A couple of thoughts that I haven't seen touched on too much yet:

Python:

I'd personally would love to see a couple of changes in Poser's Python implementation.  First, the ability for Poser ot use a non-embedded python interpreter would be nice, that would address a lot of issues of scripts designed to run on one version of poser not being able to run on another.   Also, the ability to make python scripts more accessible to folks who are a bit less technical I think would be a boon as well.  I use a lot of python scripts myself and just getting my favorites setup on the default menus is a bit of a chore, and then of course having to run the menu first before selecting an option is a bit of a pain after the first 30 or so times.  Having an easily accesible python menu that works more like the library section does would be fantastic.

Memory Bug:

This one has been an ongoing issue for quite some time, as you increase the size of Poser's default library the application itself begins to slow down and eat more memory, and even if you switch to extenernal runtimes that memory never free's itself up.  This is a horrible bug that really needs to be addressed before your next release.  If you do nothing else for your next revision, fix this.  It has been a problem in Poser for a very, very long time and it makes the application seem, well, at the risk of sounding harsh, like a 2 bit hobbiest app.  There is no reason why Poser should eat up a ton of RAM just because you have a large default library, much less never release that memory back to the system. 

Face Room

If your going to keep the face room, make it so you can load and use external geometries for various figures like V3, V4, M3, etc.  Otherwise get rid of it or make it an external module of some sort that doesn't load by default.  The face room is useless for most of us because it only works for Poser's default figures.  It's a grand idea, don't get me wrong, but honestly it's too limited in it's current form to offer any real value. 

Content Tab

Ditch it.  It's annoying in the extreme and a total waste of space.  I don't shop from within an application and neither does anyone else, if you really want something like this setup a menu option somewhere that loads the default browser and points it at your website.  Taking up an entire tab for this was a terrible idea from the get go.

Firefly Renderer

Again, this is one of the biggest bottleneck areas of Poser, the rendering system.  A lot of us use Poser for posing figures, but most of the serious artists I know don't use Poser for rendering because firefly is, well, again just being honest, way behind the curve in terms of rendering capabilities.  My suggestion would be twofold.  First, in the next release of poser give it the ability to very easily select and use a variety of external rendering systems of the gnu variety.  Renderering systems such as yafray and the like.  Then take some time and overhaul the firefly rendering system to make it much more competitive with what's currently available on the market.  Firefly needs a ton of work done, more than I think you could reasonably accomplish prior to a next revision of Poser. 

What I find amazing, is all the people complaining about Posers shortcommings, and how good the high end programs are. How come they are spending so much time on the Poser Forum Complainging.

Yes there are improvements that I would like to see. But what I do is send them a list. What they do with it is up to them. DAZ Studio has a lot of great features, but they haven't perfected all the features they have either. It is a pain to work with. From the moment I tried Poser 4 many a year ago. I was able to animate within a few hours. I had a lot to learn with the system, but This is a great program. And for a lot of people, propelled them to a higher end program.

What happened to manners. Make your list of what you like and would like to be better. If you just want to complain about something, just to complain. There are a lot of chat rooms that would lover to go down that road with you.

The truth is Poser is on a class of its own.  I wish the developers would give more importance to animation.  With youtube and all the web video explosion on the internet is easier than ever to showcase your animation work.  Poser has a good basic engine to animate, it has been in place since Poser 4 but the advances in the features it offers has remained stale.  In the last 4 releases only the inclussion of layers has been added.  Still no way to key parenting or easier ways to parent figures to each other and have a better control during an animation.

Quote - What I find amazing, is all the people complaining about Posers shortcommings, and how good the high end programs are. How come they are spending so much time on the Poser Forum Complainging.

Yes there are improvements that I would like to see. But what I do is send them a list. What they do with it is up to them. DAZ Studio has a lot of great features, but they haven't perfected all the features they have either. It is a pain to work with. From the moment I tried Poser 4 many a year ago. I was able to animate within a few hours. I had a lot to learn with the system, but This is a great program. And for a lot of people, propelled them to a higher end program.

What happened to manners. Make your list of what you like and would like to be better. If you just want to complain about something, just to complain. There are a lot of chat rooms that would lover to go down that road with you.

Ok, well the entire point of this thread was suggestions to improve poser - so naturally the conversation is going to dwell on the areas of Poser that need improvement.  Not much point in singing Poser's praises in this particular thread.

