Hi, I'm sorry to hear that you couldn't get the help you need from Daz. U was in a similar situation. I bought a product from Daz in August. The product was giving me missing files error. I was able to pin point the missing files and sent a ticket to Daz. I got a autoreply after resending the ticket a week later, and then another generic reply that they're looking into it. I wanted to return the product within the 30 days of purchase, however, I was able to contact the Publishing Artist of that product myself and was able to resolve the issue. He explained that Daz has purchased the product outright, but packaged it wrongly. My ticket is still open, and it's been 2 months. I understand you're frustrations, but the last few years, Daz' customer service has gone downhill. I don't know if this help. I joint a Discord service a few months ago, where fellow Daz Users/Artists/Vendor chat with each other, helping each other with issues and sharing art ideas. More often than not, I find my answers at this Discord server faster than roaming the various 3D forums. I can't guarantee you'll find all the answers instantly, but at least there are people with similar issues that can share ideas.

I don't know if this link is allowed. Moderators, please take it off if it's not allowed. Thank you and good luck. https://disboard.org/server/578543104492306432

Software: Daz Studio 4.15, Photoshop CC, Zbrush 2022, Blender 3.3, Silo 2.3, Filter Forge 4. Marvelous Designer 7

Hardware: self built Intel Core i7 8086K, 64GB RAM, RTX 3090 .

"If you spend too much time arguing about software, you're spending too little time creating art!" ~ SomeSmartAss

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Thanks for the information. I will check out that forum.

Gone down hill? I left DAZ years ago for just these reasons. DAZ is well known for going full steam ahead and never looking back. So pretty well ignoring issues with content; But then DAZ is just a sales platform not a content creator. If you have issues with content it is best to go right to the actual creator.

The best part of DAZ was the founder, who left to start another CG content site because DAZ turned in to something he didn't recognize.

You can bring up topics like this on Daz boards. People do all the time! I think Daz is having some sort of growing pains. They're putting out more products than ever and trying to do more with their products. Plus they have new demands placed on them thanks to changes in NVidia's graphics cards. Add in the pandemic and it means some stuff slips by. I think they're doing the best they can, and all this will get sorted over time. At least I hope it will!

A Daz staff member "DAZ_Rob" Reccently boasted in the forums they were so busy that they had to " take on new staff".?

Indeed they are attempting to grow there user base beyond the still render portrait & pin-up girl crowd with their new export plugins to Maya ,Blender, C4D, Max etc.

As the front page of the main daz site would indicate, Daz is desparately trying to rebrand themselves and a content resource for the professional CG /Gaming communities

But if you look at their new forums for those apps, it is the same still render portrait & pin-up girl crowd. posting the same early 20's ,Ideal BMI, white genesis girls largely staring into the void of an empty universe.......

Except rendered Blender or Unreal engine etc, instead of DS IRay.?

You can only grow your user base by bringing in new buyers

The professional game companies like ubisoft are using Blender,Maya Max etc but they are creating custom content from scratch for each game title certainly not wasting time with bloated genesis figures chucked out from Kiddie pool toys like Daz studio. .

And the casual hobbiests doing still portraits & pinups, are likely already Daz customers ,waiting for the next big 50% discount sale and saving up for a bigger GPU to keep pace with NIVIDIA and ridiculous 4-8K textures being used in many Daz store products. ?

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That's quite a post, Wolf! :D I've no doubt they need a little extra staff. I've no doubt customers are waiting for discounts. That's part of the game here and there.

You surely know Marvel has used Daz for pre-vis on its movies and people use Daz for lots of things. I know some people want to use Daz assets in their indie games. That's done more easily now, I guess. But if I were a vendor there I would not provide the interactive license for that. Daz has discounted those to nothing.

I don't know what protections Daz actually provides against license abuse. I recall they've showed you the pointy end of the stick for making clothing mannequins. But that was before the big inter-program compatibility push. I wonder if that would be such a big deal now?

I would not throw stones at the pinup or stills crowd. They've kept things going for decades! Plus there is a lot of interesting not-pinup content here and at Daz. And I enjoy a good pinup. ;)

The Iray/GPU thing is a problem, but how long did 3D rendering technology seemingly sit still? A long time, I think. Now it's moving forward, but it's moving forward in a big jump and there are research and hardware costs. The pricing on all that will surely produce a divide in the market, especially now. And yet, prices may come down a bit when AMD strikes back in a more meaningful way and when NVidia reaches the limits of this growth spurt.

The giant textures issue is a different problem. Daz QA lets all that go, but I doubt anyone wants gigabyte downloads for throw pillows. Vendors need to be a little more realistic about how their products are used. The part I don't like is, I see compression artifacts in some of these big textures. So, they're offering more resolution than many people need while overcompressing their map files to keep the per-file size down. I think there is room for improved optimization!

Anyway, I find your outlook interesting. Thanks for that :)

LOL So DAZ hasn't really changed in 5 years.

Torquinox I've been banned from the DAZ forums 3 times for bringing up these topics. I can guarantee you none of this is new at DAZ. My opinion is DAZ customers and content producers are an ouroboros.

Just how many lace teddies does Victoria need?

From what I can tell, Vicky needs all the lace teddies she can get. But she also has plenty of sensible attire. I've seen serious complaints that new outfits aren't sexy enough. No pleasing everyone. And as various vendors have said here and there, they need their products to sell in order to make money.

You got banned 3 times? Sounds awful, but you got back in a few times, too. :D IDK what you said to get banned or when that happened. The best I've managed to do so far is get a a few posts deleted, maybe a thread once. NBD, really. It's hard to get along on a forum! There are misunderstandings. People have moments and they wig out. And these are all nice, pleasant forums!

I balance some of the weird things that happen against Daz's generosity, especially during lockdown. I still think they really are doing their best. Things happen that people don't like. People disagree with decisions, people make mistakes, people get disillusioned. I try my best to give the benefit of the doubt. That's all I can do or say about that. And I hope the issues from the OP and others get resolved.

I got back in because of the multiple Emails I had from game alpha testing.

But ya, the demand for slut wear has always out stripped the demand for street wear. You can always tell what movie is in the top slot by the number of produces produced in that theme. When the pirates of the Caribbean was in, there was a new pirate outfit by some one every week or so. But just try to find a pair of bib overalls or a hunting jacket. Same thing every time a new star wars movie comes out. Thing is it is really too easy to make Studio content now. The app is set up to do a lot of it automatically. Practically anyone that wants to take a month or so to learn how to do it, can.

Yet try to find those geographed genitalia on DAZ.Or a fixed version for geneses so they can be used in carrara with out redoing the UVs. That is top of my list of gripes about DAZ. They tend to see only forward and never look back. So there is a very slim chance DAZ will fix broken content; or even remove it from the store knowing it's broke. The UVmapping on Genests male genitalia has been screwed up since it dropped. Never fixed and DAZ is still selling it in the big essentials pack. Hell of a note for the people that bought the bundle FOR the genitalia. Why fix 1 when 2 is up? Why fix 2 when 3 is up? DAZ once had a plug in up for 18 months knowing it was broken. Took multiple people getting refunds on it and threatening lawsuits for them to pull it. And the way it looks DAZ has not changed.

But DAZ wasn't always like this. At one time I conversed regular with the founders. DAZ bought out a company that then took over DAZ and both the founders ended up leaving; one starting his own content store and developing a competing figure. .Dawn https://hivewire3d.com/ Need to book mark that, 2 of my favorite content artists are there;Lisa's Botanicals, and Ken Gilliland.

I got banned because I am a carrarest not a Dazzy. And DAZ was [expleative} carrara hard at the time. My opinion DAZ bought carrara to get the IDK{?} for poser 5-7 and then when DAZ realized they couldn't strip any more out of carrara for Studio they abandoned it, as well as a few hundred customers that used carrara. DAZ did not see us as valued customers. Mostly because we could make or mod what we needed. Thing is I have 36 pages of DAZ content. Imagine what I'd have if DAZ hadn't have abandoned Carrara. And I wasn't the only carraest throwing money at DAZ.

Man, this is weird for me. I don't normally carry a grudge.

You make a lot of good points, a lot to consider.

It seems reasonably easy to set up content in DS, but it still takes modeling and texturing skills to make the content in the first place. It might make sense to make some bib overalls and a hunting jacket.

Carrara has not been well treated, no. It's a deep and well-sorted program with a lot to recommend it, but I think we're all going to die of old age before they update it. At this point, I doubt they have the resources to do anything with it. They'd need to hire a team, and the new Carrara would likely be an entirely different program.

Those other mis-steps are annoying. It's the sort of thing that happens in companies, and who knows why? You could be right about all of it, and It's probably best to let the grudge go.

To be honest I wouldnt be surprised if Daz is being bitten by its own decisions. Yes a centrally managed system doling out files a la Daz Central would cut down on copyright protection problems but it is doing it in the most expensive way possible to imagine. Even an Amazon server farm makes me wait minutes just to get up a favourites list of a couple of hundred items. A central index for thousands of multigigabit daz directories of users is just using so much server processor/ network packet / switch time that I would guess the Daz Central versus the store are fighting each other for resources

Daz Central is just a different front end, underneath it's essentially the same as Install manager (which is still available).

As a bit of a dinosaur, I must admit I use DS4.21 in pretty much the same way as I did DS0.7. The new rendering capability of iRay is nice, but 3DL could do good stuff with effort and attention to detail. LiquidRust showed that years ago (see this 3DL image (https://www.renderosity.com/gallery/items/1040363/testing-lips-and-eye-relfections)). The controllers like 'Right Fingers Grip' save time, but they don't mirror at all, so this is useless for someone like me producing occasional pose sets - and makes me keep on being a dinosaur. The problems that so many have with DIM loaded content and DAZ Central content has convinced me to install stuff the same way I did for DS 0.7 - manually. That way I know who's at fault if it doesn't work. Also, not using the content databases means that I can move stuff around to suit my organisation method.

I am unconvinced by G9. It appears to be worse than G8 for everything except portrait close-ups. G8 Clothing & hair seem to fit G9 worse and more erratically than G3 fits G8, especially after a save & exit then re-load. The joints look like rubber and few PA's seem to be able to get decent muscle definition from the base mesh and rely excessively on HD morphs to get the details already present in the G8 base mesh - it's just ridiculous to make such a massive backwards step while pretending it's a step forwards. I rather feel G9 is a case of the Emperor's New Clothes, people unwilling to admit they've made a mistake. I look forward to G10. Maybe one or two lessons will have been learnt, even if the problems have never been admitted/acknowledged.

As for the skimpwear. That, I fear, is likely to be an enduring feature of all figure animation/rendering programs. Early 20's female characters are much easier on the eye than grumpy old men like me. Take a look at TV adverts, and assess whether 'Early 20's Females' are over-represented (regardless of ethnic origin). I think you will find they are, and these early 20's females will enhance the image/animation/product in an attractive way - it's all described as the 'Halo Effect'.

Regards,

Richard.

It's interesting the read the history and other experiences.

I quit using their forums last year as frankly it was useless for me to try and get any timely information. Tech Support: Hmmm, they try. They've a Sysiphusian task, caught between management and the programmers. But their arrogance regarding no documentation, which the entire planet apparently knows about judging by youtube postings, is not really excusable.

I use the FBX exporter a lot, and a recent update actually made it worse. The OBJ exporter is rock solid so is truly a Pre-set. Not so with the FBX exporter. You have to check usually reset the options EACH TIME!!! A real time waster. Have they fixed it? No. I made comments about that & got censored. They said I was making "personal attacks". ??!!? Interesting, since I don't know anyone to make personal attacks against, nor mentioned any names as I don't know anyone! I only made comment about the SOFTWARE as it has regressed and gotten worse, AS ANY USER LONG TIME SHOULD!

But the kicker was some months back. I posted a new topic, simply asking about getting a particular product's expressions & morphs to export. I got a reply & replied to that. Checked an hour or so later, and my original posting was gone! I could see the original reply, but any reply I made went into the ether. And then the reply vanished too.

So I guess must be officially persona non grata and didn't know it. Fine. Don't know, and frankly don't care, not worth my time or effort at this point.

But I still buy their products; they'll take my money but not my questions. ;)

If ya want to talk dinosaurs: Step Right Up!

I export everything out to Lightwave, which is another saga these days. But to do what Daz does with expression morphs, I edit geometry and rename those morphs to get a single control. But the result is that I've a LOT more control over surfacing, lighting, DoF, Motion Blur, etc. A number of other packages can as well of course, but I've a fair amount invested in auxiliary tools (several you can't even get now), & I've gotten my pipeline to where I can handle everything except dForce hair. Blender handles that well, so have to knuckle down & learn Blender.

I'm passing on the Gen 9 stuff too. Gen 9 makes that all the more complicated and so far I've seen very few new characters to make it worth the effort.

I'm not investing in Genesis 9 right now, mainy because Gen8 had so many great characters that my library has all the variety it needs to tell my stories.

I'm also using 4.16 primarily for rendering and runs well on my system. I do have 4.21 installed for testing on another computer, but that's it.

I think the whole market is going through transformations right now, facing challenges with everything from introduction of AI to the slowing down of the economy.

G9 feels like a big step backwards from G8 in a lot of ways, much harder to make content for and the over-reliance on high subdivision to get any basic anatomy details. Going back to the androgynous base shape and the simple tube topology of very old figures is baffling.

My Freebies

I don't frequent the DAZ forums very much. I post only very rarely. I'm disappointed that there are very few male clothes for Genesis 9. I don't want pirates, etc. I don't do female pinups either. DAZ made a big claim that Genesis 9 males could wear female clothes. I posted that this wasn't realistic. They deleted my post.

I sometimes complain about "Vanity" folders because it's so hard to find my content. I never keep track of vendor's names. I get some replies from the PAs that tells me their content experience is totally different from mine. Since they're PAs, most of their content is installed under PAs names.

I submitted a ticket about a problem with a scene from Moonshine's diner. I got a reply announcing a fix, two years later.

"I submitted a ticket about a problem with a scene from Moonshine's diner. I got a reply announcing a fix, two years later."

YIKES!

ronaldknights posted at 5:48 PM Mon, 23 October 2023 - #4476711

I'm disappointed that there are very few male clothes for Genesis 9. I don't want pirates, etc. I don't do female pinups either. DAZ made a big claim that Genesis 9 males could wear female clothes. I posted that this wasn't realistic. They deleted my post.

The marketing of Genesis 9 as unisex is wishful thinking. The reality is that vast majority of content for the figure is what I would consider to be traditionally female clothes. Lots of high heels, blouses, skirts, lingerie and the like. When something is modeled after a men's garment it usually is lacking the details, like a collar band on a men's woven collared button up shirt.

Genesis 9, whether by intent or without realizing it, is optimized for the Daz3D volume customers - people who render women with breasts. The mesh has baked in cleavage between and under the breasts that I haven't seen anyone ZBrush away.

It makes sense that their largest customer base would be their main focus, but they really don't like anyone saying that in the forums.

Thumbnails for content are overrated anyway. Just keep clicking on all of the dead icons you see and eventually you'll find what you're looking for, without all of that pesky information, guidance, visual cues and SMART content slowing your workflow down.

pjz99 posted at 4:34 AM Sat, 30 September 2023 - #4475569

G9 feels like a big step backwards from G8 in a lot of ways, much harder to make content for and the over-reliance on high subdivision to get any basic anatomy details. Going back to the androgynous base shape and the simple tube topology of very old figures is baffling.

THIS !
You've nailed it.

I have lost all hope in the DAZ support and definitely in the forums.
I have at least 3 support tickets now open since last July.
One was a fairly important one about a vdb product(the entire render came out great, except the VDB which looked like it was in minecraft! And to this day, I can't get it to work. No matter how ramped up the settings are or what settings I use. It comes out horrifically pixelated as it it was an 8 bit graphic). Another was about a set of eyes…that after posting in technical, found out the issue has been reported since 2018, and they do not fix it nor reply to support.
As for the forums? I made the very sad mistake of making a post(and yes I have the screenshot) of saying (in regard to IP rights and fan products) "Some companies will go after you, some wont."
I mentioned it tends to be based on how close visually an item was.
(seriously, the post was about 3 lines. Not even a paragraph)
This got my post removed and a warning. (I kid you not). I then tried to post again, to get a warning that my posts were being moderated. I wrote to the admins as I went through the TOS and -nothing- was in there about this kind of post. To be told, "Its not explicitly in the TOS, but its the moderators feeling that it was inappropriate"
So basically, even if something is not against ToS, they can just remove it and warn you. Leaving customers not even knowing what is and isn't allowed to be said.
Needless to say, I stopped posting to their gallery and have seriously cut down what I purchase. I purchase items that I can not find on other sights now. But due to some of their issues with pricing, discounts, and replies from the forums...I have given it a skip on purchasing some items. Which, I know, hurts the artist more than the site. Which I dont like to do but...

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

Timberoo posted at 2:45 PM Wed, 22 November 2023 - #4478052

ronaldknights posted at 5:48 PM Mon, 23 October 2023 - #4476711
I'm disappointed that there are very few male clothes for Genesis 9. I don't want pirates, etc. I don't do female pinups either. DAZ made a big claim that Genesis 9 males could wear female clothes. I posted that this wasn't realistic. They deleted my post.
The marketing of Genesis 9 as unisex is wishful thinking. The reality is that vast majority of content for the figure is what I would consider to be traditionally female clothes. Lots of high heels, blouses, skirts, lingerie and the like. When something is modeled after a men's garment it usually is lacking the details, like a collar band on a men's woven collared button up shirt.
Genesis 9, whether by intent or without realizing it, is optimized for the Daz3D volume customers - people who render women with breasts. The mesh has baked in cleavage between and under the breasts that I haven't seen anyone ZBrush away.
It makes sense that their largest customer base would be their main focus, but they really don't like anyone saying that in the forums.

Gen9 is a pain. I have just about every morph package/correction package, and the under arms particularly are a pain.
I have yet to use it in a single render.

Also, the lack of realistic items is getting annoying. We all know about the "Naked vicki in a temple" Trope....but we are now in 2024 and it's not all breasts and latex now.
Trying to find realistic military gear for a female is a joke. Trying to find a fantasy outfit that doesn't have her running in high heels is like finding a needle in a haystack. (Trust me when I say, you are -not- going to run over cobblestone streets in stilettos. I live in Scotland, and cobblestones are the death of high heels)
I love the female form, but there is a time when you dont want her breast on display and her looking like a pin-up.
And I also have to agree with the lack of sufficient male items.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

I really felt good about DAZ, maybe 20 years ago. But in the decades since, it's just been a regular nightmare.

I can't find stuff because DAZ insists on creating its own insane way of handling the alphabet. When I buy a shirt, I don't want to look under the PA's name to find it. I never remember a PAs name.

As for "real world" clothing for males or females: I was delighted when I discovered Genesis 8. There were all sorts of fantastic "mature" male & female characters, and clothes to go with them.

That must have been a fluke, because Genesis 9 is sorely lacking.

DAZ Moderators are now even closing threads now. I posted a thread about when Gen 9 to Gen 8 Conversion tool is coming cause I WILL NOT support Degeneracy ever. That model is a clear pandering tactic. I can't wait till i really start learning Blender/Lightwave/Zbrush cause I will leave DAZ and let it just sink...

Tired of this bs...

Daz Moderators close threads? That's been going on forever.

ronaldknights posted at 12:51 PM Fri, 19 July 2024 - #4487497

I really felt good about DAZ, maybe 20 years ago. But in the decades since, it's just been a regular nightmare.
I can't find stuff because DAZ insists on creating its own insane way of handling the alphabet. When I buy a shirt, I don't want to look under the PA's name to find it. I never remember a PAs name.
As for "real world" clothing for males or females: I was delighted when I discovered Genesis 8. There were all sorts of fantastic "mature" male & female characters, and clothes to go with them.
That must have been a fluke, because Genesis 9 is sorely lacking.

I have to say that is true. Both the search function(its a nightmare and its no better in the program)
And Its true that there are some nice mature male figures/clothing for gen 8.
But Gen9? It takes more work to make gen9 look decent than it does working with gen3 or 8.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

gohanf22 posted at 11:24 AM Sun, 21 July 2024 - #4487525

DAZ Moderators are now even closing threads now. I posted a thread about when Gen 9 to Gen 8 Conversion tool is coming cause I WILL NOT support Degeneracy ever. That model is a clear pandering tactic. I can't wait till i really start learning Blender/Lightwave/Zbrush cause I will leave DAZ and let it just sink...

Tired of this bs...

Yes they do!
There was one about the legality of the “fan” products and the ED licence. People were getting removed left, right, and centre. Then after they released a whole swarm of plain ole rip-offs, they finally (I think it got to 18 pages) Just removed the entire thread.

Many of us just wanted to know if the complete copies were actually working with the companies that own them, or if they were just plain ole rip-offs. That was it! Just “hey is it legal for you to do this” (particularly with Star Wars, Star Trek, Project red/cyberpunk/edge runner, etc) I suggested that “Perhaps they can say “made in conjunction with/in partnership with” so customers know it is ok to purchase(as they have had to remove things in the past)
And did they answer? NOPE. Did they penalize customers asking? YES, and removed/warned them for “insinuating daz had done something wrong” and then they just removed the thread all together.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

While I can see them not wanting a bunch of questions about the legality of their products posted in their forums, if it were licensed you would expect them to post that in the description. If someone were to report to Disney, I imagine there could be some trouble at least for not crediting them.

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Check out my store here or my free stuff here
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And a post I did in an OLDER thread was deleted and again was asking when Gen 9 to Gen 8 Morph Conversion Tool was coming. Yeah they literally succumbed to the damn ESG/DEI bs...

...or just have a ToS rule against bumping/reposting.

So, since Richard's here, I guess we can talk about him to his face. That's always better. I don't hate you Richard, but we ain't friends. I'm going to leave this snippet here by itself in case it violates any rules.

I recall, back before Daz decided DS could be a universal exporter to other softwares, we could get threads closed or deleted by even talking about Blender in a positive light. I suspect Daz might have still thought about maybe updating Carrara beyond 8.5. O course, that never happened and now DS is a universal exporter care of built-in exporters and bridge plug-ins. Times change!

As for the odious paid-for EL items, those are odious wherever they're offered, regardless of site or vendor. Why? Because the subtext says, "We're going to sell you these items that we're not authorized to make or sell (because, let's face it, if these sites had official licensing arrangements, they would boast of their licensing arrangements and show the requisite official logos!) - And you are going to pay us for these items, and you are not allowed to use these items to make a profit for yourself." Yeah! And of course, Richard or Frank would definitely delete my post and send me a nastygram for saying all this - Not that I care. As I said, paid for EL items are odious and I would never buy one. And I did say things like this over their and they did get deleted. >_>

And who knows? My posts may also be deleted here and I might also get a nastygram, but that's just how it goes. I don;t mean any harm, but truth is a weapon.

Anyway, the unknown part of the EL license is, what's enforcement mechanism? Is Daz or another site going to lawyer up and come after a customer for selling pictures made with EL items? That would be interesting! Daz reps will not discuss that topic. Imagine that! And the related truth is, all the products of all the sites are available for (often free) download from sites that are beyond the legal reach of any US company. Piracy, plain words. I am a merciless bargain hunter, but I don't steal content. Yet, I know these places exist and I know of the limitation because I have accidentally found such sites, dutifully reported them, and been told the pirates are beyond reach.

