Is it easier to Pose figures. Does it render better? Why would I want to spend nothing on this new progra?

LOL. Spending nothing is quite painless.

your response doesn't answer the question though. It only makes note of the fact that D|S is free. A list of features that outlines why D|S is prefereable to Poser in common usage is what is being sought. Spending nothing might be painless, but you do get what you pay for. Pay for nothing, you get about that in return (using your same benefit). I, too, am curious what the percieved value of D|S over Poser might be -- and telling me it's free doesn't do diddly squat. I've had some free software that made some pretty spectacular claims before but hosed my system, and I've had the same with software that cost me a fortune -- the difference was that when I paid for the software I had someone to yell at to get the problems fixed. The free software response was "hey, it was free -- what are you bitching about?". So, how is DAZ Studio better than Poser?

I think it's just too early to make a judgement. Most of what I've read has been speculation with out much support for conclusions.

same here -- I'm waiting for RC before I look at it again, but in the meantime I'm not seeing much in the way of "real" evidence that makes me want to add it to my toolset. It would need to be REALLY effective to get me to switch. how effective? ya know that button that says "create the picture in your head"?

Here are some advantages I noticed so far: 1) Minimized, CPU usage is ZERO. With Poser, it's always 100 percent. 2) The camera movement is smooth, not jerky, even with a 32meg graphics card. 3) Interface is better and easier to use and learn (IMO). I figured out how to use the whole thing in a very short time, without reading the dox. 4) DS loads on my machine in about one second. P5 takes about 2 minutes. 5) AREA RENDER!!! A huge time-saver. 6) OpenGL working window, another time-saver. 7) After exiting, all memory is released. My machine returns to its normal, smooth funtionality. That's it for now.

7) After exiting, all memory is released. My machine returns to its normal, smooth funtionality. How does Poser not do that?

Actually, Jackson, you might want to contact CL and see wha tthey say about your system constantly trying to access a network -- the giveaway was the 100% CPU usage. Which is a drawback for me, personally -- I minimize while I render to do other things. If it stops working when minimized, that's a non good thing for me. Good to hear about the camera movement. Since it's OpenGL based, can I have my terrain in cartoon with line, my figures in textured, and my props in flat shaded all at the same time? Area render is def a godsend! lol Load times neither here nor there for me -- everything on my system loads in under a minute except Adobe stuff (and that's cause they're busy scanning my fonts, which takes a long ass time). I have one program that holds RAM -- a hod over from the old MS Office 2000 series that I just can't give up. Nothing else does. Anything else? Anyone?

interface is great, open gl is amazing.. but with out a good render engine... it all goes to waste.. things take way too long... 4 to 5 minute render times... compared to 30 seconds in p5.. and like 20 seconds in p4... and ya you can;t save assests... no animation.. i was really excited with d/s came out 5 months ago. but it's been a bit of a letdown... as far s speed goes.. n

can't save assets? That's gotta be a beta feature. The render engine it is good -- easily equitable to firefly, but it does need to be let loose to do it's stuff (and if it's throttled on minimizing, that's not very loose). I'm none too thrilled witht he interface at this point -- too blah. Reminds me of working in Word, which isn't very artistically conducive, lol

One word: OpenGL. 3d acceleration makes things so much easier.

Since it's OpenGL based, can I have my terrain in cartoon with line, my figures in textured, and my props in flat shaded all at the same time?

Since it's OpenGL based, can I have my terrain in cartoon with line, my figures in textured, and my props in flat shaded all at the same time?

"7) After exiting, all memory is released. My machine returns to its normal, smooth funtionality.

How does Poser not do that? "

After working on a big scene for a few hours then exiting Poser, mouse movement is choppy, programs open slowly, screen repaints slowly, etc. This was a minor problem in P4 that got worse with P5.

"Actually, Jackson, you might want to contact CL and see wha tthey say about your system constantly trying to access a network -- the giveaway was the 100% CPU usage."

I don't have Poser blocked from the network so it shouldn't be doing that. I used to have it blocked but someone said it would work faster if I unblocked it so I did. Under both circumstances, Poser always used 100 percent of the CPU.

"can I have my terrain in cartoon with line, my figures in textured, and my props in flat shaded all at the same time?"

