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Poser - OFFICIAL F.A.Q (Last Updated: 2024 Nov 28 11:20 am)
Subject: OT sort of: Poser and a hypothetical (but very possible) situation...
I don't know that Poser would survive if DAZ figure support goes away. It could, and should, but the masses would migrate over to DS. The problem is marketing. DAZ are masters at it. No matter how good a figure is that is not DAZ, it won't do exceptionally well because it doesn't have the DAZ name attached. Part of that is that people figure if it is a DAZ figure, there will be support of it in the future.
There have been very good figures that weren't DAZ in the past. Where are they now?
This is just my opinion, for what it's worth.
Quote - I don't know that Poser would survive if DAZ figure support goes away. It could, and should, but the masses would migrate over to DS. The problem is marketing. DAZ are masters at it. No matter how good a figure is that is not DAZ, it won't do exceptionally well because it doesn't have the DAZ name attached. Part of that is that people figure if it is a DAZ figure, there will be support of it in the future.
There have been very good figures that weren't DAZ in the past. Where are they now?
This is just my opinion, for what it's worth.
IMVHO, that mindset is gonna have to change. Is anyone really thrilled with the version 4 figures anyway? I'm not. They look unrealistic - even a step backward from the version 3 figures and they're, frankly, a nightmare to use what with all the morph injections and initializations and hoop jumping and everything else. That's only gonna get worse. Daz isn't the only business on the planet that has brilliant marketing skills ;o). Some enterprising folks could do just fine I'm thinking...lol.
Laurie
Well I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees something like this coming in the not too distant future, I've mentioned it before & been told to pull my head out of where they suggest I've got it firmly placed.
The Daz Gen4 Figure is nice, but it's not great & yes I said figure not figures, it's a single template that they've morphed to different shapes, a bit like the Emperors new clothes in my opinion, they're selling thin air & people are falling over themselves in their haste to beg for more.
I'm not too sure if there is a plan B though, I'm no modeller & my texturing skills are next to useless. Lets hope someone who can do it actually does it & we can get back to normal even without Daz & it's naked Emperor.
Windows 7 64Bit
Poser Pro 2010 SR1
I've been thinking about this a long time Lucifer_The_Dark...lol. You definitely don't have your head up your ass. It's those that tell you that you do that have theirs firmly placed ;o). Some don't want to think about the possibility and so just blow it off as something that will never happen. I however, am a realist. I can see the way the wind is blowing. And it's a foul wind indeed ;o). As far as I'm aware, no one's prepared or been planning for it. I posted this thread mostly in an effort to make people really think.
Laurie
We only have ourselves to blame.
"I must use V4 because everyone else is using V4"
"I must do another V4 bra of the week because that's all that sells."
Or one could get creative. There are a boat load of other figures available, the vast majority of which are supported by Wardrobe Wizard and the other clothing converters. Granted one might actually need to learn how to use Poser if one wanted the figure's rear calf muscle to be just so; because there would be no instant rear calf FBM with a one click pose file to apply it. Again get creative, deal with it.
Oh but my figure only uses 15 files but V4 needs nearly 3000 to make it work so my figure must be no good. Really? Someone recently put up a reworked Posette. I thought it was a very good illustration of what can be done if one put ones mind to it. We don't need new figures, just learn how to use the ones we have got.
Oh but its so difficult.
Yes 3D graphics is difficult, if it were easy I would have lost interest years ago.You have a choice, continue to be spoon fed with 64 hair shade MATS and 16 hair fit poses or spend some time learning by trial and error.
Crabs in a bucket.
Break out, do something
Get creative.
The thing is that if DAZ creates a new figure, the old ones are still there. Sure, a lot of people might want to update, since that seems to be the way things work, but some are fine just working with the last generation. It is a question on whether the benefits will outweigh the cons.
To be honest, I am not a big fan of DS and I am not a big fan of V4 (Though I do like M4) but I do see splits happening.
Poser tried a new joint system in the latest iteration but I know it wasn't very well received.
I do think the two companies need to talk more (which has been happening to some degree) so there is hope.
