Question ... should this be moved to DAZ? It sure shifted to being about DAZ rather than Poser. No matter where the future of Poser goes, it doesn't have to end up being a discussion about DAZ (I respect DAZ3d, I just prefer Poser). No one has outright caused a software war here, but it does look like it's getting towards the baiting stage. Please be careful.

Boni posted at 12:58PM Thu, 16 August 2018 - #4334816

Question ... should this be moved to DAZ? It sure shifted to being about DAZ rather than Poser. No matter where the future of Poser goes, it doesn't have to end up being a discussion about DAZ (I respect DAZ3d, I just prefer Poser). No one has outright caused a software war here, but it does look like it's getting towards the baiting stage. Please be careful.

Daz 3D is the company, Daz Studio is the software, Poser is the software, Smith Micro the company, as is your statement is a bit confusing. If you move the thread I presume you mean to the Daz Studio forum here at Renderosity; would it really fit as it is more about Poser than DS, I realise that you would really like DS and its users to disappear from the rendo site but you might find that as a large part of this market place now caters to them revenue might drop dramatically if that happened.

When you throw Realillusion in the mix it would be as much a danger of causing a software war on the DAZ forum as it is here ;).

Seriously though, what there needs to be is a discussion on where the industry is heading regardless of programming platform.

Kinda off-topic, but it kinda fits in here:

What is it about certain DS only users that keep trawling Poser-only forums, searching for anything that could be misconstrued as 'Daz bashing', so they can feel offended?

I'm genuinely curious..

DreaminGirl posted at 5:04PM Thu, 16 August 2018 - #4334846

Kinda off-topic, but it kinda fits in here:

What is it about certain DS only users that keep trawling Poser-only forums, searching for anything that could be misconstrued as 'Daz bashing', so they can feel offended?

I'm genuinely curious..

If you are addressing that post to me then your facts are incorrect, I am not a DS only user I also use Poser, but please don't that let you stop you trying to stop me from posting in a thread or forum you would rather stay pure and clean with Poser only users.

tparo posted at 6:37PM Thu, 16 August 2018 - #4334848

DreaminGirl posted at 5:04PM Thu, 16 August 2018 - #4334846

Kinda off-topic, but it kinda fits in here:

What is it about certain DS only users that keep trawling Poser-only forums, searching for anything that could be misconstrued as 'Daz bashing', so they can feel offended?

I'm genuinely curious..

If you are addressing that post to me then your facts are incorrect, I am not a DS only user I also use Poser, but please don't that let you stop you trying to stop me from posting in a thread or forum you would rather stay pure and clean with Poser only users.

Fair enough, but why do I never see you jump down DS users throat when they bash Poser? And that happens a lot.. You just seem very selective in who you attack

I think the post that kicked all this off was the one suggesting DAZ should buy Poser. That's sort of like waving a Red Flag in front of a bull, though I don't think that was the intention. If you walked onto the DAZ forum and remarked that Smith Micro should buy DAZ you would get about the same result. This thread is all about Poser User's frustration with the pace of Smith Micro's development of Poser though. Speculation over Poser getting sold to someone else doesn't help the conversation any.

What if Autodesk bought Poser, that would be something! ?

DreaminGirl posted at 12:04PM Thu, 16 August 2018 - #4334856

What if Autodesk bought Poser, that would be something! ?

NO.just..no...there isnt any type of new tech that they would want inside of poser to canabolize poser for.Blender...maybe 3dcoat yes but not poser 2 completely different types of user base. Plus they would make you pay monthly to use it. I know you were just joking but.could you imagine....lol poser $1000 bucks yearly subscription..lmao

Maybe the new Poser team comes out with something good those things take time just have a little faith.

DreaminGirl posted at 6:25PM Thu, 16 August 2018 - #4334852

tparo posted at 6:37PM Thu, 16 August 2018 - #4334848

DreaminGirl posted at 5:04PM Thu, 16 August 2018 - #4334846

Kinda off-topic, but it kinda fits in here:

What is it about certain DS only users that keep trawling Poser-only forums, searching for anything that could be misconstrued as 'Daz bashing', so they can feel offended?

I'm genuinely curious..

If you are addressing that post to me then your facts are incorrect, I am not a DS only user I also use Poser, but please don't that let you stop you trying to stop me from posting in a thread or forum you would rather stay pure and clean with Poser only users.

Fair enough, but why do I never see you jump down DS users throat when they bash Poser? And that happens a lot.. You just seem very selective in who you attack

I hadn't meant to attack anyone, you are the one presuming things and attacking my right to post here.

No I don't think Daz should buy Poser the only reason I could think of for them to do that would be to stop production on it completely.

It is a bummer, that DAZ sees IClone as a threat instead as a >chance. It could be so easy: DS for stills, Iclone for animations.

Up until recently Daz was not threated by Iclone and even sold the Iclone software in the Daz store for many years and even had a long running forum sticky thread about animating genesis in Iclone.

But that was when the Iclone realtime Avatars ,Particularly the white girls, looked like "sims" people ( see Picture)

Daz was quite happy that RL Supported genesis from Day one for import and animation because We Iclone users remained Daz content customers.

But it seems Reallusion has wisely decided to Give Iclone users better Native Figures( ie prettier white girls) which gives new incoming Iclone users little reason to ever bother with Daz and Existing Iclone users an alternative to trying to keep up with the latest genesis version that always Breaks compatibilty with current systems

The new Character creator 3 Female will look like this....... Competition is Good... this market Needs it

tparo posted at 7:51PM Thu, 16 August 2018 - #4334859

I hadn't meant to attack anyone, you are the one presuming things and attacking my right to post here.

I'm not attacking your right to post here, I am asking why you are always jumping on anyone who says anything about Daz3d/DS that could be remotely taken as negative. You do this all the time, not just here, but on other forums as well. I don't get it. Why all this aggression?

Wolf, I guess the question is... what does this have to do with Poser? Can these figures be ported into it?

DreaminGirl posted at 9:07PM Thu, 16 August 2018 - #4334862

tparo posted at 7:51PM Thu, 16 August 2018 - #4334859

I hadn't meant to attack anyone, you are the one presuming things and attacking my right to post here.

I'm not attacking your right to post here, I am asking why you are always jumping on anyone who says anything about Daz3d/DS that could be remotely taken as negative. You do this all the time, not just here, but on other forums as well. I don't get it. Why all this aggression?

Would you like to direct me to all these posts where I jumped on someone, as I 'do it all the time' you shouldn't have difficulty with finding all those posts.

tparo posted at 3:15AM Fri, 17 August 2018 - #4334836

Boni posted at 12:58PM Thu, 16 August 2018 - #4334816

Question ... should this be moved to DAZ? It sure shifted to being about DAZ rather than Poser. No matter where the future of Poser goes, it doesn't have to end up being a discussion about DAZ (I respect DAZ3d, I just prefer Poser). No one has outright caused a software war here, but it does look like it's getting towards the baiting stage. Please be careful.

