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...I really love your everyday props bundles. So bloody useful for so many scenes.
Would be nice, definitely. People would actually understand what we go through and how much times this stuff actually takes and the returns we get on it. In a great majority of times you are just breaking minimum wage. Even a quick video explaining the process that all us PA's can link to. We are all to often criticized cause of our prices, if they understood it may help.
JCMs are a lot like good makeup: they make a huge difference but generally the viewer doesn’t even notice it.
I think the majority of the critisism regarding pricing is because people might think ok, someone spent two months doing this, but then they sell it at 10 dollars, and sells thousands of items, they are all getting really rich. I think there is a huge missconception about how large, or small, this business really is.
...that is another daunting part. What I look to create most likely would not generate a lot of sales. Finding that "niche" which isn't being filled has also become tougher and tougher. My modelling interests are "real world" vehicles and aircraft, classic rockets/spaceships, realistic/accurate pipe and cinema organs, as well as cyber future settings and props like implants and related gear.
The items that sell the best here tend to be characters, clothing (particularly "sexy" styles), fantasy & horror themed items, and hair and there are a number of highly skilled PAs already providing these products.
Can anyone clue me in on how they make new skin textures for the characters? I mean at some point I'd think you'd have to get a camera out, and hire someone and photograph every inch of skin, in perfect lighting with no shadows, and then somehow Photoshop it to death so you can align the photos with the UV maps. Either that or they just tweak the base G3 or G8 character skins that somebody at DAZ spent a lot of time developing from a 3D scanner or whatever.
...that used to be the case with a lot of Gen4 cahracters. As I recall Thorne and Sarsa used photo references for their skins. I believe that was also done with the Reby Sky content.
There are also merchant resources available which some use.
You have two ways. One is to use a merchant resouce that a talented PA developed from scratch just for the purpose of users wanting to create a "commercial" skin yet they were lacking in experience or skill.to do it from scratch themselves.
Then you have the way the MRs are created, either from scans or textures worked together in an image editing software onto the texture template. Here is a good resource https://www.3d.sk/
If you ever do run across a character with reworked textures from a PA or DAZ character package, please report them ASAP so they can hopefully be delt with!
This is true. I most items in the store don't sell nearly as many copies as many people think they do. The PMs I got asking about my Altern8 product definitely opened my eyes to the misconceptions many people have about how much PAs make. I think many people have a misconception about the volume of sales that is typical for most products. There are going to be outliers of course, but I think most PAs don't make nearly as much as many people assume they do.
it is better do nudes on dA and working on commisions, minimal is 100 USD per 3D image, believe me, it works
I really appreciate the hard work all the PAs do.
In the (Male) Content Creation thread, I repeat several times that making content is hard work with lots of tedious details.
eg. https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3770126/#Comment_3770126
I started the thread in response to all the people complaining. I genuinely hoped there would be at least a little more content, even if just offered as freebies. I very much appreciate the willingness of so many PAs to share their knowledge in the forums. It really is remarkable. Even more than the risk and the tedium, I'd have a hard time coping with the whining when the person doing the whining has no clue. Of course, I reserve the right to continue whining on my own behalf, despite my ignorance.
Two enthusiastic thumbs up to each of you.
I think you're right in that many people probably don't know how much work goes into creating a product. Character creation alone is something that is vastly more complex and difficult than I thought it was before I became a PA. I thought it was just "make some mats and make a morph" and holy moly it's insanely more complex than that. Genesis 8, now more than ever I think, because lashes aren't part of the mesh anymore so you have to have special scripts to load the lashes with the character and fibermesh brows are becoming more and more the normal so scripts to get the character to load with the brows too. And don't even get me started on everything else "under the hood" that most customers don't even know about like Joint Controlled Morphs, Dial Control Morphs, ERC freezing, etc.
From texturing every inch of a character from irises and scleras to eyebrows and makeup and toenails and everything in between, to creating, loading, and saving the head and body morphs, creating and properly saving Joint Controlled Morphs, loading and properly saving all the different material presets, loading and properly saving morph control sliders, creating morph apply/remove presets into the character's folder, and all the while making sure that everything is set up "just so" in all the correct folders with all the correct naming so that the pathways are correct, and then when all that's done setting up and rendering out all the different icons and tip files, and setting up and rendering all the promotional images.
Then the "fun" part of submitting the product - which can take quite some time and almost always requires changes to the product in some way which is more time and work to set up and often resaving things you've already saved, redoing promo images if they want changes, etc.
A crazy amount of hours, work, and stress can go into creating products here and I think that's overlooked by a lot of people. While much of the art community still has a view of 3D art in thinking there some kind of "make art" button when it comes to digital art - I think a lot of people have an idea of 3D products in similar whys, that there's some kind of "make product" button - ignoring the work that goes into the sculpting, painting/texture creation, and all the technical knowledge needed to set everything up and save everything out properly in Daz Studio. It's WAY more complex and difficult than I thought it was before I became a PA, and probably more work than most other people realize.
