I wish Daz was more open with their development...
emoryahlberg
Posts: 133
Just like the title says, I suppose.
When I visit the websites of other popular software (Blender and iClone come to mind), there's usually a whole section devoted to what they're working on. Daz seems to have the philosophy of keeping its users entirely in the dark. Doesn't that strike everyone as strange? I'm sure we'd all like to know (among other things):
- Are improvements being made to strand-based hair?
- Is a real-time render engine coming to Daz?
- Is Genesis 9 is coming? What improvements iz Daz working on?
- Are changes happening to Iray / skin materials to increase render realism?
These are just off the top of my head. Now, I'm sure Daz is working on these things, so why don't they tell us so we can get excited? I don't understand their philosophy of keeping everything a secret until it suddenly appears in the public beta.
What else would you all like to know Daz is working on, and be updated on its progress?
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Consider this: At least one extra person would have to be hired to cover public relations with us artistic types who have persecution complexes and suspicions of all authority. Then there are those of us who would give Daz all of our great ideas about how to improve their announced upcoming innovation: How upset would we be when most or none of those suggestions are not implemented, that is, apparently ignored? Also, Daz surely understands that its monopoly can be nullified by another company seeking to directly compete against them. There are a lot more reasons I could mention for keeping your cards close to your chest.
Sorry, I'm not talking about the forum. I'm talking about something on the website. For instance, like what iClone has on their website:
Or their 2020 roadmap video on Youtube
Or on their forum:
Or Blender:
A "roadmap" is what I mean, and is pretty typical. The radio silence is what's odd.
Mod Edit :- Unsolicited Off Site Commercial links removed.
Maybe they don't want to say what's coming up because of the effect it might have on current sales?
Suppose they announced that G9 was coming out this summer (I have no reason to suppose this is the case, by the way). People might pretty much stop buying G8 and wait for the new model to arrive. Daz is not a big company, it needs its cash flow.
On the minute Daz announces G9 is coming, some of their customers will stop spending any money on G8 content. Definitely not something Daz wants.
Daz certainly can't say anything about future developments in Iray as they're not the ones developing Iray, Nvidia is.
Regarding other DS features, they could indeed give more info. However announcing things has come back to bite them several times in the past, so I doubt they're planning do it again (my opinion only, of course).
Would I like that? Sure. Not as much as I'd like to know if and when we might get a Covid vaccine, but it's on the list. A roadmap would be nice.
Daz is not a huge organization, though. They're trying to bring out improvements to DS, but their resources are limited, and I'm sure that the lockdown forced some changes in their development methods and timeline. They rolled out Daz Central, and that's not been *cough* an unqualified success. I'm sure they're working on things, especially animation. I doubt that real-time rendering is a priority, but IDK. SBH, probably?
Genesis 9 is probably on their minds, and the thing most likely to be keeping them up at night. There's a lot more involved than just rolling a new character. G8 is already excellent, and works with the assets from previous generations. Some of the things people are talking about in terms of improvements could break backwards compatibility. That would be a very tough pill to make their loyal customer base swallow. Would it be worth it? Maybe not!
As far as realism, a lot of the problems are on the user end, and it's not even something all of Daz's customers are particularly fussed about. It's doesn't necessarily help produce better art, either. There's always a need for an excuse for producing crap, and for some people it's "lack of photorealism". Whatever, I guess. However, just yesterday, we got Anise, which was created within Daz's current capabilities, and it's very, very nice and, I hope, a sign of greater and better things to come.
In the meantime, there's a lot to do with what we have, and I'm still working my way through it and trying to learn. That's my priority. I hope to someday create the ultimate naked Vicky in a temple with a sword render.
The difference is that iClone is a company that primarily makes it's money off a few pieces of software with a content business that's a profitable sideline, while Blender is an opensource program that doesn't care about being profitable. DAZ3D, on the other hand, is a content business that uses software as a loss leader to pull in new customers. Talking about upcoming additions and changes to the software is a big selling point for getting software customers to invest in a program, while talking about upcoming additions and changes to the software is more likely to make content customers hold off and wait for the new advances. Finally, in order to produce a road map for public presentation, a company has to be VERY sure of what that road map actually is and, to be honest, from what I've seen, I don't think DAZ is certain enough on when/how/if things will happen to make any "written in concrete" plans public.
Nope, not strange at all to me. While i wouldn't mind knowing what they are working on and generating some excitemnet over it, I don't expect it in the least. Most don't "need' anything from DAZ, so it's up to them to do what they can do get those impulse buys and giving customers time to think about and plan purchases doesn't help that strategy.