Daz 3D is the company, Daz Studio is the software, Poser is the software, Smith Micro the company, as is your statement is a bit confusing. If you move the thread I presume you mean to the Daz Studio forum here at Renderosity; would it really fit as it is more about Poser than DS, I realise that you would really like DS and its users to disappear from the rendo site but you might find that as a large part of this market place now caters to them revenue might drop dramatically if that happened.

I think you are misunderstanding what Boni is talking about if you read what she wrote once again. The original title of the thread is "Is Poser development dead?" Yet people starts to discuss the future of Daz versus other software packages, so it is a bit off topic.

However more as a general question and not aimed at you tparo, I personally don't care and don't think any thread should be closed unless people are being offensive. But im surprised every time I read these thread where Daz and Poser is mentioned together, that some people always seems to be offended, whether that's a user or Renderosity having to "threaten" to lock threads? I don't get it, is it truly impossible for people to share their views regarding different software solutions in a constructive way, without having them at each other throat instantly? I find it hard to believe, but also a sort of funny and immature in a sad way, at the same time. :D

DreaminGirl posted at 3:38AM Fri, 17 August 2018 - #4334856

What if Autodesk bought Poser, that would be something! ?

Autodesk have their Character generator, however not sure how advance it is and its not a standalone app like Poser etc. And im not even sure how much they are developing on it.

Here is a quick overview:

Autodesk character generator

tparo posted at 7:49AM Fri, 17 August 2018 - #4334872

Would you like to direct me to all these posts where I jumped on someone, as I 'do it all the time' you shouldn't have difficulty with finding all those posts.

Sure, let's start with your reply to Boni in this very thread, where you are passive-agressively accusing her of wanting to get rid of DS users. Then go to the 'weekly challenges' thread in the Community forum where you are claiming that DS users aren't welcome. Just look back at your own posts and you'll see the pattern. Over and over you are claiming that DS users aren't welcome, and frankly, it's getting old. You know full well that the majority of new products released here are DS only, so how can DS users be 'unwelcome'? So why the aggression? You still haven't answered that..

But this is a thread about Poser development, which is why it is so bizarre having someone drop in and complain about the 'poor' DS users. Let's take it back on track.

I think the Poser team are doing what they can with what they have, but seeing as Smith Micro is not a graphics company, Poser is not a priority for them. Which is why I wouldn't mind Poser being bought by a company that focuses on graphics. Maybe not Autodesk, but a similar, smaller company.

Poser is not dead, that's for sure, but I don't see a Poser development at the moment. The reason is not only SmithMicro. It is the Poser community, that seem to consist mainly of Poser nostalgics caught in the earley 2ks. Look at the Poser galleries, look at their clinging tight to V4 and Dawn. sorry I see a lot of flat colored with wooden posed preset characters starring into nowhere. move on please. ---------- Playing more with Poser again since PE is out, it feels like going back in time. Really, do i still have to fix poke throughs? Really, my clothes don't fit to my custom morphs? Really, lost my morphs again, because of some PMD file issue? Poser could be more advanced, if Poser users whould have more asked for it. But they don't. When ever you ask for features to include in Poser, especially when DS has allready, you get branded as a DAZ troll. Feels like a conspiracy theory from a religious cult. To make it clear again.------------ I do like diversety! I do like competition! I do like using different softwares! I do not want Poser to die! I do want Poser to get better! I do want SM to keep up with modern software like DS and Iclone! I do want better native figures for Poser! ( no messed up joints anymore and no emeciated ugly base figures anymore)

And no, I am not paid by the evil DAZ empire.

And no again, DS is not perfect. I painfully miss a morph brush, adding HD details and mostley the dependency editor.

I think some of your points are good, but I don't agree with it being a problem with people clinging to V4 and Dawn, these just happens to be what, I at least, would call the native characters for Poser. But there are lots of characters even for these meshes, morphs etc. That can turn either of them into something that you wouldn't even be able to recognize as being either of them. In that regards there are no difference between characters whether that's a Genesis or not. Its just as easy to spot those, whenever very little have been done to change them. Which at least to me is no problem, designing or even morphing an existing character into something new is a huge task with textures and everything. Expecting the average Daz or Poser user to do this is a bit unrealistic. My guess is that a lot of people that have knowledge of other 3D programs, like Zbrush etc. Will often use either V4, Genesis or some other base mesh when designing new characters. This is obvious one of the benefits of having such knowledge, but again such things might not be to important to some people to do, maybe they don't have the time, some might be new etc. There can be a million reasons. Its no secret that some people are better than others, its just a fact, but no one started being a master artist, it takes a lot of practice.

I do agree with you however, that it seems that some might not really want to move on from Firefly, which I think is sad, as it truly have no future in Poser in my opinion, except maybe as a Preview render. It is going to be slaughtered by Superfly (PBR) unless SM for whatever reason are desperate in trying to keep it alive. The only useful thing about it, is that Poser can't export Superfly materials correctly so you can import them into other solutions like 3ds max, at least I haven't figured it out. But the moment that is possible, Firefly for me at least is officially dead, which I think is a good idea. There are simply to many benefits to PBR. Also you have to remember that there is basically no difference between Superfly and Iray in the sense of their purpose, both are PBR render engines, but there are differences in certain settings etc. But overall they are the same. So nothing prevent you from doing just as good renders in Superfly as in Iray. Now Poser lack some of the tools that you will find in Daz, such as bloom control, HDRI controls, better fog, dust, smoke control etc. But with a little knowledge of PS or Gimp you can easily add stuff like this and in most cases its most likely preferred anyway to reduce render times and add flexibility.

Im not sure if there exist a Superfly texture for V4? Adding that would bring V4 on track with Genesis in that department. Obviously you wont have the mesh details from Genesis, which is both good and bad depending on what you have to use your character for. But there is as far as I can see nothing that prevent someone from making a real PBR skin texture for V4 or Dawn.

In regards to poke-throughs, at least for me I only experience that with Conforming cloth. The moment you "pressure" poses, most conforming cloth simply give up, which is why I only use dynamic cloth. Where you will only in my experience have it where skin collide, such as backside of the leg if its bend, the armpits etc. Which is minor issues compared to dealing with conforming cloth poke throughs.

Also P11 you can copy morphs from the character to the cloth, which for the most part, if the cloth is made to deal with it, will for the most part work very well only with minor adjustments.

So at least to me, I think that the Poser and Daz workflow is slowly getting more advanced, the time where people just had to click "Conform to.." is not as easy with good results as people were used to, maybe because expectations have also gone up. So Firefly renders are not as impressive anymore and if you do PBR renders, you don't want some clunky cloth to ruin it etc.

