Quote - Imagine Poser 8 being released. We all know at least 3 service releases are needed to get it working (as good as possible). SM manages to release one a year, it will take 3 years before you can even really use P8. Or worse, they will release just on SR, as they have done with PP, then you can't even really use P8 at all.

 
Imagine two scenarios.

S1) Wait until the product is really really ready - as bug-free as can be measured by testers - and screw the ship date. Ship only when it's totally ready. Result: A bunch of people whine and complain how long it takes to get a new release with new features.

S2) Ship when it's good enough for 90% of the user base. Sure, some newer features are a little buggy, but these are corner cases for the most part. Result: A bunch of people whine and complain how the company released buggy software.

I'm not talking about SM here - I'm talking about every software company ever. The customer base falls into two groups - those that complain and those that don't - regardless of what decision you make. The only difference is the details about which individual's are in one group or the other.

I hope P7  has it  Mr. Bill, I am a numbskull  for not noticing  if it does.  i will  check  again.

BTW  how is  your dog spot  and sluggo, or is that the wrong Mr. Bill.

Thanks, as usual for your advice

Quote - > Quote - Imagine Poser 8 being released. We all know at least 3 service releases are needed to get it working (as good as possible). SM manages to release one a year, it will take 3 years before you can even really use P8. Or worse, they will release just on SR, as they have done with PP, then you can't even really use P8 at all.

 
Imagine two scenarios.

S1) Wait until the product is really really ready - as bug-free as can be measured by testers - and screw the ship date. Ship only when it's totally ready. Result: A bunch of people whine and complain how long it takes to get a new release with new features.

S2) Ship when it's good enough for 90% of the user base. Sure, some newer features are a little buggy, but these are corner cases for the most part. Result: A bunch of people whine and complain how the company released buggy software.

I'm not talking about SM here - I'm talking about every software company ever. The customer base falls into two groups - those that complain and those that don't - regardless of what decision you make. The only difference is the details about which individual's are in one group or the other.

I do prefer situation 2, I don't mind buggy software as long as I know it will be fixed. Most software I do own has bugs at the initial release, but after a while they get sorted out. With Poser you just don't know anymore if bugs even will get fixed.

I agree on the "Pro" being subjective.

Pro is whatever a professional uses. Whether that's MS Paint, or Photoshop. Poser or Poser Pro.
Doesn't matter. :) It's whatever works.

My other half is a professional cameraman. He knows his stuff, and even he says that a lot of the DV Cams on the general (home user) market are good enough to be used in serious work.
The only difference is usually the kind of lens being used, but he said there are some non specialized cameras on the market which are better than a lot of the ones used for Broadcasting.
(Bear in mind that these guys pay megabucks for cameras (and lenses) though. I'm not talking about something that costs $1000.)
Thing is though, when a company like the BBC buys cameras, they won't be replaced inside of a year, like so many home DV Cams. So while technology moves on, the camera used to film a newsstory may well be 5 years old (or older, if it's not digital) and something a lot cheaper on todays market may well be far more sophisticated.
So don't let the "Pro" mislead you.

A Pro can get a hell of a lot out of your regular Poser app, while a novice will still struggle to produce something even close to it in Poser Pro.
If you know your tools, you'll produce professional results. I think the Pro version is simply tool for more advanced users who want more out of Poser than they get with the regular one, while it's still possible for a novice to get started in it.

It's what you do with it, that counts. :)

I find that the best features of Poser Pro are the Ambient Occlusion on the light, and the Gamma Correction on the Render Settings.  These I find give me render quality in Poser that I find easier to produce than I can using Vray in Max.  For the rest, I rely on Photoshop and Postwork to help me produce.
DPH

@Silke, I agree completely with you, but as DPH stated, Poser Pro packs some features that do make a huge difference when it comes to the final outcome. My images look a lot better with these new features then they did before. Most of my Poser images always looked to dark, that is over now, they look bright and crispy now.

