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You didn't look very hard...all the software DAZ sells is linked at the bottom of the first page of the store. I'm sure someone has already pointed this out and I am late to this party...
I agree, it should be more prominent - but it is there.
Well... I hope that once 8.5 Pro is finalized that they put it in shining lights at the top!
Also, I'd love it if they gave the information pages a bit more love. Remember the not-so-distant past when Hexagon had several pages of cool example images and Carrara had all sorts of cool pictures and links? I must say... I love the Carrara 8 Promo reel.
I think there are many here who believe that the only reason why Carrara doesn't sell is because it's not advertised enough and nobody knows it exists. And while that may be true to some extent, I think at some point we might want to accept the notion that maybe Carrara doesn't sell because not many people want to buy it.
Clearly, Carrara represents a tiny fraction of DAZ's revenues. I think I saw some figures before on a business website showing DAZ's revenue, and extrapolated how much Carrara's portion of that was based on some comments by some DAZ folks. And I recall it was down in the 3% range, but my memory is very fuzzy on that.
Sure, some of that is because nobody knows about it. But let's face it...there are many free alternatives out there that are far more attractive to the hobbyist market than an application that used to cost something like $500, and is now down to almost half of that. How many people would look at the DAZ website, and see DAZ Studio for free and Carrara for $250 and choose Carrara? I don't care how perfect and wonderful and awesome an app some think it is, not many hobbyists are in the market for a very expensive app when there's a similar free app one just a click away. Especially when most of the hobbyist customers probably don't really understand the features and what it all means, so if you said, for example, Carrara has the world's most perfect UV mapping system most potential users will probably shrug their shoulders and walk away.
And I think DAZ realizes this, and like any intelligent business, doesn't want to throw a lot of money at something that might not return that money with a profit. DAZ knows exactly what the market wants, and that's what they advertise. Hobbyists want content, and they want free stuff. That's not DAZ's fault, it's nobody's fault. It's just what people want.
People like free stuff, especially for a hobby in which particular functionality isn't really as important as overall coolness and free-ness.
If YOU were DAZ, how would you get customers to choose a $250 Carrara over a free DAZ Studio or a free Blender ? What would YOU put in the advertisement to draw the average hobbyist to spend $250 on it? That is a very, very, very, tough job. You need to have a few clear bullet points that show clear advantages so that it will catch someone's eye and make him cough up $250.
Applaud that!
Very nice observational theory set and explanation of it. I'm not so certain that DAZ wants people to choose Carrara over Daz Studio, whether there's a price difference or otherwise. I've just made my very first piece of conforming clothing using Carrara as the (most excellent and easy to use) modeler, thanks to the new ability to model in the assembly room. When in Model Mode, you cannot select stuff that isn't being edited. Worked beautifully, quickly and had beautiful results in the end thanks to:
Daz Studio was used to import the resulting obj from Carrara and literally turned the model into a very nice item. I can use DS 4.6 Pro to automate the rigging, weight mapping and following of morphs - whether controlled by the shape adjustment follower or joint rotation, the complete details of how to use this process to model how the clothes behave for each morph that you create is located right here, created by the developers at DAZ 3D. Now that's just plain love for effort to help people become outstanding 3d artists, no matter how you decide to use it's benefits - professionally, as a hobby, at whatever level of dedication. I don't think DAZ 3D really wishes for you to use one tool over the other. They just wanted to make sure that the people who do like using these tools have them available. Through DAZ 3D these tools are still available to anyone. Carrara might just cost more to maintain. Who really knows?
Bryce might be seemingly lagging at the moment. But that doesn't mean that nobody intends to develop it further. At least what it does do is what Bryce does - and for those whom want that, most impressive way to model and render, it is still available. I was one of the lucky to score a free license! It's certainly different, how you model by building a scene via shapes of mesh and how you ask them to behave with one another is a bizarre and wonderful thing - and I'm glad to now own it, so I can really jam out in it when the proper amount of time for it shows itself to me. For now, Carrara and the new Daz Studio have me captivated in a state of 3d modeling glee, who's rush just keeps building as time passes and DAZ 3D puts out that new version of whatever they've prepared for us... it just totally Rocks! In my honest opinion as an overly satisfied customer. Overly satisfied.
