Daz Encrypted Content
PhilW
Posts: 5,145
Daz has started launching certain content using an encrypted format which can only be read by Daz Studio and can't be read by other programs - and as I understand it, that includes Carrara. As a mainly Carrara user, I find this a worrying trend. After all, Carrara is a Daz program and users have paid for it, so it does not seem right that they would be excluded from accessing certain Daz content. Just thought I would share this concern.
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Comments
It's never ending battle against piracy, Phil, which pushes content sellers and authors to take this pain in the behind step which no one really likes.
I been Vue user for some time now, E-on's Cornucopia store is doing this for years, content people buy there is locked with your software license and you cannot export it if it's protected.
They even have two categories, products which are exportable costs more ...
Does not bother me much, as I model most of my stuff, but I cannot imagine how bad it would be for people who depend heavily on purchased content
It is way of the world I'm afraid...
Nothing we can do about it, I'm sure DAZ will make over time all their content like that and make Carrara compatible with this system, more features we do not really need and no fixing the ones which are more then a decade old, lol
I agree to you 100%, Phil.
The fact that we pay for our software and the way we treated this way is embarassing.
I Agree Phil
although, nothing to stop someone exporting as fbx obj CR2 or another transfer format,. also Carrara reads DUF which i would imagine would stil transfer to carrara,.
.but,. perhaps not? .. time will tell,.
Personally I think the idea is flawed, partly because there are export options in DS which would negate any theoretical DS only usage limitations,. and because the business is to sell content, ...restrict it's usage to one application, and you have a less attractive product line for anyone not using DS.
if you can even get it to work properly in DAZ studio
I have been ranting like a madwoman all over the forum that I cannot find let alone access those 3 freebies that are connect only I tossed in my cart other day
I can download other stuff with connect, I actually bought some to test, stuff that will not work in Carrara, that is dedication
a fool and her money are easily parted
From the Daz Connect FAQ
nevermind Misty, Gianni looks good in Xurge
only $2 not hard to find
autofitted first to genesis have M3 clone
then fitted to Gianni all in Carrara 8.5
It's not much that the content is encrypted, but yet again Carrara is seen as an afterthought, or just totally ignored. How would Vue users feel if content were encrypted so that it could be used in the free version of Vue, but not in a paid for version?!
finally a new g2m outfit, but cant use it. miffed as a wet cat
Never mind!
" ... but yet again Carrara is seen as an afterthought, or just totally ignored." As it has been for a long time, now. Fortunately, there are websites with many, many high quality, affordable Poser (and Carrara) items that work fine in Carrara.
Phil as we all know and have said for years Daz doesn't give two bit's for Carrara, they claim there is an update coming out that will give those interested Gen3 support, but how much will we have to PAY to subsidise DS development??
Daz never says anything, they never reach out to their customer base and are just too secretive for their own good, and then they wonder why there is such a backlash against them
I think it's worth remembering that when Victoria 4 and later Michael 4 were released,. they didn't work correctly in carrara,. and that pushed the development of carrara to support those figures,. the same thing happened with Genesis1, and later Genesis 2,. and now it's happening again with genesis 3.
I think the fact that Daz3D have developed carrara to support those figures has, and will continue to improve carrara as an application,
Genesis 3 support will mean adding a different (and better) weight mapping option, while retaining the current weight mapping system.
Daz Studio will remain the "Cash cow" which will fund the development of Carrara, Bryce, Hex,. (all of the stuff nobody buy's anything for) In comnparison to DazStudio,. the "comtent" created and marketed for "all other Daz3D applications" is a tiny fraction.
Carrara stands alone,. as a full 3D suite of tools, where it's possible to go from a blank scene to a final animation, without using any premade "content"
Daz Studio will always be reliant on purchased content,. since going any other way would be commercial suicide (IMO)
Commercial busineses, tend to keep their business plans (in house) and normally that information is limited to a few employees,.
until it comes to advertising the final new product,. then the general public is made aware of it,
I donl't think Daz asked the DS customers about including Genesis,. or Gen 2, Gen3 and the same thing will happen with the next figure or program change/
Carrara users were asked by Daz3D if they wanted to have sipport for the new generations of figures added,. and the poll result has lead us to where we are now.
