Quote - ...No offense intended...but, Mike, you're very clear on the fact that you don't have a use for Poser...so, what's your point, other than repeating yourself a lot?

That's not true at all, I've said many times in many ways over the course of many years that I use it. I've also said I hate it, but I've also mentioned on several occasions that no program does what it does as well as it does it. Equally, I've said many times I'm disappointed in its progress. So what? But I do have a use for it and I don't know why you would ass-ume otherwise. What do I have to do to earn the right, in your eyes, to repeat myself alot? Do I need 300 cliched and trite Poser renders of the latest MP stuff in my gallery or something in order to justify the things I write about it? It's all true and verifiable, by the way, just so we're clear on that.

But is that really a problem anyway? What if I came here every day and said how much I love Poser? Would I get a comment from a Poser forum mod that I have no point other than repeating myself alot? I'm guessing probably not.

Where do I do said repeating anyway? In threads on the technical discussion of Poser and its rendering, perhaps? Has this forum become a myspace Poser fan page while I wasn't paying attention?

I can understand your need to want to take a moment to look like you're on top of things, to make yourself appear to be a proper defender of Poser just in case someone important from S-M or CP happens to be looking on, but really, your above comment is far more pointless than anything you accuse me of.

So what is it, Jen? Do you only want the fanboy opinion here or something?

Better yet, why don't you engage me in a discussion of it? If you're going to take the time to accuse me of pointless complaining, what say you prove me wrong instead, show that my points are invalid? In a forum that is supposed to be for the discussion of the use of Poser, that would seem to be far more constructive and logical than to simply drop by to toss mindless accusations.

It really is a silly question anyway - what is my point, that is. In a discussion on the use of SSS in Poser it seems to make quite a bit of sense to discuss how it's done in programs that can do it, and why Poser can't do it. I'm not going to sit here and just make up stuff and offer suggestions on how to fake it, as I don't know how to fake it, but I do know that it's not a viable solution for rendering SSS for people really interested in that, like iceboy here.

Actually, Mike, the only problem is your repeated "Lightwave can do it better"....everywhere.  Sure it can!  We all know it, and no one's saying that Poser outdoes Lightwave in ANY capacity (other than MAYBE affordability).  But, after several complaints that you're not actually helping people learn, just annoy them, I had to say something.

Also, lol, I don't remember the last time I had any contact with anyone over at SM/CP, other than ratscloset, and, um, to be fair, I knew him before he worked there.  ;)  The chances of them coming over here and seeing an anti-Poser thread are more common than you think.  So, if I had to "police" those threads, on top of everything else I do, I'd get nothing done.   So, go ahead and contemplate another conspiracy theory, but it'll most likely be wrong ;)

Quote -
So, go ahead and contemplate another conspiracy theory, but it'll most likely be wrong ;)

Actually, I just wanted to counter your ridiculous claim that I had no point with a ridiculous claim of my own.

I'm not actually helping people, but rather annoying them? And you got complaints? Oh, that's rich, that one really makes my day. Actually, I have been a little more active here lately than usual, and if you read over alot of my recent posts, I have answered questions and I have helped a few people in regards to Poser and other 3D things.
I've also asked questions and been helped in return and said thank you afterwards. Actually, I've pretty much been a typical member here, doing typical things.

But you have people complaining? Well, why don't they confront me about it personally? I'm not unreasonable. I'm not going to tear into someone if they show me I'm wrong about something - I never have before, and as I've also said on several occasions, I'd LIKE to be proven wrong in many of these things.
Now YOU'RE annoying ME. Who should I complain to? The correct answer is... you. Which is what I'm doing. If I were in your position I would have told anyone complaining to either deal with it on their own or get over it. It's not like I'm running around here trolling or anything like that. So my opinions on Poser make some of the fanboys and/or fangirls upset? My heart bleeds for them, truly it does. A little bit of truth never hurt anyone and since I assume people here are interested in 3D CG, I offer them alternatives, I don't hesitate to say if you want something, you might have to look elsewhere beyond Poser.
So, that's what it's come down to here? This is not only a Poser forum for the learning of Poser, but now it's more of a Poser fan club, with you as its nanny and guardian against the evil trolls such as myself?
Like I said, you made my day. :-)

