"Here's a for instance" meant that I was using an example to tell an anecdotal story that is similar to the one you're relating, Richard.  Oy.

Hi bantha, Wolf asked for evidence. I gave it, so what was wrong with giving that evidence when it was asked for?

It's only the same as someone asking for evidence that a morph etc. does not work and someone givng a reply.

All the best.

LROG

Quote - What has Nestle got to do with this thread?

All the best.

LROG

look up the word "example" and it's usage.

Richard, you did not give any evidence of a relevant scale. In addition to that, if you haven't seen the DAZ accounts of the people you don't even know if those people did really shop that much in the past and have stopped now. This isn't evidence.

Please fight DAZ elsewhere, if you have to.

"So, losing 10 customers that may or may not have been replaced has probably not been felt on their bottom line.

Additionally someone in a web forum making some melodramatic vow to never buy from such & such people again means nothing when you cant really monitor what they are actually buying after such emotional proclaimations.

Cheers
 

Wolf, please stop this too. We don't want this discussion here. Please do not make me lock this thread.

Quote -  In this case, it'd be more prudent for us to try to build them up, rather than watch them fall.

Build them up if they merit it, but don't try to put lipstick on a pig and tell us it's Angelina Jolie.

Right.  As bantha stated, this isn't the place for it.  If you'd like to discuss this via sitemail with each other, that's great.  This site's forums is not the place for it.  We don't want to hand out warnings and delete posts, but we will if necessary.

Quote - > Quote -  In this case, it'd be more prudent for us to try to build them up, rather than watch them fall.

Build them up if they merit it, but don't try to put lipstick on a pig and tell us it's Angelina Jolie.

 

And we're not doing that.  Again, if you have a problem with DAZ, there's nothing we can do about it.  

I really won't care if Daz has Poser compatible Genesis figures if there is a supply of high quality 3D models else where.  I really think Smith Micro should jump on this and get some 3D modelers to come up with a new line of human figures that are of a quality similar to the Daz Generation 4 figures.  I was glad to see Antonia Polygon's official release, now she news a boyfriend--perhaps they can be the new "Michael & Vicki".

I agree with banta

Posers Smoothing option is on par with Daz subdevision.
Both have their advantages.
Both give smooth results.

While CCSubD does offer more options, please think about the drawbacks also.

Run a cloth sim over a mesh.
Then render, and at render time the figures mesh gets SubD.
Oh! Oh!
Trouble in the house.
Oh, BTW, I can prove this, but am not behind my Poser PC at this time.<

And dynamic clothing is normally build quite dense already, subdeviding it futher would bring everything on its knees.

So CCSubdD might be a good extra tool but it is not the ultimate solution to all out problems.

Remember.
When introducing CCSubD  that every figure and or clothing item will have to be build with CCSubD in mind already.

We curently have 5000 Poly ears and 2000 Poly navel area's. Where is this going to lead to...
Please do not open my 10000 Poly mouth after CCSubD.
My SubD mouth mesh will hold water.

And???
Leave absolutely NO room to morph figures for us heavy X,Y,Z morphers..
We need room between the points to morph.

While implementing CCSubD is certainly a future option, figure builders will have to start to re-think the building, and Poly distribution will become even more important.

Building a Low Poly figure, subdeviding and selling it seems OK and general practice now.
But when the figure gets subdevided a second time inside the app?
Poly distribution will become a complete nightmare.

Just my 2 cents

Right.  All that's really needed is for an upstart company (Or an already existing one) to simply do what Daz used to do (and they did it well.)

I don't know why Daz abandoned that business model, but usually what happens in small business is that someone with a "Vision" wants to expand, and that expansion costs more money, and the debt that results makes the old model look unprofitable when the reality is that it was just fine before the expansion (and new hires, new facilities, new equipment, etc)

I do not speculate that's what happened to Daz.  I'm just saying that's what normally goes on.  The baby is thrown out with the bathwater.

Nobody wanted poser to subdivide before Genesis came along. 

Hoping for this subdivision in Poser is giving too much power to Genesis IMO.

Quote - Nobody wanted poser to subdivide before Genesis came along. 

Hoping for this subdivision in Poser is giving too much power to Genesis IMO.

