khai i am with the others. The only reason we have lauched this thread is because we DO have solid information.

Now...someone asked..."what does 64-bit render engine actually get me" and that indeed is unknown. That indeed is ONE THING we don't know...what the performance of that thing will be over the current engine.

Roberta, it looks like this IS a sidebar around any of us that simply like Poser and don't want to go anywhere else. There are a few things, though: We MAY have a cool and fast render engine; we might get suprised by the content, it might be excellent; you will be able to render on three computers (you won't want the "ProPro" package, just the base, so your cost to upgrade should be small, I hope.). You can (apparently) turn your scenes into .hdr and.exr files, which could be sold or given out.

Yep, just those few things. I would bet, with your new computer, the upgrade to ProBase if inexpensive will be worth it to you just for the 64-bit render engine.

Then, look over the horizon to Poser8

::::: Opera :::::

"But I'm beginning to ask myself: why would you want to use Modeler when you've got Modo?"

Familiarity. I can make something 20 times faster in modeler, even with it's limitations, just because I''ve used t for 20 odd years now.

The more I do play with Modo though, that more I hate going back to modeler.. LOL!

sorry guys. I'm not trolling. I've seen companies put out 'solid information' that X feature will be in their next release... only to see it pulled out before said release.

I saw it in the 80's on the home computers then. I saw it in the 90's with PC's and I've seen it from Microsoft sooooo many times.

but since no one is actually listening I'll just leave....

Sure, things can be pulled OUT, but if a company has developers working on Hotly-Desired Feature X (e.g. Global Illumination) and they don't announce it, that'd be dumb.  You know they're going to take preorders (money in advance for a product nobody's seen yet!) - it would be sane business practice to market your product as well as possible.

Quote - But in pratical terms what does 64 bits rendering means?
 .........if Poser is not a 64 bits application
A more techy person than me can answer??

64-bit rendering means basically, under a 64-bit operating system, your renders will be much less likely to run out of memory.  Even if your particular render requires a huge amount of memory - say 20GB (a practical example that I've experienced!) - and even though your machine might only have 8GB of memory, it won't crash, it will just quietly keep on humming and clicking.  Windows may complain about having to increase the page file, but it'll keep going and eventually complete.  That's a cool thing, really.

Will it make your renders run faster, just because it's converted from 32-bit to 64-bit instructions?  No.  Will the quality be higher, in and of itself?  No.  Will you be able to render things that you can't render now, because the current version might run out of memory at some point during execution?  Yes.

Seems they have gotten to far into bed with the e-on people, as they should have had 2 x 64 bit versions, 1 high end and 1 low end but unlike e-on make both work nice.
The trouble is if they have copied e-on where 6 esprite is so totally inferior to 6 inf and extreme, as have esprite 5 and 6 and got chance to use inf and extreme.
Poser 7 renders great as it is but im doubious about the new version as i hope they have not been persuaded buy the vue people.
People with money will get some high end apps but they must remember 1 thing if you realese a program, always remember that most people cant afford high prices.
I render in cararra and some in vue but i find p6 and p7 can render nice and some simple sharpen and other auto options in art programs make p6 and p7 renders come out superb.
Their is no way ill ever buy an e-on product again after what they did with 6 esprite and will stick with p7 though funny thing is, i did a p6 and p7 renders with various options.
On my p4 2.6 then my amd 4200, then on me quad q6600 and found p6 render faster in single mode than p7, maybe my quad loves 6 more than 7 for speed.

Ummm, one point pjz; a 64 bit render engine -can- increase your rendering speed, due to the fact that by having more physical memory, you don't have to hit the swap file nearly as hard. And as of current hardware, disk access is still the massively major bottleneck. As to the list of features..... No, what is there doesn't look that impressive. But keep in mind how things seem to be developed in Poser nowadays. Ever since they added the Firefly renderer in P5, they haven't been 'adding' things so much as enabling what already existed in the engine they'd liscenced. The animation layers apparently were in P6, but not enabled until P7. Look at the source engine. Does it have GI? (yes). So for some reason they haven't enabled it (off the cuff guess, not enough memory in a 32 bit app free for the calculations). eF has been very cagey about talking about '64 bit rendering' without giving -any- specifications beyond that. Either there is nothing, or their is something(s) that they aren't quite ready to out yet. We've been pushing for animation and rigging improvements since P4, and for the last two versions they have been dropping that question about weight mapping into their surveys. This might be the test bed; different app, different general clientele, and the legacy content is only available as download, not included. No mention of Quidam, so there are apparently 'features' that are =not= on that list. Looks as if all that list does is offer a comparison of P7 with the basePro and fullPro release. And there aren't a lot of technical details (like how invasive is the network rendering. If I can run a Poser network render at the same time I run a Vue network render, that amounts to a massive increase in pipeline speed... I wouldn't shift to Poser as a main renderer, but for things like closeups in enclosed environments, it could be very useful...). Since they have pushed back the release, either they have had beta troubles, or the integration of new tech has taken longer than expected. I'll wait and see before chucking the baby with the bath water....

