Great discussion!

cool i'll give that a go.  maybe my bottom polys were facing the wrong way

Nice discussion, but there's one comment I'd like to make.

I wish people would stop saying "But it's possible in Game X, so why can't we do it in Poser!" "Real time" ray tracing. Jiggle physics. Insert feature of your choice here.

The problem is that people are comparing an effect that, by definition, works only in a very restricted environment (namely, the game) and extrapolating that to software that operates in a much wider context.

Games cheat mercilessly. Baked in reflections and global illumination. Billboards instead of 3D. "Jiggle physics" in female breasts but no softbody physics anywhere else (and quite often the breasts are only bouncing around and not actually reacting to the environment during gameplay). Making sure the camera can only look in  a limited range of directions. Specifically designing the 3D engine for the game (or vice versa). There are a lot of good-looking--fantastic looking, in fact--games that when you stop things from moving look like something rendered in Poser 4-era software with some postwork.

Right now, even the best games out there, running on the best quality machines, cannot produce still imagery equivalent to what's possible in the latest versions of Poser (or DS, and certainly not the high end 3D software) which make you stop for a second and have to think about whether the image is real or CG. And for moving images, forget it.

Lots of users are looking for problems.

Few users are trying to look and search for answers.

Well said.

Everything is easy and possible if you don't know how it works...

it's our desire though that makes these things happen. 

very soon we will have real time animation indistinguishable from real life.  what we're doing now was sci fi not so long ago.  hopefully, our little poser program may be the software to cross that finish line; you never know. we just have to keep supporting and pushing it.

so we'll keep working on our little solutions while developers keep pushing their envelopes. 

i reinstalled wow about a year ago and took it for a spin.  i hadn't played in some time.  i tried out a blue elf chick, and while on the character screen, was amazed that the character hopped about inpatiently, breasts just jiggling away!  for a moment i thought it might be dynamics too, it's timed well, but on closer examination, i don't think they even morped the breasts at all, i think the skeleton bent the chest into the abdomen quickly back and forth to acheive that look.

If animating soft parts is so difficult in Poser, how does Roogna's script work?

ive been reading the thread with interest, i think the first question was stated purely matter of factly inviting an answer or opinion. I think it seems to boil down to the limitations of Poser as an animation program, just being devils advocate here, but the blurb on the SM site does state "Poser Pro 2012 is the fastest way for  professional artists and production teams to add pre-rigged and fully textured 3D  characters to their projects." In all honesty not the blurb you would expect from a hobby software program as someone mentioned.

Don't get me wrong , I'm happy with the way it performs mostly, because I haven't the skillset to use anything more advanced. Different strokes for different folks as usual, and in all fairness to the original poster, has  there really been  any advancement in the animation abilities since Poser 5?... hate mail to the usual PO address please :)

Quote - I think it seems to boil down to the limitations of Poser as an animation program, just being devils advocate here, but the blurb on the SM site does state "Poser Pro 2012 is the fastest way for  professional artists and production teams to add pre-rigged and fully textured 3D  characters to their projects." In all honesty not the blurb you would expect from a hobby software program as someone mentioned.

I think a lot of long time users are still thinking of the program's original purpose as a digital version of the artist's mannequin.  I fully agree with you here.  It's not the users mistaking Poser for a professional level app, once it was branded that way some of us came to feel it should live up to the claim.

Numerous features, most notably cloth and hair, have been added over the course of a fairly long lifespan.  Soft body physics would seem the next logical feature, as they are very relevant to the program's primary purpose. 

might be slightly o/t and i hate to say it, but i see the future as a basic stripped down program that you can buy add ons for to enable it to do what it is capable of. No disrespect to any vendor or programmer intended, but if for example Poserphysics is possible, why isnt it an intergral part of the software?, it's been around for a few years now, just speaking as an end user here, i never could get my head around the principle of buying add ons that made a program do what it was capable of...it's a bit like buying a tv and then finding out you needed to upgrade it to the colour enhancement module to watch anything but black and white......

