Reading this whole thread there are a few things that bothers me, for one thing:  As far as I know DAZ has always been DAZ, I believe the original victoria 1 was made by Zygote, but later it has always been DAZ who made the vickies and mickeys  etc..  Poser has been owned by several companies: Fractal design, Metacreations, Curious Labs and now E-frontier  (forgive if I forgot one) So Poser has been for sell several times on the market. Why, and again why didn't DAZ buy it instead of spending their money on Bryce, I don't say Bryce is a bad product, I used to love it, but it would have been much better for the development of Poser and the poser community and besides that, why has DAZ difficulties with every company that owns poser?
I can understand that they are trying to make and promote their own content-handling-application as I look back at the uncertain future Poser had in the past. ( It has been unavailable in Holland for some years), but I think buying Poser would have been a much better investment.
As the result of this, the customers, we as I speak, are the victim of this politics. Both DAZ and E-frontier are forcing us to make a choice by sabotaging their opponents products. They forget that there's a whole community of users and merchants, who also have to make a living with Poser or DAZ-studio.
I have absolutely no respect for companies that bring free-market arguments to the table to defend their methods. I've always believed and experienced that a symbiotic co-operation is much more fertile.
Even before money-making, poser and his sidekicks has to be fun!!!: for some weeks now I'm working with Poser 7 and Victoria and the major question that troubles me is : If I encounter an problem , what  is the cause: P7 or V4 and could it been avoided?

The companies may be different each time but with a few exceptions the people involved on the Poser side have been the same all the way through.

Quote -
Yes, and no ...

I agree that competition usually benefits the consumer. But there is one thing that has to happen in order to advance use of Poser and DAZ Studio. The rigging.

Right now, both products are working around the rigging limitations of older versions of Poser. Indeed, there is a wealth of content out there that they have to consider.

But there is only so much you can do with the current rigging method, and in order to provide more realism in posing and animation, and by extension all of the clothing, you have to say goodbye to the old Poser rigging methods at some point. And this will make a lot of folks unhappy.

Oh, I completely agree about the rigging! Considering the app is called Poser, you would think that the rigging would at least compete with more general animation/modelling apps. Your comment concerning legacy products is very valid and I have no doubt it has restricted the development of rigging within Poser.

Cheers

Without Poser no Daz, but without DAZ, Poser would not have evolved as it has, if it still existed! and neither would Renderosity, RDNA or whatever who live from selling add-ons for DAZ products.

If DAZ splits up their mesh into a Poser version with the outdated joints system, and a version that would have an up to date joints method for their own app, then it's goodbye Poser within a year.

Like Freddy Mercury sang: "I can't live with you, but I can't live without you."
Symbiosis?

*"There's a free script to unhide them."

*Yes, we know that. But we had to make one. So what will be the next thing that we need to hack to get to work in Poser and the next one and so on. If everyone keeps say it's no big deal, it won't be long before all these little things become one big problem.

It would be nice to beable to have more up to date rigging and still be able to use the old poser type. I don't know if they could but one can hope.

In my opinion, it is a BAD business decision to create a company that depends solely on the existence of another.

That really has more to do with the slow divergence of DAZ and EFrontier's interests. It's very dangerous, for a company like DAZ that sells models that work with Poser, to have to rely on what another company does with that program. If Poser hadn't found a new buyer a few years ago and been abandoned, DAZ would have been put out of business. Developing Studio was a way for DAZ to ensure their survival as a business that no longer wholly depended on Poser's future. Studio still isn't as feature rich as Poser and its development pace seems to have slowed down since it's initial version 1.0 release. Eventually, Studio will start having features that complement new DAZ figures. DAZ Studio already has a native feature, for V4 clothing, that requires a magnetize clothing workaround in Poser. That's probably just the tip of the iceberg for the two companies' diverging interests.

I wonder if DAZ and EFrontier had any significant discussions before Poser 7's release. If they did, there wasn't any public announcements about the results. DAZ hasn't made any official announcements regarding Poser 7, so there's little reason to think that there are any new features that they requested (if such requests were ever made). The fact that V4 incorporates Poser 6 nodes instead of Poser 7 sounds as if there wasn't a lot of cooperative communication between the two companies over the new Poser release.

