1. When loading a poser scene...in the scene loading window which opens and shows you your files for you to choose.....a little scene preview thumbnail (similar to Vue) when you select a filename.

2. When loading an object or Pose file...and a texture can't be found...and you click No you don't want to keep looking.....a Truthful Message to flash: "Poser will Now Lock Up: Press CTRL Alt Del and End the seize up in the Windows Task Manager"

Did you take the survey? It's definitely not too early for the P8 wishlist. I'm willing to bet if development hasn't already begun, it will be within the next month or two.

Oh, and Poser doesn't lock up. Your computer just handle the raw awesomeness of the application. Don't fret, no one's can.

Thumbnails for PZ3s are definitely a good idea.  For some reason the
PZ3 has always been treated as an afterthought by Poser, which is
rather strange considering that it's the basic "document" for the
application.  It's become even worse in P7, with the loss of default
folders and names for movie and image sequence output.

My vote - better utilization of multi-core processors in the Firefly render engine.
Also, a good background render mechanism for those giant scenes that you KNOW are going to take forever.  I love the one in Vue that just putters along and renders to disk even while you're working on the same image.  Something like that would ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How about a decent manual?

Meanwhile, back in the real world...

hmm

hotkey control of IK on/off functions.
improve UI control on multiple monitors
better control of light properties
expansion of the existing 'render in seperate process' into network rendering (a re-write of the FFRender.exe would allow this...)
Expansion of the exsiting 'render in seperate process' into other Render Engines (as above.. since the data is being passed from Poser into the FFrender.exe program.. take it a stage further...)
 

Quote - How about a decent manual?

Meanwhile, back in the real world...

Ditto

What manual?  I've been using the Practical Poser books since Denise first started writing them.  They're sooooooooooooooooooo much better than the Poser manual.

Not too early, If anything it may be too late for P8.

Quote -
hotkey control of IK on/off functions.
 

Not sure how they could do that. IKs change based on the current figure selected.

personaly, i'd like to see IK listed with check boxes in properties of the Body tab as well as a check box at each target body part.

Quote - What manual?  I've been using the Practical Poser books since Denise first started writing them.  They're sooooooooooooooooooo much better than the Poser manual.

Me too !! This book should have been the manual in the software packet !! Sorry can't give a wish item for version 8 because i'm still using version 6 here and have not checked out version 7 yet :closedeyes:

Quote - Me too !! This book should have been the manual in the software packet !! Sorry can't give a wish item for version 8 because i'm still using version 6 here and have not checked out version 7 yet :closedeyes:

They should have hired Denise to write their silly manual and then everybody would have been happy!

Quote -

Quote -
hotkey control of IK on/off functions.
 

 

Not sure how they could do that. IKs change based on the current figure selected.
.

most tho do have the feet and hands on IK... so if you are like me, where you use IK to get your rough position, then turn it off to adjust, turn it on to make more adjustments, off to save the pose etc, hotkeys would be bloody useful...

Quote - > Quote - > Quote -

hotkey control of IK on/off functions.
 

 

Not sure how they could do that. IKs change based on the current figure selected.
.

most tho do have the feet and hands on IK... so if you are like me, where you use IK to get your rough position, then turn it off to adjust, turn it on to make more adjustments, off to save the pose etc, hotkeys would be bloody useful...

oh, i'm not saying it wouldn't be useful, just that programing a short cut key for something that changes depending on which figure you have selected would be difficult at best, more likely impossible.

Yeah, I totally agree with the thumbnail view like Vue's. Would be very helpful.

Quote -

1. When loading a poser scene...in the scene loading window which opens and shows you your files for you to choose.....a little scene preview thumbnail (similar to Vue) when you select a filename.

2. When loading an object or Pose file...and a texture can't be found...and you click No you don't want to keep looking.....a Truthful Message to flash: "Poser will Now Lock Up: Press CTRL Alt Del and End the seize up in the Windows Task Manager"

Bring the interface, UI, and general workflow up to 20th century standards.  Way too many to mention, totally obvious stuff (and probably relatively painless to code at that) they'd fix if they'd stop smoking banana peels, so no need to go into details.

I think Weinberg is the problem, and needs to go.

Quote - oh, i'm not saying it wouldn't be useful, just that programing a short cut key for something that changes depending on which figure you have selected would be difficult at best, more likely impossible.

