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GLBDoes DAZ Original mean garbage now?
606Thread Activity
Luxe Muse6 Hours ago
Luxe Muse6 Hours ago
Jackolantern10 Hours ago
Bobb11 Hours ago
Masterstroke14 Hours ago
MKDAWUSSWed, Apr 01
NO not even for $2.99 utter elfin garbage. What is it with these recent 'DAZ Originals' ? Are they generated by some AI script that randomly scales bodyparts and then smooths the whole surface. However they are being generated I'm done with them.
! REPORT
We've had this discussion before:
https://www.renderhub.com/forum/10872/are-daz-originals-really-always-better
For my part, I can say that some of their stuff looks like it hasn't been tested at all - or only very poorly. I've included a few examples in the linked thread.
On the other hand, you can still find good quality items in the DAZ Shop today. These come from established 3D artists like HID3D or Windfield. But to be honest: I haven't been to the DAZ Shop in a long time; I prefer to check here on RH to see if there's anything new and interesting
https://www.renderhub.com/forum/10872/are-daz-originals-really-always-better
For my part, I can say that some of their stuff looks like it hasn't been tested at all - or only very poorly. I've included a few examples in the linked thread.
On the other hand, you can still find good quality items in the DAZ Shop today. These come from established 3D artists like HID3D or Windfield. But to be honest: I haven't been to the DAZ Shop in a long time; I prefer to check here on RH to see if there's anything new and interesting
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! REPORT
"What do you mean? You're not hyped about the re-releases of Julius, John, Nathan and company? Or Zack getting a second re-release? Or Nikolai somehow landing a THIRD one but this time with a slightly smaller nose or a black skin in the promo?
Or maybe the whole idea of recycling previously released DO characters as "new," without any HD updates or added facial detail? Or could it be these new lightweight versions with no textures, designed to save space on your SSD? What about the 599th Character Morph Pack that doesn't even hide that it's morphs are a preset made with "Breasts Small" "Hip Width" kind of morphs and the character hands are clipping on the promos? Only for 21.99! You don't like them?
Maybe you'll like facial poses/expressions pack number 902, where it becomes clear just how quickly the FACS system became outdated. If you enjoy impossible poses with permanently worn high heels, those are for you.
No? But they are new and different! *quickly checks the next two days of sales projections with ChatGPT while also generating the banners for the website, crossing fingers for the sale to work properly when the time comes for the shop's daily refresh, unsurprisingly failing*.
Huh. That's strange, because the sales charts say you have to love them. And you can always go for the daily Vo/PN/MB/Chrrytt/Mouso character, oh, you already have one? Well… this one may be the same but... it's newer!!" - Daz
Do you know what the worst part is? So many customers consume it every day and even praise it on the official forums, unaware of what they're actually buying, ultimately reinforcing the business model Daz relies on today.
Or maybe the whole idea of recycling previously released DO characters as "new," without any HD updates or added facial detail? Or could it be these new lightweight versions with no textures, designed to save space on your SSD? What about the 599th Character Morph Pack that doesn't even hide that it's morphs are a preset made with "Breasts Small" "Hip Width" kind of morphs and the character hands are clipping on the promos? Only for 21.99! You don't like them?
Maybe you'll like facial poses/expressions pack number 902, where it becomes clear just how quickly the FACS system became outdated. If you enjoy impossible poses with permanently worn high heels, those are for you.
No? But they are new and different! *quickly checks the next two days of sales projections with ChatGPT while also generating the banners for the website, crossing fingers for the sale to work properly when the time comes for the shop's daily refresh, unsurprisingly failing*.
Huh. That's strange, because the sales charts say you have to love them. And you can always go for the daily Vo/PN/MB/Chrrytt/Mouso character, oh, you already have one? Well… this one may be the same but... it's newer!!" - Daz
Do you know what the worst part is? So many customers consume it every day and even praise it on the official forums, unaware of what they're actually buying, ultimately reinforcing the business model Daz relies on today.
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! REPORT
To be fair the DAZ forum is part of the DAZ website, so it's not surprising that they block serious dissent. If I had a shop I wouldn't like it if some guy kept coming in and telling customers that the products were second rate. But if i was selling second rate products I shouldn't be surprised if word got around and customers started shopping elsewhere.
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! REPORT
All a DAZ original means is that a published Artist sold all the rights to DAZ3D. That's all. nothing to do with quality. Rights equals ability to sell or give away for the rest to time.
And a DAZ Original freebie, means the PA sold it for a fraction of what its worth. Established PAs dont usually benefit from those types of Rights transfers they make their money over time retaining ownership. You wont see too many Stonemason daz originals for example.
So, yeah, quality is not part of the dicussion at all.
And a DAZ Original freebie, means the PA sold it for a fraction of what its worth. Established PAs dont usually benefit from those types of Rights transfers they make their money over time retaining ownership. You wont see too many Stonemason daz originals for example.
So, yeah, quality is not part of the dicussion at all.
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evarest
Karma: 201
Fri, Mar 20That’s a pretty big oversimplification on multiple levels.
“DAZ Originaldoesn’t automatically mean the artist sold all rights because these deals vary a lot, and many are licensing or exclusive distribution agreements rather than full buyouts. So reducing it to “they sold everythingisn’t accurate.
