Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
224 S 200 W, Suite #250
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.Daz 3D is part of
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
224 S 200 W, Suite #250
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
I can confirm this part.
Yep; servers and all the other little things ain't cheap, people.
The biggest reason that I wait for products to go on sale is that there are so many excellent pieces that I'd love to buy, added to the Daz store every day. There's no way my wallet can handle buying them all, even at 80% off. I do buy quite a few things that I just can't live without, when they are first released. I also will buy a new release when the incentive of other discounts and freebies makes it worthwhile to buy a product that I wasn't really sure I needed. There are many that I absolutely want, but just can place in high priority. For those items, I have to wait for a sale. And, there are many items that I don't really think I need at all, but will pick up when the price is so low that I can't ignore them. This is especially the case for products that are similar to items I already own. They MIGHT be better...but, they might just be duplicating what I already own. Even so, I will pick one or two of these up during a big sale because the risk is much lower. Pose packages are some of the worst about duplication. I'm not saying it's intentional, just that at least 4 of the G3F pose packages I've bought have one or two inspired poses, with the rest looking much the same as every other pose package. So, a couple of dollars to get one or two good poses isn't so bad.
And, like other posters have mentioned, I have no desire to go the piracy route and steal anyone's hard work.
So, if I want to keep paying for food and all the other of life's expenses, and still buy a lot of good items at Daz, I must prioritize and wait for the sales on items that I just can't afford right now.
I'm not going to begin to tell an artist that their work isn't worth their price, no matter how high. But, I will say that if I am waiting for a sale, it's because I want to stretch my Daz dollar as far as I can so that I can include a many of those great items as possible into my renders.
So, PAs shouldn't be too upset about the crazy sales. I've picked up many items from many varied PAs that I probably would not ever have purchased without one of those crazy sales. Some of those items I've never even used....and some have become go to favorites.
So no worries about high introductory prices and standard pricing. If I can't afford it this instant, that PA might still get an opportunity to sell me their product at a later time. What is great about the sales is that the PA actually gets that opportunity for a sale down the road, to buyers who might have ignored the product completely had it not been for the big discount. I can understand that any artist would prefer to sell their hard work at a higher price point. I feel the same way about my work. But, at least with the sales, people might try the product instead of just ignoring it soley based on price.
I truly beleave after so many years and 2300 models later the prices are'nt that bad for the work these artist put ito them.yes some are high for me but platnium club is a big saver.REAL BIG it's worth the buy.not so many years ago models were 100's of dolars untill daz came along.
BTW....I LOVE Fast Flames! Keep doing your niche props. :)
Can't really agree with this. A lot of things asked for in the forum are pretty basic and practical, like more ethnic characters for instance, or more "normal" clothing for characters in the place of skimp wear. The same for at least one preteen basic character for people who might want to do renders with children ( and I'm sorry, but to get a kid character that looks like a child up to this point has been a LOT of work that probably put a lot of people off, so saying not enough people would not buy it is a bit premature but . . . logic)
There seems to be this idea that all PAs consistently make stuff that will sell to the greatest number of people, but if that is truly the case, there are a WHOLE lot of inexplicible items, that I really have to wonder about who some of these customers are that are buying some of this stuff.
It's also not as easy to get stuff through first image submission as some people think. I'm having to redo the girl character I'm working on to see if they will accept her this time around.
Lol -- this was not an opinion up for discussion, but a statement of fact. *I* would like monsters and multicolored men in drapey underpants.
(You're all entitled to want more mundane things like normal clothing.)
I think (men in drapey underpants) are down at the moment !
Sorry couldn't help myself
Hmmm multicolored men in drapey underpants... I'll take some of that most especially if they aren't blue. For some reason. Blue people seem well represented in the store. Time for other colors to shine.
I think you people have waaaaaay too much time on your hands.
I wasn't disagreeing with you, but the initial statement leads to some very sketchy conclusions about the Daz core base if you take it at face value, but it does explain why Daz really can't "grow up", because unless PA's are actually getting a lot of commission work doing custom jobs a lot of content (that people people won't buy) is the stuff that one would need to do professional work on a regular basis without having to do major tweaking and really becoming somewhat of a professional on the inner workings of Daz oneself. And if you're wanting to do stuff with non white/ Asian perfect females; you're really kinda' S#@t outta' luck, or at best completely reliant on the whims of a PA who just decides they are going to make one of those characters regardless.
You might get those drapey multi-colored underpants though; you just might have to use Zev's Crossfit app to use them.