Hmm... don't know, never tried it. And I can't try it now :(

Message edited on: 06/23/2004 10:45

That's bothersome about the CPU usage -- I'd lay dollars to doughnuts that it's related to your memory issue (which I haven't had since sr2.1 in P5). Your problems resemble from what I've deducted some encountered by igohigh, who has been almost as frustrated as you have been. :S If you can try that, sometime, please do -- I'm very interested in knowing (it never hurts to have multiple baskets for one's eggs...).

Jackson your computer must be fast for daz studio to do anything fast. On my computer studio is very slow it is much slower even than poser 5 and that is not too fast a program. Even with openGL switched off the program is very slow. I don`t have any problems with my computer when I switch off poser 4 or 5 either and I am not just saying that.

One thing that can potentially make it "better" is it's plugin architecture. D|S seems to have positioned itself in such a way that Daz can put out tons of new features on a regular basis via plugins, and also have 3rd party content providers do the same. This could make D|S progression much faster than we have seen in Poser.

I gather that this also means that DAZstudio will allow users to pick and choose, from a selection of plugins, what they need/want the program to do. Kind of like customizing a car in a sense. The DOWNSIDE to this, of course, is that if you want the car "fully loaded", you'll likely be spending more money than you would if it were integrated into the program. And also, DAZ will have the ability to create content that is PLUGIN-SPECIFIC, and will force you to buy that plugin if you want the content to work.

But just as it is right now, unless you need OpenGL for whatever reason, it's not any better than Poser 5, and is in fact more limited. No dynamics or displacement yet. :-(

Message edited on: 06/23/2004 23:55

no displacement yet? But that's a nice feature of 3Delight's latest release! sigh... Well, hell -- not enough folks know what displacement is yet, so I guess I could say that doesn't matter all that much.... ...nah...

How is Daz Studio better than Poser? It isnt It has openGL a "feature" I dont really want or need. On my computer it is very slow and I am not comfortable with the new interface. It has some kind of new lights as well but I can also do without these too. One of the best things about poser is that anyone theoretically at least can take apart a poser figure and reassemble it or change it any way they want. From what I have seen with daz studio that will be difficult if not impossible with the daz studio format.

well first could it render any slower? then it takes forever to just move a light, then you have the circles around body parts so you can't see what you are doing..Free is exactly how much this is worth :)

Xantor: I was only talking about load times, not the overall speed of the program. And everyone, please remember we're comparing a program still in BETA--not even in its first release--with a program in its fifth version (6th if you count ProPack). Not to mention the multitude of service releases. The time for DS is not now but in the future. The not-too-distant future, I hope.

jackson I was pointing out that although daz has smooth openGL and camera movement etc the program itsself is very slow and as it is near version one it is possible that it might not be made to work much faster. With daz studio the camera movement on mine is sluggish and unresponsive. The thing about poser and cpu usage is not normal, there might be some kind of conflicts with your system. By not normal I mean that it usually does not use all the cpu time. When closing poser too it should cleanly exit that sounds like a problem related to the cpu usage one.

With daz studio the camera movement on mine is sluggish and unresponsive. Yep. On mine too. I couldn't believe how poor the response time was in it, regardless if it's just a beta or not... it should at least be USABLE. And before anyone suggests I need better hardware or any of that common nonesense, please bear in mind that I can run Poser 5, and 3dsMax version 6 with OpenGL no problem on the same exact machine. It's a 2.4GHz P4 with 2gig RAM and 200gig HD. The video card is a Radeon 8500DV with 500MB on board. I had serious problems navigating a scene (way sluggish response time). That shouldn't be, even for a beta release.

hey -- how do you like that Radeon?