I made the decision a while back to leave. (you can see how that worked out! LOL in the end it's turned into a real cut down in posting).
why? mainly because of the mindsets. sorry, I want to use my mind and think, not use some canned solution marketed to me by someone. examples of this are when someone asks 'can you do insert here in poser?' and are told to 'buy insert Carrara/Cinema/Vue/flavour of the moment' instead of someone sitting and thinking how can we do this in what we have?
add in the total reliance on one set of figures (yes I dislike Daz but thats for different reasons) that are used over and over and over.. c'mon! you yell when someone says 'cookie cutter art' yet using the same figures and techniques over and over is the very definition of Cookie Cutter!
For the most part, with some welcomed exceptions, Poser/DS 'art' has become just a product shot eye candy. If that's your thing, then great!
I myself use older figures mostly. Actually, my main art centers on landscapes and architecture so i tend to use Vue more; but when i need a person in the scene I generally use V2 or Miki 2 or Apollo. They are much easier to deal with.
I still use V3 and M3 because I have the most stuff for them. I will use V4 and M4 but mainly if they can be naked , or wearing the one outfit I have for them. I know I should buy stuff but I really cant afford it , so I am FORCED to make mostly naked pics.
I hink if Daz quit Poser compatibility , a bunch of vendors would step up. There are figures at Renderotica and I am sure others are there.
In that case, we can only hope someone like Aery Soul or Blackhearted steps in and makes a totally new figure. I'd also suggest dinoraul, but he might accidentally add a tail or something out of habit. ;)
Anyways, Laurie Rpublishing would be foolish in the case you've presented not to put out a figure ASAP. If it's good enough, it might be able to capture a lot of the post-daz market. In fact I think I've suggested that they make their own figure to them before in chat.
WARK!
Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.
(using Poser Pro 2014 SR3, on 64 bit Win 7, poser units are inches.)
There are plenty of other figure artists out there. For example, Anton could create a girlfriend for Apollo and corner the market. Yeah, it would be a shame if Daz went away, but nature abhores a vacuum, someone would step in.
How about this scenario: all Daz and other 3d human figures are made illegal for possession by unlicensed persons because they enable the creation of child pornography and presence of any modify-able 3d human figures on your computer makes you a suspected child pornographer.
"Facts are the enemy of truth."
Attached Link: LINK Poser 5 question
In honor of the topic( Working the Stuff one already has)A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket
Charles Péguy
Heat and animosity, contest and conflict, may sharpen the wits, although they rarely do;they never strengthen the understanding, clear the perspicacity, guide the judgment, or improve the heart
Walter Savage Landor
So is that TTFN or TANSTAAFL?
Laurie, the possibility is real and I am sure we all think about it from time to time. I, for one, am looking closely at the MakeHuman development. Either with Blender or with Poser, that seems a possible source of figure material for the future.
I am not likely to convert to Daz Studio, unless that interface gets a major overhaul. I just don't relate to it.
It does seem ironic that I am sitting with over 40GB of Poser content and worrying where figures will come from in the future.
Poser 11 Pro, Windows 10
Auxiliary Apps: Blender 2.79, Vue Complete 2016, Genetica 4 Pro, Gliftex 11 Pro, CorelDraw Suite X6, Comic Life 2, Project Dogwaffle Howler 8, Stitch Witch
I occasionally use the poser native figures, if I need an out of the box background figure, but they have a disadvantage over the daz figures.
Poser native figures look like people.
I sometimes see posts by people like dphoadley and think "why does he still go on about using posette when the Daz figures are better?" But you know he's right! After Poser 4, when the bundled figures were given names, they became people. They already had human faces.
You would think that an advantage, but even as someone who doesn't create figures I can see that this makes it harder to create unique morphs and characters for them, where as with the Daz figures you are starting with a blank slate.
:-) if I'm redecorating the walls in my house, it's easier if they are plain and flat. I can paper them or paint them. If they are already papered or have some kind of textured finish on them, I have to strip all of that off and possibly use tons of filler before I can even think about starting on the finish.
