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DAZ Productions, Inc.
224 S 200 W, Suite #250
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
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© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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I'm drooling over G3M/M7, but I just can't justify the cost right now. But unlike V7, I plan on getting the Pro bundle when the budget allows.
I've been playing with G3M and auto-fit of G2M clothing and I'm not particularly pleased with the results. The groin area, especially, doesn't auto-fit well if the pants aren't skin tight. (You can see some of my results in this thread.) Shoes are hit and miss, mostly hit—though the soles tend to have a strange ridge, side to side, at the toes. (It's a lot better than the results of auto-fitting G2F shoes to G3F, though.) I did find a couple of epic fails: the shoes from Uzilite's M601 and the shoes from IH Kang's Tuxedo. Hopefully these two PAs will update those for G3M. (Sooner, not later. Hint, hint...)
So while I love G3M/V7, it will be some time before I can start using him in my renders. I just hope the spotlight we've shown on the need for more male clothing will result in a lot of useful items for G3M/V7. Without a good selection of clothing, footwear and hair for this generation, buying V7 and the other new figures and characters for G3M could end up a bad investment.
And if any of you PAs are reading this, I personally give more weight to new releases that support G2 as well as G3 figures, first with the gals and now with the guys.
I love that video short, "The boys are back". Especially the last scene with the subtle smile. Made me laugh. THAT is well done!
Yes, IMO releasing M7 a week before Black Friday and after not one, but TWO huge sales (one where we could be getting 64% and many of us were, on new releases) could be limiting spending. On the flip side though, Daz really held up their end to assist the sales- The Scott Bundle discount made it possible to pick up the Pro Bundle (which had the amount of products, the mens' bundles have been dismal on occasion when compared to the females) so I think overall the vendors of male products in the Pro/Starter bundles will do okay. It's the add-ons and "nice to haves" or "can wait on, need to have though" that may have done better later. Spent a lot during the two sales, and with Black Friday coming up once a year, with 50-75% off items for the holidays- can't free up much for Daz this week or next. Timing. Strictly timing. Those clothes fitting products are awesome, have them for G2.
DAZ has used this strategy multiple times. Big sale, then release a must-have-item. People will be broke after the sales, sure, but for the must-have-item, they'll always find a way. Have a garage sale, skip a meal for two weeks, sell a kidney etc. It's a way of getting every last penny out of your customer base and since DAZ keeps using it, it must work quite well.
Of course it also strongly relies on DAZ' very tight-lipped marketing approach.
There are definitely quite a few G3M products that have come out over the last couple of days that look really good and I want them, but I've simply run out of kidneys. Hopefully Daz and the vendors take the timing into account when they chalk up sales.
Well I, for one, am glad that DAZ seems to be trending away from all that horror show content that's been dominating the store so long. Women or men in underwear come in distant second to all that horror content in the DAZ store it seems. I wonder if that horror content is actually a result of it being near impossible for an amateur to make a decent texture. I don't know what's worse: the horror content or that other site that will remain nameless and produces even more horrifying content without underwear. Ugh!
Old thread I know, but I couldn't resist chiming in.
The female form is not more aesthetically pleasing than the male form. Greeks set the artistic standards eons ago, in many ways, and they paid plenty of attention to the male form (and thus, so did many revivals). It's Michelangelo's David, not Michelangelo's Davida. In some ways, the traditional male ideal is more interesting, because muscular development is a more masculine forte, and it lends a lot of interest to the human form (male bodybuilding is much more popular than female bodybuilding, for example).
No, the female form is more popular because of the way typical human sexuality works. Sexual attraction drives the aesthetic concerns most relevant to the Poser universe, and men are overwhelmingly un-interested in the male form, in this regard. Which stands in contrast to women, who are (according to studies) much more flexible in what they find arousing (in short, they find arousal arousing, much moreso than men, who are visually-driven, by the female form). Also, female identity is far less invested in heterosexuality than male identity. Then there's the fact that females are the peacocks of the human species, not the men.
