When Studio allows for exporting Poser content, then, I'll take it seriously. Until then, it's just a free toy that renders pretty pictures and nothing more. ;) I wont vote either because I use low end apps not high ones.

I'm not a huge fan of the D/S interface, but maybe that's because I've used Poser for so long.  I havea  few of it's plug-ins and it really tickles me that it imports nicely into Bryce, but alas, Bryce is a program i use rarely aswell.

I really like the Daz Studio Plug-in system, but as someone already mentioned, when you start adding up the plug-ins, you can far surpass the price of Poser very quickly to get the same funtcionality.

Still, I've seen some fantastic artwork done in D/S, which means my personal preference doesn't mean squat.  The power is not in the tool, it is in the creativity.  I've seen some great art produced using really old technology...

Like Pencils and paintbrushes. 

Alas, I voted Poser 7.  I don't know that it is my favorite of the Posers, but it is the one I use the most in recent months.

Can't we all just get along?

PS:  Just got back from the Police Concert (2nd one in their new tour)!  Woot!  A great time, Just great.  All time fav band.

Cheers!

Because it's been mentioned a couple of times on this thread now, I thought I'd take a look - and did a quick tote up of the plug-ins available for D|S. Now, obviously, these are all optional, and there are some, such as pwPuzzle and the FBX importer, which offer something which cant' be done in Poser, either. So I added up all those which, in my opinion, simply offered D|S users the same level of control and options that are available in Poser 6/7. Here's the list of plug-ins I chose to add (I'm putting these here so there's no dispute, and so that people who disagree can challenge the inclusion of a given plug-in):

Replicate (gives you the instancing ability implicit in P7): 1.99 (regular price 9.95)
pwCatch (shadow catching - available in P6/7): 9.95
pwGhost (translucence effects): 9.95
pwSufrace (SSS, AO, and other bits native to P6/7): 9.95
Hand Grip: 14.95
Morph Loader (allows for obj morph loading - native in P6/7): 9.95
D-Form plugin (magents): 19.95
Parameters Organiser: 7.95

Originally, I had included Align Ace (9.95) and Finder (14.95), but I think they perhaps add functionality that Poser doesn't have natively. I also chose not to include Pantomime (39.95), pwPuzzler (4.95), or the FBX plug-in (99.95), since they offer extra things which Poser can't do. I'm not sure whether the mgHeightfield Primitves (9.95) should be included or not - the technobabble they use is a little beyond me, so I can't determine what this actually does (anyone out there know)?

The total for the plug-ins to bring D|S up to Poser level (sort of - it still does things Poser does'nt, and vice versa), is $92.60. Whilst cheaper than buying a completely new version of Poser by well over half, it's not a great deal shy of the upgrade price.And if you wanted the full functionality of all the plug-ins, then the total setback would be $272.30 - which is even more than a full version of Poser 7.

Please note, that I'm not doing this to show in any way that one programis better than the other, or to lay the seeds of dissension. It's just the results of myself having gone over to tote up the total costs of D|S for myself, and was quite surprised at the findings, so thought I'd share them here. 

JonTheCelt

I use both programs.  Why all the paranoia?  Many users have both Poser and Daz Studio--and as for being free e-frontier recently gave away Poser 5 to lure new users.  Daz Studio is free, however, in order to expand it's capabilities you need to buy plugins for it.  The new dynamic cloth, to optimize it will require a $50 plugin.  

What, pray tell, is wrong with Runtime DNA having Daz Studio files packaged with their Poser products?  Daz does it and it hasn't stopped producing Poser compatible items--but now offers D/S files to make the models compatible with both versions.

It's not an all or nothing thing you know!  There's room for everyone!

I guess the whole voting has casued some commotion at a numnber of places (not my doing....) and RDNA has decided to take down the voting for this poll from the main page earlier then normal and replace it with other polls.

*Can't we all just get along?*We could, but as long as some people always choose to overreact and get offended for no reason at all, it's going to be hard.

"We could, but as long as some people always choose to overreact and get offended for no reason at all, it's going to be hard."

Oh yes, you're Mr. Innocent and it's the rest of us who are always overreacting. You could do your part to help us all get along too, you know.

