Attached Link: http://www.e-frontier.com/go/poserpro

This seems to be a trend with what e-on are also doing with Vue, seems like both Companies are trying to distance themselves from the hobby artist and make an assertive grab at the pro end of the market!

if you haven't seen the announcement, it's at the link!!

Time to get the CC ready.

BTW - I seriously doubt that e-frontier intends to drop the hobbyist market -- there's money to be made.  But they might split "hobbyist" and "professional" versions of the software.  Which is all good, IMO.

No ship date???

-BM-

Fall!  So any time in 3 Months!! [LOL].

The good news is that i just ordered my new 64 bit machine [woohoo!!]

I have a 64bit amd based system.. wonder if I need to upgrade my os to xp pro 64 for it to run properly?

Also the most important feature to me, is export ability of pose scenes to higher end 3d application formats! 

"e frontier is pleased to announce Poser Pro, a high end addition to our Poser product line. Geared toward a multitude of production environments in both the 2D and 3D realms, Poser Pro offers the features and functionality of Poser 7 plus professional level application integration, a 64 bit render engine, and network rendering support.

Poser Pro now supports the COLLADA exchange format for content production, pre-visualization, gaming and film production, and offers the ability to fully host Poser scenes in professional applications such as Maxon’s CINEMA 4D, Autodesk’s 3ds Max and Maya, and Newtek’s Lightwave. Other features include increased support for Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended (via COLLADA) and export of HDR imagery.

In addition, N-Sided will provide "QUIDAM for Poser" based on their QUIDAM character creation software. QUIDAM features the ability to import and export Poser character files, which will be bundled exclusively with Poser Pro, rounding out a complete solution set for professionals that brings Poser content and animations into their workflow."

So it sounds like DS is shooting for the ds/bryce/carrera field,, and poser is now shooting for the P7P/V6I/Lightwave/Max/C4d/maya markets.

The times they just get more interesting!

64 Bit Programs require a 64 Bit OS to take advantage of the 64 bit features.

Good......I have Lightwave, CS3E, Vue6I.......this one should fit in very, very well.

Now I might not even need the Greenbriar plug-ins to work with LW and Poser.

Quote - 64 Bit Programs require a 64 Bit OS to take advantage of the 64 bit features.

shrug  I have a 64-bit machine.  I'll just need to upgrade to a 64-bit OS.  Perhaps on a dual-boot arrangement.  Not a problem.

Well I've just forked out on a monster new machine, which does have Vista Ultimate 64 on it so more cash for software upgrades is stretching it a bit [LOL].
I bought CS3 earlier this year but haven't got extended and I proll won't [LOL].

Quote - 64 Bit Programs require a 64 Bit OS to take advantage of the 64 bit features.

Thanks for this as I have a AMD 64 dual core machine and was wondering this. Now I need to hunt down a reasonably priced copy of Win pro 64.  The only reason I have't is because 95% of most of the apps now are still 32-bit. I will have to update some drivers too.

Actually a little birdy told me P7Pro will run on a 32bit os, and allow you the new features, but for the 64 bit rendering, you need the 64 bit os.. and the main advantage of it was addressing lots more ram....

Yeah RAM, nothing like having a machine you can stuff a lot of ram into but an OS that limits its use..LOL! Sounds very cool!

Poser 7 Pro will work on a 32 bit architecture, I am sure (most 64 bit Programs will). You just will not have access to those features that require 64 bit.

I went with Win XP 64 last year. It runs all 32 Bit Programs without an issue (has two different Program File Folders). It also allowed me to install programs either 64 Bit or 32 Bit. My experience with Vista has been the same.

Quote - Poser 7 Pro will work on a 32 bit architecture, I am sure (most 64 bit Programs will). You just will not have access to those features that require 64 bit.

I went with Win XP 64 last year. It runs all 32 Bit Programs without an issue (has two different Program File Folders). It also allowed me to install programs either 64 Bit or 32 Bit. My experience with Vista has been the same.

And XP64bits does not have the horrible issues Vista64bits with OpenGL and stuff. And is cheaper.

