Steve Jobs was a True Believer and he was a marketing genius. He had a very good product in the Mac. He had a core of True Believers in that product, and yet for all that, the Mac never gained more than a minority part of the desktop market. Part of that may have been price. It seems hard to deny that part of it was the huge advantage that Windows always had in terms of applications. Flash forward to the iPod. It wasn’t a revolutionary product – there were mp3 players before. What the iPod had was iTunes, a huge library of music and an infrastructure designed to support it all. The same story holds true for the iPad and the gazillion ‘There’s an app for that’ goodies it has. No one else would even dare to launch a rival device without thousands of titles ready on day one and a developer community that would hopefully continue to crank out more.

A platform without content is DOA. A platform without a vigorous stream of new content is a dead man walking. The Poser market is consumer, content driven, just as much as the Apple products. You can have a great product with dedicated developers and a small enthusiastic fan base. You can recite the ‘Insanely Great’ mantra. You can say this is all you need, or just wait and see what’s coming next. You can say if it doesn’t exist, you have the tools, make your own. None of those are going to get you past niche status. Those dratted consumers (who happen to make up the majority of the market) want their tunes and their apps and they want them now - preferably wrapped up in one place with swipe your plastic and start enjoying ease. You can sit in an ivory tower making sport of the simple minded rabble down in the bazzar, who somehow fail to see the light. You can take comfort in the fact that you’re driving the future when everyone else clings to the past. You can also bring a knife to a gunfight but I don’t recommend it. If you want to change the rules then you have to understand the existing ones and actually win some games. The fact that someone is actually asking why things aren’t going as great as anticipated is a good first step. The end result though will probably be doubling down on the existing strategy and waiting for the magic to happen. It may indeed happen, but, as Damon Runyon said; "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's how the smart money bets."

"Could we possibly move the Houdini discussion to a thread of it's own and not hyjack this one?"

Not necessary.

I believe that Paganeagle, Male_M3dia, and Myself have exhausted our generous supply of "troll feed" for this week, so back to the original topic.

The Perceived Lack of interest in Weight mapped content Might be attributable to the
"Legacy software conundrum"

Perhapssome have underestimated the number of people who have NOT upgraded to the latest version of
poser that is needed to utilize Weight mapping.

Cheers.

"A platform without content is DOA. A platform without a vigorous stream of new content is a dead man walking. The Poser market is consumer, content driven, just as much as the Apple products. You can have a great product with dedicated developers and a small enthusiastic fan base. You can recite the ‘Insanely Great’ mantra. You can say this is all you need, or just wait and see what’s coming next. You can say if it doesn’t exist, you have the tools, make your own. None of those are going to get you past niche status. Those dratted consumers (who happen to make up the majority of the market) want their tunes and their apps and they want them now - preferably wrapped up in one place with swipe your plastic and start enjoying ease."

Extremely well stated!! particularly the part in green text.
various Scattered Enthusiast who are "making something for her" is not  going to get users excited about jumping all over the web to find the stuff
the App Store, Android Market,Amazon Market,Business model seems to be the prevailing successes.

Cheers

 apprised of the situation and taking appropriate actions

That is marketing!

You have acknowledged the "customer" without making an actual committment to what you will do. Which is perfectly acceptable since you won't know till you look at program.

Personally I value free more than I do paid. That does not mean I don't value paid but I have "paid my dues" for using it by giving money.

There is a change in free items over the years. A thank you, and credit use to be automatic but not anymore.

Perhaps, without it costing anything, you might borrow from Daz's  marketing, (tell someone) and require one picture in any gallery with credits to be the cost of your gift. 

You could go ever further, again no cost, and require that the url to the picture be sent  to you.

With that you might consider having a Hall of Fame  type of winner each week, month whatever you want. Base the winner on the picture that best show the advantages  of your "gift".

Offer some of the 3D mags or 3d sites an interview about your place and what you are trying to do. It doesn't hurt to contact them and it is another no cost avenue you might explore.

Orally sell you product but don't over sell it. Everyone thinks they have the best thing since sliced break.

I am not in marketing for pay, I am bookkeeper. But in the past I have been involved in volunteer projects with very low cash flow or none at all.