OK I'm done now. Just had to get all that off my chest.

RedPhantom posted at 7:07 AM Mon, 22 July 2024 - #4487540

While I can see them not wanting a bunch of questions about the legality of their products posted in their forums, if it were licensed you would expect them to post that in the description. If someone were to report to Disney, I imagine there could be some trouble at least for not crediting them.

The issue was that the items were not “similar” but -exact- copies. They used the fonts for the genre/companies, they used trademarked names etc.
All we were asking was, "Hey, are you working -with- the companies or....?"

But no one ever got an answer. Then the star trek stuff vanished.
As I know things like the Tolkien stuff is -very- tightly regulated(and daz does not show up on their site as allowed vendors, nor does the daz parent company) it was something that should be asked.
The same for the Star Wars stuff. You need to be licensed to sell items that are associated with them. But again, no listing for daz or its parent company on that list.
If I am spending my money, I have a right to go "hey, is...this actually supporting the people that actually created it?"
I dont want to spend my money to then find out, it was useless.

Never mind I already ended up in a bother as I bought this armour(its nice too). No mention of any association with a game.
Used it a few times till someone asked "Oh is that a crysis fan piece"

Left me abit speechless. I was not familiar with the game. The moment I peeked at it, it is an almost straight rip of the game.

THAT is one of the biggest issues.
People being blind sided. Just post if it is in “partnership with” and guess what? No one is going to question it

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

Torquinox posted at 11:33 AM Mon, 22 July 2024 - #4487547

Anyway, the unknown part of the EL license is, what's enforcement mechanism? Is Daz or another site going to lawyer up and come after a customer for selling pictures made with EL items? That would be interesting! Daz reps will not discuss that topic. Imagine that! And the related truth is, all the products of all the sites are available for (often free) download from sites that are beyond the legal reach of any US company. Piracy, plain words. I am a merciless bargain hunter, but I don't steal content. Yet, I know these places exist and I know of the limitation because I have accidentally found such sites, dutifully reported them, and been told the pirates are beyond reach.

OK I'm done now. Just had to get all that off my chest.

BINGO!
Just clarify! That was all we were asking.
As a consumer, we have that right!
Because I bet 10 to 1 if I went and made a site that was a straight rip of Daz, down to the logo they would hop up legally!

That and the bloody support tickets!
When an item has been complained about and filed since 2018...and NOT fixed..that is an issue a consumer has a right to complain about!
When I have outstanding support issues for just about a -year-...that is a valid complaint.
I cant use the items, I cant get my money back...makes for a valid complaint.

But what happens? You get your threads removed, you get warned, etc.

Here is the novel idea...
Just...answer the questions and the “issue” (not really an issue is it?) goes away.

Hiding? Deleting forums? Makes it look like they are guilty as heck!

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

RHaseltine posted at 9:23 AM Mon, 22 July 2024 - #4487542

...or just have a ToS rule against bumping/reposting.

Or just...here my out...its a crazy idea.
Have a brutally clear ToS.

Only delete and warn when there is an -actual- ToS Violation.

Answer valid concerns of customers.
Stop deleting things that are asking valid questions.
And stop treating your customers like they are an enemy that needs to be shut up.

Its a novel idea...I know!
But...just answer valid concerns and no one will have the concerns!
SO simple.

It saves some of us having to write Disney, project red, Tolkien etc to ask!

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

DarkElegance posted at 11:44 AM Mon, 22 July 2024 - #4487548

THAT is one of the biggest issues.
People being blind sided. Just post if it is in “partnership with” and guess what? No one is going to question it

If there is a partnership, it's well-hidden with no press releases, no fanfare, no sign of partnership or licensing deal. Everyone should question it.

Torquinox posted at 7:42 PM Tue, 23 July 2024 - #4487693

DarkElegance posted at 11:44 AM Mon, 22 July 2024 - #4487548
THAT is one of the biggest issues.
People being blind sided. Just post if it is in “partnership with” and guess what? No one is going to question it
If there is a partnership, it's well-hidden with no press releases, no fanfare, no sign of partnership or licensing deal. Everyone should question it.

And that was why so many of us were going "Eh....is this ok?"
The "droid" that is an exact of R2d2....Lets not mention that "droid" is owned now. The wee android was exact. That brings to mind a whole slew of questions as per the Disney site, it states you have to have a licence to sell products that are associated with Star Wars.
(Lets not touch the marvel stuff yet)
I mean according to the site…. You have to get permission.

https://www.disneystudiolicensing.com/
(you can find the link for Star wars and Marvel)
So, my concern was(valid) did they get that permission? If so, why not just post it!?
Just say, proudly, "Hey, we are now able to sell licensed fan items for...."

Consumers have a right to know that. No ToS circumvents law. That is a -fact-.
Paint it as "fan art" or not. If they don't have permission, that is an issue for those that falsely believe they are purchasing items in good faith.

It's a valid concern. One, I would have thought, Daz would have supported. Because they are against piracy. Yet here again, is the issue of IP rights in Daz and no one there willing to say "yes, we have the rights"

Then there is the LOTR stuff.
https://www.middleearth.com/faq.html

According to that..

"I want to make and sell merchandise using names, likenesses, quotes, or descriptions from The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings books and films. Do I need to obtain permission or enter into a license?
Yes, permission and a license are definitely required. If you would like to pursue a license, please refer to our Licensing Guidelines Page to see if your business might qualify for a license. We will review your request carefully. We must caution you that we do not enter into licensing arrangements with every interested party, but we will consider carefully whether your business is a good fit for our brand and we will respond in a timely manner."

So, where is the "We have proudly procured a licence to sell items from the movies/books of LotR" announcement? I mean, the sales would increase if those announcements were made!

Its so simple. Just...clarify for your paying customers.
So...simple.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

I pretty much stopped going when they rolled out ads on the forum and gallery - I've had at least one friend there tell me that they basically started doing it without announcing it, and in response they pulled their gallery images down because they were based on a home tabletop game and they'd posted in good faith that it wouldn't get advertising placed on them after the fact. And I more recently poked around and found they've been dabbling with a generative art engine, which pretty much finished me with them.

I'm still debating whether I keep using the software (I blocked internet for it at the firewall so it can't "phone home" in case they're pulling images to feed into that engine), switch back to Poser again (expensive upgrade for me now and requires abandoning content I've paid for), or even just abandon the whole thing 25 year old content archive and go back to sketchtablets and building my own 3D in Blender.

SydneyInPeril posted at 6:51 PM Fri, 2 August 2024 - #4487984

I pretty much stopped going when they rolled out ads on the forum and gallery - I've had at least one friend there tell me that they basically started doing it without announcing it, and in response they pulled their gallery images down because they were based on a home tabletop game and they'd posted in good faith that it wouldn't get advertising placed on them after the fact. And I more recently poked around and found they've been dabbling with a generative art engine, which pretty much finished me with them.

The ads are gone

I'm still debating whether I keep using the software (I blocked internet for it at the firewall so it can't "phone home" in case they're pulling images to feed into that engine).

The Daz Loras are generated solely from Daz-owned store images, not gallery imags nor locally stored images.

RHaseltine posted at 7:00 PM Fri, 2 August 2024 - #4487985

SydneyInPeril posted at 6:51 PM Fri, 2 August 2024 - #4487984
I pretty much stopped going when they rolled out ads on the forum and gallery - I've had at least one friend there tell me that they basically started doing it without announcing it, and in response they pulled their gallery images down because they were based on a home tabletop game and they'd posted in good faith that it wouldn't get advertising placed on them after the fact. And I more recently poked around and found they've been dabbling with a generative art engine, which pretty much finished me with them.
The ads are gone

That's well and good. I've already left and don't really intend to come back for a while. My recommendation for the management over there is to make public announcements of changes like that in the future, on both the website and the forum, before they go live and blindside people. Especially the ones that smack heavily of "Number Go Up" revenue grabs like the Temu ads were.

I'm still debating whether I keep using the software (I blocked internet for it at the firewall so it can't "phone home" in case they're pulling images to feed into that engine).
The Daz Loras are generated solely from Daz-owned store images, not gallery imags nor locally stored images.

There was no immediate indication where the training data was coming from, and given the way the Generative Image Engine thing really got traction you can understand where if there's no real immediately clickable announcement/press release about what it's being trained on, directly on the page indicating it's a thing available, that anyone who sees it immediately assumes the worst case scenario for what it's been trained on.

Needless to say, I don't plan on removing the internet block from the software if I continue using it, and I'm not planning on buying any more product from DAZ right now. Management is making some really poor decisions lately in what appears to be an attempt to grasp desperately at additional revenue streams, all of which are severely impacting the core customer experience, even if they seem like they shouldn't be having any impact from management's perspective.

In fact daz was very clear that the images used were its own store images in their blogs and, as I recal, in the emails.

SydneyInPeril posted at 6:51 PM Fri, 2 August 2024 - #4487984

I pretty much stopped going when they rolled out ads on the forum and gallery - I've had at least one friend there tell me that they basically started doing it without announcing it, and in response they pulled their gallery images down because they were based on a home tabletop game and they'd posted in good faith that it wouldn't get advertising placed on them after the fact. And I more recently poked around and found they've been dabbling with a generative art engine, which pretty much finished me with them.
I'm still debating whether I keep using the software (I blocked internet for it at the firewall so it can't "phone home" in case they're pulling images to feed into that engine), switch back to Poser again (expensive upgrade for me now and requires abandoning content I've paid for), or even just abandon the whole thing 25 year old content archive and go back to sketchtablets and building my own 3D in Blender.

I stopped posting complete in the galleries. Which is sad, as some beautiful artists post there. But the mentality of their moderators, the fact that "support"(we will use that term loosely) is just about non-existent(yes, I can say that, as I have open support tickets that have had no reply since last july), I have no interest in supporting it more than I have to. Again, which is sad, as some great artists have their products there.

As for the GenAI, there is -nothing- they can say or do, that will make that ok. Almost every major company is turning their back on Gen AI for a reason.
The fact they think by stating "its trained from store images" is a "this makes it better" is boggling.
Talk about(literally) Missing the bigger picture.

As for the program, well, I hate to say it, but I now prefer it over poser. I have both up to date at the moment and...Daz does perform better(even with the bugs and issues) Than poser.

What is turning people away, is how they treat customers. The open censorship, the open favouritism, the fact they have zero respect for IP rights...it just bad business.
As I noted before, one of the products I have been trying to get help with, has had complaints since 2018. Is it fixed? Nope. Have they replied? Also, Nope. And yes, I even went into my tickets and tried to post a reminder of "hey, can I get a reply?"
And....silence.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

RHaseltine posted at 3:34 PM Sat, 3 August 2024 - #4488013

In fact daz was very clear that the images used were its own store images in their blogs and, as I recal, in the emails.

It should have said so on the page for the generative engine. Not in a blog (that not everyone will have read) or in emails (which not everyone will have received, I know I never got any).

Basically, the indication of what the engine is trained on wasn't posted as visibly as it should have been. Hence, we have to make assumptions, and the assumption trained into us that it's being trained on whatever happens to be vacuumed up, whether it be from everywhere, or from all site posted content via changes to the TOS.

I will also comment that @DarkElegance has a view pretty close to my own. I like Studio over Poser. But my friend has had experiences regarding the mentality of the moderators when they pushed back on the advertising on the gallery thing, that they told me made it felt like they were being expected to couch 100% of their commentary in a very non-aggressive way or shut up, which caused them to delete all of their content in response and walk away from it.

SydneyInPeril posted at 9:48 PM Sun, 4 August 2024 - #4488048

RHaseltine posted at 3:34 PM Sat, 3 August 2024 - #4488013
In fact daz was very clear that the images used were its own store images in their blogs and, as I recal, in the emails.
It should have said so on the page for the generative engine. Not in a blog (that not everyone will have read) or in emails (which not everyone will have received, I know I never got any).
Basically, the indication of what the engine is trained on wasn't posted as visibly as it should have been. Hence, we have to make assumptions, and the assumption trained into us that it's being trained on whatever happens to be vacuumed up, whether it be from everywhere, or from all site posted content via changes to the TOS.
I will also comment that @DarkElegance has a view pretty close to my own. I like Studio over Poser. But my friend has had experiences regarding the mentality of the moderators when they pushed back on the advertising on the gallery thing, that they told me made it felt like they were being expected to couch 100% of their commentary in a very non-aggressive way or shut up, which caused them to delete all of their content in response and walk away from it.

In regards to the moderators...OH BOY!
I pushed back and after abit I pushed back -[Hard]-. Even showing examples of posts "worse" than mine, that were allowed up...going so far as to show PAGES of them. But they refused to acknowledge it or even consider that maybe, they were wrong.
What kills me is the post that started it was so...simple.

"Some companies will go after you, some wont" (In regard to IP rights and infringement)
I then stated
"It would depend on how close something looks"

THAT...got me warned, post removed and for a bit there “Moderated”.
(Btw, yes...I have the screenshots. Yes I still have all the emails in the exchanges.)

It was noted to me that "any insinuation that Daz is doing something wrong" is the issue.
But when I went through the TOS....nothing about what my post stated.
To which it was then put that it wasnt specifically noted, but that the moderator felt it was bad. (basic para-phrasing)

THAT...told me all I needed to know that when it comes to their customers...they are stone set that they are right no matter what, even when they are wrong.

Such as support tickets that are a year old. Yet they refuse to do anything. To fix it, to give the money back...anything.
You remotely question anything, you get censored..and censored hard.
So in that, I 100% agree with @SydneyInPeril.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

I will also say, that having seen that, having heard about that, having watched DAZ scramble like a desperate junkie looking for their fix in the pursuit of revenue streams, I've been really not interested in spending a lot of money on the hobby. Granted, I have a lot of hobbies, so letting one lay fallow is never out of the question.

But it impacts my desire to even buy content here for the software. For either software.

In my experience, forum moderators are not your friends. They are to enforce forum and company rules, since in many ways the website owner can be made responsable for forum post.
Forum moderators also make sure, that no forum posts or threads are damaging the website owner's business model.
Just house rules.
So what do you expect?
You don't like DAZ moderation?
That's fine, you don't have to.
Just don't believe, it would be better here.
It isn't, neither at rotica or RenderHub.
DeviantArts is different as they don't seem to have an active moderation.
Instead you'll see MAGA fascist all over at DA in their forum threads.

SydneyInPeril posted at 9:48 PM Sun, 4 August 2024 - #4488048

RHaseltine posted at 3:34 PM Sat, 3 August 2024 - #4488013
In fact daz was very clear that the images used were its own store images in their blogs and, as I recal, in the emails.
It should have said so on the page for the generative engine. Not in a blog (that not everyone will have read) or in emails (which not everyone will have received, I know I never got any).
Basically, the indication of what the engine is trained on wasn't posted as visibly as it should have been. Hence, we have to make assumptions, and the assumption trained into us that it's being trained on whatever happens to be vacuumed up, whether it be from everywhere, or from all site posted content via changes to the TOS.
I will also comment that @DarkElegance has a view pretty close to my own. I like Studio over Poser. But my friend has had experiences regarding the mentality of the moderators when they pushed back on the advertising on the gallery thing, that they told me made it felt like they were being expected to couch 100% of their commentary in a very non-aggressive way or shut up, which caused them to delete all of their content in response and walk away from it.

So, there is a layer of reality that has been excluded from the conversation. Daz will say they "trained the AI with their own data" but that's only the top layer of data, the frosting. The underlying layer is made of stolen data, the same as every other AI generator out there. There are no ethical data training sets. They're all based on mass theft. That's because it takes billions of images and enormous volumes of text and enormous computing power to make the ai "smart enough" to do anything with the layer of frosting on top, the actual Daz data.

It all goes back to the Laion data sets. It's well documented that those are made of stolen data. Of course, you're not allowed to say "stolen data" on Daz site because it implies that some company did something wrong - Which of course all the AI companies did when they stole everything from everyone on the internet to train their AIs under the false auspices of research and fair use. Now the AI companies are making money off it and the AI industry has billions and billions of dollars being pumped into it. This apparently makes it all ok because we're all just little people dumb enough to share our work on the internet. So, it's ok to steal from us. And it is theft. When a company takes our work and incorporates it into their AI training data sets without our consent or compensation, that's theft. It was also ok to steal from famous artists and from Stephen King, too.

There are a few artists attempting lawsuits, but who knows how those will go? I do not expect much in the way of legal remedy. It is known that AIs have a habit of regurgitating parts of or entire works in its output. And it is known that earlier models are used as the starting point for later models, and it is pretty much impossible to remove the stolen works from the data set. So, once it's in there, it's in there.

And of course, Daz mods are obligated to delete posts like mine above from Daz site, so don't act surprised when words like mine get deleted. And it could happen here but maybe it won't?

To NeverTrumper, IME the mods here are a lot more tolerant than Daz site. Just look at my contributions to this thread and know that so far, my text remains unmolested. Yes, I once have had an issue with the mods here. It happened not long after I deleted my gallery. No, I did not actually get banned, though I did decide to take a lengthy break from the forums here Yes, it was about AI art, though the ultimate result of all that was far different here than it would have been on Daz site.

Yes, I agree moderators are not our friends as you stated. I have never been to forums on 'Rotica or Rhub - TBH, I've no reason to go to the forums there. I heartily recommend staying away from DA forums - It's a cesspool. Also, everyone I know of who got kicked off of DA got kicked off because they did something or said something that offended a forum mod; and that was pretty much it for them. The danger on DA is, admins and site volunteers participate in their forums, not just as mods but as participants. It's possible there is no more actual moderation there, but I haven't visited a DA forum for a long, long time.

Torquinox posted at 7:47 PM Tue, 6 August 2024 - #4488115

I heartily recommend staying away from DA forums - It's a cesspool.

Yes, it is :-D
I always wondered at Moderators there anyway.
There are so many pedophiles and Nazis active at DA

Nevertrumper posted at 11:14 AM Tue, 6 August 2024 - #4488106

In my experience, forum moderators are not your friends. They are to enforce forum and company rules, since in many ways the website owner can be made responsable for forum post.
Forum moderators also make sure, that no forum posts or threads are damaging the website owner's business model.
Just house rules.
So what do you expect?
You don't like DAZ moderation?
That's fine, you don't have to.
Just don't believe, it would be better here.
It isn't, neither at rotica or RenderHub.
DeviantArts is different as they don't seem to have an active moderation.
Instead you'll see MAGA fascist all over at DA in their forum threads.

I do get that. It's just frustrating that seems like even constructive criticism of DAZ, unless couched in the most milquetoast language, will get edited/deleted.

And to be fair, I don't like spending my money with any business that runs their forum like that. DAZ is not an outlier in that regard.

Torquinox posted at 7:40 PM Tue, 6 August 2024 - #4488114

So, there is a layer of reality that has been excluded from the conversation. Daz will say they "trained the AI with their own data" but that's only the top layer of data, the frosting. The underlying layer is made of stolen data, the same as every other AI generator out there. There are no ethical data training sets. They're all based on mass theft. That's because it takes billions of images and enormous volumes of text and enormous computing power to make the ai "smart enough" to do anything with the layer of frosting on top, the actual Daz data.
It all goes back to the Laion data sets. It's well documented that those are made of stolen data. Of course, you're not allowed to say "stolen data" on Daz site because it implies that some company did something wrong - Which of course all the AI companies did when they stole everything from everyone on the internet to train their AIs under the false auspices of research and fair use. Now the AI companies are making money off it and the AI industry has billions and billions of dollars being pumped into it. This apparently makes it all ok because we're all just little people dumb enough to share our work on the internet. So, it's ok to steal from us. And it is theft. When a company takes our work and incorporates it into their AI training data sets without our consent or compensation, that's theft. It was also ok to steal from famous artists and from Stephen King, too.
There are a few artists attempting lawsuits, but who knows how those will go? I do not expect much in the way of legal remedy. It is known that AIs have a habit of regurgitating parts of or entire works in its output. And it is known that earlier models are used as the starting point for later models, and it is pretty much impossible to remove the stolen works from the data set. So, once it's in there, it's in there.

That's the biggest frustration. There isn't a commitment to "delete it all and start over to placate the artists we screwed over", and anyone who thinks artists are "overpaid" are very much trying to jump on this and make it work - hell, anyone who thinks people are overpaid for anything are trying very very hard to jump on this and make it work.

It also shows how broken the entire copyright system is, since it pretty much is expecting the artists to go after the companies in court for enforcement, and otherwise is basically slanted in the direction of the biggest coffers. As long as the companies in question get to basically rake the internet, it takes away the biggest and best forms of advertisement from the artists because it's a serious risk to put anything on the internet because it will get fed into one of these engines without a lot of work to attempt to poison the input, and that only really works if enough artists agree to do the poisoning without so many doing it that all the engineers have to do is add a special case to inoculate against the poisoning. Granted, that was already a problem (just look at the art that gets downloaded and slapped on t-shirts!), but Generative Imagery Engines make the problem so much bigger because now an artist's style can be "emulated", and is much harder to point at in a court as a direct copyright violation.

@SydneyInPeril : Yes, totally agree with everything you said!

Nevertrumper posted at 11:14 AM Tue, 6 August 2024 - #4488106

In my experience, forum moderators are not your friends. They are to enforce forum and company rules, since in many ways the website owner can be made responsable for forum post.
Forum moderators also make sure, that no forum posts or threads are damaging the website owner's business model.
Just house rules.
So what do you expect?
You don't like DAZ moderation?
That's fine, you don't have to.
Just don't believe, it would be better here.
It isn't, neither at rotica or RenderHub.
DeviantArts is different as they don't seem to have an active moderation.
Instead you'll see MAGA fascist all over at DA in their forum threads.

You are aware, that 1-forum mods are there to uphold the ToS of a site, they keep abuse down and to make sure that posts adhere to the conversation thread. They are not there to abuse their power or unnecessarily censor customers. And 2-they are not supposed to allow their personal preference interfere with what is and isnt expressed, as long as it is within the ToS

Any professional forum I have been on, has adhered to those standards. If a site, a consumer site is so panic stricken, so fearing its customers as to have to slam the hammer down on someone saying,

“Some companies will go after you and some wont” in regard to fan art/IP that is a red flag of the biggest kind.

If customers simply asking (what is their legal and ethical right) if they have the valid IP right to sell materials on a specific Movie/book set(because it is not clear), scares them and makes them delete a forum post...red flag!

If they allow their own personal likes and dislikes to favour certain members and censure others, that is not PROFESSIONAL.

I am a forum moderator on a chat site, and we are NOT allowed to “I dont like that member, so I am going to chase their post” behaviour.
We are not allowed to base a decision if a post is "ok” or not, on if we “like” the person or not. If it doesn't break the ToS, it doesn't get removed. Its that simple.

They are standing on the statement they are “one of the biggest 3d marketplaces online”. Then they should act like it!
They should respect when their customers do the “Hey, uhm, you sure it's OK to sell that”? and simply(and proudly) go “Yes! We have procured the licence for....” and be done with it. Ends all speculation, promotes further sales, and shows they are being very proactive in both respect for the companies and in their customers.

