EClark1894 posted at 6:01PM Thu, 17 January 2019 - #4290369

rokket posted at 4:31PM Fri, 18 November 2016 - #4290336

I just picked her up again. I got silly and took her out of my runtime awhile back. Don't know what possessed me to do that. My excuse was all the stuff you have to do to her before you can use her. But Dawn is the same way. Excuse gone. V4 back.

Really? What do you have to do to Dawn? I just load her, run her through EzSkin and go from there.

Noy trying to bash her here, I know a lot of Dawn users will get upset at me but I have seen too many renders where Dawn was used where the figure looks....well....like the default Dawn and therefore all the same. I have though, of late been seeing a whole new set of images where she is used that are looking good and am reassessing my lack of support for her. But then it come back to availability and cost to change over. Also, doing erotic fantasy art Dawn, out of the box and even with added stuff from other sites, just not able to look as realistic as my V4 figures do in my renders. Never could figure out why a figure is created that would not be useable for ALL users tastes and needs. so, for my needs she is still lacking. Creating her with more mesh in certain body areas would allow for content providers to add morphs and textures and body accessories for her that would be more useable to some of us. I know there is at least one such morph creator doing a whole lot of body transforming morphs for her that really make her shine.

thoennes posted at 6:12PM Thu, 17 January 2019 - #4288431

Netherworks posted at 8:59AM Tue, 01 November 2016 - #4288414

Is the WM version still available, post RDNA shutting down? If so (and we don't have one yet at Renderosity), I'd like to suggest a sticky with links to essential content, be they offsite or not, in the name of community.

Here? http://www.runtimedna.com/WMV4.html

Just did this with her, after being away from the whole CGI thing for quite a bit (since Poser11 was released). No post work at all. While I can't say that I'm entirely happy with the "state of things" in poser-ville I continue to be super happy with v4wm

One of the thngs I have NEVER been able to wrap my beanie around was getting clothes to fit properly in Poser. I have purchased so darn many conforming clothing items and never able to get them to fit properly wind up leaving my figures nekid! So, how do you get clothes to fit a WM figure so nicely as your girl here?

shante: .>>>> I got Sasha 16 and had long conversations with Karina LOOOOOONG before he released her, though i use his beautiful Karina Vagina set a lot for v4, I have not tried Sasha out. Not sure why really I see a lot of good functionality in her. Would be nice if someone created a similar WM rig fix for M4 but that is another story. <<<<

Karina has got that covered! There is a fine male morph for Sasha-16, and Sasha can wear M4 skin textures if you convert them. The brilliance of this approach is: same weight-mapped rig, same set of morphs, dials, etc, for both male and female. See an image on this Renderosity thread:

Discussion of M4 Skin on V4/Sasha

I explored this topic with Karina at the forum for Sasha-16, including solution(s) for the ... male bits. You can read about it by going to the Sasha-16 website forum and open the topic "Sasha needs a boyfriend."

::::: Opera :::::

shante posted at 11:27PM Fri, 18 January 2019 - #4343810

EClark1894 posted at 6:01PM Thu, 17 January 2019 - #4290369

rokket posted at 4:31PM Fri, 18 November 2016 - #4290336

I just picked her up again. I got silly and took her out of my runtime awhile back. Don't know what possessed me to do that. My excuse was all the stuff you have to do to her before you can use her. But Dawn is the same way. Excuse gone. V4 back.

Really? What do you have to do to Dawn? I just load her, run her through EzSkin and go from there.

Noy trying to bash her here, I know a lot of Dawn users will get upset at me but I have seen too many renders where Dawn was used where the figure looks....well....like the default Dawn and therefore all the same. I have though, of late been seeing a whole new set of images where she is used that are looking good and am reassessing my lack of support for her. But then it come back to availability and cost to change over. Also, doing erotic fantasy art Dawn, out of the box and even with added stuff from other sites, just not able to look as realistic as my V4 figures do in my renders. Never could figure out why a figure is created that would not be useable for ALL users tastes and needs. so, for my needs she is still lacking. Creating her with more mesh in certain body areas would allow for content providers to add morphs and textures and body accessories for her that would be more useable to some of us. I know there is at least one such morph creator doing a whole lot of body transforming morphs for her that really make her shine.

So what? I can spot V4 in my sleep. I rarely even bother morphing her anymore because they all look alike to me. I have SOME difficulty telling between Generations with Genesis, but not much. And that's only because I've never really played with Genesis.

"they all look alike to me." That is a problem of either the maker of the images or you for only looking at images where no imagination has been exerted.

"So what? I can spot V4 in my sleep. I rarely even bother morphing her anymore because they all look alike to me."

All? Here's a few V4 morphs that don't look alike:

"they all look alike to me." That is a problem of either the maker of the images or you for only looking at images where no imagination has been exerted.

Agreed Opera Also when people compare Daz /poser figure generations they seem to only focus on young,pretty, Ideal BMI white girls, who sort of all begin to look similar after a while.

Here is a short clip from my animated film

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjokKZX1r6I

The "actors" are the original Daz freak for poser Daz genesis 1 Daz genesis 2 Daz genesis 3

I think the Freak is rather obvious the others ..not so much .

Wolf, If I remember properly Zygote and DAZ have been creating stuff for amateur users to work in an application for amateur users, at its onset anyway. As an amateur user I don't need for all the stuff you are talking about. Mil1/2, Mil3/4 figures for poser were, originally, I think, targeted to an amateur market. Over the years, some users I have noticed hardly even utilize the dials to get different characters let alone explore functionalities you are concerned with.

The amateur Market does not offer the income growth needed to be competitive in todays economy .

This is not 1997 old friend. The video game industry made $137 BILLION in 2018 Hollywood only Made $43 Billion that same year.

What happens in video games?? Cool looking 3D characters moving about in realtime

Daz inc and Reallusion are in a heated,desperate race to capture some of that Multi billion dollar market with their figure content.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hazb4e0V94&t=

Because that is where the real growth is happening. Anyone, paying attention, knows this.

A_Sunbeam posted at 7:14AM Sat, 19 January 2019 - #4343844

"So what? I can spot V4 in my sleep. I rarely even bother morphing her anymore because they all look alike to me."

All? Here's a few V4 morphs that don't look alike:

The xhosa did throw me there. But the rest... meh.

And look, I can't see through anyone else's eyes but my own, so if you can make her look like Red Skelton or Captain Kangaroo to your eyes, if she still looks like V4 to me, it doesn't mean you failed. Just means we're different people.

If vendors would stop rendering with PandaMakeup, and apply attention to the eyes for variety instead of the raccoon look covering the complexity of the eyes, the illusion of "all the same" would melt away.

From an outsider point of view:

Even in DS-land the use of Vicky 4 is still very strong. The reason why is very simple, and can be summed up in one word: Stuff.

Okay, three words: Sh!tloads of stuff.

Vicky 4 came out in 2005, if I remember right - the same time I was working for the fine folks in Draper, Utah. DAZ didn't come out with the next iteration (Genesis) until 2012. That's seven years of domination, and damned near 15 years of total existence. Metric megatons of stuff was made for V4 over these years, and still gets made: clothing, poses, morphs, textures, etc etc etc etc.

Now if Genesis (G1-G8) was directly translatable to Poser, I suspect Genesis 8 would be the dominant figure in Poserland today. But... it's not. So, for folks who use just Poser, or who straddle the two applications, Vicky 4 is still the perfect figure to use. It's pretty much still the penultimate of Poser-rigged meshes to this day. Unlike anything that's come out before or since, you can turn it into pretty much anything, and most people have.

