New Victoria 4 from DAZ!  Higher resolution! More dense texture maps now available! Higher polygons! Greater realism!  I understand that the folks at DAZ have bills to pay but the size of the current DAZ V3 figure is virtually unusable if more than 2 figures are included in the scene.  

As I look back on my favorite characters for past and present DAZ figures I've noticed that the best selling and popular ones tend to be created long after the DAZ figure is introduced.  How long after V3 was released did GND come out?  

Wouldn't this community be better served if DAZ chose to release (make that sell) patches to their existing figures that would make them easier to use (render)?  Yes with each new figure there have been significant improvements but these improvements have made them less usable with each release.  Who can argue that the gap between Poser content put out by DAZ and others and the ability to use that content has only been getting bigger.  

I made a post that if Poser 7 doesn't get it right then it will be the "final edition" of Poser and that comes from my frustration with the program getting more difficult to use and not easier.  You can't say that about many other hobby software products can you?

"I understand that the folks at DAZ have bills to pay but the size of the current DAZ V3 figure is virtually unusable if more than 2 figures are included in the scene."

There are the low rez V3/M3 figures. V3RR/M3RR. You can strip out the unused morph channels. You can do things like export the figure groups that you only need and that will cut the poly count a good sum. Though it sound like P7 has that in mind with the new invisable dial and render options.

"As I look back on my favorite characters for past and present DAZ figures I've noticed that the best selling and popular ones tend to be created long after the DAZ figure is introduced.  How long after V3 was released did GND come out?"

That's pretty much nnormal. It takes some time to create those morphs, not to mention coming up with that idea. But then you wouldn't have GND if it wasn't for V3's mesh. 

"Wouldn't this community be better served if DAZ chose to release (make that sell) patches to their existing figures that would make them easier to use (render)?  Yes with each new figure there have been significant improvements but these improvements have made them less usable with each release.  Who can argue that the gap between Poser content put out by DAZ and others and the ability to use that content has only been getting bigger. "

Again look at my first comment, they have made figures easier to use. V3RR.  I sure don't see the newer versions less usable, as you put it. I see it the other way, more and better options. Look on the bright side, Daz does fix thier figures when needed for the most part, unlike a certain other company. The only gap I see is the Poser /DS one. But most of the content still works in Poser. Just a few adjustments due to the P4 mentality.

"I made a post that if Poser 7 doesn't get it right then it will be the "final edition" of Poser and that comes from my frustration with the program getting more difficult to use and not easier.  You can't say that about many other hobby software products can you?"

Is it not just normal for an app to advance and wouldn't that logically mean that the learning curve would be steeper. The way of the beast. If you find P6 difficult, your going to really hate P7. Guess what, P7 has advanced and will be more to learn. As for your last sentence. That is why those other hobby software don't do as well as poser.

I've had Victoria from the start. 3 versions of her and I'm going to enjoy V4 when she is released. All the stuff you have for her will still work with the V4/V3 cross breed. Merchant ike PhilC will be creating updates for thier stuff like they alway do, if they can. Your not going to stop progress and I for one don't want to see it stop.

At some point patching old models is no better than patching old programs, sooner or later you have to make advancements that go beyond patches, or or no improvements are possible. Rather than assume that what you are going to get is worse than what is availible now, why not just wait and see if it is worse or better?

'Does this community really need a V4 figure from DAZ?'

Does DAZ3D guys really need to eat daily?

Does DAZ3D guys really need to pay their bills monthly?

:lol:

I'm perfectly happy with V3 :)

Do the V3 clothing and character addon packages work with V4?  If not that's just another reason for me to stick with V3 because I have a lot invested in her and I'm not about to start all over with yet another version of the same figure.

I still use V2 a lot. And sometimes Posette original. Fcors I'm a Poseraddict: V4 is in my wishlist (er... I mean, as soon as she is released)

It always comes down to the same thing for hobbyists like me, CASH!

I have shed loads of stuff built for V3, if I get V4 I'll need to get a new wardrobe as well, MORE CASH!

Of course that new thing in P7 might enable me to make V3's clothes fit V4 so then it would be worth getting!!

Anyone know?????????????

Or you could use the V4/V3 version that comes with V4 to use all your V3 clothes on. I'm sure PhilC will be adding V4 to Wardrobe Wizard.