I know some people who wanted Catmull-Clark subdivision years ago, and I'm one of them. Teyon mentioned in a thread here that he asked Stewer to include this too, and this was before Genesis, IMHO.

Ah good. Things have calmed down. I was just about ready to start posting cat pictures :P

Laurie

Well???
This time I do not agree , Sorry.

I hope CCSubD will come to Poser and some start building  some realy GOOD Low Poly figures and models.

CC subdivision would be nice, but only for my lowest poly stuff. Like some clothes for instance. Other than that....

Laurie

Quote - I'm not on the business side of the site, but I do know that if DAZ fails, we're not far behind.  In this case, it'd be more prudent for us to try to build them up, rather than watch them fall.

First of all, see this Youtube video.

...and suddently, with a celestial music... I saw the light! ...and understood a lot of "strange" things which happened in this community (include Vue forums in the past).

Yes, now everything makes sense. Oh gosh, I do feel better.

Bye.

P.S.: yestarday I spent 30$ at RuntimeDNA.

Dear Fucking God.  I still can't understand how people get so worked up about stuff for making pictures.

Wolf posted some interesting info.  What about it merits fighting? 

Leaving aside all the usual noise that gets generated whenever something happens over at DAZ, I wish the new team every success.

And now I'll generate some noise of my own.

Looking back at the timeline of the introduction of Daz Studio, they would have started work on it - early 2005 - at a time when Poser's future was uncertain under Curious Labs' tenure. Things didn't look good then, so DAZ would have been mad not to have some strategy to deal with the possibility that Poser would cease to exist: hence DAZ Studio, which was able to use all our lovely Poser content with little hassle.

Maybe DAZ thought that if Curious Labs went down the tubes taking Poser with it, they'd buy up the Poser assets for a song and all would be fine and dandy.

But e-frontier took over Poser's reins, presumably because of a real or imaginary synergy with Shade, leaving DAZ with Studio. No point keeping it as a 'me too' alternative to Poser now, so they may as well do something a bit different with it.

Five years later, with yet another change of owner for Poser (this time Smith Micro, and hats off to them for doing a great job) and some sort of merger between DAZ and another company I've never heard of, it's not surprising that D|S and Poser are very different from each other. But they're still competitors, and competition is healthy. As one adds new features, it forces the other to keep up. If either came up with something truly astounding, a real must-have that the other couldn't match, they'd assume a dominant position in the market.

Maybe DAZ thought it had that 'must-have' with SubD / Genesis - it is, after all, pretty cool - and that lots of us would abandon the good ship Poser and swim to DAZ Studio's shores. That hasn't happened.

Genesis' lack of compatibility with Poser may be technically unavoidable or difficult to resolve, but I suspect it's been commercially very painful for DAZ. Of course, they would love Smith Micro to hurry up and incorporate SubD into Poser, because that would open up the full market to their newer products. I can't see any urgency from SM's point of view, so DAZ are going to have to come up with something - the new CR2 exporter that's in the works is a start - just to get Poser users to a point where they can consider buying some of the newer Genesis stuff.

I sincerely hope that DAZ thrives and continues to develop great content, but I won't be switching to D|S just so I can use it.

"I don't know why Daz abandoned that business model....The baby is thrown out with the bathwater."
"
Hi not trying to be Contentious but what was the old "business model"??

Was it: Make figure & figures Content for poser & DS users.
They buy content
They render images largely from presets
They post images in various web galleries
and congratulate each other on having bought & rendered the latest item for Vic/Mik.
not a sustainable business model on the long term IMHO.

