DAZ Survey
Cbird
Posts: 493
Don't know how many have got the latest email from Daz, but might want to watch for it. It is about interest in buying animations. What stood out for me was a question on preferred software which included 3d Max, etc but NOT Carrara. Have to write in Carrara as Other. Might not hurt if they got as many of those responses as possible. Just a thought.
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I too wrote in Carrara. Wonder why it was left out.
Perhaps because, IMO, Carrara has become fairly irrelevant to DAZ. That seems abundantly clear.
DAZ's interest is now in selling content. And apparently animations are one of the new content markets they are considering. Much easier to hire a few people to knock out some pre-packaged animations than a team of skilled and expensive people to develop a complex software package like Carrara, which doesn't really increase their content sales very much.
Or, on the other hand, maybe they just forgot... :) :)
I never received the survey, so am also probably irrelevant :)
Question that we keep asking over the years - how does Daz know what proportion of their content sales is used by Carrara users vs Studio users?
Stands to reason that those who are prepared to pay for their software are also prepared to pay for their content, but in something like 15 years, I've never seen or heard of a survey.
I would guess it was based on who purchased animation content.
Well since they know exactly who owns a copy of Carrara, based upon keeping track of store purchases by user (which is also how they know what not to display when you click "hide items I own" or whatever), it seems like a fairly simple analysis to figure out how much content is purchased by Carrara users. Of course, those people probably also have D|S, so I assume they might have to do some guesstimating. But since there are only a few dozen Carrara users, it's probably not that big of a deal. :) : ) :) :) :)
Just saw the survey and took it. Made sure to highlight I use Carrara and not Studio.
Reminds me of the story of the farmer who hired an expert consultant to help him reduce his feed bill. The consultant found that the red cows ate twice as much as the black cows and recommended he get rid of the red cows. Which he nearly did, until his son pointed out he had twice as many red cows as black ones...:)
I think Joe may have a point.
This seems indicative of a trend. First 3D printing and now selling animations. I doubt that it is an oversight that Carrara is not mentioned as one of the 3D programs in the survey. It begs credibility that DAZ would not have looked over the survey sample before it was released. Perhaps Carrara practitioners don't buy enough DAZ content to make further investment worthwhile. Whatever the reason there seems to be an active search in progress by DAZ for new income.
This is purely novelty speculation on my part as Carrara does everything that I need of a 3D program at present. Thats if I ever master whats there already.
Starboardtack
I got two surveys from DAZ within the last week. This one and a survey about the free 3D print they sent me by snailmail.
That is a very good point. They should include Bryce Users in a survey like that as well. If you browse some of the Bryce Galleries you can get some idea of how much content some Brycers purchase, content which will not be labeled as Bryce content at that, in much the same way as Carrara users use content that is not specifically for Carrara.
I got the e-mail survey. I'm not sure exactly what it is they want to know. When they say animations, I am thinking that they mean video footage of 3D figures that are rendered out..is this right ? So would they be selling video footage... I can see a market for this by those who do not want to spend the time and effort to learn a 3 D program... Off the shelf video clips of various figures in various costumes...? This is not something I would be interested in..after all that is why I am learning a 3D program in the first place...It is puzzling to me.
Starboardtack
they mean animated poses.
things like aniblocks, pz2 sequences and bvh files
I put Carrara in as well.
they are leaving the non DAZ Studio programs to wither and die on the vine.
But we are to blind to see it.
I never got those emails... must of lost them in the pond somewhere.
They don't want my opinion either!
I don't want something new. I want what I already have to work easily and properly.
Just filled in the survey. Plastered Carrara all over my feedback, of course. :)
It's purely "what kind of canned animation you like to see in the store" kind of thing.
Also, Carrara is not a 3dsMax or Maya or C4D class software. Not even 10% of shelf price. More like marketing dept gathering info on a new trend: indie pros downgrading to indie all-in-one suites like Carrara.
Indie pros is a fast expanding demographics.
I see the survey as a positive thing for Carrara crowd, Daz3D expanding their content from (to me boring) stills render and beauty shots, into animation.
Unless Daz Studio suddenly gets meaningful collision + proper physics + dynamic hair, Carrara is still the animation go-to in this corner of CG middleware.
There is money in animation packages, Mixamo Webanimate is sign of the time.
The obvious thing to me is, giving Carrara some renovation is way cheaper than gearing up DS for prime time. Blender/ iClone upgraders and LightWave C4D downgraders will totally find Carrara at home - with a few dev strokes.
I will vote with my money. I will pay "LightWave Lt" rate for a polished-up Carrara 9. I probably got the email because I already owned animate2 keymate2 mimic goZs plus lots of animation bundles in my wish list.
Anywayz, don't worry too much about Carrara. It's such a low-maintanence app, stable, earnest, with so many free volunteer tutors, and the most stable Octane plugin in this zone. It will be around just to keep Poser and IClone on their toes.
Yeah, the canned animation is a nice idea, but at least IMO, from what I've seen of them they are done by folks who think they need to overact and do poses and motions that are overdone or just not appropriate.