Lets see i used carrara 5 pro with no graphics card on dual AMD 1gb mem, took ages render but could render large scenes no probs, got 7600 card now.
Poser 7 bugs lovely bugs and as for VUE 6 bah kept crashing on scenes that carrara could render, and forget oh ya need 4 gb min memory for Vue as carrara ran fantastic on 1 gb machine.
Now i don't trust poser programmers if they been working with vue programmers and god No's what crashes and memory leaks p7 pro will have.
I'm looking forward to carrara 6 as so far seems they have made a new version with Lot's bells and whistles that will rock, so will get carrara 6 and even if 64 bit version.
Will give p7 pro a complete miss, and will install on separate partition my XP 64 but ya better hurry if you want XP 32 or  XP 64 as on eBay the prices have shot up.
Gates ain't gonna do like he did with 98 second ed and dump whole lot from warehouses onto market, as he wants people to use vista and has told comp manufacturers to use vista only.
The destruction of most XP stocks at Microsoft has begun so by Xmas will be near impossible to buy XP from eBay unless someone has bough massive stockpile, though people will use the other methods, so if ya after XP ya better get fast from eBay.
I'm lucky have 2 XP Pro and 3 XP Home and 1 Xp 64 and 64 managed buy for £38 a real bargain.

So here we go again!!

"Hosting" poser figures in other program
DONT  fall for it!!!
 those of us who fell for this charade last time
(remember the poser4 propack??,) Will not let this dust be thrown in our eyes a second time.

Any serious owner of Cinema4D seeking REAL poser integration should ignore this puffery and Buy the unbeatable interposer pro plugin from Kureyome(SP)

I remember the propack4 hosting  plugin that supported ONE version of Cinem4DXL7.2  on the Mac platform and left use abandoned in the desert .
only to hand it over to "Riess Studio" who promptly made it PEE CEE only.

Nope not interested EF
In fact DAZ Gave me a FREE copy of the FBX pluginon the MAc with verion  of DS1.7 so I have two options for complete export of poser rigs
besides "hosting may as well be "Ghosting" as In I see but it not "physicly there
meaning No  true native App interaction such as Cloth hair etc.

Cheers

For all intents and purposes 64Bit apps enable accesing greater than 2GB of system memory. Most if not all speed increases would be memory related which isn't a minor detail. Larger scenes and textures would also benefit.

Actually Lightwave 64 bit responds MUCH faster then it's 32bit counterpart, so that;s not entirely true.

I'd love to have the Guidam plug-in...  but that's about it.  I'll never make it pro, so I'm comfortable that Poser will evolve into 2 types - for Professionals and for Hobbyists.  I started with Poser Artist anyway.  And we hobbyists do have spending power  - enough of us do, anyway.  Hoh. 

Oh be still my beating heart.
If it's all true (interaction with major 3d programs) then that would be good...they need to include ZBrush with their activities IMVHO.

That would be an excellent idea!

Really all of this should have happened in the first place with regular Poser.

Much like ZBrush 3 should be able to operate displacements, zapplink, not turning normals it isn't asked to and just general importing/exporting of regular obj's without causing havoc....but I digress, asking too much again.

Poser was originally not developed with higher end cgi in mind. From a marketing standpoint, you have a low end comsumer oriented application, and hgh end professionsl quality cgi tools, some costing thousands of dollars.

Granted, Poser has grown far beyond it's origin roots, but maintaining compatibility with high end apps like maya, xsi, lightwave and other tv and film quality programs, would require a much higher developement budget from EF, but the thing is, they don; get the huge profits back from app sales like maya or max.

EF probably has to sell 100-200 copes of poser to one copy of Max to generate tha same profits, and a percentage of those go back into developement.

While I'm personally glad EF is moving in this direction, many in the higher end cgi community shun poser, poser conent, and anything to do with it, considering it a layman's playtoy.

And there's nothing wrong with that at all. High end acceptance and integration might be advanced with this, but poser would also need much more advanced rigging and animation tools to really be intergrated well into other apps, and each have thier own views of what the best methods of rigging and animation are.

