What news is there about Poser 11? When will it come out? What new features and bug-corrections etc will it have?

Steve Cooper posted to a Renderosity thread a week or so ago, stating that Poser 10/Poser Pro 2014 would be with us for some time.  Hopefully that means they're going to get everything working in the current versions before moving on to the next one.  I don't recall that he announced any upcoming features, unfortunately.

Since no versions before P10/Pro14 will be updated to work with Windows 8.1, perhaps keeping these versions current for an extended period will help create a situation where all of Poserdom ends up updating to the current version of Poser before the next upgrade.  Or something.  :unsure:

And there has been no formal annoucements or hints of Poser 11.

I guess they've gone on a long vacation as deserved. Saving energie for a "OMG-Poser2016". ;)

Vacation? I've heard of this word before. It is some great event, is it not? Sadly where I work vacation is mere myth. Spoken in hushed words among the staff not long after the words, "I need a". A phrase often loudly screamed in unison during crunch time.

Quote - Vacation? I've heard of this word before. It is some great event, is it not? Sadly where I work vacation is mere myth. Spoken in hushed words among the staff not long after the words, "I need a". A phrase often loudly screamed in unison during crunch time.

You know we must not think of such things. But. I've heard of places, other countries that take the month of August off.  To actually have a v- No! I must not say the "V" word.  Great.  They've read my thoughts and now they are coming for me. 

(thinkcooper) 

Quote -   The SRs are as equally tested as the main app, and we actually have more leeway with timelines for the SRs than we do with a new full version...For reference we are working on an SR4 now. Poser 10 and Pro 2014 will be with us for a while, so we're keeping the SRs moving forward. 

cf  http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2869147

   The historical pattern has been about two years between versions (not that this is any hard rule).

Thanks for posting that snippet above. We want to keep improving the current versions. There are plans for a game/interactive development version in August, with polygon reduction, combining multiple figures into a single figure with a single combined material, discarding hidden polygons during the combine process, Kinect support for capturing animation, and robust FBX support. A by product of this development cycle will be continued support and ongoing Service Releases for P10 and PP2014.

Quote - Thanks for posting that snippet above. We want to keep improving the current versions. There are plans for a game/interactive development version in August, with polygon reduction, combining multiple figures into a single figure with a single combined material, discarding hidden polygons during the combine process, Kinect support for capturing animation, and robust FBX support. A by product of this development cycle will be continued support and ongoing Service Releases for P10 and PP2014.

This sounds very interesting. Is there a beta program for it yet?

~Shane

That is what I like about SM : The open communication.

Thanks Mr Steve Cooper & SM.

Quote - > Quote - Thanks for posting that snippet above. We want to keep improving the current versions. There are plans for a game/interactive development version in August, with polygon reduction, combining multiple figures into a single figure with a single combined material, discarding hidden polygons during the combine process, Kinect support for capturing animation, and robust FBX support. A by product of this development cycle will be continued support and ongoing Service Releases for P10 and PP2014.

 

This sounds very interesting. Is there a beta program for it yet?

 

~Shane

Shane - it's in beta now. Are you a Unity developer?

Why combine the material?

I'm not developing games.  sigh.  pp12 forever.

I'm familiar with Unity and some other engines to an extent. More familiar with Unreal. 

~Shane

Quote - Why combine the material?

I'm not developing games.  sigh.  pp12 forever.

Content deployed via game engines like Unity works better if a single texture atlas is used for the various material areas.

BTW, the polygon reduction was developed in house and is pretty dramatic; it still supports morphs, preserves material groups, the existing shape, and can reduce polygons based on density of the starting geometry.

Even for traditional Poser users, polygon reduction and conformed figure combining would allow background figures at much lower poly counts to reduce the memory footprint of complicated scenes.

I think it will  be nice to have more improvements of the current version first before the newest one comes out. With one version after the other coming out, I would think that it would be harder to add new things in. This way we can see Poser expand. I look forward to seeing what interesting things the program will be capable of down the road.

Quote - Why combine the material?

I'm not developing games.  sigh.  pp12 forever.

There's way more you can do with a game engine than just making games. True fusion between Poser and Unity could be a great thing for Poser users, and for content vendors.

~Shane

Quote - > Quote - Why combine the material?

I'm not developing games.  sigh.  pp12 forever.

 

There's way more you can do with a game engine than just making games. True fusion between Poser and Unity could be a great thing for Poser users, and for content vendors.

