Please Daz....more info on your character product promos...
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I did put "Daz" in the thread title, because I don't think it's a PA issue. In fact, I did mention that most PA's make promos that are relevant and that I want to see ;). It's mostly the Daz DO releases that are all just, well, pictures, and I can see that stuff in the galleries. What I want to see are options like makeup and eyecolor, fronts/backs, etc. ;)
Laurie
HA HA! Human Skin Henna Gloves. It's a thing! (NOT! and EW!)
Exactly! The "no backside view" is something I frequently come across at DAZ. I've also learned to be extremely suspicions of any set that doesn't have an overhead view, as all too many turn out to be just 2 walls, lacking doors and ceilings, or have the props all fused into a single piece.
Again this is the nuance I'm talking about, what one user thinks may be valuable may be only valuable to them, not others. Ultimately it comes down to what DAZ accepts that ends up on the store page. There's been instances where a PA has made promo that addressed something a user wanted and it was cut from the list of promos that made it to the store page, or a promo was ordered to be redone before the product is accepted to the store. It may be easy for a customer to say what a PAs should do, but it's not actually what a PA experiences in getting a product to market.
For the last time, this post was not directed at a PA but at DAZ. The company. The place I give all my money to. The business. They used to have more informative promos with their DO characters but that changed somewhere along the line and they got the idea that we just wanted to see pretty pictures. I don't. I want to see the kinds of promos they USED to have. Yanno, the ones that showed what I was actually BUYING. Not 50 different outfits and 25 different wigs. The CHARACTER.
Laurie
As a comparison, there is this PA character and Kala 8 DO....notice anything? Oh, right...the PA character shows...OH!...makeup options and eye colors that I will be getting. What does Kala show? Well, in Daz's defense, they DO show her back. So there's that. But the rest are artistic renders of hair that I might or might not have/get and a bunch of clothes I might or might not have/get, along with other renders of...are those all the makeups and eye colors? I have no idea. There's NO WAY TO TELL.
Laurie
I guess everyone has room to grow.
I see several pics to show you the different eyebrow colors. I see front and back pics. There are many pics that show many of the different makeups incorporated in a pretty picture.
I think basically, the details are there.... just presented in a different format than we are used to.
But why should it be a guessing game, right? ;) I'm not sure what was wrong with the old, tried-and-true approach.
Laurie
When Taoz mentioned a product with 24 promo images I thought I knew exactly which PA the were referring to. So, I went to check, and I may have been wrong about that. Checking one of the most recent products by the PA that I thought was being referenced reveals a total of ... wait for it ... no less than 38 promo images for that product. Now, mind you, the products by that PA do tend to be somewhat pricier than average, which may have something to do with it, but they also include a lot of value-added features and options that might be overlooked by anyone unable to get past the price. Be that as it may, there is, as one might guess, very little left to the imagination after having browsed through those promos - front, back, side, clay, mat zones, textures options, morphs, posing, details and yes, a few beauty shots as well. But they pretty much have eliminated any guesswork about what you are getting.
That is a strange response.This is something that has been a pretty normal thing going back 20 years, and now it is suddenly not something customers should ask for? Would you buy a car without knowing what kind of engine it has? Maybe it is a 4 cycle, maybe it is a 6, or maybe a 8? The sign doesn't say, and you can't open the hood until you buy it, LOL.
This doesn't infringe on any promo cap, though as we have seen, there are products with over 30 promos. And then it would be nice to have one no make up image as a promo. A clay promo would be nice, but I wont howl at the moon if its not included as long as other pictures are.
This image uses thmbnails that the PA already made for for icons in Studio. So its not a massive undertaking unless Photoshop is that painful to use. And hey, PAs don't have to make their own promos, there are plenty of volunteers right here all the time. This image even shows the different nail shapes, which is pretty awesome in my book.
The problem at hand is the recent Daz Orginals completely lack these types of promos. Certainly they are not hitting some kind of cap. There is plenty of space for more promos. And we are talking about the official Daz products here! This is not some random PA, this is Kala 8, Sanjay 8, ect. Some of the previous DO's even showed comparsons to other DO shapes, what happened to that?
It shouldn't be like this. Would you buy clothes without knowing what colors they are? Because that is what we are doing right now with these Daz Originals. We have no idea what makeups are in the package. The details section might list them, but that doesn't show us...and that is kind of imprtant in a store about selling ART assets. I don't like buying something blind.
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Well I think it's relevant for a number of PAs too. I think DAZ should make some obligatoric rules (or some better ones) for what the promos should include, e.g. front, side and backside shots, a clay shot showing only the included items (preferably split into individual parts for multipart products so you can see which parts can be used alone), material zones (so you can see what can be hidden or not), a shot without makeup and hair (so you can see the eyebrows in full) for characters, teeth, and whatever else is relevant to customers. Then they can add some artistic renders as well if they want. That may also help new PAs which aren't really sure how to go about it. Looking at other's promos to see how to do won't help much if they are lacking in relevant info too.
It's a true response. It's one of the reasons I don't sell there anymore. everything gets burried there very quickly with the amount of products and doesn't get as much web traffic as this store.. And that promo you showed is BUSY, especially in the frame of the required promo sizes. I would redo that and present items separately. Presentation is everything. A vendor is making promos not a checklist. It has to give impact to keep the customer's attention. Maybe show a few of the options with inset in an image of the character showing combined options in their character. Plain faces sell as much product as outfits with flat heels.
Different stores have different requirements. Again, the nuance I mentioned.
EDIT: Also the amount of rendering required to make all those insets in that image would make me pull my hair out. Everyone knows promo making is my least favorite thing to do, with me doing at least 25 promos per items with 7 insets... that's days worth of rendering!
HOw is it a guessing game? Kala's info says clearly
that makes it pretty clear I would think and the promos show except the anatomical ones.
