Is anyone working on taking the (weightmapped) rig and mesh from Antonia and keeping it in Poser as the 'resident figure'?

Leaving the Antonia CR2 with the joint centre positions, UV layout, morphs, textures etc. ready to be poured onto its resident figure.

Having got a good rig with a good mesh like Antonia's theres no need to redo it for every new figure.

Is it then possible to create a WM Miki CR2 with its own joint centre positions, UV layout, morphs, textures etc. ready to be poured onto the same resident figure?

After having access to the new Daz CCT during developement, I went ahead and bought them when they were released as part of Studio 4 Pro. I will migrate towards Genesis eventually.  Packaging product and figuring out how to make attractive mats are the main obstacles faced by most long time Poser supporters.

"Adobe Photoshop comes with brushes, actions, filters, and a lot of things.  I rarely, if ever, use them.  I either create my own or purchase what I need that gives me a better result for my work.  Now, are they to blame that their brushes (I believe they've been the same since at least version 7) aren't as good as the ones I've purchased?  You can say "yes", but, frankly, I'd rather they focus on the software.  I'm pretty sure the dev team at Adobe hire someone else to do the creatives so they can focus on the meat and bread of what they do.

The same for Poser.

Sorry but  IMHO
Your Adobe Example makes my point for me
If corel painter or some other graphic program started to over take adobes marketshare after numerous complaints by adobe users about those tired boring "7 year old"  "ugly brushes.
and then corel or whomever create some new proprietary  "Super Ptex genesis brushes" that reguired you to use the latest  version of painter to access.
now adobe loses even more market share to Corel.
it is indeed Adobe Fault for rolling out those same bland boring.ugly old brushes every release not the fault of some hypothetical third party programmer or in house guy who was contracted wrote the code for them.

You say "I would rather focus on  the software"

Fine but what is poser without the figures?

From Smith Micro:"professional artists and production teams to add pre-rigged and fully textured 3D characters to their projects. With over 3GB of included content libraries and richly varied third party Poser content, Poser Pro 2012 is the perfect link between professional production tools and ready to use 3D character assets, saving development time and resources."
How can you read this ad copy from the official web site and not see that posers main claim to fame is its figure assets.( 3GB)

We can accept that poser rigs might not be acceptable to certain communities"(CG Society) and write it off as "Snobbery"

But when the mere mention of alyson& ryan HERE in poser community forums results in a near universal chorus of ridicule and derision then the fault is clearly at the feet Smith micro for not hiring better figure makers just as it would be adobe fault for not hiring more capable brush coders in your example.

Cheers

Quote - OTOH, you are right in that you're only going to have a couple variants at most on the optimum of polycount versus morphability.

This is an aspect of the modeler's skill and inventiveness, not some objective concept of "perfect topology".

"But, the simple fact is, you cannot count on your software company to make your content for you."

That is pretty much what DS users are doing. I don't know whether DS was created in fear of Poser cratering, or whether it was on the roadmap and perhaps simply acclerated. Either way, they seem to be in earnest. Having both application and content in house is unusual, but beyond their flagship figures, a lot seems to be brokered. Daz, IMO is all about doing something new here, not necessarily replicating the traditional 3D business model(s). They're coming at 3D from many directions, figure rendering, modeling, models, avatars and more I've probably missed.

Is it Microsofty? Probably not. MS rarely ventures into hardware and usually fails miserably - X-Box being an exception. Daz looks more like Apple to me, building a self-contained ecosystem. It's a work in progress, scattered, lacking a high degree of integration etc. Also, I think they need to give users a better idea of where they're going, at least at the big picture level. I have doubts that they can pull it off, but I guess I admire them for taking the shot.

"The masses dont give a rats patooie about weight Mapping & SSS they just want the latest Vickie"

"This and similar threads have proven him to be correct"

This statement does not rise to my qualifications of wisdom, and represents the conventional (condescending) thinking that is based on an outdate status quo. Things change. DAZ3D has fundamentally changed the relationship it had with its Poser users. That is what this and similar threads have proven to be correct. This is what all the dramatics is about.

Instead of making a figure that worked almost as well in all versions of Poser (that could use Poser 4 content) as in D/S, they issued Genesis (a slender gray alien, not a Vickie doll), which would not work in any version of Poser at all. They then put a lot of stuff in the store for Genesis, and made it use most of the V4/M4 legacy content, but only in D/S 4.X (which even freezes out those D/S users who cannot update to version 4.X). This was the situation for a month or more.

The masses of people in this corner of the CG universe are still largely if not mostly Poser users, and most of them use some version of Poser prior to P9/PP2012 (probably prior to Poser 8). They already know they can't use Genesis because they do not want to use D/S, and they will not or cannot get P9/PP2012. A lot of the Poser users have already walked away before "V5" even came out.

The latest "Vickie" is already as inaccessible to all of these consumers as weight-mapping and SSS. If they were going to use D/S they would have adopted one of its free versions a long time ago. They didn't.

The relatively smaller portion of the community of people that used DAZ content may be dividing between those who use D/S and those who use Poser, but the big split in the community of people that used DAZ content is between people who only use content that is compliant with the Poser 4 standard (the legacy users), and those who can use content that will not work in earlier versions of D/S and Poser. Poser 4 compliance is the lowest common denominator of compatibility. Fascinating.

Therefore, things have changed. So, what the masses actually want is that the latest version of Vickie will work in their version of Poser and it can't. Those who use Poser might consider upgrading to a new version of Poser (probably not) to use Genesis/v5 if it functioned well in Poser. But, they will not exchange Poser for D/S just to get a fully functional V5. Neither will I. I am already sufficiently estranged to explore and invest in other options.

lmk

"IMO is all about doing something new here, not necessarily replicating the traditional 3D business model(s). They're coming at 3D from many directions, figure rendering, modeling, models, avatars and more I've probably missed."

Not sure what their grand scheme is, dont care really, but clearly they hope that high end users in the Autodesk Maya communities will become as interested in genesis as their current hobbiest user base.

