@ Joepublic, while I do not completely agree with all you write :

One of the very best post I have read these last couple of weeks.

Spot on.

"@ Joepublic, ...One of the very best post I have read"

I 100% agree. What he wrote was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

"After all it is we who know how to make mobile phones, after all we have been in this business for awhile.." --former CEO Olli Kallasvuo (said with an arrogant smile in response to a question about Apple and iPhone )

I'd be with you on the issue of instancing JoePublic... think I said that already in another thread...???

But in terms of figures (and looking at your fantastic figures reinforces this thought for me) I'm pretty sure I'd rather have a family of pre-scaled, pre-sculpted figures (base mesh-level presets, if you like) than a one-size fits all... and not because of any issue with Poser scaling (a fix for that would clearly be good).

It just seems to me to be a better idea to have, say, pre-scaled, pre-sculpted tall, short, fat, thin (to name a few)... male and female, adult and child varieties.

That's a few variables there, I know. But I think it would be simpler for the end-user and ultimately give a better aesthetic result for users who don't have the skill or time to make their own figures or character sculpts, if a good 3d figure artist was tasked with creating such a range of base figures...???

They could still obviously have just as many morphs. But the range that these morphs needed to be stretched, to achieve an end result, would be... more realistic, I think.

The morphs would provide refinements more than having to attempt radical body shape transformations, that, unless done with some skill, time, and good anatomical awareness (and even with that) are still likely to end up looking not right.

I don't know if such a family of figures could or should share a new, improved type of unimesh.... and whether shared UVs and core bones... weight-mapping data... would be feasible. That tech is beyond me right now...

...so my wish here may not be a viable one, I know... especially given the issue of conforming clothing peripherals, etc.

;-)

@vilters: Thanks ! Much appreciated.  :-)

BTW, while we disagree (a bit) over what is the smallest possible mesh size for a Poser figure, I think we are the only ones fighting the good fight against mesh bloat.

I still shudder when I think of MIKI's mesh and her teeth sculpted from high res spheres with fully sculpted roots !

It was hard work but I "de-subdivisioned" her mesh manually down to 30.000 polys.

Even transplanted V2 LoRes teeth into her mouth. Lol.

Aaah, the things we do for a bit of extra render performance.

Keep pushing, Vilters !

Extending the limits can never be wrong.

Want I want in Poser would make such a long list I will not bother to write it down. What Smith&Micro can do to retake the initiative however, is very simple,

1. License Genesis as JoePublic says.
2. Add a Marvelous Designer plug-in (I'm sure the MD team would do the bear part of the job)

So simple is it to become the leader again, only PRIDE stand against it.

(There is a reason for the old proverb, "Pride comes before fall")

Quote - @vilters: Thanks ! Much appreciated.  :-)

BTW, while we disagree (a bit) over what is the smallest possible mesh size for a Poser figure, I think we are the only ones fighting the good fight against mesh bloat.

I still shudder when I think of MIKI's mesh and her teeth sculpted from high res spheres with fully sculpted roots !

It was hard work but I "de-subdivisioned" her mesh manually down to 30.000 polys.

Even transplanted V2 LoRes teeth into her mouth. Lol.

Aaah, the things we do for a bit of extra render performance.

 

Keep pushing, Vilters !

Extending the limits can never be wrong.

Yes, indeed ;-)

Out of interest, can anyone tell me what Poser's "smoothing" functionality is currently based on?

i.e. how does it differ, assuming it does, from the subdivision surface methods like catmull-clark or doo-sabin that are available in the modelling apps I have?

Cheers

EDIT: So, was it actually possible to extract Miki's teeth then?? LOL

@vintorix : Many thanks to you, too. Good to see my ramblings make sense to somebody else besides me. :-)

@monkeycloud: Thank you !

And guess what: I 100% agree with you. Of course purpose built figures are better.

It's like a tailor made suit vs store bought.

If I'd ever win the lottery, I'd hire two dozend people, thin, fat, average, muscular, kids, teens, adults, old ones and let them be laser scanned from head to toe.

Then I have a mesh built as versatile as the 3rd Gen Unimesh and turn that scanning data into Poser figures, rigged in the best possible way.

And then have a small army of Chinese CGI artists make clothing for all of them. LOL.

And then set up my own store and sell them cheap so that everyone using Poser could afford truly realistic figures. 

Or maybe just give them away if it was a really big lottery win. :-)

BUT.....

In the real world, purpose built figures are very hard to upkeep.

My figures can share textures and expression morphs, but pretty much everything else is too specific to be shared.

It would just be too much for the average user to do all the necessary conversions or for the time and money struggling merchant to create clothes for them.

