chaecuna posted at 7:41PM Sat, 16 January 2016 - #4249559

ssgbryan posted at 7:30PM Sat, 16 January 2016 - #4249553

What do you think genesis 3 brings to the table? I am serious in asking this question. I am running it in DS and I don't see a single thing (not one) that makes it worth purchasing; the characters made for it look EXACTLY like their genesis 2 predecessors - the only new thing I can see was a fat chick. What I don't see is this alleged "better bending". Do I have to dislocate every limb to see it? Can I see the improvements if the characters keep their clothes on?

I'd say that the only real improvement between G2x and G3x are expressions thru rigging and not thru morphs, something that could have well been supplied with G2x improved figures.

It seems it worked pretty well

ssgbryan posted at 1:33PM Sat, 16 January 2016 - #4249553

drafter69 posted at 10:31AM Sat, 16 January 2016 - #4249539

I know this is an explosive issue but my personal feelings are that Smith Micro is to blame for much of the discussion. The company recently threw Poser 11 onto the market but seems to have ignored the feeling of many that content is king. They gave us Pauline (ugly as hell) and then Paul who they won't even discuss... Daz3d has developed characters that are lifelike and designed to work with their own software. I do not feel the company has any obligation to develop characters that are Smith Micro friendly. I would like to see Genesis 3 figures compatible with Poser. BUT is it up to Daz3d or Smith Micro to develop compatibility?

Your "feelings" don't have facts on their side. Sorry about that. DAZ's business model & SM's business models are not the same. Why is this so difficult for people to grasp?

Genesis 3 compatibility with Poser is up to DAZ - as has been pointed out to all and sundry since 2009. SM can not legally reverse engineer the code (violation of the DMCA). It is DAZ's Code - it is up to them, and they have made their position quite clear.

Incorrect again. If they reverse engineering anything, it would be the plugin for the DSON importer, then you would be correct. But the DSON specification is free to use, offered to SM, and the specification is availble from their site and you can read the definitions just like you would read a spec for an obj file, or even incorporating the Cycles engine to become superfly. I'd let this argument go... but then this is why there's no poser support for Genesis 3. So it's best to just leave DAZ out of it; the bottom line is that SM is responsible for their user's needs, not DAZ. So to keep throwing DAZ into the conversation doesn't move the conversation along. If Paul and Pauline is SM's response to their user's figures needs, then that's the answer you live with when you buy the next version of the software.

What do you think genesis 3 brings to the table? I am serious in asking this question. I am running it in DS and I don't see a single thing (not one) that makes it worth purchasing; the characters made for it look EXACTLY like their genesis 2 predecessors - the only new thing I can see was a fat chick. What I don't see is this alleged "better bending". Do I have to dislocate every limb to see it? Can I see the improvements if the characters keep their clothes on?

I think you've been proven wrong every time you recycle this same argument. ;) The differences are there, especially if you raise v4's arm and v7's. It's not hard to come to the conclusion that there are differences, and those differences are driving a few marketplaces now. But once again, this really isn't DAZ's issue anymore.

EDIT: And I agree with Laurie's comment about "fat chick", we can make statements without being offensive.

LaurieA posted at 7:45PM Sat, 16 January 2016 - #4249567

Please...enough with the "fat chick" stuff. Some of the people reading this are heavy and I'm sure will be offended. You write it like it's the most horrible thing that could possibly be and it's not. Urgh.

Laurie

Thanks, well said :)

chaecuna posted at 1:46PM Sat, 16 January 2016 - #4249559

ssgbryan posted at 7:30PM Sat, 16 January 2016 - #4249553

What do you think genesis 3 brings to the table? I am serious in asking this question. I am running it in DS and I don't see a single thing (not one) that makes it worth purchasing; the characters made for it look EXACTLY like their genesis 2 predecessors - the only new thing I can see was a fat chick. What I don't see is this alleged "better bending". Do I have to dislocate every limb to see it? Can I see the improvements if the characters keep their clothes on?

I'd say that the only real improvement between G2x and G3x are expressions thru rigging and not thru morphs, something that could have well been supplied with G2x improved figures.

Not with triax rigging because of the way higher resource requirements of the facial rigging and extra bones including those in the hands, feet, neck and heel, which is why it was dropped and Dual Quaterion rigging is used instead. Also with the new rigging it can be imported into Maya, 3dsmax, modo, or any other app that supports the rigging.

Can anybody explain how Dual Quaterion works, and why it is not compatible with Poser and what might be the reason for SM to dicide to not include this into the present Poser release?

Whether you agree or approve I am entitled to my "personal feelings" on this matter. I blame much of the discord on SM.. For a long time they seem to have treated their program as a sideline joke..... So, you are entitled to your feelings.... BUT they are your feeling, not mine.

Your "feelings" don't have facts on their side. Sorry about that. DAZ's business model & SM's business models are not the same. Why is this so difficult for people to grasp?

Genesis 3 compatibility with Poser is up to DAZ - as has been pointed out to all and sundry since 2009. SM can not legally reverse engineer the code (violation of the DMCA). It is DAZ's Code - it is up to them, and they have made their position quite clear.

What do you think genesis 3 brings to the table? I am serious in asking this question. I am running it in DS and I don't see a single thing (not one) that makes it worth purchasing; the characters made for it look EXACTLY like their genesis 2 predecessors - the only new thing I can see was a fat chick. What I don't see is this alleged "better bending". Do I have to dislocate every limb to see it? Can I see the improvements if the characters keep their clothes on?

What is the difference between Olympia 6 & Olympia 7, or Teen Josie 6 & Teen Josie 7? Other than the requirement to purchase "genesis 3" versions of content I already own and the inability to leverage skin textures between figures.

"Can anybody explain how Dual Quaterion works, and why it is not compatible with Poser and what might be the reason for SM to dicide to not include this into the present Poser release?"

https://www.google.com/search?q=dual+quaternion+skinning

... because Poser development generally doesn't add things like WMing, SSS, GI, PBR, GC, ad nauseam until about a decade after they are standard in other apps (and then mostly in their $500 pro version only)... think I'm kidding? I use a copy of modo 302 from 8 years ago that has all those features on a 10 year old computer. Area lights? Caustics? Accurate blurry reflections? Ancient history. Just a little peeve I have with Poser and in particular that "I could use better software, but then I'd have to be an artist. and what's the sense in that?." Quote from BB. By that logic; Ok, so you just become a time warped "artist" a decade later then? Lol. Don't get me wrong, love Poser and BB's brilliant... but just saying.

