I have said since before poser 5 that poser should have plugins something like the lightwave ones because they are easy to set up and use. It would mean that poser could do anything that any other 3d renderer could do, with the right plugins.

"So there's no more Victoria for Poser. shrug Who the hell really gives a rats rear?" Not me :-) With the DAZ INJ/REM/CHAN/VIS/DELTA BULLSHT* it now takes 796 Support files in your runtime to get all the "injection morphs" working ,Just for the body, on the average "unimess" clone one wonders how much more of this tedious Bloatware will be needed for the Vicky 4 figure ;-/

It would be financially suicidal for daz to stop making poser products.

Message edited on: 09/20/2005 05:40

"The future for Poser lies in its integration with Shade." That's why the gross insult of the latest Shade update is so grating. I bought Shade 7 (about 2 months ago!) because I wanted something well integrated with Poser. Now they come out with a new release, and no affordable option to upgrade from my previous release of Shade. I get exactly the same deal as if I'd never bought freaking Shade at all!

The future for poser doesnt lie in its integration with shade, I tried shade and didnt like it, if they made poser integration like with vue 5 infinite I still wouldn`t like or want shade.

If the future for Poser lies in its integration with Shade then Poser 6 will be my last update for sure. EF will loose many customers if they decide to integrate Poser with Shade. Just as DAZ has lost many customers when they decided to integrate Bryce with D/S. A modeling room in Poser wouldn't be a bad thing at all, but integration with Shade would make me very unhappy, I dislike Shade very much. It's not my piece of cake, I still prefer TrueSpace 6.6

EF will loose many customers if they decide to integrate Poser with Shade. Just as DAZ has lost many customers when they decided to integrate Bryce with D/S. only if EF tries the exclusive intigration . If they can advance the compatibility and transferability without excluding other options (such as Vue) then i think it would be a great advantage... at least to me :) I like shade. :D I can see shade and poser getting better intigration but i doubt it will ever become on product and i hope they dont go for exclusion like D|S appears to be.

You have to remember that e-frontier bought CL; then didn't merge. E-frontier bought CL for one reason and that reason was not to better Poser. E-frontier bought CL because CL had in place their western storefronts and distribution network. I don't know if you know this but this is very hard and costly to set up. And they bought it with the intention of selling Shade to the west. It was already the most popular product in the east. Poser integration was brought into Shade in the very first western release to help promote Shade. Have they now changed their minds???? I don't know. But I do know that Shade 8 continues to add Poser importing features. I just wonder if Poser will be like D|S and become the base product and Shade the future plug-in with the advanced stuff.

Poser is to far to become a base product. It has some advanced features and an excellent rendering engine. EF has developped P6 and as far as we know is working on P7. so we should at least see one more version of P7. Shade has it's own customer base and so does poser. I doubt the the two will merge any time soon.

"Does anyone really believe that the encoding process is there for any reason but data protection? (Officially it's for speed of loading! - On what, a 486?) Does anyone really believe DAZ wouldn't seek protection under the DMCA? Truly ironic when you consider that the single largest beneficiary of the current open Poser formats, extending them and building products based on that EULA-forbidden reverse engineering, is ... you guessed it, DAZ!!!" Why do you think D|S doesn't support scripting? Do you think Daz will risk that someone will make his/her plug-ins (as with Poser Python) and NOT BUYING Daz ones? ;)

"So there's no more Victoria for Poser. shrug Who the hell really gives a rats rear? Most of us bitch and moan about how we're sick of seeing her anyway ;)" And with Apollo Maximus and his future female counterpart, Daz can make all V4 and M4 D|S-only: Poser users will not suffer for sure...

It would be financially suicidal for daz to stop making poser products.

I agree. I don't know if I'd use the term "suicidal", but it would unquestionably seriously hurt their business.

If V4 were to be created as a D|S exclusive model, then DAZ would be the ultimate big-time loser. Other model makers would simply produce new, svelte female models for exclusive Poser use. And DAZ would lose a major segment of their business.

For these reasons (and others), I don't think that DAZ is likely to do such a thing.