We pretty much had that system with M3, V3, David, SP3, Freak, Aiko, Hiro, Luke, Laura, Matt, Maddie and the MilBaby.

The result was that except for V3 and Aiko, the other figures were hardly supported.

The Genesis idea is not perfect by a long shot, but I think it is what will work best giving the hobbyist nature of the Poserverse.

The "pro" users will find different and often better solutions, but by the end of the day it's the casual users who generate the income.

Thanks JoePublic :-)

The point I'm pondering though, around the issue of figure diversity, and marketplace spend, based on what I see going through the market place here and in the galleries, is actually how much demand there is for any substantial deviation from a relatively "slim" range of more idealised female figures?

I could probably narrow that down to a couple of variants of fashion / glamour model archetypes?

Absolutely nothing wrong with this either, I don't think...  and I enjoy looking through the galleries here very much.

But, those folk that really do want that more "real-life" figure diversity are, I kind of suspect, likely the very people who are more likely to be prepared to put a bit of effort in to get the result they're after... and who won't be so happy with the potentially more toon-esque results that a one-size fits all figure can seem to tend towards?

Poser reminds me a bit of the Karaoke scene...by the time Karaoke companies produced all the songs I could ever want, I had already done enough karaoke to make myself (and others) sick to death of everything that came before the last good song they made, making the final good song produced short-lived and not enough to keep the scene going.

 Incremental improvements juxtaposed over old thinking isn't helping.  Take 3 years and rewrite the enitre thing utilizing the computing power of today.

"EDIT: So, was it actually possible to extract Miki's teeth then?? LOL"

No. But attached is a render of Olivia G2's teeth, which, as Olivia and Sydney are 100% based on the MIKI mesh, are identical.

The teeth are 32.000 polygons.

Just the teeth!

The whole Genesis figure is 19.000 polygons.

Can you say mesh bloat ? ;-)

Great if you're a dentist or have a weird teeth fetish, but for the average user not being able to constantly buy the latest, greatest machine, not so much.

Was she originally commissioned for an animation in a toothpaste ad?

I feel a render involving an extreme close-up of Sydney's mouth and the Millenium Falcon coming on...

[the asteroid quakes]

C-3PO: Sir, it's quite possible this asteroid is not entirely stable.

Han Solo: Not entirely stable. I'm glad you're here to tell us these things. Chewie! Take the Professor in back and plug him into the hyperdrive!

;-)

@ Joepublic, Exactly my frustrating point too. :-)

The same for inner ears (that are mostly covered by hair anyway), navel area's etc....

Spending weeks building these high-poly details, and poly-blindfolded ending up with a figure where the breasts are 4-5" too high on the chest.

And breasts that are as solid as rock, not moving a fraction of an inch when the arms are lowered.

Or arms that are 3" too short.
And pose in the typical Poser fashion when lowered.

Or the mesh breaks when bend.

Or the mesh is soo dense it s close to impossible to rig right.

I could go on for hrs like this... but I have the flue, so...
Pardon me for my poor head please.

PS, all the above is true for ALL figures, Poser and DAZ.

Happy posering, Tony

guys, lets keep this thread to want we want in poser and leave the critiques of figures to a seperate thread ok? lets show some politeness.

OK, very polite and factual shortcut for mister Khai-J-Bach.

Want:
Normal bending human figures, that bend and look like human people.

Do not want;
Poly-pollution.

Have a nice day all my 3D friends.
Tony

yeah, please keep the incessant evangelizing of one particular figure ( that does NOT work properly in POSER) away from a thread about POSER!!

Back on topic. Something that i wouldn't mind seeing is a library that has the ablilty to sort the items by ways other than alphabetically. But I love poser pro 2012 and probably won't upgrade to the next version, unless of course I can get it for free again :)

To go with the improved hair / fur room... more / better animals please :-)

Okay, not so many clothing issues there. So possibly as well left to 3rd party content specialists... like Dinoraul with his excellent prehistoric creatures.

There is a reasonable bit of good looking horsey texture stuff, e.g. from CWRW... I'm using one of her great MilHorse texture products for something at the moment.

But there is a definite dearth of dogginess in Poser, if you ask me...

If anyone with a penchant for making animal figures is reading this... or indeed just for sculpting morphs / textures to add on to the MilDog / Poser dog... please take heed...

Or I might have to embark on this myself in due course... oh dear.

;-)

For the next Poser version?

My Mobile talks to me.
My GPS talks to me.
Hell, even my PC talks to me.

Talking figures, => Type a txt, and the figure morphs and talks with real words. Digital voices have come a long way.

