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The thing is you really can't be upset at sales figures over simple assumptions. 15 minutes is still unnecesancy in a promo that generally isn't needed. That promo still needs to fit the overal scheme of the what is submitted, so it's going to take more time than that otherwise it's tossed by the review committe. It's not going to make or break the sales over a promo that demostrates how well the outfit looks and can be used. Your idea isn't a terrible one, but it's not one that that should be mandotry because product sales after product sales show it's not needed to sell items. If you have questions, you can always use the forum to see if one can be made for you.
If you disagree with what I'm saying, then I suggest you make a product and submit it to DAZ for approval with what you think will sell. I guarantee after a session of redoing all those promos to meet the review guidelines (or worse, no response at all as your answer) then you will get an understanding of it's simply not that easy to tell PAs what they should be doing as far as promos.
Yes.
I do that too along with the extra promo with them colored.
I submit those colored matzone promos with all my products and Daz has never complained. I follow every guideline they give us for clothing promos and then add the extra one for customers. They have asked me to rework exactly 2 promos in the last 5 years. Two, not two full sets, two individual promos.. and one was a minor change to lighting and background color.
Flexibiity of the products involved DO "make or break" a sale for me. Absolutely, yes, a good 85% of the time. If the product is one solid material zone, chances are it sits in my library and gets passed in favor of something that actually has proper material zones. I might not be "typical" of the customer base, I suppose. But it absolutely can decide whether or not I'm going to purchase something.
Knowing what I can and can NOT do with a product before purchase is a big deal for me, because MOST of the time I am kitbashing outfits and scenes together.
Clay renders showing material zones are a HUGE help to me, yes.
For an established PA, I would be tempted to agree with you, but for a new PA, seeing the quality of their product on different figures is going to be more important to me than whether the item has useful material zones to me.
To me, kitbashing doesn't always require matching textures/materials; look at some of the stuff from Aeon-Soul for a wonderful example of not only this, but items that don't require me to see how an item will look on a variety of characters.
That's great, but it still does not mean it doesn't happen to others, because it does. And I've been told that those promos have been tossed out by other PAs, so just because your promos have them does not by any means make what I said any less true.
I kitbash in a variety of ways, yes. Sometimes it's to match up textures and materials between items from multiple outfits, other times it's more involved than that. But I do a lot of work with textures and materials, and a lot of what I render, I make my own. So having multiple material zones on an item is going to increase the number of uses I can get out of that item. The more often I can use an item, the more likely I am going to be to purchase that item.
Where the clay renders showing material zones help me, is that it gives me an idea of just what I can do with a particular item in terms of textures, materials, setting parts of an outfit or prop invisible that I don't want in my render, etc.I just find a lot of value in these clay/material zone renders, and personally I do wish more vendors would do them. To be brutally honest, if I know you're a vendor who doesn't bother to lay out multiple material zones, chances are I'm not going to buy anything you make, because what you're making isn't going to be useful to me in more than one or two scenarios. If on the other hand, I know you're a vendor who always includes a good selection of material zones, I am a lot more likely to buy your products.
Having these renders helps me as a buyer to know before I spend the money, what I can and cannot do with an item's texturing. If I'm looking at an outfit, for instance, where I like most of it, but I'm not crazy about the way the chest looks... if I can set that material zone to zero opacity and bring another shirt from another set into the scene, then I am very likely to buy that outfit, even though I might not like the way one part of it looks.
On the other hand, if I know that outfit is made by a vendor who does not include more than one material zone - then they just the sale.
Being able to see the material zones helps quite a lot for texturing purposes as well as fitting pieces together with other items. I think these renders have value. I would not go so far as to say they should be mandatory. Absolutely not. I think each vendor should be able to display and present their product the way they wish to. But it does help me out when making decisions whether or not to buy something if I know that a shirt has 10 material zones and can be textured for everything from a turtleneck to a v-neck. (Just using that as an example here.)
I can't speak to Daz's policies on submitted promos. I don't sell in their store. All I can say, is that as a buyer, I greatly appreciate it when a vendor takes the time to do one of these kinds of renders, and I am a lot more likely to buy your product when I know it can be used in a wide variety of situations - and that's what those renders tell me.
I don't understand what kind of knowledge this gives you. Could you explain more?
One approach to UVing, that is most compatible with retexturing, would be to mimic the way cloth si cut - using darts to accomodate curvature rather than stretching (and distorting patterns). Using a chequered pattern will show what approach has been sued, and where the darts or seams are (they may be realistic, but they can tie the artist to one particular implict construction mode).