HERE is genesis being hosted in MAYA 2012
*note the hi-res mesh quite different from the sims Game res version from the current PP2012 Cr2 exporter.

I personally think this is a non starter unless they can pull off a technological miracle that Gives that hosted genesis Maya's NATIVE rigging and controls that professional Maya character animators have come to expect in pro Game/Film and VFX pipelines
 but hey its their money  & Dev time to expend

Cheers

"This is an aspect of the modeler's skill and inventiveness, not some objective concept of "perfect topology"."

Nope. It is an objective mathematical problem.

Let's take a single muscle. Edgelooping around this muscle takes a certain amount of vertices. You could use six, but then the muscle would look blocky. You could use eight, but then you waste a vertice you could use elsewhere in the mesh. So seven is the ideal.

Two different modellers of similar skill would both come to the conclusion that seven is the ideal amount of vertices to sculpt that muscle and therefore both would actually use seven vertices.

Now, there is also only one "perfect" way to connect that seven vertex muscle to the rest of the mesh.

And suddenly we have two figures that share the same mesh topology.

Did one modeller copy from the other ? No. But both were confronted with the same problem and both found the ideal solution for that problem, resulting in identical topology.

In the end sculpting a human body with the least amount of vertices possible while still properly edgelooping every major muscle isn't much different from creating a cube with the least amount of vertices possible.

Don't think of a figures mesh as a whole. Think of it as a large group of tiny little problems for each of which is only one perfect solution. (like the cube)

The more stringent the rules get, the less choices are left.

Building a mesh efficiently isn't about creativity. It's about finding the most efficient (perfect) meshflow for the shape.

If you don't have to worry about mesh weight, if "everything's fine as long as it's somewhere below 80.000 polygons", you can think like a figure artist who works with clay or wood or stone and just worry about the shape.

But once you start fighting about every single polygon, once you enter "19.999 vertices are fantastic but 20.000 are a completely unuseable bloated waste" territory, you have to start thinking like a mathematician.

What I'm saying is: Once a mesh topology is (near) perfect, there really aren't much (if any) options left to change that topology without either loosing efficiency or loosing "perfectness".

Looking at the DAZ meshes, (and especially the 3rd gen meshes as I think they are built cleaner as they don't rely on subdivision (which always adds a certain amount of waste), I'd be hard pressed finding vertices that could be changed or re-routed without negative effect, simply because the topology is that perfect.

"Strange that you'd pick that. Not that I disagree, but I'd love to know why, aside from the Zygote angle. I never thought it was that close to human musculature."

Well, I haven't checked his topology against an anatomy book, but at least the major muscles seem to be there. The shape and proportions could be easily changed.

What he needs are a few more polygons here and there, not at least to support a female shape.

Could have picked P5 Don, too. Perhaps he'd be even a better choice as he's already mapped like M2 and has poseable toes. But I really dislike the face-room compliant head mesh.

James (1) has a fantastic default face, but the body mesh looks bloated to me. And the newer Poser males are just a waste of polygons IMO.

"...represents the conventional (condescending) thinking that is based on an outdate status quo."

What you take for condesention  is merely a statement of fact as I see it. You clearly disagree. I would hardly look down on the make art/point & click yada yada crowd since I am one of them - unnatural acts in Vue and Kerkythea notwithstanding. They are regularly put down here though. Not gonna track down the rat's patootie thread, but I think in it, talked about the long term for the two companies and which the new users would choose. The current generation is entrenched and a few on the Poser side, seem ready to don tricorner hats and start yelling 'Give us our Poser Back!", or some other, not quite understandible meme.

I said years ago that Poser should concentrate on maintaining elegance and simplicity, rather than rushing to add features that can't meet that criteria. Heresy I know to Poser geekdom, but think of the 3 major OSes, which one gets the cult-like devotion? Now to see the passion here, you'ld think that Poser was in a similar position. But, as I have also said often, IMO the forumites are not representative of most users. No, I don't have any stats just my gut, but judging from the complaints here about puerile gallery content, people not adopting new features 'holding back' Poser etc., I'll go with my gut.

A bit more inconvenient truth as I see it. Most users don't give a horse's hindquarters about dynamic cloth/hair because they see it as too complex. (Optitex is easy to use but Daz f---ed that up big time). Most users don't give a walrus' whang about whiz bang if it isn't #1 easy to understand and use, #2 delivers significant value, visible in the type of work they do.

As to the figures, it is absolutely SM's concern and at this point, it better be a critical one. They've been content to do mediocre, knowing that Vickie had their backs - surprize! Contracting out is no excuse for 2nd rate. It's all well and good to say make your own morphs, but most users don't make morphs. Beyond basic expressions and maybe a body shape, they probably don't even use the existing ones that much (more of a guess than a conviction on that). They want pretty out of the box and plenty of pretty one-click characters. 

SM is good for now but there's always the next wave of users. Their 1st exposure to consumer 3D may be a digimi avatar or some other Daz gizmo far removed from traditional stuff and if Daz can put a logo or a link on it they will. And those links will all lead to mama Vickie. SM needs to decide if they're goning to risk being niche in 5-10 years of if they want to compete with what just might be a juggernaut. 

Final heresy. Most users are not going to cream over some, however wonderful community figure unless it has comparable support to the DS figures - and did I say pretty? Free and technically superior ain't gonna get it done - see Linux. SM needs to dig into petty cash and buy said figures or commission their own and then commission lots of supporting content. Either that or they could, find themselves in Steve's position when Bill pulled his chestnuts out of the fire to the tune of 150 large, i.e. kissing rosy red Vickie rump. No, not today, not V5, but this thing ain't over by a longshot.

We are the 99% and we will be heard. No, seriously dude, I counted. There's me Oogie, Pez and that weird yoga chick that kicked Bilko in the nuts when he tried to grab her boob... How many is that?