BTW - for those who don't like V3, if V3 and all of her accessories were to disappear tomorrow, another V3-like model would quickly take her place. And that new female model would fulfill the same role that V3 currently does. Renders of the V3-replacement statuesque model would jam the galleries......just like V3 does now.

The market demands it. This state of affairs isn't going to change. It's as old as mankind.

Well, there's no Python scripting, but DAZ uses a version of QT Scripting, so there IS scripting. In fact, from what I see (not having an SDK yet to be completely sure) saved light, material, shader and pose files from DAZ are really scripts.

By financially suicidal I meant that they might go out of business switching to daz studio only stuff. If daz stop making poser stuff it wouldnt matter much to me, I dont like victoria 3 either. Poser existed long before daz and there is no reason to believe it wouldn`t still exist after daz.

'In fact, from what I see (not having an SDK yet to be completely sure) saved light, material, shader and pose files from DAZ are really scripts' Save them as .ds files (clear text) and you'll see what's in them. I'd advise Edit Pad Lite (free) to open them. Notepad can't handle carriage returns. As far as editing goes, they're not like poser files where almost anyone can do it. I had to shout for rob W's help a few times, but I can now do quite a few useful hacks. mac PS The idea of DAZ abandoning poser products is almost as ludicrous as the DS vs P6 topic.

"Shade has it's own customer base and so does poser. I doubt the the two will merge any time soon." Put yourselfs in E-Frontier's shoes. You bought CL to spread YOUR product to the west. You aquired Poser but your aim as stated from the beginning is to grow Shade. Now if you aren't gaining the numbers of converts you wanted from Poser useres by providing integration with Shade. What are you going to do? You got it! Start providing the more advanced features in Shade and then provide Poser with the integration so you can export from Shade rather that vice-versa which it is now. Get it? In other words you create lets say dynamic cloth in Shade and you play it back in Poser.

If daz stop making poser stuff it wouldnt matter much to me, I dont like victoria 3 either.

shrug Enough people do like her to make her by far and away the top-selling figure of all time. And items created for her the top-selling items (clothing, hair, etc.) over all other character-related items.....by extreme margins.

But there's no accounting for personal taste. We are all welcome to our own preference.

Even when it's a minority view.

Poser existed long before daz and there is no reason to believe it wouldn`t still exist after daz.

True. No disagreements on this point.

Excepting for the fact that I don't expect that we'll see DAZ pull a disappearing act any time soon.

;)

My point was that it doesnt matter that much what daz do or dont do concerning poser, at least for me.

Poser 6 wins the feature war hands down. Poser is the best overall price/performance answer for more advanced users, but.. Most people don't animate. Most people don't do figure creation. Many (probably most) people aren't going to delve extensively into Poser's shader creation. A lot of people still seem to be intimidated by the hair and cloth rooms. I'll bet that many people don't even use magnets. In short, Studio already offers what a large number of people really need/want it this type of application. If they decide later they want more, the plug-in route is appealing because you buy only what you need, when you want, even if it ends up costing a little more. Heaven forbid, the DS plug-ins may even offer superior functionality or ease of use over their Poser equivalents. I think 3DeLight can probably hold it's own against FireFly and it should give you access to a whole raft of Renderman resources. Currently DS doesn't give you the ability to really harness it's power so we'll have to see what the rendering plug-in(s) look like and how much they cost. I think again a lot of the does it have AO, IBL, etc. misses the point that there is whole big group of people out there who aren't going to learn to use those features anyway. Whether DS will be successful I don't know but I think they've calibrated the application pretty well to the sweet spot of the potential user population. You may denigrate the "make art" crowd, but that's where the big money, if any, will be found.

mac, I'm just saying the code in them ;) I've been saving them as non-binaries. I can isolate the materials info and that sort of thing and the initial code at the beginning looks very much like scripting versus being a file hack (MATs). Xeno, very true. I really don't like to use V3 myself but I do cater to that figure. It's financially sound and I can see that simply by looking at my own sales figures. :D Actually, Aiko 3 is my pick for the unimeshies and I know not everyone is into that one - what can I say, I'm into what I like too.