As content sales fund the development of all daz products,. it seems logical from a businnes perspective that the main income generator gets the cream.
so, generally,.. Carrara users don't pay to subsidise DS users,. It's the opposite way round.
most of the store products are made for DS, and sold to DS users,.
Just my rant :)
since the beginning of carrara in daz, DS should have been embedded in carrara as a character suite and not developed as a separate entity; doing so we would have 2 professional tools, one for production and the second for artists, and daz would have benefit more widely. No complaint anyway but autodesk and many other big companies have been doing this way. At Daz decided to stay "small"
I agree with Phil on this, its the disturbing trend. I wish I had bought Modo back at 199 when I could have afforded it (sold here on daz if I remember right), it was an little know product. (I had paid more for Carrara back then, but Naively though I had bought into something that would grow into the future instead of barely upgraded and a big portion of that for buying content here,. where Modo has had a steady series of real product upgradess that move it forward.over that same time period. FBX doesn't even fully work properly for imports.
So I am talking real progress and upgrades not just the latest candy from the store to be purchased and then limped along on every other front where even DS gets better addons for things. I understand what you are saying 3dage, but this becomes a self fullfilling and self justifing prophecy on upgrades and what to include and what products seem to pay for it. the other companies seem to do okay that do not sell content and making their product better over time, they don't have the ds,r cashcow so to speak.
I know we can't go back to that point in time and say just do X, Y, Z and we wiould have carrara as big as Modo. But looking now is there any reason that Carrara couldn't move to a modeler that people who are buying Nvil, or Modo, Cinema 4d, and other more obscure products and say it does have a top level modeler with all the things people use to actually make content, (thos little things that reduce the work by factors of time, its why littlefox recomments Modo for example) Or making this software more connected everywhere (zbrush is great but pricey, what about 3dcoat), what about upgrades to hair and fur (look at LAMH for DS), look at some of the things to simplify animation (watch someone do things in Cinema 4D) other improvements like the consistant advancement in Modo instead the software mostly fell behind, getting a little bit here and there. FBX motion tracking data as an input. I am not counting using newer figures as major upgrades. A scripting langage like Python officially integrated, how about making a light behave like a camera like DS has.
back onto topic, to me encrypted not encrypted doesn't matter, I buy what I use I haven't gotten where I have multiple systems here that I might bounce back and forth on and that might be a pain. Not having G3 makes it really simple to not spend as much money. This is as Long as I can send it along to where I need to. I hope to one day figure out the Carrara to 3d-coat workflow. But leaving me in limbo land is not cool at all, and its a lack of something but I don't want to say as I may have said too much already.
I don't want this to come across as Daz Bashing, I want so much to believe in the product.
more than a 'trend' I feel
If DAZ Studio actually integrated better animation features then perhaps I could accept that instead of improving DS and Carrara they've spent the R&D budget on a third content delivery/database/encryption system for DS. The plan seems to be to create a walled garden around DAZ Studio rather than open up the possibility of pipelines into more sophisticated software such as Carrara, Lightwave etc. Even the way third parties design add-ons for DS is effected by encryption. For example, designing scripts for DS now needs to take into account encryption.
The whole DAZ ecosphere seems to be becoming more restricted and DAZ Studio is pretty limited as a 3D application so once the user reaches a certain level of expertise what it offers has diminishing returns. Carrara could have been the next step but to all effects and purposes development has stalled and this severely hampers the learning process of those of us who started with DS but want to grow in expertise. I find this really sad because in the video editing and compositing world the reverse it true - the direction appears to be towards more integration and universalising formats. The same goes for the audio editing world. Even the higher end 3D apps appear to be moving in this direction to some extent.
