Apocalypse3DX

I'm not going to curse, I'm not going to rant... I'm just going to post the email I received this afternoon (unaltered) and my reply... I want you to see if you can guess why I'm pissed off

(For context: This is in regards to my pose set "D-girl 2 for Genesis 8" which is already on sale at Renderhub, and is a straight remake of "D-Girl 2 for V4" which has been available on Rotica since 2017.)

The Rejection Email (sent from Renderotica Admin @ 3:08pm EST)

This is rejected as it is HALF a product. You cannot include promos that demonstrate genital poses that are not included.

I'm sorry but this is a permanent decline until you provide gential poses for whichever genitals you choose to support in the product.

Comments from the tester:

====== This file failed because the majority of the poses have the figure floating above the ground surface. Over half of the poses are pretty bad. The rest have the issue, but tolerable(only noticed if looking for it). The issue affects both Genesis 8 and Genesis 3 versions of the poses. I also want to talk about the elephant in the room. This is a dick pose set. Plain and simple. It is even in the title and file description, for god's sake. However, the merchant has decided to NOT include dick poses for a dick centered pose set?!? Lazy, decidedly so. A dick was chosen and used. Poses were made with them (obviously, based on the thumbnails). So, why not include them? The only reason I can come up with is they don't actually own them, so they can't legally use them. Otherwise it makes zero sense. Including them only enhances the set. This goes for the face poses, as well. There is a section in the readme giving space to note items used in the development of this pose set. That was left blank. So, without that info, at the very least, it is impossible to test the actual quality of the pose. It is also impossible for the end user to replicate the promo images they will end up seeing on the product page.

==============

Admin

My Reply

The product will not be resubmitted if it is felt that it does not meet the standards of the site. I'm sorry this issue could not be resolved to our mutual satisfaction.

I would however like to raise three issues regarding communication about this matter.

- Most seriously, as someone who has had a mostly positive working relationship and experience with Renderotica for the last 7 years, I was surprised to see the unfiltered comments of the reviewer including the open assumption that a creator stole or "Pirated" assets included in official correspondence. The products used (Futalicious G3, Futalicious G8, and TaB by Erogenesis) were legally purchased FROM RENDEROTICA, and were mentioned in the previous version of the READ ME file, but were removed. The inclusion of such open speculation about a content creator in an official email was unhelpful, insulting, and unprofessional and is cause to question whether future content submissions to your site would truly be in my best interest. I would appreciate it if such comments were no longer included in future emails, as I do not enjoy being called a thief, even indirectly.

- The product (D-girl 2 for G8) is the fourth product in a series that has been available on Renderotica since 2017, and a direct follow on of a product published in 2020., none of which have ever featured genital poses. In fact, it is a direct conversion of an existing product already in the store catalog (D-Girl 2 for Victoria 4, 2017). Since I have received no known negative feedback or complaints about any of these products, I had no reason to believe that this product would be any different when creating it. While "floating" issues were an oversight on my part , the issues with lack of genital poses have never been a problem before, and does not seem to be an issue now as the product is already available elsewhere with no complaints. While this is not expected to change your determination on the matter in any way, perhaps you can understand my confusion over the assertion that it is "Half a product" or "a dick pose set, plain and simple" when it is an update of a product published 6 years ago that has sold dozens of copies. - The references to which genitals figures were used in creation and testing were removed from the READ ME file and long description as per the instructions in the previous email. RE:"removal of the mention of these products or that the readme/long description details these are only body position poses." If I misunderstood your intent to remove it only from the description and not the recommendations, then the error is mine, but I was attempting to comply with the Admins instructions as all reference were removed and the description, read me file, and promo images where edited to include "BODY POSES ONLY" warnings.

I hope that we can continue our working relationship and that I can continue to provide content for Renderotica/CGbytes to a satisfactory level of quality in the future for our mutual benefit going forward.

What do you think? Am I the asshole here?

I waited until this one had settled and the product was already launched in the store... But my struggles with Render Erotica (you know who I mean) continue.

