Quote - In other words: The money people spent for poser is likely to be independent of wether they are using Poser or DS, so the amount of money sprinkled upon the vendors remains the same...

Aside from that, if the amount of work required is about double to provide for both D|S and Poser (and it is), but the price is not expected to be double (and it isn't), then you're not really losing 50% anyway.

Googling for Genesiss or V5 results to a surprizing result , as never seen befor Public forums pup out from nowhere. witch makes me think that there might be Creators revolting against that situation ( Fighting for there existence ) as we can read in allot of Poser forums Ex. Synfullminds.  Artists do not like to be told what they have to Create nor witch Programm they have to Suport, as it is obvious that Daz is trying to split a healthy market for he's own Purposes, forgetting who feeds hes belly.

Sure there will be no loss for a Poser store even after a splitting, the ammount remains the same , the individual Producer will feel the blast in hes Purse. or how pjz99 mentioned work doubble for the same ammount.

The advantage is that I saved my self some as loosing the intrest in Buying as much since I do not have any intrest in Genesiss and Daz is flooding hes site with soutch. and sure I am not the only one to do so. 

Amazing is the fact of calculating the cost just to beginn with a V5 your Incomme must be stunning. I dont know how many can afford them selfes so much just for a tryout.

I give all my respect for those who already spend as much as it is not only the Firure Base there are allot of addons needed just to be able to start with V5. for those who can already experience the whole pakages nust of sticked there hand already deep into there Pockets. and all that just to try? 

While I feel for the vendors, it is not Daz's responsiblity that they keep the vendors employed. The vendors are not part of their company - a company that deserves to do what they see fit. And yes, they are splitting the market for their own purposes. It's called BUSINESS.

Laurie

"And then...? don't leave us in suspense?"

I hit up Mel Gibson to fund the sequel. He was OK with the rampant nudity & perverted sex scenes, but said that the violence repelled him.

To answer the question, when I can afford the hardware, yes but I'll continue using Poser & other applications as always.

  Putting on my tinfoil hat, I asked myself if Daz was really moronic enough to piss off a good part of their customer base - in this economy - just flaunt Genesis?  Did they really not anticipate SM saying no thanks, leading them to scramble to do a climb down? Barring criminal incompetence, I think they had the exporter in mind as Plan B. The cynical might say it was ready all along - maybe out in perfected form just in time for Christmas? Maybe the street people are more fearful (of losing their fav content) as opposed to angry. Daz sez, we tried to get SM to play, they rejected us and now, we bust our humps to make sure you can have Vickie in your stocking. Who comes off as the good guys here? They get a taste of DS4 perforce and find it doesn't kill them.

Next time around, maybe there are hints that V6 will be the last go round, the fear kicks in. DS5 will be free and for many of them, that may be all the need. Poser 10 will cost. Maybe some will think about switching. Perhaps my faith in Daz' strategic intelligence is misplaced, my suspicions of their cunning an illusion. As they say, bankruptcy is to capitalism what hell is to Christianity. I just think that the game being played is chess, not Old Maid. </admittedly insane fantasy>

I may be misunderstanding the technology here, but my impression is that the exporter solution will only work for Poser9/2012? If so, that means that anyone who doesn't have the latest version and wants to use V5 will have to use DS4. How many people is that? How many die hard Vickie fans would at least give it a try if she were available for a limited time at a very nice price - given the amount of crap people buy and never use anyway?

"I may be misunderstanding the technology here, but my impression is that the exporter solution will only work for Poser9/2012? If so, that means that anyone who doesn't have the latest version and wants to use V5 will have to use DS4."

The exporter only works with poser pro2012/P9
Consider the number of people who routinely report
in these forums "Still on P7,P8,PP2010 over here"
So even if there is a "complete exporter"for genesis/v5
it will be limited to those who have the money for Poser Pro2010/P9 and the hardware for Daz studio.
This likely represent a minority number of users at this point.

I have always contended that Daz NEVER Planned on building their user based by converting poser users
they seem to want new users and seem rather desperate to convince the pro app users to adopt their Tools and they are clearly bewildered as to why user of MAX Maya etc. greet there press releases in the news section over at CG society with a collective yawn.

Cheers
 

Quote - While I feel for the vendors, it is not Daz's responsiblity that they keep the vendors employed. The vendors are not part of their company - a company that deserves to do what they see fit.

To an extent that's true, but a vast portion of DAZ's income is from brokered content, built by freelancers.  IMO it makes a lot more sense to make content creation as cheap and painless as possible (free tools would be ideal) but I guess they're looking at their spreadsheets and deciding it's time to be more of an application/tools vendor than a brokerage.  They had to have thought about the consequences pretty thoroughly, but I guess we'll see how it all pans out in the long run.

Laurie said,

"While I feel for the vendors, it is not Daz's responsiblity that they keep the vendors employed. The vendors are not part of their company - a company that deserves to do what they see fit. And yes, they are splitting the market for their own purposes. It's called BUSINESS.

Laurie"

That's nice that you feel for the vendors, but who said anything about making DAZ responsible to keep them employed? That wasn't the point, as far as I can tell, and nobody said that DAZ doesn't deserve to do what they see fit.

The points being mentioned were Gate's opinions and observations. Period. What I don't understand is the reason for sarcasm. Is it possible to have a freaking dialogue without the rude utterance of sarcasm?