I disagree that Firefly is useless, you can do some really amazing stuff with it, if you know how. That said, I really like Superfly, but since I don't have a cuda GPU and my aging CPU is rather slow, Superfly takes forever. So unless they implement support for AMD cards, Superfly will remain something I will only use sparingly.

Also keep in mind that not everyone are after the 'photoreal' look, but prefer the more stylized look Firefly can give you. People have different styles and goals, and it would be foolish to get rid of Firefly IMO

As for Superfly textures for V4, just run the old ones through EZskin3, and you're good to go. There are some vendors that provide Superfly mats also, Seven being one of them.

Obviously if you like the look of a render then its useful :) But there is nothing in Superfly that prevent you from achieving a certain style, it doesn't have to be "realistic", which it seems to be referred to. But when you talk about realism in regard to PBR its about how it handles light and not so much about the look of the image, where you in Firefly have to fake it. I agree that you can get some good renders out of it, if you take your time. But being able to make materials and knowing that regardless of light settings, that being night, day, red light, blue light etc. It will look correct. Where as you in Firefly can risk that a scene looks very good with some lighting, then you change it and everything suddenly starts to look wrong, so what you have to do is start tweaking and adjusting all thoughts of things to make it look correct. PBR due to how it works solves all that for you, which is a huge time saver. Also you can take any PBR textures and throw them into another PBR and it will look almost identical with very little work, depending on the engine, so suddenly you get a lot of flexibility with your assets.

But there is nothing in Superfly, that prevent you from making some cartoon textures and throwing them on your character, the important thing is how it handles light and that you never get more than you throw in, and at least in my opinion, its doesn't really matter what style you are after, unless your aim is something like that obviously, the better the lighting the more interesting your image is. You have to remember that colors are simply reflections of light, so if the light is bad or wrong it will affect the image. And as computers get faster and faster so will rendering be. And I myself don't have a fast computer either, but I would imagine that people that have fast ones Superfly is godsend for Poser.

Hi!

ssgbryan posted at 12:19PM Fri, 17 August 2018 - #4332190

It has gone off topic because we can ALWAYS count on DS users to come into Poser threads to tell Poser users that they need to jump on DS cash merry-go-round.

Not gonna do that, promise. As far as which tool you want to use, I refuse to argue the merits for or against. You do you. I do however want to provide a touch of perspective and a couple of corrections about, well, stuff.

Daz made the decision to support DS through content because no one was willing to pay Poser prices for a software product that had no documentation and most of the features were still beta (and would not run on a lot of machines, since they used an older version of Qt to compile the UI). It was free for 30 days, then a “limited” time to free (and the basic & advanced versions slid down the memory hole).

Not really true. Version 1.0 (released in late 2005) came with a 350-ish page user manual in PDF format (...how do I know this? I wrote the damned thing, that's how.) That user-manual format was later dropped in favor of a wiki (long after I left), mostly because finding technical writers is a ball-biter, to say the least (and because the one we had for 1.0 got flaky, so it fell on me, because apparently writing curriculum somehow meant I had the most experience in the joint, and the deadlines were a comin'. I had to divvy up the time between writing code during the day and writing that manual in the evenings. Did I mention that Adobe Framemaker blew goats?) Anyrate, that was not the greatest idea they ever had, because nobody there (or in the community at large) really felt like filling it out. Live and learn, I guess...

Poser has been “dying” since at least Dec 2004 that I am personally aware of. I am not too terribly concerned - how many times has Daz3d been sold now?

Nah, but I bet it's pretty much on life support at this point, and a priest has been notified. I say this not because the the application (which appears to have improved greatly from my outsider's viewpoint). Nope, it's because it's stuck as a red-headed stepchild in a disconnected division of a company, run by financials-obsessed unartistic morons who, incidentally, couldn't manage their way to get laid in a whorehouse with a fresh Amex Black stuffed in their pocket. Seriously... Poser needs a better caretaker, full-stop. An actual graphics company buying it would be a nice start.

Oh, and yup, Daz changed hands a lot since Dan Farr semi-retired (okay, got bored) and Chris Creek decided to make a go of it alone shortly thereafter, but thus far, their succession of owners have been smart enough to pay attention to it, and not hack-and-slash with layoffs every time the NASDAQ farted.

Poser isn’t dying - Poser Vendors are dying off, but that is due to their decision not to support any figure not made by Daz. The fact that they compound this by not diversifying isn’t the customer’s fault.

The vendors are the only collective entity currently keeping the Poser alive, so be nice to them. SM could be nice to them too, by giving them better support (yes, the Fitting Room, yadda... I don't mean that thing, I mean better documentation, better support from company staff, better promotional visibility, maybe a tool or two to automate the inbound workflow...)

Back on topic - SM has a new development team that seems to understand some of the long-term issues. They are soliciting the end users for issues - unfortunately, most folks here would rather whine in a 3rd party forum than use the system SM has set up. Because, reasons.

Reasons like the fact that the SM fora and intake system was a ghost town for at least a decade or more? C'mon, I get that SM had a sticky relations wicket what with Rendo here existing (and heavily trafficked), but maybe they should've taken the plunge, taken charge of their own destiny, and, oh I dunno... bought Renderosity? No sense crying over spilled electrons, though.

Go back to the OP’s comments - they really do believe that SM should adjust their feedback system to accommodate their laziness.

The customer isn't always right, but they are still the Customer. Anger enough of them and suddenly you have no income to speak of.

(note: This isn't coming from a customer, but...)

butznutz posted at 12:57PM Fri, 17 August 2018 - #4334770

I really hope DAZ buys out Poser

Umm, prolly not gonna happen, unless by some odd happenstance Mssrs. Farr and Creek take back the reins (but even then only out of nostalgia.)

/////////////////

"The vendors are the only collective entity currently keeping the Poser alive, so be nice to them. SM could be nice to them too, by giving them better support (yes, the Fitting Room, yadda... I don't mean that thing, I mean better documentation, better support from company staff, better promotional visibility, maybe a tool or two to automate the inbound workflow...)"

////////////////

This is true to both applications Daz and Poser, regardless of what they can do. Both are 100% content driven, if you removed that from them, I doubt anyone would use them for anything, its not easier to rig in these programs than in others, Posing might to some degree or at least for some people be easier. But nothing that would make you decide to use them over another 3D application.

I prefer to use Poser because it does what I need it too for the most part and there is a huge amount of stuff in Poser I never use. Same goes for Daz it have more features than Poser, but when all comes down to it, most of these are most likely useful for content developers or advanced users, for people that just want to use a character and setup a scene, tell a story, create an image. I think there is very little gained in Daz extra features compared to Poser, its not worse but not better either. If people believe that Daz or Poser is what will take their stuff to the next level, they couldn't be more wrong, in my opinion. Hardly any professional artist will try to throw out a perfect image from a 3D application, unless there is no other choice. Trying to hit perfect lighting, rendering out effects etc. simply take way to long. So for still images most will use a program like Photoshop and for movies or animations its some sort of program like nuke, after effects etc. And that's the only way to really move the "rough", meaning the Poser, Daz render to the next level if you ask me. Obviously being good at these programs, can help you make things faster and get a better initial image to work on, but that's pretty much it.