I imagine all of you have too and you probably know marketing more than you think. :-)

I hope I have helped a little bit toward guiding you into some creative free market brain storming.

J

the renderosity spelling police may fix any errors - I am too tired to

Quote -

Yeah, it's a bit like that. :blink:

Quote - Its a tricky situation and poser place is a bit unique in its perspective and goals.  People look at what we release and figure 'You want to push Antonia, you want to push V4WM or outfitter or etc etc" which is true to an extent.  We believe in these figures and we want to let people know they are great.  But Poser Place's goal is to push POSER.  We want to see poser advance, and poser users advance.  We want a vendor ecosystem that embraces advanced features. If everything is still designed for poser 6 or 5 or 4 then the face poser has to the world as shown by its renders is the same face as poser 5 or 6.  How does poser 6 compare with DS4?  probably not well.  But poser 9?  With SSS, IDL and GC?  very well.

Poser Place is run out of one persons pocket. would it be beneficial to our distribution of free items for us to advertise?  Yes probably.  Would it make sense?  After seeing the amount of effort poured into these releases I'd have a tough time going back to the same people and asking them to take some cash out of their wallet, some food out of their families mouths, to make sure more people get their free product.

So maybe we need to cast the net a bit bigger.  Maybe we need to ask this one small thing:  

If you like the product, use it, render it and please post your renders and credit the product.  Help spread the word.  

Not really so much to ask I dont think.

Well put. Thank you, MeatSim. This is the core of what all V4-WM/Outfitter/Antonia-WM/PoserPlace is all about: furthering Poser. The rest is just extraneous noise, really.

Standing by with the clipboard and the urinal for the Pissing Contest.

Laurie

problem is, they be missing the target...

Oooh, Oooh #twitterfeed or RSS. Notify folks whenever a new product, freebie or render goes up.

OK, I'll go to my room. 

Quote - Oooh, Oooh #twitterfeed or RSS. Notify folks whenever a new product, freebie or render goes up.

OK, I'll go to my room. 

I like!! :biggrin:

Ok, now that is an AWESOME idea lmckenzie..lol. I'm pissed I didn't think of it ;).

Laurie

Quote - Oooh, Oooh #twitterfeed or RSS. Notify folks whenever a new product, freebie or render goes up.

OK, I'll go to my room. 

Well, I was commenting mostly on the news feed idea ;).

Laurie

"But Poser Place's goal is to push POSER.  We want to see poser advance, and poser users advance.  We want a vendor ecosystem that embraces advanced features.
If everything is still designed for poser 6 or 5 or 4 then the face poser has to the world as shown by its renders is the same face as poser 5 or 6.  How does poser 6 compare with DS4?  probably not well.  But poser 9?  With SSS, IDL and GC?  very well.
"

Has anyone considered Lobbying Smith Micro to perhaps have an extended sale of poser pro at a severe discount to get more users (new & Old ) to get with the times so to speak.

Honestly all of DAZ's silly "industry shaking blah blah!!" Hyperbole aside.

It occurs to me that Daz & its PA's now have a great Excuse to abandon All legacy version of DS with content and focus
on taking advantage of the latest features of DS4 pro
effectively silencing those who would  have complained
that they have not been able to afford DS4 pro.

Has a recent Poll been conducted somewhere to get some numbers on how many people are  still running P6-P8?

Cheers

Quote - So maybe we need to cast the net a bit bigger.  Maybe we need to ask this one small thing:  

If you like the product, use it, render it and please post your renders and credit the product.  Help spread the word.  

Not really so much to ask I dont think.

I mention WM V4 every time I use her in a render.  But it doesn't help much if no one bothers to look at my gallery . . .

Give it time.  Weight-mapping will catch on, particularly with people who do animations.  That, I believe, is where WM really shines!

"Well, I was commenting mostly on the news feed idea ;)." Yeah, I really don't know or give a twit about tweets but RSS is built into most browsers and provides a fast, easy way keep up with stuff you otherwise might not think to look for. Seems like an ideal tool for vendors. Make it so.