A hotkey could bring up a pane representing the currently selected figure, with checkboxes for all available IK switches.

Everything in the menus at the top should be accessible via hotkey and menus like this.

Better yet would be a muscular, legible hierarchy manager from which EVERYTHING (or as close to it as possible) is accessibility at once - visibility, display style, locking, parameters, parenting, etc.  With stuff like apply setting to children, etc.

Well you know what I'm going to wish for...

Total redesign of the interface with an option to mimic Studio's to a degree. 

A way to select more than one surface - material using the Ctrl key

A way to select more than one body part using the Ctrl key

Lots of stuff could be added to the context menu.  The selection cascade is a great step, but there's plenty of room there.  A decent context menu could solve a hell of a lot of Poser's interface problems.

Another way to select figures besides the silly figure circle, and hunting those tiny little low-contrast black triangles way up there in the corner.  Ideally, a customizeable hotkey system and menus we could create/customize ourselves somehow.

Ha, now I'm really dreaming.

Okay, gotta stop now, if I get started I'll be here all day.

Quote - Total redesign of the interface

Yes, that's the magic phrase.  Give the odd ones (sorry, wanting Poser's interface to stay the same is just plain odd) a setting to use the antediluvian interface if necessary, but a total redesign is what's needed.

How about key stroke control of the parameter dials to get precision control? And also repeat action when another key is held down?  I'm tired of mousing those mousey dials when I need a long move, and  tired of overshooting when I get close to the target.

Quote -  How about key stroke control of the parameter dials to get precision control?  

Well you can click the numeric field to the right of the dial and type in a specific value..

I'd like to see an area light added to the light selection to allow for soft shadows in raytrace mode.

True OpenGL support...as in, renders will be done using hardware processing rather than software memory. Same with the preview window, so stuff can be done faster. And with that, real cel shading support, like the kind you can find in most games today. Either as a preview image setting ("Cartoon w/line, texture and specular" maybe?) or just decent outline settings for the render engine (again, like the ones used on Cartoon w/line mode except without random breaks in the outline and it works with 'smooth polygons'). Yep, my main wishlist things are basically 'more support for the toon renders'.

I nearly always select anything from the list, because clicking on something in the scene seems virtually guaranteed to result in the selection of just about anything other than the intended item.   I'd really like to see that improved (well, "fixed" would be the more appropriate term).

Otherwise, I'd like to see RAMWolff's ideas of multiple selections.

Thumbnails for PZ3s
File handling (ability to delete from the library, ability to move files to different runtimes)
The ability to make a prop or figure unselectable. (in other words, you'd be able to manipulate (morph) clothing or hair with the figure visible without constantly having to insure your selection hasn't switched to the figure).

That's a good one, too.

BTW, this page has a link under product development to send eFrontier wishlisted development ideas... (Under Product Development, toward the bottom)

www.e-frontier.com/article/articleview/20/1/289

How about not scanning the entire runtime every time you load Poser? That drives me insane.

It would also be nice to have a syntax highlighting editor built into Poser for when you need to edit  cr2 files.

How about allowing users to turn off rooms that aren't being used (like the Setup Room, Face Room, Dynamics rooms) when they're not being used so that they don't keep eating up system resources?! I think most users would find that this would increase the speed of the application in about 70% of neccessary renders.

Now that I've said that, I know a bunch of people are going to come out of the woodwork to say that they use all of those rooms all the time...and I'm glad for anyone that makes use of them...I'm just saying that for the majority of my work, and much of the work I see posted, I don't see those rooms getting the kind of use that warrants leaving them on "all the time" whenever the application is in use. I'm in favor of being able to turn them on/off whenever they're needed...like a plugin architecture.

Hope this makes some kind of sense.

Lets see.. I like many of the other suggestions as well. 

Turn off or unplug unused Rooms and have the program remember that so that upon the next session you don't have to start over turning the all back off!!

PZ3 thumbnails would be very nice

A perm list of the plugged in Runtimes so upon a new session Poser doesn't rescan.  If a Runtime in Studio is no longer viable it's till listed and YOU are responsible for removing it from the list.  That's fine with me.  Studio starts up faster this way!!!

Support for industry-standard figure rigging as an optional figure type (like Blender's, with the mesh and the skeleton separate and vertex weighting replacing mat zones for bending).  If they did this, figures wouldn't need to have such high vertex counts and trying to get decent bending out of the body parts would not be such a headache.  Poser would presumably get more respect in the 3d world if they integrated this. 

