Quote - I've never said anything about a possible poser 8 since today, but i know one thing, if you integrate a better GI, a better clothes room a better hair room and some things we found in other 3d softwares i'm sure it will be more expensive like the present ... What do you prefer ? A litte accessible software ( ~ 200 or 300 € ) who you need a little reflexion to match the better render or a gaz factory like 3ds with all the surface you can imagine and paid it around 2000 or 3000 € ???

In the second case we dont need poser 8 or 9 or whatever ...

The fact who made poser what is it is his "simplicity", i think ... No need to tell tall stories ...

But people have complained about the firefly renderer since it was first used in Poser. It's all very well adding better lighting, GI, more realistic hair, VSS etc, but if the renderer is limited what's the use. Don't get me wrong I love using Poser and lots of people get really good results rendering with it, but it's a program for creating art or animations of people. Look in many of the Poser galleries, and the most realistic renderings of skintone, lightining etc have been rendered in another program.
I can't afford 3ds max or anything like that, and I understand that if Poser itself could render like that it would probably push it way out of my price bracket. Poser is aimed price wise at beginners and hobbyists, but that doesn't mean that it can't improve. There are plenty of free or cheap 3D modelling programs and renderers that do a better job than Poser does at rendering.
Sometimes it comes down to preference of style. Lots of people can look at a Poser picture and say "that must have been rendered in Poser/ DS/ Carrara/ Vue etc" because of the lighting and way each program renders things.
Lets face it, Poser is never going to have a renderer that everyone is happy with (does any program?). What future versions of Poser will need to do to keep in line with other programs, be taken seriously and ditch the reputation that it has amongst some in the 3D community that it is just used by most for creating their own "Poser porn"  is to have the ability to create more realistic renders of people, objects and surroundings etc.
How do you do this without hiking the price up?

1. Improve the lighting, materials and renderer the best you can in the target budget.
2. Create the ability to export whole Poser pz3 files with at least 2d texture links intact (not just as obj, 3ds etc) as different formats that other external free and comercial renderers can recognise. People can pick the one that does the best rendering for the type of art they are producing.

Just used up my daily quota of the word "etc" I'll shut up for now!

Daz Studio 4.8 and 4.9beta, Blender 2.78, Sketchup, Poser Pro 2014 Game Dev SR5 on Windows 8 Pro x64. Poser Display Units are inches