And you do what you do very, very well. Thanks.

http://www.poserforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=2625&start=60 That is the link to see the Sixus discussion on this topic. You can see, they aren't bashing.

BTW, the real issue is whether or not TSR/WoTC/Hasbro will file for an injunction over the Beholder figure. They have closed down (temporarily) several on-line games that used that figure, so I expect to see an injunction soon. Heck, I invented the Sahaguin, never got paid for it and even I'm afraid to use it in a competitive use for fear of being sued. Though http://www.gameslore.co.uk/acatalog/Product/PR_MGP0006.html shows that you can feel free to use them if you want to be limited to d20.

Finally ... You can take a look at the attached gif to see the "rough body shape" Take the heads off & there's a surprising amount of difference, as there is a huge difference in the meshes. But, at the end of the day, guess it is a moot issue. Only question anyone has had for DAZ is if there would be any objections to those who had already downloaded the character before it was pulled using it, and it appears from what is posted here that no one objects? Am I correct on that? Thanks.

Only question anyone has had for DAZ is if there would be any objections to those who had already downloaded the character before it was pulled using it, and it appears from what is posted here that no one objects?

Dan Farr has already answered that question (in post #141) --

And I quote:

*Julialynn,

Thank you for asking. Absolutely feel free to continue using her as you have before. The concern that we have had was with the distribution of the model and not the personal use of it. And if others would like to use it to and don't have it, maybe they could appeal to Sixus1 to distribute an RTE encoded version.*

Moo

So if some people are disenfranchised with DAZ because of this, does this finally mean that Elle might get an alternate set of textures? You can tell there's a lack of interest in a figure when people aren't even trying to make her boobs bigger :( PBM, the doubtful

Well, I personally just got out of bed here, so yeah - this is the first opportunity I have had to reada the posts since I signed off on my last one. First up, wow - Dan Farr himself. Looks like this IS as important as I thought it was. And you know what - I really don't debate anything he said. Everyone has the right to protect their work. Alot of work went into V3, and it is that third-party work that has made her so successful. I know that they encouraged Sixus1 Media to keep Lilin2 around, but under certian "terms and conditions" they found objectionable. I started this thread talking about those "terms and conditions". Others may have used it as springboard for supporting other figures (be it Elle or the new Jessi/James combo), but that was & still isn't my aim here. Not once have I stated that DAZ were "wrong" in pursuing Sixus1 Media for their Lilin2 character. they have every legal right to do so under the EULA Les agreed to when installing V3. And THAT is what this thread was started on - the EULA "terms and conditions". Note that while Dan Farr said alot, he did not once refute what the impression of the EULA being debated here. In fact, he spent most of the post justifying that position. Now while I can afford "legal counsel", I cannot afford a court case halfway around the world to clarify the DAZ position in a FAQ (which you have to search through an ambiguously related question to find the information anyway) which is in direct contradiction to the terms in the EULA. This is not a "conspiracy", at least not on my part. The information is right there for everyone concerned in the EULA. Read it for yourself. If you can afford it, ask a legal professional what it means. If you don't trust me or my "agenda" - take half an hour out of your day to read everythinig in the EULA yourself and take it from there. From that you can determine that I am a crackpot, simply deluded/misinformed, or have fouond out something disturbing. In any case, I will have accomplished what I set out to do - and that is warn people about the "terms and conditions" they agree to in the DAZ EULA. To clarify a few things about my "agenda": I work as a software developer and make a substantial sum of money from it. I deal with EULA's all the time and have at times needed to refuse due to terms and conditions that were insufficient for my development needs. So when I chose to read the agreement (in light of the Lilin2 removal, not in defence of it) - I noted very similar conditions to those which I refuse to develop software under. I clarified it with a lawyer and she informed me my suspicions were correct - that I could not use the "joint parameter" data in clothing content I produced as it would be classified as "proprietary data" and could not be redistributed. In light of the FAQ announcement by cooler, I asked again about the matter and was informed that "new terms" could not be added in a "legally binding" fashion via an online FAQ. Given the EULA prohibts ALL redistribution without provision - I believed that the FAQ "clarification" to be a new term (and hence unenforcable). Someone else's lawyer has stated that the FAQ could be brought into a court of law and used as 'evidence of interpretation", however one would need to go to court first. And as I mentioned earlier - I cannot afford that and I doubt most merchants here could either. I also hold my reservations on such an action being completely successful, due to having seen contract lawyers at work. Tehir general advice is - if it isn't in the contract or a signed clarification thereof, it isn't worth the effort. Please note that not once have I said DAZ could not undertake the action against Sixus1 they did or that they couoldn't/shouldn't have put such restricting terms in their EULA. I simply decided to use this forum as a means of informing others about said EULA and what it means for merchants. Given that a high percentage of the people here can simply have a look at their Poser 5 EULA for comparison, it is not hard to compare the terms under which development for third-party figures can and has been done. Were it NOT for the Poser 5 EULA, I would have assumed that, like Microsoft licensing, it is just something that everyone has to live with in Poserdom. However that is not the case and, as such, I wanted others to know about it. I thank Dan Farr for his post, as at the very least it lets me know there is a new V3 product in the wings that might be interesting to purchase. Perhaps he will take into consideration people's issues in this thread when they draw up the EULA for the product. Perhaps not, that is a business decision they have to make.

