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Poser - OFFICIAL F.A.Q (Last Updated: 2024 Jul 31 8:13 pm)



Subject: Anything after P4


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SeanMartin ( ) posted Fri, 28 December 2007 at 12:54 PM

Sorry, I must be missing something because there's little difference between the set up for P4 and P7, so I'm not sure what the interface issues are. Yes, the materials room is a little more complicated, but that's only if you click on the "Adsvanced" tab. Otehr than that, it's just like P4. The libraries are the same, so one shouldnt have to "sit and stare" unless I missed the "Make Art" button on P4 that didnt come with P7.

Get with it, guys. The reasons against it are specious at best, and the advnatages are enormous.

docandraider.com -- the collected cartoons of Doc and Raider


kobaltkween ( ) posted Fri, 28 December 2007 at 4:07 PM · edited Fri, 28 December 2007 at 4:14 PM

ming - imho, nobody insulted you.  you said you didn't have the patience, and that was pointed out as the problem with advancing a version.  personally, i was so afraid after all the talk about how different P5 was, but when i just tried it, i noticed no differences to the main interface.  i only went to "advanced" mode in the material room when i needed to, and it was alot easier than figuring out P4 from knowing nothing.

i can see debating the usability of the Poser interface, but it really hasn't changed much over the years.  and everything is pretty clearly labeled.

and yeah, keeping to old versions of software is staying behind the times.  it just is.  sure, do what you want, and i'm not going to put a value to keeping current or staying behind. but not using the latest version of any software is just keeping to old technology and the past. 

everyone has to decide whether upgrading is right for them.  sometimes the current versions don't have features you want or need, or have problems you want to avoid.



XENOPHONZ ( ) posted Fri, 28 December 2007 at 5:06 PM

Welcome to the ranks of the 4% of Poser users who still use P4 on a regular basis.  Such persons are commonly known as "Four-Flushers".  The Official Battle Cry of the Movement is: "Four!  Four!  Four!  Four!" (it's rather repetitive, because it never changes).  Just be careful about yelling the slogan out too loudly while near golf courses.  It might confuse people.

If someone wants to continue to use P4 well into the next 4 decades -- then more power to 'em!

Personally, I'll make mine Poser Pro.  Followed by whatever's next whenever the next comes out.

But right now I'll have to ask you to excuse me.......I need to go google up some help for Microsoft Bob.  Don't remember him?  Well.......it was a long time ago (in PC terms).  However: I have no doubt that one or two old timers are still stickin' with the program.  Best thing they ever saw, and they never saw anything else afterwards.  😉

Something To Do At 3:00AM 



FrankT ( ) posted Fri, 28 December 2007 at 6:05 PM

you had to go and mention Bob didn't you !!! :)
God that was a clusterfsck and a half of an operating system that was.  Should have been buried in an unmarked grave with a hazel stake through it

My Freebies
Buy stuff on RedBubble


kobaltkween ( ) posted Fri, 28 December 2007 at 10:50 PM

Content Advisory! This message contains nudity

file_396378.jpg

i'm not nearly the best poser artist, but i'm not the worst, either.  the following are the best raw (meaning no postwork)  renders i could get out of P4 resized for the forum:



kobaltkween ( ) posted Fri, 28 December 2007 at 10:52 PM · edited Fri, 28 December 2007 at 10:52 PM

Content Advisory! This message contains nudity

file_396379.jpg

and this is my last P4 image:



kobaltkween ( ) posted Fri, 28 December 2007 at 11:04 PM

Content Advisory! This message contains nudity

file_396380.jpg

within an hour of using P6, having only touched P5 once or twice (i just didn't make anything for a long time), i made the above.  i think it's _worlds_ better lighting and realism than any of the above P4 images, and it's just a plain IBL/AO light straight out of the library. 



xantor ( ) posted Fri, 28 December 2007 at 11:20 PM

People have done photorealistic renders with p4.

