Attached Link: http://www.contentparadise.com/forums/contentparadise/index.php?showtopic=2344

Those who are looking for “Poser Light” or even a replacement for the now discontinue Poser Artist** will find that Figure Artist is not a replacement.

(Emphasis mine)

was I the only one to notice that Poser 4 has now been axed?

I noticed it also and it's about time. Poser 4 is only holding us back. It has served us well for years, but we all had a chance to move on and now it's time to look forward and enjoy all the new benefits and additions that Poser does bring us these days.

Yep. Good riddance to old rubbish!

I'd be surprised to find people still using P4 after that week-long P5 giveaway.

It's two versions behind (soon to be three), there's absolutely no reason to keep P4 on the market.

Yeah, but people have been suckling P4's teat now for SO many years it;s hard to wean them. Heck a LOT of people STILL use the P4 renderer in P5, loosing out on it's rendering advancements.

Some people are even still using the P4 renderer in P6!

Well human nature is human nature.  Some folks are lazy minded and stubborn and don't want to learn.  They were the kids that when their mommies changed their hair styles cried for 2 weeks how they hated the way she looked.  Then there are folks that are always looking for change in their lives and wanting the newest and greatest ..(fill in the blank).. and then there are those of us that are right down the middle.  I like SOME change but when I gotta change I just buck up and go for it and usually love it for what it has to offer!  Evolving is just the way it is folks.  If you want to get into sociology there's a real can of worms to dig up.  But then that leads into talking about politics and that's just not going to fly here so for get about it!! 

11/20/06

Whether EF continues to support Poser 4/Poser Pro or not, I suspect that many content providers will continue to do so for a while. There are many thousands of users who are quite happy with that version, and have no intention of updating. Go figure.

 For some, economics is a factor, but If people can't afford a computer that can handle Poser 5, 6, or 7, then they can't afford the latest version of Poser either. Also, how much content could they reasonably afford. Look for Poser 4 to disappear slowly into that good night as content providers slowly abandon support (the extra effort will not give an adequate return on their time).

***Yeah, but people have been suckling P4's teat now for SO many years it;s hard to wean them. Heck a LOT of people STILL use the P4 renderer in P5, loosing out on it's rendering advancements.

Some people are even still using the P4 renderer in P6!*** 

Some of us have older systems & have no choice. I have never been able to use the firefly renderer with a lot of success, it always hangs my system unless I use it virtually in draft mode, then it sucks anyway.

The only time I can use it is, 1 figure, minimal clothes & props. I would love to be able to use all the bells & whistles, but can't. Unless of course you want to buy me a new computer, then I will use it with pleasure!

The P4 rendering engine still has uses, even in P6.  I rarely use it for close up work unless it is something I intend to do a lot of postwork on, but right there, why spend time waiting for Firefly to render?  If I'm doing a backgroudn to comp in later and there are no reflections or displacement, they I use P4, again, why wait for Firefly?

I also often use P4 as a reference render that I save to a tif and use for the alpha channel, this is if I render a complex scene, but then want to isolate the characer(s) or props or some such for post work.  I just go delete what isn't needed in the alpha channel and do a P4 render.

But, why anyone would want to stick to Poser 4 or Poser Artist is beyond me.  Really, Poser 5 is available cheap and the improvements are well worth it even if you are going to render only in P4 mode.

Oh, and Daz has announced they no longer will be supporting P4 on their new items.  It's just time.

Actually Daz dropped P4 requirements and there was a rejoicing in the PA community. I'd much prefer doing something fancy with a shader, then create P4 mats and rsr files.

Annibel: PCs keep dropping in price. I just checked the black friday ads, and some places have $10 Pcs probably more advanced then someting from 3 years ago. And a dual core 64 bit system can be had for s little at $500, and that includeds a flat panel monitor 1 gig of ram, AND a ink jet printer (and a free upgrade to windows Vista in January!)

I just don't buy the "computers are too expensive to upgrade" bit any more, because if you look at how much more you get for so little money, PC are an unbelievable value today, compared with 10 or even 20 years ago.

Compare them with anything else in your house price wise, and look at how many hours you use them VS the money you spend.

