Wow BB, I didn't know you had it in you. ;-)

I see where you're coming from though, and I agree completely. More than completely...

Well OK, let me rephrase my intentions then. It's easy to get carried away with "Poser needs this, Poser needs that, and blahblahblah...". But I think in my first post in this thread I said this is what Poser 8 needs for me to be interested. And although it's admittedly not obvious, that's the way I've been thinking of it through everything else I wrote.
So, I'm looking at it and writing about it all very subjectively.

One thing I've written many times, which I will continue to maintain though is it's disappointing. Poser could be a MONSTER of an app if it took what it already has that is good and added some real high end tools to it all. Its OpenGL is about the best there is, for one thing. Not even the mighty Maya can move extreme res meshes with 4K textures around like Poser can. And Poser can do it with several figures at the same time, where Maya, Max, Lightwave...all choke on only one such figure. And IMO, the ability to do so is a HUGE thing, especially for posing a figure and animating it.

But I don't have any say in Poser's direction, that's for sure. It's unfortunate if S-M doesn't want to push it to the levels it's capable of achieving, but from a marketing aspect I suppose it's the better idea to appeal to the masses.

Still though....

Oh well, guess I have to chime in again....

Are 99.9% of the Poser gallery crap ? YES.

Is 99.9% of the content (Poses, lights, shaders, clothing and yes, even the beloved BASE FIGURES) sold in the Poserverse crap ? YES.

Do 99.9% of the Poser/Studio  users happily refuse to learn even the simplest basic rules of CGI because their "artistic minds" can't be bothered with such menial problems like falloff zones ? YES.

But, you know, I will start using Poser PRO's rudimentary  "Gamma correction" as soon as you can show me a perfectly photorealistic render made in Poser that looks perfectly photorealistic just because Poser's gamma correction was used.

Might be my old CRT monitor, but using my own WYSIWYG lightsets, the textures I use render exactly the same way as they look both in the OGL preview or when I look at them with Irfanview.

But,  because many, many "caucasian" skin textures look dark orange instead of, umm,...PINK, I usually modify them heavily using Photoshop or IrfanView before I use them.
And yes, that even includes gamma correction.
(Actually MOST textures are way too dark. I'm pretty sure these is caused by cheap, overly bright/washed out  LCD monitors)

And I will start using "actual 3d" highlights under the same conditions.
Poser simply isn't able to produce accurate specularity by itself, no matter how many shaders or fancy IBL-lightsets you throw at it.
Not for skin, and especially not for (transmapped) hair.

So, until Poser gets actually BETTER than Max and MAYA, I happily stick with photographs of actual skin and hair that contains actual highlights and not the sanitized, bland, photoshop edited textures many merchants produce these days.
(REAL, custom made specularity maps might be an option, but so far I hardly know any products using them)

Strange, as much as I dislike anything about the new 4th gen DAZ meshes, M4's texture looks A LOT better and realistic than M3's.
Exactly because it has those despised "burned in" highlights.

Finally:
It all starts with the human form.

If you want to build an accurate model of something, wether it's in real life or virtually, you have to get the SHAPE right.

If I build a model of a Sherman M4 tank, but I use the wrong kind of track or type of commanders cupola, I can have the best and most elaborate paint and weathering job in the world, my peers will still dismiss it as "crap" because it doesn't represent reality.

If you want realism, you need to be able to create an accurate shape.
And you can't re-create the human form without having full control over it's joints.

So, you can put as many fancy shaders as you want on a figure, if it is anatomically wrong, if it's joints are broken because the program you used can't handle joint deformations good enough, then you need better tools.

So again: As much as I DO NOT LIKE Studio and DAZ's general attitude, unless Poser 8 doesn't allow me FULL CONTROL over mesh deformations, It's useless for me.

I won't smear paint over a scale model to hide sloppy assembly with glue spilling out of the seams, and I won't waste my time smearing pixels over a mesh' broken limbs because a company refuses to use the latest available technology.

I'm not into 100% perfect Photorealism.
This is incredible hard to achive even with the professional tools.

But at least I want some reasonable accuracy for my virtual dollys without completely unecessary anatomical flaws.

Until recently, STUDIO was a joke. Really.
It was a "premade content viewer", nothing more.
But they really upped the ante with several of their latest plugins.
I would LOVE to see Poser taking the lead again.

But if they fall into the "let's make it barely good enough to sell it to the unwashed masses" trap again, it's bye bye from me.

Quote -

Look at the gallery.

i guess you are right.

i come here and ask for better shadows and then 80% renders in the gallery dont even have shadows turned off.
grrrrrrrrrr :) 

There's a dark cloud over the shire I see...

i made a mistake. i meant shadows turned on

 ouch, BB. So harsh. So true.

