Quote - ...Blender is an open source 3d graphics app that was registered on source forge in August of 2007, and they already have a huge support base even though the app itself is not exactly what I consider to be user friendly, and nobody seems to bat an eye over that.

I agree with you that initially the interface was a bit daunting... and there are still aspects I find a bit unintuitive and cumbersome. However, it's all what you get used to. After a while, I was able to fly through modeling in Blender and then tried Max and found it irritating, so went back to Blender. Yes, I know, there are key features in Max that are lacking in Blender, but for the price, it is a killer app, and the interface? I love it!

Quote -
...But I guess a lot of people aren't too familiar with open source, particularly those who haven't had much experience with Linux, so I guess not much point in taking it personally.

To most people accustomed to buying software and who reckon you get what you pay for, open-source is rubbish because it's free "so something must be wrong with it." And yet, they think nothing of opening their browser (free, who actually buys a browser?) and googling (another free killer app) for stuff.

Quote - *I guess it's a good thing that nobody who first started on that project listened to all the folks who said it was impossible or that they'd never get that project off the ground, because it's doing pretty good for an app that is so relatively young. 

*Blender relatively young? I guess you don't know much about the history of blender, it didn't start out as open source at all. Blender has been around since 1999, was a commercial project, company was shutdown and it took some effort and money to get blender open source.

If you look at blender as your inspiration you must realize that the core never developped as open source at all, but by a company that invested a couple of million dollars into it. Without these millions Blender would have never come as far as it has now and even before Blender became open source it already had a user base of 250.000, that's more then DAZ and Poser have combined.

I do hope you realize that......

Nope, truth be told I don't know a great deal about Blender's history, I don't use the program myself and honestly it's not one I'm likely to use anytime soon.  But there are plenty of other projects on sourceforge that serve as good examples of how a properly managed open source project can produce great results in a relatively short period of time, including more than a few in the 3d realm.

More than one 3d rendering software package available from sourceforge, and most of them already have more features, better rendering capabilities, and better speed than firefly.  But hey, believe whatever you want to believe.

I'm just some dumb schmuck with over 20 years experience in software development.  I couldn't possibly be trusted to put together a team of open source programmers to work on a project that has pretty much been 3/4 written by other people all ready, that would be way too complicated for me - lol

Oh, and no need really to respond with more flak, you won't dissuade me.  Tell you what, if you truly dissaprove of the project that much, feel free not to use it when it's ready for release.  Just for the record though, the earth isn't flat, man really did walk on the moon, and yes, open source projects really can produce good code.  If you don't believe me you might want to google something called "Linux".  I'm sure somebody told it's original developer that it was a really stupid idea too.  Thank goodness he's as hard headed as I am when it comes to such things.

Again I have no idea what motivates you or anyone else to be so damn negative about an idea like this, its not like I'm in here schilling for investors, I'm doing this in my own free time as a way of giving back to the 3d community.  Can't imagine why that inspires such vitrol, it's not hurting you or anybody else, but apparently for some reason just the notion that somebody out there might even try to code something to replace Poser or Daz Studio seems to send you and your ilk into a tizzy.  I have to admit folks like you baffle me. 

No matter, your opinion has been duly noted and logged.  I filed it right next to the core from the apple I just finished, in the round bin next to my desk.  Anything else you'd care to add that doesn't include helpful suggestions will likewise be duly filed in the same place.  Fair enough?

Dear renderdog2000 & RobynsVeil;
Max 2009 and Maya have navigation cubes in the upper right hand corner of each of the four viewports; which when modeling in any particular viewport, make it easy topan around the object to see it from its different orthographic viewpoints.  This too would be a cool feature to include, if possible, -if not immediately then down the line. 

Another nice thing about Max is the ability to select certain items, and then press a hot key ond go into isolation mode, so that other objects in the scene can't interfere with what you're doing with it, and also you can't accidentally click on something undesired and mess it all up.

I also like about Max is the ease by which one can set up and manipulate both lights and camera's in a scene, just draw them in, and then select them to either modify with the translate/rotate/scale gizmo, or whatever.

Yours truly,
David P. Hoadley

Quote - Dear renderdog2000 & RobynsVeil;
Max 2009 and Maya have navigation cubes in the upper right hand corner of each of the four viewports; which when modeling in any particular viewport, make it easy topan around the object to see it from its different orthographic viewpoints.  This too would be a cool feature to include, if possible, -if not immediately then down the line. 

Another nice thing about Max is the ability to select certain items, and then press a hot key ond go into isolation mode, so that other objects in the scene can't interfere with what you're doing with it, and also you can't accidentally click on something undesired and mess it all up.

I also like about Max is the ease by which one can set up and manipulate both lights and camera's in a scene, just draw them in, and then select them to either modify with the translate/rotate/scale gizmo, or whatever.