Ah! didn't know it had that option!! Thanx!

Where is this announcement of V4 anyway, I can't see anything at DAZ, am I looking in the wrong place or is my age finally catching up with me!!!

"Where is this announcement of V4 anyway, I can't see anything at DAZ, am I looking in the wrong place or is my age finally catching up with me!!!"

If your asking about the V4/V3 version, it was first confirmed by Cris and Dan from Daz in the artZone guest chat. Has been confirmed many times at Daz in both common and members forums.

If your question was to the very first post, I don't know where that is. She has not been released yet and there are some pools going on as to what that date will be.

Oh! thanx, I'm not as active over at DAZ as I am here!!

In the Daz Forums they are running an unofficial "guess the release date" for V4.  This is the closest to an acknowledgement of V4's exsistance that I've seen over there.  But I do know they had mentioned it was on the horizon in a magazine interview (I can't remember which mag) back in August-ish.

I'm looking foreward to V4 and I still use V2 from time to time for background characters and I use V3RR a lot, I've even used her for close up work and been very suprised by the results.

I suspect that the changes in the new Poser 7 almost demand a new version of any cutting edge character models.  It is progress, and you have to rmember, how long has V3 been around?  Sure, when she first came out most people owned machines that would choke on two of her in a scene, but computers keep getting faster, and in three years, V3 is going to look like nothing more than a computer video game character in comparison.

As far as "hobbiest" software, if that is your feeling,t hen stick to Poser 4 or Daz Studio.  Poser 5 and since have been closing the gap with professional software and more importantly, the software has been being used more and more by professionals.  I have used Poser since version 4 for animations for Television and small budget movies.  Not because it was easy to use, but because it is the premier character software.  I know pros who use Maya and still rip characters through Poser first.  Unless you have a budget to hire model designers or you have the time to design your own models, Poser is essential for animated characters.

Poser 7 has (supposedly) addressed a number of rendering issues and will render our old scenes with two or more V3s with unequalled reliability and with vast speed improvement.  It probably will have no problems with V4.

I just hope V4 lives up to its heritage and promise.  I have high hopes and I will be anxiously awaiting the character to see what she is capable of.

Cheers.

ThrommArcadia: I see you are taking quite the weather pounding over there. Here it is bone dry, snow all gone. You can tell where I'm from by my avitar. Man I thought it was bad when it snowed there on xmas about 15 yares ago. Vancouver shut down then, can't imagine how bad it is now.

Oh I dare say as I already have P6 I will get P7 and I dare say I will get V4, even us lowly hobbyists like to have the cutting edge stuff!!!

Why not Vicky4, if she is nice and better than Vicky3, why not?
I liked Posette, when Vicky1 or 2 were released I almost never used her because I found her uggly.
When Stephanie was released I liked and so, replaced Posette by Stephanie.
When Vicky3 was released I loved her and turned off Stephanie.
If I like Vicky4 I shall use her, more polygons is not a problem, what makes the render slow is the Operating System and huge textures and transparencies.
You don't need huge textures unless you do first plane face renderings, resizing to 2000 or 2500 pixels is just enough.
You don't need 100M of morphs only just few Megas of the morphs that you use and about the Operational System I am not guilty if you use Windows Vista!

Hey Beryld!  A fellow Canuck is always pleasant to see!  Yeah, we had a huge storm out here that dump gunk into our water supply and 2 million people (myself included) are without safe drinking water.  Always great fun. lol.  But, I don't miss the Snow! (Used to live in Sask!)

Fixer, I should clarify, there is nothing lowly about hobbiests, lord knows that I've spent many more hours with Poser as a hobby vs professionally, and I think I've way surpassed the amount of money I've made using Poser with my hobby related purchases. lol. I'm a complete addict, especially lately.

Truly, though, Hobbies are those things that we work so hard to save money up to spend on.  Golf hobbiests spend tons of cash on Golf.  Latex lovers dish out thousands of dollars for their fetish, and even my Grandma can't pass up buying spools of wool every month for her knitting (and she never sells any of the tons of things she makes, just gives them away.)

So, yeah, it is always a bit of a spur when a new thing comes on the market.  I meant no disrespect.

