A Plea for Open-Source Carrara

Oso3D

That assumes that there are no synergistic or indirect benefits to reviving Carrara, like encouraging customers to stay in the Daz 'sphere' for more of what they want.

I mean, if people are going to Blender or other apps for their modeling needs, how long before they drift away from Daz as a source?

It also assumes businesses have the ability to get a crystal clear analysis of profitability.

It might be worth investing some money if you are sure to get profit, just to fish around and see if you get more than expected or you see more side benefits.

It might not.

wolf359

timmins.william said:

That assumes that there are no synergistic or indirect benefits to reviving Carrara, like encouraging customers to stay in the Daz 'sphere' for more of what they want.

I mean, if people are going to Blender or other apps for their modeling needs, how long before they drift away from Daz as a source?

It also assumes businesses have the ability to get a crystal clear analysis of profitability.

It might be worth investing some money if you are sure to get profit, just to fish around and see if you get more than expected or you see more side benefits.

It might not.

I model in cinema4D & Modo I render in Cinema4D and blender NONE of those program offer. Built in figures with the functionality of Genesis thus Daz studio will always be in my pipeline.

Inkubo

timmins.william said:

That assumes that there are no synergistic or indirect benefits to reviving Carrara, like encouraging customers to stay in the Daz 'sphere' for more of what they want.

Hear, hear!

I'm sure neither the open-sourcing idea nor the sprucing-up idea were meant to suggest DAZ isn't a business or that it should brainlessly dig ever deeper in a dry well. But while we can't simply assume there exists a great business case for evolving Carrara, we also can't assume there is no good business case for it.

DAZ is a business, and they have done what I suspect is a successful thing by giving away the posing program and selling the content.

Historically I assume a lot of people came to DAZ after using other programs like Poser, so they were familiar with 3D art, content stores, and (for those so inclined) content-creation software. But there are always new users, and new users either come from a background of using other 3D software, or like me they begin their experience right here at DAZ.

Speaking as a noob who started out here:

• When I looked for training courses and learning materials for DS, I started right here at DAZ's store and of course at YouTube.
• When I looked for software to support content creation, I started right here at DAZ's store.
• When I decided I needed to buy a new rendering computer for Iray, I came to DAZ's forum to do my research ask folks what I should get.
• When I began looking for a way to make animation faster, I started with iClone. Why? Because of the sticky ad for it here in the DAZ forum.
• When I discovered another big DAZ/Poser content store, I checked it out and even bought some stuff that's not available here, but found the site and customer experience were terrible compared to DAZ, so I avoided and continue as much as possible to avoid the other store.

If I'm one of the hobbyist newcomers who starts out at DAZ, what am I going to want to get for content creation? Whatever DAZ's site and users recommend as the easiest affordable solution. 

This recommended thing certainly could be Blender, if someone developed really great export/import tools.

But it could be Carrara.

Right now DAZ's content store contains a number of tutorials and training videos with prices ranging from free to ridiculous, teaching how to use Expensive Software You Don't Have in conjunction with That Thing That Bleeds You On a Monthly Subscription Basis to make content for DAZ Studio. In short, currently the store contains plenty of items telling us newcomers to go spend our money elsewhere to buy content creation stuff.

But if Carrara became the easiest way to create DAZ content, the thing DAZ could honestly promote and users would recommend, DAZ could help people stay here where they're happy.

• There would be a renewed need for Carrara training materials--which DAZ could sell in the store.
• There would be a renewed need for Carrara-specific products to help in content creation--which DAZ could sell in the store.
• There would be increased demand for Carrara itself; and with more people buying it, it would better support development costs; and with new versions the price could creep back up.
• With easier content-creation tools, there would be more potential PA's to provide content--which DAZ could sell in the store.
• ...and it is the sale of all that stuff that pays for developing and enhancing all DAZ's products, including DS.

Big ifs, I know.