Now if we look objectively at what they have done recently
we see Many,Many Daz forum  Stickie/Polls  asking users for specific examples of :
what are you using Daz products for??
what are you doing with your renders??.
Seeking user stories
who introduced you to Daz ? etc etc
They seem very curious to see what is being done with their software & figures beyond it just filling their galleries with Cliched renders of the latest products.
Now if you go to the FRONT PAGE
of the Daz site you see a slick marketing 101 presentation
of what their own user base has reported.
things such as:
Photoshop Graphics
Independent Film
Character Design
Comic Illustration
Animation & Effects
Ergonomics
Freelance Art & Design
Movies & Effects
Book Covers
Hobby Art & Modeling
Student Art
Graphic Novels
Fantasy Art
and top it off with a link to get your FREE copy of the program that was ,at the very least ,tangentially involved in the production of the preceeding eye candy on that page/

They make the content and the program capable of rendering it
tight integration between two co-dependant elements has proven to be successful by other businesses in the past.
(see Mac OSX, IOS &Apple hardware,Hand sets)

Now people are free to have their opinions about the "Direction"
DAZ  is taking But they seem to be Attempting to broadening their user base through careful & proven market research techniques.

Cheers

How many businesses have been destroyed by using "Proven Marketing Strategies" I wonder?

Quote - Now people are free to have their opinions about the "Direction"
DAZ  is taking But they seem to be Attempting to broadening their user base through careful & proven market research techniques.

If you look at download.com, Studio has been downloaded over 2.2 million times...

http://download.cnet.com/DAZ-Studio/3000-6677_4-10717523.html

Granted that, since I believe the number is for all versions of Studio, a lot of those downloads are probably upgrades, but if even 1/10th represent actual users, that's a significant user base..

How many businesses have been destroyed by using "Proven Marketing Strategies" I wonder?

Hard to know honestly
Just as it is hard to know how many business failed due to depending on sympathetic third parties to provide a major element of their product
while  steadfastly refusing to do it better themselves or hire a BETTER third party External vendor
as in the case of Apple DUMPING motorola and joining with intel which IMHO saved the Mac OS from extinction.

Cheers

What a tempest in a teapot.

Now we're on the same page.  Poser's stock figures have been hideous since Poser 5, arguably earlier. 

It's as if they make them unappealing on purpose, which is a great business model if you're also going to provide the solution down the road.  You're right, though, Poser's Owners always seem content to let other companies or individuals do it. 

Hmmm..."On purpose."  Doesn't it feel, a lot of the time, that almost everything in life is just short of greatness by design?  Computers get more amazing by the minute, but rather than streamline software, they bloat it and the computer you bought yesterday pretty much functions, most of the time, like the one you had in 1993. 

Think about multi-core processors and think back to Poser 4 when you were lucky to have one core, and proud of it.  You were doing the same things!

This far along with the technology we should have virtual human beings.  You have under your hood now four of those computers at twice the speed each and a video card that can just about raytrace in real time, yet we wait hours for one frame with only half of available tricks in use for fear of crashing our software.

It's all insanely frustrating.

Quote - Nobody wanted poser to subdivide before Genesis came along. 

actually a number of people including myself have been lobbying for built-in subdivision for quite a long time now

@blackhearted: Thanks

@bantha: SubD, like any other algorithm, is "stupid". It subdivides everything, wether it's needed or not. You can build the base cage as clever as you want, when you SubD it, there still will be areas where polygons are wasted and areas left that could need a few more.

V3 is high res. But she's not just a SubD'd V3RR. Both meshes are standalone and pretty much optimized for their different tasks.

That's why, among other reasons, I based "my" figures on her mesh and pretty much ignored the (SubD'd) V4 except for some proof of concept experiments.

Of course SubD is a must have for gaming meshes where speed is important, but it's uses for Poser are really limited.

To smooth organic shapes, the polygon smoothing we already have in Poser is completely sufficient. It also works great with non-organic meshes as long as you stick to a few basic rules while modelling.

So, yes, a SubD'd low res mesh isn't just a step back for Poser, it is also is a step back for Studio.

The only ones really benefitting from this concept would be the Pro/Gamer customers DAZ is hoping to cater to in the future.

For everyone else, it means less realism and less artistic freedom.

Of course, a 130.000 polygon mesh like MIKI with fully sculpted teeth roots is a waste of your computer's resources.

But a SubD'd low polygon mesh is not the answer.

Genesis has a lot of great features.

After years of (easily avoidable) bowling ball shoulders, broken backs and exploding derriers, there finally is a DAZ mesh that bends well out of the box.

But to get to to it's full potential, we need more polygons.

A custom made high rez version (Like V3) would be best, but in a pinch a Sub 1 level mesh (Like V4) would do, to.