Quote - Nope. It is an objective mathematical problem. Let's take a single muscle. Edgelooping around this muscle takes a certain amount of vertices. You could use eight, but then you waste a vertice you could use elsewhere in the mesh. So seven is the ideal. (etc)

Off the bat, that's subjective opinion, and pretty much all your conclusions are built on that supposition, so ...

Aside from that, you don't model a single muscle and then stop.  You model a selection of anatomy, making choices about what to build into the mesh and what not to - e.g. do you model the entire serratus complex? or just a selection of them? or leave them out? Also the fact that each of these must be meshed to everything around in the entire figure greatly magnifies the number of possible ways it can be wired. 

Quote - Don't think of a figures mesh as a whole. Think of it as a large group of tiny little problems for each of which is only one perfect solution. (like the cube)

um yeah that kinda means the opposite of what you seem to think it means...

Quote - Looking at the DAZ meshes, (and especially the 3rd gen meshes as I think they are built cleaner as they don't rely on subdivision (which always adds a certain amount of waste), I'd be hard pressed finding vertices that could be changed or re-routed without negative effect, simply because the topology is that perfect.

Yes, this is because you are not a modeler.  Seriously go model for a few years before getting all heavy and authoritative about something like this, you're saying dumb shit here.

e: seriously V3 is your idea of perfect topology? V3?  REALLY??

Quote - "This is an aspect of the modeler's skill and inventiveness, not some objective concept of "perfect topology"."

Nope. It is an objective mathematical problem.

...

You are absolutely right! The perfect mesh IMO is exactly square and consists of a single polygon. I have never seen a render that could not be accomplished by using a single (properly textured) quadrangle. Everything else is a compromise between different aspects, like e.g. memory consumption, morphability and sought income of the modeler, whose job is to make those compromises to satisfy very different requirements of varying customers, and which unfortunately cannot simply be expressed as a mathematical problem.
However i imagine that there are some people who are of the opinion that the perfect mesh is not a quadrangle, but a triangle, but i do not think they are right.

bah, why use four vertices when three are optimal?  YOU NOOB

 No

But it is not an either or choice. The all in one figure aspect-has not really pulled me in. The superb weight mapping/ joint setup (rigging) has impressed me. The V5 morph is also superb.

 Switch?

I'm having too much fun playing with the new nodes in Ppro2012. I like the skin renders I'm getting. BagginsBill has opened my eyes to some of the possibilities. So I've made my own teeth and eye SSS node setups (over on the RDNA forum).

Also the dynamic cloth has calculates faster- great! I've yet to try the hair creation.

I installed Daz to try out Genesis bending. A huge improvement! The V5 character looks lovely-and human- right out of the box.

That said-I've recently added Zrbrush to my tool set- and have been having fun making new characters out of V4 and M4.Also learning to make my own hi res skin textures-although I've put that aside to play with PoserPro2012

Switch? No-but I can see using DS4 -if I can get it to move beyond the Poser4 rendering quality. I've seen some pretty decent renders-I guess they were done with the DazStudioPRo version-and lots of add ons.

 If they can export a high res version of V5 with similar bending qualities-then I expect I'll buy V5. It opens up the morph making possibilities.

If they make a hosting plugin for Lightwave- I could see exporting Genesis/V5 to render in LW. If they make Daz Vue friendly- that would also be an inducement to use Daz and V5 more.

Quote - I now use both, getting the best of both worlds. Therefor I am a new breed. I am a "Dozer" user. And its awesome. If I lack something in the one, I switch over to the other. Both share the same library and it's a beautiful working experience:) You can remain a Die-hard, but unfortunately in these times it means you are missing out. Intergration and unity is the key....Together side by side these apps give you choices beyond your wildest dreams. If you don't embrace change, don't expect change to embrace you. In short, If you want V5, you are going to need daz, There won't be a "poser" version of her. She is designed to work on the Genesis platform. Taking Genesis features away from her takes away everything that makes her what she is.

Count me in as well! G/V5 is an amazing innovation on daz's part, and yes, folks you can import G/V5 into Poser, with the morphing abillities (Including the muscle-flex morphs) intact, the only limitations are the low-poly count (which Daz will fix) and clothing morphing capabilities.

nope. 

and also opting out of the Platinum Club...PC clothes will no longer have morphs--have to inject them yourself...PC items simply don't have that certain something they used to have.  also why would I want to spend all that extra $ for something that really doesn't look all that different from the Gen4 figures ?  also weight mapping can be done in the new Poser, so that will take care of the various bending issues in Gen4.

No, no plans on switching.  I'm sticking with Poser.

My thoughts on this whole thing is that the Poser community has and will continue to innovate and adapt.  I've been around since Poser 4 and I have some seen some really wonderful, creative people do amazing things.  It inspires me every day.

Sigh.

Keep believing that connecting dots a certain way is a highly artistic and individual thing that leaves you plenty of room for your own choices.

I guess there's always room for one more mediocre mesh in the greater Poserverse. As long as it's mug is cute enough and the boobs are big enough, noone will question your precious modelling skills.

Me, OTOH, will go on having no respect for other modellers "artistc choices". That's why I was able to reduce MIKI 1 from 130.000 polygons to 30.000 without any noticeable loss of quality.

Or manually retopologize hair to go from 120.000 polys to 20.000 because the modeller made a "wrong" artistic choice.

You start with a blueprint or a laser scan and then you find the most efficient path between details you want to include.  It doesn't matter if it is a tank, a car, a plane, a chair or a hot big boobed chick. It's all just connected dots.

Sorry if that isn't glamorous enough for you.  ;-)

As vor V3, once I replaced her bloated mess of a head with the V3RR version, she served me quite well:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3836247&ebot_calc_page#message_3836247

As she can go from skinny to fat, from hot chick to bodybuilder, from average to outrageous at half the size of most other meshes while still maintaing all necessary body detail, yeah, I think she's pretty much perfect.

And finally as for the OP's question:

I knew the rift was coming the moment I had a closer look at V4 when she was released years ago.