It's good to have out of the box ready to use characters, I would imagine that most people want something that they can build upon, with plenty of partial morphs etc to help them. The face room seemed like a great idea when it was announced, but the vast majority of people cannot get a half decent head morph from it and although I own Poser 8, I don't even know if the new figures support it (and frankly couldn't care less). I've seen head morphs done with software like Face Gen etc which are way better than ones done in the Face Room.
Several people have mention creating their own figures, that's great. I've used PhilC's quite a bit, I like them, but like the post Poser 4 figures, they are characters, they've already been "moulded". I know that other people have created figures in a similar vein to the Daz ones, but without the support they need from customers or merchants.
The bottom line is that if Poser wants to continue in the future without it's reliance on Daz figures, it is the company who owns and sells it (whoever that is this week) that needs to rethink the type of figures it produces and add better support for them. That should be their goal. After all we are buying a character based 3d program from them, and it seems that although many people here have said they don't like the Daz figures ( I do for the most part, although I cannot get my head around Daz Studio therefore hate that!), they are the ones that are being used the most, so something has to be seriously wrong!
I hope that in Laurie's revolution, many great new figures get made, :-) but ultimately shouldn't that be what the people who are selling us this program should be doing!
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
Quote - It does seem ironic that I am sitting with over 40GB of Poser content and worrying where figures will come from in the future.
I know! LOL. It seems absolutely crazy, but the simple fact is that the Poser program itself doesn't stay the same, therefore the figures can't either ;o). They have to keep up with the software. But if it helps, everyone else has the same massive collection...lol.
Laurie
I rather agree with you DarrenUK. Daz figures are as fugly as the day is long, but at least you can make them look like different people (for the most part). I think they may be a little TOO bland, at least the version 4s, but oh well. It's easier to add things than it is to take them away, like you said. And I think it should be the maker of the software who replaces the Daz figures for Poser. What they need to do though is get more input from the people who will ultimately be using those figures rather than forging ahead with no idea what anyone wants (or doesn't). Until they do that, everyone will be totally dissatisfied with them.
Laurie
LaurieA, I think you guys have hit on the key.
Unless there is a change in either Poser or the Characters in the future that offers dramatic new capabilities, there is no real motivation to upgrade. I didn't go to M4/V4 when they were first released. I saw no real advantage UNTIL the vendors started making stuff FOR THEM that I wanted to be able to use.
The Gen 4 characters could be the end of the line and it wouldn't affect what I do with Poser. With over 100 Gigs of content, I think I'm fixed for the forseeable future. It's not what do I really need it's what would I LIKE that I don't already have.
I think there is going to have to be a paradigm shift in the way the programs do what they do for the scenario you imagine to come to be.
Besides, I think Daz knows that making the figures incompatible would be major foot-shooting. It would be like Poser making the Daz characters not work anymore.
I think many people here have valid points. Daz seems to be drifting away. Daz models have more flexibiltiy and support. Poser people are harder to customize. Poser and Daz are semi-dependent of each other. Poser for the great software Daz for the people.
So what we need to do is support poser. everybody needs to make a prop, morph, texture, or hair for one of the poser people. If everyone here did that the poser people would have as much stuff as the daz ones do. and maybe they could have a variety of cloths, not just bras and thongs.
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I use Poser 13 and win 10
Quote - I think many people here have valid points. Daz seems to be drifting away. Daz models have more flexibiltiy and support. Poser people are harder to customize. Poser and Daz are semi-dependent of each other. Poser for the great software Daz for the people.
So what we need to do is support poser. everybody needs to make a prop, morph, texture, or hair for one of the poser people. If everyone here did that the poser people would have as much stuff as the daz ones do. and maybe they could have a variety of cloths, not just bras and thongs.
I think we've made the point tho that Poser's figures aren't what ppl want. So making things for them will make no difference other than the fact that there will be tons more stuff for figures that almost no one uses ;o). Of course, make them for those that do use those figures. They need the stuff too..lol.
Laurie
Ali created a female character named Angela I have never used her but she doesn't look half bad in my opinion. I just feel that if Daz no longer created content for Poser there would be people like Anton and Ali and a few other that would step into the breech.