One of the things I learned when I was involved in marketing is to never whine and bitch about how smart the mice have become.... build a better fucking mouse trap. Smith Micro is one of the most fucked up companies I have seen in years. They offer a program that is usually flawed from day one and then offer all sorts of fixes when others do their work. They promise a lot but deliver very little. As for Poser 11 why is it I don't hear **any praise **on how wonderful the program is and how wonderful the new figures are??????? All I see Smith Micro fans do is attack another company because they are offering what the SM fans are not getting. I have no intention of perusing this discussion. If Smith Micro eventually goes out of business they can only have there selves to blame.

Whether you agree or approve I am entitled to my "personal feelings" on this matter. I blame much of the discord on SM.. For a long time they seem to have treated their program as a sideline joke..... So, you are entitled to your feelings.... BUT they are your feeling, not mine.

Your "feelings" don't have facts on their side. Sorry about that. DAZ's business model & SM's business models are not the same. Why is this so difficult for people to grasp?

Is Poser Dying? The only answers you will get here will all be very subjective, the only people that really know the answer to this question work for Smith Micro, and I seriously doubt they would post here to confirm if it is dying.

I think looking at content trends at the various DS/Poser sites can give us an idea related to market shares, and it would appear that Poser is loosing ground in market shares, though even this could be skewed since the only real legitimate current competitor figures to Genesis seem to be V4 and Dawn. V4, which seems to still be the go-to Poser figure, has been around so long that no doubt the market is saturated, so waning sales for V4 may be more to do with that, than a major drop in market shares for Poser.

I have noted several long time Poser users that have not upgraded to P11 (myself included - more on this latter), the reasons vary, and it's not that uncommon to see this at the release of a new Poser version. I have also seen a lot of long time Poser users posting images done with DS/Iray, this trend could change now that Poser has Cycles (Superfly - I still find it hard to warm up to this name). IMHO there is enough ancillary evidence to indicate that Poser is losing some of market share that I think this is probably true. It doesn't mean Poser is dying, but I think is does mean that SM has to up their game a quite bit.

As for why I didn't upgrade, it's not a simple answer, but the main reasons fall in three categories. The first being that I didn't see the value in feature set upgrades to warrant the cost of the upgrade. This was actually quite close, the integration of Cycles to me was a huge plus, and feature wise it was very close. The lack (still) of instancing was one of the factors that influenced my decision, as did the lack of any improvements in dynamic cloth (and dynamic hair a bit too). But feature wise I was still pretty much on the fence, because I was really interested in Cycles.

The second area was figures, This was no doubt influenced by the statement from Nerd3d "content is king". My take away from that statement was that finally, either Poser was going to implement native support for Genesis, that they were finally going to deliver their own figure that wasn't borked on release, or possibly they had worked a deal with Hiverwire to either include Dawn, or provide a dramatically reduced (in price) "value stack" for P11 users. So, maybe my expectations were a bit too high? Regardless, dumping a "not quite ready for prime time" figure on P11 users was IMVHO a sign of either a company that just doesn't get it, or the sign of a company that just needed to get something out the door....now. Regardless of the reason, it seems highly unprofessional to me to put a figure out with the problems that Pauline has, more or less expecting the user base to fix her. Seeing this, after the person in charge of Poser development said content is king, made me question the value of this upgrade even more.

The third factor in making my decision to not upgrade to P11 was partially influenced by the state of Pauline on release, the total lack of high quality Cycles renders from the user community within the first few weeks, and the library issues. Right or wrong, I got the impression that P11 was released before it should have been. I can understand some issues with a new library system, but it seemed like there were some critical logic errors that should have been vetted and fixed before release. For me though, the total lack of great user renders coming for Superfly was a huge red flag. You implement a new render engine which is one of your biggest selling points, yet none of your beta testers are flooding the forums and galleries with renders that make this a must have upgrade??? Seriously? Finally, almost two months later, renders that show off what superfly can do are showing up in more frequency. I was on the closed beta team of the Octane plugin for Carrara, and our small group put out more renders for the release of the public beta (at release) than SM did for superfly. To add to this, I was producing decent renders using Iray within 36 hours of getting my hands onthe 4.8 beta and Iray (the image here: https://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/the-corridor/2661869</https:> was done in the first 48 hours), it may not be the greatest image, but the shaders were all tweaked by me from the auto Iray conversion provided with DS, and using EIS profiles on the mesh lights. My point here being that I would expect to see numerous (100+) images of a similar and/or better quality within the first week from P11/Superfly. Just take a look at the Demo Reel made for the public release of the Octane for Carrara public beta here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GeGGs_QU-I. Granted, it's not super awesome, but when you consider the images were generated by a 4 person closed beta team (while learning/testing) and one developer, I would have expected at least this level/number of images in the forums and galleries from SM showing off superfly. Again, this made me feel that either P11 was rushed out the door, or SM simply doesn't get that having a lot of great user renders on release is important. Either one give me reason for pause.

Ultimately, I decided not upgrade. This is something that could change later, I'm not saying I won't ever upgrade, but for now, P11 doesn't give me anything I'm comfortable risking my money on for rushed software. Oh, I almost forgot one other issue. The lack of a real EULA for Paul and Pauline, they're supposed to be merchant resources, but as far as I have been able to ascertain, there is no real EULA for them yet. Again, not something I would expect from commercial software (trust us, go ahead and use the figure, we'll let you know what you can legally do with it later).

IMHO, moving forward SM/Poser will need to bring more improvements and features to the table or their market share will begin to decline (if it hasn't already). They also need to ensure that future Poser releases are solid, and don't appear as rushed releases. Poser still has some good features that aren't available in DS, but as is stands for me going forward, as a commercial product, Poser not only needs to match the new features that show up in DS (like PBR), but exceed them with other useful new features.

For those that have upgraded, please keep posting your superfly images, and progress on Pauline, and other good things about P11. This is all very important to any possible future upgrades for me (and possibly for others as well).

drafter69, watch your language, or at least tag your posts if you're going to talk like that.

Male_M3dia posted at 6:41PM Sat, 16 January 2016 - #4249572

Not with triax rigging because of the way higher resource requirements of the facial rigging and extra bones including those in the hands, feet, neck and heel, which is why it was dropped and Dual Quaterion rigging is used instead. Also with the new rigging it can be imported into Maya, 3dsmax, modo, or any other app that supports the rigging.

I'd expect rigged expressions to use fewer resources than morphs. Of course, I suppose the morphs woudn't be loaded in Studio unless they were actually dialed in...

RorrKonn posted at 6:45PM Sat, 16 January 2016 - #4249458

is it me or does it seem all of DAZ Poser sites n forums are not as active as they once where ?