Saying “rights = ability to sell or give away foreveris also misleading. What DAZ can do with a product depends on specific contract terms (duration, scope, usage), and freebies are usually strategic promotions, not just a byproduct of owning rights.
The claim that a DAZ Original freebie means the artist sold it for a fraction of its worth is pure speculation. Freebies are often marketing tools, tied to launches, bundles, or store events, and artists can be compensated in different ways (upfront pay, royalties, exposure).
It’s also not true that established PAs don’t benefit from these deals. Many experienced artists use a mix of approaches depending on their goals. Some products they retain, others they publish as DAZ Originals for more guaranteed income or visibility.
Using one artist as an example doesn’t prove a general rule either because different PAs have different business strategies.
And while “DAZ Originalisn’t a quality label by definition, saying quality has nothing to do with it goes too far. DAZ still curates what it publishes under its brand, and those products often represent the platform, so quality absolutely matters in practice.
“DAZ Originaldoesn’t automatically mean the artist sold all rights because these deals vary a lot, and many are licensing or exclusive distribution agreements rather than full buyouts. So reducing it to “they sold everythingisn’t accurate.
Saying “rights = ability to sell or give away foreveris also misleading. What DAZ can do with a product depends on specific contract terms (duration, scope, usage), and freebies are usually strategic promotions, not just a byproduct of owning rights.
The claim that a DAZ Original freebie means the artist sold it for a fraction of its worth is pure speculation. Freebies are often marketing tools, tied to launches, bundles, or store events, and artists can be compensated in different ways (upfront pay, royalties, exposure).
It’s also not true that established PAs don’t benefit from these deals. Many experienced artists use a mix of approaches depending on their goals. Some products they retain, others they publish as DAZ Originals for more guaranteed income or visibility.
Using one artist as an example doesn’t prove a general rule either because different PAs have different business strategies.
And while “DAZ Originalisn’t a quality label by definition, saying quality has nothing to do with it goes too far. DAZ still curates what it publishes under its brand, and those products often represent the platform, so quality absolutely matters in practice.
Tenserknot
Karma: 8,638
Sat, Mar 21Have you seen some of the "loss leader" junk Daz3D slaps its name onto. What was in the past when Daz was actually making mlots of money, is not the current business methodology. but you made great points. I did over simplify.
So if Aston Martin started selling poor quality cars cheap, that they got from a no name supplier, that wouldn't reflect on the Aston Martin brand?
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For me, selling cheap-as-chips third party products in the store is one thing, putting your own badge on them is quite a different thing
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I haven't bought much from the Daz store over the past few years, but there's always been some garbage. And "Daz Originals" has never been a quality signal for me.
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Guess it depends on what your after. I bought the crap out of Digital Delirium's PBR shaders and Enterables buildings before I dropped the Daz membership alittle over a year ago. Actually been thinking about going for one of the month long memberships because they both have some Daz originals that they've made over the last year that I'm interested in.
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What I'm looking for.. no strike that, What I expect from DAZ Originals are products that push the limits of the application, be that realistic characters, environments, shaders or whatever. IMHO a DAZ Originals products should be a showcase for the capabilities of the program., and a vehicle for demonstrating new techniques and methods. Maybe I expect too much, it certainly seems so. I have no problem with the occasional 'fun' freebie, like the deflatable pony but I don't like to see a decline in standards.
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stevenjoseph8844
Karma: 2,232
Sat, Mar 21Their decline in standards began long ago. They no longer treat content as assets for 3D users. They treat it as trinkets to be used in their marketing game.
I have never seen a company devalue their own product much as Daz Productions does. And I mean Daz content as a whole. Daz Originals or not.
I have never seen a company devalue their own product much as Daz Productions does. And I mean Daz content as a whole. Daz Originals or not.
Quote:"Their decline in standards began long ago. They no longer treat content as assets for 3D users. They treat it as trinkets to be used in their marketing game.
I have never seen a company devalue their own product much as Daz Productions does. And I mean Daz content as a whole. Daz Originals or not."
Well, to be fair, they treat their content as assets for Daz studio users specifically because the general 3D market completely ignores the Daz ecosystem.
I was a poser user since Fractal Designs poser 2, in the 1990s.
I witnessed the evolution of poser and eventually Daz studio, from the late 1990s all the way up until today.
When Daz invented the Genesis figure platform, they had very ambitious plans to become a 3D figure Content market for the entire 3D/CG industry including the video game content market.
What they failed,miserably, to anticipate was that all of the other major 3DCC programs would develop their own separate ecosystems for bespoke and prefabricated content in application native formats ,instead of depending on third party providers with dodgey export/ translation plugins like Daz, Reallusion or poser.
Lets be frank ,the core user base of Daz studio is made up almost entirely of hobbyists who aren't working ,in any professional capacity, in the general 3D/CG film animation or game development industry.
Daz ,and by extension, poser, has no other demographic to which to market their products.
I think what many people are viewing as a "decline" in the quality of Daz content is more a matter of simple stagnation.
The Genesis figure technology has hit a technological plateau.
There really is nothing more they can do to enhance the experience for even the core user base to say nothing of drawing in new users, considering that even the best Genesis models version 8, ( Rendered in Iray.),
Can frankly no longer compete with what people can produce with generative AI.
