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.

"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? THOSE are the people in the gallery are actually buying stuff."

Agree with the above comment and just commenting as one of "THOSE people." smile

I've been using Poser (Poser 4 - PoserPro 2014) for just over 16 years...and just Poser, with a bit of Photoshop. I love to create landscapes and simple portraits. I don't use any of the complex (to me) features of the program...nodes, fitting room, hair room, etc. I use the program to relax and create pretty pictures and I don't want to spend hours trying to figure out how to render images.

Wow! Serious thread necromancy.

So much has changed since this thread was started, is anything still relevant?

no, not relevant, but poser figures often used in pre-release movie animatics, maybe SM could push that. e.g. compile list of movies which used poser animatics/storyboard et al. they could rope in alotta movie fans that way. poser is so easy, they wanna emphasise how easy it is for newbies, but even movie producers use it. then when they release P11, fans will buy it like hotcakes. mobile phone version, cloud, you name it!

" 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,...."

Here is My personal analysis of both Smith Micro's and Daz inc& Real illusions iclones effort to break in to the GameDev sector

Right now Games is a bigger market, Dollarwise, than hollywood movies so I certainly see the attraction for 3D character content makers.

Daz approach is to give DS away for no cost but charge for content and required $500 USD for a license to use their content in games. Although the DS nonlinear aniMate system is quick & easy,DS lacks complex Character animation tools to create Character animation for your games and they are now in DIRECT competition with their erstwhile partners at Reallusion with the release of this:

http://www.reallusion.com/iClone/character-creator/default.html

Reallusions New Character Creator is a direct Challenge to Daz and as a Daily Iclone5.5 Pro ,3D Exchange user I can Attest to the fact that their Character motion creation ,Human IK & Editing tools are far superior to anything possible in DS or Poser. Also Iclone allows me to import poser/Daz Skeletons and retarget Iclone created motion to them for rendering in Non Game environments Like C4D, Vue etc.

Caveat: for game dev folks the entry cost for this new RI Character creator with export license might be a little....Steep. currently on sale for $600 but regularly $1030!!!

Next We have Autodesk who, at present ,rules the Game Dev market

IMHO Last year they introduced a Poser/Daz Like online Character Creator in two iterations both paid & free http://area.autodesk.com/products/charactergenerator

This is a great "cloud based" option for Current Autodesk Max& Maya users as it Creates Content in NATIVE Autodesk Character formats for maximum Compatibility. Not much incentive there for their users to bother with Daz or Reallusion.

Lastly there is Poser Pro "Game Dev" I honestly Can not see what the Actual plan was for this Effort By SM.

They offered "5GB of Content" But never actually Showcased an of it being prepared for Game engines. ( Daz has largely failed in the area as well, although Reallusion has at least put forth Slick Detailed Videos showcasing their Unity export pipeline),

Smith also Micro left their Character animation Creation & Editing tools Firmly entombed in the year 1997 and sent Steve Cooper into the various poser online Forums to "encourage" poser Content developers to get on board in licensing their poser content. they put PP"gameDev in the unity Asset Store where is stood out like a $400 Dollar white elephant amongst items that maxxed out at about $45 USD on the high side.

Not sure how this all will shake out but if Autodesk is to be seriously

challenged, Daz needs more advanced Character motion tools and needs to offer more than their Genesis 3, so called game rigged, Female and her$500 USD Export licence.

Reallusion Needs to seriously look at their $$ pricing$$$ And frankly poser pro "game Dev" looks like a "one and Done" Effort from SM as they Are on to New internal rendering options for poser.

wolf359 posted at 10:43AM Wed, 09 September 2015 - #4227327

" 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,...."

Here is My personal analysis of both Smith Micro's and Daz inc& Real illusions iclones effort to break in to the GameDev sector

Right now Games is a bigger market, Dollarwise, than hollywood movies so I certainly see the attraction for 3D character content makers.

