I tried the Poser rigging tool at first but when you have over 60 morphs to do at a time where the rig has to be changed, well, you can understand where I am coming from. My point is, if the tool workflows in Poser were improved, I guarentee you would see more content for Dawn and even Native Poser characters.

You're not thinking outside the box Zev0. 

AJCs have a lot of power, if they're designed the right way. Clothing follows them, and morphs in PP2014 are transferrable by a single click.

And anyway, this isn't a discussion about DS, the thread title says Poser, so let's keep DS out of it cause we all know where that usually goes. That way we can keep the hostilities to a minimum. 

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - That workflow to set up a new shape makes me cringe...

All you're doing is dragging a joint center from one point to another and recording it. What's cringe worthy about that? Basically, everything else was converting Andy to weightmapping because he isn't a weightmapped figure.

You would have to understand steps to do the same thing in DS:

1. Enter Joint editor tool

2. Right click on shape, select "Adjust Rigging To shape"

3. Click "OK"

Done.

(You can also select which joints and surfaces of the mesh you wanted as well, that takes about another 20 seconds to figure out which)

No one's bringing up DS. In fact, I started two seperate threads in order to NOT bring up DS because somebody (I won't say who) starts whining that we're bashing DAZ and DS and ends up getting the thread locked. You want to talk about using Dawn in DS, please go start your own thread.

Yes, like Clark said. We're talking about Poser here. 

Yes but Eclarke said:

"All you're doing is dragging a joint center from one point to another and recording it. What's cringe worthy about that?"

I posted an answer to his question, so he would unterstand why Zev (and also I) cringed at the workflow to make those AJCs. 

He did want to know why, did he not?

Quote - You're not thinking outside the box Zev0. 

AJCs have a lot of power, if they're designed the right way. Clothing follows them, and morphs in PP2014 are transferrable by a single click.

If AJC's have so much power, then why isn't it being used more? How many products on market use this feature? I am not arguing what it can or cannot do, but the practicality of its workflow and implementation, which does send people looking the other way.

Quote - > Quote - You're not thinking outside the box Zev0. 

AJCs have a lot of power, if they're designed the right way. Clothing follows them, and morphs in PP2014 are transferrable by a single click.

If AJC's have so much power, then why isn't it being used more? How many products on market use this feature? I am not arguing what it can or cannot do, but the practicality of its workflow and implementation, which does send people looking the other way.

Well all i know is i never hered of it  untill this thread so that mite be reasen most people just don't know about it

Yes and the point has been made. 

Faster is not always better, and can sometimes be a lot more limiting. But of course it has its benefits as well.

It's best to experiment with AJCs on a serious level in order to actually learn the various benefits of them and what can really be done. I see them as probably Poser's most useful asset for anyone looking to build a next gen Poser figure, especially when combined with all the other rigging tools that are available in the program. The problem is, no one has produced a figure that really demonstrates it. 

Sure there are people who won't want to deal with them, but for others who do, the possibilities are pretty far-reaching. They do give a lot more control over your figure than what the classic Poser rigging has provided before.

And of course they have room for improvement, but custom scripts can handle a lot of what they don't already have built into them at the moment. 

Quote - If AJC's have so much power, then why isn't it being used more?

Probably because most people haven't even paid attention to it, as 722 just demonstrated. > Quote - How many products on market use this feature?

As far as I know of, none currently. Because there aren't any figures that actually use it. At least none that anyone is using, or vocalizing. I'm not sure what ways Dawn is using them - if it's HW3D that have incorporated them in, or if it's vendors creating add-ons for her that use them. Haven't investigated that yet.  

Dawn has a Catgirl morph available at Hivewire that does use the AJC. And I've been told that there are a couple of toons there as well that also make use of it.

Quote - If AJC's have so much power, then why isn't it being used more? How many products on market use this feature? I am not arguing what it can or cannot do, but the practicality of its workflow and implementation, which does send people looking the other way.