Not because "Poser can't do SubD".

But because as Poser/studio artists we all deserve better than an automatically smoothed out gaming mesh.

Quote - To smooth organic shapes, the polygon smoothing we already have in Poser is completely sufficient. (etc)

It's really awesome how your particular personal preferences always seem to be fundamental truisms that apply to all things everywhere.  It must be great to be that in-harmony with the Tao.

Attached Link: EXPERIENCE

It's called experience.  :-)

So, in your experience as an Old Spice salesperson, how do the various problems with Reyes polygon smoothing fall out?  E.g. artifacts with raytraced shadows, AO and IDL when polygon smoothing is enabled?  Oh right, you don't use those features/they're irrelevant or whatever.

e: how about the problems of keeping content portable between Poser and some other application that doesn't uses Reyes? oh yeah you don't do that either/it's irrelevant too.

e: how about the extra work involved in weighting and morphing the higher-poly content that Reyes generally requires? oh yeah you don't care about that either/it's irrelevant too.

Quote - That hair demo was 2010 and was showcasing the newly launched nVidia GT400 series cards with ther new DirectX 11...

...and ironically, making extensive use of the new GPU based SUBDIVISION! :biggrin:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/siggraph-2008-hair.html

the same dynamic hair was first demonstrated at siggraph 2008 my friend :)

like i said i dont need it to be running at 60 fps in the workspace with on-the-fly dynamics.  id settle for 1 fph (frame per hour, lol). yes, some people have been making progress with the poser hair room but the results are still nowhere near the video i first posted.

we now have weight mapping, SSS, IDL, IBL, etc etc -- the next logical step in poser realism is further improvements in the hair room.... and that includes shipping with a small library of quality dynamic hairstyles and hair shader presets so that beginners can actually get interested in it.

/minor derailment

with regards to the whole poser politics issue, Daz got greedy.  there is enough room in the market for two companies to peacefully coexist, but after years of working up to it Daz has finally played its gambit to try and corner the market.  they simply are not in a position to do so - one hyped up new figure is not going to make people who have been using a piece of software for a decade drop it and make a mass exodus to D|S.

Daz would be nowhere without Poser, the terabytes of 3rd party content that have been created for their Vicky/Mike/etc figures, or the community that fuels the whole machine.  profiteering BS like this and the other stunts theyve tried to pull over the years just spits in all of their faces.

The bottom line with me, and most hobby users and not 3D graphics professionals, is that a figure looks good and is capable of being used to fulfill our artistic vision, it's easy to use, and isn't exhorbitantly expensive.  People like me don't give a rats ass as to whether the polygons subdivide, and I don't care about Genesis per-se if a figures morphs can create the character wanted for a picture. 

What I do care about is having interesting and attractive looking human figures for my scenes.  I agree with William, Poser has not had attractive human figures since Don and Judy in Poser 5--since they they've all be either plain looking or blatantly unattractive (even some of the animal were hideous)--and have for the most part lacked content creator support for add-ons for them. 

So if one wants a new figure with a new look one is going to have to go with Daz's Genesis at some time or another at least if one wants to use this next generation of humans one has little choice but to get and use some flavor of Daz Studio.  I buy a lot of third party figures--but they usually lack content creator's support for texture maps and clothing so one is very limited as to what one can do with them

"Maile Keone" sounds like a Hawaiian name.  Looks like her specialty is "loyalty marketing."  Whatever that is.

Quote - So, in your experience as an Old Spice salesperson...

I am so glad I didn't have coffee in my mouth when I read that line... 

we aims ta please

@ SamTherapy :thumbupboth:

Now for a general comment:

Since I use DS, Carrara, Hexagon, and oh... Poser, I hope the new leadership at DAZ doesn't go off in some odd direction that doesn't work for me, and the entire community at large. Oddly enough, and obviously quite the opposite of many here, I consider DAZ Studio and DAZ3D to be a part of the Poser "community". Even Carrara is a part of that community, but it's legacy is a bit broader, so the use of Poser content is really just a subset of its toolset.