But yes, Poser does have a lot of really great capabilities - if it didn't, most likely we'd all be posting in another forum, nes pas?

You know what I really wish, and maybe this won't be getting to the actual person in charge...but I really wish for a solid, good, prionted manual that doesn't skip on all the features of Poser. I've run into some information in the Poser 7 manual that is rather incomplete.  The manual doesn't really go into detail about any specific Poser feature, and in my view, this really frustrates me. Yeahy, I could probably look online, and ask in the forums, and that's ok, but the answers aren't really that quick to come anyways. Perhaps there could be a Poser Bible coming with the next version?

oh, and how about better Poser/DAZ Studio interchangeability? I am sure that if our people on the Poser end actually sit down and talk with the DS end we could come into some sort of agreement?

Yes, I do believe in miracles!

My 1¢: I think everybody should pick the lowest income range so the next version of poser won't skyrocket in price.

Seriously, though: ditto the others who mentioned wanting a text field.
The questions were too limited.

Well, I think improve Cloth room and Hair room will be great. For example, making templates in the cloth room for different clothes materials and better support to save your clothes simulations. For the hair room, a great thing would be make general hairstyles templates in the library.

Other good thing would be improve the walk designer too, make support for quadrupeds ...

More templates for the material room.  I have seen wonderful work done here in the forums just going and buying some of the best work like the wet & wound work from skinvue or the mud node work that was done here recently and some others and offering it in the package would make a nice addition.

But again, I want to see improvements in the animation capabilities spacially involving coreography of movement of two figures interacting--circular IK, keyable parenting.

Also softbody dynamics, a Particle Illusion new tab for special effects and Poser Physics.

Quote - Well, I think improve Cloth room and Hair room will be great. For example, making templates in the cloth room for different clothes materials and better support to save your clothes simulations. For the hair room, a great thing would be make general hairstyles templates in the library.

Other good thing would be improve the walk designer too, make support for quadrupeds ...

Clothing material templates? See my Cloth Room Preset utility in freestuff. As has been said before - Smith Micro doesn't have to include everything in the application, they just have to provide the scripters with the tools to make whatever is wanted/needed.... In this case, it wasn't too hard to script it.

SVdl, if SM doen't include anything new in Poser, Why anybody is going to update?

Poser needs a proper plugin concept, so plugins can be integrate into the UI and can run concurrently...

I want to see poser turned into a mudbox with Z brush like functions, hows that for an idea?

I've been thinking about it for a few days, and I would like to see a better (or easier) toon rendering option than what there is.  If it could do some cel-shaded things like Dragon Quest 8 easily, which is the best example I can think of right now, that'd be great.

Even though I am a DAZ Studio user I did take this survey when it first was offered.  My only gripe I really have with Poser is the UI.  I'd like to see full rewrite of it to give as much versatility and options to customize it as possible.  A way to multi select body parts and a way to multi select material area without the 1 or all option.   Then you will get me to upgrade again but only then!!  I'm done buying software I'm not going to use!!   

it would be nice that we would change the quality of raytraced shadows in the light options. some 3D software have an option called samples or rixels.
sometimes you dotn want to use 0,2 shading rate but you still want  soft shadows?

what are the chances for that?

ice-boy: settings for the shading rate are already there: you can set them per object/actor.
The minimum shading rate on the Render Options tab is exactly that: the minimum. If an object has a lower shading rate than the setting on the Render Options tab, the setting on the Render Options tab is used for that object; if the object has a higher shading rate, the object's shading ratie is used.
Most objects/actors come with a default shading rate of 0.2, but dynamic hair comes with a standard shading rate of 8 (which is probably the reason for the smooth color variations in dynamic hair).

But I admit that tweaking the shading rates on all actors in a scene is a major pain. Again, if PoserPython came with more and better UI widgets, writing a script that could adjust groups of actors for shading rate wouldn't be that difficult.

I think he's talking about shadow sample rate like area lights have. Dunno if that's possible in anything but area lights though.

Of course if FF gets proper area lights, then that would also work :p

i meant area lights. for light shadows.

Ah, now I get it. Yes, area lights would be a great addition to Poser.

I find it interesting to see all of the complaints about the rendering engine, Firefly.

Don't get me wrong, I used to loathe Firefly too. But the problem wasn't the render engine, it was me, the operator.

If you've been following Bagginsbill's Material Room tutorials, you know you can get a whole lot more out of Firefly if you learn the Material Room advanced options. He's just unlocking all of the doors for us math-poor folks, and the results are truly amazing.