I think some people underestimate how long it takes PAs to do promos. It takes me at least a week to do, soemtimes longer, and all the thumbnails and all that as well. i've seen promos that show all the options but the promos aren't very interesting, don't inspire, are still grainy/didn't render long enough, etc etc. every person has to balance time, investment, and multiple demands from buyers and store to present as much as they can, clearly as they can, and as strikingly as possible in a REASONABLE amount of time and work.
Vendors who make characters full time really have to release two characters a month to make a living. That means they have to balance what they do to meet their goals for the month and weigh what's important. If promos and thumbnail making take days to do will expanding that process by days to include every single option quantify into a real sales? Adding days to promos that garner maybe 10 more sales wouldn't be worth it, that's why having fewers promos with impact make more sense in the workflow and allows time to work on the other product.
The #1 item I personally look for with any character product is a no-makeup render. Just one. I want to see what the actual character looks like. It may not always be interesting, but I have sometimes passed on buying a product because of the lack of it. I have also bought products because I like the base character, and never used any of the other textures that came with it.
Thank you PA's...you've helped me decide to do something I was on the verge of doing anyway.
I'm somewhere in the middle I guess. I have bought models based solely off an amazing "beauty shot" and I have passed on models where it is hard to see the core of what you are really getting. I've had a number of times where first impression of a model was "Meh" and moved on quickly only to keep circling back until I finally bought it because the promo just had that certain something. I've bought models that have the most god-awful promos but ended up being just amazing models after all. I don't envy PAs trying to balance making everybody happy and paying the bills. Cool thing about DAZ is you can afford to take a chance! If something intrigues you buy it, take it for a spin, If it doesn't live up to your expectations simply return it within the timeframe and I guarantee you NOTHING will change a PA's production methods faster than having lots and lots of people returning it.
Yay!!! a new PA!!!!
Welcome to the madness!
Sorry, but hardly.
Laurie
+1!!!
I've tried to make set of "informative" promos for V8 the way I'd like to see them, showing all options. Used DS default lights, could probably have used something more fancy but I think it's handy as a reference light for comparing products, as everyone has it. Had to add a bikini since this is DAZ territory but ideally the promos should be nude so you can see what you get 100%.
Took me about 3 hours, most of the time was spent on rendering (10+ year old hardware, GTX1070, so not the fastest you can get) where I could do other stuff, so all in all less than 1½ hours of actual work. Adding a few art promos shouldn't take more than a few hours, otherwise you're overdoing it IMO.
https://taosoft.dk/temp/V8promos
None of those would make it past the review team. Again, promos are supposed to give impact.. .those are plain and dull and look like the three hours you put into it. Take that as constructive criticism as if you submitted that to DAZ, you would get the silent no-response from them that some wanting to start vendoring will get.
To me, as a shopper, these images look like nice clear examples of what the product actually looks like. I would expect to see some "artistic" shots too, of the character dressed and wigged, but seeing what one actually gets seems like a good idea to me. Why are they bad for a Daz PA?
Again, you would never see them because we have to get past the Review Team first. Understand, DAZ3D is good at what they do, otherwise you would not be here to buy their products. That comes from quality AND Presentation. This is marketing 101. Presenting renders in a T-Pose with the feet floating off the floor is novice quality that are not fit for sale.. and PAs are supposed to be selling product in their best light. I'm coming up on a decade of selling at DAZ, and if I presented renders like that I would never be allowed in the store.
Now if you want to post a question in the forum for a quick and dirty look at a character, that's what those renders are really suited for... and that's what this forum is for: additional product information.
Some may be upset at this, this is over 9 years of experience talking to you, and if anyone is looking to sell products and make money from them, these rookie mistakes are something you don't do. As someone mentioned earlier, it's a balance between balancing customer requests and making money... we can't present products that put our selling potential at a loss.
Way back the DAZ store used to require that promos were purely functional. White backgrounds and basic lighting.
Back then sales sucked
DAZ then got a proper marketing department and realized that selling stuff to artists requires selling "inspiration" more than Function (lets face it, these are not nuts and bolts that require purley functional shots).......and since then sales have massively jumped.
Proper, creative marketing promos will sell much better than plain functional ones. The numbers have clearly shown it. So while people may argue that they individually may like it a certain way, the numbers do more than speak for themselves. (and yes...I know the next argument will be "just a few functional and a few artistic ones".....but that is not going to happen...it doesnt sell)
That said. I do try to make my promos functional and creative. Things can be clearly seen from many different angles. I don't put deep shadows that hide the details as i would in an art shot. So creative can be done functionally too
None of those "sell" the product or make me want to purchase it. They don't give you any idea of what you can do with it or how well it would work with other products, just a bland view with default light and neutral background which is not inspiring at all, and IMO doesn't actually give you a good example of what the product looks like as unless you only use the default light with a grey background it won't look like that when you use it.
(for the record, I'm not a PA, just another customer)
That doesn't prevent them from including informational promos like this. Many of us want them, and it doesn't take much time to make them. Those who don't can just skip them and look at the artistic renders.
No one said these should replace the existing promos. And basically it's just about the info they provide, which is often lacking. Provide the basic info in a consistent way according to a set of rules, and then add artistic renders as much as you like. I've personally skipped quite a few products which I liked when looking at the artistic renders, but which lacked factual information. I'm tired of purchasing products just to find out whether they have or can what I want, and then returning them if they don't. It's too troublesome.
Again these are simple renders that belong in a forum request for "quick and dirty" renders. These aren't promos and wouldn't be part of a promo presentation. I'm just telling you from the standpoint we make promos to generate buzz (AKA promote) and inspire as well as generate sales. Those renders do none of what a promo should do. There is a clear difference between a promo and a render.