Wanna slay Vicky 4? Here's what that hypothetical new figure has to do:

• be morphable to the point where morphs can be made to make it unrecognizable to the original VickyKiller figure. Almost all of the newer meshes fail miserably in this department.

• have a means to transfer existing Vicky 4 morphs, poses, and UV Mapping to VickyKiller, seamlessly.

• have a means to convert all the V4 poses so VickyKiller can use them.

• have a means to convert V4 clothing so that VickyKiller can wear them as perfectly as possible. Oh, and those dynamic clothing morphs had better survive the transition as well.

• while not as vital because workarounds are fairly easy, the hair has to fit as well.

• any scripts or addons to accomplish any of this has to be Poser-native, or it had better have a working application/utility for current (and three-versions back) OS versions for both Windows and MacOS. No half-assing it here with an external app which works only in one OS.

...that's a pretty tall order, innit? And yet Genesis 1/2/3/8 had to go through the same process (usually achieved by way of scripts and addon packages), which is why I have Genesis 8 figures that are exact analogues, right down to the same morphs and textures, as the Vicky 4 versions I built 10+ years ago. Standing side-by side in the exact same converted V4 pose, you'd never be able to tell them apart post-render, save for the fact that I converted the textures to iRay on the G8 figure.

So why bother? Because doing all that up there solves a lot of problems for you. It provides you with a very massive catalog of usable stuff for your figure, that a lot of your potential buyers already have. It gives you the flexibility that users crave. If SM were to expand their API and Python libs a bit (if they hadn't already), it would open up work for those folks enterprising enough to make these addons and conversion scripts for you... in a common frickin' language, no less.

Anyrate, that's my $.02 - and I firmly believe that unless/until those conditions are satisfied, in a way that isn't a burden to the users, with the widest accessibility... things might get ugly for Poser.

Think you can do it? I hope for your sake that you can, and soon.

I say this because one fine day, profits from the sale of Vicky 4 stuff are going to slow to a trickle on their site, and DAZ is going to start wondering why they're still carrying around a nearly 15-year-old base mesh. Could happen this year, could happen 5 years from now... nobody knows except for DAZ' accountants... and because of near-eternal 100+ year copyright laws, once they pull it, it'll be gone for good (legally). Once it's gone, and with no viable replacement, I trust that I don't have to tell you what happens for Poser itself. If I were Smith Micro, I'd get cracking on satisfying that list of Things To Do up there... ASAP.

In the meanwhile, you still got breathing room, but I have no idea for how much longer.

Penguinisto posted at 6:35PM Mon, 21 January 2019 - #4343943

From an outsider point of view:

Even in DS-land the use of Vicky 4 is still very strong. The reason why is very simple, and can be summed up in one word: Stuff.

Okay, three words: Sh!tloads of stuff.

Vicky 4 came out in 2005, if I remember right - the same time I was working for the fine folks in Draper, Utah. DAZ didn't come out with the next iteration (Genesis) until 2012. That's seven years of domination, and damned near 15 years of total existence. Metric megatons of stuff was made for V4 over these years, and still gets made: clothing, poses, morphs, textures, etc etc etc etc.

Now if Genesis (G1-G8) was directly translatable to Poser, I suspect Genesis 8 would be the dominant figure in Poserland today. But... it's not. So, for folks who use just Poser, or who straddle the two applications, Vicky 4 is still the perfect figure to use. It's pretty much still the penultimate of Poser-rigged meshes to this day. Unlike anything that's come out before or since, you can turn it into pretty much anything, and most people have.

Wanna slay Vicky 4? Here's what that hypothetical new figure has to do:

• be morphable to the point where morphs can be made to make it unrecognizable to the original VickyKiller figure. Almost all of the newer meshes fail miserably in this department.

• have a means to transfer existing Vicky 4 morphs, poses, and UV Mapping to VickyKiller, seamlessly.

• have a means to convert all the V4 poses so VickyKiller can use them.

• have a means to convert V4 clothing so that VickyKiller can wear them as perfectly as possible. Oh, and those dynamic clothing morphs had better survive the transition as well.

• while not as vital because workarounds are fairly easy, the hair has to fit as well.

• any scripts or addons to accomplish any of this has to be Poser-native, or it had better have a working application/utility for current (and three-versions back) OS versions for both Windows and MacOS. No half-assing it here with an external app which works only in one OS.

...that's a pretty tall order, innit? And yet Genesis 1/2/3/8 had to go through the same process (usually achieved by way of scripts and addon packages), which is why I have Genesis 8 figures that are exact analogues, right down to the same morphs and textures, as the Vicky 4 versions I built 10+ years ago. Standing side-by side in the exact same converted V4 pose, you'd never be able to tell them apart post-render, save for the fact that I converted the textures to iRay on the G8 figure.

So why bother? Because doing all that up there solves a lot of problems for you. It provides you with a very massive catalog of usable stuff for your figure, that a lot of your potential buyers already have. It gives you the flexibility that users crave. If SM were to expand their API and Python libs a bit (if they hadn't already), it would open up work for those folks enterprising enough to make these addons and conversion scripts for you... in a common frickin' language, no less.

---

Anyrate, that's my $.02 - and I firmly believe that unless/until those conditions are satisfied, in a way that isn't a burden to the users, with the widest accessibility.

Think you can do it? I hope for your sake that you can, and soon.

I say this because one fine day, profits from the sale of Vicky 4 stuff are going to slow to a trickle on their site, and DAZ is going to start wondering why they're still carrying around a nearly 15-year-old base mesh. Could happen this year, could happen 5 years from now... nobody knows except for DAZ' accountants... and because of near-eternal 100+ year copyright laws, once they pull it, it'll be gone for good (legally). Once it's gone, and with no viable replacement, I trust that I don't have to tell you what happens for Poser itself. If I were Smith Micro, I'd get cracking on satisfying that list of Things To Do up there... ASAP.

In the meanwhile, you still got breathing room, but I have no idea for how much longer.

All you're mentioning has been said a thousand times before again and again. So the answer is: Either go on using V4 forever, because there won't be coming a V4 killer, or go use Project Evolution. If you are looking for a change, just dump that fossile and switch. PE is your answer.

EClark1894 posted at 11:38AM Mon, 21 January 2019 - #4343842 [...]

So what? I can spot V4 in my sleep. I rarely even bother morphing her anymore because they all look alike to me. I have SOME difficulty telling between Generations with Genesis, but not much. And that's only because I've never really played with Genesis.

Oh, so you can?

Then look at these (teen) characters I made over the last years and please tell me which one IS INDEED made from V4/SASHA-16. I guess you can do it in your sleep ;)

Best regards :)

Karina

wolf359 posted at 9:39AM Mon, 21 January 2019 - #4343850

The amateur Market does not offer the income growth needed to be competitive in todays economy .

This is not 1997 old friend. The video game industry made $137 BILLION in 2018 Hollywood only Made $43 Billion that same year.

What happens in video games?? Cool looking 3D characters moving about in realtime

I gotta agree to a good extent here. There's still money to be made in the amateur market, but the gaming market is tempting as hell, with visible polycounts going up all the time there (used to be you could only do hi-rez in the cutscenes, but thanks to Sub-D and other neat tricks, they're almost to the point where you can toss in a Posette-level mesh and have it render in realtime (assuming you have a sufficiently badassed PC with a sufficiently badassed GPU. You can do it with Genesis in near-realtime now with the iRay preview in the viewport on DS... but again, your PC had better have eaten its Wheaties that morning ;) ) I still recall the days of Quake3, where you were stuck with 3k polys in a pre-baked mesh with pre-baked animation cycles... Unreal Tournament had better model mesh counts, but in some ways was was even worse, with only 150 non-player polys max visible in the viewport at any one time, from any angle, before the engine started to get all wonky and certain view-angles went straight to hell for the player.

