Is it me just seeing things, or is there more and more 'merchant packs' in the marketplace, and fewer meshes and clothing pieces?
I've been wanting to buy some interesting and quality clothing pieces, and not finding a whole lot (especially of the newer products, say last few months), then half a dozen pieces (skimpy clothing aside).
Seems like when I want a clothing mesh, I have to go to DAZ, and end up spending a lot more money there then i do here.  :(   I'd spend more here if  I found more things that trip my trigger, especially since I tend to hang out here.

I'm not sure if this is better discussed in marketplace wishing well, or here. I'm posting it here, because it seems not very many people go to the other forum(s).

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

Have you considered PoserWorld?  :unsure:

Klutz  

********************************************************************************************************************

Life is a beta.

In faecorum semper, solum profundum variat.

Blame the clearance section here!  You see lots of merchant resources in the MP because they are constantly selling, so rarely are they moved through clearance. Now on the other hand niche items and other things like clothing textures etc don't sell everyday and eventually move to clearance and then out of the store.

I wish they would get rid of that section completely and stop pushing items out of the store.

Just because something isn't selling everyday or every month, doesn't mean it won't sell or it's not going to sell.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi

Quote - Have you considered PoserWorld?  :unsure: 

Yea, I'm a member there.

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

Quote - Blame the clearance section here!  You see lots of merchant resources in the MP because they are constantly selling, so rarely are they moved through clearance. Now on the other hand niche items and other things like clothing textures etc don't sell everyday and eventually move to clearance and then out of the store.

I wish they would get rid of that section completely and stop pushing items out of the store.

Just because something isn't selling everyday or every month, doesn't mean it won't sell or it's not going to sell.

I was looking over the upload page for merchant stuff, and I saw there was a checkbox to not allow your products on clearance. Couldn't people simply check that on... or am I missing what that checkbox does?

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

That option is to stop your product going into clearance. If it doesnt go into clearance it is moved from the store altogether.

"I didn't lose my mind, it was mine to give away"

Quote - That option is to stop your product going into clearance. If it doesnt go into clearance it is moved from the store altogether.

Gotcha! 
(LOL, I should have thought of that myself)  It's so obvious now that you mention it.

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

It may be that they sell well, newbies with grandeur in thier eyes. Thinking it's a quick way to make a buck. Look at all the threads about how they are just starting in 3D and want to know how to sell thier stuff. Not now but right now and the market place is showing, that is what is happening.

Skimpy sells, always has, always will. And it's so easy to make in a very short time. Not counting the coupleof merchants that put some real time into the additional morphing. We all know who they are.

As for Daz, well, I don't think thier quality is that great anymore. They like to stick to the same 5 or 6 themes. Thier products are being geared for thier software, more and more all the time. Guess you can't blame them for that. Daz was trying to survive if poser went down the drain, now it's making sure they have control of most content and slowly weene as many as they can off poser. They are doing a pretty good job of that.

I think Daz has gotten very stale too. Maybe Daz knows this too, with all these fire sales lately.

Another problem is finding something different to model. I mean, look how long poser has been around and how much has been made. It's pretty much a given, if you model something, it's allready been done, more than once, in various ways.

There is also Wardrobe Wizard. Why buy clothes when you can convert what you already have. Thus the less in market sales. Less market sales means less quality merchants modeling anything.

I look at it like Rock and Roll. It keeps on going but it is getting stale and going in circles. It needs a good shaking like what the British Invasion in the 60's and more so, what Punk did for it in the 70"s.

Or maybe we're all getting old and have been doing this solong that all we can say is, " been there, done it, got the t-shirt and scars."

Many people have problems actually finishing something. They have a talent for one tool, but lack th eskills using other skills, so it's easier to just make a merchant pack out of it, with bits n pieces of items.

Other people have gained the ability to put some of those together into character packs, so you see a buttload of those as well now.

Personally, I won't release something I haven't done myself 100%.

I also never bother to even look at merchant packs at all, so I couldn't tell you how many there are or are not.

I bought one on sale for Sadie in case I wanted to do something for her, and one for V4 for the same reason.. and I haven;t even installed either one.

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.

Attached Link: http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/shop/itemdetails/-/?item=5995&cat=4

Hi Connie Kat,

Why not bite the bullet and join the PC club at DAZ, many cool clothing items as of late have been for $1.99.  Some weeks it's rather drole and some weeks it's really fun.  They just released a new set for V4 " Cuore di moda".  NICE set too!!

Blouse
Pants
Vest
Shoes
Hat &
Cigar

It's a really nice set.  TONS of FBM's too.  Makes it worth the monthly price of what.... $8.00 when I spend that in one outing at DAZ or here in nothing flat.  Click the link for more details. 

Something to consider.

As for Merchant Packs, I really love that so many folks are into it and some are free and well designed like the ones from Kimber.  She really spends the time to make sure they are pretty unique, fun and colorful without being gaudy.  Useful and fun.  Love her stuff.  ShareCG is where you can find the packs. 

---Wolff On The Prowl---

My Store is HERE

My Freebies are HERE  

Quote - > Quote - That option is to stop your product going into clearance. If it doesnt go into clearance it is moved from the store altogether.

Gotcha! 
(LOL, I should have thought of that myself)  It's so obvious now that you mention it.

LOL... nm...I do that all the time :/

"I didn't lose my mind, it was mine to give away"

Yea, I'm PC member too... There's no Apollo content on DAZ :P

Seems like making nice detailed high quality pieces for poser is not quite worth it, doesn't it?

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

Just not a lot of people know how to do it.

Actually it depends.. if you've made a "name" for yourself like Aery Soul, then it can ve VERY worth it.

But if you are just one of the up n coming people, getting people to look at it, or buy it can be difficult. it's the usual catch 22... you can't really make it worthwhile till you get "there", but you can't really get "there" without it being worthwhile long enough to persue.

Even with a name and recognition, you can release something that's a total waste of time to produce. Every person I know creating content has at least one total bomb.

And if you are counting on a living from this, that can be a really hard pill to swallow.

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.

I think there is more that can do it than you think. Just because thier not merchants, doesn't mean they can't do it.

Popularity does help. I have seen some poor stuff sold because they were popular in forums, but that doesn't usually last long after that. LOL

Then there is the, if you don't give a lot of stuff for free at high quality, we're not going to buy. So even if there is a good quality product, the merchant finds out it's not worth the time.

Oh ya, catch 22.

Quote - Actually it depends.. if you've made a "name" for yourself like Aery Soul, then it can ve VERY worth it.

But if you are just one of the up n coming people, getting people to look at it, or buy it can be difficult. it's the usual catch 22... you can't really make it worthwhile till you get "there", but you can't really get "there" without it being worthwhile long enough to persue.

Even with a name and recognition, you can release something that's a total waste of time to produce. Every person I know creating content has at least one total bomb.

And if you are counting on a living from this, that can be a really hard pill to swallow.

I plan on doing meshes, props and clothing mostly. I totally understand the business of making a name for yourself taking some time. I suppose if you're good, it's worth it. I'm remembering outfits like Aery Soul's Vanilla pants and couple others... they're still out there and selling.  I wish there were a lot more outfits of that sort, sure, with some imagination to it as well.

Seems like one of the things that works well for Aery Soul is that they don't only provide an outfit, but a creative theme that outfit fits in. Seems to work well for Poser crowd.

I too agree about the popularity alone not making repeat sales if the product doesn't hold up.

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

I was curious though about who is target audience for merchant resources, for the most part texture packs (more clothing rather then character textures)???

Seems like most people whom make add-on textures tend to use original images? Not that some textures being sold as merchant packs aren't original, but once they are sold to texturers and then resold in an add on texture packs, they can become unoriginal, where several people get a same or a similar 'look' using them. I think.

The reason I'm wondering about those things is that, in my case, if I want to make things, I find it essential to acquire tools that allow me to make things on my own, rather then depend on various merchant resourses here. On the long run it's less expensive, and it allows for more creativity, I think. Not that many texture packs around here are bad. There are very cool looking things. But for use of textures to be sold, I would worry about looking too much like everyone else's stuff.

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

For clothing textures, nothing like a camera. I have been to cloth shops and asked if I could take a few shot's. They give me a stange look, a red neck like me, but usually say yes after I tell them why.