I don't think Forums in general are as active as they once were. There is an active Poser Creations group on FaceBook (Dodger posts a lot there these days), which is where a lot of forum-type stuff in general is going.....

@Dustrider

Your reading of Poser 11 is very close to mine and I too have not upgraded. I am also not very happy with the deactivation service and I notice that the promised Internet portal for activation still appears to be missing, probably in the pipeline along with the EULA for Pauline and Paul.

Yes I am being critical and some will say that is why Poser is dying because the users are ungrateful yet when they introduced Sub Surface Scattering it was very different. I still remember the renders that were being shown weeks before the release and BB going into depth on how it could be used. The thread at RDNA ran for page after page and most were far from critical. I for one could not wait to get my hands on the upgrade. Compare this with what was shown for Superfly, there really is no comparison, even now the number of Superfly renders do not exceed what was shown for SSS before launch.

The cost of the upgrade was higher than usual, despite the fact that Paul did not make it into initial launch. I am very much in a wait and see mode but there will need to be changes both to Pauling and Superfly before I am really tempted. Mind you I did not like Dawn when she was first launched but now the figure is very different from when launched so improvement is possible, but then Dawn never had a $200 price tag.

WandW posted at 7:32PM Sat, 16 January 2016 - #4249610

Male_M3dia posted at 6:41PM Sat, 16 January 2016 - #4249572

Not with triax rigging because of the way higher resource requirements of the facial rigging and extra bones including those in the hands, feet, neck and heel, which is why it was dropped and Dual Quaterion rigging is used instead. Also with the new rigging it can be imported into Maya, 3dsmax, modo, or any other app that supports the rigging.

I'd expect rigged expressions to use fewer resources than morphs. Of course, I suppose the morphs woudn't be loaded in Studio unless they were actually dialed in...

The resources deal with weight maps per bone. I believe the dual quaterion was something like 1 or 2 maps per bone and triax was 6. So multiply six maps by all the facial bones and extra bones and you would see the resource issue, so the facial rigging would not have happened. Triax is a much better rigging system but less portable; DQ is the industry standard so any company could incorporate it in their program. So really if people are trying to get Genesis 3 in Poser in that other thread, they probably should just export the standard expressions included as morphs and reimport them and toss the facial rig.

Please don't blame SM allone. There has been a survey on RDNA before release. It looked like SM followed most of what "that" community wished for. Since that community's worst panicing nightmare is to loose backward compability, I wonder what is left to improve on Poser. Better shaped and rigged Figures - maybe? However, I guess, this has been my last Poser. I think I'll go with the next IClone release.

hornet3d posted at 6:47AM Sun, 17 January 2016 - #4249614

@Dustrider

Your reading of Poser 11 is very close to mine and I too have not upgraded. I am also not very happy with the deactivation service and I notice that the promised Internet portal for activation still appears to be missing, probably in the pipeline along with the EULA for Pauline and Paul.

Yes I am being critical and some will say that is why Poser is dying because the users are ungrateful yet when they introduced Sub Surface Scattering it was very different. I still remember the renders that were being shown weeks before the release and BB going into depth on how it could be used. The thread at RDNA ran for page after page and most were far from critical. I for one could not wait to get my hands on the upgrade. Compare this with what was shown for Superfly, there really is no comparison, even now the number of Superfly renders do not exceed what was shown for SSS before launch.

The cost of the upgrade was higher than usual, despite the fact that Paul did not make it into initial launch. I am very much in a wait and see mode but there will need to be changes both to Pauling and Superfly before I am really tempted. Mind you I did not like Dawn when she was first launched but now the figure is very different from when launched so improvement is possible, but then Dawn never had a $200 price tag.

Guess I'll co-sign Hornet and Dustrider on their opinions. There's obviously a shift in momentum and mindshare away from Poser and towards Studio. Even if you plan to continue using Poser as I do, you'll have to take into account the issues in the Poserverse from the parent company down to the final product and on to the vendor support. You have to consider that Poser's gone from the king of a relatively small niche market to a struggling contender in a growing consumer 3D market. That market consists of cheap 3D printers, free software like Studio, Sketchup, and Blender as well as alternate content markets like the Unity store, Mixamo, etc. Throw in simplified animation tools, free game engines and the like and the landscape looks very different than it did 5 or 6 years ago. There is nothing to suggest that Smith Micro is willing or capable of adapting to the challenge.

The solution in my mind, especially after watching Adobe gobble up or outperform its competition, then implementing an "eff you, pay me" business model, lies along what Wolf359 alluded to in a previous post. Diversification. I'm no more inclined to throw all my eggs into a Daz3D basket than I am to pay full price for the latest version of Poser. I'm very much interested in the workflow Daniel Eskridge and others have created where multiple softwares, many of them free, are integrated into the whole. It gives you a lot of autonomy and more flexibility to produce better art in my opinion. I plan to create art for many years to come and don't want to be at the mercy of any one company or their vendors.

DustRider posted at 4:22AM Sun, 17 January 2016 - #4249594

For me though, the total lack of great user renders coming for Superfly was a huge red flag. You implement a new render engine which is one of your biggest selling points, yet none of your beta testers are flooding the forums and galleries with renders that make this a must have upgrade??? Seriously? Finally, almost two months later, renders that show off what superfly can do are showing up in more frequency.

Aside from the shader gurus, it's never seemed to me that the Poser community that frequents the forums -- particularly in the last few years -- was ever much about renders at all, but far more into figures and their creation. Some long time and very active users have admitted to never doing renders except to show off their figures or rigging or morphs. So it wouldn't surprise me to find that the beta testers were taken from such a group. Unfortunately, users who don't spend most of their time on rendering probably also won't collect a lot of content, and as a result, the library bugs weren't noticed. Not getting a whole lot of renders out to the community would be another side effect.

It's not necessarily a bad thing, since it seems to me that P11 was largely filled with content creation features and upgrades. So naturally you'd want a beta group of content creators. But Superfly did not get the attention that perhaps it needed.

I have P11, but I don't use it because of the library issues. I also wouldn't use Superfly at all because it's just too slow. How many people have concluded that they might as well use their current Poser version with Lux rather than shell out more money for yet another super slow renderer? Many of us aren't using robust enough hardware to really use SF ; it kills my lowly i7 and I don't have an Nvidia vcard. Should I ever get an Nvidia card, I'm definitely going to go with Octane, though, because I don't have the patience to wait an entire day for a little web sized render.