On a side note, I do find it interesting when the "it's not bias" and "we need to attract more 'x' by catering to them" arguments get deployed; usually this happens along a typical leftist line. E.g., pen and paper roleplaying games (male dominated) must attract more females by catering to their tastes. But nobody cares a whit that buyers of novels are overwhelmingly female, and nobody calls for novel writers to start catering to male tastes to attract male customers. Presumably, males should adjust their expectations, and learn to appreciate what they get.
I assuming that there is actual data supporting that statement that people don't buy male figures, or accessories.
Or are we seeing a situation similar to what you have in Hollywood where executives say that non-white actors and films that focus on them don't see well overseas, yet they haven't ever made an earnest attempt as producing top notch genre films featuring those actors to actually be able to support that claim. I must honestly say that I don't see the various scenarios where men would actually represent quite well EVER promo'd in a big way similar to the manner in which women are portrayed to tell you exactly how the character is imagined. As the OP states, he does westerns. When has a male character actually been sold as a genre type (aside from Lee, which is another can of worms). A rugged western (Sam Elliot) type, or a Roman Centurion A male Legolios, A Conan the barbarian, a vampire? Video games sell us these types all the time as well as fantasy literature, but not Daz, they simply give as generic men majority of the time with nothing to distinguish them.
Considering the PAs seem motivated by money, I would trust them(regarding what has sold in the past). They have said time and time again male characters/clothes don't sell as well. Not sure why they would lie, if Male stuff did sell so great they would make more of it. You can see many examples of them making stuff in the past, and not continue to make it in the future due to past failures or less than stellar performance. David, The freak, etc.
One can easily argue the women they sell nowadays are generic and have nothing to distinguish themselves apart. But they keep selling anyway(ie, people are buying).I don't think daz fakes out its hot products list.
As I said, are we talking about a self-fulling prophecy? I know that whenever I wish to do stuff that require male characters I can hardly ever find the items I need, and am forced to do all sorts of article re-constitution to get something close to what I'm trying to achieve. You can't sell what you're not producing. There'll be several new bikini's on the market before this month is out, but if I want a Deerstalker, or a 10 gallon hat for a male character I'm just out of luck.
I can think of several popular male archetypes that have never been attempted in the Daz marketplace. I honestly think a part of the problem is lack of imagination. Sort of like whenever non-european models are introduced that are generally sold based almost entirely on their ethnic/cultural persona, whereas with European models we get fantasy/SF/modern interpretations as well as the sexed up historical scenarios. The men just tend to be very generic -- they aren't promoted in ways that stir the imagination.
Something to consider. A large portion of female clothing (especially here) is of the more form-fitting variety. Male clothing is usually less so. Making good clothing for male figures is inherently more complicated from a 3D modelling perspective. Dynamic clothing is less of an issue in that regard, but has complexities of it's own. Also, the male figure is less 'smooth' in its structure, making modelling an accurate and realistic male figure, along with its morphs and rigging issues more complex as well.
I think the PAs who have tried doing male figures found this out. And when the male figure looks too 'smooth' or 'curved', it doesn't sell well. And if there aren't enough good fitting and well-modelled and appropriate clothing for them, they also tend to sell more poorly.
Being a 3D modeller myself, I would find modelling males much more difficult than modelling a female figure. Smooth curves are easy enough to do, but generating all the 'chunks' in the geometry of a male figure would take ages to do.
Someone would have to be pretty committed to spend all the extra time and effort for the same (or less) money.
I'm not sure about the first few, but DAZ HAS attempted a male vampire before, back when Michael 4 was the big thing; I also believe there have been male vampres at other marketplaces, and quite possibly some of the other things you mentioned. That whomever it was that did the M4 Vampire character or someone else, for that matter) hasn't released one for later figures should tell you something.
