I'm a writer and I wonder what are DAZ guys' profession
iSeeThis
Posts: 552
I use DAZ 3D to create illustrations for my books. I consider myself a beginner and I really have not enough time to dig deep into advanced stuffs (I bought too many good things that I'm not sure I can render half of them in my entire life.)
Just wonder who you guys are and what you guys do with DAZ. I know that DAZ 3D is more and more popular. DAZ store is becoming hot entity on the net that comes to stay. But I don't think that all customers are from 3D industry. There are a lot of hobbyist here. I feel. So, who are you, please?
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You should define your question a bit more.
Are you meaning DAZ 3D guys, as in the people who work for DAZ 3D or are you meaning Members of the DAZ 3D community who use DAZ Studio (aka DS) and other programs from the DAZ 3D stable, or maybe even the PAs (vendors) who provide most of the content in the DAZ 3D store, which can be used in DS and other programs.
Do you mean the DAZ staff or customers? I'm guessing you mean customers...
From the conversations I've seen here over the years, they are a varied lot...
There is/was: a geologist, a former NASA engineer, several IT professionals, several web designers, several nurses, at least two professional talented musicians, several writers, a ton of talented artists, a couple of teachers, at least one fellow who claimed to be a heart surgeon, a veterinary assistant, a retired mechanic, at least two retired police officers, a couple of active/deployed/retiredmilitary personnel, many high school and college students, a fellow who worked on an oil platform or the craft that services them, at least two people that worked in the restaurant industry, a professional carpenter/cabinet-maker, a youth services professional, horse trainer, several professional photographers...
If I thought about it longer, I'd probably remember more... I don't mean to answer for folks, but that is a good question and sometimes it takes a while to get an answer to an off topic question of this sort.
And if you are wondering about me... I make prototypes of stuff... and I'm a bit of a loony.
Professional loony.
My 9-5 job is being an accountant. I am hobbyist outside of working hours, using both DAZ Studio and Poser. Really really enjoy working with all the 3d contents I buy as well as the different plug-ins that work with both DS and Poser. It's all so fascinating to me.
I'm retired from computer OS design and network research for the Space industry and other government & technology interests. Now in my dotage I'm a practicing grump and getting quite good at it. But more practice is always exciting. I haven't worked my way up to loony yet but I admire those who have. I'd show you some of my more interesting DAZ images but the DAZ police would ban me forever. 8-o
Another hobbyist here :)
I'm an IT consultant, working as project manager or software engineer depending on the project and/or client.
I got interested in 3D and CG when I was in engineering school, around 2002, thanks to an optional "computer graphics" class I had taken. And I've been playing with DS in my free time since the first public beta was released.
Another hobbyist - also, a retired computer OS/system support type.
Greetings,
Professional software developer for 25 years, hobbyist at 3D. I think you'll find that 90% (made up statistic alert!) of the folks on the forums are hobbyists to varying degrees. The 3D professionals who shop here don't really spend time on the forums.
My wife is an aspiring writer, and it often amazes her how quickly I can translate her vision of a cover idea into an image. She's trying it out occasionally to see if she can do that herself. (The problem, of course, is that I know where everything is in the horrific mess that is the props/figures directories. So if I need a teddy bear, it takes me a minute or so to find a few variations, but it would take her...a lot longer.)
I wish I could cross reference and semantically tag every prop and figure in the entire runtime (without spending a lifetime at it) and search through that, instead of what we have. That would make scene creation vastly more efficient. Maybe a crowdsourced effort...hmmm... ...fades off into mumbling about a crowdsourced cddb-like site for 3d objects/scenes/textures?...
-- Morgan
Greetings,
Sure, but wouldn't it be awesome to be able to share those?You tag, I tag, we all tag, and we get some amount of shared power out of it. Not that my tags push into your content database, but that my tags AND your tags all feed into a search engine on a simple web site someplace.
It doesn't even have to be completely consistent. I've learned a lot about how people categorize and classify items, and we are absolutely TERRIBLE at it as individual human beings, but in aggregate we are pretty amazing.