Yours truly,
David P. Hoadley

I'm giving some serious thought to the camera and lighting system - I really dislike Posers so it probably won't be anything along those lines, but hopefully I can come up with something usable there.  I think what I really need though is a good name for this project, so far I've just been calling it "the app" but I think it's time to give this thing a name.

Considering all the wonderful warm and fuzzy supportive posts I've gotten from a few of the more vitrolic in the community I was thinking of calling it:

"Lead Balloon"

ROTFL - kidding of course.  Nope, this thing needs a name.  Any thoughts?

*'I think what I really need though is a good name for this project, so far I've just been calling it "the app" but I think it's time to give this thing a name.'

Dear renderdog2000
How does this sound to you: Figure Animation Studio, or FASt for short? 
Yours truly,
David P. Hoadley

Quote - *'I think what I really need though is a good name for this project, so far I've just been calling it "the app" but I think it's time to give this thing a name.'

Dear renderdog2000
How does this sound to you: Figure Animation Studio, or FASt for short? 
Yours truly,
David P. Hoadley

FASt.. I like it. Got my vote, David. Are you in marketing? ;-) if not, you should be... is it all about animation, tho?

*'is it all about animation, tho?'

Dear RobynsVeil,
It was the idea of being able to animate human figures that tickled my pruient fancy, and got me interested in Poser in the first place!  ;=D
Yes, I should think that the emphasis should be on easy-to-do animation.  If you can animate, then POSING poses no problem whatsoever.
Yours truly,
David P. Hoadley

Just a remark:

As someone else already stated, Poser Pro was planned before SM aquired Poser. So all the talk about "don't know who the customers are" or "left their niche" should be targetet at EF IMHO. We ´know nothing about SM's plans for Posers development at this time.

Renderdog, good luck to you. I will look into the application when it is ready. The hard part could be implementing Posers rigging system, which isn't well documented to my knowledge. A better rigging system would be great, but that also would mean that no figure would be usable without reworking the rig. Same for the materials, same for the lights. The hard part, aside from choosing the right libraries and make them play together will be Poser compatibility.

Pass me a message when you have an alpha, RD. This could be a real timesaver.

Quote - Again I have no idea what motivates you or anyone else to be so damn negative about an idea like this, its not like I'm in here schilling for investors, I'm doing this in my own free time as a way of giving back to the 3d community.  Can't imagine why that inspires such vitrol, it's not hurting you or anybody else, but apparently for some reason just the notion that somebody out there might even try to code something to replace Poser or Daz Studio seems to send you and your ilk into a tizzy.  I have to admit folks like you baffle me. 

Ok, well while Some people's negativity is really and truely annoying. There is some historical reasoning behind it I must say. It was a few years back when we had some schmoe full of big talk about some 3D rendering package he was making for either Bryce or Poser, I think it was Bryce, who was completely full of it as well as himself. His big build up resulted in a lot of hard feelings when folks discovered it was just a big load of hooey and vaperware.

As much as the negativity annoys me, I know where it comes from so I've learned to just gloss over it and not reply.

Ah, good.......yet another "Poser is dead / dying" thread.  We were repeatedly and adamantly assured that Poser was dead / dying following the release of Poser 5.  And so -- three versions later -- it seems that I missed the wake.  But hey: there's always hope.  Maybe it'll happen next year.

But to coin a phrase: I wouldn't hold my breath (I could swear that I've heard that one somewhere before.........).

As for new alternatives to Poser / D|S -- com'on in.  The more the merrier, and the water's fine.

BTW - best keep an eye on Smith Micro's stock value.  It might go up or down a few cents here or there  -- which could mean the death knell of Poser.  Of course: Microsoft's stock price goes up & down, too -- so Microsoft must also be on the verge of folding.  Fluctuating stock prices are strong evidence to indicate that Windows is dead -- right along with Poser.

Now -- about the price of that bridge.......let's take that discussion over to PM.  It's OT to threads like this one..........although -- on second thought -- not really.......In fact, the price of the bridge is sort of solidly on-topic in threads like this one.........so let's talk about it here.

Quote - > Quote - *'I think what I really need though is a good name for this project, so far I've just been calling it "the app" but I think it's time to give this thing a name.'

Dear renderdog2000
How does this sound to you: Figure Animation Studio, or FASt for short? 
Yours truly,
David P. Hoadley

FASt.. I like it. Got my vote, David. Are you in marketing? ;-) if not, you should be... is it all about animation, tho?

That I like - a Lot.  Figure Animation Studio it is.

Quote -
I'm giving some serious thought to the camera and lighting system - I really dislike Posers so it probably won't be anything along those lines, but hopefully I can come up with something usable there. 

I think what I really need though is a good name for this project, so far I've just been calling it "the app" but I think it's time to give this thing a name. ... Any thoughts?

I really like Anim8or's camera and light system and the scene setup is its very simple to navigate -   I'd be happy if it was exactly like anim8or's.  www.anim8or.com free dl.

