When did you come to DAZ?

daveso

Diomede said:

My first purhase from what is now Daz3D included the Millenium Woman and the Millenium Man, which now are rerred to as Victoria 1 and Michael 1.  I am not sure if the company name had become Daz3D at that point or if it was still Zygote.  I do know that the figures were to be used in Poser, not Studio.  I go back to Poser 2.  My order history puts it later, so I may have purchased Michael 1 and Victoria 1 through a third party vendor.  My history according to my account lists my first Daz3D order as being October, 2003, and included Victoria 3.  I think that may reflect company mergers, sort of the way content I purchased from RDNA is now in the Daz3D accounts.

I had picked up a couple of the early characters free in a magazine CD. What mag was it? Unfortunately I finally got rid of them all, and the CDs ... I think it was Zygote when they fisrt came out, but it wasn;t long after that Digital Art Zone was spun off... if my memory is working.  

Just found this in Wikipedia -- Victoria 1 was released by then-Zygote in February 1999 and was the first named medium-resolution figure for use with Poser. She was originally released as 'The Millennium Woman', but the resulting colloquial shortening to "Millie"[4] led to Zygote renaming her as Victoria.[citation needed] Zygote also sold an anime-morphed character for Victoria named Aiko,[disputed – discuss] and each successive generation of Victoria has so far had an accompanying Aiko (whose facial morphs can vary between anime and a less exaggerated Asian).
 

 

Ron Knights

I joined or started shopping in 1999, when the compant was called Zygote.

The joined date is not entirely accurate. I joined, left and returned. Something like that.

DustRider

Faeryl Womyn said:

My first order was 2006, but I know I used Daz before that, as I used version 1.7, tho for some reason that does not show anywhere on my acct. So whenever version 1.7 was available, that's the year I started with Daz and this site.

I don't know if this helps but I have the installer for DS 1.7 downloaded on 7/23/2007, DS 1.0.1 was downloaded on 12/28/2005. So maybe it was actually DS 0.7.x that you were using prior to 2006 and not 1.7? If so then you might have started in early 2004 or maybe 2003?? I have the installer for DS 0.9.12.11 from 1/5/2005.

kyoto kid

...my first download of Daz was v. 1.8.1.5.(for which I still have the installer).  I also picked up the free 3D Explorer Pack  (later renamed the 3D Starter Bundle - SciFi) that included Aiko3, the "lite" versions of Mil Dog, Mil Cat, Mil Horse, and Mil Dragon along with a few other assets. That was my first "purchase" back in November of 2007.  I also often raided the old Daz Freebie Vault as well as downloaded freebies form Rendo. 

Vicky and other content seemed "expensive" back then (crikey 3D shoes almost cost as much as real ones) for the first few months I relied solely on freebies. .

My first paid for content was the V4.2 Pro Bundle and Teen Ashley Megapack which were on sale at the time.

In late February 2008 I joined the PC (annual membership) for a whopping 99.95$ which gave me a 30$ store voucher (so the net cost came to 69.95$).More than made my money back in that first year.

AllenArt

Drogo Nazhur said:

Just curious when folks got started with DAZ?

I came at the tail end of G2 and beginning og G3. I have actually been going back and re-discovering G2 and buying stuff that I did not get thr first time around.

The company or the software? I started with the company while it was still Zygote. Bought Vicky 1 (Millie) and Michael 1, but used The Dork and Posette before that in Vue (and I started Vue with version 2 and gave it up for good when e-on sold the company and it went rental).

I started with the Daz Studio software during the G2 phase ;) Poser before then. 

AllenArt

Charlie Judge said:

October 2007

Note: You can see a user's join date by clicking on his/her name under their avatar.

I've had a couple different screen names before this screen name's join date ;) 

oddbob

daveso said:

 

I had picked up a couple of the early characters free in a magazine CD. What mag was it? Unfortunately I finally got rid of them all, and the CDs ...

May have been 3D world, that typically had the best haul of assets and older versions of programs. I used to post in the forums sometimes if there was a really good one as I had a UK subscription and got my copy weeks ahead of the news stand copies reaching the rest of the world.

I've still got cover disks, after a quick browse I seem to have CD77 to disc161 which was a dvd. Flicking through them, I saw hex,vue, carrarra, DS 3.something and daz and smith micro models. One of the last ones has Vicky 5 on the sleeve.

