Is it about high prices, or high quality?
Tobor
Posts: 2,300
I know we customers like to kvetch about the prices of Daz assets. And while we'd all like to pay less, I was recently reminded what it is we are paying for.
I needed a few things for a new scene and found a couple of items on sale on another 3D marketplace site. I won't mention the site, the items, or the vendors, though I will say that at least one of the vendors has been around for years, and is well-known to most of us. I expected better.
Well, of the four items I bought, all four were low quality. Things like shoes that failed to follow normal foot positions, clothing that lacked simple adjustment morphs to accommodate displacement settings when collision fitting didn't do enough -- the list goes on. Really, all basic things that any good modern asset should do (and yes, these were all relatively new, for G3 or G8 characters). Though each item was in the $6 to $8 range (all were on sale), I'd say I definitely didn't get any bargains. I think I wasted several hours trying to make these assets work. They ended up costing me much more in wasted time.
I find myself having to be very selective in what I can get from the Daz store, but things there do seem to follow a consistently higher level of quality control.
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Comments
Well DAZ does have a QA team, that is well known.
Plus you can return the products within 30 days if you don't like them or can't make them work. I have wanted to return items from "the other store" that I ended up not liking. I have only once returned a thing to DAZ. One where I didn't read "Windows only"... I am a Mac user.
Pricing doesn't bother me since I am active in the bigger 3D world and prices are usually much higher for models used outside of DS. Quality is also hit or miss IMO. You have some PAs that go overboard with mesh resolution, textures and/or other options that can make addons unusable in a non solo scene. Then you have PAs that are just the opposite, especially when it comes to dforce items which are usually lacking in any kind of detail. Luckily I am not a fan boy for any specific PAs and just purchase what I can use and both big stores have return policies if needed.
I am also a cautious shopper, looking at a product many times and checking details before a purchase usually.
Daz 3d, my buddy told me about this and said "it's free". Free he said... I have sunk at least a couple grand shamelessly into some really amazing assets, but I wait and shop the sales and discounts. I grabbed most of my stuff deeply discounted so probably around 6K MSRP. I could not help myself, but I settled on buying things like Shaders, Prop Stuff outfits that had unique styles that I could use my shaders on. Definitely, the enhanced primitives and the create a room, character morph stuff and UV map sets when on sale. Then shopped scenes for props and things like that until I was feeling like I got my fair share.
The one thing I found really difficult was not shopping, but I shop without looking at price until I see that I have found things that look great, and then I move them to my wishlist and wait for them to be on sale because I can shop but I'm still a bit cheap. But, I do have a small business and an online presence and I am planning on expensing my purchases for business since it is in line with the products I have invested in and I will be using Daz renders for my website, and for creating renders for website artwork etc.
The other thing was finding decent props that did not belong to scene or set, so basically I worked like this... I wanted a piano. Saw a piano for 30USD, thought to myself its a nice piano. Waited... then a sale came along and there was a piano in a bedroom set, and it was beautiful and on sale for the whole set which had more great props for 1/3 the price of the single piano.
That is basically me I bought a wide variety on sale so I can make things with them and use shaders and primitives for things I don't have. I will pay if the price is right, but I have to wait for the sales, and I save loads of dough while spending more than I should ;s
Din't want to start another "prices are too high" thread, but I did want to point out that while Daz prices may be on the upper end, I usually get something usable, even if it has some warts. An example of the "quality" of one of the items from the other store was a pair of medium heel shoes that applies beautifully in a a static T-pose, but would not allow any foot movement without the mesh getting horribly distorted. And yes, this was a G3F shoe on G3F. I'm used to that when I try to auto-fit a shoe for another model. It's almost as if the QA consisted of loading the asset onto a T-post model, clicked on the various MAT options, and called it a day.
I'm gonna be the odd man out here: I think the prices we have to pay for content is a freakin' bargain. Do I wait for sales for some things? Sure! Do I like getting the best deal I can? You bet!! But that's only because I'm human...I also don't mind paying intro or even full price if it's something I want and can use. I was a vendor however, back in the day and I'm still a freebie provider - I KNOW how much work goes into things. The 16-20 hour days slaving over a hot computer to make things that people like and want ;). Spending monotonous hours creating (gag!) thumbnails and (even worse) promos. Staring at the same thing hour after hour. Then in the end getting a pittance for all of it. To be honest, I'm surprised so many vendors stick with it. It's a thankless, hard, tedious job to make this stuff. And I'm one of the thankless customers. I speak my mind when I see stuff I don't like or think looks strange. By the same token I like it when people do the same about my stuff. If they can explain to me what it is they think is "off", I can do better next time. Even so, it's hard working so long on something, getting so little in return and then people turn around and pick it apart. Again...dunno how some stick with it ;).
Laurie
Well if the well known vendor that you are complaining in the other store is the same one I'm thinking about, that vendor is also in the DAZ Store and their products used to be some of the more expensive products in the DAZ Store (lately they are about equal to a lot of other expensive vendors) and they have DAZ-style usability quality problems with their products in the DAZ Store too. However, their DAZ Store ad copy is immaculate, cleanly, and tastefully rendered to highlight their products in a good light.