-- Morgan
I'm a PA.. in my copious free time (like 2 hours a week sometimes) I play computer games.
You tag, I tag, we all tag, and we get some amount of shared power out of it. Not that my tags push into your content database, but that my tags AND your tags all feed into a search engine on a simple web site someplace.
It doesn't even have to be completely consistent. I've learned a lot about how people categorize and classify items, and we are absolutely TERRIBLE at it as individual human beings, but in aggregate we are pretty amazing.
-- Morgan
+1! To make it easier/more complicated, there could be "tag groups" to represent different mindsets of categorization too.
Back OT, i'm a cat.
I’m an indie author of seven books. I’m also somewhat of an indie author advocate, purely accidentally thanks to some tongue-in-cheek ‘informational’ blog posts and YouTube videos I’ve done on the subject, plus I run a book review blog called Booksquawk. I started here at DAZ some years ago looking to make my own covers and book trailers, which I have done with varying degrees of success depending entirely on who you ask. Love it here.
Also a Published Artist, full time, only job. Also play a lot of video games. I like my open world RPGs by Bethesda Softworks - most have so much content and replay value that I never run out of interest in them with mods on (Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim are all on this laptop right now, bless Steam for making that so easy). I also enjoy Minecraft when I'm on braindead time and don't have the mental energy for anything else.
From the things I've seen our content used for, I'm fairly sure a large base of customers that isn't on the forum uses this for:
-Infomercial advertising, including weight loss products - if you see a simple animation of a belly getting smaller it's often a DAZ figure.
-Carnival decorations and decals. I saw one of my old M4 tee shirts on a "zombie photos" booth this summer, and the various Victorias and Michaels are on a lot of rides!
-Commissioned book covers on Kindle.
-Advertising new software and render engines and their accessories and features. Things we make get exported to Maya, 3ds Max, Maxwell, etc. High-rez modeling is a time-consuming specialty, and DAZ's base figures are free.
-Comics covers. I can't prove but am 100% certain that I've seen some of these made with DAZ figures, too, both Marvel and D.C. (usually with some great postwork for effects).
I don't include indie game makers because I've never seen a finished game that looked like it had DAZ store assets in it. I'm still waiting. ;)
I adore Bethesda games.. ESO doesn't count. Though I usually play with the Creation Kit/GECK more than I actually play the games. Also love MMORPGS but don't really have time for them anymore, I poke at EQ2 occasionally. Right now I'm playing 7 Days to Die if I've had a good day, and Total War Rome 2 if I've had a stressful day. Waiting on mods to be updated for Minecraft 1.8, the new update for Terraria to be released, and Starbound to be somewhat closer to finished.
ESO definitely does not count. Phbt to them. Looking forward to ESVI, though! I love me some Argonians.
I've started a warlock in WoW just this year, but I lose patience with grinding too easily, I'm afraid. I roleplay a lot with some friends on AIM in D&D canon. It's nice to be able to develop longer-term plots and head-canon.
I talked to a more extroverted friend the other day who was curious about my job. This discussion made me realize why we don't have more competition than we do. To me spending a lot of time here in my home office, away from other people, is a benefit; I'm most content with lots of time to myself, and I like my machines and my little cave. This much quiet time would drive a people person crazy! And you have to exercise a lot of discipline and be very self-motivated to get things done, keep your wages up, and still keep yourself healthy and productive. It's not that it's a perfect job - it's that it's a perfect job for me.
Well said!
I've been a professional artist since 1974. I work in real world media, but now prefer to do digital and am fully self-taught in the digital arena. I do concept art, characters, book covers, illustrations, and more. I am a PA at DAZ and have been here since 2001.
I work in Corel Painter, Photoshop, Illustrator for 2D work.
ZBrush, Blender, Modo, Mudbox, Maya primarily, but am always learning more, to do the work I create for use in DAZ Studio.
My free time occurs when I lie prone on my bed and sleep overtakes me, heh. I unwind with practicing, learning, watching videos on new things to do in the programs I use....I avidly listen to books from Audible or stream movies and television as I work.
