Not trying to start anything here, just curious as to what others think!

Just looked at the specs for the above and it looks impressive.
Is it about to kick Poser up the arse and take it's crown? Any thoughts?

It doesn't matter that much to me because I use Vue for rendering anyway so a new Poser won't impact me much but if Vue were to bring DSA import capability I might have to consider it.
Would really like to know where you think this is going, is there going to be a movement from Poser to DSA?

I don't know if there will be a shift en masse, but I know that I'm certainly intrigued by the feature set of DS3. Feels like succumbing to the Darkside though.

Not too keen to throw down $100 for something absolutely brand new and fresh out of beta.

Me either*, however, I still have my platinum club membership and with the exchange rate the smaller pay package comes in at a little over £30. Not at all sure if I would ever use the additional stuff in the lager package.

*although it didn't stop me with poser 6 & 7.

It does look appealing in many respects. It has made me start to look at least now. But I have my worries about how much flexibility there is with certain features.

Just as an example, and I haven't looked properly, but I believe the cloth options are limited in terms of what you can drape - in Poser I can make, convert  & drape just about anything within the limits of how geometry can work in the simulations. I like this - I like to recycle.

This is probably my misconception, but I always get the feeling that D/S limits certain options in order to twist the user's arm into buying something extra. This seems to be less the case with this version (hence the price for D/S Advanced, which I'm all in favour of and which appears very reasonable), but I'd need more convincing.

To date I've only seen 3 or 4 convincing renders that seem to use any of the features that Poser can't currently reproduce (SSS, Caustics, some kind of stable GI/radiosity)  - I'm surprised Daz didn't put out a lot more to try and temp us Poser users (which makes me a little cautious). Scouring the D/S galleries at Daz doesn't throw up many oustanding examples, but then neither do the Poser galleries here for what I'm interested in.

It'd just be a bit of a pain converting right now, having to take on yet another new GUI (I've used so many apps) and getting my head around the various changes in termimology (they alway mess with my brain somehow). I've never gotten on with D/S in the past and it's never stayed on my system for more than a week or so. But never say never.

SM certainly need to up their game in terms of certain material & rendering options at least IMO.
It may well be that the tide is about to start turning, but I think I'll sit a while and see.

Quote - Not at all sure if I would ever use the additional stuff in the lager package.

As long as it is a good lager I'm sure you'd find something to do with it.

Quote - This is probably my misconception, but I always get the feeling that D/S limits certain options in order to twist the user's arm into buying something extra. This seems to be less the case with this version (hence the price for D/S Advanced, which I'm all in favour of and which appears very reasonable), but I'd need more convincing.

That's not a misconception, that's the way they've always pushed the plugins for DAZ|Studio.  The base version is "free" but really it's just an introduction to the DAZ store, they've always made their money off of brokering/selling content.  Frankly if they were REALLY clever they'd give the new version of D|S away truly for free and (unless it's terrible, which would be a bit of a surprise) suddenly "Poser Pro" would be junk.  The real problem with getting people to take Poser content seriously in the larger world is not the content itself, it's getting it into a render engine that doesn't produce 1990's quality results.  Video games render with higher quality than base D|S!

Quote - > Quote - Not at all sure if I would ever use the additional stuff in the lager package.

As long as it is a good lager I'm sure you'd find something to do with it.

Doh...clearly not enough coffee this morning,

Or maybe lager.

Maybe ;)

I plan to purchase D/S3 advanced, possibly the bundle. Only because I'm curious though. I would like to learn how to use it as well. Don't mind using many different apps. I have found that each will often do something much better than the others, so use the one which does what I want best for each project. Poser will probably always be my favorite between Poser and D/S if only because I started with it and have a certain fondness for it.

With BB working on incorporating VSS into Poser ( I think, just guessing :) I don't think I will be disappointed with the next Poser.

i think if you give the poser users area lights, SSS  and better shadows ,that then  they would make 5 times better renders than those renders from the new D/S3

i really think this.

Phantom3d take a very hard look at what is included in the bundle.  Most of the added cost is the figure setup tools (joint editor) that you already own if I remember correctly.

