Daz should immediately stop developing Studio! (and put all development focus on Carrara)
Jonstark
Posts: 2,738
(This could get controversial real quick)
I happened to see there's an extensive thread in the Commons about all the features that Studio users are wanting to see implemented in the next version of Studio, and it brought me up short. Why in the world is DAZ spending one more dime in developing Studio?
I'm not hating on Studio users. I mean all this from trying to figure out the business sense of developing Studio, from DAZ's perspective. As much as I loathe using Studio myself, if developing Studio is going to ensure DAZ makes lots of extra profit, then of course I can see them doing it. But I just don't see it.
Studio is necessary for DAZ; I can absolutely see that. DAZ makes the lion's share of it's money from content sales, and they need a free app that can display their content, to entice new users to buy.
I can even see why it was necessary to develop Studio to the current version. After all, if DAZ is moving to the next generation of content (Genesis 2) and the older version of Studio doesn't support it, well of course they've got to have a newer tech version of Studio to show off the new tech and get content sales going for it.
But since the current version of Studio now works fine to display Genesis 2, what in the world is the business reason to continue developing it?
Actually isn't there a better business reason to *not* develop it? Let 3rd party vendors drive any development for Studio, in the form of paid plugins. So much the better if these plugins are sold in the DAZ store. Then not only is DAZ not paying developers to continue to develop a *free* app that already does what it's supposed to do, but they get a nice slice of profits on any plugins that 3rd party vendors sell in their store.
Moreover, if they aren't constantly spending money to further develop a *free* app, they can focus that funding for development on their *paid* app. You know, the professional one, that they actually charge money for; the *premium* app they've got in their stable? Namely, Carrara!
I could even see it if they spent money to develop plugins for Maya, 3DS, C4D, Modo, etc to bridge Studio into those apps, to make it easier for the higher end apps to make use of the Genesis 2 technology, seems like there would probably be a market for that and would increase content sales. But to continue to develop Studio by itself, for no reason other than to please customers who can already use it for free and will continue to expect to use it for free, just seems kind of strange, from a business perspective.
Maybe the Studio Devs are pushing this, because it's their pet app and they enjoy working in it? That's all I can think of to explain this, because it makes zero sense that the free 'display-our-content-wares' app can do things that the premium app can't.
DAZ should pull all development for Studio, and all development from Bryce and Hex too (not that there necessarily is much development for them), and put all Dev muscle on Carrara. I'm *not* hating on Bryce, Hex, or Studio here, I'm just saying from a business perspective it would make sense for DAZ.
DAZ should tell the Devs:
1 - Put every feature and tool from Hex put into Carrara's modeling rooms (they share the same code base as I understand it, so this shouldn't be an outrageous request). Make it so Carrara 9 *is* Hexagon 3, plus much more, with the added benefit it doesn't crash every 5 minutes. If it helps draw Hex users, add an optional User Interface inside of Carrara's modeling room that looks/functions just like Hex.
2 - Put every feature and tool from Bryce into Carrara's landscape and atmosphere functions/tools. Carrara can already compete with Vue in the hands of an expert, but let's make it easier for the average person to put together stunning landscapes. Make it so Carrara 9 *is* Bryce 8, plus much more, with the added benefit it renders much more quickly and make it fully Mac compliant. If it helps, add an optional user interface in the landscape and atmosphere and lighting functions that looks/functions like Bryce.
3 - Put every feature and tool that Studio can do into Carrara. Again there is no reason why the free app should be able to do things that the premium app can't. It should always be exactly the opposite.
4 - Poser has had dynamic cloth since Poser 5, with all the incredible pro things that Carrara can do that Poser can only dream of... let's get this done, for heaven's sake (BTW if there is one thing that absolutely has to happen in Carrara 9, it's a workable dynamic cloth solution...)
5 - From now on, the only development effort that should go into Studio should be fixing bugs - and that should only be *after* every bug in Carrara has been fixed. So, yeah, don't even do bug fixes for Studio.
Moreover, I think that not only should DAZ do this, they should also make an *official announcement* that they are going to do this. It's the perfect time to start incentivising customers to move to their premium, paid-for app.
Anyway, these are just my thoughts, and it's entirely possible I'm just missing some part of the picture here. But what exactly is DAZ's plan here? Does it make sense to anyone else?
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Comments
I can understand your frustration. We Carrara users pay for the software that is not the top priority in terms of development and features. I think there should be 3 versions of Carrara with the basic version being free but having limited functionality. Then a Pro version like it is now. Finally a Premium version with all the features and tools.