In many ways I agree with PhilC it seems to me that Poser and D/S style art is not about learning the programs and the workings. Instead for many it's wanting a make art button. Just load figures, props and scenes, hit the button and voilá tout c'est bon! I have made the pretty picture.
I have to add myself to the ranks of I bought because of the content, not the figures... Personally, you can find fault with every figure. Some do somethings better than others, some have more content than others, but now with Wardrobe Wizard and other features, it really does not matter who the clothing is for or what you need the figure to do. It would be nice to see more content creators creating high quality textures and other content for the Poser Figures, but until users actually buy the Content that is being made, I suspect that will continue to be a slow progress.
In all honesty, it seems that most newer Poser users use the figures that come with Poser.
I have V4 and the others, but I only use them to assist users and test issues. I used V3 a lot up until the last year or so... since then my favorite became Miki 2, and I find myself using Alyson and Ryan when I need a Human Figure more and more, now that I have created some Normal Maps and Morphs for them.
ratscloset
aka John
Angela, Eva, and that Antonia figure is quite attractive even textureless.
Nursoda, 3DU, and Littlefox would save us in any case.
Maybe third parties could work on rigging fixes (you can inject those right? Capses seems to do that) or more expression morphs for the figures deemed imperfect such as my girl Sydney.
It's not the tool used, it's the tool using it
Quote - Angela, Eva, and that Antonia figure is quite attractive even textureless.
Nursoda, 3DU, and Littlefox would save us in any case.
Maybe third parties could work on rigging fixes (you can inject those right? Capses seems to do that) or more expression morphs for the figures deemed imperfect such as my girl Sydney.
Eva does not count not enough people have her... ok not enough people have that version of Jessi (or whatever figure eva was made from) so you can't really count that one.
Antonia on the other hand that is a nice figure for a free figure that has been worked on for what years now? I have not messed with her that much but what i have seen i like for the most part.
Cant go wrong with rigging done by Phantom 3D.
Content Advisory! This message contains profanity
Quote - Well I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees something like this coming in the not too distant future, I've mentioned it before & been told to pull my head out of where they suggest I've got it firmly placed.
The Daz Gen4 Figure is nice, but it's not great & yes I said figure not figures, it's a single template that they've morphed to different shapes, a bit like the Emperors new clothes in my opinion, they're selling thin air & people are falling over themselves in their haste to beg for more.
I'm not too sure if there is a plan B though, I'm no modeller & my texturing skills are next to useless. Lets hope someone who can do it actually does it & we can get back to normal even without Daz & it's naked Emperor.
AH-fucking-HEM!
I first mentioned this way, way back when Penguinisto was working for DAZ and was called names for mentioning it and accused of scaremongering.
It gives me no satisfaction to say "I told you so" but I did. The posts will be in the forum archives somewhere but I'm buggered if I can be bothered to look for them.
Anyhow, I think the situation may well be taken care of by the likes of Antonia and other, future, "independent" figures.
Either that or, Smith Micro will get a modelling team who knows what humans actually look like, and how they are proportioned. Or not.
In any case, who really cares? It's not like the existing models wear out, is it?
Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.
You can't really blame the commercial vendors for doing what will make a profit - just because you do content for use with a figure nobody uses doesn't make it easier to do. You can do X amount of work and make Y money, and X will be pretty much the same regardless of the target figure but Y will depend heavily on what the target figure is. Tell the buyers to buy different stuff, that's really what drives it - mass numbers of people breaking down the door and waving money for "yet another bra for V4".
Quote - thanks PJZ... I knew someone would mention money .... thats $5 I just made :)
Congratulations on making 5 bucks off of SOMETHING COMPLETELY OBVIOUS. I mean don't look at all the billion animated flashing ad banners at top right and bottom of every page here, this is just about hobbyists and charity.
and I don't particularly care if you don't think it's the point of the thread or not, to a very large degree it is and will go on being that.
Content Advisory! This message contains profanity
Because it hadn't been said, and y'know, I'm not an asshole for pointing out this very basic fact.