A BUSINESS or corporation has the rights and responsibilities of "a legal person," its owners and shareholders are not liable for its actions. In addition, a corporation's directors are legally required to do what is best for the company, regardless of the harm created. Now isn't that last bit sweet... "Regardless of the harm created." Don't preach about BUSINESS, it's actually pretty disgusting.

However, perhaps it's a little "BUSINESS" strategy to see a new product all over the net, just after she was released, which would make her more appealing. It's amazing how new V5 products show up everywhere immediately after their release. Could that be a creator's strategy or is it an internal revoltuion? Hmmm...

"

nobody said that DAZ doesn't deserve to do what they see fit."

I saw someone say this only a few posts back that it is a business decision and up to DAZ. I think we all know this.

Love esther

Quote :

It's called BUSINESS.
Laurie

well your responce tells me that you know what your talking about,  be involved in this so called Buisness or a part of it , I'm sure you can tell us more about it.

if so you just convinced me a little more to not ever use that so called V5 Buisness Doll 

Quote - It's amazing how new V5 products show up everywhere immediately after their release.

What's so amazing about that?  TBH I'm a bit amazed there were SO FEW items for V5 at release.  We already know that DAZ works with the freelancers that they broker and provided them free copies to work with during development.

Quote - I have always contended that Daz NEVER Planned on building their user based by converting poser users
they seem to want new users and seem rather desperate to convince the pro app users to adopt their Tools and they are clearly bewildered as to why user of MAX Maya etc. greet there press releases in the news section over at CG society with a collective yawn.
 

Really?  My impression was the opposite: that they were going after the users who want a "make art" button, not the pros. 

I wouldn't know, though.  I am much closer to the "make art" side of the spectrum than to Max Maya side.  But does DAZ really expect CG pros to glom on to pre-made content like Vicky?

"  But does DAZ really expect CG pros to glom on to pre-made content like Vicky?"
"

Yes this is a part of their strategy
They have stated:"Another example is a plug in we are working on that loads a full Genesis figure directly into Maya with the same functionality as in DAZ Studio or Carrara 8.5 (beta will be available soon) . Many more bridges will come in the future."
and as promised
HERE
is an early beta of the, genesis to Autodesk ,MAYA plugin
"hosting" the genesis model in Autodesk MAYA.

They are hoping that user of Maya will start using their Daz studio progams and genesis figures and clothing in pro pipeline of Games,VFX Film&TV
of course the Autodesk Maya people will  have to re rig the mesh with a properAutodesk human IK skeleton rig for animation and remap  it with textures for mental ray or vray renderers  so we will see how that works out for DAZ.
Btw
THESE are the types of animation controls
that professional Maya animators tend to prefer.
so that DAZ "hosting"  plugin has a long way to go.

Cheers

Quote - But does DAZ really expect CG pros to glom on to pre-made content like Vicky?

Why not? SM apparently thinks it can as they have the same pitch and they also include PoserFusion to export to other software. DAZ relies on FBX, OBJ and Collada.

The real CG pros I know have no problem with buying pre-made content as time is money to them and building models from scratch is the last thing they want to do if they can buy it pre-built. DAZ already has a good reputation for content.

Me, I use both Poser and DAZ Studio as there are benefits to both, but I tend to like 3Delight in DAZ Studio better than Firefly. But V5 does bend much better, like Antonia, but you can use the V4 characters and textures on her, besides clothing. They also learned from past experience and gave V5 better textures and shaders out of the gate this time.

"Why not? SM apparently thinks it can as they have the same pitch and they also include PoserFusion to export to other software. "

True, and Wolf, you're a pro - what are you using InterPoser for if not to bring pre-made content into C4D? A lot of apps like to say that they are good enough for 'professional' quality work. 'Professional' can mean anything from major Hollywood studios to people doing who knows what in a garage if they're making money on it. I too doubt that the former are going to be adopting Poser or DS anytime soon. OTOH, there's been at least some demand for Poser to Max solutions, for example, going back to Poser 4 at least - even if it's a small market. I think that Daz may somehow imagine they can create an entirely new market.

I thought corporations were merely predatory organisms populated by symbiotes 'til Mittens informed me that they are people too.

"The real CG pros I know have no problem with buying pre-made content as time is money to them and building models from scratch is the last thing they want to do if they can buy it pre-built."

But those pros tend to buy premade content
premade for THIER specific programs
and in a native, ready to use format,
Like THIS Autodesk MAX figure
and price is no barrier as it is built into the costs charged  to the client
I dont know of anyone working on a Big professional animation contract who would install DS4/poser pro
Export via some hosting plugin,re-rig with a proper Ik rig for animation  and create shaders for Vray or mental ray
when they can buy a rig already built for their program or properly create one from scratch customized for the specific project.

Cheers

Quote -
I dont know of anyone working on a Big professional animation contract who would install DS4/poser pro Export via some hosting plugin,re-rig with a proper Ik rig for animation  and create shaders for Vray or mental ray when they can buy a rig already built for their program or properly create one from scratch customized for the specific project.

Oh stop making so much sense will ya?

Quote - > Quote - While I feel for the vendors, it is not Daz's responsiblity that they keep the vendors employed. The vendors are not part of their company - a company that deserves to do what they see fit.

To an extent that's true, but a vast portion of DAZ's income is from brokered content, built by freelancers.  IMO it makes a lot more sense to make content creation as cheap and painless as possible (free tools would be ideal) but I guess they're looking at their spreadsheets and deciding it's time to be more of an application/tools vendor than a brokerage.  They had to have thought about the consequences pretty thoroughly, but I guess we'll see how it all pans out in the long run.