More in the lines of Vue (Vue Esprit, Vue Studio and Vue Complete).
No No No. Hey I empathise with Carrara people thinking they are being sidelined, heck I am even trying to master at least the basics of Carrara myself, but leave Bryce out of the Equation. We are already fighting our own battles to make DAZ 3D remember we are still around, We don't want to be fighting Carrara people as well.
Bryce Stands on it's own and wants to stay as Unique as it is, but with some further dev to bring it up to todays tech specs.
Carrara is already still in the Dev cycle, and Carrara 9 is promised for the not too distant future.
BTW this is Pam, the Bryce Addict typing this, not chohole the moderator OK.
I argree in most cases with you Jonstark! For me it looks as though daz carrara sell, but it has probably not found any company that wanted to buy carrara?
I can not otherwise explain it to me!
In the old bug tracker, many customers have given much work to report bugs but also to present new ideas on how to improve Carrara. And what happened? Just about anything!
Everything takes ages, because 97% of development goes in Studio.
DAZ3D has not done it once, that genesis 100% works in Carrara! Despite all the development time since Carrara 8.1. And this update to 8.5 was not cheap for us Carrara users!
All this makes me angry and frustrated!
I would rather see if there is only development on Carrara and the current Studio migrates to a Carrara Light/Free version. So there is development for only one Software. (much like scottidog2 said)
It would be very pleased if someone DAZ official would comment on how it looks with the plans. Then I could at least decide whether I am breaking in to other software or sit next to Carrara!!!
No No No. Hey I empathise with Carrara people thinking they are being sidelined, heck I am even trying to master at least the basics of Carrara myself, but leave Bryce out of the Equation. We are already fighting our own battles to make DAZ 3D remember we are still around, We don't want to be fighting Carrara people as well.
Bryce Stands on it's own and wants to stay as Unique as it is, but with some further dev to bring it up to todays tech specs.
Carrara is already still in the Dev cycle, and Carrara 9 is promised for the not too distant future.
BTW this is Pam, the Bryce Addict typing this, not chohole the moderator OK.
Bryce-Addicts are a lot like us Mac Addicts! The only way to take Bryce from Chohole is from her cold, dead, hands! Just as the only way to take my Mac is to pry it out of my cold, dead, hands! :lol:
Bryce-Addicts are a lot like us Mac Addicts! The only way to take Bryce from Chohole is from her cold, dead, hands! Just as the only way to take my Mac is to pry it out of my cold, dead, hands! :lol:
I actually have used a Mac, but was some time ago, lets think...........umm My son was using a BBC micro at school and we had an Amstrad cpc at home. Was well impressed with my senior brother having an Mac to play around with in his workshop.although he also used a BBC Micro at home. I couldn't afford a Mac at the time though, and so went down the PC route, eventually.
Jonstark
We will have none of this logic and good commonsense thrown about in this forum.
Smiles
Rich
Well, *I* say Daz should immediately stop developing Studio, Carrara, Bryce, AND Genocide! (and put all development focus on The Millennium Cow)
:) I did say it might get controversial!
Again, I'm not trying to hate on Bryce/Studio/Hex users at all, nor do I want to try to divide us against each other, by any means. I sincerely meant this as trying to find DAZ's business motivation for the current development, and trying to figure out what the overall 'plan' is, and imagining what makes the most sense to me.
And believe me, I do understand the "No!" emotional response that this might cause... but at the same time I think it might be an illogical response too. Let me explain why:
Let's put the shoe on the other foot, and hypothesize that tomorrow DAZ makes a big announcement in the forums: "From now on, all Carrara development will be halted, and Carrara will become a dead product with no further support or additions from DAZ. We will now be focusing 100% of our development on Studio, and soon we will be releasing Studio Super Ultimate Awesome Pro, which we will charge a similar pricetag to what we used to charge for Carrara, and which will seemlessly include every single feature that Carrara ever did - with no bugs whatsoever! - and we are even including options to change the User Interface for our new Studio to be exactly the same as the old Carrara interface."
Now my first reaction would be emotional, as I saw the headline: Oh my God, Carrara is Dead! I'll have to use Studio, which I hate! Why DAZ Why?
But after taking a breath and calming down (and presuming that the new Studio Super Ultimate Awesome Pro actually can do all of what DAZ has theoretically claimed it can do, well... is there a real reason to be upset? If the user interface can be made the same as Carrara, and all the Carrara features are included, then isn't the problem strictly a matter of nomenclature? And why do I care what the official name of the application is, as long as it works exactly like the Carrara that I know and love?
