Adrenaline rush! ^^
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Welcome to the Community Forums at HiveWire 3D! Please note that the user name you choose for our forum will be displayed to the public. Our store was closed as January 4, 2021. You can find HiveWire 3D and Lisa's Botanicals products, as well as many of our Contributing Artists, at Renderosity. This thread lists where many are now selling their products. Renderosity is generously putting products which were purchased at HiveWire 3D and are now sold at their store into customer accounts by gifting them. This is not an overnight process so please be patient, if you have already emailed them about this. If you have NOT emailed them, please see the 2nd post in this thread for instructions on what you need to do
Discussion about content
- Thread starter theschell
- Start date
Adrenaline rush! ^^
Hornet3d
Wise
No TV show or movie is going to be convincing enough to let the viewer know what it is like to be in such a fight, as Ken1171 has explained you have to go through it. On the other hand entertainment industry can go too far, the idea that you can have a fight, be it hand to hand or with weapons, and no one gets hurt can be a problem. I still remember scenes from the likes of the A team where a car gets shot up, hits an obstacle and rolls landing on the roof and the occupants immediately bail out seconds before the car explodes. The worse injury would be a cut on the face or they would limp as they walked away. Now you can say that viewer is going to understand this has all been sanitised but when I hear of people sending flowers to actors because their on screen character is getting married you have to wonder.
eclark1894
Visionary
Yeah, I always found the A Team to be hard to swallow. Also Kung Fu. Kaine moved way to slow to avoid the a$$ kickings headed his way.
theschell
Brilliant
Pretty well been that way with every figure I've seen released in the community over the last 10-12 years (free as well as paid)... and always the same crowd doing the bashing... It's not just Dawn or Dusk, every community figure that has come out has gotten it from the "rah rah Daz!" crowd...
And exactly the same can be said of those who bash DS, Daz and the Genesis range, I remember the venom of the some Poser users when Genesis was first released, that got pretty personal as well. And here again we have a thread dedicated to bashing others choices and perpetuating rumours that suit their agenda.
theschell
Brilliant
I hate to disagree, but it really depends on what the guy is on... I've seen guys whacked out on Meth get mangled but because of the drug they didn't even notice they were hurt till they collapsed. I remember on the news at one point several years back a guy cranked up on I forget what got shot multiple times by the police and didn't stop until he collapsed from blood loss even after his heart had been penetrated by one of the shots... He eventually collapsed on the hood of one of the police cars! I also worked in Hospital ER's on security detail and I could tell you some hairy stories... from there and from my K9 detail in gang turf... The human body can absorb a terrific amount of punishment and some people don't drop even after massive injuries while others drop from something as weak as a noogie, and if drugs or drink are involved it can vastly alter the outcome usually for the worse since they often won't even notice that they're hurt (for example the drunk that wipes out a family of 4 in a high-speed car wreck on the highway and walks away with only minor injuries despite writing off both his car and the one he hit)...
It's that realization that you've hurt people and could have killed them that causes you to loose a part of your self when you have to deal with something in the real world rather than a classroom. They can teach you how to do battle but there's no way to prepare you for the mental repercussions after its over and no two people handle that the same way. I know it all too well from personal experience. I never hurt anyone that didn't deserve it and did everything I could to avoid using force, but even knowing that I'd hurt someone with no other option or choices left simply to protect myself and those around me did more damage inside than it did out...
I know I’m very late to the party, but this is not only to blame on the stores. My first Poser encounter was in 1997, Poser 2, it was fun playing with. With the release of Poser 3 things became more serious. The community back then was totally different, even Renderosity was a different, very vibrant community. With people helping each other massive sites with quality free stuff. Daz started growing and Rendo became more and more commercial too. That’s when things changed a lot in the community. For me a lot changed when Poser Pro was released, that’s when DS also became more serious and a different crowd of users came onto the scene, in all honesty some very unpleasant users came onto the scene, picking fights and instigating flame wars. A lot of the old crowd left. I’m still using Poser, but left the community a long time ago as a user.
Looking at it from a Poser content creator it’s a different story. I remember the glory days of Poser and the sales connected to that. I remember being invited by RDNA to join as a vendor, having a blast. I remember Rendo coming under new management driving a lot of vendors away by adding rules for publishing that highly favored top sellers and ruining small vendors sales. I remember making multiple $100’s a month under the old management, coming to a grinding halt of not even reaching the minimum payout for a month. They became very non flexible. My prices tripled, because of the new pricing rules, basically killing my sales. No discussion possible.