Oh, I agree ;). I was just responding to the accusation that "boo, bad Daz, how dare they not take care of everyone by staying in a direction they clearly don't wanna go?" type of mindset ;). It's like saying Apple should have continued to allow 3rd party manufacturers to make Mac clones just because those companies need the money, all the while getting stagnant themselves. The first rule of business is a type of ruthlessness, one that is unfortunately needed for a company to succeed and which sometimes makes them fail.

All that being said, I am still on the side of the vendors. I used to be one myself and may be again. It really stinks, especially for ppl that live on that income (although I can't see how they can...lol). It's a rotten situation all around.

Laurie

well I think we will probably use the new colorcurvature script that is coming soon to subdivide our low poly V5 into a high poly poser version and then just copy all the joints and stuff to make any of our current clothes fit her.

I think a lot of people do want V5 to work in poser and may be able to do it.

Love esther

apparently the morphs subdivide fine as well in that script.

lmk

My brain is quite Daz(ed) reading all these posts! I'm not going to break up with my gal V4 for awhile yet- although Antonia may become a friend

Not yet familiar with the colorcurvature script.

 I do know there is still a market of hobbyist/artists that use these programs recreationally- and most can't or will not spend the money needed for Maya or Max. As such our friends V4-and possibly Genesis are what we have.

 Having started with Poser2- for use in figure drawing-I can say that what we have these days is extraordinarily advanced by comparison. Eventually, more and more of the features of yesterday's high end become available at the low/mid end. I've also had Lightwave since version 6. A radiosity render with transparency, reflection/refraction/ caustics enabled would sometimes take 24 hours. I can do the same render with LW 9.6 in minutes to an hour.

I am kind of curious why SM implemented weight mapping on Poser.... I mean for what? They have no weight mapped figures apart from the very basic Ryan and Alyson and I don't see high end users being interested in those, hardly any users are interested in them.

And the export options to MAX etc, again I ask for what? If you don't have figures to export then what do you have.

Seems to me like they are not using joined up thinking over at SM.

Me too.

Once I had DS3's MorphLoaderPRO and then later ColorCurvator's even better PoserMorphLoader I never had a problem creating perfectly realistic joints or make my figures bend any way I like.

Well i have low res genesis and V5 also weightmapped in poser as well as ryan and alyson.

And it isn't all that hard to apply some weight mapping in poser to any figure to improve it's bending.

Love esther

Quote - I am kind of curious why SM implemented weight mapping on Poser.... I mean for what?

My guess would be that with figures converted over to weightmapping, there would no longer be any issues with scaling figures up or down and loosing any quality due to the old joint centers issue. I could be wrong, but I would think not having joint centers to contend with that Genesis type scaling would no longer break figures if they were converted to the weightmap system. I haven't messed with the weightmapping yet though so that's just my guess based on what people have said about joint centers not moving properly with scaling in Poser.

Quote - I am kind of curious why SM implemented weight mapping on Poser.... I mean for what? They have no weight mapped figures apart from the very basic Ryan and Alyson and I don't see high end users being interested in those, hardly any users are interested in them.

And the export options to MAX etc, again I ask for what? If you don't have figures to export then what do you have.

Seems to me like they are not using joined up thinking over at SM.

 

Why?

1 ) Weightmaps are more or less industry standard, and better understood from a professional standpoint than the spherical falloff system they have been using. Look at the trouble multi-year Poser geeks have with fall off setup. And they've -learned- it. 

2 ) Weightmapping gives the user the ability to create and adjust joint behavior =from within the program=. Before you -had- to know a modeler well enough to export the body parts, create a morph, save it,  import it, etc. Now you can adjust all that in the setup room.

3 ) Now you don't have to be a mesh monkey to do a figure setup; if you have a tablet, you can paint the weightmaps onto the mesh. Or adjust them with the mouse.

4 ) Combined with the new animateable joint centers and dependant parameter dial system, all sorts of new rigging and figure  control schemes are possible. We can drop morphs and use WM for facial expression; with the dependant parameters, we can link separate morphs and maps and joints under one control (not as elegantly, but similar to the system Maya uses), with the ajc we can make the jaw actually -hinge-, instead of using 3 morphs and a pair of JCM's to get close to the same thing.

And I think the basic thinking amongst the Poser coders is to give us, the user, options. They've never been a content provider; they are tool providers. Yes, I agree they should have found a dozen of the geeks and sneaks in Poserdom, gone and contracted new lead figures, then thrown the poor thing to said geeks and sneaks until it is perfect for them. Then beta test it with as wide a pool of content creators as possible, say agreeing they get the new figure when released in exchange for X amount of content, minimum. If they do more, great, but at least X amount. That way you would have the expected pool of content to buy for the new dollie. From the plethora of community based projects, that may be happen......

But Poser has always been a 'Here's the tools we came up with. You can read the files. What can you do?' kind of company; and the community responded. Just like the community was effectively hobbled by a certain content company's refusal to use more than P4 level tech in their figures. And it showed. Now that stranglehold is broken by their own devices, and suddenly there is a surge of innovation happening in PoserLand. Personally, I hope they never get the G thing working in Poser. We have 12+ years of content that can be retrofitted and brought up to useable by modern standards once again. Tools that have lay fallow are being explored and actually used. People are learning, and innovating, once again. Not trying to find ways to McGuyver P4 level tech to do things it can't do. All that needs to happen now it for more and more images to be made using the new stuff.....and all those features we have that have been ignored for one reason or another. Things are looking up in PoserLand; and its the lack of ready made Vicky that's making it possible.