Dale, thanks for the fill in. I don't think we are chucking; we are reacting to the specific feature list they are explicitly listing on their site.

I for one hold hope that EF is "managing expectations." That is code for 'announce x but come thru with x+3."

I've been holding out for "something more" in the render engine every since I saw the phrase "a" 64-bit render engine. They did not say "Firefly increased to 64-bit".

Another aspect of the gradual development of 'render to separate process', multi-threading and the expansion of the render engine to 64 bit is the practicality of truly being able to render on your development computer and at the same time perform other work, or in fact continue developing. Certainly running on a dual or quad core CPU would contribute to that. The cumulative effect is to yield an additional node on the render farm.

::::: Opera :::::

Quote - Look at the source engine. Does it have GI? (yes).

Where?

Funny how the only one defending Poser Pro is the person working for Poser..... Anyway, I'm still wondering what's worth the price difference here. Poser Pro Base take out all of the good Poser stuff, so that's not even worth getting at all. Poser Pro is adding so little that it's not even worth paying for such an amount of money.

I still don't understand this move..... but perhaps I never will. I'm afraid this starts to look like the current version I'm using at the moment may well be the last version of Poser I've bought. EF wants to play with the big boys now and I've seen what happens if companies do that.

It started with P7, asking the full upgrade price for what should have been called P6.5. Now they're finally releasing P7 as it should have been and charging for it again. Perhaps time to seriously investigate D/S and other alternatives.

Attached Link: wild GI thread on Renderosity

::::: Opera :::::

Attached Link: First poser thread on GI

Stewer, you posted in that thread.

GI is not 'fully implemented' or enabled to the end user in Poser. But obviously it is there in the background and you can 'get at it.'  Not having been fully implemented, it does not operate on a usable level.

:: og ::

Poser6 was the last version of poser for me after i started using interposer pro and C4D further versions of poser itself became moot.

Sounds a lot like the same griping over Vue 6 and Vue 6 infinite.

the real bottom line, is 3d utilities have dropped considerably in price over the years, however complexity, feature sets, and developement costs have gotten longer,and more expensive.

Companies have to make money somehow, and supporting mulitple levels makes sense from a business model standpoint.

The poser marketplace wants everything free or dirt cheap, and that mentality is hurting content creators, AND major players like EF as well.

We've seen people post over and over again that content or the programs should be almost free... and in the process, we've lost many quality content developers, (Think Anton and Neftis), and the maketplaces are now filled with easy to make character packs, with everyone thinking they can make a bundle on poser content.

Compare the cost of poser (heck even poser pro) with Modo, Zbrush, and Lightwave, and you suddenly see that Poser7 is probably underpriced, and that poser pro is probably priced properly.

IMHO for a healthy poserverse, we need a stong Daz AND a strong EF, otherwise the entire poserverse could implode on itself.

Quote - this was the first thread on GI in Poser.

Stewer, you posted in that thread.

Correct. That's nothing that was licensed from anywhere, that was something I wrote in my spare time. But I'll shut up, I get flame-toasted for anything I could say in this thread.

What happened to the promised version of Quidam that was supposed to be included in Poser ProPack (what shoud we call this ProPack 2 or ProPack 2007)?  That was the feature that interested me most.  Along with the hope of a better render engine and GI. 

Well Stewer you are positioned to be in the know. Speaking for myself, I would respect your position of not commenting. 

I think a lot of people, myself included, are wishing the best for Poser and can get upset when we think EF is not taking it in the right direction. This is not to say there are not sour grapes people (who get a kick out of thrashing for thrashing's sake) lurking or having already posted, but all in all this has been pretty reasonable, IMO.

If anyone is being unfair to EF and Poser in this thread, we'd welcome your comments. 