We are not exactly a captive audience, but what with the changing freebies and fast-grabs and daily sales and deals and a great site that makes it so tremendously easy to buy content, I think new users that start here are about as close to a captive audience as an online store can reasonably ever hope to get. Me, I know other places exist, but this is the site I check 10 times a day.

DAZ is a visit to the playground. Rosity is a visit to the dentist.

What I would buy for content creation is whatever affordable thing DAZ promoted right here as the thing to buy.

I don't think I'm alone. If Carrara were modernized and you saw Carrara ads and deals every time you came here, and if by default it and DS used the same measurement units and there were one-click transfers of objects from Carrara to DS, then I truly believe Carrara would sell and more than pay for itself.

Carrara won't ever stand alone as the thing that pays the bills, but if Carrara became a fully fledged and well supported companion to DAZ Studio, I believe it would make the entire DAZ ecosystem more valuable to the company.

kyoto kid

wolf359 said:

timmins.william said:

That assumes that there are no synergistic or indirect benefits to reviving Carrara, like encouraging customers to stay in the Daz 'sphere' for more of what they want.

I mean, if people are going to Blender or other apps for their modeling needs, how long before they drift away from Daz as a source?

It also assumes businesses have the ability to get a crystal clear analysis of profitability.

It might be worth investing some money if you are sure to get profit, just to fish around and see if you get more than expected or you see more side benefits.

It might not.

 

I model in cinema4D & Modo I render in Cinema4D and blender NONE of those program offer. Built in figures with the functionality of Genesis thus Daz studio will always be in my pipeline.

...unfortunately a number of us are stuck on a Hexagon, Bryce, and Carrara budget.  When those get vaulted, all that will be availble is Studio.which, as i mentioned above, is not very well suited for supporting large scale environment/terain generation as well as polygon/vertex modelling.

kyoto kid

Inkubo said:

timmins.william said:

That assumes that there are no synergistic or indirect benefits to reviving Carrara, like encouraging customers to stay in the Daz 'sphere' for more of what they want.

Hear, hear!

I'm sure neither the open-sourcing idea nor the sprucing-up idea were meant to suggest DAZ isn't a business or that it should brainlessly dig ever deeper in a dry well. But while we can't simply assume there exists a great business case for evolving Carrara, we also can't assume there is no good business case for it.

DAZ is a business, and they have done what I suspect is a successful thing by giving away the posing program and selling the content.

Historically I assume a lot of people came to DAZ after using other programs like Poser, so they were familiar with 3D art, content stores, and (for those so inclined) content-creation software. But there are always new users, and new users either come from a background of using other 3D software, or like me they begin their experience right here at DAZ.

Speaking as a noob who started out here:

• When I looked for training courses and learning materials for DS, I started right here at DAZ's store and of course at YouTube.
• When I looked for software to support content creation, I started right here at DAZ's store.
• When I decided I needed to buy a new rendering computer for Iray, I came to DAZ's forum to do my research ask folks what I should get.
• When I began looking for a way to make animation faster, I started with iClone. Why? Because of the sticky ad for it here in the DAZ forum.
• When I discovered another big DAZ/Poser content store, I checked it out and even bought some stuff that's not available here, but found the site and customer experience were terrible compared to DAZ, so I avoided and continue as much as possible to avoid the other store.

If I'm one of the hobbyist newcomers who starts out at DAZ, what am I going to want to get for content creation? Whatever DAZ's site and users recommend as the easiest affordable solution. 

This recommended thing certainly could be Blender, if someone developed really great export/import tools.

But it could be Carrara.

Right now DAZ's content store contains a number of tutorials and training videos with prices ranging from free to ridiculous, teaching how to use Expensive Software You Don't Have in conjunction with That Thing That Bleeds You On a Monthly Subscription Basis to make content for DAZ Studio. In short, currently the store contains plenty of items telling us newcomers to go spend our money elsewhere to buy content creation stuff.