The poser 6 and 7 interface is quite different from the older ones, quite a few options have been moved or put in an entirely different place, but the new interface is not the only bad thing about the newer versions.


kobaltkween ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 1:24 AM · edited Sat, 29 December 2007 at 1:29 AM

Content Advisory! This message contains nudity

file_396392.jpg

> Quote - People have done photorealistic renders with p4.

with no photoshop? please post links, because the only P4 work i've ever seen that even vaguely approached photoreal involved a good deal of photoshop pre or postwork, especially for lighting, sss, proper shadows, eye reflections, anisotropic reflections, etc.  i'm curious.

besides which, my point isn't about someone else's skills, it's about my own.   or rather, the differential in quality, given one user.   given a pretty good proficiency at P4 (i've seen a lot worse P4 work than my best), the difference after 1 hour using P6 is, imho, huge.  just 1 hour.  and again, the differences in interface were so slight that i didn't experience any.  that isn't to say that they don't exist, but  my experience as an intermediate user was an absolutely seamless transition.

this is my current testing setup  (again, raw) with light shaders based on bagginsbill posts, IBL, and my own skin shader.   default V4, and texture by Maelwenn.  again, not the best ever.  but i couldn't even begin to approach any of the stuff i'm using to achieve realism with P4. no IBL to fake global illumination, no lights with proper inverse square falloff (thank you, bagginsbill), no SSS skin shader, no real reflections (i didn't touch the eye shader, but it's properly reflecting), and no ambient occlusion (material based, i never put it on lights anymore). 

frankly, i've been looking at higher end renderers to get true GI, SSS and caustics.

i'm not trying to argue what people should use.  just that there are legitimate reasons the newer versions are easier to use and get certain results. i'm a postwork fiend, and i still want more features, not less.  i've used the fake GI spotlight conglomerates in P4. i found IBL worlds easier to use and control.  frankly, D|S is an easier environment for skin shaders, because instead of a complicated setup,  i can just use true SSS.  more features don't necessarily make things harder. often, those features are much harder to fake than use.



xantor ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 1:57 AM

I don`t have any actual links but mek 4d did a few photorealistic renders using p4 and I have seen a few others here in the poser gallery.


MikeJ ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 2:13 AM

The only software that "sux" more than P7 is...P6, P5, PPP, P4....
Whoever designed that whole node system was on acid, but it's still better than anything P4 had to offer.
As Poser evolves, each version sux a little less than the prior version.
One day, you may become a real program, Posernocchio....



MikeJ ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 2:58 AM

Quote - Wow. Talk about over reacting. I put down a piece of software and you people attack me personally.
Most of the people here are cool, but then there's always a few hatemongers that spoil things.
To you whiny losers. Get a friggin life ! I didn't insult your mothers, I put down a piece of software !!!!
                                                                         Morons !

And now you learned a very important lesson in Poserland:
Many of its users and diehard fans are simply insane. ;-)



Stepdad ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 3:30 AM

Ok, guess I should jump in here myself and add my 2 cents worth as well.  Now, how many people can name a high end 3d rendering, modellling or posing program with an interface that is fully inuitative and falling off a log easy to learn and yet has all of the features you'd expect in a modern 3d rendering program, such as shaders and proper texture mapping.  An app so easy to use that it requires almost no documentation or training whatsoever and even someone who's never worked with a 3d app before can master it on their own in a matter of hours.

Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?

Lol.. ok, having written more than my share of UI's in the past I can tell you from experience that it's not as easy as one might think.    The more the program can do, the harder and harder it becomes to make the interface intuitive.  For a program with say 50-60 features and options your hard pressed not to have some feature somewhere that an end user is going to find difficult to find and or use.

Now multiply that by a factor of 5 or 10 and you begin to see the problem.  A modern 3d posing and rendering program is a complex beast with a ton of different options.  If you want users to have that power then it comes at a price - and that is an increasingly less "intuitive" interface with each feature you add.

Sure, P4 has an easier interface - it's "intuitive" because it's what your used to using.  I never used P4 so odds are pretty good I'd be utterly lost in it's interface and find it horrible by comparison to P7, which is a program I'm most familiar with.  It's "intuitive" to me now because it's what I've learned to use.  

Much like Bryce's interface confuses me to no end, but I can fire up 3ds Max and be building models in no time.  Because it's what I'm used too - sit a Bryce master down with a copy of 3ds Max for the first time and watch the look on his face as he tries to work with the UI.  It's most frustrating because he knows what he wants to do and is sure the program must be able to do it, but doesn't have the foggiest notion where to start.  

I guess if P4 works for you then great, use it!  If it suits your needs and your application then I wish you well and hope that you enjoy it for years to come.   But having seen some renders done in P4 I can tell you that it doesn't suit my needs or my application, I need something that has a few more options when it comes to texturing, shading and rendering so I'll stick with what I know for now, and hope that the next revision will have features that I need at a price I'm willing to pay.

Stepdad


Stepdad ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 3:40 AM

Quote - The only software that "sux" more than P7 is...P6, P5, PPP, P4....
Whoever designed that whole node system was on acid, but it's still better than anything P4 had to offer.
As Poser evolves, each version sux a little less than the prior version.
One day, you may become a real program, Posernocchio....

