Okay, money is not an object in this discussion.  I already bought Poser 7 and am happy with it. Additionally, I don't find Poser's cost prohibitive, so future upgrade fees are not an issue. 

So far, I've spent years learning the Poser interface and like the results I get. I particularly use the sketch render engine to produce b&w artwork, but I do enjoy making color images and animations every now and then.

So, that being said, I'd like to hear more about the reasons I should consider switching to Daz Studio or at least giving it another try.  To be honest, I tried ver. 1 and wasn't interested -- it just wasn't ready for prime time, yet. 

So, (and please don't mention price), does Daz Studio do things better/faster than Poser 7, or is it worth playing with? I really don't have a lot of time, and if DS isn't all that great, I'd rather spend the time playing with Manga Studio than learning a cut-rate version of Poser.

By the way, I will make a rare "cross post" of this question over at the Daz Studio forums to hear about this subject from people who have made the switch.

Thanks in advance for the help!

DS has improved much over the years, but still in many cases isn't poser's equal. Odds are you'll invst quite a bit in plugins to add features poser already gives you.

Plus you'll have to invest time in relearing a whole new application just to get back to the level you are at now.

That said, DS does have a easier posing system once you get used to it (I think) and it does handle displacement much better then the current poser 7. (That's being corrected soon.)

Based on your implied restrictions above, in your particular case, I don't think trying to swtch over to DS will be very worthwhile for you.

Maybe revisit the idea at the end of the year, and see what's been added or fixed?

I use them both, D|S and Poser.  There are things I like and dislike about both.
Which one I use depends on what it is I'm trying to accomplish.

**I much prefer Studio's render ability. Faster and crisper looking IMO. And the cartoon shading is also better, IMO. Easier to learn than Poser. Still struggling with learning how to use Poser to the best of it's ability and with Studio, I achieved great results the first time I tried it. About the only thing Poser has over Studio is the Material room. I do enjoy poking around in there. But from a vendor point of view, placing materials manually in Studio is far more efficient than in Poser simply because you can select related surfaces all at once. In Poser, you have to do each surface separately.

So faster render time, able to handle multiple character/models easier without crash, less ( to the rarely point) "running out of memory" messages, never crashes to desktop as Poser has done numerous times, better default lighting, easier placement of multiple surfaces, ease of use, crisper render, better cartoon shading.....yep...I much prefer Studio.
**

I have to agree, Daz Studio is much easier. Poser is harder to learn but more versatile. btw, Daz Studio 2.0 is free.

As mentioned by the OP, he already has learned poser, and is not concerned about ds being free, or purchasing upgrades to poser.

So his real question is what can ds do for me better poser cannot?

Rendering was mentioned as being better.. it is for displacement (as I mentioned) however poser's ao, ibl, and lighting system is still quite superior to DS.. as well as the amazing posr material system in place, which can even have lighting optimised by materials.

A quick visit in any bagginsbill thread attests to the power of poser's material handling system.

Also bear in mind, that the OP would have to totally relearn his poser content use switching to DS, and buy all the non free plugins for things poser can already do. (And Ds would still be missing things like dynamic hair and cloth.)

Also of note, Poser integrate well with Vue 6 infinite, and ds integrates better with carerra pro and bryce, so there's that difference as well.

I don't see totally relearning DS as much benefit over his familiarity with poser.

And look at the releases for Poser. P7 has now SR2.1, D|S had this noon 2.1.1.13 not sure about the actual version now  :b_confused:

Well, Ds has almost bi weekly updates with things working and breaking from version to version.

It still doesn't handle scaling properly like poser does, but it's displacement renderings are much better, till the next poser 7 patch.

I think DS's previews are also slightly faster, but it's a tradeoff, because poser's preview is also handling some of it's proceedural textures as well.. so you add moe work, you slow the preview down some.

Also, Poser's space navigator support is killer!

I like D/S, but one of the issues using it for me is the rendering engine. Although some have different experiences, for me the rendering engine in D/S is awefully slow, especially if I want to have the same quality I do get with Poser. I'm not talking 5 minutes, but for some larger scenes ( I do mainly work with multiple figure scenes, very large at times ), but for some scenes it's 30 mins up to 2 hrs.