It'll be an interesting ride, if nothing else.

As far as asking too much, you have to realize that the 3d advancements some of these gys are achieving is phenominal, and there are always bugs to work out.

Imagine telling someone about zbrush 3 a few years ago, before it or displacemnt mapping was really realized.. they would laugh you out of the room in disbelief.

Quote - Any serious owner of Cinema4D seeking REAL poser integration should ignore this puffery and Buy the unbeatable interposer pro plugin from Kureyome(SP)

It's adding support for COLLADA, the same thing D|S did recently. And that works very well for D|S so no reason it shouldn't with Poser pro. Sure interposer is great as well, but more options are always cool.

Plus interposer only works with C4D, let us other MAX/Maya/XSI guys also get a break eh :P

I don't see the purpose of Poser Pro at all, especially not when D/S, which is geared at the hobby market offers a number of the features for free. I wouldn't be suprised that D/S 2.0 will have 64bit support also.

A good number of the Poser Pro features aren't pro at all, they should be available to everyone, especially if EF wants to stay on top of the hobby market.

BUT..... I don't think they want to do so. I recall Vue making switch a while ago and trying to enter the 'pro-market' with Vue Infinite. With that change of focus, their attitude towards low end users changed also. They still sell low end appliactions, but they don't treat the low end users as they used to do. I really hope that EF will not make the same moves.

To be very honest, I don't even believe there is a pro-market for Poser at all. The majority of users are hobby and semi-pro, for me this is just a way to get more money from the same old users. This version sure doesn't offer enough to be called pro at all, it's more like Poser 7.5. Poser 7 didn't offer enough to be called Poser 7, they should have waited with the release and add this stuff to Poser 7, instead of highly overcharging for a few features.

EF is more and more starting to look like E-On...... milk your customers as much as possible, give them minor updates, but charge them the full price. If this continues, EF will loose the hobby market to DAZ and in the end find that there isn't really a huge 'pro-market' at all, but then it will be too late, all of their customers have gone. Imo this is a bad move, especially since most of the features aren't that pro at all, but should be available for everyone.

Consider this:
Some peeps [like me] are what I would call "semi pro" where we do some commercial work but most of what we do is for fun and we can't actually afford the high end apps like Maya, C4D etc. etc.

Now I also have a 64 bit machine [or will have by the weekend, LOL] and have been a Poser user/supporte for a number of years!

Now I can "ONLY" have 64 bit support if I fork out yet more cash for this new Poser app, most of which I can't use due to not having the high end apps.

So Posers customer base which is largely the hobbyist IMO and has backed them through good and bad are now being well and truly left out in the cold!

If ratscloset is still around or anyone from EF, I'd be interested to hear your views on that!!

Pardon Me but how are you" left out in the cold"
 if you dont own MAX LW C4D etc.  any way how are you harmed by
new features that you cant use
this  poser pro is just poser7 with some additional feature for those who use other render apps.

it not as though your copy of P7 will suddenly stop functioning.

Just one question. This says "64-bit support". Nowhere does it say the application is only 64 bit. Does this mean that it can still run on 32-bit machines, you just don't get the 64-bit support in the rendering?

*Pardon Me but how are you" left out in the cold"
*Well pardon me, but if you read my post you will see that I have a 64 bit machine which currently Poser 7 can't utilize, this new version does so I will have to upgrade if I want to use all the memory I have in my machine [8Gig].

It's prolly going to be one expensive upgrade just to get 64 bit functionality which should be available already in Poser 7!!