 

It's all about what works for your application and budget I suppose.  Sure, 3ds max will do things that poser can't even dream of - but then again I can't really afford a copy of 3ds max for home use nor justify the price of it when it comes to what I do with a 3d rendering program in my off hours.

So it's all about bang for your buck - I'm not saying poser is the end all be all of 3d rendering software, but it is moderately priced and for that moderate price you get a decent amount of power and ease of use.

Whatever your prefered software application might be I'm sure it suits your needs and you must like it or you wouldn't still be using it, but just because an application might work great for you doesn't necessarily mean that it works great for everyone else.

Case in point, as a single guy I loved my classic american muscle car, the 69 mustang.  Put a lot of time, energy, effort and money into that car in the years that I owned it.  Worked great for me back then, because it did what I needed it to do and it was fun to drive.

Nowadays I drive a Nissan Pathfinder.  Why?  Because I have a family of 5 and that old muscle car just doesn't fit the bill anymore.  I can pack my entire family into the pathfinder and we can all go to the movies together, instead of taking seperate cars.  I have 4wd so when winter hits I can climb the steep hill on which my house resides with relative ease, rather than parking down at the bottom and walking up.  The Nissan just fits my application better.

But I would never say that anyone driving a 69 mustang or other old muscle car is an idiot for not buying a Nissan Pathfinder instead.  That would be silly.  It's all about what works for their application and personal preference.  Just something you might want to consider in future responses.

Stepdad


MikeJ ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 3:54 AM

I'm pretty sure I consider things before I respond - most of the time.
And nor did I say people using anything less than P7 are idiots, though you seem to imply so, through the '69 mustang analogy in your last paragraph.

Just tossing in my two cents, based on about 8 years of Poser usage - just ignore me if you don't like my opinions, but I hardly need to be lectured on what I need to consider before I post.



kobaltkween ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 5:22 AM · edited Sat, 29 December 2007 at 5:24 AM

wow, people are sure touchy in this thread.  MikeJ, since Stepdad neither named anyone nor specified who, if anyone, was calling people idiots.  i think the point was more general, like different versions have different options, and different options will suit different people.  i don't think you should take it as being "lectured" unless you really just want to fight.

xantor -  again, with no photoshop?  the only mec4d stuff i've seen is either P5+ and photoreal, or a lower version and worlds less realistic.  again, great for P4 but the differential is just huge.  and i know there's a lot of stuff she does by hand.  i've never seen anything in the poser gallery that was P4, photoreal and not tons of postwork or pre-work (like using a texture with burned in artifacts and then using a setup that works with said artifacts).  as i said, i'm a heavy photoshop user, and i've got nothing against it.  but right now i've got a few setups that give me decent results with any figure, any texture, etc.  the less postwork i have to do, the quicker, because a i can reuse a shader but fakes are picture specific.

it's like my "Reaching for Life".  because it was done in P6, i could combine a procedural marble i already had based on a free RDNA  shader, RSS, and a blend across multiple objects  based on absolute space posted by AJAX.  in P4, i would have had to do 2 different renders before i even started doing my postwork.  and without the ability to tile textures in Poser itself, i would have had to make several marble textures, while making sure they're all the same scale. 

it would have been even better to have true SSS and GI for the skin and marble.

as far as i can tell, node systems are pretty common in 3d apps.  so far, all the one's i've researched seem to be much more complex than Poser's, but that's a matter of opinion and i haven't actually tried most of them.  i've just read about them, seen screenshots, and looked at tutorials.  i'm actually impressed at how much versatility Poser's system allows with a comparatively simple interface.  

and i never thought interface design was easy.  



Stepdad ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 7:02 AM

Quote - I'm pretty sure I consider things before I respond - most of the time.
And nor did I say people using anything less than P7 are idiots, though you seem to imply so, through the '69 mustang analogy in your last paragraph.

Just tossing in my two cents, based on about 8 years of Poser usage - just ignore me if you don't like my opinions, but I hardly need to be lectured on what I need to consider before I post.

 

I meant to imply nothing of the sort, I simply stated and will state again that people use different applications for different reasons.  Poser 4 is a perfectly acceptable choice if it suits someones application.  It just doesn't happen to suit mine.  I can however see how it would a wonderful option to have if, well for example, I happened to own an older laptop without much in the way of system resources and wanted to do some base work while mobile.  Different applications call for different sorts of software packages.