Working with the Beta, I was actually really impressed.  The Beta would render things that I couldn't render in the stable, pre 3.0 release, and do it faster than I expected, which is a HUGE bonus.  Because I didn't take and/or have the time to really delve into it like I wanted, I wasn't able to really get a handle on things I really wanted to use (like area lights and the shader mixer), but from what I've seen, they're impressive.

As moderator for both the Poser and DAZ Studio areas of the site, I get a unique perspective on different things.
In the DAZ Studio gallery, you'll see more animals and still life portraits.
In the Poser gallery, you'll see more figure portraits.

After having to mostly work with their own surface settings for the past few years, many DAZ studio users are a lot more willing to spend more time on a render, and many Poser images are obvious "Load and Render".  DAZ Studio users are, also, usually more forgiving than Poser users when something doesn't work to spec, and will fix it and send the fix to the vendor. (Granted, a lot of them are getting a bit more than ticked off that they have to do it, but, well, can ya blame them?  Especially if an item says "Tested in DS")

This may come as a shock to you guys, but I was totally geeked out last month to find that there were DAZ Studio artists (Igolochka and someone else, I forget now, and I left the magazine at my mom's) who were featured in 3D Artist magazine...and their work was, in fact, comparable to the images rendered in high-end applications, like 3DS Max and Cinema 4D.  Poser is advertised in at least 2 places (front inside cover and table of contents) in that magazine, but nothing Poser was featured.   I hope we have Poser artists that ARE trying to get their work featured in magazines, and I hope it's the best work they have, and I hope that it's comparable to renders in high-end apps.  It's possible, it really is.  We have the knowledge, it's shared here, FREELY, on a daily basis.  We have the knowledge to create professional grade works of art.  

Also, yes, take a GOOD look at the bundle.  While it's got a lot of good stuff in it, you may already have the stuff that's in it.  I have most of it already, so I'm not buying the larger bundle, but I will be getting the Advanced program when I get paid :)

That's true, I wonder if I get any discount. LOL

I don't even know what any of the rest of the items included in the bundle do really, so maybe I'll just get the advanced version. Unfortunately I had let my platinum club membership lapse. :(

I'm still saving money for Poser 8 and Cenema 4D too, might have to mortgage my house :lol:

Don't do THAT ,Mike! In this economy, you'll be taken to the cleaners. Whether dirty or not! :laugh:

I agree with the basic philosophy if try it for new features if free. The UI makes my brain hurt, but I have different modeling apps because each one does work differently and do something better than another.  Also I hope the new D/S forces SM to bring their A game to this match!

I still haven't enough "WOW" and "OMG" from the reviewers to make me very excited about it. YET.  We'll see.

As long as a good number of figures do not work in D/S it isn't an alternative to Poser at all. Conforming clothes on a good number of figures is still a complete mess. Some of the features in D/S are very cool, but do I really want to pay for a good number of bugs and can I live without some of the figures that don't work well in D/S? No, I'm not going to pay for buggy frustration and I certainly can't live without some of the main figures I use that aren't supported by D/S.

Even though was impressed with D/S 3.0, it still has some major things that stop me from switching.

Which figures don't work in DS?  I've always gotten all of the figures I've purchased to work in DS, the CP figures, Apollo, obviously the DAZ characters. 

A lot of looking into .cr2's by users found that 90% of the errors people have in DS is because the figure maker didn't make it right and that Poser just ignores the flaw.  I look at calling for DS compatability more of a call for content creators to slow down and actually make quality, rather than shooting things out the pipeline for a quick buck.  You'll make more money with quality than you will with Quantity.  Several of the Top Sellers rarely put out more than one thing per month, if that often.  Why are they on top?  They do it right the first time, and, if necessary, fix what's broken when they're told it's broken, instead of telling people that their program is broken.