Do they?
No!
Do they freak out, and go ban happy when someone dares to ask?
YES.
That is a red flag. End of.

If you are going to be in the public as a marketplace, that is not the same as some wee, personal gallery site that is held by a fan.
That is stepping up to cover things like consumer rights and laws. To step up and accept there are going to be questions you should be prepared to answer. There are going to be things like “Hey you messed up on this advert” (when they do).
If they can not handle that, perhaps....they need to do abit of self reflecting!

As for DA...I have gone up and questioned their leniency on underage images MANY times. I have questioned and challenged their leniency on copyright infringement etc. I still have my account there and still question certain behaviours of theirs.
This is not a "Daz" specific issue.

The moderators at Daz allow their personal friendships, likes/dislikes to colour their decisions. They have an issue with anyone even daring to say the site may make a mistake. Not even out right, doing something wrong! But just a mistake!
That...shows a very shaking base on fairness and legality.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

SydneyInPeril posted at 9:02 AM Thu, 8 August 2024 - #4488173

Torquinox posted at 7:40 PM Tue, 6 August 2024 - #4488114
So, there is a layer of reality that has been excluded from the conversation. Daz will say they "trained the AI with their own data" but that's only the top layer of data, the frosting. The underlying layer is made of stolen data, the same as every other AI generator out there. There are no ethical data training sets. They're all based on mass theft. That's because it takes billions of images and enormous volumes of text and enormous computing power to make the ai "smart enough" to do anything with the layer of frosting on top, the actual Daz data.
It all goes back to the Laion data sets. It's well documented that those are made of stolen data. Of course, you're not allowed to say "stolen data" on Daz site because it implies that some company did something wrong - Which of course all the AI companies did when they stole everything from everyone on the internet to train their AIs under the false auspices of research and fair use. Now the AI companies are making money off it and the AI industry has billions and billions of dollars being pumped into it. This apparently makes it all ok because we're all just little people dumb enough to share our work on the internet. So, it's ok to steal from us. And it is theft. When a company takes our work and incorporates it into their AI training data sets without our consent or compensation, that's theft. It was also ok to steal from famous artists and from Stephen King, too.
There are a few artists attempting lawsuits, but who knows how those will go? I do not expect much in the way of legal remedy. It is known that AIs have a habit of regurgitating parts of or entire works in its output. And it is known that earlier models are used as the starting point for later models, and it is pretty much impossible to remove the stolen works from the data set. So, once it's in there, it's in there.
That's the biggest frustration. There isn't a commitment to "delete it all and start over to placate the artists we screwed over", and anyone who thinks artists are "overpaid" are very much trying to jump on this and make it work - hell, anyone who thinks people are overpaid for anything are trying very very hard to jump on this and make it work.
It also shows how broken the entire copyright system is, since it pretty much is expecting the artists to go after the companies in court for enforcement, and otherwise is basically slanted in the direction of the biggest coffers. As long as the companies in question get to basically rake the internet, it takes away the biggest and best forms of advertisement from the artists because it's a serious risk to put anything on the internet because it will get fed into one of these engines without a lot of work to attempt to poison the input, and that only really works if enough artists agree to do the poisoning without so many doing it that all the engineers have to do is add a special case to inoculate against the poisoning. Granted, that was already a problem (just look at the art that gets downloaded and slapped on t-shirts!), but Generative Imagery Engines make the problem so much bigger because now an artist's style can be "emulated", and is much harder to point at in a court as a direct copyright violation.

I agree completely!

@Torquinox Very nice post in the issues with any generative AI model. They can not say it is trained purely on images they own. As if it did, it would start having issues with cannibalizing its own information. There is an amazing article on that that was posted to LinkedIn about that.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

@DarkElegance Thank you :) I should probably read that article.

However:
Speaking your mind is not, what a forum is for. Not just the DAZ forums over there, but also here. Just got my post deleted.

Main issue is that DAZ have a strict "no attacks" policy on the forums.

The company, it's staff, the forum staff, the content creaters and even the user base is covered by this.

So you can't heavilly crit them, slag them off, make them look bad, or even make them look stupid.

Before you ask, yep I've had thousands of posts deleted over there, and for all of the above, as a result I'm probably going to be one of a small group, who are "Pre Moderated" on a permanent basis.

Bejaymac posted at 7:19 AM Sun, 11 August 2024 - #4488300

Main issue is that DAZ have a strict "no attacks" policy on the forums.
The company, it's staff, the forum staff, the content creaters and even the user base is covered by this.
So you can't heavilly crit them, slag them off, make them look bad, or even make them look stupid.
Before you ask, yep I've had thousands of posts deleted over there, and for all of the above, as a result I'm probably going to be one of a small group, who are "Pre Moderated" on a permanent basis.

Can you tell me, if that is the principle, what the post:
"Some companies will allow it (under the ideal of fan art), some companies will nail you between the eyes.
(fair use is a defence, not a reason to use. Its suppose to be used in court to defend/explain why you have the right to use something)
It depends on the companies terms"

Was breaking the "No attack" policy? (keep in mind, this was in reply to posts above it, stating flat out that daz was breaking IP right)
BTW the topic of the thread had been in regards to the EL and to fan art.
NOTHING in that post, is wrong. It is factual and provable.
It did not attack anyone. It referred to the fact some companies like Nintendo will, very aggressively pursue almost anyone using their IP and some companies, don't care and will let their fan base make what ever.
INFACT....
Provably(as it was shown via the email chain that followed this)
There were posts in that 18 page thread that were far, far worse in stating flat out daz was wrong and those posts were allowed to stay.
(They finally, after releasing items clearly direct copies of movie and book characters and people were going "hold up, do you even have the permission to do this" they removed the entire thread.)

I have had posts removed that did flat out state "Hey you have made a mistake" and on those times, I held my hands up and had to keep my mouth shut, because I was shown the ToS point it violated.

But the above post....didnt break anything.
That, was when I decided I had enough of their “favouritism” and selective censorship and very selective use of the ToS.

And btw, the "No attack policy"? I made a post in reference to how their wording of certain "sales" was confusing. Particularly to those with things like dyscalculia. I then had to get posts taking the utter mick out of the fact "Oh Daz math is too hard"(an actual post quote).
I referenced in my post that being “inclusive” shouldn't just be products that show a character in a wheelchair but also take into account that some of their customer base is going to be ND(neurodivergent). And it had plenty of posts that made jokes about it.
So that "no attack policy" must be very selective. But it proves the point that the mods, base their exercise of ToS rules purely on personal likes and dislikes and not on what the TOS is actually saying.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

Torquinox posted at 8:56 AM Sat, 10 August 2024 - #4488271

@DarkElegance Thank you :) I should probably read that article.

There are a few articles out on it. It's due to the fact that genAI gets its “materials” from the web. What is posted, to "learn" from. But as the web gets saturated with AI gen images and text, it starts “learning” from that genAI material. Causing issues with the outputs. It literally is “eating itself”. (I believe popular mechanic has an article on the text AI and it's starting to have issues in regard to this)

They have done studies that show that with a "limited training field" for GenAI, it gets…well…corrupted.
So if Daz is claiming its AI engine is only, trained on its own images, it should then start “eating itself” faster than one of the big web-wide genAI engines.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

Bejaymac posted at 7:19 AM Sun, 11 August 2024 - #4488300

Main issue is that DAZ have a strict "no attacks" policy on the forums.
The company, it's staff, the forum staff, the content creaters and even the user base is covered by this.
So you can't heavilly crit them, slag them off, make them look bad, or even make them look stupid.
Before you ask, yep I've had thousands of posts deleted over there, and for all of the above, as a result I'm probably going to be one of a small group, who are "Pre Moderated" on a permanent basis.

That is in fact a good thing.

DAZ is desperate at this point to try to make ANY MONEY they can from this DEBACLE of a Genesis model that pushed more "the message" than actually having both meshes stay separate as they should've stayed. Like you can't even use geografts well at all on gen 9. It is the most SCREWED UP model to date, and not only that, they are selling stuff from IPs in hoping they can get gullible people to buy them to make any sort of revenue.

I'm just waiting for the announcement at this point of Gen 10 and the Female and Male meshes going back to being separate and this gen being forgotten like the Dodo...

I don't see Genesis 9 as a "debacle" at all. Does it have issues? Yes, but so does any other figure out there. My main complaint about G9 is that they have now separated the high definition versions out from the base model.

And the bundle stacking and pricing is a great concern. The number of posts that people make about how cheaply they got stuff is pretty depressing. The more everyone looks for bargain basement prices, the less you will see content creators making things for figures, because it will no longer be worth the many hours that are put into making content. "Biting the hand that feeds you" is a saying that comes to mind.

DarkElegance posted at 1:34 PM Sun, 11 August 2024 - #4488312

Torquinox posted at 8:56 AM Sat, 10 August 2024 - #4488271
@DarkElegance Thank you :) I should probably read that article.
There are a few articles out on it. It's due to the fact that genAI gets its “materials” from the web. What is posted, to "learn" from. But as the web gets saturated with AI gen images and text, it starts “learning” from that genAI material. Causing issues with the outputs. It literally is “eating itself”. (I believe popular mechanic has an article on the text AI and it's starting to have issues in regard to this)

They have done studies that show that with a "limited training field" for GenAI, it gets…well…corrupted.
So if Daz is claiming its AI engine is only, trained on its own images, it should then start “eating itself” faster than one of the big web-wide genAI engines.

Yes, I have read other articles about that. That's a problem for the AI companies - It's what they deserve. They deserve much worse, but when their generators collapse from eating too much of their own output, that will at least be a start.

Perhaps if those companies were more ethical in their approach to our work, I would feel more kindly toward them and their generated images. As it is, they ripped off all of us and patted themselves on the back for their brazen theft. And other big companies, grateful for the ill-gotten gain, sent those companies a lot of money - Not us, just the thieving AI companies that benefited from our work - As if being an artist isn't already hard enough.

gohanf22 posted at 7:23 AM Thu, 15 August 2024 - #4488391

DAZ is desperate at this point to try to make ANY MONEY they can from this DEBACLE of a Genesis model that pushed more "the message" than actually having both meshes stay separate as they should've stayed. Like you can't even use geografts well at all on gen 9. It is the most SCREWED UP model to date, and not only that, they are selling stuff from IPs in hoping they can get gullible people to buy them to make any sort of revenue.

I'm just waiting for the announcement at this point of Gen 10 and the Female and Male meshes going back to being separate and this gen being forgotten like the Dodo...

Not sure why geografts would be a problem. The mesh is a perfectly regular grid, should be no problem to use that as an attachment point. Well-known creator RawArt states the G9 base is excellent for geografting. Also, generalized statements on revenue generated at any site are guesses at best - We have no idea what their revenues look like.

As far as pricing goes, we as customers have been conditioned by the sales run on the content sites to expect certain discounts - We know those are possible and the companies must be okay doing that or the discounts would not exist. I will observe, at Daz site, the best discounts are on DO items - Daz paid the artists for their work and can resell the work in perpetuity at whatever price Daz likes.

Here, the discounts used to be a lot better, and rPub, the company store, is actually one of the stingiest vendors in the marketplace. That's my opinion. Other vendors can do what they like, but it is unlikely anyone will pay $7 for a decade-old V4 outfit. It's crazy talk when compared to pricing at Daz store. Here, I only buy the items that I want most. THere is no impulse buying. And prices at any store are not comparable to pricing at 'Rotica, because the merch there is specialized - You want it or you don't. I've found RHub has some serious quality control problems and often surprisingly high prices - Buying anything there is a crap shoot. Thus, I buy very little there. So, that's how all that goes. And that does not say anything for the glob of people who won;t shop anywhere except the Daz site.

Torquinox posted at 12:30 PM Thu, 15 August 2024 - #4488398

As far as pricing goes, we as customers have been conditioned by the sales run on the content sites to expect certain discounts - We know those are possible and the companies must be okay doing that or the discounts would not exist. I will observe, at Daz site, the best discounts are on DO items - Daz paid the artists for their work and can resell the work in perpetuity at whatever price Daz likes.

Not all the time. I have the nasty habit of creating large sets (5 or more pieces). And I've invested in most of the G9 DAZ Original figures so that I can make sure that the clothing works well on every DO figure for G9. So there is a significant investment in time and money. The first week of sales is usually the best week, and there were very deep discounts applied to a product I had in my own store (not a DO product) that sold multiple copies for under 2 dollars. When 2-4 weeks of work results in under 200 dollars in sales, it really puts a damper on the passion of it all. I've cut back substantially on purchases and content creation since then.

It's another form of "as if being an artist is already hard enough." That's what I meant by "biting the hand that feeds you." I've been so discouraged by it all that the passion is just gone. It done flew the coop. And I'm probably not alone in feeling that way. 8-)

DeeceyArt posted at 12:47 PM Thu, 15 August 2024 - #4488400

Not all the time. I have the nasty habit of creating large sets (5 or more pieces). And I've invested in most of the G9 DAZ Original figures so that I can make sure that the clothing works well on every DO figure for G9. So there is a significant investment in time and money. The first week of sales is usually the best week, and there were very deep discounts applied to a product I had in my own store (not a DO product) that sold multiple copies for under 2 dollars. When 2-4 weeks of work results in under 200 dollars in sales, it really puts a damper on the passion of it all. I've cut back substantially on purchases and content creation since then.
It's another form of "as if being an artist is already hard enough." That's what I meant by "biting the hand that feeds you." I've been so discouraged by it all that the passion is just gone. It done flew the coop. And I'm probably not alone in feeling that way. 8-)

Thanks for sharing that. Sounds awful! You definitely need good pay to keep the motivation and to make it worthwhile to do the work. I'll keep that in mind.

Torquinox posted at 2:13 PM Thu, 15 August 2024 - #4488402

DeeceyArt posted at 12:47 PM Thu, 15 August 2024 - #4488400
Not all the time. I have the nasty habit of creating large sets (5 or more pieces). And I've invested in most of the G9 DAZ Original figures so that I can make sure that the clothing works well on every DO figure for G9. So there is a significant investment in time and money. The first week of sales is usually the best week, and there were very deep discounts applied to a product I had in my own store (not a DO product) that sold multiple copies for under 2 dollars. When 2-4 weeks of work results in under 200 dollars in sales, it really puts a damper on the passion of it all. I've cut back substantially on purchases and content creation since then.
It's another form of "as if being an artist is already hard enough." That's what I meant by "biting the hand that feeds you." I've been so discouraged by it all that the passion is just gone. It done flew the coop. And I'm probably not alone in feeling that way. 8-)
Thanks for sharing that. Sounds awful! You definitely need good pay to keep the motivation and to make it worthwhile to do the work. I'll keep that in mind.

It is what it is. It's a tough economy. There's no easy solution that would make everyone happy. So I waved the white flag and just make stuff for myself.

DeeceyArt posted at 4:57 PM Thu, 15 August 2024 - #4488405

It is what it is. It's a tough economy. There's no easy solution that would make everyone happy. So I waved the white flag and just make stuff for myself.

That's a healthy enough response. It's unfortunate. From what I can see, you do good work!

DeeceyArt posted at 11:02 AM Thu, 15 August 2024 - #4488395

I don't see Genesis 9 as a "debacle" at all. Does it have issues? Yes, but so does any other figure out there. My main complaint about G9 is that they have now separated the high definition versions out from the base model.
And the bundle stacking and pricing is a great concern. The number of posts that people make about how cheaply they got stuff is pretty depressing. The more everyone looks for bargain basement prices, the less you will see content creators making things for figures, because it will no longer be worth the many hours that are put into making content. "Biting the hand that feeds you" is a saying that comes to mind.

While pricing is getting steep, the one thing I dont really do is complain about the price of good items.
I know how much a good computer can suck from the energy bill from rendering…I don't want to think of how much it costs just in electricity, to work on sculpting, building, texturing, morphing….a set/figure/item.
I know that when I am running photoshop, Dazstudio(or which ever program I am twiddling in) etc...there is a rather pronounce spike in my daily usage.
So for those creating the items we use as a matter of appreciation and convenience(yes, it is convenient for us to buy an outfit rather than each time making each item), it must cost quite abit to do make.
I may have to wait for a sale, but that is just the way of it at this point.
I though, I would rather give the money directly to the artists that makes the lovely sets though. Because I doubt they are getting 100% of what I pay daz for.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

What an interesting thread. And old, too. I've been watching the DAZ Forum devolve for quite a while, but I didn't know other people saw it too.

They do have most of the best models around, although they may be getting too much "direction" from marketing these days.

Unfortunate.

Well Daz have just dropped a big bombshell over on their site. They just changed their entire sub structure, there is now Daz Base (which is free), Daz+ and Daz Premier. They have gone back to having two versions of Daz Studio, there will be Daz Studio free, and Daz Studio Premier an enhanced version only available via the Daz Premier subscription.

Also forgot it seems that there will be Premier sub 3D content, that by the sounds of it if you let your sub you lose access to that content as well.

And going by some of the comments on Daz's forums some are none to happy more so the changes in the subscription structure.

You know you enjoy 3D Art when you realize that your life is a piece of 3D Art. :)

AMD 7900X3D, 64 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR5 Ram, Asus Prime X670-P Wifi MB, PNY RTX 4070Ti Super 16GB, 14TB SSD's & HDD, Windows 11, Poser 9 / Pro 2012 / Pro 2014, Daz Studio 4.22.

ghosty12 posted at 6:55 AM Mon, 7 October 2024 - #4490051

Well Daz have just dropped a big bombshell over on their site. They just changed their entire sub structure, there is now Daz Base (which is free), Daz+ and Daz Premier. They have gone back to having two versions of Daz Studio, there will be Daz Studio free, and Daz Studio Premier an enhanced version only available via the Daz Premier subscription.
Also forgot it seems that there will be Premier sub 3D content, that by the sounds of it if you let your sub you lose access to that content as well.
And going by some of the comments on Daz's forums some are none to happy more so the changes in the subscription structure.

So they make it so you can't get a refund on what you already paid, then ask you to pay MORE on top of it?
Instead of having already paid Daz+ members pay the difference, they just gauge you twice?

I'm posting here as I am sure that thread on Daz will either get the posts removed or vanish completely.

But I have been taking full page screenshots...because, we know that posts will go "poof!" for daring to suggest daz is not pure perfection.

I'm paid up till 2025...and now they want me to double, heck triple pay?

No warning. No loyalty to customers that have already paid, nothing.
Great way to show appreciation for those loyal members…even after being treated like poo by mods.

I still have support tickets a year old…and cant get support, a reply, a refund on the items that don't work...and now they want more money?

SMH

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

A DAZ+ subscription WAS something like $70-to-$100 annually, and usually a good deal less if you got it on sale. Not too bad of a deal, considering what you got for the price.

DAZ now only seems to support three memberships: DAZ Base (which is free), DAZ Plus (which is $9.99/month, and which I've apparently been switched to without my knowledge or consent), and DAZ Premier (which is $18.99/month). That means that DAZ Plus is at least $20 a year more expensive than DAZ+ for the exact same benefits.

By switching to monthly billing, DAZ can show its investors/owners a steadier cash-flow instead of a lot of one-time annual purchases, and it's also a higher cash-flow, since you're paying at least 20% more for the same benefits.

Yeah, this is not a good deal for customers.

Reading through it again, I noticed something I had missed the first time.

"Unlock access to exclusive Premier Only content*
*Content is active as long as Subscription is active"

So content that you will have in your account but will lose access to if your subscription lapses. Presumably, that means it's content that can't be downloaded and backed-up and/or won't run in future versions of DS (free or Premier) without an active subscription. Which also probably means that you won't be able to use the Premier version of DS and any Premier content on a machine that doesn't have an internet connection, because it won't be able to dial home to verify that subscription. I do all of my work on a machine that is cut-off from the internet, so that's a total deal-breaker for me. And it sounds awfully like some of the arguments that were raised in objection to DAZ's attempt at content encryption several years ago.

Ah HA. Rentware it is now.

So long as they don't disable what I'm using now, I don't much care what they do. I doubt they'll stop selling 3D models, generally. I rely on their Iray setup, it works well. I don't do animations because the render time is far too long. Let me keep Iray stills and I'll be OK. I think I'll go and see what they're up to.

I smelled a marketing witch at work there when they banned me from the forum a few years ago.

Yeah seems that Daz are doing an Adobe sort of thing. Where to get the better version of the program, you have to pay monthly for it. And can say in all the rumblings at the moment seem to be getting more and more.

You know you enjoy 3D Art when you realize that your life is a piece of 3D Art. :)

AMD 7900X3D, 64 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR5 Ram, Asus Prime X670-P Wifi MB, PNY RTX 4070Ti Super 16GB, 14TB SSD's & HDD, Windows 11, Poser 9 / Pro 2012 / Pro 2014, Daz Studio 4.22.

Looking at the feature overview, DAZ Studio Premier seems to include a lot of features which considerably enhance the users' QOL.

It is unclear what happens when you unsubscribe from Premier. Does the software revert to DAZ Studio Standard or does it stop working altogether? What about the 3D content and scenes you processed in Premier? When you use the G8 to G9 conversion, for instance – will figures revert to G8? Will dforce simulations edited separately still work or will DAZ Studio Free not be able to open the files in the first place?

There also may be artists who would like the features of DAZ Studio Premier but don't need any of the additional offers, yet find themselves paying for them anyway.

Ugh.

From what I can gather and it is not much, so long as the person keeps their Premier sub going they keep all the benefits. Once the sub expires from what I can gather you lose all that enhanced functionality that is locked behind the Premier sub, as well as access to the Premier tier free content.

You know you enjoy 3D Art when you realize that your life is a piece of 3D Art. :)

AMD 7900X3D, 64 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR5 Ram, Asus Prime X670-P Wifi MB, PNY RTX 4070Ti Super 16GB, 14TB SSD's & HDD, Windows 11, Poser 9 / Pro 2012 / Pro 2014, Daz Studio 4.22.

ghosty12 posted at 10:05 AM Mon, 7 October 2024 - #4490064

Yeah seems that Daz are doing an Adobe sort of thing. Where to get the better version of the program, you have to pay monthly for it. And can say in all the rumblings at the moment seem to be getting more and more.

I say no to rentware. I'll pay for iClone first. Ironically, DAZ going over to rentware makes iClone prices look less expensive. DAZ could easily have offered these enhanced features as optional plugins, but with rentware, you will pay for them over and over, many times. DAZ may find rentware less profitable than Adobe does, because DAZ isn't entrenched in the professional market. It is conceivable that DAZ could put itself out of business. If iClone hadn't failed in its attempt to incorporate Iray rendering, they'd be spanking DAZ right now.

DAZ is missing two very desirable features, and I didn't see them mentioned in their "premier" blurb. Both have been needed for years. One: Export to iClone. They brag about exporting to everyone else on Earth, but this one is conspicuously absent. Two: Scaling. They do a very poor job of scaling for the big screens we use today. Neither are on the horizon.

Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-LNA_ZPb2U

Rottenham posted at 2:20 PM Mon, 7 October 2024 - #4490076

Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-LNA_ZPb2U

I think this page does a better job of outlining v4.23.

We can go ahead working as is normal, and a few upgrades have been included. An "improved UI" is mentioned, but not shown or described. Paying money is optional at this time. The pay stuff is loosely described. v4.23 Public Build BETA is available for download at this time in the Install Manager. And there we are.

