frank0314 said:

richardandtracy said:

One of the reasons I liked coming here to the forums is the lack of adverts. They are horrifically intrusive on many sites. My local newspaper (Kent Messenger) blocks browsers using adblocker & then makes it impossible to read articles due to intrusive adverts. Net result is I don't visit & I don't buy the paper like I used to because I'm so irritated by the adverts online.

It is an honest lesson for DAZ to learn.

Regards,

Richard.

Like the great majority of websites on the internet have learned? I can't go to a site without ads. I just have to live with it and today's business practices. Whatever the leaders in the industry do, the others will fall in line. Do we have to like it? No, but inevitably have to live with it unless we give up online services.

frank0314,

Respectfully, let's get ourselves grounded here. Comparing the traffic on the Daz Forum between pre-, in- and post-pandemic, we've all seen a drop. That is, people do "give up online services". Granted that community traffic is part of the lifeblood for Daz, do pop up ads encourage people to stay? Do they grow visitor traffic? Do they promote adoption of the Daz ecosystem? This is the feedback we're giving you -- it doesn't do us any good on that front.

Sure, ads bring revenue, a bonus during lean times. We acknowledge that this good for Daz. But do things have to be a false choice between no advertisement versus out-of-control advertisement? Couldn't we have more tageted scheme. For example: (a) only ads promoting Daz products; or ads only in the Forum and not, say, the Gallery. Some sites (eg. Instagram) have sophisted ad-opt outs that let the account holder shape the ads they see. If this were feasible, couldn't we have one like that too?

Richard Haseltine said:

Pitmatic said:

Cris Palomino said:

Pitmatic said:

WOW used an incognito browser to look at the forums without ublock and I got an advert for an adult entertainment site WTF absolutley no point telling people to have modest images in the gallery and then have that pop up!

Could you possibly screenshot for us if you get an ad like that again? 

Now this pops up on incognito mode a lot and similar adds one of which did have someone looking for their contact lenses 

I am a sad old internet user i am not "interesting" and tend to look art art sites print publishing and design stuff, tanks and plane restorations and stuff about cars (sometimes i dabble in trains dont tell anyone!) which youtube thinks means I am right wing and want to watch opinion channels of people wearing tin hats and I get a lot of adds for soap powder.

I like chocolate but never get adds for them

In a private window, depending on just how good it is at blocking Google (or how willing Google is to act as if blocked), you are going to get generic ads. If you get adult or otherwise iffy ads, privately or when using your own ID, please send the details to us (via a forum post or a PM) and we will flag them for Daz, who can block specific ads.

 Richard thats the thing in a private window i get genric adds for soap powder, cars, films and ring doorbell clones going to to other websites but here i get "different" adds its almost as though the google algorhythmy wotsit is making a judgement based on what people might do with what this websote sells and frankly an AI system looking at the catalog would assume most of the use cases are in that ballpark.

Ipad pro using DDG.  Not seeing any ads on forum.  On a win-10 desktop, ad-blocker seems to work but just tried posting a render to a contest.   Cloudfare msg saying  (504?) Daz3D.com server error.   

Are they related?  Load ads.  Unable.  Load ads.  Unable.  Load ads.  Timeout.  Cloudfare: "DAZ3D.com is not responding."

---

I usually don't complain because it's pointless, but perhaps management needs to re-evaluate.  No active DAZ forum would be irreplabable loss of collective memory in my opinion.  DAZ would lose revenue if casual users are unable or unwilling to ask about products, get help & so on. 

The sad part is that I doubt upper management gives a flick about its established customer base.  There's always new customers and new customers probably tend to buy more as they fill runtime library.   Just my two cents. I hope I'm mistaken and being too cynical.  : /

In the forum I am ok with it. A company wants to make money.

In the gallery.. it is way too distracting.

I actually found it using Google Image search lmao if you have the image on your computer screen in google you can right click and "Search Image with Google" for a matching image! Very cool feature but it can me hit or miss sometimes depending on the image used.

Pitmatic said:

Cris Palomino said:

Pitmatic said:

WOW used an incognito browser to look at the forums without ublock and I got an advert for an adult entertainment site WTF absolutley no point telling people to have modest images in the gallery and then have that pop up!

Could you possibly screenshot for us if you get an ad like that again? 

