It was a close encounter of the blurred kind

It's over, according to the Facebook page...  :-(

No Posers for $1.99 left.

 Any chance someone is working on an item like this for Poser 8: http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/new-releases/3d-web-exporter?item=9495&cat=421&_m=d
It looks really neat. I'd love to be able to export an image like this that people could rotate and view from any angle.

Quote - > Quote -

Maybe it has been fixed.  I added the Olivia Face Room module, removed the download service using the trashcan icon, downloaded.  Started a new order, added the Miki 2 Face Room module, removed the download service with the trashcan and downloaded.

yes - this bug has been fixed.  :) 

It is indeed! Thank you. :)
I am a happy owner of Toghrul now.

Well I used my awesome powers of persuasion on my missus & I'm in the middle of downloading my copy of Poser8, I'm about 3 hours from joining the ranks. :D

I also noticed that P8 does not recognize a comma as decimal separator anymore and that is really annoying because I'm used to a comma as separator. Adjusting values with numeric key pad alone is now not possible anymore :crying:

 I have that exact same bug! I was going to report it but forgot again. And I'm on Windows Vista Home Basic!

Oh and yes. The comma. That must be fixed. I'm off to send a bug report on that one!

Where do bug reports go?

Whichway

Quote - Where do bug reports go?

Whichway

http://support.smithmicro.com

... on a separate subject....

Why SM would not include the 64 bit render engine into P8 is beyond my comprehension! I don't quite understand the rationale for offering two sets of different poser programs (namely P4/P5/..../P7/P8 and Poser Pro). Why not have all standard and so called "pro" features included in one version only?... I can only think of one reason and that is GREED! ..... there I said it....

Cheers

vxg139

Quote - I have another problem with P8, but maybe it is a Win7 problem? I'm not sure.
Every time when I start poser and when I close poser it does create a new subfolder in its temp path.
I had to delete 88 subfolders today. P8 crashed when I tried to access the preferences, because the temp path was too long to display.
Anyone else with another OS than Win7 does have that problem too?

Same here! I edited it out in the Poser ini file and deleted the waste, but I'm not sure it won't start adding "8.0" folders in the next days...

Quote - I can only think of one reason and that is GREED! ..... there I said it....

This just in: companies try to maximize their profits.

It's shocking, really.

LOL.....no issues on trying to maximize profit...... but come on.... this is like a "daylight" robbery!!

Just curious ... If a person had no need for network rendering, or export to a high end 3D application, would he or she want to pay extra for something that wouldn't be used?

That explains why there are two versions. There are a lot of people that don't need all of the features that the Pro version has.

Well, on the other hand, the free DAZ Studio has 64 bit rendering, AFAIK, so apparently you can also have it without paying more (or anything, in that case).

But this is a quite pointless debate, IMHO. I'm okay with paying for Poser standard and paying again for Poser Pro, if SM makes it worth my money. And while I agree "worth my money " can be very subjective, I think there is a base level we all would agree to.

Actually, DAZ Studio free version is only 32-bit, not 64.  If you want 64-bit DAZ Stuidio, you have to buy DAZ Studio Advanced.

Just to make sure that every one understands. 64-bit rendering will not make rendering remarkably faster if at all faster (it can even slow rendering down in some limited cases). What 64-bit allows is for the user to access larger amounts of memory. This allows scenes that require a lot of memory to render, which would have crashed in Poser 7's 32-bit renderer.

Poser 8 allows for faster renders by taking advantage of multiple cores in a much more efficient way. There are also inhancements in memory usage that may allow scenes to render in Poser 8 that took too much memory in Poser 7. Great! That makes Poser Pro 2010 even more attractive to me.

It makes sense for SM to go after the market of people who have, or who soon will have computers with multiple cores. There are more of them than there are people running a 64-bit operating system. I would love to have both in Posr 8 now, but I get Poser 8 now, and Posr Pro 2010 upgrade minus the cost of Poser 8 upgrade. When the beta is released, I get to play with it before it hits the shelf.

Just keep in mind, the widest possible beta test is releasing the product to the public. SM's Poser team has already released a hot fix for normal maps. The next sevice release could really fix a lot of problems. I remain an opptomist.

You said it best Ikendall...... The key functionality of the 64 bit render engine is to allow access to more than 4 GB RAM (3 GB RAM to be technically correct).... I wonder what it would have taken SM to inculde such a feature in P8? (even it it was an "Add on" component)...

It would be interesting to see if Poser Pro 2010 is a spin-off of P8 w/ 64 bit render option..... only time will tell..

Quote - > Quote - I can only think of one reason and that is GREED! ..... there I said it....

This just in: companies try to maximize their profits.

It's shocking, really.

