New clothing still looks like stiff tubes
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Some may hate me, too, but I had the same impression. I don't want to do any PA wrong, and of course there are still excellent products in the shop, but it looks as if Daz should get back to 'quality rather than quantity'. Maybe Daz is too occupied with all the new technical things, like Iray and dForce...
You two aren't the only ones to notice this as well. Its why I've been buying less newer items and focusing more on older ones that I can use/alter/kitbash for my purposes.
As someone who enjoys buying older items, this is somewhat reassuring.
In tech, very little remains viable over time. You probably buy a new computer every 5 years.
But it's nice to know these older products still have relevance. Quality is still quality. I'm always amazed when I open an old set and find it has details like open/close toilet, open/close blinds, faucet on/off, etc. It's an example of the time the PA invested into the product, it adds to quality, and quality like this doesn't become obsolete quickly if ever.
I won't go so far as to express opinions about newer stuff. I haven't bought as much newer stuff and don't have a strong opinion yet. Familiarity with the PAs products, knowing what to look for, etc can lead to wise purchases on new stuff. But when you buy old, you eliminate a lot of risk simply because it's often so much cheaper. The return window eliminates some risk for new stuff, but only if product is used in 30 days, which for many of us is not the case.
Yeah, my purchases have really dropped off, partly because most new releases just don't interest me other than things from my tried-and-true favorite vendors or because I don't find the Genesis 8 line as inspiring as I did the Genesis 3's so far. Well, that and because I do tend to buy male stuff a lot more than female and there just hasn't been much in the way of male stuff. I do try to buy the few things that strike my fancy tho.
Laurie
What I've noticed is the use of iray created a crutch, which made newer items look better in promos than older stuff of actual higher quality, rendered pre-iray. I think this created somewhat of a laziness in both artistic effort by some PAs who saw an easy way to churn out quantity vs quality, and it also lowered the entry point for newew artists since it was easier to make slick promos with good lighting while skimping on actual modeling quality.
Quality control also lowered its guard as all the promos started coming out in iray, there was this artificical improvement in quality while actual quality decreased. It allowed subpar stuff to get through the store in my opinion.
Newer stuff has better lighting and higher res textures, but the older stuff tends to be modeled better. Some stuff by artists from 5 years ago is better than brand new stuff coming out now.
I've had the same feeling, and my purchases have plummeted to pretty much zero. I haven't bought anything during PC+ sale, and I even let my PC+ membership expire, because I just didn't know if there's anything left for G3 I wanted to buy anymore. I never upgraded to G8, so new items I can use equals environments for me nowadays. Maybe it's this long dark fall that gets people depressed, but even new Stonemason sets have looked very small and expensive lately.....and he is my #1 favourite PA. Imagine what I think about the rest.....
I like a lot of the new PA products and wish I could afford them all, but not liking the Daz Original characters at all. Luckily the PAs are creating tons of morph products so we can create our own characters with G3 skin because as most people have said on the forums G8 Daz Original characters' skins are awful... Although I think Josie's skin is good as is V8's (although I don't like her face or shape.)
I find I like the skins on the DO's better, since they aren't overly shiny.
Keep in mind that with some cloth sims you can define areas that you want to manually sculpt so that they remain stiff and aren't affected by the simulation, while having other areas affected by the sim. So you can have the best of both worlds.
Also keep in mind that, at least from what we hear in this forum, it's fairly rare for a PA to make a decent/livable wage from making and selling content. So if people aren't willing to, or can't afford to, pay more for content which takes longer to produce (to give us the higher quality we might want), then don't be surprised that the quality isn't there. You get what you pay for. We wait for sales so we can pay only $4.99, and then complain because the PA didn't take an extra 3 days working on it to make some awesome wrinkles. And presumably, what's in the store on a regular basis is what sells, or else PA's wouldn't waste their time making it. Personally, all I see are repeats of a handful of themes, over and over, and many with very low quality. But apparently that's what people want, and what they are willing to pay for. And that's one reason I'm so appreciative when someone like Stonemason provides those incredible environments which clearly took ages to produce.
One point: if the PA is going to put in wrinkles, awesome or otherwise, they will be in the mesh before it's completely fitted to the base figure, as that's the best time to make them. Another point: those same wrinkles will probably not be highly noticeable at base resolution without the normal maps in the material presets. And if it's a skirt or dress, I don't see an easy way to have wrinkles and pleats in the same outfit.