As for a name, call it renderdog. 

Quote - Just a remark:

As someone else already stated, Poser Pro was planned before SM aquired Poser. So all the talk about "don't know who the customers are" or "left their niche" should be targetet at EF IMHO. We ´know nothing about SM's plans for Posers development at this time.

Renderdog, good luck to you. I will look into the application when it is ready. The hard part could be implementing Posers rigging system, which isn't well documented to my knowledge. A better rigging system would be great, but that also would mean that no figure would be usable without reworking the rig. Same for the materials, same for the lights. The hard part, aside from choosing the right libraries and make them play together will be Poser compatibility.

Actually the rigging system isn't a huge hurdle really, I already have the source code for another rigging system that someone else has written so I've got a pretty good idea how to handle rigging.  I'll have to play with it a bit and make adjustments here and there but nothing too terribly complex.

I don't plan on "redoing" posers rigging system, rather I plan on extending it in certain places and on the whole giving it a much easier to use UI.  If you've ever seen Easy Pose it will give you some idea as to just how much functionality is missing from Posers internal rigging interface.  The actual rigging data won't change - it's how the program allows you to access that data that will.

So you won't have to re-rig anything, it will all work as it did before, but the rigging system in the new program will give you the ability to rig much easier than poser does, it's one of the primary focuses of the project.

Your right about Poser compatibility - that's going to be a big hurdle, the file formats are not all that well documented in many areas and that's going to be a lot of trial and error.  Same with Daz Studio, though I'll concentrate on Poser compatibility first and then see what I can do for DS files.

Most 3d rendering projects use the same basic technology though, you load an obj file, deform the mesh based on various parameters, and then display - so hopefully it won't be too bad.  I may not have things like binary morphs working in the alpha release but I'll do what I can to get it as close to 100% poser compatible as possible.  It's not much good to me if it can't use Poser content, since that's mostly what I've accumulated over the years.  So it should be able to use Poser content "out of the box", no "importing or converting" necessary.

As to the libraries, on someone elses suggestion I've looked through OGRE, that will satisfy a great deal of my requirements right there.  He also suggested ODE, which may not be as prevalent in the first release, but boy there is a ton of really great stuff in there which will greatly benefit later releases.  Most of the physics/gravity/force effects you can think of, all in one nice easy to use library.  Gotta love it.

Quote - I'm reading throught the thread again and I can see a lot of peoples hopes scattered. Does anyone seriously believe all of this is going to be pulled off by one man? Poser..... team years of development. DAZ..... team years of develpment.

No way on man is going to achieve what is being asked.

That's what I was thinking. `Open source often means a team of volunteering enthusiastic coders and programmers working on stuff. I dont know if there are enough programming types interested in poser type app. Time will tell.

I'd help, but I'm not a programmer, so I don't think I can be of much help.

Renderdog - go for it!!!!

Make a content developers module, so those of us making content can make things more efficiently!!!!

Quote - [Ok, well while Some people's negativity is really and truely annoying. There is some historical reasoning behind it I must say. It was a few years back when we had some schmoe full of big talk about some 3D rendering package he was making for either Bryce or Poser, I think it was Bryce, who was completely full of it as well as himself. His big build up resulted in a lot of hard feelings when folks discovered it was just a big load of hooey and vaperware.

As much as the negativity annoys me, I know where it comes from so I've learned to just gloss over it and not reply.

Well, I don't start projects I don't finish, and while I can understand maybe people had some hard feelings about this other guy talking about a 3d rendering package that he was "developing" and then never released, I'm not this other guy.  Also I would wonder just how sad it would be that my life was so void of other things that the non-release of a non-program could upset me that much, that for years afterward whenever anyone started discussing software development I would instantly attack out of fear that my little feelings might get hurt again...

That scares me a bit actually.  Thats the sort of thing people really should get professional therapy for - lol - but your right, I probably should just ignore the naysayers from here on in, I've wasted more than enough bandwidth on them already.

Now if people really think that this project won't get off they ground, hey, everybody's entitled to there opinion.  But at the moment I've gotten a lot of really great suggestions from a lot of really helpful people and these are going to greatly shape the outcome of the final project, so this particular discussion is of great value in that regard.

If that upsets anyone else I guess I'm still not getting it, can't imagine why they would find the discussion of a possible Poser replacement or I'm sure what many people will use as a "companiion program" so threatening unless they worked for Smith Micro. 

As a programmer I never really have developed an emotional attachement of that nature for any software I've ever used or written, and I guess I just find it very baffling to see some of the very bizarre reactions, or in most cases over reactions, that this discussion has caused. 

r.d., I'm getting no significant results for "Figure Animation Studio" on google,
in trademarks or in copyrights, so register that ASAP.  don't worry about the
naysayers - larry w. and daz hadda deal with the same attitude.  keep us
informed about yer progress.