Also pictures of ordinary things like sandstone or wallpaper, well pretty much anything will work, manipulated in your favorite paint software.

There is also the Poser material room. Throw a bunch of nodes together and see what you get and make tiles out of those.

That's just 3 ways I thought of while warming up a bit before I dig some more snow out from the car and truck. Not enough to use the snow blower but enough to take a few tries at it due to the cold. -43C with the wind chill. LOL

They have "rednecks" up your way?  I thought that "redneck", by implication, meant "sunburned" -- as in someone who spends all of their time outdoors in the searing heat.  Not in temperatures approaching absolute zero............

Something To Do At 3:00AM 

Just be aware that many cloth patterns are copyright.  Best to stick to generic patterns -- stripes and gingham.  Actually, I love photographing/scanning homespun, leather, fur, nubby cotton, worn khaki; all those fabric samples with deep texture -- and fabric that is worn, stained, faded, and otherwise carries interesting history.

One of the greatest things a merchant pack gives you is that someone else did the most boring parts -- specifically, matching seams.  If I ever did a figure texture, I'd be off to the merchant packs and use one of them as a base fill to catch my seams.  Most of the rest of the texture would be original (although I might also use generic teeth and gums, say, from a pack), but whatever else I painted at least I'd know the seams were done.

Well, I'd think the target audience for merchant resource kits would be... (drumroll) merchants! LOL!

I'm thinking mainly people who want to juast start out making things. Once you really learn a lot, you do your own things, rather then depend on someone else's work, or sources.

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.

I have about three or four MR packs for human textures. Funny thing is I hardly ever use them. It's just easier for me to make the whole texture myself to acheive what I want. I've also made three MR packs and pulled all but one from the market. I tried making one clothing item for V3 with the Quick Suit but can't figure out how to do it in the cloth room or to conform it...sigh. Since I really want to branch out, I'm learning to do custom morphs.

Let me introduce you to my multiple personalities. :)
     BluEcho...Faery_Light...Faery_Souls.

Your neck turns very red before it turnes that blue white color of frost bite.

Yes you need to careful of patterns.

I always thought the merchant resource was for noobs. I see to many textures with the same lips or makeup and so on. But I do agree with the seam part. Veryhard to get those right unless you want to spend big bucks on something like bodypaint. I don't know, can you even buy bodypaint by itself? That would be the one and only reason to need a merchant resource, my opinion.

I guess these generic meshs are the same thing too. I wonder how many cloth items are made from the same mesh. I model from scratch so I expect the same if I buy something. Hmm, will have to pay closer attention to meshes now too or just continue to buy less and less.

I guess we all get to the point where you look at something and say, "why buy it when I can make it myself."
 

Well it depends on what it is.. I know ho wmuch work people put into items, and in a lot of cases, it's just worth it to not have to go through that creation process. Especially if I need something for a render, or promo image.

Sometimes I'll buy something to learn how it was made, or how a specific effect was achieved.

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.

Actually textile patterns cannot be copyrighted in any country. The ones to watch out for are prints using copyrighted characters (disney, looney toons, etc) or logos (NFL, Designers, etc)   In the USA our use of textiles for digital clothing falls into the noncompetitive Fair Use act. So as long as you arent making fabric and selling it ..they dont give a toot. But the holders of character and logo copyrights can and will nail you... so no scanning Chanel's logo prints :)

But you can't just nick images off your favorite fabric website .. the photographs of the textiles are automatically copyrighted. So either you photograph them yourself, scan them yourself or license the rights in some way.  

As for making clothing items ... yes it is a massive amount of work. even something as simple as a thong panty for v4 can take days worth of work. I'm actually writing a "From Start to Finish" tutorial right now. A friend of mine is making the break from textures into modeling so I'm seeing if a tutorial like this helps.  Thing is I'm only at the uvmapping stage and already I have 85 screenshots!  I'm less than a quarter of the way through  0.o

As for DAZ ..well I'd say get after their Art Director. Hes the guy that decides what brokered items to take or not.  All the stuff they don't want fetches up at other stores... nowadays the niche stuff is in little boutique shops. But who knows .. maybe this too shall change :)

Lyrra

Quote - I guess these generic meshs are the same thing too. I wonder how many cloth items are made from the same mesh. I model from scratch so I expect the same if I buy something. Hmm, will have to pay closer attention to meshes now too or just continue to buy less and less.

I guess we all get to the point where you look at something and say, "why buy it when I can make it myself."
 

I hate generic meshes... There's a lot of low quality meshes out there too. When I buy stuff, it's usually from people whose product I admire. I won't buy any ole mesh just because it's ot the item that I'm interested in.

For me, some I make, some I buy. I can make whatever I want, but if I went to make everything I want, I'd have to quit my day job.

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

I don't know. It looks to me like a lot of merchants are making out clothing creation a lot more harder and a lot more work than it really is. Why? If someone like me can do it and does't find it as hard as claimed, sure it takes some time, but not the amount that is always told. What's really going on here.

That should P..s a few merchants off. LOL. Sorry but that's how I see it for much that I see sold. Before you freak out, I see a lot of time on some products but not the majority. I'm talking about clothes. Hair models and skin texures that are not made using merchant resources, that's something I don't have a handle on so I can't say one way or another about that.

I don't mean make everything you see literal. You would be spending the rest of your life just modeling and never getting to use it. If it is something I need right now, I will buy it. I have bought a lot of stuff since I started, I'm just more picky with what I buy now.

Hair, new figure, I'm a sucker for buying it. I can't help myself.

This is a great thread. Thanks to the contributors. I'm a new vendor, and I'm aiming towards clothing design. I'm finding that as a newbie, learning all the various steps involved (modelling, UV mapping, texturing, etc.) is not easy. And I keep getting to a certain point, and realizing I've boxed myself into a corner, and what I've done isn't going to work. But it's all a learning process. Lyrra, will this tutorial be available at Poserworld, or perhaps for sale here at Renderosity. I'd be very interested in something like that.

Clothing IS relatively simple.

Clothing you can sell at Rendo or DAZ is not.

These days, to be acceptable an item of clothing has to handle all poses within limits without crunching or poke-through, contain all standard figure morphs (base and extension pack), as well as a smattering of other popular morphs, have a clean UV map, have good mesh flow that renders without funny areas, have texture without seams....

Three out of four of those, I can skip if I'm making a clothing item for free, or for a personal render.  Not so for a store item.

Quote -
That should P..s a few merchants off. LOL. Sorry but that's how I see it for much that I see sold. Before you freak out, I see a lot of time on some products but not the majority. I'm talking about clothes. Hair models and skin texures that are not made using merchant resources, that's something I don't have a handle on so I can't say one way or another about that.

I'm finishing making a request that I will submit as a marketplace piece. A wizard robe for Apollo.  10 textures and about 75 morphs, mostly styling and flaring... over a 100 morphs, I think, if you count the booties, belt and a hat... Body handles rigged skirt, easy pose rigged tie, belt and sleeves...
Now the promo renders and readme..

I easily spent couple hundred hours making it all, and another few hundred hours on various learning curves.  I'd classify this in a pretty elaborate piece.  Working 2-3 hours per eveining on it, it's been in the works for months!!!

And, I'll never make the mnoney on it to pay even for the effective work hours. I doubt that even a top vendor could make 'livable' amount of money on it.  It would have to sell in 200 pieces at $20 a piece (with half going to Rendo, that would give artist $10 per piece), in order to make it up to $10 per hour, of effective time.  It would have to sell in around 1000 pieces to make a 'livable wage'.

If I sell 100 copies, I'll be ecstatic!!!!!

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

Sorry nomuse but your making it sound more than it is. Yes those steps need to be done, but lets not complicate it more than it is.

Conniekat8 you have doubled the actual work on an item. Learning something is different from making something. Everybody goes through the learning process.

I'm not trying to diminish what you or anyone have done or the time you spent. That's the last thing I would want anyone to think I was trying to do.  You say 400 hours but the actual work on the item is 200 hours. That is all I was trying to point out. It is always said to be more than it really is.

Quote - I'm not trying to diminish what you or anyone have done or the time you spent. That's the last thing I would want anyone to think I was trying to do.  You say 400 hours but the actual work on the item is 200 hours. That is all I was trying to point out. It is always said to be more than it really is.

