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Poser - OFFICIAL F.A.Q (Last Updated: 2024 Nov 28 11:20 am)
I honestly think what youre asking for is a little over the top for a low-end graphics program like Poser. Jesus, I look at some of the things people are expecting from Poser 5 and it makes me laugh. If you want those things then go buy Maya or SoftImage -- but even high-end, hideously expensive software like that requires several plugins to achieve what you want. I would honestly be happy with a better lighting and rendering engine, plugin support and an SDK (so that we can start seeing 3rd party plugins for Poser hit the market) and multiple levels of undo. A bit better integration with Max and Lightwave would also be great -- I'd give both my legs (don't need em for CG anyway) if Poser could export to .max format, but I doubt thats very realistic either. If Poser is released anytime soon I think these are realistic expectations from a $200 program. Don't expect a model library on par with Vicky and Michael, and don't expect features that are only available in high-end professional 3D software suites.
Happy community members expectations made you laugh :) It's always good to laugh... Sure, these issues can only be found in high end products. As I already said, I dare to dream... Just look at the differences between poser 2 and 3 ! You're right : low end tools for low end users... Sorry, but I'm waiting for something more. I didn't ask for effects a la Maya ( paint effects ), but many of these options are available in "low end" programs. Look at Blender ( which is free :). Open GL support, meshsmoothed models and splines controled morphs are realistic issues. Sorry ! Splines controled morphs are available in the 3d me now shareware program. And they can be improved... If the community members ask for a lot of stuff, that is because they think this will boost Poser. With you, conforming clothes would have been released with Poser10 :) * don't expect features that are only available in high-end...* Ok, I'll be a good customer. I don't ask for what I'd like to see, and I buy :) Especially for you, here is my new list : fluid dynamic generation, volumetric particles, Mental Ray and Renderman rendering engines ( both in one :), crowd generation and the whole Daz library included ... lol ... These are high end issues !! I think you release a program when there is something really new in it to justify a new number, otherwise it would be 4.4... For what I know, the render engine will be modified. But please, just give me this illusion I'm free to say what I want when I want, even if it's stupid :) Oh, wish you don't consider sub directories or insert copyright options as high-end ( maybe a plugin should be necessary :)... Asking splines controled morphs can leave to a new way of organizing morphs ( head > mouth > ... ) or any other improvement. Asking always bring some new ideas. You got Max for what I understood ... sure you don't really need such improvements :) Oh, reminds me I forgot another wish : I'd like to see specularity and noise options in the texture window :) If just one idea/wish is considered interesting enough, this would be great :) Multiple undo levels : really great idea, and necessary. But think this can only be found in high-end software ;) joelegecko P-S : I'm working on a game project for some months now, and I'm really happy to have an open minded lead coder :) ( * oh, no, this could only be found in high end extension package ... lol * ) Just look at some game or demo engine...
Haw haw haw. You're a funny guy, Joe -- its a shame youre not a stand-up comedian. I wasn't attacking you personally, its just that I've read a lot of "I want this in Poser 5" threads and the majority of them are extremely unrealistic. Some have even compared Poser to high-end 3D modelling/animation programs such as Maya 4 and SoftImage|XSI. You have to realise that there are programs out there that cost $15000 and include features that couldnt possibly be included in a low-end hobby program like Poser (oh-oh, I'm really going to get it for this one). Everyone can dream, and a lot of your 'dreams' are great ideas that would be nice in Poser 5, and some of them will probably be implemented. But COME ON!!! Skeletal systems, wind & gravity and other universal laws, clothing collision detection and geometric hair???? I think youre reaching, man. Although I'd like to see them in Poser 5 as well, I've come to terms with the fact that they wont be there. This isnt an issue of "setting low consumer expectations", its an issue of "setting REALISTIC customer expectations". So Joe, I am here for the sole purpose of pulling your feet back down to earth -- you're so high off the ground you're almost in orbit. I'm here to save you!
