Why are 3 year old characters still $45?
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Someone put up some really nice Millenium Kids clothing freebies at Renderosity this AM. So far 41 downloads. People are stil using really oldies but goodies. Too bad items like this seems not to be of interest people making products for G3 and Growing Up. (Hint, hint)
Sadly there is no way of telling if new promos make an older item sell better. I updated multiple products with new promos and honestly dont know if it made a difference. Only real reason I did it was to learn iray
(Buzzer sound) Faulty argument based on misinterpretation of quoted statement. What Havros said was that the additional number of sales that might be generated by redoing the ads probaby wouldn't be enough to offset the cost of redoing them. That 's not the same as saying that the items aren't selling. Rather, a good analogy would be an auto parts store. There's still a market for spare parts for, say, a Ford Tempo, but it would be a bit ridiculous for a store to splurge on a full page ad in the local paper saying "WE STILL HAVE FORD TEMPO PARTS IN STOCK!!!" when the people who need them already know where to find them.
Hehe...I'm using Grim in an image right now. He's a VERY old figure and was the first dedicated zombie-type figure Daz made aside from creature creator morphs. He bends horribly, but if you can work around that by not posing him too aggressively, he looks fantastic (and really creepy) with Iray shaders and SSS. Maybe someday when I learn weight mapping I can re-rig him for myself so that I can use him even more. LOL The render is unfinished but I'm sure ya get the drift. Haven't quite tweaked the tone mapping enough yet....
Laurie
Good analogy, but it doesn't quite fit. See, there are perfectly good alternatives to a Ford Tempo being manufactured. Now say I'm an beginning to intermediate Daz user who wants to do a Robin Hood scene with all my new Gen 3 figures, but there isn't a Gen 3 Robin Hood costume. There is a Genesis 2 Robin Hood that could look great and would actually suit my purposes, but the promos are awful, they don't show the textures and work put into it, and as a newb, I have no idea I could make it work. You've just lost a potential sale. Why? Bad advertising. The fact is it is impossible to really say how many sales of this type don't get made, because people simply shrugg their shoulders, give up on the idea, and maybe make a comment on the product suggestion thread. But realize, the majority of Daz users don't use the forums. But hey, I'm not a PA yet, so I really have no idea how they have come to think like they do. When I get there, we'll see, I've always been a maverick who never went along with believing something was the case simply because everybody said so. It's like seeing a line of people standing in front of the door when somebody walks up and goes in, and you realize everybody simply "assumed" that the door was locked.
This is actually going to be the last time I even bring it up. I've got mine own ideas for how I'm going to work it,
Grim is of course based on M1/M2, and I am fairly sure neither him nor V1/V2 have been weight mapped. Of the pre-gen4 figures I think only V3 and D3 have been weight mapped, and in both those cases it is Poser weight mapping, so naturally not much use to DS users.
I think my point was that even old figures are useful....to someone. One of these days I'll weight map him (for my own use) as practice. Hopefully that'll make him extremely useful to me.
Laurie
There is a setting in DS, I think under rigging, that says Triax weight map or something like that. Can you use that on a non-weight mapped character and weight map it?
Yes, but it wouldn't necessarily bend any better if you didn't tweak the maps manually.
God, there is sooo much to learn. Once again, I say, I REALLY WISH THERE WAS A MANUAL!!!!
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/userguide/start I don't know how up to date it is, but there is this to start with.
Yeah, but it doesn't go into advanced stuff like geographs, creating clones, etc...At least that I could find. And no screen shots. The videos are often of older versions (unless they've been updated) with different UIs and I prefer to work with a manual that I can refer to rather than having to start and stop a video. I think I have most of the basics down, especially the parts that are somewhat similar to Poser (once I figured out the UI!) but now I want to know what the advanced stuff does. I know you can google for specific things and someone, somewhere probably has a tutorial, but I wish there was one easy to understand manual with step by step screenshots, especially for the more advanced capabilities...
I started with Daz when Genesis 2 came out so I'm pretty entrenched with that, plus Genesis 3 now, but I still frequently will use Genesis 1, Gen 4, plus Kids 4. I frequently use Genesis figures to fill in the background of scenes as they don't require closeups. I do tend to cringe a little when putting Kids4 with Genesis 2 or 3 figures, but they still have a plce in my world.
Heck, I just bought almost the full Flamingo series of gown items for V3 as they were on sale for $1.99 each! Can always find a use for that stuff.
Even though I had most of the kids 4 stuff, I recently picked up the pro pack for just 2 items items I didn't have because it was FREE with purchase! Plus I got Carrara Pro for like $8.00 and it had the full pro packs for V5 and M5, so there are lots of deals to be had on older stuff... For those of us who are financially challenged, we just have to wait for the great deals to pop up!
LOL, I have unworn 501 Levis from the 1990s that go for less money on eBay than a lot of these old characters and clothing. The OP should wait for the next big sale - I get the Callie 6 Pro Bundle and the Cory 6 Pro Bundle for less than $30 each last March- about the same as those old Levis cost new and now on eBay.
Except we're not talking about buying a replacement for a Ford Tempo in my analogy. We're talking about people buying parts for Ford Tempos that they already have. There are still a lot of people using Gen 3 figures like Aiko 3, and people using older versions of Poser and Daz Studio for a number of reasons, so even though there's a lot of product in the store that may no longer be cutting edge, there are people who're still buying products of the same era. And those who buy the old product with the idea of doing their own retexturing and customization already know what they're getting into, so making uber-pretty art isn't going to attract those customers while it would simply cause a lot of disappointment on the part of customers who bought the item thinking it would look like the promo art out of the box and instead discover something that's best described as a fixer upper.
