When did I buy all these products? (... And why haven't I used 'em yet?)
nicstt
Posts: 11,714
I was looking through my runtime textures folder; basically, I wanted to know how many G3 I hadn't done anything with either ever or not since G8 (and quite likely ever).
I copied the links of each character and ended up with 69; just G3F.
I past by a lot of G2, Genesis too; and there are V4 which tend to be elsewhere...
I'm going to be busy for a while, and I actually thought I'd done almost all. 
I'm curious how many others have, and how they go about 'not forgetting' them.
Post edited by nicstt on
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
224 S 200 W, Suite #250
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
I do forget.
I mainly use the store's search function to find stuff that I've grabbed. And of course, I accidentally come across stuff I don't remeber getting. I have a sheet that lists products of note, under different categories and I have a stash of future scripts that I'll always update with products that fit the story. So many items DO NOT come up under searches (even if you use aterm from its name) and so many products have names that do not relate to their function at all. i13ronman products never [correction: some do, some don't] come up under poses. Clothing with ONE adjustment pose show up under poses, but never her products.
What's nice is when I have an idea and I doa search and I have a top item already in my library that fits the bill.
What stinks is when ....
a) I finish off the need and LATER find an item, I own, that fits the role better or would have been easier to use.
b) An item I swear I bought is searched for and it turns out I never grabbed it. So many items go in and out the cart, sometimes you'd think you pulled the trigger.
c) A vender releases the perfect product AFTER I've already managed to make do. [I spent two days battling cliffs and then the MODULAR cliff set comes out]
d) I buy the same item twice, but for different generations. OUCH! (There's even a product that I have the A3, Genesis and Genesis 2 version of)
Oh yeh, finding something after you could have used it is irritating.
I have a TON of stuff I haven't used yet and not used much of but doesn't stop me buying more
I thought I was the only one with this problem. I use the Daz shopping browser add-on to show what was purchased already to find new and “free” toys to play with. Sometimes they were free when I got them like a weekly freebie or something. Sometimes it is a rereleased item that is updated to have iray settings and a new flag.
Hopefully I am getting better at not impulsive buying stuff then forgetting I bought it.
I have this problem as well. I've realized the culprit is the promo images for the products. They (the images) just look so darn nice that it really gets you to think you need that product ASAP. STAT. I have many many big environment sets, that I bought just because of the promo images and haven't really used them. I've stopped buying big sets. I realized, just most recently, that I tend to just do up-close renders or portraits of people, so now have only been buying small simple environment sets.
Sometimes a promo sucks me in; that's why I wait, usually successfully. :)
I really hate thinking about how many characters I own. The thing is, I almost never buy a character with the idea of using it "as is", so the buying decision usually comes down to whether I like the textures or if the sculpting looks like a good starting point for building on and kit bashing. At this point, though, I've got so many characters that I could literally use a new character every day for multiple years and never repeat... in fact, I could do two years with just G3F alone, nearly that with G2F and more than a few years with V4 if I ever got the urge to use her again as something other than a skin donor or a source for GenX morphs. It's far more than I'll ever need, but I can't say I really regret it, though, as I used to spend a lot more time dial-spinning to get characters that I both liked and looked sufficently different from other characters that I was already using, and now I tend to spend a lot less time in character creation and more on actually rendering.
i keep thinking..wow I can use tha tin this or that project..and then the project sits on the shelf when I see something new that calls for a new project... deja vu over and over again.
Sometimes I buy something and then it turns out the packaging was deceptive or the item is taxing on the system. I may also have grand designs for something but then leave 3d for... a new time consuming video game !
Apparently it is not just Daz, but also amazon music. Apparently I purchased over 8 thousand songs which I doubt I have listened to them all yet.
