Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
224 S 200 W, Suite #250
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.Daz 3D is part of
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
224 S 200 W, Suite #250
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
To illustrate this point: look at how many new issues have appeared in 4.9 and had to be fixed (well a lot of them have but there still seem to be more.) Things like genesis clothing not fitting G2 anymore, teleporting clothing, vanishing textures... all things you wouldn't even directly link to the new stuff.
Up to now I didn't read an answer to my question about how to backup that offline key to use it on a new computer ... is it possible or not?
Wouldn't a whole new computer be considered a hardware change?
Your new computer will have to be online at least once if you plan to use Windows on it so you can activate it.
Why not spend the few moments to log in to your account to get a key for that new machine while you are installing and activating all the other software on it?
It's been said that it is possible for the same system, and I thought at least ne person had done it. However it hasn't, as I recall, been said where the key is kept (for those of us who don't do a full system image). A new system would need a new system-specific key (and presumably there are changes that could be made to an existing system that would require a new key).
This is normal with Windows; it doesn't mind hard drives, graphics cards and memory (maybe ok with processor but not tried), but gets grumpy about a new motherboard. :) Although I don't use OEM versions, so is fairly straighforward. I suppose the same applies with the OS, but folks tend to expect MS are likely to be here in some form for the forseeable future. As ever we don't worry about the unforseeable for such large entities. :D
If the DAZ staff want to know how their attempts to mollify the initial objectors to the whole Connect thing are going, then for myself ...
I followed the initial 4.9 beta thread with its DAZ Connect announcement for a few pages at the beginning, posting several times, then said I was leaving the thread, appalled, would never buy any DAZ connect method/format content for 3 separate reasons, any of which were enough for me to be opposed, never mind all three, and that I would be cancelling my PC+ subscription (a monthly subscription) immediately after posting that post.
I did cancel my PC+ subscription immediately after that post, with it duly expiring a few days into November, and have not been inclined to resume it since. The DAZ Connect issue wasn't the only reason; but it was the reason that,,when added to my already existing other reason to be very unhappy with DAZ's recent choices, tipped the balance (and might well have been sufficient on its own, even if I hadn't already been very unhappy with DAZ).
I have not been following any of this in that thread or any others in the forum since, either. The times I am capable of concentrating enough and thinking clearly enough even to read threads are limited; the times I'm up to posting coherently even fewer, and I've been spending that time on other things since then. But I did come back to the forum last night and started reading this thread (and just this thread) to see if there had been any developments, which I finished this morning. So based on the early part of that first 4.9 beta thread, and this thread only - especially the first post in this thread, and the posts by the DAZ staffers since:
I had three objections to the whole DAZ Connect business, any of which means that I won't be buying any DAZ Connect only format content. So how are we doing with them?
1
I will not buy any content where i can't arrange the user facing files how I wish in the folders of my filing system, for the purpose of just using the DS content library in its mode of displaying the user-facing files organised by the folders on my HD. I do not use the Smart Content pane. I do not use Categories. Period. I have many hundreds of GB of content collected over 11 years. Content bought from DAZ is a minority; DSON format content an even smaller minority, even a load of the stuff bought from DAZ still has no metadata, and life is too short to DS-categorize it all. I need to have it all, Poser format and DS format, organized and searchable in a consistent way. It's easy to put new stuff into my existing organisational system - provided i can still do that by moving the user-facinfg files, themselves already organized sensibly into sub-folders, into appropriate My library folders and navigate my content and search by folder and/or filename; it is simply not on the cards of somehow re-cataloguing all my old stuff to fit into the DS Smart Content/Categories. Do I still use any of the old stuff? Hell yes. On one G2F character i'm equiping for a graphic story at the moment, for one prop (in the general, not the prop v figure sense of prop) I did a search of it all and came up with alternatives made for G2M, G2F and Genesis in DS format, and for V4, M4, V3, SP3 and M3 in Poser format; the best and ideal choice turned out to be putting part of one made for Genesis and bought in the DAZ store together with part of one custom made for V3 especially for me in 2004 by a kind gentlemen I didn't know at all when, as an ignorant newbie, in one of my very first posts on a 3d graphics forum (I think it was in the DAZ forums, but am not sure of that) I asked if anyone knew of a so-and-so for Poser and by the next day he'd researched, modelled and rigged one, and replied to my post with a link to download it. Astonishing kindness - and part of it combined with part of a DAZ store Genesis product was the best answer for a need now in 2015 to use with G2F. But totally beyond the reach of my DS's Smart Content pane.