There is one constant in the computer software/hardware world ..... change. Usually, this never ending change is for the better, sometimes not. Change almost always involves a certain degree of "pain" for all those involved, regardless of it being good or bad. Change is also associated with a high degree of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt). DS4 and Genisis are a huge change in the "Poser Community", which has caused an extremely elevated FUD factor The FUD factor is made even worse since Poser does not use the Genesis figure as well as DS. The desire to have CC subdivision and weight mapping in Poser has been discussed at length in this forum over the years. These discussions have always been in the context of what Poser needs to do to provide the tools that the pro software packages have, and to move Poser forward. So, now Poser finally has weight mapping, and DS has weight mapping and CC subdivision. Will Poser implement CC subd, or an equivalent technology, or will this be a true dividing point for the community? Only time will tell. All we really know right now is that DAZ3D, or rather Digital Art Zone, is changing. Only time will tell if this change will be good or bad for the Poser Community, and more specifically for Poser users.

Regardless of whether you like DS, hate DS, or are neutral on the subject, we can all thank Curious Labs and their draconian attempts at increasing revenue through the very restrictive EULA policies they implemented (or tried to implement) many years ago. The birth of DS was in direct response to the EULA that came out with one of the new releases of Poser (P5???). As I remember (slept since then) the EULA had terms that basically required any 3rd party content providers to acquire licensing from Curious Labs to use the content in the new version of Poser. There was a pretty big public outcry over the EULA, because DAZ figures/content, and other content that people already had, could not be "legally" used in the new Poser until it was licensed through Curious Labs. The EULA was changed within a few months, but Curious Labs clearly showed DAZ how delicate their business model was. Without affordable software to consume their content, they didn't have a business! Within a few months (again, going on a less than clear memory regarding the time span), DAZ announced that they would be creating software that could host and render their content (and Poser content), that would be “free”.

Soooo, it's rather ironic that the early success of DAZ3D (and Zygote) was from the symbiotic relationship between DAZ3D and Poser created by sales of their content for use in Poser, and no doubt this relationship increased Poser sales. Then, the attempt by Curious Labs to control the content market resulted in an alternate "Poser like" software, that over the years may have reduced the potential number of Poser sales. Now, the company that originally had a symbiotic relationship with Poser, is actually in the driver’s seat with the development of a new figure that Poser doesn’t currently have the technology to fully support.

I truly hope that Genesis, and the continued development of DS doesn't split the Poser community, and the Poser market. At the same time, I can see why DAZ, opps... Digital Art Zone, would want to move their product line forward with improved figures and technology, and not rely on another company to dictate what technology they can and can't use in their content.

Bottom line - Things are changing, with both Poser/Smith Micro and DAZ Studio/Digital Art Zone. No one really knows what the outcome will be, but it's sure to be an interesting ride. Hopefully the changes and "competition" will ultimately create better products for us to use.

"Regardless of whether you like DS, hate DS, or are neutral on the subject, we can all thank Curious Labs and their draconian attempts at increasing revenue through the very restrictive EULA policies they implemented (or tried to implement) many years ago. The birth of DS was in direct response to the EULA that came out with one of the new releases of Poser (P5???). As I remember (slept since then) the EULA had terms that basically required any 3rd party content providers to acquire licensing from Curious Labs to use the content in the new version of Poser. There was a pretty big public outcry over the EULA, because DAZ figures/content, and other content that people already had, could not be "legally" used in the new Poser until it was licensed through Curious Labs. The EULA was changed within a few months, but Curious Labs clearly showed DAZ how delicate their business model was. Without affordable software to consume their content, they didn't have a business! Within a few months (again, going on a less than clear memory regarding the time span), DAZ announced that they would be creating software that could host and render their content (and Poser content), that would be “free”."

and how the tables have turned.  you also seem to be conveniently forgetting all the EULA BS that Daz has tried to pull over the years.

as for Daz being in the driver's seat, LOL.  what, because of Genesis?  Genesis pales in comparison to the improvements rolled out in Poser 2012.

aside from being able to use Daz's hyped up new figure and another bullet point on the box, please explain how the addition of Sub-D to Poser, right now, would bring any real world benefits to Poser users.  the only place it would have immediate benefit is in the cloth room.

and for the record i am not anti-Daz.  i plan on putting an equal amount of work into both the Daz and Poser figures.  i am just sick of this community polarization BS lately.  there is nothing stopping anyone from using whatever figure/software they want, but all this sudden hype over subD is making me gag. 

