Penguinisto posted at 10:52PM Tue, 21 November 2017 - #4318488

Okay - first up, I'm not bashing anything. I used the Genesis figures and clothing as an illustration, not as the point.

The point is that Poser needs something like this. Sure, you can get the same results - with external apps, more time spent by the user, and a more convoluted workflow, but... why? Why should that be necessary?

Please don't dodge it by saying that software development is hard... I smack around code for a living as well (and simple/fast collision detection functions have been around since the days of DOOM, for cryin' out loud! And before you say it, we've got enough horsepower these days to get past the bounding box.)

Yes, SM has to balance features against ROI - so does everyone else, but most of them seem to do it well enough... So tell me: where would you not see an increased level of customer interest in having an in-app simple (to the customer) means of utilizing nearly every bit of clothing made in the past frickin' 12+ years (or more) for your default figures? Maybe expose the API so that folks at, say, HiveWire could add definitions to it to allow clothing fits to the Dawn and Dusk figures? Opens up a massive pile of good stuff for the customer, and since SM makes its money from the application (and not really from content)? Not like I'm asking them to supply a free MacBook Pro with every purchase here, and they'd see ROI fairly quickly from it, from newbie and old hand alike.

Sure, I could ask SM directly, but they likely already know about this, and I think they can hire who they need to. So what's holding them back? I've given my theories earlier; I hope they change their minds.

Using a g figure/DS comparison is a good way to get a flame war going.

We have in-app, simple to the customer, means of utilizing every bit of clothing made in the last 12+ years. It's called the fitting room. Before that, we had Wardrobe Wizard and/or Xdresser. The tools are there - it is up to the end user to use them. It's like the cloth room - once you muster up the courage use it, you kick yourself for not using it sooner.

Maybe expose the API so that folks at, say, HiveWire could add definitions to it to allow clothing fits to the Dawn and Dusk figures?

Have you ever used the fitting room? Poser doesn't use definitions for clothing fits - that is a DS thing. The fitting room works with all figures. It is easiest to use it with a developer rig, but isn't necessary.

If you are in a hurry, (or need to convert 50+Gb of V4 content) Lyrra made the Fit Room Magnets for Dawn, Dusk, Paul, and Pauline (I am hoping for more when Orion, Venus, and Project E are launched.), they automagically position the clothing so that a fitting room session is 30 second process instead of a 60 second process (On my computer, anyway). It isn't rocket science. It does however take 3 or 4 clicks. Which apparently is much too difficult for some users.

As I have stated before - I have lots of V4 outfits that have never been worn by V4 in my stories. My bloated V4 clothing runtimes are available for any figure I care to use. Hair is decoupled from figures thanks to Netherworks' Hair Control System. I harvest V4/M4 textures via Texture Transformer and Texture Converter (both excellent investments) for use with other meshes. I can even use them to replace the crap textures that come with the g characters I have purchased. (Look Ma! No more painted on underboob shadows on the latest and greatest g figures!).

If one uses all of the tools available, one's options expand exponentially. "Learned Helplessness" isn't a Poser thing.

My prep workflow for content massively smooths my workflow when I am actually Making Art.

My prep workflow is "convoluted" because too many vendors are still living in Oct 2007. They are unwilling to leverage any post-Poser 7 feature, even if it would make their lives easier. Example: I actually had a vendor tell me they didn't have time to learn the features of Poser 9, while they were developing their 1st clothing product for Dawn, a character that only works in Poser 9 or higher. If you don't understand how weight mapping works, your clothing product probably won't be all that good. Just Sayin'. I just fix what needs fixing and go about Making Art.

Nothing would make me happier than to see vendors drop character body morphs from clothing for example - it would make life easier for them and easier for the me. The reason they don't is because they cater to the rank beginners and folks that are aggressively uninterested in learning how to make the software go. This is why my prep workflow is "convoluted".

Nothing would make me happier than to see vendors at 'Rosity actually follow the sales guidelines for materials (material files in the materials subfolder, .mc6 required, .pz2s optional - Poser native PCFs for g content. DSON is a kludge); They don't, again because they cater to the folks that are still using a Poser 7 workflow, instead of leveraging the power of the current version (Even though 90+% of us are running Poser 9 or later) . This is why my prep workflow is "convoluted".

Nothing would make me happier than to see vendors leave DOS naming conventions behind, so I don't have to restructure/rename nearly every d@#$ed file and folder (and as an added bonus, the search function in Poser would actually work). This is why my prep workflow is "convoluted".

Nothing would make me happier than to see vendors actually THINK about how their product will be used by the end user. Example - hiding everything in an ego folder insures the customer can't find it. This is why my prep workflow is "convoluted".

Nothing would make me happier than to see clothing vendors THINK before they put everything in a runtime. If they make [cool add-on] for [Foo Outfit], use the same file structure as [Foo Outfit], so when it is installed, it is dropped in with the [Foo Outfit] materials, so the enduser can find it. This is why my prep workflow is "convoluted".

A lot of features have been added to Poser due to vendor intransigence. It is why we have the fitting room, it is why we have access to the API via the add-on framework (it is where all of those little niche features are added by 3rd parties), it's why we have copy Morphs From, etc.

Tools are there, but for some, it is easier to whine than learn to use them.