I was a PA, and the first time I made promo images (for the Animeyes product), I was expecting DAZ to reject them because of all the horror stories I'd heard from other PAs about how tough the art department was. They were filled with info and text that tried to describe the product as clearly as possible, with only a few 'beauty' images because that's how I wanted to try and sell the product.
They were all approved with no issues, so I obviously did something right. And if you consider 15 minutes time wasted when it could help someone like Childe of Fyre determine whether to buy a product or not, you don't deserve their sale.
(and by the way, what the heck do you care about these material zone promos? You make skin textures.)
Yes I would like to know
Please keep the discussion on the topic, not other posters.
This. I used to be a seamstress, and I'm often frustrated when replacing materials with shaders and finding that the idea won't work because the UV of the item is laid out in a way that fabric just wouldn't naturally fall. Another niggle is garments that have no thickness along the outer edges, which makes them look like they were just put together at the seams and left without any hems. One PA does garments with beautiful drapes for a variety of poses, but those I've bought are pretty much used for distance figures because the lack of edge thickness just screams 'Where are the hems?' at me, and so I'm not planning on buying any more.
Interestingly enought, there were at least 25 yes please include votes in this thread, which I am sure a very very very small portion of users actaully saw. So 25 of us who pass on 1 $20 outfit = $500 in lost sales. How many other people a. didn't see the thread or b. didn't comment in the thread or c. never come to the forums but shop this way anyway? Even if its only another 25 people (which I find unlikely to be honest) that's $1000 in lost sales per outfit out of how many outfits in the shop? Maybe that's just chump change for people I don't know but if I could increas my sales by a couple more grand for 15 min of work I would most likely do so. But hey, that's just me.
Edited to add that I know a LOT of people who actively change textures and kit bash. I can't imagine that people would continue to make shaders and textures if that wasn't true.
I love it when I get not only clay renders, but a clear idea of what the parts actually look like and what the material zones are. I kitbash a lot. I like kitbashing. I pay attention to whose texture add ons tend to be similar enough for me to use them (Out of Touch is great for this. Almost all of their texture add ons are in the same 4-6 colorways, which makes them fantastic for kitbashing) I trawl for good fabric textures for use in kitbashing. If I were more skilled in GIMP (and more patient with my lack of skill) I'd be painting my own textures to use for kitbashing. Moyra's kitbashes for Gen 4 were some of my favorite PC purchases. Chohole's kitbashing textures I still love (and use). I love mix and match options and kitbashing.
That said, I'm not going to say that such promos are make or break for me. But they can tip the scale when I'm trying to decide between two similar sets. The one I can see more options for wins (unless the other one is on Freaky Cheap sale)
Here's another 10 minutes of my precious time wasted. ;) I had no idea when I bought Val's Metal Golem that it had this many material zones. Having this many makes it nice if you want to apply MEC4D's metal shaders or apply dirt maps to some areas and not others.
It sounds good at first, but what percentage of total sales are we talking about over the course of a product's store time? I'm not saying that it's necessarily a bad idea, but does the time spent making this image for those "fringe sales" offset the time lost that could be put into another product. Look at how many PAs there are that release two or three (or more) products in a month and say that they miss the sales they could have made to those that are asking for this kind of image.
Not to beat a dead horse, but you did say "everyone," not "most everyone." Hence the joke. And speaking of horses, if I bet on a specific horse to win a race, asking the window to pay me because the horse came in second would only get me the comment I should have bet on the horse to place...
And getting back to the topic, I don't see this as an either/or discussion. A questions was asked, "Would you find these promos useful?" Many of us answered, "Yes." There's been no suggestion promos like these replace the artistic renders, nor has it been suggested they be mandatory. Yet there have been arguments against using these instead of artistic renders, and arguments against having to do them at all. But not a single customer said, "No, I wouldn't find these useful." True, the number of people participating in the thread are few, but that doesn't negate their opinion.
It is also true there are many products that would not benefit from a promo like these. Most characters will use one of the available UVs for that generation; Large sets—Winterblack Halls comes to mind immediately; Sets with too many zones, like Mattymanx's Llamaghini Amenazador; And so on. But this type of promo image would work well with most clothing and a significant number of props, assuming they have multiple material zones.
Yes, it should be up to the individual PAs. However, if they know some of their customer base would like to see a material zones image along with the other promo images, perhaps more of them will give it a try. And that, I believe, is the purpose behind this thread: to prove people want these kinds of promo images, and to influence some of the PAs to provide them.
It's more than a niggle, as the thickness, or lack shows up in renders. I don't buy them if they don't have them; if I have to take em into blender to add the depth (clothes are 3d not 2) then I might as well make em myself. I've returned clothes when I realised they had no depth too.
