That's actually what I meant...lol. I did mean smoothing. Sorry...I've been doing the flight of the bumblebee around the house all day since I'm cooking Christmas dinner. Major brain fart ;).

Laurie

Quote - That's actually what I meant...lol. I did mean smoothing. Sorry...I've been doing the flight of the bumblebee around the house all day since I'm cooking Christmas dinner. Major brain fart ;).

Laurie

You're a riot, Laurie! :biggrin: I just totally had this visual... have a great Christmas, hun - sounds like you're off to a fine start!

Quote - But odds are good that it wouldn't do much more than V4... She was and is pretty great.

Yes this is what I think. I was not really looking for a V5 as V4 is a great character. I use  Poser exclusively, and I think it would be nice to use V5 but not absolutely essential. I am still  having a lot of fun with v4 and I noticed that Daz is still making v4 content. I purchased an awesome outfit this week, Rapscallion. I hope that Daz continues to support V4 alongside their new Genesis/V5 character.

In other news, a neat little Christmas present arrived today, courtesy of Apple.

A month ago, Apple had a recall of 1st-gen iPod Nanos. I found my first-gen 2GB Nano lurking in a drawer somewhere (still worked just fine after a recharge), looked up the serial number, and sure enough... it was part of the recall. I send it off to Apple (they sent me a box to do it with), and waited for a shiny new 1st-gen Nano to be returned.

I got the box back from them today, opened it, and found... a 8GB 6th-gen Nano sitting in there. The serial # of the new device matched what they emailed me with a tracking number a couple of days ago. 

Kinda cool to get a free upgrade of a perfectly-working Nano 5 years after I bought the thing.

Hehehe...cool :).

Laurie

Mods: This post is NOT Poser vs. DAZ. This is conciliatory. It's the season of peace, right?

To be fair, DS users face the same disappointments we do about shiny new products not being available to them. Haven't you seen the products here at Rendo that state "Not for Daz Studio" or "Not Supported in DAZ Studio"? On both sides of the fence some vendors are choosing not to accommodate users ion the other side. Their loss, I think, but I'm sure they feel they have good business reasons for doing so. shrug There's still a world of products for Poser / V4 users to choose from. 

Quote - Mods: This post is NOT Poser vs. DAZ. This is conciliatory. It's the season of peace, right?

To be fair, DS users face the same disappointments we do about shiny new products not being available to them. Haven't you seen the products here at Rendo that state "Not for Daz Studio" or "Not Supported in DAZ Studio"? On both sides of the fence some vendors are choosing not to accommodate users on the other side. Their loss, I think, but I'm sure they feel they have good business reasons for doing so. shrug There's still a world of products for Poser / V4 users to choose from. 

Please know, it wasn't for lack of trying. I purchased DS3Adv with the express purpose of developing my Poser skin shaders for Daz Studio users. Although those shaders were nowhere as sophisticated as Bagginsbill's, for some reason trying to develop them in Shader Mixer caused the software to vapourise. This happened so consistently that I eventually gave up, apologising to the eager DS users who were waiting for me to create something for them too.

I sincerely don't think my experience was unique. That and the lack of documentation on shaders for 3Delight made the task one that just wasn't meant to happen. :blink:

I am told things have changed... I'd be interested to see what's been documented since then on "bricks".

I would like to see better integration with other 3D packages, in my case Cinema 4D.

Kuroyume has done an excellent job with InterPoser Pro, which essentially allows one to host Poser (and Daz) content inside Cinema 4D--it's a very powerful, simple, and stable plugin, and proves that it can be done well.

I think both Daz and Poser have done a good job in extending the capabilities of of their respective packages, but no 3D software can really come of age without compatibility with other high-end packages--they all work together, and animators use each package for its particualr best abilities--one for modeling, another for hair, another for particle effects, and another for rendering, etc..

Poser & Daz are the best at flexible human (and non-human) models and related content--that is their particular expertise, and they should really capitalize on that strength. I started a (recently-completed) project 6 years ago using a free C4D plugin from Poser that allowed me to use Poser content in C4D (Mac), but if Kuroyume had not come out with Interposer Pro, I would have had to abandon the project half-done, since Poser never updated the plugin when Mac went to OSX, and Daz was never compatible.

Now we have Genesis, which is a great product, and I would love to use it on my next project, but I have no reliable way to get it into C4D. Are there plans to extend compatibility with other packages? Perhaps you can talk to Kuroyume about how to do it!

Last I heard DAZ is working with or trying to work with other companies to find ways of getting genesis in to everything.

