Roadmap / Future of DAZ3D?
Ryselle-Ryssa
Posts: 147
Hi!
There was a threat about this in late 2021, and for it is late 2022 I wanted to ask if there is any update on the question: "What are future plans for DAZ Studio?"
Espacially with the release of G9F not only I was asking myself if there is actually work in expanding the functionality of DAZ Studio or if future versions aim for "only" stability and leave the creating of new functions to the vendors? It would be understandable, for sure, since fixing annoying but uncritical bugs (Items with Transparency in the viewport, max 1200 Items visible in Smart content...) implementing new stuff (Moving props and items on the surface of another model) or expanding excisting stuff (for example the hair system could use some rather simple features) is not easy and doesn't generate profit in a freeware.
Best wishes
Ryselle
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Comments
Personally I am all for improving Daz Studio more instead of making it easier to export product out of it and into other apps. I would love to do away with the bridges and bring more functions into DS. A great first start would be more options for IMPORTING and make sure they actually work
Improving the general stability, i.e. avoiding sudden crashes that occur without warning, losing work would really help sell DAZ as a serious tool. My perception is that those outside of DAZ respect the content made for it, but only use that to export it elsewhere as the software is too unreliable.
I know I'm old in the tooth, but I'll say it again. I can create massive scenes in the outdated (but stable) Carrara. I've learned the hard way that it's just not worth the aggravation of doing that kind of work in DAZ. One character with a simple background and all the fabulous lighting for a simple scene, yes it's great for that.
So I wait and hope for such an update. Until then it's Carrara and Twinmotion for the larger scenes.
Most of the stability issues are due to inadequate hardware, software environment or installation errors. DAZ Studio is quite stable when those causes are eliminated.
We know that DS 5 is in the works and possibly released within the next six months, but there has not been any leaks about what it brings into the table - Hopes were up, but the release of G9 at this point as it is, took the wind out of the sails...
We will have to disagree on that one then. It doesn't come close to running large scenes in Carrara - note - on the same machine.
I agree here. For myself, Studio is very stable. I have well spec'd harware and instal vis DIM, although I have many products from Rendo. I don't get lockups or failing to the desktop.
Wait, there is a limit of 1200 items in the smart library? That explains why I haven't seen some articles anymore.
Why? And can this be fixed, please?
One really can't compare two programs, released a decade apart (last versions).
Saying it early. Lets not turn this into an app war
I've worked for 40 years in software product development. There is always a tension between building in new features that generate increased revenue that justifies the investment (so for example something like G9 which invalidates hundreds of purchased products, or dForce which generates new product opportunities) and investing development funds into 'base' features like usability, stability, etc etc. I once worked for a company who refused point blank to build a new UI platform when everyone else was moving to more modern styles. They undoubtedly had the leading product in terms of features, and were #1 in the marketplace, but began to lose significant market share almost overnight to 'sexier' looking, easier to use UIs. It was a huge unforced error. Daz3d must surely recognise that.
RE - Daz must surely recognize that.
I will say it on behalf of Daz.
Don't call me Shirley. :)
I would also love to know why :D It occurs when browsing single items (not products) and can be worked around a bit by changing the sorting from A-Z to Z-A. You are only truely screwed, when you have more then 2400 items, so the middle doesn't appear. For me this happens with the expressions. But with that said, the Smart Content has more issues. Like: Why not being able to just show assets only for male or female (despite the generation)? Why does it load so long that I can go for a coffee in the mean time (no, that is not an issue with my PC)? Why does it reload when I change back from "Filter" to "no Filter at all"? Those are small things that should be addressed easily. No stability issues, but annoying.
When used in normal parameters, it truely is. But I now at least two actions that can kill it rather easily (but not always 100%): Deleting faces on a figure, load a new asset/figure while DAZ is busy switching from Shader view to Iray view.
G9F was a downer for me. It suggested that the priorities are elsewhere (understandable, because content = money, but not features of a freeware = money).
► Is DAZ collecting wishes for features of the community systematically?
This is why you'll occasionally see people strongly advising you to get used to navigating the Content Library instead of Smart Content. It's not just for the third party downloads from sites like Renderosity or sites like that, it's because of that 1200 items limit, which is very easy to break. Smart Content can be extremely convenient, but it very quickly starts dropping products from the list.
DAZ in general is not reading these forums, but there are several threads about what we the lowly forumites would like to see in DS 5. Some of those dreams were shot down with the release of G9, as it's highly unlikely that we would see another new generation of Genesis figures being released with DS 5, to support the features on top of the wish-list.
Yeah, the problem with having large content libraries and trying to find something in there has been around for more than twenty years, but the Content Library in DS is quite logical and does work pretty good, once you get rid of the vanity folders and fix the location of misplaced items (for example Houses in Props, Scenes or even Poses...)
Limitation, not bug - use one of the non-OpenGL Drawstyles
not a bug but a design decision in order to avoid lag, if you don't mind the lag a scropt can easily change the limit - at least oen has been posted to the forum https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3077741/#Comment_3077741
I'd like to see DAZ Studio go through a Feature FREEZE for now and have DAZ3D go through and update the documentation to make it clear what all the software is currently capable of.