It's come a long way, baby.

But I digress... DAZ and Reallusion (and others) are fighting like hell of a piece of that really big pie. If any of them can pull it off enough for wide acceptance within the gaming industry, that'll be a massive thing (mostly because a gaming studio won't have to hire as many mesh-mongers anymore - just a few folks who can whomp out differentiating morphs from existing pre-digested meshes. The studios' lead-times/schedules can shrink by a substantial amount as a result.)

-Timberwolf- posted at 9:50AM Mon, 21 January 2019 - #4343947

All you're mentioning has been said a thousand times before again and again.

...and yet mot much has been done to address them. Why?

I don't think individual vendors are going to get everyone out of this hole. At least not anymore... this is something SM needs to help address, big-time.

So the answer is: Either go on using V4 forever, because there won't be coming a V4 killer, or go use Project Evolution.

Can PE do everything (or even a majority of the things) mentioned up there? I daresay the answer is no - at least not yet (unless you think, say, meticulously morph-brushing your way out of poke-through on converted clothing is an acceptable answer... let's just say it's not.)

I don't use V4 anymore, I converted my shiz a long time ago, so I have no dog in this fight... in that vein, I ask you to look at it objectively: What does it take to use Vicky 4 stuff (morphs, textures, hair, clothing, poses, etc) in PE? If it isn't a simple act that takes just a couple clicks and less than 30 seconds, can be one-and-done in less than 5 minutes the case of morphed figures, or as an alternative be done in a batch of conversions of multiple files by way of an external application? It fails. This is the yardstick, because it's what the competition can already do, and already does. Just stating, and not complaining or bragging, I promise.

The stuff is there - why not build a means (or four) to use it efficiently and easily on a new figure?

This is what you gotta put up with: " Where are the V4 UV Maps so I can use my textures? Why does clothing require meticulous touch-ups in most cases? Why can I not transfer my MegaMassiveCutieSlutPie3000 morphs from Vicky 4 to PE in just a few clicks and less than 5 minutes? " I promise I'm not busting your nether spheres here either - I'm just asking questions that $world is going to ask... and they're going to compare the answers they get with, well, you know...

All that said, PE looks massively promising. It actually goes a helluva lot farther than any other non-Vicky/Genesis figure to date.

I'll even go far enough to say that Smith Micro had damned well better be paying Erogenesis to start building towards my little to-do list, and lend him a developer besides.

I just hope it can catch up in time.

-Timberwolf- posted at 11:48AM Mon, 21 January 2019 - #4343947 [...]

If you are looking for a change, just dump that fossile and switch. PE is your answer.

PE... ah - I remember

By the way: When was the last time you heard something from it's creator, Erogenesis?

Where can I find a comprehensive repository of textures(most important!), clothing, props, poses, expressions, etc, made for PE?

--- I mean, something comparable to V4? ---

The real problem is that Poser users don't have anything like the G FIGURES, and every new figure that is released gets almost nill attention, nor substantial support.

And even if someone dares, it will inevitably get ripped apart like Sixus1 's "Scarlet" or remain widely unknown like the "Bella" figure.

! Not even talking about the latest FREEBIE "Elisabeth 2"

Sorry mate - not trying to start a stink here.

But the obvious absence of Ero - for me that's a strong hint about the future of PE.

So for me, it's V4 in the form of SASHA-16 for the next years, and that's what I made her for.

Happy rendering!

Karina

Sorry mate - not trying to start a stink here. But the obvious absence of Ero - for me that's a strong hint about the future of PE.

After that somewhat "controversial" roll out, He declared himself "not a businessman" and made a vague reference to a plan to "outsource" further development of PE.

Draw your own conclusions however it seems clear to me that PE is frankly on its way to joining Antonia ,Scarlet, Elle Apollo Max etc etc in the forgotten ash bin of poser history.

I don't use V4 anymore, I converted my shiz a long time ago, so I have no dog in this fight... in that vein, I ask you to look at it objectively: What does it take to use Vicky 4 stuff (morphs, textures, hair, clothing, poses, etc) in PE? If it isn't a simple act that takes just a couple clicks and less than 30 seconds, can be one-and-done in less than 5 minutes the case of morphed figures, or as an alternative be done in a batch of conversions of multiple files by way of an external application? It fails. This is the yardstick, because it's what the competition can already do, and already does. Just stating, and not complaining or bragging, I promise.

As Daz still Holds Vicky 4's IP, it will be extremely difficult to easily achieve the above,with a new poser native figure.

Particularly without having to use Daz studio somewhere in the process.

I used the Daz studio GENX 2 plugin to Salvage a few V4/ M4 Shapes and the DS native UV switching to Salvage my Favorite V4 textures such as the Vanilla Sky and Horizon from Syyd Raven.

The Old V4 Clothing V4 Catalogue is Moot as I learned how to model clothing and became a genesis content creator for myself ( not a PA) due to the ease of cloth rigging in DS.

Reallusion Character creator can accurately project the Shape of any Daz figure (Mill4 thru G8) onto an Iclone Avatar as well as refit the DAZ clothing to the Iclone Avatars.

This however requires an FBX export from Daz studio. and most poser users will not install/use Daz studio for any purpose as matter of principle.

History would suggest no miracles from Smith Micro forthcoming.

So indeed The reign of V4 ,as the Primary figure for poser, will likely continue.

KarinaKiev posted at 8:26PM Mon, 21 January 2019 - #4343952

-Timberwolf- posted at 11:48AM Mon, 21 January 2019 - #4343947 [...]

If you are looking for a change, just dump that fossile and switch. PE is your answer.

PE... ah - I remember

By the way: When was the last time you heard something from it's creator, Erogenesis?

Where can I find a comprehensive repository of textures(most important!), clothing, props, poses, expressions, etc, made for PE?

--- I mean, something comparable to V4? ---

The real problem is that Poser users don't have anything like the G FIGURES, and every new figure that is released gets almost nill attention, nor substantial support.

And even if someone dares, it will inevitably get ripped apart like Sixus1 's "Scarlet" or remain widely unknown like the "Bella" figure.

! Not even talking about the latest FREEBIE "Elisabeth 2"

---

Sorry mate - not trying to start a stink here.

But the obvious absence of Ero - for me that's a strong hint about the future of PE.

So for me, it's V4 in the form of SASHA-16 for the next years, and that's what I made her for.

Happy rendering!

Karina

Yeah, what to say without using the evil D...-word? That's why I made my decision long ago.

I agree that V4 is an old model and that we keep using her because we have lots of clobber and morphs for her. Fine. Very, very true in my case.

Looking through the Genesis figures (not the V7 series, many of which I think are ugly), I would love to have them available for V4, and for that matter, there are many items of Genesis clothing I would love to have - to use in Poser.

I could, of course, use Daz Studio, which I have. I’m not trying to start a fight here, but I can’t get on with Daz; which may have something to do with the fact that I’m nearly 80 and rather stuck in my ways… And, of course, though Studio is free, the supplies are not; they are very good, but I find them very expensive.