Cloth room; A reverse cloth room; a Shrink to fit cloth room.
Build any slightly oversize cloth object, import in Poser and let it shrink to fit over any figure.
Vertices against vertices or poly's agains polys collition with a controlable collition offset.
Any clothing object coud be used on any morphed or unmorphed figure in such a setup.

The hair room and the face room also go back to poser5. Both need some improvements.

Why not include a body-room? Something like a faceroom but for the body?

SubD, but that has been mentioned a 1000 times before.

New Poser figures that look and bend like humans. Preferably around 20K Poly's.
The rest can be done with SubD, Smoothing , and some good displacement maps.
Poly distribution being far more important then poly count.
Genesis does what she does, because of het excellent poly distribution.
A complete new Poser family WITH a full clothing closet, and at least a dozen new hairs.

Have a nice day.
Tony

"Cloth room; A reverse cloth room; a Shrink to fit cloth room.
Build any slightly oversize cloth object, import in Poser and let it shrink to fit over any figure.
Vertices against vertices or poly's agains polys collition with a controlable collition offset.
Any clothing object coud be used on any morphed or unmorphed figure in such a setup."

you can do this already. play with the scaling through the sim.. start the figure small then move to full size over the Sim or the cloth bigger and scale down. do a search of the forums, I remember PhilC and others saying how to do it back with poser 5.

I actually agree with JoePublic. While I personally have no need for Genesis, some current and future Poser users will. I don't trust SM to give them the figure they want. I do trust Daz to give them the figure they want because they HAVE for all these years. SM should at least find a way to get Genesis into Poser so that it acts nearly the same as it does in DS.

None of this in any way negates what I think SM has to do. Step up and start making quality figures of their own instead of reworking the same, tired old figures.

You all may now flame me....lol.

Laurie

i pretty much gave up hoping for any - in my eyes - usefull additions or changes for the better.
since ver 5 there has been no significant progress in Poser's core functionality

• posing still is the same for years - there sure must be ways to simplyfy this....
• selecting an object often enough a game of hit and miss
• finding new objects added to a crowded scene is a PITA
• waggly multiview windows
• you can hide a single figure but you can only show all again?
• no decent hierarchy management
• no predefiend materials
• a hair room no one seriously can use
• the GUI .....

some things even got worse

• OBJ export. they managed to break it from ver8 to PRO 2012 - WTF?
• Flash integrated as a core functionallity, i've never seen any other software doing such a thing
• the cloth room, too, didn't progress but degress in the last 2 versions
• the grouping tool, cumbersome in the best

yay, weight mapping! now that i have, i found i hardly care for it.
IBL, SSS, yeah, nice, but Poser never was and probably never will be a really good render engine.
for my taste, they're fixing things that are not essencial for the work with Poser but probably might do some good buzzing in the advertisment.

well, of course it's a software for the cheap market and you get what you pay for.
i don't expect that to become better.

Quote - I actually agree with JoePublic. While I personally have no need for Genesis, some current and future Poser users will. I don't trust SM to give them the figure they want. I do trust Daz to give them the figure they want because they HAVE for all these years. SM should at least find a way to get Genesis into Poser so that it acts nearly the same as it does in DS.

None of this in any way negates what I think SM has to do. Step up and start making quality figures of their own instead of reworking the same, tired old figures.

You all may now flame me....lol.

Laurie

I'll get my flamethrower... hang on... oh damn, no fluid dynamics yet for fire.

Oh well...

In the round Laurie, I think you're entirely right. Why can't we have our cake and get to eat it... and then have a piece of another cake too??

There are different priorities at play, in the present time.

But over time priorities get ticked off and things can have a habit of aligning... in their own time. Hopefully.

;-)

@ Khai-J-Bach

That is exactly how I have been doing it since I wrote the tutorial in 2006. :-)

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=2854479&ebot_calc_page#message_2854479

     Particles, using any OBJ which I choose, retaining the material zones and UV mapping.

Quote -  

If they don't, if they think just another refurbished old figure would do or that a single person could sort out their mess again, I don't think we're going to ever see a "PoserPro 2014".

 

The whole post was awesome, but I wanted to repeat just this part to emphasize a damned important point here.

Dear Poser Team: 

1. Forget the technical and feature wishlists. Focus on figures that are* actually worth a fuck.* Stop re-hashing the zygote mesh - Chris Creek is an awesome mesh-slinger, but you're continually recycling stuff that he made over a decade ago. Stop doing that. 

Build two meshes from scratch (one female, one male). Make them fully accurate to basic anatomy, and build them to utilize all of Poser's features. Make them more flexible and more morphable than the Genesis figure. Give them working genitals - that alone would make them stand out beyond anything DAZ will do. 