For the same reason that half of my Dawn purchases follow Poser 6 conventions instead of Poser 9+.  Too many vendors are unwilling to leave Poser 6 conventions behind; nor are they willing to learn the features that have been added to the last 3 or 4 versions of Poser. 

In my conversations with vendors over the past couple of years, they have made it quite clear that they don't care what features have been added to Poser - they aren't going to use them, lest they annoy the few remaining Poser 6 holdouts.  Pointing out that Dawn is a Poser 9+ figure and these theoretical Poser 6 users can't actually use Dawn doesn't matter to them.

It's dumb, but imo, it is what happens when vendors decide that it is all about their experience rather than the customer's experience.

Sad, but true.

Quote - > Quote - If AJC's have so much power, then why isn't it being used more? How many products on market use this feature? I am not arguing what it can or cannot do, but the practicality of its workflow and implementation, which does send people looking the other way.

For the same reason that half of my Dawn purchases follow Poser 6 conventions instead of Poser 9+.  Too many vendors are unwilling to leave Poser 6 conventions behind; nor are they willing to learn the features that have been added to the last 3 or 4 versions of Poser. 

In my conversations with vendors over the past couple of years, they have made it quite clear that they don't care what features have been added to Poser - they aren't going to use them, lest they annoy the few remaining Poser 6 holdouts.  Pointing out that Dawn is a Poser 9+ figure and these theoretical Poser 6 users can't actually use Dawn doesn't matter to them.

It's dumb, but imo, it is what happens when vendors decide that it is all about their experience rather than the customer's experience.

I don't know about that. I've seen a few vendors attempt to make items that were for Poser 9+, for example Sixus, but currently he's back to making items for Poser 7-8 compatiblitity. Is that because he was unwilling to learn the new features, or no one was buyng his 9+ creations?

It is curious though that there hasn't been many people that has morphed Dawn into characters beyond toons.

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - If AJC's have so much power, then why isn't it being used more? How many products on market use this feature? I am not arguing what it can or cannot do, but the practicality of its workflow and implementation, which does send people looking the other way.

For the same reason that half of my Dawn purchases follow Poser 6 conventions instead of Poser 9+.  Too many vendors are unwilling to leave Poser 6 conventions behind; nor are they willing to learn the features that have been added to the last 3 or 4 versions of Poser. 

In my conversations with vendors over the past couple of years, they have made it quite clear that they don't care what features have been added to Poser - they aren't going to use them, lest they annoy the few remaining Poser 6 holdouts.  Pointing out that Dawn is a Poser 9+ figure and these theoretical Poser 6 users can't actually use Dawn doesn't matter to them.

It's dumb, but imo, it is what happens when vendors decide that it is all about their experience rather than the customer's experience.

I don't know about that. I've seen a few vendors attempt to make items that were for Poser 9+, for example Sixus, but currently he's back to making items for Poser 7-8 compatiblitity. Is that because he was unwilling to learn the new features, or no one was buyng his 9+ creations?

It is curious though that there hasn't been many people that has morphed Dawn into characters beyond toons.

I can only speak from my personal experience.  My Roxie and Miki4 items are very good sellers.  Are they on the same level as the Gen4 ones?  Not compared to the one M4 product I have out, but not awful either.  I'm happy with my sales.  I have never put a V4 product in a store as I prefer to support the undersupported figures.  Although, I do have a V4 set coming out soon.

Of course, I don't do 3D products for my livlihood, either.....it's still a hobby for me.  I'm lucky that I have another source of income.

However, my interaction with vendors who do V4 almost exclusively has nothing to do with the "tech" and everything to do with producing product in the fastest way possible.  They are all setup to work with V4 and have all their base rigging and refining basically automated so that they can go from modeler to rigging to texture as fast as possible.  As was said earlier, for these folks, time is money and they need to put automation to as much as they can. 