Are we to understand that you wrote the GI that we were playing with in those threads, and that it is not actually a developing feature of Poser/Firefly?

::::: Opera :::::

I would also like to address those looking for GI in Poser. I'd say that was a highly ambitious request, given the power it takes to bring off true Global Illumination. 

I'd challenge the community to learn the power tools we already have in place, AO, IBL, HDRI and shaders. Those features go a long way towards realistic lighting and they have NOT been widely exploited, yet here we are asking for more.

::::: Opera :::::

It's a mistake to consider IBL a "realistic" lighting technique.  It can produce very interesting lighting - and if you adapt your lighting scheme to match the HDR image you're using, then it can appear realistic - but IBL will never match the lighting you simply create from scratch.  It's an evolution of rendering against a bitmapped image imo, and is quite limiting.

Quote - If anyone is being unfair to EF and Poser in this thread, we'd welcome your comments.

That would just add fuel to the fire and my time is better spent fixing bugs or helping out in technical threads. > Quote - Are we to understand that you wrote the GI that we were playing with in those threads, and that it is not actually a developing feature of Poser/Firefly?

I can neither confirm nor deny that. If there's something you want to see in a future Poser version, it can never hurt to send a feature request.

the real bottom line, is 3d utilities have dropped considerably in price over the years, however complexity, feature sets, and developement costs have gotten longer,and more expensive. Companies have to make money somehow, and supporting mulitple levels makes sense from a business model standpoint. *The poser marketplace wants everything free or dirt cheap, and that mentality is hurting content creators, AND major players like EF as well.

*Sorry, but I do tend to disagree with this. First of all the price drop was a necessity, most 3D applications were overpriced (some to this day still are), while others with some excellent features were free. There seems to be a better balance these days.

As for dirt cheap, no one is really hurting, especially not EF. All of this content sold by EF (and DAZ as well) has enabled them to take over a good number of applications and even complete companies. EF is making more then enough money, and being able to purchase applications and even completely buyout others proves that.

*Compare the cost of poser (heck even poser pro) with Modo, Zbrush, and Lightwave, and you suddenly see that Poser7 is probably underpriced, and that poser pro is probably priced properly.

You cannot compare Poser (not even Pro) with Modo, Zbrush or Lightwave. They're far beyond Poser, they're in a completely different segment. You should compare Poserr to other applications being able to do the same and then you'll quickly find out that even the regular version Poser is completely overpriced. If you want to compare Poser then compare it to it's peers and not with oranges.

Poser is overprices and always has been. As long as there are other applications that can do the same for much less or much more for the same price, it's overpriced.

Stewer nobody has anything against you personally, and you are wise to keep a distance for no other reason than just being professional, nobody blames you.

I know it's not personal. Heated forum discussions are a natural part of the Poser release cycle. :laugh:

I'd like to see real time, ray traced, global illumination (multiple forms) of gigapoly meshes on my home PC.
Is that too much to ask for?
I'd be willing to pay up to $1.99 for that.:biggrin:

My ideal feature: facial animation by emotion.

You have a bluetooth transmitter attached to a probe in your earlobe. Through biofeedback, you learn to send your emotions out thru this feed, while you are speaking/acting out loud. Transmitted to your system. Poser14 receives the data and applies the emotion and lip movements as facial animation to your character. Complete sync of voice and posting of audio to the pz3 is included.

Now get to work Stewer!

::::: Opera ::::

Aeilkema, sorry but I have to respectfully disagree. you have NO fact or numbers to back up your statements at all.

You have no idea how much developement costs, no inkling of how long it takes to develop technical advancements, and no real world prespective on things other then your own personal desires.

We have no real world idea of how many copies of Poser 7 are out there, and no idea how much actual profit was made on them.

If EF had money to burn and unlimited dollars, I'm sure they would hav erewritten the cde base, because there would be no reason NOT to.

And it IS fair to compare Poser with other 3d utilites, because at the end of the day, that IS what it actually is.

You see everyone creating poser utilites and content as "fat cats" when in fact many or most are struggling to survive, just like Newtek is.

Newtek's rewriting of the code base has put them 1-2 years behind everyone else in the 3d marketplace, and they can't afford to hire more developers to even play catchup.

When Lightwave was initially released, it cost $2500 for a license... the dollar has depreciated by probably 50% or MORE since then, yet Lightwave's price is now less 2 fifths of that price.. and the company is barely treading water because of that.