This approach might even conceivably be one that DAZ takes, but I really don't think so, as it would be inefficient to move the mountain to Mohammed, rather than the other way around.
This is all 'if wishes were fishes' fantasizing, of course. But if DAZ really did come out tomorrow and suddenly say 'Carrara 9 will include all the features of Bryce, including the option to change the user interfaces to look like Bryce, to make it more friendly for Bryce users who might want to try Carrara', would the majority of Bryce fans really be offended by that? And if so, why? I ask because it's an interesting reaction. :)
Same question for Hex fans too. If DAZ announced that all the tools and features in Hex would be present in Carrara 9, would that be a bad thing? I think the ability to use one app to do multiple things simply by changing what 'room' you're working in is a lot more convenient and desirable then having to export something out to another app, import it back in, export it to a 3rd app, etc... Carrara has been criticized in the past for trying to be a 'jack of all trades' but I actually think that's the wave of the future and can be one of its greatest assets, and that more and more 3d rendering/modeling/texturing/animating apps are going to eventually move in that direction.
The simple answer is, it cannot happen that way. In every area a choice has to be made. Let's take rendering. All three programs have different render engines (Bryce has two). It is not practical to keep all of them. Terrain editors - same problem. And on down the line.
For me, I don't care what they say, I don't care who says it, they can be the smartest, greatest people with the best of intentions, I have never seen a merger work out without sacrificing something. I don't trust anyone to give me what I want, especially when there are three hands in the pot.
If you look at the improvements Bryce users are asking for they are essentially bug fixes, updating the program to take advantage of 64 bit and using memory more effectively.
Merging Bryce with anything else is going to muck things up. If you merge a toaster with a teapot you won't have good tea or toast.
I don't really understand Bryce and without it going 64 bit, it keeps crashing on me...
That said, I felt like a real chump when I bought Bryce 7 (when it came out) then upgraded to Bryce 7 pro (just over a month later) only to have Daz give it away for free..Since then, I gave up on Bryce and refuse to spend any more money on it. Just checked... it is now $14 for the pro version..
Daz Studio... yes, I am trying it out again but the closer it gets to Carrara, the more tempted I am to drop out of Daz products completely. Kind of annoying paying for something that others get for free... Carrara is still much better then Daz Studio but with every release, I wonder why I am pumping money into something that is a second class player in the mind of its maker. Still upgraded to 8.5 but couldn't get excited about it this time.
I really wish they would just adopt the model that eOn software uses... a free version with basic functionality (Daz Studio), a Landscape system (Bryce and Bryce Pro), and Model Editor (Hex) and a full integrated version (Carrara).
Realistically, all of the products should be rebuilt as modules that are added on to get to the next level.
One of the main reasons I think Studio is developed more than Carrara is that DAZ has full control over Studio's coding, which is more up to date and allows better hardware, plug-in support(etc.). DAZ also might not want to commit to an older code based program that may need a major rewrite, eventhough Carrara can do so much more. To remain affordable, Carrara also can't compete with the mainstream industry programs atm. So it is updated where possible.
Agree that DAZ probably doesn't want to leave a program they(proprietary) developed in favor of another program they didn't("pet app"). That said, I've mentioned before. Carrara's developement seems to suffer from a lack of DAZ personel using it. There are many features that slight improvements should more than cover the costs for their developement. Resource issues or not, down the line, making anything more accessable should equate to making more money. Very few at DAZ appear to see this specific to Carrara or content used within Carrara. Basically, Studio was created as a Poser alternative, Carrara is a full animation suite, so the content app gets the attention.
One point I don't see mentioned about Studio is the learning curve. It is getting close to or surpassing Carrara in many areas. This includes plug-in support. At some point in time, Studio will overtake Carrara in features/complexity, and Carrara's pricing will not be able to compete. Either Carrara will be sold, or not developed after. Not great news, but a reality that has been happening for 5+ years I've been here. Its up to how much money Carrara is making by that time for what happens then.
Bryce. I used to be a heavy Bryce user and learned alot when I first started at DAZ. But when I hit a wall trying to model certain objects and landscapes shapes I tried Carrara. Not only the modeling, but the render speed and having GI options was night and day better. The UI and rooms concept was also far more intuitive to me.
My .02 worth. :)
Fair points. I guess I wasn't really thinking Bryce would be merged with Carrara on an actual coding basis though, merely that all features present in Bryce be available as well in Carrara-version. Then put in the option to have a Bryce-like user interface, again to make those who may come from Bryce have ease of use in Carrara, by seeing buttons and gizmos in the familiar places. One thing I remember noticing about Studio is that you can choose from tons of different user interfaces, so I'm thinking making the user interfaces appear in different configurations wouldn't really be all that difficult (but I'm not a programmer, so maybe I'm way off base, especially as the Carrara devs haven't even changed the preferences so you can increase the size of the fonts).
