Really you all did "Hit it on the head" right there, because if you are just fiddlin' or creating a whole new figure; being able to tweak the code is part of the Figure Creation process...once you understand the basics getting in there and tweaking stuff is actually fun!

Good points guys! I certainly don't plan on getting Locked In to anything that's proprietary again! I haven't done that since my first PC which was a Tandy 1000(A) and was extremely proprietary, much like Macs are now. I prefer choice!

Quote - Good points guys! I certainly don't plan on getting Locked In to anything that's proprietary again! I haven't done that since my first PC which was a Tandy 1000(A) and was extremely proprietary, much like Macs are now. I prefer choice!

not to get way OT, but my first pc was a Tandy 1000 as well. I got rid of it when I went to Radio Shack one day and told the clerk what I had and was looking for a replacement drive. He asked who made the computer. I knew I was in trouble :)

I'm still trying to figure DS out but it just doesn't have the features that Poser has, so, no I won't give up Poser. :)

And I've been learning a lot about shaders from postings and stuff from BB, why quit now?

Daz just doesn't give me the right kind of learning materials.

Being nearly deaf I need written instructions and I can find plenty of PDF or text Poser tutorials.

Any software that wants to woo me needs a lot of written tutorials, not videos!

Edited to add: As for great models, Antonia is one of the best I've come across and she is free. :)

"Tandy 1000(A) and was extremely proprietary, much like Macs are now."

Well for the sake of Accurate disclosure Modern Day ( intel)  Macs Are actually Just expensive PC hardware  that have their configurations tightly controlled by Apple.

you can install a Retail Copy of MS windows on second  hard drive or partition on a "Mac" with no Emulation needed
and use it as a PC and run natively AutoDesk programs et all.
this certainly was not the Case with those Awfull Tandy Systems from Radio Shack.

it is the  Mac OS that is under tight EULA and proprietary  but then so is Windows as both MS& Apple have the right to protect their IP.

Cheers

No.  I never liked DAZ Studio and never will.  The tools are confusing and never work right for me.  More importantly I can never get DS to find my external runtimes even when I follow the directions carefully.

They can add all the hoopla they want to DS and I will never make it my primary program over Poser.  The few times I've used it was to convert simple props I created in Carrara over to Poser.  DS does such a crappy job of that so I don't use it at all anymore.

I've been using Poser far too long to start over learning DS especially since it is so user unfriendly.

Small nitpicky pedant bit on my part:

Quote - it is the  Mac OS that is under tight EULA and proprietary  but then so is Windows as both MS& Apple have the right to protect their IP.

You are fully correct about Windows, but OSX is mostly open source - you can download the source code for most of the OS right here:

http://opensource.apple.com 

--

As for the DS Genesis figure, I can see why a lot of merchants would hate it immediately - now anyone can, with a minimal amount of work, create whatever character they want, with only texturing and prosthesis (e.g. sci-fi/cyborg) as the last obstacle remaining. No need to go out and spend $20 for just the right look anymore. To follow, a whole lot of merchants are suddenly faced with the prospect of not selling items. Others, while not as affected, will have to learn how to make items for the new figure.

The concept I really like, though - dialing-up a figure of just the right proportions, look, etc is actually damned cool - having clothes that automatically fit is even damned cooler.

I find the DS4 UI to be (on first impression) a right PITA, but to be fair, most of that is because I feel it to be too dumbed-down, parts are missing that should be present, it's fairly resource-intensive, etc. As time permits, I'll sit down and learn it, and likely find the bits that got moved.

Meanwhile, I'm scoping out Poser again, hoping that the 16" laptop screen is sufficient in size for traveling and goofing around, and that the Core i7 / 6GB / NVIDIA bits inside are sufficiently powerful to do the job there as well.

(...told you I was serious about getting back into this thing :) ).

Looking at the flyer for Pro 2012, probably not. :-)

Quote - Looking at the flyer for Pro 2012, probably not. :-)

agreed

Nope!

Poser Pro 2012 seems to have swollowed DS/Genisis whole, digested out the good parts, and added a whole lot more.

lmk

It is Poser pro 2012 for me without a second look at Daz Studio.

the pricing for the new releases, especially pre-release pricing starting on 8/17 is very attractive, even to go from Poser 8 to Pro 2012.

I might jump to the big league this time ...but even 9 at $79 pre-release upgrade pricing is a no brainer

I just got the email flyer for Poser 9 and 2012, they do look very attractive.

My problem is that I just got 2010Pro and can't afford an upgrade now...sigh.

maybe you qualify for a preferencial upgrade?

Hope so :)

Quote -  

As for the DS Genesis figure, I can see why a lot of merchants would hate it immediately - now anyone can, with a minimal amount of work, create whatever character they want, with only texturing and prosthesis (e.g. sci-fi/cyborg) as the last obstacle remaining. No need to go out and spend $20 for just the right look anymore. To follow, a whole lot of merchants are suddenly faced with the prospect of not selling items. Others, while not as affected, will have to learn how to make items for the new figure.