I'd been wanting to do a very old case, fairly new bits build and I have a sata dvd drive somewhere, Could be the excuse I was looking for.

Gordig

4 1/2-ish years ago. I was taking a video production course and started looking into 3D to make visual effects DS was one of the programs I experimented with (including Blender, C4D, Maya and 3DS Max) and stuck with DS because it was the easiest to use. These days I barely even open up DS because most of the work I do is in Houdini and C4D.

LeatherGryphon

My first purchase from DAZ was "Michael 2.0" for $42 Sept 2 2003.   I'd been using Bryce, Poser and RayDreamStudio since the late '90s on a Win98 system purchased new in '98.  

Memories:  Ah, my old HP Win98 system.  First home computer I'd bought.  I'd been working with government  & telecom machines, and early CPM based consumer machines for  small businesses for 30 years.  I'd sworn that I'd never get a compter for my house, but I finally caved.  It came in two big boxes, complete with keyboard, mouse, tower, and a 17" CRT("boob-tube") display, for about the same price you'd pay for a suitable DAZing machine tower alone these days but dollars were worth more back then.  I kept that old machine for many years.  Giving it up long after after the adoption of Win7 on a newer(but not new) machine.  I don't remember what finally killed the Win'98 system, but I'd upgraded to WinXP, expanded memory, and added hard drives & external peripherals., but it was finally retired and eventually disected for parts.  Now, even all the parts are gone. 

I'm a digital packrat.  I still have several versions of DAZ Studio before version 1.0 it was initially embarrasingly bad (I think they even called it an "Alpha" for a while), but eventually surpassed Poser in ease of use.

Richard Haseltine

daveso said:

Diomede said:

My first purhase from what is now Daz3D included the Millenium Woman and the Millenium Man, which now are rerred to as Victoria 1 and Michael 1.  I am not sure if the company name had become Daz3D at that point or if it was still Zygote.  I do know that the figures were to be used in Poser, not Studio.  I go back to Poser 2.  My order history puts it later, so I may have purchased Michael 1 and Victoria 1 through a third party vendor.  My history according to my account lists my first Daz3D order as being October, 2003, and included Victoria 3.  I think that may reflect company mergers, sort of the way content I purchased from RDNA is now in the Daz3D accounts.

I had picked up a couple of the early characters free in a magazine CD. What mag was it? Unfortunately I finally got rid of them all, and the CDs ... I think it was Zygote when they fisrt came out, but it wasn;t long after that Digital Art Zone was spun off... if my memory is working.  

Just found this in Wikipedia -- Victoria 1 was released by then-Zygote in February 1999 and was the first named medium-resolution figure for use with Poser. She was originally released as 'The Millennium Woman', but the resulting colloquial shortening to "Millie"[4] led to Zygote renaming her as Victoria.[citation needed] Zygote also sold an anime-morphed character for Victoria named Aiko,[disputed – discuss] and each successive generation of Victoria has so far had an accompanying Aiko (whose facial morphs can vary between anime and a less exaggerated Asian).

My recollection was that Aiko (1) was Victoria 2 era - though of course Victoria/Michael 2 were essentially morph expansions for the first version (before the methods for adding a morph set had been fully worked out - though they did add new figures, the V2/M2 to P4 figures that had the body reshaped and rerigged to use clothes for the stock Poser 4 Female and Male).

Bobvan

July of 2009 DS3A. Had a [terribly weak] system. Then bough a laptop. We all know how had rendering can be on them long term. Started using towers in 2012. I now have a build with a 4090.

Leana

Richard Haseltine said:

daveso said:

Diomede said:

My first purhase from what is now Daz3D included the Millenium Woman and the Millenium Man, which now are rerred to as Victoria 1 and Michael 1.  I am not sure if the company name had become Daz3D at that point or if it was still Zygote.  I do know that the figures were to be used in Poser, not Studio.  I go back to Poser 2.  My order history puts it later, so I may have purchased Michael 1 and Victoria 1 through a third party vendor.  My history according to my account lists my first Daz3D order as being October, 2003, and included Victoria 3.  I think that may reflect company mergers, sort of the way content I purchased from RDNA is now in the Daz3D accounts.

I had picked up a couple of the early characters free in a magazine CD. What mag was it? Unfortunately I finally got rid of them all, and the CDs ... I think it was Zygote when they fisrt came out, but it wasn;t long after that Digital Art Zone was spun off... if my memory is working.  