The introduction of Iray is when I really sat up and took notice of Studio. I was already starting to use Studio for M4 clothing conversions to use with M5 in Poser, and I was slowly putting some effort into actually working with the program. Iray just clicked with me, and my old first-gen i7 can handle it even just rendering in CPU mode (I'm at the point I basically can no longer use Reality/Lux on my machine). I bought in the March sales all of the conversion tools to leverage my V4/M4 collection with Gen2, and I found a new spark and joy with this hobby.

I'd put a lot of hope into Poser 11, but as mentioned by other posters above, there were no images of Paul, Pauline, or Superfly that made me feel that "I had to have this". In fact, it was quite the opposite. Add another 35% for the dollar exchange rate at the time (it's now 45%), and the cost isn't worth the upgrade to me. PP2014 will be my last version of Poser for the foreseeable future. I'm glad some people are very happy with P11 and enjoy solving the challenges it presents. I'm just no longer up for that challenge.

I have been away and popping in rarely over the past 6 years due to having a family and losing a lot too,but now I have more time and have started to return to the poser good I've noticed a huge daz shift, the renderosity MP is predominantly genesis and so are the galleries, this doesn't bother me, I still like V4 and all the old figures, wasn't sure if the new features of poser 11 were going to be any good, but I'm impressed, and I'm looking forward to VWD cloth and hair,so I'm pretty happy with poser, ok there could be some updates that are long overdue, but all in all DAZ has nothing to offer me, in fact,it's new business model is good for me as I'm saving money instead of giving it to them, so carry on DAZ,I will stick with poser as it's a very good piece of software (not app).

shedofjoy posted at 8:10PM Sun, 17 January 2016 - #4249715

I have been away and popping in rarely over the past 6 years due to having a family and losing a lot too,but now I have more time and have started to return to the poser good I've noticed a huge daz shift, the renderosity MP is predominantly genesis and so are the galleries, this doesn't bother me, I still like V4 and all the old figures, wasn't sure if the new features of poser 11 were going to be any good, but I'm impressed, and I'm looking forward to VWD cloth and hair,so I'm pretty happy with poser, ok there could be some updates that are long overdue, but all in all DAZ has nothing to offer me, in fact,it's new business model is good for me as I'm saving money instead of giving it to them, so carry on DAZ,I will stick with poser as it's a very good piece of software (not app).

One of the reasons that the galleries show a Genesis bias is that some Poser users have deleted their galleries and do not post here any more. Others that still do, find little in the market place for them and don't visit as often, again reducing the gallery upload. I am not saying that is the full story by any means and there is certainly a drift to Daz and Genesis but just because someone deletes their gallery does not mean they have stopped using Poser just as not buying here does not mean Poser users have stopped buying Poser content, they have just moved on.

I've had my head inside Daz Studio for many months now. I kinda like it, I do like Iray, but I like Poser too. I wasn't going to buy Poser 11, but probably will eventually after they fix some of the bugs. EZSkin 3 goes a long way toward that decision, because while I know my way around the material room a little bit, I was HUGELY disappointed that they conformed Superfly materials to the f-ed up material room that I will forever think is way too difficult for the average hobbyist (Daz Studio has managed to make the Iray materials pretty easy to make very involved shaders and still have a way to do all the nodes and really complicated stuff in the background - I wish SM could learn from that). At least EZSkin will take away a little of bit of the sting in that area. I'm not crazy about the new Poser figures, but they aren't nearly as homely as the Poser 7 and 8 figures and even the Poser 9 figures. So, at least on that front there's been a slight improvement, tho I haven't been that impressed by the bends I've seen so far.

The fact of the matter is that there are pros and cons to each program and no reason why someone can't use both (after all, I use at least two modeling programs regularly and even do half a model in one and finish in the other). Poser has dynamics which I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE...as dated as it is, something DS's dynamics probably won't have with the same degree of usability for goodness knows how long, if ever.

Laurie

Facebook ,Well I've gone from mailing list to forums guess face book is a option but I thought they where rated G squeaky clean and censored to the max. Just don't sound like a place for Art or Free Speech for that matter. So tell me again why every one would run to a place where there told what they can say.

Ladies and Gentlemen

LaurieA posted at 5:54PM Sun, 17 January 2016 - #4249738

I've had my head inside Daz Studio for many months now. I kinda like it, I do like Iray, but I like Poser too. I wasn't going to buy Poser 11, but probably will eventually after they fix some of the bugs. EZSkin 3 goes a long way toward that decision, because while I know my way around the material room a little bit, I was HUGELY disappointed that they conformed Superfly materials to the f-ed up material room that I will forever think is way too difficult for the average hobbyist (Daz Studio has managed to make the Iray materials pretty easy to make very involved shaders and still have a way to do all the nodes and really complicated stuff in the background - I wish SM could learn from that). At least EZSkin will take away a little of bit of the sting in that area. I'm not crazy about the new Poser figures, but they aren't nearly as homely as the Poser 7 and 8 figures and even the Poser 9 figures. So, at least on that front there's been a slight improvement, tho I haven't been that impressed by the bends I've seen so far.

The fact of the matter is that there are pros and cons to each program and no reason why someone can't use both (after all, I use at least two modeling programs regularly and even do half a model in one and finish in the other). Poser has dynamics which I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE...as dated as it is, something DS's dynamics probably won't have with the same degree of usability for goodness knows how long, if ever.

Laurie

I installed DAZ Studio 4.8. I've only had my head in there for an hour or two, so far it's been slow as it's quite different so I have to learn how to do what I know in Poser.

However, with Iray and their built-in shaders I'll give them that it's a lot easier to get better results than with Poser's Firefly. That may change with Poser's Superfly, I don't know. I'm relatively new to all this, 2 or 3 years. I think part of what made Poser's material room so difficult for me was that it didn't react so much as in real life as with unbiased rendering. Lots of tricks with fake reflection maps and stuff to get sorta good results. Same went with lighting. When I switched to Octane, lots of the difficulty I had with those things went away.

I want to get my hands on Victoria 7, I'm mostly interested in the details, and my gripe with V4 - she's showing her age.

I see nothing wrong with using Ds and poser, after all they are tools, and are used to produce an outcome, I don't agree with V4 being old, just people get bored and want something new, that's commerce, and I don't blame anyone for wanting to use V7 but for me I don't want to fart arse around trying to get something to work with something it wasn't ment to work with (poser, as that's what I use), generally It ends up with me getting annoyed with it after wasting x amount of hours when I could have done it quicker with what I already have.

Part of it is due to how people here use Poser. There is no point in upgrading if you don't actually use anything that has been added to Poser since the release of Poser 4. And I think that is why many are attracted to DS, it has a Poser 4 feature set with a PBR bolted on.

