Carrara 8.5.0.172 Beta Now Available for Download
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:gulp:
Thank you, bcreek, for the update. I'll be watching for the new s/n. So DAZ loses an employee. The company goes on.
thank you for the update
Welcome aboard? I though bcreek was your favorite customer service manager at Daz3d?
Well, at least that explains the silence. Not sure what it means for Carrara (if anything).
What, you mean that they gave away for free almost all of their software, almost a year ago, and now the Product Manager and Evangelist for that line of software is gone? Or that she said "....are still supporting what is available at this time"?
yes it's Britney from CS
What, you mean that they gave away for free almost all of their software, almost a year ago, and now the Product Manager and Evangelist for that line of software is gone? Or that she said "....are still supporting what is available at this time"?
ROFL! That was pretty darn funny.... :)
What, you mean that they gave away for free almost all of their software, almost a year ago, and now the Product Manager and Evangelist for that line of software is gone? Or that she said "....are still supporting what is available at this time"?
No, Joe, I was actually talking about the future of Carrara, which Britney didn't address.
Geez, you're obnoxious.
Come on, Kodiak. If you're gonna be offended by every single thing I say, then please, put me on ignore and leave it.
I was talking about the future of Carrara too, and merely repeating what others have said. You CANNOT actually be offended by that...
Huuuummmmmmm... :|
S.K.
Ooooooookaaaaay....
I dunno what ya'll are getting so worried about. The product manager left, not the developer(s). DAZ needs to make money to feed everyone Pizza everyday so I'm betting Carrara will get a super overhaul this year and replace Studio as the 'Pro' tool of choice. Once they are done doing what they really do best which is making content.
Okay, maybe not but it could happen in some parallel universe... ;)
What makes you think that?
Perhaps you missed the part where the new CEO said, in 2012, "...after a strategic review, the company decided to jettison some products, and lay off staff as a result..."
And now they have only 40 employees, that's after merging with a company (Gizmoz).
Oh, wait, you guys get all upset if anyone discusses fact vs. fiction, and don't want to hear any negativity...
CARRARA ROCKS !!!
It's AWESOME !!!
By the way, I noticed on the Carrara page that they are advertising "Bullet Physics" as a Carrara 8 feature. A beta feature that is FAR from being finished, or even usable in many cases (Important cases...y'know, like animation and stuff...), is advertised as a new feature.
:gulp:
works quite well actually IMOHO
just not softbody with boned/morphed mesh animation, with other physics motion objects and static mesh it is excellent.
Yeah. Weird. Really...odd.
Yeah, no kidding. Odd....
unless there was a tiny bit of sarcasm there.... :)
Though I'm still trying to figure something out...
Does anyone have any idea what products they decided to jettison? I mean, they only produce and sell content (and/or sell other people's content) and software. And whatever the Gizmoz stuff was, which I haven't a clue.
So unless they got rid of some content stuff...
On the other hand, maybe they decided to jettison some products, but just haven't done it yet. Yeah, I suppose that's possible too.
Anyway, speaking of alternate universes, my version is something like this...
DAZ decides there's huge potential for profit from the software side of the house, and spins off the software into a separate division, and brings in some big honcho from Adobe or Autodesk or Newtek to run it. And then the content side is run by, say, the existing CEO, who was previously with the Provo Craft and Novelty company, and they'd have two complimentary divisions.
That would be awesome...
No sarcasm, guileless. This time. A serial number each month with no release date. And the last sentence that you highlighted...just odd.
Oh, yeah, I know, right?
Weird...
She says "...(we) are still supporting what is available at this time". And what is available at this time is the regular C8, and a beta C8.5.
So if she's saying they are still supporting C8, then, well, that's kind of chilling, IMO. You'd think that of course they'd still be supporting the production version of their product. No need to even mention it, right?
Now if she's saying they are still supporting the C8.5 Beta, then, um, yeah, again I'd certainly hope they're supporting it, since we're supporting them in beta testing it.
The whole "still supporting" thing is...weird.
Though maybe we can just chalk it up to an unfortunate misunderstanding in what she meant. Yeah, that's probably it. We shouldn't read too much into a single statement.
Oh, and I noticed that Steve Kondris, who was DAZ's Marketing/eCommerce/Web manager left in May.
That "LinkedIn" is pretty interesting. Seems like a lot of ex-DAZ'ers like it for some reason. Interesting to read some resumes of names you recognize from DAZ.