Sorry, but with Daz "customer service and support" in the state it is (non-existent) It's not worth the upgrade nor the price hike.

Just not worth it.

I have an eye package that according to the tech support thread, the issue I have, has been reported since 2018! Not fixed, Not usable.
I have VDB package that I provided screenshots of the issue (EVERYTHING in the scene comes out great, but the VDB looks like it was made in minecraft. Totally blocky and not usable) No reply, no fix, no anything. I can't use the packages.
I have repeatedly asked for help, nothing.
Ignored.

Now they want people to pay MORE for items? For “free” items that…really don't make up the difference?

I get my Daz+ when its on massive reduced sale. Otherwise, it's not worth it.

I understand some price increase due to "cost of living" but when I know the artists arent getting the lions share of it? Nah, Im not going to pay their staff to treat customers like crap.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

DarkElegance posted at 4:36 PM Mon, 7 October 2024 - #4490079

Sorry, but with Daz "customer service and support" in the state it is (non-existent) It's not worth the upgrade nor the price hike.

.................................................

DAZ has two things. DAZ has the best catalog of 3D models around. And, DAZ has the best Iray rendering around. These things, hopefully, will not change. But marketing is running the place now, and marketing is about as non-tech as a discipline can get. I think we'll be able to work around their new scheme for now.

Meanwhile, never go near anything that requires a remote server (aka "Cloud"). It has long been known to be a security risk, in more ways than one. And if you're not a big Iray fan, like I am, iClone is not too bad.

Rottenham posted at 6:35 PM Mon, 7 October 2024 - #4490080

DarkElegance posted at 4:36 PM Mon, 7 October 2024 - #4490079
Sorry, but with Daz "customer service and support" in the state it is (non-existent) It's not worth the upgrade nor the price hike.
.................................................
DAZ has two things. DAZ has the best catalog of 3D models around. And, DAZ has the best Iray rendering around. These things, hopefully, will not change. But marketing is running the place now, and marketing is about as non-tech as a discipline can get. I think we'll be able to work around their new scheme for now.
Meanwhile, never go near anything that requires a remote server (aka "Cloud"). It has long been known to be a security risk, in more ways than one. And if you're not a big Iray fan, like I am, iClone is not too bad.

I have to admit, you are right on the iray part. The models, well, they are the cornerstone of the human figure models for the most part.
But to rely on that, to ignore valid support tickets...really takes the shine off things.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

Let's face it. We lost tech when we lost the manufacturing industry. Not only are there no more tech books, there are no more bookstores. "Push every button and see what happens" is the best school we have now. Forums like this were created so we can answer our own questions. We ourselves have become the QA Department.

I say, "A good craftsman works with the tools at hand." :-)

All quite true. Sort of the Tail wagging the Dog. Nor am I have .0001% the talent that artists here and Daz have at making things from scratch. Nor do I really care to be. I'd much rather use the talent from others that are.

But that's happened in many other industry's recently too. It's all by committee now, or board of directors, et. al. There's no ONE voice any more for decisions. Isn't it much easier to just shuffle the problem/question off to someone else? Or just ignore it?

And at some point, that will come back & bite them in the tush. History bears it out.

Fortunately, there are alternatives as has been mentioned. Not always the most direct of course, but keep in mind, Daz doesn't innovate anything of it's own, except the scripts to use other code that's available if you understand that sort of thing. I don't. But, once outside of DS, generally much more control.

Rottenham posted at 1:40 AM Tue, 8 October 2024 - #4490087

Let's face it. We lost tech when we lost the manufacturing industry. Not only are there no more tech books, there are no more bookstores. "Push every button and see what happens" is the best school we have now. Forums like this were created so we can answer our own questions. We ourselves have become the QA Department.
I say, "A good craftsman works with the tools at hand." :-)

Ah but when asking your customer base to pay more...perhaps actually give support would be a good idea and a way to encourage them to...pay more.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

DarkElegance posted at 1:46 AM Wed, 9 October 2024 - #4490107

Ah but when asking your customer base to pay more...perhaps actually give support would be a good idea and a way to encourage them to...pay more.

Aside from being inherently non-technical, the Marketing mind specializes in one-way communication. Like a stop sign. Here's what you get, and here's where you send the money. It is not realistic in any way to expect a dialog from them. Actually, Marketing is a close cousin of propaganda. Both use the half-truth liberally. Both are one-way.

Such "tech support" as is available today has been taken over by non-native speakers of English. Mumblers, and with minimal technical skills. You're better off without them. I discussed just this with one of my service providers. A decent support person costs about 50K a year. A mumbling ESL type makes about 5K a year. And, the Corporation needs a profit increase of 5% a year to remain viable. When all else fails, reducing the quality of the product or service is normal. This is the way it has always been done.

But there is a bright side, a "silver lining." The 30s, which we may be about to repeat, was the finest period for both fine art and industrial design in the Western world in the 20th century, although this is rarely acknowledged today.

My effort (why I like Iray):

I could be wrong, but now it looks like my DAZ account has been intentionally destroyed. This is the risk we take.

Rottenham posted at 7:01 PM Wed, 9 October 2024 - #4490131

I could be wrong, but now it looks like my DAZ account has been intentionally destroyed. This is the risk we take.

What do you mean?

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

DarkElegance posted at 7:52 PM Wed, 9 October 2024 - #4490132

Rottenham posted at 7:01 PM Wed, 9 October 2024 - #4490131
I could be wrong, but now it looks like my DAZ account has been intentionally destroyed. This is the risk we take.
What do you mean?

My DAZ login seems to be coming back to life now. I was blocked, and getting an error message I'd never seen before. Only on DAZ though, and only today, so I was suspicious. Now it seems to be clearing up. I'll keep an eye on it.

Rottenham : "My DAZ login seems to be coming back to life now. I was blocked, and getting an error message I'd never seen before. Only on DAZ though, and only today, so I was suspicious. Now it seems to be clearing up. I'll keep an eye on it."

Take a look at your account once you've logged back in. It looks like any DAZ+ members have been migrated over to DAZ Plus accounts, with its monthly billing. You don't want to get hit with any surprise charges on your credit card or bank account after the first of the month.

To avoid getting charged that way, cancel your Daz+ account. It will run until its expiration date and you won't get charged when it expires. After you cancel, buttons will appear in the membership management page of Daz account for Auto Renew on Daz+ with expiration date shown and Choose Plan for Premier. Choosing that plan with time remaining on your Daz+ kills that time remaining. So, maybe don't press anything until everything has expired.

There are/were some personalized offers for converting Daz+ time into x months of Premier, but that seemed like a really bad deal. I passed on it.

I've been thinking, at some time in the future, for specific sales and promos, I might pay the membership for one month of something and then cancel it a few days later. The membership would last for that one month period and expire. I'd pick my times carefully. Could maybe get over that way. Or maybe I'm just done with all that. Not sure yet. For now, I still have residual Daz+ time. Not sure it matters.

I'm put off by all this, so I'm not in any hurry to buy anything from Daz now. So much for this year's Daz+ sale. What a mess!

Katsuyaki posted at 8:45 PM Wed, 9 October 2024 - #4490135

Rottenham : "My DAZ login seems to be coming back to life now. I was blocked, and getting an error message I'd never seen before. Only on DAZ though, and only today, so I was suspicious. Now it seems to be clearing up. I'll keep an eye on it."
Take a look at your account once you've logged back in. It looks like any DAZ+ members have been migrated over to DAZ Plus accounts, with its monthly billing. You don't want to get hit with any surprise charges on your credit card or bank account after the first of the month.

I think @Rottenham might be talking about the weird Google "We're sorry..." message that's been popping up randomly since last night. I looked everywhere to find something about it, but couldn't find a thing. Seems to be happening sporadically today, too.

And I've had the honor of having one of my very few comments over at their forums deleted. It was in the thread speculating on whether DS was going to go rentware and I had chimed in with:

"Wanted to add my feelings of dislike for a future of renting the studio and its products. I'm not keen at all on the idea, but there are signs that it may be creeping closer and I feel like it's important to speak out early with these kinds of things (like with the advent of Daz Connect.) I've been a loyal customer for quite a long time now, but renting is a bridge too far for me. Please do reconsider this 'Premier' stuff."

And overnight mine and several others' comments were wholesale deleted by a mod, claiming, "and this is why we do not allow speculation." I guess the backlash is spooking someone in charge over yonder. The mod deleted every comment mentioning Premier in a negative light, citing that "there are already multiple threads on the topic," yet interestingly decided to leave the few remarks that were positive/neutral.

Tiring.

Katsuyaki posted at 8:45 PM Wed, 9 October 2024 - #4490135

Rottenham : "My DAZ login seems to be coming back to life now. I was blocked, and getting an error message I'd never seen before. Only on DAZ though, and only today, so I was suspicious. Now it seems to be clearing up. I'll keep an eye on it."
Take a look at your account once you've logged back in. It looks like any DAZ+ members have been migrated over to DAZ Plus accounts, with its monthly billing. You don't want to get hit with any surprise charges on your credit card or bank account after the first of the month.

_____________________________________________________________

You're right, that's exactly what they've done. I can't believe it says "Subscription will end on 0000-12-31." And there's no drop-out button. Argh... How to wiggle out of this...

I opened a new DAZ account, and it defaulted to "free." I haven't tested it by buying anything yet. And, I deleted the payment data from my existing hijacked account, which ends on "year 0000." I have not found any way to delete that original account. What a PITA.

This reminds me of "elections" held in the old USSR. Yes, they had elections. But the form only had one checkbox on it. It said "YES."

LuckyStallion posted at 9:18 PM Wed, 9 October 2024 - #4490137

And overnight mine and several others' comments were wholesale deleted by a mod, claiming, "and this is why we do not allow speculation." I guess the backlash is spooking someone in charge over yonder. The mod deleted every comment mentioning Premier in a negative light, citing that "there are already multiple threads on the topic," yet interestingly decided to leave the few remarks that were positive/neutral.
Tiring.

That's DAZ's Standard Operating Procedure: kill it with fire while smiling politely. I've been permanently blocked from their forums for years, ever since the content encryption debacle -- I guess some of my observations were a little too fresh and spicy for their delicate palates. Not at all surprised to learn that they haven't learned a damn thing about customer interaction since then.

Rottenham posted at 9:21 PM Wed, 9 October 2024 - #4490138

Katsuyaki posted at 8:45 PM Wed, 9 October 2024 - #4490135
Rottenham : "My DAZ login seems to be coming back to life now. I was blocked, and getting an error message I'd never seen before. Only on DAZ though, and only today, so I was suspicious. Now it seems to be clearing up. I'll keep an eye on it."
Take a look at your account once you've logged back in. It looks like any DAZ+ members have been migrated over to DAZ Plus accounts, with its monthly billing. You don't want to get hit with any surprise charges on your credit card or bank account after the first of the month.
_____________________________________________________________
You're right, that's exactly what they've done. I can't believe it says "Subscription will end on 0000-12-31." And there's no drop-out button. Argh... How to wiggle out of this...

There USED to be a way to cancel your DAZ+ membership with the old UI, and the Help documentation still reflects that, but it's not available through the new store UI, at least at the moment. Submit a request and ask them to demote your account. I already have and I'm waiting for them to get back to me about it. The confirmation email I got after submitting my request said it may take them several days to get around to addressing my issue.

Katsuyaki posted at 9:31 AM Thu, 10 October 2024 - #4490155

There USED to be a way to cancel your DAZ+ membership with the old UI, and the Help documentation still reflects that, but it's not available through the new store UI, at least at the moment. Submit a request and ask them to demote your account. I already have and I'm waiting for them to get back to me about it. The confirmation email I got after submitting my request said it may take them several days to get around to addressing my issue.

Yes, I can email them, but they aren't looking very responsive these days. I did notice that the published UI doesn't match the published Help doc. At one time that would have been unlikely. Not these days.

There are three ways to increase Corporate profits:

1. Increase the number of units sold

2. Increase the price

3. Reduce the quality

Many today resort to the third option.

There should now be an option button under the base membership section of your membership management screen from where you can cancel your sub, was not there before but is working now as have cancelled my sub. The funny thing Daz just gave thirteen freebies to Daz+ and Premier users, my guess is to placate folks

I think the interesting thing in all of this is how many folks after the initial shock of it all, quite a few have signed on to the Premier sub.

You know you enjoy 3D Art when you realize that your life is a piece of 3D Art. :)

AMD 7900X3D, 64 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR5 Ram, Asus Prime X670-P Wifi MB, PNY RTX 4070Ti Super 16GB, 14TB SSD's & HDD, Windows 11, Poser 9 / Pro 2012 / Pro 2014, Daz Studio 4.22.

ghosty12 posted at 10:03 AM Thu, 10 October 2024 - #4490157

There should now be an option button under the base membership section of your membership management screen from where you can cancel your sub, was not there before but is working now as have cancelled my sub. The funny thing Daz just gave thirteen freebies to Daz+ and Premier users, my guess is to placate folks
I think the interesting thing in all of this is how many folks after the initial shock of it all, quite a few have signed on to the Premier sub.

Deleted all DAZ cookies, restarted the OS, still no cancel button.

So Daz is under fire for Premier? Good.

LuckyStallion posted at 9:18 PM Wed, 9 October 2024 - #4490137

Katsuyaki posted at 8:45 PM Wed, 9 October 2024 - #4490135
Rottenham : "My DAZ login seems to be coming back to life now. I was blocked, and getting an error message I'd never seen before. Only on DAZ though, and only today, so I was suspicious. Now it seems to be clearing up. I'll keep an eye on it."
Take a look at your account once you've logged back in. It looks like any DAZ+ members have been migrated over to DAZ Plus accounts, with its monthly billing. You don't want to get hit with any surprise charges on your credit card or bank account after the first of the month.

I think @Rottenham might be talking about the weird Google "We're sorry..." message that's been popping up randomly since last night. I looked everywhere to find something about it, but couldn't find a thing. Seems to be happening sporadically today, too.
And I've had the honor of having one of my very few comments over at their forums deleted. It was in the thread speculating on whether DS was going to go rentware and I had chimed in with:
"Wanted to add my feelings of dislike for a future of renting the studio and its products. I'm not keen at all on the idea, but there are signs that it may be creeping closer and I feel like it's important to speak out early with these kinds of things (like with the advent of Daz Connect.) I've been a loyal customer for quite a long time now, but renting is a bridge too far for me. Please do reconsider this 'Premier' stuff."
And overnight mine and several others' comments were wholesale deleted by a mod, claiming, "and this is why we do not allow speculation." I guess the backlash is spooking someone in charge over yonder. The mod deleted every comment mentioning Premier in a negative light, citing that "there are already multiple threads on the topic," yet interestingly decided to leave the few remarks that were positive/neutral.
Tiring.

Welcome to the club!
Sorry, you do not get a t-shirt or anything. Just the dubious reputation of daring to say something against the Daz Gods.

It says a LOT about a company if they can not listen to criticism without flipping out and deleting/hiding things.

It means they are not caring of customer satisfaction. They do not care about our input. They...do NOT CARE.
While the program is a wee gem, the members of their staff, their team...are not.

It's the black mark on the entire thing.

Criticism is not something that should be ignored. SMART companies, hear it, listen and work WITH their customers. NOT AGAINST THEM.

And as I know their wee eyes are watching these threads...maybe...just MAYBE one of them will have the guts to stand by customers just ONCE.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

OH! and btw...as of last night before logic took over, and I attempted this odd thing sleep. I had been taking full page screenshots of one of the forums that was raging against the new subscription. So if anyone wants those...let me know.

ALSO…

Feeling helpless? Feeling tired of being ignored by the big mods?
There are other ways to skin cats(no cats have ever been harmed)
There is LinkedIn…
You see, the daz site is an echo chamber. But there is a way to get heard.
I believe…that the name Matt wilburn will ring a bell to a few.

The one thing people keep forgetting…is their voice CAN be heard.

That they CAN make a difference.
Daz is a company reliant on customers. WE are those customers.
If people actually started to take valid complaints up the ladder, someone either has to listen or other people will hear you and start avoiding the situations at Daz.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

DarkElegance posted at 5:15 PM Thu, 10 October 2024 - #4490168

The one thing people keep forgetting…is their voice CAN be heard.
Me, I don't want to be heard. Not there, anyway. I just want the models.

I was finally able to log in to my actual account. There's no cancel button anywhere. I know somebody here was able to see one, but I can't. I tried to engage DAZ Tech Support over it, but their interest was short lived. I even sent them screen shots, with no response. Zzzz.....

Then I discovered they had blocked my credit card, the one they've been using happily for a few years. It's a fine card, nobody else has a problem with it, but they did. I used a different card, and it worked. Will it work tomorrow? Who can say. You just can't use a marketing person as a project manager, it's obvious that's what they've done. It's a miracle they've lasted this long.

FWIW, here's something I'm working on. I found I had an old Genesis Aniblock that was a "Zombie Walk." I broke it up into poses, I can get a dozen poses out of it. Then I found, here on Renderosity, a script that can apply an old pose to a new character. It works very well, and the price was right. Here the old poses are applied to a G8. Ugly faces have been added. Only torn, filthy clothing is missing. DAZ has an Iray shader for that. I have a plan for these characters. It will be a surprise.

Rottenham posted at 6:29 PM Thu, 10 October 2024 - #4490172

DarkElegance posted at 5:15 PM Thu, 10 October 2024 - #4490168

The one thing people keep forgetting…is their voice CAN be heard.
Me, I don't want to be heard. Not there, anyway. I just want the models.
I was finally able to log in to my actual account. There's no cancel button anywhere. I know somebody here was able to see one, but I can't. I tried to engage DAZ Tech Support over it, but their interest was short lived. I even sent them screen shots, with no response. Zzzz.....
Then I discovered they had blocked my credit card, the one they've been using happily for a few years. It's a fine card, nobody else has a problem with it, but they did. I used a different card, and it worked. Will it work tomorrow? Who can say. You just can't use a marketing person as a project manager, it's obvious that's what they've done. It's a miracle they've lasted this long.
FWIW, here's something I'm working on. I found I had an old Genesis Aniblock that was a "Zombie Walk." I broke it up into poses, I can get a dozen poses out of it. Then I found, here on Renderosity, a script that can apply an old pose to a new character. It works very well, and the price was right. Here the old poses are applied to a G8. Ugly faces have been added. Only torn, filthy clothing is missing. DAZ has an Iray shader for that. I have a plan for these characters. It will be a surprise.

Aye, there is no cancel button for daz+ I have tried various browsers etc.
Under the free daz membership, there is a cancel button(why? It's free!)
but under the daz+ nope...

"Me, I don't want to be heard. Not there, anyway. I just want the models."

And that...is how they are still able to do what they do to their customers. Because of that "we have the models".
And as long as people kowtow to it...they will keep at it....

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

ghosty12 posted at 10:03 AM Thu, 10 October 2024 - #4490157

[SNIP] The funny thing Daz just gave thirteen freebies to Daz+ and Premier users, my guess is to placate folks.[SNIP]

They gave those to everyone. I'm not Daz+/Plus/Premiere and I got them as well.

zombietaggerung posted at 10:00 PM Thu, 10 October 2024 - #4490179

ghosty12 posted at 10:03 AM Thu, 10 October 2024 - #4490157
[SNIP] The funny thing Daz just gave thirteen freebies to Daz+ and Premier users, my guess is to placate folks.[SNIP]
They gave those to everyone. I'm not Daz+/Plus/Premiere and I got them as well.

I didn't get shit, and I'm still technically a DAZ Plus (formerly DAZ+) member. I also noticed that -- since I submitted my request to have them downgrade my account to DAZ Base -- I'm not getting their emails, either. It would appear that I'm being snubbed.

Katsuyaki posted at 2:07 AM Fri, 11 October 2024 - #4490182

zombietaggerung posted at 10:00 PM Thu, 10 October 2024 - #4490179
ghosty12 posted at 10:03 AM Thu, 10 October 2024 - #4490157
[SNIP] The funny thing Daz just gave thirteen freebies to Daz+ and Premier users, my guess is to placate folks.[SNIP]
They gave those to everyone. I'm not Daz+/Plus/Premiere and I got them as well.
I didn't get shit, and I'm still technically a DAZ Plus (formerly DAZ+) member. I also noticed that -- since I submitted my request to have them downgrade my account to DAZ Base -- I'm not getting their emails, either. It would appear that I'm being snubbed.

EDIT: Looking further, I see that at least six seemingly-random items that I didn't purchase have been added to my Product Library with absolutely no notice or explanation. If DAZ is trying to buy my loyalty, it ain't gonna work...

Katsuyaki posted at 2:22 AM Fri, 11 October 2024 - #4490183

EDIT: Looking further, I see that at least six seemingly-random items that I didn't purchase have been added to my Product Library with absolutely no notice or explanation. If DAZ is trying to buy my loyalty, it ain't gonna work...

I found 10 in mine. At first I thought it was evidence of a software debacle.

These are all the "freebies" that were added to people's accounts. Some of them may not show up for you at the top of your product library if you already own them

Tubal Weapons Collection
Eirgrid Hair for Genesis 9
dForce Leather Viking Armor for Genesis 9
HDRI Starter Pack <-- This one doesn't seem to have a product page
Snow Queen LIE Makeup Collection for Genesis 9
Worker Uniform Outfit for Genesis 9
CDI Space Valkyrie Poses for Genesis 9
Mavick Hair and Beard for Genesis 8 and 9
Amelia 9 HD Makeup Collection
Worker Uniform Outfit for Genesis 9 Texture Add-On

They are content for use with updates to Scene Builder adn the Interactive Tutorials, so I guess long(ish)-planned.

It is oddly placed, I agree (perhaps the idea is that base is where you end up after using it - if you are in Base I guess you get the subscxribe button under the memberships, sso it does sort of fit) but the cancel button under Base is the one for cancelling either of the non-free memberships.

Ugh, I deal with the Rent-Ware thing as part of my day job, and it frustrates me there at what they do to attempt to make us be online to them all the time. I shudder to think of what a much smaller company will do to attempt to force someone to be online all the time to let their activity with the product be viewed, especially with their dalliance with generative engines.

Other options are looking so much more viable by the day.

Note that I deliberately killed DAZStudio's ability to phone home on my system when I found out about the generative image engine thing.

SydneyInPeril posted at 8:54 PM Fri, 11 October 2024 - #4490212

Note that I deliberately killed DAZStudio's ability to phone home on my system when I found out about the generative image engine thing.

Remote servers have been acknowledged to be a security risk from the start. That's the reason they were renamed to "the Cloud." Personally, I avoid them. As for "AI," it is a term generally used to mean "way cool."

Rottenham posted at 5:00 AM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490218

SydneyInPeril posted at 8:54 PM Fri, 11 October 2024 - #4490212

Note that I deliberately killed DAZStudio's ability to phone home on my system when I found out about the generative image engine thing.
Remote servers have been acknowledged to be a security risk from the start. That's the reason they were renamed to "the Cloud." Personally, I avoid them. As for "AI," it is a term generally used to mean "way cool."