Oh, and don't outsource it this time either. The RDNA guys are okay, but you need that shit done in-house, by a full-time employee or three. Spend some actual time and work on it - at least as much time as you spend on the code! One of the reasons that DAZ steals your lunch-money and shags your girlfriend in this department is because you're too hyper-focused on the application to bother spending any time on the figures at all. I don't have to guess - it shows!

If you can do this work, then the figures won't be yet another perfunctory afterthought that litters the runtimes, yanno?

PS: Make a native Linux version already you lazy bastards! Coding towards Ubuntu or a similar Debian-based distro will suffice nicely. :)

Soft body dynamics ‘Intelligent’ figures with attributes like height and weight and built in behaviors that are aware of their environment. A 6 foot figure will bend when trying to go through a 5 foot opening. A scripting interface to enable things like Figure.Walk(direction,speed,style) and Figure.Turn(degrees). I read that in the game Assassin’s Creed, a figure knocked off a ledge would attempt to grab on to the closest support to avoid falling – that kind of built in intelligence. See also a visual programming paradigm in MIT’s Scratch project http://scratch.mit.edu/ An extensive library of preset materials – textiles, architectural etc. that can be modified using easy to understand parameters like, wetness for a T-shirt cotton and corresponding cloth presets for textiles e.g. weight, softness etc. A physical sky (ala Kerkythea) set by specifying the latitude, longitude, date and time. IES lights and meshes Easier to use magnet deformers – dForms in DS (sorry) shows it can be done. An alternate/intermediate material interface without nodes, perhaps in the style of Cinema 4D. I know some love nodes but IMO only, they are an impediment to more casual usage. A real time render preview (ala Vue) that shows a small rendered view of the scene – very helpful for lighting etc. A dual interface, bare metal for the techies and wizards, presets etc. for the rest. An intelligent interactive help/troubleshooting system than can suggest/make fixes for common problems like spots on render, etc. Network rendering of still images.

Quote - Dear Poser Team: 

1. Forget the technical and feature wishlists. Focus on figures that are* actually worth a fuck.* Stop re-hashing the zygote mesh - Chris Creek is an awesome mesh-slinger, but you're continually recycling stuff that he made over a decade ago. Stop doing that. 

Build two meshes from scratch (one female, one male). Make them fully accurate to basic anatomy, and build them to utilize all of Poser's features. Make them more flexible and more morphable than the Genesis figure. Give them working genitals - that alone would make them stand out beyond anything DAZ will do. 

Oh, and don't outsource it this time either. The RDNA guys are okay, but you need that shit done in-house, by a full-time employee or three. Spend some actual time and work on it - at least as much time as you spend on the code! One of the reasons that DAZ steals your lunch-money and shags your girlfriend in this department is because you're too hyper-focused on the application to bother spending any time on the figures at all. I don't have to guess - it shows!

If you can do this work, then the figures won't be yet another perfunctory afterthought that litters the runtimes, yanno?

 

PS: Make a native Linux version already you lazy bastards! Coding towards Ubuntu or a similar Debian-based distro will suffice nicely. :)

 

Again, pretty much what I've been saying.  Except for the Linux bit.

Quote -
Again, pretty much what I've been saying.  Except for the Linux bit.

...but yeah... make a Linux version.

At least of Queue Manager and FFRender... with a command line version of Queue  Manager... or of both... that support the networked rendering, at the bucket level, that I think lmckenzie was referring to?

;-)

Quote -
...but yeah... make a Linux version.

At least of Queue Manager and FFRender... with a command line version of Queue  Manager... or of both... that support the networked rendering, at the bucket level, that I think lmckenzie was referring to?

;-)

Fully agreed, and ship it with a bootable live image of Queue Manager and the linux core and network support. Copy the image on a CD and boot your PC networked with the CD in the slot and done. Feed it from the network and watch it's circuits glow red-hot on nothing else but rendering.  

".....is for Smith Micro to back down, say "Thank You very much for your generosity" to the kind people over at DAZ and integrate those evil Genesis tech into Poser without any further questions asked."

Hi  Joe public
While your assessment is largely accurate
I call ZERO probability of this happening.

"Communities" only thrive by the necessary surpression of the incompatible.
Like this or not this is a fact of human history

You all are "here" regurgitating your usual wishlists
of Features that ,even if miraculously implemented, would put poser right up their over $1000 USD for the "Base" version
in which case you may as well buy MOD601,Lightwave 3D or similar.

Yet not one of you seems to have noticed that this is NOT the "Official"poser Forum anymore.

That Forum resides at RDNA.

That "Community"  over there is fully committed to their weight mapped current figure line and rendering tech, material system etc and nothing else.

Sure they have a perfunctory "wishlist thread" underway over there.