I couldn't agree more. It's not really about what the PA's time or talent is worth when it boils down to prices. For some items I'm amazed that they can make any money for the hundreds of hours that must've gone into creation. So, I can't complain about a $20 or even $50 item based on it's artistic merit or the effort of creation. I can only hope that the prices are low enough for me to put it in my shopping cart. If I were earning a lot of money from my 3D work, I'd probably just buy commercial licenses from my favorite artists and buy custom work on a per project basis. But as things are, I have to budget my 3D spending as an extra after all the other bills.
There is no doubt in my mind that Poser and Daz Studio, and in turn, Renderosity and Daz3D sites, have played a big part in widespread availability of quality models and tools for amateur and pro 3D artists. Not only does it give us amateurs a huge pool of good resources. It also creates a huge market for 3D artists to sell their wares direct instead of relying only on contract work.
When I first used Poser 3 (or was it 2? LOL), You pretty much had what came with the software for models and basic wear. One nice thing is the basic morphs that are extra packages in Daz, were included. There were quite a few ethnic and body morphs that came standard. That said, the software cost around $99...compared to Daz Studio at $0. Most of the time back then, I'd create a basic, hairless or block haired, naked or minimally dressed model...pose it, then render. The render was whatever Poser's raytracing engine was at the time, or just as often an OpenGL. Then, I'd take the render to Photoshop and paint whatever details I needed to the hair and clothing.
The point is that after more than a decade of doing nothing with 3D models, I was blown away by all the available models and tools at Daz...at reasonable prices.
It's a double edged sword...awesome in that I can get great characters, tools, and props for decent prices. The downside is that no matter how reasonable the prices are, I can't buy them all...even all of the items that I'd really like to own. So, I do have to watch for sales and hope that I can get a few more of these great items in my cart and keep it within my Daz budget. So I hope that none of the talented PAs out there take it as an insult when I say that I'm excited when one of their items that I've been watching for months, goes on sale for a deep discount.
As to monsters and men with drapey, multicolor underpants - I'm all for 'em. But, I do consider them an "extra," meaning they are something I might need for a specific project or story illustration. They are fun and attention getters for the sale. But, I haven't had much need for them in the past. Lately, I've been buying more of them because I'm working on a fantasy story that will need a monster or two. But that said, I tend to buy the Creator packages that have a lot of morphs to create my own monster characters, rather than buying a specific one. I love the look of the Minotaur and others, and have almost bought it a dozen times. It just always comes in at low priority when I'm shaving dollars off my cart. I keep wondering what I'm going to use it for. Nevertheless, I'm sure I'll pick it up soon .
I feel the same way about the beautiful characters available. I have a bunch from several PAs. But, I enjoy creating my own people and use them in my renders more the the already created characters. So, when I'm shopping, I tend to buy more hair and outfits and tools to expand my own character creation.
So, if the PAs and Daz are interested in my priorities when it comes to buying: 1. Shaders (good shaders make everything better). 2. Environments (all these characters need places to be.) 3. Efx and props (lights, emitters, fog...) 4. Merchant Resources for Characters (I like knowing that I can sell what I've created if I ever decide to do it). 5. Hair (a new hairstyle can completely change the look.) 6.Clothing (I always seem to run out of clothing options). 7. Premade Characters (I still buy them. But, they are the lowest priority. Usually when I do buy them, it's because they are just so well done that I want to collect them.)
So, hat's off to all you talented PAs out there. I'll be supporting you best as I can. :)
PAs (and DAZ, of course) need to see products selling at a certain level at a certain time before they will be willing to make more of them. Buyers may not always want them right then, but without the initial sales, vendors will fall back to the "guaranteed sellers".
I still think kickstarters and patreons might be a good thing for PAs to experiment with.
Thank you very much for the nice compliment I use to have links in my sig for my website and YouTube , but most people including me have viewing sig's option turned off, so i don't mind posting a link now and then in the forums when appropriate. :)
I second the motion
:)
I think so, too. There are many LARP crowdfunded projects that seem to work. They, too, face a somewhat limited market size and crowdfunding is a way to LARPers to get products that meet their own expectations.
@ we sell what people buy
The argumentation presented only looks at cause and effect from one perspective.
If you only advertise female characters you are bound to only attract customers who buy female characters.
If you advertise with "free" software you are bound to attract people with a limited budget who want to do 3d as a hobby.
If there are no bridges or plugins for DAZ content for professional software and the content is only useable in DAZ Studio itself you are bound to only attract people who want to "experiment" with 3d content and not "work" with it.
- - -
-> The question is:
What kind of users does DAZ3d want to attract in the future?
If the goal is to focus on female characters then keep doing what you are doing.
If you want to attract a different type of user then you have to finally make the necessary changes.
