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I'm a bit late to the conversation, but, since we're talking money, I think I'll throw my cents in ::rolls eyes::.
As a PA, one of your key drives is profit for obvious reasons. As a customer, one of my key drives is value, obviously, because even if I could make money at this, it wouldn't be sustainable if I didn't get good value for my investment. Some may assume that the two drives are polar opposites, but they do not have to be. If you can give me good enough value, I, or others like me, will deliver the profits you need with time, diligence, patience, perseverance, and wisdom. I don't think I'm all that unusual in the DAZ market as a type of buyer, so if you want to know what gets my dollar or turns me away, read on.
The number one thing that will get my money every time: Value.
I know I said this, but I cannot stress it enough. If I buy something and get more than I expected, I'm more likely to buy something else by the same creator. You may not think it's worth the extra time for a few extra dollars, but that is the wrong vision. If you put out consistent quality work every time, eventually you'll have a following. Diligence, like integrity, is its own reward.
If, however, I get something that barely stands up to the renders--I mark that, too. It bothers me that there is no reviewing system on the Daz store. I know that thought must feel threatening to a lot of artists, but I promise if your work is worth the money asked a review system would work to your advantage. This store is the one exception to my life rule of not buying anything expensive online without a substantial number of good reviews and ratings. I bet you'd see a significant increase in sales if John and Jane Q could know before spending if it was really what they wanted. I've wasted too much money in this store as a result of no reviews and it's going to stop me from buying a good many things in the future. Anything risky above a certain price, for this reason, equals no sale for me. In fact, I will almost never buy a single product that costs more than $30 for this exact same reason. I'm not saying your work isn't worth it. I'm saying it's not worth the risk to me for the possible reward without something to go by beyond renders and a few favorable mentions in a forum. Frustrating for both of us. A review system would be to your advantage if you're worth your snuff because most of us will ignore 25 nasty and negative reviews if you have 300 overwhelmingly positive ones. Look at YouTube. Although we may never be rid of trolls, people can be more generous than you might think. I would guess the main reason Daz isn't on Steam is this right here: Fear of Vox Populi. And I would guess that is the main reason why there is a serious stumbling block to the future growth of this community. Marvelous Designer has been greeted relatively warmly. I think Daz could be, too.
But I digress...
The quality that catches my eye more than anything else: Elegant, but Utilitarian.
Something attractive and useful, with the latter often outweighing the former. Give me a kit that I can use to make a unique set. Give me items I can use to alter something to my liking. Give me options that will help my work be different from many others who are using the same software and characters. Give me freedom to make choices in my art.
When value, elegance, and usefulness come together, I drop cash in your coffers. Now, I will add a qualifier. You cannot get my money unless you first get my attention. Presentation is so much, and indeed without a review system, it is everything. However, although beautiful renders and half-naked women sell product, some of us need more than just what sells fast. One of the strengths of this market/community is that it possesses many needful things, both in terms of existent work and desired product. Find your niche and you may do very well.
Sorry for wandering a bit from the point, but I thought my comments might be helpful to some.
This is not really true. Steam only "phones home" if the publisher of the game wants it to. Many games on Steam are in fact, DRM free. Steam simply offers the option, the publisher of the game on Steam is under no obligation to use it. Steam can also run in off line mode for weeks or more without connecting if one so desires.
So instead of being angry at Steam, look at the publishers of the certain games that use it that way. There is a wiki dedicated to highlighting games on Steam that are DRM free. For one example, Blender is on Steam, and it is the same DRM free Blender you get from Blender's own site. It has over 800,000 "owners" from Steam, BTW, with no advertising what so ever, which speaks volumes to the power of Steam as a distribution platform.
I think Daz has a lot of potential to really expand this 3D prop market it has. The next phase is it needs to simplify the licenses a lot. I believe licenses should be included with the product. Right now the license thing is not so clear. Some PAs have their own, but some do not. I know some PAs might shoot me by suggesting that, however, I think a compromise could be made. Eliminate individual PA licenses, but in exchange raise the PA stake from 50% to 60~70%. I really believe this is a big hurdle, if Daz is serious about their stuff for use in 3d game engines, they need to simplify the licensing big time. Morph3D does this, but Morph3D is not good enough. Kill Morph3D and merge it into the Daz Store. If making this happen is a problem for current current, then make sure to do it for future content...Genesis 4. And raising the PA stake makes them happier and more likely to keep making content. Raising the stake also makes it easier to make those riskier product ideas that people are debating here.