There are many issues about using a FAQ to make an EULA more restrictive, however, in terms of making it less restrictive, see "estoppel" ... "waiver" and "detrimental reliance" ... I think poor Mr. Farr and Mr. Garner just need to be left alone right now. Guess there isn't any problem with second hand distribution of Lilin either, as long as it isn't for profit? If someone could clarify that for me (which is the question I should have asked as XENOPHONZ notes clearly, the one I typed doesn't cover it and was answered). My personal suspicion is that you can blame the lawyers and just feel some sympathy for the poor artists and businessmen involved who are probably just trying to do their best. On the other hand, it never hurts to clear the air if we can be polite about it.

I think poor Mr. Farr and Mr. Garner just need to be left alone right now. Yup ... I agree. >>On the other hand, it never hurts to clear the air if we can be polite about it. Here? Never happen. LOL

I have to say that I am happy with the direction this thread has gone. It has been narrowed down to what I believe are very direct, sincere and important questions regarding the issues. Hopefully my response will address them. Some of them specifically and some of them generally.

First of all, I want to address a few of BH's questions directly.

BH wrote:
i hope youll admit that with only daz in-house products to support it, V3/M3 may not have fizzled out but it definitely wouldnt be anywhere near the success it is now.

I could not agree with you more on this statement and in fact acknowledge this belief every chance I get. I do believe there is a true symbiosis in every sense of the word.

BH Wrote:
we create items for your products. and from what i see in this thread according to your EULA once we choose to support any daz models you pretty much own whatever we create

Our claim in on our works not yours. If our work is contained in part of your work then we claim ownership of our portion thereof. For example, if you create an original dress mesh to fit Victoria, we do not claim ownership to that mesh. You may choose to re-fit that dress mesh to a totally different figure (using the other figures JP's). We claim no ownership on your dress.

BH wrote:
Posette shipped with Poser. V2 had a VickyP4 morph that was pretty much V3's head on posette's body, and allowed it to wear all posette clothing. please explain to me the difference between this and what sixus was trying to accomplish with lilin.

While part of Zygote we entered into a non-exclusive license agreement with Metacreations allowing them to use the models within Poser. Zygote retained full rights to the models other than that agreement. When DAZ formed out of Zygote, those rights (along with all other Zygote Poser-ready content) were retained with DAZ via a legal contract. A simple answer to that question is that we own rights to use those figures any way we choose to.

BH wrote:
it was a pretty underhanded move by daz to at one swoop appropriate all of the freestuff that was made for posette

Actually, I am not aware of what situation you are referring to. We have never appropriated works that has been developed by outside parties. We purchase the rights to works but we do not appropriate works.

I am going try to answer the rest of the questions on a more general basis from here on. First of all, we do not spend time pro-actively looking for models that may have problems. Most of the figures that may have concerns are brought to our attention by outside parties. We address them when we are aware of these issues. The creators of Dina V contacted us very early on and we have an agreement with them that allow her to use Victoria's U.V's I am not personally aware of the other models mentioned in this thread. If the creators of those models are concerned that they may have problems with either DAZ copyright or EULA with them, they may consider either contacting us to discuss it or use the RTE encoder.

I want to go back to the statement that Cooler posted from our FAQ sections. I don't know that I could explain this any better than what is said here.

"However, as always, the content of DAZ's CR2 (and other) files remains our proprietary data, and the use of this data in the creation of derivative, competitive products is prohibited. In the case of our human figures this means that the CR2 data may be freely used for the purpose of creating figure add-ons (such as clothing, etc.), but may not be used for the purpose of creating another humanoid figure, which could compete with the original. Please note that Geometry contained in the OBJ files may not be used to create any derivative model, add-on or otherwise."

So to sum it up, DAZ does not propose to claim any rights, ownership entitlement to the human form in general. We do own and retain all rights upon the human figures that we have created or purchased title to (including derivatives thereof).

Concerning the DAZ EULA. I want to mention once again. If any developer is personally concerned with the terms of our EULA reaching beyond what we have made very clear that our intentions are, please contact us directly and we will put in writing privately, what we have put in writing publicly here and in our FAQ's and other forum posts.

2nd hand distribution of Linlin would have the same restrictions of first hand distribution and in fact more. Not only would DAZ require it to be RTE encoded, arrangements would need to be made with Sixus1 pertaining to their rights of the character.

I hope that this has answered most of the questions generally and many of them specifically. It is really difficult to keep up with each specific questions. But I do hope that the message has come across clearly that DAZ not only appreciates the support by outside developers on our projects we recognize that our success depends upon it (Vicky has become a much better product because of the support of products like SMV and others). I also hope the message comes across strongly that we can be contacted directly to help resolve specific concerns that people may have.