Quote - And I think the basic thinking amongst the Poser coders is to give us, the user, options.

Options, I have no problems with. Options presented without common sense, let alone intelligence? Now that's a problem, and it leads to features that simply don't get used.

Quote - They've never been a content provider; they are tool providers.

...whch puts them at the mercy of the main (and biggest) content provider engine of all. DAZ got spooked into changing its strategic thinking back in 2002, and I suspect that Poser will get its own forced epiphany as time goes on.

If you want to survive long term, going vertical is going to be your best bet. Relying on one external company (and no others) to provide you with a living is a great way to kill your company.

Quote - But Poser has always been a 'Here's the tools we came up with. You can read the files. What can you do?' kind of company; and the community responded.

10 years ago, folks were exploring the limits and pushing into some rather neat territory. Nowadays, a few folks are still doing that, but the vast majority just want their pretty kids, faeries, and bewbage. 

Quote - We have 12+ years of content that can be retrofitted and brought up to useable by modern standards once again.

Yup - and it's mixed in with 12+ years of unusable garbage. 

Don't get me wrong, I like the idealism you're presenting, but the cold hard reality is, there's a reason why most of the promising up-and-comers (as well as nearly every Poser default figure built after Posette and Dork) have failed miserably, and until those shortcomings are addressed and removed, you're going to be stuck floundering in the ever-fading past...

Quote - "The real CG pros I know have no problem with buying pre-made content as time is money to them and building models from scratch is the last thing they want to do if they can buy it pre-built."

But those pros tend to buy premade content
premade for THIER specific programs
and in a native, ready to use format,
Like THIS Autodesk MAX figure
and price is no barrier as it is built into the costs charged  to the client
I dont know of anyone working on a Big professional animation contract who would install DS4/poser pro
Export via some hosting plugin,re-rig with a proper Ik rig for animation  and create shaders for Vray or mental ray
when they can buy a rig already built for their program or properly create one from scratch customized for the specific project.

Cheers

Hey the link to the wonderful model I found! :)

No the really Big time pros with Big budgets won't be using Poser and DAZ (yet) and would go with models for their programs, but until Eva came along, there weren't really any models for sale better than Vicky. I know 'cuz I looked. Most were butt ugly. But look at the small timers using, yes, the bigger programs, but with crap budgets and even worse clients. They will use what they can. Run through the Carrara forum over at DAZ and there are a few there, as I'm sure there are here, too, doing commercials and the like using these programs and low budget content.

The big trend has been lately to save as much money as possible when doing production projects. I get less and less Voice Over work because my lower rates aren't low enough. For example, Comcast used to pay good money for VOs but it's dropped to insultingly low rates like $20 for a bunch of tags. That's ridiculous! You used to get $50 for voicing a :30 spot and $25 for a single tag for them - and that's low for cable and definitely way below broadcast rates. I recently quoted a rate for a project to a new possible client, and they had already seen the rates posted on my website, knew their script length, yet they thought I wasn't low enough. There are guys I know who haven't had VO work in a long time. And I know that Detroit area producers, where I live, have been investigating ways of finding less costly animation. So maybe SM and DAZ know something from their questionaires/surveys that we don't. Maybe they are getting more agencies and smaller production houses buying their software and content. Those folks don't tend to troll forums. They're too busy. And who knows how well they are doing overseas in areas where we don't look because it's  in another language.

Since they keep beating the drum, I would think they both know more about where their business is coming from than we do.

Because, since I got on board with Poser 5, a small but vocal and growing group have loadly begged for weight mapping (and scatter).

"Nowadays, a few folks are still doing that,"

I know of almost 100, and the number is growing. If one is not among them, one does not want to be.

lmk

"No the really Big time pros with Big budgets won't be using Poser and DAZ (yet) and would go with models for their programs, but until Eva came along, there weren't really any models for sale better than Vicky. I know 'cuz I looked. Most were butt ugly."

Hi you seem to be confusing your personal opinion of a female 3D model's attractiveness with an assets usefulness in a project. Using MAX .Maya,Softimage
Yes there are Small time shops and one man operations (like mine) that can get by with poser/Daz models  on limited animation productions.

 
But to think DAZ vicky is some how "better" than
those rigs on turbosquid
rigs based on her looks in STILL renders/poses indicates a complete lack of understanding about how 3D rigs are used/ needed in animation Games,movie VFX, television.
first and foremost is the ability to be assigned as an "Xref"object
(Google it) but in short none of the hosting plugin allow this with those hosted figures and Collada& FBX export only gives you a weighted rig in the target application without any of the character animation Controls or a proper IK/FK set up with pinned feet etc.

"Since they keep beating the drum, I would think they both know more about where their business is coming from than we do."