The high cost of developement, and the massive loss of revenue from sales is killing them more each year.

Let's say that they employ 20 of the top techs in the 3d developement field, and each make more then 100,000 a year.  That means 2 MILLION alone go JUST to the employees salaries for further product developement. And 100,000 for top fdevelopement people is probably pretty cheap.

So let's say they release a new lightwave tomorrow, and sell 5,000 units in 3 months time. Assuming that they make $300 of each seat (retailers usually make 40-50% off products), that eans in 3 months, they haven;t even made back the developement cost ... AND they've also now increased developement cost by almost 1/4 a million because the developers are working on bug fixes. mac versions, 64 bit versions and such.

If they are LUCKY, by the end of the next year, they are in the black again. An with the HUGE number of 3d applications on the market, each developer gets a smaller and smaller share of the entire marketplace every year.

So when they talk to thier stockholders, what do they say about the small return on investment? Fire some of the developers to reduce costs? Don't develop new features needed to keep up with the marketplace? Increase retail price so there is a bigger margin? Ofer a smaller discount to retailers, who then might no longer carry lightwave?

Then there's also the production costs, manual writing and printing, and then tech support, as well as corporate support, which requires a lot more support investment.

You really need to have watched these companies for years, and read all the cvarious things to understand more about developement costs vs retail prices.

Poser has changed hands how many times now? And the companies that carried poser are still huge profot generating entities? No? If not, then  if they were overcharging for the program, AND making massive profits, where did they go? And why?

Lest my earlier posts in this thread be misconstrued by anyone -- permit me to say that I am still looking forward to the release of Poser Pro.  No, it looks like it's not going to have everything that I hoped that it would (the greatest disappointment being no Lightwave support) -- but it does represent a step forward overall.  Perhaps not as big of a step as some of us would like to have seen -- but it still looks to be headed in the right direction.

I'll purchase the program -- but I'm not sure which version of it just yet.  That'll depend upon several factors........without Lightwave support, I'm not sure that I'll actually need the top-end version.  We'll wait and see on that.  But I am planning on at least getting Base.

Yeah -- the grapes are always sour for some no matter what anyone (or any company) does or doesn't do.  And you can predict with a high degree of accuracy that their attittudes towards whatever is  coming out will be negative, regardless.

Others of us are cautiously optimistic.  And perfectly willing to be fair.  No ultimate judgements can be rendered 100% until after Poser Pro's release.  But we can certainly talk about the things that we do know at this point in time........

Guys: put Lightwave back in.  It'll be worth the results.

What does it do that you're eager to pay $500 for?  Since "substantial discount" isn't quantified, assume a penny.

When they dropped Lightwave they lost my interest.

Quote - I'd like to see real time, ray traced, global illumination (multiple forms) of gigapoly meshes on my home PC.
Is that too much to ask for?
I'd be willing to pay up to $1.99 for that.:biggrin:

:biggrin: If your home PC looks like this, sure: (For the record, I'm joking. If you really have this computer at home, I will give you real time, ray traced, global illumination (multiple forms) of gigapoly meshes for the low price of $199,000.)

you are trying to tease us...those are the lockers for the astronaut's workout gym.

::::: og :::::

Quote - When they dropped Lightwave they lost my interest.

My interest isn't entirely lost -- but dropping Lightwave has set my enthusiasm for the release back by about 50%.  It's quite disappointing.

Quote - What does it do that you're eager to pay $500 for?  Since "substantial discount" isn't quantified, assume a penny.

Oh -- I'll assume a lot more than a penny for the discount.  Both on Base and Pro.  Anyway: that's my assumption, and I'm sticking to it.

At least until we actually know the pricing structure for upgraders.  At that point: there'll be no further need for assumptions.

What baffles me is this... if the big selling point is better integration with higer end apps, like Max... then those people already have 64Bit apps and ability to network render and similar. 
So the only real attraction is ability to use Poser content (which most Max and Cinema and Maya users interested in Poser have solved by now, mostly for less then extra $200 or so)

On the other hand, people whom don't have the high end apps, are gaining 64 bit rendering and HDRI and network rendering.... For extra $200 bucks. I dunno, looking at the poser galleries around here, majority of the users haven't made use of the lighting abilities poser has right now.

Anyway, I hope they improve this package by the release time. It doesn't look all that attractive as it's plugged right now.

