A Clear Minded Decision
jake_f
Posts: 226
For what it may be worth, my feature suggestion is that the DAZ team make a clear minded decision as to whether they wish to sell their products to those who are new to 3D editing, or not. I offer no judgement on that question, as the decision is not mine to make, and there are good arguments to be made in any direction.
As best I can tell, the DAZ team sincerely wishes to serve newbies, but doesn't wish to do the work involved in accomplishing that. That is, a clear minded decision has not yet been made.
As example, the interface for the software is hyper over designed for new users. Zillions of tiny little things all over the place which appear and vanish in a confusing obscure kind of mystery magic. I'm guessing you lose 90%+ of your potential customers in the first week or two. The interface may be great for experienced users, but one doesn't become an experienced user without surviving the first month, which few people probably do.
A potential solution would be to design the interface with levels which gradually reveal more features. Divide and conquer, less is more.
The guided tutorials are a great idea built of good intentions, but they continually refer to things that aren't actually there in the interface, and fail to define terms. As example the tutorial will say, "Click on the XYZ feature", without explaining where in the zillions of ever shifting interface panels the XYZ feature might be found.
It's great that the DAZ software is free, except that it's really not. It requires a huge time investment, and this means new inexperienced have to be sold up front on the proposal that the time investment will be worth it. Clearly you succeed at this in many cases, but I'm guessing in the vast majority of cases you don't.
Anyway, you are clearly under no obligation to accept any suggestion including this one. And I could agree that it may actually not be worth your time to try to serve those with no 3D experience, that seems a reasonable point. But if serving such folks is indeed your goal, this software is not the solution, imho.
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Comments
The interactive lessons are, geenrally, designed to run with the default UI and should point to the thing you are meant to be clicking. If theya re not working with the default UI then please report that as a possible bug https://www.daz3d.com/help/help-contact-us
Well, for what it's worth, here's an example.
1) The interactive lessons did work as you suggest for awhile, and then stopped working, that is, it stopped pointing to what you should click. I'm unable to get even the first interactive lesson to work consistently.
2) There is no menu option called "Default UI". So if a new user accidently messes up the layout of the UI, which is quite easy to do, the interface doesn't offer an obvious path to returning the interface to it's original layout.
But these are minor points really. The larger question I was attempting to address is...
How well is DAZ software performing the function of converting prospects in to paying customers?
I don't claim to know, but it seems there would be a way to measure that by collecting two numbers.
1) How many people are installing the software?
2) How many of those people then go on to become paying customers in the DAZ store?
Comparing these two numbers would generate a Prospect => Buyer conversion ratio. If this ratio was 80-90% then I'd agree my concerns are overblown and there isn't really a problem. If the ratio is something closer to 10-20% then most of the money DAZ is spending on marketing, software development and support etc would seem to be ineffective, wasted, flushed down the toilet.
I don't know what the real numbers are obviously, and don't need to know. Nor do I know what the DAZ team would consider an acceptable conversion ratio. I would agree my report is anecdotal and speculative, except for the problems which I have personally experienced.
While Daz Studio can be confusing and hard to navigate, especially for new users to 3D, it's not any harder than any other 3D software I have tried and I have tried many. IMO if a user is not willing to put in the time and effort to learn an app, then that is their loss. I tried DS 3 times over a 2 year period before it "clicked" for me. I have tried Blender even more times and it still makes no sense to me. 3DSMax, picked it up right away, same for Maya. Rhino took a little more time as did Modo and C4D for me. You also need to keep in mind everyone learns differently and at their own pace, Some need written tuts to learn, some can only learn from videos, no way to cater to everyone all the time
One of the cool things about DS is also a bad thing, it's easy to customize the user interface. I have seen so many posts on the forums of users interfaces and how so many of them are so different from the default or what i am using. There are also many ways to do many of the same things which can get confusing as well.
As for the layout, yes, it is easy to screw it up, done it many times. If you go to window - workspace - select layout you can choose the interface you like or go back to a default. You can even save the interface you have and then select it again if something goes wonky.
Hi Michael, thanks for engaging.
Well, maybe. Perhaps they just go on to some other activity which they find just as rewarding, with less time investment. On the other hand, if a user isn't willing to learn an app that's surely a loss for the company hoping to sell them things, that's the main point I was attempting to share.
Software companies typically take the view that "this is how we do things and you users will just have to learn it our way". Except that, um, prospects don't actually have to do that.
Yes, I experienced Blender as a nightmare as well. Lots of people do, though it must be said not all do.
Thanks for this report. I hear you saying that, in your experience, all 3D programs are not equally difficult.