I don't really believe that customers here are not willing or can't afford to pay for quality. I admit that I very rarely buy anything with just that 30% new product discount, but when something top quality comes along, like for example Aeon Soul's https://www.daz3d.com/the-legend-for-genesis-3-and-8-female-s , at least I'm willing to pay the price. Also I believe those MICK sets have sold pretty well, since Faveral has made so many addons for it already, and those are not cheap by any means.
....but, with that Legend set I can easily build 10 different armour sets, and with MICK sets I can build all my medieval interior scenes, so I don't think those were overpriced. Personally I don't think it's about the price, but what you are selling, that decides if people are willing to pay.
ETA: Actually now that I think about, maybe it's been little slow recently because of dForce release. I mean, it must be new for most of the PAs too, and since they are still learning it, they haven't had time to make anything spectacular yet. Maybe Christmas we get some nice new toys to play with...one can always hope, right?
I thought I was the only one thinking this.
Pants. Main culprit, pants. They look like stiff cylinders.
See, there are some PAs that make clothes where, if I see their names, I know it's going to be top shelf quality regardless of the subject matter. So I have no qualms there.
But sometimes, I'm reminded of going by the Gucci store at a fancy rich person mall (Mall at Millenia, I think it was called) and seeing a simple white t-shirt, and looking at the price tag. Even as a kid, I wondered "Who the hell would pay this much for a basic shirt, when you could get something like it at Wal-Mart for $7?". That's kinda how I feel about some of the new clothing product vs. the older stuff (not just here, but also at Rendo, too), if that makes any sense.
But OTOH, despite my initial optimism... I just haven't been impressed at all with any Genesis 8 products. And any ones I have bought, I've either used on Genesis 3 or they came with Genesis 3 versions. Maybe it's just me and how spoiled I was by the nice wide variety of things in the Genesis 3 era, but everything -clothes, poses, accessories, etc.- Genesis 8 so far has felt so "safe" (i.e. bikinis, fantasy dresses, white girls with varying levels of tan, the umpteenth basic t-shirt/pants for guys) and stale.
Well, at least dForce has given new life to older stuff!
And on a similar note, is it just me, or are the poke-through problem more frequent these days than uit used to be back in G2 early G3 era? (Original Genesis had almost no poke-through at all)
I rarely, if ever, have a poke thru problem as long as my clothing has collision detection turned on, with sufficient iterations.
I’m seeing a kind of general problem going on here – a fatique with the sameness and the little amount of improvement.
We got G8, but were they so much better than G3 (or even G2)? I wouldn’t think so. I sometimes actually preffer G2 because of the lack of material zones in the newer characters. I have more problem with fitting the new outfits these days, with re-occuring poke-troughs, textiles that wrap around wrong bodyparts, buckles, fastening and buttons that ‘melts’ with movements and patterns that stretches and so on. And also here a lack of material zones.
But most of all is the feeling that everything that’s done these days has already be done. Take for instance D-force? I had hoped that would finally bring forward a real kimono or roman toga, but no such thing.
No, it’s the same kind of clothes, skimpy fantasy wear for the women and sensible everyday outfits for the men. Very little panache. And we keep getting the same loft apartment with the same stuff in it, some which don’t even have the props as props but as fixtures glued to the structure, and also here a lack of material zones. (Like a bulb being part of the light fixure so you have to tinker with geoshells to turn the darn lamp on!) It’s the same kinds of spaceship interiors, the same kind of medieval castles, the same kind of 20:th century office spaces. Hence I get the feeling that the PA’s are tiring too.
The only real place to go for variation seems to be the vehicle area. There’s still quite a lot of imagination when it comes to things that flies or rolls or float. I love the dominator series and the Atlantis vehicles for instance. Not to mention vintage cars and muscle cars and motorbikes and so on that keeps appearing! And one day I hope to get wagons for my beloved Spirit of Punk engine.
And when I look at what I use all the time, I wonder why we’ll never get a new cat or a new dog or a generic bird (which could become an eagle or an owl or a parrot or a hen or a gull or…)
Yeah, I agree. I've mentioned before the unending, every day supply of more monsters, zombies, dragons, and sword fighters wearing Princess Leia outfits, but apparently people like that kind of stuff. I'm pretty sure that DAZ has some good intel on what sells since they've been at it for many years, so I assume what's in the store is what people want.
