Quote - VSS is a soon-to-be-release freebie I'm making that works on any figure. I got this by doing one click.

P7 only or useable in ancient P5 too?

With a nice white, black and yellow texture they can make a nice pair of crash test dummies!

Bopper.

I bought the upgrade: gamma correction and backgroundrendering as well 64bit rendering convinced me.

Quote - Well there went my one and only reason for upgrading to the pro version! I don't have any need for Coladda, better rendering, or network rendering and if that's what they're calling content now. I'll stick with Dork!

Sure hope Sm sees this particular post and takes a big hit from the clue bat.

I was so upset when P7 came out, I bought the machine with vista just for P7 and once installed it wasn’t compatible. It will make turn off features on vista and the application  was working poorly. I was very disappointed, even thou the renders...*when i was able to render...the renders where faster. I'm been suffering a lot with P7.

Now, does PP...works well with vista, 32bit...not 64...just the regular 32. Please somebody tell me...because I’m tired of using my P7...with so many bugs and incompatibilities.

Quote - > Quote - VSS is a soon-to-be-release freebie I'm making that works on any figure. I got this by doing one click.

P7 only or useable in ancient P5 too?

It only works in P6 and higher, because it uses the Python programming interface to the material room to directly modify the materials on your figure.

After I finish it, it may be possible to get it working (sort of) on P5. It would have to work by reading material files, changing them, and writing them back out. It's a lot more work to do it that way.

Quote - I was so upset when P7 came out, I bought the machine with vista just for P7 and once installed it wasn’t compatible. It will make turn off features on vista and the application  was working poorly. I was very disappointed, even thou the renders...*when i was able to render...the renders where faster. I'm been suffering a lot with P7.

Now, does PP...works well with vista, 32bit...not 64...just the regular 32. Please somebody tell me...because I’m tired of using my P7...with so many bugs and incompatibilities.

PP works fine for me on Vista, but so does Poser 7. It may not be Vista, itself, that is the issue. Rather, there are some issues with 3d graphics cards having buggy OpenGL drivers. Are you using the OpenGL preview? Try using software-only preview (SreeD I think its called). I get frequent crashes when I use OpenGL, both PP and P7, so I don't use the OpenGL mode. Even if I do use it, it isn't nearly as fast as the software-only preview, at least on my machine. Trying to rotate figures or move body parts causes all kinds of stutter and delay.

And before anybody suggests I upgrade my card or get a newer driver, I have an NVidia GeForce 8800 GT which is one of the best cards in existence, certainly the best for under $300, and I have the latest drivers.

I am able to run Crysis, Assassin's Creed, and Flight Simulator X, all at the highest special effects settings with the largest textures and the most polygons the games offer, and at 1900x1200 resolution!!!! OpenGL sucks. DirectX 10 is the way to go. Poser should use that.

By the way, the real-time graphics in Crysis are incredible. I often have visible to me upwards of 500 trees and bushes, each with hundreds, even thousands, of leaves and branches, and they're constantly moving with the wind. On top of that, there are hundreds of fishes swimming in the water, the waves move realistic around the patrol boats, I'm driving a Hummer and shooting a gigantic machine gun, stuff is blowing up, flames and smoke are everywhere, oil is pouring from drums I've shot, and there are over 20 enemy soldiers trying to get to me, and every one moves like a real person and they look better than most Poser portraits.

Wow! Those figures look rather cartoonish. I can't believe that is what they included as the default figures.  With "Pro" attached to the name, one would think you would get better looking figures to work with.

Can anybody tell me how many polygons the new figures are?

The new figures are not meant as closeup figures.. they are intended to be used are background figures, and as such don't need a lot of detail, however they are on the "hit with an ugly stick" side of poserdom.

And of note: Bagginsbill and I BOTH have opengl issues, yet we both run different branded cards.. his the nvidia "best" under $300, and me a ati x1950 pro 512 "best" under $300.

The biggest issues I'm having with all my software in the last 6 months are all video card/driver related. People in both camps claim "switch to my brand" is the solution, when in fact both nvidia and ati are really dropping the ball on opengl support of late.

That, and 3d applications are pushing the boundries of what opengl can provide for us.

