Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
It's just funny, because lately I keep getting frustrated by the inability to do X in some other app, try it in Carrara and go 'oh holy poo, it works.' Like, I'm shocked at how easy it is to do morphs with Carrara.
Can you cite examples where this has been successfully incorporated by a commercial closed source product without the associated GPL product allowing any exceptions? Just wanted to know if such approaches have ever been commercially viable and under what circumstances.
I can think of only two scenarios where GPL interaction with commercial applications has been successful and widely accepted without controversy. Both scenarios required some kind of exceptions. Operating system calls (for a GPL licensed OS and its libraries/drivers) can possibly be exempted under system library exception. Database (for GPL licensed DBs) client libraries need the classpath exception or FLOSS exception from original authors to be called from within closed source commercial applications.
...ease of use is a factor. If one finds themselves constantly struggling with the tools and interface, that is counterproductive as then the programme begins to get in the way of the creative process resulting in constant frustration that could lead to loss of interest altogether. True each person is different and responds in a different way. Some are perfectly comfortable scripting code, memorising shortcuts, customising layouts to the Nth degree, and working almost strictly with keyboard commands. That is fine if it works towards the same end result of creating a scene, model, or animation. Those like myself find pointer driven graphics software to be less encumbering and as I have mentioned, more "natural" to the process.
I find I can accomplish what I want and need with software like Daz and Carrara (and I wish Amapi was still around). Yeah, they may not be as "sophisticated" or "powerful" as other full featured software, however, from my perspective, I don't have many years left to devote to struggling with the ins and outs of a complex programme that has a steep learning curve which will take me years to get to the point where I am now with the software I currently use.
As to creating everything from scratch, the human form is probably one of the most difficult of any to model correctly. if it wasn't ,we wouldn't have a fourth iteration of Genesis (after four iterations of Millennium woman/man). There also wouldn't be new resources to improve joint bends, simulate muscular movement, collision, movement, or gravity effects. The complexity involved is absolutely mind boggling in my view which is why I'm perfectly fine working with pre made figure meshes instead.
This is also partly why I have drawn the line at G3 and not moved to G8 as adopting the latter means going back ot square one creating characters from scratch all over again (as well as making yet another large investment in content and merchant resources). There is a moment when you have to hold up your hand and say, "that's it, I need to stop getting caught up with the latest 'shiny' and get on with what I set out to do with this media" (which for myself is creating the finished illustrations for my works and prints for exhibitions).
the bottom line, would I like to see Carrara continue and be improved (possibly to include an Iray option)? You betcha.
my two zł worth
I bookmark suggestions like that, in fact in the Carrara forum there's an entire thread titled 'Free Software that Makes Life Easier' that people add suggestions for 3rd party software that has different neato mosquito functions that can add/enhance workflow (despite the title, not all suggestions have to be 'free', the real metric is 'useful'), and this thread endures and is added to all the time. Somewhere out there in the far reaches of the world, maybe there's some semi-mythical Carrara purist living in an igloo who refuses to use any other app other than Carrara (I can picture him standing up and saluting his homemade Carrara flag every morning before he sits down to work lol) but in the real world of Carrara users I've never met anyone like that. :) (BTW agree Comic Life is awesome and I'm noting down DaVinci Resolve for further investigation as that's new to me). I should also point out that upthread timmins.williams has made mention a couple of times of features Carrara can do that no other software he tried could, which presumably a non-Carrara user might glance at this thread and see that as a useful suggestion as well, as Carrara has a very low price point.