There will probably eventually be a time, as Studio matures into real competition against Poser, when DAZ will have to do something to differentiate between the levels of compatibility their products have against the two programs. It's not likely that Poser support will be abandoned in the foreseeable future as long as Poser continues to be sold. Too many people use it. As Studio matures and incorporates new features to allow more realistic figures and rigging being developed by DAZ, there will someday be a more significant divergence between the two programs.

I don't think a gap between the two companies will be bad. As long as Poser is the dominant posing program, DAZ will always provide figures that work well in Poser. As DAZ continues adding features to Studio that allows for more realistic figure renders, there will be reasons to switch to Studio. If Studio starts doing some things significantly better than Poser, or gets features I want that Poser doesn't have, I'll make the switch. I'm always amazed when people get emotionally involved in software and techniques. I can understand the reluctance to learn all the nuances of a new program, but a lot of people develop an unreasonable emotional attachment that goes beyond a learning curve.

As 3D artists, we're mostly looking for similar things such as more realistic figures, easier and more realistic posing, hair and cloth that looks and moves realistically. Does it really matter whether DAZ figures and DAZ studio provide what we want or Poser 7 and EFrontier figures do it? Whichever company provides the best solution, the other company will likely have to follow suit to remain in business. If Poser remains on top, DAZ will continue providing models that work in Poser. If DAZ Studio/figures become the best solution, Poser will have to provide compatibility with those figures.

It's less a war than an evolution. As users, we'll hopefully be the winners. I wouldn't expect much of a symbiotic relation between the two companies because there doesn't seem to be much of that going on right now. Both will do what they must to remain viable in the future.

Quote - Because that's how I feel Lucifer. It's the impression I get from Poser users (not all btw)....snobbish if you will.

I hope that you never get that from me, I actually recommend DAZ|Studio to many people that I talk to about getting started with 3d figure art because it's free.  I have tried both and I prefer poser, but zero $$ is hard to beat.

Quote - > Quote - Because that's how I feel Lucifer. It's the impression I get from Poser users (not all btw)....snobbish if you will.

 

I hope that you never get that from me, I actually recommend DAZ|Studio to many people that I talk to about getting started with 3d figure art because it's free.  I have tried both and I prefer poser, but zero $$ is hard to beat.

Same here, I've even gotten a friend started in CG after telling him to get D|S, I just happened to get started myself with Poser, so that's the program I prefer, especially since I use some of the more advanced features that Poser has which D|S doesn't.

kimber89 - good point. Again, I say why not cooperate, expand your market, and sell to both. Wanna make money? Why not expand your audience as we are suggesting instead of diving it into small sections to claim as your own? It is insane. Is anyone from DAZ and ef listening?

One would hope that EF and DAZ realize that content developers are an important part of the solution as well. Whatever happens in the future, I hope it doesn't result in a situation that will force developers to have to choose one side or the other to develop for. It would be nice if the development process was thought out so that it wouldn't be a great investment of time to produce content that will work in Poser and DAZ Studio.

I think the rift between the two companys has lessened since P5, but perhaps it seems more a lack of cooperation simply because the V4 figure and P7 app are just that much more complicated themselves technolically. i dont think the primary reason DAZ releazed D/S was to compete with Poser, it was released to help sell more Vicky's. And it did that by getting more people started in 3d art with a little cash to start. Im imagine e/F probably saw an increase in sales due to all the new Vicky's out there as a result of D/S release because peeps who started with DS wanted to move on to the Big App

Quote - I'm not a DAZ hater like some around this site, but there is competition and while not a bad thing in general I do agree that they seem to be drifting apart.

I say use both Poser and DAZ Studio.  That way you have access to more content for rendering.

I cant recall the last time a thread had me laughing so hard.

If the "Real" truth was known..you'd likely head for the hills burning all of your copies of everything along the way.

