Is it just me... I just don't spend my money at Daz anymore

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  • Herald of FireHerald of Fire Posts: 3,504
    edited December 1969

    perhaps the new ds5 version really would be great for Genesis?
    and we can again gain money.
    please develop it 1000 times better that poser users droop their tongue out of mouth :-P
    I do not go for less than what is available today in poser pro 2012 (expected better developed).
    that means a solution for the still missed dynamic cloth creator, dynamic hair, bullet physics or other, a useful timeline to do animations.
    if daz would like to come with a pro version for more pro users on the 3d market. (can't be free)
    i need budget to invest and wait till that day.
    The oddity is that I believe most of those features are already a part of Carrara. Perhaps the reason those things haven't been integrated is because you would turn Daz Studio into Carrara effectively by doing so. Of course, I'm just speculating since I haven't actually had a hands-on with Carrara so I'm not sure exactly how different these two rendering behemoths are.
  • creativemodelsbecreativemodelsbe Posts: 0
    edited December 2012

    perhaps the new ds5 version really would be great for Genesis?
    and we can again gain money.
    please develop it 1000 times better that poser users droop their tongue out of mouth :-P
    I do not go for less than what is available today in poser pro 2012 (expected better developed).
    that means a solution for the still missed dynamic cloth creator, dynamic hair, bullet physics or other, a useful timeline to do animations.
    if daz would like to come with a pro version for more pro users on the 3d market. (can't be free)
    i need budget to invest and wait till that day.
    The oddity is that I believe most of those features are already a part of Carrara. Perhaps the reason those things haven't been integrated is because you would turn Daz Studio into Carrara effectively by doing so. Of course, I'm just speculating since I haven't actually had a hands-on with Carrara so I'm not sure exactly how different these two rendering behemoths are.

    Carrara is old, very out of date if you hold it against Blender today.
    i do not expect to much new from carrara.
    i read here somewhere that there is very poor development time to hold both programs alive.
    studio is new and have great possibilities.

    Post edited by creativemodelsbe on
  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 40,501
    edited December 1969

    randym77 said:
    I've tried Carrara, but just can't figure it out.

    I'm just not that good at modeling. I've bought Carrara, Shade, Hexagon, and tried a bunch of others. The only one can I do anything with is Anim8or. And I can only make fairly basic models with that.

    I'm willing to try just about anything if it has something I really want. That's why I sunk over a thousand bucks into Vue (never mind the content). I wanted the Ecosystem trees and stuff. Upgraded to the last version because of the underwater caustics, and the current version because of the animated waterfalls. But so far, there's nothing in Genesis that makes it something I have to have. That might change in the future, but for now, there's nothing that inspires me to part with my money or learn new software.



    ...I've worked with Carrara before. While I find it great for outdoor scenes that use the standard IBL lighting, haven't used it for any indoor work as the light system is a pain to work with since it has no visible effect in OGL mode (thus requiring time consuming test renders. to see if I got it right).
  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,563
    edited December 1969

    esther said:
    genesis figures work slowly in poser and this hasn't been fixed yet either. (not necessarily DAZ fault). On top of this the link to the list of the products that have been updated to be compatible with poser has become really difficult to find (I can't find it all today), but the links used to be in several places including they used to be on the front pages.
    Also I do not get any emails to tell me that genesis products I have bought have been updated to be compatible with poser. I don't even know if DAZ staff are rushing to do these or not. I feel disappointed because I spent probably close to 1000 dollars on genesis for poser stuff, but daz doesn't seem interested in me.
    Love esther

    http://www.daz3d.com/shop/dson-all?limit=60

    They've been adding 10-20 items a week, I think.

  • Kendall SearsKendall Sears Posts: 2,995
    edited December 1969

    esther said:
    genesis figures work slowly in poser and this hasn't been fixed yet either. (not necessarily DAZ fault). On top of this the link to the list of the products that have been updated to be compatible with poser has become really difficult to find (I can't find it all today), but the links used to be in several places including they used to be on the front pages.
    Also I do not get any emails to tell me that genesis products I have bought have been updated to be compatible with poser. I don't even know if DAZ staff are rushing to do these or not. I feel disappointed because I spent probably close to 1000 dollars on genesis for poser stuff, but daz doesn't seem interested in me.
    Love esther

    http://www.daz3d.com/shop/dson-all?limit=60

    They've been adding 10-20 items a week, I think.