SnowS

The only thing I can see from my [limited] understanding is that by adding on additional file support, could end up increasing product development time, which leads to more effeort, which leads to a necessary price increase for that effort to be worthwhile.   Then again, I could be wrong : )

Basically the only difference between D/S files and Poser files are that Daz Studio does not support Poser's shader nodes.  That being the case it's just a matter of creating just an old fashioned texture maps that doesn't exploit Poser's texture room for a D/S version--this can easily be done off the original texture map the product has before nodes and what-not are added.  When Daz offers Studio versions it's mostly texture maps, but since D/S lights are different than Poser's if a light set were included then the vendor would just make a D/S version.  I can't believe that wouldn increase production time any, and as for price, 3D models and textures are the lowest I can remember them being ever--I don't think it would raise the price.  Or simply a Daz Studio add on could be purchased separately for a product for a small fee so that those using Studio could opt in and strictly Poser people opt out.

Well I did say my understanding was limited :D   

Quote - The only thing I can see from my [limited] understanding is that by adding on additional file support, could end up increasing product development time, which leads to more effeort, which leads to a necessary price increase for that effort to be worthwhile.   Then again, I could be wrong : )

It is possilbe that the cost of deveopment of the additional files will be covered by the additional sales due to the support of DS and/or more advanced Poser materials.

Quote -> Quote - The only thing I can see from my [limited] understanding is that by adding on additional file support, could end up increasing product development time, which leads to more effeort, which leads to a necessary price increase for that effort to be worthwhile.   Then again, I could be wrong : )

* 

It is possilbe that the cost of deveopment of the additional files will be covered by the additional sales due to the support of DS and/or more advanced Poser materials.*

* *
Which seems to be a really good reason for finding out, at least in general cursory terms the volume of users for each version.

In the future it is likely that the differences between Poser and Daz Studio will broaden.  Daz Studio is soon to have dynamic cloth--I'm not sure if it will be compatible with Poser dynamic cloth.  So as things continue to evolve I don't think it's a stretch to forsee a time when thinks have to be specifically designed for one or the other program.  Right now almost everything you can use in Poser you can use in Daz Studio with some tweaking.  A texture map is a texture map is a texture map, unless you have a texture that is soley based on Poser's node system if can easily be used in Daz Studio without hooking it up to the shader tree.  There wouldn't be that many compatibility issues.

I'd be more concerned with e-frontier releasing a new version of Poser that is incompatible with Daz Content.  Most people use Daz Figures and perfer them.  Could any of you live without  Victoria, for instance?  There are storm clouds on the horizon, as e-frontier won't release Poser 7's SKD to make Carrara's transposer compatible with Carrara 5.  So unfortunately we're likely to see more, rather than less compatibility issues, in that case I wouldn't  be upgrading.

I possibly wonder if some of that was due to the hoopla of having Bryce be inextricably linked to Daz Studio?   Didn't that happen before e-frontier made its deal with e-on for Vue's native importation of poser files? 

It doesn't make good business sense for e-frontier to sell the SDK that's developing a rival product to Poser.   I'm not saying that DAZ does practice questionable business practices, however, it wouldn't be too difficult to make innovations with DAZ Studio with access to the SDK.  

In the end, its the end user that loses out, and I'm afraid that we're going to have more schizms as the DS and Poser diverge.  

I can live without Victoria, I still don't use V3 or even have V4. I've got so much stuff for Poser that it's going to last me a long time. With applications like wardrobe wizard, I'm not to worried either. The only reason I've got V3 installed is so that I can convert clothes designed for her to the other figures I prefer using.

We can all ignore the differences between Poser & D/S, but DAZ choose to bring a division in the poser world when they did release D/S. We all know where it will end, but most of us choose to ignore it. In the near future this war between the two giants will only evolve, but I'm a 100% sure that whenever D/S is as good as Poser 6 or higher, most D/S users will have paid a high price for that and they would have paid much less if they'd stayed with Poser.

But I'm not to worried, I still have to upgrade to P7, most likely I won't even do so. Poser 6 serves me well, there still enough content out there that keeps me interested for years, I haven't even bought anything newly released at DAZ for a few months now, only been buying stuff for older figures, to ensure they will be useable for even many more years to come.

*I'd be more concerned with e-frontier releasing a new version of Poser that is incompatible with Daz Content.  
*That's not going to happen, it's going to be the other way around, sooner or later DAZ will release stuff that isn't compaitble with Poser anymore, that's what we should be concerned about. It's already happening, seperate releases for Poser and D/S at DAZ. As soon as D/S will have a large enough customer base, DAZ will make the switch and stop supporting Poser gradually. That's what Poser users need to worry about. That's where DAZ slowly but surely is heading too.....