Hmm perhaps but I have wondered why they seem to be "Crowd sourcing" their Advertising onto the shoulders of their loyal users
in recent sticky threads posted by the management
they seem very eager to prove to "someone" that their tools are being used by artists outside the usual poser Daz universe some recent example of such forum stickies:

DAZ 3D has been putting together short articles on how people are using DAZ Products in their process.We need several more articles in some specific areas. If you are using DAZ 3D's products (software or models) in one of these areas, please post examples of your work, and a brief overview of how you are using the tools. We may contact you to help us write a full article that could be published on our site or even in a magazine.
Areas of Interest:
**    1.    **
**    2.    Illustration creating Cartoons**
**    3.    Digital Art**
**    4.    Haunt or Halloween**
**    5.    Animation**
**    6.    Photography (augmentation / manipulation / post production)**
**    7.    Hobby Art**
**    8.    Figure Drawing Reference**
**    9.    Forensics**
**    10.    Anime / Manga**
**    11.    Fan Art (LOTR, WoW, Star Wars,etc)**
**    12.    Landscapes**
**    13.    Portraits**
**    14.    Architecture**
**    15.    Wildlife**
**    16.    AfterEffects**
**    17.    Photoshop**
**    18.    Web Graphics**
Simply show us a couple of examples of your work posted in this thread, and we will contact you if your work suits what we are looking for.
Let's see what you've got!"

And more recently:

"
We would be interested to know IF YOU share your work, and if so, HOW or WHERE you do that.
For example, are there other sites where you post your images and share your knowledge of all things DAZ?
Do you share your work with your family and friends?
If so how?
Do you do anything to promote DAZ in your own way?
Who introduced YOU to DAZ 3D?
How did YOU find out about DAZ?"

Clearly they are seeking new markets in which to expand  and the existing poser  userbase is Not one of them IMHO
but I am not convinced that user of pro apps like MAX ,Softiamge etc will have much interest in genesis or V5 either

Cheers

Quote - "No the really Big time pros with Big budgets won't be using Poser and DAZ (yet) and would go with models for their programs, but until Eva came along, there weren't really any models for sale better than Vicky. I know 'cuz I looked. Most were butt ugly."

Hi you seem to be confusing your personal opinion of a female 3D model's attractiveness with an assets usefulness in a project. Using MAX .Maya,Softimage
Yes there are Small time shops and one man operations (like mine) that can get by with poser/Daz models  on limited animation productions.

 
But to think DAZ vicky is some how "better" than
those rigs on turbosquid
rigs based on her looks in STILL renders/poses indicates a complete lack of understanding about how 3D rigs are used/ needed in animation Games,movie VFX, television.
first and foremost is the ability to be assigned as an "Xref"object
(Google it) but in short none of the hosting plugin allow this with those hosted figures and Collada& FBX export only gives you a weighted rig in the target application without any of the character animation Controls or a proper IK/FK set up with pinned feet etc.

I guess we're talking about two different things. I'm not confusing anything.  But I am talking about the wants and desires and successful importation and use of the DAZ models in the various programs by these small time shops for lesser productions. I'm not alone with my assessment of Vicky and her clan. That's the big reason these guys want to use her along with being cheap. :)  I've seen it for it many years now. The rest falls by the wayside and is of only concern for the houses that have more refined needs and pipelines that you are talking about.

Quote - > Quote - And I think the basic thinking amongst the Poser coders is to give us, the user, options.

Options, I have no problems with. Options presented without common sense, let alone intelligence? Now that's a problem, and it leads to features that simply don't get used.

Don't forget to factor in  being tossed around a few times; that has kind of limited some of the the things that needed doing. Since they've multithreaded the whole app, I've been able to run cloth sims on a Vicky 3 mesh that didn't stall or crash the app. The problem hasn't been lack of common sense or intelligence; it's been lack of the same kind of in your face advertising that others have done. Plus the fact that in some cases, they were way ahead of the curve. Dynamics weren't that hot back when.....but there have been enough CGI examples that people are starting to get over the atavistic terror of the unknown, and finding it not so bad. Just at the baby steps, but you can't -force- users to use a feature, and by leaving it in, they got the idea across that it wouldn't bite them.

Quote -    

Quote - They've never been a content provider; they are tool providers.

...whch puts them at the mercy of the main (and biggest) content provider engine of all. DAZ got spooked into changing its strategic thinking back in 2002, and I suspect that Poser will get its own forced epiphany as time goes on.

If you want to survive long term, going vertical is going to be your best bet. Relying on one external company (and no others) to provide you with a living is a great way to kill your company.

And from everything I have seen to date, it isn't that easy to get off the ground in the regard. DAZ only did it because of the growing Poser user base, and the fact that they were spun off from Zygote, which was getting its professional business buried by the click and render crowd. I'd love it if they found another source for Poser specific figures that blew the current offerings out of the water. Maybe with the work the community is doing now, they will.

Quote -    

 

Quote - But Poser has always been a 'Here's the tools we came up with. You can read the files. What can you do?' kind of company; and the community responded.

10 years ago, folks were exploring the limits and pushing into some rather neat territory. Nowadays, a few folks are still doing that, but the vast majority just want their pretty kids, faeries, and bewbage.

Oh bullshit, Peng. 10 years ago, a -handful- of people were exploring and pushing and finding neato things. I was there too.....and you had the same 'I'm afwaid....!' reactions to JCM,s and the other alphabet soups the community created from the vast majority of the users. Hell's bells,  people were spazzing out about Kozaburo's transmapped hair! Yes, there is that lowest common denominator of faeries and boobies and dead-eyed Vickies with phallic symbols. So what? It took DAZ taking and using what was given to the community, but suddenly you had people =learning= how to morph, how to rig a joint controlled morph (because it was the only way to fix error #34551235234645 in mesh design used), make injection poses, etc. There has -always- been a small core of crazed cr2 hackers compared to the user base at large. But that was stalled by DAZ freezing their Poser usage at version 4. Now that no longer holds true, and the creatives are starting to come out of the woodwork again. Note the word 'starting'. This time there is no guarantee of a new Vickie to blow your money on, and a mostly quiet re-evaluation has been going on. Some of those old geeks have been talking to some of the new geeks, and things are being born anew.