Again, in saying all this I want to stress I'm not trying to smack down the hopes of Bryce, Hex, or Studio users at all. In a perfect world, I would love it if every program that anyone wants to use gets lots of development and bug fixes and features that anyone could ever want.
But back when Daz made the business decision to give Bryce, Hexagon, and of course Studio away for free, I really thought 'ok, looks like then end of the line for Bryce and Hex, because Daz really only needs Studio to showcase it's Genesis 2 technology'. I realize that they have now gone back to charging a nominal fee for both Bryce 7 pro and Hexagon 2.5 (and by the way DAZ, please note that $14 bucks for Bryce 7 pro and Hexagon 2.5 is actually a 'nominal' fee, whereas $85.50 for an upgrade to Carrara 8.5 is *not* really a 'nominal' fee... more like a 'hefty' fee... grumble, grumble... :) ) but even with a nominal fee, there isn't a lot of profit motive for DAZ to continue to develop either program. I hope I'm wrong about that assessment for the sake of the Bryce and Hex fans/users, but from a business perspective I can certainly see why it might more sense for Daz to consolidate their focus.
Also, I didn't realize there were 2 different renderers in Bryce, but it makes sense as Carrara has 3 renderers, and through plugins (I'm thinking of Toon Pro, Wireframe Pro, YaToon off the top of my head) can have more renderers to choose from put into it. Seems like it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for someone to develop a renderer which mimics the same effects and render settings native to the ways Bryce does it, so I'm not sure that has to be an impediment.
By the way, is all Bryce users want out of a potential Bryce 8 to have 64 bit and bug fixes? I mean, is that all it would take to make Bryce fans whip out their credit cards to buy? If so, it might be worth it for Daz to put a little bit of time and effort into developing to make that happen.
But regardless of whether Daz has some motive to put additional funding into developing Bryce, I can't really see any reason why Daz would keep throwing down the money to keep developing and improving Studio, the $0 app that already does what it needs to do. And since that's where it seems the lion's share of the Dev muscle has been put up til now (and possibly still), the elephant in the room is 'Why?'. Anyone have any ideas what the plan is here, from Daz's perspective, because I'm drawing a blank... ?
Trying to 'keep up with the neighbors', maybe? (thinking of Poser here) Because that wouldn't make good business sense either; Poser is a paid program and operates on a different paradigm...
That would be the smartest model, but I'm starting to think Daz really doesn't have the ability to do that. Vue is all one program, with coding the same, and it has those add on modules to get better and better more professional versions of Vue, but it is all the same coding.
Bryce, Carrara, and Studio all have different coding and came from different backgrounds (I think I read that Hexagon shares the same coding with Carrara, though, so that may help things). It probably is a much more difficult thing to tie all the different programs together, especially since Daz only created one of them and adopted/inherited the others. Still, there have to be devs who can work with Carrara (hell, look how quickly and seemlessly Fenric is able to put together plugins for it that work terrifically well).
You really want to see Carrara get updated faster. Petition Daz to only use Carrara to make content. I read sometime ago the they use a different program to create content (I think Modo). but alas it will not happen. Cheaper to use Modo than to make big changes to Carrara.
Good luck to all of you optimistic Carrara people. I just don't see a big shift in development from Daz. It has been the same for a long time now. If the business model they are using now (which is make content) is making them money than I don't see a shift because software development is expensive.
I mean look at any of the software development companies for 3d software and compare there pricing. All of them are expensive. Carrara is in a sweet spot. There are not a lot of software packages that can do what Carrara can do for the money but it suffers from very long development cycle. Where new features are what has to be added to get sales but bug fixing is not as a big of priority. The problem for me is it just does not do what I would like which Character animation and mocap in a timely manner. Yes i probably can do what i want in Carrara but it would take too long to get it done because of all the workarounds that have to be done. (Blender is the exception but I don't care for the interface.)
If a I have a collada animation to import, most of the time the geometry will import fine with the skeleton but no animation or the imported animation is useless.
If I try FBX the model seems exploded but I think the is a problem with the scaling of the model and it's parts. Like the hip are huge and the feet are small. it looks pretty awkward and the animation is hit or miss if it usable.
Carrara needs a new bvh importer with more options to match up what Carrara is looking for. Like what axis is up and a way to maybe fix directional issues with individual bones before import.