 

 

~Shane

That's the key Shane. The Poser eco-system has created far more assets that would be perfect for game deployment than any other system to date, Turbosquid included. All that's needed are some tweaks to those items inside a tool like Poser, so they comply with best practices for poly-counts, textures, animation data, morph targets and rigging.

We hope to open up a huge new space for content developers, without having to recreate anything they've previously built. We've been working closely with Unity and Mixamo to create those tools. Behind the scenes, all involved are pretty jazzed about what is in the works.

edit: A good friend locally developes touch screen interactive 3D content for the Monterey Bay Aquarium; the exhibits he's building are very much like the screens in Minority Report. He uses Unity for his work. And he's a huge Poser fan, and is working with us in the beta as well.

That's great Steve. I've been hoping to see more thurough game engine support in Poser for a long time. If we cant' have a game engine IN Poser, then the next best thing is connecting to one. I think this would have the potential to open a lot more doors for more indie artists to start using Poser more regularly in their pipelines. 

I don't have a kinect but I can get one, and bogart my nephew's xbox for a while. lol. 

I want to be on the beta. I was on the tail end of PP2012 beta but not 2014. 

~Shane

those game things sound pretty good.  you guys can use P2/P3 figs for starters.  maybe snazz 'em up with sci-fi/anime/fantasy stuff.  or even use those old robots (BrainStem.cr2, Hard.cr2, Helix.cr2) as bases.

p.s. by extrapolating from previous poser releases, estimate PP2016 appears by Xmas 2015 (~Dec. 21).  in case anyone asks.

Quote - those game things sound pretty good.  you guys can use P2/P3 figs for starters.  maybe snazz 'em up with sci-fi/anime/fantasy stuff.  or even use those old robots (BrainStem.cr2, Hard.cr2, Helix.cr2) as bases.

p.s. by extrapolating from previous poser releases, estimate PP2016 appears by Xmas 2015 (~Dec. 21).  in case anyone asks.

Extrapolate? Math is hard. :-)

We created a sample Unity game with Helix and Brain Stem, a two person laser shooter. We'll be freely distributing the Poser files, FBX assets and the game files, along with a tutorial video on how it was created. It's really cool to see these awesome, yet dusty Poser figures have a little life breathed back into them.

The poor Rex & Roxie Romans.
They only have swords and spears. :-(

*Me shaking head; Left-right, left-right, (W-Mapped). 
Poor Romans.

*Sounds of crying, tears dropping .
*Poor Romans . . . . . . so outdated.

And they just polished their outfits &* ironed their skirts.
*Poor Romans.

LOL.

Oooh, it sounds like the motion end of things is getting a bit of specialized attention...

Will

Stay

Tuned  

Quote - Why combine the material?

I'm not developing games.  sigh.  pp12 forever.

Anything relevant to getting a clothed custom figure into a game engine will also be a boon to those working with heavily populated scenes...  Also, this should be helpful in reducing poke-through as there won't be underlying geometry to intersect the clothing.  Think more clothed figures with less items to manage, lower memory usage for textures and geometries = more responsive posing, and faster rendering.

But will we ever have default file paths for all file types, ability to choose exisiting filenames in the file requestor and library, jpeg compression remembered when changing output formats, and a hierarchy window that doesn't insist on constantly popping itself in front of the main window?  How hard are these things really to fix?

Quote - Thanks for posting that snippet above. We want to keep improving the current versions. There are plans for a game/interactive development version in August, with polygon reduction, combining multiple figures into a single figure with a single combined material, discarding hidden polygons during the combine process, Kinect support for capturing animation, and robust FBX support. A by product of this development cycle will be continued support and ongoing Service Releases for P10 and PP2014.

Will this means FBX will be available in next SR(fingers crossed)?

Thanks,Jura

Quote - Thanks for posting that snippet above. We want to keep improving the current versions. There are plans for a game/interactive development version in August, with polygon reduction, combining multiple figures into a single figure with a single combined material, discarding hidden polygons during the combine process, Kinect support for capturing animation, and robust FBX support. A by product of this development cycle will be continued support and ongoing Service Releases for P10 and PP2014.

With an eye to game support, is there any hope that we'll get Python access to Poser joint information?  I recently worked on a Panda3D .egg exporter for Poser, but had to put the project on indefinite hold because Poser offers no tools to help us export joint data to other formats.  If we had better Python tools to export joints and animations, custom exporters could be written by the community to support formats beyond .dae or .fbx.

I don't do animation or game development, but some of this sounds really interesting. I like the idea of being able to creat lots of low poly background figures from existing resources.