Actually, maximize revenues, but either way ordinary people who have never run any kind of business and have no shareholders to answer to don't seem to understand anything you say about this subject.

 I'm very excited about Poser 8, I like the new UI and the Search function is something I asked for in the survery and am glad they included.  Having a very large series of runtime libraries, it is often hard to find content I want.  I was always opening Daz Studio and using Finder to find stuff then navigating to Poser and opening it.

It's all very exciting?  I saw the picture of the new female figure, is there a new male as well?

yeah his name is RYAN

Here's a tip about Poser 8 search. Select an item in the search results. The right side of that item will say "locate". That is a link you can click. It will navigate your library tree to open the branches and scroll to show you where that item is in your libraries. It will be the selected item. If it is in an external library, and you're showing a different library by itself, the GUI will switch to that library for you.

When I save a .cr2 in the library besides the .pmd it also now creates an .obj.   Now,  it's much smaller in size than the .pmd but I'm curious as to why it's doing this in this version?

I haven't checked to see if it's deleted when I delete that .cr2.

For new figures that you just created in the Setup room, or for all figures?  Did you add dynamic hair perhaps?

Poser also exhibits that behaviour whenever you use the grouping tool on a figure.

That I can understand, as grouping information is normally saved in to the OBJ in previous versions (at least 7) - the alternative is saving the geometry as part of the CR2, which you probably don't want.

Quote - Here's a tip about Poser 8 search. Select an item in the search results. The right side of that item will say "locate". That is a link you can click. It will navigate your library tree to open the branches and scroll to show you where that item is in your libraries. It will be the selected item. If it is in an external library, and you're showing a different library by itself, the GUI will switch to that library for you.

Is it safe to assume the search only finds cr's, pz2's etc. and does not include folder names in the search. I am on an intel Mac and as a test I typed in MFD which is the folder name I have the Morphing Fantasy Dress in say both my V3 and my V4 runtimes. Does not find that folder. The name of my cr2 for V4 is Fantasy Dress.cr2. I don't think I am alone in the fact I rename folders to mean more to me then the content inside that folder.

Granted I have my own Filemaker Data Base I created that finds all my stuff for me very quickly. If folder names are possible to add to the search I would get some feedback how-if other people use a like scheme of renaming folders to mean more. Just a thought.

Ah edited to add if you click figures it does not find folders. If you click all categories it does find folders is what am seeing.

Quote - Just curious ... If a person had no need for network rendering, or export to a high end 3D application, would he or she want to pay extra for something that wouldn't be used?

That explains why there are two versions. There are a lot of people that don't need all of the features that the Pro version has.

For those people it has Poser Pro base ;-)

Quote - > Quote - Here's a tip about Poser 8 search. Select an item in the search results. The right side of that item will say "locate". That is a link you can click. It will navigate your library tree to open the branches and scroll to show you where that item is in your libraries. It will be the selected item. If it is in an external library, and you're showing a different library by itself, the GUI will switch to that library for you.

Is it safe to assume the search only finds cr's, pz2's etc. and does not include folder names in the search. I am on an intel Mac and as a test I typed in MFD which is the folder name I have the Morphing Fantasy Dress in say both my V3 and my V4 runtimes. Does not find that folder. The name of my cr2 for V4 is Fantasy Dress.cr2. I don't think I am alone in the fact I rename folders to mean more to me then the content inside that folder.

Granted I have my own Filemaker Data Base I created that finds all my stuff for me very quickly. If folder names are possible to add to the search I would get some feedback how-if other people use a like scheme of renaming folders to mean more. Just a thought.

Ah edited to add if you click figures it does not find folders. If you click all categories it does find folders is what am seeing.

Sigh. I only had control over (wrote source code for) the visuals of the Library. The back-end (all actual disk I/O, search services, etc.) is inside Poser, in a server. So I cannot tell you what it is actually doing.

I can tell you that I specified that it should match folder names. If it doesn't, it is a bug and should be reported.

It is supposed to return individual items or whole folders to the search results, as long as the actual name of that item or folder matches the search criteria. When I tested the GUI, this was working.

I submitted the final library GUI weeks (2, 3, 4, 5? can't remember) before launch. Folder search worked then. If it doesn't, report it.

The folder search works if you select All. But say I know its a folder in the figures but not sure which runtime as a hypothetical example, then that does not work in the searches I have tried.

Quote
*" Actually, maximize revenues, but either way ordinary people who have never run any kind of business and have no shareholders to answer to don't seem to understand anything you say about this subject."

It seems like people just expect for a company to put out things just to be generous. Like their is nothing to making all the componets that must match up to get it to work correctly. And to think, such outrages prices. my $129. for upgrading. If you don't get satisfaction with Poser, then why torture yourself.