But in reality they only want to hear suggestions on how to improve what they already have implemented
 (firefly, the node system,whatever native figures are current etc) .

Notice how steve cooper rarely visit this forum anymore?

He is the last vestige of the Old "Metacreations" poser team  
and would prefer a more "agreeable" community that , for the most part ,blindly affirms whatever  SM (his bosses) Decide to do with poser ...that is his job now.

Much in the same way the Daz users blindly affirm what the DAZ staff does with their Program.

Not making any value judgments here this is just how "communities" function.

What you are all demanding here is not compatible with the agenda  (or lack thereof) of the "official" poser "community"
Guided By SM employees,

Because for them to implement such drastic changes would be to admit that their previous choices*(around which their community was founded)* were..... wrong.

And when or where have you ever seen an entire "Community" make such a humbling admission.

Cheers

I am having so much fun with Poser, I always have, but with the improvements in the recent additions, I'm discovering new stuff everyday. Everyone is entitled to a gripe and a moan, read the Hexagon threads on Daz if you don't believe me, at least SM didn't ignore the beta testers and the bug trackers and release a completely unstable program. I'd like bells and whistles, self posing characters, cinema quality movie creation by the click of a button and a winning lottery ticket, I may one day get one of them.......until then I'm quite happy......of course I'm meant to say that as I am following the company line.....lol

In all seriousness though there a lot of people in this community who have improved the life of poser users by their unselfish creation and donation of scripts, textures, models, morphs etc, they get my thanks and as long as a few of them remain, I think the program has a bright future................

Lots of people think that SM should license Genesis and put it into Poser.

Let me ask this.

If you owned SM, would you license something, (ie pay dearly for it) when it is already free to the end user? Would you license something that has yet to be adopted by anyone other than the creator?

If you answered yes to either or both of those questions, you should seriously rethink it. Imagine rewriting the entire core code of Poser to use Genesis technology, paying out the waazoo for it, then suddenly something else pops up that is free, proven, and backed by a major 3D circle of companies.

So far I have yet to see a single software company license and integrate Genesis into another application. If there is one, I seem to have missed the memo.

If you look at a lot of the stuff that is included in applications, most of it is opensource.

Here is a perfect example, that is in a lot of 3D apps.

**Bullet Physics Engine. **

Under zlib license, free to use, distribute, etc. A guy that worked for Sony at the time designed it, and gave it to the world to play with. It is in lots of applications now from animation to weather simulations.

FYI, Bullet 2.8 is out now if you need to upgrade.

Shall I go on? OpenCollada, FBX, BVH, OBJ, Python, OpenGL, OpenCL, OpenCl EX...

All of the above is, or was, backed by major corporations like. Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Adobe, Sony, Autodesk, etc, etc, etc.... They all worked together on it, hammered out all the details, then gave it away to promote a standard.

That is how a standard that will stick around gets started. If the major players don't want to use it... Well, I hope you get the point.

Keep in mind that a lot of the higher ups from some of those companies were among the Judges that gave Genesis and award. Then walked away. None of them appear to be licensing it either.

I understand SMicros decision not to add it to Poser, it just is not a wise business decision to do so. Seems that all the other 3D companies have made the same choice as well.

If Genesis was opensource, it would probably be in a lot of other applications by now simply because it drastically cuts down on user input. But DAZ made the choice not to make it opensource and took the gamble that others would bite.

No one has bitten that I know of.......

If Daz wants Genesis in other apps, they will most likley have to make all of it opensource.

Quote - > Quote - Dear Poser Team: 

1. Forget the technical and feature wishlists. Focus on figures that are* actually worth a fuck.* Stop re-hashing the zygote mesh - Chris Creek is an awesome mesh-slinger, but you're continually recycling stuff that he made over a decade ago. Stop doing that. 

Build two meshes from scratch (one female, one male). Make them fully accurate to basic anatomy, and build them to utilize all of Poser's features. Make them more flexible and more morphable than the Genesis figure. Give them working genitals - that alone would make them stand out beyond anything DAZ will do. 

Oh, and don't outsource it this time either. The RDNA guys are okay, but you need that shit done in-house, by a full-time employee or three. Spend some actual time and work on it - at least as much time as you spend on the code! One of the reasons that DAZ steals your lunch-money and shags your girlfriend in this department is because you're too hyper-focused on the application to bother spending any time on the figures at all. I don't have to guess - it shows!

If you can do this work, then the figures won't be yet another perfunctory afterthought that litters the runtimes, yanno?

 

PS: Make a native Linux version already you lazy bastards! Coding towards Ubuntu or a similar Debian-based distro will suffice nicely. :)

 

Again, pretty much what I've been saying.  Except for the Linux bit.