Just found this in Wikipedia -- Victoria 1 was released by then-Zygote in February 1999 and was the first named medium-resolution figure for use with Poser. She was originally released as 'The Millennium Woman', but the resulting colloquial shortening to "Millie"[4] led to Zygote renaming her as Victoria.[citation needed] Zygote also sold an anime-morphed character for Victoria named Aiko,[disputed – discuss] and each successive generation of Victoria has so far had an accompanying Aiko (whose facial morphs can vary between anime and a less exaggerated Asian).

My recollection was that Aiko (1) was Victoria 2 era - though of course Victoria/Michael 2 were essentially morph expansions for the first version (before the methods for adding a morph set had been fully worked out - though they did add new figures, the V2/M2 to P4 figures that had the body reshaped and rerigged to use clothes for the stock Poser 4 Female and Male).

The first Aiko was a character for Stephanie, so yes that would be Generation 2.

Richard Haseltine

Leana said:

Richard Haseltine said:

daveso said:

Diomede said:

My first purhase from what is now Daz3D included the Millenium Woman and the Millenium Man, which now are rerred to as Victoria 1 and Michael 1.  I am not sure if the company name had become Daz3D at that point or if it was still Zygote.  I do know that the figures were to be used in Poser, not Studio.  I go back to Poser 2.  My order history puts it later, so I may have purchased Michael 1 and Victoria 1 through a third party vendor.  My history according to my account lists my first Daz3D order as being October, 2003, and included Victoria 3.  I think that may reflect company mergers, sort of the way content I purchased from RDNA is now in the Daz3D accounts.

I had picked up a couple of the early characters free in a magazine CD. What mag was it? Unfortunately I finally got rid of them all, and the CDs ... I think it was Zygote when they fisrt came out, but it wasn;t long after that Digital Art Zone was spun off... if my memory is working.  

Just found this in Wikipedia -- Victoria 1 was released by then-Zygote in February 1999 and was the first named medium-resolution figure for use with Poser. She was originally released as 'The Millennium Woman', but the resulting colloquial shortening to "Millie"[4] led to Zygote renaming her as Victoria.[citation needed] Zygote also sold an anime-morphed character for Victoria named Aiko,[disputed – discuss] and each successive generation of Victoria has so far had an accompanying Aiko (whose facial morphs can vary between anime and a less exaggerated Asian).

My recollection was that Aiko (1) was Victoria 2 era - though of course Victoria/Michael 2 were essentially morph expansions for the first version (before the methods for adding a morph set had been fully worked out - though they did add new figures, the V2/M2 to P4 figures that had the body reshaped and rerigged to use clothes for the stock Poser 4 Female and Male).

The first Aiko was a character for Stephanie, so yes that would be Generation 2.

Thanks, I had a niggling idea that Stephanie (1) was involved.

AllenArt

Richard Haseltine said:

daveso said:

Diomede said:

My first purhase from what is now Daz3D included the Millenium Woman and the Millenium Man, which now are rerred to as Victoria 1 and Michael 1.  I am not sure if the company name had become Daz3D at that point or if it was still Zygote.  I do know that the figures were to be used in Poser, not Studio.  I go back to Poser 2.  My order history puts it later, so I may have purchased Michael 1 and Victoria 1 through a third party vendor.  My history according to my account lists my first Daz3D order as being October, 2003, and included Victoria 3.  I think that may reflect company mergers, sort of the way content I purchased from RDNA is now in the Daz3D accounts.

I had picked up a couple of the early characters free in a magazine CD. What mag was it? Unfortunately I finally got rid of them all, and the CDs ... I think it was Zygote when they fisrt came out, but it wasn;t long after that Digital Art Zone was spun off... if my memory is working.  

Just found this in Wikipedia -- Victoria 1 was released by then-Zygote in February 1999 and was the first named medium-resolution figure for use with Poser. She was originally released as 'The Millennium Woman', but the resulting colloquial shortening to "Millie"[4] led to Zygote renaming her as Victoria.[citation needed] Zygote also sold an anime-morphed character for Victoria named Aiko,[disputed – discuss] and each successive generation of Victoria has so far had an accompanying Aiko (whose facial morphs can vary between anime and a less exaggerated Asian).

My recollection was that Aiko (1) was Victoria 2 era - though of course Victoria/Michael 2 were essentially morph expansions for the first version (before the methods for adding a morph set had been fully worked out - though they did add new figures, the V2/M2 to P4 figures that had the body reshaped and rerigged to use clothes for the stock Poser 4 Female and Male).