I just said I spent about 200 hours of actual work, and I used 200 hours in the earnings estimate, which is nothing to sneeze at.
I'm not counting the learning curve time, but I did mention it as a side thing.

In Engineering and architectural visualizations that I do at work, 200 hours of 3d modelling, UV mapping texturing, animating and compositing gets billed to a client around $25,000 - for exclusive rights to the model and produced materials, of course.
(Which is why I do that, and not poser models to pay bills)

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

"Complicated?"  There are things that are complicated about Poser clothing design.  These derive directly from the fact that there are no truly optimum solutions to certain design problems.  One really has to hack the application a bit, take it in directions it wasn't designed for originally, in order to get clothing looking a little closer to something real.  And once you do that, you create a condition where it won't always be simple for the end-user, won't always work at a touch of a button, and won't always work across all program versions and operating systems.

I did not talk about any of those issues above, however. What I pointed out was simply the time-consuming elements that must go into any store-grade item.  Morphs take time.  V3 and V4 have a LOT of morphs.  Each and every one involves several steps of altering, testing, adjusting.  The total time involved becomes quite large.  Similarly, bringing seams up to a professional level involves hours of rendering, checking, fixing, rendering again.

Especially when one is talking the last two generations of Millennium figures, with their JCMs and magnet sets, getting clothing functional and tested adds many, many more hours than are involved in the rigging and testing of a prop, vehicle, setting, mechanical figure, or so forth. 

I do not want to denigrate the countless hours the good texture and character morph creators also spend, but Poser clothing, I strongly believe, is at the far end of the scale of hours of largely boring work for each item -- and, from a strictly commercial point of view, hours of work versus sales of final product.

No other explanation is needed why clothing items are second only to original figures in their (relative) rarity.

Oh, and the learning process is constant.  The bar is constantly being raised for Poser content.  New generations of figures, and new versions of the core software, are showing up at an increasing rate.  I do not think there is anyone working in Poser content who does not spend at least 10% of their time learning new things -- and I'd bet on the number being well above 25%.

When it takes four weeks of dedicated work to make an outfit, and the lifespan of some figures (anyone remember Koshini?) can be under six months, and new program versions are on a 1-year cycle (plus the upgrades to your modeling software, rigging tools, paint programs, and OS are staggered, occurring throughout the year), you can count on a significant part of your time being spent just trying to stay current.

Hmm, well I have a looong way to go before I try clothing for retail...lol. That's why I'm trying with a premade mesh, just to get the hang of it. But if I ever learn to do it right, all clothing items would be my own work from scratch. At present I'm more intertested in learning to make hair and texture it. Maybe that has a lot to do with being a former cosmetology Instructor. :)

Let me introduce you to my multiple personalities. :)
     BluEcho...Faery_Light...Faery_Souls.

Conniekat8, sorry, I must have missed how you meant it.

nomuse, you keep saying all these morphs need to be included but they are not. I am looking at a Daz product right now and it only has 5 FBMs, thats about all and there is poke through when bent. So, where is this all figure and extra morphs and all JP's correctly done? Hmm, that's not true is it. But it sure sound better.

How amazing some venders can pump out stuff a couple of days after buying the figure. Don't bother with the, "they had the figure in advance," line because I have seen them being asked to make content and they say fine, they will buy the figure, along those lines. Oh wait, they can't do that. That would prove what I'm saying.  We can't have that now, can we.

I see the same thing in construction all the time. It's always more than what it really is. I should not be surprised with the same here. That's human nature.

I'm not saying it's the easest thing in the world. I am saying that it's not as hard as some try to tell you. Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones and don't find it that hard. Just don't ask me to create a good skin texture.

Someone is trying to do some kind of merchant/future merchant contest. If it gets going, I may do it just to prove my point. I don't really plan on being a merchant, who would want to buy anything from me. LOL.  I usually just make special things for those that ask and give them away. So this contest could be worth doing.

Oh well, different views on this, keeps things from being boring.
 

channingg

I was let go from Poserworld early this summer, so I can say most definately that I will not be adding anything there.

I'll probably be packing the tutorial up for sale at one of the brokerages I sell at .. I'll offer it to DAZ, but I don't think they'll take it since I'm not using their modeling program :) Any rate it will be a while before I can work on it again. I'm up to my eyeballs with other projects .. Dystopia stuff and stuff for DAZ mostly.  I'm doing the uvmapping section twice .. once with Uvlayout and once with UVmapperpro since many people have uvpro already.

Lyrra

"have texture without seams...."

When making clothing the last thing you want is a texture without seams.Real clothing is made from several pieces sewn together and where the seams are the pattern does not match.

A dress for example should be split in UV mapping into the parts a real dress would be made from and laid out on the UV map as a dressmaker would lay out the parts on a fabric. Then the texture iis simply an area of the required pattern. When applied this gives a realistic appearance to the dress.

This dress is split into front L & R, back L & R, 2 sleeves and 5 skirt panels,

Quote - Is it me just seeing things, or is there more and more 'merchant packs' in the marketplace, and fewer meshes and clothing pieces?

Anybody can get and run Photoshop, grab some skin pix off of 3dsk, and stick it all inside a seam guide. The learning curve is nice and gentle, in spite of recent changes in UV Maps (which merely means you get a copy of Deep Paint, or you paint it to a simple map like Vicky2 then use a tex converter, and...) OTOH, The learning curve required to build a mesh, optimise it for speed and flexibility, UVMap it, then conform the critter? We're talking K2 in comparison. Sure, you can get tools that help out, but they certainly won't build the mesh for you. Little wonder, eh? PS: dadt speaks wisdom here. A lot of y'all who make clothing textures really need to go to the store and actually LOOK at print-fabric clothing sometime. ;) /P

Quote - Another problem is finding something different to model. I mean, look how long poser has been around and how much has been made. It's pretty much a given, if you model something, it's allready been done, more than once, in various ways.

Meh... I used to feel the same way about poses. Now the stuff I do isn't family friendly at all (and ain't sold here for obvious reasons), and I even had another merchie call me all sorts of vile names because I was selling like gangbusters, and it drained business away from his not-nearly-as decent stuff. This is just stuff I tinker with when I want to get away from everyone at lunch hour (laptop + car = a nice escape from the daily sysadmin grind :) ). I put out maybe 1-2 items a month, tops. Anyrate - I digress. Point is, I thought about it, and because the human body is unique and human creativity nearly infinite, you'll never run out of stuff to do with either. The trick is to build something in a way that no one else has seen it before. Yes everyone has built a pair of pantyhose, or a t-shirt, or a pair of pants. BUT... how do YOU see a perfect item? Build for that. The real-world fashion industry would've died off roughly five minutes after Levi Strauss sold his very first pair of blue jeans if they had the attitude of "oh well... it's all been done now." Yet for some odd reason, every year mirrors Rendo pretty good - a ton of shit clothing with a few gems of "holy crap that looks cool!" buried in it. Your mission is to make sure that your creation is the one that folks point at and not laugh. ;) I wouldn't worry too much about WW... conversion is never a perfect process, and rarely does it do the job 100% right - usually it gets it right about 80-90% of the time (not bad, but...) /P

Quote - Yea, I'm PC member too... There's no Apollo content on DAZ :P

So make some? Sounds like a market opening to me :) > Quote - Seems like making nice detailed high quality pieces for poser is not quite worth it, doesn't it?

Depends on motivation. I do my piddly stuff for fun and as a distraction. Works for me. If you're doing it for rent money, then you're in it for the wrong reason, IMHO. /P

Quote - "have texture without seams...."

When making clothing the last thing you want is a texture without seams.Real clothing is made from several pieces sewn together and where the seams are the pattern does not match.

A dress for example should be split in UV mapping into the parts a real dress would be made from and laid out on the UV map as a dressmaker would lay out the parts on a fabric. Then the texture iis simply an area of the required pattern. When applied this gives a realistic appearance to the dress.

That's how I do it.!  

Oddly enough, I've had trouble from testers over it, though.  Seems the skin textures have so overwhelmed expectations people don't always know how to look at cloth.  Heck, it seems to have even colored my perceptions.  I should have said "good seams" or "control of seams."    Everything has seams, anyhow.  Except, say, a sheet of paper!