This is a solvable problem. There could be interface options specifically for new users where the interface is not customizable. As the new user grows in confidence, they can load other interfaces that are customizable. If a clear minded decision is made to serve inexperienced users they should be provided with an interface setup designed to serve their needs, instead of a one size fits all strategy where people of wildly different abiliies are all expected to use the same interface.
Yes, except that the interface doesn't actually tell you which interface is the default. Likely not a problem for experienced users, but very confusing for new users.
My main suggestion is that it seems there is a critical period in the beginning for the new user where they will sink or swim. If they sink, the opportunity to ever sell them anything is lost. But again, without hard data it's impossible for me to say how big of a problem this really is for DAZ. My instinct (based on 25 years of working online, much of that interface design) is that many prospects are being lost to an over designed (for newbies) DAZ interface. But that's just an educated guess.
Have you tried Window>Workspace>Select Layout>Full Service (Beta)?
Michael, given that you seem to be trying many different 3D apps I'm curious if you've tried iClone. If yes, I'd be interested in an ease of use comparison between iClone and DAZ, and any other software you'd care to mention. Thanks.
I realize now that some of my analysis is incorrect. One doesn't actually have to use DAZ software to animate DAZ content as DAZ content can be imported in to iClone (Windows only), if I understand correctly. So if one can't make peace with DAZ software, perhaps that doesn't matter so much from the user's perspective.
In my book its already one of the easiest programs around (after the poser/bryce family of 3d products)
You can click on an actor or object, it appears in your viewscreen
You can click on a limb, and start posing it
You click on the big render button and it works right away.
No rigging, no weighting, no vertice pushing needed. Not saying it couldn’t be easier still, maybe make it like a phone app interface, but to say its hard to use is a stretch imo.
After the first render there is a learning curve to get the most out of it, but thats true for any artistic endeavor. If you pick up a pencil you won’t immediately turn into a Rembrandt or Picasso. You need to invest the time.
So I ran over to the iClone forum in search of advice and got a quite helpful reply from a more experienced user. Perhaps the exchange would be of interest to some.
iClone-vs-DAZ-software#bm399791
The short version of the story is it appears I'm not going to be using either iClone or DAZ and will stick with my plan of waiting for the 3D industry to mature some more. No big deal, as I love 2D video editing and already have too many of those projects lined up.
Thanks for all the replies above, and good luck to everybody with all your projects!
Mod Edit :- Unsolicited Off site Commercial link removed
I don't do animations, but iclone does work well with DAZ products.
The main problem I see with your comment is you are confusing the DAZ/poser community with the sum of the 3D community. DAZ - land is only a small niche part of the 3D industry. The 3D industry is extremely mature and you can create pretty much anything you want in 3D, just not with Daz Studio only. DS and Poser are plug and play options for people that want to create in 3D, but either lack the talent to create models themselves, don't have the time to, or just are not that serious about it. Go hang out at places like Artstation or CGSocity to see how mature the 3D induistry is.
If you are serious about 3D get a copy of Max, Maya, C4D, or Zbrush and start learning all you can as these can handle pretty much most 3D options, you just have to do the work yourself instead of relying on someone else with these same commercial products to create it for you like they do in this community. Without PAs or DAZ creating models for use in DS, Daz Studio would drop in popularity to the level of XNALara
I've been using Daz3d since October 23rd, and I've never once opened a tutorial or sought help from Google.
Last night I figured out dForce. It took all night, but I got it. Attached is a quick 2-hour render with some noise filtering from GIMP.
My experience may not be typical, but I don't believe the software is that difficult to figure out. I should admit that I enjoy doing tedious things, though. These poses, for instance, are done by hand.
Now, I should also mention that I am not an artist by trade. This is the first software of its kind I've ever picked up. I'm a writer, and started using the software just as something to do when I hit a wall or needed to rest my brain. After just a few months, I'm now looking at doing my own book covers. My previous cover artist kept telling me about all these things that this software couldn't do. I'd ask for something (I felt) was reasonable, and he'd say that you couldn't do it in Daz3D. I'd point out some pants or something, and he'd say
"That's for an older model and won't work for the one I use."
With my total lack of experience and my open mind, I've gotten victoria 4 stuff to fit on a Genesis 8 figure, without the shrink-wrap, and rendering nicely. I now have the freedom to produce high-resolution images that my artist refused to do, and as long as I'm willing to work with it, the sky's the limit on what items I can use.