I use V3, V4, A3, M3 and M4 most of the time. They will do for the little pictures I spend my time creating. There is sufficient variety (in my opinion) within the many V4 morphs I have acquired, for what I want to do.

What we need is some really clever person who can create a version of Genesis that can be used in Poser without all the farting about with Dyson etc.

OK, I shall be told this is impossible or not practical, but well there you are, there’s my tuppence. I know I can’t do it, I haven’t the skills. But I bet you anything you like there’s someone out there who could rise to the challenge if it took their fancy!

wolf359 posted at 12:35PM Mon, 21 January 2019 - #4343955

As Daz still Holds Vicky 4's IP, it will be extremely difficult to easily achieve the above,with a new poser native figure.

I disagree a bit here - if you're adapting original v4 clothing, hair textures, and even UV Mesh/textures, it should be fine, as long as the items being adapted are legally owned and supplied by the user. Insofar as textures, 3D Universe showed the way on that by skewing the textures to the new mesh, saving the hassle of re-mapping the mesh itself to a different UV Map (which may or may not be copyrighted per se, but that would be moot in this case since we're not re-mapping the destination mesh).

Now morphs are a sticky point: I think though that as long as the user has a legit copy of the v4 mesh to pull the morphs from, and legit original poses, it should be doable even on the copyright front... as long as, at most restrictive interpretation, the results are for personal use only. Not 100% certain on how restrictive it could be read, but the results would be on a completely different mesh, and thanks to SubD, with a different set of vertex coordinates on the resulting mesh+morph set (well, different enough to count as unique, if not derivative), etc... Case in point on the morphs - back before Genesis got the nifty conversion utilities/templates and a process came about that could copy morphs from earlier figures without exploding (or turning the eyes into unusable orbs), I could simply take an old v4 morphed critter, plop it in zero position with the legs/arms tweaked, then flop in a base Genesis mesh... then I'd spin dials until I got a perfect match, or export 'em both to Blender and do it all there. As an end-user who is not distributing the results, I didn't care about copyright issues, since as an end-user it was perfectly legit. So as long as that still holds (copy-but-not-distribute), it should be the same for any conversions done by machine.

A_Sunbeam posted at 1:03PM Mon, 21 January 2019 - #4343959

I could, of course, use Daz Studio, which I have. I’m not trying to start a fight here, but I can’t get on with Daz; which may have something to do with the fact that I’m nearly 80 and rather stuck in my ways… And, of course, though Studio is free, the supplies are not; they are very good, but I find them very expensive.

Totally understood - they give away the razor and sell the blades. Kind of their modus operandi.

I use V3, V4, A3, M3 and M4 most of the time. They will do for the little pictures I spend my time creating. There is sufficient variety (in my opinion) within the many V4 morphs I have acquired, for what I want to do.

There is this as well, which also makes perfect sense (and kind of what I was driving as at the current status.)

What we need is some really clever person who can create a version of Genesis that can be used in Poser without all the farting about with Dyson etc.

That's going to be tough. What they do provide (the DSON route) is more a means to drive residual sales for the stuff, than it is any sort of massive outreach to the Poser community. My opinion, they make enough from sales of DS-only stuff for DS users these days that they aren't as eager to make it easy on the Poser-only crowd, nor would it make financial sense for them to go any further than they already do (even if the path they provide is a giant pain in the butt).

OK, I shall be told this is impossible or not practical, but well there you are, there’s my tuppence. I know I can’t do it, I haven’t the skills. But I bet you anything you like there’s someone out there who could rise to the challenge if it took their fancy!

I agree - at least drive and build a means to convert the v4 stuff into whatever new figure becomes dominant (or blessed by Smith Micro), and they're halfway there. Pretty sure anything further would be out of their legal reach (because DAZ isn't quite going to hand over their filespecs in full to Smith Micro without somebody writing a massively fat check to DAZ first. Perhaps an enterprising soul can use the DS API to write a better exporter?)

Perhaps an enterprising soul can use the DS API to write a better exporter?)

Or more accurately a custom poser importer/converter that will spare poser users from ever having to leave the comforting environment of poser.

Daz has done their part with FREE FBX ,,obj & texture map export and a genesis specific DSON format for those wishing to adopt their tech.

Reallusion used Standard FBX from Daz studio and DID THE WORK on their end to build their own transform/ shape projection system for Character creator 3 All genesis figures and clothing& hair can be used in Iclone.

There are two commercial Daz "Genesis to Maya "plugins that use FBX as a transfer method and Maya native mel script on ,the Autodesk side, to "re create" genesis in Maya.. ( sort of)

This independent developer used the DSON spec for his Maya plugin This is how DSON is supposed to work in a true 3DCC application ( watch linked video here)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9UGtguQoDQ

What we need is some really clever person who can create a version of Genesis that can be used in Poser

NO ..sorry ...poser users need to accept that NO NEW CR2 based human figures for poser will ever again come from Daz inc....EVER!

Stay with V4, Dawn,Dusk or any of the other CR2 based rigs.

Regarding DAZ Genesis, the best you can hope for is a way to legally enhance poser to copy the genesis shapes and use the genesis clothing on a poser native base ,as Reallusion has done with Character creator 3

Consider starting a Kickstarter or other crowd funding effort to hire a programmer for the task.

wolf359 posted at 1:10AM Tue, 22 January 2019 - #4343985

Perhaps an enterprising soul can use the DS API to write a better exporter?)

Or more accurately a custom poser importer/converter that will spare poser users from ever having to leave the comforting environment of poser.

Daz has done their part with FREE FBX ,,obj & texture map export and a genesis specific DSON format for those wishing to adopt their tech.

Reallusion used Standard FBX from Daz studio and DID THE WORK on their end to build their own transform/ shape projection system for Character creator 3 All genesis figures and clothing& hair can be used in Iclone.

There are two commercial Daz "Genesis to Maya "plugins that use FBX as a transfer method and Maya native mel script on ,the Autodesk side, to "re create" genesis in Maya.. ( sort of)

This independent developer used the DSON spec for his Maya plugin This is how DSON is supposed to work in a true 3DCC application ( watch linked video here)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9UGtguQoDQ

What we need is some really clever person who can create a version of Genesis that can be used in Poser

NO ..sorry ...poser users need to accept that NO NEW CR2 based human figures for poser will ever again come from Daz inc....EVER!

Believe it or not, I'm with Wolf on this aspect. And I have no problem with it.

Penguinisto posted at 6:35PM Mon, 21 January 2019 - #4343943

Wanna slay Vicky 4? Here's what that hypothetical new figure has to do:

• have a means to transfer existing Vicky 4 morphs, poses, and UV Mapping to VickyKiller, seamlessly.

• have a means to convert all the V4 poses so VickyKiller can use them.

• have a means to convert V4 clothing so that VickyKiller can wear them as perfectly as possible. Oh, and those dynamic clothing morphs had better survive the transition as well.

• while not as vital because workarounds are fairly easy, the hair has to fit as well.

If you expect all that, then what's the damned point? Just stick with V4.

Plus, most of that is beyond the means/abilities and legalities of most content artists. Content artists are not coders. So without the tech being built directly into Poser, or a 3rd party script, it would flat out be illegal for content artists to try doing that. The only ones that can make a figure compatible with V4 content are Daz.

A lot of that old content would - and does - look like crap on a modern figure anyway. The CG equivalent of wearing your older siblings old hand-me-downs - a bit short in the arms and legs and don't quite fit.

And most figures are not built with the intention of being the end-all for their creator, financially. They're intended to be a new platform for new, better content, not a recycle bin.

