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As far as releases go...
There's always a bit of a lull in the middle of the year as far as clothing and products go. I've noticed this for years. Things always pick up in September and October, then it seems like there's big goings-on in November and December. Mind you, products are always being released, but for me I've noticed there's usually a dip after all the crazy sales in the Spring months.
How sad is when you have to use Google to hunt the informations that should be on a manual...
What I wonder is that DAZ Studio is actually used by some professional for commercial projects, do they have a manual that us poor mortals can't access?
How sad is when you have to use Google to hunt the informations that should be on a manual...
What I wonder is that DAZ Studio is actually used by some professional for commercial projects, do they have a manual that us poor mortals can't access?
No, but if people have exposure to a number of applications things are a lot easier to spot. For example, one thing that drives many users nuts seems to be having commands in pane option menus, but that's a common practice in pro-level tools such as Photshop so users of those will know to try the pane menus. Similarly those with other 3D experience will already be familiar with the terminology which wil make the command and parameter names much easier to figure out.
In any event, while the DS documentation is undeniably incomplete I know of few applications whose more complete documentation is suitable for learning the application - which is why there's such a market for books and training materials from third-parties.
How sad is when you have to use Google to hunt the informations that should be on a manual...
What I wonder is that DAZ Studio is actually used by some professional for commercial projects, do they have a manual that us poor mortals can't access?
So you want them to spend the time and money to create a manual for a free piece of software? Would you rather have a manual or maybe a new release with some bugfixes and new features?
And as Richard points out the manuals for even pro level tools are nothing but glorified install guides with maybe an overview of where things are in the menu and a list of any new features. I have the latest version of Adobe's Lightroom used by pro photographers everywhere, and I don't think it even came with a manual. Same with Photoshop, no really useful manual but tons of 3rd party books you can buy at $40.00 a pop. I also have an older version of Maya that I used in school, it didn't come with a manual and the class was taught out of another 3rd party book, and that was for a piece of software that was $400.
The days of software coming with a comprehensive manual that can be used as a training tool are long past. Even Office doesn't come with a manual these days.
Sounds like our everyday tabloids then ;-)
The problem that PAs tells us over and over again is that "Sex and guns sells", much like tabloids and commercial news channels, sex and guns sells. Btw, I really like handguns for my renders, so I'm not complaining about those...
Well it's better than promoting Sex with guns. Good way to blow your toast clean off.
I can sort of see the original poster's point, and I personally don't mind folks complaining about stuff that bothers them. If you need or want certain content and you can't find it, how frustrating.
I agree, I think nobody expects to use a manual as a training course to learn the program, third party books and courses are perfectly fine. What is needed is a refence manual, where you can find what the command "X" does or what is the purpose of the button "Y". I use DAZ Studio since 2007, compared to the version I started (2 point something, I think) it is now an extremely powerful tool, wich I use at maybe 50% of its capability because I just don't know what the remainig 50% can do
As I said in the reply to Richard's post, I am speaking about a refence manual. There are lots of programs with a good manual, Poser or Vue, for example. The fact that DAZ Studio is free doesn't make the manual less needed, by the way :-)
Daz wasn't always free and the last paid version didn't have a manual either. If you want people to buy whatever the heck it is you're selling you need to tell them how to use the software.
Office doesn't have a paper manual, no but it's got enough built in help files to help you going on. It's also pretty intuitive. Microsoft, unlike Daz has a massive and regularly updated stock of free online tutorials and help. They don't just rely on old hands constantly repeating the same old instructions to provide help to their userbase.
Anyhow on topic I have bought less DOs since my PC subs lapsed. I don't see the point of G2F/v6 for me - there is no real improvement. Some of the G2F do not look particularly attractive to say the least. I also don't really like all the clingy wear.
As I said in the reply to Richard's post, I am speaking about a refence manual. There are lots of programs with a good manual, Poser or Vue, for example. The fact that DAZ Studio is free doesn't make the manual less needed, by the way :-)
No, it doesn't make it less needed because it's free, but I can understand why they have gone the online documentation route to save money. If they were mainly a software company like Smith Micro or eon, they would have to. But DAZ's main business is selling content others have made. That's like expecting Walmart to show you how something they sell works. But much documentation is right here at DAZ in the Knowledge Base and Documentation sections. It's not complete, but there's more info now than even in the days when there was a printed manual for Studio, which was pretty big... I know, because I printed it out once.