Now, a slick import/export of rigging and not just the ability to host a poser scene, but ability to modify geometry of characters and scenes would be something more interesting (at least for me).

Quote - you are trying to tease us...those are the lockers for the astronaut's workout gym.

::::: og :::::

Nooo.  They are super-computers run by the sweat off of the dirty clothing of the astronauts after working out.  (ewww). ;)

I ask for one of those every Christmas and Santa never delivers.

We are at the infancy of 64-bit.  I think that we'll find that in five or ten years, we'll be getting very close to those things.

Quote: *Oh -- I'll assume a lot more than a penny for the discount.  Both on Base and Pro.  Anyway: that's my assumption, and I'm sticking to it.

*If you look at price for Poser 7 at the moment ($ 250,-) and the upgradeprice ($130,-), if EF is using the same policy,  the upgradeprice for poserpro will a little more than 50% of the full-productprice, which is, considering the features offered, a lot more than I'm willing to pay for it. And be reasonable; who wants to pay more for an upgrade then he has paid for the original product?

regards,

Bopperthijs

Quote - Quote: *Oh -- I'll assume a lot more than a penny for the discount.  Both on Base and Pro.  Anyway: that's my assumption, and I'm sticking to it.

*If you look at price for Poser 7 at the moment ($ 250,-) and the upgradeprice ($130,-), if EF is using the same policy,  the upgradeprice for poserpro will a little more than 50% of the full-productprice, which is, considering the features offered, a lot more than I'm willing to pay for it. And be reasonable; who wants to pay more for an upgrade then he has paid for the original product?

regards,

Bopperthijs

shrug

What I was saying -- in a roundabout way -- is that the price issue (outside of full price for the "pro" version) remains an unknown at this point in time.

If I was a brand-new hobbyist user -- then $499 might be mucho too high.  However, if I was the head of a production department at some 3D house or other, then $499 for easy (maybe - we'll see) integration with my highend applications might be mere petty cash, well spent.

I'll discuss / argue about price in detail -- including whether or not it's worth it -- after we actually know the full pricing structure.

Gotta love loyalty!!

Quote - Gotta love loyalty!!

Ain't it the truth.........! 

(Acutally, ya gotta love even-handedness.)

Granted I am slowly doing more and more final renders via C4D-Interposer. But there are times I just want to do it in Poser. But if the price of the upgrade is reasonable, one key feature makes the decison to upgrade a snap for me. Render in Background. No more sitting there watching poser chug away with a window I can't dismiss. The productivity increase of even doing test renders with reasonable to high settings will be well worth it IMHO.

Good point.  Yes, rendering in the background would be handy.

The Base would be the way to go for most of us with P7. I don't understand the reasoning for the Base not to have the same exporting as the Pro. That seems to be the only real, new option, that is different between the two, so far as we know. It looks to me like the Base is the upgrade, from P7 to give you the same thing as Pro. Pro would be the full version for those that don't have Poser to begin with. So why the collada difference?

My other question never got answered or nobody knows. With 3 render nodes as in the Base, can you use 3 quads?

This has been a pretty tame thread so far. More of the "my opinion on what ef has told us but will wait and see what really happens when they want our money," kind of thread.

Yes we are being nice. And I too would love to know if the three nodes in Base means you can render on three quads, or a quad and two duos, etc.

Moreover, I'd like to know if the render farm management software will allow different cores to chew on THEIR OWN frame of an animation, as opposed to being assigned various buckets on the current frame along with the other nodes.

One core, its own frame, I say.

These things, indeed, we may not know until we have the app in hand.

:: og ::

11/6/07

I appreciate that E-F/CP has finally given a price for the Poser Pro product. I assume (unless corrected) that this price of about $500 is for the 10 node, version with hosting for 3dsMax, Maya, and C4D, and with content that I already have from Poser 7. Seeing that I do not have 10 computers for a "render farm," I do not have 3dsMax, Maya, or C4D, and I already have the content that came with poser 5, 6, and 7, I do not need these features. I would hope that without these features the price can indeed be substantially lower for the Base Side-Grade to Poser Pro.

It remains unclear to me whether Poser Pro Base will be sold as a stand-alone product. Personally I would like to see it marketed (but with Poser 7 content) for first time buyers who want a midlevel product. I know nothing about the 3D Graphics business beyond my hobbyist roots, but I like the idea that Poser Pro could offer access to the large selection of Poser and D/S content for those who use more expensive and powerful applications. If the program sales even modestly well this could be a great boon to content providers (and the rest of us who like to have access to lots of new and high quality content).