One thing to maybe think about, instead of Kickstarters...something like the Humble Bundle kind of thing where people name their own price (starting at an "X" amount.) You could do a "Daz Pay What You Want Bundle" (perhaps give it a nice snappy name) that bundles several products together, and have a portion the proceeds go to charity. Make sure to have a couple of tiers that can be unlocked with higher dollar amounts. You could maybe even add in a cool printed T-shirt at a high dollar tier. I think it would be a good experiment. Sure, there a many who pay just the minimum amount, but there are plenty of people who pay a lot more than the items are actually worth. You can look at any Humble Bundle and see there are usually at least a few who spend over $100 on a handful of cheap games. It is effectively like a tip jar. How cool would this be???
Logic, but I fear people have already decided their stance on the matter and what camp they are in. Your words may find fertile soil in the aspiring PA that is willing to look outside the box and try something different, or in a new way. But you see this in all businesses. The established businesses that have been doing anything long enough, think they have every angle figured out, and then along comes a Microsoft, or a Fed-Ex with a radical new way of doing something that everybody said wouldn't work, or hadn't thought of. And I'm pretty sure in each of those examples, IBM, or carrier services could have presented miles of statistics saying why those upstarts couldn't possibly succeed and didn't know what they were doing.
OK I'll put this question to people if price wasn't a consideration what would be some of the things you look for. Example how unique it was, the quality, current trending movie character, holiday themes ect .....
Very good points. Even so, I refuse to give up on attempting to inspire people to be more than they would settle for.
That's a hard thing to answer. Give me a few to think it over. I'll try to get back to you with something well thought out.
Things I look for are how well made it is. If it LOOKS like the thing it's supposed to represent. That can even be true for fantasy stuff. I LOVE detail. I hate (especially with environments) things that are too clean, even a newly painted room might have a small crack in the plaster here and there, a spot that's darker than the rest, some subtle bumps, etc. I like things with well-done shaders, whether it be skin, wood or anything in between. I also like "clutter" and by that I mean, well, say you have a living room. Looking at my living room, I have pillows on my sofa but they're not arraged perfectly...some are squished. There's a coffee mug on the coffee table, a couple remotes and a plate of cookies with half of them eaten. I have a glass container candle on the side table and a bowl with some candy on the other. There's a couple magazines. Some afghans. I like to see stuff I'd see if I were standing in my own house...even down to the cords coming off the lamps :) I know a lot of that sounds like a tall order, but it's the kind of stuff that's always attracted me. Might be why I like Stonemason's sets so much...they're usually pretty grungy. Like real life. LOL.
Laurie
The devil is in the details for a reason. I agree with this sentiment in general.
I will say I have been a fan of Stonemason's for a long time, and I think he sets the bar for all other PAs that's why his prices are higher he's got the wow factor for detail. Yes things like stitching on leather and wrinkles take time but really bump up the sales on a product. I've got myself a copy of Marvelous Designer so hopefully it will start me getting more realistic clothes. But point taken on the details Thanks !
Back in 2003, I bought a big order from DAZ around Christmastime. Among the things I bought were Victoria's Changing Ponytail Collection (list price $59.95), Victoria's Changing Ponytail Expansion Pak (list price $29.95), and Victoria's Changing Ponytail Expansion Maps/Poses (list price $9.95). I think (it's tough to tell exactly from the old invoice record as the discounts aren't given individually for the items) I ended up paying about $25 total for those 3 things given all the varioius discounts I took advantage of in that order.
Compare that to the new OOT Top Model Updo (list price $29.95) which you can get for $20.97 with the intro 30% discount and Top Model Hair Texture XPansion (list price $14.95) which you can get for $10.47 with the intro 30%, which you can probably get even cheaper with various other sales discounts right now (when I put just those 2 things in my cart with nothing else, the total comes to $26.73).
