What's all this talk of Poser 8? Did I sleep through Poser 7? Did I miss a press release?

You mean you didn't know? P7's been out for over six months now.

More than one version is the answer, as suggested earlier in the thread. eF is already doing that, with three versions of Shade, from $50 to $1,000.

That's true to a point. But then you'll inevitably have Poser-envy sufferers -- "Hey, how come I can't do that? How come V4 doesn't look as good in my P7 standard as she does in that $1200 P7 Ultimate package.........? It's not fair!!!!!!"

Also, as we've discussed content issues vis-a-vis items designed to be compatible with P4 being used in P5/6 -- so also there might be issues over Poser content created for the "advanced" versions not being compatible with lower-end versions. Likewise, content created for the lower-end versions might not take full advantage of the higher-end functionality.

shrug Different versions might work.......but it would alter the way that the Poser market works right now. Not that this result would necessarily be a bad thing...........

Not to mention what the effect of turning Poser into a $1000+ app would be. If the cost of the software ever gets that high, then Poser will no longer be an application to appeal to casual 3D hobbyists. And Poser's market will shrink accordingly. I don't know that their market would "shrink". Yes, they would lose the hobbyist market who won't pay $99 for an upgrade... but at the same time, they'll get the "professional" market who won't blink at paying $2,500 for programs like 3D Studio Max. If e-f raised the price, would the "professionals" start to think that Poser is more than a hobbyist toy? --John

Hey, how come I can't do that? How come V4 doesn't look as good in my P7 standard as she does in that $1200 P7 Ultimate package.........? It's not fair!!!!!!"

I doubt it. Renders look just as good in Vue Easel as they do in Vue Infinite. Shade LE renders look as good as Shade Pro. It's the tools that are different, and they are mostly invisible.

Also, as we've discussed content issues vis-a-vis items designed to be compatible with P4 being used in P5/6 -- so also there might be issues over Poser content created for the "advanced" versions not being compatible with lower-end versions. Likewise, content created for the lower-end versions might not take full advantage of the higher-end functionality.

E-on seems to manage with Vue Infinite/d'Esprit/Easel.

Besides, I think the bigger issue will be, "How come V4 doesn't look as good in my $1,000 P7 Ultimate as she does in free D|S?"

If e-f raised the price, would the "professionals" start to think that Poser is more than a hobbyist toy?

That's it -- just triple the price, and Poser will be instantly be regarded as a "professional's tool" overnight.

;)

I don't know that their market would "shrink". Yes, they would lose the hobbyist market who won't pay $99 for an upgrade... but at the same time, they'll get the "professional" market who won't blink at paying $2,500 for programs like 3D Studio Max.

Not necessarily. Poser has always been a hobbyist app from it's inception. That's Poser's primary market. To change this target demographic would be to alter Poser from it's "populist" roots.

And I don't know that doing so would instantly win Poser a ton of Maya/Max/Lightwave converts, anyway. EF might just end up losing their focused market, instead.

D|S, anyone.......?

E-on seems to manage with Vue Infinite/d'Esprit/Easel.

shrug I'm not totally opposed to the idea of multiple versions. In fact, I'm a Vue Infinite user.....but I'd point out that the Vue crowd is a different bunch from the Poser crowd -- and that the Poser crowd is likely to react in unpredictable ways to such a major change to their favorite app.

Besides, I think the bigger issue will be, "How come V4 doesn't look as good in my $1,000 P7 Ultimate as she does in free D|S?"

Yes.....there is that to consider.

So of course: the thing to do in order to compete with "free" D|S is to jack Poser's price up to new heights. (heeeee......heeee.....)

;)

svdl, I wondered if anybody was going to take issue with my statement about the scripting language. While I agree with everything you say, I'd point out that eF is NOT writing Poser from scratch, and Poser was not written from scratch with scripting in mind. The scripting engine was "bolted on" to the legacy code a couple of versions ago. Pretty big difference.

Microsoft Word held up as paragon of bug-free software?! It took me half an hour to crawl back up to my keyboard from the floor after reading that one, and another half an hour before I could see the screen for the tears coming from my eyes.

Jackson, I'm glad you completed your manual without Word choking. You could have hit the bug where all the pictures disappear to be replaced with red X's, as I did a few years back. Did you use the master/child documents feature? Not many people do - too many reports of massive file corruption from those who tried to use it, although maybe they finally fixed that as well. I'll also assume that your diagrams didn't sometimes disappear completely when you tried to move them around on the page, as mine often do in my fully updated copy of Word 2003. Were you managing multiple, hierarchical numbered and bulleted lists? I find that it's still a bit like herding cats, partly due to the fact that changing a style in an attached template from within a document doesn't always really change the template's style definition. And since Word now offers to automatically repair document corruption, does the fact that it's corrupting its own data in the first place still count as a bug?