Quote - Wouldn't they be cutting off a very strong source of income by making future figures non Poser compatible though...?
exactly
Money is vaguely involved, it's true. Daz are the big dogz of the Poser figure market. The main thrust of my point was though that should they dry up tomorrow, there's nothing currently that will fill the gap. More precisely, there are too many others to fill the gap...lol. I realize that most vendors like to specialize in one particular popular figure (which this month is V4) but without advancements in Victoria, the Marketplace may as well close up shop. Even now it's an endless sea of clone textures, morphs, and clothing. Will the next big figure be a figure we chose? Or a figure vendors decide to support? It's a chicken and egg question, I know, but warrants some thought. And for those that think they already have enough? While that might do you for a period of time, are you going to be using V4 10 years from now? When the figure looks dated, no longer is supported and, more likely, won't even work in a future version of Poser? ;o) She barely works in the current version of Poser...lmao.
Laurie
I dunno, it seems like the management between EF/Smith Micro and DAZ have shaken hands and agreed to go a bit closer together with Poser 8, SM finally got the damn conforming scale stuff working pretty well. Maybe they decided to do that on their own but it was a huge favor to DAZ and will end up making a ton of money for both parties (e.g. the only reason I ever bought Poser when I got started was to fool with the DAZ figures, and I didn't like DAZ|Studio).
Thought provoking topic.
When I started Poser 3, DAZ had not spilt off from Zygote yet. The most beautiful figures around were resculpted Posettes from brilliant Japanese artists who hand painted textures. So as far as I can see, Poser has always been reliantly on third party providers.
Are we addicted to Poser or addicted to Poser content? And how many times have people posted "it'd be great if Poser had feature X" or "why does Poser keep crashing" or "how can I get my scene into a different renderer" (no disrespect to the Material Room / Firefly). If there is no DAZ support for Poser, Poser users will still be reliant on a different 3rd party provider and a thread similar to this is posted 15 years from now.
But for all of Poser's shortcomings, the main reason why people are hesitant to move to another program, purchase price notwithstanding is ironically the amount we've invested into our Runtimes and how time consuming it would be to convert it all to a new "native" format.
So I started soul searching. As an animator, how can make this better / work easier / more efficiently for what I'm doing? I started by throwing away all the characters in my Runtime and built my own but kept the props and sets if I need something in a pinch. My characters are smooth, low-poly, they animate and render quickly.
It took a lot of dedication, time, and frustration to develop them. Turns out that DAZ figures were my biggest inspiration. The Unimesh concept is genius; my characters also share textures between them but not morphs since each individual is hand scuplted from a male or female base figure. And I learned alot about human anatomy in the process. It took a while to get used to their "realistic" proportions rather that DAZ's "ideal" proportions but that only makes me love them more.
My solution doesn't work for everyone. I like to think of it as driving a car with an alternative energy source, independent from a reliance on a finite amount of foreign oil.
Quote - What if, in the event that there were NO MORE Daz figures, would the Poser community do?
I haven't read most of the posts in this thread, but here is my take on the original question.
Personally I doubt that DAZ could afford to forsake a large portion of their market by abandoning compatibility with Poser any time in the near future. But if they did, I suspect that market forces would mean that someone would step in to fill the gap. At the moment is is hard for a potential competitor to get foot hold because DAZ dominates the scene, but if DAZ left the field of battle, it would leave a very attractive evolutionary niche open to new species. That might be a very good thing for the Poser community. After all DAZ are not very good at making 3D figures. It took them 4 versions of Victoria to come up with something that was significantly better than Posette. Where the DAZ figures have excelled, is not in the design and function of the figures themselves, but rather in the amount of support they have managed to engender in terms of add-on content available for their figures. Take away the textures and clothing, and the figures by themselves are not that impressive.
If T-Rex disappears, will the jungle remain bereft of a top predator, or will the mouse of today evolve into the tiger of the future?
I'd really like to use the Smith-Micro ( formerly E-Frontier) figures more often, but the wardrobe and character choices in the marketplace are far less than for the DAZ3D figures.
If the day should come when I find DAZ3D figures less compatible with Poser than ever before, I'd simply have to choose Poser figures. Or use the Daz3D figures strictly inside DAZ Studio.... ( For realistic East Asian characters, I much prefer using the Koji and Miki figures.)