IIRC, Aiko 1 was basically a morph of Stephanie, who herself was a female version of Michael 1. I think. LOL Was soooo long ago and I'm getting old now. 

Sven Dullah

...must have been mid 90's when I played with InfiniD, Bryce and Carrara, maybe Poser. Found DAZ after having a break from 3D, rendertimes were represented by snails turtles and hares or along those lines, don't remember when that was? 2005?

mding

My first paid order: Ron's Winter Bundle for $32.95 (!) in Aug 2015.

A quite popular german photoshop course had nudged me (and i guess not a few others) to daz for that reason. About a year later i invested in gen 2 and 3 basic morph products. But at first it was only Ron's PS brushes i was looking for.

 

ETA: very nice thread idea, enjoyed reading very much - thanks!

daveso

Sven Dullah said:

...must have been mid 90's when I played with InfiniD, Bryce and Carrara, maybe Poser. Found DAZ after having a break from 3D, rendertimes were represented by snails turtles and hares or along those lines, don't remember when that was? 2005?

I went big at the beginning, started with Poser 1, then Vista Pro..Bryce showed up for PC I think version 2. Carrara wasn't yet, but was Ray Dream Studio. Fractal Design and them Metacreations. There was a lot of free content at the beginning. DAZ really took off for Poser after a bit. It was a much different world at that time for sure. New and exciting.  

Leana

AllenArt said:

Richard Haseltine said:

daveso said:

Diomede said:

My first purhase from what is now Daz3D included the Millenium Woman and the Millenium Man, which now are rerred to as Victoria 1 and Michael 1.  I am not sure if the company name had become Daz3D at that point or if it was still Zygote.  I do know that the figures were to be used in Poser, not Studio.  I go back to Poser 2.  My order history puts it later, so I may have purchased Michael 1 and Victoria 1 through a third party vendor.  My history according to my account lists my first Daz3D order as being October, 2003, and included Victoria 3.  I think that may reflect company mergers, sort of the way content I purchased from RDNA is now in the Daz3D accounts.

I had picked up a couple of the early characters free in a magazine CD. What mag was it? Unfortunately I finally got rid of them all, and the CDs ... I think it was Zygote when they fisrt came out, but it wasn;t long after that Digital Art Zone was spun off... if my memory is working.  

Just found this in Wikipedia -- Victoria 1 was released by then-Zygote in February 1999 and was the first named medium-resolution figure for use with Poser. She was originally released as 'The Millennium Woman', but the resulting colloquial shortening to "Millie"[4] led to Zygote renaming her as Victoria.[citation needed] Zygote also sold an anime-morphed character for Victoria named Aiko,[disputed – discuss] and each successive generation of Victoria has so far had an accompanying Aiko (whose facial morphs can vary between anime and a less exaggerated Asian).

My recollection was that Aiko (1) was Victoria 2 era - though of course Victoria/Michael 2 were essentially morph expansions for the first version (before the methods for adding a morph set had been fully worked out - though they did add new figures, the V2/M2 to P4 figures that had the body reshaped and rerigged to use clothes for the stock Poser 4 Female and Male).

IIRC, Aiko 1 was basically a morph of Stephanie, who herself was a female version of Michael 1. I think. LOL Was soooo long ago and I'm getting old now. 

Stephanie was indeed built from Michael's mesh, but was released after V2 and M2 (which were basically V1 and M1 with extra morphs).

IceScribe

My first 3d software attempts were with the free Terragen program user interface rather difficult, then Bryce 4 which itself was very enigmatic. Thoought I'd try again, but no cds availale. Found Bryce on the DAZ studio site and was delighted. I also downloaded DAZ Sudio versions 1 and 2. Did not understand why there were 2. So there were the Millennial figures.Then Vicky 3 came along followed by Vicky 4.. I began to use DAZ more for posing in DAZ Studio 3.  I actually joined DAZ in 2009.

wickedprince3d_fd273b40ac

I think the first version of DAZ I downloaded was 1.1. I couldn't get the hang of that so I didn't really start to use it until 1.6. Back then the third gen characters were just becoming popular. I worked with Aiko3 and Hiro3 for most of ten years before deciding to give G2 a try; then jumped into G8. The engine has made incredible leaps over the years. PROPERLY conforming clothing. dForce, iRay lighting. The ability to use clothing from older models on newer ones; even if it's not perfect; are all amazing advancements. Back in the day when I frist started rendering and the only people to ask about how stuff worked used Poser; people would tell me "someday you'll grow up and use a REAL rendering engine." - now DAZ IS the real rendering engine, and many of thise people came over to the dark side. ;)

Bobvan

Sven Dullah said:

...must have been mid 90's when I played with InfiniD, Bryce and Carrara, maybe Poser. Found DAZ after having a break from 3D, rendertimes were represented by snails turtles and hares or along those lines, don't remember when that was? 2005?