But please...do continue.

8 )

Tom

Hey, don't tease and then not tell! 

Give us the dirt! That sweet sweet Diiiiiirt!!!

PS: yeah, I can see a growing rift between to two apps creating more work for merchants/content makers. Maybe when D|S toyed with that FBX format they were looking at some sort of universal development standard?

Come on then Hawkfyr, spill the beans.

Or,  just egging you on for more of a laugh.

Oh Gawd...I knew I shoulda kept my moth shut...lol

Put this way...a few in this thread have relatively accurate information coughbobcough... but the real situations reached much farther and wider than what was revealed publicly.

I'm friends with both camps, and gave my word to never disclose what was discussed in confidence with me from "All" involved about how the whole thing started and the way things unfolded as a result. Especially during a very volatile time.

But to keep with the thread...I think the gap has narrowed over the years.

Animosity levels have gone down, and now it's pretty much business as usual as mentioned earlier.

I probably should have stayed out of the thread altogether but some of the speculations struck me funny,and felt compelled to reply.

My apologies.

8 )

Tom

RE:DAZ acquiring Bryce....Well...Corel was ready to turn it into "Shelf-Ware", and it's my understanding that it ultimately sold for a song.(It wasn't so much the price,but rather the cleaning up the code that turned potential buyers off)

In fact...the 3DCommune came very close to buying Bryce as well as some other well known Developers. But Corel wouldn't budge..they wanted cash up front, or it was going on the shelf.  Many Brycer's do not realize that they may have nearly lost any future versions of Bryce... DAZ evidently had the capitol, stepped up to the plate, and bought an app that, under the hood was a total mess from being passed around from developer to developer over the years.

It is my hope that they can turn things around with Bryce but I would imagine it's not going to happen over-night.

But Bryce came very close to being no more. Closer than many might think.

Sounds like growing pains - a difficult teenage period?

Glad to hear there's no outright feuding going on behind the scenes.

So, are they teaming up on solving this rigging issue?

Cheers

Hopefully...Jobbie

I personally think it's in everyone's best interest to make applications compatible.

In fact(not to lean on the Bryce topic too much) I think DAZ's interest in Bryce had more to do with securing a host app to support content via DAZ studio to Bryce.

Poser user begged for a more user friendly workflow to get Poser characters into Bryce and Daz's answer to that had a lot to the development of DAZ Studio rather than "puttin to Curious Labs". (at that time)

Naturally, SDK /format secrets can not be given out wily nilly,, but comatatability between apps, only does the industry good imho.

Tom

imo if you want to talk about cut-throat business, look at how e frontier and Autodesk refuse to make any real effort to work together - incompatible rigging, no working built-in import/export for either direction, just very frustrating to try to integrate those two when I tried it.  Certainly nothing so easy as Poser -> Vue or D|S -> Bryce.

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Because that's how I feel Lucifer. It's the impression I get from Poser users (not all btw)....snobbish if you will.

 

I hope that you never get that from me, I actually recommend DAZ|Studio to many people that I talk to about getting started with 3d figure art because it's free.  I have tried both and I prefer poser, but zero $$ is hard to beat.

Same here, I've even gotten a friend started in CG after telling him to get D|S, I just happened to get started myself with Poser, so that's the program I prefer, especially since I use some of the more advanced features that Poser has which D|S doesn't.

It's really funny to think that Poser users might treat D/S users the some way that Maya and Max users treat Poser users.

Really, the irony is mind boggling.  The whipped become the whippers.

A bunch of little fish pretending to be big fish because some smaller fish have moved into the pond.

In the end, do not worry what app you use!  The application is only a tool.  It is what you do with the tool that matters.  I myself do shameless pictures of naked chicks in sci-fi fantasy settings and no matter what application I've used (and I've used a long list), they still end up being the same unimaginative pieces of crap.  On the other hand, I've seen brilliant art done by people using MS Paint...