But in the end it's up to me to make good use of these features, if I don't know how to use them, the Pro in poser will not change a thing.

what would be very practical is if we in the options could parent lights together so that we could change the settings on one light for every light.

so for example i make 5 ligths . and then i change the shadow map and light intensity only for one light. this would make this a lot of faster. sometimes i make 4 or 5 lights that are only specular. very bad settings but good enough for specular. but it takes a lot of time to find the right settings because i need to change every light.

Attached Link: OT: One good Doctor!!!

iceboy: such a feature would make sense.

And again, I'd already have made a Python script to do exactly that (change settings on multiple elements of the same type) if PoserPython had full wxPython support. A script that changes those settings is easy to make, a non-modal user interface currently can only be made with Tkinter, which is a horribly outdated and clunky way to make user interfaces.

Like in the requests thread of a couple of months ago, many of the requests and wishes I've seen here can be made using PoserPython, or could be if there was a better UI library for PoserPython.

And again, I think that Smith Micro should not try to incorporate all that functionality into a new Poser version by themselves, driving the price over the $1000 mark. Instead, they should expose all functionality to PoserPython and incorporate wxPython, fix features that are buggy in Poser 7/Pro, and add a few of the most requested features. The rest can be made by scripters.

Quote - iceboy: such a feature would make sense.

And again, I'd already have made a Python script to do exactly that (change settings on multiple elements of the same type) if PoserPython had full wxPython support. A script that changes those settings is easy to make, a non-modal user interface currently can only be made with Tkinter, which is a horribly outdated and clunky way to make user interfaces.

Like in the requests thread of a couple of months ago, many of the requests and wishes I've seen here can be made using PoserPython, or could be if there was a better UI library for PoserPython.

And again, I think that Smith Micro should not try to incorporate all that functionality into a new Poser version by themselves, driving the price over the $1000 mark. Instead, they should expose all functionality to PoserPython and incorporate wxPython, fix features that are buggy in Poser 7/Pro, and add a few of the most requested features. The rest can be made by scripters.

yeah i think this is what bagginsbill was talking about if i remember correctly.

lets hope they will fix this.

AO on light is not the same like AO in the material. for example i need to use in the material maxdist 150 to get a similar one the light based AO.
if we could use the same numbers.

IMO two of the biggest improvements to Poser could be made in the material room and to lights:

1. a proper transluscent material option
2. specular on HDRI lights.

carodan i agree.

I second that motion, the motion is carried!  I wish a show of hands could carry the day, but business is NOT a democratic institution.:laugh:

they weren't able to sell poser AFAIK.  the only avail. buyer was autodesk, which was having probs of its own during the window of opportunity for dumping poser onto the next owner, thus forcing them to spend some time rewriting it and apparently being forced to retain FFRender as well, altho hopefully it will be sevl buttloads better than in poser 7, thx in part to input from experts here, previous wishlists here, and also bug-reporting and that.

I would love to see Autodesk buy Poser if for no reason other than to watch the reaction at CG Talk. They would be virtually obligated to create a Poser forum there if that happened. ;-)

THAT is true!  I'd laugh my ass off!:laugh:  Oh, well...if wishes were fishes, we'd ALL be up to our eyeballs in carp or some kind of seafood.:lol:

I'd be happy if Poser 8 came with some basic improvements - and I mean BASIC.

The ability to frame any selected body part
Cameras that aren't locked on the center of the universe (ie. the dolly camera, but an entire range of them).
The ability to add a new camera at will.
The ability to save a scene to the library with lights and cameras (without being forced to parent figures together or saving UI info ala .pz3)
The ability to save multiple parented props together without faffing around with Subset - and the ability to delete them all at once.
A customisable UI - at least for keyboard shortcuts and maybe toolbars. (I doubt any UI which relies on .psd files will ever be properly customisable).

