Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
The $19 does include two coupons (at least the $10 on Daz Originals should not be too hard to spent, but the 10 out of 25 feels harder to use than the 6 out of 18 even if it's 40% discount on the $25 spent compared to the 33% on $18) and a free bundle (what's in it is anyone not subscriber guess), so I could see myself getting it. But I need to know more.
Here the part of the interface hidden by the text (I don't know if there is more to that tool not shown on the video, but the UI didn't change during the 8 seconds of video):
The current level of informations feels inadequate to decide if it's worth $19 per month.
Hopefully, it'll be fixed later today when the working day starts in Utah and they have time to adress all the reports forwarded by the forum moderators.
I also spend too much time on looking for informations already
I just don't see how this works in favour of the customer at all. Rental software, rental content. It is a trend that is distasteful and predatory.
I have Daz+ up to June. Unless I see something more concrete in the premium, I may just use that time to learn other tools that don't require a sub to use and shift.
I haven't participated in these forums in 2 years, but hoo boy, did Tafi/Daz hire John Riccitiello after he (nearly) burned down Unity?
So instead of progressing the Studio as promised, we're all expected to regress back in time to be sold a subscription to an improved version?
Here's a wild idea... Instead of regressing, you guys could have had a subscription for those HD tools. Now hear me out, you guys are already giving them away to the bunch you've brought from the other shop who've done nothing but spam the store with page after page of textures for products that aren't even sold HERE, so I can't imagine it being too wild a concept to let your paying customers actually pay for something they've been asking years for.
But hey, stranger things have happened. Just in the last few years I've survived covid, pneumonia, a TIA (mini stroke), NFTs and NFPs (I'll take another TIA over those aneurysms any day!), and the craziest bit of all? You guys aren't afraid of nipples on product pages anymore! So kudos for that, I guess.
+1 for fixing it later! For the mothly coupons, it's odd they went with a worse deal for the higher level pro-rata. $10 p/m gets you $6, but $19 p/m only gets $10. And upping the threshold isn't exactly a selling point either, as you say.
And not just for decision on the upgrade. Also because I can't imagine anyone that's thinking about an upgrade is going to buy anything at all until it's clarified. For example, I'm hardly likely to get a 20% gift card if I'm waiting for clarification on whether that could be 30%. Same for discounts on the new products.
Sorry, I missed your attachement! That's useful to see. It looks useful for simple fixes, but quite basic, so no grabbing or smoothing for example. Not saying it's useless, but it's not going to replace a more dedicated tool for anyone that uses one right now.
Personally, I'd absolutely not bite for a yearly sub of Premier if it was offered today. Imagine paying $230 today to find it dramatically reduced for black friday or something. :P
Not keen on paying a subscription fee at all, but for a month-to-month sub some folks might unsubscribe during quiet months and wait for the right combo of freebies/sales before hopping back in.
Are all of the tools that are included already available on the DAZ Store? Or are they exclusive tools that the DAZ team made?
Do anyone have access to the premier tools like geometry sculptor? They are in my product library, but are not shoving up in Daz Studio. (I guess they are supposed to be visible in the plug-in list, but they are not.)
They are visible in the plug-in list in the public beta, but they are inactive.
They are not available in DIM, however the public beta version is.
I'm in the Premier tier currently, the choice of free bundles for this month is here: https://www.daz3d.com/premier-characters
(Edit to clarify: you get a coupon code to pick one.)
Not sure if that page is personalized or the same for all members. There was exactly one bundle out of six listed that I hadn't already acquired in bits and pieces. So, I found it quite valuable this month, and can see where the value would fall off quickly if you already do a lot of shopping since many of the freebies would be rebuys.
The 10 out of 25 coupon does indeed feel harder to spend. (I spent mine on some long-wishlisted goodies.) It requires a bigger cart, which pushes you to buy stuff you might not really want to seal the deal.
my membership runs out in December so if it doesn't stay on my current plan and I get charged the monthly D+ more likely have to cancel. Do have some other worries whether they'll release a kill switch in a update in the future and yes they can remove stuff as gamers and other digital content buyers would know does/has happened also memberships here are the one thing so far you can not get refunds for been there myself when I accidently thinking I was just buying extra time on membership I got charged twice on a renewal
Decided to take the plunge at least one month to test it myself and make my own opinions about it but can't seem to find how to activate it or if it's a different version I have to download. I can see the extra stuff now in my product library but can't do anything with it, not seeing anything new in DIM or inside Daz.
How exactly do I get access to Daz Studio Premier after subscribing?
Geometry Editor = Mesh Grabber
Batch Rendering = Render Queue
Both by ManFriday
Simulation Manager = there's a few, one by ManFriday (so probably his), one by RiverSoft and probably a few others.
The exporters? All are already available, free at that.
So yes, everything shown so far is already available on the Daz store.
yet what about the character converter tool?
Several of the tools I see listed on Daz Premier page look like ManFriday products integrated into DS.