Poser may be dying in the 'Rosity forums, but let's not kid ourselves - most people (and vendors) here are still stuck in October 2007. I think that is the reason 'Rosity has gone from 4500 - 6000 members online at any one time to not cracking 3000 since the last site "redesign". If you want to see a good example of that - dig through the forum archives - the level of vitriol is the same as today, but back then there was a lot more information available.

Timberwolf earlier mentioned how SM was surveying the forum members over at RDNA. Well, those forums ARE the official SM Poser forums. In addition, that community is more open to letting go of a Poser 4 workflow, IMO - I have no idea where you are getting that "backwards compatibility is most important" nonsense from. Figures that take advantage of modern versions of Poser are sold there - not here. In addition to that, those new figures aren't savaged in the forums like they are here. Nor do they allow vendors to disrupt threads the way the mods do here.

Tools to extend Poser capabilities are sold over there, not here. Subforums to leverage features in Poser are there, not here. If you are using Dawn as your primary female mesh - why spend a single minute here? Your time would be better spent at Hivewire. SM figures, 3rd party figures, or Poser itself - The RDNA forums are where the action is.

There is very little "new knowledge" to gather in the forums here. And if "new knowledge" did show up here, what are the odds that we would get an e-bot notification of it?

'Rosity Thread from December 2004:

Subject: I want to know the the future prospect of poser.

ssgbryan posted at 3:20AM Mon, 18 January 2016 - #4249818

Part of it is due to how people here use Poser. There is no point in upgrading if you don't actually use anything that has been added to Poser since the release of Poser 4. And I think that is why many are attracted to DS, it has a Poser 4 feature set with a PBR bolted on.

LOL you know that's not even true. People are switching because it's not holding on to anything of poser and its advanced features: UDIM, Dual Quaterion, auto fit, auto morph generation, Iray the ease of use in making and using content and most of all figures that spur the most arguments in the forums because they surpass the low quality stuff being offered for a premium.

Poser may be dying in the 'Rosity forums, but let's not kid ourselves - most people (and vendors) here are still stuck in October 2007. I think that is the reason 'Rosity has gone from 4500 - 6000 members online at any one time to not cracking 3000 since the last site "redesign". If you want to see a good example of that - dig through the forum archives - the level of vitriol is the same as today, but back then there was a lot more information available.

So the user base is splintered across versions because not everyone has actually upgraded. So if those people haven't upgraded because they're not finding the value, whose fault is that?

Timberwolf earlier mentioned how SM was surveying the forum members over at RDNA. Well, those forums ARE the official SM Poser forums. In addition, that community is more open to letting go of a Poser 4 workflow, IMO - I have no idea where you are getting that "backwards compatibility is most important" nonsense from. Figures that take advantage of modern versions of Poser are sold there - not here. In addition to that, those new figures aren't savaged in the forums like they are here. Nor do they allow vendors to disrupt threads the way the mods do here.

Actually it was a big argument here and there about not wanting to let go of their vast library of content. So if they won't let go of the content, it's hard to let go of the workflow either. And that spills into how the weight mapping and superfly was bolted on to keep compatibility rather than move forward and replace it with actual industry standard features.

Tools to extend Poser capabilities are sold over there, not here. Subforums to leverage features in Poser are there, not here. If you are using Dawn as your primary female mesh - why spend a single minute here? Your time would be better spent at Hivewire. SM figures, 3rd party figures, or Poser itself - The RDNA forums are where the action is.

Those things are barely selling, even there it's Genesis 3 and V4. A few are making some pauline items, but it will probably fail like antonia, michelle and dawn because they are so flawed and no customer ends up buying them.

Is Poser dying? for me it is, i have lost interest in 3d, I dont feel like updating or trying other software (Daz Studio... i tried it, i just dont get it, and yes its hard, gave me a headache), Blender, Wings, i gave those a shot too, didnt know what i was doing, heck i dont even know how to use Poser to the fullest... Fitting Room? uh? i dont get it, really... makes me upset, i have spent quite some cash with V4 stuff but thats enough. No more, i give up.

Suucat posted at 10:58AM Mon, 18 January 2016 - #4249832

Is Poser dying? for me it is, i have lost interest in 3d, I dont feel like updating or trying other software (Daz Studio... i tried it, i just dont get it, and yes its hard, gave me a headache), Blender, Wings, i gave those a shot too, didnt know what i was doing, heck i dont even know how to use Poser to the fullest... Fitting Room? uh? i dont get it, really... makes me upset, i have spent quite some cash with V4 stuff but thats enough. No more, i give up.

Ha :) I understand. I tried more than a decade ago to get into 3d and I failed too. Softwares were a little bit easier to learn than today because of less features to learn. The only app besides Poser, that made sense to me was Cinema4D. I whould still go with it, but I cannaot effort it anymore. What I want to say is, learning a 3d software is never easy and you will loose a lot of hair if you try. Part is you mentioned the software that is most hard to learn IMO: Blender. It is powerfull, free and man I don't see no rhime or reason with it. so that's why I'm stuck with Poser and DAZStudio. Big and serious 3d software is too expensive for me, it is hard to learn and it doesn't have that community based content like Poser have. Are you going to quit 3d? You'd better do and I wish I could follow you. Doing some workout and working on a carreer. That whould be much healthier, than playing with 3d dolls all day and night long. So NewYears resolution is: get a life. ;)

Is Poser dying? for me it is, i have lost interest in 3d, I dont feel like updating or trying other software (Daz Studio... i tried it, i just dont get it, and yes its hard, gave me a headache), Blender, Wings, i gave those a shot too, didnt know what i was doing, heck i dont even know how to use Poser to the fullest... Fitting Room? uh? i dont get it, really... makes me upset, i have spent quite some cash with V4 stuff but thats enough. No more, i give up.

I think you put it well or at least to some degree. People that are interested in doing 3d will not find programs to do so, that are easier to use than Poser and Daz3d when it comes to using and posing characters. I think a lot give Poser a rough feedback, maybe worse than it deserve, but guess thats because they expect it to do more than it can or maybe they would like to do something that it just can. But as you write the alternative is to move to one of the other 3d packages and anyone that have tried one of these will agree that the learning curve, going from Poser/Daz3d to one of these is very steep. Its not a question of, if Poser/Daz3d doesn't cut it, then people will just move to one of these programs, like a switch can be made in a couple of weeks or so, it takes years of practice. And even if we leave those programs out, and people think that Daz3d might be better than poser in some areas, they will run into problems with that as well at some point.