Sincerely,

Dan Farr
President, DAZ Productions.

i didnt mean appropriate in a physical sense, but in a sense that by including posette support in V2 it pretty much eliminated the choice between posette/vicky, and pretty much eliminated the need for posette altogether. the freestuff providers who provided their work for free for posette were all of a sudden found themselves supporting vicky. this may not seem like a big deal but at this time many of them were opposed to the commercialization of the poser figure market and their support of posette was with a 'keep it free' intent. now i dont support either side of it, i was just pointing out that ironically this was the exact opposite situation that you are now in with sixus. luckily you had the license to allow it. thanks for answering my questions dan. to be honest im still a little nervous about the license, but your posts and levelheadedness have done a lot to alleviate it. i apologise for freaking out earlier. please try to understand that most merchants are a nervous bunch when it comes to things like this EULA issue since many of us are far too busy to sit there and pore over the license agreements with a microscope, so we tend to react pretty badly to threads like these pop up. cheers, -gabriel

Dan, Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately for a lot of 3rd party developers, they are stuck providing the bulk of the content for themselves. This is due to the fact that most of the content providers are channeling their time into supporting DAZ figures. Coincidently, this is why figures such as Elle from Neftis at polymage.com have never taken off as Neftis became ill shortly after the figure was released. As incentive to take interest in these figures, the 3rd party providers are stuck with the choice of making the bulk of the content themselves or trying to provide cross compatibility with other figures. Perhaps situations like the conflict with Lilin2 could be avoided if DAZ and its brokers supported 3rd party figures like Elle, Dina, Natalia, etc. At present, I'm not exactly sure as to how that would be possible since last I heard there was a policy of not supporting figures brokered from other sites. But I could be wrong on that. thanks, Jeremy

"Elle, Dina, Natalia,"!!!!! These characters are DEAD No future in poserdom Interjecting thier names at ever opportunity wont change this Sad reality. .......Sorry

" "Elle, Dina, Natalia,"!!!!! These characters are DEAD No future in poserdom Interjecting thier names at ever opportunity wont change this Sad reality. .......Sorry " thank you for that wonderful example of a closed mind.

Thank you Dan, I will be contacting you or your representatives soon about such an agreement. I assume that I can make public any such "standard" agreement? Rgds, EK

Wolf, you're not particularly endearing yourself to anyone. There has been a revival of interest in Judy and Posette which are far inferior figures to the ones that I mentioned. If you have no interest in support for 3rd party figures from DAZ, then perhaps you should not comment on the likelihood of them being revived since there are some of us who do use them. I'm tired of hearing these excuses as an attempt to poison other artists against non-DAZ figures...

PBM: i could have sworn that natalia was sold at daz at one point. the problem of little support for 3rd party models is the risk factor involved. look at the latest alexa thing. id flay the creator alive if i spent months creating clothing for a character only to have it yanked for a copyright dispute. not to mention you can never tell the original creator's intentions. what if they pull the product off the market? youve wasted your time. what if they jack the price up to $150? youve wasted your time. what if they get an offer they cant refuse and end up selling the model and all rights to a company? youve.. yep.. wasted your time. in this regard i trust daz, theyre not going to rip someone elses mesh off, theyre usually the ones getting their meshes ripped off. its all a matter of trust in the merchant - so far i havent seen a 3rd party character i would trust enough to support. you are placing a huge stake in that character's success when you jump on board.

"thank you for that wonderful example of a closed mind." Reality sucks dont it :-) But please consider that its not "closed mindedness" thats preventing content creators from supporting those characters. they just didnt "Catch on" and their moment has long passed in posers Fleeting market. ....Sorry

actually no, thats not reality. there are other figures and guess what? stuff is selling for them. please, take it elsewhere.

Nope...... pubilc forum i'll be staying :-) Have you considered becoming a content creator yourself???

I am you already you know. you should check out my stuff.. I don't do clothes etc atm.. not got round to that. and I meant leave the attitude out. there are other figures, stuff does sell for them. fact of life. daz is not the only fruit.

Blackhearted, I appreciate your points. There's a lot of energy surrounding the development of 3rd party figures and then when they're released there's this sudden disinterest. It would be nice if some of those figures I mentioned could be supported at Renderosity, but there's this idea that only DAZ support sells.

I wish I could Do Clothing Myself so I could make Some Sci Fi armor For Males thats To My liking Maybe one day :-/