Daz approach is to give DS away for no cost but charge for content and required $500 USD for a license to use their content in games. Although the DS nonlinear aniMate system is quick & easy,DS lacks complex Character animation tools to create Character animation for your games and they are now in DIRECT competition with their erstwhile partners at Reallusion with the release of this:

Not sure how this all will shake out but if Autodesk is to be seriously

challenged, Daz needs more advanced Character motion tools and needs to offer more than their Genesis 3, so called game rigged, Female and her$500 USD Export licence.

You may wish to watch this space. https://www.morph3d.com <Hint, Hint.>

Hey Wolf359, thanks for the info regarding game development character creation packages. It appears the market is getting crowded. You didn't mention Miximo Fuse though. Recently acquired by Adobe. They may be able to leverage the massive cash flow from their matrix of jacked in subscribers to do some damage as well, even though the current product might be lacking at the moment. They know how to market anyhow, and bundle. Any opinions on this package?

One thing I noticed when browsing the Miximo and Autodesk products. No hot chicks. Mostly regular people in regular clothing or toonish figures. Nothing wrong with that but it suggests the content needs of game developers may be different that Daz/Poser users. Not much on the creature/alien side either so I wonder what's up with that.

Over on the iClone side? Bewbs (said in the voice of that Honest Trailers announcer) along with what seems to be a business model of selling clothing and morph packages for the figures. Seems like a Daz model. I wonder if that would be appealing to game developers? I wonder if hobbyists want to tweak and adjust their characters? Poser users seem to prefer pre-made characters.

Or maybe we're starting to get to an era of hobbiest game development where the modeling, rigging and coding well be relatively easy like Poser, and the average person can make simple games for their own amusement. That would be kinda cool.

Interesting stuff. Perhaps if Poser would concentrate on getting these different characters into their program rather than exporting their content out they would do well. I'm thinking Poser users are more concerned about getting new figures than Game Devs would be interested in importing Poser content in.

hornet3d posted at 10:58AM Wed, 09 September 2015 - #4144593

Quote - > Quote - Part of the "creativity", part of the "fun and personal satisfaction", is to build the content yourself.

That's what YOU say!

All teasing aside, Tony, I've spent over $1500 on modeling softwares that ***I can't begin to understand! ***And before everyone starts berating my intelligence, I'm not a dummy. I have degrees in mass communications and film, electrical engineering, and psychology. I've written books. I'm good enough at Poser that people hire me to illustrate for them.

I'm not an idiot, (contrary to popular opinion) but no tutorial I've run across has made Wings understandable to me. Sculptris... Blender... ZBrush... they all make no sense to me! All I wind up with after spending the money and hours and hours of grief is a shapeless nothing!

For my purposes, I can either buy content or go do something other than Poser. 

I doubt I am alone.

 

Nope, you are not alone.  I have tried some of the Digital Tailor tutorials and that has been the best for me, that and Silo.  However the most I have done so far is to modify items purchased for my own use.  On the whole I purchase content and then modify the materials either within Poser or, for figures, I use Paint Shop Pro and layers.  I have added scars, tattoos and freckles that way and I enjoy it, good as Silo is I don't get the same buzz from that.

I just cannot see me spending the time to build something that could take me a week (plus the year gaining the skills) and yet I could buy of $10.

Ditto to subscribe to this thread.

I have a lot to do and not much time to do it in yet I spend as much time as I can using Poser. DAZ for me was mainly to gain great models and then quickly import for use in Poser. I don't post much in my gallery. For exposure post I elsewhere. As it says above. Why should I spend weeks trying to model something that I could buy for 10 bucks. If both of us are of the same mind; with respect to creator and purchaser, the synergetic result is that we both get what we want. The Original Poster makes a lot of assumptions, most of them wrong about who buys models and why. I don't recall being asked either question so that reduces his results by at least two.

One thing he is correct about is the ability to use instancing. Either in animation or a static model, that would be a godsend. It's the reason I made several purchases that emulate this within Poser.