I recall RDNA changing from a blast into becoming a burden with many regulations due to trying to compete with the others and loosing their appeal through it. Their major overhaul back then killed the great community and set in the decline. It was evident back then that those changes weren’t for the better, the site had lost the heart and soul it once had. While my sales were doing well, I just couldn’t agree with all the changes and left as a vendor. Daz offerend me to become a vendor at their time, but I declined, I didn’t fancy all the work needed to update a massive library of content so it could work with DS. Can’t stand working with DS.
Then there was Content Paradise, been there a long time. My favorite store as a vendor. Even after I retired from creating content, I still made a very nice amount from my content each month.... even up to the day they closed.
The problem for me as a vendor is that every store demands a different standard of packaging, folder structure and promo renders, it drove me crazy. It’s one of the reasons I never moved most of my content here. Way too much work for me to handle. Rendo wants this, CP wants that, Hive wants it yet a totally different way again. Couldn’t keep up with all the different demands.
In the end I took a very drastic decision to retire and focus on other things emerging at the time. I stopped modeling completely, rendering after a while too, all in favor of doing art the old fashioned way, by hand. For me that has been a wise and successful move. No more flame wars, no more dealing with unreasonable store demands (not directed at you Hive), no more late hours rigging and testing. I don’t miss those days at all. Creating content is very time consuming, quite demanding if you want to make a living from it.
Don’t regret things though, for many years I enjoy Poser and the community. At some point the oldies left, moved on and some unfortunately passed away. At some point all the moaning and groaning of a once vibrant and helpful community became too much and it was time for me to become less active. I feel more like an occasional visitor now, looking back at what once was and never will be again.
theschell
Brilliant
I gave it up for many of the reasons you mention, plus the gradually worsening attitudes of some (not all) of the customer base (despite having been out of the game for a while now I still have some very, very solid die-hard supporters whom I am very, very grateful for!), plus a number of other factors. Like you I don't miss it much except to miss my long-time friends, supporters, and my mentors (Like BeyondVr and MrSparky) who got me started back before the community went to smash...
The work we have to do to create content as Vendors is greatly underapreciated and undervalued by both the shops and the customers far too often, and the greif and abuse we often have to take just to try and sell our products is often times not worth the effort that was put into the products in the first place... 18 hour days for days or weeks on end, and then days or weeks of beta-testing, QA Testing, tweaks and fixes, promo renders, advertising, customer relations, and, and, and... all for a 20-30$ item that after a store takes its cut we'll see 15$ (or far less) on and someone always finding something to complain about no matter what you provide or how much effort you took... It all drains away your will to create and the love of the hobby...
Then there's having to deal with copyright theft thanks to people stealing your works and uploading them to share or sell as their own, and a million and one other hassles that the customers never even hear about...
The work we have to do to create content as Vendors is greatly underapreciated and undervalued by both the shops and the customers far too often, and the greif and abuse we often have to take just to try and sell our products is often times not worth the effort that was put into the products in the first place... 18 hour days for days or weeks on end, and then days or weeks of beta-testing, QA Testing, tweaks and fixes, promo renders, advertising, customer relations, and, and, and... all for a 20-30$ item that after a store takes its cut we'll see 15$ (or far less) on and someone always finding something to complain about no matter what you provide or how much effort you took... It all drains away your will to create and the love of the hobby...
Then there's having to deal with copyright theft thanks to people stealing your works and uploading them to share or sell as their own, and a million and one other hassles that the customers never even hear about...
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theschell
Brilliant
No not perpetuating rumors, or pursuing an agenda, or bashing others choices... just having a frank and honest discussion of things that have changed in our community and that have had a lasting effect on it, and our experiences with the situation as a whole... I'm quite sure if our discussion here was out of bounds or too far over a line it would have been put to an end by now, the Hivewire moderators have been quite fair about things. We've all expressed view points and been open to a reasonable discussion from various points of view rather than this becoming yet another flame war...
eclark1894
Visionary
Actually, if I am recalling correctly, CP's biggest criticism was that it was almost TOO easy for anyone to be a vendor. All I ever heard was that there was no quality control there.
theschell
Brilliant
True, but it was in some way a good "entry level" market place where new vendors could get their feet wet before moving into bigger arenas, and it did give us a way of entering the market through the official site connected to the program we supported... Some brokerages were pretty lacking on QA, some others are too strict on it, and some had a reasonable balance, though I'd have to say that had CP put in some form of QA assurances then it might not have gone the way of the Dodo. ShareCg has absolutely zero QA for the market place they opened, and the onus is on us as vendors to handle it, which was much the same case at CP. I dealt with it by having a partner to handle private beta-testing so that I could do my own QA and testing before I put any product up for sale...