That Radeon is a card I have seen have lots of problems with OpenGL. Hope it works better for you than it has for me. I didn't have a good answer to notefinger's question because I don't think it is a matter of saying which software is better. Of course, there is what was pointed out that you are comparing a beta software to a version 5 software, which is completely legitimate. But beyond that, there is also the fact that it appears the two apps have different goals in mind. Poser has always been software that would directly make money for it's owner. They didn't even get into content until Poser 5 and that appears to have not gone as well as hoped. DAZ|Studio appears to be software to drive it's content. That seems to mean that if the software can't support the content, or vice versa, in an effective way, it is useless. And since it's free and you can use your Poser content, there is absolutely no risk in trying it out. Since it's free, that unluckily tends to mean it has to be even better than other programs, if you are looking to replace them. However, why replace Poser when you can use the two together and pull the benefits from whichever one you need at the time. And, if it ever gets to the point where DAZ|Studio is "better" than Poser in your eyes, you can shift so you use it more than Poser. It's no big deal. There's not much of a commitment there. People that say they hate the interface, well I have used many programs and every interface has been different. Whenever I hop into a new program I almost instantly hate the interface because I don't know it as well as other programs I have used. That's my fault more than the software's 9 times out of 10, because I am unbending and accustomed to some other interface. The nice thing about DAZ|Studio is that obviously user feedback gets listened to with the interface, because it has changed multiple times in the past 6 months or so. So, give constructive criticism and keep your mind open to whatever options are available. Good 3D artists are willing to play with new tools and techniques to see if they can improve themselves, so don't be afraid to try new software. It can only make you a better artist in the long run. Just my meaningless rants and raves...

hey -- how do you like that Radeon? Well, it's not the best card I've ever used. I much prefer my NVIDIA Quadro. But I don't think my card is causing any of my woes in D|S. Because as I mentioned, I'm running Max 6 with OGL, and it runs pretty smooth... much better than D|S. But this Radeon is nothing compared to the Quadro or GeForce3 cards I have on my other machines. ;-)

gah! And here my quadro sits idle waiting for the upgrade that's looking less and less likely. :( Thanks for the input on the card. The specs seemed awfully fuzzy to me, and with my gamer daughter itching hard to spend her babysitting money on a new one, the more info the better, lol

Quadro is pretty nice. On the cheap end, I've found the NVidia FX series to be quite impressive.

Well, the Quadro was in my main system before a major meltdown forced my to cannabalize. I went through four of them in about 6 months at first -- they all worked fine, no problems with them, specifically. My board was toast and slow in the dying, though, and kept frying them. One of those "weird" things that happens so rarely no one will ever think of it. Each time, though, I called and had a new one 24 hours later. Yeah, she's looking at the nvidia cards now -- I got her out of the Radeon, lol

Right now, I do not know that DS is better than Poser is, but then again if you read the Poser forum, there is a lot that people are not happy with on it either. I think the biggest concern is it is different. The interface takes some getting used to; being configured more like Photoshop than Poser, with tabs and trays holding information. It does seam to have a quicker learning curve, but then again, there is not much available besides rendering images. There have been some concerns over a performance lag, which I have not seen. Although initialization is about 1/3 the time as Poser, renderings take about the same amount of time. In Poser I render full production, in DS I have been rendering full quality (has 3 settings; speed, average, and quality.) To me the cameras and the lighting adjustments are more intuitive. Once you figure out where the controls are I do find that they can be located and adjusted MUCH quicker than in Poser. I do not know if this is due to larger sizing in the adjustments or what, all I do know is that when I move a light in DS, it moves, in the direction I want it to, and not at a rate of 0.00004385736 units at a time. Image and camera zooms feel just as quick. Mind you, again, it is not done with a dial that is incremented at one billionth of a unit at a time, so that might be it. I personally do not see that much difference in finished render quality, and although there are some things I am trying to figure out how to do in DS that are fairly easy in Poser (transparencies, etc) everything else appears to work about the same. There is no animation capabilities, (unless you count rendering multiple images and stringing them together in a movie application) but I am willing to bet that is going to be one of those add-on packages that a person will get to buy. Just my two cents.

thanks for those cents, too :)