Personally for me, if I had time to really start being creative and make art, I would spend by far the most time learning Photoshop and getting good at that, compared to either Poser and Daz. So I don't necessarily see Daz amount of features as a huge benefit in that regard and also why I don't think Poser is dead by any means, but simply that Poser should focus on what helps people to get to that initial state, obviously as you say support content creators with tools, but they dont have to try to match or copy Daz features. I would rather that they spend a lot of time getting Poser better integrated with the other big 3D applications, such as Blender, 3ds max, Maya etc. That would create a much better future for them, rather than trying to match or compete with Daz,,just go their own way. And of course be sure to supply Poser with top notch 3d characters!! So they don't have to play by Daz rules.

I can grok that... commercial artwork (as in, you end up doing the entire workflow and it's not broken up amongst a team), is going to be heavily reliant on postwork, so P-Shop would be, de rigeur,the tool to know inside and out.

...and don't worry - most of us who have been around for a few years have megatons of stuff that we saw a use for at one time, and kept around for some goofball reason or other (or in most cases, for no real reason at all outside of laziness.) My laptop has 97GB of Poser and DS stuff in it still, spread across various 'runtimes', and prolly an additional 120GB of cold-storage runtime bits in backup and external disk that I can't be arsed to stuff onto the laptop proper.

But... I'm not exactly a new user (I think we both showed up here around the same time.) Most of the folks left here are a bit long in the tooth. A lot of the folks on the Poser-centric Facebook pages are just as old-school, if not older... we're talking "hey look at this new thing they just made for Posette! It has movement options! Isn't that awesome!?" old-school.

Therein lies the rub, truth be told. Poser needs new blood. Desperately. I suspect it still gets some newbies showing up, but it's likely a trickle compared to the salad days of 2000 - 2009 or so. Hell, the Poser community is losing members by way of death at a growing rate these days (only half-joking about that - I almost bit the big one myself two years ago... and all I got from the experience was a shiny titanium spring sitting in my Left Anterior Descending artery, keeping my sorry ass alive.)

But, that's the biggest thing - it ain't necessarily new features or gee-whiz, nor is it some retina-popping SlutMatic 3000 female mesh (with a lip-sync animation capable vagina!) No... it's the fundamentals: A long-term vision (Dear SM PHB's: not "next quarter", but "5 years from now"). A reworked architecture that can be at least partially future-proofed for changes in architecture, OS, and customer demands. A more outgoing and recruitment-friendly attitude and team that captures and keeps content vendors. An API and software construction that is more friendly to those same folks. A UX that doesn't scare the unholy crap out of newbies with a steep learning curve. Branching out a little and making the thing work on Ubuntu (without spending a zillion hours dorking in WINE or putting up with a massive performance hit.)

I know some of that is nearly impossible, but at least trying would help...

New users are always good can't argue about that. And yeah Poser doesn't need "never before seen" features, however I do think that "Slutmatic 3000 female mesh" as you call it (which i think is a bad way people are talking about them) is needed for Poser and is crucial. Speaking for my self I know im not currently able to create characters of such standard. So to add any form of character to a scene I rely on Poser and Daz to do it. And it is what in the end is carrying these programs content wise, remove the characters and all the props would go away as well or at least the majority.

I do agree that long terms goals are needed, but think they would be fine if it aimed towards easy to use characters.....But with a secondary goal of getting Poser better integrated with the rest of the 3D workflows that people use. Which today is much more varied, meaning people use lots of different programs for specific things, such as fluid in Realflow, sculpting in Zbrush, texturing in Mari, UV in another and animating in a third. There would be lots of room for Poser in this workflow if it simply supplied easy to pose characters, creatures etc. Probably not in a professional environment, but for all of us semi professionals or what to say and for artist just wanting to express themselves etc.

The idea of making a single can do everything application is dead or is very difficult to do today. Those already on the market like Autodesk and Blender etc. Is well into this. So rather focus on doing something very well and spend time integrating into the rest of the workflow is a much better way and as I see it the only way forward, because its the workflow of most 3d artist, so I don't think its a clever move when Daz (If thats true) delete post to Iclone etc. Or when Renderosity some time ago, didn't want people to post links to freebies etc. its complete opposite to how people work with these things and to me a strategy clearly developed by a business person rather than an artist.

Now that raises an interesting issue. I work with an art contest site, and we are running into exactly the same issue - our members are getting old, and we are having problems attracting new members. I'm about tearing what's left of my hair out trying to figure out what younger artists are doing these days. And I'm talking all the branches - illustration, photo manipulation, photography (which appears to be the one bright spot), comics. So a reasonable question is what are they doing, where do they congregate, and how do you get them engaged in anything? Yes, I think the Poser community is getting older and smaller. I'm not sure DAZ is fairing any better there. I am seeing larger activity in some of the tablet apps. And I am talking people doing art for recreation, not people trying to make a living off it. Any thoughts?

3D-Mobster But But but..lol that is their business Daz website Daz Forums makers of Daz Studio..Its not like here Rendo doesnt own any program..let me go on the Zbrush forums right now and post links and screen shots and type how Zbrush should be scared about something new 3D coat is coming out with..and continue to ramble on and on about it (and aurick or one of the other mods knows damn well im anti Zbrush...but im not )...first I'd probably be laughed off the forums..then it will be removed (maybe even along with me) in a heart beat. Its whatever. its kinda trolling depending on how it was presented and or posted.

diogenese19348 posted at 7:45PM Fri, 17 August 2018 - #4334949

Now that raises an interesting issue. I work with an art contest site, and we are running into exactly the same issue - our members are getting old, and we are having problems attracting new members. I'm about tearing what's left of my hair out trying to figure out what younger artists are doing these days. And I'm talking all the branches - illustration, photo manipulation, photography (which appears to be the one bright spot), comics. So a reasonable question is what are they doing, where do they congregate, and how do you get them engaged in anything? Yes, I think the Poser community is getting older and smaller. I'm not sure DAZ is fairing any better there.

Instagram, Pintrest, DeviantArt (still...), Snapchat, lots of places. Bit of a diaspora, truth be told.

But, by happy circumstance, one of the few redeeming features about Portland, OR is that it has a thriving and still-growing art community. Now we're talking physical (not digital) media, but the art is there and thriving. Getting these kids interested in CG art? Bit more of an effort, unless someone manages to jam Poser or D|S onto a smartphone and/or tablet.

That latter bit is important for one reason: Outside of businesses and the gamer community, you don't see too many desktops anymore, let alone the overclocked and water-cooled multi-processor fire-breathers with massive GPU cards (and if its being run by a younger person, odds are good that it's busy mining Bitcoin, Dogecoin or Etherium, not cranking out a render.) Most folks around here, especially the artistic types, are mostly mobile - hell, laptops are considered serious equipment.

