Some hint like "No moveable parts included" needed for many products!?!
maikdecker
Posts: 2,967
The title says it already, but as a small explanation:
I just bought FG General Household Tools as a test, hoping to get disappointed. Alas, I wasn't - all of the items in the set are static props. There's quite a few other products in the shop which share the same fate. In some cases it makes it nearly useless, except to use them as "background clutter" in other cases some editing with the geometry tool (taking them apart into several pieces and reassemble into a new prop) solves that "problem".
Wouldn't it be nice, than instead of blacklisting PAs who sell non-working props regularly and by that sometimes missing a set with working props, to have a short text in the product's description saying "No movable parts included!"
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Comments
I completely agree. Haven't purchased the asset, but I woud definitely think that at least the toolcase and the toolbox could be closed. And preferably that the pliers, wrench, etc, can be used. I could understand to have static objects if they were just scene fillers in a garage or workshop environment asset, but not in an asset on "household tools".
I mostly do VN and this is a common problem I encounter. PAs are mostly interested only by static images. And indeed, for static renders, non movable props can be OK. If I need an open toolbox, I can use this one. And if I need a closed box, with a sufficient library, I can probably find one. But for a VN, you need to see the char arrive with a closed toolbox and to see the same box opened in the next image.
By looking at the "What's included", you can have hints on the functionnality of props (if no rigging is indicated, it is not rigged), but a clearer labelling would be extremely useful.
Many of those would be complicated rigs where multiple parts have to move together in conjuction. Several hundred copies sold, even at full price, isn't going to pay for the time required to do that kind of rigging.
I know this is a moment of frustration, but hear me out.....
instead of blacklisting PAs who sell non-working props
A Daz Store prop/item is like a movie prop - as it is there only for appearance and does not function, and really, was never meant to.
99.9% of the props in the Daz Store "do not work". I get it, as a comics guy, it's yuck-level to have doors not work, windows not open.....props glued together and sometimes without material zones so even opacity can't save you. lol
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Where we differ is that, since the majority of items do not function like a true tool or feature, it'd be easier for the vendors that DO make working items, boldy state that.
They already do. It's actually one of their huge selling points....
I say - assume everything is a static prop and if it doesn't say so, don't expect it.
If you're unsure, hit the forum first and ask.
Sorry you got caught.
That's why I was so shocked in another thread, to learn this luggage opens and closes, is on my wishlist as a result.
And you see how it's a MAJOR selling point?
The vendors know.
It's also the SOLO/Subject/main product and not included with a hotel room. lol
There are some things that are just impossible to rig to do what they are suppose to. Some things would need to do double function at once which isn't possible and if it going wonky at any point the product is rejected until fixed. Another thing to consider is how many are going to sell and if it is going to sell can I make a return on it that will pay my time? People don't seem to think about the PA having to also pay bills and can't do work for free which everybody seems to think they should. It cost a lot of money a year to do this as a profession and if you can't turn a profit your going to be in a bread line. People don't seem to consider PA's usually make less then minimum wage on a product. A typical Landscape can cost $35 as a new release. After sale price (depending on % off and if there are any stacking discounts) and Daz cut we are lucky to make $3-$4 per unit, and that's on a good day. If you figure in your fixed costs alone to doing that pack you are roughly $11 in the hole already on a single unit. The only way your going to make money is if it sells a ton of units on the first 2 days. You usually half to make your money in the first week to know if it's a flop or hit. By the end the average PA tends to make about $3 an hour. People would have a fit and demand a raise if they made that kind of money. We up our prices by $3-$5 and its a massive conspiracy and we're blacklisted cause we are obviously ripping people off. Pretty fair isn't it?
Understandable, but... If I went to my toolbox to find all the tools glued to the box, I'd be p***ed.
If the geometry has already been modelled, at least make one (of each type) that could be held, so one could pretend to be doing something, even if the pliers didn't open etc.