Daz 3D lacks good organization of its catalog. That's my biggest complaint. Search for something simple like "Jeans" and you'll get some results, but you won't see ALL the jeans that are available. Secondary is a lack of good everyday-type clothes and realistic fashions, but I think dForce is starting to make those easier to do. I wish layering were a bit easier, but I've found a nice script in the store that ought to solve my problems. While I'd love for all clothes to just WORK with any figure, I got the time to make it work if its something I really like. Auto-fit could use an update though. I got the Rawr! outfit, and that hat just loses all of its posability if I use autofit on it.
I haven't found the interface especially difficult. Now, if they could just add in a render engine that's AMD-friendly, I'd be one happy renderer!
Customising it not using Smart Content seems to me (just to be clear, I loath it so am biased) the way forward; Visual Menus is what Smart Content should have been. Visual Menus is way smarter - and simple to use, and there is no need to mess with the database, or where content is stored (which I do anyway with my own setup). In effect, I can arrange menus to contain content as I want it.
Edit to correct a type/spelling mistake; no clue which it was.
So I've made a clear minded decision to try to be fair minded.
I decided to stop arguing with things I find confusing or broken etc, and focus more closely on what I want to, animation. I was trying to learn too much about DAZ too soon, and so am switching to a divide and conquer strategy.
The animation interface is a bit cheeseball compared to other apps I use, but it does work, and it does seem an good entry way in to 3D animation. This seems especially true for Mac users, as the best 3D apps seem to all be in Windows. You know, I'd really prefer to use iClone, but it's Windows only, and they are telling me that trying to run it in Bootcamp is not a good plan. And of course the fact that DAZ is free is a welcoming feature.
I found the iRay rendering to be hopelessly useless for my taste, but the image quality does look good if you have the patience of God, which I don't. I've solved this problem by simply screen recording the Viewport, which is hardly the quality solution, but it really does seem workable for me at the moment.
I still sincerely feel that it would be in DAZ's interest to rework this interface to make it more accessible to new comers, but it is what it is, and I'm not going to be the one to change it, so I'm moving on from that.
Whether I will become a customer of the DAZ store remains unknown. I just don't know enough about the store or my own level of interest to be able to say at this point.
One obstacle, besides the cost, is that I don't actually understand how the process of buying characters and assets works. I'll see one appealing product, which depends upon another, which depends upon another etc. It would probably be helpful for someone at DAZ to grab a total newbie off the street and try to explain how this works to them. What typically happens is that those designing any website know way too much about whatever product is being offered, and so they assume all kinds of knowledge which doesn't actually exist in the new customer.
I know the suggested remedy for this confusion is usually that the prospect needs to do this and they need to do that, but imho, what usually happens in the face of confusion is that the prospect walks away never to be seen again. Food for thought, worth what you paid for it, that's all.
If animation is your goal, most of the serious animators I have seen on the forums use high end apps such as Maya and C4D or iclone or unity. I don't do animations, but it's my understanding the animation tools in DS are lacking for serious animation.
As for the buying process, with most things there is a section under the price with required products listed. Bascially you have the base figure (generation) that all others are based on like Genesis 8 female, Genesis 3 female, etc. For clothing and accories, it will list which generation they are based on. if it is based on a certain Genesis generation, it will usually work on all things based off that generation. Sometimes a vendors will create a product that is based off an addon character because they liked the features of that addon and to get the exact look you will also need that addon it is based off of.
Keep in mind DAZ has a refund policy and if you ever find you bought the wrong thing or don't like what you bought you can return it within 30 days of purchase.
Thanks for this input. Yes, that seems to be the consensus. Actually I'd be using iClone already as I'm a big fan of one of their other products. However I'm a Mac user and need a PC to dive in to iClone. It looks like I might inherit a PC in the next couple of months so I'm using DAZ as a place to learn some basics. I'm not qualified to compare one animation system to another, but so far DAZ animation seems better than I was led to believe. It's interesting enough to keep me here for now anyway.
I've been using DAZ for six months or so, and in fact quite a lot during this time, and I must concur with the OP. The interface is extraordinarily confusing. At this point, I don't think I have a clue about what 95% of the controls do (and i don't think I'm exagerating when I say 95%). There no complete, up to date user manual I could refer to. When I look in the documentation center, I don't understand half of what it says. When I seek information I often end up refering to tutorials made by users, and even then, they're often outdated, refering to earlier version of the software where the controls weren't at the same place. And then I read something like, say : " Top Coat Layering Mode set to Fresnel", and not only I have no clue why I should do that, what is a "top coat" , a "layering mode" or "Fresnel", but even if I try to just follow the advice without understanding anything, I can't even find the control because to find it I must first guess that the "lighting model" (or something like that, not sure anymore, and don't ask me what a "lighting model" is, either) must be changed for the control to even appear. This is frankly insane and absolutely not user-friendly.