Example: the latest "hot DVD release. $20 You watch it maybe 3 times in the first year. So figure 2 hours long, 6 hours, $3.33 an hour to own it.

Now we'll look at a cheap PC.. $600. You use it say, 1.5 hours a night average (and that's pretty low)  At the end of the same year, that PC cost you only $1.10 cents an hour to own, or a third LESS (value wise)  then buying DVDs!

Now factor in how much extra tme you spend on an old pc compared with a newer faster PC, and then add in the additional new features newer PCs have compared to older ones, and the value just gets better and better.

If a decent PC still cost $4000, I would agree with the cost argument, but with the continual price war, and constant speed and hardware imporvements, upgrading your PC every few years is just one of the best value things you can do with your money.

Amen Gareee, no offense to anyone here. I'm HIV+ and on a very tight budget.  I built my own computer earlier this year and it's already outdated but it's totally usable.  Now if I wanted to upgrade to Vista or do a dual core setup then I imagine I would need to start saving the pennies for some upgrades but if you are running a Pen IV machine (or the equivalent) then see what's under the hood.  Can you upgrade your video card??  Is it on an AGP slot?  Can you add more memory??  If so can your MB work with DDR2??  There are other ways to bring your computer up to date without having to buy or build one.  But then add up what you would need to upgrade and look at some of the deals out there for a new box and see what's going to be more cost effective.  I certainly understand about a budget.  I live with dark $hadow$ over my head every day but I manage somehow.  Could change any time for the worse or heck for the better.  Set your sights and go for it!!

Far be it from me to tell anyone else what they can afford or what their financial priorities should be> Others apparently feel free to do so. I'm open to anyone who wants to donate me a new computer, but until then, leave my mother's breasts out of it. What condescending, silly snobbery.

I just jumped here over from another thread, where a fellow Renderosity  member has just offered his latest freebie - and he only uses Poser Artist on a much older computer.    There will still be folks who have little or no choice but to keep using the old Poser version  (pre-Poser 5) which their computers can cope with. 

However, after viewing the discussion about Poser Figure Artist over at the Content Paradise forums, and reading the comparative specs over at the E-Frontier website, I think PFA is very much like Poser 4, except that it doesn't export to 3D, doesn't offer animation capabilities, and doesn't have the fancy stuff like dynamic cloth / dynamic hair, and face room.  If someone just wanted to render 2D digital pictures using 3rd-party 3D content, PFA can do it.  Uses PZ3s and PZZs as well.

When I first started out using Poser Artist 3-4 years ago, I did so without the intention to produce animation.  I had zero clue about modelling , morphs, scripts etc etc.  I just wanted to dump out 2D versions of the 3D scenes I had assembled inside the software.   So, I really think Poser Figure Artist is exactly what I would have used Poser Artist for in those days.  What's more it uses up-to-date 3D content, using its up-to-date rendering engine.

But this does not solve the individual User's problem of needing a more up-to-date machine.

OMG! Your MOM is Poser 4??? So are you Dork Or Posette? I KNEW you must be lurking the forums somewhere! ;)

Interesting... Poser 4/Poser Artist is still available in French and German on the EF store, no other languages, and not there at all at the CP store.

" think PFA is very much like Poser 4, except that it doesn't export to 3D, doesn't offer animation capabilities, and doesn't have the fancy stuff like dynamic cloth / dynamic hair, and face room.  If someone just wanted to render 2D digital pictures using 3rd-party 3D content, PFA can do it.  Uses PZ3s and PZZs as well."

Why would anyone pay for PFA when you can get DS for free. There is enough free stuff out there to do what you want and have better option. Oh and DS users, don't get the wrong idea. I don't like using DS but I know what the better deal would be.

"It's two versions behind (soon to be three), there's absolutely no reason to keep P4 on the market."

Try 3 versions behind about to be 4. P4,PP,P5,P6 and soon P7.

I think it's about time to move on. It gets very tiring to buy something and then have to fix the product to work in your newer version. Might as well not buy and just make the stuff yourself.

Still, I think some people here are missing the point.  Poser 5 will run on a 500 mhz P1 if you are going to render with the P4 engine.  People give those machines away!  And aside from giving Poser 5 away earlier this year, aren't they still selling it uber cheap?