(without the cost of buying a local$$$NIVIDIA$$ GPU)
It it's probably a bit early to tell, so it would be sheer speculation on my part.
However, there appears to be a general decline in people participating and all of the 3D content markets, at least from the perspective of spending money as we have seen to the sudden closure of the flipped normals,3D/tutorial content market.
The major blender add-on market known as "superhive" (Formerly blender market) has announced that you will no longer receive free lifetime updates for your purchased blender addons and will have to repurchase your addons every year.( at fifty percent of the original base price)
Or you can alternatively freeze your version of Blender to prevent future updates from breaking your existing installed addons.
One of the owners of "superhive" is actually participating in a very heated thread over on blenderartist.org where he is basically admitting that the reason for doing this is that the site is very nearly no longer economically viable and needs this revenue from people now having to renew all of their add-ons every year.
Interesting times ahead.
I'm so glad to be a retired pensioner.
I have never seen a company devalue their own product much as Daz Productions does. And I mean Daz content as a whole. Daz Originals or not."
Well, to be fair, they treat their content as assets for Daz studio users specifically because the general 3D market completely ignores the Daz ecosystem.
I was a poser user since Fractal Designs poser 2, in the 1990s.
I witnessed the evolution of poser and eventually Daz studio, from the late 1990s all the way up until today.
When Daz invented the Genesis figure platform, they had very ambitious plans to become a 3D figure Content market for the entire 3D/CG industry including the video game content market.
What they failed,miserably, to anticipate was that all of the other major 3DCC programs would develop their own separate ecosystems for bespoke and prefabricated content in application native formats ,instead of depending on third party providers with dodgey export/ translation plugins like Daz, Reallusion or poser.
Lets be frank ,the core user base of Daz studio is made up almost entirely of hobbyists who aren't working ,in any professional capacity, in the general 3D/CG film animation or game development industry.
Daz ,and by extension, poser, has no other demographic to which to market their products.
I think what many people are viewing as a "decline" in the quality of Daz content is more a matter of simple stagnation.
The Genesis figure technology has hit a technological plateau.
There really is nothing more they can do to enhance the experience for even the core user base to say nothing of drawing in new users, considering that even the best Genesis models version 8, ( Rendered in Iray.),
Can frankly no longer compete with what people can produce with generative AI.
(without the cost of buying a local$$$NIVIDIA$$ GPU)
It it's probably a bit early to tell, so it would be sheer speculation on my part.
However, there appears to be a general decline in people participating and all of the 3D content markets, at least from the perspective of spending money as we have seen to the sudden closure of the flipped normals,3D/tutorial content market.
The major blender add-on market known as "superhive" (Formerly blender market) has announced that you will no longer receive free lifetime updates for your purchased blender addons and will have to repurchase your addons every year.( at fifty percent of the original base price)
Or you can alternatively freeze your version of Blender to prevent future updates from breaking your existing installed addons.
One of the owners of "superhive" is actually participating in a very heated thread over on blenderartist.org where he is basically admitting that the reason for doing this is that the site is very nearly no longer economically viable and needs this revenue from people now having to renew all of their add-ons every year.
Interesting times ahead.
I'm so glad to be a retired pensioner.
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! REPORT
Bobb
Karma: 1,208
Sun, Mar 22This is an excellent treatise. Thanks for taking the time to put many aspects of our hobby into perspective.
I'm also retired on a nice government (military) pension and like you, started with the very first version of Poser that I got on a CD that was included with an issue of 'Boot' magazine.
A point that I like to bring up is to ask how many users are just 'playing with dolls'? They're not looking for amazing renders or incredibly lifelike closeups, they just want to spend a fun evening loading some characters, dressing them up, then posing them with props. In effect, playing out fantasies much like we all did as kids with Barbie, Ken, Gi Joe or whatever. AI takes that away. I've brought this up in other forums and was surprised at the number of people who (sheepishly) mentioned that that's all they're doing too.
I'm sure that Superhive's new policy will drive many/some/a lot of folks to the pirate sites.
My question to you is.....what would you like to see Daz do? As you mentioned, there's a LOT of changes going on right now.
Thanks again!
Robb.
I'm also retired on a nice government (military) pension and like you, started with the very first version of Poser that I got on a CD that was included with an issue of 'Boot' magazine.
A point that I like to bring up is to ask how many users are just 'playing with dolls'? They're not looking for amazing renders or incredibly lifelike closeups, they just want to spend a fun evening loading some characters, dressing them up, then posing them with props. In effect, playing out fantasies much like we all did as kids with Barbie, Ken, Gi Joe or whatever. AI takes that away. I've brought this up in other forums and was surprised at the number of people who (sheepishly) mentioned that that's all they're doing too.
I'm sure that Superhive's new policy will drive many/some/a lot of folks to the pirate sites.
My question to you is.....what would you like to see Daz do? As you mentioned, there's a LOT of changes going on right now.
Thanks again!
Robb.
Quote:My question to you is.....what would you like to see Daz do? As you mentioned, there's a LOT of changes going on right now.
I honestly do not see that there's anything that Daz or the larger prefab 3D content markets can do at this point except for trying to foment it existing customer loyalty.
For the longest time, Daz could at least depend on the reality that the majority of their user base were never going to become skilled enough at 3D Modeling to produce their own clothing and scene prop content or sculpted their own character morphs.