There is a lot of talk about render engines and Iray being better etc etc. But I don't think im mistaken if anyone that make graphic doesn't spend a lot of time in PS afterwards to fix up there images, even if they are rendering in applications like 3ds max, maya etc. And there render engines are much better. Here is an example i did in 3ds max before PS and after.

Before PS:

After PS:

Looking at the actual render its pretty boring and flat. Fixing it up in PS certainly makes it more interesting. Im not a professional 3d artist or anything or claiming the image is extremely good, but simply to show that even if the initial render is not perfect you can do a lot using other programs like PS. I don't expect 3ds max to throw out a perfect looking image, i know I will have to fix it up in PS afterwards anyway.

And think people look at some of the renders other people make and if they can't get the same results straight out of Poser, then it must be because they were rendered in Daz3D, which give them "ammunition" to have a go at Poser and think that is a bit off. Even if Daz3D have a better render than Poser, nothing prevent you for manipulating the final image in PS or Gimp or whatever is preferred, everyone else does it as well. But of course Poser could be better, but again its very good at what it does, working with characters, cloth, posing, user friendly etc. But no one should expect it to throw out fantastic images just by changing some dials in the render settings i think.

hornet3d posted at 7:09AM Mon, 18 January 2016 - #4249734

shedofjoy posted at 8:10PM Sun, 17 January 2016 - #4249715

I have been away and popping in rarely over the past 6 years due to having a family and losing a lot too,but now I have more time and have started to return to the poser good I've noticed a huge daz shift, the renderosity MP is predominantly genesis and so are the galleries, this doesn't bother me, I still like V4 and all the old figures, wasn't sure if the new features of poser 11 were going to be any good, but I'm impressed, and I'm looking forward to VWD cloth and hair,so I'm pretty happy with poser, ok there could be some updates that are long overdue, but all in all DAZ has nothing to offer me, in fact,it's new business model is good for me as I'm saving money instead of giving it to them, so carry on DAZ,I will stick with poser as it's a very good piece of software (not app).

One of the reasons that the galleries show a Genesis bias is that some Poser users have deleted their galleries and do not post here any more. Others that still do, find little in the market place for them and don't visit as often, again reducing the gallery upload. I am not saying that is the full story by any means and there is certainly a drift to Daz and Genesis but just because someone deletes their gallery does not mean they have stopped using Poser just as not buying here does not mean Poser users have stopped buying Poser content, they have just moved on.

You know, hornet, I think that's the part they just don't get.

DAZ PAs quit providing Poser products, so Poser users moved on.

Renderosity quits providing Poser products, Poser users move on.

They made their choice. They demand Poser User follow them to DS or move on.

Poser isn't dying. Poser USERS are moving on.

Buying some paint and canvas doesn't magically make you a painter. Pressing the Bossa Nova button on a casio keyboard doesn't mean you're a drummer or composer. I think the only problem with Poser is the type of user base and corresponding mentality it's burdened with. It's so far along and ingrained that it's inseparable... Unfortunately it's encouraged by the company itself. Daz is just refining and reaping the rewards of that mentality whereas Poser seems to be in a state of confusion over it.

When I remember correctly, my first Poser was version 2 and that was by Fractal Design, the next version 4 was from Metacreations, then came Curios Labs with 5 to 7, since Poser 8 we have Smith Micro so, Poser never died and I'm pretty sure we'll see Poser 20 one day, which company is selling the licences then, no one knows. It's the userbase that keeps Poser alive and also the large number of freebies created by the community.

Agree on that freebie community front there Jules53757. I would have probably abandoned Poser as a creative tool if that aspect of all this weren't in place.

It seems like the forum-driven Poser communities may be dying, but WandW is correct that forums across the board seem to have less traffic than in the past. Poser development seems healthy and the Poser Team seems optimistic about the future. It's a hard question to answer. No one knows the size of the Poser user base, now or in the past, except maybe Smith Micro types who aren't telling.

In a long term sense, I expect the future of computers to be cloud-based, subscription-driven, and oriented toward tablets and smartphones. A program like Poser might have a hard time adapting to that situation, and certainly a harder time pulling in new customers and users on our hobbyist level. Younger people seem to use computers less for creativity and more for consumption and socialization. Maybe my sample base is too limited, but the impression I have is that there are and will be fewer people drawn to using computers the way we have for a couple of decades. I assume they won't be interested in a Poser, and may never even learn about it. My assumption, based on all of this, is that Poser faces an ever-dwindling user base. I hope I'm wrong about every bit of this, though.

WandW posted at 8:46AM Mon, 18 January 2016 - #4249610

Male_M3dia posted at 6:41PM Sat, 16 January 2016 - #4249572

Not with triax rigging because of the way higher resource requirements of the facial rigging and extra bones including those in the hands, feet, neck and heel, which is why it was dropped and Dual Quaterion rigging is used instead. Also with the new rigging it can be imported into Maya, 3dsmax, modo, or any other app that supports the rigging.

I'd expect rigged expressions to use fewer resources than morphs. Of course, I suppose the morphs wouldn't be loaded in Studio unless they were actually dialed in...

It is both resources (skinning is heavier than morphs in general) and ease to weight map it. Tri-Ax uses 7 weight maps per bone, with the number of bones involved, that is prohibitive (both ways). Dual Quaternion is one map per bone.

Suucat posted at 10:48AM Mon, 18 January 2016 - #4249832

Is Poser dying? for me it is, i have lost interest in 3d, I dont feel like updating or trying other software (Daz Studio... i tried it, i just dont get it, and yes its hard, gave me a headache), Blender, Wings, i gave those a shot too, didnt know what i was doing, heck i dont even know how to use Poser to the fullest... Fitting Room? uh? i dont get it, really... makes me upset, i have spent quite some cash with V4 stuff but thats enough. No more, i give up.

If you want to do it, don't give up so easily. I can't speak to learning DS as I only installed it a few days ago. It takes time!

Poser seemed to be pretty good to learn on. I am far from an expert, but there's basics you gotta get a handle on.

1. Manipulating the cameras
2. Placing and posing your objects and figures
3. LIGHTING! Probably the most important thing impacting the quality of your renders.
4. The materials (although you can buy a lot, still, you'll want a basic understanding).

Good thing with Poser is that there's a ton of how-to videos out there to do those things. Personally, as a 3D newbie lighting gave me a lot of grief until I got an unbiased renderer (Octane). That's where I think the new version of Poser and DS will shine for newbies, pre-set materials that will offer novices pretty good results.

Jules53757 posted at 5:15PM Mon, 18 January 2016 - #4249858

When I remember correctly, my first Poser was version 2 and that was by Fractal Design, the next version 4 was from Metacreations, then came Curios Labs with 5 to 7, since Poser 8 we have Smith Micro so, Poser never died and I'm pretty sure we'll see Poser 20 one day, which company is selling the licences then, no one knows. It's the userbase that keeps Poser alive and also the large number of freebies created by the community.