I like the PDF feature comparison chart. It lets me see where the intended changes are being made. I must admit that I would like to see more additional or improved features, but there are things there to like. I would also love to see a chart that added Poser 4, 5, and 6 to the comparison to see how things have developed.

Having created discrepancies, it is now up to E-F/CP to reconcile the differences between the information (i.e. Lightwave Hosting) on their web-page:
http://www.e-frontier.com/go/poserpro , on their FAQ page at:
http://www.e-frontier.com/article/articleview/2308 , and with their PDF at:
http://www.e-frontier.com/filemanager/download/1916/14d5592e45a7648fb05ecc75a087936c/PoserPro_Comparison_Chart.pdf . This should be done sooner rather than later.

Poser 7 still aborts on me while doing large or complex scenes leaving the render unfinished. If running a render on several nodes or 64 bit rendering engine will solve this for me, I would pay for a reasonable Side-Grade. If background rendering actually works, I would love to have it. Normal map support and Gamma Correction for Linear Rendering sound interesting. It is hard to get excited about the extra content, as I don’t actually know what most of it is.

I also appreciate being told now (rather than the last day of autumn) that the program will not be released until winter (as much as 3-4 months). I was a little surprised that the updated information was not announced in a newsletter from E-F. Not every body is watching the Poser related forums for this kind of information.

LMK

If the network rendering scheme follows conventions, then each 'node' will be a distinct IP address on a network, be it single core or dual quads. The question should be 'Is the node software multithreaded or single?' And again, most remote renderers are nothing more than the main render engine in the main app stripped of GUI, resource management, undo functions, and anything else not essential to function. Every app that I've seen with a multithreaded main renderer has had a multithreaded node renderer (note the caveat; those I have seen....and there are a lot that I haven't). Considering that in P7 they did the prep work for this (decoupling the render engine for remote rendering) and the P7 engine takes advantage of multiple cores, I'd say it likely that the node engines will, as well.... And thanks for that clarification, Stewer. That was what I was recalling. And yeah, your time may be better spent in fixing bugs and implementing new features, but some of us wuuuuuv hearing from the dev team.....any dev team..... :P Finally got my boxed Modo 301 today, so its uninstall, clean the registry and get the non-downloaded version up and running. I might even get over that perceptual hump and translate the drafter's skills to the modelling app.....maybe..... Oh Opera..... Did you get the announcement from Optitrack about the Pre-order on the Arena software and the mocap package? I =want= that. There already seems to be a community forming; a couple of folks have found bodysuits that are useable with the reflectors attached for cheaper. And there is talk about figuring out how to get around or compensate for occlusion when actors sit or do something similar.

thanks for the heads up dale, i am headed there now. boy that was a long time coming, I hope the thing is alive.

Yes, you'd think the nodes would be multithreaded...but what does this mean for licensing....

The hell with it, let's just wait until it comes out!

After reading many of the Poser forums, I expect that I may be one of the few people in the Poser community excited about PPro.

To me, network rendering is crucial. I run a 7-machine home renderfarm for animated projects and I would not be anywhere near as productive without it. When you're dealing with 20+minute render times per frame, being able to get animation done quickly by throwing more processors at the project pays off big.

Collada in/out is invaluable for transitioning content from PPro to LW or other apps. LW hosting is apparently still in the works for PPro, and that would be very useful for me in my planned projects.  If it does nothing else, it will still be worth the price tag for the full version.

Quote - > Quote - I'd like to see real time, ray traced, global illumination (multiple forms) of gigapoly meshes on my home PC.Is that too much to ask for?I'd be willing to pay up to $1.99 for that.:biggrin:

:biggrin: If your home PC looks like this, sure:

Can I get a 99.999% discount on that system?

Quote - Normal mapping completely deforms a mesh, where as displament mapping just moves the mesh "in" and "out" from it's original shape.

it's kind of the other way around,displacement is the better looking option

on that note..we can already use normal maps in Poser5,6 & 7..however it's only a rendertime effect(some of the P7 content comes with normal maps applied),
normal mapping is primarily aimed at rendering real-time bump effects..which leaves me wondering,will we be seeing real-time normal map support in Poser?

It seems that OpenGL can do realtime normal maps, so I don't see why not...
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2006-52,GGLJ:en&q=opengl+%22normal+map%22