Quote -    

Quote - We have 12+ years of content that can be retrofitted and brought up to useable by modern standards once again.

Yup - and it's mixed in with 12+ years of unusable garbage. 

Don't get me wrong, I like the idealism you're presenting, but the cold hard reality is, there's a reason why most of the promising up-and-comers (as well as nearly every Poser default figure built after Posette and Dork) have failed miserably, and until those shortcomings are addressed and removed, you're going to be stuck floundering in the ever-fading past...

Wow....

Guess people will have to sift the chaff from the grain huh? 

Which is being done in more than one place. The business concept of cold, hard reality always forgets that true reality has to take into account the human factor; both as a power for incredible good and as that which truly can define what a mongolian clusterfuck is. DAZ makes good models, for the most part....but they also have been fueled by inertia. Poser users got the next Vickie because that's what they were supposed to do. DAZ has been planning this split since the P5 faceroom debacle. They pulled the trigger in a bad economic environment. Hope they do well. But  my concerns are with Poser and what it can do for me. Inertia has been broken, and people are not just standing there going 'Oh, I can't liiiiiive without Vicky 5.....(moanwailgnashingofteeth). They are going 'What do we do now?' And answers are being developed. Antonia is one; they'll have the 'official' release versions ready soon (as in unzip to the runtime and go). Other projects are either picking up speed or begun. Hopefully SM gets the idea and goes forth and finds a good alternate source of Poser figures. But just because DAZ has gotten a wild hair up its ass and pretensions of Maya dominance doesn't mean that all that content we have is vanished, or useless. Most of complaints about all the V chicks have narrowed down to bad joints, to big a memory footprint due to humongous texture maps, and some bad modelling decisions. The latter can't be fixed, but the other two can. And the longer the G thing stays DS4 specific, the better for Poser....as it makes innovation something to strive for again, instead of waiting for the latest V thing.

"And the longer the G thing stays DS4 specific, the better for Poser....as it makes innovation something to strive for again, instead of waiting for the latest V thing."

Well said sir ..well said

Cheers

"Well said sir ..well said"

I agree, and appreciate the observation. It is accurate. A lot of people are discovering that innovation can be gratifying and fun. I find here and there that Poser people are being drawn together by various projects. I find that figure developers and content creaters are sensing opportunity.

lmk

Quote -
Don't forget to factor in  being tossed around a few times; that has kind of limited some of the the things that needed doing. Since they've multithreaded the whole app, I've been able to run cloth sims on a Vicky 3 mesh that didn't stall or crash the app. The problem hasn't been lack of common sense or intelligence; it's been lack of the same kind of in your face advertising that others have done. Plus the fact that in some cases, they were way ahead of the curve. Dynamics weren't that hot back when.....but there have been enough CGI examples that people are starting to get over the atavistic terror of the unknown, and finding it not so bad. Just at the baby steps, but you can't -force- users to use a feature, and by leaving it in, they got the idea across that it wouldn't bite them.

  I sincerely doubt it could be tied to "fear" - many, many, many people threw themselves at dynamics back when it first came out. It was one of the biggest selling points of Poser 5, FFS. However, it was the crashes, the ungodly (Bryce-like) lag, and the mediocre results in spite of tons o' effort that threw folks right back out of it. You admit part of it yourself right up there in that paragraph.

The only thing worse than not having something implemented at all is if it is implemented poorly. 

Quote - > Quote - If you want to survive long term, going vertical is going to be your best bet. Relying on one external company (and no others) to provide you with a living is a great way to kill your company.

And from everything I have seen to date, it isn't that easy to get off the ground in the regard. DAZ only did it because of the growing Poser user base, and the fact that they were spun off from Zygote, which was getting its professional business buried by the click and render crowd. I'd love it if they found another source for Poser specific figures that blew the current offerings out of the water. Maybe with the work the community is doing now, they will.

  DAZ started as a poser figure provider (because Zygote felt it wasn't worth the time and effort), but had to come to grips with the fact that (at the time), Poser's very existence was in doubt, coupled with the potential for Poser to to freeze DAZ out of the whole shebang. It's never easy to go vertical, but if you want to be around a couple decades from now, that's pretty much what you're going to have to do in this biz. 

Quote - Oh bullshit, Peng. 10 years ago, a -handful- of people were exploring and pushing and finding neato things. I was there too.....and you had the same 'I'm afwaid....!' reactions to JCM,s and the other alphabet soups the community created from the vast majority of the users.

Nice try, but not qute. On my own part, I was disgusted with P5's performance and ability to deliver even the basic features, which is why I (like most folks) took a fair shake at it, and then went 'yuck'. Also, back then I was using Carrara (1.1) and Vue (4) to do my final renders and tweaks, neither of which (at the time) supported the P5 dynamics anyway (and Carrara had a way better dynamic hair plugin even back then).

The reason you're only recalling a "handful" of people is because back then,was because  there were only a relative handful of people in the whole damned CG hobbyist community.

Quote - There has -always- been a small core of crazed cr2 hackers compared to the user base at large. But that was stalled by DAZ freezing their Poser usage at version 4. Now that no longer holds true, and the creatives are starting to come out of the woodwork again. Note the word 'starting'. This time there is no guarantee of a new Vickie to blow your money on, and a mostly quiet re-evaluation has been going on. Some of those old geeks have been talking to some of the new geeks, and things are being born anew.

