LOL - I think this thread is great.

We have a participatory community. That's so much cooler than a dull non-participatory community.

It was with good reason that I started the thread with a link to the announcement, and "That is all. Begin." I knew I didn't have to take any position at all, and like the tiny primordial seed, from that would come the cosmos.

The release of a new version of Poser (Pro or not) is very exciting and is bound to generate some strong opinions. Each of us has our favorite thing we want implemented next, and those that find it are very happy and those that don't are disappointed. Having divided into two camps, the opinion of one camp is that the other camp are a bunch of idiots. Either way. :)

I think what electrified many in this case is the "Pro" moniker. That word clearly means nothing to the cynical, but sets a serious expectation for the rest.

The four dumplings generated a lot of heat and I think it was for good reason. It seems clear to me that some people find these interesting and useful, and that's great. I think they're ugly as hell, but I'm not a Pro and I can't/don't model, so I'm unable to appreciate the earth shattering leg up on character development that  these "base figures" represent to a professional. However, I will give you all at least a way to make their skin look human. :) I am surprised, however, that there was SOOO much discussion about them.

I expected to hear (from those hoping to see such a thing) some griping that we still don't have global illumination. Of course, if you're a Pro, you render with something else than Poser, so all you care about is that you have a fast export to your real renderer. Which I guess is there now? Did anybody actually perform one of these purported easy export workflows into something else? I don't recall any discussion of those features. For me, I'm looking forward to Firefly getting replaced with something better.

I think the gamma correction is a huge feature, and I expect we'll all have to un-learn all the stupid lighting and material hacks we've been doing to compensate for its absence.

If you've got production work to do and have a render farm, 64-bit networked rendering has got to be a big win. If you're just a head-shot hobbyist with a 32-bit OS, I guess it ain't no thang.

There's no doubt in my mind that PPro starts faster, loads faster, and renders faster. I like that a lot.

I'm disappointed that the Python interface is not much different if at all. I'm struggling like mad to shoehorn UI features for plugins into the very limited peephole Poser provides for user interface. I refuse to use TK. I want Poser-style dialogs, but I get to define them. I want background processing. I want more function calls in the API so I can do more to automate workflow.

I also want a shader SDK, so I can make new nodes and finally put an actual, real sub-surface scattering capability into the material room, along with other things like layered materials.

All in all, if you have Poser 7 and a tight budget, you probably don't need to switch. If you're on Poser 6, you should switch. AO that actually works, HDRI IBL, faster raytraced shadows, better memory and texture management, gamma correction - these will make your renders better and faster.  It's a definite win over Poser 6.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)