So, this issue ... and I see DAZ have come up with a kind-of answer. Shortcuts to the Connectified content which can be put in the folders of My Library, arranged as one wishes like - and alongside - the current .dufs and used in the folders-and-file views. Not an elegant solution, decidedly clumsy, but DAZ is showing willing, and ... Yes, I could go for that IF ... I repeat IF ... there was a user selectable option that DAZ Connect, when installing, always created the shortcuts in the folders and with the names that would have been the case without DAZ Connect and using the current system. If iIhad to go through selecting every item in a newly Connect-installed product and clicking to create a shortcut for each, then had to drag the shortcut to the library folders, creating sub-folders and whatnot - NO. If there's a configuration option that when set Connect creates the shortcuts with appropriate names and sub-folders in the My Library directory structure ... grumble about yet more file proliferation, but OK. On those conditions, one of my three objections is answered.
But, as I said, each of my three objections is sufficient on its own, so that still leaves two. So ...
2
I will not buy content that is encrypted so I can't load the duf and dsf files into a text editor to read it, study it, correct it and alter it. I'm not a great buyer of script products, but for those I do buy I accept encrypted scripts; but not actual content. Just this last week, working up a G2F character for a graphic story, morphs and materials, clothes, hair, props, I've had duf and - especially - dsfle fis bouncing in and out of my text editor all the time. Sometimes it's just checking something - which resources (like textures) does it use, what abilities does it have. Sometimes it's checking whether it is actually doing what it is supposed to do (or not doing what it's supposed to do, or doing something different from what it's supposed to do). Sometimes it's enhancing it. Sometimes, with clothing and hair figure conversions, Autofit and/or Tramsfer Utility always screw up with a certain figure, but screw up in different ways with differit settings, and copying one bit from a dsf from one conversion and inserting it over the matching bit in another from another conversion with different settings gives a working result. And, of course, sometimes - a lot of times - it's finding and fixing mistakes in products, especially with products from the DAZ store, which have mistakes in them far more often than those from any other source I get content from. Incorrect ERC formulae in products containing a lot of formulae are probably the biggest culprits (though certainly not the only types of mistakes I find), and often I may not be aware there's a mistake and look for it for months, even a year or two after getting a product, because it only shows up when I pose it like this, or have that other morph applied: ERC morphs that should only work when a product master dial is applied, but the formulae are wrong so they're on all the time; conditional morphs where the condition has been formulated incorrectly; sub-components connected to the wrong master - it's endless. And frankly, when I come across these faults, it'll be when i need the product working properly THEN; if I'm prevented by encryption from fixing it then, instead of maybe a minute or two's work with me and a text editor, it'll be days of to and fro with DAZ support (in different times zone, and me often too incapacitated to read and/or reply for hours or days), and my increasing blood pressure as we go though the dance of <neutral email voice> 'there's such-and-such fault with this product from the store' <condescending as speaking to dim child email voice> 'no, no, no, there won't be a fault, it's you not understanding the simple way of using stuff, shown in this baby-steps tutorial' <irritated emali voice> 'look, I've been using DS since version 0.9 and understand enough about the technical side; I'm telling you that X is a fault with this full technical explanation of what kind of thing must be wrong for it to do what it's doing' <rather snarky condescending tone email voice> 'No, no, no, all our stuff has been tested and this bit of technobabble I don't actually understand because I haven't a clue about the technical side myself but I have it written on a sheet here to read out to anyone trying to be clever, because all users are ignorant newbies, means you are wrong'.<now furious email voice> 'Look, take this detailed explanation of the technicalities of the problem to someone on the technical side who actually understands how the program and content works, please don't reply, I actually found and fixed the problem before I raised the ticket - which, incidentally. is one reason I know this probem exists and exactly what the problem is, because I've analyzed and fixed it and the fix works - and I only raised the ticket as a courtesy for the sake of other users who don't know enough to see there's a problem or work out to fix it, so you will actually fix thee item in the store'. Followed either by several weeks or months before a product update with a fix comes out, or ..... nothing. Product in store still had bug unfixed despire my reporting not vaguely that there's a fault, but precisely what teh fault is and the simple edit it needs for a fix. Either way, no good for me needing a fix right away at the moment I found the fault because I was in the middle of doing something with the product and the fault became evident when it screwed up what i was trying to do. Good thing I could load the product's dsf files into a text editor and find the fault and fix it myself in less than two minutes. Oh, wait .... encrypyed content .... I can't.