This dependency on their user base continually having to visit the content store to get specific content was at the core of the Daz business model.
Well, that business model has been completely and thoroughly shattered.
For any market to continue to be profitable, they have to have new incoming customer growth that exceeds inflation and their
ever-increasing operational costs.
I ask this ,Where is the next new generation of Daz studio users going to come from in 2026 and beyond
and how will they afford the GPU need for that outdated Iray render engine.?
The very fact that poser still actually exists is a scathing indictment of Daz's failure to completely capture a naturally adjacent user base all of these years after Genesis one and poser is vestigial necroware at the point.
So it is no surprise that Daz failed to appeal to the various demographics of Autodesk. Maxon , Blender, and now they're having to compete with a technology that enables people to literally conjure & combine separate elements of visual content into existence simply by requesting it.
I honestly do not see that there's anything that Daz or the larger prefab 3D content markets can do at this point except for trying to foment it existing customer loyalty.
For the longest time, Daz could at least depend on the reality that the majority of their user base were never going to become skilled enough at 3D Modeling to produce their own clothing and scene prop content or sculpted their own character morphs.
This dependency on their user base continually having to visit the content store to get specific content was at the core of the Daz business model.
Well, that business model has been completely and thoroughly shattered.
For any market to continue to be profitable, they have to have new incoming customer growth that exceeds inflation and their
ever-increasing operational costs.
I ask this ,Where is the next new generation of Daz studio users going to come from in 2026 and beyond
and how will they afford the GPU need for that outdated Iray render engine.?
The very fact that poser still actually exists is a scathing indictment of Daz's failure to completely capture a naturally adjacent user base all of these years after Genesis one and poser is vestigial necroware at the point.
So it is no surprise that Daz failed to appeal to the various demographics of Autodesk. Maxon , Blender, and now they're having to compete with a technology that enables people to literally conjure & combine separate elements of visual content into existence simply by requesting it.
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Bobb
Karma: 1,208
Sun, Mar 22I'm sure that some part of the downturn is the lack of money due to the ass crap economy.
When it all goes bust and Daz goes under, Studio and all my content will still work and I can still 'play dolls'
When it all goes bust and Daz goes under, Studio and all my content will still work and I can still 'play dolls'
Tenserknot
Karma: 8,638
Sat, Mar 28only if you manually installed, and have the original product zip downloads. items auto loaded through the manager might have issues.
Bobb
Karma: 1,208
Sat, Mar 28I Never use DIM or any automatic installer. I manually download and install everything and have everything backed up in three places, two offline on good old Western Digital drives in caddies.
I lost stuff once a long time ago and I'm NOT going through the crushing heartbreak of losing stuff....again. Hard drives are cheap compared to the price of purchased items, or the many, many (many,MANY) hours spent downloading the complete Playboy collection from the usenet.
Oops...you didn't read that did you? Lets go back and erase that. ;_)
I lost stuff once a long time ago and I'm NOT going through the crushing heartbreak of losing stuff....again. Hard drives are cheap compared to the price of purchased items, or the many, many (many,MANY) hours spent downloading the complete Playboy collection from the usenet.
Oops...you didn't read that did you? Lets go back and erase that. ;_)
Katsuyaki
Karma: 3,011
Sun, Mar 29That's my workstyle exactly. Manual downloads, manual installs, multiple back-ups. I learned it the hard way, and it hasn't failed me yet.
Quote:When it all goes bust and Daz goes under, Studio and all my content will still work and I can still 'play dolls'
I honestly don't see Daz literally going under anytime soon.
I mean, I did read a rumor somewhere that most of the Daz staff now are working remotely from home.
So they're probably are saving quite a bit of money on office space rental and as long as they can make enough revenue to pay their server hosting fees with AWS ( or whomever they're using).
They could probably linger on for many years, just milking out as much cash as they can from the group of loyalists who remain
on the Daz content hamster wheel ,rebuying their content every time a "NEW" base figure is released and paying monthly rent for the advanced features of Daz studio
The way I see things unfolding is that the secondary markets will probably go under first.
Much like we just saw with
flipped normals and the license changes causing all of the controversy right now in the main blender content market
"SuperHive."
Things are tightening down all over probably due to broader economic pressures,
Grok AI just eliminated their free tier for making AI videos.
Thankfully, I had already upgraded to the paid tier called "grok super" so I can continue to make my HD animations.
I'm restricting myself to two paid AI services.
One over at Mage.space
for their amazing 2D cartoon and comic styles,
and ability to create & reuse characters in any scene (sound familiar?)
and of course grok for animation.
I have no plans to go back to using traditional 3D/2D animation softwares...(Blender ,Iclone etc)
I have even taken up pencil drawing again, on laundry days only when I go offline for a few hours
( but I still use AI to colorize my drawings.)
I honestly don't see Daz literally going under anytime soon.
I mean, I did read a rumor somewhere that most of the Daz staff now are working remotely from home.
So they're probably are saving quite a bit of money on office space rental and as long as they can make enough revenue to pay their server hosting fees with AWS ( or whomever they're using).
They could probably linger on for many years, just milking out as much cash as they can from the group of loyalists who remain
on the Daz content hamster wheel ,rebuying their content every time a "NEW" base figure is released and paying monthly rent for the advanced features of Daz studio
The way I see things unfolding is that the secondary markets will probably go under first.
