When New Characters Get Advertised...
Xenomorphine
Posts: 2,421
I know that hair shows them off to their best and all, but I, for one, would really appreciate it if we typically had at least one promotional image where the character is bald. It's very rare for a new figure to come with hair. What you're paying for is the facial/body shape (along with any included skin) and it can be difficult to judge whether or not the character is sufficiently different to those you already have, unless you see them bald.
There are times I honestly can't tell if a new character looks different enough to Victoria/Michael/whoever to be worth purchasing. Especially the female characters, who are often shown with very lengthy hair which sometimes obscure a good portion of the face.
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I prefer when a new character is shown with a variety of hairstyles for just the reason you mentioned. I need to see the face clearly if I'm going to buy, because many characters do look very similar to one another in both face and body. And I need to be sure that I am not buying a character based on a certain "look" that doesn't exist without a certain hair.
As a consumer, I'd like a profile and full frontal image of the head (almost like a mug shot), but I fully understand why it's not in a vendor's best interest to do that because of programs like Facegen.
Agree with the no hair option as that can really define the look of the character depending on the hair. I am still lobbying for nude promos also, hosted somewhere else (DA?) and linked to on the product page would be fine,
I like to see promos with different style/length/color hair and a bald one would be nice too. Sometimes I don't buy a character because I don't like the hairstyle on her and then only later when I see someone else's render of her do I change my mind. And some promos now are doing just a bunch of body shots and not showing any of the eyes and makeups close up. I always create my own body shapes, I'm more interested in the skin textures, makeups, eyes and facial structure.
And I'd like to see some promos with expressions. Some characters take expressions better than others, some look awful when they smile. Most promos just show these empty vapid looks staring off into space and when I see a character that shows some personality, I will be most tempted to buy those....
I've just like a collage of renders in their underwear using Sun-Sky on 2015 Jun 22 at DAZ Default Location at 06:00, 9:00, 12:00, 15:00, 18:00 using the new character's default loaded iRay settings with no post-processing, no fill, studio or other type of lights, no background, no architecture, no clothing except underwear, no adjustments to the render settings except to set the time of day and allow enough time for the render to converge to 95%, just the character.
It may sound odd, but it is true.
There is a difference between what people would like to see in promos, and what actually sells the product better.
I used to think that characters should be shown with a variety of hairstyles and looks. But was convinced by DAZ and fellow PA's that such an approach does not sell well. The customer no longer relates to the product as a "character". The idea of "who" the character is gets confused and the sales just wont happen because of it.
I have seen a big difference in sales when I started listening to that advice. My last few human characters have sold significantly better for this.
So yeah, while it is nice to see variations in the looks.....it really does not due justice to the character that is being built.
(that said...proper choices should be made in which hair styles to use to properly show off the details and not hide ones hard work)
Well I was all for skipping those bizarre mohawks in rainbow colors under I looked at the ad copy & found a normal, uncolored fade.
That makes perfect sense, and I think that's why it's good to have early adopters post their renders here in the forums to give people an idea of what the product looks like in a typical user's runtime/setup. I know I love the promo art, but I also like to see what the products actually look like and what people end up doing with them. Gets pretty interesting!
i need to see the knees. too many chars i bought have too reddish knees
I don't mind the hair so much as I mind when it hides the shape of the face. I also would like one promo shot without make up. I'm good with hair on the model and I actually use the make up options quite a bit but I would also like to see just one with no make up.
Hair in promos only bothers me when it's hiding the eyebrows in every promo picture for the figure. I'm very picky about eyebrows.
That's fascinating, I never thought of that... I just know there were a few times I wasn't interested in a character because they were shown with short or punk style hair exclusively and it wasn't until I saw a render with longer hair that I became interested. But I think closeups with makeup and as someone else said, different angles of their face is very important.
I really want to try my hand at character creation, but they'll probably be on G4 by the time I get a G3 done LOL. What you said kind of changed my concept of what I'd like to do.
I never, ever would have thought of it in that way, but if the sales figures back you up, you've gotta be right!
I think you just explained to all of us why the base figures are always given descriptors such as "strong woman," "vampire," "warrior" etc. Many customers must want a new character to have a clearly defined "character" if they are going to consider purchasing. The look of the character isn't enough, it's the gestalt that's being presented.
I just learned something new today. Thank you! :)
A couple things: DAZ already has a "no postwork" requirement for promo images, and they specifically want characters at least firmly grounded in a scene. They also have certain other requirements such as image sizes and such that are proven to work for most buyers. With the proper hardware, renders at the required size don't take that long to complete. And to be honest, sun-sky lighting probably wouldn't be the best way to show off images of characters.
But Sun-Sky is the best way to show the customers what they get in a reproducable fashion with no guess work when they see an ad. And Sun-Sky can make quite good images - no one say you musy exclusively stick to highnoon on summer solstice to do Sun-Sky once you buy but now when we buy we are left guessing what the lighting is and adjusting Translucency Weight and other things to get something like ad copy. It'll come, that's what PBR is all about.
My only preference is that the promo renders include at least one render of the face in profile, because you can't easily tell how far a nose protrudes or a chin recedes, sharpness of cheekbones, etc., from frontals.
A few points:
1: I'm with Rawn. We're selling characters, people even. Too many options detracts from the essense of that character. (That sounds wanky, but you know what I mean :p)
2: I agree about hair. I hate fringes, so you won't see me obscuring faces with them. I LOVE updos. We need more! I also try not to use hair I associate with certain official characters (unless it's too awesome to not use).