And, yes, I used to have communications with DAZ support exactly like above. I never once, despite a courteous tone in the initial email or support ticket form, with a full explanation of what the fault is, what diagnostic steps i took to find and confirm it, and what the needed fix is, ever had the first reply accept I knew what i was talking about, despite the clear evidence of knowledge in the details I had given, and acknowledge the problem I'd reported; but instead I always got a first reply couched as if talking to an infant, denying there was a problem (despite my always including simple instructions to replicate and easily see the problem, which were clearly never followed), and giving some inane reference to a tutorial for babies that had nothing to do with the problem i'd reported. Since 2008, most of the time I'm not up to typing, and when I am it's at the price of a LOT of mounting pain, even spending a day doing it a line or two at a time (like with this post), so the standard DAZ response to a report of a bug in some content rapidly infuriated me: i'd have found, diagnosed and fixed the problem at a cost of pain already, suffered a lot more pain composing the initial, detailed bug report not for my own benefit (I'd fixed the problem for me) but for the benefit of other DAZ customers and therefore DAZ itself, and I'd end up being forced to read and write - at ever more cost in pain - a conversation where the DAZ end talks to me like I'm an ignorant baby, and clearly either never passes what i've said onto anyone who actually understands the technical side, or doesn't actually bother reading the technical parts of what i've written. So the increasing pain at my end would get me becoming and sounding in my writing voice more and more angry with each exchange, to which the DAZ end's written voice would become more and more snarky, angry and by implication insulting, still not addressing the actual issue ... so i gave up. I don't report the bugs in content I find any more, I just find and fix the problem and move on. But with encypted files I won't be able to. And that's not acceptablle to me. I find problems with DAZ store content and fix them all the time: FAR too often to leave it to reporting bugs to DAZ support, go through multple exchanges of messages at great pain and me often having to drop the xchange for days or weeks while unable to think clearly or type, and then wait for weeks or months for a fix even assuming one ever appears at all. DAZ support may be wonderful for newbies and the completely untechnically minded - I wouldn't know. But for me, with bugs in content, it was always so dreadful I stopped using it and will certainly not rely on it rather than my own ability to find and fix content bugs in minutes and only a tiny cost in pain.
(I must emphasise I'm talking about DAZ support, not PAs supporting their own products. That has generally been excellent. A few months ago, for example, i found and fixed a problem - a formula problem, and the same problem in each product - in the DAZ Evolutiom Muscularity package for Genesis, and the SimonWM Muscularity packages for G2M and F. Like I said, I gave up on DAZ support long ago due to how such attempts to report bugs always then went. but as a courtesy to other users i did(when I eventually remembered) post about it on the forums. I then became fully incapacitated for awhile and don't know what if anything was said in the thread, but I did see that SimonWM had a fixed version of the G2M and G2F up in DIM the very next day - and also added an update to his Genesis Alive! package that would fix the problem in the DAZ Genesis Evolution Muscularity for anyone who also had Genesis Alive!. I note that there has NOT been a fix to the Genesis Evolution Muscularity package itself for anyone who does NOT have Genesis Alive! too, or who uses a transfer utilitied or GenX2ed version of the Genesis set in G2F and/or M. PA's product fixed in a speedy fashion and no condescending debate about whether there actually is a problem, rather actually reading and believing my single post and getting stuck into a fix; no fix in the DAZ own product.
