pricey :(

hi, i'm a very new user and something that really strikes me is that everything is kinda pricey. I mean seriously, can't i just enjoy creating something without people trying to sell me the right to?!

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Comments

  • Cris PalominoCris Palomino Posts: 11,142

    Daz is a store and so they hope there will be things that interest their customers enough to buy them, but it's not a requirement in order to use Studio and you can create to your heart's content. We have many who do their own creations.

  • GordigGordig Posts: 9,028

    Every item in the store was made by a person or people who invested their time, energy and expertise to create it. You have the right to create whatever you want, but you are not entitled to the fruits of other people's labor. Even items given away for free have conditions of use.

  • BeeMKayBeeMKay Posts: 6,982

    As far as prices go, DAZ Store isn't that expensive. Of course, it's not cheap, but you are buying content that can be used commercially. If you compare to places like Turbosquid.com, or Renderosity.com, or even Blendermarket.com, you will get a better perspective and comparision of the prices.

    That said, if you don't have a huge budget, don't need commercial usage rights, then check out places like ShareCG, the Freebies at Renderosity, or even the freebies in this very forum: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/categories/freebies

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 37,712

    browse through this forum

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/categories/freebies

    there is a huge amount of free content for DAZ studio around

    also this site

    https://poserdazfreebies.miraheze.org/wiki/Main_Page

  • PitmaticPitmatic Posts: 762
    edited March 2023

    Also stuff goes on sale regulary just be patient and the daz deals extention is your best friend ever

    Post edited by Pitmatic on
  • FSMCDesignsFSMCDesigns Posts: 12,518

    Welcome!! LOL, if you think DAZ is expensive, take a look at the normal 3D stores prices https://www.turbosquid.com/

    As pointed out, you can use Daz Studio without ever making a purchase in the store and I actually recommend it for new users at least until you figure out how everything works and what artistic dierection you want to go in. Otherwise, you will end up purchasing plenty you may never use.

    At the end of the day DAZ is a business and their business is selling 3D content

  • ColinFrenchColinFrench Posts: 620

    If you do decide to jump into the Daz world with both feet, two suggestions:

    1) Get the Daz+ membership. It often provides a nice extra discount but you need to buy enough to offset the cost and that is most likely to happen when you're first starting out and  grabbing lots of stuff. As you accumulate a library of assets, the need for Daz+ is reduced. BTW, sometimes the Daz+ membdership itself goes on sale.

    2) Keep an eye out for Gift Card sales. You can buy a gift card for yourself, so if you get one for 20% off, anything you buy with that store credit is automatically a 20% discount on top of whatever sale price is currently going on. Just remember to treat your store credit like money and not just blow through it since "it's there".

    Have fun, and keep reading the forum. There's lots of friendly folk here!

  • takezo_3001takezo_3001 Posts: 1,914
    edited March 2023

    Welcome to Daz!

    It may be a blessing that you are a bit overwhelmed by the prices, as the store is incredibly addicting, and so many of us are caught within its grasp! 

    But seriously, the store really is one of the best things about this site, once you've grown accustomed to studio, you'll really appreciate the excent products from PAs from the community!

    Post edited by takezo_3001 on
  • lilweeplilweep Posts: 2,217

    If you use Marvelous Designer, very cheap clothes on Artstation instead of buying daz clothes. But MD itself can be expensive.

    Sketchfab has some nice free stuff, but will need to bring it into Daz manually.

  • doubledeviantdoubledeviant Posts: 1,001
    Before March Madness, Daz would offer clearance items for $1.99 or $2.99 on a frequent basis - good products, stuff that's in the Bonus Grab Bags now, but cheaper and you didn't always need to buy something else to get that price. No guarantees, but it's possible that we'll see those clearance sales return in the future (after March).

    And if not, just watch the store for a while, anyway. Daz is annoying sometimes, with convoluted sales, discounts not working correctly, poor communication, etc - BUT they do offer a lot of great content for very cheap prices. Some days, the sales are lackluster. Other days, the sales are fantastic. Spending a bit of time watching the ebb and flow of prices here will help you determine which sales are actually good.

    Also, check out:

    https://www.daz3d.com/free-3d-models

    It's usually older stuff, but it changes from time to time, and the items can be useful.
  • mwokeemwokee Posts: 1,275

    FSMCDesigns said:

     

    At the end of the day DAZ is a business and their business is selling 3D content

    Absolutely correct. Since it's becoming extremely expensive here I've been making purchases for assets at other stores.