The reason ex-Daz'ers like it is cause they needed a new job, LOL! It's a great networking place. There is also "InMail" where you can ask those old Daz'ers whats the inside scoop. :-/
I also read in BFurner's resume (or someone's resume...) that he called DAZ a "$10 million company". I had read somewhere else a number under $2 million, but on reflection I think the $2 million figure was bogus. Heck, that doesn't even cover payroll for 40 people. The $10 million seems far more reasonable, and I assume it's referring to annual revenues. At least the figure is probably in the ballpark.
So if you take the quotes from the article about the giveaway, it seems that before the giveaway it was a 90/10 revenue split between content and software. Which means around $9 million in content and $1 million in software sales. And if you figure that the average content item costs maybe $20, that's somewhere around 450,000 content purchases each year. So assuming the average person buys 2 items a year or something, that means they might have around 200,000 customers (probably less) each year. Interesting. That matches up with something that was said about maybe 350,000 downloads of the free software in the first month or two or something. At least it gives a reasonable ballpark idea.
And in terms of software, $1 million in yearly sales isn't a whole lot. I forget what the average software was running (D|S, Carrara, etc.) when they were charging but let's say it was $200 average. Which means they had only something like 5,000 customers for their software each year. Maybe less.
Wow. That's not much. Heck, if the total cost of having a developer on board is around $100k, then that barely covers the cost of, say, 10 developers, not to mention all the other costs associated with support, software sales and marketing, profits, etc.
And that's total, for ALL their software. Which means Carrara's cut is probably just a fraction of that $1 million figure. Maybe it's just 1/3 or something like that, which means maybe $300,000 per year. Barely supports a few programmers full time.
Though with those figures, I'm guessing that in 2012, with the giveaway and those huge numbers of downloads, that DAZ went from a $10 million company to a $20 million company. Maybe more. Interesting to see how that plays out in 2013. Tough to beat....
Oh, and if Carrara contributes only, say, $500,000 to a total revenue of $20 million last year, that's only 2% of total revenues. Definitely something TO sneeze at.
Joe, do you by any chance own a tinfoil hat? Just curious...
Anyway, the point I was trying to make was that people lately only assume the worst when it comes to DAZ. The truth is though that DAZ has always been much better at creating content than software. I was one of the few who rooted for them when they decided to make Studio free because I knew it would boost content sales and therefore turn their focus back to making the best content available.
That being said, I do not believe they just abandoned all hopes of creating a fully featured program that will make people sit up and take notice. You want bad news? Okay, here's bad news then. Carrrara will be scratched. Bryce will be scratched. Hexagon will be scratched. Why am I saying this? Because of Genesis. Daz Studio 4 was created from the ground up as a framework for Genesis. DAZ might have created an exporter but I doubt they want their own software to jump though hoops to work with Genesis.
So where does that leave us? It's very simple. Instead of having to develop for and support 4 software products and various exporters I predict that DAZ will opt to develop one program that does it all. And it will be most likely Studio. But it will be Studio with all the landscaping tools of Bryce, all the modelling tools of Hexagon and all the animation abilities and special effects of Carrara. Ans yes, I know Carrara does a lot of those things already. But it can do it so much better and it will be easier for DAZ to write their own code than to continue to keep old technology together with duct tape while gluing on the occasional new tool.
So there's you bad news. Now you can all run screaming into the woods and lament the unfairness of the universe.
Important Note - None of the above is based on any facts. It is all conjecture and speculation on my part and is not to be taken as fact.
Geez, dude, and you accuse me of using a tinfoil hat? At least I had some facts behind it. :)
On the other hand, I think your conjecture makes a lot of sense for the most part. But 'round these parts, any negative talk is from "naysayers" and "doomsdayers" and all kinds of bad things, but positive speculation is always right and always accepted.
So, I'll guess we'll see what happens....
Geez, dude, and you accuse me of using a tinfoil hat? At least I had some facts behind it. :)
Hey, don't knock tinfoil hats. It's the only way to stop them damn space aliens from turning our brains into mush with an overdose of gamma radiation or worse still, take over our minds with their telepathic abilities and make us murder little kittens!
The truth is out there...;)
Unfortunately, they don't work worth a damn against those weird looking clowns with yellow pajamas who keep knocking on my door and asking for Hubert.
Believe me, I've tried it.
Well, as much as I truly enjoy the 8.5 beta over 8.1, this problem of not saving due to whatever (Error occurred executing Save) has finally got me to set it down for a while. It doesn't seem to have a rhyme or reason. Sometimes it saves, sometimes it doesn't. For the most part, it works perfectly - for a week, two or three weeks, then it suddenly starts acting up. No biggie, since 8.1 is a true powerhouse. Stable as can be.
All in all, however, I really like what you've been doing to Carrara 8.5 and will support you any way I can.
BFurner, it's been great working with you - and you will be missed. I hope all of your future endeavors bring you joy and good health.