I don't want to squash a good idea, but you have to subscribe to tweets and RSS feeds.

How does that help finding new converts who have no knowledge of these subscriptions?

I believe in V4WM and use it now all the time. There are still some problems with clothing, but almost always either Outfitter, Wardrobe Wizard, Crossdresser 4 or occasionally a simple Copy Joint Zones will do the trick. It really depends on how the mesh was constructed on who does the best job. Usually this mesh has problem with old fashioned rigging as well.

I use outfitter as default and when i have a problem, I try the other ones. Up to now this works perfectly

About seeing V4WM in the galleries - unless it is explicitly mentioned, you will only see it in more extreme bending of arms and thighs which used to corrected with additional morphs or postworked.

The whole V4WM effort has been a splendid work and deserves a large audience

Thanks Wim. And I agree with the "have to be subscribed to see" notion. My question is: where do Poser users 'hang out'? How do we best reach them? I've tweeted and facebooked and google+ -ed but real exposure? Not that much.

Newsletters?

Make freebies for magazines?

I've talked to three established vendors so far: same answer... "if the customer wants it I'll..."

Wish I understood all this better. :blink:

There is one thing you can do.

Ask the vendors to add an outfitter converted version of their clothing to their product for their customers convenience. It just takes a few minutes to create one.

If they do this, they will certainly try the outfit on V4WM and in case there are problems, they will either correct it in the weightmaps or leave it out completely. If they add it, it will be an additional incentive for potential buyers to get the product. 

If you can get a few popular vendors on this track, it will surely catch on with the others.

Most of the clothing will need very little or no adjustment at all - and (some) of their customers will do it themselves anyway, so it should of benefit the to vendors as well

One could put it on their homepage here, yes? In their sig. I subscribe to a lot of feeds that I'm interested to keep up with. If they don't have an RSS feed, I can't likely subscribe to em ;). And I am subscribed to a LOT.

Laurie

Quote - One could put it on their homepage here, yes? In their sig. I subscribe to a lot of feeds that I'm interested to keep up with. If they don't have an RSS feed, I can't likely subscribe to em ;). And I am subscribed to a LOT.

Laurie

I'm going to be totally "blonde" here (actually "grey" :lol: ) but how does one DO that??? Here I am enthusiastically going on about how this is an awesome idea, yet never done it myself! :blushing:

You usually subscribe to RSS feeds on websites by clicking on this icon: My Subscribed RSS feeds show up in Microsoft Outlook. Your RSS news feed programs may vary. If you click on that icon here on Rosity it will take you to their page of RSS feeds that allows you to add them to your IGoogle RSS feeds page in your browser.

Thanks, Steve...

Quote - But do they bring "NEW" things???
Moving breasts?
What NEW figure does that? Now it is time to answer.
When I put my arms above my head? My breast go up.
When I lower my arms? My breasts go down.
I think this is the same for the Worlds population, east or west, north ot south.

Well Alyson had chest movement but Alyson2 doesn't. It's strange because Ryan2's chest/pec lifts/stretches when you lift the shoulder (not as much as it naturally should but at least it lifts up with the shoulder) and there doesn't seem to be a reason why Alyson2 is missing that. I sent SM a bug report about it when we were all first getting PP2012 at release and they said they'd look into it, so who knows if they'll ever fix it. I've simply used the breast control dependencies to lift when the shoulders are lifted and saved that as a new figure. Maybe we'll get an official fix one day, or not.

I also think there is support 'in the works' for things like v4WM and for poser 9 features in general.  Its just taking time for vendors to become comfortable with the technology.

I read on deviant art that AlfaSeed's latest update of the Alice body shape was designed to work better with v4WM, Adamthwaites has Sofia, who lists v4WM as a compatible figure and incorporates SSS shader options (to be fair all but the most extreme morphs work pretty well with V4WM), and there are others out there and probably more in the works

 Good thread- lots to think about. I'm aware of the "perfect" series. I bought the first two-before getting in on the V4-WM project. The Perfect series is good-but not free. And it does make the figure heftier in filesize.

 The points I would make have already been made. It will take time for people to migrate to P9+. There are still folks using P7. And likely even folk on old computers using P4.