Making a profit. my goodness, that seems like all of a suddin its UnAmerican today.. why when you work at a company, you better not ask for a raise, Why if the pay you get, pays your bills, why giving you anymore money must be pure greed.

I've just found a surprising "feature", conforming Ryan's Genitals gives him an instant erection. hehehehe :D

 Render time for bagginsbill's Environmental Sphere with one infinite light and with indirect diffuse lighting turned on -- is much faster if you use Semidieu's Advanced Render Settings Python Scripts. It took hours without the script and only a few minutes using the script. I believe Semidieu's script will check for the number of processors your computer has and use them. (I have an Intel Core Duo Extreme in an iMac). It may also make better use of your ram, but I'm not the one who can really tell a thing like that. Anyway, this definitely speeds up the rendering.

Quote - I've just found a surprising "feature", conforming Ryan's Genitals gives him an instant erection. hehehehe :D

So, it's like a fast-working Levitra or  Viagra? If he keeps the erection for more than 4 hours, remember to call a doctor.

He must get a lot of stairs at any party's he goes to.

Quote - For new figures that you just created in the Setup room, or for all figures?  Did you add dynamic hair perhaps?

Ok sorry for the false alarm,  it was an Alyson figure that I had taken into the Face Room so I guess her morph is saved as an .obj right?   I thought all that information was saved in the .pdm but I guess not.

Can you give me an idea of what the morph blender does?

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - i have a question for GI.

the bigger the 360 env image is the longer it renders right?
if we use a 256X256 360 image. would we still get good results with the GI rendering?

I'm not in the testing program, but I think it pretty unlikely that the resolution of any environment sphere image has a significant impact on render time.

Correct**. Other than initial loading time** (as with any image) the # pixels should have no impact on rendering speed.

However, I noticed that Poser Pro used to drop from 100% CPU to something like 4% CPU in certain situations involving reflections of a very high-resolution EnvSphere image. I believe this was a bug. I don't see this behavior in Poser 8 at all.

this what i meant.

when i used more 4K textures then it was really slow in poser pro or poser 7. is this now faster? 

Quote - > Quote - For new figures that you just created in the Setup room, or for all figures?  Did you add dynamic hair perhaps?

Ok sorry for the false alarm,  it was an Alyson figure that I had taken into the Face Room so I guess her morph is saved as an .obj right?   I thought all that information was saved in the .pdm but I guess not.

That is a little surprising, I'd expect it to save the morph data into a new CR2 (or PMD if you have external binary morphs turned on), but maybe the face room is an exception.  I never use the face room so I couldn't say.

 One thing about those obj's struck me late last night: Could it be that IF you have disables File Compression (which is off by default, unlike previous versions) and do changes to the obj (which is likely an obz.. then Poser makes a new obj because it can't compress things into the obz with compression off?

I havent' tried it yet as I haven't had any new obj's pop up.. just a thought...

quote]Just to amuse myself, not that you'd really want to do this, but guess how many lights were used in this scene?

Ready?

ZERO.

There are no lights. Just the environment sphere.

It would look better if the image I used was HDR, but for the type of scene I wanted there weren't any.
  QUESTIONS FOR bagginsbil: ON the use of your environment sphere with LDR versus HDR images.  Here's a thread at DAZ that discusses the use of your sphere: http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=1955121#1955121
It points out that I, for example, could make my own HDR image using your Gen IBL-IBL Generator. In Poser PRO, this could be saved as an HDR but, in Poser 7, this would produce an LDR IBL, not an HDR IBL, image. QUESTION 1: What about in Poser 8: could I save in HDR IBL  format? Now, I also notice that your environment sphere can use those equirectangular or "panoramic" images. I believe those are in LDR format. So, QUESTION 2: Would I need to use the Gen IBL-IBL Generator workaround to get the benefits of HDR if I used your environment sphere?
What about in Poser 8: could I save in HDR IBL format?

What about in Poser 8: could I save in HDR IBL format?

Question for bagginsbill:

This is the gray-skinned Apollo. His color is from the environment.

Hi! I posted a quick note in your Daz thread that I'm overwhelmed and need to come back to this later. I'm working on Poser SR1 and other stuff.

Quick answers, though:

No you can't generate HDR images from Poser 7 or 8.  You can only use them as input.

The equirectangular format used by my EnvSphere does not have to be LDR - there are HDR images like that too. The equirectangular image mapping layout is a UV layout template shape, not an LDR/HDR issue.

You do not need GenIBL to use the EnvSphere at all, in any version of Poser. In Poser 8, with IDL, you don't even need a matching IBL. However, to create a matching HDR IBL for Poser 7 (which lacks IDL) you could use HDRSHOP to make an HDR IBL from your HDR panoramic equirectangular image.