"PS The idea of DAZ abandoning poser products is almost as ludicrous as the DS vs P6 topic." It really isn't. If D/S will become a success and DAZ teams up with some to other major 3D apps (like Cinema4D, Lightwave and such) to allow them to import the D/S format (just like importing pz3 files in Vue or Carrara), the whole scenerio will change and DAZ could afford to abandon poser products. I'm pretty sure they just would love to do so, just look at the way they often treat P5 & P6 users, like if we're non exsistant at all. Sometimes I think that DAZ is still under the impression that there's nothing beyond Poser 4.

Netherworks --

I've got a couple of characters for Aiko 3 that I like a lot. But only a couple. I prefer realistic figures; and I don't like 'toon figures. It's that personal taste thing again.

Likewise, I think that personal taste has a lot to do with the choice between Poser and D|S.

People can list features all day long. But if someone prefers the color blue, or the flavor of chocolate ice cream over vanilla.......then no amount of arguing with them about it will change their mind on the subject.

PS -- I hope that everything is going well for you these days. Being turned out of your home by a hurricane has got to be rough. Hopefully, you'll be able to get fully back up & running soon.

Very true :) It's a bit difficult right now as we can't seem to find a permanent place to live. I have shop set up here temporarily at my mom's and I'm fortunate to atleast have something in that. Rita's making folks around here a bit nervous and that's understandable. Any strike of any magnitude around New Orleans will cause serious problems. Back to the discussion ;) Again, I like both programs from both camps and if anything the competition will be good for ALL of us.

Like getting an improved IK system into the next release of Poser, perhaps...? ;)

"PS The idea of DAZ abandoning poser products is almost as ludicrous as the DS vs P6 topic." I have to agree. It's a bit like the idea of a supermarket that would only sell generics rather than major brand names. There's no reason that both types of product can't co-exist side by side, and to take the analogy a stage further at least Daz don't have to worry about physical shelf space, their store can be as big as they want. If there's a profit to be turned from a product then why not stock it?

"I have to agree. It's a bit like the idea of a supermarket that would only sell generics rather than major brand names." I'm not sure were you do live, but in Europe we do actually have supermarket chains that do only sell generics and no brand names at all. And guess what? In this economic crisis, those supermarkets thrive and make huge profits. It's all about economics, not about reason at all. If you know your target customers then a strategy will succeed, even though it's unlogic. If DAZ plays it well, there is a huge potential market. To reach that market, they have to become dissasociated with the 'brand name Poser' Their are many 3D users that wouldn't use any poser figures at all, just because poser has a bad name in their community. (We all have been laughed at by these guys at times most likely) Often we call it snobbery, but they do represent a huge potential market. Seeing some of the latest moves DAZ is making, it seems like they're trying to build a new customer base and who knows what that may lead to? You can survive on on 'brand name only' DAZ has survived and grown large creating Poser geared content and poser releated items only. Simply because Poser has a huge user base. If they can aquire the same user base with D/S and other applications or through reaching other 3D communities, I don't see why they couldn't abandon poser altogether. You can say it's impossible, since DAZ has proven they can survive reaching one major market only. If in years to come they switch markets it would be very possible. Last remark.... Now that DAZ has it's own D/S and is trying to become less dependant on Poser and Poser is looking for new ways of rigging figures and such, who can say that Poser may not dump the DAZ support? It wouldn't be hard to stop M3/V3 inj from working in Poser 7.....

"It wouldn't be hard to stop M3/V3 inj from working in Poser 7..... "

Now that'd be a good way for EF to really irritate a large chunk of their customer base - stop a feature of their previously purchased content from working.

Message edited on: 09/21/2005 03:16

People keep saying that the poser rigging is not good and it should be changed to some newer way of making figures but if e-frontier did that, it could be that ALL the poser things that have been made so far wouldn`t work in the newer version.

I think they'd have to make the software backwards compatible in a fashion - so that the program could still read and use the "old" content (and its "old" rigging style) as well as read and use any "new" type of content (with any new rigging technology they think of). I think if they axe murdered a lot of the old content and its use in the new version, ... well... the firestorm would be pretty to watch ;) And I doubt they'd want that.

