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
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
It IS true that sometimes the items we need are out of a very narrow niche need, like that matter about the movie projector. In my case, I was looking for what amounted to a posable poop. As in... doodoo. There USED to be one on ShareCG ages ago, but the maker of that one did some sort of rage-quit and pulled all his stuff off ShareCG when he discovered people were reposting his freebies elsewhere, against his explicite instructions. Well, yeah, whatever... you don't really have any control over what other people do with your stuff, don't even try, all you can do is make sure your stuff is quality (if you're good at it) and available. But I digress. Anyway, I came across another item there, called Versitile Tentacle, and in its description it had a list of suggested things it could be used for, one of which happened to be... poop. Naturally, I grabbed the prop, installed it, and expiremented with it until I figured out how to actually make it look like poop logs and the like. On the other hand, dispite having specifically listed poop as one of the things it could be used to portray... there was NO poop shader anywhere in there. There was one to make it look like tantacles from a space-alien, ones to make it look like exotic, alien plants, even one that made it look like brain grey-matter... but no poop. I simply shrugged and said, "Fine, I'll just slap on a brown, damp-mud shader and take it from there!"
For the past year I've been scouring the Daz Studio and Poser places looking for a suitable mud shader... and never could seem to find one that suited. Oh, there were the occasional dry-lakebed mud shaders, and other sorts of mud and dirt related shaders, but none that could readily substitute for poop. That said, I've been using a paid-for prop with the rather euphemistic name Fudge from over at 'Rotica, and its been quite useful, but it also has its annoying limits, such as the fact that you're largely constrained to its particular morphs, you can't simply pose the blasted thing the way you might want to. In any event, I did recently see a mostly-suitable-looking set of wet-mud textures over at TextureHaven, coming with all the necessary componants to create my own shader from it.... although on closer scruitiny I also noticed it had shoeprints imbedded in the damp mud, which I suppose could probably be editted out in my hypothetical shader. Trouble is, I still haven't really learned to make shaders from scratch yet, and it kinda intimidates me. >>giggles<<
But I guess the main point I'm making here is something that still leaves me scratching my head: The guy who made Vesatile Tentacle, specifically listed poop as one of the things you could make with it.... so why didn't he throw in a suitable shader for that? LOL!
can maybe have Dforce poop now
Well, I can claim some knowledge of this market from a vendor's POV. I've made a lot of prop packs with some odd items that not many other people make - the Everyday series - and yes, they sell. Some of them spectacularly well, others fairly average. I've made drinks, tools, food & snacks, labels, junk, household items, books, candy, fruit, groceries.... and they all sell, but there's no way to predict how well a pack will do.
So if I've learned one thing, it's that people do need unusual props, but it's still a guessing game. I just pick a theme and try to group as many useful objects as I can in each pack, then see how it goes.
My theory is that the market has grown more sophisticated. Used to be, you could chuck up a render in a gallery with Vicky holding a sword, and everyone would say 'Wow!'. But as we improve, and the technology gets better, we look for more realism and more detail. And maybe there's been a slight shift towards reality and everyday life as people get bored with the constant stream of female warriors.
In the end, you just have to make what you enjoy, and hope other people will find a good use for it.
Looking at people who have made millions, it's with a product that's small and cheap and sells in huge numbers.
...and looking at what was sold to make all the money from the last California Gold Rush...
I'm off to make a tin of beans and a shovel.
Out of the blue, I'm reminded of loom bands. I can't remember if they were a 'thing' in the US as well, but they seemed to go from 'never heard of them' to 'wildly popular' overnight in the UK. They disappeared again just as suddenly a few months later, but whoever thought of them must have made enough to live an entire life in comfort twenty times over while they were all the rage. Baked beans, a shovel and a loom band is probably where it's at :)
I have a ton of your "Everyday" items. Because I don't have patience to try to make, UV map, and texture loads of even relatively simple things like, for example, an ID badge. I can do it for a one off, but the truth is I want to render more than I want to model mundane stuff unless there's some challenge to it. I mean, it takes time. And you already put in that time so I can just use the one I bought from you and get straight to rendering. Consequently your stuff is indispensible to me, and every major sale where you pop up, I go and pick up one or two more of the sets thati don't have. Still not a complete collection but it's getting close.
One thing of note is that sometimes a single prop (like an envelop from your stationary set) is all I'll ever need because when you've seen one, you've seen them all. But for some items variety is key. I did a render once of people preparing for a photo shoot and needed makep sets. I had your everyday cosemetics but thought it would look odd if all the women had identical makeup kits so I mixed it up with gear from other sets I had. That was a subtle thing that I could have probably gotten away with but for jewelry or purses or cars it would look odd for multiple people in the forground to all have the same stuff. Variety is the spice of life in these situations.