Sure, but convenience and ease of use count a lot too, as does price. Maybe it doesn't make sense to buy a full copy each of Maya, Houdini, 3ds, and C4D solely for the purpose of puttering around in them and seeing which learning curve a person might like best. But in the case of apps like Blender (free), Studio (free), Hex (cheap), Carrara (cheap) it makes good sense to me to get my hands on all of them, see what works best for me and my workflow. Upthread there was someone who mentioned, quite logically, that when she had outgrown Studio and wanted to create her own assets, she looked at 2 choices, Carrara and Blender. She mentioned that she invested the time/effort into Blender and doesn't regret it, and that makes perfect sense to me. I think at some point most users will want to do more than Poser/Studio can do and start looking at the wider world, and when it comes to affordable apps that can serve that purpose, Carrara and Blender are the two that come to mind. It's not crazy to choose Blender. It's also not crazy to choose Carrara either. Carrara development is almost certainly dead, and so what? There are still people developing plugins all the time to fill the little gaps, like the Genesis3 character adaptations (with Genesis4 adaptations in beta by the same person), or the awesome LightX plugin that the creator gave to the community free just a week or so ago, or Philemot's plugin that can turn Carrara dynamic hair into a standard conforming to be used in other applications... I'm just saying, it's not a foolish choice to learn Carrara (I'm a fool, certainly, but for other reasons....)
So you can then surely agree that the OP's plea to DAZ to have Carrara made open-sourced is understandable, regardless of whether it's practical to expect such a thing to happen. Also I love the use of the word 'fate'; it's very evocative, if a bit melodromatic. On the other hand, we're not exactly talking about the Doom of Valyria here :) Carrara does everything I need it to do, right now, so even if all the Carrarists developing plugins decided to suddenly quit, I'd still be using Carrara as my main app.
....just to note, 3DS is now by subscription. 1 month is around 185$ yeah a bit spendy, but it does give you the full programme rather than a hamstrung demo.
Its not my agreement that matters. What does Daz gain by open-sourcing Carrara and how would that affect their business goals with Studio (or larger schemes)?
"Free" can mean a lot of different things to different people. Some may just see the initial cost, convenience and immdeiately settle for it without giving much thought about the long term consequences. And it might just work out for them. "Free" to me means not just the costs (initial, recurring, ancilliary) but what I and the community can possibly do with that freedom. I can choose a free tool and keep pleading for features and functionalities to the vendor and wait idefinitely for some half-baked implementations by a developer who then charges a limb for that functionality. Or I can choose "the other" free tool and see if there is a community developed extension for the functionality (probably, I won't be the first/only one needing that) or if I can muster enough motivation to build/improve it myself and give back to the community.
Free doesn't always mean the price you pay but what you can do with it.
it's a hypothetical discussion anyway so I am not putting much into it emotionally
but what DAZ would have to gain is a way for more people to use their content and generate more sales because as well as being a pretty comprehensive 3D software suite in itself it does natively load most DAZ content.
as I have said I do not think open sourcing even if possible is the answer, I would go the crowdfunding route myself if I were them for paid development.
I honestly don't know why they don't do a minimal sprucing up pass and then start promoting it; it honestly stands up to a lot of the software out there at a competitive price point.
(Specifically, a sprucing up pass would allow them to create an air of the software being active/alive/developed, whatever their larger goals are)
Greetings,
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Because it's hard, and they don't have a large stable of developers. I'm guessing that their application developer team (as opposed to web development team) is pretty small, and taking time away from DAZ Studio (improvements in which drive improvements in content which drive ongoing income) to fix up Carrara would need a noticeable bump in revenue to support it. I'm speculating, of course, but again...if you decide to avoid presuming ill will (not saying you are, Tim) it becomes a lot easier to understand their point of view and set expectations without anger.
I wrote a ton more here, but it's not relevant...I'm just trying to pass along my viewpoint as a software developer who's been asked to maintain legacy software in the past.
-- Morgan
Government & big businesses have been using GPL software for decades. Changes they make to that GPL SW are required to be GPL and released to the public. Products they make with the GPL SW but don't include the GPL SW source are not required to be GPLed or released to the public in any way.
LOL, and no customer data residing on a server full of GPL SW is required to be GPLed or released to the public either...
it would actually be nice if we could get stuff into DAZ studio too
it's a pretty closed studio!!!
Carrara has a reasonable FBX import for a start and native animated textures and backgrounds
so what you cannot do in Carrara you can import into Carrara one way or another, even if just animated billboards with alpha and yeah it does png series with alpha too!!!!
not so studio.
I find it relatively easy to splice DAZ studio rendered stuff into Carrara but not the other way around, just to be able to render some particle and volumetric cloud action and plonk it into studio on planes would be nice ........