It is true that Poser has basically no sanity checking when reading in mangled CR2s (or when writing them back out).  Although it may hurt in the rather unlikely event that they add some useful data integrity checking in patches or later versions - hope your ERC dials keep working ;)

Quote - Which figures don't work in DS?  I've always gotten all of the figures I've purchased to work in DS, the CP figures, Apollo, obviously the DAZ characters. 

A lot of looking into .cr2's by users found that 90% of the errors people have in DS is because the figure maker didn't make it right and that Poser just ignores the flaw.  I look at calling for DS compatability more of a call for content creators to slow down and actually make quality, rather than shooting things out the pipeline for a quick buck.  You'll make more money with quality than you will with Quantity.  Several of the Top Sellers rarely put out more than one thing per month, if that often.  Why are they on top?  They do it right the first time, and, if necessary, fix what's broken when they're told it's broken, instead of telling people that their program is broken.

I've got problems with a good number of the RDNA toon figures.

What problems are you having?  I have a good number of the RDNA toon figures, so if something doesn't work, I might have a workaround for you :)

I'm not that interested in it because DS kind of turned me off the first time I used it.  I really don't like the UI and I find that even selecting things can be difficult in that program.  Like when I add a clothing to the figure I can't always select the one I want to tweak  as intuitively as I can in poser.

I'll wait a little bit till they work out the bugginess ;o).

Laurie

It's all about personal preference, WC :)  I've had people rave and talk up their favorite modeller as the END-ALL of modellers, and I can't get my head around the interface, let alone the tutorials, LOL.  

I've been playing with the beta and it's definitely not a Poser killer for me. Of course that could be because I'm so used to Poser that D|S is totally foreign to me. I can't really say anything bad about the program because I don't really know how to use it, only that it's BECAUSE I can't use it that I'm so frustrated with it right now...LOL.

It's gonna take quite some time until I get used to it's nuances, whereas I've been using Poser so long that I'm comfortable there.

Laurie

Let me ask this of those who have tried the DS3 beta or even the official release...how comparable are the render times to Poser for similar scenes and similar render settings? 

Is DS3 faster or slower than Poser for scenes of roughly similar complexity? 

Also, a second question...is DS3 capable of network rendering? I haven't seen anything about that in the promo material I've seen.

Jenx, I'm not sure I agree with you, I personally think that the fact some figures work in Poser and don;t in D/S because the CR2 programing isn;t "correct" is an indication that D/S is "better" just that it's less flexible. This isn;t necessarily a negative for D/S but it's certainly not a plus either.

On the other hand some features of D/S (free or the new 3 version) look very useful and in some ways better than Poser, concideiring they had years of Poser use to learn from this isn;t unexpected (unfortunatly the last few owners of Poser haven;t had it long enough, or maybe haven;t been as interested in the "community" enough to learn the same lessons).

One MAJOR drawback I see in D/S (both versions) are with dynamic cloth. Yeah DAZ finally released a dynamic plug-in BUT you can only use clothing/content created by the same company that made the plug-in, as I'm vertually certain that even the clothing with DAZ listed as the vendor were made by OptiTex. So far there are only a relative few items created to use D/S dynamics and compared to Poser dynamic clothing ( especially when you concider almost ANY clothing can be converted to work in Poser's cloth room) they are fairly expensive. With a virtual monopoly I doubt this will change.

I know DAZ has mentioned the possibility of a "creator's module" to allow other content creators to make clothing but I've heard rumors it may never happen, and even if it does the CONTROL module is about $50 without discounts, how much do you suppose the "Creation" module will cost?

As it is, I'm on the fence. I've bought the  D/S Advanced software in order to learn it and it's content creation requirements ( the demo just hasn;t given me enough time to learn it). I think we are seeing the beginning of a split between Poser content and D/S content that will only continue to grow. D/S 3 Advanced introduces it;s own shader mixer, for example, so future content will have to take that into account, how different is it from Posers and how much work will be needed to create seperate shaders for both programs?

If the Cr2's continue to diverge, creating the need for MORE seperate files, how long can/will creators continue to supply dual use content? Will we see a time when there will be seperate suppor for each program, or will one program "win" and the other fade away?