Well........speaking for myself, I don't have a clue as to what DAZ is going to do -- or as to what e-frontier is going to do.  And others who dogmatically assert that they possess such knowledge of the internal business plans of both companies are merely engaging in a guessing game -- a guessing game colored by their own biases.

Those with real knowledge ain't sayin' nothin'.  All of the others are nothing more than expert crystal ball gazers.  Sure -- anyone can place a bet.  But their horse might not win in the end.  The problem comes in when someone insists that their guesswork and their (perhaps educated, perhaps not) projections concerning future events are factual: as if those events had already transpired in reality.

We'll know for certain what DAZ and what e-frontier are going to do when they do it.  Not before.

"As soon as D/S will have a large enough customer base, DAZ will make the switch and stop supporting Poser gradually."

I do think there's some truth to this, but the published artists at DAZ will likely choose to support Poser anyway. DAZ still doesn't regularly include D|S MATs in their own orignal products, so we're still a ways off from them abandoning Poser for Studio completely.  :)  A time may come when a DAZ figure uses Studio-specific technology though, and if an unfortunate war between users is to break out, that would probably be the time for it.

"I'm a 100% sure that whenever D/S is as good as Poser 6 or higher, most D/S users will have paid a high price for that and they would have paid much less if they'd stayed with Poser."

The only plugin I've used for Studio so far that I feel is absolutely essential for any serious D|S user is pwSurface, so you can still make good images without paying for all the extras. Most of us who switched from Poser to Studio (like myself) did it over the interface, library organization, and/or ease of use, and we wouldn't have stayed with Studio if we really missed Poser's unique features. Even if someone did pay as much or more than Poser for a fully-loaded DAZ Studio, it's worth it if they prefer working with it (and vice versa, it's worth paying for Poser rather than using free DAZ Studio if you like how Poser works).

SnowS

......and then there are those of us who use so-called high-end apps.  So we can sit up above the rest, and look down our collective noses at the puny Poser / D|S users who are located so far below us........some of whom -- in their turn -- are doing their dead-level best to attempt to look down their noses at each other.

I think that I'll use whatever app does the things that I want to do.  Poser and D|S are shiny tools sitting next to each other in a toolbox.

Attached Link: pwEffect

You forgot to mention the recently released pwEffect which adds in a bunch of procedural stuff that I think Poser can do in the Material Room with the Math nodes.  Stuff like Noise, Edge Blending, Cellular and fBm and many many other effects.  I'm working on a procedural Skin right now using it and I'm having some pretty good results so far.  It's a bit to learn but I like learning in an interface that makes it much more to my liking than the Material Room in Poser!!   That would bring the total up, with sales price, to $112.17, still less expensive than Poser. 

As someone has mentioned, it's not the tools but the artist behind the tools and the creativity they put into the work and getting the render to look right.  I've seen some renders from both apps. 

Oh and to address Mock's mocking attitude:  As for Studio users pilfering or "cherry picking" Poser freebies, that's not a statement I would agree with in the least.  Considering I have done MANY freebies for Apollo and just finished up the Vittorio "Bruno" freebie (full on texture pack) and made sure the Poser version was just as nice looking as the Studio version says to you folks that have a one sided opinion about "DAZites" that I'm giving back to the community in spades and hearts!!   Sheesh!  HOW RUDE!! 

***Could any of you live without  Victoria, for instance?

*yup. not used a Daz figure now for about 5 years..... and not missing 'em at all.

You forget 1 thing most important, if e-frontier and daz make stuff incompatible with each others programs, thier are indi programers who will make patches for both and realese as free ware.
From what i have heard maybe will happen their are couple coder's will disasemble p7 sdk and make a patch allowing carrara 5 read p7 files.
It's the indi programers who do the stuff that sort's out the fault's that the idiot comercial pc programers cant do, look how many games core code been wrewriten by fan's to make game better.
The software that chap relesed as free as  a plugin for c4d that allows program read most obj and textures when load into c4d, to some poser stuff exported as obj wont do, though it export's brill from c4d.
He realesed that program because the idiot programers who did c4d 7,8,9,10 dont even no how to do a bloody obj import, so we need indi's to do the stuff that homer simpson trained pc comercial programers cant do, or even if software house wont allow.

Reverse-engineering a commercial program is generally illegal.  And the province of hackers & warez-users.

However, there are sometimes legal ways to fix compatibility issues -- ways which don't involve 'cracking' the program.