That's why us 64 bit users with no high end apps are left in the cold!
I also have Vue6Inf and that is 64 bit ready!!

www.roflcats.com

Geez..... Am i the only one who reads the text? '64 bit support'....usually means just that. It works on a 64 bit data bus if you have one, a 32 bit bus if not (which much of industry still does not). COLLADA.... Even though the import is limited to geometry, textures, cameras and lights...how many times have Poser animators screamed for some way to get cameras and lights in and out to other apps to make compositing a practical approach? And COLLADA is constantly being extended; so the chances of getting a translator for rigging and animation data in the future is excellent. Distibuted Network Rendering..... And how long have the animators been howling for this one? And I noticed there was no mention of limited node liscences; if that holds, then your client could go on however many machines you actually have....and with the Poser GUI off the render engine, it may surprise people with its speed. And they may not have mentioned other things that are still in beta at the moment. Companies do that to avoid getting the user base riled if something has to be yanked at the last minute. But off the top of my head, I would be surprised if there wasn't some change in the interface; Vue allows you to customize after all, and eon and efrontier have been strategic partners for a few years now. Having an alternative to the Kai Krause interface to avoid the kneejerk 'Ewww its that Poser Toy!' reaction would be just the thing to get at least a seconds untainted look. This is an animator's release. And it promises to speed things up considerably in that area (assuming there aren't more goodies under the hood....which I'm not). And as we don't know what the special upgrade price for P7 owners is yet (fond memories of getting into the 'pro' level of Vue long ago at a reasonable price....). Okay, voice of reason done. Continue the bitchslapping as normal. Carry on.

Hi Dale,

I did read the text, lol, but I am stupid, so I didn't know that 64-bit support meant that it would still run on 32-bit. Thanks for the voice of reason. :-)

Helgard

WINE

Quote - *
*Well pardon me, but if you read my post you will see that I have a 64 bit machine which currently Poser 7 can't utilize, this new version does so I will have to upgrade if I want to use all the memory I have in my machine [8Gig].

It's prolly going to be one expensive upgrade just to get 64 bit functionality which should be available already in Poser 7!!

That's why us 64 bit users with no high end apps are left in the cold!
I also have Vue6Inf and that is 64 bit ready!!

Hmm.... GMC releases a new improved  hi tech trailer boat  hitch for the existing Yukon Denali  for $300 USD

 WAIT!! I already have a Boat and a Yukon Denali that I bought 18 months ago
knowing full well it had the old standard trailer hitch.

GMC has done me a grave INJUSTICE by adding an improved trailer hitch
that  I GRATUITOUSLY ASSERT "should " have been included with the Yukon denali
I was Suckerd into buying 18 months ago.

Amazing!!  only in the world of poser does such convaluted "logic exist

Quote - WINE

CHEESE..LOL!

wolf359: The point I'm trying to make, obviously badly, is that e-on has 2 versions of it's top of the range Vue6;  Infinite which caters for users that want to use it as it is, i.e as standalone or with Poser,  Or it has Xtreme for peeps who want to use it with the higher end apps like Maya, etc.
The point here is that BOTH are capable of running 64 bit architecture, why can EF not do the same.
That way peeps who don't want to use Maya etc. with Poser but do have a 64 bit pc can still get the benefits of 64 bit, just like they can already with Vue.
It's not difficult is it!!

Quote - COLLADA.... Even though the import is limited to geometry, textures, cameras and lights...

D|S Collada export includes rigging, morph targets, and handles conformers (sort of) too. I would imagine that the new Poser version is also using the newest Collada version, so that should be true for it also.

I hope the special price for Poser 7 users is very special.

Personally I think they have a cheek selling this as a separate entity - especially when the paint is barely dry on Poser 7.

Yes, I already said that.. it runs on 32 bit systems, but the 64 bit renderer requires a 64 bit OS.

And as much as some might want to complain abou Eons "hobby" customer support, when you see big studio houses like Lucasfilms using it for feature films like Pirats of the Carribean, and consider they probably bout 50 copies or so for a renderfarm, the Hobbiest dollar just isn't worth persueing any more.

We saw a massive downshift in 3d app prices and massive increase in  functionality in the 3d app market in the last 5 years.. and many of those companies are strugling to make profits now, because they undersold thier stuff hoping the "mass market" approach would buffer the reduced pricing, but that just never happened.. so we're seeing apps not increase in price, and the companies target the pro markets again, where there is money to support future advancements and developement.