Poser 7 does suit my application, though Cinema 4d would not.  The allegory presented was done so in the hopes that you might consider the fact that various people have a variety of applications and reasons for chosing a particular program.

You used poser for years, and switched as it apparently no longer suited your needs. That is all well and good for you, but it doesn't make poser a bad program, which is not something you implied but rather something you stated in your remarks.  It might be a bad choice for what you use a 3d rendering program for, but it's not a bad program.  That was not an accurate or thoughtful statement to make, which again is all that was "implied" in my analogy.

You may of course consider anything you wish before you respond to anything posted, that is your perogative.  However I would hope that you would be a bit more thoughtful in your replies, if you have used poser for 8 years there is a lot that you probably have to offer in the way of tips and suggestions for improvements.  A thoughtful response of this nature is constructive and conversation worthy.

A simplistic "Poser sucks and everyone who uses it does too" sort of statement like the original post I responded too does nothing and really serves no useful purpose.  If this is how you chose to respond however certainly you have every right too, I was simply hoping that a more civil, adult discussion of such things could take place.

If you instead wish to take offense at what I've posted and attempt to start some sort of argument I'm afraid I'm simply not interested in doing so, I'm far too old to be entertained by something like that and honestly I have far too many other things that I find far more enjoyable to do than to swap insults on a computerized message base.

You are naturally free to take offense at anything I might have said, but no offense was intended.  So if it's a discussion of improvements to Posers UI is of any interest to you I'll be more than happy to discuss it at length.  Anything else I'm afraid you'll have to find another sparing partner for.

cheerio!
Stepdad


SeanMartin ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 7:07 AM

Y'know, I'm a big believer that, if an update doesnt have features I want, I dont bother updating. The CS series from Adobe, for example -- there's nothing there I cant get from my current levels of Photoshop and Illustrator, so I didnt bother with them, and I dont miss them one whit. I'm sure Mac's OSX10.5 will be just chock full of really great stuff, but it's really great stuff that I dont need or want, so I'll probably plod along with 10.4 until I'm forced by my software to upgrade.

But having said that, I cant imagine why anyone would stay with Poser 4. Honest, folks -- and that comes from someone who didnt bother with 5 and gave 6 only a cursory run. But the moment I opened 7, as buggy as it was (and minimally so, I might add, for a first release), I was hooked. I could see a drastic improvement in the renders -- and Firefly, as much as people bitch about it, was a whole new world. And that's not even taking into consideration the Hair, Set Up and Dynamic Cloth rooms, which I've only barely hit after having P7 for months now.

Sorry, but IMHO, as rock solid as P4 was, you're just cutting yourself off at the kneecaps by not going after the upgrade. Yes, the renders done in P4 are still perfectly acceptable, and for most users about the best they want anyway. But --- and again, this is just IMHO -- the folks who steer clear of it and complain loudly that it's "too complicated" or "too weird an interface" havent even looked at it, let alone done anything with it to merit that judgment. The interface is only marginally different from P4 until you wander into the set up rooms noted above. Everything else, folks, is virtually the same, so let's just set the whole interface argument aside, okay?

Is it tougher to learn? Only if you go deeper than the usual "insert from column A here and conform to column B here". Aside from that, things are exactly the same. You still conform clothing to a character. Yes, now they're considered props, but big whoop. It's still the same process. You still change the materials in the materials room with the same process you used in P4 -- I know, because most of the time that's as far as I go with material assignation, although I'm finding some real gems to be unearthed by gingerly stepping into that Advanced tab,

If you want decent quality renders, yep, P4 will do it for you. No argument there. But if you want to push them to the next level.....

docandraider.com -- the collected cartoons of Doc and Raider


SeanMartin ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 7:14 AM

The thing that fascinates me about MikeJ -- and I put this out there as thoughtfully as possible -- is that he, like many others, loathes Poser and yet loves to post in Poser boards.

Go figure.

docandraider.com -- the collected cartoons of Doc and Raider


Stepdad ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 7:34 AM

Quote - Y'know, I'm a big believer that, if an update doesnt have features I want, I dont bother updating. The CS series from Adobe, for example -- there's nothing there I cant get from my current levels of Photoshop and Illustrator, so I didnt bother with them, and I dont miss them one whit. I'm sure Mac's OSX10.5 will be just chock full of really great stuff, but it's really great stuff that I dont need or want, so I'll probably plod along with 10.4 until I'm forced by my software to upgrade.

