No encrypted for me.
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Someone must have done a little calculating and I must assume that DAZ made the decisionbased on that. What I mean is that there is a trade-off between the amount they calculate DAZ probably loses because of pirates and the amount they will lose because legitimate regular customers will drift away.
The initial concept of DAZ Studio was brilliant. Commercial standard software given away for free in order to attact content buyers. They have also managed to negotiate the narrow path between the "Adult" market and the Sci-Fi/Fantasy enthusiasts, while attracting both. But I'm not sure the DRM move is a wise one.
My gut feeling is that most of those who download masses of content from torrents, etc., will never become part of the enthusiast community. People on this forum may complain but I'd bet that almost all are paying customers who have invested a large slice of their pocket money in legal content. You can see this by the amount of reaction to sales, etc. People like to get involved in their hobbies and paying for stuff helps us feel part of a community. We ask questions and receive advice - I just don't see that kind of community spirit being commensurate with illegally downloaded content. Those guys will probably dabble a while then move on to the next shiny bauble.
It makes more sense that people would be attracted to software with little ongoing commitment. Like the older versions of Photoshop or ZBrush where it is a simple matter of download and use it for years. Not so with a hobby which involves an evolving world of characters and settings. I just don't believe that the warez downloaders would be the types to jump into this as a serious venture. If they do get drawn in, then - in all likelihood - they will start to buy content like the rest of the legit community.
Not to mention that if you want to move on from pure hobbying to using the content in other commercial projects or money making activities, I'd hate to see what would happen if you happened to get audited or whatever and didn't have the rights to use that content legally for your business. Maybe nothing tends to happen? But it seems like a huge deal to me.
...I saw that I could only purchase a certain product via connect. Really? You are seriously going to choose who can buy your products?
Let me see, as of this moment I have 6167 files on a dedicated Daz hard drive , pro versions of all of your software and if I had to estimate I would say all told between 5 and 10 grand spent here since V3 came out.
Well I got to tell you, I won't play this game with you. You don't want me as a customer I'll go elswhere.
I used to be a an office user and I regulaly updated to the latest top of the line windows version until Microsoft decided they wanted me to use my microsoft id to log in to my own computer.
I used to be an adobe Master suite customer until Adobe went to the cloud so they could charge me more in rental than I paid for the entire suite.
And if you try to force me to use a service I don't want in order to get content I do want, believe me, I'll be a person who used to use Daz once too.
Out of curiosity... can users still download 4.8 from Daz, or do previous versions of DS become unavailable once newer versions are released?
You can upgrade to 4.9 and enjoy the improved Iray tweaks, and the improved Smart Content, without ever using Connect. I use Content Library though lol. I do really like the image boxes popping up when something is missing from what I am loading, rather than those lines of file paths. I just select "Work Offline" and it's just an improved version of 4.8.
Merged to a thread that Daz is watching so it doen't get lost.
Only the most recent version is available.
Encrypted? Not buying. Enough said.
Can any DS 4.9 user explain what this new feature means. "The ability to see suggestions for related products to supplement what you are currently working on."
There is a store tab that generates suggested products based on what you have selected or added in your scene. So the theory is if you select a specific hair product it would show content that relates such as a Material addon for the hair in DS. Or selecting a suit of armor may show medieval environment sets.
I was really concerned about this, but when I tested it in the beta, all it did was see what "section" of the Smart Content library you were on (i.e. if you picked Wardrobe) and then displayed items in the same category in the store tab. It didn't check which products you were actually using or anything like that, but the constant reloading was irritating and the store interface was awful.
It might have changed since the early beta though - I have no idea. After sending in feedback I never touched it again.
Are these suggestions for products you have already installed (or purchased but not yet installed) or related products in the Daz store that you may not as yet purchased?
http://prntscr.com/9tp1jv
Here you can see what I have in Smart content for accessories, and in Store, below, what is being suggested. You can see there are filters it is using which you can modify.
So it's basically an integrated store search function, whithout you having to actually type in the search term.
The Store section flips open and closed pretty easily so you only need to open it if you were looking for something. There no real reason to leave it open all the time it just takes up screen space.
It relates to store items.
Yeah, as you can see it's a tab alongside my 3D View. :)...smart content, that is.
I've had a very similar experience. I stopped upgrading after Adobe CS6 became subscription only, I never log on to Microsoft Live to use Win10 or upgraded Office once it went online and I've bought a huge amount of DAZ products over the years. I notice the latest "free" G2M products are encrypted only so I'll pass. Judging by my past response to encryption and other systems that lock you in, the more DAZ goes in this direction the more I'll pass until there's no point buying anything anymore. Sad, but there it is!
