This whole thread reminds me a bit of the old zen tale about the farmer. His horse runs off and all his neighbors say "What terrible luck you have!" His only reply is "Maybe."

Then the horse comes back, bringing two wild horses with it. The neighbors say "What terriffic luck you have!" "Maybe." Then his son tries to ride one of the wild horses, is thrown and breaks his leg. The neighbors commiserate: "A broken leg, and harvest just around the corner. Terrible luck!" "Maybe." The next day the army sweeps through the village, drafting all the young men and taking them off to war. The farmer's son is left behind, though, because of his broken leg. "WHAT AMAZING LUCK!" the neighbors say...

You get the idea.

Does DAZ want to kill Poser? Well, any company tries to dominate its market, and then branch out into other markets. It's what capitalist corporations DO. Complain if you want, but it's like complaining that sharks don't give serious enough consideration to the vegetarian option. Eliminating the competition must be somewhere on DAZ's radar, and I think everybody knows this although of course DAZ can't just come right out and say so. It does make their "we love Poser too" rhetoric seem a bit empty. On the other hand, Poser and its users currently are a large chunk of their revenue stream, so it's not an out-and-out lie either.

Besides, it's not like DAZ can slip up behind Poser and garrotte it with a piano wire. If they kill Poser, it will be through competition, which is supposedly good for the marketplace. (Hey, isn't that us?!) For DAZ to kill Poser, they will have to offer an alternative that matches or bests Poser's feature set and price point. They will also have to beat out eFrontier on the "intangibles": customer service, licensing, community and vendor support. There are a lot of factors in play. At every turn, eFrontier has the chance to counter them. If they can't or won't, DAZ will win the hearts and minds of the lion's share of Poser's user base, and Poser will shrivel.

But IF that happens (eventually, some day, years form now) it will be eFrontier's fault as much as DAZ's. And if it happens, why stay "true" to Poser when there is a cheaper, better alternative from a company that provides better service and value? (Poser isn't the Mets, for crying out loud!) No one would mourn the passing of Poser under those circumstances, unless they have some kind of personal axe to grind with DAZ, suffer from chronic acute software nostalgia, or just generally hate the winner for whatever reason.

Yes, companies who dominate markets then tend to mistake their customers for urinals, but realistically I can't see DAZ (or any company in this space) coming to that point. Too much competition from above, with high-end 3D software coming down in price and new innovations in 3D arriving regularly. Also too much competition from below, with increasingly sophisticated open source and freeware 3D tools. And people in this market segment are used to mixing and matching - a modeller here, a UV mapper there. The kind of lock-in Microsoft has with their Office software is likely impossible to achieve in our little niche.

So is this acquisition bad news for Poser? Maybe.

Well said!!  BRAVO Jim! :thumbupboth:

Richard ;-)~

Hey, I have 10 invitations too!! Drop me an IM with your email if you want :P

Quote - Does DAZ want to kill Poser? Well, any company tries to dominate its market, and then branch out into other markets.

Is Poser really competition for DAZ?

DAZ is in the business to sell 3D content for posing software. DAZ doesn't make any more or less money selling to a Poser user or a Studio user. From that standpoint, there is no reason to want to make Poser go away. There simply is no financial incentive to bury Poser.

I really think that DAZ Studio is mostly DAZ's means to protect their future and to increase the marketplace for their content by enticing artists to try their free software. Without Studio, DAZ would be out of business if Poser dies. If E-Frontier were to dump Poser today, DAZ would still be hurt because the bulk of their biggest customers are Poser users and Studio is not yet robust enough to provide a real alternative. Studio at leasts offers a no cost option for new users to test the 3D waters. As Studio matures, it becomes a vehicle for DAZ to add capabilities that Poser doesn't have and bring in advances to both software and their modeling business that don't rely on convincing E-Frontier to incorporate into future versions of Poser.

Bryce was a good addition for DAZ because Poser doesn't have a means to create natural terrain. Carrara is another good addition because Poser isn't a modeling program.  Bryce, under DAZ, is a third the price Bryce was under Corel or Metacreations. Similar pricing will probably happen to Carrara.

