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The Standard edition of Shade sounds like Carrara Lite when DAZ had three levels of Carrara, Lite, Standard and Pro. Stuff that comes with the current standard version of Carrara sounds as if it only comes with the Pro version of Shade, such as some of the render options and other features. Doesn't sound that great to me.
When I first saw the e-mail with the brief description, I thought perhaps they were trying to leverage a replacement for Hex.
Phil, I posted a response in the "DAZ Abandons..." thread with my view on why "promoting its own programs" is not on DAZ's radar. They now promote any 3D software that will give them a percentage of the sales. DAZ is an online 3D store. They promote and sell iClone so they can get a percentage of the sales, just like they do with the PA's who generate content. Same with Shade. Same with the other apps they sell. The only internal app DAZ promotes is DAZ Studio, which is free. Why? Because it generates sales in the store.
DAZ is an online 3D store.
Who are they?
Mirye Software is the software publishing division of Proactive International, an Oregon-based technology company. Mirye Software was launched in 2008 to publish high end, vertical market content creation tools for designers, developers and content creators.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shade_3D
Maybe Daz will buy them if it see value in developing integration to Daz content. It already ties into Unity and it seems Gen 3 was meant for game content tie-ins.
Maybe not, just speculating.
My guess is that DAZ has no interest in buying another software company. Software development isn't their business, it's an online 3D store. Software development requires huge investment and resources. And software sales are VERY cyclical and unsure. You get a lot of revenue with a new version, but lilttle revenue during the time between releases.
What DAZ does do with software companies is develop partnerships, I believe, in a mutually beneficial agreement whereby DAZ will promote and sell the software in return for a percentage of the sales. And the software company becomes another PA. I also assume those agreements provide for control of how its product will be marketed and sold, as well as how DAZ will be assured of compatibility with its content.
Just my speculation, but I think from recent events it's the most likely.
Me thinks you might be from that place north of the USA?
Yeah, but it is in Oregon (so close). They could have road trips to the new office. :-)
I'm sure they have enough opportunity for road trips as it is. I believe one of their investors is located in Idaho. Not sure about the others.
Mirye software no longer brokers Shade. It is owned by a Japanese Company https://shade3d.jp/en/
I can understand them promoting iClone, because it addresses a slightly different market and has some features that are not covered by the in-house softwares, and you can use DAZ content in it. But Shade offers nothing new, and by promoting Carrara, they get 100% of the revenues AND it is more compatible with their available content. So yes, I understand third party software, just not really Shade.
PhilW, as I've suggested before...if anyone thinks that DAZ should promote Carrara, I suggest you try this exercise on your own:
I propose that DAZ can't promote Carrara with a straight face. So they don't.
They already have the website, and website designers who do an awesome job of making attractive visuals to get people to buy the cool products. They have Carrara. The effort it would take to promote Carrara, or Hex, or Bryce, is minor. But they don't.
You have to ask yourself "why?".
But then why promote Shade, which has no stand-out cool features, even less than Carrara if my reading is correct?
Yeah, Phil, you have a very good point. In fact, I checked out some promo videos for this Shade thing, and there's a guy actually promoting how you can do the "domino effect" using Shade's physics engine
...y'know, a line of standing dominos that falls down in a cool pattern.
That's like, 1980's techology...
Yeah, with flashy graphics you can promote just about any feature.
I dunno. I guess DAZ realizes they can't or won't continue developing Carrara, while Shade seems to be fairly active as far as development goes. So DAZ doesn't want to promote a dead end product. That's the only thing that makes sense.
So, "Continuing development" is the only real recommendation we have for shade at this point?
Yes, I understand that Daz is trying to be the Amazon of assets - stack em high and sell em ooh look new shiny and 30% off! The way we've been pushing Carrara is that users buy stuff in the store, and making Carrara users happy = users buying more stuff (whether that equation balances or works in Daz's favour is stuff we can only speculate about) What I don't understand about Shade is, where's the edge? Sure Daz will get their 50% or whatever from the sale. But then what? There's no funnel into Shade users buying more content. It seems like it's a cul-de-sac on the edge of town from a buy more content standpoint, so why go there?
Getting recommendations from others on 3D apps, IMO, isn't guaranteed to be of much benefit. If you survey 10 different users you'll probably get 27 different uses, and all will have different features they want or need. So the best bet is to download a trial version and see what you think. Honestly, one of the big benefits I always hear from Carrara users is it's ease-of-use and intuitive design and stuff like that. That is VERY subjective, and can only be determined by giving it a try. And don't look at the images showing "here's what you can do with Shade" or any other 3D app, because a pretty image doesn't usually tell you much about what you personally can do with it.
As they say, the devil is in the details.
I feel like a lot of people missed this post by StringTheory, which makes an incredibly good point.
Yes, DAZ is all about selling content in the store. So if Carrara is a proven winner that stays in the top 20 (up and down but always present) for literally years and years, why in the world does it make any business sense for Daz to ignore it?
And like StringTheory says, the profit per sale for them is 100%, they don't have to split it with anyone, and although it's very inexpensive for an app, compared to 99% of the other content sold in the store, it costs much more.