Pretty good to be dreaming high off the ground, no ?! :) There was nothing personnal, just kidding ;) But, even if I know universal laws won't be implemented in Poser5, don't you think developpers can say to themselves ( or at the office :) : oh, yeah, joe is crazy, smoothed figures... but we could make a smooth group option ... Just the way I see it : these ideas can leave to new things. Of course, this a choice. Note I also made realistic wishes ( sub directories, copyright insertion, a way to register :)... Some low end programs got skeletons, and other things ( radiosity ( real or faked )... ). So, this is possible. Everythnig depends on the choice of Curious Labs : connections with Lightwave and Max, or integration of new stuff inside Poser. And, I'm really happy people ask for impossible things. I know it's funny to see what people ask, but I don't think what I'd like to see is unrealistic. I use Poser for some professionnal work and hobby. I don't wait for results like Reactor, Character studio or Shag:Hair, but for me, these are the week points of Poser. So, if something is to be improved or included, this should be this... Thanks for saving me Blackhearted, but I always managed to save myself ;) ( friendly joke :) joelegecko
Don't wanna play the die hard ( but you said I was a pretty good comic actor :) Reminds me of somthing which happened with the game I told you earlier : someone asked if it was possible to not die in the game... funny for an online real time rpg :) but, behind each idea lies a brain storming... It has been decided that there would be an after-life world in which you will have quests and so on ( of course you lose some items, and more in dying :) the game never really ends... So, that's exactly what I'm waiting for with my wish list ! joelegecko
Hey, it doesn't hurt to throw out the ideas. Software technology is moving ahead everyday. Joe, you have some very good ideas there and you have every right to speak out. Nothing in this world ever happened without someone's dream becoming reality. And there are software developers reading these threads, including CL and DAZ, so who knows, maybe some of these ideas aren't so impossible as they may sound. My wish would be ray tracing. Even "low end" programs have that. Melanie
Hey Isn't this what the Pro pack plugins are supposed to do? I use LW and use my Poser animations to LW. I'll post some soon on a separate thread. The final renders are great. Heck there are even plugins in Maya so that you can use the LW render engine! The real question for me is when will Poser take geometry other than crappy old obj ? We need NURBS. Low poly count NURBS or subpatch if you prefer that nomenclature.
PPP plugin works great as a translator but if you need to edit the animation you have to go back to poser to do that, and that to me sucks. i can just as easily use maximum pose for a fraction of the cost as the PPP and is proven to work. unlike the Horror stories i hear in the Max forum. i want to be able to use max for everything.
actually a skeletal system isn't that far fetched. Even programs cheaper than Poser have one. But I doubt that they will do anything that would make their model library obsolete... and that certainly would. They could just improve upoin their existing format. Collision detection is probably reaching. Most users computer would slow downn doing the needed calculations in realtime. Hair, has nothing to do with Poser really. Depends on how open architecture the new rendering engine is and support for model shapes. Simply put the lightwave hair solution Sasquatch could be ported over given the next Poser engine was open enough, and it would simply use polygon lines to determine where to draw the hair. Of course without dynamics the only animation you would see is through morph targets. Hair in every high end program is drawn in in post process by a plugin, that uses poly or spline guides to determine where to draw the fake volume.
The clothes collision system is very do-able. CL could purchase Havok Hardcore for around $50k and incorporate it into their system. Havok would provide not only soft body support but also cloth collision support, connectivity collisions and full physics. For example you could pose you figure then apply gravity. Havok would collide all bones and bounce them so the body collapses correctly to the floor. Clothes can collide not only with body parts but with surrounding meshes and even itself. Its not a bad way to go, especially for a rendering system. And its a one time license of 50k for a product with no royalties. Havok is written for game engines so its fast. Having it calc collisions for a still render scene is a no brainer. The next round of Maya and 3d studio will be using it.