Actually, though, that brings up an important point.  Creature textures can (and essentially have to) stretch some to minimize seams.  Clothing has to flatten out, being as much as humanly possible flat and square in the relation of surface normal to UV space.  Surprisingly, though, there is a great deal of clothing out there that does not flatten the fabric.  And some that has taken the trade-off to distort the UVmap in order to make creation of horizontal details (like embroidered edges) easier.

I'm actually putting breast darts in a mesh I'm tinkering with now.  That's one of the places where simplicity (of the UVmap) is not always compatible with reality.  A tailored blouse is not a t-shirt.  But then, I've actually seen people complain that the pattern stretched out of shape on a t-shirt, and that was unrealistic mapping!  Some people, I think, spend too much time in the 3d world and don't look at the real world often enough.

(I did costumes for several years, studying at a university level and designing for a couple of plays.  I couldn't cut a garment from measurements and memory today, but I can still remember a few things!)

I need to underline this.  I do not wish to oversell the difficulties of making clothing.  But neither do I wish to undersell them.  The average time for a full outfit, for most creators, is on the order of a hundred hours (that's for doing your own research, modeling, rigging, mapping, texturing, packaging, and beta-testing).  Mileage will vary; some items can be very simple.  Some outfits are massive, with multiple pieces and alternate geometries.  Personally, my last outfit went to something like 200 hours -- but I'm hoping to streamline my process (and my sets!) down to 40-60.

This average is weighted on the simple fact that most creators make relatively few clothing items.  There are only a small number of the very prolific -- Steve, PhilC, et al.  One can presume that procedures get streamlined, software packages more professional, and the "spares box" more complete as you cross from "one or two outfits" to the "dozen outfits in the last year" range.

dadt, that's how I do my clothing texture seams too. I even model the mesh with that in mind. We were talking about Skin texure seams needing to be perfect.

Yes finding or creating that one gem. LOL.

I'm not trying to undersell the difficulties either.  

Quote - This dress is split into front L & R, back L & R, 2 sleeves and 5 skirt panels,

Ugh!   I did notice a fair amount of product out there where UV mapping leaves a lot to be desired. This is not with freebies and practice pieces, but products in the marketplace.

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

About Apollo clothing:

Quote - So make some? Sounds like a market opening to me :)

Actually, that's exactly what I'm doing :D 
If I can get past agonizing over final touches, promo renders and writing a readme, and family issues out of my hair, it'll be out in a matter of weeks.

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

nomouse, you sound much the way I do clothing UV maps too. Comes from sewing for me. You pay attention, as much as you can to the fabric seams and lay of the patterns. (Provided there's enough room on the UV square. Sometimes I go for a tilt, and maximizing the usable area, knowing that the patters can be angled (unlike on the real cloth, where you HAVE to follow fabric patterns.
One exception may be knits... with those you expect some stretching... but then again, there's droppiong and adding stitching that can be simulated with a pattern.

But, there's a sizeable group of texture artist that don't have a sewing background, and some of those things don't quite make sense to them....   oh well.

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

Quote - About Apollo clothing:

Quote - So make some? Sounds like a market opening to me :)

Actually, that's exactly what I'm doing :D 
If I can get past agonizing over final touches, promo renders and writing a readme, and family issues out of my hair, it'll be out in a matter of weeks.

Sounds about right... I take forever because I only do it as a hobby, and it helps R'otica out a bit w/ some diversity and increased sales. My latest batch has some mesh intersection issues that I have to hammer out (it was sunny over the past week... laptop screens suck in sunlight), but  it's always the tiny little last-touch details I sometimes dread the most (mostly because they often balloon out into major re-working jobs).

It's a lot like writing code -  the majority of effort isn't in writing the first 90% of your code for an app - it's in all the frickin' writing, debugging, and final polishing of that last 10% that eats all your time.

/P

My advice is to just set up your render with lights you like, pose you like and then load all the pieces you have in the set and then save the scene for safe keeping.  Make the pieces invisible that don't pertain to the clothing item you want to render. 

Say you want to show off the robe, then make the belt, shoes and hat and even Apollo invisible, zoom in to fill the render area and render. 

If you want to do a finished look with the different texture sets then keep your same position, load each texture set and render.  Zoom in and render details and have those offset over each texture set with a little tag "detail" (border and drop shadow up to you). 

And Connie, DON'T beat your self up too much over the promo.  Your renders always look crisp and clean so just do what you do and don't fret so much!  Sheesh, your not a newbie ya know! :lol:

While you got your renders going create a new text file and name it something like Wizard Set for Apollo ReadMe.txt   Introduce the product, name the pieces in the set and the texture sets included.  List the files, if you want (I usually do) and then add in a tips and tricks section for render settings in Poser.  There are always folks that are going to ask questions you haven't thought about, you can't think of every thing, it ain't natural!! :lol: 

You probably have it all figured out but I thought perhaps there was a tip in there that didn't occur to you so there you have it............

If it's too to much for the time being then post a little note on the CP boards and let everyone know your taking a break, like a month or two off and will start back up when your good and ready.  Sometimes it's a good thing to take a break.  I did with Bruno.  First skin texture (only one so far actually) and I just freaked out and shut down.  Folks started hounding me and I just freaked out more.  Jepe then PM'd me and offered assistance and that got the ball rolling again but it was a couple of months later.  I'll always be grateful to him for taking me under his wing.  I learned a bit from his advice.  Stearn task master and does things his way, very specific but taught me to find my own way in the end and I'm pleased with the results!

---Wolff On The Prowl---

My Store is HERE

My Freebies are HERE  

Quote - Sounds about right... I take forever because I only do it as a hobby, and it helps R'otica out a bit w/ some diversity and increased sales. My latest batch has some mesh intersection issues that I have to hammer out (it was sunny over the past week... laptop screens suck in sunlight), but  it's always the tiny little last-touch details I sometimes dread the most (mostly because they often balloon out into major re-working jobs).

It's a lot like writing code -  the majority of effort isn't in writing the first 90% of your code for an app - it's in all the frickin' writing, debugging, and final polishing of that last 10% that eats all your time.

Yea, same here, couple hours or so a day, whenever I can sneak in some time. Sometimes it's more, sometimes less. 
The last touchups... Man, I've been working on those since November!!!   Creating single morphs is one thing, getting feedback after beta testers start using them and mixing them in all kinds of ways that you hadn't thought of creates a whole new can of worms. I'm not sure where to draw the line between accomodating and just saying, sorry it wasn't meant for such 'extreme' use.     Tinker tinker tinker tinker tinker....  

Then when you juggle a lot of things every now and then you forget where you left off... :lol: I mean, I do.

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

Heck, I have one project that I'm basically doing for me (I don't expect to sell more than a handful of copies) that was 98% done in early January of last year.  All that's remained for ever-so-long is doing the final tests, checking path names, and doing some promotional renders.

Trouble is I've been working 50-hour weeks since then.  Oh, and every time I get back to that set I realize something new I want to add to it -- or find something old I want to do better.

Quote - Trouble is I've been working 50-hour weeks since then.  Oh, and every time I get back to that set I realize something new I want to add to it -- or find something old I want to do better.

HA! Tell me about it.  That's how I ended up wit 10 or so textures for the robe... and there are things that I would want to add now that could cause me to start the whole thing almost from scratch.It's the worst when testers ask... could you add this..... and it's something that you thought of too, but it's too late to incorporate...  Then I think, ick, people are going to hate it because it doesn't have that one, two or three things (never mind the ton of things that are in there already, those are always taken for granted.)  

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

I can do you one better, though -- I finished an outfit for the PT girl, sold several dozen copies.....THEN decided I wasn't happy with some elements and pulled it from my store.   :)

Have re-done the mesh, completely remapped of course, but of course now all my hand-painted textures are defunct and have to be re-done, too.

And I'm experiencing horrible feature bloat as well.  (AltGeom's?  Dynamic versions?  Even more texture variations?)

*'Even with a name and recognition, you can release something that's a total waste of time to produce. Every person I know creating content has at least one total bomb.'

That ends up being especially true for anything created for the male characters including Apollo. It takes at least as much time and effort to make stuff for the male characters as it does to make 'sexy'  outfits for V4 but the sales on those items usually don't even come close.