Much like we just saw with
flipped normals and the license changes causing all of the controversy right now in the main blender content market
"SuperHive."
Things are tightening down all over probably due to broader economic pressures,
Grok AI just eliminated their free tier for making AI videos.
Thankfully, I had already upgraded to the paid tier called "grok super" so I can continue to make my HD animations.
I'm restricting myself to two paid AI services.
One over at Mage.space
for their amazing 2D cartoon and comic styles,
and ability to create & reuse characters in any scene (sound familiar?)
and of course grok for animation.
I have no plans to go back to using traditional 3D/2D animation softwares...(Blender ,Iclone etc)
I have even taken up pencil drawing again, on laundry days only when I go offline for a few hours
( but I still use AI to colorize my drawings.)
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! REPORT
I prefer a more realistic result. Here is one of my G8F characters walking past some holiday timeshares that I created. It's early in the morning. She'll be quite safe on her own since this is the 1970's and her dad is an ex copper who will be happy to help anyone who touches her down the stairs ala Gene Hunt.
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I'm a long time user : I began with poser 3.
Since Daz is a part of Taffy, I noticed a real difference :
- poorer quality of meshes, lack of quality control, supposedly sexy garments that are honestly unwearable.
- Increased prices, with incomprehensible everyday deals.
- As for G9 it's a real mess. The only interesting part is the HD details. They could have been implemented in G8.1.
I'm probably too old to change my habits, Poser is alas not an option anymore. But are there any other kind of platform easy to use (unreal ...) ? My main use is NSFW semi-nude bondage pics.
Since Daz is a part of Taffy, I noticed a real difference :
- poorer quality of meshes, lack of quality control, supposedly sexy garments that are honestly unwearable.
- Increased prices, with incomprehensible everyday deals.
- As for G9 it's a real mess. The only interesting part is the HD details. They could have been implemented in G8.1.
I'm probably too old to change my habits, Poser is alas not an option anymore. But are there any other kind of platform easy to use (unreal ...) ? My main use is NSFW semi-nude bondage pics.
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Katsuyaki
Karma: 3,011
Sun, Mar 29"Poser is alas not an option anymore"
I wasn't terribly impressed with the last few releases, and I gave up on it entirely once they adopted the must-phone-home-periodically feature. At this point, Poser is more of historical and technological curiousity than a practical alternative.
I wasn't terribly impressed with the last few releases, and I gave up on it entirely once they adopted the must-phone-home-periodically feature. At this point, Poser is more of historical and technological curiousity than a practical alternative.
I think if more Daz artists were willing to model assets of their own, then their business model would be quite different. There is the irony in that right now as far as the "buy assets, set up and render" sotware goes, Daz is the best in the market, and they know it. With each freebie you get from them, each purchase you make, and what daz related skills you learn you just get trapped further into this "ecosystem". And when a company knows their customer is trapped, they'll start offering worse and worse deals. It's kinda unfortunate, though. I've seen some daz original environments with suspiciously poor topology and I don't know what to make of that. I guess I'll just laugh it off and not buy it? That works.
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undeadcrabb
Karma: 4,534
Wed, Apr 01To clarify... and I'm not going to call out names or point fingers at which Daz Store product this is... But I've seen a few environment pieces that have this blurry look to their textures and are made up of 100% triangles, and they look kinda like these mashed up pieces of kids clay. And I know only two ways you can get that accomplished. One of them is sculpting, but I don't think humans can actually sculpt such a result... I could be wrong, maybe I am - hence I'm reluctant about making a claim.
Masterstroke
Karma: 4,694
Wed, Apr 01uy assets, set up and render software“?
Don‘t blame it on the software, blame the users.
Don‘t blame it on the software, blame the users.
evarest
Karma: 201
Wed, Apr 01They didn’t take down a handful of posts on the official forums that were pointing out how some products clearly looked like AI-generated 3D models and textures. If you’re interested, you can probably still find them through Google, or by using their painfully bad forum search. Anyway, moderators removed the majority of the comments mentioning those things.
I’ve saved a lot of screenshots from forum discussions where I thought, “this is definitely getting removed, better capture it.After running some of those screenshots through an LLM, here’s a summary of what’s been happening over the past few months:
"There are broadly two types of problematic PAs in the (official) marketplace right now: those who are very likely using AI in their workflow with no disclosure, and those who consistently release low quality or questionable products but still manage to sell without much scrutiny.
On the AI side, some cases stand out as very obvious. Giko and Polish are two of the clearest examples, with products that strongly suggest fully AI generated models and textures. The assets often lack logical structure, fine detail doesn’t hold up under inspection, and more recent releases seem to avoid close up renders, which only reinforces the suspicion. These are generally considered a blatant case rather than something subtle.
3DLab falls into a similar category. Products like the Robots Pack and Plush Toys show clear signs of generated geometry and textures. Even newer releases, while slightly more refined, still display typical AI artifacts such as inconsistent surface detail, odd shading, and design elements that don’t make practical sense.
Other PAs like Dreamlight, Digitallab3D, and PerspectX are also associated with AI use, particularly in textures or entire assets. The concern here isn’t just the use of AI itself, but the lack of transparency and the noticeable shift in style and quality compared to their earlier work.