Also, the term "Nurbs" is being dragged around the net and destroyed. Poser definately does not need Non-Uniformed-B-Spline support. What it does need is Subdivision Surfaces support. Nurbs is building something out of mathimatical curves. Its used mostly in scientific and architectural modeling where exact meassurements are required. It also has a ton of topology problems that make using it for characters that need to animated difficult. It generally makes models that have far more polygons in low detail areas than needed, once its 'frozen'. Subdivision Surfaces is a technique that Pixar brought to the forefront for taking low resolution Polygon models and mathematically subdividing them to get a higher res, smoother mesh. It allows you to get all the benefits of freefrom polygon topology while getting the benefits of a smooth high resolution mesh like nurbs. Programs are running these terms through the wringer with all sorts of names and terms. (LightWave) MetaNurbs are actually SS, (3DSMax) has true Nurbs support and called their SS NURMs, (trueSpace) called their SS Nurbs in version 4; in version 5 they have since added real Nurbs support so are naming them appropriately. You get the picture. OBJ format created by Alias I believe (people who make Maya) : is one of the better formats for polygons that has been created; far better than 3DS imo. Models in OBJ format can be be used in a program that uses Subdivision Surfaces very well because its a format that can generate mesh based on quadrangles. Triangles in general don't SS well. The problem isn't the format is the crappy support in other programs out there for importing and exporting it imo.
Jesus. "comparably priced 3D packages have features like... yadda yadda" Whatever. Name one other software package that has such a comprehensive, high quality fully-poseable model library, free for commercial use. You can't, because they dont exist. So please, before you start comparing Poser to other low-end 3D programs make sure you are comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges. Poser is a product designed to do one thing -- animate and render poseable models. Its never been intended to be used as a modelling program. As for Havok, for christs sake it doesnt even ship with 3DSMax, which costs 20 times what Poser costs. Its available as a plugin for Max that currently costs more than Poser 4 in itself. Lets quit the daydreaming for a moment and realise that Poser is a $200 program and youre not going to get even close to the functionality of Max or Maya. But you do get a great model library and it does what it was intended for well. Put to rest any notions that youre going to model, animate and render the sequel to the Final Fantasy movie with Poser 5, because its just not going to happen.
Blackhearted i believe this was a wish list. and as such i believe we are all entitled to wish as much as we want. after all if we the professional modelers/animators did not speak up we would never be heard. sure Poser is good at what it does but the renderings are still very cheezy. and i personally only use poser for animating my people and use maximum pose to create the morphs to import into Max 3.1 soon to be upgraded to 4.0 and those of us that have access to better software, need to be able to make our jobs allot easier to make more money,after all you still have to eat and pay bills i for one dont think it is asking too much to at least be heard. so please would you like Some Cheeze with your Whine
One thing that has always had me curious? if Maya costs $1500 and 1000 people own it, if it cost $150 would, 10,000 people own it. And in saying that do they keep the price high on purpose. Personally (taking into account the increase in cost for supporting more customers) i think YES thats what they do and folks fall for this snobbery too, i mean lets face it would you rather bone and animate in some high end package or do it in poser and export :o).......Steve
isidro, I seriously doubt that you are a professional modeller, because if you were you would know how unrealistic this 'wish list' is. Think of the pressure youre putting on Curious Labs with rediculous expectations like this. If you read my post, youll have noticed the point about 'better integration with 3dsmax and lightwave'. Thats a realistic goal. To expect Poser 4 to perform like 3dsmax and lightwave is #$#%$^ rediculous. Ive put together a software package that includes most of the features that have been listed here (but still lacks the comprehensive model library that poser has). This is how off you are as to prices: Poser 4 = $200 what youre expecting Poser 5 to do may be pulled off with the following system: (and, to be nice, I chose Max and not Maya) 3DStudio Max 4 $ 3450 Discreet Reactor (Havok) $ 995 Shag: Hair $ 495 Digimation BonesPro $ 495 Discreet Mental Ray $ 2995 -------- $ 8430 (not including taxes and shipping) So, how on earth could you possibly expect these features in a $200 animation program? Please explain this, because apparently the laws of economics do not apply in the Poser Forum.
well i see you can add quite well, and that impresses me most of all. i still stand by my comments. as for my profession i am in the industry, and i do quite well. and like i said before this is a wish list right. what is your beef with our requests, does it upset you that poser might go up in price? if it does i would still buy it. the things we have asked for are not unrealistic in my opinion. these are just things that need to be adressed because they are lacking in poser.