Plugins which used to be part of the earlier "pay for" versions of DS3 and DS4 years ago were also available separately, so I hope we'll see the same for those in Daz Premier.
Probably this one (also by ManFriday): https://www.daz3d.com/figure-converter-for-genesis-9
And the pose conversion tool might be based on this: https://www.daz3d.com/pose-companion-for-genesis-9
According to the Premiere page, you get "$10 off when you spend $25 or more on select content monthly". That doesn't sound like you have to have $25 worth of 'select' content (whatever that is) in your cart all at once to earn the $10, as long as you purchase $25 worth of select content throughout the month. I could be wrong though?
Like someone else said, this does seem like a reasonable deal if you usually spend between $25 and $40 or more at DAZ per month, as the discounts will likely total more than the monthly cost of the membership. Maybe we can get some more concrete answers in the next day or so.
Oh. That makes sense.
Not enthused about the breaking of the 'single' version of DS, but it's owned by DAZ, so they can do what they wish with the program.
It looks to me like the 'Base' level is actually the normal state for a current DAZ user who doesn't pay extra for DAZ+.
Regards,
Richard
That is disappointing, I was really hoping we were getting some new features in Studio. I don't think I've ever used any other software that has gone this long between major releases.
I think it works like the Daz+ PA coupon. If you look at the comparison table between the plans it simply says "$10 OFF of $25 on select items"
exactly. This just feels like they're testing the waters for DS5. Plus since it just bundles stuff that already exists in the DAZ Store, it's worth purchasing them than subscribing to this in the long run. I don't even know if DSP will be able to run offline (another DRM tactic possibly?)
Plus since you can't just click and update your subscription (you have to contact DAZ support), I feel like this is more for the hard core audience, since they've done this before with enterprise level contracts, as well as the time they had a short lived purchase tactic (IIRC, a mystery box or cards?).
I have 19 months of DAZ+ outstanding, and was offered 6 months of Premier. Assuming that upgrading to Premier means losing those 19 months, then DAZ are proposing to exchange 19 months of DAZ+ (a $190 value) for 6 months of DAZ Premier (a $114 value). So almost exactly 40% of my subscription value goes away with the move.
That's a very special special offer indeed.
In fairness, I probably didn't pay $190 for those 19 months. In fact, with discounts and special offers, I may have paid rather less than $114. Still, if DAZ were to say "Here, you can have $100 of store credit for $75," and then came along later and said "We'll give you $75 of New SuperDAZ Store Credit™ for that $100 of store credit you have already," people would be annoyed. They might not have lost any actual money, but DAZ would be retrospectively cancelling an offered discount, which is not a great look (and just possibly, you know, illegal).
I expect DAZ to issue some clarifications and maybe even make some adjustments in the near future, so I'm leaving my pitchfork and torch in storage for the moment. Still, it feels as if they haven't entirely thought this through yet, or haven't done a good job of communicating things.
One thing I'd like them to explain is what happens with existing DAZ+ coupons. If I've used them already, does that mean I don't get the Premier coupons this month? If I haven't used them already, do they go away when I upgrade? That's a basic question they should answer.
With respect to Premier itself, I'm on the fence. I am committed enough to DAZ-based 3D as a hobby (by which I mean I already spend a ridiculous sum each year) that the higher price is not an absolute deal-breaker. Still, the subscription model for software means that -- if I make the additional features of DAZ Studio Premier part of my workflow -- then I'm locked in to paying $20/month forever, or at least for as long as I still want to take part in this costly and time-consuming hobby. I've made similar devil's bargains with other software -- for photography, I basically live in Lightroom, so I'm going to be paying Adobe $11/month for the rest of my natural life. But it's something to consider.
In addition to getting locked in to the software, the new model seems to provide for lock-in to specific pieces of content. Quit paying your Premier subscription and any Premier-exclusive content you had access to goes away. DAZ's intention is clearly to make it hard for you to stop paying that $19/month. I don't think that's necessarily unscrupulous of them, but it's something to weigh up when you make your decision.
I'm also wary of the "pig in a poke" nature of the special bundles they say they're offering. Apparently the "exclusive bundles feature a mix of fan-favorite selections from previous releases along with brand-new characters drop from the month" which -- aside from the questionable grammaticality -- raises some unanswered questions. Technically, "fan-favorite selections from previous releases" might include Genesis 2 or even Victoria 3 content. Lots of that stuff was a 'fan favorite' back in the day. And if -- purely hypothetically -- you happened to own an absolutely absurd quantity of DAZ's published content (definitely not talking about me, no sir), then the chances are good that you might either already own the offered "fan favorites", or have already decided that you don't want it. So these exclusive bundles aren't necessarily super-compelling.