khai, specifically, are you satisfied? And all the others, you are satisfied? I am not. Now, I am not a merchant making my living selling into the Vicki third-party market; the fears of those who are may have been allayed by Mr. Farr. My issue is with the blatant disregard for deeper issues. 1) Mr. Farr put enough on the table to clarify the position of his company with regard to the specific case of Sixus. He made the facts known, but he did not (nor can he) respond to the deeper reason Sixus withdrew the character anyway. He is not (and frankly should not) be responsible for responding to that reason, unless and until Sixus should choose to make this clearer. Case closed. 2) He is offering to put in writing the assurances made in this thread. The language and format of such written assurances may be the same as or on either side of that taken here. They will be written by lawyers. 3) He also conceded one outside point: "For example, if you create an original dress mesh to fit Victoria, we do not claim ownership to that mesh. You may choose to re-fit that dress mesh to a totally different figure (using the other figures J.P.'s). We claim no ownership on your dress." This is fair: you can't take a dress driven by DAZ JP and sell it for another model with the Daz-derived JP system in place. I respect Daz for having won it's market fairly in open competition. I have been vocal about that. I am excited that they have a new generation in development; as a consumer and Daz Platinum Member, I hope they have abandoned the horrible Unimesh and have started over, as it Mr. Farr seems to say, modeling from human beings. As a possible future competitor, part of me wishes that will take a long time. In either case, bring it on. Others may cringe that, notwithstanding the above, I am still confrontive. Also, since I intend to be a player in the Poser market as a filmmaker and possibly as a merchant, I may be revealing myself as a trouble maker with what follows. So be it. Unless I missed it in the sheer density of these exchanges (and I will take correction should this be pointed out) Mr. Farr made no response to the objection to the "substantially similar" clause, and chose total avoidance of the specific question about models that can take V3 textures. So, if someone started from scratch with mesh, bones, textures and morph sets for a brand new female character that had that nose/poutylips/amazonbody look that opens wallets here, at RDNA, etc., and at Daz, and that model could wear V3 textures and take clothing intended for V3 (with non-Daz JP somehow re-rigged), but had NO Daz DNA in any respect, but her look and feel were substantially similar to Victoria3..... Mr. Farr deliberately chose to address none of this. To me, that is telling. The proactive "substantially similar" penumbra is there. This clause is NOT necessary to protect against objective stealing, only 'look and feel' competition. He is giving away Vicki, and everyone who installs this 'free' model has signed on to it. They are baptised as followers. His FAQs amazingly get considered as part of that agreement, even though they are not IN the agreement click-approved. It would be interesting to see what would happen if someone took fresh mesh and went after the the Victoria-crazed market fair and square. It is tempting to tap in. Mr. Farr concedes that "DAZ does not propose to claim any rights, ownership entitlement to the human form in general." That is correct: Daz did not create, nor does it own, the attractor that drives Victoria; Mother Nature did and we all do. Signed without alias, John Donohue President, White Tree Studios Pasadena, CA USA ::::: Opera :::::

clothing intended for V3 (with non-Daz JP somehow re-rigged)

Clothing that is intended to work for V3 works around a specific set of joint parameters. If the model and the clothing do not have the same exact joint parameters (well, some of the blend zones and such on the clothing can differ slightly if the clothing is baggy or large), the clothing will not work properly on the figure. This goes for ANY Poser figure, not just DAZ's. This is the reason why V2 cannot wear V3 clothing, and V3 cannot wear V2 clothing.

So ... if your intent is to design a figure that is 100% compatible with V3 clothing straight "out of the box", without morphs, without scaling, and so on ... in other words, without ANY need for modification, there is no question that the model would have to be shaped the same, AND it would HAVE to use DAZ's joint parameters. There is no way around it.

Message edited on: 03/19/2005 23:24

I take that back. There is a way around it, but it is not what you would expect.

You see, you COULD create the model with a similar body shape, but you could give it DIFFERENT joint parameters. Which means the grouping would probably be different.

But then, you would have to regroup every piece of clothing out there all over again as well. That is defeating the purpose of making a new model that wears the clothing of another model. And if that were easy to accomplish, then everyone would have done it to V2 clothing when V3 became available. Being that that is the most time consuming part of creating a model or clothing, you might as well make a whole new character and all new clothing.

Message edited on: 03/19/2005 23:40

deecey, i agree the clothing issue you point out IS the sticking issue. in your second post, though, you hit on the 'next best world' where the clothing merchants would see the benefit of taking their successful 'little black dress' and making one for the new upcomer. Not as much a Home Run as 'out of the box.' Frankly, Daz has some great advantages by getting where they are. They hold the high ground which they won fair and square. ::::: Opera :::::

John (Opera Guy). Not avoiding the question just as I had stated have been overwhelmed by too many. Here is a specific answer to your scenario. If someone arrives with the character that you have suggested without having to copy DAZ's copyrighted and Eula protected products then I don't see how we would have any claim to protect it. But realistically what are the chances of that randomly happening . Here is a test. Does the new work require the use of the original DAZ file to get to the end goal? For example. If you are building a 3D woman model, do you need to load Victoria into the modeling application while you are modeling to use her as a guide or a template? If it does then it clearly is derivative. The same things goes with JP's, UV's etc. Don't make derivatives of the files. Create it from scratch and then there will be no need to encode it. And to answer the question further, I don't know how you can end up with the same UV's on a different mesh without somehow copying them. I hope that I have addressed your question accurately. If not please rephrase it for me so I can understand better what you are asking. Sincerely, Dan Farr President, DAZ Productions

Mr. Farr,

Thank you for responding.

It would not randomly happen, It would be deliberate. It would be someone saying to themselves, "gee whiz all of the attmepts to support non-Victoria models have fizzled, no one really likes the way they look, everyone wants the look Daz tapped into."