"the only place it would have immediate benefit is in the cloth room."

Hi just out of curiousity
do you mean before or after Draping??

When I drape a low res Mesh in C4D's cloth room I get a jagged surface and sharp corners of polygons sticking up all over.
and if I apply CCsubd after draping I just get ugly lumps where the sharp corners were.

Sub dividing too much before simulation only succeeds in causing ridiculous sim times.

How would posers cloth room benefit at all from CC SubD??

Cheers

Quote - @bantha: SubD, like any other algorithm, is "stupid". It subdivides everything, wether it's needed or not. You can build the base cage as clever as you want, when you SubD it, there still will be areas where polygons are wasted and areas left that could need a few more.

 .... 

You should tell that Weta and Pixar. Gollum was done with SubD since LotR II, and Pixar should know that they included a stupid algorithm in PRenderman. Seriously, keep your opinions if you like, but don't think they are facts.

Quote - "the only place it would have immediate benefit is in the cloth room."
Hi just out of curiousity
do you mean before or after Draping?? ~

How would posers cloth room benefit at all from CC SubD??
Cheers

before would allow smoother draping, after would give better performance. it really depends on how its implemented and if there are any other smoothing options.

right now you could create a dynamic clothing mesh with delaunay triangulation that is tailored to drape smoothly in the cloth room.  but thats what, a drop in the ocean compared to all of the excellent content thats already out there?  i think the real strength in Poser (or D|S) lies in its access to the huge amount of 3rd party free/commercial content.

as i see it with the tools we already have at our disposal (including morph transfer tools, the morph brush, weight map transfer, etc) the addition of subD would allow more dynamic 'clothification' of the terabytes of existing clothing content thats out there, as well as allow clothing creators to produce content that the end user could adjust on the fly in Poser to their needs - whether they want something geared towards faster cloth room calculations (animation?) or high quality stills.

with regards to the actual figures - as has been discussed i dont think its currently 'necessary' and would offer very little real world benefit other than Genesis compatibility.

"and how the tables have turned.  you also seem to be conveniently forgetting all the EULA BS that Daz has tried to pull over the years."

Never said DAZ was innocent, just explaining why DS came about in the first place. Makes good business sense to me, but others milage may vary.

"as for Daz being in the driver's seat, LOL.  what, because of Genesis?  Genesis pales in comparison to the improvements rolled out in Poser 2012."

I wasn't comparing the overall capabilities or uses of the two software packages, but yes, DAZ is in the drivers seat with Genesis. It's their figure, designed for their software/technology. Now, how well it succeeds, how well it will be supported in other applications, and is it a smart business move, is yet to be seen.

"aside from being able to use Daz's hyped up new figure and another bullet point on the box, please explain how the addition of Sub-D to Poser, right now, would bring any real world benefits to Poser users.  the only place it would have immediate benefit is in the cloth room."

Wish I could explain the benefits. I wasn't ever involved in any of the discussions on the CC subd subject, just read, and remember reading them. You would have to ask those involved in the discussions, or in 3d software development, to have your question answered. But, for Genesis to be fully suported in Poser, Poser will need something similar to DS. I'm not saying that Smith Micro has to implement this, it's up to them to decide if they want to have better support for Genesis. Of course DAZ could change their current direction, and release a Poser version of Genesis and/or V5. ?????

Quote - > Quote - So, in your experience as an Old Spice salesperson...

I am so glad I didn't have coffee in my mouth when I read that line... 

Gawd, you know it....

Laurie

^do you realize that there is still a large portion of the community using legacy poser figures? legacy versions of poser? the base poser figures? V3? V4? posette? antonia? etc?  each with a sea of legacy content?

one new exclusive figure is not enough to win over the bulk of the community and force a mass exodus to a new piece of software with far less features.  the only thing the genesis gambit has clearly accomplished so far is to make people shift focus onto other figures and on improving/converting legacy content.

did some research into the 2 new characters, both come from the world of Venture capitalism.

read into that what you will. :)

Quote - the only thing the genesis gambit has clearly accomplished so far is to make people shift focus onto other figures and on improving/converting legacy content.