But if Carrara became the easiest way to create DAZ content, the thing DAZ could honestly promote and users would recommend, DAZ could help people stay here where they're happy.

• There would be a renewed need for Carrara training materials--which DAZ could sell in the store.
• There would be a renewed need for Carrara-specific products to help in content creation--which DAZ could sell in the store.
• There would be increased demand for Carrara itself; and with more people buying it, it would better support development costs; and with new versions the price could creep back up.
• With easier content-creation tools, there would be more potential PA's to provide content--which DAZ could sell in the store.
• ...and it is the sale of all that stuff that pays for developing and enhancing all DAZ's products, including DS.

Big ifs, I know.

We are not exactly a captive audience, but what with the changing freebies and fast-grabs and daily sales and deals and a great site that makes it so tremendously easy to buy content, I think new users that start here are about as close to a captive audience as an online store can reasonably ever hope to get. Me, I know other places exist, but this is the site I check 10 times a day.

DAZ is a visit to the playground. Rosity is a visit to the dentist.

What I would buy for content creation is whatever affordable thing DAZ promoted right here as the thing to buy.

I don't think I'm alone. If Carrara were modernized and you saw Carrara ads and deals every time you came here, and if by default it and DS used the same measurement units and there were one-click transfers of objects from Carrara to DS, then I truly believe Carrara would sell and more than pay for itself.

Carrara won't ever stand alone as the thing that pays the bills, but if Carrara became a fully fledged and well supported companion to DAZ Studio, I believe it would make the entire DAZ ecosystem more valuable to the company.

....good comment.  One function I would like to see brought into Carrara is true polygon modelling like Hexagon and the "deceased" Amapi used. All three used to be Eovia products.

3DMD

I don't know if anyone mentioned this before, but what about the SDK? I mean that's close to open source, isn't it? The problem is - it's hard to use. for the casual user. Seeing as Carrara 8 is still selling at academic sites like AcademicSuperstore, ("http://www.academicsuperstore.com/category/299825";) for $200, there must be some interest and viability at that level. I've been struggling with the Carrara SDK available at the Cafe for several years but I don't have the time I used to put into it. Has anyone aside from SparrowHawke3D or DCG had luck building an extension, plug in? I mean those guys have some amazing plugins, even if they're decades old. 

MarkIsSleepy

3DMD said:

I don't know if anyone mentioned this before, but what about the SDK? I mean that's close to open source, isn't it? The problem is - it's hard to use. for the casual user. Seeing as Carrara 8 is still selling at academic sites like AcademicSuperstore, ("http://www.academicsuperstore.com/category/299825";) for $200, there must be some interest and viability at that level. I've been struggling with the Carrara SDK available at the Cafe for several years but I don't have the time I used to put into it. Has anyone aside from SparrowHawke3D or DCG had luck building an extension, plug in? I mean those guys have some amazing plugins, even if they're decades old. 

There have been a couple new plugins created in the past few months like LightX by Alberto,(see this thread https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/187136/lightx-1-1-free-plugin-now-more-lights#latest), which adds a whole bunch of new lights with more realistic falloff, or the plugin that converts Carrara dynamic hair to strand-based hair that can be exported for use in other programs or the new plugin that adds tri-planar projection for shaders (I don't have links handy for those, but if you look through the Carrara forum there are threads about them there). I Samuel also created a bunch of videos explaining the basics of how to create a plugin for Carrara, including an example (look at this playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBAqUStMMLY&list=PLXGON9X3bLDMUZgwFgDkZYhAErPLgL5dk starting with the 3rd video down).

Daywalker Designs

mrinal said:

CypherFOX said:

Greetings,

mrinal said:

Now imagine the scenario where folks would start redistributing Genesis (or any Daz IP) for free without any restrictions from Daz.

You have a deep misunderstanding of the GPL if you think that the code for an importer being GPLed could cause the data files that constitute Genesis, or any code that is not directly part of the importer, to be freely redistributable or surrender IP protections on them.