Now this pops up on incognito mode a lot and similar adds one of which did have someone looking for their contact lenses 

I am a sad old internet user i am not "interesting" and tend to look art art sites print publishing and design stuff, tanks and plane restorations and stuff about cars (sometimes i dabble in trains dont tell anyone!) which youtube thinks means I am right wing and want to watch opinion channels of people wearing tin hats and I get a lot of adds for soap powder.

I like chocolate but never get adds for them

In a private window, depending on just how good it is at blocking Google (or how willing Google is to act as if blocked), you are going to get generic ads. If you get adult or otherwise iffy ads, privately or when using your own ID, please send the details to us (via a forum post or a PM) and we will flag them for Daz, who can block specific ads.

WendyLuvsCatz said:

I don't own it and yes it's a rather expensive Russian software for shape matching meshes and projecting vertex shading

I googled, it's called Faceform now to look for tutorials on that

 I also saw their website, and it looks promising! I'll search for some tutorials about this software and see how I can convert my Unreal characters to Daz3D! It won't be easy of course, but with time I should get the hang of it! The problem is that it's paid software, so I'm going to look for a trial and see if it meets my needs. Thanks for your help!

I've also made a new page for DAZ Studio : Movie Magic on my site with links to many of the things demonstrated during the lecture. 

I really think that this whole "Animating in Daz Studio" series I'm doing with Digital Art Live is going to be an excellent resource for folks wanting to have a lot of fun animating without spending such vast amounts of time doing it. From the first Dynamic Character Animation through The Power of aniMate 2 and now this one, it all starts to snap into place and defines much of what I do on a daily basis.

These practices have been proving to work well for me and using that same inspiration myself as I keep working is just getting better and better, more and more enjoyable as I go - and more cool things pop up that I'll demonstrate in future editions.

This most recent one - soon to be coming to Daz 3d as well, addresses an issue that I see a lot of throughout the forum - something that plagued me when I was first starting out as well - trying to render everything in the scene at once - as if post work and composting wasn't going to be necessary and I was going to capture it all in the camera.

Sure - that was fun too. But it's a very limiting way to work - and it takes So  L O N G  to render - if we don't crash our computers or the software in the process before we even get that far.

Movie Magic uses ideas that are kind of built into my brain as to how I work when creating material for videos.

You see, entertainment for me is absorbing the special features of movies, TV, and games... etc., and I've amassed quite a collection of it. There's a digital ton of it available for free on YouTube and websites as well.

I have a fun little Inspirations corner on my site that is a great 'quick grab' for me to find something interesting to soak in for a while.

While these things aren't telling us the how-to's (and sometimes they do), they're demonstrating or explaining what they're doing - what they did to make 'this' look like 'that'.

So when it comes to my working with animations, I can get a Lot done in a short time, using methods inspired on me with the fact that All Motion Pictures Are Magic. Some less so than others, like some documentaries and such - but even they have at least some sort of trickery done to them - even if it's just bringing in a special light for the face shot. That's something that's altering what is actually real. 

All movies defy true reality both as they're being filmed as well as in the post production process. 

Why?

Because the whole reason to make the thing in the first place was to hopefully get someone to enjoy it.

It's all about making that final image on the screen to look how we want our audience to see it.

This cool short video is only a teeny tiny sample of what all I have in there:

NylonGirl said:

If Optix requires ray tracing cores specific to newer Nvidia hardware, then it must be possible to run Iray without Optix. My computer has a GTX 1050. I'm pretty sure it doesn't have those ray tracing cores. But it still runs Iray without CPU fallback.

Regardless of any performance advantage from using Nvidia, there are people who may want to use AMD for other reasons such as preventing a monopoly or vendor lock-in. Or because they use their computer for other things besides DAZ Studio. And there may be situations in which an AMD CPU and AMD graphics card work together better than some other combination due to hardware optimization by the manufacturer.

If somebody uses their computer for things besides Daz Studio, the odds are extremely high those things work better with Nvidia as well. Significantly better at that, not just a small difference. There are only a few very niche situations where AMD can edge out Nvidia in performance. I mean, good grief, the performance gap in Stable Diffusion is multiplicative, guys. AMD is not just slower, they are orders of magnitude slower at times. And some software it doesn't even work right, with errors or crashes. Nothing sucks more than losing time on a project because it keeps crashing.

As for preventing a monopoly, again, I blame AMD for this, not Nvidia. Nvidia is simply executing a strategy that almost any other business would do in their position. AMD had their chances, and blew them. When CUDA was first introduced, AMD did not do nearly enough to slow its adoption. CUDA practically took the world over night.