So, no I will not buy content that I can't load into a text editor to fix where necessary, most especially from the DAZ store where it seems testing must be limited to what the kind of user who only uses characters out of the can with poses out of the can in scenes out of the can would do. (Question: how did the following simple 4 steps, everything within limits, only DAZ own products, to show horrible bending artefacts on G3F get by? Step 1, load default G3F; step 2, apply Karen 7 body at 100; step 3, apply Breast small at 100; step 4, go to the posing dials and dial Arms up up tp the limit (which isn't exacty the limit of a real person). Now look at the lower outside of the breasts; apply a no-texture plain grey material to G3F to fully appreciate the glorious shelf and divot that appears in each breast. Or is there a small print proviso I missed that products and 'best ever bending' are only guarenteed with female shapes with oversize breasts? And that isn' the only DAZ -7 shape or breast morph that happens with either,)
Fixing bugs in products withiin seconds of finding them, and then continue with what i was doing, not waiting months for a fix that might ot might not come; and enhancing products with extra features; and repurposing products in various ways (for my own use, not EULA breaking distribution). All vital parts of what I do with DAZ products, all stamped on by encryption, massively reducing the utility - and often completely removing the actual use I was going to make of ,my purchases.
Now, you might say why not do all this through the DS interface rather than with a text editor? Well, the stuff I do do to product files in a text editor falls into three groups. The first are things I could do within DS, but it is just more convenient to use a text editor - load one or more .dsf files into the text editor from the context menu in the filer window, have them open, perused, edited and saved, job done, in less time that it takes for DS to start up, let alone then load one or more figures, open panes, find parameters, often have to go through one at a time; and that's not counting being able to batch load a folder full of morph dsf files into TextPad and do a global search and replace in all of them and save all rather than the extended hoopla it would be doing the same thing in DS, and with my increasing pain proportional to time taken concentrating and doing. The second group are things one can do in DS's interface theory but I find too hard, too time consuming or just impossible in practice. Like some of the formula mistakes that are hardly uncommon in products from DAZ. In theory I can inspect all the formulae in DS with the figure loaded, see the mistake and fix it. In practice I can load two or three dsf morph files into one TextPad window, split the panr and compare side by side or one above another (and even have TextPad run a comparison betwen two files at a click, just displaying the differences), and spot a formula mistake in seconds, whereas the way one has to look at this stuff in DS's interface - and compare formulae between different channels - I can stare at it for half-an-hour and not see what's wrong. And then there's the third group, which are things, like cannibalising parts of products, some figure conversions where Autofit and Transfer Utility just fail miserably, and things like restoring a matching UV from an older version of a product to a newer one that has a different UV and is not vertex compatible, but if you know what you are doing you can do most of the work by copying chunks of the UV data from the dsf of one into the right places in the dsf of the other, which frankly I cannot do in the DS interface at all, even if prepared to take vastly longer (and therefore endure vasty more pain).
No, you would hugely reduce the utility of the products to me by encrypting and not allowing me to take the dsf (mostly) and duf (occasionally) files into a text editor - just as I'm constantly loding cr2s, pz2s (and the rest, but mostly those two) and objs into a text editor. If you, DAZ, are prepared to refund purchases a year or two after purchase, if that's when I use them and find a bug I could have fixed in seconds but now can't, and in the first place only charge me oh, say one third the price for things because of the massive reduction in utility and increased pain in use (this is literal pain, not ;pain in the backside' pain) ... I might be prepared to negotiate. Otherwise, forget it. Any encrypted content I will not purchase.
And a question. You say the things we save will not be encrypted. So, using an example of something I saved last week, let us suppose it was a Connect encrypted product - wanting a hair for G2F which doesn't exist in the exact type and quality I needed, i saw the potential to construct what i wanted from other products. So I loaded a G3F hair (came with the V7 Pro bundle I now regret buying), deleted parts of it with the geometry editor, morphed what remained a bit, deleted the now useless morph channels, but kept those that still worked on the remaining hair, converted it to G2F and saved as a new figure, the loaded the main data dsf of this new figure into a text editor and did some necessary deletions, additions and tidying and saved. Combining this with parts of one Genesis hair and one (Poser format originally) V4 hair (both also separated out from their whole products, converted to triax as needed, and refitted to G2F retaining some morphs of the originals and extra bones), I ended up with a wearable preset of these 3 'new' figures that was the hair I wanted and needed for my G2F character, Now, as this is the kind of thing I do a lot of, because a lot of hairs, clothes and props I want are not available, but can be constructed out of what is available, suppose the G3F hair had been a Connect encrypted only one. When I loaded it, could I - in DS - still have deleted chunks of the geometry and some no longer used bones and materials, deleted some now useless morphs, added some new morphs, and added some formulae and changed others, and then saved as a 'new' figure? If I could, would the dsf files of the 'new' (and now only partial but also with additions and figure conversion) version be encrypted or not? If yes, then the statement that things we save aren't encrypted is not true without qualification - and it would have stopped me completing the final part of the process. In fact I quite often buy products specifically and only to do this kind of thing to them as I can see they contain something I want, even though I do not want to use the figure 'as is' at all; so a 'yes' means not buying content I would have otherwise bought as I couldn't process it and use bits as I wish, which inludes some textPad editing of the dsf files of the putput. If no - well, that means people who want acces to the encrypted dsf files can just load the encrypted figure and then save it out as a 'new' figure that isn't encrypted: in which case this is a useless form of encryption.