 

Oh, please. Have you looked at how many people are selling things like poses, facial expressions, hand poses, and characters created purely through dialling existing morphs? People have been buying things which they could create on their own already. Genesis is not some magical thing which will stop that.

that's why i always ask a vendor if the morphs are dialed or newly created ones. I can dial stuff all day long, meshwork..not so good :)

I spoke too soon.  Pro 2012 looks really good.  Loving the video with the realtime OpenGL shadows and AO.  Stuff like that makes setting up a scene so much easier. 

Quote - "Tandy 1000(A) and was extremely proprietary, much like Macs are now."

Well for the sake of Accurate disclosure Modern Day ( intel)  Macs Are actually Just expensive PC hardware  that have their configurations tightly controlled by Apple.

you can install a Retail Copy of MS windows on second  hard drive or partition on a "Mac" with no Emulation needed
and use it as a PC and run natively AutoDesk programs et all.
this certainly was not the Case with those Awfull Tandy Systems from Radio Shack.

it is the  Mac OS that is under tight EULA and proprietary  but then so is Windows as both MS& Apple have the right to protect their IP.

Cheers

The Mac Hardware is still very proprietary, which is what I was referring to. You can't just plug any old 3rd party hardware into a Mac. The Tandy 1000 was the same.

Quote -
 

Oh, please. Have you looked at how many people are selling things like poses, facial expressions, hand poses, and characters created purely through dialling existing morphs? People have been buying things which they could create on their own already. Genesis is not some magical thing which will stop that.

Stop it entirely? 'course not. Slow it down a lot? Quite likely. 

The reason why is pretty simple... Sure, you can dial-up a body/facial shape all day long in the existing apps, but usually it requires a lot of tweaks, and demands that you often go back and forth a lot to hit a large number of individual dials to get what you want. Overall, doing it the old-fashioned way can take hours all by itself. Of all the things I've (so far) found frustrating about the whole DS4/Genesis thing, the one thing that impresses the hell out of me is the ease with which you can ring up something custom shapes/sizes/etc in very little time. No need to go hit individual body parts, tweak individual dials, etc. If this thing lives up to the hype, instead of taking hours to come up with something unique and useful, it can take just minutes (sans texture). I don't need to go nuts coming up with a figure that isn't Yet-Another-2-Meter-Tall-SuperModel.

Seriously... if you look through the store, I'm willing to wager that most of them are the same height, have roughly the same body shape (with minor breast varations), the same size head, etc. The ones that don't fit that mold are painstakingly built. OTOH, I can get a teenager, tall/skinny person, a hulking monster, etc - something that doesn't fit the typical mold for the mesh, and I can do it in literally seconds, without having to modify, then lock each Y-axis leg dial, each X-axis arm dial, etc. Oh, and the clothes will still fit no matter what I do to it, even if the cloth maker forgot to include the needed FBM/PBM dials. That last bit alone is worth the price of admission, IMHO.

Poses are the same way... if you know how. PowerPose was originally a radical idea, and has finally become something you can use without turning the CPU into butter while you're using it. Otherwise, you usually have to do it the old-fashioned way: visualize what you want the thing to be doing, then work outward from the hip to all extremities. A good pose that fits into the environment can easily eat 90 minutes or more of work just by itself if you're doing it competently... little wonder folks bought pre-canned poses and used one that was 'close enough', tweaking only to fit the scene. With the whole DS4 thing, that's no longer a need, and you can cut the time at least by half.

Put it this way: If I can get up a pose and/or character look in only 20% of the overall time it used to take for both steps, why would I bother buying poses or characters? Note that I only buy character sets nowadays for the textures anyway, but as time passes merchants can supply just those. Now consider - if Joe Ordinary can do pretty much the same things, then why would he/she bother buying the pre-canned bits?

Stuff like clothing, hair, props... anything that requires moving vertices? Those won't go out of style anytime soon. Morphing is still as much dark art as it is science for most folks. Textures? Likely won't be affected. OTOH, I believe that the dial-up characters and suchlike aren't as likely to sell as hot anymore, IMHO.

I don't make dial-up morphs anymore for my characters, I use the morph brush for the face, and sometimes the body.

But mostly I do textures to sell.

Haven't tried Genesis because DS is still hard for me to figure out (the latest one) and I get frustrated easy by it...lol.

"I just got the email flyer for Poser 9 and 2012, they do look very attractive.