:lol: 

Talking about Autodesk, that's really a company that wants to protect his own content! For years there major application Autocad ruled the engineerings market as the number one CAD-application. Autodesk refused to give its dwg-format free for other companies for protective reason, so an opensource SDK was developed by a non-profit organisation. Programs like Rhino3D and Turbocad thank there existence on that. For years it has been more or less tolerated by Autodesk, but suddenly they are sueing the open design alliance for adapting there SDK to the latest Autocad2007 dwg-format.

It's a little of target but compaired to that E-frontier and DAZ are big buddies.
If every company was so protective about their own content, we would have hundreds of different videotape, CD and  DVD-standards for example.

The amount of Sh!t us Poser users have had to put up with from the "big boys" is mind blowing, I can't understand why anyone who's had it would want to do the same to D|S users, they are afterall using something that's almost identical to Poser in most respects.

Hawkfyr I respect you keeping your promises & it's interesting to note that Bryce was almost gone for good, being a longtime user (since V2) I'd be sad to see it go & was more than happy to see it go to Daz.

Quote - It's really funny to think that Poser users might treat D/S users the some way that Maya and Max users treat Poser users.

Really, the irony is mind boggling.  The whipped become the whippers.

A bunch of little fish pretending to be big fish because some smaller fish have moved into the pond.

Uh, actually, I was fully prepared to pay the list price for 3ds Max 9.  I tried the full demo for several weeks, and compared it against Poser 6, and honestly Max is not nearly as approachable at presenting and posing human figure art.  Considering I've spent about $8k on hardware and licenses for this stuff in the past three months, I would not have batted an eye at another $700 for a student license for 3ds Max if I had found it to be anywhere near as appropriate to general-purpose human figure art as Poser or D|S are.
http://www.turbosquid.com/Search/Index.cfm/FuseAction/ProcessSmartSearch/intCategory/9313
Maybe Turbosquid isn't the most comprehensive vendor in the world, but I don't see any large collection of rigged 3d human figures with wide selections of textures and morphs built in, not like on the Poser side.

PJZ99...no offence intended, but  3ds Max has all the tools to create amazing character design and animation (as you know)...but it needs much time and effort...after all, there are university degrees designed to make Max more approachable and like any "pro" app it takes years of dedication.

Now, there are a couple of ways you can view this depending on what your ambition is for the future. If you want to be a professional character animator then you will have to dive in to XSI, Max or Maya...there is virtually no requirement for Poser skills in the pro studio field. If a project did come about for a studio to use Poser they would just use one of there own artists because it is so easy to learn or contract a freelancer just for that project.
Then you have the freelance user...well Poser is handy and there are many successful freelance Poser artists about, but I'm sure most of them wouldn't be successful without solid experience in a 3d modelling app and 2d tool such as Painter or PS.
Finally you have the hobbyist...and they will use what ever they can afford and feel comfortable with and make great art with it.

If you really want the best of both worlds then look into the Cinema 4D XL or Studio bundles...you have a full featured modelling and animation application to grow into and it plays nice with Poser as well.

Cheers

Quote - PJZ99...no offence intended, but  3ds Max has all the tools to create amazing character design and animation (as you know)...but it needs much time and effort...after all, there are university degrees designed to make Max more approachable and like any "pro" app it takes years of dedication.

These things do not add up to "more approachable".  FAR more money, FAR more time, FAR more effort to acheive the things a Poser user can accomplish their first day.

True pjz99, but there are good reasons why Max, Maya or XSI are used but not Poser by production studios. Rigging, dynamics, easier to create custom characters that don't look the same as the base mesh and still behave when animated.
For example, you want a character to be animated...in Max you can have the tools so that the muscles and flesh sway and ripple as it moves...try doing that in poser!
Agreed though, Poser is capable of amazing art (and usually stills), but for modelling, animation and flexibility it isn't 10% of what Max, Maya or XSI are and I don't expect it to be. If I was to ask a Poser artist and Max artist to create an animated 5 min short with custom characters, then I know who my money would be on.