What was the canned animations that were old 1980's dance moves, and just silly/goofy motions that nobody in the real world actually does? Most of what I've seen, like with the Carnegie Mellon animations, is students or graduate students who are told to walk naturally, then immediately forget how to walk naturally and begin overacting. A lot like the pz2 pose files you can buy in the store. Just unnatural and no balance or indication of weight and expression.
But hey, it's all about what people will buy, so if people will buy it then good for DAZ
I agree, which is exactly what I wrote in the comments on the survey. I bought the V4 idles pack just seeking some animations of people standing relatively still. Was really disappointed to find that most of them aren't particularly 'idle' at all, more like an ADD-ridden toddler, windmilling his arms and shifting back and forth like his pants are on fire.
I think there's also a possibility that the market niche for canned animations might be viable only for a limited time. As technology marches forwards and the software becomes more refined, I suspect there's a possibility that in the near future folks will be able to make their own precision animations with nothing more than a couple of kinects and the right software, and if it gets that easy I think there won't be as much of a market for pre-built animation packages. I could be way off base though, I've heard anectdotally in other discussions that the current results of hobbyists doing their own motion captures with kinects isn't anywhere near up to scratch.
Very well said, Mythmaker! I agree 100% on all points.
Well, Daz is in the driver's seat, obviously know what the relative costs are and have decided accordingly. To my mind, it would be a lot more cost-effective to write new modules of code than to panelbeat and shoehorn into old code.
In what way is moving from Blender to Carrara an "upgrade"? Except, of course, for the instant gratification of using pre-made content instead of creating your own!
Personally, I think the future market they should be looking at is stuff like the hi-rez face and body scans that are becoming popular. I noticed even someone on this forum got one of the freebies (I think it's a freebie) of an older guy's face and is posting renders. The reason why I think that would be popular with hobbyists is that it is almost the ultimate in instant realism no matter what your render settings. Very satisfying for someone who wants "drag-'n-drop", close-up realism. I think Ten 24 is one of the big names in this stuff.
Since Carrara Pro and Bryce were pulled from the main menu (under Technology), I suspect its not a core business focus anymore. Carrara development is slower than molasses in the winter and its lost pace with its competition.
You will never convince the true Carrara people or the Bryce people of that.
A person owns the rights to their own image. This tech gets used to violate that right just an awful lot. I'm not talking about people who have already sold their image to 3d.sk or the like, voluntarily - I'm talking about digital versions of American celebrities that not only exist, but are plentiful. I would need to see a lot more care being exercised about ripping pictures from Google and making them 3D before I would consider this a good set of methods, because I am no more fond of being sued than any other PA who lives under US copyright laws.
Yeah, that's really about it I think, the potential time savings involved in using the daz/poser premade stuff. And comfort/ease with UI, but that's completely subjective. 'Upgrade' isn't the right term, especially since there are some things Blender does better than Carrara, but I can see the logic in why many indie pros and advanced hobbyists would view Carrara as preferential for efficiency of workflow, and that's down almost entirely to the native use of premade daz/poser content. Eventually if Blender is expanded to include native use of daz/poser content (as I think it will be), when that happens it may change the ballgame entirely; that would really take away Carrara's current 'ace card' and make it all a very subjective question of comfort/familiarity/ease of UI and nothing more.
:) I dunno, I probably fit the profile of a Carrarist but I'm pretty convinced that Daz doesn't consider development for Hexagon, Bryce, or Carrara a priority. Their (lack) of action has spoken volumes. :) For unknown reasons Daz seems to do most of it's development for Studio, the free app that really only has to be good enough to support the daz/poser content in daz's store. Myself, I have purchased thousands of dollars of content over the last year, several hundred just in the past month. I've been a recurring-billed PC club member for years, and I ought to be exactly the customer type that Daz wants to keep and support... but as far as I can tell they don't really know/care and just assume since I'm a Carrara user that somehow magically Carrara users don't purchase much content, or view their store sales through the lens of 'bought some content; must be using Studio' which is ridiculous because I almost never use Studio unless I absolutely have to. I'd rather use Poser than Studio, and I don't often open Poser.
That said, there was another beta released for Carrara a couple of months back and so there is 'some' (anemic) development going on for Carrara. I do believe there will be a Carrara 9, although I'm not confident it will be much more than a few fixes to make using Genesis2 more friendly in Carrara.
Carrara already does everything I need it to do (with a few quirks here and there) so even if development halted tomorrow and it became a 'dead' app, wouldn't change the usefulness of it to me, so that's comforting. I don't *need* it to do more than it already does, though there are some warts/quirks/cosmetic flaws I would very much like to see corrected to make things work more smoothly.
On the other hand, I don't feel like a helpless spectator only or entirely powerless to influence Carrara's future. Carrara pro is on sale for an insanely low price at the moment and comes bundled with a ton of content (M5pro and V5pro bundles) that can be used in Studio even if the buyer decides never to open/install Carrara, and I've noticed that there have been a *lot* of new Carrara users appearing on the forum recently (which is only logical). Some will only check out Carrara to see what it offers, declare they don't like the interface and go back to Studio/Poser, but many will realize the much larger potential Carrara offers, with landscape creation, physics, dynamic hair, robust animation features, modeling tools, plant creation, etc etc etc.