  DAZ 'froze' it at P4 compatibility because insofar as Poser 5+ was concerned, they had no choice: They were 'frozen' out themselves. That's one of the two big reasons why they went the D|S route in the first place. Blaming them for "freezing" anything is like blaming a rape victim for wearing a pretty dress, and is too disingenuous by far.

As for 'frozen', even that isn't true. They've been rather busy on their own side of the house. SubD, a better magnet system, dynamic posing (don't want to move individual joints? no problem - PowerPose does the job), scaling that actually works worth a damn for conformers, a radical plugin and scripting system that plugs directly in, and etc. Then we can throw on direct yet independent integration into Carrara, which actually does have a kickass render engine.

Quote - Guess people will have to sift the chaff from the grain huh?

Yup. Now picture 100 Poser-only (not D|S) merchants, all of them scrambling to get noticed as The Next Big Thing with those dozens of retrofits. Instead of all of 'em centering around one figure, because the Poser folks can't seem to bring themselves to come up with one that works worth a damn for the job.

If SMith Micro had a brain, they'd (as mentioned about a zillion times before) come up with a decent mesh or two themselves, and not just crap out a subcontracted figure set that is about as morphable as DinaV on a bad day.

That way you (okay, the team members at Poser) don't have to dig through and clean up everyone else's mistakes, or pray that the next subcontractor doesn't push his/her 'vision' ahead of mesh usability.

Quote - DAZ makes good models, for the most part....but they also have been fueled by inertia. Poser users got the next Vickie because that's what they were supposed to do.

Oh, Dear Lord... most folks get "the next Vickie" because that's what has all the damned product support. Blaming the end-users for that is stupid, when you have merchants for miles happily making crap for Vicky version n+1 the nanosecond it comes out. 

Come to think of it, the vast majority of the whining, complaints, drama, and general BS over this whole Vicky 5 thing is coming not from end-users per se, but from the frickin' merchants. A few end-users want it in Poser, sure. OTOH, the merchies are screaming for it, and quite a number have (quite loudly) thrown their toys out of the pram when they discovered that getting a native Poserized Vicky 5 and the stuff for it is going to take more than just a little doing, if doing so is even commercially viable at all at this point. 

They're watching Vicky 5 spread all over D|S-land, and they can't do jack about it, profit-wise. 

Quote - DAZ has been planning this split since the P5 faceroom debacle.They pulled the trigger in a bad economic environment. Hope they do well.

Which explains why they've spent all this time working with the Poser devs to make an exporter, so that the Poser folk can get their Vicky fix, right? Seriously, if that were truly the case, they would (and IMHO should) have told all of Poserdom that Vicky 5 would be D|S only, and to bugger off after that. 

Quote - They are going 'What do we do now?' And answers are being developed. Antonia is one; they'll have the 'official' release versions ready soon (as in unzip to the runtime and go). Other projects are either picking up speed or begun.

"They" being who, exactly? The end-users, or the merchies? The end users will always download a free ($0.00) figure, no doubt and no sweat, so that damned sure isn't the big reason for the push behind it. Hell, I'll just as happily download it and put it to use. 

Quote - Hopefully SM gets the idea and goes forth and finds a good alternate source of Poser figures.

I agree, perfectly. They've needed to do that since Poser 5 came out. The odds of them actually doing it however?

Slim and None, and Slim just left town.

They'll probably just subcontract out another round of incompatible (with previous meshes) figures that are practically set in concrete, again, and you probably won't be able to do squat with them unless you want to dive into that buggified Face Room or Morph Putty, and even then no guarantees. 

Final nitpick:

Quote - ... memory footprint due to humongous texture maps...

You do realize you can use lower-rez textures and still have it work just fine, right? You just have to know how to build it for lower rez. If you want to blame someone for massive texture .jpg files being de rigeur, you can start with the merchants.

NO

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wont change dont care. the new Antonia and Revelations are a million times better and

designed to work with poser to get the most from our program of choice sooo why

would I change? **
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Quote - I know of almost 100, and the number is growing. If one is not among them, one does not want to be.

And a lot of people don't want to be, and that's fine.  Even with the supposedly easily morphable Vicky...most people are using purchased characters, textures, poses, lights, etc. At least judging from the galleries.

IMO, the learning curve for advanced features is more of a problem for the merchants than for the end users.  The rank and file will do what we've always done: buy cool looking stuff.  :-) 

DAZ just said in the last 24 hrs that they are working on improving the process of getting V5 into poser so who knows.

Love esther

Why all the quotes after quotes etc. all that is required to the original question is a yes or no.

All the best.

LROG

"Why all the quotes after quotes etc. all that is required to the original question..."

When did 'Do these pants make my ass look big?,' not lead to diets, boyfriends, sex and 'He wanted to put it where!?'

The point about innovation is well taken. A lot of that has been fixes & improvements to the original Poser & Daz figures. What is being discussed now are new figures, independent of the content everyone has become accustomed to. Never say never, maybe Antonia et al will break the mold in this new environment. The simple history however is that no original 3rd party figure has ever achieved the success that the Daz figures have. You can probably include the figures included with Poser in that category. To borrow from Mill, "I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."