Yeah, the generative image engine thing is especially annoying; I really won't even use one as a tool in a workflow as pretty much all of them have been developed with questionable ethics, even if they've been switching over to "We've licensed the content, albeit from art sites that switched their user terms to opt-out sublicensing agreements that allowed them to feed us that data". Plus, given the speed it can be effectively automated for posting that generated content, it rapidly becomes Ouroboros, eating it's own content, and a resulting rapid example of the dangers of inbreeding.

So now I'm to the point that I have to decide between:
1) Keep using my slowly outdating DAZStudio install. I'm actually finding this not terribly appealing in the long term, in part because I'm determined to leave the closed source OS ecosystem in the next five years.
2) Buy a new version of Poser and basically abandon all the Genesis content I've purchased licenses to. I've switched back and forth a few times, but I've been doing DAZ exclusively since the one credit card payment processor breach here at Renderosity over 10 years ago. Plus, I'd like to leave the closed source OS ecosystem in the next five years.
3) Buy iClone and completely abandon the content I've purchased licenses to. This is really an unappealing option to me on a lot of levels. Plus, I'd like to leave the closed source OS ecosystem in the next five years.
4) Move to Blender full time, convert what I can to it as I need it, and just force myself to make it work. This works the most with the way I've been moving; I really want to be off the closed source OS ecosystems in the next five years, I already have it installed, and I can if I'm motivated enough convert pretty much everything I might use over the next few years.
5) Go back to "pen and paper", albeit using the sketch pad screen I happen to already have and haven't used as much as I should.

Either way? Odds are pretty good that I'm pretty much done buying licenses for 3D content at all (unless it comes specifically for an open source software), especially if I'm making a choice to abandon content I've purchased licenses for, which is unfortunate for everybody involved. I haven't even downloaded the added free content DAZ put on my account, because I just can't even give them any indication that I'm using their product anymore.

How do you people prevent Daz from phoning home? Windows Firewall or other measures? Do you still use DIM or do you install manually?

Sydney, I'm with you on OS choice. I can see how Daz are bound to keep the src closed as it's intertwinded with Iray, which I guess NV won't open src, but still I'd appreciate a Linux version as Windows needs to f-ing die.
Outside Daz I have no idea what's really out there. Sculpt from scratch is beyond the time I can invest so in terms of features Daz does what I want, but what competetion is out there? Poser looks like last decade, sorry. iClone - what else do I need here? What else is out there?

DexterF posted at 10:44 AM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490223

How do you people prevent Daz from phoning home? Windows Firewall or other measures? Do you still use DIM or do you install manually?

I use Windows Firewall to block it right now. I also install stuff manually anymore; I haven't bought anything at DAZ in many months, all my recent purchases are here, but I'm looking hard as to whether or not it's worth it to keep buying licenses for any DAZ/Poser content if I'm going to be forced into moving to Blender or using my drawing tablet.

As a note, if I'd been forced to throw out the four computers I moved to Linux, I would have basically committed to removing their functions in the house entirely - most of them are used for media, gaming, or craft hobby purposes, and I can't justify spending money to maintain those features in separate machines in the house right now, not when that money should go to other things.

SydneyInPeril posted at 8:40 AM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490221

So now I'm to the point that I have to decide between:

When DAZ finally wheedles enough income out of their rentware, the "free" option will disappear, except for maybe a "free trial." It's a matter of when.

If that happened tomorrow, I would go with iClone. It has two shortcomings. It's ability to import characters from DAZ is limited. For lack of a custom import filter, iClone can't do even a marginal job of importing DAZ's talking animals, which no other source offers. That would be a loss. You can turn them into a talking entity, but all the poses and animations would need to be recreated. Ugh. Other than that, getting an iClone file out as an Iray image (or animation), while not impossible, is needlessly complex. I do wonder what Nvidia has up their sleeve for the next level GPU release, the 4090 being ~2K these days.

Blender is a last resort, because of its UI. Nothing is self-evident, everything must be memorized. However, I do believe it runs in Linux, which might come in handy.

As for the whole issue of licensing, I'm no lawyer. I'm under the impression that it mainly involves selling the model itself. I believe I (we) have permission to display an image, still or animated. I believe I could probably print it on, say, a coffee cup without licensing issues. I could be wrong about that. It is already nearly illegal to listen to a song on somebody else's radio.

We are seeing an exponential rate of tech-related societal change today. I'm not sure it's possible to prepare for the future. In some cases, like with DAZ, we don't even know what the present is. My lease expires in the year 0000.

Rottenham posted at 11:08 AM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490225

When DAZ finally wheedles enough income out of their rentware, the "free" option will disappear, except for maybe a "free trial." It's a matter of when.

What I expect is happening already is that they'll be offering a deal that's better on the surface to select artists in their storefront to offer content exclusively for the Premium subscription option.

If that happened tomorrow, I would go with iClone. It has two shortcomings. It's ability to import characters from DAZ is limited. For lack of a custom import filter, iClone can't do even a marginal job of importing DAZ's talking animals, which no other source offers. That would be a loss. You can turn them into a talking entity, but all the poses and animations would need to be recreated. Ugh. Other than that, getting an iClone file out as an Iray image (or animation), while not impossible, is needlessly complex. I do wonder what Nvidia has up their sleeve for the next level GPU release, the 4090 being ~2K these days.

Yeah, I looked and the Convert DAZ Content plugins appear to have been left behind several versions ago, so I already assumed that I might as well leave all my content behind if I go that route.

Blender is a last resort, because of its UI. Nothing is self-evident, everything must be memorized. However, I do believe it runs in Linux, which might come in handy.

I actually already use Blender for certain home projects (I own some 3D printers), so it won't be as major a move for me outside of content conversion. It does run on Linux, so when I make the move off Windows completely, it will be there, so I might as well consider it the engine I use going forward.

As for the whole issue of licensing, I'm no lawyer. I'm under the impression that it mainly involves selling the model itself. I believe I (we) have permission to display an image, still or animated. I believe I could probably print it on, say, a coffee cup without licensing issues. I could be wrong about that. It is already nearly illegal to listen to a song on somebody else's radio.

Yeah, the licensing is all about being able to make art you can call your own. Some might argue that I will require the additional Extended licensing to convert that content to Blender for the purpose of making my art, but those artists making that argument I would delete their content and never buy from them again.

We are seeing an exponential rate of tech-related societal change today. I'm not sure it's possible to prepare for the future. In some cases, like with DAZ, we don't even know what the present is. My lease expires in the year 0000.

About the only prep I can effectively do for the future, is make sure that I have full unadulterated control over my own hardware that I've paid for, wherever I can do so, and that does mean stepping away from just about all commercial software offerings involving it. There is no such thing as a "perpetual" software license, at best it only effectively lasts as long as you have a computer that can run the software.

SydneyInPeril posted at 11:32 AM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490226

About the only prep I can effectively do for the future, is make sure that I have full unadulterated control over my own hardware that I've paid for, wherever I can do so, and that does mean stepping away from just about all commercial software offerings involving it. There is no such thing as a "perpetual" software license, at best it only effectively lasts as long as you have a computer that can run the software.

Legality will always be connected to money. Look at Disney, getting copyright extended to 70 years. Most younger people today have never seen any of the films I grew up on, never heard of any of the great actors and actresses. The purpose of copyright law was to protect the artists. Now it's used to make them disappear.

About copyright, the Chinese say "How can I steal it if there isn't anything missing?" Any good idea can look ridiculous when taken to an extreme. Al Gore passed a law in 1996, the DMCA, that says anything we post on a website becomes the PROPERTY of that website. What was he thinking.

I've tried to read about these laws, but every other word is Maybe and Sometimes and Possibly.

...........................................................

When the Music Industry turned against the music video, Popular Music as we knew it devolved into cursing and shouting. Today, rentware is having a negative effect on our definition of Art.

I LOVE LA --- LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD --- HOT FOR TEACHER

There's a good reason that there's people out there saying that the only good thing for a person to do if they want to have a presence on the internet is to open their own website, and by extension, use various social media presence to advertise that site instead of hosting their content on social media where it gets sublicensed out of one's own control.

SydneyInPeril posted at 8:54 PM Fri, 11 October 2024 - #4490212

Ugh, I deal with the Rent-Ware thing as part of my day job, and it frustrates me there at what they do to attempt to make us be online to them all the time. I shudder to think of what a much smaller company will do to attempt to force someone to be online all the time to let their activity with the product be viewed, especially with their dalliance with generative engines.

You are not required to be online all the time, only (at intervals) briefly to verify the membership for the plug-ins and exclusive content included. Daz Studio gets information from the daz servers, it does not send info (except for anonymised data if you opted in to the product Improvement Program, in Edit>Preferences)

Other options are looking so much more viable by the day.
Note that I deliberately killed DAZStudio's ability to phone home on my system when I found out about the generative image engine thing.

The Daz Gebrative AI is trained solely on Daz-owned images - nothing from the PAs or gallery, let alone scraped from the running application.

SydneyInPeril posted at 8:40 AM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490221

Rottenham posted at 5:00 AM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490218
SydneyInPeril posted at 8:54 PM Fri, 11 October 2024 - #4490212

Note that I deliberately killed DAZStudio's ability to phone home on my system when I found out about the generative image engine thing.
Remote servers have been acknowledged to be a security risk from the start. That's the reason they were renamed to "the Cloud." Personally, I avoid them. As for "AI," it is a term generally used to mean "way cool."
Yeah, the generative image engine thing is especially annoying; I really won't even use one as a tool in a workflow as pretty much all of them have been developed with questionable ethics, even if they've been switching over to "We've licensed the content, albeit from art sites that switched their user terms to opt-out sublicensing agreements that allowed them to feed us that data". Plus, given the speed it can be effectively automated for posting that generated content, it rapidly becomes Ouroboros, eating it's own content, and a resulting rapid example of the dangers of inbreeding.

As noted above, the only images used to train the Daz LoRA are the promo images it owns for its own content.

So now I'm to the point that I have to decide between:
1) Keep using my slowly outdating DAZStudio install. I'm actually finding this not terribly appealing in the long term, in part because I'm determined to leave the closed source OS ecosystem in the next five years.

Why no use the current version? Unles you sign up for Premier and wish to use the plug-ins or the exclusive content (of which there is currently one item) nothing has changed, beyond feature additions and bug fixes.

2) Buy a new version of Poser and basically abandon all the Genesis content I've purchased licenses to. I've switched back and forth a few times, but I've been doing DAZ exclusively since the one credit card payment processor breach here at Renderosity over 10 years ago. Plus, I'd like to leave the closed source OS ecosystem in the next five years.
3) Buy iClone and completely abandon the content I've purchased licenses to. This is really an unappealing option to me on a lot of levels. Plus, I'd like to leave the closed source OS ecosystem in the next five years.
4) Move to Blender full time, convert what I can to it as I need it, and just force myself to make it work. This works the most with the way I've been moving; I really want to be off the closed source OS ecosystems in the next five years, I already have it installed, and I can if I'm motivated enough convert pretty much everything I might use over the next few years.
5) Go back to "pen and paper", albeit using the sketch pad screen I happen to already have and haven't used as much as I should.
Either way? Odds are pretty good that I'm pretty much done buying licenses for 3D content at all (unless it comes specifically for an open source software), especially if I'm making a choice to abandon content I've purchased licenses for, which is unfortunate for everybody involved. I haven't even downloaded the added free content DAZ put on my account, because I just can't even give them any indication that I'm using their product anymore.

DexterF posted at 10:44 AM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490223

How do you people prevent Daz from phoning home? Windows Firewall or other measures? Do you still use DIM or do you install manually?

Opt out of the product Improvement program in preferences. Anything else it does (update checks or notifications in the New dialogue) it dos by asking for information, it doesn't send any information back to Daz (and the improvement program is anonymised)

Sydney, I'm with you on OS choice. I can see how Daz are bound to keep the src closed as it's intertwinded with Iray, which I guess NV won't open src, but still I'd appreciate a Linux version as Windows needs to f-ing die.
Outside Daz I have no idea what's really out there. Sculpt from scratch is beyond the time I can invest so in terms of features Daz does what I want, but what competetion is out there? Poser looks like last decade, sorry. iClone - what else do I need here? What else is out there?

Rottenham posted at 11:08 AM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490225

SydneyInPeril posted at 8:40 AM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490221
So now I'm to the point that I have to decide between:
When DAZ finally wheedles enough income out of their rentware, the "free" option will disappear, except for maybe a "free trial." It's a matter of when.

That is a matter of opinion rather than a "matter of when". You are enttiled to your opinion, of course, but readers should bear the distinction in mind.

If that happened tomorrow, I would go with iClone. It has two shortcomings. It's ability to import characters from DAZ is limited. For lack of a custom import filter, iClone can't do even a marginal job of importing DAZ's talking animals, which no other source offers. That would be a loss. You can turn them into a talking entity, but all the poses and animations would need to be recreated. Ugh. Other than that, getting an iClone file out as an Iray image (or animation), while not impossible, is needlessly complex. I do wonder what Nvidia has up their sleeve for the next level GPU release, the 4090 being ~2K these days.
Blender is a last resort, because of its UI. Nothing is self-evident, everything must be memorized. However, I do believe it runs in Linux, which might come in handy.
As for the whole issue of licensing, I'm no lawyer. I'm under the impression that it mainly involves selling the model itself. I believe I (we) have permission to display an image, still or animated. I believe I could probably print it on, say, a coffee cup without licensing issues. I could be wrong about that. It is already nearly illegal to listen to a song on somebody else's radio.
We are seeing an exponential rate of tech-related societal change today. I'm not sure it's possible to prepare for the future. In some cases, like with DAZ, we don't even know what the present is. My lease expires in the year 0000.

SydneyInPeril posted at 5:30 PM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490235

There's a good reason that there's people out there saying that the only good thing for a person to do if they want to have a presence on the internet is to open their own website, and by extension, use various social media presence to advertise that site instead of hosting their content on social media where it gets sublicensed out of one's own control.

When I was young, I had a friend whose father was a syndicated cartoonist. He worked in his home studio three days a week. Drove a brand new car. I envied him. Too bad the newspapers are gone. I've been posting cartoons on Bitchute lately, just trying to learn what people think is funny.

Rottenham posted at 2:26 PM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490230

SydneyInPeril posted at 11:32 AM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490226
About the only prep I can effectively do for the future, is make sure that I have full unadulterated control over my own hardware that I've paid for, wherever I can do so, and that does mean stepping away from just about all commercial software offerings involving it. There is no such thing as a "perpetual" software license, at best it only effectively lasts as long as you have a computer that can run the software.
Legality will always be connected to money. Look at Disney, getting copyright extended to 70 years. Most younger people today have never seen any of the films I grew up on, never heard of any of the great actors and actresses. The purpose of copyright law was to protect the artists. Now it's used to make them disappear.

The films are not on endless repeat on various cable and on demand services?

About copyright, the Chinese say "How can I steal it if there isn't anything missing?" Any good idea can look ridiculous when taken to an extreme. Al Gore passed a law in 1996, the DMCA, that says anything we post on a website becomes the PROPERTY of that website. What was he thinking.

No, that is not what the DMCA says. The DMCA gives hosts a degree of protection by allowing them to function as intermediaries rather than having to police the content submitted - if X sees an infringement they report it to the host and it is taken down, details of the complaint being passed to the uploader. if the complaint is invalid the uploader can submit a countre notice, the host restores the content, and the counter notice is passed to the complainant; it is then up to the compalainant to decide whether to pursue the uploader using the supplied contact details, with the host leaving the content up or taking it down as dtermined by the outcome of any legal action. It is not an ideal system - a stalker's dream since the victim won't want to complain or submit a counter notice with their details 9unless they can afford lawyers) and similarly useful for perople wanting to cover up embarrassing information - but it doesn't do what you say.

I've tried to read about these laws, but every other word is Maybe and Sometimes and Possibly.
...........................................................
When the Music Industry turned against the music video, Popular Music as we knew it devolved into cursing and shouting. Today, rentware is having a negative effect on our definition of Art.
I LOVE LA --- LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD --- HOT FOR TEACHER

Rottenham posted at 2:26 PM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490230

SydneyInPeril posted at 11:32 AM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490226
About the only prep I can effectively do for the future, is make sure that I have full unadulterated control over my own hardware that I've paid for, wherever I can do so, and that does mean stepping away from just about all commercial software offerings involving it. There is no such thing as a "perpetual" software license, at best it only effectively lasts as long as you have a computer that can run the software.
Legality will always be connected to money. Look at Disney, getting copyright extended to 70 years. Most younger people today have never seen any of the films I grew up on, never heard of any of the great actors and actresses. The purpose of copyright law was to protect the artists. Now it's used to make them disappear.
About copyright, the Chinese say "How can I steal it if there isn't anything missing?" Any good idea can look ridiculous when taken to an extreme. Al Gore passed a law in 1996, the DMCA, that says anything we post on a website becomes the PROPERTY of that website. What was he thinking.
I've tried to read about these laws, but every other word is Maybe and Sometimes and Possibly.
...........................................................
When the Music Industry turned against the music video, Popular Music as we knew it devolved into cursing and shouting. Today, rentware is having a negative effect on our definition of Art.
I LOVE LA --- LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD --- HOT FOR TEACHER

Theft of digital product is not about something "missing" but rather the right to copy/duplicate it.

That is the difference.

You arent "taking the item away" but you are "copying it" without permission.

I think as digital artists we have ran across that from time to time. Finding our work earning someone else money without us getting a red cent!

The current IP laws are to protect artists from having their work "copied" without consent. And depending on the country they can be good laws or bad...

I know I have and its why I really dont like pirating....

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

DarkElegance posted at 9:10 PM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490254

Theft of digital product is not about something "missing" but rather the right to copy/duplicate it.

That is the difference.

You arent "taking the item away" but you are "copying it" without permission.

I think as digital artists we have ran across that from time to time. Finding our work earning someone else money without us getting a red cent!

The current IP laws are to protect artists from having their work "copied" without consent. And depending on the country they can be good laws or bad...

I know I have and its why I really dont like pirating....

As a kid, I was disciplined strongly for theft. I don't do it, but I see others do it often. In art school, I saw one of my assignments reappear as a movie poster. I never imagined it was a coincidence. I saw other examples too. I recently read one of the sellers on this site complaining about theft of his excellent products. We can give it a special name, as we like to do, like "virtual theft" or "digital theft," but theft is theft. I see it as a matter of pride and integrity. That said, it's pretty hard to stop. FWIW, Nikola Tesla died penniless after a brilliant and productive career, thanks partially to theft of his ideas. Tesla invented radio, for example, but Marconi patented it.

We have a lawyer behind every blade of grass, but theft (of any variety) is primarily an integrity issue. In some cases our laws actually legalize IP theft. The DMCA of 1996 comes to mind. It's a sign of the times we live in.

On this note, I've noticed that almost zero artists add their signature or pen name to their work these days. I don't understand why.

RHaseltine posted at 7:41 PM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490240

SydneyInPeril posted at 8:54 PM Fri, 11 October 2024 - #4490212
Ugh, I deal with the Rent-Ware thing as part of my day job, and it frustrates me there at what they do to attempt to make us be online to them all the time. I shudder to think of what a much smaller company will do to attempt to force someone to be online all the time to let their activity with the product be viewed, especially with their dalliance with generative engines.
You are not required to be online all the time, only (at intervals) briefly to verify the membership for the plug-ins and exclusive content included. Daz Studio gets information from the daz servers, it does not send info (except for anonymised data if you opted in to the product Improvement Program, in Edit>Preferences)\

Adobe does all sorts of Passive Aggressive crap that makes it harder every year to effectively keep a machine offline while using it. I would not assume that DAZ won't do the same sorts of things.

Other options are looking so much more viable by the day.
Note that I deliberately killed DAZStudio's ability to phone home on my system when I found out about the generative image engine thing.
The Daz Gebrative AI is trained solely on Daz-owned images - nothing from the PAs or gallery, let alone scraped from the running application.

For now. There's two ways it will go; either they will find it not generating the revenue they need and stop, or they'll attempt to amend their TOS to feed submitted Gallery art into the engine unless artists Opt Out and hope people don't notice. I'm too cynical to assume the status quo will stay.

Look what other software can do these days. The reason people stick to Daz is that they sunk considerable amounts of money into a software ecosystem that's large and by compatible to only itself. You are hardware locked into NV (unless you are seriously willing to software render, which I can only recommend to high elves and other eternals) and is riddled with ridiculous feature lackings, such as the main mode in the editor being actually software rendered which means large resp. complex scenes are impossible. Their forum is from last millenium, their shop is magnitued behind the competition (Rendo, Rhub), support is practically non-existent, so is documentation. You can only run multiple instances with a 3rd party script that can break any day and if you use it a plugins like Bookmark Manager don't work as only the UI of the main instance saves them to disk, the others won't merge. And we haven't started on how out of nowhere cryptic erroneous entries appear overnight which only gives you a glimpse of what a patchwork the underlying code must be. The content libraries are void of useful search functions or display options. I could go on and on.

All of this I could stomach as long as it was free, but now 18.99 a month to get a handful of good features while the rest stays a ruin and questions about DS5 roadmaps get deleted?

zombietaggerung posted at 3:34 PM Fri, 11 October 2024 - #4490202

These are all the "freebies" that were added to people's accounts. Some of them may not show up for you at the top of your product library if you already own them
Tubal Weapons Collection
Eirgrid Hair for Genesis 9
dForce Leather Viking Armor for Genesis 9
HDRI Starter Pack <-- This one doesn't seem to have a product page
Snow Queen LIE Makeup Collection for Genesis 9
Worker Uniform Outfit for Genesis 9
CDI Space Valkyrie Poses for Genesis 9
Mavick Hair and Beard for Genesis 8 and 9
Amelia 9 HD Makeup Collection
Worker Uniform Outfit for Genesis 9 Texture Add-On

Now I see why I only got a few of these added to my content library: I'd already bought the other stuff.

SydneyInPeril posted at 8:54 PM Fri, 11 October 2024 - #4490212

Ugh, I deal with the Rent-Ware thing as part of my day job, and it frustrates me there at what they do to attempt to make us be online to them all the time. I shudder to think of what a much smaller company will do to attempt to force someone to be online all the time to let their activity with the product be viewed, especially with their dalliance with generative engines.
Other options are looking so much more viable by the day.
Note that I deliberately killed DAZStudio's ability to phone home on my system when I found out about the generative image engine thing.

My work machine is completely isolated from the internet. I use a different machine to go online with, and transfer over whatever files I need on the work machine manually with a portable hard-drive. Not very hi-tech, but it works. However, it also means that I probably can't use the Premier version of DAZ Studio on that machine, since it seems like it would need to phone home at least once (and probably periodically) to verify your membership status to use the Premier content. Another reason I won't be subscribing.

DexterF posted at 9:49 AM Sun, 13 October 2024 - #4490274

Look what other software can do these days. The reason people stick to Daz is that they sunk considerable amounts of money into a software ecosystem that's large and by compatible to only itself. You are hardware locked into NV (unless you are seriously willing to software render, which I can only recommend to high elves and other eternals) and is riddled with ridiculous feature lackings, such as the main mode in the editor being actually software rendered which means large resp. complex scenes are impossible. Their forum is from last millenium, their shop is magnitued behind the competition (Rendo, Rhub), support is practically non-existent, so is documentation. You can only run multiple instances with a 3rd party script that can break any day and if you use it a plugins like Bookmark Manager don't work as only the UI of the main instance saves them to disk, the others won't merge. And we haven't started on how out of nowhere cryptic erroneous entries appear overnight which only gives you a glimpse of what a patchwork the underlying code must be. The content libraries are void of useful search functions or display options. I could go on and on.