The way I view it, if I want to influence the way Daz views Carrara, then I can do so by being an active forum member here, answering questions as I am able and helping make Carrara easier for new users to understand/use. This is no problem since I like hanging out on the forum anyway, and also this place is always filled with very nice forum members who are very responsive. I've learned tons of stuff just from hanging around the forums over the past years that I've been using Carrara, and so this affords me the ability to 'give back'.
Carrara isn't perfect, but it also isn't broken, and it does what no other software anywhere near it's price range can do. If new users aren't immediately chased away by the different interface and start to realize Carrara's potential, my thoughts are that the userbase can continue to grow dramatically. I realize there was a poll taken some years ago that showed Carrara was the 3rd most used after Poser and Studio by hobbyists, but perhaps if there are even more Carrara users Daz will start to realize that we buy content too. (I don't credit daz with an overabundance of brains, by the way, so I do see that as the flaw in my thinking, but I see no upside to adopting an 'it can't be done' negative attitude)
If I'm wrong, oh well. I've lost nothing, as I like to be an active forum participant anyway, and maybe will have been able to help someone else. Carrara still works great for me, and I don't really need it to do anything more; it would just be 'nice' if some of the unpolished parts were smoothed out.
If Blender is judged on overall features, fluid sim, or renderer options, it is no doubt in $3500 C4D class. The all-in-one on a budget. IF time (and hair count) is not a budget.
For the NEW advanced hobbyists, Blender to Carrara is an "upgrade" on this alone: UI coherence = INSTANT usability. And I say this as a ZBrusher. On CG forums Blender/ ZBrush UI is often lumped in the same "random craziness" category. Difference, ZBrush has method in its madness, more importantly - instantly usable regardless. Blender is "mostly" usable if one had been on board since forever ago, or, have abundant hair to pull out, and have plenty of free time and enjoy scouring for free clever workarounds.
User-friendly User Interface is a key feature too, if not the most important. Blender animation crowd actually gawk at fun chirpy modern-UI IClone, surprising, but maybe for good reason.
I could afford LW for my semipro purpose, but LW is a bloatware. Carrara is surprisingly easy to crack for Daz Studio and iClone users wishing to go further, right price entry point too.
As to rewriting code....
I'm just a former game modder turned modeler rigger not a programmer so no idea it's easier to rewrite DS or Carrara. All I know is my noob workflow will be 500% more FUN if Carrara gets DS-style 95% customizable UI GUI and 3Dconnexion. Not biggies, a matter of dev focus choice. Probably already done for C.9, so I hope hehe.
As to canned animation....
I'm no purist. Purists wouldn't bother with V4 anyway, a canned doll, so canned animation is a good match, functionally, and market expansion wise. It's annoying I can't test clothing in Carrara by simply mousing over canned NLAs like in DS.
As a custom-freak I'm here not for canned everything but Genesis, a fine fine piece of Instance Management, an anti-bloat resource saver. I didn't know its brilliance when I signed up to Daz world in early 2012, now I get it. IClone (or Blender) implementation of Genesis, or LightWave's Genesis "support", is not the same as Daz Studio Genesis.
So when users like me who find DS lacking and unnecessarily convoluted in the custom animation dept (no Mimic scattered anim apps), the only other character animation app that has true Genesis integration is?
Carrarrrra....
The Genesis tie can be deeper and more direct of course.
I was about to give up on Genesis for iClone G6 better dynamic clothing workflow, then I "discovered" Carrara.
The deeper Genesis integration in Carrara, the more Genesis is embraced, the better off Carrarists will be, and the more store customers Daz3D get to keep. IMHO.
In the spirit of this topic.... shopping survey...
One myth around here is Carrarists = modelers/ rigger so aren't store-friendly. Shaders, plugins, add-ons, tuts are products too. And because they paid for the core app, they are more invested than random doll-posing dabblers, Carrarists are more willing spenders in the longer run. As a modeler I appreciate the time and artistry of other artists too. Dynamic items with built-in soft physics could be a new frontier for Carrara store area, etc..
I vote with my money. Just bought some Genesis rigging tuts in the store yesterday not for DS but for Carrara use...back to learning... Later...
@jonstark
Sorry to burst the bubble - here is G2F in Blender - rendered in Cycles within minutes of importing from DS. All I did was add two lamps.
Note the extreme pose with not a trace of poke-through.
Bear in mind that i'm very much a novice in Blender and have been concentrating on modelling, so have very little knowledge of the shaders - otherwise I could have tweaked the skin to be less shiny and done something with the hair, which is actually better looking than it is in DS.
Going through DS and using MCJ's plugin, one can virtually use DS content in Blender for stills. For animation, one would need to add an armature, which is very simple.
Roy, I knew that daz/poser content could be imported into Blender (imported into anything, for that matter, do it all the time to get stuff into Thea to render, for example). Are you saying that there's now a plugin that will allow to load, pose, conform clothing and hair, all in Blender quick and easy? If so that's a game changer.