As far as I can tell, the DAZ strategy for world domination is to make the applications, necessary for 3D art, as inexpensive as possible so that 3D artists will keep creating artwork and buy more models to put into their works. People who aren't creating 3D art aren't buying 3D content. The company hasn't had a perfect record with past employees and brokers, but few companies do and we tend to hear just one side of the story (often emotionally fraught enough that it's sometimes hard to be wholly sympathetic with the grieved side).

It's hard for me to be real fearful about this acquisition. A nice modeling package may be within my budget.

Attached Link: Digital Pilon article

Interesting article.  Apparently, whoever wrote it isn't much impressed with D|S or Bryce. 

If I understand the bottom line of the analysis: DAZ is still more of a competitive threat to content providers than software creators.  It's not Poser that faces the biggest threat, but content stores like Cornucopia3D and Content Paradise.

I suppose I just don't understand the whole dynamic of the situation.   I just recently bought Poser 6, its my first dip into 3D.   All I know is that I've been frustrated with customer service at e-frontier and e-on.    They've been so unhelpful with assisting me in how Shade and Vue relate to Poser.   It makes me wonder if maybe Hexagon and Carrara are a better choice for making new content and scenes for my Poser figures. : /   

I suppose th is is a fairly turbulent time to begin studying digital art.

Charlie.

Quote - Our parent company is a business development and strategy company that has worked extensively in 3D - with Eovia, Daz, e-frontier, e-on software and others. We've put together a business perspectives article on the acquisition and how it likely will impact the prosumer graphics market.

The view from the other side of the fence - Thanks for that!

Cheers

jjsemp said, "Carrara has the native ability to import Poser content (without Poser), it's a very good program,  and it doesn't have any of Poser's quirks and bugs."

 As far as I am concerned, the biggest problem with Poser is its abysmal handling of memory.   The biggest problem with Carrara is its even more abysmal handling of memory  (although the useless terrain editor does provide competition).    Carrara 5 is an even worse memory-hog than Poser, by quite a margin.

As for Hexagon - well, I'm obviously not made for modelling.   Is there anyone  (this'll be in  the UK and possibly the Republic) who remembers the comedy sketch by Marty Feldman, where he is the tour-guide on a coach-trip to the seaside * ?   The Hexagon tutorial reminds me of that:  side-splittingly funny, but completely unhelpful.

( * Feldman points things out to the left and to the right at  a spine-jarring speed.   The  passengers look left and right faster and faster, until he says, "And here we are at the seaside!")

In the Hexagon version, a space animal is created in rather less than a nanosecond.

Carraras mem mgmt  I find superior to that of Poser & Vue...I can jam my scenes full with NO problems.

dlk30341---I agree with you on that, when poser chokes up, carrara whizzes right through

Sorry, but importing a few very small Poser files will regularly cause problems for Carrara.    Pretending that Carrara has no memory problems does no-one any favours.

Well, I have not run into problems importing Poser files. I have thrown pretty much everything I have at Carrara 5Pro and have had multi hi rez figures in one scene and still have not been able to choke Carrara. I have slowed down the render time but that is to be expected with the lighting i use.

Sounds more like someone has computer issues, more than a Carrara problem. So you know, before the Flame. I only have a AMD 2.0GHz with only 768 MB ram.

Yes, I've been throwing all sorts of scenes that Poser can't handle at Carrara 5 Pro, and it makes short work of them. There is ONE kind of Poser scene that C5 has trouble with. A scene where Poser has screwed up the naming of multiple identical objects. Poser can't do anything with it, and Cararra can't read it. Understandably enough.

" Pretending that Carrara has no memory problems does no-one any favours."

Who said that?
You must be reading a different thread than me.

Tom

Re:  Digital Pilon article

What does Eovia get out of it? Eovia gains a broader audience in a tough market that is slowly strangling them..."

A fundamental loss of concentration there, I think.

Eovia gets an immediate cash reward out of this deal. In the short term, at least, it almost drops off the "audience" radar with the niche Amapi reflecting a feeble blip.