That, and fix the bloody silly open file dialog scrub bar so it doesn't grab the mouse pointer and stick to it.  (Or have they fixed that in P7?)

I notice that nobody has mentioned any updates to the 'Make Art' button. Is that working 100% now? :lol:

How about the ability to render large images. As it is now, you get too many things in a scene and Poser will freeze. Try doing a scene like some of the ones in the Vue gallery and Poser just won't do it. I'm referring to something like this market.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php  or possibly this market.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php  . No way could Poser do a scene like those, it would choke to death.

In addition to most everything people mentioned above...2 scene windows open at once. The ability to refresh the content of a runtime after you install items vs having to switch runtimes then switch back. I have to assume it would be simple to add an interface button called refresh somewhere on the lib pallet.

Quote - I nearly always select anything from the list, because clicking on something in the scene seems virtually guaranteed to result in the selection of just about anything other than the intended item.   I'd really like to see that improved (well, "fixed" would be the more appropriate term).

In Poser 7 if you right click over something in the scene it will bring up the menu where the first flyout/submenu is a list of everything "under" the cursor. 

I think it is the new feature i use most in P7

My wishlist:

1)  An updated interface and alternative  color schemes to the light brown.  Yes you can change the wallpaper and background color currently, but when I've done that in the past but Poser eventually looses my preference and reverts to the old color background graphic.  

2)  A Runtime management room that would allow you to reorganize your runtime libraries within Poser itself and move items from one runtime to another with a simple transfer tool.  Multiple Explorer panels that alow you to drop and drag items easily from one column to another with previews of 3D models.

3)  A World Scene browser that will remain open as you work on a scene, allow you to easily select scene elements or multiple elements and easily parent/unparent  items.

4)  Drop the dial metaphor for the parameters palate with arrows allowing to move the settings one incremement at a time or 10 at a time.

5)  A totall new set of Poser people.   Drop the slim, fashion model physique for the male model in favor of a more "everyman" body type.  Replace the figure height settings in the drop down with one that works with the current figures and include presets:  slim, average, muscular, stocky, obease.  

6)  Provide facial and body hair overlays for the male figures or at least a decent beard prop.

I think they should expand upon the morph brush tool to be a little more like quidam or Zbrush, as in you should be able to push, pull, move, whatever in any direction, therefor truely sculpting new morphs within Poser. The morph brush has plenty of potential and can be useful in some situations.

I think the best thing that could happen to Poser has nothing to do with efrontier: competition.

A real competitor to Poser, one which uses the same content, would light a fire under their asses but quick.

Well, as long as we are dreaming? ? ? LOL
Would some decent models be too much to ask? ? ? 
Not those zillion point monsters, but some workable ones? ? ?

Posette may be old news, but hey, I still have to find a better one.

Worse ! ! ! Yes, it does get worse ! ! ! !
Some NEW Lo res figures to do animations with. Like the P4-Lo Res figures. 
Boy, are they great to work with., Simple structures, a better mapping would be welcome with a bigger face area, a movable mouth,  relatively well bending. 
Still my favorites.

Something in the 10.000 poly region would be fantastic.

Ah, ja, one last point !

Can the female have some real looking breasts? Not those up into the collars, rising star, balloons? ? ?
I'v seen my share of  "goods" but those Poser models are serously "deformed".

Every  "new" zillion point  female takes me weeks to correct.
Thank heaven for simple poly people.

Quote -  Some NEW Lo res figures to do animations with. Like the P4-Lo Res figures. 

For sure! Having lo res figures to set a scene with speeds up all the posing, tracking, camera panning etc. in the preview window. Then swapping them out for the hi res versions when you're ready to not only animate but even just render a scene was certainly an advantage of the P4 era figures. And yeah, I still use 'em quite frequently.

Quote -
Ah, ja, one last point !

Can the female have some real looking breasts? Not those up into the collars, rising star, balloons? ? ?
I'v seen my share of  "goods" but those Poser models are serously "deformed".

Well, stop making them that way. Women that are that skinny don't really look like that. ;)

*Tyger_purr:   In Poser 7 if you right click over something in the scene it will bring up the menu where the first flyout/submenu is a list of everything "under" the cursor. 