Although the final version isn't out yet. I would still turn the question around, how is Poser better then DAZ Studio? I had some problems with running the application at first, but that was due to the fact I tried to open some P5 figures and then DS crashes. 1. Content, even though DS is free it lacks content. Poser comes with lots of content, which makes it great. If one doesn't own Poser, but only DS, you would need to buy the content at DAZ itself for example. Soon this nice free tool won't be to free anymore. 2. Poser 5 has great features like dynamic hair, no support for that in DS (yet?). 3. Rendering. Even thoug I don't use P5 render engine much (due to bringing most of my P5 content to Vue4), the DS render engine has only a few option and the renders don't look as vivid as in Poser. 4. While DS starts up fast, Poser content loads rather slow. 5. Animating Poser figures will distort the mesh quite badly at times. Just bend a leg a little and move it to the side a little and the mesh will be all over the place. 6. DS crashes when trying to open P5 figures that are prepared with dynamic hair and conforming clothes. 7. DS reminds me of P4 too much, it's seems to be way behind P5. After playing with DAZ Studio for a while, I do not see any reason for me as a Poser 5 user to continue using DS at all. It's way behind P5, lacks all the cool features P5 has, lacks the rendering power P5 offers, only really opens P4 stuff succesfully (especially when using hair and such). Lacks any content and buying DAZ content (what they most likely want you to do) will make it quite expensive compared to P5.

Well, I have to say that on my modest system, the latest D/S release runs much much faster than poser 5. Only 10s to load program, less time than Poser took to get off its intro screen. I would call its interface unartistic but streamlined. it is much much faster to navigate and access content. As it is beta there a many aspects that I would call "buggy" but I really do see it as my replacement for poser. If you look at it as one tool of a suite,(including bryce 5, PS8 and a simple modeler) i see it easily replacing slow clunky poser 5 in the very near future. At least on my desktop.

Thank you, both of you, for your comments. aeilkema, D|S isn't intended, by itself, to compete with P5, but rather with P4. They will be adding dynamic capabilities to it in much the same way that they are added to lightwave or maya: plugins, both in house and third party. Prices on those will vary considerably. Import/Export will also be controlled via plug-ins. So when you turn the question around, you really do have to compare fairly with Poser 4. Peepers, Good notes, but, um -- and please, I am not being difficult here -- how does load time improve my experience in using it? If load time was a factor, I'd have abandonded PS long ago -- it still takes five minutes to load on my system because it parses my fonts folder. Faster navigation is cool. And yeah, it is beta -- I'm not taking that away from it. Poser is one tool of a suite -- has been since it was written. The orginal suite it was a tool of was Bryce, Carrara, and Poser (with Canoma in there as well). It is still under the tool design, they've simply recognized that it's common use has expanded far beyond the original purpose for the program. The benefit that DAZ has is that they are building the expandability into D|S. It's my hope that the plugins required to make it compatible wit my current version of Poser are, en masse, less expensive than buying poser itself. And since there's only one feature of Poser 5 that I make very little use of, that will likely be a hard pressed feat. Poser 5 takes 7.53 seconds to load on my system. Just timed it. For a good simple modeler, were you thinking "wings"? ;)

I see, compare it to P4 rather then P5, that's quite a set back. I'm missing the whole point of the application really, if it's supposed to compete with P4 then where's the content? What good is the whole application without any figures in it? To really use DAZ Studio you'll need some content in it. Again you'll still need P4/5 besides it to make go use of it or buy the figures at DAZ. If it's to replace P4, why would I want it seeing that P5 is much better then this tool anyway? If I'm looking for a better P4 I don't think this will be the alternative since it's not going to take me beyond P4.

The absalute truth about this comparison is it appears to be an attempt to look through the egg shell to see what kind of chickens there will be, to see if they should be purchased. The program has not even hit the shelves yet, and comparisons are being made. Even by me, I admit that, I'm going into the beta saying "How does this compare to Poser?" The thing is, it's not a fair comparison. It reminds me of the commercials on TV where they compare Dialup to the latest Cable connections. "It will be so much faster, it will be this, it will be that." Well yeah, it's a different kind of technology. So which is better? The point is mute. Which does what you want it to do. Right now, at the beta stage, DS is simply a rendering tool. You can't compare it to Posers animation capabilities, because it doesn't have them. You can't compare it to Posers Dynamic material capabilities, because it doesn't have them. All you can do is compare the apples with the apples. So does DS pose and render a figure better or on par with Poser. I'd say that they are about the same. I don't really notice any performance differences. Mind you I haven't hooked it up to my Digital stop watch to calculate render times down to the billionth of a second. I don't really think I need to bother, Does it really make a difference in the grand sceme of things if one renders a complete image .0382 second fater than the other? The question is which is better, the answer is: at this point they are both viable solutions to the rendering of 3D characters. Which is better, New York Strip, or Sirloin? yah know what I mean? ;D

