@Lytanshade - Thanks! That was exactly the kind of tips / feedback I was looking for! I've been meaning to try additional lighting rigs and figure that out better. Sounds like that's a good place for me to start to improve my looks/scenes...
@HolySchmidt - Right, I understand anything niche will be reviewed less. I was just looking
any feedback. As I said in first post, I had received zero written feedback from anyone up until now. I appreciate you guys spending some time and giving me your opinions.
@Hedgepig - Agreed that there is an abundance of free stuff, and you're right, people gravitate towards free stuff. But again, the entire purpose of this thread was that I was getting no feedback (positive or negative) to really hear how I was doing or what I could improve upon. Ultimately, sure, I'm asking for advice to get better so I might make more money eventually, but that's a secondary issue right now. At this point I just want to work on getting the most out of the tool, learning advanced techniques, etc. Regarding the "half-an-hour to make", sure, if you are just pushing around sliders. Custom texture work takes considerably more time, imo.
Regarding making a VAR,
@Hedgepig, if you have Discord I could jump on a screen share with you and walk you through how to make one. It's fairly simple after you understand a few key concepts. Send me a DM with your info and we can work out a time if you want.
Your original question and my premise :
Are people just not interested in the models/scenes I've created? Not professional enough? Anything?
To my mind the problem has little to do with the lack of lighting, and far more to do with the equation of sales and the percentage of reviews garnered from those sales.
You cannot separate the cost of an item from its purchase volume and subsequent ratings and reviews. Quite simply, a small percentage of users who download things review them, or not. People download more free things than paid-for. To put your lack of reviews in perspective, a pair of scissors on Amazon will get 1000s of reviews, a generally decent-to-read book about 100, a good free download for VAM, about 10, an excellent paid-for download might average 3-4 reviews.
If the manufacturer of the scissors out them up for free, they'd receive a billion orders from around the globe and a zillion ratings by folk who don't even want a pair of scissors, but are getting something, anything, for free. double the price, no one will buy it and the reviews stop- these are the economic 'sliders' of sales. It is the same equation translated across all the different products.
Example from life experience: If put my one of my books up for free, readers download it, and I get reviews, the book climbs into the top 100 bestsellers for its category for a day or two . Give it a price, $2.99 , readers stop downloading and the reviews stop. Then it is subject to reality and picked up by economic gravity, whence it falls out of the category with the steely determination of the Dropship pilot in Aliens. Then the potential readers head off to find the next writer or agent giving away free stuff to place their work in the top 100. I can send you a screenshot of what it's like to be in the top 100 bestsellers in a Amazon category, but it's only there, because it was free. But, not bad given there are 50 million books on Amazon, and 100 000s in the category. Depends what you want, affirmation or money, I suppose, and reviews will always tempt new paying readers.
For what it's worth, to me, for this is subjective, there's a
nice a Clan of the Cave Bear vibe with your looks.
The Clan of the Cave Bear: The first book in the internationally bestselling series (Earth's Children 1) eBook : Auel, Jean M.: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
The Clan of the Cave Bear is excellent book, and it has been around since the 1980s. It is sensibly priced at $7.00, so you've really got to want to read to buy it. To date, it has 3998 ratings, which, to my mind, is not a lot given it's quality and longevity. Somewhat despondently, I have to tell you that the pair of scissors on Amazon received three times more ratings in a year than Jean M Auel's book has in four decades. It must have taken two years of hard work to write and and edit, so that's not a huge return over 40 years, and 6 or 7 years it's been available online. I suppose the movie helped as well. But you'd agree, Good book, movie, publishers marketing, but 4000 reviews is not a lot in the scheme of things.
I haven't even mentioned how movies and marketing profoundly influences sales.
Regarding how to quickly make free looks in VAM:
The plugins, JayJayWon's UI Assist and pinosante's Evolutionary Character Creation will quickly mix and merge looks. They are a LOT of fun to play with and create exceptional new looks. In less than half an hour you can choose your new look . There are no sliders involved unless you fine tune the look in morphs. The process is quick and fun. Why would anyone pay for a look unless it was exceptional or niche? Unexceptional or non-niche combined with price are the
core reasons for a lack of uptake, not the lighting rigs or pixel counts or any such things, per se. They are secondary factors. But what do I know about such thing, huh?
You are lucky that I enjoy writing, and need the mental exercise, otherwise I wouldn't bother replying. If this was copy for a publisher, I'd charge about a hundred dollars for this review article and give it a full SPAG edit. That's the way of these things.