Poser's powerful material room is because of the Firefly render engine.

The one thing I definately want/need in Poser 8 is Gamma Correction in rendering, like in Poser Pro. A built in Particles system would be nice, too, but there is at least one Wacro available for purchase.

Oh, and anything to help the python scripters out there is a plus in my book.

-- Jeff

Quote - I find it interesting to see all of the complaints about the rendering engine, Firefly.

Don't get me wrong, I used to loathe Firefly too. But the problem wasn't the render engine, it was me, the operator.

If you've been following Bagginsbill's Material Room tutorials, you know you can get a whole lot more out of Firefly if you learn the Material Room advanced options. He's just unlocking all of the doors for us math-poor folks, and the results are truly amazing.

Poser's powerful material room is because of the Firefly render engine.

The one thing I definately want/need in Poser 8 is Gamma Correction in rendering, like in Poser Pro. A built in Particles system would be nice, too, but there is at least one Wacro available for purchase.

Oh, and anything to help the python scripters out there is a plus in my book.

-- Jeff

the problem with gamma correction in poser pro is that when you use black and white map from nodes they get gamma corrected. 
so for example i use the ''spots'' node for bump it will ge gamma corrected. but this is nto what you want for bump.for example if you have a transparency map for hair then you can make it 1.0. but when using nodes you can not do this. so until this is fixed i will use GC in materials. i use PP GC only for test renders.

in poser pro they made ambien occlusion better. i get perfect AO now. no artifacts. so do something about RT shadows. 

*I hope they will fix this. raytraced shadows are more realistic then DM shadows.
but when you use 20 blur radius you get pixels. i know that they are like blur reflection. but dont tell me that in 2009 they can not make soft looking raytraced shadows .how long is this happening? tooooo long

You can improve this by raising your shadingrate: try shading rate 5 first and then shadingrate 0.2 or 0.1 and notice the difference.

Bopper.

dude i used almost the best settings on this pic.

Quote - You know what I'd love to see? A fully fledged SDK available to independent developers.

There sort of is.  But it starts at $10K (which is why everyone paid so much for Reiss Studio's BodyStudio).  Poser Python is a better idea but it needs cajones. :)

operaguy: The reason there are no tangents on the animation spline interpolation is that the type of spline being used is C2 continuous.  That is, the tangents are autocorrected across the entire spline.  To introduce tangent editing would require a different type of spline (C0 or C1 continuous) and would not be easily reconciled with the other type.  I know as I tried to do exactly this in Cinema 4D!  It uses C0 continuous splines (meaning that the tangents on either side of each point are independent) and there was no equivocable formulas to match the C2 tangents with the C4D tangent attributes in a way that resulted in identical curves.  At least, I couldn't find any useful information on how to resolve it.  So, if they were to introduce tangent editing into the Poser animation spline interpolation it would either need to be a fourth interpolation choice or exactly match the current spline interpolation so as not to break all previous animations using spline interpolation.

Quote - > Quote - You know what I'd love to see? A fully fledged SDK available to independent developers.

There sort of is.  But it starts at $10K

But that's for embedding Poser functionality in another application.
The SDK everybody thats mentioned it so far wants, is one for building plugins for Poser.
The two things are very different, and while the latter would require some rearchitecting of the code, it shouldn't have anything like the same price tag (if it has one at all).

That's why I said 'sort of'. ;)

Python is for building plugins for Poser.  Yes, it's scripting but so is COFFEE in C4D (and you can build plugins with it).  Actually, Python is like Java - it runs bytecode.  You really don't want C++ or something like that.  Yes, it's faster compiled code but you also have to have the systems (Windows 32, Windows 64, MacOS X), tools (Visual Studio, CodeWarrior, Xcode), and knowledge of how to use them (which can get complex at times).  It takes a good bit of expense and time as well.

What would be the viable alternative to Python then?

Robert

dude i used almost the best settings on this pic.

Did you also lowered the shading of your ground object?
you won't get better results if the default of 0.2 isn't changed.

Bopper.

but i am talking about the shadow.

Yes but the shadow drops on the ground, the shading quality of  a shadow is determined by the shadingrate settings of the object it drops on. You can set the shadingrate in the rendersettings to 0.05 but if drops on an object with a higher setting of 0.2 it will take the higher settings: just try it out: set your shadingrate in your rendersettings to 0.1, and leave the  groundobject as it is and then do a render with the shadingrate of your groundobject to 0.1 and render again.

best regards,

Bopper.