Just a question, I make stuff for use in Second Life, would this engine be possible to say create a model in wings3d, rigged in Poser with fully exportation functionality to say a platform such as a virtual world like SL or open sim. Or would that rely solely on the game developer. I guess what I am saying is that an option that Smith Micro would look into or is this for developers like Rockstar Games ect.

SL already has a function where you can load rigged mesh that can be applied to your avatar, but poke through is horrid even with delicate weightmapping and trans maps, plus it uses a different dae file source for this because of the collider bones.

I asked in SL, if there would be a way to incorperate dynamic cloth without it being too much of a resource hag, and the responce was yeah right and GTFO, so if there be a way that SM could make that happen inside a game engine such as what SL uses without killing the resource costs for loading, game set match...

Just an idea though, would love to be able to actually make dynamic clothes inside sl.

Quote - Will this means FBX will be available in next SR(fingers crossed)? Thanks,Jura

Jura - FBX, the poly reduction and figure combining, and KINECT support will be exclusive to Poser Pro Game Dev, but there will be affordable upgrade paths.

RE: Second Life - I'm not sure if they use either FBX or COLLADA as a piepline. If they do, then theoretically the Game Dev product could be used as a content creation resource. We haven't been looking at this direction though, our primary focus for the Game Dev version has been to play nicely with Unity and their 750,000 large developer base just in their Asset Store alone.

I don't want to come off as ignoring other feature requests in this thread - apologies in advance if it appears that I am. They've been logged and noted. I don't know the status of those - we're pretty buried trying to close out Game Dev for an August delivery, but there will be continued SRs down the road. Thanks for the contribution.

Update: Second Life relies on COLLADA, so with Poser Pro Game Dev's planned poly reduction and figure combining features, and using the COLLADA exporter, getting clothed figure content into Second Life will be possible.

Quote -
Jura - FBX, the poly reduction and figure combining, and KINECT support will be exclusive to Poser Pro Game Dev, but there will be affordable upgrade paths.

 

So, to be clear, will PPGD be, essentially, PoserPro 2014 with those features on top so someone using PP2014 would be able to do everything they do now with PPGD, or will PPGD be limited (not counting the new features) compared to PP2014?

Quote - So, to be clear, will PPGD be, essentially, PoserPro 2014 with those features on top so someone using PP2014 would be able to do everything they do now with PPGD, or will PPGD be limited (not counting the new features) compared to PP2014?

Keith, it's the former - Poser Pro Game Dev will essentially be Poser Pro 2014 with the new Game Dev version features added to it. All current Poser Pro 2014 features and functionality will be included in the Poser Pro Game Dev version

Thanks for asking for clarification.

Quote - > Quote - So, to be clear, will PPGD be, essentially, PoserPro 2014 with those features on top so someone using PP2014 would be able to do everything they do now with PPGD, or will PPGD be limited (not counting the new features) compared to PP2014?

Keith, it's the former - Poser Pro Game Dev will essentially be Poser Pro 2014 with the new Game Dev version features added to it. All current Poser Pro 2014 features and functionality will be included in the Poser Pro Game Dev version

Thanks for asking for clarification.

Thank you. One further clarification, if it's not too much trouble: one of the features that's piqued my interest is the figure combiner because, as several people have noted, being able to create low-rez figures for populating scenes with the huge library of assets I already have would be excellent. Is the combined figure with the single texture map something which can be used within the program itself, without additional work in the setup room or whatever, ie, the tool creates a new CR2 right out of the box so once you run it there's a low-rez figure ready to use in Poser?

Quote - Thank you. One further clarification, if it's not too much trouble: one of the features that's piqued my interest is the figure combiner because, as several people have noted, being able to create low-rez figures for populating scenes with the huge library of assets I already have would be excellent. Is the combined figure with the single texture map something which can be used within the program itself, without additional work in the setup room or whatever, ie, the tool creates a new CR2 right out of the box so once you run it there's a low-rez figure ready to use in Poser?

Yes- both the newly combined figure, poly removal and poly reduction for figures and props will work inside Poser, and they will really help with large scenes with lots of background figures. There might be some tweaking needed in the Joint Editor, but the design on these features is to utilize the weight maps from outermost figure when combining. Once combined, the new figure should be able to be saved into the library.

So PoserPro users will have the option to crossgrade to PPGD, but won't lose anything they are used to having...  I can live with that as long as there aren't situations when they are not released simultaneously and one version gets things the other does not... 