Agreeing, sans the girlfriend remarks, but definitely with the Linux bit. Imagine running Poser in a FREE STABLE OS where you can natively take advantage of all your RAM and not really worry about nasties coming aboard. I have to keep my Poser machine (Win7 64-bit) disconnected from the Internet most of the time.
I realise that re-writing Poser for Linux would not be trivial, but it would put the product into industrial-strength 3D like Maya, who has a Linux version. I'm speaking out of extremely limited knowledge of industrial-strength 3D, mind you, so flame away if you must, but you're going after a flea with a cannon. :blink:

Don't mind me... going back to my own little Blender 2.63 world now... it already has caustics, and a pretty cool cloth/sim thing, and particles and - and - and...

Quote - If Daz wants Genesis in other apps, they will most likley have to make all of it opensource.

...meaning its a waiting game? ;-)

Meantime. Other priorities... 

Quote - Build two meshes from scratch (one female, one male). Make them fully accurate to basic anatomy, and build them to utilize all of Poser's features. Make them more flexible and more morphable than the Genesis figure. Give them working genitals - that alone would make them stand out...

...the new Poser Adam and Eve, eh?

Sounds good.

:-)

Quote - Out of interest, can anyone tell me what Poser's "smoothing" functionality is currently based on?

It turns polygons into bicubic Bézier patches at render time. Search for "PN Triangles", they're quite similar.

I have seem things in people's wish lists that are already in poser if I understood them correctly.

Universal manipulator, one that scales, rotates and moves objects? Editing tools > direct manipulator.

Finding objects in a crowded scene? Right click, select.

There were a few others, but I'm too lazy to reread this thread to find out what they were.

I want to add the ability to save renders in progress, Though poser is much faster than it used to be, I have lost renders before after 4 days of rendering when the weather took a turn for the worse.

Right, yer buggers, here's what I really, really want...  (And anyone mentioning the Spice Girls gets a smack in the mouth).

I want Smith Micro to come to me and say "We really like your Daleks and we're going to get a deal with the BBC to promote them, seeing as how they're going to be back in a big way soon, so we're giving you lots of money to make some extra special ones for the new version of Poser.

And while we're at it, we'll make sure you have some really top of the line kit to do your development on.  And after that, we'll buy you that really nice blue Les Paul you've had your eye on, the new Fractal FX rack system for your rig and a couple of spare Marshall stacks in case your old one blows up.  And, oh yeah, we want your band to come over here and play at the launch party for the next Poser version, all expenses paid, of course, and a nice few thousand appearance fee.  Then, we'll pay for you to tour the States as a headline act and while you're doing that, you can drop in on your brother and see some of your buddies over here.  And when you have a bit of spare time, there's some guys in Nashville want to give you the run of their studio for a couple of months."

There, that about covers it. 

Quote - But if the recent threads in this forum are any indication, then it seems the Passion& Enthusiasm for this application has suffered a fatal blow.

I honestly Do not believe poser has much of a future.

I can not help but notice that nary a one of you appear to actually be having any Fun with this program anymore.

There is a small dedicated tech oriented group at "poserplace" and RDNA who act in many ways like some break way sect making a last ditch effort to generate interest and save poser.

The poser material room is just not artist friendly in fact it is Frankly ridiculous!

I certainly don't feel that way...  I spent a few years away from Poser while I was a video editor, as I wanted to try out things at home that I'd think up at work.  Then around the end of 2010 I was told I should talk to some people working for a government agency (in my town) who had Poser but did not know what to do with it...  That led to me working from April until August with Poser and learning the animation functions much better than I ever had before.  It only seemed fitting that I should take a portion of the money Poser made me and buy PoserPro2012.  Now I am completely in love with Poser again, but I still find other programs, projects, and distractions which keep me from any serious Poser work.

I find I can get an approximation of whatever I want in the material room.  Beyond that I let the geniuses like BB show me what's what.  I don't think the average person understandes the math and physics of materials enough to grasp the numerous things in that room.  I don't think there's anything wrong with the room, it's just that so much of it is over my head, and trial and error takes forever when there are so many things to consider...  If more people shared materials and there was a standard scene by which to compare them, then most of us wouldn't really need to know how it works.

My frustration is largely that I did eventually create a few figures that I like enough to maybe want to do something with them.  I don't need a constant process of buying new figures and their accessories, I can make a figure I like with just the handful of figures I've collected over the course of using several versions of Poser.  What is limiting me is the lack of soft body dynamics and not having weight maps for the figures I use (which don't seem to be among the more popular ones).  I'd like to have spring or soft-body dynamics for things like transmapped hair (which just usually looks better to me), clothing/accessories (because I think dynamic clothing is just too tedious to set up properly when a deformer could handle sleeves or tails just as well), and all of the other obvious things you'd want soft-bodies for.  I don't expect a proper simulation, just some bounce or jiggle for things that aren't rigid.  Something like Jiggles for Carrara would be fine, the plug-in for Poser seems pretty limited by requiring the creation of numerous morphs beforehand.