For a moment I thought I was wrong once M4 was released, but K4 again completely confirmed what I had suspected: Poser and Studio going different ways.

That's why I never invested much time into V4 and instead perfectioned my completely Poser friendly V3RR/V3 hybrid "family". So, whatever will happen next, I'm perfectly good.

Still, having installed Genesis into Poser, I have to say that , for better or worse, this mesh IS the future of the Poserverse. Poser will have to adapt or die, especially as Studio4, right now, feature for feature, is the superior program.

The features SM implemented are not what the average user wants or needs. It's that simple.

I know my way around Studio a bit, but I rather stay in Poser as I'm using it for eleven years now.

And I'm pretty sure the Genesis cr2 exporter will be developed further one way or the other.

But if that for whatever reason won't happen, yes, I'll switch. Because most of those eleven years I spent trying to build better, more realistic figures.

And if Poser can't support this quest anymore, then it has stopped being useful to me.

But again, looking at how well Genesis bends in Poser, I still think we can have a happy ending. :-)

I use both DS and Poser. Unlike many here I like DS interface and the new tools are easy to use even for a noob. Genesis/V5 is awesome and probably will get even better with time. But Daz needs to do something about its renderer. As of now 3Delight renders well but very slowly. I made a comparison render with the same figure/cloth/hair setup and Poser was twice as fast even with IDL on. I'm not bothered much as I mostly use Thea and Vue but more people would jump poser's ship if the DS renderer would be more efficent.

JoePublic- Is the improved bending due to the superiority of Genesis, or weight mapping?

"JoePublic- Is the improved bending due to the superiority of Genesis, or weight mapping ?"

That's not easy to answer.

Weightmapping by itself does not much to improve bending.

Lets say a really good rigger can rig a mesh the old fashioned way until the joints are 80% perfect.

Then the same rigger could bring the joints to perhaps 90% perfection with weightmapping.

Still, to get a joint perfect, you need JCMs. And to create JCMs, you need reverse deformations.

Both Studio's CCT as well as ColorCurvators MorphLoader can do reverse deformations.

Now the thing is, reverse deformation can bring both conventional as well as weightmapped joints to a full 100% perfection.

So, weightmapping by itself isn't actually such a big deal because if you knew how, you could have figures with truly perfect joints for years.

Reverse deformation tools are.

Back to Genesis. It bends so well because of careful rigging. Weightmapping sure helped. But I have re-rigged meshes bending just as well without weightmapping.

The big deal about Genesis is the scaleability. This allows you to create wildly differently proportioned figures on the fly without the need to painstakingly re-rig them.

The rigging is great. But other figures have great rigging, too.

Other figures even scale pretty well in Poser. (Though it's tedious to set that up properly)

But Genesis has great morphs and rigging and scalebility.And all work with each other without one feature compromising the other.

And that, so far, makes it superior.

Following on from what Joe says above..

I think one of the really important aspects of DS4/Genesis is that subdivision and smoothing is carried out after any change in posing, so any imperfections in the weightmapping are smoothed over dynamically.

IMHO smoothing don't work that way. If you have an imperfection in the weightmaps, Catmull-Clark won't fix that much better than Poser's smoothing. It's just that the figure is rendered with much more polys then it was modeled with.

Quote - Me, OTOH, will go on having no respect for other modellers "artistc choices". That's why I was able to reduce MIKI 1 from 130.000 polygons to 30.000 without any noticeable loss of quality. (...) As she can go from skinny to fat, from hot chick to bodybuilder, from average to outrageous at half the size of most other meshes while still maintaing all necessary body detail, yeah, I think she's pretty much perfect.

I'm really saddened that I won't be obtaining your respect, your approval, or whatever.  You're still saying dumb shit.  You're presenting your personal preference as a postulate for mathematical fact.  Words like "noticeable" and "all necessary" and "looks blocky" are qualitative, they are not objective fact.  Since you evidently think this is coming from some personal motive of my own, maybe defensiveness about my modeling skills, I went ahead and floated this amazing notion of yours - that DAZ's 3rd gen figures have perfect topology - over at cgTalk.  Who knows, maybe it's just me.

Ok, folks, apparently it's time for us to say "Some of these posts are becoming borderline attacks.  Rein yourselves in, please."

But, WE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO SAY THAT.

Let's keep it civil, please. 

Quote -  Having both application and content in house is unusual, but beyond their flagship figures, a lot seems to be brokered. Daz, IMO is all about doing something new here, not necessarily replicating the traditional 3D business model(s). They're coming at 3D from many directions, figure rendering, modeling, models, avatars and more I've probably missed.

It's not really that new of a concept... in Asia. Take a look sometime at what all gets built by companies like Sony, Samsung, and the like. When you're done there, you can see some really radical companies like Hyundai and Daewoo, which builds and sells a frighteningly diverse product line (for instance, Daewoo makes everything from cars, to ships, to pistols, to electronics, to... well, you-name-it).

It's just that here in the Western half of the planet, we're kind of used to seeing companies stick somewhat in their comfort zones.

Quote - Is it Microsofty? Probably not. MS rarely ventures into hardware and usually fails miserably - X-Box being an exception.

Actually, Microsoft has been casting about for a long time to find new money-makers. They know that Windows/Office aren't going to be cash cows forever, so they need something to keep the long-term moey rolling in. The funny thing is, even as widely-selling as the XBox is, it is still in a really deep financial hole. They've sunk $9bn into the thing so far since 1999 (not counting the $1.2bn "red ring of death" fiasco), and it wasn't until 2009-2010 that the division started turning a $150m/quarter profit. Now they get to throw more money into building the next gen boxes.

Interstingly enough, Microsoft does have some hardware that makes them a tidy (if not relatively small) profit: re-branded Logitech accessories like mice, keyboards, webcams, etc.

Quote - Daz looks more like Apple to me, building a self-contained ecosystem.

It's called "vertical integration" - IBM has been doing it since the dawn of computing, and HP is trying to horn in on some of it nowadays too (though in HP's case, they're crawling up into enterprise networking and storage components).

