with something they cant create themselves, something that is a valuable time-saver, or something thats not already available for free, then you have no product. jarm - your product is a good one (although somewhat of a niche item), because it provides something that most people would not be able to produce themselves (few people have such high megapizel cameras). also, even if they did, its a timesaver - since it would take quite a bit of time for someone to go out and take all of those, and if someone needs them for their work its a very fair price. cheers, -gabriel (Blackhearted)