LowResMale totals --> 8688 polys      9367 verts
LowResFemale totals --> 8695 polys      9172 verts
MedResMale totals --> 32068 polys      33910 verts
MedResFemale totals --> 31896 polys      33592 verts

The render is of the two LowRes figures.

I slapped their skull caps on and grew some hair, to see how they look when they aren't bald.

low res female = 8,695 polys
med res female = 31,896 
low res male = 8,688 
med res male = 32,068 
not new, but included for contrast:
Simon G2 = 91,425 
Sydney G2 = 117,229 

You'd have to add hair, clothes, and shoes, which would add up.

I actually don't have the final package of PPro, I only have the beta copy and it has no clothes, morphs, or poses for these guys.

Is there other stuff to go with them?

Quote - Well there went my one and only reason for upgrading to the pro version! I don't have any need for Coladda, better rendering, or network rendering and if that's what they're calling content now. I'll stick with Dork!

There is always PoserPro base for $149:

" Poser Pro Full vs. Poser Pro Base Features
Poser Pro Full

• Fully Featured
• Maximum supported distributed rendering nodes
• Full series of Poser Fusion plug-ins
• Collada

Poser Pro Base

• Reduced Poser Pro Feature Set as follows:
• Limited to 3 distributed rendering nodes
• No Poser Fusion plug-ins
• No Collada Import, limited output (Geo, Text)"

I also do not need the poser fusion plug-ins, collada stuff either.
I am not sure as to what this limited to 3 distribution rendering nodes deal is
if someone could explain that I'd appreciate it.

Quote - You sure can render a bunch of them!

You'd have to add hair, clothes, and shoes, which would add up.

I actually don't have the final package of PPro, I only have the beta copy and it has no clothes, morphs, or poses for these guys.

Is there other stuff to go with them?

I can't imagine they'd be worth anything without some back ground clothing to go with them!

Rendering nodes are so you can be rendering poser animation frames on multiple systems.
Limiting you to 3 additional nodes, means you can only have 3 additional computers rendering for your poser animation.

(Most people's home netwroks are maxed at 4 systems, so that's not really a big surprise.)

PS. I have succesfully rendered 100 of these in one scene. No need for low poly figures to be that bad.

Fully rigged, works with MIMIC, Talk Designer, Poserspeak, Walk Designer, accepts all standard Poser poses and motion files, etc.

Really not impressed by what they have done.

Quote - Can anybody tell me how many polygons the new figures are?

Just a couple by the looks of it!
Simply appalling.

Show them how it's done Helgard!

WoW! Extremely nice Helgard! Are they available on your site?

 Regarding the low poly characters - are these the Quidam created ones? If so that's too bad because I export Quidam-generated low poly characters (@ 3000 polys), apply subD smoothing (obviously not in Poser) and they look so much better.

Really not impressed by what they have done.

 Now, I can imagine that when I see your models, they look very good. Are this only polygons, or have you used a displacementmap as well?

Bopper.

Here is a close up of the face. These pics are about three weeks old, the figure has been improved since then.

But the point is not the new figures I am making, the point is that those figures in the PoserPro program are really bad. In this age of ZBrush and Mudbox, and normal and displacement maps, they could easily add loads of detail to low poly figures, no need to look like rubbish. I have seen in game models of 3000 polygons that look better than these.

This is a render with only diffuse, specular and bump, no displacement.

I initially couldn't run the Open GL on Vista in Poser either.  Open GL didn't play well with Vista at all.  Video card manufacturers were slow to come out with fixes.  About a month ago I downloaded a new driver for my laptop video chip and I can now run Open GL in Poser on it without crashes.  Microsoft wants everyone to use DirectX 10 now, so there was definite road block in place.

I think someone hit the nail on the head when then said something about Quidam.  I guess since the partnership with Quidam fell through SM made their on low res characters.  So sad.  The Quidam characters aren't so ugly.  Would using "smooth polygon option" in Poser help?  Why is it that each subsequent generation of Poser People just get more homely?  I'd perfer to use Dork and Posette rather than this clan, they at least look human with a decent texture map.

VERY nice work, Helgard .. and speaks wonders too!

$200.00 for the upgrade is not that bad. Now could somebody tell me if there are any improvements in animation or IK set up. I'm probably dreaming but any chances for circular IK in this new version?