And really, what is the discussion about?  If you have Poser 4 already and are happy with it, well then, just be happy.  If you are complaining that you can't use newer content, well, my machine can't run the latest hottest Video game out there.  I just have to cope, I guess, until I can afford to upgrade.

Yeah, progress sucks in ways, but if you have been happy with what you have, then continue to be happy with what you have, just come to terms with the fact that vendors in the near future won't be making more available to you. 

I just hope they don't remove the "P4 renderer". 

It may be Pre-Cambrian from the viewpoint of the Newest-Is-Always-Best crowd,
but it still shows text far more clearly than Firefly ... and I need to show text
in many of my educational animations.

Oh, yes, I completely forget - DAZ Studio is the alternative choice to using 3rd-party 3D content for 2D renders - but it wasn't way back 3-4 years ago, though.

I knew a while ago that P4 was really dead, - when?
When  pdhoadley , a sworn enemy of P5&6 (and all dem dang-new-fangle-things), finally got Poser 5 a few months back.
Just kidding David, you know I love ya.

In regards to cheap computer I guess it is where you live, I have seen no computers at that price in Australia. You are lucky.

This one is only 2 yrs old & I have just upgraded the RAM so it performs a little better, but the cheapest PC I have seen is around $900 & I do not have that kind of money at present so I will just plod along.

I use PP almost exclusively even though I have P5. P5 is for procedurals, PP is for everything else. I'm happy with it, and there's still a lot that can be done within it, even with new toys from the marketplaces around. Getting new compy is too expensive for me, and is going to be until I have income on my own, so I'm stucked with what I have now for at least two years more. The marketplaces are moving forward all the time, there is more and more products utilizing dynamic technology, shaders technology, all that fancy P6 lighting options and so on. P4 is not holding back anyone, except its users, and it certainly won't hold back content creators - it's a matter of their personal tastes and skills if they will sell versions P4/PP compatible. It's also a matter of cash, because PP stuff is mostly compatible with D|S, while P5/P6 not necessarily - and D|S userbase is growing fast. So, even if you'd like to wipe out P4/PP users from the face of Earth (which is very rude, because we still bring cash to you, content creators), we're still supported, whether you like it or not.

Forgot to add - moving onto P5 is actually not such a big achievement, since it can't use .mc6 or .pmd stuff, exactly like you can't use it in P4. And there's more and more of such products in the marketplace, so I guess P5 is not holding back merchants either even though it's not compatible with their products... ;)

P5 and P6 has a wayy better library management though. No more truncated filenames, no more the absolute NEED for PBooost (though I still use my PBooost happily in P6)

I do like ProPack, it's actually not half bad, AND it's good for beginners because it's far less complex

I'm still a baby with P5, but I have P4, P3, and D|S loaded on the HD. I don't bear P4 any animosity, but then I still barely know how to use it as well..;)

The nested morphs and broken dials make Poser 5 and 6 unuseable for any serious character creation.

The "improvements" in Poser 6 break figures that work perfectly well in Poser 4, PP and Poser 5.

Firefly is one of the worst render engines out there, and except for maybe a dozend or two test renders I did I never use it.

Sorry, I have better things to do than learning to set up a gazillion of nodes or run fancy python scripts each time I render when I can have photorealistic tetxure maps with just one click on a MAT-Pose.

Procedural materials are good for games, but for still renders nothing can beat the dense information provided by a photography of the real item.

I don´t have the need for 100% photorealism anyway (Ever heard of uncanny valley ?), but IF I had, I´d make sure to get the right tools to achive that goal, and Firefly sure won´t be among them.