    Now, now. You know better than to inject facts into an emotional argument...

    :-)

    Kendall

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 40,501
    edited December 1969

    ...with this recent PC renewal snafu, looks like they're making it tough for some of us to keep shopping here.

  • estheresther Posts: 608
    edited December 1969

    allow me to inject another fact. I think most of the increase in dson compatible products is due to addition of new products. alll the new products seem to be compatible. eg all the horsey things. I am not at all sure that many old things have been updated and I would not know which ones.
    It should be possible to work this out, but this would be a job I could maybe give to my poser secretary when he finishes running all my installers and putting all my content into external runtimes (except for genesis. i haven't explained much about genesis to him as yet)
    Love esther

  • MattymanxMattymanx Posts: 6,860
    edited December 1969

    Looking back over this year I would easily say DAZ3D is getting the majority of my money that I spend on 3D. With the other two major stores, which I dont check very often, both have run out of A3 items I want and neither have anything for Genesis.

  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,563
    edited December 1969

    esther said:
    allow me to inject another fact. I think most of the increase in dson compatible products is due to addition of new products. alll the new products seem to be compatible. eg all the horsey things. I am not at all sure that many old things have been updated and I would not know which ones.
    It should be possible to work this out, but this would be a job I could maybe give to my poser secretary when he finishes running all my installers and putting all my content into external runtimes (except for genesis. i haven't explained much about genesis to him as yet)
    Love esther

    It looks like about 100 of the items came out after DS4.5. There were about 100 on the list originally, although some of them were post-4.5 items rather than updates. To be conservative, assume only 20 of the original 100 were post-4.5 items. So that means about 100 older items have been updated since then.

  • estheresther Posts: 608
    edited December 1969

    that's very good news. I wish daz would email me and reset them all.

  • kmw_5213kmw_5213 Posts: 74
    edited December 1969

    I hope they recover and make things easier.

    Recover from what?

    Do you honestly believe our change in buying habits is having any affect on DAZ' bottom line?

    If it did, do you really think they'd leave things the way they were?

    The fact is even after over a decade this is still a revolving marketplace. I'd wager a huge portion of DAZ customers weren't here a year ago. And I'll bet they've replaced the majority of customers that left. And you know what, a year from now, a group of us will drop out of sight but a whole new audience will replace us.

    The 3D community is miniscule and mostly made of hobbyists and hobbyists have one thing in common. The majority of them move on to something else. When I had the time and inclination in another life, I'd go through a year old thread and marvel at how many participants no longer participate. They just dropped off the face of the forums. You can do the same today. As a matter of fact, looking through current threads you'd have to admit there are a lot of new faces. And it's always been that way. As long as Studio is free — even before Studio — as long as creative people discover this community and software, there is ALWAYS going to be a revolving customer base at DAZ.

    DAZ isn't stupid. They wouldn't lose revenue because of reaction to a new website. If their bottom line isn't affected, they'll wait it out.

    kmw

  • gingercakes47gingercakes47 Posts: 382
    edited December 1969

    Very unfortunately for my CC, I've had absolutely no problem spending money here.

  • kmw_5213kmw_5213 Posts: 74
    edited December 1969

    DzFire™ said:
    Cheaper here then what I used to spend at Turbo Squid o.O

    That's actually a fairly dramatic comparison since you can say that about pretty much any shop compared to Turbo Squid.

    kmw

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,441
    edited December 1969

    I've spent about 90% of this years spendings on content here on DAZ, which is an increase from last year, where it was around 75%. Spendings about the same so I've increased my spendings here.

  • ThatGuyThatGuy Posts: 794
    edited December 2012

    I still find myself buying much products here however, I am much more selective when it comes to purchasing clothing for Genesis. For some reason I find the clothing are not superior to those for Gen 4, unless they are dynamic clothing. Even the clothing for M5 still looks so unrealistic....not much improvement from M4's.

    I do hope they give more options when it comes to searching through your itemized purchased history. How about the ability to sort alphabetically or not having to display both mac/pc files? It is quite annoying. When having purchased a bundle, i.e. teen 5 bundle, it is overwhelming to see all these files listed and knowing half of them are useless to you.