There's no "automation" to Poser weight map rigging for clothing and props.  It's still a new process that is painstaking and slower than saving a CR2 and plugging in a new object.  As the technology ages, that automation will progress and more vendors will adopt it.

I don't use DS4, but I understand it's much more automated to do weight mapping than in Poser.  The problem with that approach is the cookie cutter stuff you see - cookie cutter poses, cookie cutter movement, cookie cutter morphs.  Fitting room rigging in PP14 also automates a great deal of the process in Poser and leaves the "refinements" for the vendor to do. 

The Poser Fitting Room for weight map rigging was/is an incredible boon to riggers and will make adoption of weight mapped figures faster and easier for vendors.

The automation is to spead up the process, whether you want to fine tune afterwards is up to you, but in most cases, the automated process is good enough. All depends how far you are willing to go and what it is you want to deliver.

Umm, there is no secret "Power of AJS" that's waiting to be unleashed by a clever Poser rigger.

Here's a little secret:

The thing that makes Genesis work ARE "Animated Joint Centers"

And why do you think the script to re-fit Genesis clothing in Poser is called "Transfer active Morphs" ? Here's a clue: It transfers Morphs !

It also projects weightmaps.

Just like Poser!

Why do you think DSON is able to load Genesis into Poser  in the first place?

Because while different in details, the basic principle between Poser and DAZ rigging is still the same.

So, no, Poser rigging has no "secret advantage" over DAZ rigging. None, nada, njet, nix, zero, zilch.

Combine that with the fact that DAZ has the much more advanced rigging tools (Autorigging in seconds vs hours of manual joint center adjustement) and you know why there is not a single figure out there making use of all those newfangled PP-2014 rigging features.

If you use AJS in Poser figure rigging, you get a bad copy of Genesis.

Woohoo!

Taking you much more time and jumping through hoops to support than the original.

Please, before you make statements for everybody else to read (and take as fact), inform yourself about the technology you're talking about.

I mean, really....

:-(

"The Poser Fitting Room for weight map rigging was/is an incredible boon to riggers and will make adoption of weight mapped figures faster and easier for vendors."

The "Fitting Room" is just a crude combination of Morph Brush and Cloth room/SetUp room functionallity.

You could do everything it does since Poser 7.

The only difference is that doing the conversion manually was faster because you hadn't to do that much "trial and error".

Lol.

It's one of the many "features" in PP-2014 that are basically useless if you expect more than average "hobbyist" quality.

Personally, I definitely wouldn't pay for any product that used the "Fitting Room".

No Genesis, no DS talk, please. Any AJC work you do in Poser is not going to work in Studio anyway, so why bother? And no, that is NOT an invitation to discuss it.

Well, if we can't talk about Genesis and DS, let's keep on talking about cars, like in that other thread, shall we ?

Here's a little story I just heard:

Company "P" builds a car with three wheels and a 100HP engine and it is just $500.

"P" drivers are enthusistic, but after a while notice that most cars on the streets are built by company "D".

A "P" driver asks a "D" driver, why he doesn't drive a "P" car, and the "D" driver says it's because his car has four wheels and a 200HP engine AND it was FREE.

Now the "P" driver hits the "D" driver over the head and calls the Police, claiming that the "D" driver insulted him and hurt his feelings and he should be banned from the streets and noone should talk about the "D" car ever again, because they are obviously very bad people.

Glad it's just a story, because in real live,

people would never act that stupid, now would they ?

:-)

Only car story I have is a car with a bunch of teenagers got in an accident because the kid in the back lit the driver's armpit hair with a lighter... but the driver got blamed for the accident... cause it's alway's the drivers fault.

Strange the two big words that jump out for me in the title of the thread was Poser and Dawn.  Yet, as is often the case, we are talking about a different figure and different software next comes the complaints that discussion is being stiffled and the thread gets locked.