Quote - Now we have Genesis, which is a great product, and I would love to use it on my next project, but I have no reliable way to get it into C4D. Are there plans to extend compatibility with other packages? Perhaps you can talk to Kuroyume about how to do it!

If C4D can import FBX, that will be the best way to export the models from DAZ Studio including Genesis. We have many people asking the best current export for Maya and other packages. We are seeing the best results using the FBX Exporter.  Hope that helps.

Quote - @manleystanley: I did as I stated in my post too. Couple of months down the line. Also the vendor replied to my query (with much nicer wording) that in essence I shouldn't hold my breath while waiting. .

There could be any of several reasons for that.  A few I can think of--

1.  The vendor has been busy with other projects and simply hasn't had time to familiarize himself with the new Poser scripting.

2.  The vendor has other projects lined up and won't be able to get around to updating the product anytime soon.

3.  The original product didn't sell well enough to justify updating it.

I agree that if the product hasn't been updated to work in newer versions of Poser, then the product description should be changed to indicate exactly which versions of Poser can use it.  However, once a product has gone "live," the vendor can't change the product page; he has to have DAZ do it for him.  Sometimes that can be fast and simple, and other times... it isn't.

Quote - > Quote - @manleystanley: I did as I stated in my post too. Couple of months down the line. Also the vendor replied to my query (with much nicer wording) that in essence I shouldn't hold my breath while waiting. .

There could be any of several reasons for that.  A few I can think of--

1.  The vendor has been busy with other projects and simply hasn't had time to familiarize himself with the new Poser scripting.

2.  The vendor has other projects lined up and won't be able to get around to updating the product anytime soon.

3.  The original product didn't sell well enough to justify updating it.

I agree that if the product hasn't been updated to work in newer versions of Poser, then the product description should be changed to indicate exactly which versions of Poser can use it.  However, once a product has gone "live," the vendor can't change the product page; he has to have DAZ do it for him.  Sometimes that can be fast and simple, and other times... it isn't.

This might be a good time for DAZ to update the info as they build their new store that's coming.

Agreed!

...there's something about this change to the store that bothers me.  Can't quite pin it down but something just doesn't sound right about how it is supposed to work.

Building upon DAZ officials declarations on this thread, past and present DAZ behaviour and what I see in this thread over DAZ (especially the second page), looking at todays coffee stains I predict:

stage 1: CMS up and running in order to download content from DAZ store.

stage 2: stage 1 + CMS up and running in all the buying process, performed using a web interface embedded into Studio.

stage 3: stage 2 + CMS up and running everytime DAZ content is used, because the content itself is encrypted and it is decrypted in memory only during use. At this stage probably Genesis support code is centralized into the CMS. Campaign to force SM to implement a Poser-to-CMS interface for handling Genesis.

stage 4: stage 3 + a centralized CMS infrastructure is implemented in DAZ servers, allowing the deployment of a very light Studio version which accesses that infrastructure. You have your account on DAZ, you buy licences to content, you use it but content itself never leaves DAZ servers. The only things you have your hands on are scene files which contain only parameters for the content. Piracy problem solved once for all.

@ alexcoppo
They might as well rent a boat and go fishing then.

I payd for my CPU and RAM, they work for me, and me only.

What about the rest of the world that does NOT have Internet?
What about the rest of the world that has Internet but not a FAST Internet?

Nah, this can not be true.

This would be the stone on their grave. RIP.

Quote - ... Campaign to force SM to implement a Poser-to-CMS interface for handling Genesis...

Good luck. It's already clear that Poser users are finding solutions that won't include that sort of mechanism.

Anyone remember 3dCommune?

Alexcoppo said

"Building upon DAZ officials declarations on this thread, past and present DAZ behaviour and what I see in this thread over DAZ (especially the second page), looking at todays coffee stains I predict:"

I do find it hilarious that you can take comments made by ordinary forumites and use them to make speculative predictions about future Daz3D policy, despite the fact that no Daz_Person has posted to the thread.:laugh:

Quote - Alexcoppo said

"Building upon DAZ officials declarations on this thread, past and present DAZ behaviour and what I see in this thread over DAZ (especially the second page), looking at todays coffee stains I predict:"

I do find it hilarious that you can take comments made by ordinary forumites and use them to make speculative predictions about future Daz3D policy, despite the fact that no Daz_Person has posted to the thread.:laugh:

Oh jeez, we've been had... someone's been passing himself off as Daz_Rand, Chohole! Sheesh! Thanks for letting us know! :blink:

(I knew there was something fishy about this thread - Chohole has confirmed it!)

Chohole was referring the thread alexcoppo linked to on the DAZ forums, not this thread (which has indeed had at least two DAZ staff members posting to it).

