adosity posted at 1:59AM Thu, 19 July 2018 - #4333341

wolf359 posted at 2:49PM Wed, 18 July 2018 - #4333235

Lets be brutally honest, neither Daz or poser or arguably even Iclone Pro ,offer any compelling features as a general 3D/CG application to the 3D/CG generalist if you remove the base Characters from the equation.

I agree with that, and it's for characters that I turn to these programs. That's their thing, their niche - and it works well enough.

My post was perhaps worded a bit awkwardly: my point being, Poser has characters. A lot of them. And to take advantage of the moment of brutal honesty; how many people are hitting the limits of those characters rather than their own? A few - at most. I've seen plenty of stunning artwork with ancient (in computer terms) Victoria 3 while seeing some horrific things with the latest iteration of Genesis.

Now, is it easier to make good images with the latter? I don't doubt it - and I think that's the 'question behind the question' in many of these comments about Poser. The learning curve and time investment requirements are steep and high compared to others. This is a significant issue, because new users will likely go to the place where they can quickly get results. That makes a nice pool of potential customers for people who make content, two developments that can strengthen each other.

So back to the original point: I don't agree with those who keep talking about new figures as somehow a "fix" for whatever is wrong with Poser. I think the key will be in making it (much) easier for average people to leverage the possibilities of the program. That'll be difficult, but we'll see how they do. Others have given it a pretty decent shot, so it's not impossible.

You are correct that people despite tools available can make bad things, but I think you make a mistake with such approach. As Wolf already pointed out its somewhat misleading way to look at it. Because a program like Poser have lots of users at different skill levels, so making a decision that new characters is not needed as those with the lowest skill level are yet to be judged as being able use the current characters to their full potential. Because if we turn it around, a very skilled person can make amazing things with old content, but they would be able to make even better stuff with better content, but if new content is not made available, because those with lowest skill levels might never reach a level, where they are considered good enough, you have a problem.

I do agree with you that new characters are not a complete fix for Poser. But they are crucial, because its one of their main selling points and if Poser is going to be further developed they need to sell copies, plain and simple. Because if they can't sell anything, it will eventually stop being developed. And since characters is a huge driving force to why people would buy Poser in the first place and not go to Daz3d or Iclone, they can't ignore it. Also you have to remember that Poser and Daz3d are more or less 100% content driven programs, if there were no content available there would be no users or hardly any at least. So characters are very important content elements and in the same way as content creators improve and make new stuff available, so should the characters as these are merely content..

And character does get a huge amount of attention in general. while others might like a lot of other features. Which is perfectly fine. but my point of view is that identifying the key features in Poser is crucial, and making sure that these are of the highest possible standard is what SM should focus on, instead of for instant spending time to develop the bullet system for example.

Not because the bullet system ain't a good idea, but it shouldn't come at the expense of the key features. And obviously what these key features are in Poser can be different from person to person. But I personally feel that SM in some areas have ignored these when they shouldn't..