Quote - It's a work in progress, scattered, lacking a high degree of integration etc. Also, I think they need to give users a better idea of where they're going, at least at the big picture level. I have doubts that they can pull it off, but I guess I admire them for taking the shot.

A lot of it is due to the small staff. Big companies can execute these things better, though in that case you run into the danger of bureaucracy and politics hampering progress (see also Microsoft, Goolge nowadays, etc).

Big-picture wise, IMHO, they seem to be moving in the same general direction that they did in 2005... providing users with a soup-to-nuts CG experience. A one-stop CG hobbyist emporium, if you will. Along the way, they picked up some software that fits into that vision, but they also picked up some excess bits that don't quite fit (Bryce and Hexagon, ferinstance). In some of those cases, they did it out of (no, seriously) nostalgia (I'm pointing at Bryce), so as to avoid having the software end up in some larger corporation's graveyard. 

As for being able to pull it off, I think they're at a bit of a crossroads at this point. Only time and user enthusiasm will tell for certain.

Quote - I said years ago that Poser should concentrate on maintaining elegance and simplicity, rather than rushing to add features that can't meet that criteria.

Sorta disagree... but only in that if Poser can make the features user-friendly to an average high school kid, they'd make a lot more progress in seeing it implemented.

Quote - A bit more inconvenient truth as I see it. Most users don't give a horse's hindquarters about dynamic cloth/hair because they see it as too complex. (Optitex is easy to use but Daz f---ed that up big time).

The dynamic hair still suffers from a straw-like affliction, but that can be weeded out, and if the UI can be simplified (with perhaps an 'advanced' tab for the geeks), it would get used more often. Say they cough up some presets (short hair, medium hair, long hair), a "curly" slider (from razor-straight on one extreme to 'kitchen scrubbie' on the other), and a 'go' button. 

Same with dynamic cloth.

Oh, damnit - bear with me here, because there's one thing that's always bothered me about the dynamic features, and I gotta say it...

For fuck sakes - all you really need to do is have the user:

1. position the damn thing on or over the body, and dial any morphs it may come with

2. set a slider labelled "silk" on one end and "aluminum foil" on the other, and

3. click a big, fat "Drape" button.

That's. Fucking. It. 

Sure - the geeks among us can twaddle with the advanced settings, but to present a basic user with more switches, knobs, and dials than the friggin' Space Shuttle? That's a prime example of piss-poor UI design.

Here's a clue: You should not need a tutorial window right there in the app eating desktop real-estate just so your users can make use of the feature. I mean, c'mon, it's a simulated cloth moving its parts in one direction - down. Most cloth simulators take less than a megabyte of coding, and that includes the viewer to see it. 

Behind the scenes, you convert the shape into a constrained NURBS or springs object, and drape the fucker with basic collision detection. Every second-year CS student on the planet writes code to do this.

In D|S' case, I know why their nightmare came about - Optitex is a high-end tech for the fashion industry that's licensed out (the original Optitex app costs more than Maya used to), and contract terms prevent DAZ from doing anything all that workable with it. It came along after I left, so I have no idea how that particular crazy-assed UI came to be.

Quote - As to the figures, it is absolutely SM's concern and at this point, it better be a critical one. They've been content to do mediocre, knowing that Vickie had their backs - surprize! Contracting out is no excuse for 2nd rate. It's all well and good to say make your own morphs, but most users don't make morphs. Beyond basic expressions and maybe a body shape, they probably don't even use the existing ones that much (more of a guess than a conviction on that). They want pretty out of the box and plenty of pretty one-click characters.

...if only I could have these words bronzed and put on a plaque for all to see... :)

Quote - Most users are not going to cream over some, however wonderful community figure unless it has comparable support to the DS figures - and did I say pretty? Free and technically superior ain't gonna get it done - see Linux.

First, you suck. Second, you're right, and I have to agree. Linux has come a long way (see also all those Android phones out there), but unless the user can see and use it immediately, it's not going to get much traction.

"but they also picked up some excess bits that don't quite fit (Bryce and Hexagon, ferinstance). In some of those cases, they did it out of (no, seriously) nostalgia (I'm pointing at Bryce), so as to avoid having the software end up in some larger corporation's graveyard."

Agreed!!
and I would Add that IMHO its time for DAZ to let go of those second hand projects that they likely bought for song and in some case and were probably negative purchases
I am talking specifically Bryce & Carrara
I honestly Dont know the history of Hexagon

Bryce is only relevant to its most die hard cult followers at this point ( I was once a die hard Brycer in the 1990's)and still have bryce 6  installed on my intel Mac just for admittedly "nostalgia".

But the fact of the matter is the various flavors of vue have Made bryce obsolete years ago for outdoor landscape renders.

Carrara? yet another vestigial artifact from the long dead metacreations kai Krause culture that should have been allowed to die its natural death years ago IMHO.

Having said that if they truly want Daz studio to be their Flag ship application they need to take a serious look at the render engine and the animation editing tools.
A proper GRAPH EDITOR & DOPE SHEET.
Cobbling together  various aniblocks in DS is nice and all
but for serious refinement I find I have to do that in posers aging animation tools .

Cheers

Quote - "As to the figures, it is absolutely SM's concern and at this point, it better be a critical one. They've been content to do mediocre, knowing that Vickie had their backs - surprize! Contracting out is no excuse for 2nd rate. It's all well and good to say make your own morphs, but most users don't make morphs. Beyond basic expressions and maybe a body shape, they probably don't even use the existing ones that much (more of a guess than a conviction on that). They want pretty out of the box and plenty of pretty one-click characters. "

...if only I could have these words bronzed and put on a plaque for all to see... :)

+1

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i can just speak for me.... i will stay with Poser and produce for Poser mainly. I will not invest double of the time or learn a second application unless user would pay double of the price for a product.

Sorry, i never really liked D/S and never got on with the interface. I am a poser guy, and will stay producing for Poser.