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 14,878

    Also, if you've ever had any OTHER hobby... hobbies can be pretty expensive!

    Try collecting model trains, or knitting, or most crafts, or golfing...

     

  • Oso3D said:

    Also, if you've ever had any OTHER hobby... hobbies can be pretty expensive!

    Try collecting model trains, or knitting, or most crafts, or golfing...

     

    ... or horse ownership ... Daz horse doesn't eat, need shoes or require vet services...

  • xyer0xyer0 Posts: 5,639

    Get Daz-Deals for your browser. Turn on notifications. It will help you find low prices. Wishlist items in the store that you desire.

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 17,890
    edited March 2023

    Go to Hobby Lobby or take up almost any other hobby. Prohibatively expensive for those working USD $40K or less.

    The most cost effective hobby I've ever had using modern technology was buying a digital Panasonic Lumix Camera back in 2006 for $350 (a lot of money back then in the USA) at Walmart and bags of sunflower seed for birds. You sit outside from dawn to dusk during winter through to about the 1st 2/3rds of spring with bird feeders and bird baths and patiently take so many thousands of pictures that some of them wind up being good. 

    If you want another cheap hobby think of learning how to collage multiple photos into a new scene or multiple videos using the Adobe Elements / Premeire software (about $175 - $200).

    Another one I've done was drawing on school notebook paper. It is even cheaper. About $25 will set you up for many years.

    Oil painting is expensive and messy. Water colors are less expensive and messy. Acrylic painting are my favorite for ease of use, cleanup, and cost but don't have the beautiful translucency of oil paints. However, my art work is very mediocre and so the loss of oil paint transluncy because of using acrylic paints is actually desireable as my oil paintings wind up looking chalky in places and muddy in other places. You have to be pretty critical of what your own work is if you want to improve at your skills. I wasn't being harsh with myself, because those shortcomings in my art are valid points.

    Collecting DAZ models will be cumulatively expensive unless you are a worker making USD $50K+ and have self restraint in how you spend your discretionary money elsewhere, after all a theatre trip a week costs in excess of $20 a movie now. If you make that much, it's easily affordable to buy DAZ models.

    Post edited by nonesuch00 on
  • Oso3D said:

    Also, if you've ever had any OTHER hobby... hobbies can be pretty expensive!

    Try collecting model trains, or knitting, or most crafts, or golfing...

     

    I also do cross stitch and I machine fountain pens with a 20"x12" combined metal lathe/mill. And my experience means I can't entirely agree.

    The cross stitch takes years, so the cost per hour of work is almost nothing, merely a couple of cents at most. I'm working on two 150 colour/98000 stitch projects, do 100 stitches an hour, have done 51k stitches on each and the threads cost about $140 in 2016.

    The lathe and tools cost considerably less than my i5/64MbRAM/3060Gpu machine. It costs me up to $30 for the bits for a bespoke fountain pen, and because I already have more than 200, I sell every one I make. I could sell the pens for $300, but it feels like profiteering, so I sell for about $100. Net cost to me of that hobby is zero, and more often a profit. My lathe is now 20 years old, and is worth more than I paid for it (even though less than that PC). Not quite true of the PC I bought the year later and first played with Poser 4 on.

    From this I merely conclude there are hobbies that don't cost quite as much as this one. And this one is turning really pricy at the moment. Good thing there are some really talented people creating freebies both here and elsewhere that help reduce the costs. 

    Regards,

    Richard.

  • Thank you everyone! I was kind of upset that there wasn't much to start with for free, but all this makes me greatful theres anything at all XD

    Sorry in advance if you get tired of my questions, I like to explore on my own instead of taking tutorials like a sensible person and often need help 

  • N-RArtsN-RArts Posts: 1,415

    Personally, I think Daz has always been that way (expensive). Plus, I find Daz to be something where you have to be "all in, or not at all". 

    There are a lot of free items around now, compared to when I started ten years ago (this year).

    I had even started to create my own content (well, I had, up to November last year), and if I felt like my work is/was good enough, I'd release it as a freebie.