All of this I could stomach as long as it was free, but now 18.99 a month to get a handful of good features while the rest stays a ruin and questions about DS5 roadmaps get deleted?

I wish there was an up vote feature here....

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

Katsuyaki posted at 1:13 PM Sun, 13 October 2024 - #4490279

SydneyInPeril posted at 8:54 PM Fri, 11 October 2024 - #4490212
Ugh, I deal with the Rent-Ware thing as part of my day job, and it frustrates me there at what they do to attempt to make us be online to them all the time. I shudder to think of what a much smaller company will do to attempt to force someone to be online all the time to let their activity with the product be viewed, especially with their dalliance with generative engines.
Other options are looking so much more viable by the day.
Note that I deliberately killed DAZStudio's ability to phone home on my system when I found out about the generative image engine thing.
My work machine is completely isolated from the internet. I use a different machine to go online with, and transfer over whatever files I need on the work machine manually with a portable hard-drive. Not very hi-tech, but it works. However, it also means that I probably can't use the Premier version of DAZ Studio on that machine, since it seems like it would need to phone home at least once (and probably periodically) to verify your membership status to use the Premier content. Another reason I won't be subscribing.

I have my "faffing about" puter, then I have my graphics puter. The graphics puter only connects for me to install Daz content and that is about it. It is -only- for graphic work. Nothing else.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

SydneyInPeril posted at 9:33 AM Sun, 13 October 2024 - #4490272

RHaseltine posted at 7:41 PM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490240
SydneyInPeril posted at 8:54 PM Fri, 11 October 2024 - #4490212
Ugh, I deal with the Rent-Ware thing as part of my day job, and it frustrates me there at what they do to attempt to make us be online to them all the time. I shudder to think of what a much smaller company will do to attempt to force someone to be online all the time to let their activity with the product be viewed, especially with their dalliance with generative engines.
You are not required to be online all the time, only (at intervals) briefly to verify the membership for the plug-ins and exclusive content included. Daz Studio gets information from the daz servers, it does not send info (except for anonymised data if you opted in to the product Improvement Program, in Edit>Preferences)\
Adobe does all sorts of Passive Aggressive crap that makes it harder every year to effectively keep a machine offline while using it. I would not assume that DAZ won't do the same sorts of things.
Other options are looking so much more viable by the day.
Note that I deliberately killed DAZStudio's ability to phone home on my system when I found out about the generative image engine thing.
The Daz Gebrative AI is trained solely on Daz-owned images - nothing from the PAs or gallery, let alone scraped from the running application.
For now. There's two ways it will go; either they will find it not generating the revenue they need and stop, or they'll attempt to amend their TOS to feed submitted Gallery art into the engine unless artists Opt Out and hope people don't notice. I'm too cynical to assume the status quo will stay.

Those are not the only two possibilities - you may well be being unduly cynical.

Katsuyaki posted at 1:13 PM Sun, 13 October 2024 - #4490279

SydneyInPeril posted at 8:54 PM Fri, 11 October 2024 - #4490212
Ugh, I deal with the Rent-Ware thing as part of my day job, and it frustrates me there at what they do to attempt to make us be online to them all the time. I shudder to think of what a much smaller company will do to attempt to force someone to be online all the time to let their activity with the product be viewed, especially with their dalliance with generative engines.
Other options are looking so much more viable by the day.
Note that I deliberately killed DAZStudio's ability to phone home on my system when I found out about the generative image engine thing.
My work machine is completely isolated from the internet. I use a different machine to go online with, and transfer over whatever files I need on the work machine manually with a portable hard-drive. Not very hi-tech, but it works. However, it also means that I probably can't use the Premier version of DAZ Studio on that machine, since it seems like it would need to phone home at least once (and probably periodically) to verify your membership status to use the Premier content. Another reason I won't be subscribing.

Yes, it doesn't need an always-on connection but it does require you to periodically log-in to use the plug-ins and the exclusive content (other content, including the free bundles, don't require that)

DexterF posted at 9:49 AM Sun, 13 October 2024 - #4490274

You can only run multiple instances with a 3rd party script that can break any day and if you use it a plugins like Bookmark Manager don't work as only the UI of the main instance saves them to disk, the others won't merge. And we haven't started on how out of nowhere cryptic erroneous entries appear overnight which only gives you a glimpse of what a patchwork the underlying code must be.

Daz Studio Pro 4.12 - instances
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/referenceguide/tech_articles/command_line_options/start

Daz studio has built in tools for instance control and to determine whether an instance has its own UI settings or uses those from another instance, or just starts clean each time.

By cryptic erroneous entries do you mean the GUID displayed for custom actions when the path to the file cannot be resolved?

The content libraries are void of useful search functions or display options. I could go on and on.

Smart Content already has a lot of search options, as well as features like tagginf. The latest build has added some of these to the Content Library pane.

RHaseltine posted at 5:30 PM Sun, 13 October 2024 - #4490294

Yes, it doesn't need an always-on connection but it does require you to periodically log-in to use the plug-ins and the exclusive content (other content, including the free bundles, don't require that)

Tell me please.

Will I be able to continue using DAZ as I do now? I would forego the special new features and the special new models. Would I be able to continue to buy the models I can buy now? Without phoning home? Or will "free" be redefined?

RHaseltine posted at 5:28 PM Sun, 13 October 2024 - #4490293

SydneyInPeril posted at 9:33 AM Sun, 13 October 2024 - #4490272
RHaseltine posted at 7:41 PM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490240
SydneyInPeril posted at 8:54 PM Fri, 11 October 2024 - #4490212
Ugh, I deal with the Rent-Ware thing as part of my day job, and it frustrates me there at what they do to attempt to make us be online to them all the time. I shudder to think of what a much smaller company will do to attempt to force someone to be online all the time to let their activity with the product be viewed, especially with their dalliance with generative engines.
You are not required to be online all the time, only (at intervals) briefly to verify the membership for the plug-ins and exclusive content included. Daz Studio gets information from the daz servers, it does not send info (except for anonymised data if you opted in to the product Improvement Program, in Edit>Preferences)\
Adobe does all sorts of Passive Aggressive crap that makes it harder every year to effectively keep a machine offline while using it. I would not assume that DAZ won't do the same sorts of things.
Other options are looking so much more viable by the day.
Note that I deliberately killed DAZStudio's ability to phone home on my system when I found out about the generative image engine thing.
The Daz Gebrative AI is trained solely on Daz-owned images - nothing from the PAs or gallery, let alone scraped from the running application.
For now. There's two ways it will go; either they will find it not generating the revenue they need and stop, or they'll attempt to amend their TOS to feed submitted Gallery art into the engine unless artists Opt Out and hope people don't notice. I'm too cynical to assume the status quo will stay.
Those are not the only two possibilities - you may well be being unduly cynical.

They might not be... but we've all watched DAZ sinking slowly in terms of consistently reducing what people get for the old baseline subscription, the lack of support, that support tickets continue to remain open or are closed randomly with no indication they're being looked at, stuff like the temporary dalliance with advertising on the forum and gallery without announcing it being as such... given the pattern, I am willing to be overly cynical so I can be pleasantly surprised when they pull back from overly wrong decisions, rather than be horribly disappointed when people double down on the overly wrong decisions. Plus, such a high percentage of Generative Image Engines are deliberately fed with unethically sourced images (read: scraped from everywhere that has images posted regardless of the intended licensing of the post) that all of us have to assume that at some point the place DAZ is subcontracting it to (I find it really hard to conceive that DAZ has staff on hand that can create a Generative Engine) is going to demand more for the engine that can't be provided without changing the TOS and pulling our renders before we even post them to galleries.

You're a forum moderator and possibly paid Public Relations Staff over there, which also means that we have to automatically assume you're trying to make things look good. Be aware that things really do not look good from out here, so you have an uphill battle, compounded by your connections to them.

I was concerned when the DMCA was passed that it would turn artists into lawyers. This is why.

Rottenham posted at 5:47 PM Sun, 13 October 2024 - #4490298

RHaseltine posted at 5:30 PM Sun, 13 October 2024 - #4490294
Yes, it doesn't need an always-on connection but it does require you to periodically log-in to use the plug-ins and the exclusive content (other content, including the free bundles, don't require that)
Tell me please.
Will I be able to continue using DAZ as I do now? I would forego the special new features and the special new models. Would I be able to continue to buy the models I can buy now? Without phoning home? Or will "free" be redefined?

Yes. No core feature of DS requires an idenmitfiable call home - if it can, it will ask for generic notifications (the bits that appear in the New scene dialogue - on which, the latest update has restoed the File>Open Recent sub-menu) but it won't do anything to identify you or send data to Daz without asking/being told to.

SydneyInPeril posted at 9:31 PM Sun, 13 October 2024 - #4490304

RHaseltine posted at 5:28 PM Sun, 13 October 2024 - #4490293
SydneyInPeril posted at 9:33 AM Sun, 13 October 2024 - #4490272
RHaseltine posted at 7:41 PM Sat, 12 October 2024 - #4490240
SydneyInPeril posted at 8:54 PM Fri, 11 October 2024 - #4490212
Ugh, I deal with the Rent-Ware thing as part of my day job, and it frustrates me there at what they do to attempt to make us be online to them all the time. I shudder to think of what a much smaller company will do to attempt to force someone to be online all the time to let their activity with the product be viewed, especially with their dalliance with generative engines.
You are not required to be online all the time, only (at intervals) briefly to verify the membership for the plug-ins and exclusive content included. Daz Studio gets information from the daz servers, it does not send info (except for anonymised data if you opted in to the product Improvement Program, in Edit>Preferences)\
Adobe does all sorts of Passive Aggressive crap that makes it harder every year to effectively keep a machine offline while using it. I would not assume that DAZ won't do the same sorts of things.
Other options are looking so much more viable by the day.
Note that I deliberately killed DAZStudio's ability to phone home on my system when I found out about the generative image engine thing.
The Daz Gebrative AI is trained solely on Daz-owned images - nothing from the PAs or gallery, let alone scraped from the running application.
For now. There's two ways it will go; either they will find it not generating the revenue they need and stop, or they'll attempt to amend their TOS to feed submitted Gallery art into the engine unless artists Opt Out and hope people don't notice. I'm too cynical to assume the status quo will stay.
Those are not the only two possibilities - you may well be being unduly cynical.
They might not be... but we've all watched DAZ sinking slowly in terms of consistently reducing what people get for the old baseline subscription,

nothing has been reduced.

the lack of support, that support tickets continue to remain open or are closed randomly with no indication they're being looked at, stuff like the temporary dalliance with advertising on the forum and gallery without announcing it being as such... given the pattern, I am willing to be overly cynical so I can be pleasantly surprised when they pull back from overly wrong decisions, rather than be horribly disappointed when people double down on the overly wrong decisions. Plus, such a high percentage of Generative Image Engines are deliberately fed with unethically sourced images (read: scraped from everywhere that has images posted regardless of the intended licensing of the post) that all of us have to assume that at some point the place DAZ is subcontracting it to (I find it really hard to conceive that DAZ has staff on hand that can create a Generative Engine) is going to demand more for the engine that can't be provided without changing the TOS and pulling our renders before we even post them to galleries.

Does any AI company get paid in data for its training? I don't know where the LoRA training is done but it is done with clean data owned by Daz.

You're a forum moderator and possibly paid Public Relations Staff over there, which also means that we have to automatically assume you're trying to make things look good. Be aware that things really do not look good from out here, so you have an uphill battle, compounded by your connections to them.

You know what? We'll see in five years or ten, if I even revisit the hobby, whether or not DAZ has moved to doing that sort of stuff that you say they aren't doing right now.

Frankly, I think Richard deserves a raise and possibly some payment from Renderosity for moderating these forums also...

Razor42 posted at 7:32 PM Mon, 14 October 2024 - #4490343

Frankly, I think Richard deserves a raise and possibly some payment from Renderosity for moderating these forums also...

He is trying to be the "good guy"

But he is also blatantly ignoring direct questions...so not so good...

As for genAI!
Now you are talking something I know abit about. I have been actively involved with a few artists in regard to this issue.
Do genAI companies pay?
Yes and no.
No, for the most part, companies aren't paying. They are “scrapping” or “harvesting” (This is where I remind people to look very, very carefully at the ToS of profile/portfolio sites you join.)
There are many….many, current legal fights over this issue(recent win for artists is that judges are seeing it as IP infringement and trying to protect artists). The biggest ones are, including companies such as Microsoft(one claim at one point was that if a person had used a 'windows' program any time past 2000 they had a right to what was created...) and DA (amongst other companies. Lionsgate may be facing their own soon. They are training their "own genAI" with their library...but writers, actors, etc have not been asked for consent). Though, we have heard of some, many we have not even heard of on the news sites. These companies have wholesale stolen artwork and used it to “teach” their genAI. Even going so far as to list specific artists to harvest from. Then their "genAI" samples the images and POOF! You get your attempt at images from millions of pieces of work.
For the most part, these are the genAI engines most people have available to them. It's all stolen material that is sampled.

Downfall-Recently, professors studying this issue have noticed something I find particularly funny. With the huge glut of fake images from genAI, it's starting to “cannibalize” itself. In Otherworlds, the genAI engines are getting fed its own work. So the skewed images are getting…more skewed.
(Please look into glazing your work, there is another system coming up for release that will help too)

The, "Yes" part…some studios have "In house" teams that do nothing but train genAI with the studio work. This is mainly to shortened work tasks. I believe(I will have to go back and double check) the studio that did "Black myth" game, did this.
The good point-work is not stolen. It's used as it was meant to, to AID artists, not destroy their rights.
But to do this effectively…you need a massive amount of data to get it to be effective.
(This is why I question Daz stating they are training their own genAI. I have seen their galleries...they are not mega-massive)

But seeing as we are getting the "nice, good, answers" here...please note that even "richard" is outright, avoiding answering valid concerns and questions.

This goes right back to the "Why?" part.
What exactly is daz so scared of??

Why are valid, simple questions so hard to answer for them?

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

Again to be frank, I would prefer Daz 3D spend their time developing new features like FIlatoon. Rather than running around attempting to oil every squeaky wheel that doesn't agree with this decision or that direction. I get it you may have concerns over the ethics of AI, some may have concerns over the introduction of Premier and the direction that's heading. To have concerns and preferences is absolutely human and perfectly ok. That doesn't mean you have the right to demand moderators answer all your questions or an expectation that Daz 3D will just drop something in an attempt to please everyone across the board, just because someone thinks one of their decisions is a bad one.

To be honest I prefer forums that have a degree of moderation and that don't tend to allow negativity for the sheer sake of negativity to thrive and taint the well for everyone who visits.

Sure, voice your concerns but please try to at least keep it civil.

Honestly, I thought this was the Daz Studio forum, not the Daz 3D - 2 Minutes of Hate forum...

Maybe have a read through here when you have a minute:

https://www.renderosity.com/wiki/policies/terms-of-service

Razor42,

Civility is a two-way street. So is integrity, for that matter. What is needed is more and better technical information. Documentation, you might say. Instead we have people here telling us how to behave. Rather paternal, and a sad sign of our times. Not very professional either. Try to remember that, if the DAZ forum operated in a professional manner instead of routine blocking of the members, this forum we're in now would probably not need to exist.

An artist with your credentials (i.e. your products) should be capable of providing needed technical help to those who need it. Nobody needs more admonitions.

Richard is the only DAZ mod with any technical skills, and he made a good impression on me because of it. He knows the software well. He's hardly in a position to come here and criticize DAZ, even if he thought they deserved it. It's not clear why he comes here at all. I can see he's not here to provide technical help.

As for DAZ going down rentware road... rentware works for Adobe because they pretty much dominate the professional market. They can well afford to throw 1/3 of their users away as they have done. That won't work for everyone, no matter how tempting it may be. As Richard pointed out, the future cannot be known. That includes his own.

Amen.

Rottenham posted at 10:49 AM Thu, 10 October 2024 - #4490159

ghosty12 posted at 10:03 AM Thu, 10 October 2024 - #4490157
There should now be an option button under the base membership section of your membership management screen from where you can cancel your sub, was not there before but is working now as have cancelled my sub. The funny thing Daz just gave thirteen freebies to Daz+ and Premier users, my guess is to placate folks
I think the interesting thing in all of this is how many folks after the initial shock of it all, quite a few have signed on to the Premier sub.

Deleted all DAZ cookies, restarted the OS, still no cancel button.

Not sure why that would be, I do know that at the time it was a right pain and then magically it was fixed and I could unsub.

You know you enjoy 3D Art when you realize that your life is a piece of 3D Art. :)

AMD 7900X3D, 64 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR5 Ram, Asus Prime X670-P Wifi MB, PNY RTX 4070Ti Super 16GB, 14TB SSD's & HDD, Windows 11, Poser 9 / Pro 2012 / Pro 2014, Daz Studio 4.22.

ghosty12 posted at 8:18 AM Tue, 15 October 2024 - #4490355

Rottenham posted at 10:49 AM Thu, 10 October 2024 - #4490159
ghosty12 posted at 10:03 AM Thu, 10 October 2024 - #4490157
Deleted all DAZ cookies, restarted the OS, still no cancel button.
Not sure why that would be, I do know that at the time it was a right pain and then magically it was fixed and I could unsub.

I did notice another post on this board that had the same membership screen as I have. Maybe it's intentional. Maybe it's not. DAZ has declined comment. I can't guess why you would have a different screen, either. That ought to be impossible.

Being a curious individual, I opened a new account to see what happened. It behaved differently. It assigned me a Basic membership by default. The Basic screen does indeed have the cancel button. I find that odd. As a new Basic member, I can evidently delete my entire account (assuming that's what cancel means). But as a pre-existing member, I am obliged to remain a Plus member til the year 0000. All I can say is, when I worked in this industry, this would never have gotten past QA.

I would switch over to Basic right now, if I had that option.

We (daz Mods) have pointed out some people are still having issues with the membership page, and it is on their radar.

Just to be clear, I am not here as a conduit of information 9and I don't know the answers to many questions, including the delays with Tech Support tickets) - I am just trying to point out some misunderstnadings or to present, based on publicly posted information, some alternative perspectives.

RHaseltine posted at 6:17 PM Tue, 15 October 2024 - #4490366

We (daz Mods) have pointed out some people are still having issues with the membership page, and it is on their radar.
Just to be clear, I am not here as a conduit of information 9and I don't know the answers to many questions, including the delays with Tech Support tickets) - I am just trying to point out some misunderstnadings or to present, based on publicly posted information, some alternative perspectives.

Thank you Richard. We all need the wisdom to accept the things we cannot change. A particular German expression comes to mind.

"If there was no such word as if, then cow (guess) would be butter."

Honesty this thread had moved beyond realistic requests for technical information quite a while ago. And is well on its way to becoming a dumpster fire.

As is this one: DAZ moderators are censoring ANY MENTION of g9 to g8 morph conversion

I offered technical help in this forum for years but found the weight of negativity allowed to thrive here made it almost impossible to positively contribute.

Some may say the Daz 3D forum is over moderated, others may say some forums are under moderated...

I am not admonishing anyone. Nor is a request to keep the tone here as constructive and civil "telling people how to behave". As far as "Not very professional either." I'm honestly not sure where you are going with that?

Just so you know where I am coming from. Here is an example of a thread here from a few years ago (One of many with a similar slant. Some far worse.)

https://www.renderosity.com/forums/threads/2973864/genesis-9-announcement

Here is an example of a thread with myself offering technical help here (One of hundreds of threads over the years):

https://www.renderosity.com/forums/threads/2986584/hands#msg4482142

Did you have a technical question in regards to Daz Studio?

Razor42 posted at 7:32 PM Mon, 14 October 2024 - #4490343

Frankly, I think Richard deserves a raise and possibly some payment from Renderosity for moderating these forums also...

Well Daz don't pay him so why would renderosity.

All Here,

DAZ Tech Support got me onto "Basic," so now there will be no rentware payments in the year 0000. Phew. Still no Cancel button, but it no longer matters. I learned they had blocked my card, for undisclosed reasons, so a different card solved that. Now, I have the opportunity to find out exactly what in the devil they're up to, before I decide what it's worth.

All's well that ends well.

ghosty12 posted at 10:03 AM Thu, 10 October 2024 - #4490157

There should now be an option button under the base membership section of your membership management screen from where you can cancel your sub, was not there before but is working now as have cancelled my sub. The funny thing Daz just gave thirteen freebies to Daz+ and Premier users, my guess is to placate folks
I think the interesting thing in all of this is how many folks after the initial shock of it all, quite a few have signed on to the Premier sub.

Some of us got just enough of an offer to make it worthwhile to shorten our subscriptions by going to Premier. This way I'm done with them quicker and don't have to pop back every month for the next year or so to use the coupons. Since the rentware parts aren't yet being forced on users, I'm just not downloading or installing any of them. But it's not like Daz is getting paid for my subscription beyond what they already had when I had Daz+, that money's been paid and gone for a while now.

One thing I find very telling about how distinctly customer-unfriendly Daz is becoming, (from their FAQ thread on the new Premier):

Content that is removed due to letting a Premier subscription lapse is not guaranteed to be available on reinstating the membership at a later time.

So not only are you renting content, you stand a good chance of losing it forever if your subscription lapses.

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

I was just saying lapse, which could be for a number of reasons, most likely a serious change in finances, funny how you had to come and try to make it sound like I was talking about technical/account issues.

I'd expect cases of technical/account issues on Daz's part would get the content they had before. But what happens to the user that falls ill for an extended period, or loses their job, or heck, just has to drop a month to cover a sudden car repair expense?

What tells me "Premier" was dreamt up by the marketing department and steamrolled over any objections is that they have no solid plan for a customer not keeping up their subscription beyond punishing them for their failure to be a constant revenue source.

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

darken666 posted at 7:18 PM Wed, 16 October 2024 - #4490414

There's some claims there was a survey and customers actually asked for Premier.

My experience has been that when marketing takes a survey, it's their family members that get surveyed.

Rottenham posted at 7:37 PM Wed, 16 October 2024 - #4490415

darken666 posted at 7:18 PM Wed, 16 October 2024 - #4490414
There's some claims there was a survey and customers actually asked for Premier.
My experience has been that when marketing takes a survey, it's their family members that get surveyed.

Ain't that the truth. In all my life, I've seldom seen a marketing department so out of touch with both their customers and their products. It's like they just hire straight out business school and just let them run everything.

Wow, whole pages of thread responses are being removed for even vaguely criticizing the new Premier tier. Evidently all talk of Premier is being locked to a specific thread and even there it is being savagely over-moderated to remove any criticism. Wonder how heavily Daz Marketing is leaning on the moderators to eliminate any negative comments. You can't even discuss Premier in a thread about a Premier exclusive figure.

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

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

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

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

Business decisions aren't made by surveying the customers, no matter the nature of the process. I think Richard knows this.

True, the survey was just to provide cover for what they had to know would be an unpopular decision. Being able to say "your fellow customers asked for this" without giving any real detail is just another way of shutting down complaints.