"The Poser eco-system has created far more assets that would be perfect for game deployment than any other system to date, Turbosquid included. All that's needed are some tweaks to those items inside a tool like Poser, so they comply with best practices for poly-counts, textures, animation data, morph targets and rigging.

We hope to open up a huge new space for content developers, without having to recreate anything they've previously built."

Just curious but this would only include content makers who agree to legal distribution of their models to game engine's ,even in a decimated state, going forward correct??
so most of the huge library of legacy poser compatible Daz content will likely not be allowed for this purpose unless all of their PA's ,past and present, get on board.

"Keith, it's the former - Poser Pro Game Dev will essentially be Poser Pro 2014 with the new Game Dev version features added to it. All current Poser Pro 2014 features and functionality will be included in the Poser Pro Game Dev version"

Just My Opinion but Why not release a trimmed down purpose built game dev version to attract developers OUTSIDE the current poser community who would have no interest in paying for a full version of poser pro?
and offer a  reasonable "Sidegrade" price for the existing poser user who may want to just get access to the low poly figure CR2 creation export .

BTW single mesh single textured figures would be a boon for animators particularly for Sci-Fi armored figures eliminating  of the overhead of multiple conformers.

It is the multiple conformers that made Daz studios older FBX/ Collada exporter unusable for all "dressed" figures.

"Oooh, it sounds like the motion end of things is getting a bit of specialized attention..."

It will have to if one has any expectation that the game dev community to adopt it.

At a minimum the IK solver will have to be updated
SM has already Coded in Animated constraints in poser for dynamicly pinning objects to different hands etc.
it should not be too much of a programming leap to fix the IK system as IK is really just a dynamic constraint system ,after a fashion.

Also a no linear motion mixer like the one  in DAZ studio Animate+.

A modernized dope sheet and graph editor

Texture&lightmap baking of an entire scene of course.
and the ability to bake poser animation&cloth simulation to PLA/MDD or baking to Alembic would be great.

Quote - "The Poser eco-system has created far more assets that would be perfect for game deployment than any other system to date, Turbosquid included. All that's needed are some tweaks to those items inside a tool like Poser, so they comply with best practices for poly-counts, textures, animation data, morph targets and rigging.

We hope to open up a huge new space for content developers, without having to recreate anything they've previously built."

Just curious but this would only include content makers who agree to legal distribution of their models to game engine's ,even in a decimated state, going forward correct??
so most of the huge library of legacy poser compatible Daz content will likely not be allowed for this purpose unless all of their PA's ,past and present, get on board.

That would be the content creator and game dev's problems to sort out, and that already exists (albeit with more work required to do everythig anually), so I don't see why it's Smith Micro's problem.

As far as I know, all the marketplaces have a license agreement that forbids appropriating a mesh in any way and forbids redistribution.  Now, of course, a merchant or freebie provider could create a purchasable license (or what have you) for use of their models as a resource, which is basically what is happening here :)

There should be some clarification as to which native Poser meshes can be used as resources, if any at all.

BTW, I think the whole Game thing is an excellent idea as a whole :)

Quote -
As far as I know, all the marketplaces have a license agreement that forbids appropriating a mesh in any way and forbids redistribution.  Now, of course, a merchant or freebie provider could create a purchasable license (or what have you) for use of their models as a resource, which is basically what is happening here :) There should be some clarification as to which native Poser meshes can be used as resources, if any at all.

Some vendors sell licenses to use their content in games. That's in addition to the cost of the item itself. One vendor for example, over at DAZ, has two different licenses, one for around $600 for smaller-budget developers, the other around $2000 for larger developers. I can't remember which vendor it is at the moment. The license covers all their content. Or at least all the content listed for that license. So it's not something that has to be purchased separately for each item. But at the same time the license would be required wether you're intention is to just use one item from that vendor or their entire catalog. 

Allowing content to be used in games by just anyone would be cutting the vendor's own throat at the prices Poser content is expected to sell for. So creating a license that covers game content use would be much more advantageous for the vendor. But using that content in a game engine for your own personal use shouldn't have any further restrictions than all the current content available. Game engines can be used to create movies, interactive images, etc, not just games. In movie/rendered format the content is no more extractable than it is from a rendered image. Only in redistributable game format is where the problem comes. But I'm sure there are/will be plenty of content vendors willing to sell game licenses, myself included. It will also give other sites like squid more competition. When you can buy a license to a vendor's entire catalog for the cost of one or two individual models from a site like squid, I'd say that's definitely worth it.

~Shane

DAZ itself offers game develoment licenses for the models it owns... 

http://www.daz3d.com/indie-game-developer-license