Way I see it is this dson format or whatever it is, if DAZ Studio and Carrara and Hexagon & Bryce are developed as a suite then they should be able to open files in that format linking the same dson library API so that the latest version of DAZ & latest of Carrara & so on are using the same dson format implemenation library that is linked in...
...so it must be with adding these new Genesis 3/Genesis 8 features to handle animating and such specifically to Carrara that is the big stumbling block.
eg, Plenty of programs can open mp4 files and play them back and even edit various things about those mp4 files but to add the editing you need a lot more learning, designing, programming and testing...
I just looked at the 'about Carrara' screen (click on the old DAZ icon, top left) - and there's an impressive nuber of people listed in the development team. I only recognize a couple as DAZ employees, and I think some of them have left in the past couple of years. So it looks like a lot of the 8.0/8.5 development may have been contracted out.
If Daz would update this and make it so that Genesis 3 & 8 worked as well in Carrara as Genesis 1 & 2, I would be happy. I would also like it if they could release a 64 bit version of Hexagon which was more stable.
One of the keyword in GPL licensing is "DISTRIBUTION". Anybody, not just the government, can make changes to the GPL code and keep those changes to themselves without requiring to disclose the changes so long as they not distribute the modified code or a "combined work". For government contributions read the FAQ here: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#GPLUSGovAdd. Besides any software created by US government employees as official duties during their term of employment is anyway under public domain so discussing that is not relevant here unless we are suggesting that Daz employees are also US government employees.
Output "Data" again is not "software" that is considered "linked" to GPL code. Just like the data that is stored in GPL'd MySQL database is not affected by the reciprocity of GPL nor the Blender output file need to be released under GPL. Read the official FAQs:
1) https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#GPLOutput
2) https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#WhatCaseIsOutputGPL
....I have been calling for this for some time. Daz, Bryce, and Hexagon are all dedicated to specific tasks and thus go more in depth than a "full featured" programme does without becoming ghastly complex and unwieldy (as well as expensive). E-on sort of does this with Vue to a point. however the modules there build on one another in a different way. For example, you almost need Render Up just to be able to render scenes without watermarks and at high resolution and large size. Eco Systems is pretty much essential as well if you want ot create breathtaking environments (which Carrara and Bryce can do natively). Though Carrara is more full featured, it dtill has it's specific strengths, primarily encviornment development and animation
Again the old cliche adage "Jack of all trades master of none" comes to mind with the do everything, "Swiss Army Knife" approach. However that seems to be the trend in 3D software these days (as I mentioned earlier, I still remember when Modo was primarily a modelling programme). Putting everything under one bonnet requires making compromises whereas "standalone" software that focuses on a single aspect or two can allow one to delve deeper into the processes at hand while keeping each component more efficient. Bridging or linking together to form a modular suite as we both suggest would be far more powerful.
Supporting Carrara would require dedicating development resources to it AND incorporating any future visions (such as Connect) into it as well. Otherwise, customers would just gravitate towards the less restrictive option. Any relevance from herding livestock also applies here. I hope I do not have to explain how/why implementing/enforcing encryption approaches like Connect is simple not feasible in an open-source software. As I already said in an earlier post, implementing same enhancements (other than Connect) across two different product/codebases is again, not easy, if at all an effective business strategy.
And not to mention the implications that strategy is going to have on the content marketplace - such as artists requiring to support both Carrara and Studio. It would very similar to the scenario demanding support for Poser, so lets not get there.
Well, atleast you won't find Blender folks resort to pleading if/when Blender gets acquired by a competing commercial entity. Refer my earlier example of Oracle and MySQL.
Even today, nothing prevents anyone in the Blender community to create a fork of it, provided they are able to garner enough justification and community support for it. Otherwise, it would remain a fork that only few people use.
Should Blender, as an orgnization, ever go in a direction that does not align with the interests of its community, or threatens to compromise its freedom, it cannot escape the imminence of being forked. There are several examples where this has already happened. Either way, the "investment" in Blender remains secure to relatively large extent.