Quote - > Quote - I'm reading throught the thread again and I can see a lot of peoples hopes scattered. Does anyone seriously believe all of this is going to be pulled off by one man? Poser..... team years of development. DAZ..... team years of develpment.

No way on man is going to achieve what is being asked.

That's what I was thinking. `Open source often means a team of volunteering enthusiastic coders and programmers working on stuff.

I'd help, but I'm not a programmer, so I don't think I can be of much help.

Renderdog - go for it!!!!

Amke a content developers module, so those of us making content can make things more efficiently!!!!

Lol - actually a lot of times the best help a programmer can get is from non-programmers.  As a programmer I can tell you from experience we tend to get stuck in ruts pretty easy.  We think that the interface we like or the features we like are the only ones we need to worry about.  We often miss obvious time savers and great innovations as a result.

The keyboard shortcuts are a good example on this project - I hadn't even really considered them till somebody brought it up.  I don't use a lot of keyboard shortcuts myself, and I doubt I would have gotten around to including them in the alpha release if someone hadn't mentioned how valuable they were.  So now the program has gone from having no planned keyboard shortcut interface to having a plan for an easily adjustable keyboard interface, one that people can customize to suit there needs.  That's a huge innovation really, and one that never would have been included if somebody hadn't said, "Hey, it would be great if"

I've got a lot of ideas on a content developers module, in fact I've got a few that are downright scary, but they will probably have to wait for a bit before I can start working on them.  If and when I can overcome all the hurdles there I want it to be able to save, if at all possible, in either FAST format (the new app), Poser or DS format as well, so you can use it to develop content for any of the above.  I might even include other formats provided I can get the exporting routines down.

But I have some notions rattling around in my head for a modeler that is built more or less from the ground up specifically with the intent of doing clothes for figures, one that is optimized and includes features and a UI with this purpose in mind.

I'd like to do another, general purpose modeling module as well at some point, but to start with I want one that more or less specializes in clothing and does most of the heavy lifting for you, leaving the artist free to concentrate on design without worrying so much about things like rigging.  I'm going to have to do a bit of reading and brush up on some math skills I haven't used in a while,but I think it's possible. 

I'm skimming thourh sourceforge....
Hmmm... Looks like there are four other poser related open source efforts out there: http://sourceforge.net/search/?type_of_search=soft&type_of_search=soft&words=poser

Anyone know much about them? Renderdog, you familiar with any of them?

Quote - Pass me a message when you have an alpha, RD. This could be a real timesaver.

Lol - well, if I remember in 6 months to a year when I do have an alpha I will, but I doubt I'll remember, so maybe just look for a general announcement, I think I can remember to post one of these here :)

Quote - > Quote -

I'm giving some serious thought to the camera and lighting system - I really dislike Posers so it probably won't be anything along those lines, but hopefully I can come up with something usable there. 

I think what I really need though is a good name for this project, so far I've just been calling it "the app" but I think it's time to give this thing a name. ... Any thoughts?

I really like Anim8or's camera and light system and the scene setup is its very simple to navigate -   I'd be happy if it was exactly like anim8or's.  www.anim8or.com free dl.

As for a name, call it renderdog. 

I'll check out Animator's lighting and camera system and see what there interface is like, I'll also be looking at a few other programs to get an idea as to how others have handled the interface and figure out which one I think will be the easiest/most intuitive for FAST.

Quote - r.d., I'm getting no significant results for "Figure Animation Studio" on google,
in trademarks or in copyrights, so register that ASAP.  don't worry about the
naysayers - larry w. and daz hadda deal with the same attitude.  keep us
informed about yer progress.

Will do, got it posted as a pending project on sourceforge, next step I'll be working on basic outline and seeing about recruiting at least a couple of other developers to hopefully speed up coding efforts.

As to attitude, oh well - I must admit it still baffles me but no point in getting worked up about it I guess.  Just judging by the number of programmers already working on 3d programming projects over on source forge, and the number of talented programmers who hang out in places like the python scripting forum, I think we can find one or two willing to donate some time to the initial project.

Once the alpha is finished, provided we can do a good enough job, I think this is something that will really take off quick.

*But I have some notions rattling around in my head for a modeler that is built more or less from the ground up specifically with the intent of doing clothes for figures, one that is optimized and includes features and a UI with this purpose in mind.

*Couple thougts on that...
Something I like about programs, from DazStudio in small ways to Max to Autocad in a much more elaborate way, is that lot of things are inside one program, and that the interface is modular, saveable and higly customizeable to specific group of tasks in a workflow.

My first thoughts on it: for content creation there would be modules (Internally in the ap, or standalone, or on demand loading for:
Modeling geometry: Clothes, Props
Morphing figuresvand clothes - with a link to dynamic sims and conversion between characters.
UV Mapping
Texturing
Grouping and rigging
Poser and D|S file creation.