Here's the thing guys, this is not charity. It is not your job to make these things work. It is AMD's. They had their chances. Did AMD have a competing render engine when Daz picked Iray? (No.) You should not have to do the work for them. AMD should be doing the work for you. I am not going to buy AMD simply to support them like they are some kind of charity. They are large company capable of fending for themselves.

CUDA is not just a piece of hardware or even software. There is also support. The key difference is that Nvidia has helped other companies use CUDA and figure out ways to make the best use of it. Nvidia provides companies access to their engineers. If a company working with CUDA has questions, they can ask Nvidia for help. AMD has utterly failed at offering the same kind of support, and the result is what we have today. This is not simply "Oh Nvidia made a thing, let's use it", no, they actively choose Nvidia CUDA because it is a platform that works not just for them, but with them. Shoot, just look at how Nvidia added new ghost lights to Iray after initially killing them off. They actually listened.

AMD has long had a certain philosophy towards their products: they build the hardware and just expect people to figure it out. But that doesn't work in every professional field. There are indeed organisations that have so much money that they have entire teams dedicated to creating every aspect of the software to run. However, not every company can do that, or even most of them. Many companies, even fairly large ones still prefer to have some assistance in these regards. Iray is a perfect example of such a solution. You could design and build your own ray tracing software, but that is hard to do. So Daz worked a deal to have Iray be a part of DS. Perhaps they could have chose a different one, but back in 2014 and 2015 when this came to fruition Iray was one of the first GPU rendering engines and it was easy to use. Now AMD has been getting better at helping the companies use their hardware in the past few years, but they still need to do more. They have to be significantly better if they really want to truly catch Nvidia.

Just look at ZLUDA. AMD stopped funding it, and the developer stopped working on it. If it is ever going to get any updates, somebody else is going to have to pick up the development, and that might never happen. We might not see any more updates for ZLUDA, ever. Certainly Nvidia isn't going to. Maybe it works for Blender today, but for how long? It might not work after some driver updates, or future versions of Cycles and Blender release, the performance may also deteriate. AMD should have seen this project through and kept supporting it. Octane also tried for many years to make AMD work with its render engine, and after a long period of time they just gave up. We discussed Octane and AMD in the forum years ago, guys. Why didn't AMD do more to make that happen? Octane is a fairly popular render engine, and actually wanted to make AMD work, so it would have been logical for AMD to get more engineers on the task to help figure it out. They could have opened new doors to hardware sales. That is what this is all about.

As for AMD ProRender, I see so few people using it. Trying to find anybody benchmarking it is not easy. I found marks from 5 years ago which are pointless now, and I couldn't find a forum like this that keeps up with it. I found one video that liked ProRender in Blender, but it still had a problem. The renders it produced looked completely different from Cycles and Optix. Now one would expect things to not look exactly the same, but this was drastic. It was very dark and coolers lacked life. Maybe lighting could be adjusted, the video suggested changing the materials. At any rate, it sounds like a lot of work.

I get the idea that people don't want a monopoly. But at some point you also make to make a decision for yourself. If it was easier to use AMD, then great, go for it. But it is not. Using AMD for Daz Studio requires time consuming exports to other software, more time consuming efforts to adjust every single material in a scene, more time to relight the scene, and oh yeah, more time to render because AMD ray tracing is so much slower. It is a massive time sink just to say you can "stick it to Nvidia". I don't have time for that. I have a job that takes enough time as it is. When I want to use Daz Studio I want to work quickly and get it done, and no matter what AMD does it just isn't going to get the job done for me.

Plus Nvidia works well with the other software I dabble in. I don't have to do any tricks or jump through hoops to make it work. I wish AMD the best, really I do. But I am not going to handicap myself just to use their GPUs. 

DanaTA said:

Has DAZ been hacked?  Or are they actually putting ads at the top of the forum page?  I never saw this in here before today...

 

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/674796/gallery-ads-popups#latest 

DanaTA said:

Has DAZ been hacked?  Or are they actually putting ads at the top of the forum page?  I never saw this in here before today...

I don't see that 

Has DAZ been hacked?  Or are they actually putting ads at the top of the forum page?  I never saw this in here before today...

I'm now seeing ads pop up and move around in the forum pages too... 

Edit: I seem to have missed the posts above mentioning it... 