Such a developer might then say, 'so much for fighting it, I want to join it' and begin development of a model from scratch, not by loading any portion of your intellectual property into the modelling program, and certainly not blatantly stealing your files. They would just attempt to capture the 'essential look and feeling' that makes Victoria so successful, such as the certain set to the mouth and nose and the body style that has become so familiar to everyone. This would be done by memory and reference to images, not by studying the bones and mesh.

I know this is a brazen point with which to confront the president of an important corporation, but here goes anyway. It just feels like the "substantially similar" clause in the EULA is designed to address just such a situation -- to deter the emergence of a model that has NO Daz DNA whatsoever, but does have a substantially similar look and feel. I don't know any other reason you would have it in there.

Please let me be clear...I am not involved in any business plan to take this action, and in fact would rather see either your company or Curious Labs or another party come up with a hugely successful alternative to Victoria. My motive is: I think Victoria is a poor model, and I do not like it that she has won such a following. That's as honest as I can be about this.

I respect you for coming into this wild forum and respresenting your company straight away.

Thank you,

::::: Opera :::::

And all the others, you are satisfied? Actually, yes. The answers are clear, and, quite frankly, honest and fair. Can you take one figure and fit Vicky's clothes to it without running them through RTE encoding or something else? Sure, with enough magnets (arghhhhh). But seriously, Farr has been as straight up as one could expect. As for Les. Les Garner over at Sixus1 pulls figures all the time, even when they are selling, if he isn't happy 100% with them. He has a history of doing that (heck, my favorite figure got pulled last year, the Dark Young still isn't back -- and it is a great figure with people asking for it. I'm glad I bought it when it was for sale, but I'm sorry it is gone for now). I'm not sure there is anything more for him to say. Well, I've had enough of this thread, though I've enjoyed it and it has been interesting. Everyone knows what it takes to release a V3 compatable figure now -- and how some figures have gotten permission, everyone knows what they can and can't do with Lilian2 if they have a copy, and we all have a good rumor or two about V3 pro. And everyone knows Les is working on L3 as part of an open source collection of human figures and that L3 will not be compatable with V3. Guess we can all wait for the rest. Peace.

Opera

In the scenario that you have mentioned DAZ would not have issues with the new model. No matter how good of a memory an artist may have, in my opinion, it would be impossible to get into what could be considered substantially similar without using the original mesh to get there. The human figure is much more difficult to claim substantially similar than it would be for a character like Micky Mouse. Because a figure has a nose, eyes ears all in humanoid proportions does not mean that a figure is substantially similar. We could make no such assertions.

I believe that the substantially similar clause is there to help us with issues around a model being a derivative of another model. It is to prevent a model (or images of that model) from being taken into a modeling application and used as a template or guide upon which an entirely new wireframe mesh is created or shrunk wrapped to either all or part of it. Even though this method could produce a completely different looking wireframe mesh it would not make it any less of a derivative product. You could potentially have two wireframe meshes that don't share any of the same points or segments but in topology (how it looks shaded) they could be nearly identical. The question that could be asked is, could Shape A have in any way be created without using shape B? If the answer is yes, then it would be difficult to prove that the meshes were substantially similar. Based on this explanation, the probability of someone creating a substantially similar model to another model without using that other model to get there in likely impossible.

I am not an attorney and my opinions are based on my limited understanding of these issues (I have to say that). With that being said, I would encourage people to please not make derivative figures unless they are fine encoding them to the figure from which they were derived.

I sincerely hope that this has clarified our position. :)

Dan Farr
President, DAZ Productions

Thank you Mr. Farr ::::: Opera :::::

actually gave up. one of the conditions of L2 being still on release as to be Encoded. yet, there are other figures with V2 and V3 features availible which are not encoded. aaking why this is gets no reply. so, L2 has to be encoded when figure A does not need to be. shrug all I want is an answer. and for cooler to apologise for his quite frankly appalling behaviour above, and for Daz to make known in their EULA that the FAQ on their site is infact legally binding as the EULA on your screen so further mistakes will not happen. (plus having a further legal document that binds you and you don't know about it is bad. it should be part of the EULA or indicated by the EULA. saying "well they should read the site...." is not enough.)