I already have all these things in Daz Studio, so it's not like I'm forced to do without. But if Poser is ever going to woo new users, they need to make it more modern, windows-compatible and user-friendly. The days of users learning bizarre new interfaces went out in the 90s. Most people want to deal with standardised UIs in all apps nowadays. When I was first confronted with Poser (12 years ago), it was a challenge to learn. If I came across it today, I probably wouldn't even bother trying.

mac

Quote - I would love to see Autodesk buy Poser if for no reason other than to watch the reaction at CG Talk. They would be virtually obligated to create a Poser forum there if that happened. ;-)

That would truely be funny! :lol: :ohmy:

Quote - watch the reaction at CG Talk. They would be virtually obligated to create a Poser forum there if that happened. ;-)

NO... they would'nt... Poser/Daz hatred is part of the evangelical religion of CG  Society there people ever there who believe that any premade/ auto solution is the work of satan...  a sad frighten bunch

But once Poser becomes an Autodesk product it will automagically be transformed into a serious tool. The stigma will vanish almost overnight as all the Poser users-in-hiding there come out of the closet, so to speak.

Of course, then it would be Autodesk Poser and would undergo a huge transformation both in functionality and appearance, not to mention probably a sizable increase in price.

The downside is, hobbyists would no longer be able to afford or justify upgrading and would continue to use older versions and post their work and their questions and cat pictures here, while afraid to do so over there.

The upside is, Poser would actually get all these tools and improvements it needs and would be better optimized to work with the likes of Maya, Max and Mudbox.
And hobbyists would no longer be able to afford or justify upgrading and would continue to use older versions and post their work and their questions and cat pictures here, while afraid to do so over there. ;-)

Quote -
If Poser sales are down it's probably a marketing problem; the program is used my many graphics professionals and I see Poser images everywhere from advertisements to book covers to magazine articles.  Poser is many graphic designer's "dirty little secret" for while 3D purists have always ridiculed it as being an amatuer program.

I see these images everywhere too.  Rarely do they look like anything more than Poser4 was used.  That group of users doesn't want realism or animation, all they ever needed was some simple mannequin figures and a few stock poses.  That particular market would probably prefer an upgrade with less features rather than more I'm guessing...

Quote -

Of course, then it would be Autodesk Poser and would undergo a huge transformation both in functionality and appearance, not to mention probably a sizable increase in price.

The downside is, hobbyists would no longer be able to afford or justify upgrading and would continue to use older versions and post their work and their questions and cat pictures here, while afraid to do so over there.

That would most likely be the case :(  Too bad they couldn't just make an intermediate app out of it.
Autodesk must make quite enough off of Max/Maya but their price has become so prohibitive, I'm gonna have to give up on the idea of upgrading my max, :(  was seriously investigating truespace as a replacement, believing that microsoft would take the ball and run with it.
But I still have not found any replacement for Poser, it has its problems, but still is on top in my book for what its designed for.
cheers,
Mike.

you know. there is something someone can do now.

we have Pythoncoders, very talented ones, hanging around.

why don't we get them to write a exporter to Yafafray or Kerkythea? (both excellent free render engines)
it can be done - someone wrote Poseray - Poser to POVRay.... (I would do it if I could program. but alas I have no skill or talent in that department.)

Somekind of interfacing with different render engines would be a really good thing,IMO. We have the preview,P4, and firefly renderers. I wonder if there is some way to interface another render engine to poser?  I wish I knew coding...I'd look into it.

No point in "exporting" to other render engines. That can already be done, either through OBJ export or the PoserFusion plugins, which already enable Poser export to the best of the best, far as rendering apps are concerned.

And on the lower end, I suppose you could use Daz Studio to open Poser stuff and then export to Carrarra or something - whatever it is the D|S people do.

Or hell, use Blender.

But all those options have one thing in common, which is taking your Poser stuff out of Poser. For animation, yeah, might as well, since Poser's animation tools suck, but for stills it would make far more sense for Poser itself to have it's own Mental Ray or Vray. Those are essentuially plugins, but they work within their programs as part of the program. That's what Poser needs - an internal rendder engine better than Firefly, not yet another way to get Poser stuff out of Poser and into a better render engine.

no point. says the man constantly complaining about the render engine. heh. what DO you want then?