I don't use Dawn and I have given my reasons why and also laid out my hopes for the future.  I am interested in other people views but in this thread I am looking for peoples views of Dawn and Poser.  For other figures I will look for threads with titles that may be relevant not hunt all the threads in the hope that a thread has been hijacked to cover something I am interested in but unrelated to the thread title.

Quote - "The Poser Fitting Room for weight map rigging was/is an incredible boon to riggers and will make adoption of weight mapped figures faster and easier for vendors."

The "Fitting Room" is just a crude combination of Morph Brush and Cloth room/SetUp room functionallity.

You could do everything it does since Poser 7.

The only difference is that doing the conversion manually was faster because you hadn't to do that much "trial and error".

Lol.

It's one of the many "features" in PP-2014 that are basically useless if you expect more than average "hobbyist" quality.

Personally, I definitely wouldn't pay for any product that used the "Fitting Room".

This whole statement just proves you've never used the Poser Fitting Room to rig anything.

Here's a clue....there's no "Fitting" involved.

And, I can and DO still rig using my copy of DS3A.  Your point would be what?

And I never said AJCs had anything over DS. I said they are much more powerful than anyone is giving them credit for, because most people don't seem to want to explore and learn what they are capable of, they just want to complain. 

And the next post that mentions DS is getting deleted. I'm sick of people turning every thread about Poser's features into a "but DS can do this better." If you think that, that's great. Go use DS and stop poluting the Poser forum threads with your crap and turning every thread into an argument. 

Poser is capable of most everything DS is capable of, it just requires a different approach. The only thing it's currently not capable of is auto texture swapping (can be done with scripts) and HD morphs. Everything else can be done with scripts, because that's all DS is doing. They just built those scripts into the program. 

I use DS and Poser equally, and any other software I need to get the job done. 

Thank You.

  AmbientShade

Quote - Poser is capable of most everything DS is capable of, it just requires a different approach. The only thing it's currently not capable of is auto texture swapping (can be done with scripts) and HD morphs. Everything else can be done with scripts, because that's all DS is doing. They just built those scripts into the program.

That was my original point. The approach of the tools. They require more hoops that makes developing using those tools very unpleasant. Which in the long run leads to why the majority of people haven't bothered with these features. Hense my original comment, about why it makes me cringe. The workflows are old and outdated.

And most people are not figure designers. They're texture artists and dial spinners. 

When you're designing a figure its an entirely different field. 

You have to consider the market you're designing it for, who you want to use it and what you want it to be capable of, all while looking at all the other figures that are currently available.  Then find ways to make content creation for that figure easy on the vendors that you hope will support that figure.

Poser provides most of those tools, and the means to incorporate scripts that will add features in for the tools that it doesn't yet have. It just doesn't provide a figure that utilizes those tools to the best of their advantage, and so far no one else has actually put the effort in to designing a figure that does either. 

Actually no, some of us have. 

Apollo Maximus?

Apollo was built long before any of these new rigging features were introduced. But I suspect he is the basis for the concept behind a lot of the figures that have come along since. 

It's unfortunate that his creator went balistic and abandoned him and won't allow anyone else to develop him further. If that weren't the case, it's quite possible that Apollo and Apollina (or whatever his female counterpart's name might have been) would be the reigning king and queen of Poser today as the design was pretty ahead of its time, at least in poserdom. 

Yea I paid for that one too.

Anyone wanna kickstart a Male figure suite of similar epicness?

Well hivewire is releasing Dusk, you can ask them to implement some epic features before it goes live. Doubt a figure from an individual without major company backing will hit it off. It's been tried before. You need marketing budget etc and heavy promotion.

Naahh I want something better than an EULA

Oh and I Don't Want Another Emasculated Andro Thing marketed as male

Ye, he does look kinda feminine. But I always give a benefit of the doubt. Let's see what happens.

As a morph of Dawn HeShe completely Lacks Anatomic Parts

So we appear to be speaking two separate languages

Oh ye the bits story. Renderotica to the rescue I suppose.