And you know, the rumblings from the minority are actually something that should be heeded. We're the ones who are wanting to use the dollies like B grade actors, and work Poser into the pipeline as more than a 'cheat' (as so many have called it). Look at that new zombie flick, I think the title is 'Colin'. Told from the zombie's POV, and made on a budget of $70.....which mainly went for munchies. The guy who helmed it asked for volunteers in a labor of love and experiementation. Kind of like odf and Phantom3D are doing with Antonia atm (who I can't wait to see finished). This harkens back to the heyday of P4, when more than half the new tech was from the users who tinkered. Of course Antonia, like Apollo, is going to be harder to learn to use; tanstasfl. 

What Poser 8 really needs is a fully exposed SDK for plugin development. Far too many times 'impossible' issues have been fixed or made into an advantage by Those Who Tinker. Someone would start in on some form of weightmapping. Another who hates Firefly would start hammering out a way to integrate one of the other renderers. Another would try and hack out a new GUI, and so on.

There isn't a whole lot to do for the still image crowd, except maybe a more standard lighting system. But those who animate are the ones who could take this little app and really make it sing. Improve the dynamics, add physics as part of the app, fix the various issues with layered animation, and open the api up to full python access. Maybe even see if they could integrate a particle system, or create a plugin that could talk to other apps through collada.

Of course another thing that really =needs= to happen is a total revision of the manual. Expand the section on shaders, giving a full table of what they do. More on the animation tools and the why of them. The extra books need to supplement; not explain things that the manual should....

Exactly why I love to tinker, and tossed in my two cents on Antonia!  I as human being dream.  Dreams are not substantial unless YOU GRAB THEM AND MAKE THEM REAL! To explore and use the tools I find and use to makes my dreams visual is what art is about!  I don't need to go to the hills and find the clay to grind my ochre and paint with it. We have industries for that now.

People are making 3d models for everyone in the 3d art end to use.  You need not be a modeler  if you don't have the talent for that. Welcome to the 21st century folks!

HOWEVER, all the great paint and wonderful brushes in the world will not make one an artist. PERIOD.  Life sucks. Deal with it.  Talent helps loads, but that is only part of art.

Like Edison observed, creation is 1% inspiration and 99% perperation.  You have to WANT IT! You have to WORK AT IT!  You have to master your tools and practice with them and work at it!

I do NOT want a magic wand! (Except when I do a "Harry Potter"  commission!:laugh:) I DO want a tool set I can use handily to make my images with. That is the long and short of it. That's why I want better stuff in Poser because I have practiced with Poser a lot already and am used to the tools.

Sheesh, I hope none of my fellow unwashed masses wander in here by mistake - they might be offended. If I squint just right through the blinding fake GI radiance emitted by The Elect, I can see their pain though it's hard to respond to utter contempt with sympathy.

In my unwashed and pitiful ignorance, it seems to me that the rendering engine is the most decoupled part of Poser. While having every bell and whistle integrated would be ideal, there are certainly alternatives, ranging from free, Kerkythea or DS to moderate Vue, to pricey C4D and Max all with the ability to import Poser content directly. Yes, I know, they're imperfect because most/all of them don't do the stringy Poser dynamic hair (which I'm sure looks nifty in the hands of the elite) or clothing and you have to use their materials. But hey, you get to roll with the big dogs (except DS, another haven for the troglodytes) and not have to worry about that SmithMicro (purveyor of kitschy screensavers) will cater to the benighted masses and their dirty money instead of being a real, big time,  Academy Award winning 3D company. Maybe the bankruptcy court will find a better buyer than the one they're probably negotiating with as we speak if history is any indication.

On a lighter note, is SmithMicro even coding enhancements to the Tempest rendering engine they licensed from Pixels 3D and christened FireFly? Are they free to (and capable of) adding all these goodies or are they dependent on the mothership because as far as I can tell Submarine Surface Rendition (is that right?) isn't exactly on Pixel's priority list. That was when I last time checked on teh interwebs, but their sight uses big words and those shadow thingies so I'm not sure.

"Every great cause, begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." - Eric Hoffer

"Submarine Surface Rendition"

Exactly what planet am I on?
Well, I for one find Poser Pro as is more than adequate for producing my Porn Comic.  But then, I don't have any problems with either Judy's, Posette's or Dork's joints (just gotta remember which part's supposed to move which way, and how).  And whatever texturing problems I had with them I fixed by remapping them to be Unimesh MAT posable.
DPH

"Exactly what planet am I on?"  One where ironic sarcasm is not spoken evidently.