Consider the profit margin, as I mentioned, on a full Max suite, with all the plugins for a studio that buys 5 licenses...EF would have to sell a few hundred copies of poser to make the same amount of cash, and aquiring new users just ain't that easy.

There's plenty of room in the market for a consumer Poser 7, and a Pro community Poser 7 Pro, and if EF can swing getting acceptance in the 3d marketplace, they might be able to make enough cash to really make a lot of the advancements we've all wanted to see in poser.

And as much as some might want to complain abou Eons "hobby" customer support, when you see big studio houses like Lucasfilms using it for feature films like Pirats of the Carribean, and consider they probably bout 50 copies or so for a renderfarm, the Hobbiest dollar just isn't worth persueing any more.
I do think that is kind of shortsighted. Who made E-On big enough to even get that far? It wasn't Lucasfilm for sure, it were the hobby customers. But once an applications 'makes' it, the company forgets who supported them and made it all possible and they turn their back on those cumstomers. I really do hope EF will not make the same, but since their close to E-On these days, they may have adopted their unfriendly hobby customer approach.

Also, since E-On is still bringing out 'low end' applications, they should treat each customer alike. It's like we care about your money, but don't care about you abd if you want a bug free application, please make sure you give us more money for the next version.....

Actually in the past I've been pretty disenchanted with Eon, releaseing a new version every year, and charging a premium, but they haven;t done that this go around.. V6I has been around a few years now, and upgrades have been free, including the latest 6.5 version. odds are, they'll have a 7.0 version by next summer, but for them, this has been a good long run.

Thing is, most production facilities buy multiple versions, and also pay additional for pro support as well.. I remember Disney buy 100 licenses of a 3d app when i was there, just for the mgm studios alone. betwen all thier various studios, they probably bought 500 licences, and when you consider the excellent press the app producer gets when a big house like that uses thier product in a production that's successful, that's a HELL of a deal compared to the consumer market.

Big houses buy the latest hardware, and gobs of memory, while consumers try to get by with win 98, and a system that really should have been replaced a few years ago. And of course that causes issues when the software is really designed with pro use in mind.

I'm no wher enear the pro level at all, but after seeing the differences in support, purchasing training  n such, I've been amazed that such powerful tools have even been available at all at a consumer level pricepoint.

Heck.. even consider Hexagon.. 5 years ago, you would have paid $1000 for as modeler like that.. today it's what? $40?  And you then get a hell of a huge support issues with everyone and thier brother who can;t figure out how to use it, won;t purchase training, and then just ask the same questions over and over again ad infinitum.

Thing is , I see both sides of the coin... you are choosing to only see your personal viewpoint.

*V6I has been around a few years now,
*Don't know where you get that from, Vue6Inf only came out November last year and has had huge problems ever since!

Hopefully this latest update will see it ok now!!

Ah.....I've been concentrating on that other thread.  I see that this one has likewise devolved into a "wahhhh.......the e-frontier folks are being a bunch of big meanies to us poor little hobbyists" type of thread.  :rolleyes:

I am more than happy to see that e-frontier is taking on new challenges -- and that they are aiming for new markets.  I don't have any need to re-argue the same points over again in this separate thread -- others have already done that very, very effectively.  But I will add that I simply fail to see why the announcement of a new, "pro" version of Poser is being greeted with so much dismay by some.  Other than the fact that the annoucement of ANY new software release, figure release, etc., etc. is always invariably greeted by howls of protest in the Poser community.

If you don't need it: then don't buy it.  Stick with P7.  I wouldn't worry, because I don't see e-frontier dropping that market anytime soon.  But speaking for myself: I'll be one of the first in line to grab this new one just as soon as it hits the market.  I'll leave the whining job to others (they are quite the experts at the task) -- I intend to be spending my time enjoying what's coming.

Yeah I'm kind of amazed that people are complaing about this, before it's even released. it offers a lot to options many people hav ewanted for years, and deflates that whole "quidam taking over the poserverse" idea as well.

In a logical sense I really don't see ef completely leaving out the hobbist. As my mom would have said this would cut their nose off despite their face so to speak. Yes, to get the big pro production house dollars would be key but why not also take advantage of the hobbist dollars too? I don't see anyone or any company in business turning down easy dollars to be made do you?

