Someone brought up the other day that DAZ was now selling a graphic novel (or, prose picture book?) in the storefront, and it got me thinking about the incredible lack of community gallery and video stuff that happens on DAZ.
Sure you can post a thread here and there with a picture or two. But if I look at somewhere like Newgrounds or DeviantArt, places that also have large storefronts and retail objectives, despite DAZ bursting with artists, the Gallery section is pretty vacant, and there’s no place to embed or upload video at all!
I’m wondering why DAZ isn’t more keen on beefing up its member art section. I’d imagine it could only add to more people wanting to purchase the products if they were able to see all of the amazing stuff that’s created using DAZ models and software.
Case in point, I go to Youtube and Vimeo and type “DAZ 3D animation” in the search box. If the tags aren’t aligned correctly or if the video is especially unpopular, most of the time I’m only seeing a small percentage of what animators are putting out there. Same thing goes with DA. I go and type “DAZ 3D” and only a small portion of all the DAZ art that’s on DA shows up.
Same thing happens when I go to Youtube or Vimeo and type “Flash animation”. Except with Flash Animation I can simply go to Newgrounds and see pretty much every single bit of Flash Animation that’s being put online. Why wouldn’t DAZ want that for its products?
I think it’d be great if DAZ could start building its artist community more. Not just via forums, but via art and video. There’s certainly revenue in adspace and greater potential retail sales as artists link back to the gallery for people to view their works. Add in a Print-for-Sale option like what DA has, and I don’t see why DAZ isn’t taking more advantage of this. It’d certainly make my life as a viewer more awesome.