I want to make sure you now that I love Carrara and its easy of use in many areas, but I am not optimistic about its future development in the areas of my interest.
When taxes come in I will take a hard look at iClone that might be a better fit.
Jonstark - be careful what you wish for! Pam the Bryce Addict (not to be confused with a certain administrator) illustrates an important point. Daz tries to make money from a basket of services, not just one product. Several products are both complementary to each other and partially a substitute for each other. As a result, it can be very hard to tell which products are subsidizing the others (and note - one product can subsidize the other, without either being a money loser in the big picture). As Pam (not the administrator) points out, Bryce folks feel unloved, after all, what incentive does Daz have to further develop a program that they give away for free, that at times competes with their own content? Ditto for the Hexagon folks (ask Roygee).
In a sports analogy, three-step, not two step (not just teams are better than individuals) -
Step one, there are basketball players who set picks to free up other shooters to make baskets. But shooters get the stats published in the newspaper, and used for fantasy sports leagues - and therefore, fans pay higher prices for tickets when teams with more famous shooters come to town. So, if fans pay to see shooters, and don't care who is setting the picks, shouldn't a general manager of a team load up on shooters? Well, no, you correctly respond. Even the shooter knows that he/she needs the person setting the pick. And, you've already anticipated step two...
Step two - fans also pay more to see teams that win than teams that lose. But, feeding the ball to shooters will give shooters (some) better stats, more fame, more buzz, more ticket sales. Winning and the promotion of marketable stars does not always together easily. Hmmm, how should a general manager divide the time of the talent scouts in looking for potentially great shooters compared to time spent looking for potentially great support players (people who set picks)? A great shooter is going to have at least one directly observable stat that favors shooters, revenue from jersey sales with each player's name on it. However, even the shooter knows that part of the SHOOTING that made that jersey sale possible comes from the support players who set picks, but don't have great observable stats, and don't have much fame. Also, the relative contribution of the shooter and the pick-setter to winning is hard to separate.
Step three - the hard one. Maintaining a sustainable business model for the franchise. A year finally comes, Woohoo, in which the team wins the championship, it has marketable stars, and its supporting players get recognition for helping great players be great. Revenues are pouring in. Now what? The stars want more money, but they are aging, and we all agree that part of their stardom comes from the rest of the team. The support players are getting recognition, they want to be paid according to their recognition, but you can get support players for cheap. How do you decide which players to pay the above league average for their role? which players to let go elsewhere (because another team has offered them above league for their role), which players are too old and need to be replaced by training a younger player, etc.
The point is, that in step 3, it is not obvious whether it is the star that can be replaced (anyone could make the open shots that guy gets), the support players that can be replaced (that shooter is so amazing that she makes shots even though she is not completely open), or, we will make more money on jersey sales if we keep our aging heroes (our fans would hate us if we let them end their careers on another team) past their primes than we would by maximizing our chances of winning next year.
All of that is a ridiculously long post to say that it is very hard to identify how much of the availability of funds to develop Carrara (or Bryce, or Hexagon, or...) comes from the fact that DAZ sells content that can be used in both its free programs and in Carrara. As they say, DAZ has a suite of products. Those products support each other in some ways, and in some cases substitute for each other. It is very hard to get that right.
It is possible, that if DAZ failed to further develop Studio, its content sales would decline in a way that hurts the ability of Daz to support the rest of its suite of programs. Then again, maybe not. These cross-effects are very hard to measure.
At the moment, I am happy that there are signs of at least some development of Carrara. Pam and the Bryce folks and Roygee and the Hexagon folks have legitimate concerns.
That could easily be turned around to:-
DAZ have just spent 2 years adding functions to Carrara that where already in DS (well, from the reports I have seen, those functions in Carrara still need to be finished/better implemented).
Instead of spending more time copying over functions, why not stop work on Carrara, implement bullet physics/dynamic cloth is DS and upgrade the bridges between DS and Bryce / DS and Hexagon.
It would be a lot less work.
That could easily be turned around to:-
DAZ have just spent 2 years adding functions to Carrara that where already in DS (well, from the reports I have seen, those functions in Carrara still need to be finished/better implemented).
Instead of spending more time copying over functions, why not stop work on Carrara, implement bullet physics/dynamic cloth is DS and upgrade the bridges between DS and Bryce / DS and Hexagon.
It would be a lot less work.
I agree with the spirit of what you are saying. One point is that a perfectly reasonable 3D workflow is to buy DAZ content, load it in Studio, add a few accessories (modeled in Hexagon), provide a setting from Bryce, and render in Studio or Bryce. If Studio, Bryce, and Hexagon are given away for free, then almost all revenue comes from content sales. ("almost" because maybe you could sell ads on the Daz site,...)
but maybe Daz doesn't look at it that way...
