Just read some more on the new V5 DAZ is working on and since Miki 3 is new, talk has come up  over at DAZ from none other that Dan Farr himself:

DanFarr wrote: Just to confirm, there are no magnets or JCM's in the character shown by Blaine. Also, as we explored options to have a better rig, we did try approaches similar to the "capsules" (this was before the release of Poser 8 ) and found that weight painting gave us much better control over the joints. Also ... weight painting is more typical with the professional applications.  

So, obviously somebody's opinion varies.  Now to be honest, I'm just an end user, so a lot of these terms like Weight painting and Spherical capsules are lost on me until someone can explain them, then maybe I might have a better understanding of why Poser went one way and DAZ wants to go another.

Poser has had spherical falloff zones for joints all along.  Adding capsule zones would have been easier than developing support for weight-mapping.  I assume that's why Poser went that way.

Why Daz has gone the other, I couldn't guess, but I'm pleased.  Rumor has it that Poser will follow suit, and having more options is good.  :woot:  Plus, weight-mapping can give much nicer joint results than we're used to, without as much struggle (IMO).

If you load a figure in Poser, select a body part, and open the Joint Editor, you'll likely see a couple of spherical falloff zones for the joint.  The zones are positioned to determine how the joint handles.  This can be unwieldy in some cases (all the trouble with legs bending at the hip) because the effect is approximate and can't be specifically edited on a per-vertex level.  You can just position the falloff zones.

Poser 8 added capsule-shaped zones and the option for multiple zones, which can apparently help a lot.  But the approach is still a bit awkward, IMO, and it hasn't really caught on yet.  Apparently Miki 3 uses these capabilities.

Weight-mapping allows you to specify the level of effect of a given bone for any given vertex on a mesh.  You paint a color on the mesh, indicating the level of influence.  (Or that's how it works in Blender, at least, and I think Blender's implementation is fairly standard.)  This allows more precise control of individual vertices than the falloff zones would provide.  You can weight-map a low res, poorly designed mesh in Blender and have it handle better than a high res, well designed mesh can in Poser 7.  The drawback is that you have to actually paint the influence levels onto the mesh, which can be tedious in some areas, particularly on higher-resolution geometries.

Or that's my experience, anyway.

I'm betting I've cross-posted with someone who types faster than I do.  :lol:

Edit: Huh.  :unsure:  No cross-post.

Thank you Cage, I was wondering what all that stuff meant.

I wouldn't quite say that they have gone seperate ways, as a little bird (well, a scaly bird!) reported that weight mapping will be incorporated into an upcoming version of Poser. They are just two different approaches to improving the rigging...

Edit-just a thought-would weight mapping support enable Poser and Studio to import rigged figures from other applications such as Blender or Lightwave?

Quote - a little bird (well, a scaly bird!) reported that weight mapping will be incorporated into an upcoming version of Poser

link please, or it didn't happen :)

Quote - > Quote - a little bird (well, a scaly bird!) reported that weight mapping will be incorporated into an upcoming version of Poser

link please, or it didn't happen :)

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2753785&page=267

Scroll down until you see scales.    Such puzzles were how several of Poser 8's features came to light during development/testing.

Face it, though; if V5 is going to have it, Poser had better handle it.....

Thought about it a bit.  Daz isn't dependent on D|S for its income.  They make their money from content.  I suspect that makes it easier for them to move toward a huge change like this, in the software.  Since it would improve the content, too (IMO, at least), and bring that content more into line with the industry standard, it would presumably be a desirable move for them, looking forward.  Once they start making weight-mapped figures, it would be easier to move into selling content not just for Poser or Studio, but for the higher-end apps, or even a free one like Blender.  A larger potential market for the company.

So I guess I can see why Daz might be going this way, although my thoughts here may bear absolutely no relation to their actual motives or reasoning.  :unsure:

At any rate, I think this is a good thing Daz is doing, and SM, too, if Poser really does get weight mapping.  :woot:

Edit:

If the implementation ends up being anything like Blender's, conformed clothing could become easier, too.  In Blender, you can just attach a clothing mesh to the same skeleton which is used for the base figure.  A script can copy the basic weight influences to the clothing mesh.

You can also easily change the skeleton which is attached to a mesh, making it easier than in Poser to change the way a figure is rigged.

It's a wonderfully flexible approach to rigging.  I'm excited.  :lol:

Thank you WandW!  I'm so excited now like Cage. 

I totally was not looking forward to a new Vicki if she was just going to be one of the same with more polygons and bigger texture maps but this changes everything! 

I hope this will not result in a major pricing change, however. 

Quote - I totally was not looking forward to a new Vicki if she was just going to be one of the same with more polygons and bigger texture maps but this changes everything! 

If you haven't seen the V5 discussion thread at DAZ lately, check it out and scroll down to the hand...