I wasn't stating whether or not it was a plus, just that the reason that some figures don't work is that the cr2's weren't written properly in the first place.  It wasn't actually an opinion, just a statement as to why.

Quote -

Also, a second question...is DS3 capable of network rendering? I haven't seen anything about that in the promo material I've seen.

if DS3 is still using the 3Delight Engine, then there's a licensing issue that prevents network rendering.

the issue being you get 1 seat free, then it costs after that. about a grand a time...

to quote from 3Delight :

The first 3Delight license is free of charge. This is a fully functional two threads license that is liable for commercial use and can be downloaded here. No support is included with the free license but can be purchased for 250 USD.

For all additional licenses:
 

• The cost is 1,000 USD for a two threads license and 1,500 USD for a four threads license.
• Support is 190 USD per license per year for the two threads license and 285 USD for the four threads license. Support includes free upgrades and e-mail support.
• All licenses are floating.

this is also why I can't install DS anyway... I use 3Delight with trueSpace...

Quote - The first 3Delight license is free of charge. This is a fully functional two threads license that is liable for commercial use and can be downloaded here. No support is included with the free license but can be purchased for 250 USD. For all additional licenses:
 

• The cost is 1,000 USD for a two threads license and 1,500 USD for a four threads license.
• Support is 190 USD per license per year for the two threads license and 285 USD for the four threads license. Support includes free upgrades and e-mail support.
• All licenses are floating.

Kaibach, thanks for the information. The 3Delight engine licensing pushes the costs for me using DS3 for animation right out of consideration--not when there are more cost-effective alternatives.

Quote - Let me ask this of those who have tried the DS3 beta or even the official release...how comparable are the render times to Poser for similar scenes and similar render settings? 

Is DS3 faster or slower than Poser for scenes of roughly similar complexity? 

Also, a second question...is DS3 capable of network rendering? I haven't seen anything about that in the promo material I've seen.

What do you mean by complexity?  Our definitions may differ.  

I find that refraction in DS does take slightly longer on my system, but not hours longer, maybe 10-15 minutes.  I'll try to do a side-by-side in a little while. 
I still can't find a way to render displacement in a mirror in Poser 7.  This may have been fixed in Poser Pro, but I don't have that.  DS has had that since the original beta.  

As for network rendering, like Kaibach said, that's all up to the 3Dlight license.  This comes down to the "If you want it bad enough, are you willing to pay for it" idea.  Sure, network rendering is available in Poser Pro, but it's only useful if you use it.  But, I do think that there are things that DAZ is shooting itself in the foot with.  Dynamic Cloth is Windows Only.  3Delight has a restrictive license.  I can see these two things biting them in the butt more than anything else.

It looks like something that you could create content from right out of the box without plugins if you wanted to. It looks interesting for sure, but the interface makes me nuts, but I think if I would have used D|S first, Poser would be impossible...LOL.

Someone said in another topic that D|S users have an incredibly hard time with Poser. I assume that's because of the weird Poser interface (which took me a long time to adjust to BTW). D|S interface, I must admit, makes much more sense.

Laurie

Plus, another part that annoys me to no end is the "you can put your content wherever you want".  I have to have things organized a certain way, and, if a content creator puts their stuff wherever, it totally effs up my workflow.  That's a HUGE part of why a lot of DS users I've helped can't figure out Poser.  There's a certain way to do things, and they can't get their head around it.

Quote - Plus, another part that annoys me to no end is the "you can put your content wherever you want".  I have to have things organized a certain way, and, if a content creator puts their stuff wherever, it totally effs up my workflow.  That's a HUGE part of why a lot of DS users I've helped can't figure out Poser.  There's a certain way to do things, and they can't get their head around it.

I suppose that works both directions ;o). Poser users have a hard time getting D|S and D|S users have a hard time getting Poser. To each his own it will be then I guess. Either way, if one bought D|S 3 advanced at the introductory price, it wouldn't be a bad tool to have if maybe you'd like to try and learn it.