Carrara does sell. I know I sound like a broken record but there truly is no software that does what Carrara can do. I'm certainly not here to say that Carrara is better than anything else. But nothing else has the ability to do what Carrara can do out of the box. Many really great plugins exist to help bring some of its abilities in to an expansive collection of abilities that's most impressive. And then you see those rays launch and the buckets of imagery spill from a blaze of one fast render engine. The batched queue of animation sequences gets all packed into viewable, editable form during a period that you spend away from the cores, who's fans are now churning wide open! lol
I like ManStan's point of the whole comment though. It's true. If you're not seeking Carrara, you would not end up finding it at the end of one of the proverbial aisles. When I bought it, I came looking for it. Word of mouth - a vision in a waiting room, while someone was using Carrara 5. It was that moment that I knew what my 3d software choice was at first glance - the guy was playing with V4 and some of her clothes and had a car in there too. But there are a lot of Carrara users. Enough to justify keeping it, and it is my aim to show the world a bit of what Carrara can do for them - just in the case that they might have an urge to make something of their own with this most amazing production tool.
Just pick any topic within the free, excellent, and very entertaining online video tutorials by Cripeman. Any one of those things that he shows you are a great thing to learn, know, and use when the opportunity presents itself. Sure and true, you can find this sort of support for other software too. Like I said, I'm not saying that Carrara is better. But the powerful, professional modeling capabilities with so many automated features, like terrain, ocean, fire, different types of cloud and fog besides the haze and distant fog available as atmospheric effects, magnificent lighting ability, post-render effects, particles, physics, hair, the gorgeous shader editor, all of the wonderful things that Carrara has always done coupled with it's amazing ease at working with DAZ and Poser content - in addition to any content made for a majority, if not all, of the other 3d modelers and render engines. It doesn't just have the means to struggle the content in - it allows you to really work those figures in nearly the same way as in its intended software - except that I find the tools much easier for my style of posing figures. I enjoy selecting each of the body parts in motion at that time and manipulating them by hand to the pose I want. Most of the times that I do use the inverse kinematics is in a dummy figure to look at examples of pose via that method. Otherwise I just click and drag the translate and rotate manipulators which seems to give me more control over what the tweeners do. Whoa... babble much, Dartan?
I'm going to begin a project in Carrara tomorrow and perhaps I can take some test renders up here. Depend upon how the creative juices flow on that day. If all flows the way I like it to... I'm more inclined to accidentally forget to save a render for to show - and just keep flowing until I cannot any more. You know how it is. I am very excited, though. DUF is a really powerful unit. I'm just now beginning to discover the benefits. But when I get time, likely around Fall, I'll see about adding a whole bunch of really useful information and some nicer formatting to the Carrara Information Manual thread.
Edit: I think it was actually V3 the guy was messing with. This was a while ago (the whole Carrara 5 in the waiting room thing)
Next time you go into a large department store in the mall, enter the store thru the main entrance, or the entrance that has the most foot traffic. You'll probably notice a very common phenomenon: you're probably gonna walk thru the women's clothing department.
Why? Because most customers of large department stores (and just about every other store) are women. They spend the money, so the stores cater to them. So the department stores know that, and they make it very easy for the women customers to find what they want. Quickly and easily.
So what happens to the men's clothing section? It's usually upstairs, and/or packed away in the back behind the women's shoes or something. Yeah, they still sell men's clothing, but not nearly as much as women's products. So like any smart business, they put the hot products out front, which means the non-hot products have to go in back. They don't put mens clothing on the front page of the website, they put womens clothing there because it makes far more money.
Does that mean the department stores are dumb or missing a great opportunity? Not at all. They know exactly what they're doing. And the only dumb thing they could do is put mens clothing in the high traffic areas.
Unfortunately, Carrara is like mens clothing. Well, not even that important. More like mens' suspenders for their pants... :) And DAZ Studio and all of the content it sells is like women's clothing and women's shoes. :)
LOL! Absolutely! LOL!
I don't see it as unfortunate though. It's there now for those of us who use it. Still... I want to try and at least keep it growing in user numbers. I like to share any knowledge I may glean during my adventures of use - in the hopes that it may be useful to someone - hoping that such a feature might be enough to show one more person how to use it to do "this" - which might help to illustrate that Carrara truly IS the softy selection choice to have!
Great, insightful stuff joe! Fricken right on the nail head, eh?
