Does rendering remove $$$ Guilt? (MM related, sorta)
Griffin Avid
Posts: 3,815
in The Commons
Wondering who else gets antsy when they haven't USED things they've purchased for a while.
When I'm creating or using items- the cost seems much easier to justify.
I get that pit in my stomach and wonder if I'm becoming a collector- instead of some kind of enthusiast who needs new tools and material.
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...it depends.
If you are on a tight budget like myself and don't have a big beefy GPU card for rendering in Iray, there can be little solace. For example, I recently picked up Urban Future 5 at a pretty darn good price, but it renders excruciatingly slow on the CPU almost like I am using in Reality/Lux instead of Iray. Kind of regretting the purchase not because of anything wrong with set itself, but the fact I probably won't be able to use it until I can get a decent GPU card with enough memory along with a physical memory upgrade to support it (whenever that might be).
That's why my wish-list is staggeringly huge (over 2000 items). Anything that looks cool, but I don't need now, can't see using in the short term, and/or doesn't immediately inspire an idea on its own goes on the wish list.
Unless it's a freebie. :)
Everything will eventually go on sale again. With luck, it will go on sale when you need it to and have the funds for it. :)
I do go through the wish list once or twice a year to cull things that, as of the day I cull it, I'm not likely to use. About a third ends up back on the wish-list within 2-3 months. :)
That said, I think there are only a few things that I actually regret buying - mostly stuff I thought I'd use more that ended up not being used at all. Heck, I initially bought AniMate because at the time it came out, my daughter's elementary school still had 5th graders do a short video project as part of their computer class (she was in 3rd or 4th grade at the time) and I wanted to be set up for potential upgrade paths... and then they changed the curriculum, since most kids didn't actually need computer instruction by that point.
Luxus (an alternative to Reality) was another one. That's when I realized Photoreal wasn't my style.
But nope, I don't get ansty about it. Of course, I've also been at this long enough that I only install pre-genesis stuff when I need it, and leave the rest undownloaded and uninstalled.
I'll probably never use all the stuff I've purchased, especially many of the older products which in many cases are sort of outdated now (replaced by better products), but I look at it from the bright side - I have a huge variety of things to choose from if I need to do a certain project. Better one item too many than too few.
Also, I have experienced many times that something I'd wishlisted suddenly disappeared from the store so I always get them while I can, which is probably the main reason I'm purchasing so much. If I knew everything would be available in the stores "forever" I'd probably just wishlist those items I like or which could be useful in projects and then purchase them when I needed them.
Rendering cool stuff makes me wish I had more
My wishlist is down to about 130 now, down from 500+. What's funny is how one item replaces another. So many armor sets that weren't on sale and outfits too---
stayed on the wishlist until something new and shiny and most importantly - ON SALE comes along and it knocks all the other items off the list.
This new alien kills about 4 or 5 book marked aliens...
Those recent wasteland outfits killed a bunch of ensembles...
So my wishlist is being depleted, not by sales, but by NEW ITEMS that are awesome.
unexpected.
And some OLD stuff that I passed over - all that Macaroon ship stuff is not suddenly a must-have.
I have TONS of unused products but when something goes on extreme sale, I can't help myself and I pile up my cart with things that go super low priced. But like kyoto kid, I'm CPU only, so now all heavy render things go in my wishlist and I'm stocking up on older stuff at great prices. I really don't need the super realistic sets although I purchased a bunch before I realized how long they take to render. I really enjoy postwork and prefer creating artistic work to photoreal stuff anyway. Right now I have a zillion cute RDNA toon things on top of all the V3/M3 through G3 stuff, I doubt I could render everything in my lifetime!
I get around to rendering most things at some point. Right now I have a render going with two Grim's in it (which is well over 10 years old). LOL.
Laurie
Rendering does help with the guilt! I've picked up so much in the last round of blowout sales that I haven't yet gotten to. Time to go shopping in my runtime and Product Library rather than the store!
Well for me what rendering does..... takes just a little bit of money spending guilt and turn it into a little bit of time spending guilt. I must say I have heaps of both kinds of guilt. Doesn't stop me though, lol. I love my hobby and my hubby for putting up with me. :)
Rendering does help the guilt.....but there is nothing wrong with enjoying a collection too ..we all have our hobbies, there are worse things to collect
Sounds like an "I hate you for your sales, Daz3D" thread.