Which is why I've taken a different route and decided to make my own content. I can make nicer clothing (for the most part) because I dont' use what I think is ugly and unnatural conforming clothing, but rather cloth sims. And most props are super easy to make in a modelling application, unless you need something fancy like an automobile. And houses and rooms are also fairly easy. Especially if you realize you may not need to make highly detailed models in all cases, and can do some other methods. And in the long run, I think having free apps like Blender, and spending a few bucks on a cloth sim and maybe a slick surface painting tool, gives you a whole lot more control so you can get what you want, rather than what the PA's decide to produce. And in the end it can save a lot of money.
I would buy a new dog or cat with improved rigging as long as the fur was also improved.
well, Alessandro_AM does have plans to do a domestic cat and dog which means iray LAMH presets for it, something I've been desperately wanting, as the old mill cat and dog are REALLY showing their age. But no date as to when at the moment.
i suspect daz is more interested in female skimpy wear than animals, for some reason.
But yeah, a lot of clothing coming out really seems to be lacking..quality. And of course, there are products that are still high quality. But....I saw a male outfit recently and it really looked like two tubes for the pants legs and two tubes for the jacket sleeves and looked absolutely dreadful...stiffest outfit EVER with dreadful bland textures and all I could do was shake my head and wonder if THIS is why it is said male clothing doesn't sell. There's an interesting thread in the commons here that is all about male pants..showcasing some that are done well and some that are like paper doll cutouts (no seams, no waistbands, no buttons or zip...) and it's quite illuminating to go through that and see all the renders. It really shows how there is a distinct lack of decent well-made, realistic pants for men out there.
Re: A new dog - HW3D has been working on one for the last couple years, but nothing has materialized for whatever the reason. It's starting to become the Final Fantasy 15/Duke Nukem Forever of 3D Poser/DS animals.
I too am getting sick of the rich people luxury apartments, but what can you do. I do find it rather interesting that ironman3D -a prolific PA during the Genesis 3 era- pretty much dropped off the face of the earth after Genesis 8 hit. Last I saw they were pumping out stuff and then.... nothing. Guess there's only so much variation you can make on luxury junk and softcore film poses.
And also yeah, that's why I'm learning to make my own clothes, too. As soon as I get my first paycheck from my new job, I'm subbing to Marvelous Designer. If you want something done right, do it yourself I suppose. ;p
No, DAZ isn't interested in female skimpy wear, the users are. If you weren't aware, I suspect a majority of users are males, whose idea of fantasy and fun is images of beautiful women. That's what men generally like. So that will be here for a long time I suspect. Just like it's been around since the beginning of time.
They have relased 5 sets for G8 at Rendo.
And won't be here as long as DAZ requires conforming cloth JCMs in dForce clothing. That's why you haven't seen them here before.
I love doing images of beautiful women - and I'm female :) I have my fair share of skimpy outfits that I use - but I was making the point that animals, something both us girls AND guys would use (cos what is a skimply clad beautiful warrior woman without her pet wolf/tiger/panther/eagle/falcon/snake...or even loyal hunting dog? Or your skimply clad in lingerie beautiful woman curled up on her couch without her pet kitten/cat?
- are in very short supply.
edit: whoa, that sentence started strong and just.......ended nowhere.
Yeah, I'm just not getting the whole warrior and animals thing. War and animals just aren't things I fantasize about. Especially pet snakes....
For me, snakes and war = avoid, not fantasize
dForce is what, 2 weeks old? Some of the PAs were part of the early beta team and had the time to produce a few clothes already, but the majority probably never had heard of dForce before the general relase. Give them the time to learn the new tool, create content for it and have it pass QA...
I honestly don’t see the anyone here releasing a cat and dog. At some point you have to give up and I have.
Hivewire is much closer to a new dog and has the results to show for it.
And at least one PA does plan to release a Roman Toga; she just doesn't plan to do so here at DAZ, for the reason I stated.
The issue with men’s clothing lately is goofiness in addition to being somewhat awkwardly designed. I want clothing that is somewhat flattering and makes the guys look cute. If clothing doesn’t look flattering why buy it?
I don’t have an issue with women’s skimpwear. There is a market and people like it so more power to them.... I just would like to see some practical combat outfits in addition to the Boris Vallejo style fantasy wear.