I can only imagine the time it takes to do any of this stuff which is why I very much appreciate what folks do. And I get that rigging a bunch of stuff would take a ton of time that probably won't be beneficial for the majority of folks, though awesome it would be, but it would be nice if in the description it just simply said the props are or aren't rigged or something like that so we know going in what we're getting.
As someone who does a little light modeling, unless the box full of tools is photogrammetry, there's no reason everything SHOULD be joined together. I get not rigged, but not all together in one clump. If modeled, they were probably modeled separately and no reason not to keep them that way.
I don't mind rigging a simple prop or two myself if the geometry allowed for it, i.e., not all fused together into one face group. They can easily be isolated in the mesh then rigged or morphed, but how many users would actually want that up front? Those who know how, can, and will, do it themselves if they really want to. So, you spend an hour or two tinkering with some parts. Time, I've got...
I don't understand why PAs gripe about low return on time invested. They know the price range Daz will set for products of various types. They know the Daz discounting policies. They know the 50% Daz/PA split. They know all this going in. If they can't make a living doing this, why do they continue doing it and then whine in the forum?
Are these props actually built into the box? The promos show all the props separated out, and empty tool boxes. I assumed the concern was things like pliers being static, drill bits not being separate and able to be moved, and those sort of issues within each tool. Are the tools not separated out so you can have someone holding them in their hand?
Oh believe me we feel the same way and get just as frustrated when something that should be rigged and isn't. For some time now regardless of the time involved we started rigging things that can be. If it's a piece in real life that can move we make it so it moves. I have always for as far as I can remember modeling in such a way that if it can move I model it to be movable. I was just explaining that it's not as easy of a decision as most think it is or should be. Every action adds time and cost, and the old adige of "time is money" is 100% true when you do this kind of work. If your putting in more money than you can make you go bankrupt very quick.
Because for some of us this is the only job we can do because we're disabled and can't work outside of the house. Discounts are always different and we don't know ahead of time what the discount is going to be. You think I really want to be doing a job where I lose money half of the time? No, I'd rather be working my old job as Chief or Police where I made money and got satisfaction out of helping people when in need. It's not us griping either, it's others that are griping because they want things for free or next to nothing for something that took a week or more to make. If we don't price it at a reasonable price they are not going to buy it and we lose even more money.
They don't always. I know I quit. It's not worth it to be a PA or Renderosity vendor, IMO. So I'm grateful for the people who do it.
There are seperate tools that could be used in the figure's hand or put on a table or shelf or whatever, but there are options to actually "use" the tools or the boxes. I tried to do some diddling around with the geometry tool to cut one of the tool coffers into two parts, then rig it together to have an opening lid, only to see that both parts were identical (copy paste, I presume) and therefor would not fit together, especially on the backside/hinge. Tog get it working I - as a non PA without lots of experience - probably would have had to spend quite a bit of time to get it working. Rigging it when designing it probably would have been a thing of spending a couple extra minutes...
I do understand that time is money for PAs. But's the same for me. So when unsure if things are "working" as if in real life, the product has to be really, really, REALLY cheap to get my interest. Cheap as in "$ 1.99 PC+FAD". So in the end not rigging stuff to work means less sales (or at least one sale less - mine) and (a little amount) less money.
And this tool prop set was only one recent item with this "problem"... there's many products in the shop that drop instantly from my interest due to lack of "option". Non-zipping zippers... non unbuttoning buttons. etc. etc. If it doesn't look as if I could do the needed changes within DAZ myself, I will just not buy such products. And I guess I'm not the only one doing it like this.
And sometimes less would mean more. With less items in the set, there might have been time to rig the (fewer) items properly. And raise the expectations of the customers who then might have been ready to buy another set with the other - rigged - tools.
As it is I've spent around € 5.- for static props. Not really a problem. But the next product without clear indications of not being just static props would have to be severely cheaper to get my interest.