I appreciate your desire to talk about free software, and support it, but despite your confidence your legal understanding is less than great.  I know I'm being a fool for trying to explain this and this is also the wrong forum for it, but you keep repeating incorrect statements.  It'd be very straightforward to offer a Blender importer that caused absolutely zero DAZ IP (other than potentially the importer itself) to be brought under the GPL.  It is not difficult to build software that interoperates with GPLed software and does not become GPLed itself.

In no circumstances, whatsoever, would any GPLed code cause the _Genesis_ models themselves to be somehow GPLed.  That's simply wrong.

If you wish to continue this discussion that is unrelated to Carrara, PM me.  I've been down this path too many times before.

--  Morgan

 

 

 

mrinal said:

Since you challenged my knowledge in this matter publicly, it is only befitting that I present my defense in public as well. And I mean ONLY as my defense and not as a reciprocal threat to your skills or knowledge. As you have already demonstrated a fair understanding of the GPL so I would skip all the basics and focus only on the issue - the issue of assuming that the Genesis package is only content.

I am taking the example of "Genesis 3 starter essentials" package (SKU 21630) hereafter referred as "GSE". The DAZ customer is allowed to download the GSE _only_ as a single atomic "package" which contains a few scripts "daz_3d_21630_genesis_3_female_starter_essentials.dsa" and "daz_3d_21630_genesis_3_male_starter_essentials.dsa" (read combined as program A) which are invoked by another program B (Daz Studio) during installation. Also, program A uses the API of program B to invoke it thereby establishing a clear linkage. The entire GSE "package" therefore should be considered as a software "module" which clearly demonstrates linkage to program B.

If Program B (Daz Studio) can be challenged under GPL (due to the linkage with the Blender bridge), so can any of its "module" linking to it. Refer FAQ https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#GPLModuleLicense

Needless to say, what would then happen to Genesis (or for that matter, "several" other "packages" Daz ever released as content).

I think I should clarify that the initial debate was on the topic of implementing a Daz "bridge" to Blender (bridge, as in the GoZ bridge of ZBrush) and it being distributed with Daz Studio. The "importer" that you now mention sounds like a standalone program which would import Daz studio files in Blender. I assume you are refering to the one hinted by j cade here. I could not find any other reference to the word "importer" in this thread, neither any reference to any similar concept (outside the bridge of course). If it is the one that j cade mentioned, I have never questioned the viability of that in any of my posts as it is not distributed with Daz Studio.

Also could you please substantiate your claims to the text I marked in bold red in your quote?

How about this quote from Bruce Perens from a reply to an email I sent on this subject:

"Hi Matthew,

You can forward this to the list. I'm not going to be able to participate in any dialogue on this until September.

In the recent Oracle v. Google appeal, the court ruled that users of an API could be derivative works of the API provider. This overturned what a lot of people thought up until then. In particular, dynamic linking does not protect you from the GPL. In general, any plug-in to Blender should be under the GPL or a GPL-compatible license or might be infringing.

Regarding scene data, if a shader or other programmatic scene data is run as part of the same program as Blender, meaning in the same Python interpreter or as a native executable, that is problematical and might require a license exception, but I'd want to know a lot more about it before I actually recommended a license exception.

If shaders and other programmatic scene data run in their own interpreter, and are restricted to calling a public API for such things and no other part of Blender, that's cleaner and they would not in general be considered to be derivative works, and thus would not have to be under the GPL.

Non-programmatic scene data is not considered a derivative work of the program that processes it, except when the program outputs a copy of itself or portions of itself in processing that data.

    Thanks

    Bruce"

 

Oso3D

Ooo, there's a triplanar plugin??

I had made a very clunky shader to do that... I'd be curious to learn more!