Khai Wrote: actually gave up Actually you didn't give up posting your questions again. You have even added some requests. I will try to respond more specifically to your questions and requests. Please note that in my prior responses I was answering some questions specifically and some generally due to the sheer volume being asked. All though your questions may not have been addressed specifically I felt they had been addressed generally. Your requests on the other hand likely were not addressed. Khai Wrote: one of the conditions of L2 being still on release as to be Encoded. Yet, there are other figures with V2 and V3 features availible which are not encoded. My Quote from post 163: I am going try to answer the rest of the questions on a general basis from here on. First of all, we do not spend time pro-actively looking for models that may have problems. Most of the figures that may have concerns are brought to our attention by outside parties. We address them when we are aware of these issues. The creators of Dina V Contacted us very early on and we have an agreement with them that allow her to use Victoria's U.V's I am not personally aware of the other models mentioned in this thread. If the creators of those models are concerned that they may have problems with either DAZ copyright of EULA with them, they may consider either contacting us to discuss it or use the RTE encoder. While I believe the above response accurately addressed your question it may not address what I think might have been your underlying question why has DAZ contacted Sixus1 and not the others? The answer to that is Coolers post number 95. Lilin2 is clearly a derivative work of Victoria based on joint parameters, UV's and topology (referring to it's shape not the polygon cut and layout). Khai Wrote: and for cooler to apologise for his quite frankly appalling behaviour above I assume that you are referring to post 119 and quite frankly speaking, I disagree with you and don't find his behavior appalling and see no reason to ask him to apologize. Especially compared with the tone of many of the other messages in this thread. Khai Wrote: and for DAZ to make known in their EULA that the FAQ on their site is infact legally binding as the EULA on your screen so further mistakes will not happen. (plus having a further legal document that binds you and you don't know about it is bad. it should be part of the EULA or indicated by the EULA. saying well they should read the site... is not enough.) This is unnecessary. The fAQ's on DAZ's website do not and cannot in any way legally bind an end user (you) beyond what they (you) agreed to upon installation of the software. It can on the other hand add terms that in fact make our EULA less restrictive (intended to support developers who develop for our products) if we so desire and make it legally binding upon ourselves. That is what we have done. If there are developers who feel that our FAQ's and other written statements are not legally binding enough on DAZ, they can contact us and we will provide additional agreements for them. Some people reading this may be wondering why I have been so persistent to attempt to answer the questions that are being pitched at me. The answer is that I want to emphasize to them that DAZ is encouraging development of our products that support our products. We completely recognize their value to help make our products more effective and useful. We reserve the right to restrict our products from being used to create new products that circumvent the need for the original from which it was derived. I have done my best to address the questions in this thread. It has been exhausting but hopefully for those observing it has been beneficial in some way. I will ask that rather than continuing to post any further hypothetical questions, that people read the FAQ's on the DAZ page concerning these issues. If there is a need for answers or clarification to specific questions regarding projects that you are working on then please feel free to direct them to us. Sincerely, Dan Farr

Message edited on: 03/20/2005 10:30

ehh, after sleeping on this another night perhaps this isnt such a horrible thing. i mean really.. if someone comes into the market and creates a new figure, with a unique yet appealing body style on the quality level of V2/V3 is that such a bad thing? why must it be the same body shape as V3? if people have to purchase new clothing for that model, so be it. few people use the first clothing packs out for these models anyway, its usually the latest thing that gets used the most. and to be brutally honest (without naming any names) the reason that a lot of these models have not succeeded - besides shaken confidence in the 3rd party models due to infringements such as the one recently by nesterenko in alexa - is because they arent on the same level of quality. one of these figures, while being a decent looking model, had some serious issues with her hands and joints, and the last time i looked they still werent fixed. why the hell should i bother supporting a figure if the creator wont invest the effort to fix areas like this? another one had very skillfully modelled breasts, each perhaps higher res than posette in her entirety, but lacked finer details like properly modelled nostrils, corners of the mouth and the geometry around the eye. another one looked decent and had a lot of morphing capability but was just far too wasteful a mesh: people need to learn that 'ultra high res' isnt necessarily a GOOD thing. there is no need for 50,000 polys in a breast because a breast has very little detail. its a spherical object, perhaps subdivision of the polys near the crease beneath them gives a nicer and more natural blend to the body but having a 50,000 poly breast is incredibly wasteful. breasts (well, in terms of poser) never have wrinkles or lumps or strange geometry so a simple couple hundred poly shape is more than sufficient given poser's aggressive smoothing. so what im trying to say is that while these alternative figures are nice in that they add variety to the marketplace, the shame is that most just end up looking like poorly made vicky clones. when i see a mesh that has an appealing non-vicky shape and is put together with the same level of quality and intention of support them i will jump on it immediately, and so will a lot of other merchants. cheers, -gabriel

Thanks, Gabriel. You summed up my feelings on this entire issue very well.

Agreed!! well written Gabriel

'and to be brutally honest (without naming any names) the reason that a lot of these models have not succeeded - SNIP - is because they arent on the same level of quality' gabriel, I have to agree. Reading dan's post where he mentions the work involved on V Pro, it should be obvious to anyone that making a major figure is now almost beyond the means of individual creators. I'm not saying this is a good thing, but given the commercialisation of the poser market, it was a pretty obvious development. The bar has been raised so high for human figures (mainly by DAZ themselves), that in order to get above it, it's no longer enough to make a figure using traditional methods. Body scans, mapping of physiques, hiring models, and all the other stuff involved, now require a team of people, plus the money and resources to undertake a major project, which not many creators have. My big disappointment is that CL doesn't make a bid in the content market. I broker through DAZ, and strange as it may seem to make a comment like that, I firmly believe that competition is healthy, wherever it comes from. Or perhaps I should say, lack of competition is unhealthy. CL has the money and resources, and if they got into creating content, it would act as a spur to DAZ. (Not that they need one by the looks of it). Just as, sooner or later, Daz Studio will spur CL into making better software too. People like Catherine (Mec4) have raised the bar in textures. She has a full studio setup, she's a good photographer, and she pays the models. Result = extremely high quality, and if you want to compete, you have to match it. Anyway, I'm sorry in a way that individuals are being slowly elbowed out, but if users constantly expect more and more realism, the market will provide it. That's entertainment, folks! mac

More good points. Thanks, mac! 8-)

"but if users constantly expect more and more realism" Hmmm...and yet we see the toon market consistently growing...