Quote - I'm skimming thourh sourceforge....
Hmmm... Looks like there are four other poser related open source efforts out there: http://sourceforge.net/search/?type_of_search=soft&type_of_search=soft&words=poser

Anyone know much about them? Renderdog, you familiar with any of them?

Yup.. perused them all prior to deciding to start this project.  Poser Remote Procedure is a program that runs a tcp/ip server from within Poser and allows an external program to call poser python methods from outside of Poser.  I wrote a similar server myself as part of the project that started this whole thing. 

X Poser toolkit is a toolkit, designed primarly for macs, to allow you to do some manipulation of Poser files, such as converting Posers RSR picture format to something more standard, etc.

Pparser is just a parser written in C++ to parse Poser files, I'll probably make use of it at least as a roadmap  in FAST to speed up development, but it's designed primarly as an API for Poser files to allow someone to write an application to check the files for valid content, etc, so it would have to be heavily modified to suit my purposes.

PoJamas is another API designed to allow you to access Poser content files, which would be very useful, but the project hasn't released any code yet.  I'm trying to contact its developer and find out what the project status is and if perhaps he'd be willing to assist with FAST, but even when completed PoJamas will just be an interface for other programs like FAST to make use of Posers internal file formats, it's not a full blown Poser replacement by anymeans.

The last project, well, my french is a bit rusty but from what I gather it's actually not related to Poser at all, even though the word poser does appear in the description.  It's actually a content engine for free content for websites.

So to the best of my knowledge FAST will be the first open source project with the goal of being an open source alternative to both Poser and Daz Studio.  Hopefully that will attract enough attention to get a couple of additional developers on board :)

Sounds like it would be a cool project. I'll try to help, time and energy permitting.
I'd love to learn more about interface design.

Seriously though, considering how big of a chunk this is to chew through... why not develop a blender add on?  I don't mean, why not, as in you shoud... but what are the pros and cons of that direction? 

Quote - IMO a big part of the reason poser is headed for an early-ish grave is precisely because it's so cheap. The poser userbase is so spoiled by the artificially low prices in the market, that they simply wont pay for the R&D and tech upgrades that poser requries.

It'll take a bit more than simple R&D, but otherwise your post is pretty spot-on.

IMHO, The PC market at large is what will likely imperil it. Vista, then next-up Windows 7 (due out 2009/2010) is going to introduce a lot of incompatibility in most of the pre-existing software written for it. OSX is slowly but surely getting rid of Carbon (like they kept threatening to do years ago), which will require a whole lot of adaptation on that side as well.

D|S doesn't escape this spectre either, though it has a bit more flexibility to adapt due to a newer (and smaller, more modular) codebase.

Quote - As for D|S, i would point out that D|S loses to Poser in quantity, not quality. [...]
Yes it costs more, but for it's pricing is quite justified in most cases. It does no good to save money on a cheap ass app, only to be saddled with crappy tools from the last decade that waste your time and require excessive workarounds for the simplest things.

The fact that you only pay for what you need is sufficient enough as an argument IMHO. OTOH, D|S could use some standard features (e.g. IBL/AOL) as standard (not plugins) that would also be std. features on nearly every other render engine out there.

Personally, I need to sit down with the hardware I've got before deciding on software apps and what to do with each. It's getting time to bump things up a bit, and deciding how to approach this whole thing. I do more work on laptops now than desktops, but just running out and buying a MacBookPro is kinda out of the question.

/P

Quote -
D|S is a complete non-issue regardless what new gimmicks they might introduce as long as their rigging is still on Poser 4 level.

Err, Poser's 'rigging' (Mesh 'joint' deformations calculated against split mesh arranged hierarchically) is still "Poser4 level", unless Poser 7+ introduced true skeletal rigging and nobody said anything... (FWIW, Carrara actually does have full pro-style rigging, though I can't recall offhand if it converts imports to it or not).

But, let me sum up your entire complaint, with your own words:

Quote - ...so that I have a reason to dump eight years of learning/using/experimenting with Poser and spending more of my valuable time learning a new program from the ground up, and then I MIGHT give this issue more than a passing glance.

Okay, but quite frankly, who gives a damn about you? Similarly, who cares about me? What both the folks who own Poser and D|S care about is the potential market out there. Not forum rats, but people with credit cards and spare time. Folks who spend real money. That is where both companies have their eyes right now.

/P

Quote - Out of curiousity, how is DS UI better if you don't like using it? You want a real UI, check out Modo. 

Philosophically, D|S is shooting for Modo-like functionality (and flexibility), and has for a very long time.

As for FAST, I'd like EVERYTHING to be scriptable. Python is a very good way to go when it comes to scripting applications.
One of the things I sorely miss about Poser is the possibility to use it as a Python library.

There's a lot of things that MS doesn't do as they should, but there's also a couple of things they're very good at. One of those things is the programmability of their applications. Everything you can do from the user interface of an Office app, you can do using script too, both from inside the application itself, and from the outside - every Office app is a COM server.
They separated user interface from functionality (MVC pattern), which makes it easy to completely replace the user interface by something totally different.