Quote - and I would Add that IMHO its time for DAZ to let go of those second hand projects that they likely bought for song and in some case and were probably negative purchases
I am talking specifically Bryce & Carrara
I honestly Dont know the history of Hexagon

Funny you should say that now, mere days after Smith Micro takes a write down of $113 million for impaired goodwill resulting from years of purchases ... resulting in a whopping $150 million loss YTD.  This for a company with a market capitalization of $42 million.  It looks like DAZ's purchases weren't anywhere near that negative.

Cheers!

Klebnor

Here's my take on superiority.  In my own "opinion" (as I don't dare say what the average user wants or doesn't want... I'd like to see the data) Poser has the features overall that draw me to it.  I feel it's lighting (and light control), rendering, material system and library are far better.  I also favor its choice of Python as s scripting language because I find it easier to learn and implement and I've looked at both systems.

I'm not a figure-centric though so I'm not on the quest for the ultimate figure (speaking of human figures).  So that means that I am not only looking at DS for what Genesis can do.

I'd say that right now DS has an advantage in the figure department but only on the surface and only because a comparable figure is not yet available that is oriented towards Poser.  Only on the surface means that in order to really support Genesis, one must invest in the DS toolset.  You can plop out the Genesis figure via export but then what do you do with it?  If you decide to design Poser-based content for it, you have to expect everyone else to plop out Genesis in the same way.  This feels like a recipe for disaster.

The GUIs of both DS and Poser can be customized.  You can whittle it down to its most basic parts in both.  In Poser, there's no reason why you have to have every single panel displayed.  As far as the feel of both of those, while Poser might have a neutral or gray look, I find it to not detract from work in the scene and I can hide out the chunky, over user-friendly bits (like the Camera Controls panel - same controls are on the preview panel).  DS3 I could live with.  DS4 on the other hand feels to me that the idea is that the general audience is nearly blind and requires "Skittles" (or "Fisher-Price", if you prefer) colored controls to understand anything.  I was actually shocked on my first look at it.

All in all, I think it's kind of silly to choose a platform based solely on it's native figure or figures.  To me it's a tool set that I am going to work with and expand on.  If DS provides what you find to be important, go DS.  If not, go Poser.  If none of the above, go with whatever else you enjoy using.  It's not rocket science.

LOL

To me choosing D/S just because of Genesis is like choosing a new car based on the radio that comes with it.

lmk

I made that same analogy, lkendall, but as wired-in as Genesis is, I'd say it's the radio, the GPS and other similar car accessories.  It's "nice", sure.  Still, do people buy cars like that?  I tend to look at gas milleage, handling, safety features and those kinds of things.  I can always put a better radio in or install GPS or whatever else I feel a modern car must have.

However, what I feel is silly might be of primary importance to other people.

"Funny you should say that now, mere days after Smith Micro takes a write down of $113 million for impaired goodwill resulting from years of purchases ... resulting in a whopping $150 million loss YTD.  This for a company with a market capitalization of $42 million.  It looks like DAZ's purchases weren't anywhere near that negative."

No doubt that smith micro the company is not in good Financial shape it seems from all reports
and of course I personally dont care if SM&poser disappeared forever by sunset today New York time.

Poser 6 was and is my LAST version of poser I will purchase because I have long since moved on to Maxon Cinema4D Studio with Vray for my Professional animation work
Just as Daz studio 2.3 is my Last version of DAZ studio.

However the facts remains that Bryce particularly is a DEAD END for Daz and so is Carrarra
IMHO  they should move Forward with making DS4 a truly powerful App/Platform for thier content market.

Cheers

"It's not really that new of a concept... in Asia. Take a look sometime at what all gets built by companies like Sony..."

Yeah, even the US is or was on the vertical integration bandwagon. Didn't use the term or anology to avoid being even more longwinded. Great concept, probably works better for some firms/industries as anything else. Was pretty much referring to 3D software & content .e.g as stated before not a big thing with A'Desk, Maxon, Eon etc., so unusual in that context - contrary examples welcome.

"...re-branded Logitech accessories like mice..."

Wasn't sure they were still into that. I almost cried when my MS Wheelmouse died.

"...providing users with a soup-to-nuts CG experience..."

Agreed.

"First, you suck. Second, you're right, and I have to agree."

LOL, I knew Tuxie was still there inside the new Pengie. Yep Linux bids fair to do a squeeze play on MS between servers and gadgets. AFAIK, the Ford partnership is MS main success in gadgets. Don't know much about embedded. Seems like I heard something about Windows and those Stuxnet p0wned Siemens controllers but that was probably the workstations. If the desktop is indeed dying then MS be in trouble. Desktop Linux will be a curious footnote in history - the battle that didn't have to be fought.

"Sorta disagree... but only in that if Poser can make the features user-friendly to an average high school kid, they'd make a lot more progress in seeing it implemented."

Um, kind what I meant by "elegance and simplicity"

"and if the UI can be simplified (with perhaps an 'advanced' tab for the geeks)" et al

I think I'll have my shyster sue you for infingement. I've been Jeremiah in the freaking desert for years on this. Easy/Advanced GUI, presets!, wizards yada yada, but the geeks don't want no freaks.  1. the freak's do-re-mi pays for a major chunk of the money for their toy, 2. a good configurable GUI would mean they never have to slum 

"unless the user can see and use it immediately, it's not going to get much traction."

That's exactly the point for 3D. Virgins need gentle. Unless users can easily acomplish something and get immediate feedback with a feature, they're more likely to throw up their hands and abandon it. AniBlocks may not meet the pro's or the geeks needs, but for the newbie, they're easy and fun, the same for dynamic cloth and some other neat features in DS. Yes, you can accomplish the same and more with Poser. Poser does very well at providing more advanced features that appeal to a certain kind of user. They apparently want to be Lexus to the big boys Rolls, maybe even poach some of their bidness. Only competiton, Daz, which is Chevy - Vickie = Bel Aire, Geni = Corvette. 