But having said that, I cant imagine why anyone would stay with Poser 4. Honest, folks -- and that comes from someone who didnt bother with 5 and gave 6 only a cursory run. But the moment I opened 7, as buggy as it was (and minimally so, I might add, for a first release), I was hooked. I could see a drastic improvement in the renders -- and Firefly, as much as people bitch about it, was a whole new world. And that's not even taking into consideration the Hair, Set Up and Dynamic Cloth rooms, which I've only barely hit after having P7 for months now.

Sorry, but IMHO, as rock solid as P4 was, you're just cutting yourself off at the kneecaps by not going after the upgrade. Yes, the renders done in P4 are still perfectly acceptable, and for most users about the best they want anyway. But --- and again, this is just IMHO -- the folks who steer clear of it and complain loudly that it's "too complicated" or "too weird an interface" havent even looked at it, let alone done anything with it to merit that judgment. The interface is only marginally different from P4 until you wander into the set up rooms noted above. Everything else, folks, is virtually the same, so let's just set the whole interface argument aside, okay?

Is it tougher to learn? Only if you go deeper than the usual "insert from column A here and conform to column B here". Aside from that, things are exactly the same. You still conform clothing to a character. Yes, now they're considered props, but big whoop. It's still the same process. You still change the materials in the materials room with the same process you used in P4 -- I know, because most of the time that's as far as I go with material assignation, although I'm finding some real gems to be unearthed by gingerly stepping into that Advanced tab,

If you want decent quality renders, yep, P4 will do it for you. No argument there. But if you want to push them to the next level.....

 

Love the advanced tab myself, couldn't live without it at this point.   What used to take me dozens of different texture files to acheive I can generally replace now with a couple of shader nodes and a checkmark here and there.  Some really amazing effects can be generated pretty quick, without the need to open photoshop and edit textures till my fingers bleed :)

As for MikeJ, I'm not certain why someone who so obviously despises Poser would be in a poser forum posting, but if it makes him happy then more power too him.  As my grandfater always use to tell me, the key to having a happy life is simple.  Just remember to never sweat the petty things or pet the sweaty things.  

Grandad was an interesting guy :)

Stepdad


momodot ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 10:50 AM

Not to start any flames but the single P4 image looks far more "photo-realistic" to me than the P6 figure which betrays all sorts of "hyper-realistic" CG conceits. Throw some film grain on the first image, touch up the HVS and I might believe it was a photo, throw some canvas or paint texture on it and I might believe it was a painting... no matter what you do with the second one it is clearly CGI. I understand though that each medium will develop its own standard for realism and its own conventions of stylization... in art school this was called "being true to the materials". I work exclusively with FireFly renders now but I think people need to consider their terminology, I use "render-realism" in place of "photo-realism" for this type of IBL/AO pore hugging detail type work.



MikeJ ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 11:55 AM · edited Sat, 29 December 2007 at 11:58 AM

Quote - The thing that fascinates me about MikeJ -- and I put this out there as thoughtfully as possible -- is that he, like many others, loathes Poser and yet loves to post in Poser boards.

Go figure.

I don't loathe Poser, Sean. I've been using it alot lately. What I do loathe about it is it never fails to let me down right when I don't need it to.
I've written several times recently that I'm looking forward to seeing what this upcoming Poser Pro has to offer, although I'm not expecting miracles.
But, with each new version, I hope finally some of these things that have been bugging me will be addressed, and so I keep upgrading. I have five versions of Poser on my shelf and multiple patches and updates on CD's. Soon there will be one more. Kind of odd for someone who loathes a program, wouldn't you say?
As someone who knows Poser rather quite well, and has spent a fair amount of time and money on it, I do feel thoroughly justified in stating my own opinion of it. You see some of my posts as "loathing". Well, so be it, if you want to think that. But I'm not a Poser fanboy, nor will I be until it convices me otherwise. I've watched all my other favorite software step well into the 21st century within the last couple of years, yet Poser always lags behind.
In truth, affordability doesn't mean jack to me. I loathe the way every company which buys Poser fails to see the potential it has, yet it will never reach it as long as it's targeting the hobbyists. I wouldn't mind paying a thousand bucks for a program that has what Poser has, with a renderer like mental ray or LightWave. And I would buy that version, too.

What I do loathe is this weird fanatacism which has built up around it. It's a phenomeon I don't see on the boards for any other software to this extent. And the rabid commercialism, with thousands of repetetive, redundant and often outright idiotic products.

Hey, I flushed you out, Sean! It's ...umm.. good to hear from you again. As they say, always a pleasure. ;-)



BillyGoat ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 12:04 PM

Poser 4 & Poser ProPack is enough for me. I purchase a lot of Poser objects to use in Vue4, Vue 5, & Vue 6.  It's the best of 2 worlds. I don't use the CR2s, just the .obj with textures, so it doesn't matter what version of Poser.