This only mirrors the female-centric content in the Poser galleries where it seems that only women are regarded as the fit subjects of 'art' :)

• Rick

Quote - I can do you one better, though -- I finished an outfit for the PT girl, sold several dozen copies.....THEN decided I wasn't happy with some elements and pulled it from my store.   :)

Have re-done the mesh, completely remapped of course, but of course now all my hand-painted textures are defunct and have to be re-done, too.

And I'm experiencing horrible feature bloat as well.  (AltGeom's?  Dynamic versions?  Even more texture variations?)

OMG, that's just I'm afraid of... I'll be like a software house, start releasing service packs... (Somebody shoot me)

Ramwolff can tell you, after the first round of tests, few months back, I decided to rework the whole thing - I called it alpha test stage.

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

There is that!

But then, outside of being good, lucky, or (probably) both, you aren't going to make much of a living with doing this.  You could justifiably say that everything you do is for yourself, so you might as well make something that interests you.

But that isn't entirely true.  For one thing, there's a particular disappointment when the creation you've slaved over vanishes into the flood without remark.  It doesn't help even knowing that the "fifty more eyeliner colors for V 4.1" that pushed it off the front page also has a lifespan measured in hours.

(Actually...if done properly, I bet a proper eyeliner kit would be useful enough to stick around.  Such are the drawbacks of trying to come up with generic examples to illustrate a point!)

The subtler factor is that doing this can be expensive.  The first time you struggle through painting with The Gimp is when you really start saving for that copy of PhotoShop.  You upgrade your modeling engine.  You keep abreast (!!) of new versions of Poser.  You keep buying new figures with all their associated morph packs so you can build clothing that fits them properly.  And you start thinking hard about Bodypaint and Maya and other expensive options....(oh, yes, and that 16" waccom tablet, and that new flat-screen monitor, and a faster CPU...)

The few bucks you get from a store product may not offset much of these costs.  But every little bit makes a difference.

Pengy's absolutely right about the originality aspect and it also applies to texture sets.  It's one of the reasons why I make my robot sets.  I try to incorporate at least one new thing that nobody's tried before.  It's never gonna make me a millionaire but they do sell reasonably well.

Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.

My Store

My Gallery

Quote - *'Even with a name and recognition, you can release something that's a total waste of time to produce. Every person I know creating content has at least one total bomb.'

That ends up being especially true for anything created for the male characters including Apollo. It takes at least as much time and effort to make stuff for the male characters as it does to make 'sexy'  outfits for V4 but the sales on those items usually don't even come close.

This only mirrors the female-centric content in the Poser galleries where it seems that only women are regarded as the fit subjects of 'art' :)

• Rick

That's just what I'm bracing myself for, releasing a product that will bomb, because I'm afraid that noone but my few beta testing Apollo enthusiasts will be interested in it.

On the other hand, I'm working on a male nude series... in my gallery.... (GO LOOK !)  there, I said it :lol:

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

*'That's just what I'm bracing myself for, releasing a product that will bomb, because I'm afraid that noone but my few beta testing Apollo enthusiasts will be interested in it.'

Well hopefully that won't be the case and you'll be very successful with your sales. Although to be on the safe side, you'd better sacrifice a chicken and dance naked around an open fire shortly after it's release :)

*'On the other hand, I'm working on a male nude series... in my gallery.... (GO LOOK !)  there, I said it '

I'm glad someone is! I mean, I'm a red-blooded heterosexual male and have made more than my fair share of female pinups but it would be nice to see that something else could interest viewers enough that they would actually take a few seconds of their time to look at it :)

• Rick

*I'm glad someone is! I mean, I'm a red-blooded heterosexual male and have made more than my fair share of female pinups but it would be nice to see that something else could interest viewers enough that they would actually take a few seconds of their time to look at it :)

I hear ya! I'm at loss as to how. The best way to get something seen is to spend a lot of time commenting on other people's work. Lot of times even the best looking pieces get buried... and I'm far from making best looking pieces.

What baffles me is how many females are catering to the nude girl look as well.  The whole thing seems to revolve around male sexuality.... I gues it wouldn't be the only thing that does that.  Oh well...

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

*'What baffles me is how many females are catering to the nude girl look as well.'

Yes and this has always been the case for as long as I can remember too. I think it has less to do with 'catering to male sexuality' and more to do with 'adult dress-up Barbie'.

At least I hope this is the case because I wouldn't want to be seen as being opposed to 'catering to male sexuality'. We really can't have too much of that can we? :)

• Rick

Quote - *'What baffles me is how many females are catering to the nude girl look as well.'

Yes and this has always been the case for as long as I can remember too. I think it has less to do with 'catering to male sexuality' and more to do with 'adult dress-up Barbie'.

• Rick

I guess. I'd rather play fantasy dress-up with a well formed male, then a female. But I guess 'good girls' aren't supposed to admit that... We're supposed to be preoccupied with making ourselves more desirable...

Not that I mind men enjoying what they like. It's more the case of what's good for the gander...  I guess my 'Euro liberal sexuality' roots are showing :lol:

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

*'I guess. I'd rather play fantasy dress-up with a well formed male, then a female. But I guess 'good girls' aren't supposed to admit that... We're supposed to be preoccupied with making ourselves more desirable...'

I never of thought of it in that way but after reading your response I'm convinced that this comes closer to the truth than anything else. Most of the women who post their images here (with some notable exceptions) are probably just too embarrassed (timid?) to make the kind of renders you are now making. Making 'desirable' Vickys seems to better keep within the preoccupation you mentioned.

In any event, the upshot to this disdain of the male characters in Poser will continue to result in a darth of male oriented products in the MP. Any merchant who is really doing this for the money will always have to consider that the time spent on making male clothing will come as a loss of revenues compared to having that same time being spent on female clothing.

I don't know which merchant is better prepared to make the sacrifice and make male clothing anyway - the long time established merchant or the novice. I know that with the stuff I've made for M3 making a profit wasn't really the motivation - I just wanted to do it no matter what. I'm sure that will always be the only reason I make male clothing in the future too :)

• Rick

I have purchased a few merchant packs.. I don't use them to make products to sell, but I like having the options of trying to put together skins and make ups myself. Its fun for artist wanna-be's like me.  So are there too many.. not for me. What I would love to see  along the line of clothing.. is mix and match stuff you could buy just a piece or two.. or ten. Your choice. Not sure if that's feasible, but I know I'd buy more clothes if I could pick and choose what pieces I'd get. Instead of a big package I would only use one piece of..

just a thought,
myst

Quote - That's just what I'm bracing myself for, releasing a product that will bomb, because I'm afraid that noone but my few beta testing Apollo enthusiasts will be interested in it.

On the other hand, I'm working on a male nude series... in my gallery.... (GO LOOK !)  there, I said it :lol:

Well, you have to look at this way hon.  You originally wanted to make the robe for free, then it got more complicated and we all said sell it, you kept on adding more morphs and goodies and then it was a no brainer... SELL IT.  You may not make a fortune but look at all you learned during the creation process.  That in and of itself is worth it's weight in gold because your next set for whom ever you decide to support will be that much easier in knowing ahead of time what NOT to do!   Your quite a talented lady hon, you can build a mesh, rig it, add morphs and your textures are very nice as well.  Don't freak out too much.  You done good and it will be fine.  Remember that email I sent you.  Think positive.  You will get what you put out there.  If you think negative thoughts and put allot of fear into it then you may not sell much and think to yourself "see, I told you" but if you think positive thoughts and really put the intention into it that it will be fine regardless then you will be a winner, even if you only sell a few or 100's.  I know I preach but beating yourself up with worry is not the way to go about this. 

---Wolff On The Prowl---

My Store is HERE

My Freebies are HERE  

*I know I preach but beating yourself up with worry is not the way to go about this. 

Yea, but... I'm a professional worrier :lol:
Logical side chiming in:, yea, I know it'll be fine!

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

Connie, I'm a brand new merchant. And I focus on the male market. I am a worrier too, and let me tell you the results so far are very exciting to me. I've seen your promos and WIP. You are very good -- even if you overdid it on the addons (I'm prone to do the same, but fortunately I have someone who keeps putting on the brakes so to speak), you have learned a lot. It will be easier next time and you are that much further ahead. And I'd like to say that though some of this might be considered grunt work ... I love it. This represents a chance to share my vision in new ways and it is very exciting. Best of luck to you.