I was long aware of SSS when it came to Poser. I'd been tinkering with it for more than 3 years in LightWave. That in and of itself-was enough to get me to line up for Pro2012.

I was aware of weight mapping for much the same reason.

Someone who does not own a library of 3D tech books might not get excited when someone says SSS or WM. They have to SEE it in use. Then there are the people who like to render furbies and anime doll people- realism is not their interest.

There are likely plenty of folk who don't notice sphagetti arms or collapsed thighs on bending! Hard for me to believe! But then I can't live without SSS!

You don't HAVE to like realism to like good bends.... just sayin'.....

You have to subscribe to RSS or Twitter etc. just as you have to register at many sites you visit. It’s part of a sustaining strategy to keep your product in front of people once they initially contact you. I don’t use social media, but I know that an awful lot of people do. It’s pretty much a requirement these days. None of these ideas works in a vacuum, they work in synergy. You also have to work to keep up a flow of information, tips, training, images, contests, upcoming products, a creator’s blog, user comments, bug reports whatever. A dead feed is probably going to get ignored or dropped. One thing a feed, FB page whatever can do is aggregate things. Right now, there’s Poser Place and RDNA and here and maybe more. Not everyone is going to run around looking for information/updates at all those places – they have other priorities.

“I read on deviant art that AlfaSeed's latest update of the Alice body shape was designed to work better with v4WM…” – Exactly the kind of information scattered around that could be aggregated ÷)

It certainly wouldn’t hurt to have a unique brand as well. Anastasia is part of BH’s (GND?) brand and people know that. DAZ had the Millennium brand and now Genesis. Right now there is Antonia/WM, V4WM & the other WM figures. Pick a name, NextGen, Phoenix, Alpha, Omega, Optima whatever and make that the umbrella for everything and people will come to recognize that the brand represents the cutting edge of Poser figures. Have a logo contest.

“Someone who does not own a library of 3D tech books might not get excited when someone says SSS or WM. They have to SEE it in use.
There are likely plenty of folk who don't notice spaghetti arms or collapsed thighs on bending!"

Very true. In a recent thread, someone was told that they couldn’t expect speed gains using Pro2012 because they were doing P4 style renders. Dollars to doughnuts, there are some people who upgraded just because it was the latest and greatest and are still not taking advantage of the new features. You can’t necessarily assume that every 9/2012 user is a techie who readily ventures beyond their comfort zone. Having a clothing script is nice and yes it might be easy, but having as much clothing as possible already adapted is better. Every extra “easy” step is going to shed a few more potential users. You should want Cousin Ray Ray and everyone else you can get on board.

I accept that money is tight at the moment and many a hobbist is going to stick with the Poser version they have even if they want the extra features.  I also understand that vendors want to sell to the widest possible market however, taking this to extreme that would mean that those who are unable, unwilling or do not have the time to create their own characters and models would still be doing Poser 4 renders in Poser 9/2012.

That is why I fully support the Poser Place team, for not only allowing all the users of Poser9/2012 to take advantage of the new features, but also trying and help those that want to learn the new skills.

It will take the venders a while to catch up, after all it is only relatively recently that products have been marked for Poser 8 or later and there are already a couple of charaters that have the both non and SSS materials.  

I can however understand the impatience of some who want to see Poser progress and not be held back by older software.  I am all for backward compatability, where possible, but there has to be a limit to how far this can hold back progress (just my view mind).

... one thing i don't see mentioned in this thread that you may want to consider.... DAZ owns the V4 mesh and  imposed clear limitations on what Poser Place could do with that mesh, therefore limiting what could be achieved .... i for one do not understand these limitations as there are hundreds even thousands of figures that have been released , both free and commercially, that have altered these meshes almost beyond recognition... every morph alters the mesh.... why was this project treated differently?

i totally understand Phantom3d not wanting to risk legal action thereby risking the site, i just don't understand why this is any different than other instances, are we all now forbidden from creating alterations that may improve the figure? are those who altered it before at risk of legal action?i wish someone would clarify this...

i joined Poser Place as a member just as i am a member here i do not represent Poser Place, just as i do not represent Renderosity, these views/concerns are my own. I just want to insure i don't get my own ass in a wringer trying to help solve some of these issues...