Which does what you want it to do. well, no, the point is not moot. According to the stated objectives of the program, and based on the capabilities inherent already, one can draw reasonable conclusions as to the capabilities of D|S. D|S, once finished, is supposed to be capable of everything that P5 itself can do with the exceptions of: Import/export Dynamic Cloth Strand based hair Animation Figure SetUp and thusly, everything Poser 4/ProPack/Artist can do except Import/Export Animation Figure SetUp Furthermore, it is supposed to be able to read any pz3 file produced by poser (4 or 5) and present it to you. Now, based on those specific functions alone, D|S is not going to be a tool which makes most folks leap the border. But it is going to enable DAZ to draw in new people. That is the point and the purpose of the licensing. The question here is "why should I cahgne over to D|S -- what does it provide me in the way of enhancements". Thus far, these are: OpenGL support (great if you have a decent card, lousy if you do not) 3Delight Renderer (A darn good renderer) Additional lighting options Spot rendering Faster navigation Weightmapped joints Things that are not so hot: OpenGL support (reduced preview options) somewhat clunky interface closed file format Issues still being resolved are: 3Delight license duration Bone translation errors Deformer translation issues full exposure of all goal features. Bo

"But it is going to enable DAZ to draw in new people. That is the point and the purpose of the licensing." When reading this a thought crossed my mind. Does anyone know if DAZ Studio will have any content like poser does have (figures and so on) and if it will stay free or will need to be purchased? Or will it stay like it is, needing DAZ content or poser content. If the there isn't any content added to the application I don't see new people purchasing it. The content is what makes poser a valuable tool for new people.

I agree with aeilkema daz studio should have some content and some of that should be figures. ynsaen import/export animation and the setup room are the things I use most with propack so daz studio not having these makes it excessively limited in my opinion. When they do an animation plugin it should be free, because I don`t know any other 3d app where you have to buy the standard animation plugin.

Well, I shan't be buying anything that I can already do in P5 myself unless D|S happens to do it better, and with my existing content as it is and with the options that I have already set up as they are. Unless something phenomenal occurrs, I don't anticipate "switching" from Poser to the core D|S. That's simply the most unlikely scenario for anyone currently using Poser. The plug-ins may make some folks change over, but only a few. D|S will absolutely come with content. The bulk of the major alpha and Beta releases thus far have always come with content. secured and time limited content, but content nevertheless. How much content will be the big question (dont expect a lot of stuff you don't already have) and how portable that content will be outside of D|S will be the questions that are asked at the time. However, that said, when you are starting out from scratch, you gotta have something! lol Otherwise you'll get sorta, well, discouraged.

The thing that worries me most is that this application will in the end cost a lot more then Poser. Knowing the policy DAZ has on selling models if they follow the same for this application, you'll end up paying lot's of money. What I mean is this, buy M3 and/or V3 and all you really get is figure. You want more then only on figure don't you? So you'll start buying clothes, poses, morphs, textures, and so on. Before you know it you've spent quite a lot money on M3/V3. One may argue it was worth every penny, but if the same policy is followed by DAZ for DAZ Studio, we may pay a lot more then bargained for. That's why I'll stick with Poser because only the content itself is already well worth it. You get Don and Judy and the kids, quite a good number of clothes, poses, hair and os for them. If you'll buy all the stuff Poser gives you with the application seperately from DAZ for M3/V3 you'll end up paying much more then you'll ever paid for Poser itself. To be honest to really compete with Poser they'll need to add some brilliant content to it to get people even interested, but add the moment I don't see it as a serious contender for P5 at all and who wants to go back to P4 if he's got P5 already.

Your reason for sticking with Poser seems to be based on your imagination. You don't know what DAZ will do with content with DAZ|Studio (unless they announced something I didn't hear), so you can't know whether it will be worth it to you.

You need to put a big IF in front of your statement for why you won't use Studio or else all you can be seen as is someone who is just against DAZ|Studio because you have some personal war with it, not for any technical or valid reason.