Quickest way to find out usually is to ask in the DAZ Studio forum (The Commons maybe but it moves pretty fast and will probably get missed if it's a really obscure question). I have to say that DAZ seems to have released a video for every big new feature that's been included recently and they have explained it well enough. Everything else comes from actually using the feature to see it work. I happen to prefer videos, but I've been working with CG programs since 1994, so often it is pretty clear how something should work. Most programs work based on the same papers that have been around for years and as Richard said, many of the ways DAZ has for displaying functions are similar to the very expensive programs (try getting your head around Houdini and you'll know what I mean and will find DAZ very easy in comparison, especially if you don't try fighting the way Studio is supposed to work, which seems to be the root cause of some posters' problems). If you've studied any good CG books, it all seems to be fairly similar and easy enough to figure out. For 3Delight info I go to the 3Delight website and check their huge online manual. And then search through Google to see if anything has been asked before relating to how it works in DAZ Studio (since there are differences in what's available for DAZ users - but more functionality has been added in the past couple versions of Studio and through some plugins - and we are lucky to have the much easier DAZ interface than to have to code stuff like other 3Delight users need to do) in the current forum and the old forum. Doing a Google search takes about as long as looking it up in a printed manual and many times, makes much more sense than most printed manuals I've ever seen. I had a problem in Photoshop yesterday and couldn't find a clue in the help or on the Adobe site, but I found the working solution quickly on Google. There is only one manual I ever read that made complete sense to me and that was for a pro digital workstation I used back in the 1990s - the AKG DSE-7000. The manual writer was extremely good.
Talk about insufficient documentation for a complex product - have you tried ZBRUSH? Basically without paid tutorials your software investment usability is about as good as learning hieroglyphs without the Rosetta stone. While they do supply some user docs, its near useless. The DS apps intuitiveness and wiki type docs is miles ahead of ZB and that's a top tier paid app.
Zbrush has a TON of free tutorials so I don't know where you are getting that from. They have a section called Z Classroom that is all free tutorial from the very basics to the complicated.
I see that they have added since I last checked, especially the new beginner video with the dino. When I started a couple of years ago, there were very few and I used a subscription to access the best video tutorials. I sitll prefer written reference manuals and written step by step tutorials (with sample links) because i can learn and search a specific topic. The video based tend to not show the interface options well and you can not break down rapid operational sequences easily.
In particular maintaining poly-group names and converting to Poser groups was a big area of undocumented capability that I explored and assembled myself to get a working pipeline. Forums and self experimentation are my greatest source for 3d solutions.
I'm going to step in here and disagree with your first line in the quote. No Dawn is NOT geared towards the Poser market. Dawn, if you've read any of the info on the character, was created by one of the founding fathers of DAZ 3D after he left a couple of years ago to work perfectly in BOTH DAZ Studio and Poser. Now weather the merchants that support Dawn will do their best to keep that hype up and try to support both programs remains to be seen.
DAWN is rigged the same but the weight mapping for the Poser and DAZ Studio versions are different and native to each program.
As for clothing for "her" there is a "him" being developed by the ultra talented Mec4D (Cath) and she's ported over all her clothing creations for Genesis and building new clothing. This male from a female base is far and away better than Vittorio was back in the day before M4's debut.
As for Genesis 02, not impressed either with the direction it's been taken. I really hope that Genesis 02 Male will be fabulous!
There are also quite a few poser-using content creators on the H3D forums who will not release their product until they've got a native version working in DS as well. Some of them are struggling, but they're doing it. They're actually taking the time to learn DS and ask questions so they can get quality products in both. All in the name of everybody having the same things to play with.
Well it's better than promoting Sex with guns. Good way to blow your toast clean off.
LOL
Just a tip, you don't have to access Rendo's past download links that way, instead of clicking on "Orders", under My Account, click on "Item List" and you've got a lovely full list of all the items you've purchased, sortable by Name, Date, Vendor, or best yet: by Updated date.
I'd like to see that "updated date" sort in the DAZ Product library, but I also think that DIM is the best thing ever, once you've figured out how to push it into putting things where you like them.