1) because DAZ gives Studio away for free, and by definition, in isolation, every dollar spent on Studio is a dollar lost
2) because another perfectly reasonable 3D workflow is to buy Poser, and use Blender or a variety of free apps to generate accessories. If another workflow is used, then every dollar spent on Studio/Hexagon/Bryce development is... (see (1))
3) because if Daz does not look at Studio in isolation, but as part of its suite - see my previous absurdly long post
- some carrarists might also like to point out that what was added in 8.5 beta was Genesis compatibility, which is to promote sales of Genesis related content to Carrara-ists, which then might not get counted as Carrara content sales.
Maybe it would help, since I don't use DS, if someone could list what DS does that Carrara does NOT do.
I must be the only person here who is NOT a fan of DS. Personally, I hate working with the tool. I tried several times to get it to work and with little or no success. I find it counter-intuitive and frustrating.
This leads me to a few thoughts/opinions I would like to share about the whole DAZ system of tools.
1) Bridges (or any other method of transferring work (e.g., objects) from one app to another is a nasty and ugly cludge. A quality toolset needs to consider the workflow and make it as efficient as possible. Unfortunately, since DS and Carrara operate differently, one has to learn two whole systems of operations (or throw in Bryce and make that three). There's no getting around this not being a problem in the DAZ toolset. As an amateur artist, I don't want to spend valuable time learning the DS or Bryce system. And while I am working on a scene (or animation of late), the last thing I want to do is have to save my work in one app and then load it into another, and then HOPE that I have not done something to really screw up what I'm working on. Not to mention the time it takes to save and load files. And as the scene grows, so does the save and load times. TBH, I never really got the whole C8.5 enhancement effort, which is nothing but an expansion of this cludge. DAZ would have been better served focusing on making Carrara 8.5 more complete (e.g., better posing and animation controls). Maybe that will happen with C9, but I can tell you that if DAZ doesn't deliver on C9 (by 2014), they will lose me completely as a customer. (Not a threat, just a fact.)
2) Carrara needs to be a complete and comprehensive stand-alone package. What irritates me is that even though I will never actually run DS (short of someone putting a gun to my head), I STILL have to install the beast on my computer just so I can use a few features that should be a basic part of Carrara. The fact that there are things DS does that Carrara does not do (or do well) is a frustration. I recently decided to acquire Poser Pro to get past that, which (as far as I can tell) does everything DS does (only better, faster, and a lot more). And while I am struggling to figure out how to get Poser and Carrara to work together, I like how Poser functions.
3) If DAZ plans to compete, they should either choose which tool is their primary tool, or acquire additional staff to enhance the tools they have. Right now, it feels like they are spread way too thin to make any meaningful headway, and like others, it feels like Carrara is not their primary tool. Carrara is like a snail in a race against squirrels. Poser makes substantial improvements every 2 years (or less). And new tools (e.g., Vue) are quickly eclipsing Carrara's capabilities. If DAZ is not going to support Carrara and deliver on improvements that are competitive and fun, then they should just say so, put a bullet in its brainpan, and be done with it.
The bottom line for me is that even though C8.5 has just been released, I think Carrara needs a major facelift. So C9 needs to implement a more comprehensive set of features (soup to nuts) that cover the entire production process, and modernize the features that exist. I wouldn't mind if C9 does not do everything well, just that it does it. Then I'd hang around to see that improved.
FD
Hex is dead... but if it wasn't...
The combination of Hex/Studio/Bryce are a good competitor to Carrara. The issue is that they are all completely different in the way they work and a lot of overlap in the functionality. if you were to go this way, your total cost today is about $14 and likely free every other month.
Carrara, if you are just getting into it, the cost is about $300 or if you are a long timer with Platinum club like me, you need to spend $80 to upgrade to the current version...
That is a huge price difference.
If Daz ever upgrades Bryce to 64bit, the reasons to get Carrara drop significantly. Yes, Carrara is still a fully integrated environment but it becomes a question of cost/benefit and Carrara would not really hold up. Of course, Studio + 64 bit Bryce would be really competitive vs Poser + Vue.
Daz did try the different levels of Carrara in the past but seems like it didn't work. Don't know the details but likely it was pay vs free that killed Carrara Basic.
One is not necessarily the best.
Steve Athome - it might not appear like it, but I am agreeing with most of your general point. However, IMHO, it suffers from the same critique that I think Jonstark's call for "all-in on Carrara" suffers. Even before FD gets answers to those 3 excellent questions, there is another very basic business point to make. There is no one single best car. Explained below.
