Quote -
Do you really think that a professional modeller who spent years to hone his skills all of a sudden says:
"Oh man, that Vicky 4 Girl sure is hawt and now she comes even pre-rigged for Max.
I can't wait to use her in my artwork so that it'll look exactly like those of every Dick, Jane and Harry who downloaded her for $1.99 from DAZ."

Heh - I dunno about "hawt", but I have personally seen mesh being purchased, then modified all to Hell so that it looks nothing like the original. :)

Quote - There is no market for premade stuff in the professional CGI world except for generic items like cars or houses or stuff.

Depends on the house - if they're main bread-and-butter is making original film or stills, then you'd be right. If they're a combination marketing/media/gfx department for a corporation of 90K employees that primarily make something else, then it's a whole different deal.

Quote - Try to tell a songwriter that performing other people's music is on the same artistic level as composing a song note by note.
Poser artists are the Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls of CGI. (If they are lucky)
MAX and MAYA users are the Bob Dylans and Beatles.

I love the analogy, but it doesn't count the majority spectrum in-between. After all (as example), Orchestras and their conductors routinely perform music 'pre-written' by guys who have been dead for centuries. You know, written by guys like Bach, Handel, Wagner...

Quote - Anyway, I'm sure the Poser development team knows which side their bread is buttered on, and that it's not the wannabe professionals that'll pay their paycheck.

Again, (for the nth time), it's not an either/or proposition... Not ever pro house is Pixar, and not every amateur renders wannabe Boris Vallejo lash-ups. Poser shows up on TV (esp. commercials) almost as often these days as Maya/Renderman does.

Quote - Poser is the Volkswagen among the CGI apps.
A truly "Peoples Program" that gave CGI to the unwashed masses, constantly improved and refined, but resistent to changes just for changes sake so it not only becomes "new", but truly "better".

Silo is cheaper, and does modeling to boot. Carrara costs just as much as Poser, and IMHO does an equal-to-better job, plus I can export Collada files from it for later use when/if I want to do something higher-end.

To be honest, I would prefer that any improved Poser would keep the ability to load existing and previous figures - OTOH, it's a balancing act, and Poser has (unfortunately) positioned itself a a somewhat closed ecosystem, with no current way out or up for existing work.

Quote - As I said, I'm all for a better Poser.
But don't spit on the people that made Poser what it is today: The hobbyist tinkerers and those who fill the galleries with kitschy NVIATWAS.

Nobody's doing that.

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Quote - Because they suck.
Plain and simple. They suck.
The abdomen and the buttock bending is miles better than V4's but their ellbows, knees and shoulders are afwul.

Terai Yuki has some extremely decent bending in the hips once you figure out that you don't use the thighs to bend the leg...

Quote - Nope. Ever since Posette the owners of Poser managed to drop the ball MASSIVELY.

Posette was built originally by Zygote - the builders of it spun off their own company - DAZ.

G2 was (IIRC) put together by the PTB @ RDNA (which is why they support it so much).

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Quote - In addition to the poly flow the G2 meshes are a lot more "stylized." The more definition there is in a base model, the harder it is to morph it out.

They ARE hard to work with .. in some cases much harder than the DAZ figures (even Aiko and V4). Poser Pro is supposed to come with some new figures. Hope they're better than their predecessors.

Agreed, perfectly.

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Quote - "To say that V4 (or any of them) doesn't bend like a real person is a moot point, since the bending is only limited by the way the geometry and bones are designed, any and all of which can be altered by anyone with the knowledge and the persistence."

Sorry, but I disagree.

A 'joint' isn't very much more than a morph coupled with a quaternion rotation. The "bones" are merely points in space and a limit sphere that the quat calculation can hinge on and limit off of.

IOW, Mike is correct.

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Quote - Well, from this end it looks like you're {Sean} the one with issues. See, PJZ99 is one of the very friendly and more normal regulars around here.

PJ I've known for years... he is a stand-up guy (even in alt.flame).

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Quote - Did you know that the next  improvement' DAZ is putting out is Studio capable of rigging, and writing Poser style cr2 files.

Yep. :)

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Quote - Happy, Tommy boy?

It has nothing to do with my emotions, Sean. I approached this (and many others) from the perspective of what's best going forward for all of us.

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Quote - Besides, arguing with people around here is my job, not yours :P

No it's not - that's MY job you git! (same goes to that piker Xeno...) :p

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