I totally agree with maikdecker and a few others here and I don't want be rude, but I will definetely blacklist all PA's who sell non-working props without any hint that these are only static props and especially products where I expected that props normally should work, because I do animations and not only render images and I did exactly this with FG and a few other PA's who constantly sell products without any hint that their products are static props only. In the past I purchased their products nevertheless and even if a prop was not rigged, but those products were regularly unusable for me as an animator until I made their job and separted the mesh and rigged most of the products by myself. But today when I hear some of these lame excuses that their products are only made to render images without any hint that these are static props only, I will simply not buy anything from them and I don't agree with the arguments from some PA's that it costs too much time and effort to rig something and therefore they wouldn't be able to make a living from that and a statement like "Several hundred copies sold, even at full price, isn't going to pay for the time required to do that kind of rigging, I'm sorry to say folks but this is simply a joke!"
All lot of PA's are able to rig continuous their products in a high quality for years, no matter how complicated it was to rig their products, e.g. , military equipments, weapons, tanks, airplanes, cars and so forth and for the most parts in a product it's a matter of minutes and not hours to rig a door or something similar and rigging is not a very complicated process most of the time for an experienced PA and if a PA want to make a living from his work it would be better this PA is experienced.
To make a point like, it isn't going to pay for the time required to do that kind of rigging or there are some things that are just impossible to rig would be the same if I'm printing out a coffee machine from my 3d printer and try to sell this machine without any movable parts or a coffee filter,...oh sorry folks my coffee machine is just for fun and only for appearance and was not meant to function, but would you be kind enough and buy my coffee machine nonetheless, because I'm a coffee machine vendor and would like to make a living from it. In a 3d world all is possible as far as I know and instead of saying that there are some things that are just impossible to rig to do what they are suppose to, I rather would say, yes, all is possible to rig, because we are able to fly to the mars and the computer I work and play with was complicated to develop as well and a few people did it no matter how complicated it was and therefore those peoples are billionaires today! Do you know what I mean? No excuses! There are 236 pages in my product library since 2008 because some PA's did fullfill their work and this was no accident.
If you want zipping zippers, etc., you are asking for another level of complexity (if not imposibility) that would price it out of the market ...
I understand that a PA needs to see a return for the time invested in content creation. However, I don't see the logic in producing products that people either will not buy or will complain about after purchase.
For many of us, DAZ Studio is a long-term hobby and, for me, it is the only hobby that eats into my meagre finacial resources. For that reason I do not hesitate to return products that disappoint or do not live up to expectatons. I've started to move in the direction of tweaking some items to my own requirements but I am not a modeller. Nevertheless, I have been watching various Blender tutorials for the past year and am starting to get an understanding of the process. If I am priced out of the market for props or if purchased props are of consistently low quality, I will either attempt to model my own or download and adapt freebies or abandon the hobby and find something better to do with my time. I know, however, that some DAZ customers seem to have inexhaustible funds available and buy whatever DAZ promotes on a daily basis.
I find it significant that many tutorials sold by DAZ are aimed at budding professionals with the money to spend on software like ZBrush or Substance Painter. There is a Blender Content Creation bundle which is sold, at the moment, for a whopping $126 - certainly not an attractive price for the casual hobbyist, especially as it is long outdated using a now obsolete version of Blender. Looking at the recent tutorial additions from Flipped Normals a similar story emerges: either they demand ZBrush, Maya, Substance, etc. or they are Blender specific but with quite a heavy price tag. The individual tutorials run at around $30 a pop but to cover the Blender to DAZ Studio workflow would require multipe tutorials amounting to a large outlay.
All understandable: on the one side, artists want to make a decent living. On the other side, hobbyists might be cash-strapped and always on the verge of dropping out of the game altogether. I've been walking that edge for years but at least I have accumulated enough content during those years to play in 3D for a while even if I never bought another product.
