Now i did see the sales gumpf about a new rigging system, but has anyone used it... and more importantly is anyone going to do new rigged versions of V4,V3,A3,GIRL etc....????

I've used it.
It's great for (among other things) long thingies, like arms. And for micro detailing bends in difficult areas (like where the legs join the hip).

I would like to see a rig setup like most Maya characters have, with nurbs handles.

You can make whatever rigging improvements you want to already existing figures. You just will have problems dressing them

I understand that. I guess what I mean is that I would like to see it become more of a standardization amongst figures to allow for more squash and stretch. You can do something akin to that with Poser by altering the rigs (especially by altering the IK setup, and incorporating the chest/head), but I've never seen it work like it really should. That is to say, the little bit of experimenting that I have done with it has not been all that promising. If I am going to do all that work to alter a rig, I'll just rig it properly in Maya. However, my guess is that if Poser characters were setup like more professional rigs, Poser would enjoy a new appeal to a larger user base.

I have the same complaint about the lack of keyframe handles in Poser for animation. Once you work with them, you never want to do without them. sigh In the end, it's really just a different program. So close...and yet so far.

Personally, while I appreciate that they attempted to add some new levels of control to the rigging system, the group dependent  method used in Poser is, IMO, antiquated and needs to be ditched. They seriously need to scrap every ounce of that and go with a vertex weight based method. Soooo many hurdles that we, as developers, have to deal with could be alleviated. With a vertex based method, you would not have to worry about the cutting of groups: the figure would be one group. A lot of considerations currently have to be made when modeling for a Poser figure that would otherwise not be necessary if they used a more standard method like vertex weighting. What I would like to see is the current system kept on board only for legacy content, with a system put in place that converts it into weight mapping (I actually had some discussions with folks I've worked with there a few years ago about this exact issue and gave them diagrams describing how the falloff zones could be interpolated into weight maps based on a gradient of their influences), and the primary system convert to something similar to the per vertex weighting we find in apps like Maya, Max, XSI, C4D.. you know... most of the really serious programs out there. This area of Poser has been, I think, deficient for a long, long time and I've spent enough time building Poser figures to have a pretty well formulated opinion on the subject. I also think it's amazing that Poser hasn't adopted any form of IK/FK blending already, sticky IK, stretchy IK, etc. There's a lot of IK/FK functions available in things Maya, Max and Motion Builder that I'm still stunned Poser hasn't adopted yet. Or how about this one: the ability to define whether a morph is calculated before or after a joint rotation. Right now, we're stuck with a one way flow to that particular set of calculations that prevents a lot of morph-to-rotational linkage opportunities that could massively enhance what we can do as rigging artists. I'm not holding my breath on anything for at least a couple more versions though: it will take something coming along that might threaten to steal some of the content market from Poser to drive such radical change. That kind of thing doesn't come voluntarily, from my experience, but I would love to be proven wrong. -Les

I agree wholeheartedly with Sixus1. I'm not a math genius by a long shot, but I have indeed felt the pain when it comes to splitting meshes.
Still, while the current Poser rigging has it's shortcomings, multiple bending zones and capsules did bring it some breathing space while weight mapping etc are implemented. Which I hope is sooner rather than later...

 IMO, weight mapping at the moment would be a serious disadvantage. Don't get me wrong, I love weight mapping. It's such that Mil3 / Mil4 characters are poly heavy and trying to weight map shoulders and hips are not much fun, to put it mildly.

I was studying wrap deformers a while back and that looked pretty promising. The catch is that you need a low poly cage (1k - 2k polys) to drive your higher resolution mesh. But wrap deforming in conjunction with weight mapping is a fast and elegant solution because it takes almost no time to weight map such a lo-res character.

But with weight mapping, you can use figures with low polygon count, and just subdivide them at render time. Poser doesn't do Catmull Clark subdivision, but a combination of weight mapping and subdivision surfaces in Poser would be terriffic

Replicand brings up a valid point.
Weight mapping certain areas with high poly figures can be brutal and cages are the way to go.
Subdivision surfaces is a possible work-around though, great ideas all.

Quote - (I actually had some discussions with folks I've worked with there a few years ago about this exact issue and gave them diagrams describing how the falloff zones could be interpolated into weight maps based on a gradient of their influences)

I'd love to get my hands on such a diagram.

In another thread, it was pointed out that the MAT spheres themselves don't necessarily present a great advantage over weight mapping.  I would favor weight mapping, because the sphere-driven joints can't have the same level of customization and are necessarily more approximate.  But I can see the point, after some thought.  The problem with Poser's joints seems more to be the splitting of the mesh than the use of MAT spheres.  The mesh-splitting creates limits with welding and allows a joint to deform only its body part and parent body part.  Lose the mesh-splitting, apply a skeletal method, and all sorts of problems will disappear, with or without weight-mapping, IMO.  

I'm very curious about how this new rigging system works, and what it can and can't do.  What has been added or changed?  Can a series of body handles now be used in chain-fashion to deform a single mesh?  Can Wardrobe Wizard successfully transfer the new style rigs when converting clothing?  Can the new joint system fix knees which look terrible when bent beyond 90 degrees, or bottoms which become horrible taffy blobs when the legs are bent?  What can be done?