ArtAngel said:

paulawp (marahzen) said:

bohemian3 said:

I really don't like the ads on "MY Gallery" pages - somehow implies I personally am promoting those products (curmudgeon that I am).  And I am usually pretty good at listing the products I use - an indirect form of advertisting that I do in fact endorse and like to promote.  DAZ has amazing PAs. 

And I can even understand ads on the 'trending' pages.

I know there are a lot of histrionics in the forums - but if those ads aren't off 'my gallery' pages in a week or two, I'll have to consider seriously deleting it.  The gallery has been a way for me to document my journey through learning DAZ, so it's something I won't do lightly. 

Yes, ad blockers are a solution for me personally, but I like to share my gallery with family and friends, and don't want to do that with the caveat of installing an ad blocker first.  I won't spend energy maintaining a gallery I don't feel comfortable sharing.  I might not be seeing the ads, but others are seeing my images associated with products I have no control over.

I don't expect that I would go so far as to delete my gallery, but with all those nasty ads all over the place, I'm not sending my mom - who barely uses the computer as it is - a link to that page.

Now they are in the forum lol. I can take it in the forum. But it cheapens the gallery. Incoming links to a site up the ratings and boots SEO, but who is going to proudly link to this in on offsite location? I wouldn't. It feels like spam. These ads makes the gallery look hideous. And who exactly are they targeting?

Ewww. So gross.

paulawp (marahzen) said:

bohemian3 said:

I really don't like the ads on "MY Gallery" pages - somehow implies I personally am promoting those products (curmudgeon that I am).  And I am usually pretty good at listing the products I use - an indirect form of advertisting that I do in fact endorse and like to promote.  DAZ has amazing PAs. 

And I can even understand ads on the 'trending' pages.

I know there are a lot of histrionics in the forums - but if those ads aren't off 'my gallery' pages in a week or two, I'll have to consider seriously deleting it.  The gallery has been a way for me to document my journey through learning DAZ, so it's something I won't do lightly. 

Yes, ad blockers are a solution for me personally, but I like to share my gallery with family and friends, and don't want to do that with the caveat of installing an ad blocker first.  I won't spend energy maintaining a gallery I don't feel comfortable sharing.  I might not be seeing the ads, but others are seeing my images associated with products I have no control over.

I don't expect that I would go so far as to delete my gallery, but with all those nasty ads all over the place, I'm not sending my mom - who barely uses the computer as it is - a link to that page.

Now they are in the forum lol. I can take it in the forum. But it cheapens the gallery. Incoming links to a site up the ratings and boots SEO, but who is going to proudly link to this in on offsite location? I wouldn't. It feels like spam. These ads makes the gallery look hideous. And who exactly are they targeting?

Intermediate Challenge - March 2023 using Advanced Posing Tools:

This includes PowerPose, Active Pose and Puppeteer, you can choose one or try yourself in all three. These tools give you a greater range to create your own new poses either from existing ones or from scratch. For example using Puppeteer you can create new poses from existing ones on a fluent scale. It can be applied for animation as well, but for this challenge we will keep the focus on the still image.

You are welcome to use one of the references for a pose from the links in the beginner challenge, but it's not a requirement.

Information, Explanations and Tutorials:

PowerPose
Introduction to Posing Tools in Daz Studio with Jay Versluis
Daz Animarion Power Pose
Making Expressions with PowerPose
Daz 3D Posing, Pinning Poses, & Morphs

Active Pose Tool
Pinning, Posing and the Active Pose Tool

Puppeteer:
Puppeteer Tutorials Forum Thread
Daz 1.6: Animation Puppeteer Tool

• for Daz Studio:
  • Puppeteer
  • Puppeteering in Daz Studio 4
  • Building a Coffee Shop scene in Daz Studio using Puppeteer - 3D Shenanigans #1.10.
  • Lighting, Camera Angles & Puppeteer - In the Studio with Daz 3D
  • Daz 3D 4.8 - Puppeteer
  • Hair Dynamics Effect in Daz Studio! Puppeteer from Poses!
    ​
• For Carrara:
  • Puppeteer Carrara (Older video, but still relevant. French language)

Beginner Challenge - March 2023 Posing Basics
 

Posing Basics:
This challenge is a general render challenge with the focus being on how you pose the characters in your image. We're providing you with lots of great links on Posing from a variety of sources. To get started, find a photograph or drawing using this link or for dance poses this link to use as a reference. (Be sure the image you use is labeled for commercial reuse - though we will only be using it as reference, alternatively use your own personal photographs for reference.) Additional searches approved for use include Running and Fighting. (These links go to DuckDuckGo, which may give different results for different searchers, and should give everyone plenty to choose from.)