Bear in mind, these two sets of products fill exactly the same niche, in fact they're almost identical products conceptually/functionally, though the newer one fits the newest model and takes advantage of renderer improvements etc.
Another blast from the past, looking at my first order of record here at DAZ back in 2001, I bought the Victoria 2 model (list price $59.95) for about $33. And that's just the mesh, rigging, and, to give credit several, built in morphs, but no textures. Yesterday I picked up Monique 7 for about $17, you get the base G3F model and texture for free and you can get the base G3F body and head morphs for $5.59 each right now.
Have things really changed that much in terms of pricing over time?
I've never been afraid to buy something I really like if it's something I want. After all, I paid 200 bucks for Vicky 1, a texture, a craptastic ponytail and a bikini (IIRC) ;). If I like it and it looks like it's quality, I buy it. I might have to eat noodles for a few days and pass up something else, but I'll buy it ;). I really DO know the work that goes into this stuff.
Laurie
I've never regretted any purchase I've made from Stonemason, nor the price I've paid for it, nor do I always wait for sales to buy it. I can say the same for Faveral as well as a few other PAs. I have no idea if my spending habits are indicative of Daz users in general, but the fact that these people keep putting their all into each product they put on the market leads me to believe that their hard work is being rewarded, or that they are truly doing it because they take pride and like what they do.
I also appreciate that they tend to not simply try to follow the trends, but fill the store with useful, multi-purpose items.
Honestly, some have referred to treating online shops like they would a real world store on the street... except that if you were to walk into a real world store on just about any street corner anywhere and make demands like some do, or the sorts of comments that PA's are sometimes faced with in threads like this, you'd very quickly find yourself being asked to leave. I also suspect that, if you were to walk up to the check-out and tell the clerk that you would only pay 5$ for that $20 pair of shoes and complained/became insulting about the price being too high, you'd be told politely that you were welcome to spend your money elsewhere... most probably by the supervisor or store manager.
Making comments such as suggesting that the seller should be grateful that you chose to spend anything at all would likely get a less that polite response... particularly if you are saying it to the guy or girl making the product in question...
Not going at anyone specific, just pointing out that people seem to think taking this sort of attitude is fine online despite the fact that it would mostly not be in a real world face-to-face meeting, and that's not the way it is at all. And it's not just in DAZ's forums, or specific to our 3D community, it's to be found in almost every corner of the online "community" regardless of topic or group. When you start topics like this you should start by asking yourself "Would I be willing to put that much effort and time into doing what they do for the prices they charge?" (I'll bet you that a lot of you would say "Hell No!!!" if the situation were reversed).
Nor should the hard work of PA's be ignored, because the other side of the coin is that the PA's could all just stop providing you with the tools they are kind enough to create and then programs like DAZ and Poser would be essentially useless. Yes the PA's need to value customer input, but this does not mean they should be expected to devalue their own skills, or met with rudeness when trying to show how much work they actually do for what very little they actually make. When the end of the day comes, the individual PA's aren't the ones making the profit when 50% (more or less depending on the brokerage) comes off the top before discounts and etc and before the PA gets their cut. The prices could be lower yes, but the PA's also have to make up for losing half the value, then account for the man hours, tools, and hardware they need to buy for their part in the job.
Some have argued that this isn't the customers problem, but in any sort of business be it real world or online, costs incurred from production are ALWAYS passed on to the end consumer. That's basic economics 101. Those costs include labor time, tools and equipment, programs, materials etc... it's all factored in to the final cost and then profit margin added above that. It's just a simple fact of life, you can argue it any way you want, but there it is and it isn't going to change whether we agree with it or not. And trust me when I say that in part the prices at the stores are so low because they expect to sell 1000's of units a month... if they weren't selling in high volume the prices in most places would be much much higher. Even the electricity that is allowing your computer to function so that you can read all this has these things factored into the cost of delivery...
That $20 pair of shoes didn't cost the factory $20 to make, it cost less than $5. The wholesaler has to make a profit so they mark them up to $10, the Distributor has to make a profit so he marks it up to 15, the store wants a profit so they mark it up to 20... The difference is that it's a large corporation and they manufacture the items in such volume that they can afford to sell you a pair of shoes for 20$ and still make a profit.