It is the ex-Eovia products that gain the potential broader customer base. Since these products are now owned by DAZ, and will carry the DAZ label, it is DAZ that will reap any benefits from that angle.

A question is missing from the article, perhaps the most important. Has DAZ over-reached itself? As you point out, it's a highly competitive market, especially in the 'middle' zone. DAZ has taken a bold move, but it's a very risky move. DAZ is a cash rich company (lots of cash-flow from their well-managed content business provides for big borrowing capacity - good for takeovers), but if ventures don't pay off (such as, I believe, the Bryce move didn't) then the cash can run out pretty damn quick. Then there's ominous knocks at the door...

"Eovia products will not undergo many changes."

In the short term, no. Next versions are probably safe. But if DAZ continues with:

• Daz | Studio
• Bryce
• Carrara
• Hexagon
  separately, then the weaknesses of those separate products will combine to overwhelm their strengths; even more so when they are effectively competing with each other under the same roof. Eventually, DAZ will have to rationalise the range - or DAZ (and maybe the range) will go belly up.

"While the software product competition is intensified, its likely to result in a worse for Renderosity." [sic]

LOL. Sometimes it's better to wait a bit and make a considered response rather than rushing to be first. Otherwise it can result in a far worse worse.

Which may be something that Renderosity is bearing in mind...

.

'Seems to me that DAZ is trying to be the new MetaCreations. They have two of their products now, Poser is the only one left.'

It seems that not many people realise that a company is just the same as a human being - if you don't change, you die. Companies who plod on doing the same old thing in a changing marketplace either fade into oblivion, or are swallowed by bigger companies. That's the way it is, folks, and you may not like it, there's not much you can do about it.

Music fans hate it when their favorite band changes style. Like, 'Oh, bob dylan was great before he went electric. Why doesn't he sing 'Blowin' in the wind' any more?' Well, I'm sorry, but that attitude equals Death (with a capital D). If bob dylan sang old folk songs for 50 years, he'd've been booed off the stage a long time ago.

Part of the reason behind some of these complaints sounds to me like people are POd that DAZ have the nerve to move into new markets - ie software, instead of content. And of course, many of the same people who complain about them buying software are the same ones who complain about the content anyway, so you can't win.

If DAZ want to evolve and explore new markets, why shouldn't they? Is it because the entire history of poser has been one of being bought over by other companies? So DAZ shouldn't be too successful? I really don't understand.

It seems that if you stick your head up above the water in this community, you can guarantee that someone'll take a pot-shot at you.

mac

Quote -
 As far as I am concerned, the biggest problem with Poser is its abysmal handling of memory.   The biggest problem with Carrara is its even more abysmal handling of memory  (although the useless terrain editor does provide competition).    Carrara 5 is an even worse memory-hog than Poser, by quite a margin.

Sorry, but your opinion is clearly a minority one. Carrara 5 frequently gets high marks for handling Poser scenes better than Poser. It handles them just fine for me.

It does sound as though you might be having a computer problem yourself.

-jjsemp

holy poop, with the amount of posts about daz and Evoia, it makes me wonder if any of you are doing art or just sitting around b.s.'ing about doing art and how its changing (I know thats what im doing)

hay, i just fired up C5P for the first time today and guess what, its still the same as it was yesterday, fancy that.

Hey...I've been rendering, lol.

Quote -holy poop, with the amount of posts about daz and Evoia, it makes me wonder if any of you are doing art or just sitting around b.s.'ing about doing art and how its changing (I know thats what im doing)

Let's see...

Have a look at the Poser Pros Gallery under "Kolschey".

Recently, I finished a good half dozen original sculptures. I spent today building a medical bay for my figures that is the better part of three feet wide, and presently weighs better than 25 pounds...Unfinished. I am also building a garage where my characters repair their vehicles. I am presently working on three illustrations.

I've been helping local folks with education for disadvantaged youth, and preparing for a summer’s worth of juried shows. (Darn, I still have a lot of finishing to do.)

For that matter, I have work in several galleries here in RI.

That said, I don't think that my concerns are irrelevant. I use Carrara as a primary tool for setting up illustrations. I've been using it since Ray Dream 5.0.