Yeah, it does make me feel better. I have also bought a lot that I haven't used. It's during the sales when something is cheap, if I like it I can't resist. I've gotten pickier now with my library built up quite a bit, and realizing how much I haven't used. Like many others, I'll think if I have a near-term use for it, if not then I'll pass or wishlist it. Unless Daz really has a good discount, like 70% or better - than it gets too hard to resist!
Or if something is too cool to pass up - like the R.A.P.T.O.R.. I purchased it, gotta think of a use for it.
nope I like the sales no giult & no regrets, mostly because I'm a Dazoholic ..lol plus I only buy things I know I will use.in my projects, buying thing just because they are on sale is just silly :)
I never feel guilty about anything, and I virtually never purchase with a specific render in mind.
I would rather want to render something and not have the specific story/theme available for my vision. If the thing doesn't work now in what I'm doing now, it still could work later.
I don't like the situations where I have a vision but I don't have the 3D thing in order to complete the vision.
Bandwidth is my problem, not guilt. I wish I could buy more!
i have stuff purchased in 2001 that i have never used :) ,,,, and all years since. I do wonder why I bought the stuff. Seemed like a great thing at the time.
and am starting to go back to the old purchases.
Yes, it seems more of a collector than user.
Also why I just did a render with Victoria 1
Will I buy more. Probably
Sure, sounds like it when you put it that way!
But a lot of stuff will just look good or cool, and I want it, thinking I'll do something down the line with it. Or, I know I'll use it for a certain project, then something that I like better comes out and I snatch it up leaving the first purchase collecting dust. It kills the deal-seeker in me to buy something at full price when I need it NOW.
Haha, I do that too. I have sooo much stuff, from V2 up. I don't know where to begin so sometimes I pick a random character I've never used, play around with morphs and textures and mix with various kit bashed clothes I've never used with shaders I've never used and hair I've never used and see what I come up with. Often when I'm shopping on the site, I look at something, come up with an idea for it, imagine the whole thing in my head, purchase the product, then don't even create what I imagined, because in my head, it's already done and now it just seems redundant to actually create it LOL. So months or many years go by and I still haven't used it. I think sometimes I actually enjoy imagining the art more than creating it but I still spend a lot of money on my overactive imagination!
Well it definitely is a lot easier...
Makes me feel better, especially about stuff I do impulse buying.
...if you entered the RRRR challenge like I do you'd have a lot of stuff to randomly choose from. I just did a draw for the current one and came up with both a V4 and A3 character.
...yeah I have a lot of stuff like that. Most of it I bought while trying to create characters and settings for my story back in the Gen4 days which now sees little use (unless like mentioned above I draw it for an RRRR challenge)..
My favorite item turned biggest disappointment were the AoA lights and effects cameras that were partially broken by the 4.7 update when something in the shader mixer was changed. The Advanced Lights were my "go to" lighting system since they were way more render time friendly than UE which is why I do so little anymore in 3DL. As of late most of my purchases are Iray shaders, morph expansions, and some vendor resources. My next major purchase will most likely be SkinBuilderPro3 as it will be a big money saver (as I don't need to purchase separate characters for skins) which will finally make G3 far more useful.
I don't regret having so much stuff. I can use it when I want and always finding new gems I forgot I had.
...for me it's not so much regret based on "guilt" as it is "oh rubbish, that's going to take at least a day to render in Iray on my system" (as I found out with Urban Future 5) or "what, there are no poses or style adjustments for that neat looking hair I just got?"
For me yes it does. Although I have no problem admitting that I am a collector as well. I try hard to stick to a budget though and since I now have a fairly large library, I am a lot more discerning in what i purchase. And I hope to one day be good enough to do book covers and the like so I will have plenty of stuff to use.
Greetings,
No egrets here either... I don't always have time to render, but I love having the stuff available to, should I find the time.
-- Morgan
With the huge variety in my library, which is intended, it could lead to some interesting, probably quite surrealistic, renders I think.
I approach images a bit differently than most, I think. I start with a notion to create a certain character or use one I have or a specific scene set. That's my only goal. I then go browsing my stuff and decide I'll use this outfit. Then I browse some more and decide to use this background or that set or that landscape or add this other character. And on and on building a picture almost through serendipity.
At some point an idea takes place and I decide how everything interacts. Then I go browsing for filler stuff, fleshing out stuff, like props.
That makes me a browser, not a searcher, so having TONS of stuff to browse through is better than having just a few things--and lot more fun.
I don't feel (too) much guilt over this, especially since I went through years of not being able to.