I'd love to see:

• Additional render engines (how about RENDERMAN?)
• Faster renderer and/or better usage of RAM
• Soft body physics & weight mapping for human figures
• Better default textures (more photorealistic) for default human and animal figures
• Larger built in animal library with broader range of built in morphs
• Better, more complete default figures --> meaning better modelling and more built in morphs
• Python room
• Particle physics/water dynamic
• Autosave/back up feature

why would a software called poser that is meant for posing figures have water dynamic? 

i think if you are already so good to make watter then i guess you need a software like 3dsmax.

Quote - What would be the viable alternative to Python then?

Python is fine.
I suppose they could add other scripting languages but there's really no need.

What is important is being able to hook into the GUI and other bits of the program in useful ways.
Top four things are the ability to add menu items, create new palettes (i.e. non-modal windows), ability to create new shaders, and metanodes.

just give Bagginsbill the POWER to make hes own nodes.

Quote - Python is for building plugins for Poser.  Yes, it's scripting but so is COFFEE in C4D (and you can build plugins with it).  Actually, Python is like Java - it runs bytecode.  You really don't want C++ or something like that. 

And it's very simple to wrap C/C++ code in a python library using SWIG. PoserPhysics was done that way, and in a similar fashion it shouldn't be very hard to take for example a 3rd party render engine that has a C++ SDK and turn it into a Poser Python plugin.

interesting . interesting.

More attention to the animation system in general; I just noticed that Optitrak has released a beta of a plugin for Daz Studio to accept the data input from their ARENA $5k mocap system in realtime. And that Poser has had several requests for something similar. Poser is about at the limit vis-a-vis stills; a more robust renderer plugin (ooooh, Renderman.... stewer has given the python guru's a challenge, he has he has....) is what most seem to want in that regard. That leaves the animating aspect....and if that native data plugin happens, Poser would be in an excellent position for the poor man's Body Studio (particularly since the 12 camera rig can handle 2 character capture).....if there were just a little bit more to the animation system. I'd go so far as to say create an animation tab, with dockable windows so that the layout could be configured to meet the users preferences (and no library access in that window; save all the real estate for controls). Multiple graph panes would be lovely, as would the color coded spline handles (like they use in Vue Infinite). Also more control over the IK chains; assigning sticky IK on the fly would really help in motion and action sequences.....but the main thrust should be configurability. 

Quote - And it's very simple to wrap C/C++ code in a python library using SWIG. PoserPhysics was done that way, and in a similar fashion it shouldn't be very hard to take for example a 3rd party render engine that has a C++ SDK and turn it into a Poser Python plugin.

Exactly.  Therefore, if you want more power from Poser Python and have the C++ capabilities, it is possible.

i have been reading some papers from pixar.
graphics.pixar.com/library/HQRenderingCourse/index.html
here something about raytracing and shadows.

''soft shadows can be computed by shooting shadow rays to random points on the surface of the area light source''

could this be used in poser 8?

Quote -
I find it interesting to see all of the complaints about the rendering engine, Firefly.

Don't get me wrong, I used to loathe Firefly too. But the problem wasn't the render engine, it was me, the operator.

If you've been following Bagginsbill's Material Room tutorials, you know you can get a whole lot more out of Firefly if you learn the Material Room advanced options. He's just unlocking all of the doors for us math-poor folks, and the results are truly amazing.

Poser's powerful material room is because of the Firefly render engine.

That may very well be, and yes, bagginsbill has it down about as good as anyone can get in Firefly.

But why defend something that needs an infinite amount of tweaking and all that learning just to get something decent? Even programs like Maya have the basic settings for reflection, shadows, transparency and all that good stuff, which can be used right out of the box and which work as one would expect.
Then of course, you have your Mental Ray and MR shaders and all that, which Poser's material room could be very loosely compared to (and I do mean loosely). In Maya, if you want to learn how to render effectively with MR shaders and materials, then you have alot of learning to do.
In Firefly, if you want to render anything that looks really good, you have alot of learning to do. Hell, you can't even point a light at something and turn on shadows and expect it to look good without a whole lot of tweaking and experimenting.
That's normal for 3D, but what isn't normal is Poser's default lights and shadows simply suck without a whole lot of tweaking. Without a whole lot of knowledge about the material room, you might as well forget about quickly setting up a scene to use as a quick visualization for a project. Even the - ahem- "pro" version is still total crap for that purpose. And I would think pros would appreciate something which enables them to do a quick pre-viz.