Laurie

I think one reason some Poser users find the DS interface off-putting is maybe because they approach it as another version of Poser. I've used Poser for 12 years and DS for 4 (? - since the 1st alpha) and I slowly became familiar with it along the way.  But now I'm so used to all it's conveniences, that I find Poser very limited (in terms of it's UI, I mean).

In DS, I can build my own toolbars, add my own icons, assign shortcuts to almost any command or UI element, add folders as shortcuts to a menu (Poseworks free Favorites script), create my own 'rooms' and populate them with the tabs I want, and a bunch of other things.

What I'm saying is, DS isn't Poser, and if you expect to find a lighting trackball, you'll be sorely disappointed. But it has many compensations, and my workflow is way faster in DS.

And btw, you don't need to buy DS Advanced. There's a free version too. It doesn't have a lot of the advanced capaibilites, but it can use them. For example, Shader Mixer presets work fine in the free version.

Another thing I haven't seen mentioned in this thread is DS 64-bit, which (so I'm told) is a 'true' 64-bit app. I'm still on 32-bit so I don't know the ins and outs of this, but I believe Poser doesn't utilise the full 64-bit capability? If I'm wrong on that, I'm willing to be corrected. I'm only going by what I've heard.

One thing's sure. If Poser gets sold off to yet another owner, (and believe me, I hope that won't happen!), I take comfort in the fact that I already have a good alternative.

mac

It looks like D/S has come along way.
Good to see a Diversity and more option for users of poser content

Cheers

 I like the fact that Daz appears to have raised the bar in certain aspects of Studio higher then Poser. Plus the fact that Studio 3.0A is out now instead of later and gives the Poser programmers time to study it and react with Poser 8.

I am a racer as my main hobby. When somebody throws down a fast lap they raise the bar and everybody has to react and try harder to go faster or they are going to get their butts kicked.

Going to be interesting to see how the Poser Programmers react to Studio 3.0A when Poser 8 is released. 

grichter:  That was your 666th post! Twilight zone 

Quote -
One MAJOR drawback I see in D/S (both versions) are with dynamic cloth. Yeah DAZ finally released a dynamic plug-in BUT you can only use clothing/content created by the same company that made the plug-in, as I'm vertually certain that even the clothing with DAZ listed as the vendor were made by OptiTex. So far there are only a relative few items created to use D/S dynamics and compared to Poser dynamic clothing ( especially when you concider almost ANY clothing can be converted to work in Poser's cloth room) they are fairly expensive.

DAZ has stated that they are working on the ability to use almost any clothing/content in the  Dynamic Clothing Control.

Quote - I know DAZ has mentioned the possibility of a "creator's module" to allow other content creators to make clothing but I've heard rumors it may never happen,

They've been working on the creator's module for a while now.

Quote - Dynamic Cloth is Windows Only.

Optitex stated that they will be making Dynamic Clothing Control for Mac.

Coldrake

Quote - grichter:  That was your 666th post! Twilight zone 

The devil made me do it or whatever the exact quote Flip Wilson was famous for!

coldrake, I've read the DAZ forums too. I hope that the creator's module is made. Still it cost about $50.00 to add on the control module now and I'm sure that a creator's module will be even more, for something that comes as part of the basic poser package.

I have to wonder just how fast OptiTex is working on a creator's module since right now they have a captive market for their dynamic clothing. I would have felt better if both modul had been made available at the same time.

Quote -

Video games render with higher quality than base D|S!

Actually base DS produces great renders.
Unfortunately, much like poser, lot of DS users don't use it's ability well.

By the way, with the larger package, if you already have those add-ons, their DS3 update was free.
I actually only have and use the figure setup tools. I don't really have thet much of use for others.

Let me see if I've got this straight... Daz Studio now has a 64 bit version, but the renderer is limited to one processor (without extraordinary expense and additional licenses for a substandard renderer that doesn't even have GI or Radiosity.) Meanwhile Daz's Carrara already has GI, radiosity and can use four processors, but there is no 64 bit version. 

Ideally, Daz wouldn't have to waste time reinventing the wheel. If they already own a superior renderer with Carrara, why are they wasting time on 3d Delight? If Daz Studio can handle ERC, why can't they get it right in Carrara? The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, or how the left hand is doing, it seems.