If you went to a cobbler who makes custom shoes to order, you'd be looking at paying 800$ or more (likely far more) for that same pair of shoes... why?... because he doesn't manufacture 30,000 pairs of shoes an hour so he can't buy materials for cents on the dollar in bulk, he can't get a factory full of robots to do his work, and it's going to take him days to make that single pair of shoes. My point here is that you can't compare what PA's here in our community do to the stuff you buy in a store because the PA here is more like that guy making shoes by hand, than a factory that runs 24/7 and can do 90% of the work without a human being getting involved.
I understand being on a fixed budget, I'm disabled so I'm on about as fixed an income as you can get... I don't go to the store and complain that I can't afford the things I want because that's not their fault. I save up until I can afford what I want... and I pick and choose what I'm willing to spend the little money I have to buy. In this hobby, I couldn't afford to buy stuff for my art most of the time (food and bills are much more important), so I learned to make my own things and started selling them to have extra cash on hand to buy those things I decide I want from time to time...
I certainly don't demand that the stores or vendors lower their prices because I can't afford them, that's my issue, not theirs... they work darned hard and long to provide the stuff they do and we should all be thankful that they provide us with all the wonderful toys that they make. Being honest most PA's treat us customers like gold (those of you that know me know I go out of my way to help out where ever and how ever I can) because they depend on us for income, and they are customers themselves as well... and thier expenses can be much higher than ours...
The point in all this is that if you can't afford things at the current prices, then there are ways that you can change that... save up, wait for a sale, or start doing something to make money from your art so that you can grab the things you'd like to have. We should be supporting the PA's at every turn, because without even the simplest of props our runtimes would be empty and these great programs would be meaningless...
I've said my piece... sorry for the rant guys and gals...
Wow, this thread really blew up. I kind of figured it would get a couple of "I agree" and a couple of "I disagree" and that would be that and then buried deep in the forum almost instantly. It's really been a cool experience to see the discussions coming out of this thread (the bra one made me giggle). You guys are giving an interesting mix of opinions and keeping it pretty civil - it's much appreciated.
I appreciate everyone's opinions and feedback and I'm happy to see the deeper discussions develop. :) Thanks everyone, it's been good to see so many opinions, thoughts, and ideas come out of this.
I completely agree with this. Usually items created by Stonemason are pretty much an "insta-buy" for me. Yes, his prices are a bit higher but the quality is there as well as the versatility. The same can be said for Faveral's creations. Good craftsmanship is always worth paying for.
Nelsonsmith is absolutely correct.!!
Additionally if you do not already have a Massive Following on social media ( You tube , twitter etc),
Then a Kickstarter campaign will likely fail
And patreon tends to favor funding popular you tubers with a minimum of 100,000 channel subscribers.
My studies of kickstarter campaigns have me convinced that it tends to be a bit "idealogical" or" movement" based, where people are offering some hip alternative to what the "greedy corporations" are giving us.
Example:" Paramount/JJ Abrhams are making crappy forumalic Star Trek movies!! Help fund our indie startrek fan film for us real fans"
The whole"crowd funding" is not really compatible with a retail/brokered niche market Like Daz studio content.
Personally clothes, people and animals are almost never an Insta-Buy for me...
My Insta-Buys are generally archtecture and mundane props. Simply because I know I can use most of these multiple times. Clothes, particularly exotic sets, always come across as potential one use purchases. Scene settings I can usually make multiple uses of with different camera angles, lighting, as well as disassembly and reassembly into different configurations.
A secondary Insta-Buy would be different morphs and textures for people. Just because I know I can mix and match these, particularly if the characters are dial morphed.
I am probably in the minority in these buying habits though.
The one thing I get from discussions like this is the mistaken notion that some people have that just because the number of people that utilize Daz is obviously larger than the people who peruse and engage in forum activity, opinions expressed on the forums are minority opinions. That's a mistaken notion and there is no way to know if those people who choose not to comment either do, or don't feel the same way. A few PAs quite obviously don't see the forums as the useful tools they could possibly be.