I'm a former management consultant/software developer/sales engineer, currently a writer with absolutely no artistic talent whatsoever, who uses DS for book illustrations.
+1! To make it easier/more complicated, there could be "tag groups" to represent different mindsets of categorization too.
Back OT, i'm a cat.
The whole concept is an interesting idea and would seem to be of potential benefit to mankind, but easier said than done.
I have the same problem with my music collection. Over 50 years I've been assembling a marvelous library of classical music and have it organized and cataloged many ways but the use of it is predicated on the idea that I know what's in the collection. I'm experienced with the details of the content. The indices just make it easier for me to find things quickly. Unfortunately to someone unfamiliar with the details of the content items, for example, "Dvorak's 7th Symphony" it does no good to know how to find it quickly if you didn't know that you were looking for that delightfully mysterious one minute beginning of the 4th movement that sends chills up one's spine. (also check out 40 seconds at 3:10 and about a minute starting at 4:59 --- aw hell, listen to the whole damn thing, it won't kill you!!!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TirkVXPGBM
Point being, organized information is not knowledge. Whereas, spending 50 years collecting and organizing it is priceless.
I'm quite sure that when I pass on, my music collection will be completely ignored and totally unappreciated. Same for my heavy investment of time and cash in DAZ content. The true value of such things is in the gathering and groking of them not just the having of them.
Edited to add another example:
How would one categorize this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSJub1A1aIk
Music to drift off to sleep by? Ghosts on the moors? Cherry blossoms on a breezy night?
Much more direct to say "Holst's Neptune" or "Neptune from The Planets Suite" to a musical minded crowd.
Words, like indices, are not complete enough by themselves to be knowledge.
For the STNG people it's like saying "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra". You need the context to understand the meaning.
Or as the communication engineers will point out... "Communication is an exchange of mutually understood symbols."
Simply passing on a collection (or an index to a collection) to someone cannot pass on your grok of the subject.
(* sigh *) and once again I've killed a thread by taking the bait and drifting off topic with selfish verbosity. :-(
Would still like to hear more about other people's backgrounds.
I am currently a Graphics & Web Designer for a large entity.
In the past I have worked on a 12ft, gill net fishing boat out of an Indian Reservation, 14 years Active Duty US Air Force, 1 year Air Force Reserves at a Marine base, a few years with Hewlett Packard, General Dynamics and various smallish companies. I moonlighted working at CompUSA back in the day when big box computer stores were thriving. For a while I did freelance web design work on the side (read: instead of sleeping) for everything from various IT corporations, a pet store, a couple of Mesothelioma lawyers, an amphibious landing craft, a chemical modeling company, a site devoted to the Coelacanth (a prehistoric fish found alive off the coast of Madagascar in 1938!), and a variety of other topics (jewelry, patio and decks, etc.). I consider myself a professional Dad in that I put my kids at the top of my list of important priorities before that was fashionable and I enjoy spending time with them.
I've been doing graphics work since before doing graphics on the Commodore 64/128/Amiga and just love being creative with computer graphics. For over six years now I have put out a set of monthly computer wallpapers with calendars on the side called "DeskToppers - Fighting Boring Backgrounds One DeskTop at a Time" via my Door44 domain. Free, fun, and the biggest reason I continue to grow as an artist. I had been tempted by 3D for so many years, but honestly Poser 4 was not giving the results that I wanted so held off until DAZ 4 and Poser 2012 came out- THEN things started happening! I'd love to get a real paying career doing 3D work. Maybe someday.
I imagine a time when we won't 'render' any more because our computers will be powerful enough to work in real-time at full final quality! WOOHOO!!!
I am an app developer for games (mostly word games) on smart phones and tablets, and we use 3D programs and models to create the art work for nearly all our promotional graphics, icons, and in game 2D images. We are a very small company, having no real drawing or similar skills inhouse, so 3D art allows us to create something that looks reasonable without having to go to the considerable expense of outsourcing this work.