This is a tricky one, in my opinion. Some things might look wrong with too much depth, depending on what color you put on the item. For example, i have several pairs of black slacks that do not have noticeable hems, but they do have them. I also have several black T-shirts that have sleeve edging that isn't significantly thicker than the rest of the shirt. Other colors may look different, so it's probably not easy to handle this in a way that satisfies everyone.
I've noticed a few clothing items with "thickness" morphs. That's handy.
+10 !!!
Exactly! I would never expect someone to do this for a hundred material zones or a huge set or skins. Common sense should prevail. But on smalller props, clothing, things like that its an added incentive for many of us. And I think its hard to judge the true impact of how it effects sales because so many things come into play when making a decision. But this one thing can tip things over the edge for me. For instance, I bought an outfit today that has been on my wishlist since it came out. Been some months now. I haven't bought because I can't tell if the boots and the pants are separate. I bought it today because it was on sale under $5 and at that point, I don't care if they are separate. BUT, if they would have had something like Snow Sultan shows, I would have bought it at the 30% introductory price and paid it happily. So I don't know does that kind of information make it worth doing? How do you measure that really?
I was curious about this a little while back, so paid attention to real clothes; even the incredibly thin ones obviously have it, but it is more than that; our eye respond to subtles in an unconscious way, and it it the lack that can kill that believeable aspect. It does depend on the pose, camera angle and light, but where it matters, I find it annoying.
I think what it is that the no depth creates an incredible shart edge - giving small or not so small - lengths of straight lines; it's those straight lines we notice, and those impossibly sharp edges.
OOOOOOh... I encountered this recently with an old V4 skirt I was retexturing with shaders rather than maps. ..NOW I understand what was going on.
Which is why I love Fisty's promos - the checkerboard pattern shows me whether there is stretching and in the case of yes, how much.
Yes, I am using Shader Presets and Shaders ...
And for Skin textures: I wished Daz would add an empty Promo scene (ok, two, one for Iray, one for 3Delight) to the content of Dazstudio with good lighting and make it an obligation for character PAs to add one Promo rendered with that scene.
Define "good lighting".
Still you knew what I was speaking of so mincing words doesn't negate my argument. Sorry.
However, to be honest, there isn't much value in asking forum users what has value for something that is widely used. Remember, they are only a small part of the buying population. This is like asking the forum what they think would sell and time and time again, those that try to make that item are sorely disappointed with sales that they won't ask again. It would be helpful to some, thus I said use the forum to ask for any additional information, rather than make it into something Pas have to do because it doesn't have value to promos.
This is what using the forum to request additional information should be for. But as I said, it's not needed and this should be more a forum request because on its own it will not sway the majority of customers who do not post to buy a product.
Speaking of which, in Fast Grab....wonderful, Fisty!
This is an opinion, not a fact. "to ask for any additional information, rather than make it into something Pas have to do because it doesn't have value to promos."
IMO, it's not how many buyers are on the forums, it's how much the forum buyers spend and / or how often they buy. You've got really interested hobbyists and professionals on the forums, where thousands of people who dabble here and there and don't engage on the forums may or may not remember to shop at Daz daily. Forum members habitually check in, and are swayed by other members, get excited by what they see, and get additional information which may help them decide to buy. So that argument about forum members being in the minority of buyers is frankly really getting old. We have an impact, even if it's not equal to those who don't visit the forums.
So far as: "This is like asking the forum what they think would sell and time and time again, those that try to make that item are sorely disappointed with sales that they won't ask again" it would depend on the quality of the item and the price. SO many variables go into that. I might ask you to make a Persian cat, but if you price it at $40.00 and the hair looks totally awful, then no, I'm not going to support you whether you made a requested item or not. If a vendor legitimately makes a nice product, prices it correctly, and it doesn't sell, they really do have a valid reason not to do any more requests. No one could blame them!
Wellll - I would say a "neutral" lighting that doesn't hide half of the picture in shadows.
Not using something like the Painters lights, for example - those look wonderful, but are coloured and sure don't show the real textures.
i rarely agree with Terry, but in this instance i do. posters in the forum are just a tiny proportion of our customer base. we all see our sales, and a lot of us discuss sales with each other. 99.5% of the time, what is really liked by forum posters, actually does not reflect the sales figures. most PA's do not do this work for 'fun', we have to look at the potential sales for each product we create. time is money, wasting time on creating promos that DAZ3D will likely want dropped, or just a very few people would like, is just not feasible.