I can believe there were people who wanted better discounts on a higher tier.

I can even believe that people were ok with subscription features. (Though DAZ should have put in the work and made their own plugins. Taking existing plugins out of the store and making little tweaks to call them "new" is just scummy)

But I can't believe that anyone knowingly said "screw us over with subscription-only content. We want to forced to pay for our figures over and over again."

Anyone who said yes to subscription content was duped by a slickly worded survey question.

It keeps getting worse. The subscription is integrated in the base Studio program such that at least one QOL feature is subscription only even if you don't load any of the Premier plugins or content. And with all plugins needing to be redone for version 5, odds are they'll claim the software is so different that anything more than starting it will be subscription only. Looks like the free stuff they're tossing around is just to distract people and placate them so they won't tell DAZ where they can stick the subscription for Daz 5.0. Best make backups of your 4.22 installer. I wouldn't trust any version past that to come without something that kills older versions remotely when the next version is released so you're forced to update.

"We see there is a new update to Daz Studio, update now to continue using the program."

darken666 posted at 8:34 PM Thu, 17 October 2024 - #4490440

It keeps getting worse. The subscription is integrated in the base Studio program such that at least one QOL feature is subscription only even if you don't load any of the Premier plugins or content. And with all plugins needing to be redone for version 5, odds are they'll claim the software is so different that anything more than starting it will be subscription only. Looks like the free stuff they're tossing around is just to distract people and placate them so they won't tell DAZ where they can stick the subscription for Daz 5.0. Best make backups of your 4.22 installer. I wouldn't trust any version past that to come without something that kills older versions remotely when the next version is released so you're forced to update.
"We see there is a new update to Daz Studio, update now to continue using the program."

I'm morbidly curious... what's the Quality of Life feature now locked behind the subscription wall?

Turning off the ads when bringing up the new scene dialog box, apparently. But who knows what else they've put the paywall on. They're being pretty evasive about it.

darken666 posted at 10:09 PM Thu, 17 October 2024 - #4490445

But who knows what else they've put the paywall on. They're being pretty evasive about it.

Which is usually a bad sign, and not terribly surprising in all honesty.

Since marketing is an inherently non-technical endeavor, it's possible that DAZ themselves doesn't even know the details of their own new deal. And, DAZ may go through a period of instability (it may be in one now), as they are making a big change. We're not going to get the whole picture until we get it ourselves. At this time we may be wise to assume the worst, and develop our Plan B.

Economically, we're in a period similar to the Great Depression. Two thirds of the auto manufacturers went out of business at that time. What's fascinating, and rarely mentioned, is that the 30s was the finest decade of art and design of the century. I think as artists we can work around the rentware craze.

It seems to me this discussion is jumping the shark a bit. I've settled on a 4.22 build that suits me fine. I plan to stay there until all this settles down. It's quite impossible to say with any certainty what Daz will do going forward. They're privately held and can do a lot of whatever without telling anyone anything.

The economics now do not necessarily parallel conditions in the 1920s or 1930s. That was a common theme during Covid, that we'll be stuck in a depression. But it appears we are past that assessment. Some doom & gloomers say a depression could come in the 2030s, and that's only one possibility. There are some incredibly enormous variables, and this is simply not the place to delve into those. So, likely better to narrow the scope back to Daz and deal with the now

We have this Premier program. It does change the dynamics with respect to the relationship between Daz Co and Daz customers. For me, it has reduced my spending there. That's probably okay. I spent enough earlier in the year. My spending here dropped dramatically a few years ago and has never really recovered. Over there, it's still usually a better deal, with all the good and bad that entails. And objectively, I have a fair amount of stuff. It's a drop in the bucket compared to some folk, but I find it's a lot of stuff! And if I don;t buy another thing ever, I probably have enough stuff to make pictures in DS for the rest of my life. I'm not alone there.

Torquinox posted at 1:38 PM Fri, 18 October 2024 - #4490468

The economics now do not necessarily parallel conditions in the 1920s or 1930s.

I will say, Germany in the 20s, in a certain way, is even closer. But we will not discuss politics or history here, my mistake for putting the thought in your mind. I think you underestimate the marketing mindset badly. If you had ever worked with them, you would understand the connection with DAZ. I do appreciate that the "scope" may be a bit broad for your taste. Please don't take that as an invitation to instruct those around you.

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

RHaseltine posted at 3:51 PM Thu, 17 October 2024 - #4490430
There was a survey, the usual Survey Monkey thing sent out to a range of customers, and it did ask what people would like in an enhanced subscription service (I can't recall the wording, or how it was presented - possibly one of those arrange options in order of preference things). It was certainly discussed by the participants on the forums (and possibly here too).
So a loaded survey sent to a limited sample, designed to get the result that would let marketing do what they likely would have done anyway.

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

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

darken666 posted at 4:17 PM Thu, 17 October 2024 - #4490431
RHaseltine posted at 3:51 PM Thu, 17 October 2024 - #4490430
There was a survey, the usual Survey Monkey thing sent out to a range of customers, and it did ask what people would like in an enhanced subscription service (I can't recall the wording, or how it was presented - possibly one of those arrange options in order of preference things). It was certainly discussed by the participants on the forums (and possibly here too).
So a loaded survey sent to a limited sample, designed to get the result that would let marketing do what they likely would have done anyway.
I can't recall the wording to comment on the first, but a fair number of regular customers did comment on it so I doubt it was greatly limited.

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

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

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

RHaseltine posted at 3:25 PM Fri, 18 October 2024 - #4490472
darken666 posted at 4:17 PM Thu, 17 October 2024 - #4490431
RHaseltine posted at 3:51 PM Thu, 17 October 2024 - #4490430
There was a survey, the usual Survey Monkey thing sent out to a range of customers, and it did ask what people would like in an enhanced subscription service (I can't recall the wording, or how it was presented - possibly one of those arrange options in order of preference things). It was certainly discussed by the participants on the forums (and possibly here too).
So a loaded survey sent to a limited sample, designed to get the result that would let marketing do what they likely would have done anyway.
I can't recall the wording to comment on the first, but a fair number of regular customers did comment on it so I doubt it was greatly limited.

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

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

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

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

RHaseltine posted at 3:40 PM Fri, 18 October 2024 - #4490475

darken666 posted at 3:33 PM Fri, 18 October 2024 - #4490473
RHaseltine posted at 3:25 PM Fri, 18 October 2024 - #4490472
darken666 posted at 4:17 PM Thu, 17 October 2024 - #4490431
RHaseltine posted at 3:51 PM Thu, 17 October 2024 - #4490430
There was a survey, the usual Survey Monkey thing sent out to a range of customers, and it did ask what people would like in an enhanced subscription service (I can't recall the wording, or how it was presented - possibly one of those arrange options in order of preference things). It was certainly discussed by the participants on the forums (and possibly here too).
So a loaded survey sent to a limited sample, designed to get the result that would let marketing do what they likely would have done anyway.
I can't recall the wording to comment on the first, but a fair number of regular customers did comment on it so I doubt it was greatly limited.

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

Because I find that very hard to believe. But then it's not like the actual results would be made public, so marketing could say they turned out any way they wanted.
If I can't recall the wording I can't recall the exact questions - so no, I am not saying that (nor do I know what the answers to the survey were). All I am doing is pointing out that your previous claim/speculation is certainly not wholly accurate:
> There's some claims there was a survey and customers actually asked for Premier. Makes me question how that survey was done and how loaded were the questions? Since it clearly wasn't all customers, how did Daz/Tafi pick who got a survey? You don't need a degree in statistics to tell you that you would get a different answer from a sampling of the top spenders than you might get from those who aren't buying hundreds of dollars worth of content every month.

Nothing you've said says otherwise. Just because they sent out a survey to a 'fair number' of customers doesn't mean those customers weren't chosen to bias the result.

If it were sent out to the top 5 or 10% of the biggest spenders, it's still not going to get the same answers as if it were sent to those with more modest spending habits.

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

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

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

I've run into similar biases in my career, where it's clear that A) a vendor doesn't really want to support a piece of software and B) it's clear that their latest hardware product and it's supporting server on-site are designed around not necessarily using that piece of software, although it will still allow you to with an added cost of making a lot of inputs, and that it's always felt like they only supported specific business "types" in that industry that had a very specific kind of workflow. Granted, those same customers that they probably surveyed tended to buy several of the machines at once instead of just one, but it still amounts to selecting for a given result, which I can see happening with DAZ on the idea that Premier was going to be a good thing for those specific customers.

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

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

I have DAZStudio blocked at the firewall, I have ever since I heard about the AI garbage. I canNOT trust AI to be used for good when it comes to artists.

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

Yeah, I kinda missed that (I either wasn't paying attention, or I was using Poser).

And you just know the people pushing Premier don't know a thing about the program or how content is used. They just think "ooh, constant stream of money".

Seriously, hobbyist or professional user, who the heck would want content that can't be backed up, and might not be there if you need to revisit an old scene? Rental content is the most idiotic idea DAZ has pushed on us so far. And that includes the NFT stupidity.

And imagine when someone has subscribed for a long time and suddenly has an issue that causes their subscription payment to not go through. "oops, your subscription was inactive for five minutes while you fixed a credit card issue with your bank. You've lost all the subscription content. Tough luck." Even if a support ticket fixes it eventually, who knows how long it'd be gone? Their support hasn't exactly been very responsive or helpful lately.

darken666 posted at 4:26 PM Fri, 18 October 2024 - #4490483

Seriously, hobbyist or professional user, who the heck would want content that can't be backed up, and might not be there if you need to revisit an old scene?

Adobe is facing the same issue, and with a very demanding and much larger group of users. I wonder how Adobe handles backups.

It's a good question. Anybody know?

Rottenham posted at 5:21 PM Fri, 18 October 2024 - #4490490

darken666 posted at 4:26 PM Fri, 18 October 2024 - #4490483

Seriously, hobbyist or professional user, who the heck would want content that can't be backed up, and might not be there if you need to revisit an old scene?
Adobe is facing the same issue, and with a very demanding and much larger group of users. I wonder how Adobe handles backups.
It's a good question. Anybody know?

Hopefully they've got a better idea than DAZ's "Everything is fine, go play with the pretty cartoons while we try to be more like Adobe"

Rottenham posted at 2:17 PM Fri, 18 October 2024 - #4490469

Torquinox posted at 1:38 PM Fri, 18 October 2024 - #4490468
The economics now do not necessarily parallel conditions in the 1920s or 1930s.
I will say, Germany in the 20s, in a certain way, is even closer. But we will not discuss politics or history here, my mistake for putting the thought in your mind. I think you underestimate the marketing mindset badly. If you had ever worked with them, you would understand the connection with DAZ. I do appreciate that the "scope" may be a bit broad for your taste. Please don't take that as an invitation to instruct those around you.

Well aren't you patronizing and self-important? Are we going to throw down now?

Razor42 posted at 11:27 PM Mon, 14 October 2024 - #4490347

Again to be frank, I would prefer Daz 3D spend their time developing new features like FIlatoon. Rather than running around attempting to oil every squeaky wheel that doesn't agree with this decision or that direction. I get it you may have concerns over the ethics of AI, some may have concerns over the introduction of Premier and the direction that's heading. To have concerns and preferences is absolutely human and perfectly ok. That doesn't mean you have the right to demand moderators answer all your questions or an expectation that Daz 3D will just drop something in an attempt to please everyone across the board, just because someone thinks one of their decisions is a bad one.
To be honest I prefer forums that have a degree of moderation and that don't tend to allow negativity for the sheer sake of negativity to thrive and taint the well for everyone who visits.
Sure, voice your concerns but please try to at least keep it civil.
Honestly, I thought this was the Daz Studio forum, not the Daz 3D - 2 Minutes of Hate forum...
Maybe have a read through here when you have a minute:
https://www.renderosity.com/wiki/policies/terms-of-service

Moderation is not, in itself a bad thing. I run and mod both discords, twitch and a chat site. I understand mod'ing forums. (namely, Dnd, and two twitches for people that stream CoD and WoW)
But in all the places I am involved in, person views/dislikes of mods and them using that as leverage is not allowed. Flat out. It will end your access to the mod features.

When plenty of customers have the same complaint (namely the lack of support and the favouritism game in the forums) that is not a “personal perspective” any more, that is an ingrained issue.

I have put a rather nice chunk of money into daz…particularly in the past two years.
ANY product I buy(electronics,houseware,programs,etc), should have timely support. That is generally accepted expectations.
To wait a YEAR or more...for basic support?
Are you joking?

Particularly when one of the items was noted to be flawed and not working(the same issue I reported) in 2018.
You think it is…extreme to expect them to…I don't know….actually DO something?

Has it occurred, that people are snippy and a touch sharp, because they are up to their back teeth with the games the Daz mods and team play?

Could be?

Maybe?
Very...possibly....

If your customers are repeating the same complaints...the customers...are not the issue

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

RHaseltine posted at 6:17 PM Tue, 15 October 2024 - #4490366

We (daz Mods) have pointed out some people are still having issues with the membership page, and it is on their radar.
Just to be clear, I am not here as a conduit of information 9and I don't know the answers to many questions, including the delays with Tech Support tickets) - I am just trying to point out some misunderstnadings or to present, based on publicly posted information, some alternative perspectives.

Thank you for the clarity!
Now, as you are part of their team...who does have control over any of that?
because I have gone into my tickets and even posted reminders, requests etc to the open tickets.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

Razor42 posted at 7:49 PM Tue, 15 October 2024 - #4490368

Honesty this thread had moved beyond realistic requests for technical information quite a while ago. And is well on its way to becoming a dumpster fire.
As is this one: DAZ moderators are censoring ANY MENTION of g9 to g8 morph conversion
I offered technical help in this forum for years but found the weight of negativity allowed to thrive here made it almost impossible to positively contribute.
Some may say the Daz 3D forum is over moderated, others may say some forums are under moderated...
I am not admonishing anyone. Nor is a request to keep the tone here as constructive and civil "telling people how to behave". As far as "Not very professional either." I'm honestly not sure where you are going with that?
Just so you know where I am coming from. Here is an example of a thread here from a few years ago (One of many with a similar slant. Some far worse.)
https://www.renderosity.com/forums/threads/2973864/genesis-9-announcement
Here is an example of a thread with myself offering technical help here (One of hundreds of threads over the years):
https://www.renderosity.com/forums/threads/2986584/hands#msg4482142
Did you have a technical question in regards to Daz Studio?

I think many people, including myself, are coming from a place of object frustration and annoyance.
When you pay a nice sum for items…and then can't get basic replies. Much less help, that is beyond frustrating.
Over time, it starts to grate.
You start to get the impression that the only thing that matters to Daz is "get them to put it in the basket" and nothing else.

Support for items is not just about "getting things to work". It's about customer retention as well.
I was making purchases daily.
Unless there is some great deal on something like the recent daily offers for 2.99 or the lightning deals(Got the Pegasus wings for daz horse 3 for something like 1.25)
I am rarely purchasing…from daz.
Why? The entire support issue.
The fact I purchased files that are supposed to work, supposedly tested, and yet…finding out after purchase that the issue was known? And not sorted? or the item removed?

Tell me what would you do if you went to a shop, purchased an item...to find it was broken. Sold as new. Sold as working.
Would you just ignore it? Or would you, at the very least, ask the shop to fix it/make it right?

Even the most laid back individual that would go "well, it depends on the price and you know sometimes you just got to accept the loss"...over time that "loss" adds up.

That is why so many people are just...so frustrated. Just so to their back teeth with the utter...tripe.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

darken666 posted at 5:39 PM Wed, 16 October 2024 - #4490413

I was just saying lapse, which could be for a number of reasons, most likely a serious change in finances, funny how you had to come and try to make it sound like I was talking about technical/account issues.
I'd expect cases of technical/account issues on Daz's part would get the content they had before. But what happens to the user that falls ill for an extended period, or loses their job, or heck, just has to drop a month to cover a sudden car repair expense?

Very good point.

As most of my income is "freelance", I tend to tuck money away. This means paying for a year when I have the funds spare, is ideal.
The market for many freelance jobs fluctuates. A twitch streamer, may grow bored or lose their tech and cant stream...loss of that income for a month? monthS?
A client suddenly stops buying their almost monthly OC request...
Heck even 9-5 jobs are not perfect.
And lets not talk about health...
A set price, with offers a couple of times a year...great! But strong-arming customers into monthly...that is more expensive?
Nah

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

darken666 posted at 8:34 PM Thu, 17 October 2024 - #4490440

It keeps getting worse. The subscription is integrated in the base Studio program such that at least one QOL feature is subscription only even if you don't load any of the Premier plugins or content. And with all plugins needing to be redone for version 5, odds are they'll claim the software is so different that anything more than starting it will be subscription only. Looks like the free stuff they're tossing around is just to distract people and placate them so they won't tell DAZ where they can stick the subscription for Daz 5.0. Best make backups of your 4.22 installer. I wouldn't trust any version past that to come without something that kills older versions remotely when the next version is released so you're forced to update.
"We see there is a new update to Daz Studio, update now to continue using the program."

UGH....Not updating.
I am willing to put money on the table, they will keep “silently” strong-arming customers till they have to use the premier.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

SydneyInPeril posted at 4:24 PM Fri, 18 October 2024 - #4490482

darken666 posted at 4:03 PM Fri, 18 October 2024 - #4490477
At this point I wouldn't put it past them to have a timebomb coded in 4.23 if not earlier versions so if you don't update each time there's a new release your program starts falling apart and when it eventually becomes subscription only, anyone who doesn't keep really old versions of Studio on hand will end up either subscribing or not being able to use their content anymore.
I have DAZStudio blocked at the firewall, I have ever since I heard about the AI garbage. I canNOT trust AI to be used for good when it comes to artists.
They tried moving to subscription content when they released the Connect DRM, but the backlash was too much then. Now they're trying again.
Yeah, I kinda missed that (I either wasn't paying attention, or I was using Poser).

A manager I had once told me about “customer surveys” where it may say "40% of our customers love it!"…while leaving out the percentage of customer that didnt.
Its implied acceptance/approval. It's not “wrong”. It's just presenting the percentage of acceptance.

As for AI…at least here in the UK/EU we are getting some hope. That companies(including companies doing business with the UK/EU) will have to offer the "opt out" option(Like they forced META to do).
So artists will have the ability to opt out of getting their work mined/harvested.

The down side, as noted by many trying to get regulation…that means artists have to hunt down companies/sites that may be mining their work and “opt out”(just had to opt-out on LinkedIn)
There is progress for artists…just slow and hard-earned.
This would mean that even Daz…would have to abide that if they continue to cater to customers in the UK/EU

Just like Meta did, just like LinkedIn did...

As for Daz doing an "Adobe"
Would anyone wish to make bets?

The thing with adobe, is there are free and low-cost options...Daz was that low cost/free option other than say blender(and by the time you dress that out with the bells and whistles…not so free. But check out humblebundles...from time to time they do blender and unreal packages that are a steal! Never mind other software and RPG sets)

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

Torquinox posted at 10:18 PM Fri, 18 October 2024 - #4490502

Well aren't you patronizing and self-important? Are we going to throw down now?

Your avatar speaks for you. Good riddance.

@DarkElegance

I'm not saying you shouldn't have frustrations, nor even complaints I'm only asking is this the appropriate forum to be airing your grievances? Is what's happening here in any way constructive?

Support can be a delicate balancing act with many factors involved, some issues can be solved easily while others tend to be much more involved. Anyway, doesn't Daz 3d offer a 30 money back guarantee on all items? You could also try the forums which tend to offer a lot of help when it comes to isolating issues, which could see a patch pushed through to correct a problem. I've noticed what does tend to be fixed is an item that many people have found issue with as oppose to a single issue reported by 1 user which is sometimes hard to pin down in support. Having sold here at renderosity I have experienced how 1 user with a product issue, that may not even relate to the specific product itself, can soak up a whole bundle of hours. The amount of hours I spent here explaining the installation process for DS products to users who picked up an item on sale for a few dollars and couldn't "Get it to work" is insane. So forgive me if I'm a little sympathetic to Daz 3D's position with support. I also have my share of frustrations with the industry from aspects of AI implementations to piracy, but that's an entirely different subject.

I'm not defending poor support, nor trying to admonish you at all. I am just tired of seeing this forum used as a vent when someone has a had a bad Daz 3D experience and feels this is their way at getting back, decrying the evil of the empire apparent. I used to enjoy coming here and offering support to users of Daz Studio. TBH not really anymore, I don't really have the time nor the patience to read vents and rants from a very vocal small amount of peeps, most of them just wanting a pot shot at Daz 3D to try to even some score. So the result is I just don't visit here much, and it's probably the same with many others. So all you end up with is less people to offer help or support.

Do you really think Daz 3D staff are poring over this forums saying "Good Point... Somebody take a note of this"?

But hey feel free to have it, Rottenham just blocked me and carried right on.😏

Well, my visit here didn't tell me much about the action at DAZ, although I haven't seen anybody saying how swell rentware is. They must be on a different forum. (tic)

The barn cats here are an unfortunate sign of out times.

Hasty Lumbego...

Reason why they are going this route is the SANE DAZ users are sick of the direction they are going with DAZ so guess what they resort to, to getting their DAZ assets: PIRATES LIFE! This is why they are doing it cause people are sick and tired forking out money to companies that don't give two Fs about their customers. Pirating is becoming a norm and as long as these companies keep catering to the Weird ones, our wallets will remain closed. I hear some vendors are already leaving Daz and going to places like Renderhub to start selling in hoping to gain any sort of income. Get woke, go broke, and you can't change my mind Gen 9 was not woke. Gen was a disaster and gen 2, 3 and 8 were great. Why go back to the very thing that was a disaster? Answer: to cater to the weirdos. Screw daz.

Once the dark side is seen, it cannot be unseen.

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

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

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

At this point I wouldn't put it past them to have a timebomb coded in 4.23 if not earlier versions so if you don't update each time there's a new release your program starts falling apart and when it eventually becomes subscription only, anyone who doesn't keep really old versions of Studio on hand will end up either subscribing or not being able to use their content anymore.
They tried moving to subscription content when they released the Connect DRM, but the backlash was too much then. Now they're trying again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's a pity Daz clearly learned nothing from that mess. As they're back to having moderators sanitize the forums rather than listening to customers.