Oh!! Thanks for clarifying that, Richard.  :blink:

So, have details about the new store and mechanisms associated with that store been published anywhere, or is this all just speculation?

Randy did mention an appstore paradigm, automatic install, automatic updates as the things which are being considered. Nothing about what is actually going to happen since they do not know/been decided yet or simply do not want to tell us. So a prediction that it is going iTunes way including DRM might not be far off

I've been reading this thread off and on for a few hours and there are a lot of people who are bitter.  Randall bravley came here to give insight and to answer questions he is able to answer.  My question is not directed to Randall as he already responded to many of my concerns.  MY question is, where are the Smith Micro people and are they going to conform to SubD in their Service Releases?  Wouldn't it be easier for SM to conform as opposed to DAZ making Genesis work in Poser?

Yanno...Poser users hated the Content Paradise web stuff in Poser. You would think Daz would pick up on that and NOT do that as well? Oh well, it's their funeral..lol.

Laurie

Oh, ProudApache, that is a HUGE misunderstanding.

Genesis in Poser is a lot more then just and only sudeviding.
Genesis is a system.
SubD is only part of that system.
SubD can easily be done with Posers Smoothing function.

SubD is not the prime problem.
I would even say, SubD is the least of our worries. (personal note)

Uvmap , rigging, and that half baken "Grrrrr" exporter thing.

We do not want to HAVE to NEED DS4 to be able to use Genesis in ALL its glory in Poser.

They push us in a corner few of us want to be in, and we want to get out.

But no worries, other figures are taking over.

Quote - Yanno...Poser users hated the Content Paradise web stuff in Poser. You would think Daz would pick up on that and NOT do that as well? Oh well, it's their funeral..lol.

Laurie

That's corporate arrogance and not knowing your customer base for you Laurie.

Quote - Oh, ProudApache, that is a HUGE misunderstanding.

Genesis in Poser is a lot more then just and only sudeviding.
Genesis is a system.
SubD is only part of that system.
SubD can easily be done with Posers Smoothing function.

SubD is not the prime problem.
I would even say, SubD is the least of our worries. (personal note)

Uvmap , rigging, and that half baken "Grrrrr" exporter thing.

We do not want to HAVE to NEED DS4 to be able to use Genesis in ALL its glory in Poser.

They push us in a corner few of us want to be in, and we want to get out.

But no worries, other figures are taking over.

I understand there is a lot more than the SubD problem in Poser.  I guess my way of thinking is that DAZ and SM should meet half way to address this issue.  I believe Randall when he says the issue with Genesis will be fixed in Poser with the aid of SM.  I'm simply stating that both companies need to work together to fix this issue.  I'm hopeful that the problems will be fixed and then we all can get back to the hobby we love.

Quote - Last I heard DAZ is working with or trying to work with other companies to find ways of getting genesis in to everything.

Stanley, they have to.  Not everyone wants to use DS4 and not everyone renderers in poser or daz. 

As evidenced by this thread alone, not everyone who uses Daz models is a big fan of DS and they need the biggest customer base possible to make this a success for them.

Definition of good housekeeping :

He who creates the mess, can clean up the mess.
Sorry mods, from time to time I do have a strong opinion.

All this could have been avoided.
And we would not have been having these discussions.

Rhetorical question?

Do we really want the poser code that seems quite stable now, to be polluted with other code for just this one figure/system?

That, as all other figures in the past, will have a usabiliy life expectance of 3 to 4 years?
And then what? Again a battle like this one? 

I would much more like SM to provide a new quality Poser family using their latest in-house technologies.

 And to DAZ to provide a stand alone Poser compatble Genesis.

My point being this CMS virtual store thing may be good for Dazzers; sheep will be led. But what about the rest of us? Carrarests, Brycers, Posers. It can't be forced on us, we have options, or it just wont work with the apps we work with.

Even though I may post other wise, I am just atempting to insite DAZ to cough up some real info. I don't believe DAZ can pull it off, or is foolish enough to try to force people in to it. It's just not phesable. As it stands, and as I have said several times I don't have CMS installed. DS4 and genesis work just fine. Genesis and carrara work just fine.

If that ever changes the solution is simple, I; as well as a lot of people, would uninstall DS4 and genesis, not upgrade Carrara, and just stop doing busness with DAZ. I am quite sure the folks at DAZ are well aware of this, so wouldn't make such a blunder. It would cost them far more customers then they can afford to lose. And the bad press they would get CG sociaty wide would cost them any new customers. 

Contrary to much of what I post, I like to think DAZ isn't foolish enough to try to force this off on anyone that wants to do busness with them. There just isn't a big enough herd of Dazzers to support the company. 