I uploaded my latest product, BJ Queen for Genesis 8, on Thursday March 30th. I also uploaded it to Render Hub that same evening. It was live on RH within minutes and have had no issues or complaints since. I knew I had missed Rotica's cut off for a Friday release and thus wouldn't hear anything, good or bad, until Monday the 3rd. I was hoping to get the news that it had been approved and was live in the webstore on Monday afternoon... But of course I got a message saying it had been rejected.

The rejection email said it was rejected because the product name was incorrect. The product .zip file had been named [Product #]Apocalypse3DX_BJ Queen.zip. Because minus the number, until October of last year, that how I always named them since 2016. Apparently they now want you name the file [Product #]Vendor_name.zip and nothing else. First of all, thank you very f**king much guys, I now have a file on my PC that even I don't know what it is, because why would I ,the vendor, keep track of your assigned product numbers that no one else uses?! (I do know what it is, but only because it's in the folder with all the source and promo art files, but it's still annoying) The email also said "I have reminded you at least once". What kind of passive aggressive unprofessional bullshit is that?! That is not how you talk to a client, customer, or vendor if you want to keep their business.

And for the record, they did tell me this once before. In October 2022, when I uploaded Monstrous for G8 (some of you may remember me ranting about that). But they only told me the name had to include the product number, hence why it was labeled [Product #]Vendor Name_Product Name.... And when I asked, way back then, where I could find an undated copy of the submission rules, I got no reply (or they sent it to the wrong email address, which was an issue at the time somehow). I have submitted seven (7) products this way since October... And this is the first time since October they've corrected me about it. And the first time they fully explained what they wanted and sent a updated manual. And they want to be snippy and passive aggressive about it too?! Really?

Okay, so I fixed that issue and waited for the next email. And sure enough, Wednesday evening, I get another rejection email. This time because the product images were deleted. They keep trying to put products, uploaded from an adult site, on their newer safe for work site, and then panicking and taking it down. This time they deleted the images from the Product Override I filed (so the product would only appear on the adult site). So I had to remove the images from the main upload, and then re-upload them to the override.

You may be asking, "Why did you upload images in the main upload page in the first place?" The answer to that is that, in the past, I have tried to skip that step and leave them blank, as recently as December (to save time, since no one would see them anyway because of the override) and been told that I have to upload images and I can't skip that step... So I did it every time since. But now, apparently, I have to skip the step that I was told not to skip.

And while we are on the subject... What the hell is the point of the override, if it doesn't actually override anything?! It's supposed to tell the system to ignore the information in the corresponding page of the main upload, and only display this information on the NSFW Rotica store, not the SFW CG Bits store... You know, the one that didn't exist 7 years ago when I started doing this. I release adult themed products on Rotica, because it's an Adult themed site. The safe for work site is none of my concern. Shouldn't it automatically know not to show this stuff on a SFW site if I had to complete a 7 page override form that includes a content ratings that goes up to X? And all, but 4, of my 45 products are rated X. Why is this not a simple "click the check mark" or "select in the menu" type thing like on other sites?!

Anyway, I fix the images as I was specifically told, and try again. Next day I get a rejection email saying "Did you forget that you cannot use ADULT descriptions in the Title, Product Description or Keywords on the Main Site. Those are for the override?!"

Did I forget?! The level of passive aggression in these emails is really starting to piss me off...

I'm starting to take this personally. I'm wondering if they read one of my previous blog post or something.

I didn't forget, I filled out the the form the same way I have for the other 44 products I've submitted there over the last 7 years. And that was never a problem before. I didn't forget. I was never told any different.

And I filled out an override. I filled out that stupid form 30 seconds after I finished uploading the main product. Again, what is it for if I keep getting these messages?! It should be overridden so that NONE OF THIS should be visible or reviewed for use on the CG Bits site!!! That's the point of the override! Why are we still talking about this and wasting both our time?!