But why should I pay anything for a figure for children

That's up to you, but some will just to show their support. I don't do that. I support what works for me. 

How about a kickstart on a discernably Male figure project on the scale of Apollo Max or M4 with Morph++.  maybe Rex fixes upgrades. Say $80 from 250 crowd fund group plus Rendo sales that's $20,000+

Sorry I started a drift I'll move over to a fig. dev thread

Ye this idea is best suited under its own thread. That way based on thread title you can get a more accurate indication of interest in such an idea. Having it in this thread is not going to work lol.

Jim, check your PMs.

Historically, everyone used the same platform ( Poser 4 ) and it was easier to build a large customer base by releasing one character that was widely popular ( Posette ) and improving on that character ( Vicki1)... and repeating this cycle... on through Vicki4. But, the single platform customer base had been split.

Dawn cannot use the same selling strategy as the Vicki's had built over years.

1. There's a Poser crowd that refuses to use the newer versions of Poser.

2. There's a DAz Studio 4 crowd that is mesmerized by Genesis

3. and... there's a progressive Poser crowd that uses newer Poser and welcomes new tech

Dawn's selling point of being the ONLY figure able to be used in Poser 9+ and DAZ4+... that is her strongpoint... in theory. DAz users probably could care less about her. Dawn is really a sell to the Poser crowds... (1) and (3).

Crowd 1 is the biggest consumers... they don't want to figure stuff out... they wanna load it and render it ( I'm generalizing and someone's gonna yell at me - but I bet this is true for the majority - heh )

Crowd 3 tries to figure everything out on their own as much as they can and so they buy less

Crwod 1 is your target customer base but they are using a platform Dawn will not work in...

how do you convince Crowd 1 to buy Poser 9+ so they can use Dawn?

How do you make Dawn more appealing than V4 whose sales are still going strong?

These forum tech brainiacs have convined me to ( kicking and dragging and whining ) use Poser Pro 2014 and now I'd invest in Dawn... if she had more than just a bunch of character sets.

Vendors who want to support dawn will have to think long-term... the payoffs will come later. Her content is not going to sell like hotcakes right now... but, the more and more vendor support she gets... the more and more the snowball effect will occur and customers will start slowly picking up.

So, in my opinion, the historical way the Vicki's have progressed... this model will not work for Dawn... vendors will have to take a risk that 6 months to a year later... sudeenly sales will pick up... but it will take a bunch of vendors to make that commitment.

THEN her ability to work on Poser without needing to run a DSON through your toaster and watch the streetlights dim... Dawn working natively in Poser will then become a major selling point when she has lots of content available to support her.

My two cents

( forgive my typos - I'm not going to go back and edit this long soapbox speech :P )

Quote - Dawn's selling point of being the ONLY figure able to be used in Poser 9+ and DAZ4+... that is her strongpoint... in theory. DAz users probably could care less about her. Dawn is really a sell to the Poser crowds... (1) and (3).

Don't be so sure. There's a number of Studio users who are absolutely in love with Dawn. I haven't figured out why just yet, although I suppose I could just ask them, but they prefer to use her. Their biggest pet-peeve seems to be that most of the releases for Dawn tend to be Poser-centric, so if I were to start making things for Dawn, I'd probably aim for this group.

There is no coming back for Dawn to be honest. We have all seen this pattern before. She has already tapered off. I do not see her attracting vendors, because her business model is flawed. And in 6 months to a years time, nothing would have changed. Reality is she will never be a figure that attracts major vendor support on a mass scale.

That ship has already sailed. She had her shot, and if you can't keep vendors during that initial launch period, they hardly give a figure a second chance. You will need to seriously convince them why they should. Money talks, and if those vendors initially made good money with her, they would have continued supporting her, but most off them didn't and returned to the tried and trusted. Unless all Poser users have a version that can use her, she doesn't stand a chance of gaining mass support. She is a niche figure, simple as that, and I do not see all Poser users upgrading just for her. Vendors have bills to pay, they need security. A bank will not infest in you if you are a risk, that is how vendors determine what figure to invest in. If it's risky, they will pass. Many have taken risks before and got burned, so they are more cautious the next time around. Yes it is nice to be hopeful, but there is a difference between that and ignorance.