This will be brief, while we have to laugh at the  implication of a more than a few that a) we dont take our polls seriously b) we fix them and c) we are nothing more than content paradise's luxury department store, and d) doodz come in and screw them up, we want to make it clear from us to you that none of this is anywhere near the truth.   

Our logic behind polls frankly is to find out what people prefer nothing more nothing less, and to move Runtime DNA into new and exciting directions.  To  put any more behind it than that, is nothing more than another bizarre poser land conspiracy theory.    If you're coming to vote please do, and do so truthfully.   ::Chuckles about peddling these results to some higher Poser Power, you mean SOMEONE MIGHT actually BUY poll results??????? Where have I been all these years?  LOL.

waves to Syyd :-)

I think you guys seriously underestimate the time it takes to make different versions of a product for everybody's application of choice.

Competition is a good thing, prices have dropped dramatically for 3D models over the past couple of years.  Daz offers a great value for the money.  I will always support Daz no matter what happens because I perfer Daz people to e-frontiers people and use them almost exclusively in my work, with the exception of Apollo.  There's room for more than one 3D human character program in the world and I'm glad for for it.  And don't underestimate Quidam, it's up and coming and who knows what great innovations they'll come up with.

BTW Daz has greatly improved Bryce since their acquisition of it and I'm sure there are great things in the future for Carrara as well.  When Corel owned Bryce it was overpriced and did little to improve it.

I swear..... people need to find something constructive to do with all of the extra time on their hands.....  Render or something will you?

Im tryin!!!  ::waves at Trav and Butterfly!

Hiya Syyd and Heidi!! waves and blows kisses

Hello!!!!!!!!!!!! waves and hugs back atcha  Why are we up so late btw????? :-)
)

Well, I'm playing with pwEffects for Studio, getting to know what it can do . FUN FUN FUN!! LOL  Trying to use it to make procedural skin and what not for organic beings.  Doing pretty good but having a hell of a time getting a nice looking Iris effect for the eyeball with them.  Limitations in Studio, not Dan's decision or this package would have included, I'm sure, quite a bit more than what he released with it.  Perhaps with the up and coming Studio 2.0 that introduces dynamic cloth 3Delights limitations may be loosened up a bit more since more folks have more robust systems these days.  fingers crossed, toes too!!

Good luck to you, sounds very exciting actually!  Just finished uploading products to both stores, repricing old products for a sale.  Its about 92 in this computer room, talk about the downside of dual quads!  I need an air conditioner!  Im serious, its so hot it isn't funny.

I had an air conditioner installed in my bed room after converting my walk in closet into a computer room.  WHAT A DIFFERENCE.  It was SO worth having that thing put in.  $300.00 for the whole shebang including installation and modifiying the window with plexiglass.  Hot days no more and days when I'm working and the room heats up from me and the equipment running it cools the room down in about 20 minutes, no more than that.....

The school where my wife works just had one of their new PC's fail because of excessive heat in the computer room.  That's something to keep in mind.  As everyone knows: a desktop PC's internals and high environmental heat levels don't mix well.  You can lose a machine that way.

You know what?  You are sooooooo right.......I never thought about that, one of the fans kept whirring to full speed on and off all day.....I hate to sound stupid, but we have casement windows, does anybody know if they make AC's for casements?

Thanks!

20 minutes to cool???????? Thats like heaven!

he ain't heavy, he's my brother
http://benefitformichaelebert.com

I'm not sure about the window AC unit question -- but I understand that they fixed their problem at the school -- at least temporarily -- with a free-standing AC unit in the computer room.  But of course: the cost ($$$$$$) of such a solution might not be practical for everyone.

Ambient temperature IS a potentially serious issue for PC's.  You might want to consider turning yours off for awhile and giving it a chance to cool down.  I'd try to avoid running it in such a hot environment.  It's risky to the PC's health & well-being.

In the past, I have seen people take off the side cover of their PC, and point an electric fan positioned nearby -- such as a desk fan -- into the PC.  In fact, I've done that myself at least once.

Casement windows?  You mean the old fashioned crank windows?  I got those if that's what your talking about.  Luckily in my bedroom the solid side, non crank side, was exactly 22" in width and there was a unit exactly 22" so it was a perfect fit.  The guy drilled 4 holes in the metal frame, sealed it in and put in the plexiglass and I was in business.  Best $300.00 I've spent in a long time!!