Now I'm not suggesting that they recompile Poser to run on a Snapdragon and display on a tiny OLED. I bet I could run Poser on my 5-year-old MacBook Pro, just not all that well. Same with iRay-based renders (because my mobile GeForce chip is too damned tiny, and the new high-end MBPs went with AMD GPUs, not nVidia... yay CPU-only! :/ ) I guess what I'm suggesting is maybe something friendlier towards the smaller (13" - 15") laptop screen, and something with a mode that works on lighter resources but still looks at least halfway decent?

Just an odd thought or two.

Apropos Reallusion mentioned on the previous page; The Hivewire characters will be released for CC3 soon

There are still new users coming to Poser, but you won't find them here, they are at the official Poser forums at SM. There aren't many, but I do see some new ones popping up now and again

TheDarkerSideOfArt posted at 11:20AM Sat, 18 August 2018 - #4334950

3D-Mobster let me go on the Zbrush forums right now and post links and screen shots and type how Zbrush should be scared about something new 3D coat is coming out with..and continue to ramble on and on about it (and aurick or one of the other mods knows damn well im anti Zbrush...but im not )...first I'd probably be laughed off the forums..then it will be removed (maybe even along with me) in a heart beat. Its whatever. its kinda trolling depending on how it was presented and or posted.

I think that is one of the big differences between Poser/Daz communities and 3D communities, because I don't think that doing something like in your example is something that they find very relevant or very useful thing to do in the first place, its hard to explain, but as I have mentioned before people are not bound to a single program like a lot of people seems to be in the Poser/Daz community, where they feel like they have to defend a program at all costs. So maybe such post would be removed as it would be considered trolling or some might react to it, but honestly I think most people there would simply turn their eyes at such post. I think the closest you get to something like that is probably someone interested in knowing the difference between two programs.

I went to substance painter forum to take a look and this is just a random page on their forum:

If you look at what people are interested in, you don't see threads like "This program is much better", "Substance painter is dead", but topics like pipelines, some random stuff etc. Some of the threads you can see have been locked, which simply means that they have been moved to other parts of the forums, so they are purely locked in this section. But the general impression you get from these forums are people looking for answers of how to integrate or solve something within whatever workflow or pipeline they are using.

So to me its just as much the attitude of some people compared to other sites, keep in mind that there are lots of program like substance painter out there, a whole lot more than just Daz/Poser, so there is all the reasons for people to do exactly the same as in the Daz/Poser communities.

Yeah agree 100% If you also notice all those "locked threads" are/were created by the same individual..so who knows? Maybe they are honestly just new ? I dont know but to me its rather funny that all their questions got locked..makes me wonder..why. can you still read them? edit: never mind I just seen it. those are all moved legit questions to the proper sections I guess they just posted them in the wrong section.with a link inside of them to the correct section..weird that they would do it like that...Damn it...lol Im doing exactly what I said shouldn't be done. Damn you 3D-Mobster !!! lol

later man I have modeling stuff to.................. finish modeling.

Penguinisto posted at 1:53PM Sat, 18 August 2018 - #4334932

Nah, but I bet it's pretty much on life support at this point, and a priest has been notified. I say this not because the the application (which appears to have improved greatly from my outsider's viewpoint). Nope, it's because it's stuck as a red-headed stepchild in a disconnected division of a company, run by financials-obsessed unartistic morons who, incidentally, couldn't manage their way to get laid in a whorehouse with a fresh Amex Black stuffed in their pocket. Seriously... Poser needs a better caretaker, full-stop. An actual graphics company buying it would be a nice start.

Agreed.

Apropos Reallusion mentioned on the previous page; The >Hivewire characters will be released for CC3 soon"

AFAIK the new stand alone Character creator 3 will support the import of most external biped rigs via FBX

We have had this ability in Iclone for many years via the 3DX change tool the major difference is that this import option will be rolled into CC3 without the need to buy the pipeline version of Iclone that includes 3DXchange.

So for clarification,it is a bit misleading to boast that the hivewire Characters are being "released for Character creator 3" as any program that export FBX rigs (Lightwave,Cinema4D,Maya ,max, Blender Daz studio,Poser 11 etc) will be technically supported By CC3.

I think that is one of the big differences between Poser/Daz >communities and 3D communities, because I don't think that >doing something like in your example is something that they find >very relevant or very useful thing to do in the first place, its hard >to explain, but as I have mentioned before people are not bound >to a single program like a lot of people seems to be in the >Poser/Daz community, where they feel like they have to defend a >program at all costs

I agree completely the personal emotional defensiveness over a software package or figure often Shown here, is quite astounding at times. I remember in the early days of the Project E thread, I suggest that this PE figure really offered no major advantage for poser usage over Vicky4.

I received a literal Death threat involving removal of the top of my Skull ,Via the PM system here, by a person who is now a forum Moderator over at the Smith micro forums.

Poser ,Daz studio etc its all just a bit of disposable entertainment..not that serious.

diogenese19348 posted at 4:55PM Sat, 18 August 2018 - #4334949

Now that raises an interesting issue. I work with an art contest site, and we are running into exactly the same issue - our members are getting old, and we are having problems attracting new members. I'm about tearing what's left of my hair out trying to figure out what younger artists are doing these days. And I'm talking all the branches - illustration, photo manipulation, photography (which appears to be the one bright spot), comics. So a reasonable question is what are they doing, where do they congregate, and how do you get them engaged in anything?

YouTube, Instagram, DeviantArt, ArtStation, Twitter, etc. Mostly Instagram. The younger generation has no time or interest for forums like this. It's boring to them. Instagram is instant gratification for their narcissism. I had an early 20s co-worker recently tell me Facebook is dead cause only old people use it now. None of her friends use it, they're all on instagram and twitter. Keep in mind anyone north of 30 is ancient to an early 20's individual.

diogenese19348 posted at 2:56AM Sun, 19 August 2018 - #4334949

Now that raises an interesting issue. I work with an art contest site, and we are running into exactly the same issue - our members are getting old, and we are having problems attracting new members. I'm about tearing what's left of my hair out trying to figure out what younger artists are doing these days. And I'm talking all the branches - illustration, photo manipulation, photography (which appears to be the one bright spot), comics. So a reasonable question is what are they doing, where do they congregate, and how do you get them engaged in anything? Yes, I think the Poser community is getting older and smaller. I'm not sure DAZ is fairing any better there. I am seeing larger activity in some of the tablet apps. And I am talking people doing art for recreation, not people trying to make a living off it. Any thoughts?

I think as other have already mentioned is correct. But also the general behavior on the internet plays a role, things have to go fast which I think is very important and forums are not really fast :). Looking at my own way of learning things or when I need information about a 3D issue. 80% of the time I will find a youtube video showing me exactly how to do it or something very close, watch that and move on. Rest I find in text form.