 

rk66

Triplanar plugin:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/carrara-time-savers/files/?source=navbar

Sensual Art

daywalker03 said:

mrinal said:

CypherFOX said:

Greetings,

mrinal said:

Now imagine the scenario where folks would start redistributing Genesis (or any Daz IP) for free without any restrictions from Daz.

You have a deep misunderstanding of the GPL if you think that the code for an importer being GPLed could cause the data files that constitute Genesis, or any code that is not directly part of the importer, to be freely redistributable or surrender IP protections on them.

I appreciate your desire to talk about free software, and support it, but despite your confidence your legal understanding is less than great.  I know I'm being a fool for trying to explain this and this is also the wrong forum for it, but you keep repeating incorrect statements.  It'd be very straightforward to offer a Blender importer that caused absolutely zero DAZ IP (other than potentially the importer itself) to be brought under the GPL.  It is not difficult to build software that interoperates with GPLed software and does not become GPLed itself.

In no circumstances, whatsoever, would any GPLed code cause the _Genesis_ models themselves to be somehow GPLed.  That's simply wrong.

If you wish to continue this discussion that is unrelated to Carrara, PM me.  I've been down this path too many times before.

--  Morgan

 

 

 

mrinal said:

Since you challenged my knowledge in this matter publicly, it is only befitting that I present my defense in public as well. And I mean ONLY as my defense and not as a reciprocal threat to your skills or knowledge. As you have already demonstrated a fair understanding of the GPL so I would skip all the basics and focus only on the issue - the issue of assuming that the Genesis package is only content.

I am taking the example of "Genesis 3 starter essentials" package (SKU 21630) hereafter referred as "GSE". The DAZ customer is allowed to download the GSE _only_ as a single atomic "package" which contains a few scripts "daz_3d_21630_genesis_3_female_starter_essentials.dsa" and "daz_3d_21630_genesis_3_male_starter_essentials.dsa" (read combined as program A) which are invoked by another program B (Daz Studio) during installation. Also, program A uses the API of program B to invoke it thereby establishing a clear linkage. The entire GSE "package" therefore should be considered as a software "module" which clearly demonstrates linkage to program B.

If Program B (Daz Studio) can be challenged under GPL (due to the linkage with the Blender bridge), so can any of its "module" linking to it. Refer FAQ https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#GPLModuleLicense

Needless to say, what would then happen to Genesis (or for that matter, "several" other "packages" Daz ever released as content).

I think I should clarify that the initial debate was on the topic of implementing a Daz "bridge" to Blender (bridge, as in the GoZ bridge of ZBrush) and it being distributed with Daz Studio. The "importer" that you now mention sounds like a standalone program which would import Daz studio files in Blender. I assume you are refering to the one hinted by j cade here. I could not find any other reference to the word "importer" in this thread, neither any reference to any similar concept (outside the bridge of course). If it is the one that j cade mentioned, I have never questioned the viability of that in any of my posts as it is not distributed with Daz Studio.

Also could you please substantiate your claims to the text I marked in bold red in your quote?

How about this quote from Bruce Perens from a reply to an email I sent on this subject:

"Hi Matthew,

You can forward this to the list. I'm not going to be able to participate in any dialogue on this until September.

In the recent Oracle v. Google appeal, the court ruled that users of an API could be derivative works of the API provider. This overturned what a lot of people thought up until then. In particular, dynamic linking does not protect you from the GPL. In general, any plug-in to Blender should be under the GPL or a GPL-compatible license or might be infringing.

Regarding scene data, if a shader or other programmatic scene data is run as part of the same program as Blender, meaning in the same Python interpreter or as a native executable, that is problematical and might require a license exception, but I'd want to know a lot more about it before I actually recommended a license exception.

If shaders and other programmatic scene data run in their own interpreter, and are restricted to calling a public API for such things and no other part of Blender, that's cleaner and they would not in general be considered to be derivative works, and thus would not have to be under the GPL.