The second engine is the lights. I do find that Poser's lighting system is still far ahead of D/S and to even come close you have do some major investments into D/S.

The last major issue I have with D/S is the lack of a material room. Poser excells in this. I do use the material room in Poser a lot to tweak and change materials to my liking. This for is the big one missing in D/S.

Again contrary to a different post, I do get a lot of out of error crashes with D/S, especially when doing multiple figure scenes. I've compared scenes, build some in Poser, redid the same in D/S and D/S simply uses up to 25% more memory for the same scenes. Scenes I can render in Poser will not render in D/S at all.

But I do like the way D/S is set up and the interface is pretty good also, but I must admit I did get used to Poser also, so I'm not sure which one has my preference.

I can't even get it to work without crashing on either of my machines.  Yrs, I've tried all the fixes for it, too.

I got it to work fine, but on the other hand the free version is so limited I don't have any use for it (as aeilkema says).  IMO at the very minimum, you need to purchase pwSurface to even get in the same ballpark as what Poser can render (and Poser's renderer isn't all that awesome).  At least the d-form plugin is now included.  If they gave away pwSurface as well it would be a lot more of a comparison, and would attract A LOT more users that might otherwise buy Poser.

Quote -
Also bear in mind, that the OP would have to totally relearn his poser content use switching to DS, and buy all the non free plugins for things poser can already do. (And Ds would still be missing things like dynamic hair and cloth.)

**Not quite true. Studio imports Poser content for use quite nicely. I have never, ever had to "relearn" any different set up. I simply point Studio to the Poser content files and go.

But I will agree with you on the dynamic items. Give them time, though. As someone said...Studio is version 2. something while Poser took 5 versions to get them. And it took until what...Poser7 to get multiple undos? Studio has had that from the beginning. Another thing I love about it.**

You didn't have to relearn application use because you use DS.. the OP has been using poser for years, and would have to learn a new application.

No one is dissing DS at all... it's great for what it is. The OP wanted to know if there was a vaild reason to start using DS instead of poser, and while there are some nice things (like the displacement mapping application) there's not enough I don't think to warrant the time investment to relearn a whole new application.

Okay. Guess that's my misunderstanding. When you said the op *would have to totally relearn his poser content use switching to DS * I took it as saying he had to relearn the content itself and not the application.

Nah... poser stuff pretty much does the same thing in most application you can use it in.. but learning new apps can take forever sometimes. Heck, poser intimidated me for 2 years before I dug my claws in and refused to quit until I learned it.

Zrush 3 was the same thing all over again.. took me a year before I finally sat down, and spend a month learning how to at least get some use out of it.

I've yet to invest enough learning time in  Modo, Vue 6 I or Carerra pro yet. There just aren;t enuff hours in the day!

I guess that's the main reason I do prefer Studio. It didn't take me near as long to learn it. grin Poser still throws me for a loop every time I open it. And ZBrush is still too intimating to do more than the occasional weapon or staff. lol Shade is another one that I can't get my head around.

I, too, own P7, but I haven't opened it in a while. I have purchased every version of Poser since version 1, but I doubt I'll buy version 8.

D|S is easier and more intuitive for me to use, as I was able to configure the interface to match the way I work, and I really like the output I get with Studio.

And my favorite reason...

The Finder plugin makes content management a breeze!

Well... it depends.

I primarily use D|S because it's a lot lighter on resources (esp. on the laptop), and because renders usually happen a whole lot faster under the same conditions (in Firefly vs. 3Delight, anyway).

Poser does have a much easier-to-use AOL setup, which makes it handy for those particular tasks, but it's offset by the slower interface/dial reaction, esp. when I start loading a lot of high-poly figures up into a scene.

OTOH, I'm kinda biased... I have a lot of professional attachments to D|S.

IMHO, try it out anyway - the most it will cost you is disk space.

/P

DAZ is easy to use plus cartoon shading is the best.

Quote -
It still doesn't handle scaling properly like poser does, but it's displacement renderings are much better, till the next poser 7 patch.