This
Agree completely.
I fully understand the capability to make a living by selling content here. I also suspect that there are a number who make a usable living but don't come close to making minimum wage due to the hours required.
Also echoing Wol359 and AllenArt on the prices.
And then there's those of us that slave away at day jobs and use that money to support this hobby as best they can.
And also those that do nothing commercially viable with their renders. And they do DS just for the love and satisfaction - for 3 likes in the gallery and the only real appreciation is in that vendor's commercial thread.
16-20 hours of my life is valuable too.
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They have a balanced system. It's like nutrition and a health care system. No point trying to make health care free without focusing on making the population eat better, and stop smoking. lol. So if Daz is going to have such a liberal return policy then they MUST offer better products at a higher quality level and make sure whatever is promised is delivered. You need to understand WHAT you are buying, what you are GETTING and have realistic expectations.
No one is every customer and no single shopper-perspective fits all.
Yeah, I consider DAZ models to be mostly bargains too but the complaints of small returns and extensive labor is S.O.P. with every job I've worked, including jobs at $1 an hour and military training. I can tell you even at a $1 an hour during sun-up to sun-down work days if I cut, speared, or hung the tobabcco wrong or I was too slow at any of it, well they wasn't quiet about my inferior work. Likewise for not leaving tables spotless as a busboy and in the military forget about it they'd have their mouth just so near my face, veins throbbing and bulging, slobbering on me through their bared-toothed screams of disbelief, when running though my part of the commons area with white gloves looking for dust and LOL, and once nearly having a conniption when they found a dustbunny the prior resisdent of my common area had left behind for me as a small surprise.
I remember looking at Daz's website around 2006 or so, and I thought, "My goodness, by the time you could pay for all the things you needed to make a decent picture, you'd be out of hundreds of dollars!" But prices were higher then and huge discounts were not constant.
But now, tens of thousands of dollars later, I see things very differently, because my knowledge is not as theoretical. I want quality, consistently. I like feeling like I got a bargain. But I love knowing that I have a product that is not going to force me to wrestle with it in order to get what I expect to be par-for-the-course.
Vendors seem to conform to the same curve that is observable in other human endeavors: Six to seven perennially stand above the rest; most hover in the middle (occasionally showing glimpses of greatness), and the remainder will need to find another vocation (or continue to disappoint their customers). My favorite vendors are probably the same as most people's, I think. Luthbel is unchallenged as top male haberdasher, but he's stingy on morphs (and I think all men's pants should come with cuff/hem/shoe morphs). But I always buy his stuff because the quality is so high. Stonemason is the master, but sometimes he doesn't rig any doors. But I always buy his stuff because the quality is so high. BadKittehCo has taken to making items that I can hardly think of a use for. But I always buy her stuff because the quality is so high. High quality sets, gear, morphs, textures, and resources lend their quality to the image using them.
If Stonemason had charged us what Urban Sprawl 3 was worth, Daz would have had to issue credit cards so people could buy it. Moyra's maxed-out four texture set for the new male PC+ outfit is so beautiful, but the base set gives me tube sleeves, tube pants legs, no creases or folds, and no modeling of fly, pockets, or seams; consequently, I can't buy them because those kinds of outfits make my Daz figures look like SIMS, even at a distance. So, I'd rather pay for the good stuff. Similarly, popular music was a lot better and there were tons of good new music when we had to pay for it, although AllenArt makes freebies that always look like they cost me money.
DAZ has alot of vendors here who do this as a full time job, or as a serious second income. Because DAZ is really the only site where you can take this as a serious income. For these people (myself included), this is our "business" so we treat it with a professional business attitude and know that if we do not put out quality work it will affect our reputation, and if we get a reputation of being lesser quality, then our sales will reflect it. So our professional attitude is very important, it keeps us putting out the best quality products that we can, and to continue to grow and do better each time.
You wont find the same kind of dedication to someone who is only doing this as a hobby.
I know lots of hobbies where folk are extremely dedicated to quality in doing their hobby with no expectation of earning money from their hobby with much larger amounts of money and time spent that what a DAZ rendering hobbyist spends whatsoever, so earning lots of money isn't enough motivation in most cases to ensure quality. Why, the are entire brick & mortar businesses chains in Europe & America dedicated to supplying hobbyists so hobbies are a serious money making business and the hobbyists that shop at those places ain't laying out peanuts but real money from in most cases a very limited income. Insistance of quality has to be part of your personality and if you're a business hiring people it has to be part of their personality. The most reliable way to get workers that insist on quality is if they enjoy the work they are doing or if they respect their customers, their coworkers, and their employers so much that the embarrassment would be great if they, for example, left a dirty table for the next customer to notice (although I enjoyed bussing tables my coworkers and customers where of course the much bigger motivation to do good work). That's what university and vocational school is all about really, future workers sorting themselves into professional niches that they enjoy and want to do. Money is never enough to motivate, even people that have it only want it do do other activities they enjoy or they want it for status.
