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Free 3D Animation DAZ|Studio 1.0 Released
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?
No, it is not available for Linux. Windows and Macintosh only.
1) Create software that people want
2) Trade that software for money.
An alternative buisness model is:
1) Help foster a community of developers to create software that people want
2) Connect potential buyers to that product and help them use it
3)Ask said people for money in return.
Maybe it's because I run my own business or maybe it's because I studied economics in school, but I tend to look at things a bit different than most other Slashdotters. You've all be spoiled by the easy access to pirated software, music and movies. In the real world, things cost producers both time and money to make. The reason why we all don't have to grow our own food, knit our own sweaters, or write our own code is because we've worked out a neat little system of exchange called "currency". It's just like the barter system, but a lot easier because currency is universally accepted. You don't have to worry about trying to locate someone who's willing to give you potatoes in exchange for your ability to configure sendmail. I only have a finite number of hours in my day, and a finite amount of resources. If I want to be able to eat, drive a car, and buy other people's software, I need to get someone in exchange for my skills. Elsewise I can't afford to give others something in return for their product/service.
It's really not a difficult concept to understand, but if you want the Cliff's Notes version of my point: "Nothing in life is free." If you want to see what happens with a society tries to avoid the basic laws of economics go vacation in North Korea (or to a lesser extent, Cuba).
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
Does posting a link to their website on Slashdot count as 1 or more of the friends that Thyme3333 was suppose to send their way?
- Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can't it get you out? -Will Rogers
perhaps the Slashdot crowd could offer advice on a better business model than spam and merchandising?
Or... how about we don't bitch about something we can get for free?
How many people are holding a gun to your head demanding you send emails to TWO WHOLE PEOPLE you know?
Better yet... have you ever emailed someone to say "Hey, check out this game" or "Yo, here's a sweet perl module you should check out" or anything of the ilk? The true thought behind this "tell-ware" is the hopes that you enjoy the software enough to email a couple of friends to tell them its worth the download.
For how much real 3D software can cost, I'm truely surprised someone is bitching about emailing two friends about it...
Then again, the open source community is full of extreme whackos like ESR, so maybe my surprise is unjust...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I read an article once about a company that was based on Ayn Rand's Objectivist teachings. The owner was such a fan that he made up a bunch of rules for the company and its employees to follow.
One of the tenets was that anything of value must be paid for. This meant that they didn't have any "free demos". They did have volume pricing, as well as negotiable prices for large customers, if I recall correctly.
There is nothing wrong with charging for your product, especially if you think that it is a good one that many people will benefit from.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
and the next answer is that Blender has a pose mode.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Another thing: DAZ and Poser work pretty close from the releases in the past that I've seen. I have had problems running both under windows 64 bit, and it was one of the reasons (besides Win 64 driver problems) that I had to switch back to Win XP 32 bit. I'd like to hear from people who can install both these packages under Wine/WineX under Linux 64 or on Win64.
And ed has a search and replace function; but I wouldn't recommend ed to someone who is used to working with microsoft word! The same is true for daz3d vs blender only more so.
I don't find it wrong in any way. By registering, they know roughly how many people have downloaded it, which helps them remotely see the popularity of it. By telling two friends, it helps spread the word, which I don't see really being spam.
Since when has word of mouth been considered spam?
$fortune
Tomorrow has been canceled due to lack of interest.
There are quite a few low-end, inexpensive 3D animation packages. Ulead makes one for example. Aside from Blender, there are no truly free 3D packages at all. Truth is, no professional actually uses Blender. You'll see the occasional one-off logo or something like that, but even a serious hobbiest uses something like Lightwave or Max.
There's been kind of a trickle-down in free software. First we got things everybody needs, like an email client. Then we got software that a lot of people need, like a word processor. Then we got the Gimp, which some people need. Eventually, we'll get the specialty applications, like 3D software. It's just a matter of time.
Best Windows Freeware
All but one of the renders on the company's online gallery page features gratuitous cleavage. Just thought I'd throw that out there...
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.
It seems to me that this company is actually asking for a concious effort at the email equivalent of 'word of mouth'. I think that its an admirable idea and doesn't truly constitute SPAM except by a looser definition than I, personally, would accept.
With iTunes the application is free to download and use. But is there money to be made? Yes. By users purchasing the music they want online.. This same model is being used here, the core of the application is free, but content costs. This is where they will make money, not in the application itself but in the content individuals puchase. The "tell-ware" model is mainly to get the word out on the product, for those who perhaps do not read Slashdot.
A bunch of Tech Stuff
Note that this program is only free as in beer and is not Free Software. If you are looking for free as in speech 3d-modellers and renderers, look at http://blender3d.org/, an exellent and highly advanced program.
If it's anything like FEMA, they'll show up 5 days later with a fire extinguisher long after your server has turned into a smoldering heap from the Category 5 slashdotting.
"by relying on the revenues generated by the purchase of content available in the DAZ online store"
Is that code for "virtual-girl porn site" ?
I think ANY 3d-modeler app can be used for more productive tasks than rendering breasts that are two times too big.
In the opposite direction, Zygote, Sixus 1 and e Frontier have released "open source" 3d figures under the name of "project: human", which is more or less competition for DAZ' core business.
Project human figures can be found here:
female
male
and here:
http://www.project-human.com/
Feel free to have a flamewar about whether or not the license is GPL compatible...
I tried using blender once a while back. Now even though I had worked with 3DStudio, Lightwave and Maya I got an anurism trying to figure out blender's interface.
They can't open source the renderer because they don't own the source to it. Their interface is pretty weak and has very little functionality, they have nothing to really offer that could compete with Blender as far as '3d'.
LetterRip
Blender (http://www.blender.org/cms/Home.2.0.html) is totally free, as in open-source, no-strings-attached free.
3D Canvas (http://www.amabilis.com/products.htm) is a fun introductory 3d software for beginners.
Sun and Fun
Blender 3D is a good alternative for the Linux users: http://www.blender3d.org/
Well, at least DAZ is giving it away up-front. Came across this the other day - http://www.daylongraphics.com/products/leveller/op ensrc.htm - the company appears to be offering to make the 'next' version of their product open source if people will donate $200,000 to the company 'Open Source' fund beforehand.
Please someone correct me if I've misunderstood this, but it seems totally outragous.
Most of them. Games, for example.
I think you're missing the point.
DAZ is not trying to create competition for Houdini or even Vue d'Esprit. That would be stupid. There are plenty of players in that market already who have a head start.
DAZ is trying to do something new: 3D clip art. Clip art sells well for a reason. This program is going to take that into 3D. They want people to be able to use 3D models as easily as they use ring tones. It's actually a pretty grand vision and, unlike most dot coms, it's not so dumb, since it plays right into modern remix culture.
We shall see if they succeed or not, but if anyone can do it, they can.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Here are quite a few.. :)
_ Links_List
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Tutorial
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_P ro