Based on SM's handling of Poser so far, I still have high hopes for the next version. 

Quote - > Quote - Out of interest, can anyone tell me what Poser's "smoothing" functionality is currently based on?

It turns polygons into bicubic Bézier patches at render time. Search for "PN Triangles", they're quite similar.

Ah, thanks stewer... I understand now ;-)

Quote - I want Smith Micro to come to me and say "We really like your Daleks and we're going to get a deal with the BBC to promote them, seeing as how they're going to be back in a big way soon, so we're giving you lots of money to make some extra special ones for the new version of Poser.

SamTherapy - I'm drafting a strongy worded letter to the BBC right now, demanding that what's left out of the money I've given them in license fees, since I started paying for one, that they haven't already spent making the new series Doctor Who, should be spent producing a special Doctor Who Edition Poser content pack...

...which will include not only your Daleks, but also, ideally, every character (with weight mapped figures to go with them) and prop featured, since series one... the William Hartnell series one that is.

This should also provide a good selection of new figures into the bargain... and hair, clothing (from multiple historical periods), etc.

;-)

Quote - To go with the improved hair / fur room... more / better animals please :-)

Okay, not so many clothing issues there. So possibly as well left to 3rd party content specialists... like Dinoraul with his excellent prehistoric creatures.

There is a reasonable bit of good looking horsey texture stuff, e.g. from CWRW... I'm using one of her great MilHorse texture products for something at the moment.

But there is a definite dearth of dogginess in Poser, if you ask me...

If anyone with a penchant for making animal figures is reading this... or indeed just for sculpting morphs / textures to add on to the MilDog / Poser dog... please take heed...

Or I might have to embark on this myself in due course... oh dear.

;-)

Oh, dear.  I have to agree.  I lied when I said I had enough content. There is definitely an absence of good dogs (and cats, and big cats).  But better fur is essential too.

Actually I am not sure DAZ has offered to "license" genesis for a $$Fee$$

For Example Neither MAXON inc. nor
the C4D plugin Writer Robert templeton had to obtain any special license from DAZ,Zygote,or Smith Micro to create a third party plugin that imports fully functional poser figures and have them operate within C4D as they do in poser
(morphing JCM,Conforming ,Mat poses etc).

However Robert Templeton undertook the Arduous& Daunting task( without any SDK from EF or SM) of deconstructing All of the poser formats and creating a plugin that supports them within Cinema4D.
A three or four year project IIRC!!

I  personally believe Daz  assumed that companies like Autodesk etc would come running with programming teams in tow to do the same for Genesis,after they won the prestigeous"innovation of the year" award in 3D world magazine.

Clearly they miscalculated.

"Bullet Physics Engine.
Under zlib license, free to use, distribute, etc. A guy that worked for Sony at the time designed it, and gave it to the word to play with. It is in lots of applications now from animation to weather simulations."

Maxon Finally adopted the bullet physics engine for their hard body dynamics system after years of complaints about their utterly unusable in house created Dynamics system.

Poser physic is based on a similar open source"ODE" physics engine called in via the open source Python programming language of course.

cheers

Quote - For Example Neither MAXON inc. nor
the C4D plugin Writer Robert templeton had to obtain any special license from DAZ,Zygote,or Smith Micro to create a third party plugin that imports fully functional poser figures and have them operate within C4D as they do in poser
(morphing JCM,Conforming ,Mat poses etc).

If it was just a matter of a translation, someone would have already done it.

Unfortunetly there is a huge difference between converting a character file format for import, and using the Genesis System.

There is more to the Genesis System than what is in the file saves. A lot of it is in the files saves, but not all of it from what I can tell. That is why it doesn't work in anything else, you also need the supporting code to process it.

The code would either have to be licensed or made opensource to include it in another program.

That is the part a lot of people miss, it is not as cut and dry as a lot of people think to import a character that requires a programming (code) to come in with it so it works.

Anyone can download the program to use it for free presently. No one can put it in their program for free, don't kid yourself if you think that you could.

Way too much factless speculation in here, and worse, outraged responses to the speculations that are incorrect.

"There is more to the Genesis System than what is in the file saves. A lot of it is in the files saves, but not all of it from what I can tell. That is why it doesn't work in anything else, you also need the supporting code to process it....That is the part a lot of people miss, it is not as cut and dry as a lot of people think to import a character that requires a programming (code) to come in with it so it works."