AmbientShade posted at 3:08PM Tue, 22 January 2019 - #4344034

If you expect all that, then what's the damned point? Just stick with V4.

Plus, most of that is beyond the means/abilities and legalities of most content artists. Content artists are not coders. So without the tech being built directly into Poser, or a 3rd party script, it would flat out be illegal for content artists to try doing that. The only ones that can make a figure compatible with V4 content are Daz.

A lot of that old content would - and does - look like crap on a modern figure anyway. The CG equivalent of wearing your older siblings old hand-me-downs - a bit short in the arms and legs and don't quite fit.

And most figures are not built with the intention of being the end-all for their creator, financially. They're intended to be a new platform for new, better content, not a recycle bin.

That's why I agree with Wolf. Right now, DAZ has no financial incentive to come out with a figure to kill it's own creation. Genesis was supposed to do that and even it couldn't do the deed. Genesis was a non-starter with me for several reasons, but now, I've just lost interest. Dawn And Dusk are the only figures that have come out in the last five years or so that's caught and kept my attention to any appreciable degree and I'm happy with that... for now.

And most figures are not built with the intention of being the end-all for their creator, financially. They're intended to be a new platform for new, better content, not a recycle bin.

Indeed!! I would add, as well as a platform for introducing NEW native program specific features & technologies,that are appearing in the industry in general, to enhance the figures versatility/functionality

People need to understand that the ability of Genesis 1-2 to use V4 Content natively was a **temporary measure ** to ease the transition until the NEW G-1/2 content started flowing from the PA's.

Genesis 3 , along with the IRay render engine & Shader system, effectively burned the remaining bridges to the vestiges of the Old V4 Catalogue. And most realize that was intentional.

You need to $$buy$$ a third party UV product from Cayman studio's to use a V4 texture on G3 in Daz studio today.

The overwhelming majority of Daz studio users have long since moved on to the new content lead by the PA's.

The reality is that poser users will never get a transitional ( best of the old & new) figure that Genesis 1-2 was for Daz studio. due to the IP issues mentioned by Ambient Shade

PE with his "V4 conversion process" tried and frankly appears to have utterly failed IMHO.

You people are facing binary choice

This perplexing notion of:

"I wont move to any new poser native figure that does not use all of my 12 years of old V4 content",... is the equivalent of refusing to upgrade your PC until some"enterprising person" creates a modern, top end PC that will still miraculously run all of my old Windows 95 software.

Expecting either of these events to happen, is utter folly.

wolf359 posted at 6:19PM Tue, 22 January 2019 - #4344057

And most figures are not built with the intention of being the end-all for their creator, financially. They're intended to be a new platform for new, better content, not a recycle bin.

Indeed!! I would add, as well as a platform for introducing NEW native program specific features & technologies,that are appearing in the industry in general, to enhance the figures versatility/functionality

People need to understand that the ability of Genesis 1-2 to use V4 Content natively was a **temporary measure ** to ease the transition until the NEW G-1/2 content started flowing from the PA's.

Genesis 3 , along with the IRay render engine & Shader system, effectively burned the remaining bridges to the vestiges of the Old V4 Catalogue. And most realize that was intentional.

You need to $$buy$$ a third party UV product from Cayman studio's to use a V4 texture on G3 in Daz studio today.

The overwhelming majority of Daz studio users have long since moved on to the new content lead by the PA's.

The reality is that poser users will never get a transitional ( best of the old & new) figure that Genesis 1-2 was for Daz studio. due to the IP issues mentioned by Ambient Shade

PE with his "V4 conversion process" tried and frankly appears to have utterly failed IMHO.

You people are facing binary choice

This perplexing notion of:

"I wont move to any new poser native figure that does not use all of my 12 years of old V4 content",... is the equivalent of refusing to upgrade your PC until some"enterprising person" creates a modern, top end PC that will still miraculously run all of my old Windows 95 software.

Expecting either of these events to happen, is utter folly.

Or, for some reason which you can't fathom, people are just happy with what they have. It does happen every now and again, you know.

Or, for some reason which you can't fathom, people are just happy with what they have

Most poser users are happy with the current status of poser and the poser content market....

some are not and some threads on the SM forums indicate this.

some even CORRECTLY place the blame where it truly belongs.. at the feet of Smith micro:( see post #10)

https://forum.smithmicro.com/topic/9296/what-are-you-hoping-for-in-poser-11-1-1/13

I am a Genesis clothing content developer completely liberated from the Daz PA's thus can support any figure I wish indefinitely with new content ( G2-G3 mostly)

I am certainly happy.

And I am even happy that you are happy.

Post #10 of the thread you linked to is Miss B saying "That's a long time off".

EClark1894 posted at 2:17AM Wed, 23 January 2019 - #4344103

Post #10 of the thread you linked to is Miss B saying "That's a long time off".

Well that was my response to your comment:

"What are you hoping for in Poser 11.1.1?

Poser 12 :)"

I miscounted I meant this post further down:

"Sorry to say this my fellow Poserites,

but the posts I do read here do sound more and more like the passengers on the "Titanic" who discuss at what moment the "automatic anti-sinking" mechanics will stop the ship from going down.

Yet we have no messages from the bridge, and the officers we knew and trusted have already been tossed over board. All we have left are some Portugese stokers who heat the boilers for their first time, wondering what all these odd gauges (sp?) are for.

In the meantime we keep discussing ways of improving the promenade deck and the dining room, or how to fine tune the steam engines to get another 2 1/2 more rpm on the propellers.

What we all disregard is that this isn't 1912 anymore, and that other ships have long since overtaken the Titanic, whatever we try.

So either build a new ship which is up to today's standards, or let it sink right here and now, decently.

Then hand over the plans to a new construction yard who, maybe?, will make something better from them. This has happened in the past already, so why not again? Oh, and I hope it won't be that shipyard in the middle of the Utah desert who takes charge...

Sorry for saying this, but I'm afraid that WE ALL are starting to be confined in a local "comfort bubble", and while we discuss aetheric minor problems we all ignore the tell-tale signs on every wall. .

NOTA BENE: I'm not one of the usual "Thas" trolls! I am the one who made SASHA-16, in the hope it could save Poser from becoming oblivious. But the longer I watch what is going on, the more desparate I become."

Perhaps a minority opinion.

As I said, Use whatever tools, figure & skills you have at your disposal to pursue this hobby/pastime.

Let's be honest ..NONE of us are producing anything that can be eaten, lived in ,or worn on the body for warmth in the real world. its all just a bit of disposable, fleeting entertainment.

wolf359 posted at 1:07PM Wed, 23 January 2019 - #4344109

I miscounted I meant this post further down:

---

"Sorry to say this my fellow Poserites,

but the posts I do read here do sound more and more like the passengers on the "Titanic" who discuss at what moment the "automatic anti-sinking" mechanics will stop the ship from going down.

Yet we have no messages from the bridge, and the officers we knew and trusted have already been tossed over board. All we have left are some Portugese stokers who heat the boilers for their first time, wondering what all these odd gauges (sp?) are for.

In the meantime we keep discussing ways of improving the promenade deck and the dining room, or how to fine tune the steam engines to get another 2 1/2 more rpm on the propellers.

What we all disregard is that this isn't 1912 anymore, and that other ships have long since overtaken the Titanic, whatever we try.

So either build a new ship which is up to today's standards, or let it sink right here and now, decently.

