Hey all,

Its been awhile since I posted here.  I gave away my Poser software sometime back.  When I felt the bug again to play around with it I called the current makers of Poser 6 to see about getting the discount available to current owners of Poser 5 (I no longer have my serial # for Poser5).  I also asked about Poser 7 and the guy told me that it was in progress and that it would be released by the end of the year.  He didn't say much about it except that the animation palette would be improved so that it was "layered", whatever that means.  Has there been any news here about P7?

no news here yet, AFAIK. who is the guy to whom you refer? in animation jargon, "layers" is used sorta like in photoshop.

A tech/sales support guy.  Got the impression he was not actively involved in programming it.

"He didn't say much about it except that the animation palette would be improved so that it was "layered".

Well, it's only a morsel, but if it's an accurate morsel I'll be very happy.  Poser is great bang-for-the-buck as it is.  Even better if they add to the animation toolset.

That sounds good.  Actually the 'Animation Layer' is already visible

in P6, but only partly functional.   It appears to be related to camera cuts;

it's a way to form a sequence like "use Main camera from frame

120 to 240, then merge to Posing over the next 10 frames."

The real thing might be more powerful ... maybe a complete

scene switcher?

It's about time they did some more for those of us who use Poser to animate. I was really happy with the improved lighting in Poser 6, and hopefully the buying of Shade by e frontier will bring about more improvements.

The layering would be a really useful tool in allowing to render your animation in one go. What I would really like though, is if they made the cameras more like those in other software programs so that you could import motion tracking data from programs like PFTrack etc, so that the Poser camera would copy the movement of any background vieo files etc. I realise that everyone is used to the way the camersa alreay work, but perhaps a way to toggle or convert from one to the other.

Even if they put a simple motion track program built in, It wouldn't  even have to export to other programs then. I would even be willing to pay more for a plugin or special edition of Poser that could do this. It seems a shame that with a program that has dynamic cloth, hair etc and can use video files for its backgrounds, that there is no way to copy the camera moves in them so that your 3d work matches up. Who knows, maybe in Poser 8 or 9.

Animation layers certainly sound cool!
Just an observation, DarrenUK. E-frontier, developers of Shade, bought Poser. Now that they are one and the same, it is somewhat irrelevant who bought who, methinks...

I agree that the synergy of crossing Poser <---> Shade technology is interesting, and now with Amapi in their arsenal,  the mixture of the three cerainly is food for thought.

Motion tracking in Poser would be wonderful. So would it be in Shade, btw.

Attached Link: http://www.e-frontier.com/article/articleview/1885/1/786?sbss=786

 Wondering will P7 inherit the wizards. Could PFA really be a cut down Poser 7 which will be here soon than we think. Especially as they're now giving away P5.

I recall one of the old "ray dream" versions had wizards, too. I thought that was a 90s thing :lol: more presets would be better; presets that allow them to do a render with proper lighting and shadows, to the full capability of the software. I am reminded of this every time I go to the gallery here and see poser renders with nostril glow and other antediluvian errors. :lol:

Agreed on presets for newbie/beginners - Wizards can be bad (if they're anything like that damn Windows Paperclip...)

Cheers

Here's my theory. There is no upgrade from poser 4 to poser 7. So to get people ready, theyr'e giving poser 5 for free at content paradise to possibly get people ready for a release by say, the end of the year? I could see no other reason for such a move.

Anyway, I'ld bet on what we have right now, and right now, it's Poser5 for free.  All the rest is pure conjecture.

I do hope you're paying attention to the fact that they're GIVING AWAY FOR FREE Poser 5 this weekend only.

...hehehe.  Pat on the back to e-frontier.  Good job guys.  Lesson 1 in 'Sales 101' is to 'create urgency'.  They've certainly created urgency and apparently it's effective.  A percentage of these P5 downloaders will become P6 owners and/or e-f content customers.  I have no idea what percentage, but I suspect this move will pay off.  In any case I think it will be good for the community as a whole.

Just be ready for the new wave of newbies to dyncloth and strand hair........ ;P

New wave? Most of the Old Wave is still trying to get their heads around that stuff, heheh.