This kind of programmability would be a great asset to FAST. As far as I'm concerned the main reason Poser doesn't live up to its Pro name is its lack of programmability. I don't know how D|S does in this regard (the last version I tested didn't have scripting support at all), but my expectations aren't that high.

Make FAST programmable, make it do at least one thing very well, and you have a pro level application.

Quote -
There are even open source projects for rigging an animation out there.  Just a matter of looking through there code, seeing what can be integrated, rewriting some things here and there and getting it all put together.

...just mind yer licenses. Mixing GPL/LGPL/somethingelse = bad karma.
 
:)

If it could support MAX script, not just Python, then that would really boost its versitility!
DPH

Quote - Sounds like it would be a cool project. I'll try to help, time and energy permitting.
I'd love to learn more about interface design.

Seriously though, considering how big of a chunk this is to chew through... why not develop a blender add on?  I don't mean, why not, as in you shoud... but what are the pros and cons of that direction? 

Blender has an interface that can be best described as mildly evil (not fully evil like its predecessors, but evil nonetheless).

The UI is actually not that tough to write anymore, at least like it was in the days that Kai Krause was carving his all out of raw code, and all you had were 256 colors to pick from. Each OS nowadays has its own internals (.NET, Cocoa, about a zillion for Linux to pick from, etc), and there are a lot of very nice cross-platform ones (put in pimp-shout for Qt here).

If I wasn't already promised up to my eyeballs with R'otica (and currently migrating the entire store), I'd kill to get a piece of what's being proposed here. Either way, I'll keep as good an eye on it as I can in the interim...

/P

Quote - Well, I don't start projects I don't finish, and while I can understand maybe people had some hard feelings about this other guy talking about a 3d rendering package that he was "developing" and then never released, I'm not this other guy.  Also I would wonder just how sad it would be that my life was so void of other things that the non-release of a non-program could upset me that much, that for years afterward whenever anyone started discussing software development I would instantly attack out of fear that my little feelings might get hurt again...

That scares me a bit actually.  Thats the sort of thing people really should get professional therapy for - lol - but your right, I probably should just ignore the naysayers from here on in, I've wasted more than enough bandwidth on them already.

Well I'm hoping you do well with it. I'm involved in the Open Source project for Dark Ages of Camelot myself doing some DB stuff for them. I'm leaving the coding to those more suited and currently it's a very good work in progress and is online and open for players.

An Ignore User feature has long been a request here at Rendo for placing those who are emotionally overloading on Poser into a quiet place where they can do you no harm but nothing has been implemented yet. When all else fails, you'll have to use your built in "Ignore User" feature and hope it doesn't explode from Poser Fanboi overload. :tt2:

Not one person here has said " we hope you fail. we hope this doesn't happen." A couple of us have pointed out that we have heard it before and will believe it when we see it. But wish all luck in completing the project for the benefit of the community. Now you got all these posts finger pointing and screaming "witch."  

Hell, if I knew how to code would help. I just model, texture and rig.

As for Poser Fanboi, no. It is just one of the tools I use. But you can call be a Modo Fanboi and I would have to agree.

Hey Renderdog2000

Dude your project is righteous.  Stick to your plan.  Stay in command.  Don't let others hijack it or sidetrack it with their "help."  Don't let others discourage you.  If they don't like it they don't have to use it.

BTW You have my full support.  Now,  let's ride! 

Dude your project is righteous.  Stick to your plan.  Stay in command.  Don't let others hijack it or sidetrack it with their "help."

Very wise statement.

Quote - But you can call be a Modo Fanboi and I would have to agree.

I'd have to agree if I was called that, too.  But I'd also point out that it was Poser that introduced me to Modo, and that got me interested in this type of 3D work in the first place.

"I'd have to agree if I was called that, too.  But I'd also point out that it was Poser that introduced me to Modo, and that got me interested in this type of 3D work in the first place."

Same here.

Me too. I started out when I borrowed $200 from my daughter to order Poser from Daz after I'd seen some work done with Poser.

Quote - Sounds like it would be a cool project. I'll try to help, time and energy permitting.
I'd love to learn more about interface design.

Seriously though, considering how big of a chunk this is to chew through... why not develop a blender add on?  I don't mean, why not, as in you shoud... but what are the pros and cons of that direction? 

A couple of reasons actually - first and foremost probalby because I don't use Blender.  I find the interface confusing at best.  I realize there are a lot of people who use and like blender, but it's not really my cup of tea.

Second, I have a feeling the blender people probably wouldn't be too thrilled with that idea, first because I will not be using anything remotely like the blender interface and second because some of what I intend to do would most likely be considered "duplication" of features.