One choice is certainly about specific programs with their specific coding legacies, etc, etc.. But another point is that there are pools of customers, each of whom has money to spend, but is looking for slightly different features. I want to get some money from EVERYBODY!
Or, do I? Maybe I just want to get ALL of the money from some people? Aaargh.
Daz can and does sell content to Poser users. It does not need Studio to sell more than zero content.
Example 1 - There are Poser addicts (just like there are Bryce addicts and Carrara addicts). No matter how attractive Daz makes Studio, some of the folks chatting on the Renderosity forum will never adopt Studio. But, they will buy some Daz content. For this group, every dollar spent on Studio is a dollar wasted.
But wait, some of these Poser addicts use Bryce or Hexagon. If those two (free) programs are further developed, some of the Bryce users and Hexagon users that frequent Renderosity will have additional reasons to pass by the DAZ content store. This is the equivalent of foot traffic.
Example 2 - There are convenience Poser users. They use it, but could be easily convinced to switch. How about we offer something free that can do a lot of what Poser does? If they were coming to the DAZ store for Studio support, more foot traffic, and Daz's legacy content is not vulnerable to coding changes at SmithMicro.
For this group, a dollar spent on Studio is not a dollar wasted.
Example 3 - There are people who want to model their own content, and occasionally sell it, but they are not part of big commercial art firms with big budgets. Can they be convinced to be an unintentional (or even intentional) support network for Daz sales? Could a dollar spent on Hexagon development keep these folks making support products that get Studio or Poser users returning to the DAZ store?
Example 4 -...
Example 5 - ...
How do we know the right balance? I know that I don't know. There are potential synergies between these markets that are very hard to measure.
So, I agree with Steveathome that Daz could just as easily focus on the Studio bridges to Bryce and Hexagon as focus on Carrara development. But in either case, Daz would not be trying to get SOME money from some of the same pools of customers that it does now.
Hopefully, Daz is not staffed by poor market researchers that do not look at unexpected synergies, like things that generate "foot traffic." But they have to pick a strategy. None is objectively correct without knowing a lot more detail - detail that changes over time,
Henry Ford tried to make one versatile, durable, and dependable car to try to sell to everyone (urban/rural, big family/small family,... ) He made a lot of money - until he didn't.
Billy Durant (General Motors) tried to have a suite of cars targeted at many market niches. He made a lot of money - until he didn't.
So, Jonstark, Daz could go all in for Carrara, and Steveathome, Daz could go all in for Studio. Maybe one of those is the right thing to do. But it might be leaving some of the money that Poser addicts could spend on Daz products, or (insert market niche).
Jonstark,
Perhaps I'm stating the obvious.
Daz3D wants everyone to use Daz Studio at some point in their workflow. Sneakily, Daz is secretly trying to turn Carrara, Bryce and Hexagon users into DS users. I will explain in stages.
Daz Studio was created to compete directly with Poser. There is no other reason for its existence. Why DS? the answer is "because" of Poser. Never forget this fact. Poser Poser Poser
Poser does one particular thing, humans, and pretty much nothing more. Such is the purpose of DS. To do more than humans these applications need content produced in other applications. That's where the emphasis on content comes from.
Feature-wise, DS is trying to become more independent, not just a human factory anymore. That's why it is slowly acquiring features such as instancing that were before dedicated to only landscapers. DS is taking over by brute force.
Steve Athome is correct, it would be easier to merge all the applications into Studio than merge them into Carrara.
Truth be told DAz3D has no idea how to further develop Carrara as a stand alone tool, they probably dont have the resources to truly turn Carrara into the next Maya which is the direction it probably should be going. So why should they even try?
DS already gets the lion's share of develop dollars and time. That leaves the other applications to share what is left. On Bryce, Bryce will hardly get the development it needs because the more development it receives the closer it gets to the abilities of Carrara, which limits Carrara sales. IF Carrara were to disappear from the Daz listing, you'd see much more development for Bryce.
Studio is the only application with Bridges to every other DAz application. DS has been positioned at the center of it all, no way it can be extracted now. When it all boils down, Carrara, Bryce and Hexagon are all here as padding for the real application of choice....DazStudio.
@ Rashad Carter,
please allow me to ask, where is your knowledge from and do you speak officially for daz3d?
Rashad talks for himself only DAZ staff members can talk officially for DAZ3D.
