Getting priced out of this hobby
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Kind of harsh, dont you think?
Ill admit, I have engaged in the "digital hoarding" aspect of my daz hobby. I often look at an item and think that I can use it a certain way only to purchase it and have it sit unused in my runtime from the time of purchase. But if all that I ever do with this item is load it up and respect the talent and effort that went into making it, am I not getting my moneys worth?
So, I complain that prices are getting too high. Im entitled to this as is all the other consumers around here that have spent money on daz, it is our right. After all, all we are trying to do is keep a hobby that we really enjoy in range of our individual budgets. No one likes to give something up because they cant afford it any longer.
As to wether or not daz has any "practical utilitarian purpose", well I would argue that there is none except to the extent that it makes the user happy or in the case of a professional, employed or commisioned. Shouldnt we all be arguing for prices to stay down in that case?
Id also like to adress the diy aspect of daz enthusiasts. I totally respect that some folk would rather learn to make their own stuff as opposed to buying it. Ive seen tons of user made in the freebie sections that blows my mind. It is just not practical for everyone to do so especially when some people have a house to run, a family to feed, animals to take care of and clean up after, the list goes on and on. So when I find a couple hours to maybe do some rendering, I want it right there and right now so that I can just catch a break for a short time. The LAST thing that I want to do is look at internet tutorials, etc., that will take far more time for me to invest in than I have so that I can produce a mediocre model.
I will agree that daz has great quality stuff for the most part. I just wish that there werent as many bugs slipping through as has been the case lately.
Kind of harsh, dont you think?
Opinions are only harsh or not-harsh depending on what side of the fence they fall.
That's why, in these discussions the word "hobbyist" takes on that tone.
Or those without unlimited funds to spend...
Apparently there is no one here that can afford Daz prices, uses MANY assets for their business, uses them -literally- HOURS after buying them.
Puts out a finished and professional product and has a schedule to maintain. Because if that person noticed the climbing prices and stated they weren't happy about it -
what would happen?
...as to bugs I've remained with one of the earlier betas of 4.10 and rarely if ever run into bug issues (I am also running the last release of 4.9 concurrently). The stability issues appear to have picked up more after the Main Public release and some seem to be triggered by updates to W10 according to what I have read (I am still on W7). This is part of why I am not usually an "early adopter" of new software releases. Still have not installed the "latest and greatest" version of Gimp for the same reason.
Concerning modelling your own stuff, as I'm retired I have the time, however patience is another matter entirely as it is a very tedious and involved process. The only reason I am pursuing learning it is there are specific items I want that I know no one else will make, like the space ships architecture, clothing and props for an SF story I worked on, aircraft, vehicles, buildings and props for a near future cyber world storyline, and "real world"/vintage items like old transit buses, trains, aeroplanes, and other props that would cost me a fortune at one of the pro sites or just are not available. When it comes to certain items like aeroplanes and musical instruments I am a stickler for accuracy (have yet to see a totally accurate pipe organ anywhere as most modellers fail when it comes to the keydesk/pedal board [I studied pipe organ design and construction in college]).
I dont render final animations in Daz studio
so the native HD morphs are not available to me anyway as I export .obj/MDD or FBX to other programs.
I have found that normal maps used in C4D give me all of the detail I need while letting me remain within my 7 minute per frame CPU rendering budget.
I also use the free texture reducer script as 4ktextures are a foolish waste
of resources for the types of animation I typically render
"Darious 6" for the G2 male ,in this video below, was exported from DS as a BASE resolution object file with his ridiculous 4k textures reduced to 1024x1024.
For background Characters I push them down as low as 512x512
and whenever possible replace the Daz mats entirely with C4D native procedurals that do not use maps at all ,particularly on non skin surfaces
on props& sets.
I personally dont need Daz HD geometry and 4K maps to put forth the narratives of my animated films.
Not really, as how is a new scene that I haven't done and can't do now chasing it's own tail, which is always the same problem and if I were doing that I wouldn't need to change anything.
