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Free 3D Animation DAZ|Studio 1.0 Released

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the another-in-a-long-list-of-tools-i-need-to-play-with dept.

Thyme3333 writes "DAZ Productions, Inc. has officially released DAZ|Studio 1.0, a free 3D figure posing and animation software package. DAZ has a made a commitment to keep the DAZ|Studio core application free to the public for as long as possible by relying on the revenues generated by the purchase of content available in the DAZ online store. To obtain a free copy of DAZ|Studio, users must register for a free account on the DAZ website and agree to participate in the company's aptly-named "Tell-Ware" program, which asks that each DAZ|Studio user share information about DAZ|Studio and/or the DAZ website with at least two friends." Good to see that more companies are trying to keep their software free, but perhaps the Slashdot crowd could offer advice on a better business model than spam and merchandising?

1 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. A little competition is a good thing. by Odonian · · Score: 5, Informative
    DAZ started life as a content provider for MetaCreations' Poser software (now owned by Curious Labs); DAZ made (and still makes) human figures with superior morph capability and texture detail vs. what comes with Poser, along with other content from various independent modelers who use their site to sell their models.

    Lately they've been delving into selling actual applications; they bought the Mimic software for lip synching for instance which complements Poser by providing automated .wav to pose conversion to synchronize models' lips and facial expressions to a sound clip in an automated way.

    This latest offering will put them squarely in competition with Curious Labs, which I would say is a good thing. Poser is simultaneously one of the most amazing applications, and most annoying applications I've used. The program produces fantastic human figure graphics and animation, but is also incredibly buggy, slow, and memory/resource intensive. Still, it's much cheaper than the higher end competition which is priced out of the hobbyist market, so it is currently the only game in town. Having another choice in the low end would be very good, providing it's halfway useable.