Again, I would suggest that you contemplate deeper into the case of Oracle' acquisition of MySQL. Did anyone loose sleep over that acqusition? Did anyone's skill set in MySQL ever become irrelevent overnight? Did CentOS (or any of its derivatives) loose its customers/user base who were using MySQL? Did any of the firms who were providing consulting services or infrastructure services on MySQL ran out of business? Or did MariaDB stop innovating because the initial authors were no longer around?
My original post in this thread is still available to read. I spoke of open-source Carrara being able to read unencrypted content.
Why are such emotion and energy being devoted to spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt with false claims about what DAZ would "have to" include in an open-source version of their program and a misreading of the licensing terms of another unrelated program? What's the point of coming here to try so stridently to vote against an idea that concerns only DAZ management and Carrara users?
Perhaps it's time for a moderator to close this thread. I made my plea forthrightly, and others have talked of the things Carrara can do that other software cannot and to express a hope that it will be maintained somehow. Now the only relevant questions are ones DAZ management would have to ask and answer themselves, if they chose. People here seem to be getting heated over opinions and attitudes that don't really matter.
As a Daz Studio customer it really matters to me on how and what Daz allocates its limited development capacity on. Any resources spent on Carrara could well be spent on improving Daz Studio or fixing its various bugs. I still stand on the accuracy of any of the arguments I have put forward here and anybody with an iota of logic can see that those arguments were not superfluous assumptions and misunderstandings about licensing, but instead, substantiated with authoritative links and real world examples and were not meant to incite fear, uncertainty or doubt without relevant reasons.
It is rather depressing to learn how little people understand open-source licensing and take free software for granted without understanding the implications, or can't see beyond the "convenience" factor. Let me give another example, 5 pages of forum threads dedicated to open-sourcing Carrara, and yet no one has:
1) brought out the topic on what licensing model should Carrara adopt in the open-source ecosystem. Or
2) explored the implications of open-source on the Carrara plugin ecosystem.
But those I shall attribute to the limited understanding of open-source licensing of the audience here (or their apathy towards Carrara being open-sourced). I am confused if this was meant to be a well thought out plea or a desperate demonstration of love towards Carrara.
Besides, if this plea was meant only for existing Carrara users then it should have been posted in the Carrara forums here. Posts here in commons are meant to serve general interests around Daz.
With all due respect, Connect is irrelevant to me and most folks that want an open.source version of Carrara. Why? Because DAZ is not the only place we can buy content that will work in Carrara that uses DSON format.
Since Richard already stated that Daz cannot legally do this
,due to IP reasons, this entire discussion is moot
.
However I see very little direct benefit for Daz in making carrara
open source in general.
Those who gratutitously assert that "more content sales
will result" have no way of providing any actual data to support such
an assertion making it mere speculation & wishful thinking.
And being open source does not assure the talented coders will step up and
renovate the program.
Blender contintues to be update overall because the Blender foundation is funding Blender developement
not because of random crowd sourced coding.
So I agree with those that say Blender does not even factor in this
hypothetical discussion.
Yeah, I was just joking about this false believe that some people have that using GPL SW is some magic wand that will strip your of all your real property and rights.
Blender will stay free & opensource. I am sure that those commercial firms are contributing because of the productivity problems being caused by proprietary data formats with the commercial products that do what Blender does. That's very expensive problem on an almost 100% entertainment business speculation on what will still take plenty of expensive labour to crate and still likely be an entertainment flop, even by created by big entertainment businesses with past success.
Variants of Linux, BSD, and plenty of GNU & other OSS software are used commercially and have funding and labor contributions from commercial businesses all the time and remain OSS even since the 1980s.
Wanted to clear any scope of misunderstanding with relevance to distributing any Blender bridge along with Daz Studio (which was the original topic of this conversation). Any such implementation could (as in, having potential to) unnecessarily dilute the scope of what GPL considers "combined work", and therefore the reciprocity of GPL would be applicable to the entirety of that. So if that "combined work" includes any Daz IP, then it would definitely be under threat.
That may be true, but since it requires skilled developers in order to keep moving forward, and those developers need to eat and pay rent, it relies on "somebody" to provide ongoing funding. And when people fund stuff they generally want something in return. Especially those who provide signifcant funding.