    Post edited by ThatGuy on
  • magicweavermagicweaver Posts: 244
    edited December 1969

    YEA!!! I bought the daquari dress twice, I didn't know I had already purchased it, now I've wasted precious money when I could have bought something else, the not showing me I've bought something thing is annoying especially when we pay each month in pc and no one can seem to hire someone to do the "hey you bought this already" function this is starting to suck!

  • Eric WaltersEric Walters Posts: 233
    edited January 2013

    My buying slipped to zero for many months. Then the DSON importer for Poser came along. I probably dropped a few hundred on various Genesis related things. And some Stonemason products.
    However, once Genesis gets loaded up with morphs the transfer active morphs script (to make hair and clothing fit) gets VERY slow as it projects every single morph-including many which don't effect clothing on the clothing- example: Eye size.
    It took 5 minutes to "project" all the morphs on the Elf dress for a single Genesis figure- and at the end there was poke through.
    As a result-I am not buying any more until Daz and Smith Micro improve the script.
    I don't know if there is a way to avoid projecting ALL morphs (including many that are irrelevant to the fit of the clothing)-but that would speed things up.
    As Esther said-the installers that came out in the last year- are very slow compared to the previous versions.
    My exception will likely be MEC4D products- particularly things that don't exist for the Gen4 characters-such as realistic beards.
    Since I can't do that well with M4
    I may buy buildings and the like. Most recently The Enchanted Forest from StoneMason. Very pleased with that!
    EDIT: Genesis into scene- about 10 minutes to load and conform the Alruna Armor. Transfer morphs just passed the 12 minute mark.
    If it could skip projecting such items as Helmet: Hipbone crest- it would likely go faster! Or PBMnosebridge Height-on the boots.
    15 minutes-just finished Skirt: PHMNosebridgeHeight, B25Skirt:PHMNoseBridgeWidth (16 minutes). B25ASkirt: PHMMousthdepth (17 minutes), B25ASkirt:PHMEyeIrisCorrection (18 minutes).

    Post edited by Eric Walters on
  • PendraiaPendraia Posts: 3,591
    edited December 1969

    @efron_24 no thanks I can't abide Poser.
    I would never go back to V4 or M4 I much prefer the versatility of Genesis.
    And yes do look at RDNA and Renderosity, RDNA has a small market their stuff is good and versatile but alot of their stuff doesn't cater for the DS user so they loose out there, and renderosity is just saturated with similar variations of the same things for the Gen 4 girls.

    I haven't spent any money at RDNA for a long time...I actually discontinued getting their newsletter.


    lol... I think I've probably been making up for the rest of you. I've gone through not 1 or 2 $200 gift certificates but 3! At 5% off and with all the sales I couldn't resist...

    I love genesis and all of its shapes...are there things that annoy me about DS4? Yes...I hate what they 've done with the categories is it going to stop me using Genesis? No way... ; )

    I have bought a bit at rendo recently mostly stuff from Sickleyield for Genesis...I did succomb to a hair recently that I just loved the shape of but hair is so easy to convert to Genesis I could justify it.

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 9,704
    edited December 1969

    YEA!!! I bought the daquari dress twice, I didn't know I had already purchased it, now I've wasted precious money when I could have bought something else, the not showing me I've bought something thing is annoying especially when we pay each month in pc and no one can seem to hire someone to do the "hey you bought this already" function this is starting to suck!

    If you're running Windows you can try this:

    http://taosoft.dk/software/dazhm/

    It can compare your cart with your history and show you if you've already bought an item. Currently it's not 100% reliable since it's based on product name comparison, and product names sometimes change so the name of a product in your cart may differ from the product name in your history but I believe it will work for about 98% of the items. Current version does not include checking bundled items, but if all goes well next version will.

  • randym77randym77 Posts: 272
    edited December 1969

    kmw_ said:
    Do you honestly believe our change in buying habits is having any affect on DAZ' bottom line?

    I think it has. Or they wouldn't have put so much work into DSON. There are a lot of other things they could spend their time on. Improving DS, Bryce, Carrara, or Hexagon, more content, better documentation, fixing the various problems with the store. Instead, they created DSON. I'd say that means they missed Poser users, or at least their money.

    DAZ History Manager is a lifesaver as far as order history goes. My current beef with the store is that the search engine sucks. It used to be much better. Now, you're better off using Google to find things. Also, the old store let you find "accessories" for items. So if you were looking at a dress, you could click on the accessories link and find all the textures for it. Or if you were looking at a figure, you could easily find all the clothing for it. Now it's become nigh impossible.