My problem is that I just got 2010Pro and can't afford an upgrade now...sigh"

Not sure how long 'just got' is but  Rendo forum sets out the conditions and procedure to claims a free upgrade.  Maybe worth a look.

http://www.runtimedna.com/forum/showthread.php?63176-

well. with todays announcement of the tech in Poser9/2012... and the (claimed, yet to have it in hand and verify) ability to make any figure weightmapped...

why would I lock into genesis (1 figure) and daz studio when I can have as many as I want and their clothing etc plus weightmapping?

Quote - well. with todays announcement of the tech in Poser9/2012... and the (claimed, yet to have it in hand and verify) ability to make any figure weightmapped...

 

why would I lock into genesis (1 figure) and daz studio when I can have as many as I want and their clothing etc plus weightmapping?

Yep!

Well I don't qualify for the free upgrade as I've had my Poser2010 for a couple of months now.

And it was a gift for cleaning up my store catalog during a special thing at CP.

Quote - Nope!

Poser Pro 2012 seems to have swollowed DS/Genisis whole, digested out the good parts, and added a whole lot more.

 

lmk

And revelations has come!

Diogenes:

I can't wait to see what you can do with PP2012.

lmk

Quote - Diogenes:

I can't wait to see what you can do with PP2012.

lmk

I am in love again with 3D.  :)  The new features in PP2012 will make a world of difference..so much faster and easier to rig a figure with incredibly realistic results. These are features you most often only find in apps like 3ds Max and Maya,blender too (I think) I know what is possible with those..........so we'll see.  :)

And consider that you dont have to use only weight maps, but can use all the power of the P8 rigging and all the benefits of weight maps, plus the dependent parameters.  The possibilities become endless.

WOW

Personally, I hope ther never is another figure from daz for Poser all that daz dependency does is lock the market into a stale, static, booring cycle of endless repeats. Nothing else has a chance to bloom in the poisoned soil.

I've always used only Daz base figures, but this whole thing left a bad taste and made me look into others. I'm not fond of the visual look of SM models except for Miki (which is a cute), but now I have to say...

I really, truly, very much hope for a bright future featuring weight-mapped Antonia and Apollo. Yes.

I'd like to ask a question and it may sound dumb, but what is "weight mapped"?

I do mostly texturing and no modeling so it is something I don't understand.

Quote - I'd like to ask a question and it may sound dumb, but what is "weight mapped"?

I do mostly texturing and no modeling so it is something I don't understand.

 

Weight-mapping, by itself, is a term used to a technique/function that uses colors to specify how much a certain vertex of a mesh will be affected by another function. It can be used, for instance, to tell a cloth dynamic system that an area of a mesh will feature a harder type of fabric while the rest will be soft (... I just noticed that this might actually exist in P9 and PP2012, because I remember reading that its weight-mapping is not only for rigging...). It's really painted over the mesh - in C4d, you see it as an odd texture; in PP2012, from what I saw in the video, you see the dots that represent the vertices change color.

Weight-map rigging uses weight maps to tell a bone what areas it should bend and how much of that area should be bent. This, for a human body, means that you can simulate the movements of muscles probably perfectly, for instance.

Edit for extra explanation because you said you've never worked with rigging: Poser, so far, uses spherical and capsule zones to control what and where should be affected by a bone, so you're stuck with a round zone (or a bunch of them, in the case of Poser 8 and PP2010 I think). That's why V4 has hidden magnets and joint-controlled morphs to simulate a better bending of difficult places like knees, elbows, and movements that move flesh in more complex ways, like breasts splashing up when the arms raise.

Quote - It can be used, for instance, to tell a cloth dynamic system that an area of a mesh will feature a harder type of fabric while the rest will be soft (... I just noticed that this might actually exist in P9 and PP2012, because I remember reading that its weight-mapping is not only for rigging...).

Oh!  Wow, that's cool.  Such an idea never occurred to me.

Yeah, really, really excited.  :woot:

Quote - > Quote - It can be used, for instance, to tell a cloth dynamic system that an area of a mesh will feature a harder type of fabric while the rest will be soft (... I just noticed that this might actually exist in P9 and PP2012, because I remember reading that its weight-mapping is not only for rigging...).

Oh!  Wow, that's cool.  Such an idea never occurred to me.

 

Yeah, really, really excited.  :woot:

Keep in mind that I was explaining what weight-mapping is in general. I have no idea if the new versions of Poser allow you to use weight-mapping to control dynamic cloth.

Quote - Keep in mind that I was explaining what weight-mapping is in general. I have no idea if the new versions of Poser allow you to use weight-mapping to control dynamic cloth.

Based on some things stated (but not explained) in another thread, it sounds a bit like weight-mapping may be applicable to dynamic cloth.  I haven't visited RDNA to see what the hints were about, but that's apparently where one can go for information.  :unsure:

Yeah, I've been stalking there but didn't see anything on the matter.

No one has mentioned it, and compared to some of the other features it's kind of minor, but I was glad to see "flatten" added to the morph tool. We now have in, out, smooth, move, and flatten available from within poser.

