Hi all,

What is the difference between DAZ Studio and Poser 5?
It seems that DAZ studio could also do what Poser could. eg. Posing and animation, except without dials.

Thanks in advance

Poser 5 is much more powerful, and easier to use.  There are plugins that DAZ|Studio has to do things like; cloth, or Magnets maybe, and even some other stuff, but they've always costed money(like $100 for all,) but even then you do'nt get poser's fancy GUI, and I still doubt DAZ|Studio even has all of Poser's functions covered. where on the other hand, I'm fairly confident Poser could do anything DAZ|Studio can.

Poser 3, and 4 figures were made by a company callled Zygote.  This was true while Metacreations owned Poser, but then they sold Poser t Curious Labs.  FOr some reason Zygote did'nt follow.  Today Zygote is known as Daz3d.  In the time that followed Daz3D continued to make the best Poser figures, with M2, V3, D3, etc.  Meanwhile Poser added, the incrediblt powerful, Material, Hair, CLoth, etc. rooms.  Without a business relation to poser daz3d found i necessary to have some sort of render engine for people to use their products with.  Hence DAZ|Studio was created.  It(and V3), being free, daz3d gained much more noteoriety from the 3D communities.  Realizing how much of Poser Daz|Studio could do, just before Poser 7 was released, E-Frontier gave Poser 5 away for free for a couple/few weeks, in a promotion..

well...that's a loaded subject around here.

Poser 5 - does everything Daz Studio can do (Poser's been around since version 1, and is at 7 now). It has a face room, materials room, setup room, etc., and can create a complete picture with sufficient patience and training. Coming from Poser 4, I like 5, and got it while the getting was good (it was offered free for a short period of time).

Daz Studio- is trying to be a 'new' Poser. It's still in development, and the basic version can be had for free (depending on the OS,  it wants at least XP, but supposedly with enough downloads and upgrades, will work on Win 2k..;). At present, it does many of the basic things that Poser does, but to get the full effect, you buy additional modules that let you do other things. It's a work in progress, but it's free. Considering Poser has been around for a good 10 years or more, and Daz Studio (what?) maybe 2, it's got some catching up to do.

I wouldn't turn down either one, but I prefer Poser for now (but then I'm a heretic..;)

dang...in the 2 minutes it took to type this, someone has covered many of the same points..cross post? film at 11...;)

Studio currently isn't well-suited for animation.  It has a timeline, and can render videos or image sequences, but it lacks keyframe-editing functions, which makes it very challenging to compose complex animations within the app itself.

This might change in coming months.

Poser 5, in general, has a superior material system.  Although PoseWorks has been working hard to close the gap with various commercial shader add-ons for Studio, Poser's node-based material system remains more flexible.

Poser has cloth simulation, plus rigging- and joint-editing tools, which Studio lacks.  It's better suited for content creation.  DAZ, however, has formed a partnership with OptiTex and plans to incorporate cloth-sim technology into Studio in due time.

*DAZ, however, has formed a partnership with OptiTex and plans to incorporate cloth-sim technology into Studio in due time.
*Which will cost $50 or so, making D/S even more expensive to use then it already is, at least if you want the same functionality as Poser 5. If you really want to make use of and want it to have the same features as P5, you pay much more for it then you pay for Poser 5 and still you would lack a good number of Poser 5 features.

Also, let's not ignore content. Poser 5 contains a lot of content to start with, D/S contains very little.

minor correction - dan split daz off from zygote to concentrate on poser content, whilst zygote went in the direction of high-resolution medical models (3dscience.com).

lets make some corrections here...

** ** ***Today Zygote is known as Daz3d. **

no. Daz started as a subdivsion of Zygote which was then bought out and became Daz3d. Zygote is still in operation as it's own company seperate from Daz suppling high end medical imaging models.

Without a business relation to poser daz3d found i necessary to have some sort of render engine for people to use their products with.  Hence DAZ|Studio was created.
no. Posers future was in the balance around the launch time of Poser 5, (with Egisys forcing CL to release a buggy poser 5 and then going bust, which forced the sale of Curious Labs to E-Frontier. Curious Labs no longer exists having been absorbed into EF and the name Curious Labs now dropped). with the time gap between Poser Pro Pack and Poser Five, Daz decided to start development of their own poser program incase Poser went off the market and protect their own interests. that program is Daz Studio.

imagination304, you might want to post this in the DAZ|Studio Forum also, where you'll be able to get much more informed information on what DAZ|Studio can do. Coldrake

Users are often sharply divided on the issue of which one is better. Poser 5 does have more features and is definitely better when it comes to animation and rigging/joint edited at the moment. The arguments about DAZ Studio plugins make it more expensive than Poser are not accurate however. DAZ Studio users will definitely want to purchase pwSurface and you'll need D-Former if you want the equivalent of Poser's magnets, but you don't need them all to make the kind of art you can make with Poser. I find DAZ Studio to be MUCH easier and more intuitive than Poser, and I had used Poser for years and years before switching over.

Like Colddrake said, try asking in the DAZ Studio forum or over in the forums at DAZ too before making any decisions.