I see it plain as day...I think this wish list has reached a point of absurdity. If you think Curious Labs is going to take anyone serious with a wish so ridiculous as to make Poser a high end animation/modeling tool, they're barking up the wrong tree. Basically when you add in all the options some of these people want, Poser becomes 3DS or Maya...why would Curious Labs want to even remotely touch this? You're talking about a 200 bucks program with 2000 dollars worth of options. Why not just buy 3DS or Maya or SoftImage and learn to use them...they can do all the things requested. I think the "cheeze" is the ridiculousness in wanting a 10k program for $200. my 2 cents Bryan
Well, isidro, the fact that you are now resorting to childish insults doesnt impress me at all, nor does it suprise me. I would expect nothing less of you. Would it bother me if Poser went up in price? Yes. Im sure it would bother most of the people here. Poser is a niche product, and as such it is competitively priced. If Poser 5 attempted to replicate Max or Lightwave, why the hell would I pay its inflated price tag? Lightwave and Max have been around for years, and they are established high-end 3D modelling and animation programs.
Not addressing the price issue... what happens to backwards compatibility if they implement that huge of an upgrade to the program? Would it mean that we can't use Victoria and Mike and all the other products that we've spend hundreds of dollars on, or spent months making in Poser 5? Nothing against the wishes, they're all good ideas... just sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for.
With the ProPack, Poser now has an SDK. Although it has some limits it does expose a large portion of the scene to manipulation. While it cannot be used to change the rendering engine and some of the animation guts are inaccessible, code can (will) be written to do a number of the items on the wish lists above. Some of them will run quick and others will go overnight, depending on what you're trying to do. Collision detection, Gravity effects, subdivision and particles systems are all doable do's. The trick would be to get a number of them, like collisions, running fast under Python. Of course, there exists the option of compiling to native code and farming out some of the more intensive computations to a compiled Python extension lib. If/when CL exposes mouse, button and keyboard event callbacks to the python interface, then the sky would pretty much be the limit in terms of mesh modeling in poser. I invite Gecko and any other interested parties to post your wishlists over on the Python Scripting forum wish list. I, for one, will be looking at new projects once I get the !@#$%^&&*(()# Vicki 2 clothes pack debugged.
This is crazy,a wish list you call it, how about a new program there charlie....With all the things you requested might as well be the pentagon staff....First off, do you have any idea how long it would take to implement all them requests. Do you have any knowledge of programming. I mean this is a low end product, worth the price and more for what it does. I mean there are really key features to poser, it was not meant to be a animation studio in full production scale. Get real, hell if you could make a porcshe company out of nissan you would dam well try. There are alot of key things that you need to look at, Signed Broken Wishes
isidro, why are you trying so hard to provoke me? I could lose my temper and call you an annoying, arrogant little troll that resorts to cheap little insults to try and incite an all-out flame war in a forum. I could, but I wont. Rather, I take comfort in the knowledge that there is no way any company would take your rediculous 'suggestions' and include them in an economy priced program. Nor will they, based on a whim, totally change their target market for a program from the home and small-business user to the high-end graphics departments of large corporations. Face it, you arent going to get the functionality of high-end modelling suites like Maya in a $200 program, nor is Curious Labs going to decide to compete with those same high-end modelling suites, somehow miraculously put together a product on their level, and raise their price tag by a few thousand dollars. I'm tired of trying to reason with you, when Poser 5 comes out in a few months I'll be around to say I told you so.
I guess this means, I won't get the gold plated rim around my poser5 box. I am disappointed, I mean I just spent $200.00 dollars for this baby, and boy does she ride like a smooth machine. But then again it does what it claims. My engine is not a fast motordemon...Wishes Porsche, but I am happy with what it does, it works, it goes places. Yeah I could wish for that shining new Porsche with all the extras, wait they cost more. Wow I just read they improved my car, add a new cdplayer, Yeah, always wanted a cd player. Signed I love my car, thx for making my car a little better"
I DO have knowledge of programming and I can speak from experience about implementing some of the items on the wish list. What Curious Labs did with the ProPack was genius. No, they will never have the staff in the short term to implement all of these. BUT, there are people like me floating around who are interested in making a few dollars and can code. Now with the ProPack Python interface you gain a plug-in interface of the sort that is available in 3DS Maxscript or plugins. And you don't need one person to write it all. Steve Cox makes probably one of the finest UV mapper tools out there. But you don't go to him for CR2Editor. Somebody out there will make collision detection or one of the other wishes their own personal pet project. Rather than saying it can't be done, post what you'd like to see done. Enough people say it and CL will listen. For the others, you never know, someone may just up and code it for you. The difficult we can do by Friday, the impossible takes a little longer to debug.