That fad came when my daughter was about six. She couldnt get the hang of it, which irritated her because all her six year old school friends were sporting the bracelets and she was out in the cold. Then it disappeared. She's now 12 and no kidding, last week she dug it out and made a perfect bracelet, just because. I think she's spent the last six years plotting to do it at some point as a sort of "hah! take that!" thing. She made one bracelet and then right back into the closet it went.
Putting in lots of different stuff would be great, if it would come for free... but as soon as I have to pay for something, the motivation to pay drops the more items are in a pack that I have no use for...
One thing I can say for maclean is that his prop sets are extensive and reasonably priced, and when on sale are very reasonably priced indeed. So they aren't free but by DAZ standards it's like they are the equivalent of "fast grab" prices a lot. And they round out the scenes with things that make it look more natural so for me it's worth it and hence I've bought a bunch. Everyone's mileage my vary, of course.
I like macleans sets and find new ways to use them alll the time. Great stuff.
I once read a book on investing where the guy related it to some time he drove a taxi. He said he'd go downtown and get riders who wanted to go five blocks between law firms or whatever. A lot of cabbies would say that was nuts, the fare would only be a couple bucks. They would sit at the airport for half an hour and get a $50 fare that took 15 minutes and he'd respond "In that 45 minutes I gave 15 rides at $5 each. Thats $75, you earned $50. Plus I got five tips, you got one." He called it the "meter drop", he made money every time the meter turned on, regardless of how long it was on and the more meter drops he got, the more he made. For him quantity was king.
He was actually making the case for doing day trading, which I never took up. But that simple illustration of a high volume / low margin business model compared to the low volume / high margin business model in the same product space always resonated with me. At one time DAZ was clearly in that high volume/low margin business and to some extent they still are with the PC+ items which are really cheap if you're a member. Since DAZ prices are stil waaaay lower than other 3D content sites I wouldnt say they've gone to low volume / high margin marketing but they've edged more in that direction at least. And their apparant policy of not wanting to broker small fry single item products jibes with that. Which is fine, whatever works. I bought enough here over 13 years, both inexepensive small items and large relatively expensive ones, to prove that both concepts work in this hobbyist space quite well.
I would prefer that pas would be allowed to sell smaller items and single items because I frequently don’t need another complete set and the chances I get something I really want would be higher if I’m buying ala Carte. I realize it’s not up to me but that would be my preference.
the deciding factor on whether I download a freebie has to do with its terms of use. I prefer freebies with unrestricted use. I will not download content whose licensing is unclear or those that require I do something when I use it. I just won’t remember.
Initially I made my freebies "free for personal use" or somethign like that but in the end I figured if something I make is used in a commercial project it really doesn't affect me. If I asked for money I wouldn't get it, they'd just use something else. And asking for credit or a shout out or anything like that is a non starter so in the end all I was doing was saying to some people that I didn't want them to use my freebie. So I stopped doing that, now it's all "unrestricted use". Use it, change it, give it away to others, whatever. When I say it's free, I mean it. Of course if I ever see one for sale somewhere I may change that. But in the meantime, that's how I roll.
Me too. When I was new, I did download a ton of freebies. When I was contacted for a commerical product, I used one freebie. It was an apple. I could never find a licensing terms for that item, and I vowed to avoid freebies with unclear terms after that. Its not that I'm not grateful for freebies- I am, but keeping track of their usage rights, and who wants what, is too time consuming. I'd rather use a paid for item, I know I don't have to bother citing.
Yeah, I don't give any restrictions on my stuff (other than no Second Life). It's just easier that way ;).
Laurie
Given the majority of my freebies are based upon various entertainment properties, I state "no commercial use" to cover my own a$$. I mean, that physically can't halt the end user from doing so, but if the IP owners go after that particular artist, he can't claim, "Well, golly, I didn't know!" and hopefully the owners will less likely to come after me. Of course, if I were to ever get a "cease and desist" notification, I'd honor the request and remove the item in question.
Sincerely,
Bill
..agreed.
As I mentioned if a model involves IP rights, you have to do that to protect yourself. I am very careful with such freebies and have no issue with a Personal Use only licence. By the same token, I won't lay out a lot of money for such content as I need to recoup the costs somehow. As long as the basic licence allows me to create rendered images for sale as prints or part of an illustrated story, I am down with that. So you won't find Leela speeding about the English countryside in a 1968 Jaguar E type or playing a Steinway grand piano. but as long as a "generic" or "knock off" model is reasonably "accurate", well made, and properly proportioned, that is all I need.