Connie,

"What baffles me is how many females are catering to the nude girl look as well.  The whole thing seems to revolve around male sexuality.... I gues it wouldn't be the only thing that does that.  Oh well..."

Obviously that is a major factor, and I have discussed this with quite a few ladies who post work of that nature. What came out of the discussion was a concensus that on average the female form seems more visually attractive than the male.....and curiously that was not me volunteering that opinion either!

Klutz.

********************************************************************************************************************

Life is a beta.

In faecorum semper, solum profundum variat.

Everything you'll put some time and effort in will be large better than something quickly done to make quick bucks.
Merchant ressources could be something to start from, but not to use as it is. I don't see the goal there.

As nomuse said just above, clothing is relatively simple. Clothing that fits fine and works in all normal poses and use is harder. Clothing that fits and works fine and sells a lot is VERY hard.
And you have not to forgot the HUGE amount of vendors at Rendo. It doesn't help.

My Store

actually I've always separated poserdom into these main categories in order of size:

Men who render the women they want to ahem achieve intimacy with

Women who render the women they want to be

People who make renders of RPG and game characters

People who make stuff with and for kids (the cute market)

Professional illustrators and historical image makers

I love your classifications Lyrra. I wonder if we couldn't get the PTB to rename the genres of the Poser gallery with these? It would certainly be more accurate then it is now :)

Heh heh - really, I'd love to drop down the list box and see those categories exactly as you have specified them :) lol :)

• Rick

A question that arises from that list is how many renders in each category actually make it off the user's computer.

I also think there's a large "Magpie Effect" in Poser product.  So many of us buy something that we never use in a render; buy because it just looked "really cool," or because the girl in the promo render is teh sexy, or because one day, One Day, we're going to render that Battle of Gettysburg we've been promising ourselves and when that day comes we're going to need this pair of period mustaches...

(Oh, and let's not forget, you buy because Aiko 3.0 became available for free, and you of course downloaded her, but now she has nothing to wear.....)

Quote -
Obviously that is a major factor, and I have discussed this with quite a few ladies who post work of that nature. What came out of the discussion was a concensus that on average the female form seems more visually attractive than the male.....and curiously that was not me volunteering that opinion either!

Interesting. I don't find it to be the case for me personally.  Then again, I'm often not very mainstream in my tastes and interests.

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

Very interesting thread.

I've been making freebies for a couple of years now, and I always strive for quality. That's just my pride - whatever I release into the freebie section is as good as I can make it with my current skill set.

In a way, nomuse is right, you can "get away", sort of, with freebies that don't have all the morphs, or don't have a good UV map, or don't bend perfectly.

In another way I disagree.
Releasing freebies is the best way to build a reputation. If you're known for consistently releasing top quality freebies, your entry into the marketplace will be much smoother.
Aery_Soul has been mentioned. Not only does Aery_Soul release top quality marketplace items - that sell pretty well despite being fairly expensive, Aery_Soul also releases top quality freebies. Same goes for Danie and Marforno.

Freestuff is promo material. If you release good quality freestuff, customers will have faith in the quality of your commercial items.

The pen is mightier than the sword. But if you literally want to have some impact, use a typewriter

My gallery   My freestuff

Thanks a bunch guys and gals for your encouraging words :)

Lyrra, that's a pretty common sense classification. :)
I think I'll be making a series of male-centric images for a while, if it kills me.

Nomuse, that's a very good point too. There's a lot of that stuff happening. I too am guilty of buying a lot more stuff then I ever used. .... for that Gettysburg render :lol:

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

Buying and not using it...

Could you figure the other day i was pretty near to buy a V3 outfit... i already bought some time ago!! Oo lol
I have so much stuff in my runtimes i never use, and when i'm doing a render, nothing could fit the scene! ^^

My Store

Could you figure the other day i was pretty near to buy a V3 outfit... i already bought some time ago!! Oo lol*

*Luckily both Rendo and Daz will tell us if you bought something already. If they don't I'd have multiple copies of several items! 

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

TBH I am a 'Collector' rather than a 'User.' :blushing:

..................but I can handle that! :crying:

Klutz  :rolleyes: :woot:

********************************************************************************************************************

Life is a beta.

In faecorum semper, solum profundum variat.

Hey Conniekat8

I just dropped by to say hi,  and echo what RAMWolff said.  You have a great talent in clothes making,  that's why I asked you to model clothes for Plain Jane.

Cheers

Pat

Awww, Thank you for the vote of confidence Patorak!  
I still plan on doing clothes for her... when I unbury myself from current stuff...  Especially the Wizard Robe.

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

You're welcome!  Now,  the Wizard Robe is not a mouse,  quit battin' it around and get it to market!

As for Plain Jane,  I'll send the new version when you're ready.  Make it soon though,  DAZ has given me the green light for all three versions.

HAH, that was funny Pat!!  Kat battin the robe around like a mousie....   Uh, ok, I'll shut up now and go away.  I think I've inhailed too many salon odors again!! 

---Wolff On The Prowl---

My Store is HERE

My Freebies are HERE  

Pass them odors around and I'll put on some Pink Floyd!  LOL! 

Yaaaay, finally my silly brain relented and is having ideas/putting together a scene for promo's.

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

Cool!  Was it the odors...Pink Floyd...or have you been into the catnip!

I think all of the above :lol:
Plus the sight of Ramwolff suffering from my creative block :tt2:

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

Man, my power goes out for the day and I come back to find this thread turned into a Kissy thingy. LOL.

Quote - I think all of the above :lol:
Plus the sight of Ramwolff suffering from my creative block :tt2:

ARF ARF ARF 

---Wolff On The Prowl---

My Store is HERE

My Freebies are HERE  

Quote - Man, my power goes out for the day and I come back to find this thread turned into a Kissy thingy. LOL.

You may want to choose your words more carefully.  I do NOT kiss just any thingy!!

---Wolff On The Prowl---

My Store is HERE

My Freebies are HERE  

Remember, don't sweat the petty things.....

....and don't pet the sweaty things!

Me neither :m_tongue2:

Sweat... pet... ahem  :blushing:

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

I don't pet sweaty pets.  It gets a bit ripe in the room and sticky too! 

---Wolff On The Prowl---

My Store is HERE

My Freebies are HERE  

Quote - I don't pet sweaty pets.  It gets a bit ripe in the room and sticky too! 

Like when I give my kitty a bath

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

Uh, kitty + bath = blood bath from what I remember!! LOL

---Wolff On The Prowl---

My Store is HERE

My Freebies are HERE  

The quality factor is why there is little new. It takes more know how and time and equipment plus there is more programs now to please.

I actually look for new artists stuff and buy it because it's usually cheaper and sometimes I get lucky too. I feed on the fact that they have to sell for cheap because they don't have the sales volume and are not noticed among the community yet.

I've foound some excellent products that way and hopefully buying their stuff and leaving them good feed back keeps them making more. Eventually after they have payed their dues, they too will get a premium for what they build and their name will be in the "Poser 3D Hall Of Fame". 

I don't buy anymore. All I see is nothing but fantasy sex stuff for clothes.

Not my cup of tea.

I just dl the freebies.

Freebies are more orginal than the stuff you buy in my opinion.

Quote - The quality factor is why there is little new. It takes more know how and time and equipment plus there is more programs now to please.