"DAZ owns the V4 mesh and imposed clear limitations on what Poser Place could do with that mesh"

What are the restrictions & where are they documented? I ask the latter only because I fear the slippery slope of who said what :-)

From my understanding we could not include anything that would require re-distributing any portion of the origional mesh, grouping, rigging or any other part of daz's intellectual property.  We were limited to what the script could be made to do to the end users copy of v4.  Anything else would have required redistributing v4 or a derivitive of her.

I believe there was a thread about it at RDNA and one of our members was in direct contact with daz over what could and could not be done.

The RDNA thread on the topic is here:

http://www.runtimedna.com/forum/showthread.php?65006-Distibution-of-weight-mapping-legal-issues.-Confirmation-from-DAZ

Quote - I just want to insure i don't get my own ass in a wringer trying to help solve some of these issues...

If in doubt, contact DAZ with your concerns, as shvrdavid did for the thread at the link.

 Steve

You mean people care that Furbie or Akira5.0  bend naturally-when the figure itself is not really human looking? I guess it won't look like a real Furbie? :-)

Quote - You don't HAVE to like realism to like good bends.... just sayin'.....

Quote -

“Someone who does not own a library of 3D tech books might not get excited when someone says SSS or WM. They have to SEE it in use.
There are likely plenty of folk who don't notice spaghetti arms or collapsed thighs on bending!"

Very true. In a recent thread, someone was told that they couldn’t expect speed gains using Pro2012 because they were doing P4 style renders. Dollars to doughnuts, there are some people who upgraded just because it was the latest and greatest and are still not taking advantage of the new features. You can’t necessarily assume that every 9/2012 user is a techie who readily ventures beyond their comfort zone. Having a clothing script is nice and yes it might be easy, but having as much clothing as possible already adapted is better. Every extra “easy” step is going to shed a few more potential users. You should want Cousin Ray Ray and everyone else you can get on board.

 "That would have been BB- and he was right- and many people don't actually KNOW how to actually load a script into Poser- and probably find Outfitter intimidating.

 I am a team member-but only speak for myself- "The opinion I state is solely my opinion and not that of PoserPlace, or the UN General Assembly"

That said-I suspect it has to do with Daz wanting people to use Genesis rather than V4. Marketing is the word. I see many comments by Daz users saying- V4 is PAST-why use it when we have Genesis?

The more natural bending was what got ME interested in Genesis. DAZ also decided not to offer a higher poly Genesis for Poser users. Since the free software month-I have DS4Pro. I find that I can get more realism out of Poser2012-and I also find it far more flexible.

OT:

Right now I see an add banner for Reality 2 for DS, a render of Danae's Dublin character is the pic used. It looks remarkably like what I just rendered-in Poser. I've yet to see DS offer that sort of realism

Quote - ... one thing i don't see mentioned in this thread that you may want to consider.... DAZ owns the V4 mesh and  imposed clear limitations on what Poser Place could do with that mesh, therefore limiting what could be achieved .... i for one do not understand these limitations as there are hundreds even thousands of figures that have been released , both free and commercially, that have altered these meshes almost beyond recognition... every morph alters the mesh.... why was this project treated differently?

i totally understand Phantom3d not wanting to risk legal action thereby risking the site, i just don't understand why this is any different than other instances, are we all now forbidden from creating alterations that may improve the figure? are those who altered it before at risk of legal action?i wish someone would clarify this...

i joined Poser Place as a member just as i am a member here i do not represent Poser Place, just as i do not represent Renderosity, these views/concerns are my own. I just want to insure i don't get my own ass in a wringer trying to help solve some of these issues...

 Others have brought up the idea of a showy character that would demonstrate why people might want to upgrade to P9/2012. I'd say Danae's Dublin would be a good candidate-she's somewhat unique and Danae has done a fine job with the texture and SSS shader

Maybe some animated yoga poses with and without WM would be a good visual.