THAT is a whole different animal and I agree. I think complex doesn't even cover it. LOL
I think there is a problem of expectations exacerbating the situation. As buyers we have no idea of how many items a product sells, so buyers have no idea how much the PA is getting and as a result cannot get a handle on a possible length of time a PA will be prepared to put into a product. What buyers do see is a headline price and assume that the majority of sales will be at prices close to that. I suspect that this is false, infact pretty sure this must be false, but have no evidence beyond my own purchases to backup this feeling.
So, if possible, could a PA indicate roughly the numbers of sales for a popular, normal and less popular product (maybe as wide bands like middle hundreds/low hundreds/high tens sort of thing), and a rough order of magnitude percentage of the headline price you actually get as opposed to the theoretical 50% if everything sold at full price (eg as 15-20% band, 20-30% band maybe)? That way we can be educated as customers over what it's sensible to expect and that way we will be less likely to over expect. I know it's a bit much to ask, but it may well be very a useful and helpful way to align buyer and PA expectations.
There are rigged zippers at Turbosquid, CGTrader and even at Renderosity... can't be that complex
a closed version of that toolbox would suffice.
..and I do animations.
but I already have some toolboxes so no need for that one
what annoys me is the sets with the glued props especially chairs and stuff, fortunately as a Carrara user a quick trip into the vertex room and also adding a bone or more and attaching to skeleton not hard.
I guess the DAZ users could use the Hexagon bridge as well as the geometry editor (I have)
this can be avoided if only the PAs added some zeroed props and an empty room, honestly not that much harder.
that said many do
Care to post an example of a clothing item with a rigged zipper?
Exactly! That's just how I see it too, the sets with the glued props annoys me most. But what I'm really amazed about are your number of posts, more than 30'000 posts! How long you're here at Daz? since 1890? You must be the most experienced user here, has anybody more posts than you?
Do you mean something like this?
or like this?
I do my zipper animations with Marvelous Designer, but it should be douable in DS as well, although didn't try it to date.
I understand the frustration PAs have trying to make a living but keep in mind: ANIMATION IS THE FUTURE. Complaints like these are only going to increase and they won't end with debates in the forums. They'll end with returns in the store especially if the previews imply that items are rigged and the discreptions aren't clear. Of course EVERYTHING doesn't have to be rigged, but Western Saloons with swinging doors that don't swing, or a Destroyed Mall with junk strewn everywhere that's all ONE piece are extremely frustrating.
https://www.daz3d.com/west-saloon
https://www.daz3d.com/destroyed-mall
On the other hand there's this insane glider model from MikeD that has every lever, switch, and dial on the control panel rigged. Very impressive!
https://www.daz3d.com/md-glider
no, just spend too much time in certain off topic threads on this forum
or rather used to, no so much now
and there are a few with more posts, some of whom I chat to a lot on this forum like a chatroom
again not as much as I used to for reasons
including sadly death
One particular product I bought was a collection of wizard/mage-related objects, basically magic-bottles and bags and stuff. It had a bag to stuff things into, but the bag itself wasn'r rigged. However, the prop pack came with an open version of the bag and a closed version of the same bag, so I used the open version of the bag to stuff a bunch of (non-magic-related) things into. I was happy with that opened bag as is, but having the bag in a closed and an opened versions was a good comprimise for something that I figure would likely have been trouble to rig and morph. I haven't had need of the closed version yet, thought, but am happy the product pack included one.
(Actually, I wasn't even aware until later that the bag came from a fairy-tale-magic themed pack of props, I simply searched my Content Library for a bag, said "Oh, that one looks suitable!" applied a different fabric shader onto the outside, and crammed a bunch of baby-related stuff in it from other places in my Daz collection of stuff, because I needed a diaper-bag and no one makes a suitable one for Daz Studio yet.)
That's why I asked, because those are... not rigged. At all. Not only is the zipper not rigged there the entire garment is, in fact, not rigged.
Also your example is from a specialized program of which it's entire propose is simulating clothing. I certainly wish DS had some of MD's features, but given that nothing besides MD has said features, I'm not holding my breath.