Perhaps the reason for that, though, is because of the difficulty in modeling a "real" human. With toons there is less expectation of what it is supposed to look like. It is easier for a single person to develop a good toon figure, whereas people expect a lot more realism from a model that is supposed to represent a real human.

'It is easier for a single person to develop a good toon figure, whereas people expect a lot more realism from a model that is supposed to represent a real human'

Spot on, deecey. You only need to look at the number of creatures and aliens around to see the same principle at work. Nobody can say for sure what an alien should look like, so it's all down to imagination and talent in figure making. It's not being measured against what we see in everyday life. Who sees toons and aliens walking around every day?

mac Edit - Maybe I shouldn't have asked that question. LOL.

Message edited on: 03/20/2005 15:05

*"I have to agree. Reading dan's post where he mentions the work involved on V Pro, it should be obvious to anyone that making a major figure is now almost beyond the means of individual creators. I'm not saying this is a good thing, but given the commercialisation of the poser market, it was a pretty obvious development.

The bar has been raised so high for human figures (mainly by DAZ themselves), that in order to get above it, it's no longer enough to make a figure using traditional methods. Body scans, mapping of physiques, hiring models, and all the other stuff involved, now require a team of people, plus the money and resources to undertake a major project, which not many creators have."*

ehh.. i totally disagree. (sigh, im trying to bow out of this thread peacefully and without stepping on any more toes but you are not making it easy for me with a statement like that)

personally im not a huge fan of this 'scanning' thing. a company may spend tens of thousands of dollars to scan in someones 'actual' body, but then that still must be tweaked into a morph... and whats to say that someone is going to find that body style more appealing just because its based on a real person.
take a look in the gallery - a lot of it is fantasy. not to mention that 'scanning' someone in robs creativity and style from 3D art. look at how popular 'the girl' is - do you think kim goosens scanned her in?

weve seen some scanned in people already. personally, im not too impressed. whats the allure? 'woo its based on a real person'. great. if every single work of art ever painted were strictly based on exact human proportions things would be pretty boring. not to mention that just about every 'real person' - even if they can be duplicated reasonably well into 3D, can use a tweak here and there - thats why plastic surgery, health and cosmetics are the biggest industries these days. hell a skilled morpher can take reference photos of a model and produce the same result as having the person scanned in - at thousands of dollars less cost, but would that same morpher hesitate to make some small changes to that morph to fit their own sense of aesthetics, or to give it some character? no, and this is the part of 3D we call 'style', and why it cant be duplicated by a machine.

for those who pursue absolute photorealism (which, imo, defeats the purpose of 3D - if you want absolute photorealism sans style then hire a real live model for $50/hr and take a thousand photos for your gallery instead), perhaps they will feel more confident knowing that they are working with a scan of 'an actual human'. me, well.. i like morphing figures, and im not going to go look for a day job just yet. in the end it all comes down to the appeal to the customer, 'scanned from a real human being' may sell a few more copies but in the end its actually likeing the body or the style thats going to sell it to the customers.
the V3 body is supposed to be a duplication of an actual human. i have no doubt that daz did a good job in duplicating whoever that was, but does that make people like the default V3 body or head any more?

as for meshes? yeah, there are many modelers out there who can put out high-quality professional meshes of V3's calibre or better. the problem is they arent very interested in the poser community - theyre busy doing professional work. you think zygote are the only people on earth capable of modelling the V2 mesh? (V3 is based on a subdivided V2 mesh). as for the ones that are working in the poser community? well.. many of them dont want to commit to the months involved in making something like V3, they just go with the flow instead.

now im not downplaying the work involved in V3. but i am saying that you should take all of the marketing jargon with a grain of salt (sorry dan). for example on the daz site there were pages upon pages of how the V3 textures were photographed using tens of thousands of dollars of uber-amazing equipment to make this groundbreaking amazing super-real texture. now its a fine texture and i have no doubt they did spend a lot of money on creating it using the methods they described - but there are people sitting at home with their $300 digital cameras making better textures. look at stefyzz, morris, syyd, etc, and no - theyre not using photos of 'supermodels' or $50,000 cameras and equipment.

part of the reason daz has such an advantage is because people buy into all the marketing. i could care less if a skin texture was created from a supermodel.. its just photos of skin, and in the end its only going to be the texturer's skill and the nature of the model's skin/pores/coloring that determines how the tex looks. given the choice to make a texture out of paris hilton's anorexic, tanning-salon-roasted ass or 18yr old mary jane from down the block who has natural coloring and skin that hasnt been destroyed by applying makeup 30 times daily, my choice is clear.