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Hornet3d
Wise
I can't argue on your points as a vendor as I have never been one just a customer for over twenty years and the think there was another reason for the decline of sales and that was down to the very poor moderation on many of the associated forums. When I stopped posting at one of the forums linked to a marketplace a few years ago I took my monthly spend with me, at the time $100+ dollars every month. Many left the forums before I did and I suspect took their spend with them as well. The reason for leaving the forums easy, flame wars that became very personal very quickly. Most people interested in computer art are not interested in flame wars, nor are they particularly bothered by DS or Poser, interested yes but not bothered.
HiveWire3D has shown that, moderated properly, people can discuss DS and Poser without the animosity and often become more interested or helpful in what, elsewhere would be regarded as the 'other side'.
eclark1894
Visionary
Well, Share CG's excuse is that they started out as a freebie site. And CP's main trouble, as I understand it, was that SMS didn't really want it in the trade in the first place. They did have their own store, and they acquired CP in the sale to E Frontier.
theschell
Brilliant
In both cases the market was an after-thought and in neither case has it gotten the attention it should have been getting... but at least ShareCg is an option for vendors like myself that can't or won't use the few other remaining avenues we have left to us. Personally I liked the CP market place, they took a much lower percentage commission than DAZ or Rendo and it was quicker to get a new product out with less headaches than some other places... ShareCG is much the same and despite lack of attention it's still at least a viable alternate...
This was essentially true - though if enough users complained about your products CP would suspend your store and review them. I do not know if this ever actually happened to anyone. There were a couple of products I did complain about over the years that were not up to what they advertised though. I always encouraged users in my readmes to contact me if there was an issue to try to fix it.
Agreed, I liked that CP took a lower commission than most, with RuntimeDNA being second lowest. I miss that at RuntimeDNA it seemed easier to help tie products in to other vendor products with themed releases, and I do miss my sales there. I remember in the 3 months after I released all of my Ragnarok Viking themed Poses tying in to MV's costume sets I had the best sales ever...almost enough to consider making it an actual full time job (not quite).
While I remember much of the trashing, I will say in fairness, there was a fair bit of it from the Poser community as well. The reasons often contradicted one another, or were just excuses. I remember in the RDNA forums the trashing of Dawn and Scarlet, and even project evolution. Some of the trashing of Dawn and Scarlet was done by the supporters of Project Evolution, and while I do not know their motives I suspect it was based on a figure competing with hte one they supporter. Other's complained and trashed Dawn because "It's not developed by Smith Micro" and therefore in their eyes was not really a Poser figure (I remember this actually being said and long discussions about how Smith Micro were not figure developers). The bashing from the Poser side that really upset me the most though, and was widespread in RuntimeDNA, Renderosity, and especially on SM's "Official" Poser Forums were the multitude of Users that considered Dawn an immediate failure because she was not free and did not have the years worth of morphs, textures, and wardrobe also being give away free. This was absurd and offensive to me - and worse, many of the names I saw in that group were Poser ambassadors. I remember trying to smooth these complaints over repeatedly, explaining that they were shooting themselves in the foot by "killing" content for Poser before it was even out of the gate, etc... It only began widening the rift between me and the community as a whole. As Ken has already pointed out, I remember a time on the SM forums where you could not mention Dawn or Dusk without risk of a ban - and one of the Admins there was convinced Dawn was a character for Genesis (we had a "discusion" in private message about it at length).
And this just pertains to Dawn and Dusk's issues.
Regarding Poser, there were many Poser users in the last few years also heralding it's doom and seemingly trying to help facilitate it's Death. It became clear to me just before RuntimeDNA fell that Smith Micro had essentially given up on Poser. Their attitude continued to drift away from the concerns of the end user and their technical support continued to get worse. When it was announced Renderosity bought Poser there was a fair bit of outright misinformation being posted here by fellow Poser Users. I remember trying to dispel many such posts and linking to official statements from Renderosity staff, and even going to Jenn Blake via email to ask directly for answers and getting permission to repost those answers - and I was met with a "Who asked you anyway" from a few of those posting misinformation. It had me ready to walk away from this community (not just Hivewire3D but all of Poserdom). This sort of attitude, be it by users of other software with hidden or obvious agendas, or by users of Poser (especially by users of Poser) has cost the community creators, artists, and vendors. Having been in touch with some no longer actively in the community from time to time their reasons for retiring were clear - it was the toxicity not just from anti-poser sources, but from Poser users as well that they tried to help. I have been on the receiving end first hand.