Then try to pose your character as closely as possible to match the reference image. For this challenge, please post your reference image or a link to it, and your render. This will give forum viewers an idea of the pose you are trying to achieve and will lead to more helpful suggestions. Have fun!

How to Use Your Software:

Software is often updated, and online tutorials and information often demonstrate older versions of the software. The software version you are using may differ in User Interface and tools available. Please share links to reference material that you have found helpful in the Challenge thread.

in Daz Studio:
Introduction to Posing Tools in Daz Studio with Jay Versluis
Daz Documentation Center [Wiki]
Daz 101: Posing
Pinning, Posing and the Active Pose Tool
Applying Partial Poses
Daz 3D Posing, Pinning Poses, & Morphs
Some good tips in this forum thread.

in Poser:
Poser Tutorial: Quick Posing

in Carrara:
Huge list of helpful forum links (scroll to Animation and Posing section) If you have a problem, your answer might be here!
Carrara 3D Tutorial - Posing a Figure
Posing in Carrara

in Bryce:
While it is not possible to pose things in Bryce, you are welcome to do your posing in another program such as Daz Studio or Poser, then export and render in Bryce.
For information on how to use the Bryce bridge to import a DS scene into Bryce

Always worth a look: Previous Posing challenges:

Posing 2023
Posing 2022
Posing 2021
Posing 2020
Posing 2019
Posing 2018
Posing 2017

I will be checking in, as will the rest of the Community Volunteers, to try and help with anything you all may need.

Beginner Challenge - March 2023 Posing Basics
 

Posing Basics:
This challenge is a general render challenge with the focus being on how you pose the characters in your image. We're providing you with lots of great links on Posing from a variety of sources. To get started, find a photograph or drawing using this link or for dance poses this link to use as a reference. (Be sure the image you use is labeled for commercial reuse - though we will only be using it as reference, alternatively use your own personal photographs for reference.) Additional searches approved for use include Running and Fighting. (These links go to DuckDuckGo, which may give different results for different searchers, and should give everyone plenty to choose from.)

Then try to pose your character as closely as possible to match the reference image. For this challenge, please post your reference image or a link to it, and your render. This will give forum viewers an idea of the pose you are trying to achieve and will lead to more helpful suggestions. Have fun!

How to Use Your Software:

Software is often updated, and online tutorials and information often demonstrate older versions of the software. The software version you are using may differ in User Interface and tools available. Please share links to reference material that you have found helpful in the Challenge thread.

in Daz Studio:
Introduction to Posing Tools in Daz Studio with Jay Versluis
Daz Documentation Center [Wiki]
Daz 101: Posing
Pinning, Posing and the Active Pose Tool
Applying Partial Poses
Daz 3D Posing, Pinning Poses, & Morphs
Some good tips in this forum thread.

in Poser:
Poser Tutorial: Quick Posing

in Carrara:
Huge list of helpful forum links (scroll to Animation and Posing section) If you have a problem, your answer might be here!
Carrara 3D Tutorial  - Posing a Figure
Posing in Carrara

in Bryce:
While it is not possible to pose things in Bryce, you are welcome to do your posing in another program such as Daz Studio or Poser, then export and render in Bryce.
For information on how to use the Bryce bridge to import a DS scene into Bryce

Always worth a look: last years Posing challenge:

Posing 2023 (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/622551/march-2023-daz-3d-new-user-challenge-posing-and-posing-ii/p1)
Posing 2022 (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/554081/march-2022-daz-3d-new-user-challenge-posing-and-posing-ii/p1)
Posing 2021 (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/476666/march-2021-daz-3d-new-user-challenge-posing-and-posing-ii/p1)
Posing 2020 (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/388851/march-2020-daz-3d-new-user-challenge-posing-and-posing-ii/p1)
Posing 2019 (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/312316/march-2019-daz-3d-new-user-challenge-posing/p1)
Posing 2018 (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/235981/march-2018-daz-3d-new-user-challenge-posing/p1)
Posing 2017 (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/150246/march-2017-daz-3d-new-user-challenge-posing/p1)

I will be checking in, as will the rest of the Community Volunteers, to try and help with anything you all may need.

I hope I've popped this in the right forum, but I was curious if anyone on here accepts commissions, or has completed any?

I'd like to commission an outfit if possible, got tons of reference sketches.

Maybe the smoke and water chamber set from Sickleyield?