Quote - might be slightly o/t and i hate to say it, but i see the future as a basic stripped down program that you can buy add ons for to enable it to do what it is capable of. No disrespect to any vendor or programmer intended, but if for example Poserphysics is possible, why isnt it an intergral part of the software?, it's been around for a few years now, just speaking as an end user here, i never could get my head around the principle of buying add ons that made a program do what it was capable of...it's a bit like buying a tv and then finding out you needed to upgrade it to the colour enhancement module to watch anything but black and white......

If SM bought or licensed every add-on provided by the community, it would either severly cut their profits or increase the cost of the program significantly.  I don't think Poserphysics should be intergrated, as not everyone has a need for it.  I only want SM to encourage things like Poserphysics to be developed.  Let them worry about providing proper support to would-be plug-in developers in the form of documentation, communication and basic program stability.  If a 3rd party plug-in makes sense to include, then SM can always license or buy it later.  Plug ins by their nature deal with specific situations.  It's good that they are available, whether or not you need them.  It doesn't mean that something was missing from a program that someone saw fit to make a plug-in which expands upon the program's usefulness.  

In the case of soft bodies, no 3rd party has stepped forward with a true solution.  I don't know if the problem is that soft bodies are so hard to implement in general, or just that they might be difficult for a 3rd party to implement in the form of a plug-in.      

Plug-in architecture is a highly beneficial thing that all higher-end CG apps generally have... and Poser definitely should have, to remain a healthy app.

Poser certainly ships with a number of very useful plug-ins, which can optionally extend it for advanced or specialist purposes... e.g. the advanced render options.

I would guess that whether a more widely used plug in is bundled or not, will be down to whether or not a deal can be struck between SM and the 3rd party plug-in developer?

Wardrobe Wizard obviously has been bundled in this way. I wouldn't be surprised to see a certain other script, that is now being more widely used in P9/PP2012 and up...end up being bundled also... depending on how the author of that wishes to proceed...

However, it's not surprising, I don't reckon, that a more sophisticated plug-in... for a more specialist purpose... such as PoserPhysics is kept separate (certainly at present). Especially given it's retail value, when it is sold separately.

Soft body physics is a big old beast of a thing to tackle though, far as I understand it... and may well be beyond what's possible with a plug-in... currently?

Presumably, to do it right, would mean some sort of integration with weight maps... and who knows what else? So personally, I'd expect to be waiting a little longer to see it... beyond maybe techniques which are more, effectively, workarounds or tricks, in the meantime.

Workarounds, tricks... or whatever... techniques, are fine by me just now though. Indeed, because I'm not currently making animation, I'd generally prefer to go the morph brush route.

The discussion of cloth room techniques is fascinating though... and I'll need to give it a try somepoint soon...

mysticeagle posted at 4:11AM Mon, 22 February 2016 - #3965718

i think the first question was stated purely matter of factly inviting an answer or opinion. I think it seems to boil down to the limitations of Poser as an animation program, just being devils advocate here, but the blurb on the SM site does state "Poser Pro 2012 is the fastest way for  professional artists and production teams to add pre-rigged and fully textured 3D  characters to their projects." In all honesty not the blurb you would expect from a hobby software program as someone mentioned.

Don't get me wrong , I'm happy with the way it performs mostly, because I haven't the skillset to use anything more advanced. Different strokes for different folks as usual, and in all fairness to the original poster, has  there really been  any advancement in the animation abilities since Poser 5?...

atter of factly inviting an answer or opinion = sure it was, found this lost thread back today...

Where now at "NEW Poser Pro 11" and in the years, not much changed in poser, the game dev versions was my latest version i bought. as animation in poser is still to much time taken process for the effects you get in other soft "realtime" looks like reallillusion iclone these days is doing better as poser and daz together.