*"Submarine Surface Rendition"

*Yo, Mack, you know me, I can appreciate Ironic Sarcasm as much as the other fella, but the other fella is probably American, and at least knows what you're referring to.  So sorry, but I ain't a been in de States fo' a 40 odd years, n' me slang eees a bit o' rusty!!
Could-ya, would-ya, please a' translate de abobe??? ;=D
DPH

Quote -
Exactly what planet am I on?
Well, I for one find Poser Pro as is more than adequate for producing my Porn Comic.  But then, I don't have any problems with either Judy's, Posette's or Dork's joints (just gotta remember which part's supposed to move which way, and how).  And whatever texturing problems I had with them I fixed by remapping them to be Unimesh MAT posable.
DPH

Well if you're happy with it, why are you even bothering to post here in this thread?
You need to go find one of those many "Poser Rox!" threads to post in, since this one seems to be for discussing its deficiencies, not its pros, and for Poser-related pissing, moaning and whining in general. ;-)

as noted by others, poser is a laffing stock amongst 3d snobs due to user error.  said snobs don't have a sufficient knowledge of poser to be aware of its capabilities and deficiencies, hence they may base some of their prejudices on what they heard about poser 4 several yrs ago. but it's mostly the millions of giant-boobed zombie renders that give poser a bad reputation.  maybe it's like guns.  just a piece of equipment that may be well-constructed and have decades of engineering behind it.  once it gets into the wrong hands, all sorts of horrid things can happen.

Quote - There's a dark cloud over the shire I see...

Just a bit of Smaug...

From all the people complaining of elitism,moaning,and the general bad mood around THIS thread....seems like a dark cloud over this thread verging on a flame-war.

FOLKS, CHILL OUT, PLEASE!  This is a thread about speculation, not introspection.  About wanting more features and wishing, not about bashing and trashing.

This also something other CGI users have commented on--That poser-users do way to much infighting to make anything worthwhile.   I never really believed it until this thread.  Geez, Loiuze  this is getting rougher than it deserves.  We keep on like this, and the tread will get locked by the admins. :blink:

Oh man, this is nothing compared to some of what I've seen here.

Not just that, but I've seen some real doozies over at CGTalk, particularly in the 3D program comparison threads - which they don't allow anymore. ;-)

No, I don't think Poser people infight any more than any others I see on teh interwebs. There was a real good one between a bunch of Lightwave users and a Maxon employee not too long ago at CGT, for example.

Poser flaming isn't any more intense than any other flaming, really. Go to the gaming forums sometimes - they're just as bad as the political forums. ;-)

Quote - ....

.

Finally:

If I build a model of a Sherman M4 tank, but I use the wrong kind of track or type of commanders cupola, I can have the best and most elaborate paint and weathering job in the world, my peers will still dismiss it as "crap" because it doesn't represent reality.

That is Soooooooo WRONG .... you should do a V4 tank first ... A4 tank second... and then do the M4 tank ...

Could someone please just explain to me what "Submarine Surface Rendition" means?
DPH

Considering the context of his post as a whole, which was laced with sarcasm and hyperbole, I'd guess that  "Submarine Surface Rendition" was a play on "Subsurface Scattering".

I'm not gonna spend much time on this, but a couple clarifications are in order I think.

1) I was bashing MikeJ (who is being good-natured, anyway). When he beat up on SM, I tried to explain why SM is doing the right thing by ignoring CG realism elitists. SM is responding to its market, which collectively and by majority is not interested in producing high quality CG work. The people who are interested in quality output, they move to other applications. Sometimes there are lingerers who talk about improving Poser instead of abandoning it. Then those like Mike come along and say "abandon!" and the lingerers are offended. I was at first, but after I thought about what is happening at SM and why its happening, I made my flame post. Mike should not bash Poser or SM, because SM is being responsive to its customers, which is another way of saying SM is not paying much attention to render quality, like it or not. Those of us who want that are in the minority and probably should move over to other applications, or we should beat the shit out of the rest of the community and make them understand and demand quality rendering.

1. In doing #1, I had to bash the Poser community, because it (collectively) deserves it. When your product maker has to spend its engineering time trying to organize your bloated content library, instead of improving the quality of the way it handles your content, you've made your own bed - now lie in it. SM is responding to the demands of its market. I know, because I'm actually involved in (CENSORED) and I'm building the new (CENSORED) for SM instead of working on the (CENSORED) or the (CENSORED), which is what I should be doing. I have had many interesting conversations with SM about rendering, lighting, and shading techniques and they don't have enough time to address all the ideas we've discussed because the market has spoken and they want (CENSORED), so that's what they're working on and responding to.