What would you consider to be high quality as in how much distortion before and after fitting is considered acceptable, what are the opinions on making parts of the character geometry invisible to accomodate easily removed poke through on clothing items be it shoes or any other item, I don't buy many background elements so what does one consider to be high quality in objects like trees, grass and structures
My minimal quality assessment for clothing would read like:
1) fits the base character, eg G8M or G8F, with no poke through
2) poses once fitted generate no poke though
3) The materials supplied render correctly for the correct engine (this causes the least trouble anymore for DOs)
4) The quality bonus is often PAs & DAZ create fitting/posing morphs & JCMs for other DAZ Originals so that 1 & 2 is mostly true also with Ollie 8, Edie 8, Girl 8, ...
I do work the occasional 16 hour day (yesterday was one), but my job pays me extremely well, and I get to work from home in my pajamas (I'm wearing a leopard print fleece bathrobe as we speak). To achieve and maintain that I end up doing some things the forum hates, but on the other hand, I still get paid to do stuff I love. As long as you don't burn out, this is the best job in the whole world for an introvert with a willingness to constantly educate themselves.
And promos are the fun part, for me anyhow. That's when I get to see what I've made and what it really can do.
So I don't need anybody's gratitude. I just like to avoid the actual yelling when I can. :D
That is pretty much my expectations also. As long as the items fits the character it is for and has little to no mesh distortion, then I am good. holding up well after autofit is a plus IMO
Greetings,
The quality of items here at DAZ are in general higher, and I appreciate both that and the return policy for the cases where that fails.
The prices are a bit higher, but with sales and such, it comes down a lot, and I am very, very happy for what I get for the money.
For what it's worth, while I feel @ermullens questions are combative, I will say that hiding mesh geometry that is completely covered by clothes is not just okay, but preferable to me. I often have to do that myself for memory reasons, and I'd much rather the clothing automatically did it for me.
The quality of non-character elements are (for me) all about how close you can get versus how close you need to get. There's a major city (sold here!) that is priced like a high-end set, but you can't have a character standing in the street, because the textures are so low resolution, and the polys are so large that there's no detail at human scale. You can't put people on the visible apartment decks, because the textures are just a smear at human scale. And you can't fix the textures because the polygons (quads?) are weirdly shaped, really large, and span between areas. It's absolutely stunning for distant views, but can't compare with sets that are BOTH stunning at a distance AND have details down to detritus and painted symbols on the curbs.
On the gripping hand, the set is regularly discounted by 70+% and there are people who SWEAR by it, because it's exactly what they want. A low-poly city backdrop that they can rotate and show in different scenes, and it has a particular 'style' that appeals. Those folks don't need to get close up, and so the quality of that set is great for them. In general, 'how close up do I need to get' vs. 'how close can I get' is a reasonable measure of quality. If the latter matches the former, I think most people are happy, and as the latter scales up, so does the price. You'll see that promos subtly give you clues about how close you can render items, too.
I find that what DAZ accepts for the store regularly meets or exceeds my quality thresholds for items that I can see myself rendering with. At that point, I'm going to buy it. Price comes in and makes it a decision of 'Now' or 'Later'.
-- Morgan
ditto :) I love doing this
I find that what DAZ accepts for the store regularly meets or exceeds my quality thresholds for items that I can see myself rendering with.
I was, like the most clueless customer when I started. I remember NOT knowing what was a set and what was a backdrop and what was included in the product verse what was shown in the promos...
Still happens occasionally, but then you start a forum thread if you are unsure. I only recently learned about Tiling (editing the vertical and horizontal tiling in the parameters tab to increase the amount of tiled surface texture per square) to sharpen the ....sort of resolution of objects...Or using shaders to replace the textures. I had a bunch of sets where the grass is big green squares or the ground is brown squares.
Like you said, from a distance it looks great. But that, is really a sideeffect of the INTENDED design. To get that FAR shot manageable, you need less details for memory conservation. Makes sense.
I bought Greebles, once, and thought I purchased a people-scaled-city. lol
In the case of the shoes I mentioned the problem was the mesh getting distorted with normal foot movement, which isn't acceptable no matter what. I have morphs that shrink body parts for this purpose, and sometimes I have to use them, but typically with a clothing article that is incompatible with the model. For mashups I'm willing to go to extents, but a commercial product designed for the character I'm using it on should operate within normal expected limits.
For trees, grass, and structures, that's a tougher call because for me I'd gravitate toward these assets if they were highly detailed and realistic -- think Stonemason. The more realistic the tree, shrub, and landscape, generally the more memory the scene takes, so it's a tradeoff. I've always appreciated Stonemason's consideration of actual workflow, allowing for things like removing/adding parts of the city blocks.
"Quality" isn't always in the mesh or textures. It's also in the interface. I love products that are one-click, then provide for variablity in the parameters panel.