Men's department! That just kills me how on-the -mark that is.
Hmmm... I'm actually thinking that we should change these numbers a bit. We need to make a display for the show case window and the main entrance show room floor. While, for my endeavors, I find that Daz Studio Pro and with Project Dogwaffle Pro: Howler and Genetica, iClone, etc., should be displayed as a big part of how you can run your own, expansive world as an image salon, video production studio, games engine style animation work, self texturing and postwork for still and animation.
Carrara truly rocks. I've always loved the images found on the cover of Cafe and C3DE.
I'm hoping that, once I'm finally set up to a point where I have all of my production assets in order - including the scripted voice acting and soundtrack material, I can have the efficient means to conduct a reasonable (time) flow of episodes to complete a good span of the never ending epic I intend to produce, that more people can start to see what they can achieve from an animated movie aspect from the software.
From my experience(hobbyist) with Carrara in the last few years, I would recommend it to anyone, including for content use. However, from a business and marketing standpoint;...
1st-> DAZ3D web site = Content Marketplace = Studio and Poser.
2nd-> Carrara = Full 3D suite + content compatible features.
3rd-> Bryce = Landscape software + Studio bridge feature.
4th-> Hexagon 2.5 = Dedicated modeler + Studio bridge feature.
Carrara is just not the base program to sell content that Studio is atm, even when given away free in magazines. I agree though, Carrara should really have more site page space, given that it can do so much more than Studio. Unless Carrara is marketed and developed(rewritten possibly) to match Studio for support, things will most likely remain as they are.
Carrara 8.5 can use pretty much any content Studio 4.5 can.
Carrara 8.5 can manipulate said content meshes, Studio can't.
Carrara has far more available features then studio.
Studio can be used to make content it has the tools for doing it carrara doesn't; why?
Carrara can appeal to a wider audience then Studio.
And walking in to those deportment stores just what are you going to see upfront, the best seller or the items that aren't selling? Right, the best selling items, the ones everyone is coming in for are in the back making you walk past all the other items they sell to get to it. The slow moving items the store is trying to push are right up front by the door when you walk in.
DAZ has Studio plastered so upfront and in your face it blinds you to they fact the sell more then content for Studio. Take that department store, you walk in and all you see are big bright color signs for 1 item. In fact they are so big and plentiful that you can't see the rest of the store, let alone what else they may be selling.
Edit to add a quick proposal of what I would like to see. If I'd have taken more time they would have been even ;)
I like the layout ManStan. It would improve marketing and ease of use imho.
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A few years back the forums were closed from reading without having to sign in. I asked that forums be open for the general reading and google searches for more exposure. Since then, reading forums topics are open. I really dislike going to some other 3D/content sites and being denied access to general information without having to sign in. Sometimes the minor things help spread the word and sell software.
Right. I hate that too.
Man, I truly think it would be fun to make a whole section on just using Carrara and Daz Studio together as a complete CG toolkit adding in Genetica and Dogwaffle (and others (?)) for their additions to the possibilities.
Hoo toot - boy you guys are still at it .
Isn't a dog waffle a mud grip road kill?
I'm not sure Studio to carrara needs it's own section. One thread would be enough. You use Studio to fix or finish content. You can use studio to run dynamic clothing sims, then render/tweak them in carrara and....... and........? I can't think of anything else.
Maybe a quicky on which materials preset to use on G1,2 to get the best transfer from studio to C8.5?
{no high light, low bump}
Wont do a lot of good for me to talk about it on other forums. Game players don't care, everyone on the Genetica forum knows what I use, and I'm not active on the TG forum just yet. Although I have to wonder how difficult it might be to get a scene from Carrara to TG3 to make use of the excellent atmospherics and lighting.
If I see that DAZ side panel add again I'll screen cap it and give my proposed changes to it ;)
I wasn't talking about a discussion in a forum about it. I was referring to an illustration. Never mind Stan. I'll excuse myself from this bull...
I think you are forgetting who's job it is around here to be grumpy.
I'm not sure how they would work it in to the sales pitch, but they would have to have the Hex bridge and Bryce{?} bridge as well. It would have to show how all the apps wok together.
Aside from the fact that it is on the front page of the store, it is listed under Software when you hover over shop, it is listed as one of your filters in the left pane for Content, and if you hit the products button on the front page you get a choice of content and Software right across the top, what is the second piece of software listed? Now on that page for Free Software there are three tabs, Scene and image Creation / Animation / Modeling. Funny I see Carrara listed prominently on a page that got me there with the term "Free Software."