I can't help thinking that at some point some commercial folks would want certain control over Blender's development track, and if the Blender developers aren't getting enough outside funding to pay the rent, it may be an offer they can't refuse. If nothing else their funding might be with strings attached, such as "I will fund development on this particular feature if you do it my way so we can use it for production".
Or am I missing something?
Hypothetically speaking though, is in not possible for a 3rd party to develop a commercial (or non-commercial) add-on for Blender, that is not subject to GPL licensing, assuming the plugin code does not make any modifications to the "host" code?? If not, then how is it possible that commercial add-ons such as Zero Brush and Alchemy can be sold? Soooo ..... if DAZ 3D (or any other interested party) were to develop an add-on that allowed the use of DAZ 3D content in Blender, in a Blender native format, without modifying any code in Blender, then the IP for such an add-on would be retained by the creator, and be separate from the GPL licensing of Blender.
All this talk about Blender aside, The real issue hear for Carrara users is that DAZ 3D has, at least from what the outsider (or this outsider) can surmise, moth balled Carrara. Carrara is the only "full featured" 3D application that can natively use DAZ 3D character assets (up to Genesis 2). I realize for those that don't use Carrara, all of this wanting DAZ to update Carrara seems rather ..... well .... why???? But, for those who have invested time, and money in learning Carrara, and purchasing DAZ assets for use in Carrara, because the overall functionality of DAZ Studio simply pales in comparison to Carrara, this can be a rather troublesome and frustrating experience.
I began using Carrara with Version 2, one of the main purposes was to have a good render engine for Poser content (the original Poser 3/4 render engine had a lot to be desired). Then we had Transposer for Carrara, that streamlined the use of Poser assets in Carrara (a asset "hosting" application). Then Eovia developed the native use of Poser figures in Carrara, for me, that was awesome (it also alowed me to be on the beta team thanks to my experience with Poser and Poser content). This opened up Carrara to a whole new world, and increased it's productive use for me immensely. Then we finaly got Genesis support, and life was good again, until Genesis 3. Now, if I wish to continue to move forward with new figures/technology, I'm relegated to using DS. Yes, DS keeps improving, but it doesn't have a lot of the functionality of Carrara.
So, I have committed to fully learning and using DS (using Carrara when it fits my needs, and I'm using older figures), but at the same time I am continually looking for the next "Carrara". Blender seems to be the next best option, but unfortunately it still falls short of the mark. I've spent many hours in my old work flow, importing and re-texturing static figures, going back to the host application (Poser), fixing the figure pose, re-importing (rinse and repeat until things were finally "perfect"), and I got spoiled by native support of DAZ content in Carrara. I simply don't want to do that again with Blender, or any other software.
If DAZ had kept up with Carrara, and improved on the base that Eovia gave them, I'm certain some recent purchases I made elsewhere would not have happened. Unfortunately I needed things that Carrara isn't quite up to the task, even though the base for it was put in place by Eovia many years ago (for example 3D painting/sculpting). If this had been improved and nurtured by DAZ 3D, instead of ignored, I'm sure that those funds would have be spent here. DAZ purchased the tools that could have made this mostly a one stop shop. They could have owned the best content creation tools (Hex and Carrara) and tailored them to be designed for creating DS content. But instead, they force their own staff, many content creators, and many casual advanced users, to shop elsewhere for the efficient/stable tools they need to modify or create content for DS. (Also, IMHO Carrara handles animation much better than DS, how many dollars have been spent elsewhere by for animation tools that could have been developed for Carrara and sold here.) .
Just please keep in mind, if you have never invested the time/effort to learn Carrara, and have no need to use any of the features found in Carrara, because you use application X, that doesn't mean that Carrara users should feel any better about the lack of development of Carrara. For me personally, it's a bitter pill to swallow having been a part of Carrara's development, and seeing the path Eovia was taking, and all of the great features they were implementing, to see Carrara fall by the wayside due to what appears to me to be a lack of vision, and a new direction to just focus on selling content, and only develop new features for DS that will enable them sell more content (oh, and stay away from anything that might force the user to actually learn something, because they may decide DS isn't for them and not spend any more on content).
Anyway, enough of my soapbox.