3) Those of you who took offense at what I said, and spoke up to give reasons/arguments why you need to keep things the way you're keeping them - you did not in any way contradict me. Your objection was a demonstration of exactly what I'm talking about. You amplified my point beautifully.

I'm pretty great and I haven't had a wash for a while.

I filled in the last survey and asked for:-
More realistic breast magnets.
Random temple generator.
Quick and easy sword shader.

I hope they don't fill P8 with scary techy stuff.

Bagginsbill is right.
We get what we ask for. There are a lot of people (including me) who want to work with bloated runtimes and be able to manage these runtimes. I want to be able to find, pick and use props/clothing/hair and other stuff as best suits my needs/ideas. Yes, I can model them, but that takes a lot of time which I rather spend on composing and detailing a scene. That is what I like  to use Poser for.
Sometimes I want photo realism in my renders but often I only want it to look real and not necessarily be a fysical perfect representation of it. A 3D application allows you to create real and not so real scenery which you are unable to do in the real world. Here you want the illusion of reality and not necessarily the real thing.

And yes, I also want all the goodies mentioned here in this thread and more....
 

I don't know...

I'm well aware that nothing I could post would change anything about Poser and yes, I participated in their survey.

If SM rather "goes for the masses" instead of developing core functionality, then it seems I wasted the last 9 years of my live trying to learn Poser inside and out.

I guess I better had started learning MAX or MAYA insteadback in 2000.
At least then I wouldn't have to waste my time with people who think that knowledge can be replaced by a credit card, or that accuracy is just "optional".

Funny, during the 80's, scale modelling was practically dead.
Companies would issue just two or three new models a year, claiming that "video games" stole their market.

But then something strange happend:
Small cottage companys started to produce add-ons targeted not at kids and teens, but at "serious" modellers.
People who happily spend months researching history books and study factory blueprints and scale plans and don't mind spending hundreds of dollars just to get every, really every last detail exactly RIGHT.

The industry used to call them "rivet counters" and ignored them because the kids and teens (and the grandmas who bought a kit for little Timmy's 8th birthday at WalMart) were assumed to be the "big money makers".

And today ?
Today the big companies (And quite a few new ones) fight to the teeth over the "rivet counters" money.
Dozends of new kits are released each month, one more accurate and elaborate than the other.
And if the rivet counters find even a small flaw, some companies will happily spend ten-thousands of $$$ and actually rework the casting dies just to keep their consumers happy.
(Yes, the companies actually read the large scale-modelling forums, because they know a bad review can ruin a kit's sales.)

No more arrogance from the BIG companies.

No more in-accurate crap that is deemed "good enough" to be sold to kids (or their grannys) because "they couldn't tell anyway".

And scale modelling as a hobby (and an artform) is bigger, much much bigger than it ever was.
(And the kit companies make more $$$ than ever before)

Seems DAZ has finally seen the light while SM is now turning away from the very people who made Poser big.

Bingo!  We have a winnah! :laugh:

@Joe--that is a KILLER observation.  Great phrases, too.  Thought food to chew on. :lol:

Quote -
We get what we ask for. There are a lot of people (including me) who want to work with bloated runtimes and be able to manage these runtimes. I want to be able to find, pick and use

It's truly ironic though - organizing one's libraries is one of the very few things the user has complete control over. IMO, the company making the product shouldn't have that responsibility foisted upon them, and should not respond to it no matter how much the users beg for it.

Poser's library structure is archaic at best, but it IS usable and IS organizable. It's even transferable, as it relies on a relative path for everything. The problem is, people install things the way they get them, and end up with a bunch of folders starting with "!!!" and names for pose and mat libraries like "!!My Crappy Product".... and if you allow that you can have a mess.

However, everything can be unzipped to a temp folder and renamed more lgically or more relevent to the contents before being plopped into a runtime. It's not a good idea to rename the geometries or textures folders, but it can be done, and still be usable, but you don't need really to access them from within Poser anyway, so it's not as important. But all the other libraries which ARE accessed through ther Poser library structure can be renamed to whatever you want. And/or you can create multiple runtimes, based on content type.

As I said, it's ironic one of the few things that the user can actually control, S-M will be wasting time, effort and money on,  when people who work with computers should already be doing that on their own.

THAT would be a great place to srtart "beat[ing] the shit out of the rest of the community" - to make them understand that they dont' have to deal with sloppy libraries and it's really not Poser's fault if/when one's library becomes sloppy and unusable.