i completely forgot about the shadow catcher.

is it just me or isthe shadow catcher in Poser PRO ignoring gamma correction? i read somewhere that Bagginsbills shadow catcher is faster ,uses GC and has even a tint option for colors. i hope you contacted him to get topse options inside poser

-shadow catcher
-material based AO on/off. sometimes i want to use raytraced shadows but no AO in the material. if i have some armor props of a figure with 10 or more materials i can change this the whole night. so an option to turn off material AO 
-a new Hair material. yes i know that we have this in the material room. but this is for the hair room.i think more then 50% poser users use modeled hair with planes. and then they use transparency. maybe a shader that fakes hair specularity? that would be great.
-fastscatter that works for raytraced shadows? like i said already in a different thread. this is 2009. we have better computers and faster computers. more people now use raytraced shadows. so it would be grea.t the fastscatter node dosnt even work like it should . but bagginsbill used node tricks to make it work. it works very fast and its not true SSS. if you would be abble to make it work with raytraced shadows then we all win.
-changing the specular light inside the light options. for a strong directional light you need small and sharp specular. for a cloudy day teh specular is more blury. it would be nice to have those options inside the light.
-this is POSER. pose? is there any chance for us to be able to pose a figure more realistic? maybe some physics for posing? like touching anotehr body,touching yourself. and not the hand going inside the figure?
-area lights

so you see i didnt  list GI,particles,true SSS

i see that in poser pro  AO still doesnt work with transparency. will you ever fix this or are we in the 90's? 

i would also like double side shading.
so that i could make one side of the plane  green and the other side red. one side specular and the other side not. what are the chances?

plus it would be nice that we could in light settings choose an object or figure. so for example light 1  only works for the ball and light 2 only for the cube. this would be very good so that we could use raytraced shadows for the body  and DM shadows for the hair.

I noticed OP didn't post again after like the second page.   How nice of a few people to ruin developer communication for the rest of us.  It's no wonder why devs are so unlikely to interact with the public these days.

Must have alot of "Men in Black" poser users, identities so sekret that it would be a national security risk to so much as tell the truth about gender. LOL

I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to answer the survey - seems it must not have been left open for very long.  For the record though:

My biggest complaint is the rendering.  Understandably the program was initially intended to be a program for what it actually does do better than any other IMO -posing.  Please make the rendering easier for those of us not working on Nasa computers though.

Also for the record.  I'm a female - I live in Illinois in a ranch style house.  I have 3 kids, two cats and one dog.  I am married.   PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE direct any marketing efforts, sales or features towards me =D

how is the render complicated? 

Quote - I noticed OP didn't post again after like the second page.   How nice of a few people to ruin developer communication for the rest of us.  It's no wonder why devs are so unlikely to interact with the public these days.

Excuse me for pointing this out, but that's a crock of shit.
If you're trying to suggest we hurt his little feelings and he ran away crying, you're insulting him far more than you think you're insulting us.

He got his point across. He didn't stick around to argue.
And if you think this is the worst that dude's ever seen, read up on the history of Poser 5...

Quote - [...] Also, apparently  what people REALLY wanted were two more characters, male and female, that were even fuglier than anything prior, by a great degree of magnitude. ;-)

To each their own. Don't call something fugly just because it doesn't fit YOUR perception of beauty.

IMO James is the BEST Poser male out there. He looks good, is a dream to morph and doesn't look like yet another Daz clone.

For all I care they could disperse of all the females.. I don't use them except on very rare occasions. I just doubt this would be applauded by the teenaged male userbase ;) (I'd like to see the demographics btw, if there really IS as many teenage bodys among the uses as some of the galleries out there seem to imply :)

I was too late for the actual survey, but I'm pleased there IS one at all. It means that there's actually work going on for Poser 8. And since every version so far has been a lot better than the previous (Been using Poser since Poser 4) I'm certain that Poser 8 will be great ^_^

I hope I'm not too late for the survey but what would make Pose great to use would be the option to resume rendering if it had to be stop midway or to save and then resume rendering.  Also I know that GC is native in Pro, so how about making it native in the regular version.

GC will be in the render settgins in poser 8.

but belive me GC in the material room is better. you have more control.

i say lets all prey that they will listen to bagginsbill. that they will give him the option to make hes own nodes. if this happens then we all win.