PAs see that Victoria in a bikini sells really well, so they make many Victorias in bikinis. People stumble across Daz and see that they mainly make Victorias in bikinis; the ones who like that stay, the ones who want a range of things go looking for something else.
Obviously it's a complicated problem, but only making more of what currently sells well is not going to grow a market and probably won't sustain very well over time.
Rawrart made a male vampire didn't he?
Yes, he did Nosferatu for Genesis 3 Males not long ago.
One complication is that if you have GenX2, female content isn't that big a deal.
Like, Bot Armor is only for G2F! OH NO! Eeeexcept I can add male morphs to make that look male, so hey.
That may confuse the issue a bit and also skews female. Similarly, a fair number of outfits can be cross-gendered. This further skews things toward Female -- because after all, the folks who really want more male content can pick up GenX2 and other stuff to essentially broaden things.
Thank's for the reminder; I don't generally do Vampire characters (male or female) so I had forgotten about this one.
Its a realworld thing: women's clothing tends to be draped, men's fitted. Womens clothes cling to the form, men's sits on the form, often exaggerating desired features (at last we constrain ourselves to shoulders now a days rather than crotches). Aditionally men's clothing tends to be less soft and stretchy, and the way weightmapped clothes function is far closer to how stretchy materials work..
Add to that its a lot easier to model and weightmap things that sit close to and mimic the shape of an underlying form. Definitely easier than boxy shapes trying to follow something much more rounded underneath. (Seriously shoulders arealready nasty, now you're telling me there has to be a point comeing off it that also bends naturally)
So men's clothing is both harder to make look good and probably has a smaller audience looking for it :(
On men and women in art: the greeks and romans were pretty equal oportunity in depictions of men and women, probably with an edge to the men. Michelangelo well most of his depictions of women they look like men with wierd round protrusions that look not particularly like breasts stuck on their chest. But the majority of european painting (and probably sculpture too) features women, for whaterver reason, and it gets more pronounced especially as we get to the 19th century. I am a lady person I mostly render women, because I really like art and most of my favorite painters (and there are some women in that list if you're wondering) mostly painted women. Klimt: mostly women. Schiele: mostly women. Courbet: Slightly better ratio but still mostly women. All of the pre-raphaelites: mostly women. Vigee Lebrun: So many women. Sargent: again better ratio, but still more women. Gentileschi: fabulous women. Bosch: Probably more men! but they're mostly tiny stark white and has stuff like a merman in shining armor sitting on a flying fish and a couple copulating in a giant mollusk on the back of another man, not exactly portraits.
That's the one! I bought it awhile ago but forgot the name, thanks.
A problem with that is new customers tend not to know all these fine details or how to (or don't want to) make morphs and adjust their own things, so they're not likely to be attracted to staying at the store buying things, therefore male things still don't sell because no customers stayed. I know how to adjust an item for my needs, but if I'd been looking for a balanced selection of content when I'd joined I'd have immediately left again (fortunately I only wanted a poseable drawing doll so it was fine in my case.)
One thing I find curious (and unexpected) is that it seems like the vast majority of PAs are actually female, which suggests a similarly large female customer base, which you'd expect would lead to a desire for a wider variety of content, but it doesn't seem to be the case.
Hmm, A Nosferatu wasn't exactly what I had in mind, when I was thinking male vampires, eventhough they technically count. Vampires have gone sexy since all the way back in the late 70's and after Anne Rice started writing about them haven't turned back since. You'd think that during the height of the whole vampire craze somebody would have sought to capitalize on a very profitable trend, but there you go. Now would be a bit late to jump on that train, but is anybody trying to jump on any craze now that feature men as the main protagonist? Where was the adventurer/explorer character for instance, your Nathan Drakes that were actually marketed that way?
Marketing is half the battle, and there seems to be very little thought that goes into marketing a male character except to say, "Oh look a male character."
I'm not sure on this but I think a lot of the craze for the sexy male vampires became mostly teens (it's been awhile since the Anne Rice times though I remember them too) and I would assume Daz doesn't think the demographics really overlap?