Eternal Hobbyist
I think that DAZ will make future figures for DazStudio and improve these figures and DazStudio with new and better features.
But, as Poser is still a great commercial market, it would be wise for Daz to release two versions, one classic version for Poser and one with improved features for DazStudio.
The geometry,at least for many ling years, will continue to be triangles and quads, body parts can be added or removed, the same with materials and texture mapping will continue to be texture mapping, so all will remain the same for Poser, Daz or any other app.
What can change are the joint deformers and parameters and also the magnets and here the compatibilty will go away.
Probably Daz figures for DazStudio will bend better than Daz figures for Poser.
And if you want to use both Poser and DazStudio you will need to purchase both versions probably with some discount.
Stupidity also evolves!
Do you guys really think the DAZ Gen 4 figures are ugly or are you frustrated because they're more difficult than they ought to be to use in Poser? This is just my personal opinion, and I'm not representing DAZ as so many like to assume whenever I post here now, but I honestly don't know how anyone can think V4 and M4 are not vastly superior to any other available figure. There are fixes for the armpits, you only have to put in the morphs you need, there are a ton of morphs as well as additional ones to change the face and body shape, the clothing support is obviously better than any other figure...aside from Poser-specific issues, I don't see why you feel the need for alternate figures that will almost certainly receive little support and likely not be as flexible as the DAZ ones.
I think we've reached a point where the figures and accessories are more important than the program. If Poser disappeared and DAZ stopped supporting Studio, we'd take our favorite figures to Vue, Carrara, Bryce, or even Blender. If the DAZ figures went away and we were left with a half dozen figures of wildly varying quality and a handful of clothing items, I don't think we'd see much casual 3D art.
SnowS
my DeviantArt page: http://snowsultan.deviantart.com/
I do not speak as a representative of DAZ, I speak only as a long-time member here. Be nice (and quit lying about DAZ) and I'll be nice too.
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Some of you may not know me very well, but I sit around and think a lot about various things. Things I see and notice make me muse on hypothetical situations that, based on current events, are a distinct possibility. On that note, allow me to throw something past the group and see what the rest of you think:
We're all familiar with the Daz version 4 figures. Of course we are. We're also aware that the functionality of those said figures pose some problems over the version 3's due to the existence of DazStudio and the need for said figures to play nice in that program. Being that DS is Daz owned software and that Daz figures are of course Daz owned, and being that (they're a business after all) future versions will probably drift even farther away from Poser compatibility, has anyone given any thought to the future of replacement figures for Poser? Yes, yes...I know Poser has it's own figures. And I applaud SM's efforts in making them. However, they fall far short of what most folks want in functionality and, well, appearance ;o). I'm being nice here.
What if, in the event that there were NO MORE Daz figures, would the Poser community do? After all, we depend on Daz for the figures we use and make products for. Let's say for the sake of argument that there were no more future versions of Daz figures. Without a plan B, there goes the vendor sales, the market in general. Things grind to a halt. Much as I hate to admit it, this community is driven by those figures. So what do we do? Do we all become traitors and drop Poser for DS? Some of us will, I'm sure, but what about those that love Poser and don't care to jump ship?
I guess what I'm saying is that this might be an opportunity for the right people. People that love Poser. People that are good modelers and scripters. People that have excellent ideas that have never come to fruition because, well, everyone uses Daz figures...lol. Where are the people who are working on Poser only figures, plugins and products that improve just Poser's functionality? Sure, there are some nice plugins for Poser, but nothing really innovative (I must however give a nod to people like bagginsbill, who with Matmatic and other scripts have made things more functional, but not really in an easy way...lol). Certainly no figures that have caught on like the Daz figures. With the gobs and gobs of talent in this community that astounds me.
What would we do if the Daz figures went away? Would we go away too? Or would we have something planned? A community plan B as it were? We may in the future, if things go like I foresee, need to save our own asses if we want to continue Poser as a hobby and have it shine and innovate and continue.
Sorry for being so verbose. I'm not normally...hehe.
What do you think? Have any of you thought about it as well? Inquiring minds wanna know ;o).
Laurie