Your involvement in this thread is suspicious at best. So far, the only thing you've contributed is a weak attempt to chastise me for telling the truth and offering alternatives. I've not seen you offer any kind of technical advice or explanations in any of the recent threads I've also been in regarding Poser's rendering and lighting. You dropped by here to sling mud at me, plain and simple, and only after confronted you claim you did so by request. Wouldn't it have been more professional to do that in private than out in public? Or did you feel a need to publicly show you're on top of things here, that you have the situation in control?

As I've said, prove me wrong about Poser if you can, if you want to. Be a part of the discussion, if you want to, but don't tell me that you think the relatively mild things I've said about Poser are upsetting the natives and think that you're justified in flaming me over such a thing. That just makes you look bad as a mod, and knocks the intelligence level of this forum down a few notches.

Yeah, I've mentioned LW alot. MOST of the time it's been relevant to the discussion, too. But again, I seem to be confusing this place as a place where peple are interested in 3D CG. And I think most of them are. I'm not going to pussyfoot around the fanboys who get their little feelings hurt though.
And just to add to that, it's important to note that the developers of Poser themselves have put a whole lot of effort into getting Poser into other apps - Vue, 3ds max, maya, Cinema, Lightwave. Why do you suppose they've done that? Because there's apparently a need for it, that's why, and because for years people have been doing everything possible to get their Poser stuff into those apps for rendering.
So I would say discussions of those programs are very, very, very relevant, PARTICULARLY when the discussion turns to things Poser simply cannot do on its own.

Don't worry about me mentioning Lightwave too much in the future though. I've been using it since 2002 and now I'm all but over it. They are completely rewriting it from the ground up - an entirely new app and it will be a few years before the newer version is viable, IMO, while the current version, which is no longer being worked on, is incomplete in may ways.
So I managed to secure myself an educational license of Maya, which I'll probably be talking about more than Lightwave. Please refer yourself back to a couple paragraphs up where I mention the obvious intent on the developer's end to solve the desire people have to get their Poser stuff into other programs. Since Poser Pro is the latest incarnation, and the Poser Fusion is now better at that than ever before, note, once again, that the discussion of those programs and how they go about things is, in fact,  very relevant to the use of Poser.

MikeJ, if you have any complains about a staff member you are always free to send an email to admin@renderosity.com. 

I must admit that I find you "Difficulties in Poser? Luckily I have Lightwave" approach  not very helpfull too. For my part, I neither have the money to get one of the big software packages nor the time to learn them. 

You made your point, Poser don't have support for SSS. No need to discuss other weak points of Poser here, although you are free to open a new thread for this.

Thank you.

Since the born of poser 5 is there many and many possibilities with the material room, just looking the works of the shaders guru ! Sure SSS can be found, it's a question of time and work and not saying all time " x software do that better " dont forget it's a forum for Poser and his subtility !

Quote -
MikeJ, if you have any complains about a staff member you are always free to send an email to admin@renderosity.com. 

Well as I wrote above, that's not what I do. I don't have any complaints about JenX that are too big for me to handle. And if I did, I'd live with it or forget about it, not complain to the admins. I'm surprised you didn't surmise that, considering I more or less wrote that above...

Apparently you didn't read what all I wrote in this thread very carefully or fully. I think I mentioned Mental Ray more than LW, for one thing, but the primary point was WHY Poser can't do what ice-boy wants, and what Poser needs in the future in order to pull it off.

Maybe that's not particularly helpful, maybe it is to some. I can't remember the first time I heard about the awesome 3D programs out there, way back when, but I'm certain it was in a thread similar to this one.

So if I convince someone they're better off with a different program and they go out and try it and agree, that's not helpful?

