Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL


Subject: Crazed thoughts about the future of Poser and our communities

ynsaen opened this issue on Feb 12, 2004 ยท 22 posts


Phantast posted Sat, 14 February 2004 at 5:40 AM

It seems to be a feature that if ever you raise a thread about the evolution of a program in a general way, you always attract people chipping in with their shopping lists of wanted features, diverting away from the real topic in hand. Yes, of course Poser needs point lights (one reason I gave up on Poser as a rendering program from the outset). Yes, of course it needs better undo (not even multiple undo necessarily, just an undo that reliably works once would be something). We know all that. But what it really needs most of all is a new design that thinks out the ergonomics a lot better than what we have presently. In the previous thread that ynsaen refers to at the head I tried to give an outline of the sort of approach that might work. If someone can say that they rarely change cameras, it says something about the work that they do and the way they do it. If you work entirely within the restrictions applied by Poser, you might not have this need. There is a school of Poser art that goes "Dump figure in scene from library; add clothes; add scene props from library; apply pose from library; add light set from library - render". If that's all you do, you might wonder what the fuss is about. But when you are used to creating complex scenes from scratch in Bryce or Vue or some other similar program, then working with Poser is like trying to walk in diving boots. Complex scene creation cannot be done without continually switching views to check that things are properly aligned. Trying to do it in Poser is so difficult with the tools provided that most people never try; they resort to trickery with background images instead. Poser certainly doesn't need to be a modelling app, any more than it needs to have bitmap editing thrown in (why even try when Paintshop or Photoshop will always be a better option). Equally, it is valid to treat Poser just as tool to be used in connection with another rendering app, just as Anim8or or Wings is an adjunct to Poser. But in that case, it needs to be designed that way, without "dynamic hair" that can't be exported. In such a case, one ignores the shortcoming of lighting and rendering in Poser on the grounds that these are only for quick tests, and the final render will be done elsewhere. But in the case that Poser is positioned as a final scene renderer, it is necessary to have a long hard look at the whole software design, because the present model just isn't suitable.