Now if texture maps would only recognize alpha channels.

Quote - I've always used only Daz base figures, but this whole thing left a bad taste and made me look into others. I'm not fond of the visual look of SM models except for Miki (which is a cute), but now I have to say...

 

I really, truly, very much hope for a bright future featuring weight-mapped Antonia and Apollo. Yes.

And Angela! LOL

I don't know Angela! Where oh where can I meet her? :D

Weight Mapping has been around for at least a decade as far as I know...I started using it in Lightwave 7 and it probably existed before that...It's pretty old technology... I'm actually a little surprised that it hasn't been integrated into Poser long ago.

Essentially it allows you to modify the area of influence a bone has on a mesh and furthermore allows you to set the fall-off of that influence...

I think it was Lightwave 8 that introduced a "Weight Brush" which allowed even more control over the influence.

I've only got up to Version 8 in Lightwave but I suspect that it's been even further refined in later versions.

As for Giving up Poser...meh...I only open it every couple of months as it is...so I have no real investment in it either way.

Quote - I don't know Angela! Where oh where can I meet her? :D

http://www.sharecg.com/v/51383/gallery/11/Poser/Angela

Pretty! Ok, add her to my list ;D

Thank you all for the explaination.

Sound like a really great improvement for Poser.

Quote - well. with todays announcement of the tech in Poser9/2012... and the (claimed, yet to have it in hand and verify) ability to make any figure weightmapped...

I'm hoping the weight-mapping works as well (I'll likely grab Poser Pro as time and budget permits - likely early Sept.)  OTOH, I'm half waiting to see if/how it works. If it turns out like the dynamic hair/P5 debacle, then oh hell no. OTOH, if it actually works, then this could be quite interesting.

The biggest piece that attracts me to it is the HDRI tools, mostly. Dunno... we'll have to see.

you know Pengy, remembering things is good and all. but.. poser 5 was 4 versions and 8 years ago.

lets let go now huh? thats run it's course and it's time to move on.

It's pretty nifty, you can take an already-rigged figure and convert specific joint/bend channels to a weight map.  I'm pretty sure this is an extension of what Poser and D|S were already doing anyway (see the "calcWeights" commands in any old CR2) but now there's a user interface for it and a file format to store it in, instead of just calculating solely based on the falloff envelopes behind the scenes.  You don't have to do it for an entire figure, you can just convert joint bends that really need it, e.g. only thigh bend. 

There are also tools to automatically transfer weight maps onto a conformer; these work as well as you could expect.  A nice perk is that the falloff regions that the weight map is initially derived from are retained, but disabled (the data for them is really tiny, whether in file or in memory).  If you're doing a conformer, you can easily fall back to the falloff regions if that will turn out to be more practical than the automatic conversion transferred from the conform target.

Ok, I asked over at the official forum at RDNA, they told me weight mapping in P9 and PP2012 is only for rigging.

Quote - you know Pengy, remembering things is good and all. but.. poser 5 was 4 versions and 8 years ago.

I said "if", not "when". ;)

Quote - It's pretty nifty, you can take an already-rigged figure and convert specific joint/bend channels to a weight map.  I'm pretty sure this is an extension of what Poser and D|S were already doing anyway (see the "calcWeights" commands in any old CR2) but now there's a user interface for it and a file format to store it in, instead of just calculating solely based on the falloff envelopes behind the scenes.  You don't have to do it for an entire figure, you can just convert joint bends that really need it, e.g. only thigh bend. 

There are also tools to automatically transfer weight maps onto a conformer; these work as well as you could expect.  A nice perk is that the falloff regions that the weight map is initially derived from are retained, but disabled (the data for them is really tiny, whether in file or in memory).  If you're doing a conformer, you can easily fall back to the falloff regions if that will turn out to be more practical than the automatic conversion transferred from the conform target.

These are what I'm looking forward to playing with.

i've used PP2010 since last year (i think) and before that Poser 8 .... i'm looking forward to ordering PP2012 as my upgrade ... i heard that there wont be a V5 standalone figure like v4 was .... thats the rumor anyways ... so i'll stick with what i've got for now, and see where all this leads.

've tried a thousand times to learn DS and for the life of me we do not get on .... too many tabs etc ... poser is straight forward to me. i've used Genesis ... and i just cant get the hang of him/her ... and i'm not going to spend $50+ bucks on auto fit so that all the clothes i bought over the years will fit him or her.

So no i wont be leaving Poser anytime soon either .... 

Quote - Ok, I asked over at the official forum at RDNA, they told me weight mapping in P9 and PP2012 is only for rigging.

 Keep in mind that this is -Poser-. A lot of the features people use and swear by are either outright bugs that were exploited, or gimmicks tricked out due to the ascii file format. Who knows what the tinkerers will come up with regarding weightmaps once heads are wrapped around the new feature?