Somebody ought to make an indepth tutorial on how to organize one's content. Maybe I'll do it - my libraries are beautifully organized.

Then again, it's probably too late to even matter....

Organizing runtime folders?  I already did that when I had Poser 6. That took time, but wasn't hard at ALL.  I organized all the library folders and stick stuff into the folders where they belong.  I can find anything that I have in my 'bloated' runtime. in a matter of moments.  That doesn't really need any work. Just nest the folders as needed and name them for what you use and what you as the user THINK they should be name so YOU can find it.

For example: I have a folder in my Props library called "Armor Clothes". Any helmets, sunglasses, men OR women's hats, or even gas masks go into it on the thought, they are things you wear to protect your head.  I doubt anyone else would or would want to name it that!:laugh:

HOWEVER--I can find any headwear by looking in that folder.  Figure hats just do not exsist from my experience.

SM needs to work on things that NEED fixing, not makework. LOLOLOL :lol:

Well yeah, that's the point I meant to make. I bet most of us wanting better rendering, better lights and so on got the library thing figured out a long time ago. For us, organization is a non issue, something we know we have to do; something we just take for granted has to be done. Just about every program I can think of requires organizational skills and an attempt to do it up right. Not just the 3D programs either.
But especially when you're dealing with 3D programs it becomes a necessity. I have nearly 13,000 textures in my Lightwave content folders, for example. And that's just textures - scripts, objects, scenes and a whole lot of other stuff not included. If I didn't name my files in a way that made sense and put them into a logical structure I'd get lost quickly.

And would I yell at Newtek to make it easier on me? No, it would be my fault - my responsibility to make my stuff usable. They already provided the basic content folder structure scheme, which is all they need to do. If I choose to mess it up, it's on me to fix it, not them.

And the same goes for Poser. The "Runtime" folder structure is comparable to Lightwave's Content structure and, Maya and Max's Projects structures, and can be organized if one puts forth a little effort.
Granted, it's different in Poser that you don't have something like File>Load Figure, but the basic idea is still there and can be worked with.

Nope, I don't have even an ounce of sympathy for anyone who says their library is a mess any more than I sympathize with someone whose kitchen is a mess. Clean it up already, don't wait for someone else to do it for you!

But aside from that, yeah, Joe Public up there does have a great point, with the scale modeling industry.
Maybe it's all these years of the various makers of Poser catering to the lowest common denominator that's caused it to become such a liability, causing everyone to sell it off. Maybe it's time for them to rethink their product and their marketing, rather than just go the safe route.
If you make a quality product, people will buy it. They might lose alot of old users who don't want to pony up for better features, but they could also stand to gain a whole new generation of new users.

But if what BB says above is true - and I see no reason to doubt it - Content Paradise is the most important thing to them, and Content Management will be the #1 improvement in Poser 8. I've actually been predicting that ever since that sorry ass poll many moons ago. ;-)

Yep, that IS the ways go.  Look at the screw-ups in banking and housing and investment.  They kept getting sloppier and sloppier until the whole mechanisms just cracked and broke.  Poser might go down a similiar path until someone in the production of it wises up.

THAT is POSSIBLE.  Not likely, but is possible.:laugh:

@DPH: yes it was ref to the masses not knowing what SSS is. I should have said "submersion" instead of "rendition" to match the acronym/initialism, sorry, must be Gitmo on the brain.

I agree that Poserites are no more contentious than the other groups mentioned with one big difference - its not primarily app vs. app, its intramural, one group of poser users hectoring (to be mild) other Poser users. This is true not only in this technical debate but also in the perennial debate over how the schlocky non-artists are ruining Poser for the real artists.

While there is no doubt wisdom in the scale modeling anology, I disagree with the notion that SM is somehow abandoning the people who made Poser successful. Poser is and has always been for hobbyists. That term covers a lot of ground. There a lot of extremely talented and dedicated hobbyists (and a few professionals) who have done great things by hacking Poser's internals. There also seems to be general agreement that the vast majority of users just want to do what they've always dreamed of but never could do before, make pretty pictures of people, be it "art" or pr0n. People disagree passionately about what constitutes good, both from a technical and an artistic view.

To paraphrase Jefferson, it does me no injury for my neighbor to use raytraced shadows or no shadows. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. It may chafe that Poser gets no respect, but after switching from C to Visual Basic, I've been there and done that. The simple fact is that people do what makes them happy and beating the shit out of them is unlikely to make them change as I suspect BB knows. Whoever owns Poser has to walk a fine line between advancing the program and alienating the masses who pay the bills. The notion that creating uber Poser would gain more than it would lose seems to me to be iffy at best but that is pure speculation. Microsoft transformed VB into a more advanced tool and many developers just said no. No biggie for them, they have other languages - SM has only Poser.