I'm glad the it's not likely HW manufacturers are going to take the same attitude.
yeah I just tried 3 HD creatures no other clothes or props and the openGL viewport smooth shading my PC cannot even handle it to set up my animation
Have you tried setting the Preview SubD in the parameter Tab to 0? That helps, usually.
huge status update, I finally saw the light and kicked iray to the kerb
am going to now use Octane render
I just installed it to my beta, was only on my 4.7 build, I used it occasionally but was trying to take advantage of iray and all the ready made shaders
I only have Or2DS I use OR3 in Carrara
so best I could do was work with low resolution and hide figures I was not posing, stll uses all my RAM
oddly enough it loads easily into Octane full resolution 2 GB to spare (NO WAY COULD I USE IRAY!!! it would exceed 6GB and go to CPU and prob freeze) with the viewport set to bounding box,
textures/mats are actually out of the box not too bad but probably I am missing a few maps, is only a load test I would need to go through them all and twiddle with the horrid node graph most likely but I am glad today I decided to finally ditch iray
I am actually now rendering at about 6 secs a frame using 30 samples direct lighting, I used interactive render only in iray anyway and about as many iterations and it would take at least aminute if it managed to fit on my card, impossible if it didn't.
No hardware manufacturer would ever make such a reductive promise to
"Render any scene in less than 10 minutes ", no more than an automoblie manufacturer would promise a vehicle to get you to the airport in less than 30 minutes.
There are too many variables.
well actually my Octane discovery is a scary one for my credit card
I was shunned all the HD complex stuff but in the past few hours I just found I can in fact easily render it
Well, I want to be able to say Daz is cheaper than smoking cigs for a hobby. I want to be able to say, there is no reason not to support the artists and enjoy the benefits of a community, rather than sneaking around, never being able to post any works or anything. I sorta can still say that, but its getting harder. I feel the need to say it takes time to build a library, maybe pick a genre and stick to it exclusively for awhile. Maybe skip the male stuff. Maybe buy a character that is done rather than invest in a ton of morphs and makeups. Try to buy as you go rather than build a collection to work from even. Or if you must have options save up and wait for sales. Skip a generation. Learn you can't have it all, especially over-night. Hoard photoshop plugins instead. Apophysis has tons of free resources on DA if you must collect, and there are free 3d files to collect and install so on and so forth.
I agree that we buyers are spoiled.
My problem is I wanna support DAZ and the vendors but things change so fast around here. Generation 9's going to be coming out and I barely support Genesis 8.
I bought into DAZ Studio from Poser and started buying 3Delight content and they jumped to IRAY and ALL 3Delight support stopped. It just died like one of those old American west ghost towns. 3Delight support is dead.
Now most clothes coming out are all Dforce. is it rigged? is it half rigged? Where's the DAZ3d support for all these questions? They leave it up to other buyers to inform uninformed buyers.
I'm from Poser where dynamic cloth takes trial and error forever to get anything right and I'm looking at Dforce and thinking the same but maybe it's not. Does DAZ explain this at all other than long form in the forums in tech talk?
SELL YOUR PRODUCT. SUPPORT IT. SHOW US HOW EASY IT IS.
Don't keep having sale after sale after sale and avoid the product support.
It's become insane how fast DAZ keeps throwing new things and dumps support for old things and yet expects buyers to just keep buying
the animation I just rendered using Octane, OK shader are bad but the fact I actually could do it scares me
so far I have resisted buying later stuff
How long did that one take to render?
I hadn't thought of that scenario and just went and looked it up. I am a non smoker, always have been and always will be. If I was a 2 pack a day smoker I would spend on average $4,022 a year. Knowing that I can totally justify my 3D spendings, LOL
about 3 hours 1100 frames for DS thats actually very good
...same here and it's not just the money but what it does to your health. My mum was 14 years younger than I am when she died due to cancer from smoking. On the other hand I credit the creative outlet 3D CG keeps open for me with making my life a lot more enjoyable.
