500 Pages in Content Library - Am I the first to hit this landmark?
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I don't know about more WISELY, but the DAZ system is so HEAVILY weighed in favor of making larger purchases, that the average prices that items will be sold at is generally pretty predictable. Add in the fact that once they've stopped being "new" items, all DAZ Originals go on sale for at least 65% at least once a month and at least 70% off at least every three montht and that all of the major PAs go on sale for at least 50% off once a month and for between 60--70% off at least once every three and it's pretty easy to figure out when the optimun times that shiny new item in the store is going to be. And if something goes on sale for effectively LESS than that, like right now with the confluence of 30% off GCs and 30% off loyalty rewards... ka-ching!
Maybe... but what motivates me mainly is that a lot of content doesn't stay available for all that long. Ironically that used to be more of a Renderosity problem, but as of late it seems like the situations reversed and there are vendors and products disappearing from DAZ every time I turn around. And, as you said, there are other vices and "addicitions" that many people have that cost more.
Bang for the buck... hmmm. Being curious, I went back to see where I had the larger orders, and what they were. One order I got the items on average for $3.83 each, and most were in the 18.95 range, but there were several that were 24.95 to 39.95. The other order that was large, the items averaged $4.53 but mostly 39.95 and sets and bundles. December 2012 was that timeframe.
A few other things influenced buying during the holidays. I was at the top tier in discounts during another Christmas, and I can't remember which Christmas it was, but they locked the Snowball discount at whatever tier you were in. Remember the discount was disappearing at the end of the week, and you had to start earning all over again? People complained, so they froze you at what you were at. That benefitted some of us, but not fair to others in my opinion. They got locked in for weeks at that lower discount and could have made different buying decisions had they known that was coming. (You could have been ONE product short of getting that higher tier.) What year was that Snowball thing where they froze the tier? (It wasn't 2012, I'd been here a few years and 2012 was my first Christmas.) They did Snowball punches a couple years I think?
I guess the real question should be out of 500 pages of content how much of it do you actually use?
I am guilty of buing stuff and never used it. But I only have 280+ pages of content i and i thought i was a horder.lol But after reading this thread and seeing what I have done with what I have bought. It turns out most of the stuff i buy i use pretty use regularly for animations & kit bashing. even alot of my older generation 4 content sill has alot of life in it.
So the real question should be is what percentage do you think you use out of 500+ pages of content . I would say I use around 60 to 70% of my 280+ pages of content through out the year.
I've slowed down for sure. Last order I made where I paid for something was Oct 9th 2019 for $1.05 for the Yard & Garden - Mattocks. Since then I have has 29 orders that I paid nothing for, most of them were PC+ freebies during the PC+ sale in October or Christmas freebies during Christmas.
Biggest bang for $ spent was when I bought PC+ for a year, DAZ Game License, Callie 6 Pro Bundle, Cory 6 Pro Bundle and a lot of other items totalling getting close to $1000 for getting close to just over $100. It was well worth the money for sure. It says I made 733 orders total.
I often wondered if my 231 pages was a large number, apparently not!
So, definitely curious if artists with large libraries render or use all the products at least once?
For me, no. Like a library of physical books or a pallete of paint or or a full set of drill bits or a complete socket set, a library of 3D content allows you to both have more options to choose from as well as allowing you to most likely have the tool you need at the moment you need it. Likely there are many sockets in my socket set I haven't used (and potentially I may never use some), and there is definitely much content I haven't used yet. Unlike tools where one could run to the hardware store mid-project (at unecessarily greater but still reasonable expense, but without loss of creative impetus of an art project), or paints where there is a small number that you could probably buy at once to have every color option available at all times, 3D content is highly variable in price and often vanishes overnight as venders move or quit or stores expel older product. It is sometimes complex to use and also not practical to test all content prior to use, and thus something you thought would work may not be appropriate. As a result, I find it makes the most sense to purchase things I eventually plan to use when they are at reasonable prices rather than when they are at their most expensive (and still exist) and have them available for use as needed. When sales and finances allow, additional content (aka more options) can also be obtained at a reasonable price even when taking into account that some may not be used.
Also keep in mind what you do with your art may be different than what other people do. If your goal is to just create endless portraits, or you work only with custom terrains with procedural materials then it would likely not make sense to amass a huge library and you could get away with just a tiny fraction of what other people use. If you constantly create many differing detailed scenes with dozens of background filler items in each one, you will churn through your content library at a stunning rate of speed and will make use of dramatically more content than other people. If you are just really really picky, same thing. If you are a modeling or texturing master, then you will need far less since you can just make your own. If you cannot afford to purchase much, then you will be forced to use far less (and you will likely benefit from that in certain ways, and take a loss in other ways.) If the products you buy are simple items you may purchase far more than somebody else who purchases construction kits or complex sets, as in each it is only 1 purchased item but the volume of what can be produced can vary dramatically.
I have 74 pages with 733 orders and 4272 unique DIM DAZ product installers. Those aren't all unique products though. For that in my product library 40 products a page and 76 pages makes for 3040 unique products included in those 733 orders. That's on average just over 4 products per order. That is a lot to me. I guess ATI's DAZ Shopper plugin would calculate all that too.
126 since 2011. Very 'bad'...