Next Poser 7 Patch....I wish. If you are on a Mac and upgraded to OSX 10.5 EF promised a patch to fix the rendering as a separate process failure right after 10.5 was released last fall. It wasn't like Apple hid the fact they were coming out with 10.5 from developers for the last several years. In recent contact with EF-SM they were very sorry the issue has not been fixed by now, yet refused to comment if it ever would be fixed. With Poser Pro late, and the fact there are bound to be issues with it's release, I wouldn't hold your breath for a patch for P7 anytime soon. I will be amazed if we see an patch for P7 this year, if ever. I expect their storyline will be buy an upgrade to Pro after it is released instead.

Thank you all very much.  There are just too many of you to thank individually, but please know that all your comments were VERY informative.  I really appreciated the discussion between you guys -- a lot of useful info came out.

I may take a look at this, and consider using it when I travel with my laptop.  I don't often work on the road, but if I had a lighter app I might.

Thanks again, everyone! If I get something usable out of it, I'll post it to my gallery.

I use DS to import models into MotionBuilder, but not much else. I won't be buying Poser 8, it's like a kick in the teeth to tell loyal users that they can upgrade to the limited version but if they want the pro they have to pay full price. Anyway, nuff said on that issue. I can't afford the plugins for Studio, so I will probably keep beating my head against Maya and just use Poser 7 for quick jobs while I'm learning.

one thing that hasn't come up is Bryce; a landscaper and modeler (well, sorta..;) that has a Daz Studio button. you can create a wondermous background, mountains, trees, etc., hit the button, find Poser content, shade and pose it, then export it back to Bryce, and get some scale, shadows, and easier (well, for me) control of lighting.

Bryce 5.5 should still be free. Stop by the forum and we can point you in the right direction.

Don't bother with Daz Studio in it's current condition.

2.0 is major buggy. I cant get it to run. It crashes.

I use Poser 5 and Bryce 5.5

to hell with D/S.

I prefer DS for toon rendering of anime style pictures.

Poser does fine for photorealistic non-toon type renders.

Bryce.... cool application, but seriously it's a bit dated (even version 6). Unfortunally DAZ didn't do anything serious with it (not did they with Carrara until now), which is a shame. The Poser & Vue team is lightyears ahead of the D/S & Bryce or D/S & Carrara team.

I've recently update D|S from 1.8 to 2.0 and had problems loading the A3 figure so I've gone back to using Poser 7 (also - I've taken the plunge with Vue buying Esprit and upgrading to Pro Studio so I agree with aeilkema, the output from Vue is awesome)

Like others have indicated, you need to get further plugins to get D|S to match Poser.

Quote - Don't bother with Daz Studio in it's current condition.

2.0 is major buggy.

2.1 came out this morning.

/P

Is it stable?

Not sure if I want to put myself through that hell again lol.

Dunno... as soon as I finish building my Hackintosh, I'll install it and find out.

/P

2.0 is stable. You just have to make sure your graphics card meets system requirements. From what I've seen, that's what burns most people. I was one of them, but now I couldn't be happier.

Bryce: As far as I can see, DAZ is dropping Bryce in favor of Carrara. I've tried Carrara 5 Pro, and it can do everything Bryce can do, but better. It also imports Poser dynamic hair and renders it pretty well.
From a commercial standpoint, DS/Carrara is more interesting for DAZ than DS/Bryce.

While Poser 7/Vue 6 Infinite is definitely a more powerful combination than DS/Carrara, it is also significantly more expensive. Both combination give good value for money though.

As for DS stability and ease of use, I've got several machines that far exceed DS requirements, the lightest of the machines being an Athlon64x2 4400+ with an nVidia 7900GS graphics card (the other two machines are Intel Q6600 with nVidia 7800GTX /nVidia 8800GT graphics cards). I run XP Pro 32 bit, XP Pro 64 bit and Vista 64 bit on those machines, multiboot.
In NONE of these configuration DS 2.0 was able to recognize and link to my Poser libraries. No compression used, no external morph targets used, .OBJ files relocated to the Geometries subfolder, and still DS doesn't get it.