I wouldn't worry too much about DAZ plans.

Read this: (note the repeated focus on something identified as "Web3D", whatever that is, and note also mention of MogBox)

http://www.siliconslopes.com/interview/dan-farr-daz-productions

Now - a couple years later - who knows what Web3D is? How about MogBox - anybody?

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/17491/DAZ_3D_And_Mogware_Announce_MOGBox.php

Did any of this become real? The MogBox forum has not had a post in almost two years.

Re: the Daz store changes. 

First of all, I won't care that much unless the non-Genesis content rebounds considerably. That willbe driven by th evendors, who I believe are not looking to leave a lot of money on the table.

Second of all, OI can adapt to almost any store changes EXCEPT if they follow the SM and CP example of aiutomatically adding a Download Protection fee that you must remove manually.

Quote - Chohole was referring the thread alexcoppo linked to on the DAZ forums, not this thread (which has indeed had at least two DAZ staff members posting to it).

Thanks for clarifying that Richard. I had intended to highlight only part of the quote, but the wretched forum software highlighted it all

Building upon DAZ officials declarations on this thread, past and present DAZ behaviour and what I see in this thread over DAZ (especially the second page), looking at todays coffee stains I predict

Does demonstrate how misunderstandings come about though, doesn't it ?

Just some technical considerations. If the CMS had no other purpose than handling metadata it would have no need of being anything more than a simple database and would require nothing more than an embedded SQLite engine (...as it was in Studio, according to what I read).

CMS is a standalone process, not only, a Windows service and the database, according to what I read on DAZ forums has changed to an obscure engine with a costly SDK. Even if there were needs for advanced DB processing, there would be no reason not to bundle e.g. PostgreSQL. Wait a moment! isn't PostgreSQL a process!?! yes it is a process because it has to run on unattended computers and log in with specific rights, things that do not look terribly reasonable in our context.

Developing a service is not an easy task and requires specialized knowledge. I myself, with a Windows programming experience dating back to Win 3.1 beta 2 and having consulted for embedded systems firms have never had to do it.

All these items point to some very important task justifying all this complexity and (more important for corporate decisions) development cost. A guy called DAZ_Rand (who was passing off as a DAZ employee), without a specific request (I always love when people answer then question they were not asked) clearly stated that there is the project of an Apple-like store. i-whatevers can rely upon hardware and OS to make them closed devices (plus a continuos corporate fight to keep jailbreakers at bay); for our context DAZ has to deploy "something" that acts as gatekeeper in order to prevent "unauthorized" accesses and here we have this thing called Content Management System, which, even from the name, hints at much more than just a simple database.

I am not saying that all this is sensible or in the interest of users, I say that technical items and statements cannot interpreted otherwise.

P.S.: a partial CV: C developer since 1986. C++ developer since 1991. Database experience as developer ranging from SQLite to DB/2 on AS/400s with pretty much everything in between in accounting software systems. From 1997 to 2009 developer for video surveillance systems firms on embedded Window and Linux boxes (my image processing experience dates back to 1987). Since 2002 Java development experience on enterprise systems. Working as a self employed software development consultant since 1997.

P.P.S: complete CV w.r.t. to databases: SQLite, dBase, Jet (Access/VB engine), SqlServer, Oracle, DB/2, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Apache Derby, HSQLDB.

My prediction...Looking at todays coffee stains...I'm gunna need to change my shirt.

FWIW...I'm not a big fan of the "Content Parasite" thing either.

8 )

Tom

It is Chritmas Eve and in some countries is already Chrsitmas Day.

Could we have just a bit of peace, just for a couple of days?

All the best.

LROG

Maybe SM will, for once, have a fiogure that knocks the socks off of DAZ figures.

Quote - SubD is not the prime problem.
I would even say, SubD is the least of our worries. (personal note)

Uvmap , rigging, and that half baken "Grrrrr" exporter thing.

We do not want to HAVE to NEED DS4 to be able to use Genesis in ALL its glory in Poser.

I'd rather not have to use the exporter, but it is improving as development continues.

The UV issues look likely to be solved too, or good enough.

I've wryly watched over the years as DAZ Studio has become more like Poser (including once-deriled features like tabbed "rooms") and Poser in turn has become more like DAZ Studio - yet somehow the two programs are pulling apart (see: Genesis) at the same time too. it's... fascinating :)

Which version are you using that UV problems are solved?

Looks likely to BE solved, rather than IS solved. It's not solved in the current public release. The issues as I understand them to be are being worked on and potential solutions are known, just not finished yet.