Also, you seem to be confused as to what people are talking about when they're talking about old and out of date art. We're talking about things done in the early part of V4 generation and earlier, where most of the Promo art was done in really old versions of Poser. The original poster actually specified Poser 4, but I'll allow that anything done in Poser 6 or earlier or DAZ Studio 3 or earlier can look rough around the edges by today's standards. By comparison, there's only real difference in terms of quality between promotional art for props and clothing from the Genesis 2 era and Genesis 3, and that's the advent of Iray as the default DS renderer. So, not only is it unlikely that any G2 era products would need new art, but it would almost be deceptive advertising to go back and do the renders in Iray unless the products themselves were redone with native Iray textures.
Some of those things aren't easily shown in single frame images, unfortunately. I'm trying to figure out how to do several "complex" geografts right now for a product; I got the moderately difficult one done, and am literally working on the simple one between typing things here in the forum. The ones I still want to do are probably simple, but they will likely involve several complex keyboard incantations (or is that contortions?) before I can get things to line up and fall into place. I've attached the render I did the other night with the moderately complex geograft so you can see what I mean.
Not everyone does realism... I do HEAVY stylized postwork on most of my renders so it really doesn't matter what generation I use. I've gotten used to fixing V4 bends and other things in Photoshop. I actually almost like the challenge of taking a crappy render and fixing it up in Photoshop LOL.
I bet it does make a difference. I buy a lot of older content and I know a lot of people do as well, but nothing puts me off a product faster than bad promo images (or worse, a single promo image). I think people underestimate how important the promo images are - they are the face of your product, your advertising, your way of hooking the customer. If the promo is bad, doesn't clearly show the product, or if not enough effort has been put into the promo, it can really effect the choice to buy that product or not.
+1
And that is the main point and also the case no matter how old, or new your product is. There are some PA's who for whatever reason use better renders in the thumbnails than the initial picture you first see of the item. Unless something really grabs me about the first image I see, I'm never going to see the other shots.
It's important to remember that the choice is not between (a) making new promos for an older item and (b) doing nothing. It's a choice between (a) and (c) spending that time making promos or doing other work on a new item. Sure, doing new promos may sell more copies of that old product, but will that pay off more than doing some extra promos on your new product? The majority of PAs are making pretty low hourly wages for their work, so much as they might want to (or enjoy) sprucing up those old promos, they know it isn't actually a good investment. They have to think carefully about how much time they can afford to spend on things like that.
Also many of us have been around pre Genesis/Iray and have used render engines that are now sorely outdated so we may not be as picky about the older promo images as those who have recently began using Studio. I personally find the images rendered in 3delight to look akin to the Sims 2 in quality, but that would not stop me from actually digging deeper into an item that has initially peaked my interest. I don't care what another user can do with that item, whether they can make it look awesome with all the extra time and postwork they put into it. All that matters to me is whether the item is something I am looking for, just give me a simple render of the item and let me judge what I can do with it. Daz promos tend to be too flashy, sometimes to the point that the promo images distract from the item for sale and puts all focus on the all too busy artwork. Yeah that item looks great but is that how it is going to look when I render it with my settings? What postwork was used? I want an accurate image, not a flashy one. ;)
Basically, more people need to give me free stuff to do their promo pics.
Just sayin'.
That's what I'm saying! lol Like I said WHERE DO I SIGN UP!? lol
With the latest items, what you see is what you should get, because DAZ does not allow significant postwork on promotional renders. Older items may look better or worse, depending on what render engine was used to create the promotional renders. Also, some items may have one render done in another program.
I think it would be worthwhile for the PAs or even Daz for their originals to throw the Iray uber shader over an old scene and do a quick Iray render. The promos are pretty small, it shouldn't take very long and they probably all have top of the line machines... Probably 15 minutes out of their lives, no biggie. I'm not sure if that would work so well on characters though. They could render with one of the human shaders on I suppose and make sure to label it saying which shader product and setting they used because I doubt they are going to want to take the time to create their own Iray setting for an old character... I'm lucky I use Poser because if I see an older pre-Iray product that is compatible with Poser, I can use it there if I can't get it to look right in Iray. I don't really like the look of 3Delight and don't know how to use it anyway. I always thought they should show Poser renders in addition to DS when a product was Poser compatible, but of course they never did that as soon as they started to really push DS.
It is a time factor. Yes new promos for an older product MIGHT get a few more sales BUT the time is better spent making new content. Especially if you make content for the figures. The vast majority of new customers are NOT going to get the older generations that dont come with Daz Studio. Again, for myself, I simply did it to learn Iray. It was also good for me cause I got to do something else with my time other then just building models.
And the ones that do buy them are often using Poser anyway, so the material settings are already correct and may render just fine in newer versions without any changes.
Well said, accurate trumps everything else - (I'll mention it again: I want to see the skin/textures on a figure as an example).
http://www.daz3d.com/potting-shed-and-tools
Case in point, the linked item is six years old; I wanted a shed, wasn't too stressed what it looked like, and this fit the bill; it was cheap too, so a bonus.
Edit: seven not six years old.
Where do you get that data? As a strictly Daz user that buys more older content than new, I wonder why that's the assumption.