Do you ever take a trip down memory lane....
DanGer777
Posts: 65
I was just in my Daz account and decided to reverse look up all of the merchandise I've purchased over the years. Lots of money there but lots and lots of memories. Getting referred by a friend..... getting started and knowing absolutely nothing. I still know nothing but it sure is fun to remember how we, as a community, worked together, socialized and really enjoyed the 3d industry. I still enjoy it. It is my sanity check. I sure miss the old times. Do you?
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2026 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Yep. Sometimes I think I'd gladly exchange all the new tech for a time when this hobby wasn't so focused on "He said/SHe Said" style arguments about which software/figure/company/renderer/download system/store/forum/plug in is somehow superior to some other.
Then I remember that when I started everyone was taking positions on Poser 4 vs. Poser Pro, and arguing about the relative merits of Victoria 3 vs. Posette vs. Judy/Jesse, etc., and I realize that I just didn't pay as much attention back then because I was too caught up in the newness of it all. :)
..yes indeed. When things were a bit "simpler" it seemed so much more fun. Miss the old galleries (they were so much more well organised), the original PC, the vouchers that could be used on either DO or PA content (instead of coupons with a bunch of conditions) and 1.99$ items, and an application that barely took up 72 MB.
It seemed almost magical, loading in Aiko 3 and morphing her into a sweetheart, or a goddess, or a super hero, then adding some scenery and props to tell a visual story and rendering it all in maybe 20 - 30 min.
While it can do some amazing things today, sometimes I long for those more "heady" days.
I still have all my Daz installers back to ver 1.7. Part of me is thinking of installing it to one of the auxiliary drives on my system and play around again (where's that LDP 1 again?).
I do miss the days when the technology was more commensurate with my abilities, when every character didn't have SSS and biased render engines were the norm. Of course, that would mean going back to the pre-Genesis days, which I'm happy to leave behind.
If you need a real dose of tear-jerking nostalgia, go back and look at your gallery after 13 years like I did recently at Renderosity. Was like a photo album of my kids before they were grown up. Good times back then but looking back on them always makes me feel sad.
...yeah.
First rendering ever of my character Leela.
Every now and then I also do a reverse time view of my purchases -- and see Michael 1 as the very first model I bought waaaay back on March 12, 2001! Wow. I'm coming up on my 15-year aniversary as a Daz customer. That's pretty amazing.
I think it would be cool to get a coupon for xx% off based on every five years you've been a loyal customer. You know, 5% for 5 years, 10% for 10 years, %15 for 15 years, and so on, but just on the 5-year mark.
And I also go back and work with those old figures sometimes. And lately, because I'm planning some comic book projects to be done in Poser (du to Poser 11's geometric edge preview feature), I've started digging out all of my Victoria 4 content (and buying more)... and also versions 3 of Victoria and Michael. Those were good models and I have a LOT of stuff for them. And they still work very well. For this project, I have made sure all of my V2 and M2 content is loaded in my Runtime, but I don't think I'll go back that far. I think version 3 is as far back as I'll go. With one exception -- I'm using the P4 Male as a background character. In b&w at a distance, he still works very well.
Also, I do occassionally go through my R'osity gallery and look at my old work. It's fun to look at, and some of it still holds up quite nicely. And some... not so much. But it's still fun to look at and "remember when."
It was never simpler, imo, not really.
When we were new, we knew less; those that knew more argued the same as we all do now, same topics, different subjects.
People are people, and rose-tinted glasses change our perspective.
The naiveity is nice - sort of - but it isn't real. And tends to lead to a loss of innocence, and the upset that causes. For me it is better sooner, not later.
Well, yes I do once in a while glance through my archive. I used to try to keep it all installed and available for Studio but after my last computer crash I've not bothered reinstalling many people items earlier than Michael4. I have a couple of M3 and F3 characters online and do have a few clothes for them. Also, most of the simple old props are still workable and despite having a TON of them I still keep them installed. I started with M2 but eventually got M1 so I have the whole family. My renders from those days are kind of primitive but at the time I thought they were acceptable. I've progressed a lot and my images now have some artistic merit but except for the technology improvements in the humans, the most improvement in my images is a better understanding of DAZ's native simple lighting. I never tinker with complex light systems. I never tinker with complex shaders or surface features except perhaps to adjust DAZ's native specularity, ambience or opacity. I appreciate the better fitting clothes for Genesis1 and the improved creatures based on it. I haven't yet produced any Genesis2 character I want to keep. My best work is still done using Michael4's generation. I have reached the skill/technology point where my skill overshadows the technology enough to permit me to produce what I want so I have no interest in moving on to G3 or Studio4.9.