I still smoke but it is more like $2000 a year. I did give up the java monsters I love so much in favor of an 85 cent fountain drink (FullThrottle). My monster savings have to go back into the household I'm afraid. But perhaps I'll get a cookie if I am good. My husband snuck in here yesterday and was reading this thread. He knows it can be an expensive hobby and he cut my budget to $600 this year over the Pomeranian I bought. My mom has slipped me cash so I have spent more than that. My dad owns 33% of the family business with my husband and another partner. My husband does most of the work while getting 33% of the profits plus salery. The other guy is over-paid no more than he actually bothers to do and be at work. My sisters have to ask for money all the time. So my mom slips me tokens of her esteem even though I really shouldn't need, need, need them. My husband understands this is an expensive hobby now and that $600 for the year was a little bit mean. $1,200 starting in October plus mom money will be better. I do need to take him to lunch on Mom money occassionally since he is kinda why mom has Mom money.
Point of reference similar to some previously posted:
In October 2001 I paid $59.95 for Victoria 2.0. While she did come with shaping morphs, she did not come with high def texture maps - those cost $34.95. And those prices were sale prices - 55% discout roughly.
To be fair Daz does not literally "dump support" for older content
The PA's shift their new product creation to the new generation models and that starts another buying cycle.
Without these new buying cycles the loss leader business model
of the the free Daz studio eventually collapses.
And even compulsive digital hoarders are not enough to maintain such a paradigm if their numbers remain static
So Daz has to attract new buyers to foment more hoarding and that only happens with new content and constant 40% to 70% off !! sales promotions.
@nonesuch00, I suspect TA is speaking from experience. It certainly is my own experience. Up until Oct'16, I used this computer for everything, and I would wait for up to 7 days for an Iray render to look "good enough," often considering 5000 samples to be a worthy goal. Then I bought the best computer I could afford with one GTX 1080, spent over $3000 for it, with plans to add a second 1080. (I'm a real hater of crytominers now!) These days, my scenes are many times more complicated than before buying "the beast," and I struggle to keep the memory usage down enough to fit everything on the video card. For finished scenes, I render while I sleep, setting the Max Samples ridiculously high because I'm asleep and my computer is on anyway, it might as well keep rendering. My full scene renders these days are typically between 7500 and 15,000 samples, The point being, with a more robust system, I've changed both my goals and my expectations.
It's true prices are going up, here as everywhere else. At the same time, my budget for 3D is about to become almost non-existent as my husband is retiring in 3 weeks and my meager retirement income is going to be needed for monthly bills. I'll have to wait longer than I intended to pick up Marvelous Designer; I understand they have a good deal on the perpetual license for Black Friday every year, so I'll pick it up then. (Fingers crossed they do the same again this year!) I've been spending more time in Hexagon, and I have what looks to be a good tutorial on Blender to help me get started there. I also have both Bryce and Carrara. With virtually no money available to spend at Daz, I'll be spending more time learning these other programs. So in a way, not being able to afford to spend much money will be a good thing for me.
Instead of pricing me out of a hobby, I'm being priced right into learning to model for myself.
Lots of parallels there: took me years waiting to get a 1070 for IRay but I used Reality/Lux in CPU mode before then. I buy less and less these days due to retirement on a low State pension. So yes, Blender and Hexagon are beckoning and, much as I do not consider myself a modeller nor do I have a grasp of things like UV maps and rigging, I might be forced down that route if I want to stay in this hobby.
It will be a week tomorrow since I knocked a 38 year smoking habit on the head. There may be more Daz/3D in my life as a result of this, if only I can resist the current urge to chew through the keyboard.
I stopped at the turn of the century: new millenium resolution. My advice: one day at a time. If you can get through that day, you can get through another, and another. Eventually it gets easier but you have to really want to succeed. There may be more LIFE in your life if you do.
Sorry: lecture over. Good luck.
My husband told me I had still spent $100 a month this year. I added it up, and he was right. I spent more at that other place since October on textures than I realized. I spent less here than I did last year probably because I didn't have G8F clones for G3F and had to choose not to upgrade. But I added lots of textures and shaders to my collection as well as much needed lights this year. I only got a few hair and outfits. But I am better able to do renders than I was before. I am better able to make my own characters than I was before. And I really need keep an eye on scenes I want or rework some old scenes to stand people in. All of this is needed but I seem to only think about hair and outfits when I think of what I have bought. I have not been retexturing stuff so I forgot a lot of the textures and shaders I added.