Please note that the number 3 search term used in the store search is Animation. Hmm, I wonder what you get when you search that? :)
Of course everyone posting in this thread is not a new user or a new customer. I am guessing most of you just go straight to the new items page. :) All of you already know we sell Carrara. :)
Now do a Google search for 3D Applications or 3D Graphics. After all you have to get here somehow, how often does DAZ3D in general and Carrara specifically come up? How many of those links lead here? Wikipedia, 3d Applications or 3D Graphics? Any sign of DAZ3D or Carrara?
Thanks Spooky.
I had intentionally not posted to the beat the dead horse thread until now.
FUD means fear, uncertainty and doubt. It was a pretty common phenomenon during Apple's dark days. It serves no constructive purpose. It is more often than not, based on rumors and idle speculation. All it does is make people wring their hands and moan in futility. As an added bonus, it turns potential customers off, thus becoming a self fulfilling prophecy.
There is a legitimate need to discuss things that could be deemed negative to Carrara, such as a lack of a certain feature or a bug with the software. However, the most productive threads discussing negative issues seem to be the ones that target specific issues and stay relatively on target. These, "OMG! insert Issue of the week here," threads, seem to serve no purpose except to get panties in a wad.
Please see page 2 for my suggested change to the home page. All I'm asking if for carrara to be put on even ground with studio. Is that asking too much?
I posted this because I got real frustrated trying to find a link to the C8 trial, from the forum.
Bravo Spooky!
I actually "found" Carrara through a banner ad for Digital Carver's Guild. I clicked through, noted that this cool stuff were plugins and went looking for the program. When I was confused about D|S versus Cararra, I opened a help desk ticket to clarify the two pieces of software. When I learned that Carrara was the flagship product, that's what I bought.
That said, I don't think DAZ truly treats Carrara as such. Consider Microsoft Access and SQL Server. Access is your "toy" database and SQL Server is the flagship. Yes, Access works for tiny projects...but real data work is done with SQL Server. It looks to me like D|S gets primacy over all else.
That's a business choice. I've come to accept it. It won't make me stop using Carrara though.
Please see page 2 for my suggested change to the home page. All I'm asking if for carrara to be put on even ground with studio. Is that asking too much?
I posted this because I got real frustrated trying to find a link to the C8 trial, from the forum. So you posted, not because you couldn't find one of the many links to Carrara, but because you couldn't find the trial? And typing Carrara in the search, produced almost two pages of Carrara specific content before you got to Carrara?
Doesn't that show that DAZ3D does indeed sell and support Carrara, instead of giving away a trial? Remember you are looking here, but you already know about Carrara. Now in a google search for a Carrara 8 trial, the CNet link is right there at the top.
As for your Marketing idea? Sure, if DAZ3D's primary marketing strategy and sales was indeed Carrara, something like that might make sense, however software is not the primary money maker at DAZ3D, Content is. Yes, Carrara sells and yes, Carrara makes money, however Carrara is not the primary source of revenue. The last two companies that had Carrara as their primary money maker, financially failed.
Bravo Spooky!
I actually "found" Carrara through a banner ad for Digital Carver's Guild. I clicked through, noted that this cool stuff were plugins and went looking for the program. When I was confused about D|S versus Cararra, I opened a help desk ticket to clarify the two pieces of software. When I learned that Carrara was the flagship product, that's what I bought.
That said, I don't think DAZ truly treats Carrara as such. Consider Microsoft Access and SQL Server. Access is your "toy" database and SQL Server is the flagship. Yes, Access works for tiny projects...but real data work is done with SQL Server. It looks to me like D|S gets primacy over all else.
That's a business choice. I've come to accept it. It won't make me stop using Carrara though.Difference is Microsoft sells Operating Systems as its primary source of income and applications as a secondary source of income. So yes they are going to push their higher end software harder than their cheaper lower end software, however they push Windows significantly harder than anything else.
Now consider this, DAZ3D's primary source of revenue is Content. So Content sales are going to get more push. Things that cause content sales are going to get more push. DAZ Studio being free, is a driver for Content Sales, Carrara is the only software we didn't give away and features prominently right behind content sales.