I disagree with one aspect of it. If it works in Poser and doesn't have Poser-specific aspects (dynamics mostly, and the poser-specific compression in some cases), then it works in D|S. What other programs does one need to satisfy besides those two? It's a lot like saying that application makers are having an impossible time because nowadays they write programs to satisfy Windows, OSX, and in many cases Linux too... this isn't necessarily true either, and here's why: In applications programming, like making Poser stuff, the trick is to think ahead. If I avoid having an item rely on specific features of one 'platform' (be it DirectX in Windows or Dynamic Cloth in Poser), then 'porting' it is drop easy (for example, the DAZ|Studio app uses Qt for its user interface, which means it only has to write the UI once - Qt is cross-platform capable. App makers code for OpenGL and avoid DirectX for the same reason). You can do the same by avoiding 'proprietary traps' when you build your stuff. Seriously - UV Mapping is the same, Joints behave the same way, etc. So, I guess I'm not seeing the obstacles that you do. As for why quality overall kinda sucks, with gems of goodness buried within? The answer is simple. There are a lot of people who slam out items using helper tools and pre-made resources without regard to what's actually going on. They just don't think ahead. It's easier to replicate body curves, loft them, and NURB your way to a mesh (or just use one of a couple pre-made clothes maker app helpers and slice on it), than it is to build a mesh with regard to polygon efficiency, joints, seams, morphs, and other consderations. These have always existed, just that the mistakes are easier to see now. Some folks take the time and do it right, and others do not. /P

Considering quality,  I think we should look at the other side too.  I mean what is Poser?  At the core of the program what is it and what is it intended for.  Let's also consider Poser dogma as well.  Is Poser dogma compatible with Poser ?

Quote - I don't buy anymore. All I see is nothing but fantasy sex stuff for clothes.

What kinds of things do you like?

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

Quote - Considering quality,  I think we should look at the other side too.  I mean what is Poser?  At the core of the program what is it and what is it intended for.  Let's also consider Poser dogma as well.  Is Poser dogma compatible with Poser ?

IMO, Poser catma is better than Poser dogma but that's just me. :biggrin:

Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.

My Store

My Gallery

Quote - Many people have problems actually finishing something. They have a talent for one tool, but lack th eskills using other skills, so it's easier to just make a merchant pack out of it, with bits n pieces of items.

I agree here somewhat, I for one, have the technical skills to make the meshes, but I get drained when it comes to all the morphs and textures. I've tried using 3rd party aps to help with the morphs and reverted mostly to setting the clothing textures to be filled with Mats.
Those just are NOT my strengths.

Its not a big issue to me if I spend countless hours making something, putting it up, and only selling a few copies. Usually once my products go the gambit of New Release  --> Clearance --> no longer available. I either make it a freebie 6months later (in the case of many clothes) or repackage it in a SET of similar items that have all run the gambit. (as in the case of the various weapons) Often times in the repackaging I go back and touch the items up in some cases remake entire parts.

I have been at this , what 7-8 years now. have seen great artists come and go, and remeber the days of sitting in the chat room just looking for ideas of what to make and whippign up other users requests for free out of sheer boredom. The store back then wasn't as full and we probally had 20% of the users we have today here at 'Osity. The community was much closer back then, but now we have a Market which has MANY < MANY more items to choose form..some good..some not so good, and the folks at 'osity have a few choices. Limit who can sell based on the quality of the items. (i'm not talking about wether or not its packaged right, I mean basically saying..nope your skills are not up to par, were not goign to offer your item) and leaving some people upset and frustrated, but leaving the itsm chosen out there longer. OR they can allow everyone t give it a shot, and if their item doesn't amke it in a certain amount of time, let it go to the wayside.

I have no complaints about the system,. I have had ideas that I thought would take off, and didn't and the item has ended up out of the store in no tiem, and I have had items that have gottena second life in clearance that have made them linger for years. let me put it this way I have had my website of www.mcdlabs.com now for 4 years, yet i still ahve some items in the store that show the old hypermart webaddress in the promo images.

aka MCDLabs
also known as Daniel Merrill a grumpy old disabled Jarhead.
checkout my freebies at
https://www.sharecg.com/pf/full_uploads.php?pf_user_name=mcdlabs

Quote - > Quote - Considering quality,  I think we should look at the other side too.  I mean what is Poser?  At the core of the program what is it and what is it intended for.  Let's also consider Poser dogma as well.  Is Poser dogma compatible with Poser ?

IMO, Poser catma is better than Poser dogma but that's just me. :biggrin:

ARF ARF

---Wolff On The Prowl---

My Store is HERE

My Freebies are HERE  

Penguinisto said:
*As for why quality overall kinda sucks, with gems of goodness buried within? The answer is simple. There are a lot of people who slam out items using helper tools and pre-made resources without regard to what's actually going on. They just don't think ahead. It's easier to replicate body curves, loft them, and NURB your way to a mesh (or just use one of a couple pre-made clothes maker app helpers and slice on it), than it is to build a mesh with regard to polygon efficiency, joints, seams, morphs, and other consderations. These have always existed, just that the mistakes are easier to see now.

Yeah, theres' a fair amount of products in the marketplace that I look at and think, well, when I was at that level, I didn't think I was ready to be a merchant.

Then again, coming from Engineering and sort of corporate world, I'm used to having to make things at a high quality level... And with my anxious tendencies, I'm not stranger to beating myuself upside the head a lot to make things better and better.  Like, I won't stop beating myself up till I show up Aery Soul (never mind that I probably come short in the ability), but that won't stop me from trying.

Patorak, I'm not sure I understand completely what you mean with the Poser Dogma comment, could you elaborate?  Did you mean that the general poser dogma is that it's low quality? (Which seems to be a repeated topic, in spite of some quality work out there)

I think Poser is available to a lot wider audience. The learning curve and time investment in startup is a lot shorter then hig end apps. Then of course there's available content.  Just by the rule of averages, I guess, it means that there will be a lot higher number of average type pieces. This is fine and not very surprizing in a casual, hobby level art community. 
Sure would be nice if more merchants aimed higher.

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

Quote - IMO, Poser catma is better than Poser dogma but that's just me. :biggrin:

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

I basically agree, Penquinisto (and, hey, and I miss those essays of yours.  Are they still being written and posted somewhere out there?)

Lot of us who came up from Poser 3 remember the horrors of bump map incompatibilities, rsr incompatibilities, and all those other esoteric and ever-so-annoying differences between program versions and platforms.  So in our minds, the difference between Poser-Windows and Poser-OSX still looms large -- even though that particular problem is essentially no more.

But there are still details that trip one up.  And Poser, and DS, still do come out with new program versions that change what went before.  At least now you can rig for Poser 5 and above and, basically, all versions of Poser will open it correctly.

I do disagree about the bad meshes.  It is harder than one might think to make a truly bad mesh (I should know -- I've made a few!)  Where most Poser content should have flunked testing is more in the rigging.  And, really, much of the blame needs to be placed on Poser itself.

I have to say this next part very carefully.   The moment someone says the word "trade-off" it is looked at as "Someone is lazy and looking for an excuse."  Well, sorry; the real world has them, uses them, respect them.  They are, in fact, a feature, not a flaw. 

Take something really, really, simple.  A couple shows back we wanted a quiet and subtle mood for a show with moonlight and magic.  So we chose to keep the house lights --- the lights over the seats in the auditorium -- at a low level from the moment we opened the doors to the moment the play started.

Which meant some of our patrons, particularly the elderly ones, had more trouble finding their seats.  And a harder time reading their programs.

We could solve that by raising the lights.  Which would wash out that mood we were trying to create.  The two goals are physically incompatible.  Lacking some really clever new idea, we had to chose one goal at the expense of another.  That's what's called a trade-off.  And 3d is full of them.

Take a simple UV map.  Say I've constructed a barrel.   I can map it in one of several ways, but I must chose ONE of those ways.  And each of those ways makes applying one texture easy, but applying a different texture a real pain.  On way would be a straight cylinder map.  Okay, so now the bands are horizontal, and if I want to paint "Gunpowder" across it, my letters can be equal height and on a horizontal line.  However, since the model bells out in the middle, the letters, and the seams between the staves, will be fat in the middle of the map.  I need to pre-distort all my wood textures to make them work properly, and apply distortion to the letters as well.  But at least this is a regular distortion.

I could try to avoid this distortion by belling out the UV map.  Well, this is less optimum.  I am now equal-area across the map, and the wood texture remains the same size top to bottom.  But now all the vertical lines are off plumb, and worse....the staves are sheared, with the shear increasing towards the final seam.  However, this is still superior for applying a single flood-fill texture with strong detail but without strong direction.

Okay, last way.  I could map the staves individually.  Well, finally, UV space is truly flat to the surface normals, and aligned as well.  Each stave can be properly aligned vertically and horizontally, and there is no shear.  A perfect map?