Methinks some selective memory is at work here. Scripting in the office apps works OK these days (unless you're trying to mix WordBasic, VB & .NET ;) but it was a nightmare for a few years when they first expanded WordBasic into VB for Apps and tried to apply it to the other Office apps, particularly Excel. It's still a nightmare in Outlook after all this time.

What is MS Word at now? Version 11? Even throwing away the 4 versions they lost jumping directly from 2 to 6, that's still the 7th iteration of the app, so there are at least 2 versions for Poser to catch up to the MS "standard" of reliability before it is fair to make comparisons. And, since with Office and Photoshop we are talking about the flagship programs of the two biggest, richest development shops on the planet, is it ever going to be fair to make such a comparison?

And yes, I know you said "relatively." I still think it's a stretch.

• Jimdoria ~@>@

Message edited on: 01/11/2006 16:35

Jimdoria - you're right. Bolting on a scripting engine afterwards is a surefire recipe for major development headaches. So IF eF are going to rewrite Poser from the ground up, they'd better do it with scripting designed into the app! If not, I seriously doubt whether scriptability will ever be at a decent level. The VBA route in Office was quite complicated indeed. The first "sort of" VBA appeared with Access version 1.0. The first full VBA was in Excel 4.0. WordBasic was a rather lame and counterintuitive scripting language. Office 97 was the first version that consolidated VBA as the Office scripting language, and the first version that allowed for calling other apps from within a script. Not flawless, indeed. I ran into quite some bugs, in every Office version. But usable, for the most part, and without blatant omissions in functionality. There's a good reason Corel dropped its own scripting engine for WordPerfect and licensed VBA!

Uh......does anyone use WordPerfect anymore? I haven't seen it used in any office environment where I've worked in many years.

Some diehards still use WordPerfect, but most people use either MS Office or StarOffice/OpenOffice. WordPerfect is not dead - yet.

"I'm glad you completed your manual without Word choking.

Thanks. Actually I've done several manuals in Word; the one I mentioned was just the biggest with the most stuff in it.

"You could have hit the bug where all the pictures disappear to be replaced with red X's"

Never heard of or seen that bug. But then, I usually embed. If you link to a graphic, then move, delete, or rename it, you'll probably get the red Xs.

"Did you use the master/child documents feature?"

No.

"I'll also assume that your diagrams didn't sometimes disappear completely when you tried to move them around on the page, as mine often do in my fully updated copy of Word 2003."

You are correct, I never had that problem. But then, I never used Word 2003. Maybe it's a new bug or it could be a problem with your vid card/driver.

"Were you managing multiple, hierarchical numbered and bulleted lists? I find that it's still a bit like herding cats,"

Quite a few actually. It was quite easy.

"since Word now offers to automatically repair document corruption, does the fact that it's corrupting its own data in the first place still count as a bug?"

Word has had that feature for a while now. My experience was Word wasn't corrupting files. The only times I needed it were when the machine was somehow rebooted or turned off while working in Word. (I worked in a crowded environment).

And please, again, in my original post I was not comparing any software with Poser. I was responding to post #7, in which the person asked for "software." He didn't say "3d software," he said "software." I simply answered his request. BTW, there are some 3d packages in my list.

Message edited on: 01/11/2006 18:01

We still use WordPerfect in my office. I find it a lot more stable than Word, but that ain't saying much. I hear law offices still use WordPerfect a lot. (We're an engineering office, though, not a law office.)

It may seem counterintuitive that raising Poser's price might actually increase sales, but stranger things have happened. I hope they don't raise the price, personally, but obviously, they can't undercut D|S. The solution might be to not even try, and to go after pros and prosumers instead of hobbyists. It would be a whole different game, that's for sure.

Chuckle...Just last week people were debating about possible features for Poser 7 at the DAZ forums. Now we're talking about Poser 8. Golly. Well for the sake of posterity, let me state here and now that Microsoft Poser 9 still doesn't have the full immersive holographic feedback they promised...I'll likely have to upgrade to Poser 9 PRO , SP 4 to get THAT feature....GRRR! Meanwhile my illustration pens are drying out in the Burger King cup I put them in two and a half years ago...