And, hey, wasn't there a childrens book published that used Daz Studio?  See, nothing is constrained to hobby or professional anymore.

Cheers

why not. If Daz doesn't someone else will..can't rest on your laurels, too many thorns..;)

I'm really looking forward to V4.  I've got Wardrobe Wizard, so clothes won't be a problem.  And she should be able to take V3/Unimesh textures, don't you think?  At least, I hope so!

I suspect that textures is where the trouble will be.  I may be wrong, but if she is an entirely new mesh then her UV coordinates will be entire different.

Mind you, you can always take your favorite texture into photoshop and with a bit of work repaint it.

As I said, I could be wrong, but I really think that we will be looking at whole new texture maps.

Victoria 3 was a vast improvement over her predecessors, but there's still a need for some basic corrections that I hope will appear in V4. Problems with Vicki's neck, lips and jaw are all too frequent and drastic after applying even tiny morphs, then attempting to pose the character. Altering facial features is difficult because the model's geometry is so limited. No matter how many changes the user attempts to make, what invariably results is a slightly different cloned variation of the basic original character.
I'd also like a new Mike, since he suffers from the same limitations as Vicki.

"I made a post that if Poser 7 doesn't get it right then it will be the "final edition" of Poser and that comes from my frustration with the program getting more difficult to use and not easier.  You can't say that about many other hobby software products can you?"

Get real...even if P7 has bugs in it, that won't cause market or hobbie interest to go away.  The only thing that can do in Poser is a sudden merger between various 3D companies.  But Poser has survived that before, and more than likely the features and content that make Poser would just be implemented into another program.  In short...it's not going any time soon...

"New Victoria 4 from DAZ!  Higher resolution! More dense texture maps now available! Higher polygons! Greater realism!  I understand that the folks at DAZ have bills to pay but the size of the current DAZ V3 figure is virtually unusable if more than 2 figures are included in the scene."
 
Yes, V4 should be released...and soon.  Plus, despite some posts here, I think people really want her.  I really dislike posts of "why do we need another figure?"  Well, why not because people want them.  V3 is not the end all of poserdom...

A lot of the unimesh issues of 2 figures in a scence are due to cross talk.  Plus, memory issues are due to RAM and Poser limitations.  So regardless of the figure, you would be having issues.  Incidentally, P7 will have better memory rendering, but even if you don't upgrade, you can get around this by doing composites in Photoshop...

I'm looking forward to V4. 
For $4.95 to PhilC, I'll be able to convert V3 extensive wardrobe to her, so clothes aren't a problem. 
And I think it's really going to be exciting to see all the new characters the brilliant merchants here are going to be coming out with :)

There oughta be a law.  Creating & selling anything beyond V3 should be illegal.  In fact, we should all be required to go back to running Windows 98 on a PII box -- and never advance beyond P3.

P4 is too complicated.

Here's another one looking forward to both V4 and P7.

Of course we need a Vicky 4 and of course we need a Poser 7. I'm one of those people who buys every upgrade that comes on the market (if I have the money, but that's irrelevant.! ) When someone ask if this community really needs a Vicky 4, then I say: speek for yourself. I know that there's a big of part of the Posercommunity  who are perfectly happy with Poser 4, with Posette, Vicky and Michael 2 or even with Dork, and I've seen astonishing results made by them, but there is also a part that spents many sleepless nights to get their fingers behind every secret that Poser has offer; writing python scripts or ERC codes, making complex shaders and morphs.  There are two kind of motorriders, those who love to ride on the bike and those who wants to take the thing apart. And here is no difference.
In all the fuzz about Poser 7 and Vicky I didn't hear any comments on the release of Poser Figure Artist (16-11-2006), perhaps this something for the Poser4 users?

I've invested too much on clothes for V3 / M3 to even think about upgrading to V4 anytime soon so I'm not in a big hurry.

To answer the question--no, I don't think DAZ needs another generation of figures.  I only purchased V3 / M3 because the clothes looked better than the ones I had for the Mil 1 & 2 figures.

I too am looking forward to V4. It's kind of exciting to see what changes she will behold!

Of course we need V4..... the Poser Community thrives on hypes..... The Aiko hype is wearing down..... hiro is old by now...... and after the name changing hype wears off, after the Poser 7 hype is over, after we all have become tired of bashing Sidney and Simon, we will need another hype, so it's time for DAZ to start the V4 hype.