Again, I hope that DAZ has the foresight to recognize it as a tool of true potential, rather than simply turning it into a carnival shill for Victoria 4.

I want tools to help me do my work. Presently, Carrara 5.1 is just what I need. I would like to hope that I am not looking down a long trail of disappointment, where I see universal features sacrificed to ease-of-use for new toys and figures that will quickly languish in endless runtimes.

If DAZ understands that UNIVERSAL tools- modeling, physics, metaballs, fluid, particle and cloth dynamics are more than a simple way of draping a wet sheet over a nude female figure, then I will reckon that they understand the true potential of what they have just bought.

Otherwise, I see innovation being strictly controlled and decided by the need and investment of the larger community to enjoy wet T-shirt contests with $80 Victoria 4 models.

Sorry folks. That’s not what calls to my wallet. I’m happily married, and I want to make some art.

.... Preferably, with figures and props that I create myself.

I hope this makes things a bit clearer.

** **

"But if DAZ continues with:  Daz | Studio, Bryce, Carrara, & Hexagon separately, then the weaknesses of those separate products will combine to overwhelm their strengths; even more so when they are effectively competing with each other under the same roof. Eventually, DAZ will have to rationalise the range - or DAZ (and maybe the range) will go belly up".

I'm seeing it differently. Each program is quite different and fills its little niche, imho.

Studio - Freeware, figures. And, for $20 you can do ambient occlusion and SSS.

Bryce - Landscapes, abstracts, & a lot more with study. Time to offer an online demo though, imo.

Carrara - Very potent 'complete' 3D package. Still within the price range of hobbyists to pro-sumers.

Hexagon - A serious 3D modeler, in both tradtional modeling and organic.

To me...this seems very nicely rounded as a 'suite' of 3D programs. They have most bases covered now.

I'm not pretending anything.  I'm always a vocal one for being disgruntled with software. For cripes sake that's why I dumped Vue...So I don't lie about ANYTHING...period.

If you doubt my honesty on this matter, check out the Vue forum & EON forum and search under my name...you'll see just how honest I am.

I'm not liked there because of it.  So.......................

Take it from there.  But I'm not here to "argue" & don't intend to.  Funny I' haven't seen any complaints in ANY of the fora regarding memory issues with C. And I haven't seen you in the C forum ranting either.(directed at Morgano here)or anywhere else for that matter.

Yes, it seems a reasonable package. As I said earlier, DAZ just wants to be your one-stop-3D-vendor.

Quote - holy poop, with the amount of posts about daz and Evoia, it makes me wonder if any of you are doing art or just sitting around b.s.'ing about doing art and how its changing (I know thats what im doing)

hay, i just fired up C5P for the first time today and guess what, its still the same as it was yesterday, fancy that.

I've been in the middle of an illustration (after a render session) - so hitting the forum on my net machine gives me a break from my work machine and the graphics tablet (and It gives me the illusion I'm not stuck indoors all day, heheh). This thread has by far been the most active mailer to my inbox...and I'm interested in hearing the pros and cons of Carrara and Hexagon.

Kolchey:

Remember - you'll always have your copy of C5.1 whatever Daz does with future versions. C5.5/pro is pure Eovia too - there might be some discount pricing on it soon that could benefit you too.

Finished my illo - so can escape for an afternoon...if this thread dies off - thanks for all the performance info and whatnot!

Cheers

Well, all that I can say is that I'm relieved. ;)

My take on this is - good for DAZ, but we'll see the road they are paving when it is complete.  Now we are all speculating on the motivations for the purchase without having any real insight.  I agree with those who have the same hope that maybe one of their goals is to make Hexagon (or Carrara) into a Poser content creation package.  It would be nice to have something dedicated to this process (I have no experience with Greenbriar's Toolbox to make comment on its efficacy).  As most of us know, all in all, creating Poser content is tedious.  The more feature-rich the content, the more work involved (morphs, ERC, textures, and on and on).

We'll see where this goes - and remember to keep some modicum of composure. ;)

Robert

dlk30341 said, "I haven't seen you in the C forum ranting either.(directed at Morgano here)or anywhere else for that matter."