Never say never.
Like that crazy thing of sending people to the moon. Home computers that are more advanced than the ones that sent the men there. And Jarasic Park wanting the animation of the T-Rex to look like you were just a few feet away from you. They had to find away. 
Most often it's a matter of finding another way to go about it. And then, it is the chosen ones that can make it happen.

Then again, we are talking about poser, and budgets.  LOL

I'm not sure I'd expect Poser to be anywhere near along the lines of any of those achievements any time soon. ;-)

Smith Micro deserves compliments for finally beginning to bring Poser into the modern ages with its new developments, but even so, these new features are features all the other 3D apps have had for many years now.

Besides, I think Poser Pro can already generate HDRIs. I think it can, but haven't tried it myself, and assuming that's correct, I imagine Poser Pro 2010 will have it too.

Yes PPro generates HDR renders.

Note that careful readers will have seen on my GenIBL page that I already explained how to get increased range out of an LDR. Quoting myself here from the GenIBL page:

Unless you're using Poser Pro, this will produce an LDR IBL image, not an HDR IBL image. (In Poser Pro, check HDRI Optimized output in render settings and save as EXR or HDR format.) In Poser 7, even if your environment sphere has an HDR image on it (Poser 7 and up only), the generated probe image is LDR, and Poser 6 can't load HDR images at all.

However, you can get much of the effect of an HDR image with a little more work in Poser 7. Go into the material room for the GenIBL-Lens. Find the Color_Math:Pow node. Change Value_1 to RGB(127, 127, 127). This will cut the brightness in half. Render with this setup and save as a JPG or PNG or whatever. Even though this is LDR, we've compressed the ordinary brightness to half, so that some of the extra-bright stuff can be recorded.

Now when you load the IBL image into the IBL material, it is only half as bright as it should be. To compensate, change the IBL intensity to 200%. You'll get back a lot of the dynamic range up to 2X max brightness. If you want to try for more, use RGB(64, 64, 64) instead, and then set the IBL intensity to 400%.

 Thank you very much for your answer, bagginsbill. Good luck with the work you are doing. I'm sure we will all be happy with the results.

Quote - "I'm not sure I'd expect Poser to be anywhere near along the lines of any of those achievements any time soon.).

When they first sent people to the moon, they couldn't duplicate anything like what Poser does now.
What I  was meaning, was. it is amazing what can be achieved when people think it can't be done. Never count out the human mind. It's the human mind, not the final result. without the human mind, their is no result.

Quote -
When they first sent people to the moon, they couldn't duplicate anything like what Poser does now.
What I  was meaning, was. it is amazing what can be achieved when people think it can't be done. Never count out the human mind. It's the human mind, not the final result. without the human mind, their is no result.

No I know what you meant.

Having been in this sort of Poser discussion too many times to count over the years, the fact is, it seems the Poser developers aren't interested in bringing Poser up to par, up to the level of the big apps.
Either that or the company that owns Poser is preventing them.
It's been discussed a whole lot already, I assure you (possibly even earlier on in this thread), and there probably isn't a bigger advocate around here for UberPoser than myself, but it's their larger customer base they're building it for, and the customer base doesn't want to spend $2,000, $3,000, $4,000... for Super Extra Poser Ultimate.

I have no doubt they could do it, but as a business I suppose they need to put their resources into developing what's practical for them from a business standpoint. I would love to be proved wrong.

Hi Mike,

I've lost track of the idea we're talking about here, with regard to bringing Poser "up to par".

If we're talking about the capabilities of the renderer, I'm with you. Much as I admire what Stefan has been able to do with Firefly, it doesn't do what I want it to do. Stefan has explained to me that the issues are largely technical. In a nutshell, Firefly internal architecture limits what you can do (both from an efficiency standpoint as well as certain capabilities.) The biggest problem is how transparency is handled. No need to go into the details, but everybody knows raytrace(for any reason)+transparency = SLOOOOW. Second, the material room actually allows too much freedom - resulting in the renderer unable to make any simplifying assumptions. If Poser shaders could only do basic realistic lighting, then it could be a lot faster. It's all the un-realistic options that cause trouble. Things like plugging Reflection into the Diffuse calculation - that means IDL can't do its job as quick as possible.

Practically every time I talk to them, I say "Go buy the rights to the Kerkythea render engine." There's quite a few business and technical challenges that interfere with that simple solution. When they explain them to me, my brain closes up, and next time I say to them "Go buy Kerkythea". I think they're getting tired of hearing it. :-)

eh? can you buy Kerkythea?.. I thought that was Thea Render (the commercial version of Kerkythea..) ?