  • Male-M3diaMale-M3dia Posts: 3,581
    edited December 1969

    randym77 said:
    kmw_ said:
    Do you honestly believe our change in buying habits is having any affect on DAZ' bottom line?

    I think it has. Or they wouldn't have put so much work into DSON. There are a lot of other things they could spend their time on. Improving DS, Bryce, Carrara, or Hexagon, more content, better documentation, fixing the various problems with the store. Instead, they created DSON. I'd say that means they missed Poser users, or at least their money.

    Actually DSON is much more than figures, since it's a supposed be a specification for scenes and figures... allowing you to move a scene file from computer to another. That's something that DS had never had, unless you felt like finding all the related files in the data directory and moving that as well. And that's helped a lot as I can send a scene over to another computer to finish work there, or people I work with can send me what they have and I can look at it. The side benefit is that plugins can read that specification too, which is how the plugin for Poser came together and that same format is used in Carrara.

    But to go back to the "changing buying habits", I'm gonna be honest and say no. After about 2 years of Genesis, that's pretty much the path now. If Genesis was such a flop, then you would be seeing a lot more gen4 stuff. So really SM and DAZ need to work on getting the plugin speedier in Poser and there's customer interest in that, otherwise you'll be stuck with your current Gen4 items and Poser figures, until the time Gen 4 goes into the vault... and that happens when people stop buying the base Gen4 figures at DAZ... not interest wanes for Gen4 items at other stores.

  • Harry DresdenHarry Dresden Posts: 376
    edited December 1969

    I don't know why people feel compelled to start topics discussing their spending habits but since it's here I'll chime in. :D

    I've probable spent between $500 and $600 just in December. On Genesis related items and Carrara. I was not unhappy with any of my purchases except maybe the poses that came with the young Teens bundle. I feel those were a bit rushed perhaps as quite a few of them needs additional fiddling to fix hands and other body parts intersecting. And what on earth did they use as a floor when they created those poses because often you find various body parts stuck in the floor. But it's nitpicking and it's one product and I didn't stop shopping because of it. Someone was probably a little drunk and will fix it when they're sober again.

    I didn't end up buying things I already own because I keep track of what I have and don't have. It's not hard to do really as I keep all my installers in clearly marked folders which makes it rather easy to do a quick search for something. But if you do happen to buy something twice there's the DAZ no questions asked 30 day money back guarantee so that's really not an excuse to get upset is it? So for what it's worth I enjoyed my shopping as there were so many things on sale it was like being lost in a candy store when you're 6 years old. My PC membership paid quadruple dividends this past season as I ended up getting 80 to 95% off most stuff. My runtime thanks you and I thank you DAZ and all the PA's who took part in the sale.

  • AriahAriah Posts: 93
    edited January 2013

    Well, I've just canceled my Platinium Subscription. I may be back if/when more interesting things appear in the store... But at the time being, I haven't found anything remotely interesting. And I have DSON and M5.

    Still, more or less $7 a month does not calculate, especially when I buy an item every once in a while.

    Post edited by Ariah on
  • randym77randym77 Posts: 272
    edited December 1969

    But if you do happen to buy something twice there's the DAZ no questions asked 30 day money back guarantee so that's really not an excuse to get upset is it?

    You are more organized than most (or don't have as much stuff). Many of us have been here for a decade or more, and have bought thousands of items here. It's not easy to go through them all. I usually know when I've bought something before because I download everything to the same place and get a "do you want to overwrite" message if I've previously downloaded an item. But many people don't do this, and don't realize until after the 30 days are up that it's a duplicate.

    Plus, it's a hassle to get a refund. All the other stores warn you when you've already bought something. Rosity, Cornucopia3D, RDNA, heck, even Amazon. And DAZ used to. I really wish they'd fix it.

    Well, I've just canceled my Platinium Subscription. I may be back if/when more interesting things appear in the store... But at the time being, I haven't found anything remotely interesting. And I have DSON and M5.

    Still, more or less $7 a month does not calculate, especially when I buy an item every once in a while.

    I have a yearly PC membership. I will probably let it lapse when it comes up for renewal. I probably should have cancelled it as soon as the new terms were made public, but I've been a member so long. I wanted to give DAZ a chance to fix it. But it doesn't look like they are going to.