Quote - I'm very curious about how this new rigging system works, and what it can and can't do.  What has been added or changed?

In addition to the original sphere-shaped falloff zone, there is now a capsule shape.  Also, you can set up multiple falloff zones per joint parameter, which permits greater precision and control than a single zone would offer.

Quote - Can a series of body handles now be used in chain-fashion to deform a single mesh?

I don't believe so.  That would require a child to affect more than just its parent.

Quote - Can Wardrobe Wizard successfully transfer the new style rigs when converting clothing?

Shouldn't be a problem.  As I understand it, Wardrobe Wizard uses a joint-donor system, so if the new rigging is present in the donor CR2, it'll work as expected.

Quote - Can the new joint system fix knees which look terrible when bent beyond 90 degrees, or bottoms which become horrible taffy blobs when the legs are bent?

Possibly.  Rigging is usually an exercise in compromise.  With these new options, you have more control over falloff; in skilled hands, this might result in fewer compromises on problematic areas.  However, there are some things that Poser's joint system really doesn't simulate well, like soft-body compression/expansion, which still must be faked with joint-controlled morphs or magnets.

Quote - That would require a child to affect more than just its parent.

That's the inherent problem with the group based system we're currently limited with. Right now we have to approximate and simulate, even with multiple additional falloff zones multi-part muscular movement. For instance, a foot bending at the ankle is acting in a combination of push and pull from muscles in both the front and rear of the shin which are in turn partially driven by and effecting the visual mass of the muscles in different regions of the thigh. As it stands, we have to use morphs and erc/dependent parameters to get even close to this sort of thing, and even then there are a lot of restrictions that wouldn't be there if the foot could have the same types of influences over the thigh that it can have over the shin AND if we could choose the order in which morphs and joints are calculated (joints then morphs or morphs then joints). Whether weight mapping, falloff zones or whatever, just having the rigging revised to where a figure is a single mesh instead of the cut groups would open up a lot of great things. -Les

"In another thread, it was pointed out that the MAT spheres themselves don't necessarily present a great advantage over weight mapping."

Oh, man.  I stated that backwards.  The point was made that weight-mapping isn't necessarily better than falloff zones/MAT spheres - as long as the approximate handling of falloff zones is adequate, and it is, even now, for very basic posing.  Umm.

Thanks for the information, Little_Dragon.  I guess that's pretty much what I expected.  I'd like to see what one of the joint setup/rigging experts in the community can do with the new options in the system.

If we can now use more than one deformation zone for a joint, does this mean we could have separate zones for the bending at the front and back of the thigh (or the stretch and crunch zones of any joint, really)?  That might help a lot.

"But with weight mapping, you can use figures with low polygon count, and just subdivide them at render time."

Yes!  Exactly!  With the extra control of weight mapping, I've been able to take a poorly-designed legacy rig from Poser (Vicky 1) and apply it to an inexpertly built, low res custom figure, but weight the joints so that they handle better than in Poser with a high res figure and falloff zones.  It can help a great deal to be able to put the extra effort into weighting, rather than the mesh design or how the mesh is cut.  For one thing, it's easier to make a few tweaks to the weights than to go back and re-work whole areas of the mesh.

Please make face morphs for more figures. Your style is very very good.

Excuse the interruption. This is an very interesting thread, which I am completely incompetent to be reading.

Sixus1:

In the Child/Parent example of foot to shin but not to the thigh, could the Dependent Parameters editor be used as a link between either the foot and the thigh, or the shin and the thigh (or both). I guess I am asking if the Dependent Parameters editor can be used in rigging. (Of course, using that editor would create a figure that would not work in Poser 7 (and backward) and Poser Pro (1).

LMK

I think the problem with going to a more advanced rigging system, is that all current content would no longer work, unless they bloat the application to accomodate two separate rigging systems, the old, and a newer type.

Imagine the hue and cry in the forums if all previous rigged content no longer worked, and the abuse they would take if only the new human figures worked.

Or if suddenly the application ate a ton more memory, because it had to accomodate both rigging systems.

Quote - I think the problem with going to a more advanced rigging system, is that all current content would no longer work, unless they bloat the application to accomodate two separate rigging systems, the old, and a newer type.

There's a mechanism in place for handling this already (version # in content files).  There's no really deal-breaking reason why this should be impossible.

Sure there is.. double the amount of ram needed for the application. In addition, all the advanced rigging systems mentioned are ALL for very expensive high end applications, which would mean a significant investment in both research and developement, with potentially a low income gain as a result.

Something we've been discussion in other forums, is that poser as it even is now, has become very complex to use, and it's target market is supposedly beginners interested in cheap and esy 3d work.

Yeah is sucks if you are an advanced user, like many of us are, BUT many of the advanced people have also invested in better renderng and rigging applications at our levels.

IMHO, poser's best target market is the beginning user.. once they become advanced, most move on to something more advanced, but also more expensive as well.

