Attached Link: Poser blog with video

@ William_the_Bloody - I have to risk being a blowhard ;)

I can't disagree with most of what you say - yes, the dynamics as it currently exists definitely needs a complete overhaul. Hair too - carodan has got some amazing results but most comments I've seen have been around it's user-unfriendliness. 

If by 'behave like Genesis' you mean improved bending, then AntoniaWM is the best example IMHO of what can be done with Poser's weight-mapping, plus there's V4WM and MichelleWM. If you mean sub-d then that is something Poser can't do (except with snarlygribbly's script).

I bought PoseMagic back in 2010, and found it a useful product. There are though a number of posing dials in the Body for Alyson2 and Ryan2, and I understand it is possible to create new dials using Dependant Parameters - so adding the same kind of functionality, and going beyond just posing, can be done by users.

But what I really I have to respond to is this -

"It seems to me that the Poser team is not saying "Hey, let's completely rethink this hair room piece of crap"  but rather "Okay, on to the hair room, how can we tweak this so that it seems like we've worked on it without adding any actual functionality?"

Take a look at the link above, scroll to no.5 and watch the (very hokey) video - that's the Poser dev team. Not a lot of people, but a significant number have been with Poser for years, and I know from experience (being on the beta program) that they do care about the software.

Being a fairly small team there is obviously only so much they can do and it will be a case of prioritising. They also have to maintain backwards-compatibility (now, personally I wouldn't be too upset if they sacrificed that for new functionality, but that will be a very minority view - could you imagine the reaction from the Poser community if they announced new features but that all previously-purchased content was now unusable? ouch!). I have seen posts by various members of the Poser team both here and at RDNA (plus ThinkCooper and TNPorter moderate the Official P9/PP2012 Forum at RDNA), and Steve Cooper has said that he does keep an eye on the forums.

What I'm trying to say (in a very convoluted way) is that while I would agree that Poser has some real limitations and can at times be very frustrating, and while I know you're not making a blanket statement, I would have to disagree with the notion that the people who make it either don't know or don't care about the things that need improvement.

From my perspective as a user, the step from PP2010 to PP2012 gave me more accurate lighting, true SSS, improved Morph Brush, GoZ and (more indirectly given that I've not learned how to rig figures myself) better bending. The Add-On Framework which was developed by SM in collaboration with Pret-A-3d has already given rise to DSON and the Octane for Poser plug-in, and Pret-A-3d should be releasing Reality 3 in March (which will provide the bridge to Luxrender), so that is also a significant addition. Personally I reckon the last version was a good step forward. Unfortunately being under a legally-binding Non-Disclosure Agreement with SM, like all the other beta testers, means I can't say anything about Poser X - Coop collects scalps, y'know. Just colour me excited.

 

 

PS. SM's blog of 15th Jan here - http://blog.smithmicro.com/tag/poser/ - is asking for suggestions for names, for a male and female, I can't think why … but there aren't many so far, anyone got any ideas?

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