We use the tools that fill our needs, and I can show you equally impressive work from Max artists that would be impossible to do in Poser. This isn't a stab at Poser, it's just the way it is - they are different programs...that is why character meshes within Poser are created in modelling apps - it's impossible to create characters from scratch in Poser...then you have the added nightmare of a rigging system that gets the job done despite it and not because of it lol!

Quote - The amount of Sh!t us Poser users have had to put up with from the "big boys" is mind blowing, I can't understand why anyone who's had it would want to do the same to D|S users.

I can't recall threads here bashing DAZ Studio users. There's an anti-DAZ camp here that pretty much badmouth everything the company does whether it's good or bad. There are people that don't like DS, but I haven't seen much of that sentiment spilling over to people that use it.

There is a lack of DS specific content because most of the people creating content are longtime Poser users. Poser files are usable in both DS and Poser whereas DS files aren't usable in Poser, so content providers are going to stick to the most common denominator. The only reason I don't use DS is because I don't have the time to learn a new interface/workflow.

Quote - One would hope that EF and DAZ realize that content developers are an important part of the solution as well. Whatever happens in the future, I hope it doesn't result in a situation that will force developers to have to choose one side or the other to develop for.

It's not likely that either company would completely invalidate all the content sold in the past. There will probably be a divergence for new figures that will only be fully functional in one program and maybe not even usable in the other. Maybe the worst scenario will be a situation where the best new content isn't fully usable in the best posing program and everybody is forced to compromise between everything,

Who knows, maybe one of the big 3D companies will jump into the fray to really confuse things.

Perspective, boyos (and girlos)..;)  In the grand scheme of life, how much tsuris is this worth?..;)
In the grand scheme of things, Poser is a tool...to make art (make art button notwithstanding..;). There's no reason it has to be the only tool in the box (to a hammer, all problems look like a nail..;)
There's plenty of room for modelers, renderers, and (gasp) postwork.

I come from a society where competition is praised (or at least given lip service..;) Having Daz compete with Poser is going to make both packages better, with more features, better support, or any angle to get market share away from each other. Heck, Microsoft and Apple cooperate (grudgingly), but there's MS packages that run under Macs. Could be the same thing here.

I've gotten lots of nice things from both Poser (Free 5), and Daz (D|S, the Millenium characters, and numerous freebies), so I really can't complain about either.

Quote - Heck, Microsoft and Apple cooperate (grudgingly), but there's MS packages that run under Macs.

If you go over PC history, MS had Microsoft Office first on Macs before there was ever a Windows 3. The main Mac word processor was Word and Excel was the main Mac spreadsheet. Bill Gates tried to get Apple to release a PC version of their operating system and Apple decided that their fortune was in their hardware and that the operating system was the incentive to purchase their hardware. That decision was probably one of the worst business decisions in all of history.

Quote - In anycase, it is funny, though, because I see a lot of D/S vs Poser talk in various other forums.  If the companies are not trying to create a rift, the customers certainly are.

...and we have a winner! I'm betting it's the people who are trying for it ("hey, it's Drama!"). EF and DAZ speak with each other quite periodically ever since a certain egomaniacal CEO went somewheres else and CL got sold to EF. As for features? That's something that each company has a right to include or exclude as they desire.

Quote-pjz99: "I hope that you never get that from me, I actually recommend DAZ|Studio to many people that I talk to about getting started with 3d figure art because it's free.  I have tried both and I prefer poser, but zero $$ is hard to beat."

No, no, never from you. :)
Studio is great for beginners and it's touted as such. With the free program base, free base figures (when they still are free), and all the free content available from Daz & 3rd parties, to me it is the program to start with.
However, should one decide to go further or more advanced then one has make an investment of some sort and that means to invest in morphs, plugins or try Poser instead.

Either way someone is going to get your money. :lol: One just has to decide how much.

Quote-gagnonrich: "I can't recall threads here bashing DAZ Studio users. There's an anti-DAZ camp here that pretty much badmouth everything the company does whether it's good or bad. There are people that don't like DS, but I haven't seen much of that sentiment spilling over to people that use it.