I think it is the new feature i use most in P7

*Thanks, I'll have to look into that.   That sounds like something that Carrara has and, ungrateful wretch that I am, I have to admit that it drives me up the wall in Carrara.

Tomsde, a lot of good ideas.  I'm surprised about the problem with the interface.   There was a bug in Poser 6 that meant the Colour tool could be selected unintentionally, if you hit the Windows "Start" key, while in Poser.   Since I was changing the colour on a virtually daily basis. whether I wanted to or not, I eventually settled on something between blue and indigo and, if I start Poser 6 (I usually use Poser 7), that's the colour in which the interface is launched.  

That problem doesn't exist in Poser 7, at the current level, so I have just edited my desktop colour, to see if I get an intermittent automatic reversion to the factory default, which is what seems to be happening to your Poser.

Attached Link: Casey R Williams

Why don't conforming figures' like-named parameter dials assume the values of the figures they are conformed to?  Why isn't there a "hide other objects" in the morph tool like in the group editor?  And would the group editor person * puh-leeze * rip off Wing's method of growing/shrinking edge/face selection by using the +/- keys, or add +/-buttons?

Other than that, just give me shadows and bump/normal maps in the preview and for chrissakes some... any... form of soft-bodies or weight mapping.  Look at something like Soul Calibur (soft bodies) or Killzone 2 (dynamic clothing) for PS3.  It'd be hell to get something like that out of Poser, and those are running in real time.

Quote - > Quote - I nearly always select anything from the list, because clicking on something in the scene seems virtually guaranteed to result in the selection of just about anything other than the intended item.   I'd really like to see that improved (well, "fixed" would be the more appropriate term).

 

In Poser 7 if you right click over something in the scene it will bring up the menu where the first flyout/submenu is a list of everything "under" the cursor. 

I think it is the new feature i use most in P7

I'm going to cry if that's true!  That must be the new z-sort object selection bullet point that I figured was about as real as linked parameter dials...  (Sorry, I know some of you can script those in python, but I was having beatific visions of noodles and math functions linking parameter values as in the material editor.  Gawd that would rock.)

moogla thanks for the tip, I'll keep it in mind, but I've just decided to leave well enough alone.  I'm grown accustomed to "mud brown" as my backdrop.   I've also given up onthe Easter Egg overlay.  I really don't notice it much and I keep my viewport as large as possible when working.

I'd like to add there for my wish list Direct X instead of Open GL 3D previews.  Microsoft isn't supporting open GL and it's going to be problematic in the future.  Even the updated video card drivers on Vista don't allow me to diplay the open gl previews anymore, so I have to settle for the crappy Scree D previews on my laptop.  I love being able to get a more accurate look at my scene as I'm working without constant test renders.

Yeah, but a switch to Direct X would screw the Mac folks.  Which is probably M$ reasoning in the first place...  I don't see OpenGL going anywhere, even if Vista does botch it up.

MAC version of Poser could still use Open GL, unfortunately Microsoft sets the standard for the majority  of  the computer industry.  If software companies don't come onboard with fully Vista compatible versions it's the consumer who will suffer from crashes and other problems that will do more harm than good in the future.  That is unless the video card companies can come up with a way to let Open GL run properly on Vista and Microsofts future OS.    Many n-videa cards don't even support Vista, ATI I think is doing better in that regard.  Unfortunately XP won't be around forever, eventually it won't be able to run new applications and Microsoft won't support it indefinitely.   I am glad, however, that Microsoft rerelased XP in the computer/office stores as an alternative to people whose applications are not Vista compatible.  

I really think that Microsoft should rethink it's strategies, there is no reason why they can't have more than one OS on the market.  They did it before with Win 98 and NT, and 2000 and XP.

I think before you see e-Frontier support OpenGL on Macs, and DX on Windows, you'd see Poser go solely to PC, and Mac users would lose thier app.

Keep in mind, Poser is a relatively cheap application for all the bells and whistles contained. People like to point out it's perceived "flaws" but overall, how much do they pack into a package that doesn't even cost $300USD?

We've got realistic cloth and hair. We've got a helluva shader system. We've got a pretty decent renderer. A face room that does work. A sketching renderer. Multiple file support. Python scripting built in. Sure, all of these things can do for some improvement, but seriously, what would these features cost you in one of the hardcore 3D apps?