Ah yes, the licensing restrictions. I pretty much expect non-commercial-only clauses attached to, say, tricorder props, or to distinctive-name-brand-product replicas, but some freebie stuff I've encountered recently had a non-commercial-only restrictions on totally mundane, generic things, like ordinary hammers, children's alphabet toy blocks, pose sets, and so on. Seriously?!? Maybe it was someone who has the (totally faulty) thinking that "Gee, I'm giving this away for free, no one should DARE try to make money off that!!! You're ripping me off!!!" **FACEDESKS**
As for sci-fi-franchise stuff... I did actually see a licensing clause on some DrWho set over on ShareCG which said something to the effect of "This is based on a property owned and made by the BBC, and for that reason people probably shouldn't use this in any commercial production, but if you're one of those who do have authorization from the BBC to do use DrWho stuff like this commercially, by all means use this set for it with my blessing, you lucky duck! And I'm very happy for you! Knock yourself out!" :D
I'm actually surprised more people don't release their fan-replica stuff with licensing clauses like THAT. I mean, there ARE actually legitimate situations where a franchise-fiction replica would be perfectly appropriate for a commercial project: book covers for a Big Finish made DrWho drama audio-book, for instance.... or, heck, BBC themselves using a fan-made 3D TARDIS corridor within the DrWho TV show itself! ...so its a pity to arbitrarily lock THEM out of using nice, well-made DrWho props and scenes in their stuff simply because the majority of users WOULD be limited to only being able to do non-commerical, fan-art stuff without the BBC potentially landing on them like a ton of space junk.
...good point. There probably are some fan artists of these franchises who actually do have permissions.
Many many years go I lived with a fellow who not only had a full sized fully accurate police call box in the living room (and yes, the light on top blinked) but also a Tom Baker era control console in the kitchen that he also constructed (where the centre column moved up and down and all the lights worked). There are some who really take their fandom seriously.
Everyday props, scenes, and clothing are incredibly useful because they're versatile: they're not only useful for representing everyday reality, but for genre scenes (scifi/post apocalyptic) as well. Historical and international themed items can have a lot of potential for some scifi aesthetics as well. (Similarly, historical and some contemporary stuff can work well for fantasy scenes.)
Apply some modifications with textures/shaders or simply kitsbashing with a few statement pieces and you can transform everyday objects/places/clothes into something that works well for futuristic scenes. (Especially for clothing, since I don't prefer character designs that look impractical or uncomfortable.) Everyday decor, clutter, or other scene filler can really help to ground a futuristic scene in reality.
&
Didn't want to bash maclean. The stuff is great and as the Grinch wrote a real bargain when on sale. Usually there's several items in a pack that I could and would use somewhen...
But as an example of the opposite: during today's sale with prices reduced by 50/60% I went looking for a telephone. An ordinary telephone, as they are - at least here in germany - still used in nearly all offices. There are many different office packs available. A few have a telephone in the pack. But I don't need an office, because I already got about everything I need for an office, except for a telephone.
There's also a pack available with four telephones. But three of them would be useless to me, so I ain't willing to pay for them... paying for stuff I don't need isn't very popular with me. Yes, I'm a miser... but that pack would cost me $ 2.70 or so... which means with four items in it, I would pay 75% of that sum for stuff I don't need... Kinda like going somewhere to buy some pants and having to buy a set of pants, vest, jacket and hat, of which only the pants do fit...
Still looking for an office telephone btw.
https://www.daz3d.com/tele-phony
its all phones.
Well that black phone is pretty much like those ISDN phones, although not quite, they still use all over Germany, Switzerland, and elsewhere over there too I guess. That green one though is US that I haven't seen since the 80s!
The green looks like an old school army phone.
That too. We had one at home we bought at a flea market cheap but at the time i didn't realize the Army had phones like that. We also had a light beige colored one before it broke. It's been a long time since I've been in any barracks or the Pentagon or such places. I wonder if they've modernized all the equipment. That's a lot of money.
I love your jewelry and have used many items to flesh out scenes. Thanks for everything!
I appreciate all your work, and have several pieces. Normal clothing, especially for free, is wonderful!
I have lots of your stuff, and really appreciate the tutorials! Thanks a bunch!
Exactly the pack I meant but didn't want to mention to not be called "bashing" it... of those four phones I only need the black one. But I would have to pay for vest, shirt and hat (= the three other phones) too. Not the fault of the PA who did it, but just me being a miser.