Quote - no point. says the man constantly complaining about the render engine. heh. what DO you want then?

Huh?
I think it's pretty obvious what I said if you bother to read it.

But since you seem to have had some sort of trouble with that, I'll write it again. We ALREADY HAVE the ability to export. What we NEED is the ability to do it WITHIN Poser.

Yayfray, Mental Ray, VRay.. these are render engine plugins that can be... well, plugged in to apps. That's what Poser needs, not yet another way to EXPORT but a better way to render within Poser.

Do you understand that now?  I said the same thing in this post but this version has been enhanced with easy to spot caps that might help.

There was no moaning about anything I wrote.
I'm sure you can read, since you apparently can write. Those abilities usually go together.
However, being able to read does not necessarily mean one has the ability to comprehend everything one reads. I suspect that's how you read "moaning" in what I wrote.

This is a "what Poser 8 needs" thread, is it not? Well, maybe it didn't start out that way, but it became that, long before I entered it. Maybe you should begin your moanquest several pages before my entry.

We really need another render engine superior to firefly. I agree with that. Firefly is a BIG improvement over the P4 render engine, but it's been around since Poser 5. It's time for an substantional upgrade to the internal render engine of Poser.

don't give up hope yet on FFRender, and keep any of these suggestions in mind, if they aren't already in poser 8 and when the time comes to post the poser 9 wishlist.  in re: interfacing to other renderers, what they sometimes do is export pz3 files and open 'em in carrara, or they access poser runtimes and open cr2 files in carrara. 

p.s. it must drive the coders crazy to toil over FFRender nite and day, only to look on poser websites and see nostril-glow renders in banners, ads, gallery and marketplace.  working their butts off to make a 21st-century renderer, only to find it used to create boob shots of dead-doll zombies, and all the ads in mags and on tellyvision are using posette and dork with p4 renderer. :crying:

LOL @ Nancy! Yeppers, that's the rub alright! :laugh: If the default lights had their shadow min, bias set ot point 1 or less, that would spare a lot of grief for a lot of people.  Then again a lot of poser users are just lazy and just piddling around, instead of taking the simplest thing of how to do a half-way acceptable render. If they're going to do renders, they should at least use James.  He's not as 'dorky' looking as Dork!:lol:

Why is it people have the ability to delete a post here after someone else has already posted a reply to their post?
I was accused of "moaning" in between my two upper posts, but now that post is gone.

Makes me look paranoid or something. ;)

But back to Poser... just to elaborate, I'm not saying the end-all solution has to be Vray or Mental Ray or any other plugin, just something far more capable and modern than what Firefly currently is. That could be either a plugin or a whole new, enhanced Firefly. Doesn't matter to me who makes it, as long as it works. ;-)

Quote - LOL @ Nancy! Yeppers, that's the rub alright! :laugh: If the default lights had their shadow min, bias set ot point 1 or less, that would spare a lot of grief for a lot of people.  Then again a lot of poser users are just lazy and just piddling around, instead of taking the simplest thing of how to do a half-way acceptable render. If they're going to do renders, they should at least use James.  He's not as 'dorky' looking as Dork!:lol:

i have poser pro. i dotn have poser 7 anymore. so i dont knwo if the problem was already there.
but DM shadows are very bad in poser pro. has nothing to do with shadow map o bias. a lot of problems.
i dont knwo what this is.
in ther softwares 512 DM shadows gives you good results. if you focus the shadowcam on the figure. here you dont get good results.

so please.

Depth mapped shadows are an artifact from the Poser4 renderer days. Only ray-traced shadows are accurate, but the P4 renderer blows up in ray-tracing. I'd like photon mapping in the next renderer for some Global Illumination! WHeeeeeeeeeeeee!

While I'm wishing, I'll wish for an ice cream SAMMICH! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. No air conditioning is melting my brain and overheating my PC.:laugh: Or vice versas .

GI? why would you do with GI when even the DM shadows dont work how they should.