Can you imagine if some other vendor came up with a product that performed this well so consistantly? If for example Faveral or Stonemason came up with a very expensive set/prop that sold consistantly in the top 20 of products in the DAZ store, not just for a week or a month but for 5 years+, do you think the folks at Daz would be hiding that product or trying to make it hard to find? I somewhat doubt it.
On top of that, with 100% profit to Daz and a much higher than the average content sold pricetag, Carrara supports other content too, and encourages shoppers to keep buying more content. Not something you can say of Hexagon, as an example, which is bought for one purpose only (to model and create stuff) and doesn't in and of itself encourage follow up content to be purchased that can be used within it (aside from a few courses on how to use Hex).
Seems like there are a lot of arguments here that Daz can't make money off Carrara and Carrara users, but that notion seems to fly in the face of all available evidence (not to mention the other thread about the amount of Content average Carrara users purchase, which is quite a lot.)
I wonder where all the new Carrara users are posting all the questions they must have.... ;)
they get more pa's ?
if daz are serious with shade we would expect a shade forum
Looks like figure fudging to me
in the mythical forum 1984
Jonstark, what does "What's Hot" mean exactly? I suppose you could believe the implication that it's selling a lot of copies at $140 each. Or, it could mean that DAZ wants people to buy copies of Carrara because, as Stringtheory says, it's pretty much pure profit for DAZ. One aspect of human nature is that when people see a lot of others doing something or buying something they tend to assume it must be awesome and it makes them want to buy it. So it's possible that DAZ is calling Carrara "Hot" in a marketing effort to sell copies of Carrara.
Personally, I find it VERY hard to believe that Carrara is a hottest (or even lukewarm) selling item for the following reasons:
Again, DAZ owns Carrara. DAZ has a very flashy online store. DAZ has people to run the store. If they wanted to, DAZ can promote Carrara in big, splashy ads, and rake in those huge profits that some are convinced of. But they don't. The cost to do so is minimal, but they don't.
There's a reason for that.
Maybe it is intuitive enough they can figure it out
Seriously though I have seen newer Carrara users on Reallusion forum for example who have never posted here, only know as they asked me an odd question of so, mostly they just use it.
I think most people who come to Carrara are existing Poser and/or DAZ Studio users who are looking for a more complete 3D environment, while still being able to use their significant investment in content (and there's your advert right there!). Carrara offers lots of features that are not available in Poser or DS, and no other 3D program offers the level of content integration that Carrara does. And the features are all built-in, ready to be used whenever you are ready, and mostly don't require the continual purchase of addons and plugins. And most users will therefore not be complete 3D novices too.
PhilW, I think that's probably the best description of how users come to Carrara. It's even a pretty good description of what led me to Carrara.
Though nowadays, when Carrara is hidden behind many pages of content and not actively promoted, I suspect it's a bit of a "funnel effect", whereby out of many thousands of D|S users, it trickles down to a very few users who come to the realization of Carrara and decide to spend the $140.
Personally, I don't think, in the present environment, I would have picked up Carrara, mainly because I wouldn't have known about it. I still have trouble finding it in the store, even when looking for it.
sure I get it - Blender is free ( I hate the interface ) - try it from when they used to sell it ( long time now )
and still don't like it .
I have to give Shade a
.
It would be a good 64 bit replacement for Hex that doesn't crash .
You can use the tut. for Hex - Modo - Lightwave - Carrara - most any program that does models .
Works with Poser and iClone files another +
Silo is $100 on sale - you can paid a little more for Shade standard version and work with DS files .
Edit to add - its like getting a new version of Carrara for free .
If Daz 3D were going to have a Shade forum they would also need to have had an iClone Forum and a DogWaffle Forum and maybe even a FilterForge, just to mention a few of the non Daz 3d programs that spring to mind. Shade is not the only program that Daz have allowed to resell on the store, just the latest.
And they'd also need to have a Poser forum...
Oh, wait....
Sorry Mr. Big...but I did a thread on "Carrara-izing Blender", and actually, nowadays, the two interfaces are almost identical. With a few exceptions, the interface is basically the same.
Okay, I suppose you can not like it
and I understand there are some differences, but if you set Blender up right and understand where everything is, it's really very similar. Cuz honestly, both apps do basically the same thing. There's just some things located in different places, and some different names for the same things.
Just sayin'....I just want everyone to have the facts so there are no miscombobulations. Cuz it really is a great addition to the Carrara workflow. If you have a workflow, that is.
Me personally, I don't. I just do stuff.
Maybe they are buying it, coming to the forum here to ask their question, seeing all the threads about whether or not Carrara is dead and then returning it.
I liked that thread - I had previously looked at Blender and just couldn't figure it out, but after you posted that thread I downloaded the latest version and tried it again and I kind of like it now. Maybe it's just that since then I've read a lot of modeling books and practiced in Carrara so I'm not trying to learn how to model from scratch and learn a new interface at the same time.
Carrara does undeniably still have some advantages though, even beyond the constantly mentioned content integration, something that is becoming less important to me as my ability to model basic scene items grows (still need it for people and clothes and more complex scenary though and probably will for quite some time); I made a post recently on another site about the difference in replication for example: in Carrara I have many scenes with millions of moderately high poly objects replicated and I regularly see Blender tutorials choke and crash on far less than that.
I saw it - you did a good job .
But I not that crazy about how Carrara works ,so that didn't work .
Now if you get Carrara to look and work like iClone or DS - that I would like .