You are delusional.

Last time Poser was sold it was 2007, 9 years ago. Poser 6 was obsolete but the alternatives were few and primive (Studio had just been released 2 years before). In these 9 years things have changed: Studio 4.8 blows away Poser on every issue but dynamic clothing, programs like Blender have gone from the pre 2.5 dark ages to 2.76b and tools like Unity and Unreal provide the platforms to develop what I have described as "interactive movies".

The current value of Poser codebase approaches zero. Apart from the CR2 parser/unparser and the code for Poser proprietary rigging management, everything is so obsolete to be useless. Anybody buying today Poser would have to plan for a lot of effort to provide this minimal algorithmic core with a modern UI and modern tools on all aspects of the workflow. I really wonder whether this potential new entry would not be better served by starting from scratch on every aspect. There is only one party eager to buy Poser: DAZ. By buying Poser, DAZ could align it to their cloud strategy and impose on the whole community the inevitable consequences of unchecked monopolies: high prices, low quality, shitty user service.

I hope that poser does NOT become cloud based or subscription, I will not pay a monthly fee and as for the cloud my broadband supplier has given me 15 cutouts over Xmas, really useful for the cloud.and as for power users moving on, I won't be, I like poser and see no point in going to daz unless I wish to just throw my money away to do the same thing.

Part of the reason the forums seem to be dying on the vines is because of the behavior of some members & the endless arguments between Poser & DS users, which honestly is silly if you think about it. These types of threads get locked now because we have enough staff patrolling the forums so this behavior isn't going to run rampant any more. We want participation to go back up but when we lock one ugly thread another just replaces it. It's a never ending battle. Most folks who use Poser just aren't posting any more for fear of being tarred & feathered in the forums by members who just don't quit stirring the pot. Poser & DS can exist together & does quite well, imho. I don't feel that Poser is dying in the slightest, but Poser users are posting here less because of the turmoil so please try to keep things civil and remember to think about how you would feel if the post you are making was from someone else & directed toward you.

3DFineries posted at 12:39PM Mon, 18 January 2016 - #4249902

Part of the reason the forums seem to be dying on the vines is because of the behavior of some members & the endless arguments between Poser & DS users, which honestly is silly if you think about it. These types of threads get locked now because we have enough staff patrolling the forums so this behavior isn't going to run rampant any more. We want participation to go back up but when we lock one ugly thread another just replaces it. It's a never ending battle. Most folks who use Poser just aren't posting any more for fear of being tarred & feathered in the forums by members who just don't quit stirring the pot. Poser & DS can exist together & does quite well, imho. I don't feel that Poser is dying in the slightest, but Poser users are posting here less because of the turmoil so please try to keep things civil and remember to think about how you would feel if the post you are making was from someone else & directed toward you.

I'm afraid not. Poser users are leaving because, just like this thread, ANY attempt at a conversation about POSER in the POSER forum becomes a forced conversation about DAZ.

Perhaps poser is dying as a commercial product, but I won't be surprised if some day it will be an open source program like blender or linux, that will be the best for the community and poser. There are enough enthoustiast and fanatic volunteers who will support it. Anyhow, it's something that will never happen to DS.

"Because , just like this thread, Any attempt at a conversation about poser in the POSER forum becomes a force conversation about DAZ.”

I disagree, Any thread about poser that is not directly related to Figures usually run its course with no Drama.

But it seems few users here are very excited by how mesh lights work in “superfly” or how to make a cool bronze shader for “superfly” Nor do forum members seem particularly compelled to discuss the utilitarian advantages of the new CAD style Scene measurement tools in P11

Poser is about posing and rendering mostly female figures and the prevailing Opinion is that the native poser ones are less than stellar. And the DAZ ones are simply ..BETTER. To say nothing of cynical afterthought Male offerings like “Paul”..sorry, but thats is the reality of it

Get emotional, and combative and attack & troll The DAZ merchs all you want.. No matter.

Until SMITH MICRO alters this paradigm in some significant way with their own POSER NATIVE female figure and content technology, built to some top down UNIFORM STANDARD that leverages the LATEST VERSION of poser, the forum threads will inevitably follow this same tedious course.

Shipments of computers, with the exception of gaming systems dropped by 8%-10% in the last quarter so that alone would suggest that there is a change happening with the use of computers in general. That change could affect any 3D software in the long term.

Over the last few years there has been a massive change the 3D hobby market place, not only the obvious split in the market but the introduction of new lights, Sub Surface Scattering and Weight Mapping to name a few. Sure many of these things existed in other software but they are now in the reach of users on a fairly tight budget. There have been changes in the render engines, not just iRay and Superfly but additions of things like Reality making the bridge Luxrender much easier.

We may moan a lot as a community but we have more choices available to us, in figures, materials, render engines, software and features than ever before. This makes the whole community much more diverse and makes the job of vendors particularly difficult trying to decide where to pitch their products. The end result will either be much higher prices or less profit to go around. Arguing over which software is best is not only futile but really only tinkering at the edges of what is happening in the wider community.

CrystalGames posted at 1:41PM Mon, 18 January 2016 - #4249840

hornet3d posted at 7:09AM Mon, 18 January 2016 - #4249734

shedofjoy posted at 8:10PM Sun, 17 January 2016 - #4249715

I have been away and popping in rarely over the past 6 years due to having a family and losing a lot too,but now I have more time and have started to return to the poser good I've noticed a huge daz shift, the renderosity MP is predominantly genesis and so are the galleries, this doesn't bother me, I still like V4 and all the old figures, wasn't sure if the new features of poser 11 were going to be any good, but I'm impressed, and I'm looking forward to VWD cloth and hair,so I'm pretty happy with poser, ok there could be some updates that are long overdue, but all in all DAZ has nothing to offer me, in fact,it's new business model is good for me as I'm saving money instead of giving it to them, so carry on DAZ,I will stick with poser as it's a very good piece of software (not app).

One of the reasons that the galleries show a Genesis bias is that some Poser users have deleted their galleries and do not post here any more. Others that still do, find little in the market place for them and don't visit as often, again reducing the gallery upload. I am not saying that is the full story by any means and there is certainly a drift to Daz and Genesis but just because someone deletes their gallery does not mean they have stopped using Poser just as not buying here does not mean Poser users have stopped buying Poser content, they have just moved on.

You know, hornet, I think that's the part they just don't get.

DAZ PAs quit providing Poser products, so Poser users moved on.