If Poser 7 or any of the following issues adresses these problems, great, but otherwise Poser 4 (with ProPack) will stay on my computer.

stahlratte

Lemme chime in here about P5 functionality on older comps from my experience. The situation:

When P4's were past the 2gig point, bout I think 4 - 6 years ago, I set out to build the best obsolete P3 I could to chase cheap parts. Total expenditure turned out to be $1,200.00 for hardware alone:

MSI motherboard with 1.2gig P3 cpu ceiling and 1.5gig RAM ceiling at pc133 busspd
1.5 gigs of DIMM RAM (3x512 stick)
1.13gig P3 Tualitin CPU

P5 cant do much on this machine at all. Multiple chars choke not only the firefly but the P4 renderer as well. Until I can sink around half a grand into a P4 system - and unless im working with at least a gig of the new DDR RAM I think im really gonna notice a difference from the 1.5g DIMM speed im used to, so push that half a grand figure up a respectable bit! - I really am "stuck" with ProPack. Add the complication of my car's recent dropping of its transmission and my prospects of the P4 system get even more back-burnered :/

I think many users may not realise just how poorly P5 performs on even the most maxed out of the obsoletes out there :(

I dont see myself getting rid of PP even when I do finally upgrade. Its so intuitive and easy to set up a complex scene. I have been able to successfully do small projects in cloth room of P5 to export to PP for texturing and rendering and I am completely impressed with what ive been able to do with P5. Im very eager to learn it more completely, as well as newer versions!! I just have no choice but to be patient about that at this point though :)

Logan

Though I have P6 PPP is still my weapon of choice. Sure I may be missing out on all of the bells and whistle of fantastic material nodes or the fun of exploring how to make the darn thing render in a reasonable amount of time. I enjoy the need to update other software because P6 made a previous version useless. Do I berate merchants for wanting to use the latest and greatest toys? Not in the least. If I ever have the need or desire to for dynamic clothing I can convert it to work in PPP. It's a big market so I eveluate each product on their own merit and how I intend to use it. If it's an item the relys heavily on all the new technology it's aome thing I ptobably didn't want anyway. What I've just said is stickly my opinion, my choice.

When they fix the bugs in firefly and speed it up a lot, I will stop using propack.

Quote - Yeah, but people have been suckling P4's teat now for SO many years it;s hard to wean them. Heck a LOT of people STILL use the P4 renderer in P5, loosing out on it's rendering advancements.

Some people are even still using the P4 renderer in P6!

 
I've used it for one of my renders -- for some reason I kept getting artifacts in firefly on a particular prop.

I hafta agree that it's disappointing to see some folks saying that the P4 renderer is "just as good as firefly". it's little more than an admission that the P5/6 renderer is too complicated for many users. which means that e-frontier may have set up P7 so that newbies can easily get the same sort of default renders that the professional 3D apps produce.

A lot of the "bugs'" in the firefly renderer are actually a result of improper settings.

An infamous one if the AO "spots" bug, and a simple increase of the ao settings is solution.

And if you use AO, you don't need any of the old "nostril glow" fixes, because of the inherant problems in the P4 renderer.

So EF fixes the problem, improves the renderer, adds features, but people are too lazy to learn how to use it properly.

You'll never see a new feature laden renderer faster then an old one, because they always include new technology, and more relaistic render ability. You add features, and the "price" is a slower render. I can remember when UV mapping was being added to renders, and how many people complained that the rendering time took forever! Now we couldn;t live without uv mapping on objects.

We heard so many people lament that we didn't have ambiant occlusion, ibl lighting, and realistic skin shading, and now you see people complain they slowed the renderer down, and it's too complex.

The poserverse is the only graphic community I've seen anywhere that doesn't embrace advancements and crave more. Its kind of amusing.

I'll bet if/when EF enhances poser's rigging ability, we see people complaining figures are more diffficult to pose, and want to stick with the old method.

P4 is on the gradual downslide -- as it has been for the past 3 years or more now.  It's just that P4 is taking a lot longer to die than some of us believe that it should have.  But it inevitably will die, as that's in the nature of things.

There was a "long live P4!" thread not too long ago, in which we were told that P4 would be around for a long time to come........and for some, that might be so.  Just like some few individuals are no doubt still running Windows 95.  However: the P4 diehards (whether they are diehards by choice or out of necessity) will find themselves feeling more and more isolated with time.  The nit-picking question of "Why ef is still selling Poser Artist (which is P4 in disguise)?" has now been rendered moot.

I believe that P7 is going to be a major break-point for Poser.  A break-point that the vast majority of the community will not be able to ignore -- nor will they want to.  As for P4 users........?  They'll either be updating........or grumbling.