The modeler, for example, that I'd like to eventually ad, at least the first stage, is going to be designed specifically with two things in mind, modelling clothes quickly and easily as well as doing morphs for characters.

In order for these to really funciton with the simplicity I have in mind, they really need to be built into the app - Not sure that blender would be too thrilled by that since they already have modeling components of there own and that would probably get someone's knickers in a serious twist.

I'd like to do this so this project can interface with Blender, I like to give people as much portability and usability as I can, but Figure Animation Studio really needs to be a stand alone project I think.  It's going to get large enough and offer enough features that making it a plugin to another app really isn't the way to go, at least not as far as my vision of the development is concerned.

As to help, I'll take all I can get whenever its offered :)

Quote - If it could support MAX script, not just Python, then that would really boost its versitility!
DPH

My plan is to have it support anything you can code an API for - anything at all.  The plan is pretty simple actually, the program will have a built in TCP/IP server that can be turned on or off.  When it's turned on, it will listen at a TCP Port that you specify for commands, and when it recieves a command from a valid source ( you can specify IP masks, etc) then it will act on that command. 

I'd like to make it so that any action you can perform from the console or any information the program has is accessible though this TCP/IP server.  That way it will be a simple matter of writing some sever code and an API's for various languages so that any of them could technically interact with the program.    Python, Java, C++ - you name it.  As far as Maxscript is concerned, it shouldn't be hard to do an external C++ or Java or even python app that would allow you to read Maxscript and send the appropriate commands to FAST, then react to the response as Maxscript would, of course that would be a much later revision and something that would be much further down the road than even the first release, but totally feasible in the future.  

You could use any programming language you choose, be it Python, C++, Java, Perl, etc - as long as they could establish a tcp/ip socket and send and recieve info that way.  In this manner I don't have to worry about the limitations of embedding a scripting language, and any programmer can pretty much easily tie in his programming language of preference. 

Initially of course I'll probably just release an SDK with all of the various commands you can send to the server and it's responses - but at some point I'll actually sit down and code an API for Python, Java and C++ that will take care of all the tcp/ip stuff and just give folks a nice easy API to work with, provided of couse somebody else doesn't beat me to the punch (the real beauty of open source).

But by doing it this way anyone can use any programming language they'd care to and interact with FAST - and they would never be limited by what libraries were embedded with an internal scripting language, etc.

Quote - > Quote - Sounds like it would be a cool project. I'll try to help, time and energy permitting.

I'd love to learn more about interface design.

Seriously though, considering how big of a chunk this is to chew through... why not develop a blender add on?  I don't mean, why not, as in you shoud... but what are the pros and cons of that direction? 

Blender has an interface that can be best described as mildly evil (not fully evil like its predecessors, but evil nonetheless).

The UI is actually not that tough to write anymore, at least like it was in the days that Kai Krause was carving his all out of raw code, and all you had were 256 colors to pick from. Each OS nowadays has its own internals (.NET, Cocoa, about a zillion for Linux to pick from, etc), and there are a lot of very nice cross-platform ones (put in pimp-shout for Qt here).

If I wasn't already promised up to my eyeballs with R'otica (and currently migrating the entire store), I'd kill to get a piece of what's being proposed here. Either way, I'll keep as good an eye on it as I can in the interim...

/P

I've considered both QT and Glade, haven't really decided on a winner yet.  I prefer glade's licencesing but QT has a lot of really nice features that would come in handy, so I haven't really made a final decision on that one just yet.

As to killing to get a piece, not to worry.  This project will be in development for quite some time to come, this is something I hope to make an ongoing concern, and I'll always be in the market for developers/contributers.  So even if you join the party late your still just as welcome to join :)

Quote - Hey Renderdog2000

Dude your project is righteous.  Stick to your plan.  Stay in command.  Don't let others hijack it or sidetrack it with their "help."  Don't let others discourage you.  If they don't like it they don't have to use it.

BTW You have my full support.  Now,  let's ride! 

Lol - well, I''m coding an app here, not going on a crusade, but the sentiment is appreciated nonetheless.  And not to worry, I don't get dissuaded.  If you spend your life listening to all the people who tell you it can't be done then one thing is for sure, it never will be :)

Quote - Well I'm hoping you do well with it. I'm involved in the Open Source project for Dark Ages of Camelot myself doing some DB stuff for them. I'm leaving the coding to those more suited and currently it's a very good work in progress and is online and open for players.

An Ignore User feature has long been a request here at Rendo for placing those who are emotionally overloading on Poser into a quiet place where they can do you no harm but nothing has been implemented yet. When all else fails, you'll have to use your built in "Ignore User" feature and hope it doesn't explode from Poser Fanboi overload. :tt2:

Lol.. well, I took some good advice recently and my plan currently is just not to respond to any more of that at all.   Got to much other stuff to deal with, got a brand new project I need to get off the ground, a ton of reading to do, and some pretty big development decisions to make, so I think I'll have to wait until sometime after the alpha version is released to take the time to actually read all the "you can't do that" commentary - Lol

Quote - > Quote -

There are even open source projects for rigging an animation out there.  Just a matter of looking through there code, seeing what can be integrated, rewriting some things here and there and getting it all put together.