My snail render experience was using Reality/ Lux. How thyings have significantly improved.

oddbob

Leana said:

AllenArt said:

IIRC, Aiko 1 was basically a morph of Stephanie, who herself was a female version of Michael 1. I think. LOL Was soooo long ago and I'm getting old now. 

Stephanie was indeed built from Michael's mesh, but was released after V2 and M2 (which were basically V1 and M1 with extra morphs).

You could load steph into michael as a full body morph and dial between them in DS.

kimh

November, 2009. My husband was using Daz one day and I asked what he was doing. He showed me it and I was intrigued. I will never forget his comment "Like any good drug, the first taste is free". I had just missed the Platinum+ (former name of Daz+ for anyone new) sale and I almost immediately signed up for Platinum+ and have continued since then.

Sven Dullah

daveso said:

Sven Dullah said:

...must have been mid 90's when I played with InfiniD, Bryce and Carrara, maybe Poser. Found DAZ after having a break from 3D, rendertimes were represented by snails turtles and hares or along those lines, don't remember when that was? 2005?

I went big at the beginning, started with Poser 1, then Vista Pro..Bryce showed up for PC I think version 2. Carrara wasn't yet, but was Ray Dream Studio. Fractal Design and them Metacreations. There was a lot of free content at the beginning. DAZ really took off for Poser after a bit. It was a much different world at that time for sure. New and exciting.  

Exciting for sure, but I mostly remember painfully slow, terrible looking renders from back then;) Hmm, actually nothing has changed, rendering is still painful and the stuff looks terrible... 

TheMysteryIsThePoint

It seems I knew what I was after from day one:

Olympia 8 Pro Bundle

2018-06-21 2:56:54 AM

jhogenboom_da69c035a9

November 2010. I was looking for a sweater design program. Funny how things work.

RadioactiveLily

I first played with Studio when V3 was still the main figure and Studio was maybe a 1.x incarnation.  I got frustrated with it and didn't touch it again for a while.  I eventually picked up Poser, V4.2 was just brand new, and found it all a better fit for me.  I didn't come back to Studio until Iray came out in the late days of Genesis 2.  And I haven't touched Poser since.

English Bob

By a crazy coincidence, my earliest order is dated exactly 22 years ago on this day in 2001. I bought product number 85, the Millennium Woman aka Victoria 1 for $19.95. That was a lot of money in those days. My 3D budget is such that even now, I still hesitate before spending that much.

As others have noted, the company was Zygote back then, so I can truthfully claim that I never came to DAZ. DAZ came to me. :D

nonesuch00

I bought models from them (since lost) as early as 1999 but I rejected DAZ Studio 0.9 or 1.0 or whatever that was, way, way back. Stopped using buying altogether after my TBI in mid-2001 until I again started buying models, sporadically, in Aug 2009, but still not using DAZ Studio, until finally with the ability to buy interactive media licences I started spending a sizable amount of money (for someone at my income levels) in Mar 2016 until really tapering off again these last 2 years. I've enjoyed it.

kyoto kid

Bobvan said:

Sven Dullah said:

...must have been mid 90's when I played with InfiniD, Bryce and Carrara, maybe Poser. Found DAZ after having a break from 3D, rendertimes were represented by snails turtles and hares or along those lines, don't remember when that was? 2005?

My snail render experience was using Reality/ Lux. How thyings have significantly improved.

 

... I remember those days. .The one part I liked was that you could render in background after the scene was submitted to Lux instead of having to keep Daz open during the entire process which saved resources. You could also pause it shut down, restart the system and then resume rendering from that point on.  Wish that could be done with Iray. 

But yeah "days" for rendering which on occasion turned into weeks for a big scene as it still was rendering on the CPU (and I had a slow 4 core at the time).