EDIT: Oh and as for free standing 'portable' air conditioners what a waste of money that was for me.  Over $400.00 and it's sitting down in the open garage where I live and I woudn't be upset if some came and stoll it away.  It's paid off, I've learned my lesson.  When it worked I had to stand directly in front of it.  In order to vent the heat out of the room I had to have my front door opened.  Kinda killed what little work it was putting towards cooling.  Stupid water container had NO door in which to pull it out to empty it so I would have to unplug it, roll it out side, uncap the nozzel and let it drain.  By the time I got it all up and running again the area would be hotter than hell.  I live on the top floor of a flat roofed apt building.  It's VERY hot here in the summer time so this in window unit it is a life and entergy saver for me and my computer!!

Hi Richard! :-)  That a/c you had before sounds like a pain in the butt! You're far enough south to get up into the 100°+ range, aren't you?  Can't have a crappy a/c then.  I'm glad you got a better one now!

If there's ever a true split in Poser/DS functionality, I suspect it will be in the animation department. If you look at what you have available for still renders, about the only toy left in the bag is the vaunted 'realtime rendering'.....which may have a much higher price tag than people keep assuming it does. From 5 to 7, the biggest advances have been in the animating capabilities (and don't think the shader system wasn't targeted for that; freeing up resources from texture maps means longer, more complex, and heavier scenes can be done). Most of the floated out features in the 'What would you like to see for P8?' survey eF did a while back was still aimed at animators. Onionskinning is of limited use to still render makers. Probably what is going to decide the match is which app gets decent gravity control and some form of runtime tesselation so joints don't break, or some kind of limited softbody dynamic (or a relatively easy to use approximation).

I'll give you that one Dale.  Studio's animation totally sux but I don't use that tool all that often so I don't care about it much!!  If I did need to animate I would for sure load up Poser for that!!

Hiya Heidi,

Yea, I am SO happy I invested in this ac I got.  Never had a room cool down so fast.  It's kinda got a smell to it though as I think it's just too new.  So if I have the door closed and leave to go out on errands and come back and open the door it's kinda like a strange plastic smell in the room.  Nor horrible but very noticable!!   Other than that... PERFECT solution!! 

Thanks for the info on the casements.......After Im done here today, Im going to buy one......ITs hotter today believe it or not than yesterday, hoping for a huge thunderstorm, so I dont have to water tonight. 

THANKS ALL! WHAT A GREAT BUNCH YOU ARE! O_)O!!!!!

Hey, glad to help.  Gotta keep the stars cool and happy!!  

Looks around.......::you mean Gerard Butler is hiding in my office::???????????  Bring on THAT air!!!!!!

Ooh, I'm coming to visit, Syyd! LOL!

We're about to get a thunderstorm here.  It's gotten pretty dark, and it smells like thunderstorm.

Same thing here....Its crazy already!  I'll save a slice of cool Gerard for you dont worry :-)  Would you prefer the Phantom or Dracula.....?

I'm going to go with Phantom. ;-)

:lol:

Quote - I'll give you that one Dale.  Studio's animation totally sux but I don't use that tool all that often so I don't care about it much!!  If I did need to animate I would for sure load up Poser for that!!

I know. I gave up long ago. As of now, I can't live without the graph editor and the layering. You have to break yourself of the 'all at once' habit, but when you do.... I'm quite happy with the focus eF has been putting on Poser, since just about all I do with it besides storyboard -is- animate (Ooooh, I can't wait for onionskinning....talk about being able to debug a motion sequence!). Plus if they got the answers I suspect they did, then there was a massive request to move the entire app to 64 bits, not just the renderer. And since they have that able to run that as an external function, the next release may finally see network rendering...or else a better integration with their strategic partners like e-on. About the only things DS has that I would like to see is fbx file support, a more flexible IK system that lets you do temporary assigning of IK lock on joints other than the end of the IK chains, and support for a plugin structure. If Poser supported plugins, I would wager there would be a more robust hair and cloth module written within a year, and other neat things like runtime gravity; maybe even full physics. Particle system, some form of softbody setup.

Attached Link: http://www.sp-images.co.uk/panoramaz.html

RAMWolff, that is a really nice way to present 3D art.  I've seen panarama stuff before, but i've never really connected the dots back to utilizing it in 3D art. (DUH is me).

Thanks for the link.  Some nice surprises in there too when looking around.

And, it supports what I said earlier, I've seen some nice stuff in Daz Studio.  It isn't the tool, it is what the artist does with the tool.