And as a rather simpler but related question: if I create a morph, or new UV mapping, or a bunch of control channels and formulae, for a Connect encrypted product, when i save them out as assets are THEY - the dsf files that are entirely my work and addons for the encrypted figure - themselves encrypted? Van I distribute my original extras for the figure if I wish so others with the Connected encrypted product can just drop them into place? Does this mean that the directory of the data files for a Connect encrypted product will happily have the original encrypted morph and UV files and add-on unencrypted morph and UV files sitting side-by-side?
No. I will not buy encrypted content where I have no access to the text in the duf and dsf files. It removes the ability for me to rapidly find and fix bugs (and DAZ content has been full of bugs up to now - I find it impossible to believe that when you introduce Connect all your store products will suddenly and miraculously become 100 percent bug free in perpetuity), leaving me stuck for what I was doing that needed whatever it was I've just found is bugged. It will turn some simple jobs into much more lengthy and tedious jobs using the DS interface, which would be bad enough without the increased pain this will personally cost me to do them. And it will make other things I do to customize products to my needs impossible.
3 I will not buy DRMed products. Full stop. Period, if you prefer. It's not something I'm open to debating. I've been burned too much too many times, losing books, music, films and all sorts of things that I'd paid for. I've had much bigger and more widely known companies pile on the technobbable about how with this and that provision we mugs ... I mean we customers couldn't possibly in any circumstances lose our DRMed purchases. But in the end we did anyway. Not going to happen again. Just ...not. I do not claim to have the infinite expertese and prescient omniscience needed to forsee all those things that might happen which noone ever forsees beforehand, and know that those possibilities are covered, even if your intentions are snow white and your efforts are as comprehensive as you cna make them. It is simple. I DO NOT BUY DRMed CONTENT. No negotiation or accommodation on that position is possible with me.
So - in the immedita aftermath of the DAZ Connect news, I said that: I would not buy any content where I couldn't organize user facing files as I wished in my own folder structure within my My Library folder, to be accessed that way through the content library pane; that I would not buy content where the dsf and duf files (or any new replacement format sneaked in inside the encryption) were encryypted couldn't be understood and edited in a text editor: and that I would not buy DRMed content. I then quit the PC+.
Reading this thread, you have addressed the first of those concerns with the shortcut thingies (PROVIDED THAT there's a configurable option for Connect to always create the shortcuts, and name them and put them in folder sctructures within My Library like it does with the duf files now). You have not addressed my problems with the other two concerns, and as each is separately sufficient to stop me buying Connect only content, that is where you are with me. As things stand I will not be buying any Connect Only content, and as I'm expecting a lot, if not all, of new content to go Connect Only very soon - and as I already have pretty much everything I want from your current catalogue, which alone is guarenteed to remain DRM and encryption free - paying the PC+ subscription is pretty pointless. And as I have issues with G3F (principally your removal - with the decision to stop having edge-loops on the basic mesh follow the outlines of the major surface muscles of the body for the first time sincve Victoria2 - of the ability to control muscle definition at any kind of reasonable degree of accuracy and sharpness for muscle flexion and portraying differing types of athlete physique with SD morphs; the forcing to a minimum of level 3 and for some levle 4 HD morphs to produce even gross effects of this kind that have been trivial with Genesis 1 and G2F and G2M with SD morphs, especially when using one level 3 or 4 HD morph on the figure causes me a massive slowdown in rendering speed; your lack of actually producing an HD muscle definition morph (completely SEPARATE from muscle bulk), given how risible the SD Bodybuilder Definition morphs is due to those absent muscle following edge-loops (and not for bodybuilders either - marathon runners are often very defined without much muscle bulk at all - muscle definition is laregly a product of bodyfat level and not a lot to do with the muscular bulk one does or doesn't have); and the fact that of course only DAZ and DAZ PAs can even do anything about any ansent HD morphs; plus your replacing the one accurate morph of a real female athlete (Gia for G2F) with the cartoon Holywood bimbo faux action girl that is Karen 7 (and there's that problem I pointed out above if one wants to reduce the breast size of the Karen 7 bodymorpj i any attempt to use K7 to portray a realistic athete); and finally some joint bending issues) there's even less reason to pay for the PC+ as I'm sticking with G2F and G2M. The only further G3F or G3M stuff I may even want to buy at all will be things to actually use with G2F and G2M, and which I am sure I will be able to convert without too much hastle. So - I won't be buying DAZ Connect stuff if is either DRMed or encrypted even if not DRMed. And I'll hardly want much of the G3F/G3M stuff even if it is left unencrypted.