And I'm all for that! I have so many nice figures other than the Daz figures (which I also like, but the Gen 4's are a pain sometimes). I was prone to using 3rd party figures before all this started, so I guess I'm just not as concerned as some, but still don't like to see everything coming apart like it has been lately. But life is change I guess and we have to roll with it, whether we like it or not ;). It certainly isn't the end of the world.

On to the next big thing ;)...

Laurie

Quote - did some research into the 2 new characters, both come from the world of Venture capitalism.

read into that what you will. :)

I have my own theories, but can't voice them. I'm probably wrong...lol. Anyway, Daz will do what Daz will do. It's up to us what will be done now....

Laurie

^do you realize that there is still a large portion of the community using legacy poser figures? legacy versions of poser? the base poser figures? V3? V4? posette? antonia? etc?  each with a sea of legacy content?"

yes and Adding Catmull Clark SubD to the latest version of poserpro 2012 just to use a "Cr2 Exporter" that only works for poser pro 2012 would be ignoring the Majority of the current user base who have not abandoned all previous version of poser & Content.

"one new figure is not enough to win over the bulk of the community."

And I have yet to see a single shred of evidence that DAZ ever had a primary goal to "win over" or convert the existing poser base to their camp in the first place.

Quite the contrary  IMHO they seem to be interested in gathering new users from everywhere Except the existing poser base.
They seem to want Autodesk Maya users to Adapt D/S
They want photoshop and other 2D artist artist to "Discover" Daz studio.
one of the typical strategies employed by 3D App companies trying to get users to switch programs has been "competitive sidegrades"
Maxon has done it
Newtek has done it in years past.
Where are the "sidegrade" pricing offers from DAZ for a reduced priced DS4 pro for existing poser pro users?.
but then again they Do already have a free loss leader version that anyone can try out with no time limit.

while SM is trying to get people to actually pay for
"poser Debut."

Cheers

"You should tell that Weta and Pixar. Gollum was done with SubD since LotR II, and Pixar should know that they included a stupid algorithm in PRenderman. Seriously, keep your opinions if you like, but don't think they are facts."

And what have meshes custom built by a professional CG-movie companie for a single character rendered in a feature film on a render farm to do with a mesh that has to depict wildly different characters on still pictures rendered on low to mid-end  personal computers by hobbyist artists ?

You make the same mistake many other users here make:

Treating Poser as a "poor man's" MAX or MAYA.

But Poser is different. It's users are different. It's purpose is different.

In the right hands, the "so called old" Poser rigging can do everthing "Pro" weightmapping can.

99.9% of it's users never messed with the SetUp room.

99.9% will never use weightmapping.

99.9% won't enter the material room.

99.9% won't create their own lightsets

99.9% won't even pose a figure themselves.

They buy Poser to make pretty pictures. As a hobby.

They couldn't care less about "pro" features.

But they do care about great looking figures.

Thanks to the "We must be like the pros" mindset, Poser now has nothing.

Because all of SM's resources went into making Poser more "pro".

Instead of a real high quality figure that could compete with Genesis.

And features and improvements everybody can use, not just a few "chosen few".

I'm all for more realism.

But we FIRST need to have a set of truly quality POSER figures.

And then we need to develop those pro features enough that even the average Poser user can use them WITH A SINGLE CLICK.

Otherwise these features are just bullet points on a sales blurb and simply won't get used.

I do a lot of modelling. And use ZBrush to sculpt figures.

Would I want SM to spend time implementing full modelling and sculpting functionality into Poser ?

Not if that distracts them from doing more important things, because I know hardly any Poser user actually models or does their own sculpts.

Again, Poser is not MAX or MAYA.

And it shouldn't try to emulate it.

If you've outgrown Poser, there are plenty of other 3D apps to choose from.

Quote - but then again they Do already have a free loss leader version that anyone can try out with no time limit.
while SM is trying to get people to actually pay for
"poser Debut."

Cheers

^thats a very good point.

hopefully SM is listening. a stripped down lightweight version of Poser with basic functionality wouldnt be a bad idea.