Then hand over the plans to a new construction yard who, maybe?, will make something better from them. This has happened in the past already, so why not again? Oh, and I hope it won't be that shipyard in the middle of the Utah desert who takes charge...

Sorry for saying this, but I'm afraid that WE ALL are starting to be confined in a local "comfort bubble", and while we discuss aetheric minor problems we all ignore the tell-tale signs on every wall. .

NOTA BENE: I'm not one of the usual "Thas" trolls! I am the one who made SASHA-16, in the hope it could save Poser from becoming oblivious. But the longer I watch what is going on, the more desparate I become."

---

Perhaps a minority opinion.

As I said, Use whatever tools, figure & skills you have at your disposal to pursue this hobby/pastime.

Let's be honest ..NONE of us are producing anything that can be eaten, lived in ,or worn on the body for warmth in the real world. its all just a bit of disposable, fleeting entertainment.

Okay, well, now I know who Wolf is in the SM Forum. Kind of wondered why you weren't posting there.

And I'll say this again, I have pretty much stopped using V4 and am now using Dusk and Dawn. I have plenty of stuff for them, can readily find the stuff I don't have already, or push come to shove, can make what I need for them.

In other words, I'm still having fun. ... so far.

Okay, well, now I know who Wolf is in the SM Forum. Kind of wondered why you weren't posting there.

I Dont post in the SM forums because I am not registered there as it is a poser only forum and I dont actually use poser except to occasionally launch Poser pro 2014, look at the Character animation tools and be reminded why Iclone pro pipeline is worth ever penny Reallusion charges us..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55kIU2DCk3o&feature=youtu.be

I am fairly certain the " sinking Titanic" SM forum post, I quoted ,was made by the creator of the "SASHA 16 "Character for V4 They already rubutted you in this thread after you claimed All V4 character looked the same.

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2891494&page_number=19#msg4343842

I think its somewhat incorrect to say that all the characters look the same, whether its V4 or Genesis, as if it somehow defines the limits a character might have. To me it sort of like saying that Batman look the same whether you see him in a movie or a cartoon. The way he looks even with some minor changes to his suit is what defines him as Batman and makes it possible to spot him as a character. Its the same with V4 or Genesis, if you add slightly different textures and only minor changes to them, you can spot them just like batman. But V4 have more than enough polygons in her mesh, that you could make her look like a troll if you wanted and on top of that add normal maps and new textures, making it impossible to know that its based on her.

3D-Mobster posted at 10:35PM Wed, 23 January 2019 - #4344153

I think its somewhat incorrect to say that all the characters look the same, whether its V4 or Genesis, as if it somehow defines the limits a character might have. To me it sort of like saying that Batman look the same whether you see him in a movie or a cartoon. The way he looks even with some minor changes to his suit is what defines him as Batman and makes it possible to spot him as a character. Its the same with V4 or Genesis, if you add slightly different textures and only minor changes to them, you can spot them just like batman. But V4 have more than enough polygons in her mesh, that you could make her look like a troll if you wanted and on top of that add normal maps and new textures, making it impossible to know that its based on her.

It's not really that big a thing. It happens in nature all the time. Fathers and Daughters look alike, as do mothers and sons. And you can spot the connection right away.

Speaking of Batman, don't forget that both Bats and Supes have pretended to be one another more times than I can count.

I use Poser 7 and Vue 6.5, and I also have over a thousand bought items for V4 and M4. Trying to "upgrade" to the latest Genesis would likely mean completely replacing all of this, along with learning a brand new way of doing things. That's thousands of dollars of software/assets and hundreds of hours of practice.

At this point in time I'm fine with V4, until there's a seamless upgrade path. I think she looks great, and my only real complaint is the lack of new products for her.

elfguy posted at 5:28PM Thu, 24 January 2019 - #4344202

I use Poser 7 and Vue 6.5, and I also have over a thousand bought items for V4 and M4. Trying to "upgrade" to the latest Genesis would likely mean completely replacing all of this, along with learning a brand new way of doing things. That's thousands of dollars of software/assets and hundreds of hours of practice.

At this point in time I'm fine with V4, until there's a seamless upgrade path. I think she looks great, and my only real complaint is the lack of new products for her.

I think its a general problem with characters regardless of who they are. A lot of stuff is being made for G8 etc now. But when G9 or whatever is released people will end up with the same problems.

To me a lot of it comes down to what type of stuff you prefer creating. For the most part at least when I look at images with G8 characters, its seems to be mostly close up images which they are very well suited for. But if you are trying to build a scene with more than just a character in focus that is wearing armors or clothing etc or maybe some sort of comic book where you know that you are going to manipulate the final render anyway and might not need in your face renders. Then I see little benefits of using the G8 characters compared to using V4/M4 as they are much lighter to work with in the viewpoint if you need a lot of characters.

wolf359 posted at 9:19PM Thu, 24 January 2019 - #4344109

I miscounted I meant this post further down:

---

"Sorry to say this my fellow Poserites,

but the posts I do read here do sound more and more like the passengers on the "Titanic" who discuss at what moment the "automatic anti-sinking" mechanics will stop the ship from going down.

Yet we have no messages from the bridge, and the officers we knew and trusted have already been tossed over board. All we have left are some Portugese stokers who heat the boilers for their first time, wondering what all these odd gauges (sp?) are for.

In the meantime we keep discussing ways of improving the promenade deck and the dining room, or how to fine tune the steam engines to get another 2 1/2 more rpm on the propellers.

What we all disregard is that this isn't 1912 anymore, and that other ships have long since overtaken the Titanic, whatever we try.

So either build a new ship which is up to today's standards, or let it sink right here and now, decently.

Then hand over the plans to a new construction yard who, maybe?, will make something better from them. This has happened in the past already, so why not again?

And how much of that 'new ship' would be useful and not just cleaver marketing gimmicks to lure in new users to buy features they'll rarely if ever have a practical use for?

Sure Poser has a lot of areas that could use improvements and streamlining to make content creation easier on both creators and consumers, but is it really necessary in order to achieve satisfactory results? I'm all for new features and improvements of older features - absolutely. I have my own (rather lengthy) itemized list of things I want and wish Poser could do, but at the same time I've still managed to do fairly well with the set of tools that Poser does provide me, and - unlike other similar software - I'm not bound to anyone's terms and conditions for what I use those tools to make or what I do with it once I make it. Posts like the above just tend to get tired and often come from people who haven't even used Poser in 2 to 5 versions yet for some reason seem to think they're experts on what it's currently capable of. It's one thing to point out where and how Poser can be improved in this or that area, but there's a lot of "poser can't do this or that" misinformation floating around that needs to be corrected.

I don't use V4 or M4 anymore, and haven't in a long time, even though I do have a somewhat sizeable collection of content for them. They never quite suited my needs/wants in a set of figures, so I made my own.

Sure they aren't perfect - what figure is? But they suit my needs, and while it's taken me much longer than I'd like to get them to the stage they're currently at (mostly due to procrastination and a mild to moderate case of adhd), I built them to my own needs and expectations. And at roughly 28K polys they're extremely easy to work with and low on resources, with a mesh that's optimized for detail and can be cranked up for HD morphs if I want. I could have made them half that, but I personally don't like working with extremely low poly count meshes because they tend to be difficult to work with and all the characters wind up looking like their family tree doesn't fork. But best of all, they aren't loaded down with a million plus one JCMs to fix their rigging. 90% of it is pure weight maps. I think I have about 4 jcms in each of them right now. They'll get more of course as I improve their rigging and add in extreme bends, but even at their current state they make content creation damned near as easy as it gets. And they take any morph and scaling I can throw at them. It took longer to model the clothing in the above image than it did to rig it, and the entire process took a couple hours one afternoon. Granted it needs refinement, as there's a few areas around the bends that need to be smoothed out, but that's just a matter of a few strokes with the smooth brush in the weight painting tools.