So, OK, in a way, DAZ is very simple to use. I could produce simple images pretty much immediately after I downloaded it. But as soon as something was going wrong, I had no way to figure out what let alone to fix it. Even for the simplest things (or at least that appear simple now) I had to come here and ask. The community is very nice and helpful, but still, I should have the means to understand basic things by myself for instance by refering to a proper documentation.
My suggestion would be to propose a vastly simplified version of DAZ 3d for beginners, with only the most basic functions (which would probably still be a lot) since I don't think that anybody is going to regret that he isn't able to set the top coat layering mode to Fresnel during the first month of use. And with a complete and up to date manual covering all the functions existing in this simplified version. And with much more tutorials, covering more than the absolute basics of posing, adding props and such. For instance teaching in detail what the various kind of lights are and how to use them. Or how to make a very basic change of color. Or how to create a very basic primitive. Once again vastly less controls but all of them clearly explained. Leaving the users free to upgrade to the complete version once they feel at ease with the basics.
Understanding DAZ 3d really requires a lot of dedication, and maybe I'm feebleminded, but once again after six months I still have no clue what I'm doing half of the time, and no clue how to do something when I want to do it, and generally speaking I feel like I still know nothing about the software. And I keep learning all the time new very helpful and simple things that I should have known since the very beginning (rather than wasting time back then randomly trying to see if the 5th item of the submenu of a submenu could possibly do what I'd want to). For instance, even tonight I learned that there was an easy and quick way to put things into the smart content. Some days ago that there was a command to put a figure feet at floor level, some days before that that you could delete an item with the "del" key, and so on...
I'm convinced that DAZ isn't user-friendly at all, despite being at first glance easy to use (say, when you're following the first tutorials), and is going to leave people very confused as soon as they'll run into the smallest problem. And I suspect (but not know for a fact, obviously) that a lot of new users are indeed probably going to give up for this reason. Also, I think that one should be able to learn how to use a product by oneself, with the provided documentation, tutorials and, in last resort, customer support. And I don't think this is actually possible with DAZ. Without the community support and in particular without this forum, I don't think very many people would have been able to figure out by themselves how to use it.
odastein Daz 3D is the Company Daz Studio is the program you probably mean and we do have a New Users section where you can learn to use your new software.
Thanks for posting odastein,
I'm finding the user guide pretty helpful, it's well written and typically aimed at a level I can grasp.
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/userguide/start
Forum posts and Youtube tutorials can be confusing sometimes, given the vast array of very different people involved in producing them.
What seems to often not be fully grasped is that the people who would benefit most by making DAZ more accessible to newbies are the folks who own the DAZ store. I like your suggestion of a stripped down starter interface, I do think that would help.
I'm trying to sell a "single point of failure" theory. As example, let's say you upgrade the engine in your car so that it can go 500mph. That sounds really impressive, unless you fail to also upgrade the tires. Old tires would be a single point of failure, rendering all other upgrades pointless.
The single point of failure for any complex software is the newbie stage, where the prospective customer is experiencing maximum frustration and minium satisfaction. It doesn't matter at all if the software is super cool and very advanced etc if the newbie doesn't make it through that stage. This is particularly true for the DAZ business model, which depends entirely on new users mastering the free program to the point where they are ready to buy things from the DAZ store.
What typically happens when newbies expresss these concerns is that they are labeled whiny cranks and then lectured about how they need to man up and put the time in etc. Ok, that's not bad advice, except for the fact that frustrated newbies don't actually have to do any of that as they have another option. They can simply bail out and vanish before they ever buy anything, which is probably what most new users wind up doing.
Single point of failure. In any technical system if the single point of failure is not fixed, nothing else really matters.
As I said above somewhere, two numbers could tell us whether any of this is really a problem for DAZ. How many people install DAZ, and how many of them then go on to buy something from the DAZ store? If most new users are making to the DAZ store eventually, then this thread is unnecessary. If most new users are not making it to the DAZ store at some point, then this is an issue worth focusing on.
Have you thought about asking Daz about this, instead of talking to the forum, whcih is supplied by Daz 3d for the use of the customers.
File a help ticket, head it as Feature suggestion or something similar and waft it over to Daz CS, https://helpdaz.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
At the moment you are only talking to other members of the forum community (and that includes the Forum Team, who are volunteers)
If i have something to complain about daz its the install paths and such that its pretty much high skill users. Why the default is in C is beyond my comprehension and trust me when i say, it is very hard to remove everything and install new files in another driver cause, nobody wants to fill over 400gb in C... My suggestion would be if they are able to update their video and make a schooling "how to do". From lightning to everything. I tried blender a while back ago and never understood it then i quit. About a year ago i started with DAZ and was very excited about it BUT when i saw the interactive video on how to do stuff in DAZ it was aged... many things do not look as they where presented in the video.