Renderosity quits providing Poser products, Poser users move on.

They made their choice. They demand Poser User follow them to DS or move on.

Poser isn't dying. Poser USERS are moving on.

Who in this thread demands that anyone move to DS...lol?! Either I need better glasses or you're making stuff up as you go.

Laurie

Just remember to keep it civil, courteous, and on topic regardless of your opinion. Thank you.

LaurieA posted at 2:01PM Mon, 18 January 2016 - #4249919

CrystalGames posted at 1:41PM Mon, 18 January 2016 - #4249840

hornet3d posted at 7:09AM Mon, 18 January 2016 - #4249734

shedofjoy posted at 8:10PM Sun, 17 January 2016 - #4249715

I have been away and popping in rarely over the past 6 years due to having a family and losing a lot too,but now I have more time and have started to return to the poser good I've noticed a huge daz shift, the renderosity MP is predominantly genesis and so are the galleries, this doesn't bother me, I still like V4 and all the old figures, wasn't sure if the new features of poser 11 were going to be any good, but I'm impressed, and I'm looking forward to VWD cloth and hair,so I'm pretty happy with poser, ok there could be some updates that are long overdue, but all in all DAZ has nothing to offer me, in fact,it's new business model is good for me as I'm saving money instead of giving it to them, so carry on DAZ,I will stick with poser as it's a very good piece of software (not app).

One of the reasons that the galleries show a Genesis bias is that some Poser users have deleted their galleries and do not post here any more. Others that still do, find little in the market place for them and don't visit as often, again reducing the gallery upload. I am not saying that is the full story by any means and there is certainly a drift to Daz and Genesis but just because someone deletes their gallery does not mean they have stopped using Poser just as not buying here does not mean Poser users have stopped buying Poser content, they have just moved on.

You know, hornet, I think that's the part they just don't get.

DAZ PAs quit providing Poser products, so Poser users moved on.

Renderosity quits providing Poser products, Poser users move on.

They made their choice. They demand Poser User follow them to DS or move on.

Poser isn't dying. Poser USERS are moving on.

Who in this thread demands that anyone move to DS...lol?! Either I need better glasses or you're making stuff up as you go.

Laurie

Not what the post said. Nice try, though.

Ok, I guess I DO need better glasses then :).

For those that wanna hear it - no, Poser will never die. It's here to stay.

Also for those that wanna hear it - nothing is forever. Take your pick. Those that want to will adhere to one set of beliefs, Others will cling to another set of beliefs. This topic is just as useless as usual.

Go out on a limb - use both. It costs you nothing to at least try the one. Whichever one you choose (or both), it's the right one. For you. That's what the whole convo boils down to really. Why people seem to think they have to stick with the one is beyond me. Sure, a lot of us are getting long in the tooth and learning something new can be daunting, but it keeps the mind sharp ;). I must have tried DS at least 30 times before it clicked. It took me a whole year to wrap my mind around Poser 4 and that was 20 years ago. I'm not abandoning either one. At least you'll have at least one to fall back on should the other go the way of the dinosaur.

Laurie

I don't care much for the hyperbole of 'dying', but to say Poser 11 has been slow off the start seems fair enough. I've upgraded, but only to the non-Pro version.

SuperFly is a nice engine, but it's not ready yet. To make things more complicated, the documentation supplied with Poser 11 is very sparse and not informative for people wanting to learn. I assume it works for people already up to speed with Cycles and just looking for Poser-specific implementations. Learning from examples becomes much harder when Poser 11 ships with only the smallest number of SuperFly materials. Blender/Cycles tutorials might seem the obvious alternative, but since SuperFly does not have all the nodes Blender does you inevitably hit a roadblock somewhere. The experts might argue these can be avoided, but the manual sure doesn't tell the uninitiated how.

That the team at Poser decided to hide GPU accelerated rendering on their new engine behind some arbitrary Pro license is baffling. SuperFly is the major change for most amateur users who might not need or understand all the content-creation tools that come with Pro. What we have now seems to be a render engine that can produce excellent results, but isn't a complete implementation of Cycles making learning it difficult, that doesn't ship with anything close to a meaningful collection of basic materials, and that is about as slow as FireFly unless you put down another $400 so the software magically learns how to make use of your Nvidia GPU hardware.

Had Poser 11 been released with a wide variety of materials that could have been applied to existing content I don't doubt we'd have seen a much larger number of SuperFly renders. Just dumping the software on the market and expecting people to dig through obscure forums for screenshots (making Google searches useless) of Poser-specific node setups is such an odd business decision.

adosity posted at 2:27PM Mon, 18 January 2016 - #4249929

I don't care much for the hyperbole of 'dying', but to say Poser 11 has been slow off the start seems fair enough. I've upgraded, but only to the non-Pro version.

SuperFly is a nice engine, but it's not ready yet. To make things more complicated, the documentation supplied with Poser 11 is very sparse and not informative for people wanting to learn. I assume it works for people already up to speed with Cycles and just looking for Poser-specific implementations. Learning from examples becomes much harder when Poser 11 ships with only the smallest number of SuperFly materials. Blender/Cycles tutorials might seem the obvious alternative, but since SuperFly does not have all the nodes Blender does you inevitably hit a roadblock somewhere. The experts might argue these can be avoided, but the manual sure doesn't tell the uninitiated how.

That the team at Poser decided to hide GPU accelerated rendering on their new engine behind some arbitrary Pro license is baffling. SuperFly is the major change for most amateur users who might not need or understand all the content-creation tools that come with Pro. What we have now seems to be a render engine that can produce excellent results, but isn't a complete implementation of Cycles making learning it difficult, that doesn't ship with anything close to a meaningful collection of basic materials, and that is about as slow as FireFly unless you put down another $400 so the software magically learns how to make use of your Nvidia GPU hardware.

Had Poser 11 been released with a wide variety of materials that could have been applied to existing content I don't doubt we'd have seen a much larger number of SuperFly renders. Just dumping the software on the market and expecting people to dig through obscure forums for screenshots (making Google searches useless) of Poser-specific node setups is such an odd business decision.

I do agree with Poser 11 was released before it should have been. It simply is not a market ready product.

I, too, have the non-Pro version and am very happy I didn't spring for the higher price tag.

Now, I don't have a Nvidia card, so the GPU/CPU rendering simply doesn't apply to me. I am, however, glad I didn't run out an BUY a Nvidia card in anticipation of this software package and add that cost to a poorly implemented package.

The figures? Well, all I can say about that is evidently, they got so sick of being told how awful Rex/Roxie were, they decided to show us the definition of BAD.