I will admit right now that I've bought a LOT more stuff than I have ever used. Than I WILL ever use, most likely. I see something I like, think "That's for me!", and buy it - and the next day it's something else. Probably the only way for me to stop the cycle is to never visit the site. However, I've been around the Poser and now DS community for more than two decades and it's hard to walk away from the forums every bit as much as it is the software and content. To quit the content I have to quit the community too. And as a disabled person who needs to fill my days with things that will keep me busy because I'm unable to work, that's a lot harder than it sounds. LOL. 3D is one of those things that keeps me from going stir-crazy. I have cut way back on the amount and type of things I buy and maybe I can pare back just a bit more. At least I hope so.
I've gotta get back to modelling :P.
Laurie
Its been my past practice that when I buy content its with the intention of being able to kit bash its content together with other sets, that is why i prefer some venders over others for the ability to tear sets apart & kit bash their content with other sets Currently I have 5 HHD full of content & i use them regularly . which as a animator working with daz is pretty easy to to, so I say I use about 70% of the content i buy i use regularly, if not more just because make backgrounds and stuff on my down time
A long time ago I started to cataloged all my content with Excel. So I can quickly go down my product list & use windows search & I can find all my content in every hard drive running,. That has been the best solution for me anyway
I plan to use whatever I buy and then my interests change before I ever use like 90% of it. On the plus side I have one heck of a museum. At least I don't have to dust this stuff.
I have over a 1000 music CDs of which I've never listened to 99% of them. Such is the power of being told something is 'cool' and my 'boredom' on my wallet. However I've very thankful of those I bought towards the end of my compulsive CD collecting many classical and folk (traditional polka & other styles of old time folk music) music which I now have enough of and listen to quite alot.
I've always known I'd not use most of the DAZ products when I was buying them but it's having those to use & with a interactive license to boot so that I can use it without fret to make games if I want is why I bought them so it doesn't bother me.
I've been collecting content since the introduction of Victoria 3. As a result I have multiple terabytes worth of content the majority of which has never been used. There are two forces that have been at work to cause this. First and foremost has been the Platinum Club, when I got started I didn't have much money, a fact that is sadly still true today. This made joining the Platinum Club a no brainer because it allowed me to get so much content at amazing prices. Those amazing prices become very hard to pass up and so I end up with so much content that I'll likely never need...but if I do, hey I got it at a great price. The second force at work is my imagination. More specifically the ability to look at content and imagine a way in which I might one day need that content. A third factor that deserves honorable mention has been the evolution of content. There is so much stuff I have bought with every intention of using it but before I do a new generation of characters is released and suddenly I'm obcessing over that and forget about all the old content that I meant to use. Then one day I remember all that old content and revisit it and I find myself thinking why did I ever by this? It's garbage compared to what is out there now. It's kind of like trying to go back to and be excited about playing Pong after you're used to playing GTA V. I still keep it all because I'm stubburn and keep telling myself that the day after I get rid of something will be the day that I finally need it. :)
"I started to cataloged all my content with Excel"
Yup, me too, Ivy. Categorized like a database, six ways from Sunday. Which is why I can quickly answer questions like "How many characters do you have for Victoria 4?". Answer: 1329. Have I used them all in a render? Actually, I have, but only because I also created reference renders for each so I could browse the thumbnails if I'm looking for something specific. I only use V4 as an example because, in terms of humans and their stuff, she's a heavyweight in the content repository.
At some point along the way it seems to have become more a case of collecting, like coins or stamps or doorknobs, rather than a matter of "I need that for a render!". Like Smaug sleeping on his pile of gold.
I think it actually makes sense. There's not too many things I can think of in this world where 100% of the inventory gets used. Sports teams have more players than play in any given game.
The artists, of any kind, who use assets tend to have multiples of everything and want the freedom to make (the best) choices.
A collage-artist doesn't make his art from just one newspaper/ media source.
Several annoying things happen with this library.
1. I find the item I couldn't find after I used a substitute.
2. I swear I own something, search for it, find it in the store and realize I never bought it when it was on sale and there it is at full price.