OK, maybe you two should take a pill, k? A difference in opinion is no reason to insult one-another. However, I have to say I side with Blackhearted on this one -- to seriously ask for those kinds of features in Poser 5 is very unrealistic..... The one thing I think it needs most is better rendering; at least raytracing, to allow reflections, refractions etc. Also more undo levels is a must. Just my "2 cents". Have a nice day :-)
I don't think any of us were seriously thinking these things would actually be incorporated into Poser 5 or any later version. We were just having fun coming up with ideas. A "wish list" is all it is. I'm sorry a couple of you got into a disagreement over it. We were just having fun. My earlier reply in this thread was to request raytracing. That's not too far fetched. But I think people can wish without truly being serious about expecting it to happen. It doesn't have to be taken seriously. I don't expect CL to actually put a lot of those think into Poser, but I still had fun reading people's wishes. Melanie
I've been off for a long while, but reading this thread made me feel like writing here again... mainly because of three things: 1- Sorry if I missed Poser 2, but to think Poser would go from what it was in V1.0 to become what I found in V3.0, with a library of Models instead of a single Pose Library, with texture support, eyes, etc., and to see that become Poser 4, with conformable clothes and all of the improvements that did take place make some of the wishes here quite possible. 2- Nobody is pointing a gun at nobody's head and giving an ultimatum like: "Well, sir, I am sorry to inform you that I will need to terminate your life with my own hands if you refuse to put this on the next version of the program..." these are wishes... 3- Well, let us assume that Poser 5 will be just an exact copy of Poser4 + Poser Pro Pack (or however you write it)... if time took Poser from v1 to v3, I would not be surprised with a great improvement from v4 to v6... even if that means price adjustment, after all, I purchased poser 1 along with a magazine for 5US$ and Poser 4 for the above mentioned 200... so... As for myself, I'd like to see the internal menus of poser in fonts a little bit bigger and the option of more viewports for both Bryce and Poser... That and the hability to export to flash and import from max... I agree that skeletal animation is out, but only because of the risk of seting the whole library obsolete, for this is already available in DirectX8 Sdk, wich i have been using for some time now. Liam
I would be perfectly happy if they would make the text above the morph parameter dials easier to read. The pale gray that barely lights up if you touch them is hard on my eyes. Longer titles cross over the number and you can't read the whole word. Maybe a bright white or a red, something that stands out better over the darker gray background. Melanie
COLLISION DETECTION IS A BIT TO ASK, HOWEVER YOU CAN LOAD POSER ANIMATIONS INTO TRUESPACE USEING TRUEPOSE yeah WITH COLLSION DETECTION FOR A CHEEP PRICE AND A BETTER RAY TRACING ENGINE. I would like to see a new set of hi rez figures ready to take advantage of the new computer gigabyte chip that has been out since may. I also would like to see more clothes more animals a body type program that was in poser one written back into the program. More animals, More props, Maybe a mimic like program written in. Lets see some lights we can move and animate like in truespace, maybe a better ray tracer too. Kids clothes this time would be nice, I think we all got cheeted on that one. ok we all know the magnets are a joke, and there needs to be a better way of morphing things. Oh yeah how about a better new improved animation system that even a stupid person could understand. I would also like to see a morphing sub program that allows the clothes to morph with the figures body so the clothes fit all the time. yes the lights suck, lets redo this so seperate lights can be added into the scene that can be moved and animated seperatly. lets se the end to collasping and exploding joints, these areas can be made hi rez to ovoid this problem you know. How about a character creation utility that allows easy creation of custom characters, yes I know the pro pack has something like it but poser needs this too. You better put animatd texture support in this or im not going to like it, yes I want to put a avi on my objects and see the animation play back when Im done with my animation, This is great for water,fire mist all kinds of things.
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