Again, people seem to not look at real world examples and make analogies. Didn't anybody notice in a fairly recent election that a number of people that felt a certain way (that all the polls said were of a minority opinion) ended up being much larger than anyone suspected even though you had small vocal groups on radio talk shows and the internet that no one took all that seriously?
The license is the same, unless relaxed for a Merchant resource, for all content sold through the daz store (except for the Anne Marie Goddard Digital Clone). If you mean Game Developer Licenses, I think very few of us would be happy to find we were paying for those as well as a license to use 2D renders - and given the logistics game development has to be a minor part of the market.
I'll give you an actual example - Stonemason's Streets of Old London. And even though the initial asking price was higher than I usually spend in a month at DAZ, I purchased the set in its first week. Why?
First, I'd already be predisposed to buy such a set as an Anglophile. Your tastes can and will vary from mine but I am sure there are certain genres/locations that you're emotionally primed to purchase more than others. Second, I knew from buying smaller sets from Stonemason that his products have tremendous reuse value. They look good from multiple angles, are well-textured, respond well to different light treatments, and always have sections that can be turned on/off for more flexibility. Indeed, I spent many hours wandering about that set as a virtual tourist, setting up cameras, doing screenshots, and creating my own little folio of pseudo-London vacation snaps. This does not count actual sharable renders that I'd post in online galleries. Third, even though the initial cost was on the high side, it's still way cheaper for me than an airplane trip cross the Atlantic. :)
I've bought from Stonemason prior to that purchase, and I've bought from him again since. I found Old London, for example, ideal for so many picture stories I imagined. It could be a generic Euro horror setting, a Victorian Christmas scene, someplace for Martian tripods to stomp on, somewhere my zeppelins can fly over, a base for Steampunk hijinx, or an attractive urban setting for characters to walk around in.
Given that I'm an admitted hobbyist, the stuff I am likely to buy are things that are reusable, high-quality, and pretty divorced from mainstream media trends. I'm willing to pay more for these things. I will return to vendors again and again who provide me with what I am looking for.
Quality and versatility are the first things on my list. There needs to be an attention to detail, great work with shaders , a certain level of "realism". It also should be something I can easily get multiple uses out of. Thats very important for me when it comes to architecture /scenery type things which currently are most of what I purchase currently.
After scenery and props comes shaders and lighting. I'm always looking out for good shaders as these help with "refreshing" older items in my library as well as giving a slightly different look to something so that it can be used across multiple themes and projects. Lots of the really older content (some of which I have gotten literally for pennies on the dollar through various sales) is still very usable with the application of a few tweaks and some good shaders particularly when using iray to render. When it comes to lighting, a good set with solid documentation is wonderful because it will not only help to give good results but by having the documentation available I have the opportunity to further self educate so that I can create my own solutions where needed.
I don't buy as many outfits as I used to but when I do, it all games back to the trifecta of quality, versatility and realism. Chaimail bikinis might fit someone else's vision but the reality of medieval armor (both chain and plate) was that it covered much more of the body as well as having a tendency to scrape and chafe. That's why things like arming caps , arming shirts and gambesons were invented. Also, while there were relatively few females heading off to war, they darn sure did not do it in boots with 3 inch spike heels. They would never even make it to the fight before they broke an ankle. You can have beautifully crafted and very detailed boots without the towering spiky heels. I only have to look in my closet to know this. When it comes to more modern clothing some things to think about are "fit and finish". Not all jeans are painted on-especially when it comes to males- there are folds and wrinkles and these catch the light differently than smoothly fitted areas. They also change with the pose of the figure wearing them. Not all leather is patent leather. Like denim, the texture and look of good leather changes with age. Also, details details details. Clothing has buttons, zippers, pockets, belt loops and gussets. Armor has various fasteners as well. Those things should be represented. Finally on the gender split. It's a fact that men don't generally utilize as wide a range of clothing types as women do . I'm ok with this. However that's not an excuse to skimp on the quality of what is created. I know female oriented content sells more so please, when you make male content, do it well. The poor guys also deserve to look decent.