Xivon appears to be a more gradual case. Earlier products already had weaker texturing, but recent releases look even more inconsistent, suggesting possible reliance on AI to compensate. A similar pattern can be seen with Fugazi, where certain environments include elements that look either procedurally generated, poorly constructed, or potentially AI assisted, especially when compared to their older, more solid work.
Then there is a second group that may not always be clearly using AI, but still raised concerns due to poor quality, inconsistency, or questionable practices.
BeautyWorks and Mada fall into a gray area. Some of their assets show signs that could point to AI-assisted workflows, such as strange mesh construction, inconsistent detailing, or elements that look like they were generated and then manually refined, like headpieces or more elaborate designs held together by adhesive tape on the body., but not to a degree that makes it completely certain.
These 2 are not considered blatant cases, but enough to make buyers cautious, especially given the noticeable shift from their earlier, more consistent work, to an unfinished and/or rushed one where not all the pieces received the same love somehow.
Other PAs are criticized more for quality than for AI. Ergou, for example, has longstanding issues like missing features, poor rigging, or incomplete products. MightyMite is often described as producing extremely low-quality assets that feel outdated and rushed. Pendragon is frequently mentioned as part of the constant stream of low-effort daily releases that seem designed to fill the store rather than offer well-crafted content.
There are also concerns about the most recent Daz Originals characters. Users feel like those are little more than copy paste morphs and that it’s hard to imagine them being any cheaper to produce. Any comments pointing out which existing character mixes these “newmorphs resemble were often removed under the label of speculation.
At the same time, other users frequently mention how PAs like Mousso, Vo, or MB seem able to regurgitate endless variations of essentially the same characters, almost always adult women or very young looking girls, once or even multiple times per week. Their output is often split into three or more separate products plus a bundle, artificially inflating the volume of offerings on the store for that day despite the overall mediocre quality.
Some of the comments that aren’t removed by moderators are those that are very subtly mocked or discredited by other users, either right after the original post or 2/3 replies further down. It’s also worth mentioning that moderation has a reputation, at least in part, for being more reactive than proactive, and for mostly removing opinions that have been reported.
Overall, a recurring pattern is the increasing volume of fast produced content, sometimes AI generated, sometimes just low effort, combined with a lack of transparency. Once a PA starts using these shortcuts, they tend to continue, and without open discussion or clear disclosure, it becomes difficult for users to make informed decisions about what they are buying."
At the end of the day, everyone is free to think whatever they want about the summary of comments above. Just remember they’re filtered opinions from an official forum, so don’t take them as the absolute truth. They’re more like a heads up than hard proof.
Best thing you can do is check stuff yourself, look at close up renders, wireframes/topology, and texture consistency, and then decide if that PA is worth supporting or not.
I’ve saved a lot of screenshots from forum discussions where I thought, “this is definitely getting removed, better capture it.After running some of those screenshots through an LLM, here’s a summary of what’s been happening over the past few months:
"There are broadly two types of problematic PAs in the (official) marketplace right now: those who are very likely using AI in their workflow with no disclosure, and those who consistently release low quality or questionable products but still manage to sell without much scrutiny.
On the AI side, some cases stand out as very obvious. Giko and Polish are two of the clearest examples, with products that strongly suggest fully AI generated models and textures. The assets often lack logical structure, fine detail doesn’t hold up under inspection, and more recent releases seem to avoid close up renders, which only reinforces the suspicion. These are generally considered a blatant case rather than something subtle.
3DLab falls into a similar category. Products like the Robots Pack and Plush Toys show clear signs of generated geometry and textures. Even newer releases, while slightly more refined, still display typical AI artifacts such as inconsistent surface detail, odd shading, and design elements that don’t make practical sense.
Other PAs like Dreamlight, Digitallab3D, and PerspectX are also associated with AI use, particularly in textures or entire assets. The concern here isn’t just the use of AI itself, but the lack of transparency and the noticeable shift in style and quality compared to their earlier work.
Xivon appears to be a more gradual case. Earlier products already had weaker texturing, but recent releases look even more inconsistent, suggesting possible reliance on AI to compensate. A similar pattern can be seen with Fugazi, where certain environments include elements that look either procedurally generated, poorly constructed, or potentially AI assisted, especially when compared to their older, more solid work.
Then there is a second group that may not always be clearly using AI, but still raised concerns due to poor quality, inconsistency, or questionable practices.
BeautyWorks and Mada fall into a gray area. Some of their assets show signs that could point to AI-assisted workflows, such as strange mesh construction, inconsistent detailing, or elements that look like they were generated and then manually refined, like headpieces or more elaborate designs held together by adhesive tape on the body., but not to a degree that makes it completely certain.
These 2 are not considered blatant cases, but enough to make buyers cautious, especially given the noticeable shift from their earlier, more consistent work, to an unfinished and/or rushed one where not all the pieces received the same love somehow.
Other PAs are criticized more for quality than for AI. Ergou, for example, has longstanding issues like missing features, poor rigging, or incomplete products. MightyMite is often described as producing extremely low-quality assets that feel outdated and rushed. Pendragon is frequently mentioned as part of the constant stream of low-effort daily releases that seem designed to fill the store rather than offer well-crafted content.