Perhaps, but what happens when I go back to paint the "Cooper's 220 Proof Black Magic" on the side?  I have to split up and match the seams of my logo across each and every stave.

What is the point of this elaborate example?  It is simply thus;

"It is the duty of the artist to determine priority of goals for a specific project, and to discover and apply solutions that satisfy those goals in order of that priority."

My particular hang-up with Poser clothing is that it doesn't look like real clothing.  I've stitched real clothing.  For me the choices forced by my artistic priorities are particularly problematic.  For instance: I had an outfit with a simple belt in my store a bit back.  Now, the easy way is to make it a smart prop.  Works in every version of Poser, works great, no extra effort or confusion for the user.

But it looks wrong.  The belt I had designed wouldn't sit there like a lump.  It would pull, it would follow some motions but not others.  What was important to me was not making the simplest rig that would get it through testing ("No poke-through?  Okay....passes!")  What I wanted was a belt that looked just a little more real.

So I made it a conforming figure with a phantom hip, with the belt itself controlled via ERC.  When it worked correctly, as the figure bent or twisted, the belt would ride up, a little, but basically stay around the waist.  And it wouldn't distort (as a real conformer would).

But of course I'd invoked ERC.  Which meant it worked fine in Poser 4, in Poser 5 it didn't work (the cross-talk stop sabotaged this sort of ERC), worked again in Poser 6.....

So my mistake was not in being lazy and rushing through a mesh.  It was in AVOIDING the simple solution and trying to do something better.  In trying to find a solution that worked better than what had gone before.

I think there's a lot of pressure now in the Poser Universe towards satisfying what one might call the "Poser Look," a pressure that works against efforts to improve the state of the art.  The "Poser Look" is almost a cultural blindness.  For some reason we no longer seem able to see that clothing is not thick sheets of foam rubber with molded-in wrinkles, that stretches over joints as they bend.

For some reason no-one can seem to see flood-filled textures any more.  It is as if our eyes have gotten adapted, and we are blind to the particular unrealities of our shared world.

If you follow the look slavishly, you check to see that your clothing handles the full range of motion (what, you didn't know you could do a Cheerleader kick in a 19th-century bustle?) that there is no poke through (so sorry that your "tight" jeans added two inches to your butt) that there are no seams showing (apparently clothing has moved beyond the sewing machine).  And of course there needs to be twenty MAT poses to cover all the basic color combinations primary through tertiary.  And it has to contain every morph in common use (the 44 DD so totally goes with a Flapper outfit!)

Well, I'm making it sound worse than it is.  For an honest and creative clothing maker, the job hasn't changed much.  Just the market expectations have gotten bigger.  You can't get away with skipping the morphs now.  And for a long time, you couldn't get away without adding a few MAT poses.  Poke through is a lot less acceptable then it used to be.

But these are lofty goals.  We all should aspire to them.  And be honest that a lot of what is out there flunks up, down, and sideways.  Pretty much everything at DAZ will get poke-through if you poke at it long enough.  And there's plenty of stuff out there with nary a morph at all!

But I don't want to let this striving towards perfection of these perhaps artificial goals take us away from what we should really be striving for; for clothing that lives and breathes and looks something like real stuff in the real world.  For clothing that offers more than yet another mini-skirt in thirty-two variations of flood-filled pleather.  For clothing that looks into history and to other cultures and through the veil into fantasies realized on media other than computer games.

And thus endeth the lecture.  Ita missa est.

Quote- "I disagree with one aspect of it. If it works in Poser and doesn't have Poser-specific aspects (dynamics mostly, and the poser-specific compression in some cases), then it works in D|S. What other programs does one need to satisfy besides those two? "

Bryce and Carrara come to mind pretty quickly(import with D/S right?). I agree with you though that building for D/S is easy and probably easier than Poser once you know what it likes, however if you build it in Poser don't expect it to work right in D/S. Daz Studio is more specific about it's cr2 code. Poser makes cr2's that don't work in Daz Studio the right way because the cr2's Poser makes when you save are sloppy in my opinion. Usually it only takes correcting a few lines in the cr2 and it works in D/S like a charm and still works perfect in Poser.

dogor,

**Hi Connikat8

Here's the definition
dog�ma**�� (d�gm, dg-) KEY �

NOUN:
pl. dog�mas or dog�ma�ta � (-m-t) KEY � 1. A doctrine or a corpus of doctrines relating to matters such as morality and faith, set forth in an authoritative manner by a church.

2. An authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true. See Synonyms at doctrine.
3. A principle or belief or a group of them: "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present" (Abraham Lincoln).

Well said nomuse, well said!
I only disagree with you a little about bad meshes... I've seen some. I really wish I hadn't.
By bad, I mean badly looking/sculpted modlels, too stiff and cartoonish looks...
Take a make suit as an example... Every tailored man's suit I've ever seen, (RL suit) has shoulder pads. So, then why is it that a lot of Poser made men's suits follow the roundness of the shoulder???

Why do the shoes, I dunno, like tennis shoes which should have a fairly stiff form, and one of their own follow the foot contour so much that they end up looking like a darn sock!

Why do so many pieces of clothes have sharp corners when there's no sharp corner to be seen in clothes. It's not that hard top adjust a few polygons to smooth things out.

Why do so many pieces look perfectly symmetrical? Small irregularities to make things look a tad more real are not that hard to add in.

Sometimes it seems like the modellers create something without really paying attention to what things really look like.

Anyways, blah blah...

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

dogor, is that the direct path your talking about. I have seen an increase in that mistake. Poser saves the file to where the merchant tells it to and does not bother to open the file and fix it. It gives Poser problems too if you don't have the same driver names or paths as that merchant. Same for the version number in the file.

Direct paths should not pass testing!   But it seems both DAZ and Renderosity can slip on this one.  I've had to correct more than a few paths on store-bought items.

For myself, it's one of the many annoying little details of doing a proper Poser item.  Which is....after everything is set and working, you open the file in text and find and replace all the bad file paths Poser created.  And then you test again, to make sure you got them all right.  And if you see a problem, and fix it....oh, then it's back to the text editor step All Over Again.

I'm talking about bending and conforming in general. Poser will allow comands that contradict and basically skip to the bottom line for the answer like AllowsBending for example. If the cr2 doesn't agree with itself all the way through in D/S it won't read it the same way(thus it works wrong, it found errors and read it more correctly). The other problem with Poser made cr2's in D/S is conforming. Daz has the Fit Too feature that operates off of the bones like you see in clothing and shoes with bones that match that of the character's. Where in Poser you can save a conforming figure that doesn't at all and load it and conform it. In D/S you  don't use Fit  Too in that case,  you drag and drop  it  over what you want  it parented  too. Then it works.

Poser dogma-It's what I call the entrenched Poser rules on figure creation.

In creating my figure I discovered some amazing things about Poser.  The first was when I studied the P1 woman,  her collars, neck, and chest all touch and there's no tearing when she bends.  Thus from the beginning Poser has supported three groups touching.  The second Poser's rigging system is the same as the old Lightwave 5.6 joint envelope system.  In fact I was able to transfer my figures Lightwave rig to Poser,  hand typed of course but the values are the same and never even set foot in the set up room.  The third,  and this was the break through,  Poser 4 and above support relative vertices.

The first important rule of ANY Poser "hack" is....

"Not always."

You are basically guaranteed, every time you have a child with two parents, or an anti-crosstalk solution, or a reverse hierarchy affector, or any one of the many lovely advanced Poser tricks out there, that on some computer it just plain won't work.

(But then, there is as corollary that no matter how straight-forward and by-the-rules you make a Poser item, some user out there will find a way to break it anyhow.)

@ patorak: That's great about Poser to Lightwave rigging transfer!!!  What exactly are relative vertices?

About rigging details and CR2 adjustments and path changes, I think Penguinisto mentioned it earlier, they can eat up a lot of time!

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

Hi Conniekat8

I'm back!  3D Studio Max should have a joint envelope rigging system as well.  "Relative vertices" are vertices with floating point values. 

Quote -   "Relative vertices" are vertices with floating point values. 

Do you mean floating point indices? And to what do those relative vertices relate?

I'm intrigued.

The pen is mightier than the sword. But if you literally want to have some impact, use a typewriter

My gallery   My freestuff

Think of it in terms of the Necker Cube.