There is a lack of DS specific content because most of the people creating content are longtime Poser users. Poser files are usable in both DS and Poser whereas DS files aren't usable in Poser, so content providers are going to stick to the most common denominator. The only reason I don't use DS is because I don't have the time to learn a new interface/workflow."

There are no specific threads, it's my overall perspective from forum posts, stores, yadda yadda. Again it's just my personal feeling about it and does not apply to all.

Since the releases of P6 and now of P7, new Poser content does not work in D|S (properly I should say) as these products usually require Poser specific shaders, nodes, & materials. As much as I would like to buy such products, I hardly spare them a glance.

As I see it right now, right or wrong, eventually D|S users will be pretty much left out in the cold with the new content (obvious exception for Daz) being produced.

Since the releases of P6 and now of P7, new Poser content does not work in D|S (properly I should say) as these products usually require Poser specific shaders, nodes, & materials. As much as I would like to buy such products, I hardly spare them a glance.

If the products have textures included with them, they should work fine. The only difference is that you won't be able to use the material room enhancements, so your renders may not look exactly the same.

So I wouldn't say that DAZ Studio users are being left out, per se ... the products should work (that is, if they are conforming). You just won't get the added benefit of the material room, but the textures and bump maps, as well as displacement maps, should work. Products submitted at DAZ should also include DAZ Studio-specific material files as well.

There are P6/P7 features that don't even allow content to be properly used in P4/P5. The practice of putting morphs in .pmd files makes it difficult to use such figures in earlier versions of Poser without a conversion program. P6/P7 nodes do not work in earlier versions of Poser. I just upgraded to Poser 7, but was getting frustrated with how even P5 was no longer being fully supported. The lack of support isn't a DS thing as much as an evolution of where Poser software is going.

Poser has been around close to a decade, so there are a lot more heavy Poser users than DAZ Studio users. Since DS is owned by the biggest posable figure content creator, and is being handed out free, it's going to slowly get more and more support. It's still a new program and it will take time to grow.

The market is going to dictate how much support DS gets. As DS users spend more and more money on products that include native DS support, content creators will have to take notice.  It will probably take a few years before that happens. It will also require DS to become more capable instead of just being a free learning step on the way to Poser. Right now, a proficient DS user has no choice but to upgrade to Poser to get advanced materials, dynamic hair and clothing, and animation.

Quote - imo if you want to talk about cut-throat business, look at how e frontier and Autodesk refuse to make any real effort to work together - incompatible rigging, no working built-in import/export for either direction, just very frustrating to try to integrate those two when I tried it.  Certainly nothing so easy as Poser -> Vue or D|S -> Bryce.

I'm not sure if you're aware but there is a plug-in that  e frontier sells which will allow you to export Poser content /animation into Max. It's called BodyStudio and while it's not a built in fix (as it's a plug in), NONE of the high-end apps have direct import of Poser content but Poser will take in 3DS, LWO and OBJ formats without much problem. Actually, you'll find this is also the case between the high-end apps too, they usually don't have built in support for each other but support can be had via plug-ins (sometimes).  Normal practice, really.

I investigated this not very long ago, and found far too many complaints about how BodyStudio worked, which sufficed to scare me away from spending $1000+ on software that might or might not do something sorta kinda like what I maybe wanted.  Maybe in the far future when I feel like I've learned all there is to learn about Poser I'll be more interested in rolling the dice again, but I have a lot on my plate now (remember I'm a nooby).

Edit:  Oops, Vue 6 imports Poser natively, which was why I bought it (V6 Infinite).

hi, 

My 2 cents not worth much but...

I do think that daz is tryign to move away from poser but what do they have to offer? Honestly i tried Daz Studio and i i found it really hard to work with...everything is ackward and it is still missing a lot of features that are in poser.

On the other hand even in version 7 poser is still missing a lot of things or features that have been in other 3d packages since forever that would make life much  simplier in poser....as an example 3ds as character studio to help you animate properly...poser is still lacking in this...in poser i only use the poser room and material room..the rest for me are garbage rooms because they are to hard to work with and i don't feel like turning dials for hours to get what i need.