You can certainly have both and DS is an example. I don't think they've suddenly seen the light, I think their aim all along was to be more accessible to the casual user - eg. DForms vs Poser Magnets, PowerPose, asset management - while enabling more advanced features for those that want them. The plugin architecture is well suited to that. Can SM do the same with Poser, I don't know but sans a complete rethinking it seems less likely.

The bottom line is that no matter what you want Poser to become, I see no need to be so harsh in disagreeing with people who have different views and want different things. Disagreement I can understand, passion I can understand but why the hostility? Where's the big tent? Unless Poser is your sole source of income, then why basy those who have different priorities and enjoy what they're doing. It is, or should be a computer program, not a religion demanding jerimiads against the heretics. You're not cloistered away in some beerhall, the occasional outsider does wander in, along with the odd hygeine challenged punter. You're at liberty to say whatever you want, however you want TOS willing but it seems to me that such an intelligent group could find a more respectful level of discourse. Frankly, I just don't see how advocating for improvements in Poser is helped by excoriating people who don't use Poser the way you think they should. I don't get it and I know I never will so I'll leave you to it.

"A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be." - Rosalynn Carter

but bagginsbill.

i think the poser community are doing bad renders because poser is nto able to do better. so now SM is not changing it because they are doing bad renders? 

you have a point. and since you talked directly to SM you know everything better then us. you have ''insider'' information he he he :) 

but you can not tell me that SM is happy that people are buying a software  where they dont need shadows.i thought a company wants positive word of mouth in the public.

i think i will now start cursing( not to you) because this is against human logic. how can a human in 2009 buy a software to render out a human without shadows and human characteristics( specular,SSS,...).
its not about people not understanding how humans looks. but if you want in your free time  to render some ''art'' then for christ sake you want to do the best.

so based on all that i think people who are using poser accepted that they dont have money to buy a better software so they use poser. but IMO that doesnt mean that they dont want normal working DM shadows. for christ sake in 2009 poser doesnt have good DM shadows. i am not even talking about GI. who cares. even Pixar is not using GI in their movies.

"i think the poser community are doing bad renders because poser is nto able to do better. so now SM is not changing it because they are doing bad renders? "

I doubt it. Poser can already do better renders than 90% of the ones in the galleries. But just because Poser can do better, doesn't mean that people's renders will improve. Improving a render takes some work on the part of the user and a lot of people either don't know how or don't want to learn how to do it. The most common failing of the average render is lighting. Most people just don't understand how to do decent lighting, and nothing Poser adds will change that. (For example IBL hasn't improved the general standard of renders very much, although in theory it should have).

Now, if you offer people fasterrenders in Poser, they'll jump on it like a shot. Because that's what a lot of people want - to do the same thing in less time. Whether it's better or not, is beside the point.

I may sound cynical, but in 12 years of using Poser and Daz Studio, the main improvements I see in the actual output have come from improved figures and textures, not from amazing new technologies in the programs. Of course, I'm talking very generally here. There are some people who push the limits of software to great lengths, but for every one of them, there are 10 other people who do fairly average renders which could be improved by knowing more about lighting or the software they're using.

mac

"You can certainly have both and DS is an example. I don't think they've suddenly seen the light, I think their aim all along was to be more accessible to the casual user - eg. DForms vs Poser Magnets, PowerPose, asset management - while enabling more advanced features for those that want them. The plugin architecture is well suited to that. Can SM do the same with Poser, I don't know but sans a complete rethinking it seems less likely"

It's beginning to look like DAZ deliberately spent the first few years building Daz Studio up into something resembling Poser, with most of it's basic functions, and now they've done that, it's moving up to a whole new level. DS 3 (currently in beta) has some great features. Shader Builder gives you a GUI to make your own RSL shaders and Shader Mixer (node-based procedurals similar to Poser's material room) allows you to combine preset shaders and apply them. These are both immensely powerful functions and they open up a whole new slew of possibilities in DS. Along with Shader Baker, Figure Mixer, Morph Follower and a few other new things, DS 3 is looking very good indeed.

Can SM do the same with Poser? Well, I certainly hope so. They've surprised users in the past (especially with all the things they added to P5), so it may be that P8 will up the ante yet again. I've always felt Poser was being held back by it's outdated code, but maybe the dev team know things I don't and they can add even more without touching a thing under the hood. Time will tell, I suppose.