Daz can handle large scenes with more than one character without any issues:
https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/user/5207251866353664#gallery=newest&page=1&image=1219583
As far as I know the Roadmap/Future of DAZ3D is Blender + Diffeomorphic
Good lord... How many figures are in that image? A friend recently posted an image with 19 figures in it, and the main problem she ran into was how long it took for DAZ Studio to unload from memory.
@FSMDesigns
Respectfully disagree
the existence of the bridges
has nothing do with the development of Daz native features.
Poser once had bridges called “Poser Fusion” to Maxon C4D
Autodesk Max and Newtek Lightwave.
Bondware promptly dropped them in favor of a generic FBX exporter with no useful material conversion.
Where are the discussions about Poser in the Blender,Maya or Gaming communities ??
Why would daz choose to exclude the game engine & 3DCC apps from easy access to Daz content,when competitors like Reallusion are agressively pandering to $$those markets$$
Daz ,after all, is a 3D content company..yes?
I'm all for improving DS, but there's also something to be said for knowing one's limitations on Daz's side and having realistic expectations on our side. DS is very good at certain things, and I would much rather Daz, for example, work on optimizing morph loading and speeding up viewport performance than introduce a buggy and half-cocked soft body physics system.
I do hope that the DAZ developers don't share your either/or view. Why would optimising the viewport result in the introduction of a crappy soft-body physics system? I'm never clear on why DAZ seem to try to reinvent the wheel all the time. There are other applications - some open source - which have cloth simulation, soft-body physics and decent animation features but DAZ does seem prone to releasing the half-baked and buggy, as you say. I thought that I read that the viewport is dependent on the new development platform to be introduced with DS5 so that should be well advanced by now. I have no interest in G9/V9 but I can see that plenty of people are so that should generate some income to invest in development which should attract more users, perhaps from the world of Blender, UE and Unity?
In short, I would rather have decent tools in DAZ Studio than have to export via bridges which actually complicate the workflow considerably. For things like making morphs or props I'm quite happy to open up Blender. Likewise with video editing in DaVinci Resolve or image editing in Affinity Photo. But it would be nice to be able to pose AND animate in the same viewport along with a decent cloth simulation and soft-body physics.
I'm not at all suggesting that optimizing the viewport would RESULT in the introduction of a crappy soft-body physics system, and that would be a total non sequitur anyway; I'm simply pointing out that opportunity cost is a real thing. Daz has finite resources, and its developers finite time and energy to devote to solving problems. Keeping with the same example, would you rather have a soft body physics system that only works as well as dForce, or a more optimized user experience? dForce could potentially be made into a more comprehensive physics system, but there are some under-the-hood improvements that would need to be made before I would want Daz expanding the scope of dForce (although I recognize that following that mindset would have precluded introducing dForce hair, which I use almost exclusively). I am not by any stretch of the imagination opposed to Daz bringing new functionality to DS, but there are so many quality-of-life improvements I would rather see first.
A good reason not to use it. I use categories myself but at over 7000 daz items most wouldn't show if that's the case.
Why get used to navigating? The Products folder [Content Library > Products] lists all items alphanumerically (with only a few items that require using the Poser legacy method). For me, THIS is smart content! All you need to know is the name of the product. Even though Daz has undergone an organizational amnesia in the past two years, I've only encountered two daz3d.com products out of my over 19,000 that are named differently in the Products folder than they are listed in the store.
Those export options have to be there because I frankly do not believe Daz can keep up. This isn't going to change by removing bridges. Animating in Daz is a joke. Physics in Daz is an embarrassment. Iray is neat, but it is slow and so niche that nobody ever benchmarks it. I do not believe Daz will ever compete in these areas. To kill the bridges would kill the workflow of anybody who uses them. Why would you do that? This is an asset company anyway. They will not survive if their assets are exclusive to an extremely niche program that has these issues that will never get fixed. How can anyone think that is a path to success. Some companies can get away with a walled garden, Daz is not one of them.
That doesn't mean that I believe Daz should give up on those things. I would love it if Daz made these things fantastic and users found they had no reason to export. Rather I just don't think they will be able to match what other software are doing.
But I can totally agree on import options being needed. Maybe some people would not be exporting as much if they could import more stuff properly into Daz. This can work both ways.
I much prefer the main content library, since I know where most of the content is going to be .
...I've been doing that ever since I started in this over 12 years ago.
...wish there was one to Carrara.
I will open a new topic about this, to keep the topics separated, and make clearer what I mean.
Thank you for your reply on this one. But wouldn't a workaround like "next page" or a asterisk-capeable search engine ("A*" to display all items beginning with "a") fix the issue better? This is what I mean with "small improvements"
True, if I know what I want in advance. With kitbashing and prototyping, having all assets like "shirts" or "belts" in one virtual folder is very convinient.
THIS. So much THIS. The easy to use part is key, so every "professional function" that most users don't use - drop it.
But there is just SOO much room for minor improvements in UI and functionality that would really help everyone in his/her/their day-to-day hobby