So, in a fit of frustration, I go back in, change title to Queen for G8, change the description to "12 poses for G8 couples", change the main description to something equally bland, double check the override form and wait. At this point, if they had rejected it one more time, I would have just deleted it. And given serious thought to just deleting my Rotica store all together.

This time it cleared and got approved. At 2:25 pm on April 5th.

Rejected THREE TIMES (3) in 7 days, for "errors" in the submission form due to policy changes. (all of which they had ignored for the last 5 months...). Not one issue with the actual product. It took 7 days to clear the promo info and title for a remaster of a product I made 5 years ago, using the exact same info and title...

The thing that upsets me the most about this whole thing is that, if they had just finished reviewing the whole form THE FIRST TIME, they could have just said in the email, "Hey, we've had some issues with adult stuff accidently getting posted to the SFW site, so could you remove all the adult images and references from the main form, give it a temp title, submit it, and then file your override as normal, just to be safe? Thanks" If they had just said that, it would have saved us both a week of aggravation.

In the 7 days it took to sort this mess out, the EXACT SAME PRODUCT on Render Hub (which gets much less traffic for adult products) has sold a dozen copies... That's just under a $90 in sales. In the 4 days since the product cleared on Rotica, it has sold 13 copies... If they had just reviewed the whole form the first time and said simply what the root issue was, we'd both likely be $100 richer right now...

Why does everything in my life, that should be simple, get so complicated?! Is it that I missed something important and now don't know how to do a thing I've been doing for 7 years? Is it that some people there don't know what they are doing because the company changed policies, but didn't bother to enforce them? Is it both? I don't know... Probably.

I just needed to vent... If you read all of that, Thanks. I hope you have Happy Easter or a kick ass weekend, which ever sounds better to you...

Hey everyone... Ready for the latest on the saga of me just trying to submit a new product over at Render Erotica? No?! Well, neither was I... In 13 years of using DAZ Studio and 7 years of making/selling pose sets through Rotica, never have I had this much trouble launching a single product...

Before I go into it, let me ask a question to any content creators or people who make their own poses in DAZ Studio. Is there a known bug in DAZ that causes saved poses to "drift" or not save correctly? I am using a slightly older version as I don't keep my render PC connected to the internet (I don't recall the version number right now). I ask because I've noticed a lot of small errors and limb placements that, even when exhausted, I can't believe I would have not noticed/fixed (and some I was sure I had). Odd hand/figure positions. Arms not quite how you placed them. Etc. I mean in the case of "Carry Poses", I did make 3 versions of it (V4/M4, G3, and G8) so I could believe that I just forgot to double check some poses or thought I had already because that's 60 poses that all kind of look the same... But anyway, let me know if anyone else has had that issue...

Now, to the current drama...

So, as mentioned in my last Journal entry, I corrected the error in the READ ME file (which was made more annoying as it was one misnamed folder in the install instructions and I had used that template on my last three G8 products, and no one had noticed the error before) and resubmitted the product, expecting it to go live in the store on Wednesday morning. When I got up on Wednesday, I was greeted by yet another REJECTED email. This time sighting MULTIPLE poke through/clipping issues.

Now, If the errors where the result of me rushing to finish 60 poses and forgetting to double check them all thoroughly, then that's all on me, fine... But what irritates me about this is that it means that who ever reviewed the product the first time ONLY looked at the READ ME file and never actually reviewed the product itself. If they had just TOLD ME there were clipping issues, I could have fixed them and the Read Me all at once and the product would be in the store earning me and them money right now... But now the product is on it's second strike and if they find one more issue, they'll reject it and I'll have to fix it (again) and go through the entire tediously out dated submission process all over again (which if you've never done it, takes about 20-30 minutes) and hope for the best.

I guess the logic was "This product already fails, so I'm not going to waste my time reviewing the rest of it!"... But that's not how this works. I'm not trying to waste their time, and I don't want to release a crappy product any more then they want to sell one! I don't want people to see my name on a product and think "that last pose set I bought from them was crap! I think I'll give that one a miss!". I want people to see stuff that I made and think "Oh! Apocalypse always makes good stuff, I'll go check that out!".