Vicky 4 is a must, the content addiction must be fed and since the NVIATWAS are geting boring, we need a new Vicky to inspire us again with many new NV4IATWAS images!

OK more serious now...... I'm not in need of V4, M4 or any other new figure at all, I've got enough stuff to last for years, M2, V2. James, Jessi, Don,  Judy, Aiko Toon, Hiro Toon and Dennis are more then enough for me.

I don't need another figure in my runtime that I can't use. I got rid of V3 a while ago, due to lack of useable content. I'm not a Poser addict, I'm not starving for more content, I'm not in need of a new figure to feed my addiciton.

Quote - I'm not in need of a new figure to feed my addiciton.

Me yes. ARF ARF ARF WHINE

:lol:

Why post if you don't want the figure?  It's not hype if the people who want V4 will actually use and enjoy her...

Because the question was if this community needs V4..... that's an open question, so everyone can participate in answering it. It may not turn out the all the answer you like, but that's life.

When it comes to new figures (and everything else Poser-related) I say the more the merrier.  Having a lot of options is a good thing IMO.

"Because the question was if this community needs V4..... that's an open question, so everyone can participate in answering it. It may not turn out the all the answer you like, but that's life."

aeilkema, I definitely understand your point of view, and my comment was not directly soley at you.  There is a culture of negativity in these forums that gets a bit old at times...

I agree with you Papa Blue, new advances  in the software (Poser) and figures (Generation 4) are what keeps it interesting.  

I'm not even in the business but if I had the skills to do so, I'd create a new Generation of figures myself with high resolution meshes and superior rigging. Figures with surfaces that would more closely resemble human movement, with realistic muscle bulge, slide, skin compression reflecting the movement or bending of the figure. And also figures with even better morphing capabilities. 

Someone in the business is thinking about these things and you can bet we'll eventually see the results on that thinking in better new figures. Anton did it with the Apollo figure, someone will take the next step.

I can't wait for V4...I hope she's closely followed by M4, SP4 and D4.  Progress is what keeps the program fun and the merchants putting out fab clothes and stuff for them is what keeps the program exciting. (though not many share my thinking)  She'll be backward compatible wth all the V3 stuff and I have no doubt the other level 4 figures will as well.  Even though I have a ton of content for all the Mill3 people, I'll start collecting for the Mill4 when they come out.  It's fun and keeps me out of trouble...except with the credit card people. :rolleyes:

I can think of many other worse addictions to spend money on, I think I'll stick with Poser as mine.

"Does this community really need a V4 figure from DAZ?"

nope... they don't really need anything. they'd like it, but need? no....

I suppose, if you come right down to it, all anyone really NEEDS is food, shelter, and safety. Everything else in this world is purely a WANT. 
Do I WANT V4?  Yes :) 
And M4, SP4, D4, and a few 5's while DAZ is at it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UtRSL4O_W4

I'll settle for a lottery win so I can go and get P7, V6I [oops got that already!], V4, M4 and the entire contents of my wish lists at Rendo, RDNA, Poserpros, DAZ, Contentparadise,  yada, yada!!

Do we need evolution? I understand that some don't WANT evolution. They are usualy cancelled out by the evolved. Of coarse there are always some stragglers. :)

I use V2 on occasion. (I only have 3 uniforms for her.) I won't lie, not much. Mostly V3. Depending on the deal, I might buy V4 right away. If the deal isn't good enough, I'll wait until the supply for her builds up. But hey, everything evolves.

Regardless if she's needed or not.  where did you see this announcement

I assume that you are asking where the impending release of V4 was announced?  The first place was at Artzone -- DAZ's member blog site.  And she's also been discussed in the Member's forum at DAZ (as well as other places) since then.

It would seem I'm in a very small minority of opinion as far as V4 goes.  I'm not interested in using Poser and DAZ characters for stills, just animation and the increasing complexity of newer DAZ characters makes this a moving target.   

Except that the new low rez V4 has a very animation friendly mesh...

"Except that the new low rez V4 has a very animation friendly mesh..."

Where did you here that? I use the V3RR quite often. Never heard anything about a V4 version.