Sure, I'd love it if Poser was able to swap out UV maps, and auto correct poke-thru areas (though that can cause its own areas of irritation at times and isn't always best when automated), and a whole list of other added features I wish it had, like I mentioned before. But it's not the ancient relic that some folks around here try to pretend it is. The tools exist in Poser to create just about anything you want, if you're willing to learn how to use them. It might not be as stream-lined and 'make-art-button' as other programs might be, but it still gets the job done. I think the biggest issue Poser has going against it right now is a serious lack of effective marketing.

First time I've seen them in a long while. They look really good Shane...probably the best looking Poser figures I've seen so far, even better than PE IMVHO. :)

Laurie

First time I've seen them in a long while. They look really good Shane...probably the best looking Poser figures I've seen so far, even better than PE IMVHO. :)

Indeed! the female looks way better than PE IMO as well

Congratulations Shane!!

It is always a pleasure to see people willing to educate themselves, do the work & personally liberate themselves from the whims of companies like Daz inc or Smith Micro whenever they can.

And no... it does not have to be "perfect" it only has to be the exact figure you need for your renders or the clothing/costume item I need for an animation.

I frankly doubt any of my custom genesis clothing would actually pass Daz QA because I dont bother with making UV's and create simple material zones as I plan to use C4D native engine procedurals, not ridiculous 4K texture maps!! that only slow down my animation renders.

I think the biggest issue Poser has going against it right now is a serious lack of effective marketing.

I think Both Daz and Smith micro could take a few lessons from Reallusion in the area of marketing to energize the core users.

( assuming one actually has a marketing budget of course)

I mean sure there is the "hype factor" but people ,in this day and age, like to see Flashy visuals.

(How to showcase your CG character software)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hazb4e0V94&t=

wolf359 posted at 5:15AM Fri, 25 January 2019 - #4344241

First time I've seen them in a long while. They look really good Shane...probably the best looking Poser figures I've seen so far, even better than PE IMVHO. :)

Indeed! the female looks way better than PE IMO as well

Congratulations Shane!!

The female does look pretty good, Shane. I wouldn't say better looking than PE, but not worse either. That's my personal opinion.

I think the biggest issue Poser has going against it right now is a serious lack of effective marketing.

I think Both Daz and Smith micro could take a few lessons from Reallusion in the area of marketing to energize the core users.

( assuming one actually has a marketing budget of course)

I mean sure there is the "hype factor" but people ,in this day and age, like to see Flashy visuals.

(How to showcase your CG character software)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hazb4e0V94&t=

Hype is definitely something Poser could do better. But for me the one thing Poser needs to do better, is get their product out.

elfguy posted at 6:42AM Sat, 26 January 2019 - #4344202

I use Poser 7 and Vue 6.5, and I also have over a thousand bought items for V4 and M4. Trying to "upgrade" to the latest Genesis would likely mean completely replacing all of this, along with learning a brand new way of doing things. That's thousands of dollars of software/assets and hundreds of hours of practice.

At this point in time I'm fine with V4, until there's a seamless upgrade path. I think she looks great, and my only real complaint is the lack of new products for her.

Fall into this category except no Vue, Use P11 Pro, and sketchup. Too much invested in V4 and M4 to replace with G at any level. I place them in scenes with building, cars, landscape and they work just fine. I wish there was a plugin to covert Daz materials to Poser materials on props :)

Thanks Laurie. Still have a ways to go with them but the hardest parts are done now so it's just a matter of refining and adding details and morphs.

Ero's a much better lighting and rendering/promo artist than I currently am. Not really interested in comparisons to PE though, as they're very different figures with different design approaches/goals. It's a big reason why I didn't post images of Venus last year when he was trying to get PE finished as I wasn't interested in trying to draw attention away from that project.

I uv map everything. ZBrush makes mapping clothing pretty painless and quick. Can map basic clothing parts in minutes using poly groups. For more complicated pieces I take into blender for more control over symmetry.

I uv map everything. ZBrush makes mapping clothing pretty painless and quick. Can map basic clothing parts in minutes using poly groups. For more complicated pieces I take into blender for more control over symmetry.

The sad thing is ,that I model my clothing in Maxon Cinema4D where I have Bodypaint's UV tools.

So to be brutally honest for me it is a combination of laziness,a visceral hatred/ignorance of the UV process and the fact that my clothing will never be available to the public anyway so no third party will ever create textures for them.

I only learned to model genesis clothing because I am mostly interested in male oriented sci fi themes and the Daz store .....well we all know the story.

Thus My clothings are essentially custom one offs for a specific animation project more akin those fake hollywood props that only need to look good in the shot but have no actual real world functionality.

Got ya. I thought you were using iclone.

UVs aren't as grueling as they were 10-20 yrs ago. These days 95% of it is all algorithms. You pretty much just tell the software where you want the seams to be cut and it flattens everything for you. Some software does a much better job of it than others. With zbrush, you just cut it all up into poly groups based on how you want it to be laid out, and zbrush will make each group its own island/map. It flattens pretty well and gets everything pretty evenly distributed. Only down side is that it doesn't give much control over where your seams go on complicated shapes. Like a head - it will always run the seam down the center of the face no matter what you do. So I just use blender to fix those issues.

**Only down side is that it doesn't give much control over where your seams go on complicated shapes. Like a head - it will always run the seam down the center of the face no matter what you do. **

Yup, Using 3D coat for that, its actually the only thing I use 3D coat for now (uving) and depending on what Adobe does with Substance Painter, I may be using it for texturing in the future.

Got ya. I thought you were using iclone.

I only use Iclone pro in the way most people use Autodesk Motionbuilder.

I use the Realtime Avatars to create Major base layer body motion/locomotion with its Maya human IK hand & foot contact solving and other motion creation& editing tools.

I retarget the motion to an imported,default state Daz genesis rig of choice and export custom BVH out to an awaiting Genesis (1,2 or 3) in Daz studio

Daz studio is where I do"second pass" animation such as facial and lipsinc morphing to final Character shape ( alien or human) and of course final skins ,costumes and hair.

From there the "actor" is exported as animated .obj/MDD to a pre built C4D environment for final rendering. .obj/MDD is point/vertex cache and retains my Daz JCM's unlike FBX export.

I have grown skilled enough in my modeling that I plan to start creating my own complete Sci if environments /Ship interiors, again inspired by video game genre's such as HALO and Mass effect

as stonemason is not as prolific as he used to be.

( not a criticism just stating what I see)

This Iclone/Daz /Character pipeline is transferable to my new(ish) seat of Lightwave 2015 to which I am making at least a partial migration as My C4D program has grown quite long in the tooth since I quit the Maxon money grab a decade ago for various reasons mostly character animation and VFX related.

AmbientShade posted at 12:56PM Sun, 27 January 2019 - #4344034

If you expect all that, then what's the damned point? Just stick with V4.

You can!

Well, you can until DAZ gets tired of giving away the base mesh, and pulls it from their site. Then what? Sure, those who have it can keep it, but any newbies are kinda screwed... and all that V4 stuff will still be out there.

Content artists are not coders. So without the tech being built directly into Poser, or a 3rd party script, it would flat out be illegal for content artists to try doing that.

