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Well, we can discuss alternative business models endlessly. I think DAZ3d have settled on their's. However, I would hope that, to use your analogy, the cow is not milked to death. The milk of a dying cow doesn't taste so good.
I suspect it's only a matter of time until 3dl officially receives a deprecated status in DS. And, to be honest, that's probably for the better.
Yes, iRay takes ages to render on CPU, though it is very slowly improving as the CPUs get better as well. But, if you're considering buying new assets on DAZ, yet are reluctant to buy them because you'd have to convert them to 3dl yourself, then maybe you should consider NOT buying new assets for a while, and simply save up for an NVidia card instead. And no, that doesn't HAVE to be the latest RTX 2080ti, even though some people around here mention such cards in such a casual way that you'd start to believe they were the bare-minimum-norm. The older GTX 1050 cards are still pretty decent, and currently fairly cheap as well.
Yes, I know, tempting beautiful new shinies get released on an almost daily basis on Daz, but you'll appreciate such things a LOT more once you can use them properly straight out of the box.
Oddly it is a Renderman compliant engine and extremely popular still in the professional CGI circles
just not so much for home hobbyists with their desktop and laptop computers
a graphics card cheaper for home use the pro’s run huge render farms with CPU rendering
You know, there are actually people who still use 3DL because they like it and have zero interest in switching to Iray... Both render engines have their pros and their cons, and not all people are interested in the kind of renders you get out of Iray.
Understand this.
The Deprecation of 3DL is not a matter that has to be officially
Declared by Daz themselves.
In this tiny ecosystem, the Render system is ultimately decided by
the content that will be rendered with it.
And ,like all content related matters, this will ultimately be decided
by the Majority rules consensus of the Daz PA's.
It should be pretty clear what the near future holds for 3DL supported products to anyone actually paying attention.
That is the reality of it.
The PAs deciding the lifespan of 3DL... not entirely, as retexturing is always an option. Just as the pressure to create your own content to get what you want increases with experience, the willingness to create textures to comply with the renderer of your choice is very similar in nature. Yes, PAs can choose not to support it... that simply won't stop some of us. We will either buy and texture - or not buy at all.
I don't want iRay. That is a relatively minimal part of what Daz can accomplish, so I don't see how it's an issue of any particular note.
^on a related note, when I started with DS, most content was made for Poser and we always needed to tweak the surfaces for 3DL.
The current converters from Iray to 3DL and vice versa give a starting point that can be tweaked.
If DAZ makes it's animation system at least as competitive as Blender's, then it means that 3DL will probable grow in usage in DAZ Studio, but not among the single frame renders of portraits and graphic novels.
Just because most new DAZ products come with iRay material only doesn't mean that 3DLs users aren't still converting those materials to 3DL or that they've stopped doing 3DL renders.
If would be nice though if DAZ Studio had as part of the DAZ Studio install a iRay to 3DL material converter though, there is no disputing that.
You are correct of course
My primary figure generation is Genesis 2
I model My own clothing ,props and custom morphs for that generation
I render in Maxon Cinema4D and replace most of my non-skin textures with CD4 native procedurals and make my own skins with Skinbuilder for G2.
I dont care what the PA's support as I dont financially support them at all
My pipeline is competely& indefinately self sustaining.
However I am not the typical Daz studio user
who wont even move an existing morph slider to create there own ethnic diversity.
Those poor souls by and large are completely dependent on the what the PA's are producing and submitting to the store.
No leave it like it is. Not everyone has/likes Iray.
Why seperate features that are currently available for free in to paid software just so each version to be exclusive to a certain features? It would make using DS a pain because some users will need tools from both. Keep it as it is.
Iclones Character motionbuilding and editing& retargeting tools are far superior to Blender by every conceivable measure
If DAZ added the Maya human IK system we have in Iclone, DS would be as competitive as Iclone.
And since daz does NOT charge a premium to import& export Characters and motion Data ,many people would choose DS as a free alternative to Iclone and export to other programs for rendering.
Hey, you'd get no complaints from me if DAZ Studio have iClone/Maya equivalent capability animation tools because I can't afford either. That would be the thing to do to sell much more DAZ content & that content's licenses to people, especially game maker hobbyists.
Those are exactly the type of advance features I would like to see in DS. However, I wonder if DAZ3d could afford to put them directly in DS for free. Perhaps as plugins or modules that are paid for seperately?