So far...? A relatively small percentage of it. But that that's partially by intent, as one of my main goals was always to build a resource pool of assets to have on hand when needed rather than constantly having to go out hunting for something I didn't have or, worse, to go to get something I'd taken note of previously only to find that it was no longer there. Which, given the huge number of 3D artists and products that I've seen come and go since I first started playing with Poser, has proven to have been a more than reasonable concern. Granted, my "virtual backlot" has grown quite a bit larger than I ever expected, in good part because the way DAZ sales work has caused me to buy a lot of products that I might never have bought if it weren't for the way that DAZ math frequently makes it cheaper to toss an item you don't really need into the cart in order to get a significantly greater discount on other items that makes the whole package with the extra item included much cheaper than buying the remaining items on their own.
I just checked, I'm at 375. While a bit dissappointed I can take solace in the fact that there are people out there more hooked than I am. I'm not even going to try to play catch up with the 99 cent sale :P
But what if we get cool jackets like these...? Would you be tempted then? (Heck, DAZ, why AREN'T you offering these to those of us who reach the 500 club?)
But those only say 5 not 500
Maybe the zeros are only visible to really cool people.
What Cybersox said about not searching for assets, and not buying when prices are high. It's also been useful for when people have questions on my Art Studio thread, to be able to look something up for them. I buy a lot of the Pro Bundles too when I think they're rather so-so, because you get such big discounts on multiple sales due to the number of Pro Bundles owned. And of course, the sales the next few days after the Pro Bundle is offered are usually related to owning that particular Pro Bundle. I've been using more lately (have no idea to even guess what percentage I've used through the years) and slowed down on the buying, and 2020 I've set a budget for other things so that doesn't leave much for Daz. I'm going the route of the deeply discounted gift cards (30%) and making do with that.
I also have the same mindset of "What if this disappears from the store? Would I miss it?" So I have all of Ken's and Lisa's items which are double (or triple, haven't checked in years) the price of what I paid. (There were really good sales.) Painters Lights are no longer offered here, etc. The "There's Always Another Sale" is true, but the products aren't guaranteed to be there.
I'm generally of the mindset I buy particularly the off-the-wall items when they come up simply because the way I work I never know what I am going to need to complete a story, and I don't want to have to go looking for that item. You have to keep a pretty tight control on your content library though, becuase if you don't it may take forever to find say a boomerang even if you know you have it. And boomerang might be easy, you just search on the word, but there have been times I've needed an item, know I have it, and haven't the foggiest of what it was called. I know what I'd call it, but I have no idea what the artist who made it called it.
Oh look, I got a free jacket! It only cost me $10,000!
I'm at 74 pages now. Over 15 years, that's not quite 5 pages a year. A little over a year ago, I spent some time to see how much I had actually used. I was amazed that I had used almost 90%, but keep in mind this is 15 years of stuff, and 15 years of renders. More recently though, I got some great deals on a few free or super low cost pro bundles, so I'm sure that percentage has dropped. I also have 15 years of PC and other freebies (~900 items), many that I haven't used, which adds to the page count, and the percentage of unused stuff. Kind of like you, it bothers me a bit to buy something and not use it. For a while I was picking up stuff on sale that I liked and might use some day, but have learned what types of renders I tend to do, so now I shy away from something just because I like it, unless I know I will use it. Pro bundles come with lots of stuff, and I've learned to evaluate them as well, if most of it is something I won't use, but I really like the character, I get just the character.
I'm pretty slow, it often takes days to get a render/scene setup and rendered (sometimes weeks), so using large volumes of content simply wouldn't be possible. I would guess though that some of those with 300+ pages have used a high percentage of it. there are some artists that seem to be able to easily create one image a day, typically with different content in each image. So while some of the numbers seem extremely high, a prolific artist who makes images using new content all the time could amass quite a library in a 5-10 year period, and have actually used most of it.
I also wanted to thank everyone for sharing their approaches to content management. As my library slowly grows, It's nice to have ideas on how it can be better managed.
I wonder if Chohole might still be upset over the new outfits that DAZ made for the Moderators to wear?
Hey, nothing says babe-magnet* like a jacket that says "I spend way too much time and money playing with my virtual dolls."
*Babe in this case being used as a non-genderized term that can apply equally to anyone of any gender who is considered attractive to someone else of whatever gender of their choosing, but NOT that damn CG pig.
They decided to buy us all somethign similar when I was working as a warehouseman. they don't work out too well on a 5ft tall, slim female weighing 7stone 8lbs ( that's 106 lbs in american), I'll settle for the set without the bib, much more convenient
I first heard the term as a nickname for some American baseball player actually then Wayne's world introduced me to the concept of calling a hottie by that term,
I think they use the word Bae now because of the pig
¿Porque no los dos?
But... how did you look in that mustache?
moustaches not allowed, nor beards, it was a food warehouse.
So young you must be... Babe has been used to refer to attractive women since at least the 1910s, though using it to refer to attractive men didn't really become common until the 1970s, mostly as a result of the hit 965 Sonny and Cher (yes, THAT Cher) song "I got you Babe."
no I am old 57 but Australian, Babe was never used here at all
Well, "I Got You Babe" rose to number 3 on the Australian music charts in 1965 as did Styx's Babe in 79, and Barry WHite's "Can't get enough of your love, Babe,"" charted there in 1974, and I seem to recall the term being used in Oz films as early as the Alvin Purple films... but since Australia has a wealth of it's own regional vernacular to favor and defend... like Sheila and, inexplicably to the rest of the world, Possum, for pretty women... I don't doubt that the local jingo won out most of the time. Of course, that means that everyone still expects y'all to sound like Crocodile Dundee and spend the day putting shrimp on the barbie, so is that really winning...?
I was familiar with the song but it wasn't really part of our vernacular at least in my sphere of existence until after Wayne's World
baby yes not babe
maybe in places other than South Australia
Shrimp and Sheila were never either my generation at least