Congrats!!
Yes, but I am as well. When I got my degree in computer science and mathematics we used mainframes and CRT text based terminals as sophomore. When I got to be a junior and senior taking a programming courses doing computer graphics those that did not flunk out were using Sun raster based workstations using the X11 System. You'd laugh at how slow those were and many where is black and white and CRTs that weighed 50 lbs maybe just for a 17"-20" screen.
Then in the DAZ world of today itself I would set up a render to do 2000 iterations on my HP 8460P at 4K and it would take about 2 - 3 days. Now with my HP 8470P the same scene takes 12 - 16 hours. Since then I have lowed the quality threshold back to 95% with no massive difference in quality and renders are finishing even faster, also CPU renders but not 10 minutes render time yet. I'll have to wait for intel or AMD to get on it before that happens.
Now, I look at the rendering improvement just in extremely cheap Android tablets available today for less than $100 compared to the iPod touch 3rd Generation I had and the Android tablets perform much better and faster.
I think a lot of people don't realize they are living in a lap of luxury. I've very pleased with these rendering speed improvements and I expect even faster gains in rendering processes then I have already experienced. That is my experience.
Congrats! I know how hard that is. I did it almost 4 years ago after smoking for about 33 years ;). I don't even think about them anymore, so at least you can look forward to that after a time. :)
Laurie
but.... I have some renders that take ten minutes now. And if I get new hardware that can take a scene that used to render is 12 hours, and now it renders in 10 minutes... what stops me from just making more complex scenes now that I have more power? We aren't all rendering the same scene over and over, so I don't quite understand what you are asking for?
What stops you? Lack of need to do so. Like of time to do so. Lack of interest to do so. Once scenes of a complex enough nature can be rendered it's extremely unlikely that one will have the time to create the scene or the skills to do that either for that matter. I know of no one that is going to go, even using DAZ models, individually morph and dress 50K 3D human models to fill up Yankee Stadium. That's what's stopping you.
Also, I know many people even with modern HW that are stopped from creating simple scenes of several people and an environment though. I'm aware that the videocard makers are working on streaming geometry and images through limited RAM from non-RAM storage as rendering happens and that will stop your most trivial case of exceeding video card RAM. So that would be a good 10 minute test - these new streaming RAM video cards render a scene that exceeds 5 times the available video card RAM and finish that render in 10 minutes.
Basically 100% of all HW and SW in a computer is a controlled system with all variables known to the makers of the rendering SW for both CPU and GPU HW. The amount of RAM is known. All those video card makers & their proprietary rendering SW have to do now is create a series of 3D scenes that fill and exceed by 5 times the RAM to capacity and do complex light calculation things in those scenes like create halls of mirrors, and similar rendering gotchas and then use automated SW testing to test those series of scenes and have even the mathematically most complex of those scenes they created must render in 10 minutes. They could also in the UI report RAM usage and mathematics usage for different portions of their renderer algorithms. So HW & SW capable enough that it hasn't outstripped it's ability with even simple scenes using things like multiple people in a scene with fibre hair and clothing.
So then now if you want to excede the 10 minute rendering time capability test with such a capable system it is not longer such a trivial task to create a scene that exceeds the 10 minute render rule. So now you could write a script to fill up a digital Yankee Stadium with unique DAZ 3D human models and when that script finished you can send that scene to test the 10 minute rule. Not such a trivial task anymore to create a scene that exceeds a computer system's rendering capability.
With such a robust design for HW & SW even a Hollywood animation production shop would be hard pressed to exceed such a system's capabilities.
So I think current top of the line video cards supply 12GB so if the 1st generation of streaming RAM I/O video cards came with 16GB then 5x16GB would be a 80GB size scene to process & render in 10 minutes; so make it some complex 80 GB Hall of Mirrors 3D scene and other large complex scenes.