3: I definitely need to do more renders in different lighting, but only extra shots. I like my main promos "matching" in lighting. Looks more like a body of work.
4: I can probably do a bald or grey-skin render. If Daz lets it through.
5: I'm guilty of expressionless, wistful faces. I think as a massive introvert, I sell introverts, so I can't make my characters being overly animated in promos. It irks me. I also find expressions a bit creepy. But I do try to make sure my characters smile okay, using the default Smile option. Again, I'll see what I can do. :)
6: Profile shots. I did it with Ceridwen, and I really liked it. (I actually started her morph with her profile. I wanted a strong profile...) So I'll do it for each character.
At the end of the day though, some of us are just selling skin textures so you can be creative and make your own characters, explore your own ideas, and that's totally cool. We love seeing you do it. :)
Have I rambled enough?
DAZ pretty much facilitates all options. There's the store - which should, quite sensibly, accurately present a product in the most flattering, sales-inspiring way. But there's also a forum dedicated to customers seeing information PAs choose to provide about their products:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/categories/daz-pa-commercial-products
The place to find the latest information on Daz 3D PA releases.
There's no reason for the requirements of one promotional zone to limit the possibilities in the other.
I vote with my wallet; if I can't see lots of skin, I don't bother, unless the price is 90%; then i take a chance.
Because I'm interested in the motphs, but primarily interested in the textures, with a couple of caveats: Star2 I bought for the style - I wasn't going to but loved the renders folks were doing.
... But
I buy most of what i buy due to renders posted here.
Things I would like to see:
how the face handles expressions. Some morphs are just quite wooden and don't take expressions well. Would like to know in advance.
guy nipples. I need to make sure they aren't oversized or odd due to the texture being used.
teeth. Are they pure white and fake looking or more realistic in tone
nails and hands? Is a female polish skin resource being used? Are nails discolored and gray or opaque with a nail polish look? Is there a normal natural option?
if there are facial options I want to see them. Sometimes options aren't depicted with enough details and they look blurry when used. Are the eyebrows natural looking or red or green or something odd that doesn't match the rest of the bod
What I find a little unfortunate is how much people demand that characters have unique skins. That seems... weird to me.
I see no reason to assume or demand that a given PA is good at both skin painting/design AND model creation/sculpting.
Personally I would like to see more skin variations from new real life skin texture maps, rather than painted. There seems so few skin textures, either available or being used, that it appears to me PA's are using the same skin merchant resources over and over again. The texture may be a different flesh shade, but characters, or their features, then end up all looking the same, or very similar.
Looking through my texture folders for G3m characters I see the same merchant skin textures over and over again. So when buying a new character mostly I have only gained a new character morph and a recoloured texture set that I already own albeit in a different shade. Don't get me wrong....this is not a complaint, just an observation. This is why I am now very cautious what characters I buy.
Weird? to expect a character to have skins that aren't rehash? Not in my book. If pas can't do skins then sell MORPHS. Other pas do that. But I think it is a fair expectation and even a requirement of the merchant resources they use that the skins be retooled in some fashion.
you it is a pity that daz bought rdna and now closing it down because they could have made use of it as a more adult store/gallery and I don't mean x rated hard core sexual in nature I mean content that may be not really suitible for here like the more revealing type clothing, darker in themed characters and props again i don't mean sexual as well as the galleries section for members where they can post renders that may be revealing as well as the pas product pages so basicly a cross between deviant art and rendo, there'd still have to be rules and restrictions of course as we all know some would go and take it a bit too far and explicit
DAZ tried having a second store for things that did not fit their focus several years back...it was called "Artzone"...and it failed miserably
Serene Night: How often do PAs sell characters that are only morphs?
But, again, why would an expert sculptor ALSO be an expert painter, and why set the bar so high that people who are good at one or the other don't feel like they can sell here?
I mean, I could imagine maybe learning to do morphs of characters, but I don't have the equipment or resources to get high end photography equipment, scanning, and hire models to photograph, and then carefully adjust the images to fit UV maps. Those are... two utterly different sets of skills, training, and experience.
Guess it's just me. Sorry, PAs. :/
It is tough being a PA...you do have to have many skills.....even beyond those obvious ones of having the talent to make morphs and textures.
male-m3dia does this. There are quite a few vendors who sell heads and body shapes so I would say it isn't uncommon practice.
Team up with someone who has the ability you don't have. Or buy a merchant resource kit. In general though judging by the many times I see growing up for gen 3 male skin reused With only a diffuse and some minor tweaks added it shouldn't be so hard really. Also given your skills at shading and texture changes I'm sure you would successful at altering skins to be sufficiently unique... and Judging by what skins are getting reused even on the main release characters there really isn't a lot of original skin being remade. It's just all getting recycled. So I don't think you need a photo studio really.
Oh, I'm not speaking for myself. I only make stuff for free which lowers the bar a lot. :)
Well, PAs choose to sell new characters rather than texture sets alone or morph sets alone because it must be they have a much higher sales volume. I can have a character morphed out to the maximum but if I am using the same texture set, most of the character's changed geometric looks, unless they are extreme, will go unnoticed because that's the way people's vision works. I mean, it's not natural for 2 people to have the same fingerprints is it?
fingers?
Not what most renders focus on.