Poser is just getting optimized in version 7 really not much more...no BIG huge new feature that would radically change poser..you still can work in poser 6 if " you are just into posing" and get same results...

Poser needs to be retought form the ground up...and daz studio is just a cheap way for daz to try to bring you on their side to just their products...

Both sides are guilty of trying to outdo each other but what they offer is mostly smoke and mirrors..a lot of hype without much to work with..

I am sure that a lot of people here with knowledge of 3d programs would say that there is tons of things that could be included in poser but as me they do not understand why..i know the base of poser is hard to change so that is why i think a complete redesign of poser is in order because i do think that the current base is limiting poser.

As for studio well..honestly i tried several version of it even if it meant to have the ability to have features only available in daz for v3 but what i gained in daz i lost because daz studio did not have a feature that i needed to work with...example: could not translate millenium dynamic deformers wich are important for the work i want to achieve..daz studio did not support them..so i had to give up on daz studio and go back to poser all the time....so daz studio is worhtless to me....maybe v4 would change the way i feel about DS but i doubt it.

Both programs need a lot of work on them!

cheers

Quote - Talking about Autodesk, that's really a company that wants to protect his own content! For years there major application Autocad ruled the engineerings market as the number one CAD-application. Autodesk refused to give its dwg-format free for other companies for protective reason, so an opensource SDK was developed by a non-profit organisation. Programs like Rhino3D and Turbocad thank there existence on that. For years it has been more or less tolerated by Autodesk, but suddenly they are sueing the open design alliance for adapting there SDK to the latest Autocad2007 dwg-format.

 
  
It is my understanding that the reason Autodesk is trying to stop the SDK is that they were trying to integrate a "digital signature" into the format so that engineers could legally sign the drawing and if anyone made changes to the drawing the signature would be deleted. The Open SDK compromises that security, others would be able to change the design and leave the signature thus indicating that that engineer is legally responsible for the design.Currently there are no accepted digital signatures in engineering. The Engineer must put pen to paper to legally sign the drawings.

I agree with Cheers. 

These two companies need each other and neither would survive without the other and I personally cant survive without either of them. In spite of certain quirks on both sides these two recent product releases have heartened me enormously. Both companies are progressing well with their core products. V4 has some oddities but I'm amazed at the quality and detail of the new mesh and the excellent rigging. Poser has taken some major steps forward with their P7 release. Their figures aren't at the level of a V4 but the faces are truly unique and interesting, Simon and Sydney are their best yet in my humble opinion. And then there's those damnned beautiful Holsteins over at E-F! These two companies just need to have a summit on neutral ground have a sixties-style love-in. And we the people will vote with our dollars.

See you later I'm off to Content Paradise to purchase Holsteins.

Quote:*
**Currently there are no accepted digital signatures in engineering. The Engineer must put pen to paper to legally sign the drawings.

*And that's the only right way to do it,  Cad-applications are in first instance designed to make paper drawings. The digital copy of that is only the tool which you use to make that drawings. All other things that you can do with CAD-programs, like 3D-modelling, rendering and animation are only byproducts. Nice byproducts but not very valuable for legal purposes.
But I think this is a little OT of the original discussion (Blame me, I posted the Autodesk story)

I'm glad to hear that DAZ and  E-frontier are on speaking terms. I hope they solve the starting problems of their new upgrades together.

Quote - And that's the only right way to do it,  Cad-applications are in first instance designed to make paper drawings. The digital copy of that is only the tool which you use to make that drawings. All other things that you can do with CAD-programs, like 3D-modelling, rendering and animation are only byproducts. Nice byproducts but not very valuable for legal purposes.
But I think this is a little OT of the original discussion (Blame me, I posted the Autodesk story)

Autodesk products (and Bentley's microstation products) are not programs to turn engineer scribbles into pretty straight lines. They are Design programs. If your drawing in AutoCAD you're wasting a lot of money.
I am an AutoCAD Tech, this is something I’m currently trying to get thru my engineers thick skulls. paper drawings are a byproduct of the design entered into AutoCAD. if there were a way to make the output secure, electronic drawings could be the output and delivery could be streamlined.