I'm through with it too. I'm not going to open another thread about it, that would be silly. THAT would be a truly pointless thing to do. All my comments were made in the course of this discussion, were relevant to this discussion,  and that's all I have to say about it at the moment.
If the subject comes up again somewhere else, maybe I'll get involved, maybe I won't. I really do miss out or intentionally pass on a whole lot of great Poser bashing opportunities, you know. I'm afraid I'm just not a very good Poser gadfly - I'm not dedicated enough. ;-)

You see, here's the thing. Maybe some people here can't handle this, but I don't look at the 3D CG world as application-centric in any way. I don't have any particular loyalty to any one product, and I've built up my 3D (and 2D) toolset over the past decade based on what works for me, what accomplishes what I want. I think anyone who is really serious about getting certain results needs to have such an attitude, because if there's one thing I've discovered, no app does it all, and all the people I look up to almost always use several programs to achieve one result.

I guess one could say, well some people want to try to achieve things in Poser, maybe just for the sake of accomplishment, and that's fine. You don't see me getting involved in all that, do you?
But after 1000 or more pages over numerous threads of reading about one person's obssessive mission to achieve SSS in Poser, sooner or later something ought to be said about it.

Quote - Since the born of poser 5 is there many and many possibilities with the material room, just looking the works of the shaders guru ! Sure SSS can be found, it's a question of time and work and not saying all time " x software do that better " dont forget it's a forum for Poser and his subtility !

No, Poser's SSS is faked, at best. If you want convincing SSS the way to do it is to have physical photon emulation, not shaders.
There have been alot of great workarounds and fakes created, but it's still not the same thing. With "real" SSS you'll get an object which displays those properties in most lighting conditions in most scenes. With faked SSS through shader tricks, you'll get SSS that is far more heavily dependent on a particular lighting setup, and still won't be correct.

I think Blender Faked SSS looks really good, here is some explanation how it was implemented, I'd like to have this in Poser ;-)

www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-244/subsurface-scattering/

Yeah, Blender has a pretty cool way about it. The "light map" way is good, but as they mention has its disadvantages.
But reading that made me think of something which I hadn't thought of before: Poser really ought to have a good solid SDK so 3rd party developers can step in and fill the gaps, especially if its makers aren't interested in doing it themselves.
That could be the best of both worlds, really. S-M could avoid having to develop Poser too much and keep the cost low, while 3rd party developers could write plugins people could either choose to buy or not, up to and including other render engines and things like true SSS. Python is powerful, but not that powerful.

Biting my tongue.

And actually Python is that powerful.

Mike, I appreciate your participation and interest, even if sometimes you catch a flame or two. Just wanted you to know. However, I have lots of info to blunt some of your points, but I am not allowed to share. FYI - you might want to stop making so many sweeping statements about what is possible or not, what a given technique can do or not. For example, you seem to think one could not actually write a shader in Python. Heheh. One might think it would be slow. Heheheh. People who do not write software for a living assume that what they see from the great masses of software developers is all that can be expected. One might think that only SSS faking is possible with Firefly. heheheh. One might think one is never going to see GI in Firefly. Heheheheh.

I am not an ordinary engineer. I am not limited by what other people generally accept to be limits.

dont bite your tongue. lets have a debate about this :) 

''However, I have lots of info to blunt some of your points, but I am not allowed to share.''

ohhh god why. why  he he he he   :) 

I cannot debate, speculate, or otherwise enlighten about certain features and fundamental limits because I am no longer a by-stander in the process.

you work for them?

Bagginsbill, I do know you have alot to do with Poser's development, based on little snippets of information I've gleaned here and there. I've been hoping to try to force you to come off with some information. ;-)

But I didn't say someone  couldn't write a shader in Python - I know people can, and I know you have. I said you can't write a full render engine in Python, or if I didn't make that clear enough, that's what I meant.

I'd love to see GI in Firefly, in Poser. I may be wrong, but I think an early version of Rhino used Firefly with GI, or at least some form of radiosity.