What "higher end 3D apps" are using a universal file formats?
What file format are they using?
I assume, the "high end" programs all have their own file format to keep the stuff inside.
In our range, a long time, the Poser format was an inofficial format for some programs.
Beside this, Studio and Carrara also had their own formats to save their special things they can do.
An exchange format was DAE. But it seems, it can not handle the vast of information anymore.
Just for simple objects, *.obj and *.3ds are still good to use. But just objects and materials. No bones, no rigging, no morphs...
FBX prob the most popular
abc Alembic, is gaining popularity
Probaly the most widely used model format is OBJ which is the model,. (Unboned) (but,.. you can export an animated sequence of OBJ's) (plugin required)
FBX which can include rigging,and was originally developed by Autodesk to be a Universal 3D transfer format
Adobe uses U3D (universal 3D) .but can also handle OBJ and Colada DAE,. which I think DazStudio and Carrara both support, but the history and open nature of Collada and to some extent FBX have meant that companies can adjust the format to suit,. eg: DAZ Collada,. and that actually means it's less Universal,.
There are FBX converters,. to change between different format versions of FBX
Hope it helps :)
Yes :) it does help.
Thank you.
The point I was trying to make, and all of you helped me make it, was that all of these programs use a format unique to their programs.They all include exporters for various formats so they can have some degree of compatibility with other programs.Daz Studio is no exception to this.
There isn't an industry standard file format that every application maker uses. If there was, there would be no need for any of those compatibility formats.
And enough DAZ and Poser users grumble about stuff in Carrara and for that matter Bryce formats so get where you are coming from.
Its just a pity though that Carrara was able to read duf too but now that is being phased out along with the new figures, Poser could with help mainly D3D DSON loader but cannot this new connect form either.
So DAZ studio is becoming a propitiatory Software with its own unshareable format like the big boys.
Just need the FBX to be updated and fixed :)
Lol - the latest newsletter from Renderosity prmotes "DRM free content" - you don't suppose that's a pop at someone do you?!
Right you are Phil.
I like the new line statement in Renderosity's newsletter that says it all: "....Don't let DRM Products limit your creativity...
Shop Renderosity Today!"
I even got a 25% off coupon for my next purchase.
I stopped buying things from Renderocity when DIM came out because I was having issues installing and using their content. (I'm on a Mac.) DIM worked flawlessly with DAZ content. Maybe it's time to switch back.
+1
The reason Carrara is neglected is simple, as I understand it Daz is run by venture capitalists, their purpose, or passion is to make money, not animation or art... What they care most about is squeezing every last cent they can out of this business, creating the best user experience is not the priority. If Daz were run by animators and 3d artists Carrara would get a lot more attention.
If you in it for the long haul, creating the best user experience IS the best way to make the most money from a business.
I'm not happy with DAZ Connect only or DAZ Connect Encrypted content either. As I understand it, both of those are not supported in Carrara, but a work around for connect only content may be simpler (don't have any so I don't know for sure - I'm sure Wendy could clarify this). Unfortunately, it seems as if DAZ is no longer interested in continuing to provide easily usable content (DS) for Carrara going forward. The only official announcement about Carrara and Connect content has been that it is not currently usable in Carrara, with no mention that it would, or even might be supported in Carrara in the future. If you are unhappy about this, I strongly encourage you to voice your opinions in the "No encrypted for me." thread over in the commons, as there are DAZ staff monitoring that thread (or at least they were). I've already made a few posts to the thread concerning the loss of usability for Carrara users, as have Wendy and a few others. My last post regarding Carrara and Connect is on page 21. For your convenience I've copied it below. Other than submitting a ticket, the best way to get your concerns heard by DAZ staff would be to post in the thread in the commons, since it has been stated that staff are reading this thread. Given the current uproar, I seriously doubt they are even stopping by the Carrara forums at all (I think they seldom do it under normal conditions), so your response here will probably go un-noticed.