Funny thing is, DS can load Poser scenes on my systems. Okay, I have to tell DS where each and every .OBJ and texture file is located, but once that is done, the scene looks OK. Animation also imports OK.
The posing system in DS works counterintuitive and clunky on my systems. But the COLLADA export works very well, and is far more functional than the COLLADA beta exporter for Poser 7.

So that is the only use I have for DS: exporting Poser scenes to COLLADA.

ouch. Sorry, just thought 2 free proggies together, chocolate in the peanut butter, and vice versa..;)

well, they're still free, tho...;)

It's stable on my PC.

Coldrake

Quote - Is it stable?

Not sure if I want to put myself through that hell again lol.

One of the reasons I do not use Daz Studio is:
They are frequently releasing a New Version.
It's like 2 Steps forward and 1 Step Backwards.
One never knows What has been broken this time.
Were as Daz uses the Ala Carte - 3rd Party Retail Plug-Ins method, one never knows from version to version if your Plug-Ins will work any longer. Daz isn't always forth coming with Plug-Ins updates (probably because they come from Independant 3rd party merchants).
Maybe just my personal feelings, I do not like the Ala-Carte method of Sales. Yeah sure, the Base Free Version is lean as some like it. Then start buying all those Plug-Ins to do, In Daz's own way, similar things that Poser does and you can easily spend as much as Poser 7 costs and still have No Dynamics, Rigging, Cloth Roon, Hair Room, Material Room etc etc etc.........
Going on 3 years now with Daz Studio developement. If and When they do release these Dynamic Cloth Room etc etc, they will not be compatible with Poser use, in the beginning and one can expect to spend a substantial amount to make them functional for design and sales.
At there present rate of Added Poser like Features, it could be years more. Ok, I know Daz wants to Get It Right. I am all in favor of that as well. "Daz Soon" should be in Websters though.

I thave tried every new version released since the 1st Beta, DS is still "not my cup of tea".

If and when Daz gets Studio to a point where they actually have a version that isn't updated for months or possibly a year, I will look at it again.

If you have been using Poser for years and frequently use the Material Room, Rigging, Hair Room, Lighting etc etc...., Unless you are willing to spend $$s, you will probably think Daz Studio as a new milleniun Poser 4.

Quote - still have No Dynamics, Rigging, Cloth Roon, Hair Room, Material Room etc etc etc......... Going on 3 years now with Daz Studio developement. If and When they do release these Dynamic Cloth Room etc etc, they will not be compatible with Poser use, in the beginning and one can expect to spend a substantial amount to make them functional for design and sales.

Maybe that's why my perspective is so different. I never use any of the features you're asking about. If they do put these in D|S, I hope they're plugins that I don't have to buy if I don't want to. They're in Poser with no way to turn them off or hide them from my workspace.

D|S 2.1 downloaded and installed. This time A3 loaded OK (failed in D|S 2.0) so I try to cloth her and completely freezes when I load a leather biker jacket! I tried D|S at v1.3 and it was buggy then - I rejoined with v1.8 and that appeared to work. Versions 2.0 and 2.1 have (for me) been a complete waste. I'm jumping ship again and relying on Poser 7

Questions for those who say it doesn't work so well...

Could you specify what kind of machine/OS/video card you have? It would help others who are trying to decide.

For instance:

2.0 works just fine on my Mac (OSX 10.3.9, Dual G5 1.8 GHz, and two vidcards - a Geforce 5200 and a Radeon 9200 Mac Professional Edition).

2.0 installed, but did not work on one of my laptops - a Sony Vaio (ATI doesn't provide any non-Sony-blessed drivers for the ATI Mobility 128 card on the PCG-Z1RA, which means it falls short on the OpenGL requirements... OTOH, I can say for certain that D|S 1.8 worked just fine on it).

My Hackintosh is installing now (OSX 10.5 Leopard on a 3.2GHz P4EE w/ 2GB of RAM and a GeForce 8800 PCIe card) - I'll know what's up once the install succeeds and boots.

/P

2.1 works fine on my PC...