Quote - Why is it people have the ability to delete a post here after someone else has already posted a reply to their post?
I was accused of "moaning" in between my two upper posts, but now that post is gone.

Could have been a mod wot dun it ;)

Quote - Makes me look paranoid or something. ;)

No more paranoid than having searching your posts turned off :tongue2:

Quote - Could have been a mod wot dun it ;)

Not I.  I'd have said something about bickering.

Like "If you wanna b*tch at folks, you've got sitemail to do that with. ;)"

Quote - GI? why would you do with GI when even the DM shadows dont work how they should.

That's why I NEVER use them! They're useless. I use only  Ray-traced and HDR-Ibl's in my work.NOW. I used to use DM shadows long ago, when glowing nostrils and such were just mysteries I couldn't figure out how to get rid of. :laugh:  Now I've moved on to bigger, better lighting and materials and renders there in.  After using other renderers, I'm spoiled on Global radiosity and global Illumination. ^__^V,,

Quote -
No more paranoid than having searching your posts turned off

Huh? What do you mean?

Quote -

That's why I NEVER use them! They're useless. I use only  Ray-traced and HDR-Ibl's in my work.NOW. I used to use DM shadows long ago, when glowing nostrils and such were just mysteries I couldn't figure out how to get rid of. :laugh:  Now I've moved on to bigger, better lighting and materials and renders there in.  After using other renderers, I'm spoiled on Global radiosity and global Illumination. ^__^V,,

JOELGLAINE, are you moaning? ;-)

Only when I have sex! :laugh:  Just being wishful around here.  This IS a wishing thread, y'know. :lol:  Sort of like a really cheap wishing well...you just put your two cents in and wish.  

Maybe they true. Eventually. :lol:

Quote - > Quote -

That's why I NEVER use them! They're useless. I use only  Ray-traced and HDR-Ibl's in my work.NOW. I used to use DM shadows long ago, when glowing nostrils and such were just mysteries I couldn't figure out how to get rid of. :laugh:  Now I've moved on to bigger, better lighting and materials and renders there in.  After using other renderers, I'm spoiled on Global radiosity and global Illumination. ^__^V,,

but thats a huge problem. 
we are forced to use the complicated raytraced shadows.raytraced shadows in movie production are not used a lot. because they take to much to render. the problem is also that we almost always use soft shadows. i reality we have more soft shadows then sharp shadows. and with RT you need to spend a lot of time to get some soft shadows without noise. DM shadows are soft but look bad in close ups.

i  can thank god can use DM shadows for fill lights. but i can not use them for a rim light. why not? becusause the shadows around the ear looks BAD. not just bad. but BAAAD. so i need to have at least 2 RT shadows. one for the main light and even for the rim light.

and i completely forgot about using DM shadows with brighter lights.in the last months  i did some tests. and the results were pathetic. and please dont tell me that i didnt use a big enough shadow map. i used 1024 on a figure. only a figure(without the ground).
www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php

of course i think i was the only one who noticed this. so i am not expecting a fix for this since SM doesnt even know that they have bad shadows.

i dont want this to look like i am a ''basher''. i really am not. but when i saw those bad shadows i was in a big shock. i was really shocked

Quote - > Quote -

No more paranoid than having searching your posts turned off

Huh? What do you mean?

Forum search, put "MikeJ" in the "Search specific user?" box, you get "That user has disabled searching through his or her posts."

While it's annoying to be unable to locate threads based on the posts of some authors (given we have only one word to work with, it often helps to narrow by an author that you are sure posted in that thread), I understand why the PTB at Rendo decided to give people the option of making their post unsearchable (by the unwashed masses of the membership, as I'm reasonably certain the restriction won't apply to mods etc).

Well, we kind of need to, for a few reasons ;)  One is...well, if someone claims he said something, we have to be able to make sure he did or didn't say what they're claiming.  Sometimes, people read more into posts than are there ;)  Usually, those same people refuse to give links eyeroll

Quote - Usually, those same people refuse to give links eyeroll

snickers

Quote -
Forum search, put "MikeJ" in the "Search specific user?" box, you get "That user has disabled searching through his or her posts."