When color photographic film was first introduced to the public, it had its detractors.  People who informed everyone who would listen that color film was just a gimmick -- a passing fad.  Once the passing fad was over, then people would get back to "real photography" -- which (as everyone knows) -- can only happen in black & white.

Without any of those cumbersome & unnecessary extra "bells & whistles"......like adding color to a photograph.

Amen Guaree.  The p5/p6 is broken because it's too hard to use really chaps my hide.  No one is making them use it.  There's always DS but even DAZ has finally moved up the ladder.  So how long will that last?

Quote - A lot of the "bugs'" in the firefly renderer are actually a result of improper settings.

An infamous one if the AO "spots" bug, and a simple increase of the ao settings is solution.

And if you use AO, you don't need any of the old "nostril glow" fixes, because of the inherant problems in the P4 renderer.

So EF fixes the problem, improves the renderer, adds features, but people are too lazy to learn how to use it properly.

Quote.

*So EF fixes the problem, improves the renderer, adds features, but people are too lazy to learn how to use it properly.

Most renderers don`t require people to learn how to avoid bad mistakes in the render engine.

If firefly was written better EF wouldn`t have to make workarounds for all the bugs and badly written stuff EF should ask the makers of firefly to get their finger out and fix it.

They arent workarounds, Xantor. they are the basic setting the rendering engine requires to render properly.

Look atLightwave's render engine, and Vue6I's rendering engine.. they are FAR more complex, and require FAR more tweaks for that "perfect render".

EF HAS dumbed down the tech to make it more accessible to te general public, but you do still need to take the time to learn the new features and tools.

Just because an application has a shiny candy coating doesn't mean it doesn;t pack some horsepower under the ood.

Oh, and all this talk about system upgrades and price made me do ome pre black friday shopping... I think I'll be getting a new dual core 64 bi athlon 4200 plus system this Friday, for under $900 with a 19" flat panel monitor, 2 gigs of ddr2 ram, 300 gig hd, and a free update to windows vista in january!

the deal is I get the new system, and I trip down my old system's software install so the wife gets it as an upgrde to her system.

Then her system becomes a networked storage/mp3 player to replace my 5 year old dinosaur system, and it will become just archive storage on the network.

Off topic, anyone know a good videocard dealfor under $200? I never buy thlatest greatest $600 cards, but after a year, their prices drop so far down they become great deals

I'm running a ati x700 pro in my current system, and would want somthing better then that.

Quote - *

Most renderers don`t require people to learn how to avoid bad mistakes in the render engine.

If firefly was written better EF wouldn`t have to make workarounds for all the bugs and badly written stuff EF should ask the makers of firefly to get their finger out and fix it.

As in?  Examples?  Comparisons? 

Things like the black patches on figures are not basic settings problems and most other renderers there have ever been can render double sided polygons properly.

Black patches are a result of having AO set improperly... that's a user issue.
Most other applications (including lightwave) recommend NOT using double sided polys, because they create rendering issues.. again, it's a matter of end users not creating properly.

I'm an end user.. I made BOTH mistakes (sometimes NUMEROUS times.. LOL!) I learned my lessons though.

Lightwave's "merge polys" is my freind!

"" Oh, and all this talk about system upgrades and price made me do ome pre black friday shopping... I think I'll be getting a new dual core 64 bi athlon 4200 plus system this Friday, for under $900 with a 19" flat panel monitor, 2 gigs of ddr2 ram, 300 gig hd, and a free update to windows vista in january!"" Must be nice to have money. Some of us on very fixed incomes, well, have to eat sometimes. Not whining nor complaining, just having fun with what I'm fortunate enough to have.

It's not that I have a lot of extra money. As a matter of fact, poser sales have been blaek for me this last year. We are far from rich by ANY means, but we also watch every penny so we can indulge ourselves.

What that DOES mean though, is that I can write off any hardware I buy this year towards tazes, so I can either give the money to Unce Sam, or use it on a hardware upgrade.

We don't have any real expensive hobbies or vices, so this is where our exrta income goes.

Plus we also donate our older systems to local charities when we have the oppertunity.

Heck, some people are dumping more then $700 in a freakin video game console this year! IMHO, a few hundered more for a faster up to date PC is a better value.