Well, if it gets expensive (say, anything over $400), yeah the market will shrink a bit. If it tops $1000.00, then I doubt the pros will instantly pick it up and run with it - anyone who can think nothing of 2 grand for a proggie is still going to get the best they can out of it. If they already have Lightwave, 3DS Max, Maya, etc and make their bread-and-butter from it, it would prolly be chaper and faster for them to just buy the Poser content (which already has a perfectly useable .obj mesh and UV map w/ texture). Then you use one of a zillion plugins to auto-rig then tweak said rig on the figure once it's imported... and it won't cost you $1,000US to do it in either time or money. There is such a thing as pricing yourself out of the market, and I'm sorry, but Shade ain't Modo, and it ain't Lightwave, so they're going to have to do more than just bundle Poser with it for that kind of scratch (esp. in light of what Carrara can do at less than 500 bucks + whatever Transposer costs). /P

Transposer 2 is bundled with C5, FWIW. That includes full P6 import. :)

Message edited on: 01/11/2006 20:48

I just want Poser Future Version to be optimised for human and humanoid figure work. The other 3D programs can go take care of environments, vehicles, etc.

I seriously doubt raising the price would bring in a 'better class of customer.' There is always a degree of irrationality involved and this market in particular seems to have more than it's share. Not surprising I suppose that people involved in making imagery would value image over substance. At any rate, the degree of scorn I've seen heaped on Poser by the 3D cognoscenti seems to exceed the product's flaws or limitations. Overcoming that type of attitude will take a lot more than price increases. You would essentially need not only a new product but a new company, an entirely new persona divorced from anything Poser. Let's also not ignore the fact that for every X number of hobbyist level users you lose, you also lose the content they buy. How many Vicki 3s are those fewer $2,500 boys going to buy, how many fetish outfits? Would they maintain the current cottage industry that has contributed so much to Poser's success or would they continue to patronize the $500 basketball TurboSquid market? In addition to the product itself, you'd better be prepared with the type of support those $2,500 customers have come to expect. The consequences are going to be much more dire when your issues are holding up a major professional production than they are if some can't get Vicki's into their temple. I think there are reasons beyond price and capability why there are only a handful of really successful top tier packages. I think Poser should concentrate on it's core strengths, ease of use and a large variety of inexpensive content. It should encourage more high level users by supporting standards like FBX and making itself play well in a production environment where possible but I think trying to change its fundamental personality would be the death of it.

I think trying to change its fundamental personality would be the death of it.

I agree.

"New Coke" didn't fly so well, either.

Once a product has developed a loyal customer base, then it's never a good idea to attempt to radically morph that product into something else. You won't win many converts that way -- and you'll lose the majority of your present customer base in the process.

Long-time customers actually LIKE the way that "Old Coke" tastes.........

"Let's also not ignore the fact that for every X number of hobbyist level users you lose, you also lose the content they buy. How many Vicki 3s are those fewer $2,500 boys going to buy, how many fetish outfits? Would they maintain the current cottage industry that has contributed so much to Poser's success or would they continue to patronize the $500 basketball TurboSquid market?" Actually, since it's not just a Poser market anymore - D|S isn;t going to dry up and blow away just because Poser might. I doubt that folks would just give up and buy the expensive stuff, or simply go away.... DAZ as a ferinstance would find a slower inrush of folks who own the latest/greatest Poser, but considering that they're picking up speed with new D|S users (who have never even heard of Poser), I doubt it would hurt them long-term... and eventually any merch types who want to continue making pin money off of content would re-engineer all their stuff to work in D|S. Rendo would be faced with a choice they may not like if Poser were to diminish or dry up - either start making love to D|S as their primary focus, or lose marketshare like a mofo. Dunno - Poser is now part and parcel of EF, and EF has bigger babies to feed (Shade). So I suspect that Poser will at best be absorbed into Shade unless they can do some serious code re-writes... /P

Well, the cottage folk mostly don't live or die by making Poaer content hopefully, so they could weather any upheavals better than Daz or as you say Disney. Probably a moot question anyway as I doubt that EF is mad enough to abandon the lower end market. Of course GM would probably let them have the framework for a "This is not your father's poser" ad campaign real cheap.

Probably a moot question anyway as I doubt that EF is mad enough to abandon the lower end market.

I wonder. They no longer offer Shade LE.

There's no real need to abandon the low-end market. Poser just needs to perfect what it already does--3D character creation and manipulation--and make it work with other 3D apps, high, low and middle. That would make it available to everybody, with no real cost increase, and allow people to do high-end work if they want to, but hobbyists could still use the basic app. If they could once afford to give away plugins that let Poser work with other apps, then it seems to me they could just build in that capability without too much cost or effort.--T

"They no longer offer Shade LE." That's interesting. I see they still offer three versions in Japan, starting at 9,000 Yen ($79). Maybe LE just didn't do that well over here in the U.S. Different countries have different price sensitivities.