Interesting. I don't know when I turned that off or even remember if I did it intentionally or not. But I just went into my options and found the checkbox and unchecked it.
See, I'm not paranoid. ;-)
Not much too terribly interesting on me though, from what I remember at least. Probably 75% of my posts here were in the Vue forum from when I was a mod 7,8 years ago, and most of the rest are in forums that... 'went away', like the C&D and OT. ;-)
Anyhow, I tried to search my user name after re-enabling it, and got that same message, so I don't know if it's broken, or if one just isn't able to search one's own user name.

I thought you were saying I was paranoid because I noticed the missing post I mentioned earlier, which just didn't make sense.

Well that's strange. I went back and saw the checkbox is again unchecked. All attempts to check it and save the changes result in the same thing - it refreshes the page and stays unchecked. For all I know it's always been that way. I've never tried the forum user search stuff before.

EDIT- There are two separate "save changes" buttons on the "my forum options" page, and I was clicking the wrong one at the bottom of the page.

getting this thread off me and back on topic....

Quote -
and i completely forgot about using DM shadows with brighter lights.in the last months  i did some tests. and the results were pathetic. and please dont tell me that i didnt use a big enough shadow map. i used 1024 on a figure. only a figure(without the ground).
www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php

of course i think i was the only one who noticed this. so i am not expecting a fix for this since SM doesnt even know that they have bad shadows.

i dont want this to look like i am a ''basher''. i really am not. but when i saw those bad shadows i was in a big shock. i was really shocked

No, you don't look like a "basher". I'm sure there will be some who see it that way, but I think it's safe to say I'm not one of them. ;-)

Firefly made rendering in Poser better than it had been, but still has a long way to go. IMO, it's pretty much at the bottom of all 3D rendering I've ever seen, at least as far as modern apps are concerned.
it definitely needs to be brought up to date. People think I complain about Poser too much, but I'm still kind of pissed off that S-M Poser Pro didn't show any improvement in rendering, really, aside from gamma correction and the ability to 64 bit render in the background. But the lights and shadows still seem to be pretty much the same they've been for the past 4 or 5 or more  years since Firefly first was introduced.
And that's just pathetic. Smith Micro should have been trying to impress us, but instead delivered more or less the same old program with a new splash screen and title bar and only a few minor and relatively insignificant improvements

Mike,

I, too, am disappointed about the lack of progress in rendering and materials, but it's not for lack of interest on the part of SM.

The problem is when they do one of these "What do you want us to work on" threads, do you think the people who say "realism features" - are they minority or majority? You know the answer - minority.

Look at the gallery. How much CRAP is produced. The Poser community (not the app) is a total embarassment. Ask anybody at CG Society to really qualify they're reaction - do they find the application offensive or the people who use it. I believe the latter.

The vast majority of Poser users

1) Still don't even care that they are producing dead-looking people because they don't gamma correct
2) Love painted on highlights on hair
3) Love the incredible "detail" in skin color maps that are basically photos with no attempt made of removing the specular reflections, so they can be done properly in 3D

1. Love painted on reflections of windows in cornea materials
   5) Do not even know what SSS means

Do you think these people, these great unwashed, are asking for improved realism? NFW.

They're asking for easier posing and other ways to make playing with virtual dolls more fun.

They're asking for easier ways of searching/finding/organizing stuff in their bloated runtimes.

These same people spend a TON of money buying content, instead of making content.

These people spend money (serious money) on really crap shaders for water that don't even use refraction, AND THEY FREAKING LOVE THAT SHIT. They love it not because it looks real, it doesn't. They love it because it renders fast.

These people spend money (serious money) on really simple light sets - sets I can make in 30 seconds, because they don't know how to change the color or position of a spotlight.

Don't piss and moan about the app - SM is responding to what the user base wants, not the entirety for sure, but the majority.