(Though I gotta admit, watching people play with Wii is pretty fascinationg, and the wife is a BIG Zelda fan.)

"We indulge ourselves". Yup, sure helps to have more than one source of money. I learned when I was forced to retire how to stretch the buck. The only good thing about my type of retirement is, no taxes:) No taxable income:) Bad thing is evry year after I get my COLA and Medicare takes its bite I don't know if I got a raise or lost. This is getting way off topic,

Nah thread drift is good, and is a normal communications thing.

We couldn't get by without our dual income, but between us, we've kept our total  debt (except the house) below $3000 so I'm pretty happy.

I have a 64bit system with 4gigs ram and even with everything I can possibly get out of memory, Firefly in P6 locks up on me sometimes with (relatively) large (or complex) renders, i.e., say 2400x3000 or greater. I have to use the P4 renderer some of the time. Is that just me?

People have reported P6's memory management is still a bit wonky.

Maybe P7 will work out better for you?

Memory-handling problems represent P6's #1 weakness, IMO.  No matter how powerful your system happens to be.  I am definitely hoping that P7 will address that issue successfully.

Ef seems to be claiming that it does -- if I am reading their hints correctly.

Can't really confirm or deny it in P7, since I've never seen memory issues in P6 even.

Neither do I -- until I attempt a render with more than 3 mil figures with hair, clothes, and background props.  Exceed that, and firefly gets iffy.  It might work, and it might not.  Even when applying the various "tricks" like adjusting bucket sizes, etc..  This is with 2G of RAM.

I know that some others claim to have no problems rendering 9+ Mil figures in a scene -- but such results with P6 have been well outside of my experience.  Perhaps they aren't using features like raytracing.....that might force a render -- if they render with no extras.  But doing so sort of defeats the purpose of firefly.

Vue, anyone?

I rarely, if ever, use raytracing and can get quite professional firefly results.  The worst thing you can do is crank up all the settings if you aren't using elements that take advantage of them.  If I'm not using true reflections or certain lights there's really no need for raytracing to be on.

P7's better management of textures (texture tiling and so on) should really help with large scenes.

I completely agree with Gareee and others - you really need to understand what all the render settings do and optimize them for your system and your needs.  There aren't that many in comparison to other renderers.  Of course, you can always save different render presets too.

Stewer has a lot of the settings outlined and there's bits of information all over the place for firefly:  http://www.keindesign.de/stefan/poser/firefaq.html

Actually, I don´t "need" to do anything, because I´m perfectly happy with the performance of the P4 renderer.

I´m also perfectly able to read tutorials so I have no problems using the material room.
I just refuse to waste my time with it because the results are marginal at best.

Why does everyone try to turn a hobby into a freaking competition, where the ultimate "win" is being able to do a "photorealistic" render ?

If I wanted to watch techno geeks and wannabe pros ripping each other for not using the "right" soft and hardware, and competing with their "skillz", I´d hang out at CGI-talk.

The problem is you all accept photorealism as the gold standard of CGI, and I simply refuse to evaluate my work by the time it needed to render or the money I sunk down in my equipment..

And even IF I would all of the sudden feel the ambition to create photorealistic renders, I definitely wouldn´t rely on a hobbyist programm.

Trying to beat the "Big Boys" with a programm like Poser is like trying to win NASCAR in a Volkswagen.
Makes a cool story for the movies, but quite unlikely to happen in the real world.

And even if for the sake of argument you manage to squeeze a big V8 engine in that VW, your cars value as a daily driver will be ruined.

Poser 4 is an dependable, economic and FUN programm.

Trying to make it compete with MAX or MAYA not only made it LESS dependable, LESS economic, but also for the overwhelming  majority of users LESS FUN.

I´m all for improvements, but a render engine that all of the sudden needs HOURS if not DAYS to render a single lousy still picture is NO IMPROVEMENT in my book.
Neither is a material room that needs a degree in mathematics to work properly.

If your goal in life is to create a photorealistic render in Poser, be my guest.
I think it´s foolish, but I really don´t care what you do with your computer and your time.
But don´t you dare try to impose your "standards" on everybody else.
Some of us are actually able to see through the hype.

Stahlratte