Ok, I've Installed Poserpro this evening and played a little with it.  I think it's too soon to make a judgement about. There are so little visual changes and new add-ons that it just looks like I bought  Poser7. What I like so far is the possibilty of rendering in the background or in the render queue manager.  You can go on with  your work while a render is made, especially the render queue manager allows even to load another poserscene.  As far as I can see this manager handles all the network rendering, and it works seperate from poser, so you can quit poser while the manager continues It also allows you to make render batch jobs, so very usefull when you want to make a couple of renders during the night.
I can't say if the renders are quicker because I don't have a 64bit OS yet.
The new gamma correct setting makes sometimes better looking renders but not always , and  what I don't like is that it also "corrects" the displacementmaps, so you have to raise the displacement settings. I haven't tried the new normal maps, cause I first have to figure how to export them from Zbrush, there's a tutorial on the new Poserpro.net website how to do this.
I like this site: you have all the options on one page, but on the other hand you don't have to buy Poserpro to have access to it. (suddenly I wonder if the closing of the  poserpros website has something with this new site)

Bopper.

Displacement maps and Normal maps and Bump maps need to be set to a gamma of 1. This is manually done.

Ditto SimonWM: Any improvements in the area of animation?

The tutorials on the new PoserPro site appear to be the same,
in fact they seem to be based on P6.

Is that part of the program totally unchanged, including the
keygraph bugs introduced in 7?

I have poserfusion and dont use it. Is that a common thing to do?
raj

Quote - Steve Yatson (spelling?) blog stated that Lightwave plugin for PoserPro was going to be delayed on shipping version of PoserPro.  They did say soemthing.

Yes, I remember that...   but it was when? September, November? And then they removed LW from the listing of Apps. And please correct me if I'm wreong, but we've heard NOTHING at all concerning LW and Poser Pro for quite some time. Right?

Re openGL: It's an old problem. Run windows update and openGL gets over-written by a naff windoz software emulation. You will need to re-install openGL, not just drivers. Last time I ran update it took my whole system down hard!

Bagginsbill, have you noticed a change in blending for the Apollo UCFS shader?  The chest looks a lot hairier.

Displacement maps and Normal maps and Bump maps need to be set to a gamma of 1. This is manually done.

Where can you do that? I looked in the material room on the texture node, but I couldn't find a gamma dial.

B.

I have the High Stakes Specia edition of Poser 7, will Poser Pro 7 leave my runtime intact and simply update the program, or is it a totally new install.  Perhaps Garee will answer this one, will it work with Vue 6?

It's a new install and you can have it along side with p7 and P6 (in different directories of course).

Quote -  Regarding the low poly characters - are these the Quidam created ones? If so that's too bad because I export Quidam-generated low poly characters (@ 3000 polys), apply subD smoothing (obviously not in Poser) and they look so much better.

Poser's Smooth Polygon box in the render settings is SubD.

You adjust each individual texture map by clicking on the Image_Map source that holds it.

The "Texture Manager" dialog has a couple new widgets. Change the radio button to "Custom Gamma value" and then enter 1 instead of 2.2.

If you leave the choice at "Use Gamma value from Render Settings" then the gamma compensation is controlled by the render setting.

For bump maps, displacement maps, anything where the image represents numerical values instead of perceived colors, you want no gamma correction.

Quote - Bagginsbill, have you noticed a change in blending for the Apollo UCFS shader?  The chest looks a lot hairier.

I haven't tried UCFS in PP yet. Were you rendering with gamma correction enabled? As was just discussed, PPro doesn't know which maps are color maps and which are being used as numbers. Apollo's hair map values are used numerically to decide where a hair is. You don't want to let it gamma correct that hair map, otherwise the hair math in the shader will change.

One thing to be aware of on the image map gamma settings. Once you set the gamma for an image, it changes in every zone in your scene. The settings is associated with the specific file, even though it looks like it is associated with a particular Image_Map node. So it is easy to correct a bump map or hair map once. All other occurances in your scene will have the selected gamma. Also, even if you open a new scene, if you need that file during that session, the chosen gamma value is remembered.

But!!! In my opinion, there is a serious problem related to this Gamma setting for the images. I had an email exchange with SM about this early on, but they did not seem to grasp the significance of what I'm saying. Perhaps even you, dear reader, will not think it important either, but wait till it bites you in the butt.

Here's the problem.