Well clearly I am not a programmer
but here is a video of the genesis base being morphed in Autodesk Maya >>**  LINK**

I am fairly certain Autodesk Did not Alter Maya so Daz could do this.

This is obviously some early beta of either an import plugin or (Shudder) "hosting" plugin that DAZ them selves Developed perhaps as a proof of concept.

From the looks of the figure it is obviously is taking advantage of Maya's CC Sub'D.

I dont think there is anything so magical about the Genesis/DS4 Linkage that makes them inseparable.

In fact the aforementioned Robert Templeton has been hired by Daz to create a Genesis to Cinema4D
plugin similar to his amazing poser to C4d plugin that I use and I have every expectation that he will succeed.

Cheers

Quote - Way too much factless speculation in here, and worse, outraged responses to the speculations that are incorrect.

Specifics?

"Specifics?"

.....Shall neither confirm or Deny the existance.....

but please dont speculate.

Cheers

Why does every thread about poser always turn into a thread about genesis? 

~Shane

Quote - > Quote - Way too much factless speculation in here, and worse, outraged responses to the speculations that are incorrect.

 

Specifics?

Well I surely do not want to get anybody mad. I'd rather stay out of the controversial threads even if I think somebody isn't saying something that is accurate. I used to play at adjusting misconceptions, but I have found that for the most part it doesn't serve me well.

Also, being under NDA, I'm mostly not allowed to say what is the truth. I can only sometimes say "That's not true". For example - it is not true that Poser Pro 2012 sales are disappointing or reflect any sort of dissatisfaction amongst Poser users - that's not true. Not at all. People who say such things have no facts behind their speculation.

But let me give you one little correction. You said:

"Oh, and don't outsource it this time either. The RDNA guys are okay, but you need that shit done in-house, by a full-time employee or three."

Ummm - they have to outsource it. The in-house resource is what got us Alyson and Ryan. Either they outsource, or they fire somebody. And nobody at RDNA is doing it - err - I mean the person doing outsourced work is not an RDNA employee, if that's what you meant. Otherwise - I don't even know what "RDNA guys" means.

Quote -
But let me give you one little correction. You said:

"Oh, and don't outsource it this time either. The RDNA guys are okay, but you need that shit done in-house, by a full-time employee or three."

Ummm - they have to outsource it. The in-house resource is what got us Alyson and Ryan. Either they outsource, or they fire somebody. And nobody at RDNA is doing it - err - I mean the person doing outsourced work is not an RDNA employee, if that's what you meant. Otherwise - I don't even know what "RDNA guys" means.

Fair 'nuff on who did/didn't it (I probably picked the wrong version), but the point still remains. And no, you (Poser team, that is) do not have to outsource it. Your long-term survival depends on you not outsourcing it.

I grok the budget angle. Everyone's budget sucks (even in my job, and I work with large banks, FFS). However, on a strategic level, you have got to get some mesh mastering brains in-house and put at least half of your overall focus on the figures. The cost of outsourcing a figure that is equivalent to or better than what you-know-who puts out, is going to cost you a hell of a lot more than if you just hired a couple of really good people.  

I've seen top-quality meshes being sold. I watched the Intel Corporation shell out way north of $5k just for a basic head. It had just over 10k all-quad polys, and came with texture maps, shaders, normal maps, Max rigging, and displacement maps. It was about as morphable as a brick, and was set with one personality (albeit based directly on a real person.) Now imagine what it would cost for a top-end mesh that is built to be flexible and still not look like shit.

Until you do get up a superior set of meshes, you're going to be hostage to the tender mercies of you-know-who, and the recent release of you-know-what has severed that long-term lifeline rather neatly. This leaves you guys with a choice - get better default figures, or slowly fade into oblivion - you pick. I can't do that for you.

I know, I know... so let's get those arguments out of the way right now:

Sure, Poser can skate by for a good distance of time on Vicky/Mike 4, but eventually people are going to start looking at the shiny new figures that keep coming out over there, and well eventually want that more than what they can get from or for Poser. Even worse, someday soon, folks won't be able to download Vicky4 from the source - so then what?  If all you have to offer figure-wise on your part are warmed-over default meshes that are about as flexible as concrete, people are going to get tired of it awful quicky.

Sure, there are some promising figures coming out of the community (Antonia definitely comes to mind). But seriously, relying on volunteer efforts to remain solvent over the long-term isn't exactly what one would call a sane business decision. 

What I'm trying to say is, not even half of what sells poser is the feature-set. The meshes are what makes up more than half of the sale. It's time to take a good hard look at making that half work for you, instead of hoping that someone else does it.