Since we don't really know what site you are referring to, its difficult to comment on what could be done, because I think there is more to it, than simply figuring out where the "young" people are hiding, it could be a lot of things, the website itself might be a reason.

It might not even be worth spending time worrying about the "young" people, but rather look at what would make the site interesting to a particular group of people such as artists for example. What would attract them? As an example lets take people that are interested in comics, what would attract them? Maybe it could be good tutorials and information for making comics, how to draw, how to design pages, storytelling and so on. Maybe make the website very optimized and well designed for quickly sharing and reading comics or make it so they can publish them and get feedback on them like a gallery and so on in a cool way. Lets use Renderosity as an example, its not very well designed for sharing comics as no effort have been made towards making it work well for that, which is perfectly fine as its not really what they are about. However it not unrealistic to assume that some people that makes comics might come here on a regular basis to pick up some stuff for projects, which they then post on more comic friendly sites.

So maybe that's a better way of thinking about it. So rather than focusing on a specific age group, focus on their interest. We all try to find the very best information whenever we seek them, regardless of age and those sites which contain the best information will also over time be those that makes it and the rest will vanish. I don't really think its a lot difference than comparing it to doing a search on Google or Bing and we assume that every time you search on Bing you get poor search result, but google find it all the time . It will only take a very few experiences like that before you will never use Bing again and its the same with information on a website. If you have had good experience and found good information on a website you will go there.

I'm in my 60's, by younger I didn't mean 20 year olds I should have been a bit more specific. Anyway the site I am working with is www.daggerbay.com. If you have the time, I would love to hear suggestions about how we can improve it. You will need to make an account to get to see everything, but the site is free. We aren't there to make money, we are there to learn and socialize. We have bling you can buy to award pictures or comments you like, the proceeds for that are enough to pay server costs and it is purely voluntary. As I was saying though, contest sites in general are dying, which is why we are trying to branch out.

diogenese19348 posted at 1:47PM Sun, 19 August 2018 - #4335023

I'm in my 60's, by younger I didn't mean 20 year olds I should have been a bit more specific. Anyway the site I am working with is www.daggerbay.com. If you have the time, I would love to hear suggestions about how we can improve it. You will need to make an account to get to see everything, but the site is free. We aren't there to make money, we are there to learn and socialize. We have bling you can buy to award pictures or comments you like, the proceeds for that are enough to pay server costs and it is purely voluntary. As I was saying though, contest sites in general are dying, which is why we are trying to branch out.

I thought you meant young people, fair enough, I guess you just meant new people? :D

I took a look at you site and I think it looks good as a first impression, I didn't register because I don't think that is necessary as your first impression with the site is as an unregistered person. Once people have decided to register its usually easier to keep them as they have already gone through the trouble of signing up in the first place so something have caught there interest. Where it would be relevant to look "deeper" into the content in such regard is if you can see you are loosing registered members or if the number of visits to the site is declining. So for instant if you can see from the statistic (Google analytics or something similar) that on average a member visit the site 2-3 times a week over a given period of lets say 3 month and comparing that to a 3 month period later on and you can see that the average number of visit times have fallen to maybe 1-2 times every two week or something. Then it would be interesting to take a look at the deeper content of site.

First of all, what you are facing have nothing to do with you being a contest site and whether they are popular or not, I think, But obviously you are never going to get as many visits or members as Youtube etc. As artists sites are for a very specific group of people, like people into gardening stuff won't really draw the attention from the majority of people, but there is still quite a few people interested in all the topics that you have on the site, at least more than enough to make good competitions. And at least from what I can see there ain't really a huge amount of sites doing things like this, so that is good news for you.

The issue you are facing is pretty much the same as any other site, which is visibility and is a never ending battle for any website and is how to marketing yourself, When you speak of online marketing you are primarily talking about what is known as SEM (Search engine marketing) The most important one at least in my opinion, is what is known as SEO (Search engine optimization) and is basically how to get your site found and placed good in a search engine search result. Being the first search result to pop up in a Google search is going to get maybe 100% more visits (Just using a fictive number) than the last result on that page for instant, as you flip through each search page, it rapidly goes down as result starts to be less relevant and knowing from how people use search results, if you are on page 3-4 you are practical invisible to that search term.

The second most common way is to pay for it, which is through Google Adwords, which is how Google makes all their money, people pay to be found :D

Obviously the tricky part is SEO and is also the most difficult, because it doesn't only involve your own site and how it is designed, but also how other sites refer to you. So imagine that a lot of artistic sites had links to your site, then that would boost your importance for a lot of terms relevant to artists, such as paintings, drawings, art etc.

Secondly search engines scan all websites content trying to figure out what they are about so they can categorize them, if you have analytics, you can probably see somewhere that you were visited by a "bot" or "spider" as they are called. So they go through all the code of your website (where they are allowed) and find keywords, both from written stuff, image descriptions and so forth and then it tries to figure out what its about and how relevant it is to those words. This is a lot more complicated than I make it sound here as Google is not really interested in telling how exactly they are doing this and how they weight each thing. Which is done so people can't exploit it. Some might remember back in the days where you had those websites known as link farms, which were basically just websites which contained a lot of links and people could pay to get their link there and it would improve their relevance. You don't really see these sites anymore, as its would not really give people the stuff they were after, so Google as far as I know, changed how it worked and quickly these link farms (Which were a pain in the ass :D) died off.

But in your case, you can test this both manually and there are some tools that can help you track down keywords for your site, its a good way to get a "virtual" view of how your site is actually viewed by the search engines.

Doing it manually you can make a list of keywords or terms that you think is the most relevant or important ones for your site, lets say "Artistic competition site" were what you would consider being the absolute best description for your site, so you type that into Google and press search, if everything goes well, you would be on the first page, most likely not on the top, but even being on the first page would be a very good start. Now I tried doing that search and your site is not there, which is not surprising. So to make a quick comparison you could type "Daggerbay or Dagger bay" in Google and you would pop up as the first result (Because your url is "Daggerbay.com", which makes sense. However its becomes very clear why that is not very useful, because unless people search a lot for that, they wont find you. Being the first result on a term like "Art" is worth a whole lot more than a very specific name. And that is pretty much why SEO is really difficult and not something to ignore, you want to be visible you have to really spend time and energy on optimizing for this.

The online tools available that you can use, can give you a list of keywords and how relevant they are on your site, its a good way to get a quick overview.

So after all this introduction :D

If we look at the front page of your site:

Dagger Bay is a collection of online areas where the worlds best artists compete daily in creative competitions. We run creative competitions of all types, including Effects (otherwise known as photoshop or photochop), Photography, Illustration, Writing and 3-D. Our purpose first and foremost is to have fun but new members are encouraged to become familiar with our site's FAQs before wading in. If you have questions beyond this, feel free to send a PM to one of the Quartermasters (moderators), or post your question to an appropriate thread in the forums.