To change to another hardrive! say a network drive nomally called Z:/
Just open the DAZ Install Manager, Click on gear icon top right, Click on Installation tab, On DAZ 3D Library set new path to something like "Z:/DAZ 3D Library" copy the files saved on C drive to that folder 1st else it will all install again. You may wish to change the Downloads to another location too.
Next open Daz, Right click on the "Content Library" tab, in menu click on "Content Directory Manager" Change the new path to "Z:/DAZ 3D Library" or what ever you used.
Now you need to scan the new database & import the metadata
Click on Content Database Maintenance, tick the re-import Metadata and might as well tick the rest of it.. click accept.. it should all be ticked and click accept again!
Hope that helps!
Well, that's a mistake I've been doing forever (Daz 3D/Daz Studio). And I know about the new users section. As I wrote in my post, this pretty much the only way I learned how to use this software.
But as I said too, I believe that I should be able to learn to use a product without the help of other users, from the documentation, tutorials, and in last recourse help center, alone. If I need to rely on other users, it means that there's something seriously flawed.
Perhaps... if said "product" is something designed for general consumer use
such as soap or a Microwave oven.
3DCC software is not a general use consumer product.
It is often complicated,multi faceted software built by various companies each
with thier own "vision" or philisophy on what will they believe provide the best user
experience
I personally did learn to use 2D computer graphic design software in my 19 year career as
a professional graphic designer for print
as well as 3D/CG software only from online sources.
I have observed that most people simply cannot learn a completely new skill in an Autodidactic fashion
even if given all of the free resources availaible.
This is not a "flaw" in the 3DCC products
it is more of a self Disciplinary/work ethic.. even personal bias issue IMHO.
Why do you assume that because "you" have issues learning something that it is flawed when many more don't have the issue, I fail to see the logic there. Everyone learns differently and there is no way a single app can compensate for that.
I learned to use Bryce originally from a 2 page article in a computer magazine, and no internet in those days (1997). Once we got internet I then carried on learning more and more about Bryce from a forum on the internet, I have manuals, but I learned more from people than I ever did from the computer manual. To my mind the computer manual tells you how the program works, ie what buttons to press etc, but it needs the human imput to learn how to use it.
Here is the flaw in your supposition:
A "new user" of Daz studio is not always necessarily a complete beginner with 3DCC software
as you clearly are.
Many are former,even current Poser users* (* Google: Smith micro Poser)
Many are Experienced users of other 3D programs who only add Daz studio to their toolset for the high quality
pre-made human figures and export them to other programs (Maya, Iclone, Cinema4D)
Some,like myself, have learned, to make their own clothing products with modeling software and no longer visit the store.
Also with free software, the total number of people who actuallydownload/ install it
is rather meaningless( see Blender, Sculptress, wings3d etc)
The only two numbers that actually matter are:
Total operating costs of the store
and total revenues from the store.
And that is not Publicly available information.
Magazine article? You were lucky...
If you buy a washing machine, would it seem normal to you to have to ask your neighbours who have the same model how to operate it? If you work with a profesional software, would it seem normal to you to have to call other companies who bought the same software for help and if possible for their internal documentation about how to use it?
To use DAZ studio, I've been relying almost exclusively on this forum and user-made tutorials. That's the same situation.
I don't know how it works in the realm of graphism, but generally speaking, nope. If you buy a machine tool or a new accountancy software, you totally expect to be able to rely entirely on the training, documentation and support provided by the company that sells it. If it turns out that you have to fish online for information, there's a big problem (theoritically, because in fact it never happens).
everyone's learning curve is different, I had an animated video up on YouTube before I actually posted on the forum about DAZ studio 3 but it took me 4 years to figure out the basics of Zbrush and I still am struggling
Perhaps in the days before the internet ,companies had to provide more
detailed comprehensive instructions.
However even today Manufacturers
of mundane consumer home applicances have websites with more detailed
info on their product lines.
It is the age in which we live.
Many major graphic & 3D/CG programs are online subscription based only
(Adobe Autodesk)
The growing ubiquity of the internet will only result in more
official documentation/training being delivered online particularly for
non tangible digital products like 3D character software.
This is not "problem" except perhaps in the minds of those.
who dont want to learn new skills from this particular medium.
Tying of one shoes ,at some point ,was a new skill for us as young children
we all had to initially depend on others for this and other valuable new life skills.
not the manufactures of sneakers or tooth brushes etc.