As some of you may know, DAZ 3D won a very prestigious award for innovation this year for the development of their new Genesis line of figures. This has created a bit of a stir in the content purchasing circles, especially those who belong to the DAZ Platinum Club, but are committed to Poser rather than DAZ Studio as their program of choice.

I should mention that DAZ came out with DAZ Studio 4 this last summer, and Smith Micro released Poser 9 and Poser Pro 2012. DAZ went with one system of morphs for their new line (which now includes the new V5 and soon the new M5 figures), while Smith Micro went with the open source weight mapping option for the Poser versions. So far, DAZ’s Genesis does not work natively in Poser, nor visa-versa. This has caused a split (or an addition of work) for content providers. Moreover, the PC club and DAZ promoted content and Holiday/yearly sales have been pushing support of the new Genesis figures hardily, making Poser-only users a bit nervous about the direction of DAZ and their support of Poser compatible content.

I found myself concerned about this very thing, as an illustrator who relies upon inexpensive con tent to make my project work go faster. I need clear licensing on a wide variety of pre-made content (much like clip-art or stock photography and fonts), to make creating in a program like Poser, worthwhile. I looked on the forums to get a feel for where DAZ was going because I felt I had not been able to take advantage of my PC membership as well as in seasons past (this is the time of great sales; never mind that the economy sucks and I really don’t have much money to spend: the “writing” was on the wall). I was also finding myself looking more and more at alternate sources of content for sales, like Renderosity, RuntimeDNA, Content Paradise, FoRender and Poser Addicts.

So I found a thread named “Any Poser users still here?” in Members Only forum, and after skimming a lot of whining and the usual complaints mixed with a few good observations, I skipped ahead to page 13 and posted this:

“As if anyone actually cared, here are my two cents…

I have been on the monthly renewal for years – I rarely have a bulk amount to spend for the yearly… that goes into other stuff like food or upgrades.

I used to spend about $50 to $100 monthly here due to sales and such. I now spend maybe $20. I decided to go with Poser 2012 because I needed to move to a new iMac 64 bit machine and I had problems adjusting to Lion (long story short – my machine is so new the architecture will not support Snow Leopard), so I went with Poser Pro instead of Carrara (already have it, still didn’t work well in 64 bit on Mac and the learning curve is still a problem with production… must produce art, not fumble deadlines…) sigh.

The bottom line?
DAZ Studio and Genisis is a non-starter.

I have literally thousands of dollars worth of content (over 50gigs of just content), and none of it is DAZ Studio installed… so I will NEVER try to install all of the DAZ Studio versions, ever. It would take months. Not going to happen.

As DAZ sells more and more Studio only content, they will get less and less of my content dollars. I spent more at Rendo and RDNA these last 2 sale months than ever before… and way less here since the carnival/Genesis product lines started.

Now, if Poser starts supporting Genesis, then cool. I may start collecting in that direction – but I am not about to do it if it is a big pain or requires a lot of time fixing things. Or futzing with technical stuff, either. I make art – I am not a programmer or a modeler.

If this works for them, more power…yada, yada. Dollars speak as the Supreme Court has ruled. As with Apple, it is about unlimited growth and number of sales, not customer satisfaction or loyalty. Thus is our culture.

So, where do I go from here?
Well, Im not on the yearly renewal and so far there are still things I will buy. There will come a time very soon Im afraid, that I will end my PC membership because it will no longer be worth it. And yes, the economy is a big part of all of this. Well see…

-Mitch Bentley”

I rarely post much in forums, nor do I read a lot of them because my time is spent working on images and my business, but occasionally I need information, and forums are one source I use. To my surprise, Dan Farr, the president of DAZ posted a reply to me specifically:

“Mitch,

I certainly do care about your position on this. Finding a good way for all of our great customers to experience Genesis is a very high priority in our development efforts. I cannot emphasize enough that DAZ has and will continue to do whatever we can do to make that happen. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.

Dan”

Whoa.
I had seen that they were now working with Smith Micro to get the issue of Genesis figures compatibility with Poser resolved, but I certainly didn’t expect a direct reply from Dan in the forums. In fact, my forum conversations have always seemed short and mostly one-sided replies from me with little in the way of response from others… normally. I mean, people are busy, right? And I don’t “live” there like some folks seem to. This isn’t a hobby for me, it is part of my business, so my input is often somewhat afield for most. Needless to say, I thanked him in a response and went back to see just how much he was actually paying attention. As it turns out, he does post, though infrequently (a total of 272 at this writing), and usually as an announcement, as a general response to multiple posts in a thread, or to a specific research thread like how the Sub D scripts work in a project. What I found interesting was an earlier post in this thread, which I had missed:

“This is a very important topic and I understand the concerns expressed by the Poser customers about feeling left behind with Genesis. From the early years of creating Poser formatted content we have dreamed about the day when we could deliver something as powerful as Genesis to our customers (all of them). As many of you know the ground breaking Genesis technology was recognized by 3D World Magazine and Autodesk as the Software Innovation of the year. The only way for us to be able to something this big was for us to lead the way with technology that as a whole is not currently available in any other 3D application (yet).

Many people are referring to this as Proprietary but we have been and continue to actively reach out to other 3D application companies offering them the full information necessary to support Genesis. We reached out to Smith Micro over a year ago (while the technology was being developed) with the offer to allow them the opportunity to fully support it. We are continuing to work with them with this goal in mind and are offering any support we can to make this happen as soon a reasonably possible. We are also working with other 3D applications and expect you will see full Genesis support in other leading 3D applications over the next year (Although Poser is our #1 priority). This will provide more opportunities for 3D artists and animators then ever before. We are committed to do all that is in our power to get full support for Genesis in Poser so that you can experience the amazing flexibility and fun to use Genesis technology. Truly great things ahead.

I personally apologize in behalf of myself and DAZ that we have not communicated more with you about our desire and efforts to support Poser customers with Genesis. As many of you may notice we now have put a new link on our home page for Poser users to help lead them to products that are still very appropriate for you. Since full Genesis support in Poser has some elements requiring Smith Micros development to complete, in the meantime we are continuing our efforts to offer as much as we can through the DAZ Studio export (I realize this is not a desirable option for many of you).

On the bright side of this, I am encouraged that Genesis has created so much interest and am looking forward to the day when everyone will get the opportunity to enjoy it.

Dan Farr”

So, there you have it. My brief encounter with fame… and a little insight into what’s new in 3D stock figures. It looks like DAZ will be not only moving forward with Genesis, but also providing Smith Micro with what they need to support it. Very cool.

Cheers,
Mitch