Coleman posted at 3:20AM Tue, 08 September 2015 - [#4144564]

have instancing ability like VUE to dump billions of polygons of content without the software shutting down.

No, and, of course, I'll tell you why. :)

Poser was developed as a "posing" program for artists. It is not a landscape program or a crowd generator, though there are certainly scripts and add-ons out there that will do that with it and it can integrate and work well with Vue and Carrara. Poser's focus is on individual figures, details, hi-resolution renders of organic objects, materials and textures focused on single figures, clothing, etc.. When one works with Poser, it's intent is pretty clear - It does a great job of rendering two or three hi-res human figures in a scene with good lighting.

Animation is something else that Poser does. But, while it can be fairly good, it's more like a tacked-on product. Development in Poser's animation capabilities has only recently been revitalized, I think, with the introduction of game-dev versions. Up until that point, Smith Micro did jack-all with Poser's animation capabilities and they have been basically ignored for a very long while. BUT, and here's the key, they were good enough to produce small scenes of a few human figures, as long as you were willing to forego decent lighting and dynamic hair.

Instancing serves no/little purpose in Poser as it simply isn't geared up for that sort of thing. (Yes, you can force it to do that, but it's not in its default repertoire nor should it be, since it's unsuitable for that.)

Since Posette and Miki2, all your Poser people have sucked... focus on making very low poly people as background filler...

I agree with the first part of your statement, but disagree somewhat with the latter. Yes, SM figures suck. They suck bad. Their rigs are wonky, assets are limited and they're hard to work with. Low Poly figs exist and come in every edition of Poser, however. There is no need to "focus" on producing low-poly figures for a Poser release version as included assets, but more available assets for sale in that genre would be nice for many users. I would, as you suggest, tell SM that they should develop a good low-poly figure line, but one that should be sold outside of the release version.

Please Please Please take a look at the Poser galleries here and stop listening solely to the Poser forums. How many "I want total photorealism" renders do you see in the galleries?

The truth? As was already said, Sturgeon's law applies - 90% of everything is crap and the galleries are no exception. You want to know what it appears that most people use Poser for? As ssgbryan stated "NVIATWAS." It's either that or 3D porn. That's what most Poser users are actually using the program for. And, when they render, it only has to look "good enough." I've seen people render with nothing but Poser 6 default lights and call it "awesome"... Why do they call it that? Because, it looks "real" to them. They're actually going for realism, but just failing hard. That's all.

The thing is, look at what the program is geared to do. It's made for rendering human figures, only a few at a time. It was up-vamped from a sculpting/painting artist's asset to be a broader platform for rendering a few human figures and doing some animations and such. Material upgrades and new shader effects have only increased that capability. Where's it headed? It's headed more to "realism" in that capacity than in any other direction. There is absolutely _nothing at all _wrong with a program that can render realistically, since if it can do that, it can render as unrealistically as you'd ever want it to.

Either swallow your pride and work to make Genesis work fully in Poser or release a kickass product that gallery artists want to use. I am damn frustrated with all this focus on realism and a product that is worthless with practicality and usefullness in day-to-day

SM isn't going to take on the burden of having to deal with another 3'rd party format to support, especially from their only direct competitor! They will make certain things available so that the format won't be excluded or unuseable, but they're not going to bend over backwards for DAZ3D. Nor should they. Like it or not, however, "realism" sells. Why? Because, what was it that I said most people were using the program for and what has the program evolved into? It's all about rendering a few human beings in a scene... Well, mostly rendering their skin and a bit of clothing, since Poser sucks for hair. So, it's focused on rendering about 3 bald, naked, people in a scene, maybe with some animation if you dump some of the lighting effects... :)

What I would suggest is very simple:

1. Increase Poser's capabilities to work with game-dev engines. The "Big Three" are taking on the hobbyist community by storm and it's what all the "cool kids" are doing, these days. If SM want's enthusiastic users who will gobble up content, that's where they need to put a lot of effort. This is where they need to focus the majority of their efforts - They need to become the indispensable "go-to" tool for anyone who wants to easily and quickly create assets for Unity, CryEngine and UnReal. SM needs to build off of the expanding use of these engines. They should feed on that like a pack of starving jackals until their bellies drag the ground.

2. Make Poser's pose room look like a real-time rendering engine... Why? Because people like shiny stuffs and if you can show off a real-time renderer that does a decent job of approximating most materials in a final still render, you're going to make jaws drop and people will throw money at you. <-Truth. Want new sales and something shiny to draw in those customers? That's one thing you need. It'll make for an outstanding video presentation, no doubt about it.

3. Physics. Wind is nice, cloth is nice, but with no particle effects, dynamic hair (Please, nobody say Poser already has dynamic hair...), soft-body physics, gravity, etc.. Well, you get the picture - IF Poser is going to have an animation component, it needs to have certain features so people can render their NVIATWAS with appropriate animations, fire, earthquakes and shaky boobies... and think they've just been hired by Pixar. Well, going that detailed isn't truly necessary, since what I'm going to suggest next is a kicker, but it'd be nice for those who want to totally stay within Poser's engine.

4. I mentioned GameDev already, but I have to emphasize that enabling Poser to work with 3rd-party programs is going to be the way that SM can grow sales without too much up-front. In this vein, pushing for greater capability with not only game-dev engines, but 3D modelers, would be a good start. Specifically, and even though I hate it, getting Poser to work better with Blender and other popular packages, like Sketchup, as either an asset creator or rendering alternative would be a nice touch. Basically, turning Poser into an integral part of a "pipeline" is where Poser needs to move. It can NOT continue to try to stand on its own credits without serious investment. It has to move forcefully into a program that has good stand-alone qualities, but even better integration qualities with popular software in its niche.

5. Assets. In short, if you don't build it, they won't come. Poser has lots of assets, but a good number of them are crap, are no longer functional, or are legacy products that are having trouble keeping up. SM needs to focus on tagalong products for Poser in order to generate a continuous stream of revenue. A module system might be nice for GameDev, with customized packages for each major engine, licensing being sold on a module basis, not buying an entirely new package. Scripting assets that help improve animation, rigging, etc, are great, but need to be made easier to use, since Poser's market, right now, is more of a 3D-home-hobbyist market. A nice Python version conversion utility would be.. sweet... (Oh, my legacy library of python scripts, how I miss you...) But, SM needs to produce assets, itself, that can directly compete with... you know who. The Cold War is over and the only one actually fighting the Hot War and winning is.. you know who. With absolutely no control over the third-party market and little interest in ensuring quality, there, SM is leaving primary asset creation up to an unknown quantity... In short: You don't build a battleship and then go to a temp agency in order to find a crew for it to "make it go."

PS - Thanks for an interesting thread. It's interesting to see what other people not only want, but how that implies what they're actually using Poser for.