Quote -
Let me see if I've got this straight... Daz Studio now has a 64 bit version, but the renderer ... doesn't even have GI or Radiosity.

Wrong. You may be thinking of Poser Pro. Daz|Studio 3 (via 3Delight) features global illumination, caustics, and subsurface scattering.

Quote -
If they already own a superior renderer with Carrara, why are they wasting time on 3d Delight?

Carrara's renderer isn't superior to 3Delight, although it does have definite advantages for hobbyist users. The reasons they aren't integrating Carrara's renderer into Daz|Studio are:
(1) Carrara's renderer is very tightly integrated with the rest of Carrara's codebase, and
(2) It would also require a major rewrite of Studio itself in order to integrate such a different renderer.

You should also know that up until recently, I've been heavily biased in favor of Poser. And yes, Smith Micro will need to bring their A game this time.

Quote - > Quote - ...You should also know that up until recently, I've been heavily biased in favor of Poser. And yes, Smith Micro will need to bring their A game this time.

They sure didn't bring their A game with Poser 7. I'm really disappointed in it. I thought it would be at least as good as Poser 6, but 6 doesn't choke my machine like 7 does (and it's not the fastest or greatest, but it's not bad). Daz Studio 3 beta didn't do to my machine what Poser 7 does.

Laurie

I'm glad I'm wrong about the GI. Up until now, 3D Delight in Daz Studio hasn't had this feature. Still, the one-processor limit (without an insane expenditure) is a major weakness--64 bit version notwithstanding. This gives Poser 8 a real chance. 

Being able to use four processors right out of the box gives the Carrara renderer a major advantage over Daz Studio's 3D Delight. The possibility that Daz Studio users might be willing or able to pay thousands of dollars for multiple processor rendering is farfetched. 

It’s interesting that Carrara, a product marketed as an alternative to high-end programs, doesn't have a 64 bit version while Daz Studio does.

Quote - Still, the one-processor limit (without an insane expenditure) is a major weakness--64 bit version notwithstanding.

The limitation seems to be per physical CPU, not per core. If you have a quad core CPU, it will use all of them in the render. So the limitation isn't as bad as it may seem. eg this is the default example scene you get with the demo rendering on all 4 of my cores:

As for 3Delight, just because DAZ have it, you shouldn't think it's one of those penny ante renderers that usually show up in the poserverse. 3Delight is one of the most impressive renderers out there that competes with the likes of mentalray and PRMan. In fact it's been used as the main renderer for several big budget movies, 2 recent ones being superman returns and charlotte's web. See the site for yourself:

3Delight Main Site

The 64 bit version of Carrara is currently being worked on.  from what I gather the codebase has already been recompiled to 64bit and is currently undergoing testing. This information comes directly from a member of the daz development teem.

So hopefully we should see 64bit Carrara in a 7.5 release I would imagine.

SK.

The update for the figure setup tools - the only part of D|S that I actually use - was free and with my Platinum Club membership and pending vouchers the Advanced version didn't end up costing me much, so I thought what the hell, and just got.

My first impression: much slower than 2.3, and the stuff I used to do doesn't work anymore. The slowness could be because it's more memory hungry, and since I run Windows via Virtualbox, I'm a bit limited in that respect. But I don't think there's any way to discuss the bugs away. I guess I'll just sit tight and wait until they've got things running smoothly.

I personally  think that the DAZ business model
is not even partly based on stealing away existing poser users.
They seem to be only interested in building a Fresh loyal DAZ Studio user base with their free version used as a gateway to get newbies hooked on hoarding largely redundant content and then enticing them into buying the paid versions of studio with cleve rpromo "sales" and other gimmicks.

if you visit the DAZ forums you rarely find people who left poser for D/S
most of them were never serious poser users to begin with.

S/M would be better served by Not trying to compete with D/S  Directly and focus on retooling&refreshing poser in a way that will will get its EXISTING users excited about upgrading.

Cheers