I think the biggest issues in the poser market now, are that users now are expected to know a LOT more about how to use content then in the old days.

Example:

Load a figure with lot of add on morphs.

Old days: Install and Load a larger footprint cr2, and spin dials. Easy for a beginner,

V4: install the base figure. Initialize it. Install a morph set. Initilize v4 again, install another morph set. initilaize AGAIN. Now dial spin.

How many times have we seen people not being able to get v4 with morphs to work here? Or M4?

I think the current rigging system is fine for the intended userbase, and I'm not sure if they did an expensive  "super poser 9" with an enhanced rigging system like higher end applications would be successful in the marketplace. Higher end users shun poser as a beginner's toy.

That new rigging system will be a complete non-starter.
No merchant in their right mind ever has and ever will support the default Poser figures as long as their technical quality (and looks) are inferior to the DAZ figures.

There are some die-hard fanboys/girls but they don't decide wether a mesh  will be a success or not.
The masses do.

The "old" single spherical falloff zone system + DAZ MorphLoaderPRO technology + the new "works acoss seams" MorphBrush are more than enough to solve each and any rigging problems.

Embedded magnets are bad (Like V4, G2 and the P8 figures), multisplit bodyparts are bad (like Apollo), and multiple falloff zones are bad (P8 figures), as none of these can give the superior results that a properly made JCM can give.

It's actually very simple to understand:
A morph (= JCM) stores individual info for each single vertice, so a joint can have any imaginable shape.
A magnet zone as well as a falloff zone OTOH can only push vertices in a general direction, not tell each vertice separately what position to occupy.

So to deform a shoulder in the same way a single JCM can with magnets or multiple falloff zones alone, you'd need a magnet or falloff zone for each vertice of the shoulder.

And if you need JCM's anyway to fix a joint, why bother with magnets or multiple falloff zones in the first place ?

JCM's add almost zero overhead and they are fully backwards compatible with every version of Poser and STUDIO.

As much as I applaud any attempt to give us more realistic joints, this is the wrong way.

It would have been far more useful to get something like the MorphLoader PRO built right  into Poser and even more improvements for the MorphBrush.

BTW, could we please bury the myth that "weightmapping" is the deus ex machina that will solve all our rigging woes ?

Even the "big boys" need fix morphs fo get a shape right or simply use multiple copys of a mesh all rigged differently for a different range of poses.

Show me a truly photorealistic human mesh that can do all human possible contortion/martial art/gymnast (not to mention all the "normal" everday) poses being rigged with weightmapping alone, and I will happily root for it.

OTOH I have several Poser meshes that can do exactly that without problems.

Quote - That new rigging system will be a complete non-starter.
No merchant in their right mind ever has and ever will support the default Poser figures as long as their technical quality (and looks) are inferior to the DAZ figures.

The P8 figures are not inferior to the Daz figures it is that most merchants don't support the "Default" Poser figures due to what sells and what the demand for items for the "Default" Poser figures. This has been true since Poser 5.

I personally like the new figures with Poser 8 and I think if there was more demand for clothing or items for the new figures you will see it.
IMHO I like the new P8 Figures and see potental for them.

Quote - bottoms which become horrible taffy blobs when the legs are bent?  What can be done?

Sorry to go non-serious here but Cage your statement has me laughing out loud, because I always likened the legs-bent bottoms look to a pair of automobile tires - but I love your horrible taffy blobs description.

But seriously this is a fascinating discussion - keep the debate going - I'm still a rigging dummy.

"Something we've been discussion in other forums, is that poser as it even is now, has become very complex to use, and it's target market is supposedly beginners interested in cheap and esy 3d work." 

Well said. If you look at vue for example, you have an application which is accessible to the hobbyist or casual user, yet powerful enough for major Hollywood productions. It's great that Poser is incorporating more advanced features that power users can take advantage of but if the mass of users don't see any up side then it becomes difficult for them to justify upgrading, thus less money for more improvements. I think this would apply more to things like the render engine though. In my ignorance I assume that chnages in rigging would be pretty much transparent to the end user, they would just see better posing figures. I agree though that the backward compatibility would be essential. Seems like a big question would be if Daz and SM could agree on a new standard. Unless SM produced incredibly, wonderfully better posing figures that people also find "attractive," I don't see the pressure on Daz to go along.

As with lights, cameras, and content materials, content providers will soon supple sets of prefab lights or pre-textured/bumped/displaced/normaled/whatever figures. Python programmers will put out some things to help with conforming cloths, moving objects ect.. I eagerly await the books and tutorials that will follow in the wake of Poser 8's release.

I think Poser will still have a broad appeal to new users. It comes with a lot of content. It has a huge number of items available that will still work. There are more computer savy people than ever before and Poser does have some elements in its UI common to other programs.

People still use Microsoft Word XXX, Photoshop, and Quickbooks even though all of these programs continue to evolve and are more complex than when they ran in Windows 3.1.

There are billions of people on this planet and at least three of them have not heard of Poser yet. I think Poser will continue to interest a new audience.

LMK