SnowS

side note.......daz studio does have dials too..lol

You can download basic DAX Studio for free, but there are various paid-for plug-ins you really need, a few of them better than the equivalent Poser functions. Overall, I'd say that DAZ Studio is a very good Poser 4. And I'm afraid that shows in a lot of the current DAZ 3D products. I'd argue that V4 has been designed with scant regard for what Poser can do, often with flaws that are startlingly simple.

There is another flaw in the argument that buying Plug-ins for DAZ studio will be more expensive then buying poser in the long run, while that may be true if you only ever want to purchase one version of poser and never upgrade. but most people don't, they buy every new version of poser that comes out, in order to keep up with the new features. so far I know that I have spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $800 on Poser and it's upgrades. Studio itself will never cost you a cent for upgrades, instead you can pick or choose what features you think you might need, and purchase those seperately, and there are plenty of plug-ins that I have passed on, simply becouse I have no need of them, thus avoiding expense and software bloat. with Poser that option isn't availible. Frankly I think to decide which to use you should really weigh what you want to do with the tool. I'm one of those people who finds Studio far faster and more responsive than poser, I find it's Powerpose tools much more user friendly than Poser's IK system, and its direct manipulation tools easier to select and use. so for creating images I will pretty much always reach for Studio. I don't tend to do any animation though so that does color my decision. I think if you tend to do a lot of animation then Poser's animation tools are definately a strong argument for getting poser. I do still use poser though on practically a daily basis, as a clothing creator I still rely on poser for Rigging, which Studio cannot do as of yet.

Quote - You can download basic DAX Studio for free, but there are various paid-for plug-ins you really need, a few of them better than the equivalent Poser functions. Overall, I'd say that DAZ Studio is a very good Poser 4. And I'm afraid that shows in a lot of the current DAZ 3D products. I'd argue that V4 has been designed with scant regard for what Poser can do, often with flaws that are startlingly simple.

I agree with you 100%.
Seems like anythime you want to do something Poser like, you need to invest in yet another PlugIn.
I use things that need Python Scripts on a daily basis, not yet available in DS and may never be.
I love useing the Morph Dials in Face Foom and the Putty Tools. Both not available in DS.
I will take the power of the Material Room any day over what DS has to offer.

I hear how DS is so much faster, frankly I can navigate much quicker in Poser.

I don't find D/S faster either and by far not easier to use then Poser. I've found Poser to be an easy to use and logic application. Everything is where you'd expect it to be. Can't say the same of D/S.

Also for me Poser responds still well when using multiple figure scenes, again can't say the same of D/S at all.

I agree with the Poser 4 comparisment. Using D/S feels like going back in time..... for me it's not a step forward, but 4 steps backwards. But it's common knowledge that many poser users still love P4 and don't like the newer Poser versions, so perhaps that's why D/S is so popular. You get sort of Poser 4, but with continued support.

I wouldn't trade Poser for D/S, I'd be missing to many features that improve my workflow and make using Poser a pleasure.

DAZ Studio Base is not even a good Poser 4.  It lacks magnets, the ability to load morph targets and simple hand/thumb grasp. 

Hi aeikema,

"But it's common knowledge that many poser users still love P4 and don't like the newer Poser versions"
Poser 5/6/7 should have more functions and better interface than Poser 4. I don't understand...

"DAZ Studio Base is not even a good Poser 4.  It lacks magnets, the ability to load morph targets and simple hand/thumb grasp. "

Again, totally untrue. It has magnets (D-formers), it can load morph targets (it has been able to for quite a while) and you can either use Hand Grip or Pantomime for hand grasps on older figures. V4 has them built in.

I disagree with everything Aeilkema says as usual, but that's just a matter of personal opinion. I've been able to make much more complex art and much easier using Studio than I ever did with Poser. Everyone will have their own reasons for why their program is better. If you're trying to decide between any two programs, try the free one or a demo first (I think e-frontier offers a Poser demo). If you find that one difficult to use, then look into the other.

SnowS

SnowS this time I don't mind that you disagree with me, since it's indeed a matter of opinion.

Poser 5/6/7 should have more functions and better interface than Poser 4. I don't understand...
Before Poser 5 was offered for free, EF had a hard time convincing diehard P4 users to switch to a higher version. Somehow and for some reason a good number of poser users still cling to P4. Now that official support for P4 has finally ceased and more and more merchants do not support P4 anymore, the diehard P4 users seem to have found a nw home at DAZ.

But you have to buy the DFormer plugin, the morph loader plugin, and handgrip.  Magnets, morph loading and basic hand/thumb grasp function come standard with Poser. 

That's true icprncss, although I think the morph loader plugin may have been integrated into D|S 1.5 (not sure about that offhand). There's no question that Poser has more features out of the box than DAZ Studio, we just have to remember that DAZ Studio is free, the plugins won't come close to costing what a new version of Poser does, and not all of Poser's unique features are terribly useful for people who just want to render. It really just comes down to what you want to do with your program and which interface you like more.

SnowS

Actually studio never needed hand grasp controls, studio allows for multiselecting bodyparts (Something Poser still can't do) all you need to do is Shift select all fingers in the hirarchy and use the bend dial. as far as speed of use Studio does need a fairly high end graphics card to be really speedy, but if you have a top system it really blows poser away as far as response to controls goes. Poser doesnt have the need for a high end card with its SreeD interface, so tends to be better for people with older machines.