Non-programmatic scene data is not considered a derivative work of the program that processes it, except when the program outputs a copy of itself or portions of itself in processing that data.

    Thanks

    Bruce"

 

That explanation exactly is the single biggest challenge for building any kind of commercial bridge (bridge, as in GoZ bridge for ZBrush) using Blender APIs. On the orther hand, the Blender plugin to import Daz files that is mentioned earlier has to be remain under a GPL compatible license as it directly uses Blender APIs and uses the same shared memory with Blender which is equivalent to dynamic linking.

Though Blender supports commercial plugins, it would be better to reach out to them directly for more clarifications. For the sake of simplicity, I hope they allow some kind of dual-licensing (at least for the API part) or allow classpath/runtime exceptions.

Also, the other part of the mail, raises the question on whether "scene data" can constitute a derivative work. Typically, any static resources - image files, icons that are packaged and distributed as part of a module are also licensed under the same licensing terms that are applicable to the entire module, unless their licenses are explicitly stated to be different from the module. It is possible that GSE (Genesis 3 Starter Essentials) can be debated as a "module" instead of mere input data, as I have argued earlier. The underlying issue here is much bigger - the readiness of Daz Content Delivery "mechanisms" to deliver content for GPL based programs like the hypothetical open-source Carrara or Daz Studio (due to GPL reciprocity propagating from the hypothetical DS-Blender bridge). Probably, Daz management never thought on that line, or they never felt the need to in the first place.

Seeing that many here may not be comfortable discussing Blender in this thread, I suggest you start a separate thread or keep the discussions offline. Anyways, I shall not be frequenting these forums as I need to focus on a few other projects. Besides, I believe there are other self-proclaimed GPL experts here in these forums who can help you further in this matter.

wolf359

"...unfortunately a number of us are stuck on a 
Hexagon, Bryce, and Carrara budget. 
 When those get vaulted, all that will be availble is Studio."

Define "vaulted"
Assuming  Daz never makes another version of carrara,
will every existing copy magically uninstall itself from everyones computer
all over the planet and disappear forever???

 

"all that will be availble is Studio."

For clarification should perhaps you mean all that will be available
from the company called Daz inc.,will be  Daz studio.

 

 

"which, as i mentioned above, is not very well suited for supporting large scale environment/
terain generation as well as polygon/vertex modelling."

 

Indeed, Daz studio is not intended to be that much maligned "jack of all trades
master of none"

It is for rendering Daz studio Store content and not much else

For people needing large scale terrain scenes there are modern 64 bit
Options Far,Far  superior to Carrara.
http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/vue/vue_2016_esprit/

And there are many  modern free & low cost modeling options that are not blender.

yeah ... I get it... some prefer not to leave the comfort of the "Dazosphere"
and demand Direct support of Daz content in other programs  without cumbersome exports to object files etc.

so I imagine it is a matter of how much one is  willing to adapt to changing realities
in the pursuit of ones personal creative objectives.

I prefer to to adapt & move on, instead of begging into a vacuum for things that will likely never,never 
happen.

Diomede

​

 

wolf359 said:

 

 

" OK, so if Daz's strategy is to send us to Blender,"

Daz has to pay coders to maintain  official"bridges"
 

I prefer that Daz Focuses on much need Studio imporvements Like
a proper IK solver or a native cloth system that allows us to use our own
Cloth meshes "in the light of day.

 

There are third party dynamic cloth solutions.  One in particular has a dedicated bridge to Daz Studio (and one for Poser and one for Carrara).  I use one of those as part of my workflow so adding native cloth is wasted on me.  

 

I'd like to ask for Daz the company to make my workflow easier, also.  Hope folks that want it get a dynamic cloth function built in Studio, even though I am fully comfortable using VWD.  Some would say cloth is the kind of function that bloats Studio with stuff that is best handled by dedicated third parties.  Some might suggest that folks that want Studio to have a dedicated cloth solution just adapt to the inconveniences and realities of swapping files between programs, but not me. 