Well, I don't rant.   I consider that impolite.   I have raised problems on the Carrara forum, which were expressed in a polite manner and were answered in a polite and helpful manner.   I am not entirely surprised that dlk30341 failed to spot them.  

For the record, a scene that Poser 6 could render satisfactorily gobbled up 1.5Gb of memory just in the course of being imported to Carrara.     

Morgano, out of curiosity, you last paragraph there; "a scene that Poser 6 could render satisfactorily gobbled up 1.5Gb of memory just in the course of being imported to Carrara"

Do you believe it was due to textures? I aks becuase Bryce has that problem with image textures, they bloat up memory usage.

I saw this on the Eovia website about the current update to Carrara 5.1;

Render and use images with very high definition textures even if it does not fit in memory (RAM). As long as you have enough disk space, the texture will still render!

Opinions?

Yep, big textures are a resource hog. The textures seem to be getting bigger all the time. Then add bump maps, displacement maps, specular maps and so on that are the same size and your looking at a very bloated scene.

Anybody wanting to see what Hex is about goto eovia3d.net. Thomas is an amazing talent and you can see some great stuff. Hex 2 is supposed to have AO, but not a real renderer. It's a very easy to use modeller and powerful. Carrara is an amazing renderer and more. It's not perfect...what program is, but I honestly don't think much is missing. Dynamics has been planned for Carrara 6(cause fur/cloth/hair are all I really see missing). It works pretty well w/ poser for most people. Many bugs have been resolved. Eovia as a company is top notch customer service-wise. I have felt the same from DAZ. Oh and Hex and Carrara interfaces are not the same and Hex can do way more with modelling than Cararra.

Quote "I am not entirely surprised that dlk30341 failed to spot them." End Quote.

Exactly what is that supposed to mean? I retract my statement & see where you did post & I replied to one of your issues.

I apologize, that said I stand behind what I said & in regards to mem issues.

In the last update for Carrara they included a "texture spooler" which helps out with the large textutres....

 I'm gonna stop this...as I feel like I'm starting to sound like those I complain about....a software evangelist.  Which I'm not.

Well, I'm happy now anyway....just got an email telling me of the extra goodies I get for already pre-ordering.

Now to work out what I'm going to get with that voucher hahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

AgentSmith said:"Morgano, out of curiosity, you last paragraph there; "a scene that Poser 6 could render satisfactorily gobbled up 1.5Gb of memory just in the course of being imported to Carrara"

Do you believe it was due to textures? I aks becuase Bryce has that problem with image textures, they bloat up memory usage.

I saw this on the Eovia website about the current update to Carrara 5.1;

Render and use images with very high definition textures even if it does not fit in memory (RAM). As long as you have enough disk space, the texture will still render!"

Textures could be the key.   I'll investigate.   Many thanks.    (By the way, the Poser scene gobbled all the memory going and then locked up Carrara;  as far as I know, it might have carried on gulping memory for a lot longer than a feeble 1.5Gb.)

I think Carrara files that are imported from Poser are absolutely larger than the original Poser file. How come? Tolerances. I think that C5 translates the data to very tight tolerances so that the end result is as true as possible to the original Poser scene. That being said, C5 STILL renders them far faster than Poser. And WILL render scenes that Poser won't even attempt. I just did one like that today. Gorgeous results in C5. Poser puked before even doing ANYTHING on the same scene. Memory error.

And yes, it's the high res textures that do it. Use a lot of them and Poser just dies. 

Some kind of software wizardry for the memory eaten up by high-res image textures would be a godsend for lots of people.

Maybe that C5.1 feature is one of them. I'll have to clear some days up and get the demo for some serious experimenting.

I don't claim to be the representative for Carrara and Hexagon, but I would invite anyone interested here to visit my gallery. I was a diehard Brycer until I got frustrated with the models I could create with it and the landscape limitations. I gradually switched to Carrara about 3 years ago and I can honestly say it was great decision. I also learned to model in Amapi (also Eovia) and then Hexagon. In my gallery you can see vehicles modeled in Hexagon and landscapes done in Carrara. For anyone using Bryce, I would recommend trying the 5.1 Carrara demo.

http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Y&Artist=Patrick%5F210

Patrick

Rofl...I went to look at your gallery to compare it with some of the cool work I spotted at the Eovia site today.....until I recognized your stuff as being the art that I was actually looking at earlier, lol.