If you had woken up one morning and decided in a DAZ staff meeting that - for some strange reason - you all had it in for me personally and wanted to change things with the sole purpose of driving me away as a customer, you could scarcely have done a better job.
And just one final thing: my analysis of the 3d/Daz/Poser piracy lot concludes that the only result of the encryption/DRM will be a drop in your (DAZ and PAs) sales and income - probably a fairly small one, but a drop nevertheless. It seems to me the people who download the pirated stuff mostly fall into 3 groups, and of those:
The people in the first group have never bought products, and never will buy products; their interest is very litttle to do with making 3D art. The best case effect of your DRM/encryption is it will move the focus of their collecting hobby elsewhere. A moral victory against them possessing (but never using anyway) things they haven't paid for, but the effect for DAZ and PAs is cost neutral.
The people in the second group actually do buy some stuff from the DAZ (and other) store alongside the pirated downloads, so you get some money from them currently; but given who they are and why they use pirated downloads as well as buying some products, if you let things be many in this group would actually buy more in the future If you do succeed in stopping the piracy, given why they currently behave as they do, in most cases they will drop the hobby completely not buy more (they can't) and you will lose the money they currently are spending and never get the greater spending that would have come in the future from many of them. Overall, no increased income from and actually a total loss of current income from this group. You lose.
The people in the third group are in effect like those in the second - buying some stuff while downloading lots of pirated stuff - but for completely different reasons and overall they buy more stuff than the second group. If your DRM/encryption blocks the pirated downloads, unlike the people in the first two groups they will continue with the buying part as now, although probably at lower levels. Total, less buying than now, not more, and again you lose.
Add up: one group no change, you weren't getting money, you won't get money; second group you lose, you are getting some money, you would get more, now you won't get any;
Connect has nothing to do with cloud services or subscription services, it's no different from DIM, you can download all of it and keep it local (you must have it local to use it anyway).
I keep seeing comment after comment in threads of how people are going to give up Daz, stop using Daz, stop suppoting Daz, etc...
Well I say, GREAT!!!! Please stop using Daz...
I could go for less competition. I wish there were less users so I could hog the Daz spotlight all for myself.
totally agree and as I was writing to you in private, it's correct what you say about the boomerang effect when encripting systems. I play with Daz just to learn new things and I suppose this method about "fighting piracy" will have sharp consequences for simple users like me. I had never any intention to make money with Daz products ... my job is to carry on hardly, everyday at work in Italy, just to survive till my pension day.
In the same time I hate people they steal art for their own personal business, and I will never spend one cent for them, i feel horror for those fake download sites, real web criminals if it is true they can access to our credit accounts to "buy" products. That's all, it's just my modest opinion. I hope Daz team keep concerning about us too like they were doing till now. Thanks.
Well - it's not about users - it's about buyers at the Daz store - or do you buy enough to make Daz3d survive?
Encryption it seems - when in the form of some sort of DRM - seldom does what companies want; it can work, but its track record is much less than stellar. Many customers have poor experiences of it, and a number of companies have stopped using it once they saw its affects. Personally (as I've previously said) I neither like nor trust it; I do hope it works out in the long-run for Daz, the PAs and us - the customers. If all three benefit then there is nothing to complain about. But all three must benefit, if the customer's don't - at best with customers it should have no negative impact - then that will effect sales. Bad for Daz; bad for PAs.