Gotta disagree with the calls to ax Carrara. Daz needs a modeling tool to round out the package, something with content integration, morph creation and decent general modeling capability. I only use it to render I don't know how well it fits the last two. Obviously it will need to support Geni. Maybe Hexagon is a better modeler, IDK, but Carrara adds landscapes - no not as good as Vue, particle effects etc. and a decent renderer. It's a poor man's integrated 3D package. Bryce, yeah get file import capability in Vue or cut a deal with Eon and bundle a no logo Pioneer with static figure import limited to 800x600 or whatever.

"I'd like to see the data "

"No, I don't have any stats just my gut," "IMO," "as I see it," Sorry, I did not include enough weasel words, and we simply have different opinions. I don't know the sales figures for Coke vs. Pepsi, but IMO, Coke probably sells more, based on what I see people ordering, not on KPMG's audit of their books. 

In a similar vein, I don't find it too outrageous to infer user uptake of conformers vs. dynamics based on what I see in the marketplace after a number of years. How many people use the snazzy rendering & lighting effects - inferred from the gallery.  I stipulate that my opinion is not based on having visited every Poser store in the universe and that the Rendo gallery does not hold every image ever rendered in its collection - leading to an opinion based on insufficient data to hold up in a court of law - like most opinions in my opinion. It's an opinion nothing more. I expressed it in a pedantic manner mostly as cynical humor "".

 *"All in all, I think it's kind of silly to choose a platform based solely on it's native figure or figures. To me it's a tool set that I am going to work with and expand on." *

 Well said. Some are sayingthat Geni is a more of platform than a simple figure, which may effect the equation somewhat, who knows?

Quote - Ok, folks, apparently it's time for us to say "Some of these posts are becoming borderline attacks.  Rein yourselves in, please."

millighost i sory i call u noob :(

lmckenzie,

Like everything it's a judgement call.  I understand that.  But when I see definitive statements like "users want this" and "users want that" I think what I have a problem with is the wording.  And I'm not specifically calling anyone out.  I just think people often inject what is important to them and say this is what "users" want.

I can say that I would not like to see everything so dressed up as "user friendly" that it is annoying for those that do not want to be hand held every single step of every process.  There are a LOT of things that can be demystified by reading through the Poser manual.  We see time and again the same kinds of questions that come up that are already answered.  I mean, honestly, what is so god awful about looking in a manual?  There are even pictures in it! :D  I can see using "reminders" and automating repetitive tasks but it really annoys me when an application starts taking the stance that all users are "idiots" and need big primary colored buttons with simple words on them to produce anything.  Users should be offended, at least slightly, by that.  But for all I know everyone or a majority wants that...

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that maybe if "maw maw" and "paw paw" need to be walked through every single step of using a computer or its software, they shouldn't have one.  Or they should take on the burden of learning to use it.  There is so much information out there that there is simply no excuse.

I suppose I tend to think of people being smart enough to understand basic concepts and I don't immediately assume everyone is dumb as a rock from the get-go.

Quote - Seems like I heard something about Windows and those Stuxnet p0wned Siemens controllers but that was probably the workstations.

Nah - it just used Windows workstations as a conduit to infect Siemens PLCs and various other controller firmware. There's a second variant floating around as of a couple days ago called Duqu.

Quote - If the desktop is indeed dying then MS be in trouble. Desktop Linux will be a curious footnote in history - the battle that didn't have to be fought.

Not entirely sure... a Linux GUI was/is still a necessary thing, even if not on the desktop (again, Android).

Quote - *
* Easy/Advanced GUI, presets!, wizards yada yada, but the geeks don't want no freaks.  

Not exactly... :)

Wizards are largely unnecessary and a right drain on resources. Do not want.

A simple UI with some simple settings (like the "Basic" tab in the Poser Materials section) with generic presets for the rest of the settings you'd find in the Advanced tab should be plenty. 

Quote - Gotta disagree with the calls to ax Carrara. Daz needs a modeling tool to round out the package, something with content integration, morph creation and decent general modeling capability. I only use it to render I don't know how well it fits the last two. Obviously it will need to support Geni. Maybe Hexagon is a better modeler, IDK, but Carrara adds landscapes - no not as good as Vue, particle effects etc. and a decent renderer. It's a poor man's integrated 3D package. Bryce, yeah get file import capability in Vue or cut a deal with Eon and bundle a no logo Pioneer with static figure import limited to 800x600 or whatever.

Same deal here re. Cararra. In there, you can add hair, use a kick-ass renderer, morph the hell out of something... not the greatest modeler on the planet but it does everything else okay.

I certainly understand your POV. Probably the closest we can come is user surveys and if SM truly implements what they see in those then you may be correct in your assumptions - assuming a large enough representative sample takes the surveys :-)

SM may not be able to afford to do usability studies like Microsoft. They bring in users and observe the way they use an application, which features they use, how they interact with the interface, etc. Of course they also have specialists in interface design. Believe me a programmer is usually the last person you want designing your interface. Or I should say some designers and even some programmers if asked might say that. Whew! Now I understand why doctors perform all those unnecessary ass covering  tests :-)

I absolutely agree that experienced users may be vexed by a hand holding interface. I have never believed that the simple interface should be the only choice. That's why I specified a configurable interface and I think why Peng referred to an advanced tab. Remember what you got in Poser 4 by typing "PO2," an entirely different interface. Plenty of apps have a 'show advanced tools' or similar option. It's not a binary situation. Frankly, I really can't understand why anyone would object to graduated UI where everyone could choose and new users can feel more comfortable. If it's done right then even old hands could benefit. You're a material genius, select the advanced UI for that, but you're just beginning to explore dynamic cloth - set that to the newbie UI. Now not everyone works that way, some like to read and ask questions and know everything before starting, others want hand holding at first and gradually learn about the parts that interest them most.