One thing's for sure. If they aren't up to the challenge, DS definitely is.

Disclaimer - I've no intention of starting a 'My software's bigger than yours' war. But it's becoming harder to talk about the future of Poser nowadays without mentioning DS somewhere along the line. We all use what we're comfortable with and that's just fine by me.

mac

But their improvements come at a very high cost.
(Big overhead, more fragile, harder to modify).

Keeping the figure setup simple (and rugged) but using the latest posing technology is a far better way to enhance overall realism.

The above was done using STUDIO and ZBrush in about 30 minutes.
M3 now has better shoulders than M4 or any other figure.
And I can make him better knees, better hip joints or better ellbows as easily, too.

Heck, I can make the Poser 4 Dork bend better than M4 using STUDIO.
Or move M4 from "quite OK" to "100% PERFECT".

Right now this new technology only works to 80-90% when the figures are imported back to Poser.
But it still is way superior over what the MorphBrush can do.
(Which still is a fantastic tool by itself which I use a lot)

When I build/construct/sculpt a physical model, I'm in full control over it's appearance.
That was something Poser and Studio were painfully missing all the time.

Sorry SM, I won't "make do" with anything less.
I can organize my Runtime just fine without your help.
I need a better Poser, not a more convenient one.

As far as I'm concerned, when it comes to male figures, my remapped Dork is the Best.  When it comes to female figures, my remapped Posette and Judy are the best.  Simple, easy to pose, and comes with a ready made wardrobe.
DPH

 After reading the posts of the last few pages, one has think that SM would make a smart move to change the way it handles it's SDK. I am told it costs a small fortune to buy and therefore a developer like a Robert Templeton who has added great value to Poser via his interposer product struggles to make it work because he doesn't have all the tools-information-resources he needs. 

Just think if the SDK was licensed in a fashion of pay as you go. Buy 10, 25, 50 or 100 user-license pack for X. Where X is a very cost effective and attractive number for the developer to buy into at a low investment. The more addons for poser the developer sells, the more money goes into SM's pockets. A win-win for everybody. 

One has to wonder what tools we would have today if a situation like this existed and the SDK pack was in the hands of Robert, PhilC, Ockahm, Semideu, Dimension3D, BB,  among others. Right now SM gets zero dollars for anything they have created be it standalone or Python. I wonder what the dollars would be if SM got say 2.50USD license fee for every copy sold of their addon to Poser if the developer used the SDK. Then I wonder what great tools we would have, as SM would  leverage the development, expansion and value of the product and attract rivet counters and the causal user via the minds of some pretty smart people. IE: SM would create a revenue stream it does not have today, without hiring an additional employee and again I think we would have a vast improved set of tools to use.

Mention it to them.  Sounds like a basically sound solid business venture with a built in win/win policy for all involved.  Better tools always gets my blood on fire to see them! :laugh:  Improving the tools I work with always gets me excited.

Just to add my two cents...

Paganartist hit a bullseye. Poser 8 has to move into the 21st century by being a true 64 bit app - not just a 64 bit render engine. I can live with the slightly clunky library system. Heck, I have PzDB which makes content searches a dream. But the move-up to 64 bits is essential. The other two essentials are: control over lighting influence for each light, as in Vue Inf. and C4D (including specular influence), and two interface enhancements - a gizmo that lets you place objects in a scene more precisely (like the gizmo in Vue - where you can simply pull/push an arrow, instead of dialing dials!), and the ability to zoom in/out using the mousewheel. These improvements make it worth my $.

Will there be a Poser 8?

Yes.  The reason why...Poser is the best introductory 3d app around.

Quote - After reading the posts of the last few pages, one has think that SM would make a smart move to change the way it handles it's SDK.

You're implying that the SDK allows to interact or  improve Poser. But up to now we've only seen it used to handle Poser scenes in other applications. So it doesn't really look like an SDK of the kind Carrara or DAZ Studio have.
So Poser's SDK probably wouldn't be of much use to anyone...

i just hope teywill give us samples in the RT shadows. and i hope for some way to use wide specular lights. or like BB said a node where you can choose how many speculars to have

I REALLY agree with the Mouse-Wheel thing!  I was doing that and going all,"WTF?" last night.  All other apps have it that I use, except Poser. LOLOLOLOL  I forgot it doesn't have it, until I I tried again out of reflex.  Vue might not have it either. I use it so infrequently I can't remember.  It crashes more frequntly than P7.  I have an OLD system that is resource poor. 

A rising tide might lift all boats, UNLESS YOU HAVE HOLES IN THE HULL, then you sleep with the fishes! :laugh:

they couldn't release a full SDK due to daz|studio IIRC.  trade secrets and all that.  one doesn't wanna leave the barn door open or all the cows will escape.