 Dublin's render quality is very high- I mentioned the Reality2.0 banner using a Lux render of Dane's Dublin is currently at the top of this page. Why? It's gorgeous-and evidently the quality I see in Poser is not obtainable with DS.

The "Perfect" series creators have animated images showing the before and after-

I am fairly ignorant regarding the technicalities of this at present, but I have been wondering how the "Perfect" series morph fixes would work WITH V4WM?

I don't know exactly how these available bodyshape fixes currently work - are they injecting morphs into the V4 mesh?

I have started playing around converting some characters I've created in my runtime to V4WM and converting clothing figures with the Poser Place clothing converter is also straight forward and seems to work well. I've had mixed results with the limited selection of hair figures I currently have.

Posing a weight mapped character certainly seems way more intuitive...

But I'd certainly be keen to implement fixes for things like the elbow bones (I mean the appearance of there being bones there rather than functional rigging bones) etc. too.

Would it perhaps make sense for the creators of the "Perfect" product line and other vendors creating such body shape fixes, to look at versions of their products, in due course, that work on V4WM?

I don't currently have any of the "Perfect" fixes and probably wouldn't go down that route due to their not (as far as I'm aware) working with weight mapping... and, as a Poser 9 user, I would see this as the way forward for anything I was going to add to my runtime.

Further to that last paragraph in my previous post... I should clarify that I don't know whether the available bodyshape fixes work or not with V4WM.

Has anyone tried applying any of these available fixes to V4WM?

That would be interesting to know...

It seems to me that these fixes and V4WM could perhaps compliment each other, in due course... rather than necessarily being alternate routes to take?

Because it's V4WM and because Mike had to build her rig from scratch and because he's a perfectionist, I'm thinking that now that she's weight mapped she doesn't need the perfect moprhs anymore. But that's just an educated guess ;).

Laurie

Thanks :-)

Is the point of most of these morph-based (?) bodyshape fixes more to address joint bending issues and distortions than anything else?

On that basis then sure, I can understand that the re-rigging, as an integral part of the weight mapping, should presumably sort all this sort of stuff out on its own... and then I shouldn't need them, if I'm adopting V4WM... which I am.

As I understand it, the V4WM injection corrects and improves the way that the existing bodyshape mesh behaves when it bends and flexes?

Does it actually somehow reshape and refine the base (static) bodyshape mesh a little too?

I guess the latter is more about how anatomically "realistic" (or whatever) a shape  the original figure's base mesh itself is... and that's something else altogether isn't it? As in aesthetics rather than functionality perhaps... these crossover I guess though.

The 'Perfect' series of fixes work with V4WM, or at least I have had no problems with them working.  I converted a 'virgin' version of V4 to V4WM and then added the fixes as per instructions that came with the fixes.  I used them at first when I noticed that the first version of V4WM had a couple of areas that I wanted to change.  There has been an update of V4WM since then, but they do work, how much you want to tweak them is a personal issue. 

Others will also say that they are not needed and increase the size of V4.  The first point I suggest is subjective, the second is true although I have not noticed any dramatic change in loading or render times and disk space is relatively cheap.

I also have Va Va Va Voom added to my main character as I used in in the non-weight mapped versions and wanted to copy my character as faithfully as possible in the V4WM version.  No doubt I could have done a copy without Va Va Va Voom and just used V4WM but I had the settings and it was a quick fix.

Having said all that I am not suggesting that the fixes are the way to go but since their use was questioned I thought I would pass on my experiences and I will not be removing them any time soon.

These are the conditions Daz 3D gave us to work with.

***"Having discussed this internally, the view is that as long as the new ***
***weight map can be separately shipped without needing to include any ***
***proprietary DAZ data (models, weight maps, material definitions, etc.), ***
***then it's fine - note that this would preclude converting a DAZ figure ***
***to weight-mapping and then tweaking those weights. The distribution ***
method proposed here http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forum...ead_id=2836045
looks as if it should work."

***The figure Victoria 4 is in whole owned by Daz 3D. That includes not only the mesh but also the rig (cr2) the morphs and the materials as well as the shape of the figure. ALL of those are proprietary and copyrighted.