(Woodland Stream & Tuscan Courtyard being my faves)

Hi Patrick. 

Your work is really gorgeous.  Thanks for the history and the beautiful images as well as your positive words over in the Eovia forum.  I thank you for that!  I also have to say that another person there by the handle of Naes3d impresses the hell out of me with how he handles his expression of words.   I could take lessons from either one of you!  :) 

Oh and Agent Smith I have enjoyed your skills with how you handle your self here as well!

Richard ;-)~

Patrick_210:

Great work - you really do a good job at mood as well as creating inviting vistas.

My favorite is the Palm Island piece. But the concept car is really sexy too!

Cheers

What amazes me about the Poser community is that every time DAZ smiles and says something nice, folks forget the scars on their private tissues and go all wet again. This is a "family values" company, which means they won't sell their OWN mothers to the highest bidder. It's full of Patriots, so they only send their software work to China when it's more economical. And they are nice as pie, with ice cream. And sprinkles.

And that's not hatred talking, it's 20 some years of experience. There is a difference.

M

BTW, DAZ just dumped Bryce 5.5 in the remainder bin. If you are on the right lists, $19.95. A bit premature, maybe?

Oh, and true to form, your have a choice. You can buy Bryce 5.5 Hiband for $19.95, or you can get a special deal that includes Smoke and Mirrors, regularly a $24.95 value, for only $59.95. That's a savings of $35 (or something) on the full price!!!! Or you can just buy Smoke and Mirrors separately, since it's on sale for $9.95.... Of course, that will cost you $30 less than the rilly cool deal just for you because you are our friend and all please don't touch the furniture.

M

You know, for years I’ve been reading here how evil DAZ is.  Yet I can’t recall ever seeing anything specific ... not even one thing that would indicate purposeful wrongdoing, cheating, immorality, ect.

So can someone please explain why some people hate them so much?  What have they done, specifically?

TIA

BTW: I wouldn’t take Bryce even if they were giving it away.

Don't mistake my comments for hatred .Mostly I remain indifferent.
I do like diversity tho and seeing how varied people from different cultures attack and solve complex problems their own way.  The resulting programs can fascinate just on that score.

Somehow the prospect of more and more products going through the same sieve does not fill me with enthusiasm.  But that, I'm sure, is just me.
Q

Mickmca, you might want to double check those bryce deals its not 5.5 for 19.95 its bryce 5.0 for 19.95 and Bryce 5.5 for 59.95. here is one of the several stores offering that Special. http://www.3dcommune.com/3d/page.mv?/3d/_pages/daz3d.html

Quote - And that's not hatred talking, it's 20 some years of experience.

Is it really 20 years already since DAZ started up? My, doesn't time fly when you're frothing at the mouth.

.

its been about 5-6 years...and they are far form evil. They sel more canned Poser stuff at a better price than anyone. Their deals are among the best, or better than the best. What can you say bad about them?

Quote - > Quote - And that's not hatred talking, it's 20 some years of experience.

Is it really 20 years already since DAZ started up? My, doesn't time fly when you're frothing at the mouth.

.

Just in case anyone else doesn't notice, I wasn't aiming at DAZ.
(sheesh)

daz gets a vote of confidence from me if they are dumping bryce in favour of carrara they're not evil, but I can understand why some may question their practices

I doubvt if they're dumping bryce. If they're smart about it, they will keep developing and selling both.

dumping bryce makes no sense. stabilizing bryce and using it as the cheap, low level entry with carrara as the upgrade path for those who outgrow bryce, that makes a lot more sense. developing it further? i don't know about that. from the sounds DAZ made in late january 6.0 was still just in codebase rewrite and "many months away" from release, and now i wouldn't hold my breath for any further feature development. i notice there is still no actual concrete example of why DAZ is hateworthy. i, too, would be interested to hear some of that history i was earlier told i missed.