...just mind yer licenses. Mixing GPL/LGPL/somethingelse = bad karma.
 
:)

Not to worry, at the moment I plan to include only original code, I only intend to use a lot of the source I have from others as a roadmap of sorts.  I can actually read through source code and figure out how it works much faster than I can a programming manual that goes through each portion of an API in a "step by step" fashion.

I was thinking that if it could support Max script, then certain native Max features and external plugins could then both be called upon in setting up animations, i.e. Particle Flow (Max), Glu 3d (plugin), and perhaps even reactor (Max).
DPH

Quote - As for FAST, I'd like EVERYTHING to be scriptable. Python is a very good way to go when it comes to scripting applications.
One of the things I sorely miss about Poser is the possibility to use it as a Python library.

There's a lot of things that MS doesn't do as they should, but there's also a couple of things they're very good at. One of those things is the programmability of their applications. Everything you can do from the user interface of an Office app, you can do using script too, both from inside the application itself, and from the outside - every Office app is a COM server.
They separated user interface from functionality (MVC pattern), which makes it easy to completely replace the user interface by something totally different.

This kind of programmability would be a great asset to FAST. As far as I'm concerned the main reason Poser doesn't live up to its Pro name is its lack of programmability. I don't know how D|S does in this regard (the last version I tested didn't have scripting support at all), but my expectations aren't that high.

Make FAST programmable, make it do at least one thing very well, and you have a pro level application.

Well, I'm shooting for a TCP server built in that will allow you to access every feature and command in FAST from any external programming language you'd care to, anything that can connect to, send and recieve info from a TCP/IP socket will be able to use it.

At first it will just be a simple SDK with a list of commands you send in and the format of the responses you'll recieve.  Commands that actually cause the program do to something (like for example save a file) will return a 0 or a 1, basically a true or false, indicating the command was recieved and whether it executed properly or not.

Commands that query information, like a list of actors in a current scene, will probably just return information either in XML or comma delimited format (I'm leaning toward XML here). 

That way any most any language you'd care to use can be used, and since it won't be embedded you can add whatever libraries you'd like to your language of preference.  Eventually I'll get around to coding full blown API's for some of the more popular languages like Python and Java that will handle all the TCP/IP stuff for you, so that all you'll need to worry about is adding the right header/include file and your good to go, but that will probably be a little bit later down the road.

Either way this will be about as programmable as it gets :)

There ain't no such thing as free really. Somebody someplace put something into it or it wouldn't exist. When you're done RenderDog2000 reflect back to that 150  bucks for PP base and hopefully you can still say it was worth it to build your own. I doubt it. That's the reason the only one doing a Poser type version is Daz. Poser is relatively cheap, but not as cheap as Daz Studio which I suppose is modular and you could build onto that maybe easier. Whatever though if your that good go for it. Don't bust your hump too bad. Good luck really. Just seems like a lot of work when there is already a version available for "free".

dogor,

Quote -
Blender has an interface that can be best described as mildly evil (not fully evil like its predecessors, but evil nonetheless).

There are aspects of the Blender interface that are arcane - and there are aspects that are brilliant. It's all what you're used to, I suppose. I'm poor, so for me Blender was going to be something I was just going to learn. Now that I understand it - well, the part that I do - I like it: it's very fast to work in. I get things done with a minimum of menu use. It's all hotkey-based. I like that.

Just gotta learn the hotkeys.

Besides, they are discussing re-designing the interface... not sure if that's a good thing.

Quote - I've got a lot of ideas on a content developers module, in fact I've got a few that are downright scary, but they will probably have to wait for a bit before I can start working on them.  If and when I can overcome all the hurdles there I want it to be able to save, if at all possible, in either FAST format (the new app), Poser or DS format as well, so you can use it to develop content for any of the above.  I might even include other formats provided I can get the exporting routines down.

But I have some notions rattling around in my head for a modeler that is built more or less from the ground up specifically with the intent of doing clothes for figures, one that is optimized and includes features and a UI with this purpose in mind.

I'd like to do another, general purpose modeling module as well at some point, but to start with I want one that more or less specializes in clothing and does most of the heavy lifting for you, leaving the artist free to concentrate on design without worrying so much about things like rigging.  I'm going to have to do a bit of reading and brush up on some math skills I haven't used in a while,but I think it's possible.

You have no idea how exciting this all is. To think: a modeler that you can create content in, prep it for whatever figure you want, in whatever format you'd like... and possibly even do Sub-D? Too awesome!
Go for it, Renderdog... you can count on an enthusiastic support team - well, I'm in that, anyway... BTW, I also speak French and German, so if you need a document interpreting...