How much trouble would it be for... Vendors who make FreeStuff for their products to put a logo/icon or something to alert downloaders that this Freestuff item requires a For Sale Item to use. Also thinking about those who make FreeStuff additons to For Sale items, perhaps this logo/icon can be freely available and when you generate the thumbnails, you place the logo/icon on it. It doesn't have to be a big thing either. Just noticable so when you see it you know, you need something else to use it. Stick in the upper left hand corner and you're good to go. Of course, there are those who download for future use ;), but at least you'll KNOW you need a For Sale item (in additon to the info in the readme file). What do you all think?

I think that is a great idea. Truth in advertising is a goal, even for free items. This would especially help people on dial-up modems who might hesitate to download a massive texture file until they've found the main object. I also think that vendors could add a logo on the sales page to indicate that there are freestuff add-ons to their product (which would increase its value and usability). Artists who embellish a product by putting furniture in a house or textures on hair or morphs on a figure could IM the vendor out of courtesy. In both situations this would serve as a heads-up so that people could search for the related items. The big question is what symbol for the logo? A "plus" sign on a sales page for free add-ons is a positive image. How can one indicate that something else is needed on a free-stuff page without conveying a negative image? Carolly

how about a dollar ($) sign? :-)

I think it's a great idea too. It might cut down on extra bandwidth because people will know easier that they can't use it. Not everyone will pay attention, but I think a lot of people will if it's done in the right way and promoted to a small extent at the top of the downloads page. :o)

I think the idea of pre-requisites being clear (for both freestuff and marketplace items) is very valuable. People are pretty good (but not yet perfect) about mentioning whether an item is for the standard Poser people or for one of the Millennium characters, such as Vicky and Mike. A similar clue as to an item needing another item that has to be paid for, would be very helpful. - JimX

99% of what your talking about are textures. Have two areas, textures and the rest. That would take care of most of it. :) Thought of the day.... two cents worth is just as valuable free

The reason I came up with this idea is the Utilize(sp?) item. At least ONE of them. I downloaded the large file (yes geoegress, it was texture pack) but I did not have the For Sale Utilize item. There was a FreeStuff item with a similar name and I thought it was related to that. I don't think there is a need to totally segregate the textures from everything else. As for as the logo, how about the Renderosity "R" (Similar to the exclusive products "R") with a Yellow Plus sign on top of it (Thanks hauksdottir!) Just an idea folks!

heyas; it would be tons easier (read: more people would do it) if there were a checkbox type deal instead of an icon to be placed on thumbnails. we could institute the markers for 'requires commercial item,' 'requires other free item(s),' and hey, how about my favorites, 'for non-commercial use only' and/or 'free for commercial use.' i have icons i use for the latter, and it's a pain to remember and to stick them on every thumbnail. then i started putting the $ in the corner of the description of my stuff that requires commercial items, and that is so much easier.

Usually, as a matter of courtesy, most of us just put a blurb in the image or title saying "requires/for XYZ item" Not that I'm against the idea - I personally like it. In fact, I have a further idea, one that will hopefully not burden the Free Stuff authors too much. Have an icon pop up next to your 'dependant item' in Free Stuff... ('dependant item' = an item that requires "x" to work) when a user clicks on that icon, have it take the user to the merchant store/website of the item you need to make the Free Stuff item work. Example: I build a Vicky texture. I post it in Free Stuff. As I upload, I check a "dependant item" radio button, and enter the website where you can get Vicky (www.daz3d.com) as part of my upload routine. A user sees my new texture in Free Stuff, and being a newbie, doesn't really know what he needs to make it work. All he has is, say Poser4 default, and that's it. All he does know is that "damn, she's pretty - I want to put her in my renders!" Next to the icon is a smaller icon saying "dependant item"... the user clicks on that, and sees a little java window pop up saying that "...this item requires another product in order to be useful. Please click the link below to see which item is required", and a spelled-out link underneath it (that is, he sees "http://www.daz3d.com" as the link, so he knows exactly where he's going.) It adds a layer of complexity, but IMHO it also helps folks out. I remember when I first got here - I downloaded like MAD (I even blew out a NIC doing it - heh), but I only understood what, oh, perhaps 25% of the stuff I was downloading did. Anyrate, I'd like to chuck in my vote for dlfurman's idea.