 It almost sounds like you oppose more ease of use based more on ideology than anything else. It's almost like some Linux users who deride Windows users and scoffed at Linux becoming more user friendly. I honestly think that some of them wanted to maintain their little club. Dang it, a commandline was good enough for my pappy... It's the notion that everbody has to learn or use technology the same way.  Insisting that everyone be hazed to get in. If you want to limit your user base to those who conform to a certain ethic then OK. Some*,*** no, IMO, based on decades of using, reading, programming and teaching about computers, a lot of people don't read manuals. Some may even have visual impairments or be dyslexic. That's just a fact of life. You can curse at the gods, but it is what it is. 

A lot of people like easy, based on my knowledge of psychology and OMG, who knew you can buy a freaking Staples Easy Button*! Companies aren't looking for resentment, they're looking for users. If they provide an easy interface, presumably it's based on sales and internal research, not an assumption that people are dumb, but on what they think the majority of their customers and potential customers want. They want to maximize their revenue and, yes, reduce support costs because many people just ain't gonna RTFM. If SM feels such accomodation means the terrorists have won, then best wishes - Daz will be happy to take the money and run cause ya know da Vickie always needs new shoes.

*"I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that maybe if "maw maw" and "paw paw" need to be walked through every single step of using a computer or its software, they shouldn't have one." *

Wow. I'm sorry but that sounds breathtakingly arrogant to me, qualifier notwithstanding. No computer for the old folks? I know you'll at least make an exception for the (probably many) people in the 3rd world, some of whom don't even know who Snooki is, not to mention being, er, illiterate, who might actually learn to read on the darn thing if someone was patient and compassionate enough to teach them. The latter goes for Nana and Papa as well. One of my great regrets was that I wasn't able to introduce my mother to computers. I know I would have had to literally hold her hand, and I know she would forget, and I know I would have to make a bright big easy button interface for her, but she would have been proud and bragged to her friends, and I would have been happy.

*Easy Button Google it, not sure if even a non Poser commercial link is allowed. Staples donates proceeds to Boys and Girls Clubs of America

Heh, well figured that there was really no way to write that without getting someone fired up.  Agewise, I'm definately leaning more towards being an "old folk" than a young one, so I could be knocking anyone in my own age group :)  What I was trying to say, I think, was that there's a responsibility to learn the technology that you are using.  Or better, there "should" be.  At the very least in a basic way.

In fact, I think 3rd world people, given the chance to access computer technology would be eager and excited to learn it.

I'm also not trying to write from an extremist point of view and it seems that it's coming across that way.  It doesn't mean that nothing should be simplified, refined or streamlined.  There is a precarious place that straddles making something easy to use and making something that is so simplified that the creative process and choices get left out.

The Material Room is a great example of having two choices, one simplified and one complex.

I also feel the same way about the editing tools panel.  We have rotate, twist, translate, scale and so forth and then we also have direct manipulation, which builds all of those things into one widget.

In my forum example,  it's obvious that folks that can read a forum can read a manual and also press "Control-F" to search it.  Again, it's not an extreme comment as to say "never ask on a forum for anything, ever." :)  Maybe I'm just weird but I go to the manual first and if I can't find it or the answer leaves me with questions, then its time to seek some other help from the community ;)

Quote - > Quote - Ok, folks, apparently it's time for us to say "Some of these posts are becoming borderline attacks.  Rein yourselves in, please."

millighost i sory i call u noob :(

Oh, you were serious about that? I thought it was some kind of modeler's joke, so no harm done and apology accepted, so please do not lose your sleep over it. :-)

Some really interesting stuff in this thread. 

I dunno if I would be considered a diehard Poser user.  I am willing to use other software if it offers something I want.  I've invested a lot of time and money in Vue, basically because of one thing: Ecosystems. 

So far, Genesis is not that compelling.  I haven't seen anything that makes me think, "OMG, I have to have that."  I'm a little sad that so much of the new stuff at DAZ is for Genesis or DS only, but I'm also a little relieved.  Much easier on my wallet.  ;-)

The bending just doesn't look all that good to me.  Better, but not so good I feel I have to have it.  And I'm starting to see what people mean about the "blowup doll" look.  I would guess it doesn't need to look that way.  Probably settings or something you can change.  But a lot of V5 renders look oversmoothed to me.  FWIW, I thought Apollo had a similar look.  Nice for some characters, but you wouldn't want every figure to look that way.

I'm not ruling out giving DS another try some day.  I've downloaded the free version they offered last month, though I haven't installed it.  For now, I'm content to see what becomes of Genesis (without investing any money in it myself). 

Gotta agree with lmckenzie's 'gut feeling' about the Poser/DAZ community and the need for better native characters.

All the Poser figures... P4 to DAZ Gen4 have tons and tons of content. And I'm way addicted to the Poser material room. So, it'd take something phenomonal ( more than a little better bending than V4 which I can postwork ) to invest in the new DAZ figures.

That said, even though this kinda splits the buyer population, the 'built for newbies' approach of DAZ Studio and Genesis will probably pull a lot of future customers their direction.

Ironically, this 'split' may cause the Poser community to return to being fully involved in group projects like Antonia... and independent figures made to be fully functional in Poser. Like the old days when everyone was making stuff for Posette.

To answer the question that launched this thread, I will not leave Poser for V5.  Btw, I have Daz Studio 4 Pro.

Now for an off-topic aside concerning figure creation...

There are 12 notes in the Chromatic scale from which all conventional Western music is constructed. There are ten integers in a phone number, providing a unique address to everyone in a nation. Imagine the diversity that comes from the use of polygons (in the thousands) to create a human mesh. What is the purpose of the figure? Which muscle groups are essential? What bone shapes will be emphasized over the muscle shapes for surface detail? The potential answers are multitudinous. Then there are the issues involved with seeking optimization for figure bending within a specific computer program. Claiming there is only one true and right topology for a cg human figure and that it is “science” and “mathematical” is overreaching, to put it mildly.

dude you're just a modeler, you don't know anything ;)

I'll take some gravy with those mashed potatoes sir.

What's or should  I say who's that a hybrid of?