Aren't products sold more and more complex?
odastein
Posts: 606
So, during the last month or two, I went over the whole DAZ 3d catalogue, from beginning to end, first step in creating a coherent wishlist so that I'll know which items I really need/want in the future.
Doing that, I noticed that products sold seemed to become not only more attractive, but also much more complex and encompassing. For instance, when a "pirate set" would have included ten items in the past, it now includes 100, many of them I would be interested in buying if they were standalone. Or along with the character, you have two sets of clothes, and poses, and several props. Or instead of one partial room with a handful of items, you have a whole large appartment of 4-5 rooms, entirely frunished. The environment is much larger, with much more diverse vegetion, and rocks, etc.. And so on for everything.They also seem to be of better general quality. Among the recent products, there aren't that many that I wouldn't want to have.
Am I correct in this evaluation? And doesn't it mean that artists now have to work much more than in the past for the same income?
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Comments
Yep...the expectations grow and the PA's have to grow along. Either through increasing the options or advancing the detail. What could have gotten away as a decent set in years past, just wont cut it in todays market.
I would often prefer more standalone partial products for a lesser price. Quite often I see "Classroom Version 1003" with tons of stuff that I might want to use, if I could get it cheaper and without the room that I don't really need, due to already having a couple of classrooms... or bathrooms... or whatever...
I understand that there are quite a few people preferring to buy something that "works out of the box", but I prefer using stuff to put together the look that I imagine, not some "one style fits all" version.
And better quality? Well... there's still quite a few rooms with doors, windows and furniture doors that can't be opened... so I'm not so sure about globally better quality..
That's not quality, that's a design decision.
Two things about that, Putting several dozen props, much less a couple of hundred in place is an incredibly tedious and time consuming process. Most people don't want to do it and are quite willing to pay $20 or $25 to get a scene with all that work done. I certainly am. Second by getting a scene from one vendor at one time there is a reasonable expectation that all the props are of the same or at least similiar quality. When I've tried to kitbash a solution for a set I couldn't find or didn't want to pay for due to high cost, I've found that the available props differed drastically in quality so much that they really showed up in the final render.
Are there things done poorly in full scenes? Yes. Are there things done poorly in single props? Yes. Have I bought both only to find out advertised features were absent? Yes. I(f you buy in the Daz shop try it out within 30 days and if it doesn't fit what you/need expect return it for a refund and move on.
The thing to remember is that there are often several different ways to approach a scene, and each has tradeoffs. This decision doesn't make one objectively better or worse than another, but obviously it may be absolutely better or worse for your particular interests/workflow/etc.
Environments are a great example; there are advantages to baking everything into one thing, but obvious limitations. A kitbashy approach is super flexible but overwhelming and time consuming. Etc.
I mean, sure, sometimes things are just bad.
But I think PAs in general have learned a lot, both personally and from one another, over the years and many products now have some amazing advancements and attention to detail.
I agree about being happy with everything included in a scene. I'm buying environmental sets based on if I like the entire package or not, if it can be my lead characters living room, etcetera without making many major tweaks and I can just keep animating. So I really do appreciate the PA's time and effort for putting so much thought into the detail of the scenes with everything it contains.
I favour the modular approach myself, because it dovetails into my workflow really nicely. Just making an environment tends to create a dozen potential modular pieces, and people seem to really appreciate having those extras as options.
Sometimes I'll add in "background props" which are simpler, less detailed pieces with small or no textures intended to bulk out the background of a scene just so it doesn't look so empty. Don't know if that's a good practice though because I'm regularly horrified to see people use the low rez pieces in a render as a centerpiece where they look terrible.
But yes, once upon a time I used to think 10 props was a good benchmark for a solid set, but now I think of 24 as minimum.
It would be nice if some of these sets had pre-positioned nulls on tables and shelves and the like, whose coordinates could be used to copy and paste (or align with) other props. Or for positioning characters for that matter (instead of 'go-to poses'). Long live kitbashing.
I guess that's where the real complexity of products shows up most. I can do things with my products now that just weren't possible years ago. For example, I've just finished a fridge whose light switches on when the door is opened. That's thanks to a combination of the Iray preview and ERC materials which couldn't be done until recently. Or my favorite one of all - the curved soya bottle with morphing liquid (a Pose Control done in 13 steps and devised by Josh Darling of DAZ).
I've gone off environments a bit, preferring to explore packs of useful objects that people can add into their scenes.But even with simple props, the improvements over the years are remarkable.