There are also concerns about the most recent Daz Originals characters. Users feel like those are little more than copy paste morphs and that it’s hard to imagine them being any cheaper to produce. Any comments pointing out which existing character mixes these “newmorphs resemble were often removed under the label of speculation.
At the same time, other users frequently mention how PAs like Mousso, Vo, or MB seem able to regurgitate endless variations of essentially the same characters, almost always adult women or very young looking girls, once or even multiple times per week. Their output is often split into three or more separate products plus a bundle, artificially inflating the volume of offerings on the store for that day despite the overall mediocre quality.
Some of the comments that aren’t removed by moderators are those that are very subtly mocked or discredited by other users, either right after the original post or 2/3 replies further down. It’s also worth mentioning that moderation has a reputation, at least in part, for being more reactive than proactive, and for mostly removing opinions that have been reported.
Overall, a recurring pattern is the increasing volume of fast produced content, sometimes AI generated, sometimes just low effort, combined with a lack of transparency. Once a PA starts using these shortcuts, they tend to continue, and without open discussion or clear disclosure, it becomes difficult for users to make informed decisions about what they are buying."
At the end of the day, everyone is free to think whatever they want about the summary of comments above. Just remember they’re filtered opinions from an official forum, so don’t take them as the absolute truth. They’re more like a heads up than hard proof.
Best thing you can do is check stuff yourself, look at close up renders, wireframes/topology, and texture consistency, and then decide if that PA is worth supporting or not.
Tenserknot
Karma: 8,638
Wed, Apr 01good list of likely suspects. generally never buy from those PAs. because the promos images are so obviously, self evident of poor quality.
Bobb
Karma: 1,208
Wed, Apr 01I haven't bought from Daz, Rendo or Perverted'Otica in years now. It's either here, or small seller's private sites. 3D Shards and Inlite (TruForm) are my favourites.
MKDAWUSS
Karma: 64,048
Wed, Apr 01Sometimes you can get suckered in by a few well-shot promos. Especially if it's of something that was a bit of a need.
Masterstroke
Karma: 4,694
14 Hours agoI do like Polish, though. Those products have been around long before the AI hype.
On other vendors, I really don‘t appreciate the lack of quality. What looked good in 2006, might look like low quality in 2026.
I love architectual models, but it makes me sick to see those straight clean surfaced interiors..
Also environmental elements are a PITA.
Do not use a low polygon terrain with a grass map in 2026.
JeffersonAF has obviously not left the Poser 3d digital stone age yet.
Being so annoyed with low quality 3d product, I‘d rather have some realistic looking AI based, photogrammetry built assets, than that crappy Poserish mess of polygons.
In the end, I don‘t use products just out of the box anyway.
There is always something to fiddle around with products, like windows, that needs to be opened, walls to be shifted, floorplans, that are useless, (which did happen a lot even before AI), characters need to be mixed or resculpted, textures edited or items are taken apart in order to be kitbashed in custom scenes.
As I said before, it is not the fault of the software, users are free to do all those customizations.
Just buy what looks useful and ignore, what‘s not.
I do have my blacklist of sometimes high profile vendors, that I avoid purchasing from.
Yup, vote with your wallet.
On other vendors, I really don‘t appreciate the lack of quality. What looked good in 2006, might look like low quality in 2026.
I love architectual models, but it makes me sick to see those straight clean surfaced interiors..
Also environmental elements are a PITA.
Do not use a low polygon terrain with a grass map in 2026.
JeffersonAF has obviously not left the Poser 3d digital stone age yet.
Being so annoyed with low quality 3d product, I‘d rather have some realistic looking AI based, photogrammetry built assets, than that crappy Poserish mess of polygons.
In the end, I don‘t use products just out of the box anyway.
There is always something to fiddle around with products, like windows, that needs to be opened, walls to be shifted, floorplans, that are useless, (which did happen a lot even before AI), characters need to be mixed or resculpted, textures edited or items are taken apart in order to be kitbashed in custom scenes.
As I said before, it is not the fault of the software, users are free to do all those customizations.
Just buy what looks useful and ignore, what‘s not.
I do have my blacklist of sometimes high profile vendors, that I avoid purchasing from.
Yup, vote with your wallet.
Bobb
Karma: 1,208
11 Hours agoI'm also a big fan of unique architecture. Truform on Rendo and his own site (Inlite Studios) makes some excellent indoor scenes that are like cocaine to me. I've bought a few wonderful interior models on CGTrader and ArtStation to convert in Blender. My girls appreciate having nice places to play in.
I can't judge whether or not an item is AI, but I would think that not including an interior would be a red flag. I see that there's three simple beach huts by the same seller on Daz that are interior-less. I won't touch those with a 16 cm graphics pen. Similarly, there's a group of 3 sellers on Rendo offering 'gutless' buildings. These seem to have popped up recently.
I can't judge whether or not an item is AI, but I would think that not including an interior would be a red flag. I see that there's three simple beach huts by the same seller on Daz that are interior-less. I won't touch those with a 16 cm graphics pen. Similarly, there's a group of 3 sellers on Rendo offering 'gutless' buildings. These seem to have popped up recently.
Jackolantern
Karma: 277
10 Hours agoI don't object to buildings without interiors, so long as that is made clear. If you are looking for buildings which will be a 'backddrop' for a scene, then having interiors sometimes wastes resources. The row of apartments I posted a render of earlier in the thread don't have any interior apart from walls ceilings and floors. I made one apartment complete with an interior, and a row of shells to represent other apartments.