I have no plans; namely I have no plans to buy encrypted-only content.
... To be more exact, I have definite plans to not buy encrypted content.
Please Daz, make it obvious content is DRM only. Don't leave customers in any doubt it is only available via the encrypted end-to-end service.
Agree 100%. This is a great point. I believe the move in the direction of cloud/DRM content management means someone sees it as a potentially superior business model. It is our $ that propells forward any of this. The economy will dictate whether it survives or not. If enough talent gets frustrated, that also propells inetrest in a non-Daz universe of things (apps, content, methods, etc.) So, it is a brave move to try something new. Howevery, history has not always shown that bravery = smart. However, I think dissenting voices in the community are hushed if the greater mass of people are buying.
For a brief period there was a note at the bottom of the product pages:
"Install Types"
Manual, Install Manager, Daz Connect
This vanished quite fast - I'm curious why it was removed.
A Twitter discussion DAZ bean counters and managers might meditate upon.
That doesn't really make sense. I love Blender to pieces but nothing in Adobe CC is a 3d modeller, nor is Blender much of a 2d drawing program, video studio, pdf maker, web page builder, flash.. flasher, etc.
Nor is Daz anything like Adobe CC?
I know the feeling of someone stealing my artwork. Someone stole some of my artistic nude drawings and posted them on another website. My artwork was behind an adult filter where people need to be a member of the website to view artistic nudes. The website that my artwork was posted had no filters. I ended up adding ugly watermarks to my drawings to discourage people from copying my art. I have not found my family friendly artwork on other websites though.
It's a comment about free software, or any other software, being an alternative when something comes along - especially when said company goes DRMish
No need to explain, lx irritated tone shows inequivocably the he fully understood the meaning of the Twitter discussion.
My terror was that people would sheepishly submit to this cloud trend but, to my elated surpise, users are starting a real widespread insurrection against this trend (these days, when you read discussions about Adobe is always about how to show them the middle finger or how people are enjoying having shown them the middle finger). Moreover, smart firms are starting to see the business opportunity for going against the cloud/always online mantra: e.g. from Affinity website "Just 49,99 € to buy. No subscription".
No, I understood the comment, but it's still a bad one. They're completely different tools. What would have made more sense is "Now that I have Blender I don't need Autodesk's subscription (which is actually competing software with a subscription way more expensive than Adobe's.) I'm also really curious what % of his income he donates to Blender development. How much is reasonable to give back for the unparalleled freedom Blender offers in its use?
It doesn't matter what the software actually does, only that the Cloud aspect of it is forcing some people to look for alternatives.
But there is no cloud aspect to Daz Studio. It's just completely misnamed. You don't need to buy the program, there's no paying to keep it running, you can download the files manually, you only need to authenticate once and then never again. I don't like the new system either but these arguments have nothing to do with what's actually happening at all. All it does is make the case against encryption appear ill-informed and thus weaker.
Daz Studio already is the free alternative to the paid for Poser. When they make their new self-marketed content encrypted, it's going to suck and I'm not going to want to buy it unless it's absolutely irreplaceable, but Studio will continue to be the free alternative you can make money from without giving anything back.
Good arguments against encryption:
- Customers don't like unreadable files and have very good reasons to distrust companies.
- Customers want to be able to read and adjust the contents of the files they buy.
- Customers want to be able to download the files in their standard, accessible format and keep them as zips on their drives as backups without having to redownload every time.
- Customers want to be able to find the files they've installed, not have them hidden in some SKU barcode wasteland. (apparently this has been addressed in a newer version of the beta)
- There will continue to be other content (that has to remain accessible in Studio) that isn't encrypted which will be far more appealing.
Yes, please please please stop complaining about clouds, there are no cloud features in there, if you want to complain about 4.9 please complain about real things the exists.
Yes, please please please stop complaining about clouds, there are no cloud features in there YET, if you want to complain about 4.9 please complain about real things the exists TODAY.
Fixed for missing words (it happens to me too when I type in a hurry)
.
Instead of the word cloud: substitute online. There certainly is an online aspect to it. Cloud is a new term that incorporates something that has been around for a while now, and while parts of it are new; like many terms, it gets misused some. So to the pedantic posters, ok: someone didn't like what Adobe did; the rest of my comment stands, when companies change what they do, users/customers reeveluate their options.