It might not be possible to use the old system and a newer one in the same program.

xantor, This is similar to the ongoing discussion about updating the poser code. If they did update it, there's no guarantee of backwards compatibility. In addition, the hacks we take for granted now, might disappear forever with new code. If CL/EF were writing poser from the toes up, they might well consider going binary. I don't envy them. They're between a rock and a hard place. If they do a rewrite, they're damned. If they don't, they're damned. And if they don't rewrite, things like the lack of multiple undo will remain a thorn in their side for all time. mac

How's this for a thought.... Get a really really really big harddrive. (They are up to 300GB now!) Keep the (soon-to-be) legacy POSER stuff (4-6) and still have room for the new improved recoded from the ground up version 7. Aren't some of us doing that now with 4-5/6? I only keep P5 around for use with The Tailor. If that code ever gets updated to handle the two new prop-thingies in P6 guess who is reclaiming some HDD space??

"Aren't some of us doing that now with 4-5/6?"<< I am but for some reason when a new version is released some users prefer to completely delete the older one. Technically im still using my original P3 runtime!! years ago I upgraded my P3 installation to poser4 then later upgraded to propack4.. same runtime. got poser5 linked to my propack4 runtime (no painful migration) bought P6 and ..yes linked to my propack4 runtime :-) I have the laster 4 versions of poser on the same machine when its time for a backup of poser I just drag a copy that propack runtime over to my external firewire server.

Mea Culpa time again! I said earlier in this thread that I was p/o'ed at e-Frontier because they wanted me to pay full price for Shade 8 after buying Shade 7 less than 2 months ago.

Well, I just got this mass email from them: "Since you purchased Shade 7 after July 31, 2005, you automatically qualify for a FREE electronic upgrade to Shade 8, plus additional content when you upgrade!"

Now, I don't know how I'd feel if I'd bought it a week earlier, but I must say I have no complaint about it anymore!

Regardless of however improved upon or evolved, a Poser copy is still a Poser copy. To me the age old Eula debate back at Poser Pros many years ago was to allow Studio's creation by accessing the Poser file formats. I'll admit it. I was used and suckered like a bunch of other people with marketbabble speeches about community and "we are all in the same boat". It was never about protecting the community. It was only about getting unrestricted access to the Poser file formats. And now the Studio Eula and file formats are conveniently closed. No export to Poser, which is as easy as reading the Poser format. Poser may not be perfect, byt they also didn't have anything to copy either. Regardless of however improved, a copy is a copy. Legal or not. It is tacky.

*"ll admit it. I was used and suckered like a bunch of other people with marketbabble
speeches about community and "we are all in the same boat". It was never about
protecting the community. It was only about getting unrestricted
access to the Poser file formats."

Reiss studio obviously has access to poser file formats in some fashion to be able
to create their bodystudio poser import plugins for MAX MAYA and Cinema4D

kuroyume0161 has a poser to cinema import plugin that he wrote based his "access"
to poser file formats

MarkDc must know something about poser file formats to be selling his Poser Softimage & MAX plugins
Dave greenbriar must know something about poser file formats to be selling his Poser LW& Cinema4D
plugin.
none of these plugin have any real options to export date from their host apps BACK to
poser except the usual 3d file formats .obj etc.

"And now the Studio Eula and file formats are conveniently closed.
No export to Poser, which is as easy as reading the Poser format."

What now "closed"file formats/features from DAZ Studio are vital to the present
or future Of poser??
that little "power pose" thingy??

activate Auto balance in P6 and get the EXACT same effect

Dform??? not even close to what Wyrrmmaster does with poser magnet technology.

export to bryce with textures intact??
Stewer has a script that does that WITHOUT the need to go though DAZ studio

no offense but im not really sure why we poser users should be treating the release of D/S 1.0 as if
the "evil empire" has completed its construction of the Death star and is about to embark upon some new reign of terror in the poser galaxy

wheres the fire ?? Message edited on: 09/21/2005 20:42

Anton, this is nothing new. Microsoft has used Open Source material in THEIR products, but you can't access THEIR stuff either. Unless they give permission. D-Form is D|S version of magnets. You may see the D|S format of Voluptuous Vicky(tm) will be coming soon. (No, I am not in contact with the Wyrmmaster, and hopes he is safe over in the Middle East or wherever he is right now!) Wolf359, I bet the Rebels said the same thing ;) What this debate/discussion says for sure is that our little hobby is growing up but fast!