This is a response that Daz_Rawb gave on what Connect actually is:
"I'm going to disagree with you here. Daz Connect isn't "Digital Rights Management", it really is an improved version of DIM built in to Daz Studio. The encryption portion of Daz Connect could be defined as DRM but you may see me call it "encryption" instead because there are a lot of restrictions in DRM that the encryption parts of Daz Connect don't restrict, such as:
- Unlimited number of installs
- Multiple simultaneous connections
- Able to work offline
- Can install offline
- No expiration date on a machine authorization
- Unlimited number of machine authorizations
- No need to un-authenticate different machines
- Content authorizations do not expire
- Export is fully functional
- No restrictions of third party content
So, that huge list of things that Daz Connect encryption doesn't do that DRM systems typically do is why I personally refer to the product encryption components of Daz Connect just as "encryption" instead of DRM. "
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/993417/#Comment_993417 for the actual post.
Adobe Suite is cheaper to subscribe than it was to buy out each new version. It was certainly never accessible to me until the new system (I still don't like subscription systems, but I appreciate them as an option to allow hobbyists to learn and get started.) You'd need to use a purchased copy for over 4 years with no upgrading before you started to save money.
I've never used a Windows ID to log onto my computer (7, 8, or 10.) 8 was a bit forceful on it if you wanted to use their little metro apps but why not just use real software instead? That said they have been consistently making their software (Office, Skype, Explorer) worse by taking away more and more options and make it sillier and brighter and wasting a ton of screen space and
A good reason not to use Office anymore is that there are several robust alternatives available for free. I also didn't buy Poser because Daz Studio was far nicer to use, and free.
[end of random fact checking.]
As I said I'm a long term user of the master suite, upgrading each time. The upgrade price offered me was cheaper than the subscription fee and I owned the software. It may have benefitted you. but it certainly did not benefit me.
Encrypted-only products today. Am taking names and never buying from them again. I noted a couple are regulars at Rendo.
How do you quit Platinum Club?
Well I don't know where that sits with DAZ_Jon's statement that "...very purposefully to only have Studio pull down information with Daz Connect, never push up." Surely if DS is making suggestions about what is available in the store based on what you have selected in your scene, that is push-up in my book. Obvioulsy to offer such suggestions DS is relaying (pushing up) information from your DS project up to the store, or otherwise this function wouldn't work.
i can see the joke in your eyes chohole on this comment
I guess as soon as studio 5 is available.
well I tested out G3M body and face morphs using connect only in DAZ studio and it works, got them cheap today and DS only so can risk it so why can't I find those 3 "freebies" I bought?
Agree with all above...
I also prefer more software updates, changes, innovation as relaunch the same products over again every 2 years, that only sounds like some dying and not wize market system. Subscription shemes killing great software more and more. More and more users from packages like autodesk are switching over to none Subscription alternatives or even opensource blender. Same happening with Adobe, freelance, hobby users go for alternatives
A couple of things I was thinking about:
Pre-Disclaimer because people are people: NONE OF THIS IS HAPPENING.
1. If Daz had encrypted their proprietary file types from day 1, we wouldn't be having this discussion because it'd be standard. A lot of software has its own filetype you can't mess with, right?
- Studio adoption rate may also have been much lower, but then Studio is free and Poser isn't.
- Daz as a company had a very different direction back then.
2. Let's say Daz gave everyone with a PC+ account for more than a month some sort of anniversary gift. Let's say it's a bikini that "does what no other bikini has done before for Victoria" or something. The thing is, every version of the product has some sort of reference to your account number (obviously not directly.) If you download it and install it, absolutely nothing happens. There is no way for Daz to track who has it, or whatever. However, if the item then appears on a torrent or warez site and the staff happen to redownload it from that source, they have an idea which account the leak came from.
- I'm expecting arguments of this being too sneaky, but I believe in online privacy and I don't think it should cover you sending something you bought out into the internet for everyone else when you know it's against the ToS.
Shopping and installing content while in Studio just sounds like a bad idea. I've always made sure Daz Studio was not open before installing any content to assure of a clean process. Also if you buy a product you don't own that has been suggested by connect on the fly you probably are going to pay alot more for it than waiting for a crazy sale when you can get it for 50-75% off.
I'd say June 2016.
G4, encrypted from start, incompatible on all levels with G3, with a ton of (rehashed, mind you) content, most of it encrypted, with DAZ PAs "advised" to stop supporting pre-G4 figures as soon as G4 is out.
Daz has started launching certain content using an encrypted format which can only be read by Daz Studio and can't be read by other programs - and as I understand it, that includes Carrara. As a mainly Carrara user, I find this a worrying trend. After all, Carrara is a Daz program and users have paid for it, so it does not seem right that they would be excluded from accessing certain Daz content. Just thought I would share this concern. And as for Daz people saying that people would only want to use DUF content in Daz Studio? Please remember that Carrara (and Bryce) are Daz programs too.