That said it seems like the romance novel sexy billionaire types should overlap and as much as I think it's stupid I would have thought there'd have been some cash in on the whole 50 shades popularity, but nope, still the same old 80s genres for most items. It does seem rather odd when every other company seems so eager to jump on any popular bandwagon.
I'm just chiming in as a male character creator.. i WISH there was more stuff for the guys, as just doing promos can be a major pita. Id love to learn how to make content for G3Ms though.... I have zbrush now, just need to learn
Yeah, while I did buy him because I couldn't resist the nostalgic feel, not my first thought when I think vampire, either, and I grew up watching the old Bela Lagosi movies. I have to say Ann Rice and her ilk really started something with Interview of a Vampire and the like. I had a hard time finding quality vampire fiction before that book came out. I do remember seeing a sparkly vampire character in the shop which I admit, I thought was really dumb!. Vampires should not be sparkly, but rough and gritty and have lots of angst! Teen vamps haven't completely taken over the book market, though, and vampires are still widely popular in the adult (and I mean adult versus teen market, not adult adult, although, I've seen some covers in the Romantic Erotica section, too, that look like they could have been done in DS) book market.
I have seen a few book covers that have made use of 3D art similar to what can be done in DS. Whether those artist's used DS or Poser or something similar, I don't know, but there are definitely some cover artists using 3D programs to create covers with male figures. Usually, not wearing much in the way of clothing either. I have to be honest and say that being able to do book covers is one of the reasons I got into this to start with and I can see my skills improving enough that I might actually be able to sell my covers soon. Although, not exclusively male oriented, most of what I do is with male models. Those are my main focus which is one reasons I stick with this thread and others like it. I would love to see more stuff for the guys and more guys who are ruggedly handsome and not pretty boys who look like they are barely out of their teens. Thankfully, there have been a few really good ones lately. As for clothes, I started making my own, but that's a slow start and, while I buy male clothes I can use when I can, I doubt there are enough of use who do that to make a difference in the overall picture where men's fashions in the digital world are concerned.
Key point here: once you get beyond the Poser/Studio introductory world to where everyone does most of the modelling work themselves, the female pinup bias disappears completely.
That depends; for game makers and others that do animation with figures, this is accurate. Game modding, on the other hand, is not quite as biased toward females as Poser/DAZ Studio is, but there is such a bias there as well.
True but then the majority of game modding that I've seen tends to revolve around 'nude mods' of in game characters. I meant in terms of actual modelling character creation etc.
As a random example I loaded up zbrush's gallery because it was the first thing I thought of: There are still some sexy female pinups (several pages in, and I'm 100% fine with them being a thing) but apart from "games and movies that are popular right now" there's no real focus in any direction on what people are making; a stark contrast to the stores for Poser/DS related content.
Does that mean that range of stuff would sell equally here? Probably not. But I do think that releases have led to a specific customer base being cultivated to keep products in the same narrow lines "because they sell" and I think that there's never going to be significant growth or expansion so long as that's the case, and that PAs are never going to have a particularly large customer base as a result if things continue along those lines. Unfortunately it's not an easy problem to solve - but it would be nice if the powers that be would actually realise it's a problem.
Exactly.
There is a market for male figures, but you've got to find it, and then you've got to market to it. As it stands everybody is going to easy route, and marketing to the demographic that doesn't require much more than a scantily clad woman to get their attention.
You can even market male models to that demographic as well, but it requires marketing in a much different way than you'd go with a female target audience.
During this month with all the sales, I found myself a bit disheartened by the fact that the vast majority of products are mainly for female characters. Often I would see some really awesome clothing items made for the female characters with no male counterpart. Especially fantasy and Sci-Fi outfits. But it seems like there are so many more female character models in general being made too. Personally I would love to have a more diverse mix of all characters, not just diverse female characters. And for the love of G... how many bikinis and skimp wear do we need?