Dell Dimension DIMC521
AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+ 2.00 GHz, 3 GB RAM
Windows XP SP2
NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE

There's a interview with Chad Smith, chief strategy office of DAZ, in the latese 3D-world  (nr.104, june 2008) which felt on my doormat this morning. Here he reveals some of the main targets of DAZ with daz|studio: they want to make support for a program called  MOGbox, which seems to be a kind of conversion program for game-makers and virtual worlds like second life, they made such a similar move with the latest update for  Hexagon, version 2.5 with an exporter for secondlife. The reason behind  this, is that they want to make there huge store of content available for gamemakers. Which is, commercially speaking, not a bad move considering the big market for games. But on the other hand it is completely not interesting for the current users who want to use DAZ|studio for artistic and realistic work. IMHO this is where DAZ|studio shows it's a real character: a vehicle to sell DAZ-products.
DAZ and POSER(SM) are fishing in the same lake and both are realising that they have  to find a bigger lake to get more profit (and to survive).
POSER(SM) is trying to get into the market of the big boys with the (promised) 3Dstudio, maya and lightwave plugins, while DAZ is seeking connection to a complete different kind of (and bigger) market. Hope DAZ won't forget where it came from!

Bopper.

*The reason behind  this, is that they want to make there huge store of content available for gamemakers.

*Let's rephrase that a bit...... the reason behind this money, lot's of money. Game developers (pro and indie a like) spent much more money on buying 'content' for the games then poserdom ever could. It's a huge market and DAZ wants a cut of that market. The poser market is slowly but surely getting saturated and seems to be going in cirlces for a while now. Nothing new, but the same old released in a slighty different way.

By the way it's not a new thing, DAZ has announced this move a few months back already, but for some reason there hardly seems to be discusssion on this coming move.

Also note that DAZ is actually only copying (as usual) others. EF tried this already about a year before Smith Micro took over. They failed for one reason or another. Again most of the community missed this completely.

Hope DAZ won't forget where it came from!

They've already forgotten where it came from. DAZ was build on Poser users, but they still often get treated like dirt and as second class citizens. If they succeed, in a few years they will treat all the current users the same, to busy making money from others. But I do seriously doubt they will succeed, if they want to, the first thing they need to do is fire the current marketing team and hire a completely new one that takes customers serious and doesn't treat them like little hyped kids. If they try to create one of their hypes amongst game developers and treat them the way they treat this community (marketing strategy-wise) they will never succeed.

Quote - Hope DAZ won't forget where it came from!

They've already forgotten where it came from. DAZ was build on Poser users, but they still often get treated like dirt and as second class citizens. If they succeed, in a few years they will treat all the current users the same, to busy making money from others. But I do seriously doubt they will succeed, if they want to, the first thing they need to do is fire the current marketing team and hire a completely new one that takes customers serious and doesn't treat them like little hyped kids. If they try to create one of their hypes amongst game developers and treat them the way they treat this community (marketing strategy-wise) they will never succeed.

I am really beginning to think that you are right.
I am thinking that the DAZ PTB would dearly love to shut the Daz3D Store and Shove a Bottle of AZ down their older supportive customers of many years throats.
Why- Because all the Daz3D Store sells is Daz Products, with the exception of some software.
The AZ Store already sells Products that aren't necessarily for Daz FFiguresAnimals etc etc etc..
There is that grasping for the $$$$ thing again. Not really a problem, after all Daz is a business.
Longtime Customers can elect to vote with their Credit Card though.
Guess they want to bank on the customers they lose will be such a very small small amount in relation to the customers they gain.

Installed and played with DS a little bit yesterday.  Some of it was okay.  I actually wound up exporting from Poser and playing with Manga Studio EX for most of the day.  Still not quite getting the look I need -- but I suspect it will come.

I'll try DS again later today and see what happens.

I use an HP laptop (XP Home SP2, 1GB+ RAM, Centrino, no hardware OpenGL) and (like penguinisto reported) version 1.8 of D|S worked OK - subsequent versions have failed in some way and this was basic stuff in loading content, nothing to do with rendering.

I could go back to the earlier version but I'm in agreement with mariner, you just don't know what's not going to work - and if it's reported and going to be fixed.  Perhaps when it gets to version 5/6/7, like Poser, it'll be a tool worth using.