and now before someone thinks im just bitching about daz, think again - i have my problems with the RO marketplace as well.
"if users constantly expect more and more realism, the market will provide it."
the pursuit of realism: must 'photorealism' always be the pinnacle of 3D? is the girl realistic? is shrek realistic? are tim burton's creations realistic? if not then why are they so popular?
personally id like to see more highly stylized characters and environments in the marketplace rather than this blind pursuit of 'ultra photorealism'. if you want the ultimate in photorealism take a photo. some of these textures these days are approaching that anyway: 'wooh, look - it looks like a photo from this angle'. umm.. yeah, thats cause it is. its a 4000x4000 photo mapped onto a reasonably flat plane and rendered at 800x800, sure its going to look just like the photo you took to make the texture. magic? skill? umno.
how about seeing some originality beyond pasting a photo onto a UV map and soft-erasing the edges?

now please let me flee in peace :)
i went off the deep end when i first saw this thread, and posted some things id rather take back (although im not the type of person who goes back and deletes my posts) and apologised for. but a statement like 'daz is the only company capable of producing something like V3' screamed at me for a response.

cheers,
-gabriel

Gabriel, go in peace. Thus saith Deecey. LOL

Now that Blackhearted is gone, I guess it is safe to talk about him.

He raises a question which is pretty much on topic, as the underlying thread of this thread seems to be the similarities of figures. (cf "The human figure is much more difficult to claim substantially similar than it would be for a character like Micky Mouse. Because a figure has a nose, eyes ears all in humanoid proportions does not mean that a figure is substantially similar. We could make no such assertions." Dan Farr)

the pursuit of realism: must 'photorealism' always be the pinnacle of 3D? Blackhearted

I think he is right. The pursuit of photo-realism is naive, and it has nothing to do with art, but with artisanship at best.

The fine art world abandoned representationalism (in favor of abstractionism, impressionism, etc) when cameras became cheap and anybody with $5 for a Brownie could produce an image more perfectly representative than the finest fine artist could.

When the phony CG holy grail of photo-realism is finally attained and becomes available to Poser users, we will be thrilled with it for fifteen minutes. Then we will have to start to learn and think more about what real art is and could be (and it probably won't involve scanning bodies and patching together photos on a template, IMO).

I think it is healthy that this conversation has logically moved to a related and important issue... From the point of view of an animator... There are two schools of aesthetic philosophy in conflict in the West, naturalism and romanticism. Many think the continued drive to 'photorealism' will make animated film better. Yet...the cell-shaded world continues on its merry way achieving more and more impact, while photorealistic animated films go nowhere. Why? Is it because the technology is still not sufficiently advanced? I submit not. It is because good film makers know it is not necessary to have literal realism in animation....the audience will supply the verisimilitude in between the 'holds' and the absence of human skin texture...as long as the story, plot, characterization .... WORKS. In fact, they will forgive vastly more 'unrealism' than they will if viewing a live action film. What works for the mass audience of the West is romanticism. I don't mean 'romantic' in the "please kiss me and fill my heart" sense....I mean it in the "here is a story bigger than life with an emotional pull and a narrative story line and a dramatic (usually happy, but not always) ending." This is in opposition to naturalism, which eschews the auteur controlling the plot and goes for 'slice of life,' and very often ugly or dispirited slice of life. I think when an audience detects "oh, this is an animated film" (or a single image, for that matter) they suspend disbelief instantly and give the artist immense permission and expectation to "take them somewhere interesting" (romanticism) and that desire to be transported is FAR more important to the viewer than 'is the inside of her nostril shaded with he same value progression as the light values on her cheek.' All this is by way of echoing gabriel's point, in a way. Our medium does not need hyper real bodies and textures in order to 'get better.' It needs more artist/interpreters with story, expression, passion and vision to make both still and animated images with our marvelous tools. ::::: Opera ::::: Postscript: I admit it is "easier" to output in toon. But toon people fail too if they cannot realize a vision. The reason I possibly look forward to VickiPro is not because she will be more realistic, but that if they DO sculpt from real bodies she might not inherit the handicap of the distorted limbs/folds and outsized body/head ratio.

'im trying to bow out of this thread peacefully and without stepping on any more toes but you are not making it easy for me with a statement like that' Gabriel, you're not stepping on my toes. You disagree. Fine, I have no problem with that. Everyone sees things differently. T'would be boring otherwise. 'daz is the only company capable of producing something like V3' I didn't say that, and although you may have taken that as my meaning, it wasn't. You may be right that there's still room for individual creators to break in with a major figure, but it's becoming more and more difficult. Apart from the development resources, DAZ has the clout to push a major figure and get it supported, which makes all the difference. Doesn't matter whether it's people buying into the hype or not (I tend to agree with you there), it still happens, and very few sites can make it happen. Forget the scanning and realism side of it. We still have a situation where the resources and a good dev team can make the difference. Couple that with the marketing, and the competition has a hard time keeping up. If CL released P6 with J & J as add-ons, heavily marketed and sold separately at a decent price, assuming they're not half-assed figures, they'd probably sell a bundle. DAZ isn't the only company who could market a figure. But who's competing? Making a figure that uses V3's JPs isn't exactly my idea of originality. Anyway, I'm certainly no big fan of photorealism. I was a fashion photographer for 20 years, so I'm quite happy to avoid ultra-real figures in poser. But there's no doubt that it sells. mac