Quoted for truth.
There are hidden things beyond even stuff like JCMs.. Like poses you'd think would be the easiest things make but they have a ton of extra stuff too if you're planning on selling them, even more if you're selling them at Daz.. If you're making poses that go with props, or even shoes there are a bunch of extra steps, one of which includes hacking code to get it all working the was Daz wants it... it takes a long time and concentration, and a lack of fear digging around code. (I like digging around in code, but it still takes a long time even for a couple foot poses, I can't imagine doing a whole set of like 20 poses with mirrors... gah)
And they don't take into account the uber discounts Daz always runs and how that effects PA's. IDK where people got the idea that you can sell a a couple hundred or even a thousand of a product. This market isn't that big.
With the exception of a few bigger names most PA's are lucky if they even break minimum wage numbers. Doing this as a full time job is rough going like myself who is disabled and can't work outside the house. It's really good for part timers who are looking for play money.
An PA author stated they made about $1100 for a product that was strictly comic book style male warrior armor that they recently released and they also said was number one in sales for a very short while. The sale price was about $20 so $1100 divided by $20 = 55 copies of the product sold. Maybe more, if there was some discount that kicked in after loading one's cart and adding the other sales items that might trigger those extra discounts.
So I think that's probably pretty typical for any non-DAZ Original Pro Bundle product that isn't a very nice female model or very nice model female clothing. I would guess those regularly sell 100 copies judging from how many times the PAs revisit those wells. Actually, it was stated female items outsale male items by much more than two to one ratio so then that would be more than average of hundred copies for female themed PA products on average not counting DO Pro Bundles, PC+, or DO products wouldn't it?
Having made programmer's and SA's salary those numbers though aren't very tempting to me, at least professionally.
Texturing invisible dirt is another one. You notice when there is no dirt and the item is pristine and sterile. You notice when it is zombie apocolypse or crime scene dirty. You do not see the dirt at all when you get it just right. It is harder than one might think to get that medium.
@DivaMakeup, the odds and ends noone thinks of like rendering the thumbs and saving and filing all presets gets easier in time. Like driving, it becomes second nature. But that is definately the WORK part of this work.
hahah I actually find the rendering of the thumbnails not so bad and can be kind of fun - but definitely filling out all the presets is the "work" part for me - that and setting up the morph dials and JCMs.
I have fun doing the morph sculpting and sometimes the rendering of thumbs is fun to me. Most of the rest of it is a lot of work though, imo. But you're right, I think it will get easier with time. Right now (having not done it much) and having to remember how to do everything is a real challenge. I'm finalizing a character right now that really kicked my bottom in the "challenge" department. It's the most work I've ever put into a product. I just hope the insane hours is worth it and that Daz accepts it.
When your talking about working 12-16 hrs a day 7 days a weeks for 3 months on a pack. You need to sell A LOT to pay for your time and that seldom happens.
When your talking about working 12-16 hrs a day 7 days a weeks for 3 months on a pack. You need to sell A LOT to pay for your time and that seldom happens. There is the occasional hit and its nice to see the rewards but in most cases it's just disappointment. It finally makes money over the yrs but not much help out the gate.
...even for "play money" it is a major financial commitment as one has to still have the proper tools (which includes UV mapping and texturing) to create high quality products.
When you are living on less than 1,000$ a month, it just isn't possible.
I wasn't claiming that prices are too high or anything but stating using the prior stated facts by others that the average PA female items must be doing 100 sales or more in contrast to sales of the average PA male items. I've bought all I can afford for over 2 years so it's not like I'm depriving the PAs or DAZ 3D of profit.
As far as work hours go, it's your choice & your job. I've worked 16, 24, even 36 consecutive hours multiple times making $3.35 an hour and walking multiple miles to and from work doing the only job that would be given me by any business so it's not like I'm not familiar with long hard hours just to earn a wage that wouldn't even let me rent a place on my own or afford to eat except leftovers given to me by the hotel. And there was never a chance those long hours working was ever going to get me anything later in the way of profits, commisions, or promotions or material comforts. Yet, I enjoyed work, my coworkers, and the customers but I left all that behind because it was abusive to me ultimately although none of my coworkers, bosses, or customers were abusive to me personally but that's what the hotel business was, maybe it's better today. I'm sure there have been and are worse jobs.