"You may wish to watch this space. https://www.morph3d.com"

Interesting is this an off shot of DAZ?? the logo has similar colors to the new Daz Icon.

_ **"You didn't mention Mixamo Fuse though. Recently acquired by Adobe. They may be able to leverage the massive cash flow from their matrix of jacked in subscribers to do some damage as well, even though the current product might be lacking at the moment. They know how to market anyhow, and bundle. Any opinions on this package?"

**_

Hi I nearly forgot about mixamo!! yet another player in this crowded field I do like that it seems more geared toward "toon" style figures which may be more suitable for games aimg at certain genres& demographics.

wolf359 posted at 8:44AM Thu, 10 September 2015 - #4227518

"You may wish to watch this space. https://www.morph3d.com"

Interesting is this an off shot of DAZ?? the logo has similar colors to the new Daz Icon.

Bottom of the page. :)

bhoins posted at 10:48AM Thu, 10 September 2015 - #4227553

wolf359 posted at 8:44AM Thu, 10 September 2015 - #4227518

"You may wish to watch this space. https://www.morph3d.com"

Interesting is this an off shot of DAZ?? the logo has similar colors to the new Daz Icon.

Bottom of the page. :)

Got it!! nice move by Daz

They could get a ton of new buyers (or upgrades) by lowering the price a whole lot! ...wait, they just did that, woohoo!!!!

wolf359 posted at 6:16PM Thu, 10 September 2015 - #4227566

bhoins posted at 10:48AM Thu, 10 September 2015 - #4227553

wolf359 posted at 8:44AM Thu, 10 September 2015 - #4227518

"You may wish to watch this space. https://www.morph3d.com"

Interesting is this an off shot of DAZ?? the logo has similar colors to the new Daz Icon.

Bottom of the page. :)

Got it!! nice move by Daz

Of course it's an off shoot of DAZ it says so on the bottom of the page.

Who is Morph 3D Morph 3D is a new venture from the team that manages DAZ 3D. We're dedicated to delivering top-quality assets to game developers and 3D professionals. With our global community of top artists, we create tens of thousands of new 3D assets and serve millions of downloads each year.

Of course this means they want to crush Poser users. What'dya bet?

1. Daz has started a rebranding process beginning from logo. All hints to a repositioning of the firm in the semi-professional market, distancing in the process from any connection with Poser. They do not want to "crush Poser users" they want to make people forget about their Poser related roots <sarcastic icon, unsupported by those shitty Emoji).

2. Morph3D offer is not a half-baked external tool but an integrated, hosted within Unity3D, game character customization environment, something not even comparable with Poser (and, AFAIK, free).

3. The OP was asking about G3, there is no DSON support for G3 in Poser. Considering that SmithMicro has selected a render engine different from Iray, I don't see why they should add the critical dual quaternion skinning to Poser. You know the drill, cutting the nose to spite the face.

3rd point not relevant here, it was for another thread (Renderosity forums UI is so abysmal than you can post a comment to the wrong thread).

B.t.w., why can I edit my last post?

quietrob posted at 9:48AM Fri, 11 September 2015 - #4227661

Of course this means they want to crush Poser users. What'dya bet?

Your logic escapes me here. How does Daz 3D expanding, adding a new store and adding new customers equal wanting to crush Poser users?

Ye the game sector is a different market. I don't see how that crushes Poser users to be honest. Daz users, Poser users, all become game users who will buy game assets. Only "crushing" that will take place is between SM and DAZ who provide content to that market. Then again, SM does not sell game content externally. So basically, Daz will be competing against other asset providers in the stores there.

I'm mourning the passing of my muse 20 years pissed away in the uncanny valley

If gaming assets are different than the 3D models we use, perhaps I'm not entirely correct. I look forward to gaining knowledge on this matter.

You can convert content from these stores to become game ready (need license agreement in order to do so), or you can use and buy content designed in the format that is game ready (assets, sold at the game engine stores). Those are the main differences.