Poser does not save your setting, anywhere. Are you with me? It does not SAVE it.

When designing a material. you must adjust blending maps or bump maps (anything you're using for its numbers, not perceived color), otherwise these things are inadvertantly altered by the gamma settings.

Now suppose you save the materials in a material collection or individual material files. Where are the gamma settings stored? They are not stored with the material, therefore your material file says nothing about what the gamma should be for each image.

If you give or sell that material file to somebody else, they will load it and will NOT have the correct gamma value for numerical image maps. They will have to edit the gamma themselves. This is not good.

But it gets worse.

Even YOU will have to edit the gamma every time you start poser. That's right, as far as I can tell, Poser does not store your per-image gamma settings anywhere at all. Nowhere. Not a single file changes when you edit the gamma. Not the scene file (pz2), not material files (mc6, mt5), not anywhere.

Whenever you set the per-image gamma, its going to work only as long as you keep Poser open. Once you close Poser, all your settings are lost FOREVER.

I scanned the Poser Python manual to see if there was a way I could solve this with a script. Well, the word "gamma" does not appear in the documented Python interface at all. Nowhere. The per-image gamma settings are impossible to get or set from Python. So it appears that I can't even fix this issue with a plugin.

Again, I was unable to make them see the problem.

Actually, looking back on my emails, swerner did see the problem about not saving the settings and said it should be corrected.

Guess they forgot?

Or perhaps only my Beta release candidate is broken?

Can somebody who has the official release test this?

Just attach an image to a ball. Set the gamma to 1 or something. Save the scene. Exit Poser. Start Poser. Load the scene. Examine the setting. If it isn't 1 it is still broken.

As far as I can see they fixed it. I did what you asked,  saved the scene, loaded it again, The setting of the texture was still the same. When I rendered it didn't got any difference before I saved.
By the way thank you for explaining the gamma setting.

Bopper.

4/30/08

If Poser Pro now saves the Gamma setting for each image, I wonder if the programmers provided a Python variable for this setting? If so, maybe a script can be written to change the Gamma setting on images attached to certain channels of the root node?

Does one need to change a gamma setting for a non-image based node plugged into bump, displacement, or other root node channels?

LMK

Quote - As far as I can see they fixed it. I did what you asked,  saved the scene, loaded it again, The setting of the texture was still the same. When I rendered it didn't got any difference before I saved.
By the way thank you for explaining the gamma setting.

Bopper.

Bopper, if you saved the scene and loaded it but you did not quit poser in between, then you tested nothing. Poser clearly remembers what you want IN MEMORY. My point is that it misbehaves when you start a new session. Did you save, quit Poser, start Poser, then load?

Please confirm.

I can confirm bopperthijs' findings: the release version saves the gamma value. I did shut down and restart Poser Pro, and the custom gamma value of 1.5 was reloaded.

Well I had thought that gamma only applies to images. But now I'm not so sure. I've done a little testing and there is more going on.

It seems to be that any color channel value that you enter into a node - any node - is modified by the gamma settings. I suppose the thinking was that you are choosing colors using as you perceive them on the screen, and that mathematically what you see and chose need to be adjusted to linear color space.

Consider the attached image. I'm using a tile node. One tile is orange: RGB(192, 128, 64) and the other is blue: RGB(64, 128, 192). It is attached to the Alternate_Diffuse input, so that exactly those colors are sent to the render, without any lighting calculation.

I have gamma enabled at 2.2. The preview and the render produce exactly those colors. Since the final render is "output gamma" corrected (raised to the power 1/2.2) , then we must conclude that those node colors were "input gamma" corrected (raised to the power 2.2). If this were not the case, the rendered colors would have been brighter than what I entered into the node.

Quote - I can confirm bopperthijs' findings: the release version saves the gamma value. I did shut down and restart Poser Pro, and the custom gamma value of 1.5 was reloaded.

Ah well great! Thanks for doing the test. I guess the beta site's "Final Release Candidate" is not what got shipped.

This means that anything I say is suspect. I'm not working with the final version here.

Here I'm using a "Clouds" node to drive a displacement on a one-sided square. There are two squares. A white one with displacement is two inches behind a green one. The green one is flat.

The displacement moves some of the white on in front of the green. I get different results based on whether gamma correction is enabled or not.

First I'm showing Gamma=1. Observe the pattern.