    It's not just Genesis. I could find plenty to spend my money on if the old terms applied, even now. But the new terms pretty much make the monthly voucher useless to me. And the reason for the change is supposedly technical limitations of the store. Ugh, I really hate this new store.

  • Serene NightSerene Night Posts: 17,551
    edited December 1969

    I actually love Genesis, and want to see more, particular for Michael. I can understand though why folks still want Gen 4 though- Just personally love genesis and prefer it.

  • WoolyloachWoolyloach Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    I don't use Genesis. I don't use Daz Studio (any more, all PPro 2012 now). And I'm just doing Web comics, story illustrations, and random 50's sci-fi movie poster weirdness.

    I honestly have all the content I think I'll ever need. Next I need to get either Vue (for landscapes) or Lightwave (for VFX).

    *shrugs*

    I've spent enough at Daz in the past to have made a car payment or ten for the bosses there! :ahhh:

  • starionwolfstarionwolf Posts: 3,666
    edited December 1969

    what is Poser 2012? Just kidding. lol

    I spent about $50.00 USD on items for Genesis last month. I gotta go get ready for lunch. later

  • randym77randym77 Posts: 272
    edited December 1969

    I honestly have all the content I think I'll ever need.

    There's that, too. Someone brought this up in another thread: "Need saturation." Eventually, you reach a point where you really don't need any more. Especially now, when Wardrobe Wizard and the like mean you don't have to buy all new clothes for a new figure.

    So, maybe the message is "If you have so many purchases you can't remember what you bought, you don't need any more." :-D

  • beregarberegar Posts: 241
    edited January 2013

    I don't use Poser but I pretty much have skipped nearly all sales since a few months ago. Including new stuff like hiro, the horse and the teens that I'd normally get. I didn't even get any bogo stuff and cancelled my platinum club membership a few months ago which I have had pretty much since my registeration in 2005. I still get a few items here and there but not really spending actively.

    The primary reason is that I don't like the new website and how annoying it's to reset products and then find which file I'm supposed to download among a half a dozen choices. Also as people have pointed out there's a too big risk for duplicates. Finally the site has regularly difficulties showing up to date products. I've to sort if for last product and then new product before the product shows up.

    It's also missing many items I'd like to buy. I've a lot of full sets of stuff but what I really need are things that are hard to come by anywhere. Things like animal face masks/shamanistic helmets, mix and match LIE tattoo sets, LIE pattern overlays (i.e. symbols and sigils), long braided fibre mesh bread (dwarf style).

    Even for fantasy you tend to find either total skimpwear or then practical armors. I've a need for really elaborate fantasy stuff be it actual shape or textures. i.e. like armors below:

    Scorpion
    Fancy headress
    Undead Armor
    Mixed armor
    Bear shaman
    Stag armor

    I'm also a big fan of races that at the same time look familiar but alien and monstrous. I.e. some below:

    Krait
    Grawl

    However note that since introduction of Genesis I've mostly looked for Genesis compatible characters. Also characters that allow mixing and matching with different morphs. Sometimes I just have a use for massive clawed hands and sometimes I need the full figure. I feel that Genesis is a bit underutilized since people tend to produce full figures both in terms of textures and morphs while DS and Genesis both have great tools for something that would mesh well with existing human skins and morphs.

    I'm still waiting for a creature creator for genesis that allows mixing of creature elements with already existing M4/V4/M5/V5 textures. I'm searching for products that add tails, fins, satyr legs, and other stuff while providing LIE overlays/geometry so they can mesh with the human skin below (also with M4 skins since I use them more than M5) i.e. like fins of the I.e. stuff like fins of a mirefolk stalker, or sometimes just animals masks like I mentioned before. For example something like what King is wearing here.

    Edit: Also while I still remember. I have a need for relatively quick loading building kit which comes with believable exteriors and interiors. I love Faveral's stuff for exteriors but you can't build believable interiors out of them. I'm currently building a "tradingpost" for a fantasy setting and I'm lamenting that I've yet to see a good fantasy city building kit where both exteriors and interiors are included. I don't really have a use for scene objects that have only either. I don't mind placing the props myself but the problem is that usually the interiors look "wrong" because of how for example windows have been built.

    Post edited by beregar on
  • gabugabu Posts: 303
    edited December 1969

    The clothing/figures that you illustrated are just the sort of things that I too would dearly like to buy.

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