"wheres the fire ??" Since when has that ever been needed for the conjecture/wild theories/paranoia/celebration to begin. The mere sight of someone walking with two sticks is normally enough lol.

" Anton, this is nothing new." Of course its not "Microsoft has used Open Source material in THEIR products, but you can't access THEIR stuff either. Unless they give permission." And that permission is usually in the form of an SDK either public or exclusive to specific developers chosen by the owners of the new proproetary technology "Since when has that ever been needed for the conjecture/wild theories/paranoia/celebration to begin." Good point sir why bother with actual proof of a nefarious conspiracy :-) when all one needs is a deep seated long standing grudge accompanied by blatant attempts to light fires in the forums. ostensibly to Draw certain company CEO's from the fortified and Hallowed Halls of Castle Draper, out in to the wilderness where they can be attacked Directly. fortunately that certain CEO has thus far spared us yet another redux of that tired old Drama and refused to succumb to this hopelessly predictable tactic.

For me DAZ Studio is pretty much an non-issue. I'm not going to be supporting DAZ Studio in the near future, as there are several ways that it works that are non-compatable with the way I set my clothing up and model. These are basic to the way it is programed, so I don't see them being changed. Plus I've started to make Dynamic clothing, something it doesn't support. Nice of DAZ to make it available, free and all that, but it is surely going to eventually lead to a path different from Poser, with non-compatable products. The main question is, which path do most of us want to follow. I'd suspect that V4, if and when she arrives, is either going to be a updated V3 with even more morphs or else a D/S only figure, using features from that program to do things that can't be done with Poser.

Daz Studio with current plugin releases $45.80 (non sale prices). So much for FREE. (yeah I know base is free, plugins extra). From Daz Studio Beta Press release: Python support , For-sale plugins for .LWO and .MAX import/export. Things change in production. v1.0 has neither. v1.0 does state: DAZ|Studio is compatible with all the standard content sold in the DAZ online store. Nowhere does Daz Studio state that Daz Studio is compatible with Poser 4, PP, 5, 6 or 3rd party content NOT sold at Daz online store. "why bother with actual proof of a nefarious conspiracy :-) when all one needs is a deep seated long standing grudge accompanied by blatant attempts to light fires in the forums." Daz has stated over and over again that Daz Studio was not a Poser replacement. So Daz Studio has it's own "Magnets", it's own "Scripting". When a company says something over and over again and does another if that is a grudge so be it I guess. Sometimes its more of in the past a statement is made and posters being called liers then the truth later comes out and a statement of "I told you so". "It's the end of the world ...and I feel fine."-R.E.M.

Daz studio with plugins $45.80 and it still wont have as much functionality as propack.

By now if you want all the plugins for D/S the value is $75.75. There on sale, so you only end up paying $32.08, but even that will add up after a while. I'm really glad I've got Poser 6 and that I'm very satisfied with it..... D/S is going to be one expensive application if you want all that's available for it.

"no offense but im not really sure why we poser users should be treating the release of D/S 1.0 as if the "evil empire" has completed its construction of the Death star and is about to embark upon some new reign of terror in the poser galaxy"<< I don't think anyone is suggesting anyone should be thinking that way. Except you maybe. :)At that point above we were discussing personal points of view. I know you love a good rebuttle but The "evil EMpire" part is a bit over the top don't you think?

The cool thing I've seen with Daz Studio is the Power Pose plugin. Inverse Kinematics in Poser 4 only applies to arms and legs as far as I can tell. Anyone know of a way to emulate the Power Pose functionality in Poser. DS is useless to me otherwise because of the inability to export to Vue, or Lightwave. I can manually copy the settings from DS and replicate in Poser but I don't look forward to that. Thanks for any help.

Stewer has a Python script that will read a D|S Pose preset, as long as you remember to select the ASCII format when saving from D|S. You can also export an OBJ file from D|S, though you'll have to recreate the material settings to a considerable extent, depending on how the destination application reacts to the tweaked-for-Bryce MTL file.

Thanks. That sounds just like what I'm looking for. I will check it out.