I'm with Xenophonz and Gareee on this one. What are people complaining about? They're coming out with an addition to the P7 you already use.

As for "well this 'pro' stuff should be in Poser 7 to begin with." Please. The app's price would have been double what P6 cost you, and you would have had a fit over that.

You know what I think the problem in Poserdom is? The sheer amount of free resources available to the user base. I've noticed this same thing in regard to music and movies ever since the advent of P2P "sharing."

People seem to feel they are entitled to more than they are willing to legitimately pay for. Sorry, but the first responsibility of a business is to make money, not make the user base happy by giving away the store.

If these features are important enough to you, then you'll "find" the money to pay for them, just as you "found" money to pay for P7, which many seem to believe wasn't much more than a P6.5 anyway. (Which itself was supposedly just P5.5, but that's enough of that.) If those features are not important to you, then you get to just stick with Poser 7.

e-Frontier has not left anyone out in the cold. They've simply listened to what the general community wants, and wrote code to fill those desires. Is it any coincidence that the main features of this Pro version are the same ones discussed in the recent survey they conducted?

It's true people will complain about anything, but in this case, it's truly unfounded. e-F is providing a new set of tools on a higher tier for their big product. Maybe they should just go open source and start giving away the software? Would that make people happy?

Quote -
People seem to feel they are entitled to more than they are willing to legitimately pay for.

I'm not so sure here... customers produce price pressure, especially if there is competition.

Comparison? Sure: Poser has a few bits and bobs that nobody else has at that price range... or does it? DAZ|Studio + Carrara 6 (which costs roughly as much as P7 now, and probably less than "Poser Pro" when that comes out) has a shedload more in the way of actual functionality than Poser has, with a better renderer to boot.

Feature sets of course do differ. P7 has the "face room", which some find useful, others (like me) find useless. Direct material re-arrangement is nice, as are joint editing, etc... but they're not exactly deal-makers or deal-breakers for most folks.

OTOH, Poser's big feature draws boil down to exactly two: Dynamic Hair, and Dynamic Cloth. (AOL/IBL can be had in D|S w/ plugins such as pwSurface for a fairly nominal cost).

If DAZ |Studio does indeed come out with direct competition for either Dynamic feature (esp. cloth) --and it doesn't suck-- Poser is screwed.

Quote - If these features are important enough to you, then you'll "find" the money to pay for them, just as you "found" money to pay for P7, which many seem to believe wasn't much more than a P6.5 anyway. (Which itself was supposedly just P5.5, but that's enough of that.) If those features are not important to you, then you get to just stick with Poser 7.

Or... I can just find similar suites at similar price points which offer more of what I want (even if more than one), and simply purchase that (those) instead.

Them's the breaks, yo?  Poser ain't the only kid on the block anymore. Their mission is simple: Respond to Market, or Die.

Quote - e-Frontier has not left anyone out in the cold. They've simply listened to what the general community wants, and wrote code to fill those desires. Is it any coincidence that the main features of this Pro version are the same ones discussed in the recent survey they conducted?

No doubt... and I give 'em props for doing it (though there seems to be a lack of native Linux support... ;) ).

Quote - Maybe they should just go open source and start giving away the software? Would that make people happy?

Considering that RedHat rakes in quite a lot more per annum than EF does? I'd say a lot of folks would be rather happy about that all around :)

/P

*People seem to feel they are entitled to more than they are willing to legitimately pay for.
*I don't think so..... I totally agree with Penguinisto. I can upgrade soon to Carrara 6 for much less then I can upgrade to for Poser..... Yet it looks like I'm going to get all the features P7 offers and most of the features P7 pro offers and even more. Judging from the price EF is charging me for the P7 upgdate, I'm hardly get worth what I pay for. Others give me more and charge less.

The only problem I have is that I like Poser the best and I'll stick to it, but it sure isn't the best value for money anymore, not by far.

You know Pengi works for DAZ right?

Just makin' sure.