Don't get the idea that I am saying you are such a person. In fact, I'm not saying that at all, I'm just saying that the way you write it sounds like DAZ could give you all kinds of great, valuable stuff and it probably wouldn't be good enough for you because you already made up your mind on the matter. I hope that you aren't that way, because if you are then any opinion you express on DAZ|Studio is tainted by that. I will assume you just didn't accurately portray your feelings on the matter unless you say otherwise. It just comes across in a bad way because I don't know your history and reading text can be deceiving.

Got nothing against DAZ at all (save that their stuff is overpriced imho, but that's really just an opinion). Just am wondering why they're taking a step back by creating a poser 4 like application while they really should release something that can compete with P5 imho again.

The main advantage is that DAZ would no longer have to rely on a third party to deliver their products.

Absolutely. hmmm, let's see -- near dissolution (twice), then a shaky "buyout" by a company that almost goes under itself (victim of Europe's bad times -- I feel for them), and then another buyout. yeah, I'd say I'd definitely want to have something else to sell my products should the current one suddenly vanish....

I don't actually see how they are creating a Poser 4 like program. People are drawing that parallel, but if a free program that is in it's beta is comparable to Poser 4, then I think that's pretty incredible.

Since the program will be modular, the program could easily (if programmers decide to do it) be expanded to even surpass what Poser 5 does. None of us know for sure if that is what DAZ is planning, though. Maybe they aren't even comparing it to Poser 5 at all and are just trying to create a program that can do all the things they and the community want content to be able to do. There may be overlap with Poser 5 functionality there, maybe there won't be much though. We just don't know.

Look at other communities that have an SDK, most plugins are free, depending on how major they are. LW's community has a huge free plugin base, and then the ones that add a lot of functionality to the software usually have to be paid for, but wow are they worth it! The strength of an app like DAZ|Studio won't necessarily be what it offers out of the box (although that will be huge). What could be one of it's larger strengths will be it's community of developers, DAZ included. And that strength will be determined by DAZ and how they deal with the whole development/SDK issue.

And yes, it is understandable for DAZ to build their own app. It would have been beneficial even if Curious Labs wasn't so shaky, though, I would imagine. If that barrier to getting new customers gets removed by having free software, all the new customers have to do is buy content. It seems like a pretty good strategy whether Poser is strong or not. :)

As far as DAZ is concerned, this isn't about CL being viable, any more. This is about digital rights management and its notable absence from Poser. When Napster was stretching its wings in 2000, Dan Farr saw what the future of selling unencrypted digital content was going to be like, and it was not good. Once it's in your Runtime folder, it's shareable with anyone (esp. through file format conversion). There are lots of ways to follow iTunes' model of controlled, authorized use, but unless Curious Labs takes the lead, DAZ might as well be selling .MP3 files. If P5 never happened and D|S was the standard, the online store at DAZ would be using a variant of public key encryption on your downloads, with 'bots trolling the P2P networks for shared serials to blacklist. If I could guarantee that kind of protection on my content, I'd give away the viewer, too. (But then I'd also have to module-by-module reproduce all the 3rd party renderers/animators I'd no longer be permitting export to)

Most protection for programs or files can and does get hacked, lightwave with the dongle was hacked so that the dongle was useless. The dongle is a thing that is connected to the computer to allow lightwave to work. The daz limited time products will be hacked too, it is not my idea but it will obviously be done, the blacklisting was also fixed for certain things.

What could be one of it's larger strengths will be it's community of developers, DAZ included. Well, looking at the number of Poser Python plugins (or rather, the lack of -), I'm not sure if there's much potential in the Poser community for plugin writers. Python has lots of potential too - we have MKParticles, WeirdJuice's Drops and MetaForm plus all the gems that ockham releases - but can't see where a large D|S developer community will come from when there is just a little for Poser.

Stewer: give it time. Python is new to a lot of people, and I have a hunch P5 is only now reaching the level of saturation that P4 attained in 2000. People are devoting pages of argument on the DAZ forums over whether DAZ should continue ignoring P5-specific content or bite the bullet until D|S offers viable substitutes for P5-specific features. Much as I love DAZ, I think they've made a mistake to sit on the sidelines and treat 4 as the final product. Also, there's a threshhold of user comfort and satisfaction with existing features that has to be crossed before hackers get hungry enough to add new features. It doesn't happen all at once.