 

I hope Daz the company includes ease of convenience among the attributes of Studio that make it a preferred vehicle to sell content.

 

 

kyoto kid

wolf359 said:

"...unfortunately a number of us are stuck on a 
Hexagon, Bryce, and Carrara budget. 
 When those get vaulted, all that will be availble is Studio."

Define "vaulted"
Assuming  Daz never makes another version of carrara,
will every existing copy magically uninstall itself from everyones computer
all over the planet and disappear forever???

 

"all that will be availble is Studio."

For clarification should perhaps you mean all that will be available
from the company called Daz inc.,will be  Daz studio.

 

 

"which, as i mentioned above, is not very well suited for supporting large scale environment/
terain generation as well as polygon/vertex modelling."

 

Indeed, Daz studio is not intended to be that much maligned "jack of all trades
master of none"

It is for rendering Daz studio Store content and not much else

For people needing large scale terrain scenes there are modern 64 bit
Options Far,Far  superior to Carrara.
http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/vue/vue_2016_esprit/

And there are many  modern free & low cost modeling options that are not blender.

yeah ... I get it... some prefer not to leave the comfort of the "Dazosphere"
and demand Direct support of Daz content in other programs  without cumbersome exports to object files etc.

so I imagine it is a matter of how much one is  willing to adapt to changing realities
in the pursuit of ones personal creative objectives.

I prefer to to adapt & move on, instead of begging into a vacuum for things that will likely never,never 
happen.

.."Vaulting": removing a product from the store that no longer sells either by the PA or Daz..

As to the second point:  Yes, should the sale of Carrara, Bryce, and Hexagon be discontinued.

As to the third point:  To make Vue to be as versatile as Carrara takes about 450$ for the base programme and required plugins in addition to the cost of Vue specific content like structures, vehicles, props etc.   Vue does not have full modelling capability like Carrara or Hexagon and is not very compatible with Daz Studio, Daz content, or other Daz owned software.  Furthermore, Daz figures can be loaded directly into Carrara rather than imported as static .objs, and can be posed/morphed in the programme which Vue does not support.  Remaining in the "Dazosphere" is not so much for "comfort" sake as it is also workflow related. 

BTW Vue itself has been around for a while as well, just that E-on tends to continue updating and improving it which has not been the case for Daz's counterpart.   E-on (based here in the Portland OR area) also continues to support professional grade versions of it's signature software along with other 3D software tools While Daz seems singularly focused on Studio and content for it.  I understand Daz is not a large company with a tonne of resoruces, but E-on is no Corel, Autodesk, or Adobe either. 

Daywalker Designs

mrinal said:

daywalker03 said:

How about this quote from Bruce Perens from a reply to an email I sent on this subject:

"Hi Matthew,

You can forward this to the list. I'm not going to be able to participate in any dialogue on this until September.

In the recent Oracle v. Google appeal, the court ruled that users of an API could be derivative works of the API provider. This overturned what a lot of people thought up until then. In particular, dynamic linking does not protect you from the GPL. In general, any plug-in to Blender should be under the GPL or a GPL-compatible license or might be infringing.

Regarding scene data, if a shader or other programmatic scene data is run as part of the same program as Blender, meaning in the same Python interpreter or as a native executable, that is problematical and might require a license exception, but I'd want to know a lot more about it before I actually recommended a license exception.

If shaders and other programmatic scene data run in their own interpreter, and are restricted to calling a public API for such things and no other part of Blender, that's cleaner and they would not in general be considered to be derivative works, and thus would not have to be under the GPL.

Non-programmatic scene data is not considered a derivative work of the program that processes it, except when the program outputs a copy of itself or portions of itself in processing that data.