All of that being said. I will say, all of those of us who want to see Poser continue and succeed need to find mutual ground. We need to work our way back to being a united community. We need to give new artists and creators support and help where needed and not sink them. We need to make this community fun again. We need to ask for the features that serve us, and ask for those that hinder us to end (continued internet phone in needs to go).
I know I am not the one to do it all - I have too many axes to grind, but for my part I will try.
I saw that as well. Might be related to what I said on the other thread, where when DAZ released Aiko3 for free back in 2005, nobody wanted to buy contents from any other existing figure, and this has happened overnight. That's when the "freebie fever" started in this market, devaluing the work of content creators ever since.
I guess that's the bottom line.
I have the impression the Poser community is very divided, and hostile against new figures. V4 was a good example of a very flawed figure that got extremely popular, while anything made by other people was immediately shot on sight. After a while, people just stopped trying to come up with new figures for Poser, because it was a lost cause. I have witnessed how unforgiving the Poser community was to new entries. That's the same people who later complain about the lack of Poser figures. That's one thing I have seen in first hand when it happened. Makes no sense, but that's how it went.
There was also the turf war between figure makers, like PE vs Dawn vs Pauline at the SMS Poser forums. They really wanted to sink the other figures to defend some that weren't even made yet - quite the loyal crowd. Neither PE nor Pauline have succeeded, but they managed to shoot Dawn down, so in the end, everybody lost. That's a classic example of how divided the Poser community has always been. I wonder if that would ever change.
I know that feeling. Vendors being underappreciated has become common ground in this market. Like you said, it's hard work, in some cases expensive too. Takes years to learn. It's obviously too much work for the price it is sold for, and then we have to hear customers claiming it should be cheaper or even free. I have heard this the first time back in 2005, when Aiko3 was given away for free - that has changed everything. The rule of thumb has become to only buy on sales, which say something about what the market has become. We've got to a point where 3D has become synonym of "dirt cheap", at least in this market.
All of that combined has led to how things are nowadays. Lots of content stores closing, and Poser having almost died a couple of years ago. Too much division inside and outside Poser, where people forgot this was supposed to be fun.
Hornet3d
Wise
I have my own, sometimes conflicting views on the how and why Dawn was trashed but I will not cover those for two reasons, firstly I am not sure it will serve any good purpose and secondly I did not stay around for a lot of the trashing. Trashing a figure is one thing but it soon became very personal and the arguments had little to do with the figures in the end. I left the forums with the flame wars in full flow, it was no real loss as most of the good people of the community had left by then anyway.
I too almost gave up on digital art as a hobby and really it was only finding HiveWire3D that kept me interested. Later the launch of Dawn SE put the fun back into creating renders for me and I moved away from V4 and V4WM soon after. I have tired to do my bit, small as it is, in that I picked up a fair bit from HiveWire3D and I still support a couple of venders at Daz that still create Poser versions of their content. Rendo was one site I left for a few years but returned after their purchase of Poser and now I have caught up with the purchases of content from my favorite vendors there that I had missed out on. For one or two vendors I have pretty much everything they have produced content wise and as I have been buying for over twenty years that is a fair amount of content.
For me Poser does have a future and I do think Rendo have made a good start with their ownership, it is not to everyone's liking but at least they appear to have been upfront about their aims and plans for the future. I have been running Poser 12 virtually from the day of launch and I am happy with Poser 12, Dawn SE combination for almost all my renders. There are many that say there is limited content for Dawn but I can easily come up with over thirty different outfits and, if you add in the supplied texture variations I can easily double that figure and that without resorting to kit bashing. The same is often said for general Poser content but I have no problems spending my entire monthly budget every month on new content and I still have items in my wish list.
Hornet3d
Wise
I agree that vendors and their work is undervalued but really cannot see how that will change at this point. The furniture industry is a good example where they started a sales war and discounted prices on three piece suites and the like and now no body expects to pay full price. While I am sure there are some very ungrateful Poser users out there and always have been I think, customers on the whole have become a lot more confrontational and aggressive. I am getting on in my years so my view of this could be put down to grumpy old man syndrome but I live in the UK and it is only in recent years that violence and aggression occurs almost every night in our accident and emergency units. It has been come so bad hospitals now often have their own police station or security guards on standby 24/7. I know that is an extreme example but having worked in retail for a few years before my retirement I saw the average customer get more demanding generally more aggressive over the period of my employment.