Razor42 posted at 3:45 AM Sat, 19 October 2024 - #4490514

@DarkElegance
I'm not saying you shouldn't have frustrations, nor even complaints I'm only asking is this the appropriate forum to be airing your grievances? Is what's happening here in any way constructive?
Support can be a delicate balancing act with many factors involved, some issues can be solved easily while others tend to be much more involved. Anyway, doesn't Daz 3d offer a 30 money back guarantee on all items? You could also try the forums which tend to offer a lot of help when it comes to isolating issues, which could see a patch pushed through to correct a problem. I've noticed what does tend to be fixed is an item that many people have found issue with as oppose to a single issue reported by 1 user which is sometimes hard to pin down in support. Having sold here at renderosity I have experienced how 1 user with a product issue, that may not even relate to the specific product itself, can soak up a whole bundle of hours. The amount of hours I spent here explaining the installation process for DS products to users who picked up an item on sale for a few dollars and couldn't "Get it to work" is insane. So forgive me if I'm a little sympathetic to Daz 3D's position with support. I also have my share of frustrations with the industry from aspects of AI implementations to piracy, but that's an entirely different subject.
I'm not defending poor support, nor trying to admonish you at all. I am just tired of seeing this forum used as a vent when someone has a had a bad Daz 3D experience and feels this is their way at getting back, decrying the evil of the empire apparent. I used to enjoy coming here and offering support to users of Daz Studio. TBH not really anymore, I don't really have the time nor the patience to read vents and rants from a very vocal small amount of peeps, most of them just wanting a pot shot at Daz 3D to try to even some score. So the result is I just don't visit here much, and it's probably the same with many others. So all you end up with is less people to offer help or support.
Do you really think Daz 3D staff are poring over this forums saying "Good Point... Somebody take a note of this"?
But hey feel free to have it, Rottenham just blocked me and carried right on.😏

I can understand your stance.

Yes, they say they offer that “30 day money back”, and I did bring it up, in the tech forum. That was how I found out about the issue I was reporting…had been reported for a while. Apparently since 2018.
I have, requested the money back. Nothing. No reply, no acknowledgment, I even made the request in the ticket.
The forum, was how I found out that it was a “known issue”, so then why was it still for sale? 2018? And no one fixed it, removed it, flagged it?
That is not a customer failure. That is a Daz failure.
Not just to me, but to every customer that has clearly reported it.

As for venue of posting…
I have, posted to the tech forum. Repeatedly, with screenshots.
I have gotten nowhere. I have opened tickets. And so noted, at least two, are over a year old. I go in, kind of do the “hey can someone please look at this or at the very least give me my money back” thing…and get no response at all. Nothing.
Cue, the utter frustration and annoyance at the entire situation. I sit here seeing them make a genAI(dont get me started), I see now this premium service…and that was the “you have to be kidding me” moment. They do not respond, or even take care of support issues(btw, I know many whose tickets are still open for as long or longer than mine) But then expect customers to throw more money at them.
That, is why the utter, “Up to my back teeth” frustration and annoyance.
If they were up on their support, if they were listening to customers valid complaints…I probably would be one of the ones going “hmm maybe” but knowing the issues I have reported, with proof, gets ignored. Reading other customers are getting the same treatment….To put it kindly, “Heck no”

As for this forum...
That is easy to explain.
Daz does not allow even the slightest, mildest, negative comments of their site/store/staff. As noted, it's a “hard hammer down” situation. Posts get removed, customers, warned or moderated, etc. Heck, even if they “feel” your post “may” be seen negative…they will remove it. Cue part 2, the utter frustration. And it is that, its frustration of not being heard, Not getting help, That seriously erodes a customer base. I do not hate daz. If I did, I wouldn't still purchase now and then. I dislike their lack of care for their customers. That is something, anyone in retail, customer service, etc...knows can be fixed. But it takes a company the willingness to listen to do that.
As they cant post at daz, where else are they supposed to go?
As for the staff reading our posts?
That is on them what they take from it.
Smart companies, will watch where customers complain(such as Trustpilot, Glassdoor, etc) and even if it is not out in the open, make changes.
(btw that is not “inferred” that is out right saying, daz would be wise to start listening to the customers)

No, I am not going to block you. You have made valid points. You have brought to the forum that “pause and think” moment.

(Lets leave genAI for a side forum, I have enough of a debate list on that from other sites. And let's just not bring up the piracy. Its one reason I am adamant about trying to get valid stores to actually listen to customers. Because the ultimate losers will be the artists making the content they sell. People will get sick of trying to get help...and instead of purchasing feeling it's wasted money, will start seeking out those sites.)

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

gohanf22 posted at 8:46 AM Sat, 19 October 2024 - #4490520

Reason why they are going this route is the SANE DAZ users are sick of the direction they are going with DAZ so guess what they resort to, to getting their DAZ assets: PIRATES LIFE! This is why they are doing it cause people are sick and tired forking out money to companies that don't give two Fs about their customers. Pirating is becoming a norm and as long as these companies keep catering to the Weird ones, our wallets will remain closed. I hear some vendors are already leaving Daz and going to places like Renderhub to start selling in hoping to gain any sort of income. Get woke, go broke, and you can't change my mind Gen 9 was not woke. Gen was a disaster and gen 2, 3 and 8 were great. Why go back to the very thing that was a disaster? Answer: to cater to the weirdos. Screw daz.

Saddly...that is it.
If customers keep feeling unheard, that they are not valued, they will stop spending money. Note, I am not saying they will stop the "hobby". They will seek other venues to get their items. And in the bigger scheme of it, it will tbe the artists working to make those products that will suffer.

I do know of artists that have either left daz for places like renderhub or started their own store. Which I am happy to support. It means more of my money is going directly to the artists.

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission Closed till 2025

Maybe they need another boycott like they got back when they first tried Encrypted stuff

And wow, the gaslighting from the DAZ moderator as though we can't see the forums and see just how bad things were before DAZ grudgingly listened to customers (to head off a boycott)

Razor42 posted at 3:45 AM Sat, 19 October 2024 - #4490514

@DarkElegance
I'm not saying you shouldn't have frustrations, nor even complaints I'm only asking is this the appropriate forum to be airing your grievances? Is what's happening here in any way constructive?
Support can be a delicate balancing act with many factors involved, some issues can be solved easily while others tend to be much more involved. Anyway, doesn't Daz 3d offer a 30 money back guarantee on all items? You could also try the forums which tend to offer a lot of help when it comes to isolating issues, which could see a patch pushed through to correct a problem. I've noticed what does tend to be fixed is an item that many people have found issue with as oppose to a single issue reported by 1 user which is sometimes hard to pin down in support. Having sold here at renderosity I have experienced how 1 user with a product issue, that may not even relate to the specific product itself, can soak up a whole bundle of hours. The amount of hours I spent here explaining the installation process for DS products to users who picked up an item on sale for a few dollars and couldn't "Get it to work" is insane. So forgive me if I'm a little sympathetic to Daz 3D's position with support. I also have my share of frustrations with the industry from aspects of AI implementations to piracy, but that's an entirely different subject.
I'm not defending poor support, nor trying to admonish you at all. I am just tired of seeing this forum used as a vent when someone has a had a bad Daz 3D experience and feels this is their way at getting back, decrying the evil of the empire apparent. I used to enjoy coming here and offering support to users of Daz Studio. TBH not really anymore, I don't really have the time nor the patience to read vents and rants from a very vocal small amount of peeps, most of them just wanting a pot shot at Daz 3D to try to even some score. So the result is I just don't visit here much, and it's probably the same with many others. So all you end up with is less people to offer help or support.
Do you really think Daz 3D staff are poring over this forums saying "Good Point... Somebody take a note of this"?
But hey feel free to have it, Rottenham just blocked me and carried right on.😏

As patronizing and condescending as you've been, I'd block you if there were a way to do so. I remember the way you responded anyone opposed to Daz's encrypted content as though we were somehow standing in the way of the greatest invention since the wheel.

You do realise that Daz encrypted content was nearly ten years ago right? And if you are interested in some history here is the thread you are referring to. Encrypted content was primarily an attempt to protect content creators content from piracy...

https://www.renderosity.com/forums/threads/2895510

Seems that this is almost proof of Daz 3D's ability to pivot based on customer feedback and amazingly all of the doom and gloom of that thread amounted to not much with the passage of time, right?

But have no fear I have no intention of further engaging in this thread. Calls for boycotts and outright piracy are a step too far for me.

But as I have said, you do you okay.

All the best

I will weigh in on my own situation. I like Genesis 9,

already bought a lot of it's content

but

I just want to use the content I pay to use,

connect and encryption prevents that while doing utterly nothing to stop the pirates from stealing it.

smart content while lovely no longer works on my current PC, let alone any other new PostGreSQL dependent features maybe it will when I save money not buying DAZ stuff on my next PC (Ironically it works on my old Win7)

Connect will not work with Carrara my favourite software but Genisis 9 does with a few adaptions

so, it basically comes down to if I can buy useable content, if I could, I would consider Premier the occasional month, as it stands, I would be wasting my money

people will speak with their wallets, if it sells, good for DAZ, if not they may reconsider

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Rottenham posted at 1:42 PM Sat, 19 October 2024 - #4490524

Once the dark side is seen, it cannot be unseen.

Amen.

DarkElegance posted at 7:08 PM Sat, 19 October 2024 - #4490540

gohanf22 posted at 8:46 AM Sat, 19 October 2024 - #4490520
Reason why they are going this route is the SANE DAZ users are sick of the direction they are going with DAZ so guess what they resort to, to getting their DAZ assets: PIRATES LIFE! This is why they are doing it cause people are sick and tired forking out money to companies that don't give two Fs about their customers. Pirating is becoming a norm and as long as these companies keep catering to the Weird ones, our wallets will remain closed. I hear some vendors are already leaving Daz and going to places like Renderhub to start selling in hoping to gain any sort of income. Get woke, go broke, and you can't change my mind Gen 9 was not woke. Gen was a disaster and gen 2, 3 and 8 were great. Why go back to the very thing that was a disaster? Answer: to cater to the weirdos. Screw daz.
Saddly...that is it.
If customers keep feeling unheard, that they are not valued, they will stop spending money. Note, I am not saying they will stop the "hobby". They will seek other venues to get their items. And in the bigger scheme of it, it will tbe the artists working to make those products that will suffer.

I do know of artists that have either left daz for places like renderhub or started their own store. Which I am happy to support. It means more of my money is going directly to the artists.

Yep. Clearly DAZ needs their own BUDLIGHT treatment....

EDIT: And yeah I do the same with Renderhub as well. Anyone that I know are good PAs and Vendors that will move to Renderhub or Already ON Renderhub, I will support. Renderhub gives 100% of the revenue, unlike DAZ.

RHaseltine posted at 5:30 PM Sun, 13 October 2024 - #4490294

Yes, it doesn't need an always-on connection but it does require you to periodically log-in to use the plug-ins and the exclusive content (other content, including the free bundles, don't require that)

Not happening. No one accesses that machine but myself. DAZ is out of their minds if they think I would agree to that, let alone PAY for it.

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

RHaseltine posted at 3:51 PM Thu, 17 October 2024 - #4490430
There was a survey, the usual Survey Monkey thing sent out to a range of customers, and it did ask what people would like in an enhanced subscription service (I can't recall the wording, or how it was presented - possibly one of those arrange options in order of preference things). It was certainly discussed by the participants on the forums (and possibly here too).
So a loaded survey sent to a limited sample, designed to get the result that would let marketing do what they likely would have done anyway.

I got that survey, and I told them that it was a stupid idea and that they should focus on fixing and improving the software rather than concentrate on new ways of squeezing their customers. It was obvious that it was something that they were already determined to do, and they were merely gauging the blow-back before they actually went and did it.

Katsuyaki posted at 2:30 AM Mon, 21 October 2024 - #4490595

Not happening. No one accesses that machine but myself. DAZ is out of their minds if they think I would agree to that, let alone PAY for it.

Remote servers were universally acknowledged as a security risk as early as the mid-80s, when the computer first appeared in the engineering workplace. IOW, nobody used one. Why? Because anyone can walk in with a blank drive, steal or corrupt your data, and no one can prevent it.

This held true until the early 2000s, when marketing took over "all customer-facing documents" (as in, all web sites). Naive users were reassured when marketing renamed the remote server "the cloud." Ironically, the biggest threat turned out to be the owner of the remote server. You are wise to limit external access to your machine.

"There's a sucker born every minute." -- P.T. Barnum

Katsuyaki posted at 2:30 AM Mon, 21 October 2024 - #4490595

RHaseltine posted at 5:30 PM Sun, 13 October 2024 - #4490294

Yes, it doesn't need an always-on connection but it does require you to periodically log-in to use the plug-ins and the exclusive content (other content, including the free bundles, don't require that)
Not happening. No one accesses that machine but myself. DAZ is out of their minds if they think I would agree to that, let alone PAY for it.

Don't have to get the plugins from DAZ as everyone sane knows this. PIRATES LIFE!!

gohanf22 posted at 6:54 AM Mon, 21 October 2024 - #4490605

Don't have to get the plugins from DAZ as everyone sane knows this. PIRATES LIFE!!

Renderosity maintains a zero-tolerance policy on pirated software, so don't bring that stuff here.

Jeff

Renderosity Senior Moderator

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Ich spreche Deutsch

Je parle français

Mi parolas Esperanton. Ĉu vi?

Agree. Irresponsible to go there.

wheatpenny posted at 9:06 AM Mon, 21 October 2024 - #4490608

gohanf22 posted at 6:54 AM Mon, 21 October 2024 - #4490605

Don't have to get the plugins from DAZ as everyone sane knows this. PIRATES LIFE!!
Renderosity maintains a zero-tolerance policy on pirated software, so don't bring that stuff here.

Not trying to bring it here. Just stating a fact on what is currently happening is all...

My experience with DAZ software is extremely disappointing. It started when I decided to pay the price to buy DAZ Studio 3 advanced. Of course, eventually DAZ Studio became free. Add to the list Carrara, Bryce, Hexagon, and other titles I've forgotten.

The software was abandoned, and my money was wasted. Now DAZ is taking plugins people had already bought, then repackaging them and making them part of a subscription plan. And you can only use that stuff as long as you maintain your subscription?

I haven't used DAZ Studio since Genesis 9 arrived. Now I'll wait to see when DAZ Studio 5 arrives. Wonder if it will become subscription-ware?!

ronaldknights posted at 9:46 PM Mon, 21 October 2024 - #4490635

My experience with DAZ software is extremely disappointing. It started when I decided to pay the price to buy DAZ Studio 3 advanced. Of course, eventually DAZ Studio became free. Add to the list Carrara, Bryce, Hexagon, and other titles I've forgotten.

You're right. I hadn't thought about that. DAZ has been alternately acquiring good things then discarding them for longer than I was remembering. Each time they finish, DAZ is smaller.

I used to use Hexagon as my modeler, it was decent, but had some serious and practically unavoidable bugs in the types of modeling I do, and no indication they'd ever do even maintenance development. I switched to Blender a few years ago, and I don't ever intend to pay for modeling software again.

I get some indication that, despite raising new content prices and rolling out new figures to encourage purchases (don't give me that "woke" garbage, G9 was meant to try to get wallets open by encouraging adoption by artists and hobbyists needing new content would have to move up anyway, and objectively certain cosmetic things are much worse on G9), that revenues are still faltering, hence testing the idea of rentware. Many software companies have seen much greater profits after their moves to rentware (Adobe makes more money these days as a result of Creative Cloud), and they hope to cash in on the idea. They might have enough lockin to manage to stabilize revenues; I'm not sure in the long term whether the rest of the lockin they would need is there.

Rottenham posted at 5:16 AM Tue, 22 October 2024 - #4490646

ronaldknights posted at 9:46 PM Mon, 21 October 2024 - #4490635
My experience with DAZ software is extremely disappointing. It started when I decided to pay the price to buy DAZ Studio 3 advanced. Of course, eventually DAZ Studio became free. Add to the list Carrara, Bryce, Hexagon, and other titles I've forgotten.
You're right. I hadn't thought about that. DAZ has been alternately acquiring good things then discarding them for longer than I was remembering. Each time they finish, DAZ is smaller.

Very very very few software companies can get bigger by buying another company's software to make their own; Adobe is literally one of the few that's managed to make that work by being able to afford to pay what it takes to retain talent through an acquisition, and even they've faltered (Adobe Flash anyone?).

SydneyInPeril posted at 7:31 AM Tue, 22 October 2024 - #4490650

I used to use Hexagon as my modeler, it was decent, but had some serious and practically unavoidable bugs in the types of modeling I do, and no indication they'd ever do even maintenance development. I switched to Blender a few years ago, and I don't ever intend to pay for modeling software again.
I get some indication that, despite raising new content prices and rolling out new figures to encourage purchases (don't give me that "woke" garbage, G9 was meant to try to get wallets open by encouraging adoption by artists and hobbyists needing new content would have to move up anyway, and objectively certain cosmetic things are much worse on G9), that revenues are still faltering, hence testing the idea of rentware. Many software companies have seen much greater profits after their moves to rentware (Adobe makes more money these days as a result of Creative Cloud), and they hope to cash in on the idea. They might have enough lockin to manage to stabilize revenues; I'm not sure in the long term whether the rest of the lockin they would need is there.

I don't think they're going to achieve the lock-in they want, and will instead lock-out their customers by making it too expensive for hobbyists to justify staying. They just aren't as big or as professionally used as Adobe and this push toward rent-ware will more likely end the way it did for E-on. The question is will DAZ survive the damage to their customer base and reputation? And will whoever buys the company after they fail even bother with their original market of hobbyists and new to 3d users?

gohanf22 posted at 7:44 AM Sun, 20 October 2024 - #4490566

DarkElegance posted at 7:08 PM Sat, 19 October 2024 - #4490540
gohanf22 posted at 8:46 AM Sat, 19 October 2024 - #4490520
Reason why they are going this route is the SANE DAZ users are sick of the direction they are going with DAZ so guess what they resort to, to getting their DAZ assets: PIRATES LIFE! This is why they are doing it cause people are sick and tired forking out money to companies that don't give two Fs about their customers. Pirating is becoming a norm and as long as these companies keep catering to the Weird ones, our wallets will remain closed. I hear some vendors are already leaving Daz and going to places like Renderhub to start selling in hoping to gain any sort of income. Get woke, go broke, and you can't change my mind Gen 9 was not woke. Gen was a disaster and gen 2, 3 and 8 were great. Why go back to the very thing that was a disaster? Answer: to cater to the weirdos. Screw daz.
Saddly...that is it.
If customers keep feeling unheard, that they are not valued, they will stop spending money. Note, I am not saying they will stop the "hobby". They will seek other venues to get their items. And in the bigger scheme of it, it will tbe the artists working to make those products that will suffer.

I do know of artists that have either left daz for places like renderhub or started their own store. Which I am happy to support. It means more of my money is going directly to the artists.

Yep. Clearly DAZ needs their own BUDLIGHT treatment....

EDIT: And yeah I do the same with Renderhub as well. Anyone that I know are good PAs and Vendors that will move to Renderhub or Already ON Renderhub, I will support. Renderhub gives 100% of the revenue, unlike DAZ.

I stopped spending a while ago and nothing recently has encouraged me to start again.

The moderators are biased and use a variety of excuses to remove posts. They cannot in any way face any critism even when proof of their bias is pointed out.

Wow! I missed the party. No matter. I'm going to comment broadly on some of what I've seen here.

I was unaware the Ignore button was actually a 2-way block button. I thought it was just as marked - I'm ignoring that person's posts, blah blah. Fascinating.

I don't really see how anyone outside of Daz can comment meaningfully on Daz's profitability or financial health.That's internal info, they're privately held. That said, no matter how much money they make, they want to make more - That's what businesses do. I'm sure the new subscriptions are part of that.

Like others, I'm no fan of the new subcriptions and especially not the rentware content.

Obviously, people come here to discuss things that would be quickly deleted from the Daz forum. People want to express themselves without being deliberately censored.

Piracy harms the artists as much or more than it harms Daz. No thank you.

IME, content from some of the alternative sites may not be not well-tested. The alternative sites may not have a good return policy, or any return policy. Caveat Emptor. Not saying content from alternative sites is bad - Some of it's great! And I've encountered some serious weirdness, too.

SydneyInPeril posted at 7:33 AM Tue, 22 October 2024 - #4490651

Very very very few software companies can get bigger by buying another company's software to make their own; Adobe is literally one of the few that's managed to make that work by being able to afford to pay what it takes to retain talent through an acquisition, and even they've faltered (Adobe Flash anyone?).

Flash... That one's an interesting case. It's an exception. For years, it was perfectly fine under Adobe's banner. Apple killed it by banning it from the iphone. That's a simplification. This article explains better: https://www.howtogeek.com/805605/this-is-how-steve-jobs-killed-adobe-flash/

Ironically, there are still Flash emulators and there are places one can still find and play Flash games and such, though likely not on the iphone.

tparo posted at 10:47 AM Tue, 12 November 2024 - #4491284

gohanf22 posted at 7:44 AM Sun, 20 October 2024 - #4490566
DarkElegance posted at 7:08 PM Sat, 19 October 2024 - #4490540
gohanf22 posted at 8:46 AM Sat, 19 October 2024 - #4490520
Reason why they are going this route is the SANE DAZ users are sick of the direction they are going with DAZ so guess what they resort to, to getting their DAZ assets: PIRATES LIFE! This is why they are doing it cause people are sick and tired forking out money to companies that don't give two Fs about their customers. Pirating is becoming a norm and as long as these companies keep catering to the Weird ones, our wallets will remain closed. I hear some vendors are already leaving Daz and going to places like Renderhub to start selling in hoping to gain any sort of income. Get woke, go broke, and you can't change my mind Gen 9 was not woke. Gen was a disaster and gen 2, 3 and 8 were great. Why go back to the very thing that was a disaster? Answer: to cater to the weirdos. Screw daz.
Saddly...that is it.
If customers keep feeling unheard, that they are not valued, they will stop spending money. Note, I am not saying they will stop the "hobby". They will seek other venues to get their items. And in the bigger scheme of it, it will tbe the artists working to make those products that will suffer.

I do know of artists that have either left daz for places like renderhub or started their own store. Which I am happy to support. It means more of my money is going directly to the artists.

Yep. Clearly DAZ needs their own BUDLIGHT treatment....

EDIT: And yeah I do the same with Renderhub as well. Anyone that I know are good PAs and Vendors that will move to Renderhub or Already ON Renderhub, I will support. Renderhub gives 100% of the revenue, unlike DAZ.
I stopped spending a while ago and nothing recently has encouraged me to start again.
The moderators are biased and use a variety of excuses to remove posts. They cannot in any way face any critism even when proof of their bias is pointed out.

Indeed.

Rottenham posted at 5:16 AM Tue, 22 October 2024 - #4490646

ronaldknights posted at 9:46 PM Mon, 21 October 2024 - #4490635
My experience with DAZ software is extremely disappointing. It started when I decided to pay the price to buy DAZ Studio 3 advanced. Of course, eventually DAZ Studio became free. Add to the list Carrara, Bryce, Hexagon, and other titles I've forgotten.
You're right. I hadn't thought about that. DAZ has been alternately acquiring good things then discarding them for longer than I was remembering. Each time they finish, DAZ is smaller.

this why I am so disappointed as a Carrara user who found DAZ through Carrara in 2009

I started off with iClone 3 then got Carrara 5 free on a Magazine disc, upgraded to Carrara 6 through DAZ and bought Poser 7

stopped at Poser 11 and obviously Carrara 8.5 as development sadly ended

I never really used DAZ studio much until I got a Desktop as it just crashed on my laptop, Carrara and Poser ran quite well

I finally started with D|S4 and Genesis basically

I do use D|S now of course but mostly because I want to use content that is difficult to use in Carrara, it never was my first choice

they keep adding roadblocks though, I cannot even use Premier if I wanted to due to the Connect PostgreSQL requirements

let alone the content in Carrara even though Genesis 9 can work in Carrara

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Forum: DAZ|Studio

Subject: What's Happening at DAZ?