    Thanks

    Bruce"

 

That explanation exactly is the single biggest challenge for building any kind of commercial bridge (bridge, as in GoZ bridge for ZBrush) using Blender APIs. On the orther hand, the Blender plugin to import Daz files that is mentioned earlier has to be remain under a GPL compatible license as it directly uses Blender APIs and uses the same shared memory with Blender which is equivalent to dynamic linking.

Though Blender supports commercial plugins, it would be better to reach out to them directly for more clarifications. For the sake of simplicity, I hope they allow some kind of dual-licensing (at least for the API part) or allow classpath/runtime exceptions.

Also, the other part of the mail, raises the question on whether "scene data" can constitute a derivative work. Typically, any static resources - image files, icons that are packaged and distributed as part of a module are also licensed under the same licensing terms that are applicable to the entire module, unless their licenses are explicitly stated to be different from the module. It is possible that GSE (Genesis 3 Starter Essentials) can be debated as a "module" instead of mere input data, as I have argued earlier. The underlying issue here is much bigger - the readiness of Daz Content Delivery "mechanisms" to deliver content for GPL based programs like the hypothetical open-source Carrara or Daz Studio (due to GPL reciprocity propagating from the hypothetical DS-Blender bridge). Probably, Daz management never thought on that line, or they never felt the need to in the first place.

Seeing that many here may not be comfortable discussing Blender in this thread, I suggest you start a separate thread or keep the discussions offline. Anyways, I shall not be frequenting these forums as I need to focus on a few other projects. Besides, I believe there are other self-proclaimed GPL experts here in these forums who can help you further in this matter.

And yet none of that content is an absolute requirement for DAZ Studio or Carrara to function; there are many sources of content that can be made to work in either that have no connection whatsoever to DAZ3D, nor do they require any DAZ content to be installed. It's even possible for people that are willing to study the DAZ Studio SDK and its Carrara counterpart to figure out how some of the specialty features of the software works and thus add those capabilities to blender, which would essentially render your arguement null and void.

Diomede said:

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wolf359 said:

 

 

" OK, so if Daz's strategy is to send us to Blender,"

Daz has to pay coders to maintain  official"bridges"
 

I prefer that Daz Focuses on much need Studio imporvements Like
a proper IK solver or a native cloth system that allows us to use our own
Cloth meshes "in the light of day.

 

There are third party dynamic cloth solutions.  One in particular has a dedicated bridge to Daz Studio (and one for Poser and one for Carrara).  I use one of those as part of my workflow so adding native cloth is wasted on me.  

 

I'd like to ask for Daz the company to make my workflow easier, also.  Hope folks that want it get a dynamic cloth function built in Studio, even though I am fully comfortable using VWD.  Some would say cloth is the kind of function that bloats Studio with stuff that is best handled by dedicated third parties.  Some might suggest that folks that want Studio to have a dedicated cloth solution just adapt to the inconveniences and realities of swapping files between programs, but not me. 

 

I hope Daz the company includes ease of convenience among the attributes of Studio that make it a preferred vehicle to sell content.

 

 

It's possible, since Carrara itself has had dynamics added to it. I don't know if they will, or have plans to, add this to Studio, but it's possible.

AlienRenders

Inkubo said:

 

mrinal said:

Linking this library statically or dynamically with other modules is making a combined work based on this library. Thus, the terms and conditions of the GNU General Public License cover the whole combination.

Ah, now I think I see the source of our misunderstanding. In computer terms, "linking" has a specific meaning. The library is kind of like a geograft--the main program has code points that connect to the library the way DAZ models have vertices that mate with the outer ring of a geograft's vertices, and the static linker program stitches the parts together at compile time or the dynamic linker redirects calls to virtually stitch them together at runtime.

Linking isn't the only way to interoperate, and bridges that interoperate without linking or directly including the GPL source code would not have to be made GPL.

That's not how GPL works. Any bridge will force the other side of said bridge to be under GPL. LGPL OTOH will allow it. But stay away from GPL if you use many third party libs. It's just not worth it.