This is roughly all the visible text and in general there is not a lot of text on the site, which might be good for us as humans as we might not care to read so much, but its not really good for the "Bots" because they will have a hard time finding important terms. So they might not really know what the site is about, even if you use words like Photography a few times, to the bot this site could just as well be about moderators and how to moderate a website for instance as that word is also there. That is why getting other art sites to link to you is important, because Google will take that into account, so another site with a high placement on the word "Art" will affect your rating as well on that word, especially if your site is about art as well.

So what you could do, would be to add some text maybe explaining the background or history of photography where its relevant, im not talking about simply spamming the site with random non sense. But you know that people that might be interested in your site, might also have an interest in some history behind it, tutorials etc. Also your images could probably also be optimized, making sure that keywords are added to the link description,

To show you what I mean, I took an image from your site and compared it to Shutterstock:

So the top one is yours and the last one is Stutterstock obviously. If you look at line starting with Data-pic in your link, this is the name of the image, so its called so random stuff like A7aea.... etc. Which tells nothing about the image, meaning the "Bots" and humans will just see this as non sense, where as Stutterstock have added there words to the image and you can basically from the description guess what the image is about.

Since your site have a lot of images, it would make sense to do something similar, so they help promo it.

To end this already very long post :D

SEO is a long and constant process and simply changing and adding stuff like tutorials, some history or whatever, will not instantly give you better results, it takes time but eventually it will pay off, you just have to keep it in the back of your head whenever you do something with the website and how you can optimize whatever content you add to it. If you want faster results, you have to do it manually, like making collaborations with other sites, making sure that for instant when you are on Renderosity that you have a link in you profile linking to your site (Look at ambientshade, like that), which would be no problem as you are not competing with them. But not because it gives you "SEO" points, because that is most likely blocked on Renderosity, but because there might be people here that think it could be fun to check you out. And you do that on other forums where you are active. Its not going to bring a 1000 new people, but everything helps.

Also I haven't worked with SEO for a long time, so keep in mind that some of the stuff I might have written is not relevant today, Search engines constantly changes to how important varies things are, etc. But in general I think what I wrote here is a good basic way of looking at it.

Thanks for taking the time to put all that together. I'll get it in front of the rest of the crew over there and see what we can do to work on that. We had been thinking about placing ads here, I have been putting them over on Facebook, we get a lot of response to the pictures there, but not much in the way of new members and I have targeted interests that would indicate artists, photographers, etc. We get thousands of views, tens of shares, hundreds of likes, and no new members ;) I'll take a look at links to other relevant sites.

Sure no problem :)

A main idea behind competitions are prizes, don't know if you have that? But that could make people more interested. If that is outside your budget, you could always try to contact some shops, like artistic bookstores, maybe some that sell pencils, brushes or whatever that could be relevant for people on your site and ask if they would be interested in offering a prize against some free promotion on your site, it could be a good idea for them as well, to get people from your site to maybe shop with them for a very low cost, I mean if its a book for instant and they get introduced to maybe 500 potential customers, it only requires one person to buy something from them and they have made a good deal. Also they are just as desperate for new "members" as you are. Anyway might be worth considering and it will not cost you anything and if you are lucky you could get them to make a link to you. :D

We've considered that. This site was created when Worth1000 was sold to Design Crowd, and some of the members did not like the direction DC was taking with porting over Worth. The problem with having physical prizes is some people start cheating for them. In a contest where the winner is selected by members of the site rating all the entries on a scale of 1-10 this usually takes the form of somebody creating duplicate accounts to either vote up their own entry, or vote down everybody elses'. Worth1000 had a corporate section where people competed for money, and problems were rampant in that section, but fairly minimal in the rest of the site where people were only competing for pictures of trophies and credits to enter contests (and buy bling). Running an occasional contest with a prize probably wouldn't generate that problem, running regular ones would, and it creates ill will among your members when it happens.

If it creates cross-traffic with artist supply sites it could increase membership and make it worth the hassle, since all our staff are volunteers the increased workload policing contests with physical prizes would have to be taken into consideration. Nobody likes playing cop for free.

Where there is something to be won, some people might cheat and if people have to judge who wins them self, some might make several accounts etc. But I doubt its a huge problem if the prizes are moderate. Cheating for a book or some drawing supplies etc. must be a low number. Besides that you can lock a vote to an IP address, so people wouldn't be able to cast more than a single vote from the same IP or they would either need a VPN or several internet connections to do it. So they could either spend their vote to down vote someone or give themselves the highest score. And again how desperate are people when the prizes ain't more than they are and its meant to be for fun. Also if you have to send out the prizes you have the address so it would be easy to see if two accounts share the same one.

Also you have the risk of someone noticing that an entry is stolen, so its a lot of trouble to go through to win I would say, and as you say should someone cheat so be it, its not the end up the world compared to having an active site. So setting up the technical things correct, no one would really have to "play" cop. Most people have no clue how to or interest in cheating in something like that, unless its obviously easy how to do it. So I wouldn't be to worried about it, if you lock to the IP address or do a little research of how other sites with voting does it, I would imagine that it could be easily solved.

To answer the original question, for my part I have come to the conclusion that it is. There are insinuations at the other forum that there is indeed a P12 in the works, but I can't see how a small brand new team who had to ramp up on a huge legacy code base can achieve what the original team failed to deliver over many years. I have my own views what went wrong (as does everyone here) and I am sad because I liked the program and community a lot. .

I have since spent a load of money on iClone and at DAZ. Nonsense about DAZ being "free" they are both successful and disliked because they are so good at extracting payments from their customers. I didn't like DS when I tried it years ago but I am quite surprised by it now. There are many things that annoyed me with Poser over the years (if you want examples: a library that sorts by type rather than subject, not keeping pose morphs and shape morphs rigidly separate, injection channels rather than dumping morphs in a certain place and then having them automatically available for all figures they apply to and more) and it turns out that lots of these are fixed in DS. Poser still has a lead in only a few areas, like the material room, which is still great in spite of some very bad design decisions in the last few releases. (All of this IMHO obviously)

iClone I am still learning. It is hard to get up to speed on a new tool.

I have read with interest all the previous entries on this topic, so I will throw in my 2 cents worth. I grew up in a time when we built things! A hobby to me was building model cars or planes. Then computers came along and we were all fascinated with what computers could do. My first computer was a vic 20. Then a commador 64 with 64 k of memory. Building things in a computer was a logical extension, combining the interest in building things and what computers could accomplish into one. So just being able to do stuff with a computer was fascinating. Younger people don't have that sense of wonder regarding computers. Video games is were its at, providing play/ instant gratification! Model cars and planes, model railroads are pretty much much a thing of the past. They still exist but to a small interest group. Times change, generations of people have different interest. It seems to me for a product like Poser to have continuing relevance it must cater more to professional game development.