Many people may not know that but yes all of that is proprietary. Regardless of what Daz 3D may have ALLOWED others to do in the past with shipping morphs or clothing and so on, the conditions above are what we had to work with.  And the point here is that Daz 3D has only allowed others to ship things like morphs or clothing that uses the original joints, they do not have to allow it.

There are no complaints in this from Poser Place or myself. To be honest I am surprised they said yes in any form. But they did say yes and they did not have to. So for that I am gratefull that I was allowed to work with the figure. Arguing the legalities or protecting a site really is secondary to abiding by the wish of the owner and creator of the figure. I am sure I could argue legal points and try to worm my way around some of the restrictions but I did not want to do that. I would rather follow their guidelines as set out.

There were many things I would have liked to do that would have improved the figure. Such as changing the proportions and shape as well as recutting the mesh into groups that better fit weight mapping. I was not able to do so because such things could not be shipped as part of the project.

That said, there were still many things that could be done with the figure and still follow the stated wish of the creator. I made a new rig from scratch and weight mapped the largest part of the figure while still maintaining the most use of morphs and secondary figures available for the V4 figure.

Is she perfect?  No she is a long way from perfect, but much improved in an out of the box state and now without all the extra magnets and JCM morphs which made her so cumbersome.

There is room for many things to be added. Things that we could not ship. JCMs are still a valuable addition even to a weight mapped figure. Perhaps some muscle and tendon morphs that will work like JCMs would also be an improvement.  If these type of things will be allowed as additions to the figure, I dont know, you would have to ask Daz 3D it is their figure. I do know they were  something we could not include with V4 WM under the charter we were given.

Some things, like the bent straw effect on an elbow, will be present when dealing with any mesh in varying degrees depending on the mesh itself.  This is simply because mesh no matter how much we want it to does not behave like human flesh. Weight mapping can do many things but not all. With a morph you can use all directions to move the vertice. Weight mapping will only move the vertice in the direction of the bend or reversed with a bulge map if desired.

In combination the two will work very well together. With my own figures I use both the weight mapping and JCM morphs. The same with older style P6 rigging nothing new. There are even ways to practically eliminate texture streatch. Many ideas and methods of bulding figure improvements. Getting those into use in the mainstream is a different story, it seems almost immpossible to do. I dont care about nor want to argue the reasons for that.

Well we did the best we could with V4 given that people wanted it right now and not later. There are always the folk who come along to these threads to tear down anything you build or those who wish to build a name for themselves at others expense. Seems to be the nature of things.

So in closing, take it or leave it. But the effort of building V4 WM was offered in the spirit of building something for all of us in the community.

Cheers,

Mike.

Quote - So in closing, take it or leave it. But the effort of building V4 WM was offered in the spirit of building something for all of us in the community.

Cheers,

Mike.

A spirit which I think should be above any critisium and one I support whole heartedly.  I am happily using V4WM and thank all those in the team that gave all their time and hard work to make it happen.  I doubt there will ever be a perfect figure and the team had to work with the resirictions stated and considering this the result was first class.  Perfect she is not but she is very much improved and has given a V4 a new lease of life at nil cost (assuming you were upgrading to Poser 9/2012 anyway).

Absolutely - as hornet3d said.

To clarify, certainly no criticism from me relative to the V4 WM injection product!

Thanks to Mike and all involved for such a stunning effort in achieving it.

It is INCREDIBLY easy to use and, as a product, works PERFECTLY in terms of what it sets out to do and does, in my experience of using it ;-)

As a relative newcomer here, I was more interested in where these "Perfect" morph products sit... given that SURELY in due course, V4WM (and other weight mapped versions of these most widely invested in characters, hopefully) are likely to come to the fore more and more... I would guess that's a question of software take up (as in Poser 9 / 2012 userbase expansion more than anything else).

The high ratings that the "Perfect" products apparently have in the Renderosity store,  would seem to indicate the status quo with the market... right now?

In that sense, V4WM must still be a little, if not a lot, ahead of where a good number of Poser users are at perhaps?

But in itself, V4WM should be seen as a big incentive for Poser users to upgrade to Poser 9 / 2012, I reckon.