    I really boosted my Library when I became a Daz+ member. Every October there's a massive sale, and it's a great time to buy items. Plus, there's now another Daz+ sale, but I don't know what month its in. 

    On the money side, I'd probably give it a bit of thought before you jump in. However, if there's free content out there that's going to suit your needs, then go for it.

  •  

    Oso3D said:

    Also, if you've ever had any OTHER hobby... hobbies can be pretty expensive!

    Try collecting model trains, or knitting, or most crafts, or golfing...

    T_T I craft, paint, draw, sing, write, compose, and everything else creative with ZEAL. Because this belongs in the 'creative' category I'll stick to it for the rest of my life.

  • WendyLuvsCatz said:

    browse through this forum

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/categories/freebies

    there is a huge amount of free content for DAZ studio around

    also this site

    https://poserdazfreebies.miraheze.org/wiki/Main_Page

    Ok I know I already thanked everyone but I wanted to especially thank you for this, it's a HUGE help. You're awesome. Thanks! 

  • Faeryl WomynFaeryl Womyn Posts: 3,209

    I regularly check Renderosity free section and Sharecg loaded with free stuff.  Also Daz, Renderosity and other sites have seasonal/holiday freebie giveaways you can take advantage of. The only model you won't find a lot of freebies for right now is Genesis 9, however, the previous models (included with Daz) have a ton of freebies around various sites.

  • I see. Thank you all for all your help!

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 14,878

    Well, for G9 you get the figure free, masculine and feminine shapes plus a bunch of proportions and tweaks, plus 8 skins (4 generally feminine, 4 generally masculine). Free clothing from prior generations can fit pretty well. Free hair (I assume there's free hair, that's less common than free clothing) can be tweaked to fit decently.

    Plus, of course, all the non-figure-related free stuff. There's GOBS of free content out there, though you trade money for legwork trying to find what you want and trying to sift through workable content from drek.

    For about $50-100 you can greatly expand the ability to tweak figures (the head and body shape packs), plus maybe add a few specific items.

    So... you can be INCREDIBLY cheap with Daz and still produce interesting things. I think there are periodic contests of renders made with exclusively free content, that shows what people can accomplish.

     

  • I see...Thank you!

  • inception8inception8 Posts: 280

    mwokee said:

    FSMCDesigns said:

     

    At the end of the day DAZ is a business and their business is selling 3D content

    Absolutely correct. Since it's becoming extremely expensive here I've been making purchases for assets at other stores.

    It's good to have choices and when we don't have them anymore we'll miss them when they're gone.

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 14,878

    Just by way of example, this render was made with entirely free content:

    Included Genesis 9 and Genesis 9 starter skins. I tweaked them, but, again... at no cost.

    A little shape tweaking from Sickleyield's free shape pack on ShareCG.

    Hair (Classic Hair) and outfit (Double Diamond) from ShareCG.

     

    Ok, the lighting is actually from a product, but I paid for time savings, not unique content; if I really wanted I could set up some spots and set a backdrop color.

     

  • fred9803fred9803 Posts: 1,558

    I better not provide a link to a competitor's site but if you Google Wilmap's Digital Creations he has a lot of free clothing for various Genesis generations. In fact it's all free. You need to register and, if you're feeling generous, make a small donation.

  • mwokeemwokee Posts: 1,275

    mwokee said:

    FSMCDesigns said:

     

    At the end of the day DAZ is a business and their business is selling 3D content

    Absolutely correct. Since it's becoming extremely expensive here I've been making purchases for assets at other stores.

    It's good to have choices and when we don't have them anymore we'll miss them when they're gone.

    I don't know what that means but if you can't afford it you can't afford it. People here who are defending high prices must have money to burn. I don't.
  • MasterstrokeMasterstroke Posts: 1,757

    Oso3D said:

    Also, if you've ever had any OTHER hobby... hobbies can be pretty expensive!

    Try collecting model trains, or knitting, or most crafts, or golfing...

     

    Exactly yes 

  • paulawp (marahzen) said:

    ... or horse ownership ... Daz horse doesn't eat, need shoes or require vet services...

    Amen to that! One big vet bill can easy dwarf what I spent for my whole digital art set up!

    Just as another perspective.. At least the OP doesn't  have to buy the base software to get started in the DAZ universe. As a former Poser user, getting Studio for  free gives me a LOT more to spend on content. wink
     

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