You >can< make great product with just Hexagon/Silo/Blender/Wings, Gimp, and UV Layout Classic for very low or no cost in programs.. it just takes a heck of a lot longer and a lot more frustration in some cases. I mean if you can learn how to use Blender you're set for most things modeling and UV mapping and morphing.. texturing is really the kicker though, Substance just makes it so much easier (especially that invisible dirt DG mentioned) but you don't need Substance to make textures for Iray, and you can make textures that work with 3DL in Substance, I do it all the time, sometimes the final maps take some altering, particularly if you have metal bits that aren't on their own material zone so they need to be darkened from almost white to dark grey for 3DL, but that's not at all hard to do in Ps/Gimp.
..Blender never clicked with me. Hexagon on the other hand has such an intuitive UI and setup, it lets me focus on the complexity of modelling more readily, particularly since much of the instability has been dealt with in the Beta releases. My only 2D programmes are Gimp and an old version of PSP. as I never could afford PS. Didn't care for the free version of UV mapper as all the surfaces overlapped each other and it didn't have a consistent scaling function on both the X and Y axis.
Yeah, I don't think it's really feasable to use just UV mapper classic for everything, I did manage to use just it and Hex for all my early products. Blender of course has much better mapping tools, so does Silo IIRC. Hex's UV mapping is.. just.. ugh. But when it's what you have you force it to work, even if it means moving point by point, which I did... and then I bought a wrist brace. And then I fanally gave up and bought UV Layout.
This is a great thread! Thanks all, I have been tinkering with the idea of doing content creation for some time, too. I don't however, plan to quit my day job.. maybe set my sights as a side gig or a residual retirement income. I want to learn 3D and recently invested in MODO.. however, huge learning curve there. I have dabbled in texture art for some time, playing around with Filter Forge, Genetica and most recently Substance. Most everything I have created is for personal gaming content and/or have put up for free; most I haven't put up at all. Everything--including the learning curves-- takes time; (I see that reiterated in other posts here as well); there is definitely lots of time involved and unfortunately, that is something I currently don't have a huge amount of with holding a day job.
I definitely have a huge amount of respect and admiration for the effort and time spent on the beautiful creations here at DAZ.. I spend a lot of my money and time just browsing 
Another thing that has not been touched upon here is that the market is always changing.
What may have worked as a selling/production stratedgy 5 years ago would not work in todays market. This whole business is in a constant state of flux, and you have to be adaptable to ride along with those changes. What the customer looks for in products changes. The types of products customers look for changes. The technology changes and we have to learn and adapt. Even the way DAZ releases products changes and affects how we make money on products too. There are many such hidden variables that can leave your head spinning as to what to do to keep up, and there is no manual for that kind of thing. You have to be ready for alot of trial and error in your production so that you can learn for yourself what is happening with the market. Because there is no one out there to tell you that, you are really on your own.
That said, a number of pa's do talk with each other and share their opinions on what they are seeing in the market, and that does help, but in the end, every pa has their own style, so even what one pa sees going on, may be totally different than for another, just because their products are that little bit different.
The math on that would be $20 sale price, daz always get 50% so the amount the PA gets would be $10 per transaction so 110 unit based on the math. But there is rarely a transaction that does not have a coupon or an additional discount, so maybe the number of unit sold is a little higher (120-130). Still market is miniscule. always has been.
Oh, thanks, I neglected the extra 50% cut DAZ takes. That makes the DAZ sales for female & female items I guess better but not anything most people would want to do as a full time job although if one is talented and can produce a quality product $2200+ a month before taxes is not bad compared to many jobs. Seeing that $1100 a month after DAZ cut & taxes though seems to tell me that those few that do regularly do this work monthly or in greater quantity make more than $1100 a month after taxes to be able to stay in the job and do HW & SW upgrades or it is a second job from their full time job at another business.
By the way, $1100 a month after DAZ commission, and taxes, for those that indicated they wanted to model 3D, works out to $6.43/hour, $254 a week (with 2 weeks unpaid vacation like other minimum wage employees get), $1100 a month, or $13,200 a year. Not a disaster but not the EA Games hit game or Platinum Music Recording income some people seem to think is the case. Minimum wage is currently $7.25 in most circumstances in the USA but in the state of Georgia the legal minimum wage can be as low as $5.15. That minimum wage does exclude waitresses and waiters which get paid much less in some bizarre twist of miserly reasoning. Not having to drive to work can save one much money and a car loan debt plus the worry of a car always breaking down at such low pay, not having to constantly fund a means of private transportation and private transportation insurance that keeps breaking down that every other worker is forced to fund in the US that doesn't live in NYC or similar areas.
Here is a fellow talking about the comic book penciller & inker industry but he's top rate:
If DAZ Studio ever has a work flow that is used in a hit comic book series and expanded to a set of comic books or likewise animations and games you could expect rates for DAZ models to go way up I guess.
Your $6.43 calculation assumes PAs are only working a standard 40 hours a week, but given from what many have said above, most work a lot more hours per week than that, pushing that 6.43/hour figure much lower.