If you spend any time taking sculpture classes in zbrush etc. And view the vfx development of on screen characters both human and animal, the underlying bone structure and musculature is always developed first. Poser characters have always been like a plastic shell with no underlying structure. The unrealistic joints and folds like at shoulders and under knees as an example, are testament to this. It seems to me that characters should be developed that reproduce all the relevant muscles and bone structure and that posing is accomplished by actuating every relevant muscle to achieve that pose. The skin should then react to that underling muscle. Once the pose is achieved the underlying structure could be deleted.

I want to comment on what might be a touchy subject. There are always multiple ways of looking at the same situation. I don't know if what I am about to say has a solution, I'm not sure it does, I think perhaps its just the way it is. I have been an artist all my life. I started drawing when I was 5. Started painting when I was 12, had a paper route so I could buy paints and canvas. Artist always need inspiration. It is the life blood of an artist's creativity. I have over the years periodically gone to art museums for inspiration, studied the artwork of the great masters. Now study the artwork of others through the internet. I look at the websites of vfx studios and zbrush for inspiration and to see what is possible, not Renderosity. I understand Renderosity is a format for hobbyist. I get that! I have been a member of Renderosity since 2004 I think, and I cant say that the overall quality of peoples artwork has really improved during that time. The joy of art and creativity is the work you put into it and witnessing the improvement in your own skills. Poser and therefore Renderosity and the artwork displayed by members on this site have a history of not showing a great deal of improvement over time. I mean that's fine, people do this for fun, I get it, but somewhere lost in the mix is the inspiration to do bigger and better things. Individuals who aspire to be artist must challenge themselves to get better! That does not seem to be a common thread here. You look at zbrush art and you are just blown away by the artistry and skill. Poser users are lacking this level of inspiration and I believe it is hurting the entire brand. Whats the solution for a hobby based endever ? I'm not sure. Part of the history of Renderosity is allowing amateurs to present their work and that's a good thing! On the other hand it doesn't represent whats possible to achieve. I guess the only solution is for everyone to work to improve their work, that's where the fun lies. Stop posting really crappy embarrassing stuff. Take pride in what you do. Compare your work to really good stuff before you smear it all over the internet.

This debate is irrelevant. Every person makes their own choice of whether to stay with Poser or not. I was a Poser cheerleader until DAZ Studio offered better software for free. Over the years, DAZ offered content that totally eclipsed Poser's offerings. I bought Poser 8 out of nostalgia, but quickly decided it had nothing to offer me. I don't see any reason to go back to Poser.

The joy of art and creativity is the work you put into it and witnessing the improvement in your own skills. Poser and therefore Renderosity and the artwork displayed by members on this site have a history of not showing a great deal of improvement over time. I mean that's fine, people do this for fun, I get it, but somewhere lost in the mix is the inspiration to do bigger and better things. Individuals who aspire to be artist must challenge themselves to get better! That does not seem to be a common thread here. You look at zbrush art and you are just blown away by the artistry and skill. Poser users are lacking this level of inspiration and I believe it is hurting the entire brand. Whats the solution for a hobby based endever ? I'm not sure. Part of the history of Renderosity is allowing amateurs to present their work and that's a good thing! On the other hand it doesn't represent whats possible to achieve. I guess the only solution is for everyone to work to improve their work, that's where the fun lies. Stop posting really crappy embarrassing stuff. Take pride in what you do. Compare your work to really good stuff before you smear it all over the internet.

I always find these posts a bit rough, because i think some of the things you say are correct, such as its important for people to challenge themselves to do better. But I think its a poor comparison to pick out pieces of stuff made in Zbrush and say look at how good it is. I have mentioned it before, Its a completely different program with a lot more people approaching it with a different background than an average Poser or Daz user. The goals might not even be the same in what they are trying to achieve, Zbrush is a professional tool, used in many huge projects such as movies, games, commercials and so forth. So its not really difficult to find very well made stuff all over the place, because there are so many users and these come with a completely different background than Poser/Daz users. So I did a search and found an image at random which I think looked well made.

So I looked the person up to check their background, The person have 3 years experience in the gaming industry and his main focus is modeling and texturing with some experience in rigging and animation. He uses the following applications... 3ds Max, Zbrush, Photoshop, xNormal and Quixel suite

I hope you see my point, a lot of people posting Zbrush stuff are people that have some sort of experience working with it professional, because its being used a lot in the industry.

I know that you make it clear that Poser/Daz users make stuff for fun and you are ok with that. But comparing what they do with a professional and say that there is no progress is wrong, if you ask me. Because most people that uses Zbrush and post all these very cool images, have spend hours upon hours learning it, not only the program, that's just a tool. But you have to learn anatomy, either through some educational background, drawing classes etc. You have to know how to model correctly, color theory and how to apply that to a model and so forth. What im trying to say is that its not just a matter of moving from Poser to Zbrush, or assume that its because of Poser/Daz and that this is where people go wrong. Most people can't spend 8-10 hours a day learning and improving their skills, so it would be wrong to assume that they could make stuff like you see the professionals do and that they are not improving. Poser/Daz hobbyist should not try to or be compared to these people. If it were the case that they could be, the professionals would use these programs like crazy, as I have mentioned before, people that make 3D from scratch do not care how it is made, what programs are used, how many they have to mix together to achieve what they are trying to do, if it gets the job done, its more or less, from what I can see, a Poser/Daz user issue, that it have to be either Daz or Poser..

I do agree, that not all images that people make should be posted and that they should try to challenge themselves in order to improve, but it depend where in the process they are, remember there are lots of very bad Zbrush stuff as well. But I have said it before and will say it again and by looking at the person's program list above as well, you shouldn't simply stick to one program. Use whatever you need to do what you need. But to me, assuming that the average Poser/Daz user don't have enough time to learn all required programs at once, the program that I think would help or benefit them the most, if they want to take their stuff to the next level is Photoshop or Gimp. Its almost impossible or not even worth the time trying to get a perfect image out of any single program, whether thats Zbrush or Poser, looking at his image above, its very obvious that Photoshop have been used to create the final image, not that he did a bad job or anything.

But when that is said, I overall think that people should keep posting what they make, but others shouldn't compare it to stuff made by professionals and judge it based on that, its just not fair, you wouldn't do that in any other discipline either.

Besides that, the true art of Poser/Daz is to make it not look like it was made there and a lot of things, like that comic that I can never remember what is called, is made using V4 and M4 and yet with a bit of Zbrush you can't tell, so some images might use Poser/Daz without you actually knowing it. But you rarely get anything interesting out of using only one program. Even looking at the image above, obviously the model is very well made from a technical point of view, but its not very interesting as an image I think. if it doesn't have some emotions to it, a story to tell and so forth, then it doesn't really matter from an artistic perspective I think. To me its purely interesting due to the technical skills of the person, but I will forget such image very fast, despite how well made it might be.