That's what I keep hearing. Problems were supposed to be solved with SR1 - and they were not. And when you ask further they admit that they did not even try it with Poser

Were the problems meant to be solved, or improved? My recollection is that there was a list of fixes in DS 4.0.3.19 (or .9) that would improve Genesis export, but that they would require a Poser service release to be effective. I don't recall any official DAZ people saying the updates would fix everything.

Quote - Were the problems meant to be solved, or improved? My recollection is that there was a list of fixes in DS 4.0.3.19 (or .9) that would improve Genesis export, but that they would require a Poser service release to be effective. I don't recall any official DAZ people saying the updates would fix everything.

I have never seen any list of issues which are supposed to be solved with the exporter. So I do not know. And that's the whole point. We have no clue what should work, and what does not work. We only get told - wait for the new SR - but no clue what it supposed to do.

I have seen the things which Rob mentions what SR1 contains for the exporter - but there is no info at all on what these are supposed to solve.

For now the exporter can export a genesis figure with morphs. You can do the same thing with clothing - except that the morphs which work in the genesis figure do not work with the clothing. Is that a Poser issue? Is that an exporter issue? Is that a general limitation and will it never work? That is why I asked if anyone at DAZ has tried it with the Poser SR. The answer was no.

...I have to agree with ManleyStanley. Daz would be shooting both of their feet clean off if a customer couldn't log onto their store and purchase/DL content the way we do now. They make specific mention of being a Poser content resource which would be contradicted if Poser users are unable to manually log in and order content.

Even if I do eventually purchase and install Studio4, I will first uninstall the CMS and close the auto download link as I just do not trust any system that, 1. requires I be logged on the net (this taking up extra processor and memory resources), and 2. automatically initiates a download and installs a file on my system without my intervention (especially if it involves auto transfers from my bank account).  I wouldn't be surprised if my security suite detected such a setup as a threat.

I purchase all my software through legitimate sources. I am against WAREZ sites and hackers because those who make content and plugins rarely if ever earn enough for the work they put into their creations. As one vendor once outlined, when a brokering store takes a 50% cut of the price, it can require a lot of sales just to recoup the cost for all the time involved in modelling, rigging, texturing, and testing.

Try to have a custom model made.  It can cost upwards of 1,000$ or more depending on complexity and usage rights. Currently I'm in discussion with one artist concerning a small chamber pipe organ I need for scenes in my storyline.  As I have played the instrument, I am somewhat particular and the few examples I have seen from the commercial vendors don't come close at all.  Most likely I will end up paying around 100USD for and untextured, unrigged .obj.  Considering that this person also works for an organ builder, his models are very authentic and thus in my book, well worth the price. 

Back to the issue, the notion of dealing with some sort of "content police" by having to verify the legitimacy of content in my runtime before I work on a scene sounds just a little too "Orwellian" for me. The total cloud service is a bad idea (for reasons mentioned above) and will only hurt rather than help Daz's sales as it would lock out anyone who doesn't use the latest version of Daz Studio.

Quote - Maybe SM will, for once, have a figure that knocks the socks off of DAZ figures.

Alyson2 in her most recent incarnation appears to be filling that role, fairly well, IMHO.

Just for whatever it may be worth...

DAZ has decided I shouldnt post in their fora anymore, so forgive me if I look at something that says they "want to chat" and laugh.

Quote - Just for whatever it may be worth...

DAZ has decided I shouldnt post in their fora anymore, so forgive me if I look at something that says they "want to chat" and laugh.

Welcome to the club. As now it is past midnight, merry Sol Invictus to everybody.

Quote - That's what I keep hearing. Problems were supposed to be solved with SR1 - and they were not. And when you ask further they admit that they did not even try it with Poser

My memory is admittedly poor, but is SLIGHTLY at variance with yours on this topic: DAZ_btfurner (could someone change his nick to that?) said:

Quote - I'm not Randy but I can say that from what our Development team here at DAZ has heard there is a fix in SR1 that should help with the exporter from DAZ Studio (4.0.3.19 and later builds) work better. Our team here at DAZ has not had access to the final sr build, but it was mentioned to them from SM that the fix would be in. So that's all that we can say at the moment.

Emphasis mine. DAZ can't really state SM's position on anything categorically IMO, and I don't really think that this is the correct thread for SM to update us in as the topic is "misunderstandings/miscommunications" with/from DAZ. Though we seem to be stretching that topic a tad from time to time ;)

On the UV Set topic specifically, there is now more/newer information/fixes than I've seen. I can't tell you what partly because I haven't seen it, but solving the riddle appears to have moved on with more to be done later... Christmas and family are apparently obstacles to working hard :(

Which reminds me - happy Christmas to one and all!