DAZ Studio was never originally created to compete with Poser at the time DAZ3D produced Content but there was major issues around the time of the Poser 5 release first with the end user licence of Poser 5 and then speculation if there would not be any other versions after P5 so DAZ3D decided to start development of there own application so that there would still be a content market if Poser was not on the market any more.
the rest of the information is his personal option gathered from being a long term member of the forums.
I am not saying he is right or wrong, But I am a long term DS user who only dabbles with Carrara
No, you're not the only one. ;-)
A few more points to consider about this DS/Carrara discussion:
1) Daz3D is almost all about marketing DS, especially since they dropped the cover price. And if you just click the "Products" tab at the top of your Daz3D web page, do you see DS or Carrara?
http://www.daz3d.com/products
You have to go to the bottom of the page to see the word "Carrara."
And I get DS marketing splash across my screen all the time - YouTube, Renderocity, etc. Yet I *never* see any Carrara ads. I suspect Carrara sells mostly via word-of-mouth. If you don't advertise, you can't sell; if you don't sell, you can't maintain; if you can't maintain, you lose.
2) Cost of the tool attracts a particular type of users (via expectations, needs, commitment, motives, enthusiasm, etc.). The users of Maya are different from those who use Vue who are different from those using Carrara who are different from those using DS.
As an example, in another thread, a user named "digitalcraft" made the following statement after asking whether it was worth going to Carrara as a DS user:
"Thanks for this great info. I am not into modelling really. i want to focus more on story telling. So I need good set of ready made characters, costumes but good animation and FAST rendering capability. I focus more on Toon Shading and styling.
In this context is there any interesting feature in Carrara ? Does it handle large scenes well? Does it render faster than DAZ ? Does it have good “facial and Speech animation” capability ? Can one import DAZ scene as it is into Carrara and improve upon it ?"
Here is the link to that post if you want to read responses:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/275779/
I'm not trying to stereotype, but I'd say DS is marketing more and more to those who want a tool that they can "plug and play" content into a scene with minimal effort; thus, the emphasis on DS as it gets users to buy content. (E.g., they target their marketing on sites that provide free content for download.) And with a DAZ store that is sells content completely compatible with DS, this is their cash cow. DS is just a way to get people to their doors.
But I would suspect (I have no proof) that many Carrarans like to create their own content (otherwise, they'd just use DS). So Daz isn't going to make a lot of money off these people once they've dropped the entrance fee.
So, they can either:
a) spend money making DS more marketable, getting more users (say, from Poser), and selling lots more content
b) spend money improving Carrara and hopefully making money from product sales
Hmmmm. It doesn't take a quantum physicist to know where this is going....
For myself, when I want a realistic (or somewhat realistic) human figure, I load in a DAZ figure. Why should I spend hundreds of hours building, rigging UV mapping and texturing a human figure? Why reinvent the wheel. But there are those times when you want a prop or scene element that you don't want to buy or can't find to buy. That's one area Carrara excels in. Plus there are so many more abilities that Carrara has that D/S doesn't (excluding dynamic clothes), I don't see a need to open D/S.
All that being said, I think I'm going to un-subscribe from this thread as I see it as somewhat pointless and probably will degenerate eventually into a bunch of bad feelings based on what software camp you're in.
Except, the premise of the "Daz should go all in on Studio" argument is that Daz also upgrades the bridge between Hexagon and DS -and improves Hexagon more generally. If so, then Daz would still face the same problem that self-made content competes with content Daz sells.
I still think one factor is that DAZ might be trying to get money (a) from people who want to "plug and play" and (b) from people who like to model their own content. I know that I like to model some of my own content, but I do buy some DAZ and PA content (not just content labeled Carrara content).
Can they have a business model in which they get money from both groups? If so, how should they price their programs (Carrara could be given away for free so the arguments about the current relative prices should take that into account)? And, how should they allocate their development dollars? These are not easy questions, and the production side issues (coding, etc.) are not necessarily more important than the "pools of customers" side issues.
I think that both Carrara people and Bryce people are still content Consumers. As EP says, he buys DAZ 3D content to use in Carrara, DAZ 3D has even given away DAZ 3D content with 8.5 in order for you to use this content in Carrara, and 8.5 wasn't released until it was able to use the Genesis content in a stable manner. So DAZ 3D is aware that Carrara people are customers for more than just Carrara specific products, as are Bryce Users. Heck, I would like to have the money in my bank account that I have spent buying DAZ 3D content in the last 13 or 14 years.
The more DAZ is aware that Carrara people are helping fill the coffers, the more likely they are to spend money on developing it.
My last reply in this thread will be to repeat
and
Sorry for taking up so much of everyone's time. :>