Again, not to say it can't happen, but IMO, it will take more than lurid banners in the Poser forum. It will take advertising to reach those who never darken the threshold here. It will take examples that can persuade a lot of people that it offers them something they want and need. It will take, again IMO, the active and enthusiastic support of SM. If you're going to fight a grassroots guerilla war, you better have the support of most of the population and some outside help. When all of thoe content hungry pre-09/2012 users contemplate upgrading, you better have a compelling reason for them to join the revolution. I know that those caught up in the exhilirating air of rebellion don't want to hear that war is hell and people may not flock to the black flag, but it is and they may not. If SM decides to sit back, waiting to fly in like Khomeni and reap the benefits of other people's struggle, then good luck with that.

This is the first time in a decade where there is a natural barrier against upgrading a vicky. Perfect timing for others to step in

"Again, not to say it can't happen, but IMO, it will take more than lurid banners in the Poser forum. It will take advertising to reach those who never darken the threshold here. It will take examples that can persuade a lot of people that it offers them something they want and need. It will take, again IMO, the active and enthusiastic support of SM."

Well said !
I agree the existing users are already entrenched in their respective position for the most part so this wont be swayed in either direction by any mass "defections" from one program to the other.

it is new users that will decide what program& figure gets the most market share.
And a word of caution to any merchant /techie planning to invest in Antonia/Brad or whatever,
with hopes of tapping into some perceived silent market ready to spend on your products
this whole alternative figure effort has failed spectacularly in the past .

If Antonia was a serious challenge to the -chick  line in the pre poser pro 2010P8 arena she would have already made headway against V4 .. the concensous is that She did not.

Now if DAZ just happens to tweak their CR2 Export enough to get a Hi-Res version of genesis/V5 into poser with   IMHO Antonia et al will likely take their place along side Apollo Max and forgotten others as asterisks in the historical Almanac of poser history as DAZ'sV5 Continues her reign unabated.

Cheers

I seriously doubt that a solution which involves constant usage of a another 3rd party program will succeed with Poser users as its main figure. DAZ has to do better than that to succeed with Poser users.

Reason why Apollo failed was because it was difficult to use - Genesis/V5 is worse in that respect

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"Reason why Apollo failed was because it was difficult to use"
I found the figure easy to use in general but Apollo had had major anatomical
Flaws that in his core topography
(Entire human muscle groups missing) and a face that was very hard to make look different from his
puffy default.
and despite fancy forum banners beneath the posts of his loyalists
and an erstwhile Daz Mike3 that himself was an anatomical step backwards from M2,
Apollo failed.
it seems, to me at least, in this tiny figure market you can only beat something with something else that is substantially BETTER
not merely substantially Different or "not from Daz"

"I seriously doubt that a solution which involves constant usage of a another 3rd party program will succeed with Poser users"

Vue has done pretty well as "Third party solution" for those poser users not satisfied with firefly
and how many pages Deep is the poser to LUX thread?
poser user have a  long history of using third party programs as part of their workflow
the only difference now is that some will have to get over their tribal/partison,emotional
aversion to using the program from the "Evil empire"

Cheers

Apollo was difficult to use, conforming clothing was a pain if you did not follow the exact right steps.

Antonia promises quite a lot of improvements over V4. Will it succeed? We'll see in 6 months time. Genesis is now out for half a year and is no where to be seen in Poser. I suspect Antonia will do a lot better

The irony is that a successful V5 for Poser would probably do more to get people to upgrade to 09/2010 than any of the proposed alternatives. The Great White Hopes will have to overcome habit, brand loyalty and the Daz PR machine. A 'transformed' V4 is still lacks the magic number 5, no matter how cleverly presented. SM remains where they were, dependent, to at least some degree, on Daz to bolster upgrades and future sales. Daz is still free to contemplate future moves. In that sense, the status is still quo and this may not be the apocalyptic event, merely a heated border skirmish that will simmer down with any fundamental conflict remaining unresolved.

I don't think either company is big enough to successfully break out of their symbiotic relationship - for now. If they agree that new technology like weight mapping is the way to go, then IMO, they should have reached a compromise to their mutual benefit. Perhaps Daz could have done more to reassure SM about long term compatibility and perhaps SM could have made concessions as well. People will express their opinions as to which party bears the blame. I see it as more short term thinking on both sides and a failure to look after the best interests of a small (mostly discretionary) market in hard times. Maybe it's time to say a pox on both their houses until they hammer out a realistic interoperability agreement.

My eyes are crossing at all the people saying P9/2010. It's P9/2012

Quote - it seems, to me at least, in this tiny figure market you can only beat something with something else that is substantially BETTER
not merely substantially Different or "not from Daz"

"Better" also means better packaged, better presented, better marketed, just keep that in mind.  I totally agree that topology is important, but imo it's only really appreciated by maybe 1% of content consumers.  There's all kinds of highly successful content (figures, clothes, pretty much everything) that has really terrible topology.

Also I wouldn't really say Apollo "failed", he's pretty commonly used and supported even if not quite as much as M3/D3 et al.

e:

Quote - Now if DAZ just happens to tweak their CR2 Export enough to get a Hi-Res version of genesis/V5 into poser with   IMHO Antonia et al will likely take their place along side Apollo Max and forgotten others as asterisks in the historical Almanac of poser history as DAZ'sV5 Continues her reign unabated.

Aside from the subdivision problem, there's also the issues of the very high price of new tools required if you didn't happen to be in DAZ's beta for them, and of fitting conformers.  Both of those will keep many vendors away, certainly myself.

"My eyes are crossing at all the people saying P9/2010. It's P9/2012"

Heh, I got it right in the post before - cut me an age handicap :-)