Quote - ... DS 3 (currently in beta) has some great features. Shader Builder gives you a GUI to make your own RSL shaders and Shader Mixer (node-based procedurals similar to Poser's material room) allows you to combine preset shaders and apply them. These are both immensely powerful functions and they open up a whole new slew of possibilities in DS. Along with Shader Baker, Figure Mixer, Morph Follower and a few other new things, DS 3 is looking very good indeed.

mac

I think the results of the current poll about the new DS 3 features over at DAZ are very interesting...
36% of users think, that the improved render engine is the best feature (was updated to 3delight 8.5 from 6.x)
Only 5-7% consider the new Shader Builder and Shader Mixer as a "best feature".

This leaves the impression, that users believe, new/better render engine equals better renders... 

I would think, that a version update of the render engine wouldn't make much of a difference if
you still don't have more than your basic material settings...

Considering, that the user base is similar to Poser's, the SM survey results mentioned by BagginsBill make sense...
Maybe DS users would have voted on the "improved content management" as well, if it were a
new feature...

"This leaves the impression, that users believe, new/better render engine equals better renders..."

I think the increased render speed is the reason for the large number of votes. The move to 3Delight 8.5 has cut average render times by 30-40%. It really is blindingly fast now.

And it may confirm what I said earlier in this thread. If you offer Poser users faster renders, they'd prefer that over advanced features.

The other factor is that Shader Builder & Mixer are still in beta with no documentation which means the users haven't got a grip on how they work yet. Once docs and tutes are available, I'm sure these features will be more widely used.

mac

Quote - "This leaves the impression, that users believe, new/better render engine equals better renders..."

I think the increased render speed is the reason for the large number of votes. The move to 3Delight 8.5 has cut average render times by 30-40%. It really is blindingly fast now.

And it may confirm what I said earlier in this thread. If you offer Poser users faster renders, they'd prefer that over advanced features.

The other factor is that Shader Builder & Mixer are still in beta with no documentation which means the users haven't got a grip on how they work yet. Once docs and tutes are available, I'm sure these features will be more widely used.

mac

which is strange since more then 50% dont use shadows,raytracing. which means that their renders take maybe 1-5 minutes long to render.

Quote -
I doubt it. Poser can already do better renders than 90% of the ones in the galleries. But just because Poser can do better, doesn't mean that people's renders will improve. Improving a render takes some work on the part of the user and a lot of people either don't know how or don't want to learn how to do it. The most common failing of the average render is lighting. Most people just don't understand how to do decent lighting, and nothing Poser adds will change that. (For example IBL hasn't improved the general standard of renders very much, although in theory it should have).

Oh yes.

Now, because of what I do for my own stuff, I'm often on the side of the people who consider speed perhaps more important than accuracy or realism for some situations (such as doing a webcomic).  I can buy that, and in my own experience it's true.

However, I've found that some of the image producers get into a rut: they've found one thing that works and they'll be damned if they'll change it, even through multiple software updates.  I can point to several artists whose renders look exactly the same (and not in the "wow, that's totally realistic way!" even though I know they've upgraded.

Now, it's one thing if they're doing it to maintain a specific style, but if they're doing it just because that's what they needed to do then to get a good quality/speed ratio, they really don't have a good excuse why they're doing the same thing now when a bit of experimentation (or simply reading some of the discussions on this site and others) could allow them to improve quality and still get good output times.

And I don't agree that nothing Poser adds will change that. For some, yes, but the addition of gamma correction changes things a lot, for very little effort.

There are quite a few users who now have "decent lighting" without changing their lights at all, and it is because of GC. DPHoadley is an example - his renders before GC were 25% realistic, and now they are 55% realistic. There is still more to do, and the effort to get the next 30% improvement will be 10 times as much, but that's a big improvement just from upgrading and learning to flick a switch.

i think  a node that would be very practical is a node only about shadows.
for example the diffuse node and specular node have all shadows inside. but they  are connected to the lights intensity.
a node only for shadows would be ideal for some ''effects'' inside shaders.

another node that would be practical is a node that is like the specular node. but again not connected to the intensity.
 for exampele bagginsbill a lot of times is using effects with those nodes. but because they are connected to lights they have to be tweaked.

plus in the last days i have been using a lot of times lights with only shadows. but since poser doesnt support this function i have to use 2 lights. it would be very nice if we would have an option to only cast shadows from lights.

also i would love ''shadow objects''

this a function where an object is casting shadows but it is not visible.