I'm going to comment on this and at first I thought it was going to be off topic, but I realize it does turn around and relate to Stan's point. Stores do not put the women's clothing in the high traffic area to make it "quick and easy" for the women to find what they want. Well they do, but that is not the only reason. They put it there hoping that the women find something they didn't know they needed. They want the woman who went in to buy herself a pair of trousers to also find a top to go with it. The want the women who knows she needs to go up the escalator and to the back of store to buy a new dress shirt for her husband, to see something she can get for herself while she is in the store.
Which does go back to the original point, if I didn't know Carrara existed, if I didn't know it was sold here, I still wouldn't know after seeing the home page.
[Disclaimer-broad generalizations based on my own shopping experience. No offense intended to women, department stores, or anyone in marketing. Your mileage may vary.]
I'm going to comment on this and at first I thought it was going to be off topic, but I realize it does turn around and relate to Stan's point. Stores do not put the women's clothing in the high traffic area to make it "quick and easy" for the women to find what they want. Well they do, but that is not the only reason. They put it there hoping that the women find something they didn't know they needed. They want the woman who went in to buy herself a pair of trousers to also find a top to go with it. The want the women who knows she needs to go up the escalator and to the back of store to buy a new dress shirt for her husband, to see something she can get for herself while she is in the store.
Which does go back to the original point, if I didn't know Carrara existed, if I didn't know it was sold here, I still wouldn't know after seeing the home page.
[Disclaimer-broad generalizations based on my own shopping experience. No offense intended to women, department stores, or anyone in marketing. Your mileage may vary.]
Home page Scrolled down a bit. I can see Carrara, it's between Bryce and Hexagon. OK, we both rate an "Also by" but it is there.
The Problem with this as I see it is that the Home page appears to be dedicated Daz Studio - Even when you scroll down first thing is an"encouragement" to downlaod the product and check out tutorials.
Compare this with Auto desk which also has a number of products.
Home page tells people what the company is about with "clear" links to their options - "Products" being one of them.
No one is going to skate past Maya - for example because it is clearly listed with all other products.
But wait ! Daz Home Page does have a a "Products " Tab but guess what ? It leads you to a big "Studio" promo page!! Yes there is a link to Carrara at the bottom but it doesn't look important and you have to scroll down to see it anyway.
so WHY, as the original post said, isn't Daz SELLING Carrara ?
Part of selling is support - potential buyers want to know how they will be treated after they invest in new software.
Maybe I leave it to others to tell what they think is lacking but for starters.
No updated manual for at least two years.
Very little feedback on development.
No effort to provide tutorials (Daz Studio gets all the cream)
No effort to stimulate interest - It was the users who started the competition.
Yeah, it is there. It is just super easy to scroll right on past that little line of grey on blue text and have your eye go straight from the picture of the creepy monster with the warrior chick in small armor, right to the picture of the pretty red head with the cool rim lighting.
Just sayin'
But can you render warrior babes using either Carrara or Bryce or Hexagon? Or just Daz Studio? - 'cause I really wanna render warrior babes!
yep all but Hex !
Like this. A Bryce image of course, so won't spam this forum with it, just a link
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/media/folder_239/file_2384955.jpg
Here's a question regarding Carrara and it's future sales viability: As a user of both Carrara 8.5 Pro and DAZ Studio 4.6 Pro it appears that all programming focus has been placed into DAZ studio as opposed to Daz3D's "flagship" Carrara. So much so that not only am I finding myself increasingly using DAZ Studio (via Luxrender), I was forced to move over to e-on's Vue 11 because Carrara is simply falling behind the competition. I would argue that at least Carrara has a modeler, but with my acquisition of 3D-Coat and Pixlogic's Zbrush, I have lost that argument too.
Now, don't get me wrong, I loved Carrara for years, and would always recommend it as the software to use; however, I feel lately like it is falling more and more into the shadows of the archaic abyss. I do hope you guys have something up your sleeves to regenerate it before it becomes just another memory - Or perhaps with your driven focus on Daz Studio (which should be commended), you no longer care.
I just wanted to add as a final note: Just compare the look of the content library between Daz Studio and Carrara. Daz Studio is in a separate window that can be detached and moved to another screen in all it's large and glorious color - For Carrara's I need a magnifying glass and a robust mouse wheel for all the required scrolling.