Looking through the icons and graphics of the 100,000's of other apps in Google's and Apple's app stores I have seen a number of graphics that I am sure where made with DAZ models, but the majority are done using more traditional computer art work, or photos.
I am a dedicated 3D hobbyist ... but I used to work for Her Majesty's Government in computing for 25 or so years, from starting in COBOL programming to ending up in a Unix support role, via IDMS and CICS analyst/programmer.
Another IT person here; much in database and OS on different platforms ranging from IBM mainframe to Windows Server; have been at this for "thirtysomething" years... I still work full time in my job, so free time is extremely limited for creative endeavors.
A fellow COBOL jockey! Fraternal greetings! Having said that, I've sent most of the last thirty-odd years practicing the even blacker arts of RPG II, RPG III and RPG IV.
Cheers,
Alex.
Rather fascinating, the number of us current/former IT types here. Must be something about the mind-set.
I'd really like to know the background on the 90+% who don't participate in the forums, but since they don't --
A fellow COBOL jockey! Fraternal greetings! Having said that, I've sent most of the last thirty-odd years practicing the even blacker arts of RPG II, RPG III and RPG IV.
Cheers,
Alex.
I realise I told an untruth ... my first language was actually called IRIS ... Inland Revenue Interrogation System (no, really - not kidding! ;)) but that was before I became a programmer, but I did get to provide the answers for a question raised in Parliament (yes, there was a slight touch of 'at the hurry up' on that, along with 'be bloody sure you get the correct results') :)
ICL COBOL (running on an ICL 1900-series mainframe running George 3 - now THERE was a great OpSys!) was the first 'real' language, followed by IBM's version of COBOL when we upgraded to an IBM mainframe, then rolled in some PC-based stuff when we got some IBM PC XTs (4.77Mhz 8086 processors, 10MB HDD, 640KB RAM) including, with a friend and colleague, writing a system that (via a BAT file) automatically downloaded a file from the mainframe (using the FT78T program that came with the IRMA board used for connecting to the mainframe), passing that into Lotus 1-2-3 to split it up into sub-files via an auto-run macro, then into dBase II to convert to an indexed dbf and finally to export it out onto a Christie tape drive ;)
I'm a PA 100% of my time for a bit more than 2 years now - well I began 3 years ago but it took me one full year to make my first product!
It's a strong change regarding my previous job, since I'm a physicist and for years I've been a researcher, engineer and project manager in optics, photonics, light and matter interaction, electromagnetism, microwaves, semiconductor physics (optoelectronics),
Well one could think I'm light years away from this physicist world, but actually, ray tracing remains ray tracing, BRDF remains BRDF, colorimetry remains colorimetry whether it is in real physics or in a rendering software, except that the way I do it now is soooo muchhhh more funny, more creative, more imaginative, more flexible, and more gratifying!!
I've discovered 3D via blender, and it took me less than one day to fall in love with it.
I have not totally quitted my previous job, I'm just in "years off" I have negotiated with my company. I'll have to decide either in 3 months or in one year and 3 months if I come back to real physics or stay in the 3D world....It's gonna be hard since I enjoy 3D so much!
And for the reasons to make me feel like staying in 3D... Well.. I was an expert, and for those who don't see the issue in being that, just have a look at this vid, you'll understand :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
Oh. My. Gosh! I have so lived this video! (As the 'expert' not as the others. )
Oh. My. Gosh! I have so lived this video! (As the 'expert' not as the others. )
Lol!
Every expert recognise his life in this video.
It was the same for me, as soon as I saw it, I thought : "Hey, there were here during my meetings or what?"... Then my husband (who's an expert too) told me that he also thought the same seeing it, and he also received it from an expert who thought the same... and I think we all lived the same totally improbable and surrealistic situations :)
So now when I have a doubt about staying in 3D or not, hop, this video helps me a lot! Or maybe one day I'll feel like "drawing 7 perpendicular red lines with green and transparent ink".... All this while inflating a balloon with the shape of a ca... a kitten! xD