-> Start advertising envrironment, transportation and prop products as well
-> Update DAZ Studio "Pro" to be a software ready for professional workflows with all required features accessible to paying customers
-> Make DAZ3D content useable in professional software with Iray support with bridges and plugins
- - -
I'll back up what SickleYield says. When I was in the business of making custom Halloween masks, most of the other mask makers in the industry would arbitrarily grab prices out of their butt and set everything in the $200-$300 range. I sat down and ran all the math on how much it cost me to make a mask. The hours sculpting and molding, the materials costs of the armature and the clay and the tools and the cement, sealers, etc. The energy and water and heating gas that was used. The time and materials in casting a piece, trimming and painting, hairing, finishing, etc. I calculated that I could make a massive profit on each mask at a price of about $60.
Naturally, there were plenty of people in a very vocal community of collectors who scoffed at $200 prices. But I also had a significantly uphill fight convincing people that a $60 mask wasn't a piece of junk, it was a $200 mask with a mathmatically calculated price. So there is the subconscious idea that something cheap can't be of good quality.
All of that said, I do my best to keep my prices in range for hobbyists and also try to make my sets multi-purpose or friendly to kitbashing, so the buyer can get the most possible out of them. Some of the houses I sell here for $20 or $30 would go for hundreds on, say, Turbosquid, and it's actually more work getting them ready for Daz Studio. So I sympathize with the hobbyists who don't want to drop thousands of dollars on assets. But you also have to understand that there are many PAs in my position, where this is our job and our sole source of income. If you don't buy, I don't eat. So I try to do the best work I can for the most reasonable prices, so that rent keeps getting paid!
This is where sales would work well: set the regular price to be higher, but have frequent sales to reflect the mathematically analyzed fair price.
deleted contents as not formatting correctly
This. And people (at least in the US) who are self-employed also need to think about benefits like health and dental.
And this. I couldn't make my art if the PAs didn't make and sell theirs.
Like we don't have to be customers; PAs do not have to be PAs. Customers can chose to make the attempt, or not, to become a PA. I've thought about submitting a couple of the cars I've made, but tbh, I just don't want to spend the time figuring out the Daz aspects; I recently made an item from my own use and am considering releasing it 'as is' as a freebie.
Customers are allowed to complain; staff, suppliers, contractors, and sub-contractors (or whatever else they may be termed) do of course, but they had better be careful about how they do it.
A PA made a comment in a thread; I still don't buy their products, I didn't even bother with their freebie/or insanely discounted item - I forget which - that was released some time in the past.
+10
I made a similar suggestion for creating a version of studio for Linux; I'd happily pay upfront for that. I get that such an item may be released for free, but I'd be prepared to put my money where my mouth is.
And yet many of these things do exist; the ads for other than female DAZ content, bridges and pluginsvto at least several well supported file formats and software applications.
The reason I think kickstarters might be a good idea is that of the nonstandard things... some of them prove really popular. Many fail hard.
It's a pain for PAs to take the risk on an odd product doing well.
A kickstarter, on the other hand, lets a PA know an idea is just not catching on without wasting the work.
Tried a Kickstarter last year. All I got was 700 emails from services wanting to advertise my Kickstarter for more money than I needed to raise. I still get them, and it's been over a year since the Kickstarter ended. Only got one donation, and that was from a friend.
Not to mention for a successful Kickstarter you need a project that's fairly far along already. People are not going to shell out money on a few promising words.
Daz isn't really set up for something like Kickstarter, because the best kickstarters work for people who have followings. The people PA's are known by are the customers they already cater to (who also already aren't buying those niche items, nor are they willing to pay what the PA's time is worth, we are being told.) Kickstarters work for people who have a core following that like what the person is already doing, and want more of it and bigger and better.
You don't do a kickstart to appeal to people who don't know you; nor does it work well for people who don't have significant numbers of people who have cash. Also kickstarters tend to work with incentives. What are PA's going to use as an incentive; discounts on previous merchandise; the item being funded? That kinda' defeats the purpose.
Those "sketchy conclusions" are 100% correct. The market disproportionately monetarily rewards certain things. To get around that you have to be able to make a higher-than-normal quality product in an unreal amount of time, and a lot of us just can't. I joke about multicolored sparkleboys in loincloths because the market hates things that involve pretty men or the female gaze where it conflicts with the male gaze; the market also strictly enforces the "monster threshold" when it comes to characters (they have to be either tinted human or nonhuman enough to be monsters).
I have every hope that Unity will provide me more opportunities to make critters and money at the same time. The other thing is probably just hopeless in public 3D.
Commissions don't make money. The hourly people are willing to pay is way, way lower than the hourly for selling in the store.