This isn't an "Us versus Them" situation, which I have learned way to many people view most things in life as (and those people are almost always the source of other people's misery). This is a partnership, a team effort. I make the things. I do all the fiddley tedious work of making a product, arranging the product, making art work for the product and packaging the product. You do all the boring tedious crap that involves running a website, managing the servers, running the forums and galleries, advertising on the front page, listing the product and doing payroll... In short, I make the thing, you sell the thing, and we BOTH make money.

This isn't supposed to be adversarial.

You are not a safety inspector who "caught" me doing sloppy welds on a commercial airliner.

You are not a health inspector who "caught" me sweeping rat sh*t into a customers salad.

You are a product tester who found a spot where two 3D figures, who are supposed to look like they are touching one another, actually touched... Oops. You let me know, and I fix it.

Clearly, If I had known there were issues, I would have fixed them, and you would never have seen them. This is a garage industry, run by hobbyists, for hobbyists. I am not trying to waste your time. Me not doing my job thoroughly enough is a problem, but I'm working by myself here. Long hours, no one to talk to, staring at computer screens. But if I don't make the things, I don't make money. Wasting time is not something I want do or can afford to do much of. But when these sort of "communications issues" happen, it wastes everyone's time, Because now I have to rush to fix a thing that I could have fixed A WEEK AGO, and they have to review it AGAIN! When all they had to do was look over the whole thing and tell me.

And if you are wondering why I seem so upset by this (other then that that SAME product has been on sale at another site for nearly two weeks now and the V4/M4 version is my current best seller on Rotica), here's the kicker... I double checked every single pose in that set (all 40 of them) and found way more then the 3 errors they mentioned (this is why I asked about a software bug, even on my worst day, I can't believe even I was THAT careless!), However those errors happened (if they were my fault, so be it) if I had only fixed the three the reviewer mentioned, without checking the rest, I would have resubmitted the product and gotten rejected. Three strikes, they delete the product from the store catalog and you have to resubmit everything. We are supposed to be helping each other out here, not setting each other up to fail...

All they had to say was "Hey, we found a lot of clipping/collision errors. These were the worst three. Not sure what happened here, but you may want to check this thoroughly before you resubmit." Maybe I copied the wrong file directory. Maybe I just got confused and uploaded the wrong folder at 3am. Who knows.

Crap like that is why a lot of veteran content makers have quit over the years. It becomes more hassle then it's worth. Specifically, stuff rejecting Pose sets without telling me why is exactly why I don't do business to Renderosity. They did that with the very first pose set I ever submitted and wouldn't even reply or explain. This isn't a contest or a competition, this is a business arrangement. If we content makers fail then you, the content seller, fail...

I spent my entire Wednesday fixing these and checking every single pose, made a lot of fixes and adjustments... But now all can do is cross my fingers.

We'll see how this goes.

If you read my last journal entry, where I expressed concerns about Rotica's new system of only launching newly submitted products 3 days a week, here's a small update.

I resubmitted the corrected files for Carry Poses for Genesis 8 (which, at the time of this writing have been available here on DA and elsewhere for a full week now) on Friday evening (Jan 27). It is now Monday (Jan 30) afternoon (Rotica's new launch schedule is Monday/Wednesday/Friday I believe) and still no sign. This means that the next day it could go live would be Wednesday (Feb 1).

So to be clear here about my concerns, it seems they do not evaluate products over the weekend, and due to the new release schedule, this must create a back log of products to be reviewed/approved/released (and I'm sure having a product rejected puts that product at the end of the cue). So, in this case, due to this new schedule and one little mistake, from the date of submission to the next possible release day, that's a 10 day delay! Ten days of sales revenue neither of us is making.

I can see this becoming a major problem for content creators down the road...

Hey everyone! Hope you all doing well out there.