It can't be expected that e-F would develop two wholly seperate applications for two user bases, especially when the Mac base is probably not all that huge. I have no idea what the statistics are, but I'm pretty sure that there are far more Mac users working in higher-level applications than Poser. Unless there are almost an equal number of Poser Mac users as Windows users, it makes no sense to develop seperate code on two different platforms when there is one development environment that serves both.

It never ceases to amaze me how many complaints I see. The makers of our favorite app have a business to run. Rather than demanding they develop for differing platforms, when it may not be economically viable, I'd rather they concentrated on developing a more robust suite at the same price target, and the consistent bug fixes they release. (But then again, there's a thread complaining about the latest service release too. Seems no matter what the devs do, they'll always displease someone.)

So let me ask all of you. Did you fill out the e-Frontier survey? They even included an area at the end where you can write in your wishlist ideas for future development of Poser. I did mine, and I'm willing to bet if a thousand people filled out the survey besides me, there'd be 999 answers that looked different than mine.

I've had the pleasure of getting to know some e-F people over the past couple years, and I've got to say, they are a classy bunch. They honestly care about the software, and the user base. It drives me nuts to see people dog the things they do. (And no, I don't work for them, nor do I make any money from them. I've just had the chance to get to know some of them.)

Agreed Destro. there's a core element that just want to rubbish the Team.. *whatever they do.

I mean. the Programming team could produce every requested feature, bug free, put it out as a freebie .....and this element would STILL bitch, whine and complain.

I'm certainly not complaining, but this was a "wish list"--so I was making wishes for what I wanted.  I'm glad that Poser is affordable, I couldn't afford Lightwave and Maya even if I wanted them.  In fact those who use the high end package criticize Poser for being junk because we don't pay $2000 for it.  I'm glad that 3D prices have come down, it makes it possible for me to persue a hobby that I love.  Daz does a lot to give their customers affordable products, some people have complained that lower prices denegrate their favorite programs, I don't believe that in the least.

I've gotten every version of Poser since Poser 4 and I'm sure I'll continue to support it (with exception of Figure Artist and the repackaged P4 that they put out prior to that).

Quote - I'm certainly not complaining, but this was a "wish list"--so I was making wishes for what I wanted.  I'm glad that Poser is affordable, I couldn't afford Lightwave and Maya even if I wanted them.  In fact those who use the high end package criticize Poser for being junk because we don't pay $2000 for it.  I'm glad that 3D prices have come down, it makes it possible for me to persue a hobby that I love.  Daz does a lot to give their customers affordable products, some people have complained that lower prices denegrate their favorite programs, I don't believe that in the least.

I've gotten every version of Poser since Poser 4 and I'm sure I'll continue to support it (with exception of Figure Artist and the repackaged P4 that they put out prior to that).

Sorry tomsde, I wasn't throwing that second half at you. That's why I included the dashes break, to put a seperation between my response to you and a general response. Sorry if you thought I meant that in reference to you.

I hope I didn't come off wrong responding to your point about DX vs OGL. It was only meant to answer you, not at all to attack what you said. I just sincerely believe it would make poor economic sense for E-Frontier to develop on more than one platform, and the result would be a higher cost to us.

Hope there's no hard feelings.

Destro, no hard feelings, I agree with you that we are lucky to be able to get these great 3D products at such good prices.  Make no mistake about it, there are a lot of people using Poser for professional graphic design work--it being an application used by a lot of professionals we're lucky that we are able to get the product at such a reasonable price. 

Microsoft only controls the software development.  Sure, the last several generations of GPUs have been developed in response to or in parallel with the DirectX roadmap.  That said, once those features are established and implemented, they can always be supported through updates to OpenGL.

Here's a quote from a recent news article posted on www.opengl.org:

“DirectX 10 hasn’t lived up to any of its promises, and in fact has been a titanic disappointment. More than that, the features that are supposed to be unique to DirectX 10 can also be exposed in OpenGL. Given how few people readily jumped on the Vista bandwagon, it’s safe to suggest there might be a slight paradigm shift to favoring OpenGL, especially now that DirectX has had its components largely broken up.

A rejuvenated interest in Mac gaming more than likely means rejuvenated interest in OpenGL, which is NOT platform dependent as DirectX 10 is. A rejuvenated interest in OpenGL means the potential for DX10 features outside of Windows XP. In short, DX10 is, at least at the moment, bust, and the features it boasts so proudly may indeed wind up making the journey back to Windows XP in the form of updates to OpenGL.”