As a programmer, what do you think of my suggestion Poser should have a full SDK?

EDIT:
But you're right - I am not  a programmer. I shouldn't go off topic and say things are impossible in Poser in regards to python and future development and just stick to what's possible within the given program, with no "enhancements" such as external scripts.

YES

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES Poser 9 will have SSH. there is a god. juhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

I don't get why people dig up ancient threads to go yeaaaah. Not complaining or anything, I just don't understand why.

Quote - YES YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES Poser 9 will have SSH. there is a god. juhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

And it only took 2 years.... lol

Quote - I don't get why people dig up ancient threads to go yeaaaah. Not complaining or anything, I just don't understand why.

It's called Thread Resolution.

I know it as Thread Necromancing. And I used to have an image specially for that back in the day when I was a forum admin somewhere else... We'd promptly lock the threads when somebody did that LOL

Don't you mean resurrection?

Anyway it's actually called necroposting.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=necropost

Necromancing is summoning a dead person.

I've been reading the thread over at RuntimeDNA and I am looking forward to new shaders and a new version of VSS. Wish I already had Pro 2012 on my system.

I just read this thread over again from the start. So funny.

Mike said Firefly would never do real SSS.

ice-boy asked about Blender's SSS and mentioned the Henrik paper.

Now Firefly has exactly the same implementation as Blender, and everybody is saying my demo renders look like Maya.

Maya is what Mike went over to and left Rendo for good a few months later.

Haha.

Quote - I don't get why people dig up ancient threads to go yeaaaah. Not complaining or anything, I just don't understand why.

well it was his thread anyway... Necroposting does allow for you to bring back your own threads...

Quote - I just read this thread over again from the start. So funny.

Mike said Firefly would never do real SSS.

ice-boy asked about Blender's SSS and mentioned the Henrik paper.

Now Firefly has exactly the same implementation as Blender, and everybody is saying my demo renders look like Maya.

Maya is what Mike went over to and left Rendo for good a few months later.

Haha.

Never say never, right?

I know reviving an old topic as threadomancy. 

In rereading the thread, I had missed this line from BB...

"I could buy better software, but then I'd have to be an artist and what's the point of that?"

I should put it on a tee-shirt...

Quote - In rereading the thread, I had missed this line from BB...

"I could buy better software, but then I'd have to be an artist and what's the point of that?"

I should put it on a tee-shirt...

Hear hear... :)

In any case, while I'm waiting for the upgrade to become available, I went ahead and continued developing my own SSS approximation in PP10.  Since I hope to eventually sell the character pack for which I created these shaders, I figured the backwards compatibility would help with marketing anyway.

Here's a quick sample of my latest work.  The lighting is made up of just three spotlights, and I even previewed the setup with a single infinite light to make sure it wasn't too dependent on that particular lighting style.

Attached Link: Demo: SSS on Human Figures

There is a thread by bagginsbill at runtimedna covering that topic. It is not vague at all:

http://www.runtimedna.com/forum/showthread.php?63200-SSS-on-Human-Figures

Yes - follow MG's link.

The NDA says we cannot talk about PP2012 here. We can talk about it only at RDNA. I have posted a ton of SSS demos, and some shaders.

Oh - and my opinion is that any shader you make without real SSS, you will not be able to give away, let alone sell, to anybody who has P9 or PP2012.

I have done the fake SSS thing for several years and it is very popular, but I predict that more than half of all Poser users who enjoy and care about realism will find a way to upgrade.

This iteration is just too good. So many things matter in it.

You're right, BB!  That first render of V4 at the RDNA thread was enough to blow me away!  Good to know Poser finally has something decent in the SSS department!

I guess I'll provide two shader versions in the pack, then.  One for P6-P8/PP10 users, the other for P9/PP12 users.

By the way, saying you're "inexperienced in SSS" is like calling me a pro football player (I'm skinny as a rail and use a wheelchair)!  I think what you meant to say is that you're inexperienced with how the new node works, right?