Finally we come to utilities. Anything that will let me covert stuff between 3Delight and Iray is always of interest. Likewise those utilities that allow me to use outfits hairstyles and poses between the various figures.
sorry if this is too long winded. The question was asked so I tried to give a good answer
No not too long at all, there's been some great info and I'm sure other vendors will be looking at this to. Thanks everyone who made the effort, it can only head in the positive direction !
Forums, as with polls, are only as useful as the results seem to show them to be. People can say certain product types are under represented in the store, and vendors can be in agreement with them, but as long as fewer people buy those products, especially within the first month after release, this trend will continue.
What gets me to buy are sets that are practical for everyday life, and sets that are operational. I can tell you from my product showcase thread that vendors who don't have separate walls for sets, are pinpointed- and people state they return/ don't buy the one-wall-for-all instead of separate walls. I'm not guessing on this. .
Window shades should roll up- and when it was pointed out Oriental Breeze Pool's pavilion had working bamboo shades, probably about eight (or more) people bought it right away, and many more wishlisted it and got it a month later. Give us functional sets! (That includes doors and cabinet drawers that open and close.)
For clothes, avoid the stiff crotches on male pants, and the over-exaggerated crotch. Some are so bad, it's distracting. Let people do their own morphing and don't build it into clothing. Or put a morph there for US to decide what to do, that would be even better. For all clothing, have more than "adjust all" or limited morphs. Some are really limited, to be frank. For hair, I often find the very tips of the front of the hair have no morphs. (say, the bottom four inches.)
So not just my two cents, this is from the folks who stop in to comment on the products every day. We want functionality!
I don't think this is a mistaken notion at all, though you do see forum members arguing that the forum, and more specifically, forum posters show a representative cross section of general user base at large. However, PA's here, vendors else where, and the predominance of certain types of images in the galleries here and else where tend to make one think that many of the "there is too much of xxxxx and not enough of yyyyy" that the vocal members of the forums are probably not representative of the general user base.
So, let's just take the whole idea of too much skimp wear issue as an example. There are many threads complaining about skim wear every year, yet what do we see the most of in the store and the galleries? Skim wear! I typically stay out of the skimp wear discussions, for one basic reason - I typically like skip wear (when done well), I like to make "cheese cake" images, and I'm clearly in the minority here. So why post my opinion to the contrary in every bash fest that comes up when it will just cause angst and discontent (though I do occasionally get tired of the bashing and say something). I've also been around the Poser/DAZ scene long enough to know that vendors will continue to produce items I like to buy regardless of what is said in the forums, because that is what sells, and the vendors will continue to produce what sells.
So, IMHO, I do agree with the PA's that forum topics and posts are not truely representative of the general user base. There are probably a lot of lurkers like me that simply chose not to participate in many discussions because our views are counter to those of the vocal majority, and we are getting most of what we are interested in anyway.
With regard to the original subject of the thread - pricing, anyone who has been around as long as I have remembers how much the original Victoria 1, Victoria 2, and Victoria 3 cost, and the price of other items back then.The prices todayseem to be much less to me, but my memory may be playing tricks on me. With regard to the items that "caused" this thread, on the surface (looking at the store "add" without looking at the product details) they seem to be rather expensive, because you don't see all of the additional features of the hair and the character morphs. There was a lot of additional work that went into these products over the typical hair and characters sets sold here. That is no doubt the reason for the slightly higher premium for them.
I'll also agree that in general, the prices have increased over the past couple of years (though still less than 15-20 years ago). But, in most instances the quality has also increased, so there is a bit of a trade off there. I can't really afford hardly anything when it is first released. I wish I could buy more during the initial release period to support the PA's a bit better, but I can't. On the other hand though, Both the PA sale and the PC sale this year gave me the opportunity to purchase many things that I could not have afforded otherwise, and some at insanely low prices. I don't mind buying older products, and since I spend a paltry amount here compared to most, there is always a lot of stuff available in the back catalog for me to acquire on sale.