Luxe Muse
Karma: 7,051
6 Hours agoI know exactly what you mean! undeadcrabb, I have even noticed that in clothing and thinking. How can I even make all these ngons on purpose?
@evarest
Selling Daz content is a game of volume. It should come as surprise to no one that the PA's are pressured to take shortcuts, such as using AI generated assets to keep up the volume.
Someone mentioned, in another thread here, that the Genesis figures by their very nature have a built-in limitation as to how you can move those vertices around trying to create something new and unique, people need to understand this going in to the Daz ecosystem.
As both a seller and a buyer.
There are only so many variations one can make so if you truly want something unique and bespoke well you need to go over to Artstation, Have your credit card ready to commission one of those professional character artists from the video game or movie animation industry to make you something bespoke( preferably for a real 3D/CG program such as Maya or Blender.) other than that, be prepared for more copy and paste Daz Genesis SLOP
On the matter of calling out specific PA's by name.
Again, it should come as no surprise that Daz is probably knowingly turning a blind eye.
There is a particular PA named "Havanalibere" who has been reselling the FREE Mixamo animations for years at Daz.
I knew if I openly called him out on it. In the forums, that Daz wood immediately delete my post or in my case, never even approve it pass pre-moderation.
However, as soon as I released my legally DAZ EULA compliant Mixamo G9 retarget rig Here on Renderhub 2 years ago, and started marketing it on Facebook,
"Havanalibere" immediately began stalking and trolling me on Facebook, accusing me of being a "thief" and selling an" illegal Genesis 9 figure" so much so that I had to completely block this clown on Facebook.
After that I made it my personal mission in life to completely devalue the mixamo libraries from commercial reselling and usage in the Daz markets.
I eventually used my old Reallusion, iclone software suite to bulk convert the entire 2475 mixamo library of animations to bespoke BVH files for Daz Genesis 8 and there is a free script to move them up to Genesis 9.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/701106/over-2-700-free-bespoke-bvh-animations-for-genesis-8
It appears I was successful as his latest release are some embarrassingly robotic
looking matching couples "intercourse" motions for G9
But here's the interesting part.
Whenever I tried privately warning any of the other Daz studio so called "animation enthusiasts" that Havanalibere's products were recycled Mixamo, animations, they all made excuses about needing to "support the daz PA's or " support the Daz content market."
So ,no offense but do not delude yourself into thinking that you are somehow protecting people from being deceived by AI generated products in the Daz store.
Trust me, it's not the poison pill you may think it is because as it stands today
They really do not have many alternatives and even if they did, they still wouldn't care because they're addicted to their little sunk cost fallacies and endless "discount" schemes that keeps them on that Daz content hamster wheel.
Selling Daz content is a game of volume. It should come as surprise to no one that the PA's are pressured to take shortcuts, such as using AI generated assets to keep up the volume.
Someone mentioned, in another thread here, that the Genesis figures by their very nature have a built-in limitation as to how you can move those vertices around trying to create something new and unique, people need to understand this going in to the Daz ecosystem.
As both a seller and a buyer.
There are only so many variations one can make so if you truly want something unique and bespoke well you need to go over to Artstation, Have your credit card ready to commission one of those professional character artists from the video game or movie animation industry to make you something bespoke( preferably for a real 3D/CG program such as Maya or Blender.) other than that, be prepared for more copy and paste Daz Genesis SLOP
On the matter of calling out specific PA's by name.
Again, it should come as no surprise that Daz is probably knowingly turning a blind eye.
There is a particular PA named "Havanalibere" who has been reselling the FREE Mixamo animations for years at Daz.
I knew if I openly called him out on it. In the forums, that Daz wood immediately delete my post or in my case, never even approve it pass pre-moderation.
However, as soon as I released my legally DAZ EULA compliant Mixamo G9 retarget rig Here on Renderhub 2 years ago, and started marketing it on Facebook,
"Havanalibere" immediately began stalking and trolling me on Facebook, accusing me of being a "thief" and selling an" illegal Genesis 9 figure" so much so that I had to completely block this clown on Facebook.
After that I made it my personal mission in life to completely devalue the mixamo libraries from commercial reselling and usage in the Daz markets.
I eventually used my old Reallusion, iclone software suite to bulk convert the entire 2475 mixamo library of animations to bespoke BVH files for Daz Genesis 8 and there is a free script to move them up to Genesis 9.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/701106/over-2-700-free-bespoke-bvh-animations-for-genesis-8
It appears I was successful as his latest release are some embarrassingly robotic
looking matching couples "intercourse" motions for G9
But here's the interesting part.
Whenever I tried privately warning any of the other Daz studio so called "animation enthusiasts" that Havanalibere's products were recycled Mixamo, animations, they all made excuses about needing to "support the daz PA's or " support the Daz content market."
So ,no offense but do not delude yourself into thinking that you are somehow protecting people from being deceived by AI generated products in the Daz store.
Trust me, it's not the poison pill you may think it is because as it stands today
They really do not have many alternatives and even if they did, they still wouldn't care because they're addicted to their little sunk cost fallacies and endless "discount" schemes that keeps them on that Daz content hamster wheel.
REPLY
! REPORT