I will not buy anything Genesis... unless it works in Poser natively like Vicki4.

I have a hard time believing that in this view point I'm one buyer alone. This IS why Renderosity flourishes with V4 product sales still today.

For this reason... if vendors support her... Dawn is like a Stephanie3 ( that Stephanie 4 never was )... and she might find a customer base.

Dawn has some very fantastic character sets.... but very little clothes

I'm using the word 'natively' like it's a word... I don't think it is ( ha ha )... but I think folks get what I mean... lotza luv

Ok there is all this native talk. Please explain what you mean by works natively, and how working natively change anything? I'm not trying to be funny, I am just curious. Is it a performance issue or what exactly?

Ha ha!

What I mean is...

Vicki 4 in Poser.

Shes in your library ( in Poser ) you load her in and she is ready to go. She can have no morphs active or whatever morphs you want.

So what I mean by 'native' is that V4 works in Poser without any outside utlities and you can manipulate her however you wish inside Poser with nothing else needed.

For Genesis to run in Poser... you have to use an 'importer'... Genesis is not a citizen of Poser... it has to be imported and it's morphs and capabilities all depend on some outside circumstances out of Poser's control.

V4 sales in the Renderosity Marketplace remain strong because who wants to use Genesis in Poser when you have to go through the importer hoops and trials and tribulations?...

Dawn also works in Poser without an importer

Natively is a bad word - my bad

Dawn working in Poser WITHOUT any import method... is her strong selling point... to Poser users

It should be self explanatory. There are no hoops to jump through to get V4 to work in Poser. There are many users who do not want to use anything but Poser, and many of them haven't upgraded to P9+. 

(eta: x-posted the above w/ coleman)

But there have been several sales of P10 and PP2014 with drastic cuts on the price, making it very affordable for those who weren't necessarily able to upgrade right away before. So that will naturally have broadened the user base of P10. There are also other websites that still have P9 and PP2012 for sale, and have at times cut the prices rather drastically, again increasing the userbase. 

The difference with Poser is that you have to pay for your upgrades, and a lot of people don't upgrade right away. It takes them a good while to do so, either due to their finances or just not seeing anything that really stands out to them innitially. The economy hasn't been all that great for the last several years, so a lot of people can't afford upgrading software when they have other things in RL that are much more pressing. 

So this is going to affect how well a new figure that requires that software is going to be recieved innitially. Vendors that attempted to incorporate the newer features into their content back when P9 was new, that are not supported by older versions, were likely not all that impressed with their sales early on so they gave up on it and went back to building content that was compatible with the last 10 years of Poser versions. Today their sales should be stronger for content with those features because there are many more users that have upgraded since then. 

I don't think Dawn is a doomed figure. She still has a loyal following who are supportive of her development and her developers. But like Coleman said, it's going to take time for that appeal to grow. HW3D are still developing for her, so they must be making enough from her currently to consider it beneficial to continue. 

Quote - Dawn's selling point of being the ONLY figure able to be used in Poser 9+ and DAZ4+... that is her strongpoint... in theory. DAz users probably could care less about her. Dawn is really a sell to the Poser crowds... (1) and (3).

My Michelle over at RDNA is backwards compatible with both Poser and DS, so Dawn is not the only figure. 

My only concern is by the time all users are on the new standard Eg all have upgraded, it will be too late for Dawn, and there probably will be another figure populating their interests. With a figure you have to act now, not wait down the line for it to grow. We simply do not have that luxury anymore. It was easier for V4 because she never really had any competition at the time, for a good couple of years actually.