That's an intriguing 'take' on that behavior. I'll stash that tidbit in the noggin.
Probably the same reason not to overtly state that Bryce and Carrara won't be updated - what gain for doing so, and leading money spending customers on because "something might happen" ... has that same effect. And you never know - something might happen.
No moral dilemma there, eh?
--ms
You need to visit sites that deal with something other than software.
Daz isn't a software company.
Their business model is about selling 3D content that can be used in a variety of software solutions, although it is tailored to fit the free software they provide.
I suspect the majority of their customer's purchases are not essential purchases, but a combination of impulse, a new shiny, and collectors - and those looking for a particular theme. They will mostly purchase with a view to using the latest release of Genesis (currently 8), and many (all?) would adjust their purchasing habits if they had reason to.
Daz's profit relies on their being very few to zero reasons to wait.
I've been around here since March, 2001 and their way of doing business since then has been consistent. Why mess with something that's not broken.
This is actually a very damning statement about the psychology behind sales tactics. That is not something I would EVER want my company to be associated with, no matter how legal it is. Think about what this statement implies for a moment. This makes it sound like they cannot expect quality to sell products, that they have to use gimmicks and impulse psychology to be able to sell things. I would hope that if I sold something, that it would sell on its own merits, and not because of a gimmick sale.
Also I am not sure I am on board with most not needing anything from Daz. They need proper working software that will keep pace with the fast moving technology in this industry. What has Daz done to provide their customer base with the notion that they are indeed keeping pace? Even with RTX, Iray is sluggish compared to numerous render engines that are rapidly progressing, in particular the ever growing game engines that can render in real time with strikingly good quality. They can not only render in real time, they can run physics in real time as well. With Daz, you need to run a simulation and then run the render, it is a multiple step process all for a single picture. And dforce for animation...not exactly spectacular. And that Daz cannot talk about Iray because it is not theirs, well, that's their problem, they are the ones that chose to use Iray in the first place.
That Daz is apparently a tiny mom and pop company doesn't warrant a pass from me, either. They sell content, and I expect that content to be good quality and that their software performs. The size of their company doesn't change a thing. They should still be held accountable for their actions and their products.
To say that Daz content is tailored for their own software is quite an understatement. Some features of Daz do not work in other software. How about that dforce strand hair? I can just pop this into Blender and its all good? And at any rate, this all of Daz's own choosing. They chose to make their software free. Like I said before, they have to be accountable for their own actions. They chose to become a content company, but they STILL have a software to produce for that content.
Without Daz Studio, the Daz content store would fail, and fail very quickly. It is absolutely essential to Daz's business that their software works great with their content. And in some respects some features are walled off from outside of Daz, like dforce hair and HD shapes. Users still struggle just to get some character models to work right in other software. If it was easy, we wouldn't have all the threads discussing it.
And again, another post about impulse buying. I wouldn't be flattered at all if I was a Daz exec reading that in my office.
Maybe Utah is not as sunny as people think it is right now. I'll just leave it at that.
Nothing damning about it, impulse buying is nothing new and used by many. It has little to do with the quality of the product and all about the customers in most cases, especially here at DAZ. Humans like the new and shiny and if you give them enough of a reason to jump at it they will.
this is a business that caters to hobbyists and as such, the customer base has limited needs and funds so marketing is the key to getting customers to purchase. the quality is what keeps them returning.
Yeah, they need new shoes now and then. Daz runs flash sales all the time, and often doesn't say how long time-limited promotions will last. That is the very height of high pressure selling. I'm pretty sure they don't lose any sleep over it. Daz is a decent company, and while they're far from perfect, they do alright by us mostly. But they gotta eat, keep the lights on and pay for all that development people are asking for somehow.
I'm tempted to say that I don't fall for the impulse buying gimmicks but I have a library full of stuff that I never use to prove otherwise.
The truth is that if enough of us didn't jump when they tell us to it wouldn't work, and if it didn't work they wouldn't do it. Ethics aside, and that's a whole different conversation, it seems like it's working out just fine for them.
DAZ used to be a lot more open, announcing new developments in advance. However, they tended to be overly optimistic about when projects would be finished, hence the expression "DAZ soon". The last time I recall their having a big announcement of future developments was when they announced the dynamic cloth plugins being developed by Optitex. That was a huge mess. Optitex was supposed to develop a plugin for DAZ Studio so that anyone could create dynamic clothes. Instead, they gave or sold it to only one person, so only he could produce dynamic clothes for DAZ Studio. They were stuck in a contract and getting repeated queries in the forums for years about when we would get the promised plugin. Since then they have waited until right before release to announce products and innovations.