3. A vendor releases the perfect product I need - right after I found a way to 'make do'.
4. I see something- I could swear I already own - buy it and months later realize I already owned the Generation I use and just grabbed the previous generation version. XYZ for Genesis 2. XYZ for Genesis 3. XYZ for V4
I try to test drive everything at least once within a couple of weeks of purchasing; not necessarily make a full-fledged render with it, but just find it, load it up and look at it with Iray preview. (or try out shaders, scripts etc on something). For poser content, I then move it around in the runtime to fit my customized structure. If it's for a figure other than Genesis 3, I try to convert it to Genesis 3 content. I leave a copy of the order summary open in my web browser as a reminder to do this, until i am finished with a particular order. I try not to make a second purchase until I'm done testing the first; and when I fall down on that, I try not to make a third purchases until everything from the last two orders is accounted for.
I wish DAZ had a favourite tracking system - just a little heart or star next to the item. That way, I could flag the stuff in the system that I want to use for my next project instead of using notepad.
I think this is a good point; I enjoy the collecting aspect, and as hobbies go, there are worse for sure. I even do the occasional render I'm happy with.
I load them all, check out their textures - tweak them or adjust a lot (depends), and create a render in the A-pose; I don't consider that as using the item, I've merely got it to a stage where I might use it.
Since my OP, I'd reduced the number in need of loading up to 27; the pa and pc club sale had a seriously detrimental affect on that number - I've no clue, and am just working my way through. Then I might actually get to G2 before G9 arrives. I'm not able to place any bets on that, which is a good thing.
*sigh*
Yes. I am a content hoarder. I am finally slowing down, thanks to the "I already have six of those" realizations. But I haven't come to a stop yet.
I am giving most gen4 and earlier stuff a pass these days. That was hard to do when G1 was still my primary figure. And I'm not that quick to snap up Genesis 1 and 2 content now that I've finally made the leap to G3 and G8. But sets and props are still a major weakness.
Where the real difficulty comes is in freeing hard drive space by pruning the library. That is *really hard*. And I haven't cleared up the installed runtimes, although I need to do another cross check and re-org. I'm overdue.
I did, at least manage to shift a lot of gen4 and earlier stuff off the backup library disk onto a spare HD. I really doubt that I'm ever going to be desparately sifting through my content collection looking for a V4 minidress with a hole in it.
True. On the other hand, those V4 skins still look pretty good when you hit them with a topline Iray shader like NGS2 or Altern8. A seperate V4 and under drive sounds like a good idea, given that there are still a lot of items that haven't been duplicated in the post-genesis world and I fully expect Sickleyield and Riversoft to drop a V4 to G8 converter on the market in the next year or so.
That said, what I REALLY need at this point is a good universal cataloging system that can sort by both product category and figure, displays a good sized product image and isn't dependent on which site the product was purchased at. Preferably something that could be viewed on a tablet as well as a PC... anyone have any ideas? .
Wow, this thread hit home. I have so much stuff (going all the way back to Commune3D days), Poser and Daz Studio, that I can't find a thing. I haven't used most of it and probably never will. I'm like JOdel, I'm a content hoarder. I like all the pretty baubles and have to have them. I have Stonemason stuff I've never opened in a scene. I keep meaning to...I really do...really.
There was some lovely stuff on 3DCommune. Nice freebies too. I still have a lot of it on that spare HD.
All my 3DC Fabi stuff for Aiko 3....outfits I sooooo wish she'd adapt to Genesis 8. LOL
Laurie
The number one reason now that I think about it ? Like everyone else I have my interests and hobbies on the web and do not want to tie up my computer on a render for hours on end. A lot of times I will mess around and then wait until bed time to get the render done while I am sleeping.
RENDER TIMES
"a good universal cataloging system"
Unfortunately, I don't believe that there is any such thing. I don't mean that there aren't cataloging systems, but rather I am refering to the "universal" part. Whenever someone describes anything as universal, that usually means that it was designed by someone who believed that they knew what was important and what was not, which probably is different from what you or I would consider important. The only way to get exactly what you want, is to do it yourself.