Some of you may have seen that I recently posted two new Pose sets in my Premium Downloads. "Carry Poses" for Victoria 4/Michael 4 and "Carry Poses" for Genesis 8. (thanks to the person who bought one)

Well, as I always do, I also posted these to my stores at R#nderhub and R#nderotica for sale as well. Those keeping track of these journal entries will notice that I've had several issues with Rotica's system lately, and this time is no different.

[Note: I'm just venting here. Getting some frustration over a stressful week off my chest. Not much to be done about it, but it may be useful info to fellow content makers out there]

Recently, the management at Rotica changed their product submission and launch procedure so that submitted products that are approved (and pass QA testing) are launched for sale on the sight on Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays instead of when and as they clear QA testing as had been the case for years. I was guessing this maybe be due to a shortage of testers (Not sure how you apply for that job or I might just) but I also guessed it may cause some additional problems... And I think I just found two.

I submitted both versions of "Carry Poses" to Rotica on Monday evening. Now I knew I had missed the window for them to be approved that day of course, and that the earliest I could reasonably expect them to go live would be Wednesday. Fine. But I was worried that there may be a backlog of products ahead of me for release, and clearly there where, since both product had been listed as "Under Review" since Monday night with no word or update as of 11 pm Thursday night. I figured (not too unreasonably, I think) that if the review/QA testers had found any issues, they would have let me know BEFORE Friday morning since they had nearly four days to review a pose set. But I figured wrong. When I got up today, I was greeted by two emails from Rotica, one saying "Carry Poses for V4/M4 has been Approved!" and the other saying "Carry Poses for Genesis 8 has been Rejected"... So that kind of ruined my day, right off the bat...

Why was it rejected? Because the READ ME folder had the wrong instillation instructions.

Now, almost any DAZ/Poser user who's made it as far as Rotica probably knows how it install a pose set at that point, and I doubt most of us ever read them at all, but it is important for these things to be accurate, just in case. So fair enough. But they had FOUR DAYS to spot this and tell me about my goof, and they wait until the morning of one of the two biggest sale days of the week that site has, right at the end of the month?! Really?!

So the issue, which took all of ten minutes to fix, has been corrected and the updated files have been submitted, but that means the EARLIEST I can hope to see that product in the store is Monday, if I'm lucky. This screw up (Mine not theirs) is going to cost me big in weekend sales, and by extension, them too. The mistake was mine, and they certainly do happen, but this new review and release schedule is going to start costing a lot of artists valuable income. It's hard enough to attempt to make any kind of meaningful income as a content creator, but I worry that this severely delayed schedule is going to start costing them big.

This is the second time a product that is available here and in at least one other store for over a week is delayed at Rotica. And what makes this situation extra annoying for me is that, this is AT LEAST the third product I've released there using that same READ ME template (Writing the read me for a product that has like 50+ files in it, and you are REQUIRED to list each and every one of them in full, is one of the most tedious and irritating parts of product creation because it takes ages and no one EVER reads them). I used the same READ ME file template I used for Monstrous and She's On Top, which have been in their catalog since October and December 2022 respectively, which means the QA Testers don't even usually read the Read Me files if this is the first time someone has noticed! What the hell?!

I mentioned that there were two problems with this system that I found... The other is that because of the staggered schedule, when a new product launches, in the order they were uploaded to Rotica, the earlier product are immediately BURIED in the middle of the catalog front page... This my not sound like a big deal, but for artists who are not deemed worthy of front page Featured Product status, this means your product is less likely to be noticed on release, and will fall back in the listings more quickly. Anyone with online retail experience knows that customer pay less attention the further they have to scroll, and rarely search past page 2. So, this is again, I fear, going to start costing content artists and Rotica money.

Sorry to ramble and rant, again, but these are the sort of frustrations you are in for if you get into DAZ/Poser content creation, and they seem to be getting worse as time goes on, not better. If you read all of that, Thank You for listening and I hope you have a great weekend.

For anyone interested, I will link my off site shop in a comment below since I know a lot of people don't seem to like buying content here on DA.