Daz can easily become software company too if they want. Example 1 imagine a new real time render plugin arrived at Daz Store, is there anyone who will not buy it?
Not exactly. Martin already owned a licence to Optitex software, so they gave him the tools/process needed to convert the clothes he produced with it to DS. If other users had licences for it they'd probably could have gotten those tools from Daz too.
What Daz and Optitex never managed to do was create an integrated and affordable option to create those clothes.
Whilst I can agree to a certain extent with your comments on impulse buying, you ignore the personal responsibility we as individuals have; I deliberately counter said impulse by leaving stuff in my cart for a day or more. Surprisingly, the impulse goes away.
Some of the products some PAs produce, I'm likely to not impulse buy them, but buy them because I've been waiting for it - because I know it's coming, or I trust the system Daz has in place, allowing me to refund any purchase - "including impulse buys" for 30 days.
Again, if folks don't take advantage of that, then that is this personal responsibility thing again.
That might surprise you, but quite a few people have zero interest in real-time rendering. Especially if that means yet another set of materials, and/or loss of quality in the final render.
a bridge to Unreal Engine like iClone 7 has would be better
it got them one of those juicy Epic megagrants too
To be fair, we do not *know* that this is actually the intention behind the DAZ Inc. behavior, but ... if it walks like a duck... I'll know where I'd place my bets - hence my intrigue with the assertion.
Yup, there's the ability/legal aspect of the behavior, and there's that other part that apparently you and I see, but many don't or won't.
"broken" - heh, from what lens we view... simply that it has worked?
Most are big kids here, so no doubt the responsibility goes with each of us.
But I can't help but recall that cigarette ads targetting kids weren't always illegal, and a bunch of *someones* in the cig industries, advert-businesses, and tv/magazine sales divisions thought they were just fine - for decades. Must not have been broken.
Just sayin'
--ms
Great example of comparing things that have nothing to do with each other....
I think the transparency in what is going on with DAZ is just good business practice. I'll be one of the few voices that agree with the OP. Communication is key with so many things, but if some would rather be left in the dark, that is their own choice. No harm no foul.
Methinks that those saying its not a big deal would be the first ones to check out the "News and Coming Soon" pages if they were available....just sayin'
And to add... there probably wouldn't be as much fuss about "I won't buy any G8 stuff because G9 is coming out", if the backwards compatability was built into DAZ and not supplied by 3rd parties when they got around to it.
If DAZ 5.0 Has conversion tools built into it, so that I could add that Genesis 2 Outfit to the new Genesis 9 on the fly, THAT would certainly increase sales... No?
It would certainly open up the back catalog to anyone who has come into daz over the last couple of years and give folks a reason to actually buy those assets.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/414711/any-reason-to-bother-with-v4-any-longer#latest
As it sits now, I don't look at anything that is pre-Gen8, for the simple fact that I don't want to go through the process of buying additional converters and going through the process of converting...
Of course, it would play havoc with the "Freebies" page, as that seems to cull from G2/M&V 4 assets the most.
Yes it is surprised me. However I know an experienced member like you know something i don't know yet. Can I ask again, what will happen if Carrara add Iray render engine and full store support as a paid alternative? Everyone will update it as a paid upgradation?
well considering I paid hundreds for Carrara and a quite a few more hundreds for Octane render and the Carrara plugins including updates I probably would
a lot of Carrara users have been busy saving their money too not being able to buy DAZ stuff that works easily
so ......
I know of a few software developers that started out being very open with plans and roadmaps. Most of them either no longer talk openly about such things, or have dialed back on how much info they release and when they do it.
The nature of the beast means that its inevitable that plans have to change, intentions may be too ambitious, the market may change, resources may change or any number of other uncontrollable factors that will affect the end result. Then the vocal minority, with their inflated sense of their rights as a customer, get upset that what they were 'promised' did not eventuate or took twice as long as anticipated. And that unfortunately reflects poorly on the company.
So from a PR standpoint, its better to say nothing or at least be very careful about when you release information and how much. And as others have already mentioned, the nature of the daz business model plays a part here too.
Some have said that Daz are not a software developer so cannot fall under this category. That is just wrong. Just because their income does not technically come from the Daz Studio the program, does not mean they cannot be defined as a software company. They develop software, and the platform for artists to make the best use of that software. When you get right down to the definition of software, you could argue that digital assets could be called software too.
Just for the record, G8 comes with autofit clones to use clothes from all previous Genesis figures. Converters are handy, especially if you want to do batch conversion, but you don't have to buy them to use older outfits.
Some Carrara users would certainly. All of them though, if that was the only new thing? That remains to be seen.