Not true; we don't know the criteria that will be used to determine if a computer is deemed to be new or not by the software; but when it does determine that, validation online will once again be required.
I'm not trying to argue against concerned users, so my apologies if it comes off that way. I just want the argument against encryption and the numerous other interesting changes that involve us losing choices to be as strong as possible so that as little of it is implemented as possible.
There is a mechanism for downloading the files and the key from your library; one would assume you can also redownload your key if needed or it'd be completely pointless. We already download the files we buy in the first place, so that should be doable for anyone with an offline system, or with a new PC. If there isn't, there will be after the first week of complaints because it's so obviously necessary.
I completely agree that cloud is a poorly thought out and inaccurate choice for a name. There has to be someone at Daz who knows what cloud means in modern language and realises this. Plus they already brought in a perfectly usable name at the same time: Daz Connect. Just leave it at that. Rename the cloud folder to Connect, and stop listening to market test groups that have no idea about anything that continue to make Daz products worse (hello, blinding white website with no colour option.)
The idea of Connect is fine. Trying to brand it as a cloud service is not. The idea of it becoming mandatory is not. The same goes for us being intended to rely on Smart Content more and more. The idea of it being encrypted is not appealing, but we'll see how that one goes. You're supposed to add more features, not take away customer choices.
Aside from the current folder name, it isn't branded "cloud". Clearly it was going to be, but that isn't part of the current naming (thank goodness).
Richard, I have to disagree. They mentioned a feature they called a CDN, I believe. This is a Cloud-like feature that gives numerous actual servers, located in various remote locations, that give users a faster connection to downloads wherever they are on the globe. This is at least part of what The Cloud means. And truthfully, I don't see any reason for despair over that feature. Surely everyone wants faster download speeds. The Cloud does not always mean "subscription service". Although, everyone who purchases at DAZ3D already has a subscription to their service. You can't download your purchased products without being logged in...a membership! It is a free subscription, one that self renews, but a subscription nonetheless. And then there is the PC+ club, another subscription service that carries a fee. The only complaint I have about PC+ is that I can no longer afford it. I am totally, flat, broke. Two days left and I'm out.
Dana
True, but as far as the user experience goes it isn't cloud-like, other than the CDN allowing faster downloads (not that my DIM downloads fail to take full advantage of my connection most of the time). Certainly the general expectations created by other cloud services do not apply here, and the service does not have cloud in its name.
Apology accepted. :)
I'm flat-out against the thought of the content I buy being encrypted. Those that pirate it in the future, will not have to suffer such an ignonimity, but as a customer I will. And considering posts from Daz indicate it will have little impact, and is purely to slow down how quickly new content gets pirated and released elsewhere, I find it as annoying (probably, maybe?) as content-creators likely feel when their products appear elsewhere.
There is only one thing Daz can do, and that is ultimately where I think this will end up; I'm not going to speculate though.
I don't mind the whole "DAZ Connect" thing so much as it does have a benefit for our fellow users with limited bandwidth and data caps. I don't even mind having to connect to the Internet the one time to authorize my installation of the Studio software. Provided those things are correctly implemented and actually work as intended/ explained they won't be so bad.
However I VERY MUCH mind the DRM measure (in this case encryption) and the loss of the ability to arrange my own directory structure.
I'm sure that I am not the only person here who has lost things like music and e-books and in software that I have paid for due to various DRM measures in the past. I understand that we have been told that there are measures in place to release everything in an unencrypted form should DAZ cease to exist as an entity. However I have been told things like that before by other business entities and it never worked out well and I lost the ability to use something I purchased. This is not acceptable. It never will be acceptable.
Also, as an IT professional, I often have to spend hours dealing with making various software packages function IN SPITE OF their various implementations of DRM. I don't want to have to do this in my off time to indulge in a hobby. I fully understand that piracy is an issue but there are other ways to combat it that will not impact the user experience in a negative manner and will still preserve the profit margin.
Also, I finally got a working directory structure going where I can find my content reliably. I have absolutely ZERO desire to give that up.
By all means continue to make the improvements in capability and functionality that we are seeing. Those things are wanted, needed , and appreciated. Please DO NOT force us to use your plan for a directory structure of make us have to fight with a DRM methodology. Let the user remain in control of the experience.