I have P5,P6,P7 - and am thinking about selling them and the associated 'Pretty' books.
What a waste of $...


geep ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 12:14 PM · edited Sat, 29 December 2007 at 12:17 PM

Quote - Poser 4 & Poser ProPack is enough for me. I purchase a lot of Poser objects to use in Vue4, Vue 5, & Vue 6.  It's the best of 2 worlds. I don't use the CR2s, just the .obj with textures, so it doesn't matter what version of Poser.

I have P5,P6,P7 - and am thinking about selling them and the associated 'Pretty' books.
What a waste of $...

You'll be sorry .............. ;=]

Do you know how much stuff that is no longer available is worth?

Just a thought.

cheers, ...... and a very Happy New Year !!!!
dr geep <------------------------------------------------------- always saves (almost)  all his stuff ... ;=]
;=]

Remember ... "With Poser, all things are possible, and poseable!"


cheers,

dr geep ... :o]

edited 10/5/2019



MikeJ ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 12:24 PM · edited Sat, 29 December 2007 at 12:25 PM

I'm just going to add this, for whatever its worth...
There is not a single program I'm aware of which does what Poser does best. Takes huge amounts of polygons and manipulates them as groups very quickly. Posing. Its OpenGL is far better than most programs, and I mean to include even the big boys such as maya, 3ds max and LightWave. Thinking about it, its OGL is probably the best I've yet seen in any program.
Although I pesonally feel it would be better still with DirectX, if they were to program for it. (Direct Draw, to be specific), Max, for example, is better in Direct Draw mode than openGL.

My point is, there's a huge demand for this sort of thing, but anyone who wants to create any serious CG, meaning an actual movie, is more or less SOL. No distributed rendering, in spite of the fact they've been pushing it as an animation program for years. The lights rarely do what you expect them to do. The graph editor is a joke. The Setup room is a thorough pain in the ass. The joint editor is ridiculous. The cloth takes way too long to calculate. And so on...

Bear in mind, I'm used to doing these things with LightWave, where each thing I mentioned above is far far easier, more intuitive and predictable and even fun. Poser fights me every step of the way.

Whoever owns Poser is sitting on a potential gold mine if they figure that out and look around at what the other apps can do and incorporate some of that into it.



layingback ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 1:36 PM

The 2nd post in this thread covered the UI issues succinctly - not that the original Kai Poser 4 UI was ever rational ;-)

Indeed Poser 4 & Poser 4 ProPack were the last versions designed as a whole.

But the real problem with post_P4/PPP version is that not only is the UI grafted on, the new features are literally grafted on too. Look at Poser running on Linux, where Curious Labs' programmer couldn't mask the Taskbar display, and you'll see that the new Document (posing) window, the Dial Palette and the new Library are EACH separate tasks! This was obviously a problem at P5 release, with respect to dial turning response, and it has only become less of a problem since because PC's have got fast enough to mask that ludicrously poor design choice. And a candidate reason why those of us still running same PC's as when we used P4/PPP still prefer posing in P4/PPP.

[ An analogy would be today's cruise ships and oil tankers doing away with their direct control of the turbines from the bridge, and going back to the old bell system where the engines are adjusted remotely in the engine room - do-able on the open seas perhaps, but try finessing a docking! ]

And beyond the above, whatever programmer designed/implemented the new-in-P5 circular menu on the Library window deserves to be unemployed, at least as a programmer :-O


kobaltkween ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 1:58 PM · edited Sat, 29 December 2007 at 2:09 PM

Quote - Not to start any flames but the single P4 image looks far more "photo-realistic" to me than the P6 figure which betrays all sorts of "hyper-realistic" CG conceits. Throw some film grain on the first image, touch up the HVS and I might believe it was a photo, throw some canvas or paint texture on it and I might believe it was a painting...

well, then that's you, and you're certainly entitled to your opinion. i'm far from offended. but  i postworked the hell out of all of those P4 images multiple times.  nothing good (as in anything i was willing to show- i threw them all out) came of any of them except the last one, and that was almost completely covered and still really obviously CG.   the only good thing about it, imho, is the pose.

i haven't touched either of P6 images.  the second is pure test image, so that goes without saying.  and the previous i lost before rendering it large enough to be worth postworking. but, again, imho, still worlds better light than the one before it.  i wasn't trying to show it as perfect, and as i mentioned i never use AO on my lights anymore.  the point is that, arguably and imho, it's better than anything i did in P4 and it took 1 hour to do.  the others took ages, got severely changed in Photoshop and still largely looked like butt.