Fun trivia: You are correct, but at the same time not quite: Nothing prevents a content artist from providing those scripts, or a coder from doing so. Poser's entire history is packed with people who have done this. shrug

A lot of that old content would - and does - look like crap on a modern figure anyway.

True, to a point, but you're telling all those folks who have all those thousands of bucks sunk into all those meshes, textures, morphs, whatever... to go spend more.

So your answer to all of us who have been around forever, is 'too bad - wait until we make enough stuff for the new figure, and then buy it.' ?

Meanwhile, Over in you-know-where, their latest figure lets me use all of my old V4 stuff, and it works incredibly well.

Can I show you something?

So what's my incentive to dump V4 and go with $newFigure again?

And most figures are not built with the intention of being the end-all for their creator, financially. They're intended to be a new platform for new, better content, not a recycle bin.

So who says they can't be?

Penguinisto posted at 4:50PM Sun, 27 January 2019 - #4344353

AmbientShade posted at 12:56PM Sun, 27 January 2019 - #4344034

If you expect all that, then what's the damned point? Just stick with V4.

You can!

Well, you can until DAZ gets tired of giving away the base mesh, and pulls it from their site. Then what? Sure, those who have it can keep it, but any newbies are kinda screwed... and all that V4 stuff will still be out there.

As long as Poser is still around I doubt they'll do that. They still make money every time someone buys V4, so why would they?

Content artists are not coders. So without the tech being built directly into Poser, or a 3rd party script, it would flat out be illegal for content artists to try doing that.

Fun trivia: You are correct, but at the same time not quite: Nothing prevents a content artist from providing those scripts, or a coder from doing so. Poser's entire history is packed with people who have done this. shrug

Again, most content artists are not coders. Sorry for not attaching the 'most' modifier to the previous statement for clarification. Yes Poser has a long history of 3rd party scripts. Some of them are now even built into Poser. And yet people still complain.

A lot of that old content would - and does - look like crap on a modern figure anyway.

True, to a point, but you're telling all those folks who have all those thousands of bucks sunk into all those meshes, textures, morphs, whatever... to go spend more.

So your answer to all of us who have been around forever, is 'too bad - wait until we make enough stuff for the new figure, and then buy it.' ?

Meanwhile, Over in you-know-where, their latest figure lets me use all of my old V4 stuff, and it works incredibly well.

Awesome. Then why aren't you over there using it instead of spending your time over here telling everyone how Poser will die if it doesn't make a seamless way for a 3rd party figure (of which Poser's devs and parent company have zero license to do anything with) fully compatible with any potential new figure? The compatibility currently offered is about as close as its going to get. We have the fitting room, and wardrobe wizard and cross dresser. We even have texture transformer from blacksmith3D. How much more should there be? The reason Daz can make all of that old content work with the latest genesis figures is because they own the rights to all of it, so they can do whatever they want with it. They don't own the clothing meshes, but they own the rigs that make those clothing meshes work. They own the figure meshes, which in turn means they own the UV maps, so they can make those maps compatible with their current figures if they choose, or give permission to someone who can do the job for them.

Long term users with terabytes worth of V4 content really isn't the target audience of new figures, unless that audience wants figures that have more versatility than V4 has in terms of functionality, multi-platform use, etc. Newer figures are designed to take advantage of newer features and tech. And really when it comes down to it, the content market requires new figures and people investing in those new figures and content for them, in order to keep going. There've been several figures come along already that had potential to become the new best thing for Poser, but the vast majority refused to use them because they aren't compatible with their decade-old catalogue. And as a result the content market has shrunk considerably. Then those same people want to complain on the Poser forums that there's no content for Poser anymore. And this is why artists like myself and others have mostly decided 'screw it', why waste our time trying to provide something to a community that doesn't want it because it doesn't have the daz name attached? I'll just do my own thing and y'all can go down with the ship that you decided to help burn.

AmbientShade posted at 2:37PM Sun, 27 January 2019 - #4344363

As long as Poser is still around I doubt they'll do that. They still make money every time someone buys V4, so why would they?

Nobody buys V4. People download the base figure for free. The add-on packs are where the money comes in, but how long will they remain profitable?

I'm not saying it'll go away tomorrow. But a year or three from now? Who knows?

I haven't even touched on strategic direction (or any new corporate initiatives that might come up.)

Again, most content artists are not coders. Sorry for not attaching the 'most' modifier to the previous statement for clarification. Yes Poser has a long history of 3rd party scripts. Some of them are now even built into Poser. And yet people still complain.

They paid good money for the application - they've earned the right to complain.

Meanwhile, Over in you-know-where, their latest figure lets me use all of my old V4 stuff, and it works incredibly well.

Awesome. Then why aren't you over there using it instead of spending your time over here telling everyone how Poser will die if it doesn't make a seamless way for a 3rd party figure (of which Poser's devs and parent company have zero license to do anything with) fully compatible with any potential new figure?

Now now - be nice...

I'm merely here to try to posit opinions that hopefully Smith Micro will read and pick up. If they don't, they don't.

As far as whether Poser will die or not, that's not up to me. I do however see the slow consolidation of sites, the slow drain of users (see also the comparison of activity concerning Poser - even in this forum - from 10 years ago to now...) I think it'd be a shame to see it's trajectory continue, which is why I'm here.

You're right though - I don't have to say anything here. I can sit and watch things progress as they have. So where do you think Poser will be five years from now?

The reason Daz can make all of that old content work with the latest genesis figures is because they own the rights to all of it, so they can do whatever they want with it. They don't own the clothing meshes, but they own the rigs that make those clothing meshes work. They own the figure meshes, which in turn means they own the UV maps, so they can make those maps compatible with their current figures if they choose, or give permission to someone who can do the job for them.

Reading a file and ascertaining its contents and/or formatting requires no permission (now writing to that format/UVMap/whatever would require permission, but reading it? No license or permission required.) This has been hashed out in the legal realm with Office documents, music files (see also .mp3), etc. , and stretched waaaaay back to the old .gif format battles of the 1990s (and was solved there). The owners of that file format are under no obligation to assist you, but you can certainly read it without violating copyright. The one and only exemption involves DRM (you're not allowed to circumvent it without permission from the owners of a given file format if DRM is incorporated), but as we all know, Vicky 4 has no DRM.

TL;DR: unless DRM is involved (and it's not), anybody can write scripts to convert rigging, UVMapping, morphs, poses, whatever.

(...and Bonus! V4 content is most often made and sold (and can be had) in Poser file formats, obviating that whole aspect of it.

Long term users with terabytes worth of V4 content really isn't the target audience of new figures, unless that audience wants figures that have more versatility than V4 has in terms of functionality, multi-platform use, etc.

Correct! But most folks (myself included) love being able to slowly replace old stuff with new stuff. This means using old stuff on new figures until replacements are built and/or bought. Kinda the whole point of the thing I was talking about. But then, you know that.

And really when it comes down to it, the content market requires new figures and people investing in those new figures and content for them, in order to keep going.

Chicken-and-egg, certainly. I find it interesting (but understandable) that you refuse to put forth the risk. So out of curiosity, why not pool that risk with multiple creators and center on a figure? I noticed in your .sig that you're working on one (though I don't have a tumblr account, nor do I need any further spam in my mailbox.) Anyrate, have you given any thought to adaptability of existing content, maybe talk to a dev or two and collaborate? It would seem rather constructive to do so.

Incidentally, which ship is going down? Poser? Slowly, but it can be saved.