The least challenging parts are the increased discounts and tokens. You get about $4 more per month to spend on DAZ Originals, and $4 more per month "on Daz content" if you spend more than $25/month (I assume this is equivalent to the coupon in DAZ+ that gives you $6 off $18, and that the same "only valid on non-new, non DAZ+ content" restrictions will apply. If you're the kind of person who spends at least $10 on non-DAZ+ DAZ Originals and at least $25 on older non-DAZ Original content every month, then you're getting $8 extra bucks of value for your $10 over the DAZ+ subscription. Or, put another way, you're getting $20 of coupons for $19 of subscription plus a $25 minimum monthly spend on older content. Plus the tweaks to tokens. If this fits your spending patterns, then the upgrade is a no-brainer.
I'm not seeing anything (except that 30% gift card offer) in the DAZ+ sale today that I have to have, so I don't think I'm going to rush to upgrade. I'll let DAZ and the early adopters give us some more clarity on what's in the box before I make a move. And maybe I won't upgrade at all. I've been thinking for a while that it might be time to start spending less on DAZ, and subscribing to Premier would definitely be a move in the wrong direction.
Thank you !
That monthly price increase is steep. I'm trying to figure out if it could be offset a bit for me by the fact we get a token for every $5 spent (and now they last for 2 weeks) plus the extra $ on the monthly coupons. On the other hand, I feel like if you have a big library already, the free monthly character bundles could be a loss so I'd rather have the coupon(s).
Having multiple versions of DS is not really something new, though it had gone away for years. DS3 used to have "standard" (free) and "advanced" versions, and early DS4 had "standard" (free), "advanced" and "pro" versions, until they decided to make the "pro" version free.
Those paid versions were also mainly paying for a bunch of plugins which were available separately (with DS3A you also paid for getting a 64 bits version).
The main difference with earlier paid versions is that the new "premier" version is subscription-based and not something you'd pay upfront.
Yes, they simply gave a name to the "I don't have a membership" tier.
As of an hour ago when I used the "$10 off $25 worth of Daz Items" coupon, it was behaving just like the old $6 off $18 coupon where all the content had to be in the same cart. The coupon actually seems more permissive than the old $6 off $18. Fine print says "Excludes New Releases, Gift Cards, FastGrab, licenses, & memberships" which explains why it was working for a combo cart of Daz Originals, Daz+ items and PA items.
The other coupon is for "$10 off Daz Originals." It only works for Daz Originals. Fine print says "Excludes Daz+ items, Gift Cards, FastGrab, licenses, & memberships" which means I can currently put a new release Daz Original in a cart by itself and get a flat $10 discount. If that coupon keeps working like that, it's a guaranteed monthly discount, though in my opinion, new release Daz Originals sometimes have their list price a little too high to begin with.
I’m concerned that the team behind Daz Studio may not fully grasp the implications of promoting basic 3D software features like render queue, sculpting, and improved cloth simulation through a monthly subscription model. Should we expect all future enhancements to Daz to be locked behind a paywall? It’s troubling to think that we might be required to pay monthly just to access improvements in the software. They might believe it's offering great value, but for us, these are bare minimum basic essential features that are available for free and often in a much more advanced form in softwares like Blender.
Instead of creating real value, it feels like they are only creating an illusion of value. There’s already a growing conversation about switching to Blender to future-proof our production needs. Daz's recent strategies have left many feeling uncertain about the future of the software. It seems monetization is prioritized over actual product improvements, leading to a short-term gain that could jeopardize the entire future of the software as users keep finding more reasons to leave and find alternative solutions.
I genuinely love Daz Studio and want to continue using it. I have invested a lot of money in it. However, I can’t ignore the bleak outlook for the software if they maintain this path. I want to see Daz evolve with better tools and features for creating stunning 3D renders, but not if that means locking these features behind a subscription. I don't want to subscribe to have access to tools in software, it ultimately leads to a worse product and user experience, as future decisions will always be shaped by this flawed subscription approach.
If the team behind Daz Studio needs additional revenue, I suggest focusing on the asset store by offering more high-quality products to drive sales. Invest in hiring skilled 3D modelers and aim to release top-tier products on a daily or weekly basis. At the same time, continue improving the software with better tools so that Daz Studio becomes an easy recommendation for new users. This approach would not only boost revenue but also help secure the long-term success of the software.
Ah, I don't know if that's so great then, although if it does work with a combination of Originals and PA items, that's a good thing.
I will disagree on the whole 'rental' software thing though; will never really understand why people are so hell-bent against it when half of the things we pay for in life are for things we don't own. We don't own the movies and shows we watch on Netflix or any streaming services, and we lose access to them if we stop paying. Antivirus services, phone plans, internet access, season passes for games that end after three months, and so on. I don't even own my trash cans, I have to pay the city every three months for them to come out and pick them up each week and if I don't pay, they'll take the cans back. I am grateful that Adobe offered a $9/month subscription plan for Photoshop when I twice paid the old upgrade price of $400 (plus the original $700 purchase) for major updates back in the old days. I don't know, I'd rather pay a little each month and have the latest version than own a version so old that I would look for a newer, free alternative before ever installing.