i don't think i have any P6 renders i couldn't do anything with.  i have about 10 or so P4 renders that were beyond anything i could work with.  and that doesn't include my first/beginner works.

i can tell you, while you may not like my P6 stuff better, i get _ a lot_  more praise for it. Sean actually spent time critiquing one of my P4 works long ago on PoserPros, and even after weeks of postwork and trying to improve it, he didn't have much good to say.  i can't remember anything good, actually, but that could just be my own bias towards remembering criticism more clearly than praise.   and he was the only one commenting.  i've gotten more praise for my weakest P6 or D|S work.   and frankly, the response was so terrible and criticisms so wholesale, it was so difficult to achieve anything satisfactory after hours and hours of work, i just gave up on any 3d work for a few years.

as for conceits... really, there are none. lights just do have inverse square falloff, light just does bounce off the environment and color stuff, and skin just does have SSS.  nostrils just don't glow or show pitch black regardless of lighting.   there just is shadowing between lips.  you can say my skin shader isn't any good (and i know i could improve on it), but frankly, the rest of it isn't conceit, it's just getting closer to how things work.  and since, personally, i'm interested in light, shadow, form and color, i really prefer all the advances that more properly model how light works and interacts with materials.  i'm not asking for you to like it, not by a long shot.  but trying to say the P4 stuff is more versatile or more realistic.... all i can say is that you're in the minority, as far as any of the feedback i've gotten.  and you must be ignoring a hell of a lot of interesting phenomena in real life.  well, phenomena i find interesting.



SeanMartin ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 2:51 PM

I don't loathe Poser, Sean. I've been using it alot lately. What I do loathe about it is it never fails to let me down right when I don't need it to.

... which it apparently does with every new release, as we've heard this from you for years now. So why stay with it? Why not move on to the "Big Boy" software and hang out with the Big Boys from CGTalk instead of coming here and PoserPros and constantly berating each new version?

Sorry, makes zero sense.

Oh, and "flushed me out"? Yeah, right, pumpkin. You're just not reading the threads where I post. But whatever, sweetheart. As you say, always a pleasure... well, no, actually, not. You really need some new material when it comes to telling us poor fools how terrible Poser version ____ is.

docandraider.com -- the collected cartoons of Doc and Raider


MikeJ ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 4:10 PM · edited Sat, 29 December 2007 at 4:11 PM

Damn, Sean, I see it's still all too easy to get you worked up. You really ought to work on that. Not good for the sanity and all. Oops, sorry, wrong word when applied to you.

And, for the record, I don't need you - especially you - to tell me how to act, what, where and when to post. You want to be a Poser Fanboy, gleefully ignoring all its deficiencies, be my guest. I am by far not the only one to point out these deficiencies, and as a paying cutomer I have earned the right to say whatever the hell I want to about it. As a member of this forum, who has never received even one "warning", btw, I also have the right to post whatever I want, within limits, of course. Stating my opinion regarding Poser is well within those limits, and I'm not particularly concerned about what you or anyone else thinks about that. Again, you can easily see there are many who agree that Poser's not what it could or should be.
But you're not intersted in that. You're a Fanboy. You just couldn't resist the opportunity to take a few jabs at me. A few rather lame jabs, I might add. You've done better in the past.

And for the sake of clearing that up, I probably haven't posted more than twenty Poser-related posts this whole year, and only here, plus a couple in the Coop. A few of those are not any kind of griping or derogatory. Not sure where you get this idea of me running around slamming Poser, but then again, your grip on reality has always seemed tenuous at best.

Quote -
Why not move on to the "Big Boy" software and hang out with the Big Boys from CGTalk instead of coming here and PoserPros and constantly berating each new version?

I do hang out with The Big Boys, not so much at CG Talk, where I tend to just read and learn, but other places. I'm just as quick to slam LightWave, (which I've been using for a good while now, too) for its deficiencies, as are most of the other people around. The difference is, the makers of LightWave actually listen to those complaints and address those issues.

Well, whatever.



BillyGoat ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 4:14 PM

Hmmmm.....   it's hard to teach an old goat new tricks. It's a hobby - pure fun when i'm bored.
I love the posing, and the renderer is clean, clear, and fast . Wish Vue 6 was as crisp as Poser 4.  
Poser 5 stinks... Poser 6 is convoluted... P7 is way over my head. I want to play, not to be tied to the manuals (which I read page by page and took notes). Takes all the fun out of it.  