As other have noted, this can be a fairly inexpensive hobby compared to other options (which is good because it's not my only hobby). IMHO DAZ, and the PA's here provide outstanding value for the price. Do I wish the prices were a little less, of course I do. Am I going to complain about the prices .... no, I realize the PA's and DAZ employees need to make a living
Hmmmm...What do I look for most?
Number one would have to be versatility. Is it a prop, figure, set, hair, clothing, that can be used in multiple renders without making everything look the same? When I buy a set like one of Stonemason's, I look at the different camera angles posted in the promos to see what ways the set can be staged to keep it interesting. The more detailed environments seem to have a lot more thought put into how they will be used in renders. I like that and it definitely makes me want it.
Clothing - I'm not limited to any one genre. But, I like to have a lot of types of outfits. So yes, I definitely want a couple of good bikinis, skimp wear as it were, historical wear, full armor, street clothes...etc. I look at all these as basics. So, if I have a few of each that can be reused with different textures and shaders, that builds in a lot of value. Similarly, I look for a lot of style morphs. That also adds to the reuseability.
Hair - Similar to clothing, I buy a lot of types of hairstyles with the idea that if this braided hairstyle closely resembles that one, I don't need to buy both UNLESS one of those models offers some extra versatility in the way of styling morphs. I'm a huge fan of Goldtassel's work for this reason. At least 50% of all the hairstyles that I own are hers/his.
What I would like out of most long hairstyles that I haven't figured out how to do yet, is a way to autofit the crown while leaving the rest of the style 100% posable. I realize that this would mean a lot of bones being added into the hair. But, it would be awesome just to have a set of pose dials that can move any of the hair pieces without completely deforming them. I always seem to missing just that one dial or little bit of extra room on a bend to make the hair fall the way I want it to. Or how about a Dynamic Hair that responds to gravity?
Anyway, what I do notice among all the various sets, props, clothes, and hair, is that there are lots of similarities between various items. It can't be helped. The real world is that way too. But, it does mean that I look for products that stand out either because they are just so beautiful in the renders that I have to have them...or because I can see that they will have many possible uses down the line. I am much more likely to pay top dollar for a really awesome set of shaders than I am for a new character. I'm also more likely to buy a new character if the bundle includes a new clothing item and hair because I know that I'll get use out of those items on other characters. So, I'm getting more value for my dollar.
Most of what I have bought in new releases over the past few months have either been sets and environments, utilities and props, or clothing and hair. I did buy Teen Princess Leila as a new character because I was so intrigued by the new eyebrows (which are quite nice). I would be interested in a merchant resource version of those eyebrows to use with my own creations.
Just some thoughts.
Agreed.
First order I placed at DAZ, January 21, 2003.
Victoria 3.0 Base ($39.95), Victoria 3.0 Head Morph Pak ($19.95), and Victoria 3.0 Body Morph Pak ($19.95). That's right. You had to buy the morphs seperately. And this did not include anything but one base resolution body texture.
Also Creature Creation Pak ($19.95) and Creature Creation Fantasy Maps ($9.95) because the textures had to be purchased seperately.
Pre-discount cost: $109.75
The discount was $19.08 for buying V3 at the same time as her two Morph packages.
Final cost: $89.29
As an addendum to my last post...
On January 22nd and 23rd I placed two more orders. This was after realizing the limitations of what I had purchased on the 21st.
Ultra Salon Hair ($19.95), Victoria 3.0 Character Pak 1 ($9.95), V3 "Day Dreamer" Poses ($9.95), Hollywood Hair Pak ($24.95), Victoria 3.0 Universal Texture Maps (High Res) ($24.95), Arthurian Style Bedroom ($11.95), and HighPoly Grass and Morphing Terrain Combo Pak ($16.95).
Price: $118.65
Discount: $26.49
Final Price: $92.16
So over the course of three days I spent $181.45.
For that price I got one base model with morphs (V3), two sets of hair, one texture package, one interior model, one landscape fixture, one set of creature props, and one set of poses.
Exactly right. Prices haven't really changed all that much over the years. I think people percieve that they have because they used to be even LOWER than they are now - caused by Daz itself (the old management) undercutting everyone else and therefore driving prices into the ground. Really, the prices are only just recovering.
Laurie