I am certainly looking forward to the "more coming" on the weight mapped front, from Poser Place, to be sure... just got M4 complete from Daz as it was, probably still is, on sale there at the minute...

...and thinking I should probably really have forked out for Poser 2012 instead of just Poser 9, on this front... ah well, I guess SM will let me sidegrade in due course, when I eventually have time to play around with some WM painting myself ;-)

The Perfect line is a wonderful solution to a problem that, prior to Poser 9, had no solution. It is my suspicion that the "Perfect" products are of much more use to those running <Poser 9 than to those of us who can take full advantage of WM technology. I bought a few of them before V4WM came out, and found them very useful. Do I still use them? Nope. For my purposes, they are redundant. But if I was stuck in Poser 8, I wouldn't part with them!

There is nothing wrong with using the products that fulfill your needs... and that is no slight on V4WM. I've been running her for a month now and continue to be blown away.

My thanks to the Poser Place team, as well!

What can be done for V4~WM by rigging, bulge-maps, and weight-maps has been done. The CR2 is much cleaner and leaner without all the magnets of V4.2. The bending is much improved, and the morphs and characters still work as well as ever. One can convert V4.2's clothing to V4~WM, so the large investment that many people have in Generation 4 figures can be leveraged in the new versions of Poser.

A number of things could add to the utility of V4~WM. A good set of bump/displacement maps, and even some normal maps (to take advantage of the channel) could add interesting details and variety. Morphs could add the finishing touches to some areas (elbows, knees, etc.) Poses that take the new more realistic bending of the figure into account would be helpful.

There are still people using Poser 4, so the Perfect line has a secure future, and many can attest to the usefulness of the product. This is also an effort to extend the utility of the Generation 4 DAZ figures , and benefits those who have a large investment in those figures, and who use Poser versions prior to P9/PP2012. As such the Perfect line deserves recognition and appreciation.

PoserPlace is intent upon stimulating the Poser economy, and offering opportunities to vendors. But, the Poser community does not have to wait. There are many people with skills who can contribute to the effort, and we would all benefit. So, how about some renders in the galleries of the Poserverse?

lmk

Thanks Mike-I'm glad you responded.

For those who don't know Diogenes/Mike is also Phantom3D- the person who provided us with a place (PoserPlace) to work on V4-WM-and did the weight mapping-and editing in response to our testing.

Its great to make all of your aquaintance here :-)

As I said in my earlier post, I'm just a newb here and to Poser... hence I'm coming straight in with Poser 9. So, lucky in that respect I guess!

I have a background, originally, in traditional drawing and painting... pencil, paper, oil paint and canvas... but, have in fact been a programmer for the last decade or so and am just trying to rediscover my creative roots a little. I haven't done anything much creative for most of that time... just getting back on the horse.

I didn't have a big legacy of runtime figures. But I have nevertheless invested in what are otherwise quite old stock figures on the face of it... V4 and now M4... and this was predominanty because I can see there seems to be a future in them, because of the V4WM and ongoing M4WM projects... because of the wealth of marketplace stuff available for them too, of course... but I'd say the weight mapping efforts were more a factor for me.

I don't know what proportion of the overal new user demographic I would represent in taking this view... but its probably not insubstantial? Anyway, just saying...

In any case I see the Poser Place efforts as highly commendable and worthy.

When you're talking about creating new texture maps, to go along with V4WM, adding improved surface detail using bump/displacement and/or normal maps, are you thinking greater surface skin details like, for instance - micro wrinkles and creases round fingers... in the interiors of elbow and knee joints etc, more, finer detailed popped veins, inter-pore skin hatching (which is especially evident on human hands close up)... palm creases... some more micro fine body hair... that sort of stuff?

Small tendons in hands, running off from the knuckles perhaps? Tendons on backs of knees, in feet... could displacement be used to suggest that sort of thing or would it involve a morph?

I'm possibly rambling now... sorry!

Would these types of displacement or bump maps be created by processing photographs or would they normally be "painted" (just referencing photos) in something like ZBrush or Photoshop CS5 Extended?

(trying to stay on the thread here - honestly)

;-)