The last trick is to get V4 into ProPack...


KarenJ ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 4:17 PM

Keep it civil, lads.


"you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love." - Warsan Shire


MikeJ ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 4:34 PM

Quote - Keep it civil, lads.

It's cool. Far as I'm concerned it is. Just responding to Sean's unprovoked attack.

I want to say to "stepdad", I apologize for taking his words to me in the wrong context. At the time it seemed condescending to be told to consider things before I post, but rereading it I see that was not the intent.

To Sean, I'd like to point out I didn't start this thread, just noticed it and chimed in. I also didn't even particularly insult Poser, I might add, not as much as I could, or have in the past.

And for anyone else, I'd like to ask, just what's wrong with expecting the advertised features to work as advertised?
How has it come to be that even a little bit of criticism results in such reaction?



geep ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 4:41 PM

Gosh, I LOVE this place.

Hi BG! (waves)

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

Remember ... "With Poser, all things are possible, and poseable!"


cheers,

dr geep ... :o]

edited 10/5/2019



SeanMartin ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 7:04 PM

Damn, Sean, I see it's still all too easy to get you worked up. You really ought to work on that. Not good for the sanity and all. Oops, sorry, wrong word when applied to you.

Hit a nerve, did I?

You make it so easy sometimes.

And, for the record, I don't need you - especially you - to tell me how to act, what, where and when to post.

Sure you do, boy-o. Without people like me to talk to you, you're nothing. Just a hack who's constantly telling us how terrible all "this" (whatever "this" might be these days) is when it's pretty obvious that you've given up and decided it's easier to bitch and moan than actually DO something about it.

Oh right, that would require more effort than running off to the boards at PP or RFI (assuming that's still around) to whine about yet something new. You dont get it, do you, Mike? The rest of us have moved on from you. You seem to think that folks who arent part of your little inner Cirque de Mike arent worth your attention, that we're just "Poser fanboys" because we dont know (ooooooooo) Lightwave, which you're apparently "pretty good at". Big whoop. Impress the folks at CGTalk with that, because as far as I'm concerned, you're just one of tens of thousands who's good at Lightwave. It doesnt make you special. It doesnt give you license to tell anyone how terrible Poser is because it doesnt do this or it doesnt do that.

And for the record, LW aint all that. Try Maya sometime (which, to use your words, "I've gotten pretty good at"), then tell me how accomplished you are.

"Whatever", indeed. Sorry, Mike, you're no longer worth my time; you're just the same you were years ago, and I dont know if that's sad or just pathetic. But you show up to post like this when this thread subject is raised, and you always say the same thing. It's boring, so I'm outa here. Deal with it, sweetheart.

docandraider.com -- the collected cartoons of Doc and Raider


MikeJ ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 7:27 PM

Quote -
Try Maya sometime (which, to use your words, "I've gotten pretty good at"), then tell me how accomplished you are.

I have tried Maya. I have the PLE. I can't recall where I said I've gotten "pretty good at" it, because in fact I never said that.

Actually, i find your reaction to be faarrr overboard. I know you don't like me. I also know you have a hard time accepting anyone who doesn't think exactly like you. Good luck with that - most people aren't jackasses with severe depression and uncontrollable anger.
Not that I'm saying you are, of course.

And it's so evident, I'm amazed you can't see it. It makes me wonder if you can even comprehend anything once the psycho switch in your head goes on. I think for the most part I've made valid complaints, but you won't see that, because this is, after all, just a personal vendetta.

Don't think you're insulting me by saying " And for the record, LW aint all that." I don't get upset about opinions like those. People like you though... man, you just freak out.

Oh well, again, whatever. You said I'm no longer worth your time.
Let's see if that's true. I'm betting you can't help but to reply.



Khai ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 7:44 PM

well. keeping it civil lasted a long time...  bets on how long till lock down?


geep ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 7:46 PM

10...9...8...7...6...5...4...

Remember ... "With Poser, all things are possible, and poseable!"


cheers,

dr geep ... :o]

edited 10/5/2019



FrankT ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 8:05 PM

and I thought the old Linux/Windows flamefests in Usenet were bad . . .
It's just a piece of software for goodness sake

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SamTherapy ( ) posted Sat, 29 December 2007 at 8:07 PM

...3...2..1...

and...Lockdown!

Since this thread is serving no useful purpose any more, I'm closing it.

Please remember to play nicely or y'all have to sit on the Naughty Step.

Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.

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