I do not agree, Autocad is the tool to make paper drawings, like a wordprocessor is used to make paper documents. I'm an Autocad engineer for 18 years so I know where I'm talking about. You don't sent an E-mail to client to sign the drawing which isn't possible by the way, you don't check drawings on you computer, you make a plot of it and check it on a table, if you use a monitor, you're missing too many points. You don't give a floppydisk to a carpenter to build your buildings, cause he don't has a laptop on the site to see you drawings. If a Cad-program doesn't has a possibility to make paper copies (plots in this case) it's useless. I've seen and used other very advanced 3D-design-programs, like solid edge and AD-inventor, but I don't use them anymore because of the crappy plot-interface, perhaps they improved that but 4 years it was worthless. I agree that autocad and other cad-programs can be used as way of communication between engineers and designers, but that's only true during the design process. When you have to realize your design, you have to deal with laymen who can only read paper drawings, including your clients. You don't make a set of digital contract drawings, people don't trust that, me including, even if it's completely secured.

Quote - I do not agree, Autocad is the tool to make paper drawings, like a wordprocessor is used to make paper documents. 

In my opinion, if your not designing on the computer; your wasting time.

Quote - I'm an Autocad engineer for 18 years so I know where I'm talking about. You don't sent an E-mail to client to sign the drawing which isn't possible by the way, 

I've been a tech for 14 yrs, the Autocad i started with was a word processor for technical drawings. The companies i have worked for have always stayed with the current versions and there have been alot of changes and advances in those years.

Quote - you don't check drawings on you computer, you make a plot of it and check it on a table, if you use a monitor, you're missing too many points. 

havent had any complaints so far. I do have to make prints for some of my engneers but only because they barly know how to open autocad. Others are making their designs in Autocad and i'm cleaning up the results (checking and correcting drafting standards.) granted not all checks are done on the computer, neither are all checks done on plots

Quote - You don't give a floppydisk to a carpenter to build your buildings, cause he don't has a laptop on the site to see you drawings. 

pffft.. who uses floppydisks anymore ;-)
We have contractors that download plan sets from our website in order to submit their bids. currently only pdf scans of the drawings. I doubt they use that set for anything more than making bids currently (i'm not really involved in that side of the process) but they do recieve electronic files.

Quote - If a Cad-program doesn't has a possibility to make paper copies (plots in this case) it's useless. I've seen and used other very advanced 3D-design-programs, like solid edge and AD-inventor, but I don't use them anymore because of the crappy plot-interface, perhaps they improved that but 4 years it was worthless. I agree that autocad and other cad-programs can be used as way of communication between engineers and designers, but that's only true during the design process. 

More and more our clients are asking for electronic drawings. Some want downloads others CD or DVD. As mentioned before, contractors download sets for bidding. Autodesk's Civil package has made huge leaps in the last 3 years and continues to improve.

Quote - When you have to realize your design, you have to deal with laymen who can only read paper drawings, including your clients. You don't make a set of digital contract drawings, people don't trust that, me including, even if it's completely secured.

People don't trust them because they are not secure, the security has to be established before it could be acceptable. It may never happen.

Not all my clients need me to print drawings for them. many are capable of doing it themselves, and some can have someone elese print files for them.

Perhaps we can discuss this in an Autocad forum, I don't think many Poser people are intested in our discussion. It's interesting but hardly OT.

Quote - Perhaps we can discuss this in an Autocad forum, I don't think many Poser people are intested in our discussion. It's interesting but hardly OT.

Actually, it's fascinating, but I don't want to see you two come to blows! :laugh: I'm learning, which is always cool.

But, maybe it is way OT.

Well, ok, I see we have fans. but I'll keep it short: I agree with you that you don't use autocad onlyfor drawings, as a matter of fact until last year I only used the light version because the real Autocad was much too expensive. But Autocad without plotting possibilities is like Poser without renderengine.