Deecey posted at 4:06PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354700

And, if you are interested in seeing how Rikomortis pushes LaFemme well beyond her boundaries into brilliant works of art, check these out. I don't want to post the images without his permission, so links to his gallery images are here. His work is brilliant and so much fun to look at!

Well I'm not into that genre of renders, though I really do like Stalking, but I've always been amazed by what he comes up with for his renders. The amount of detail is just amazing.

Deecey posted at 4:09PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354720

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 3:54PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354716

Glitterati3D posted at 3:49PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354694

I had given up 3D completely (because of just THIS issue) until I was asked to join the La Femme effort.

We have more in common that I had realized

Until the LaFemme project gained traction, I had moved over to DS content creation. The La Femme project brought me back to Poser. A lot of thought went into her development.

And now we all have a brighter future because Renderosity owns Poser and knows how to MARKET to our audience.

We sure are sitting pretty now.

You guys can make fun all you want and maybe you're happy with Poser and the status quo, but obviously something is not working or Poser wouldn't be where it is. It is because SM listened to people who feel like you. Unless you want Poser to end up in the $3.00 bargain bin at the local Walmart, opinions like OURS are things that Renderosity needs to take into account. I'm not saying listen and do EVERYTHING we say for crying out loud, but really consider what people are telling you. The majority of ppl that went to the "other side" were former Poser users. Something is obviously not working. People want really good looking, easy-to-use figures. They want an easier time fitting clothing to other figures. They don't want to have to spend hours converting, smoothing, cajoling, tweaking, pushing or otherwise fiddling with figures to get them to look like they want them to. All people are saying is that Rendo, if they want people to BUY Poser when there is a free competing software, is that they're going to have to make it as easy and as fun to use as humanly possible. Right now, that is not the case. I might be weird that I like to experiment with shaders and materials, but I can guarantee you that most people do not. Most people are never going to learn how to model their own things, or morph or rig. I know you say it's possible to get something good out of Poser...of course it is! But it's going to take you 10 times as long with 50 times the frustration as the competition. THAT is what the new owners need to consider.

Think about all the former Poser vendors that are now making content only for DS. Do you think they wanted to? Maybe some did, but some vendors do this for a living. If people were buying for Poser, they'd still be there making things. But the fact of the matter is that most people are not. V4 content is saturated. Poser is bleeding users. So unless you want Poser to stay right where it is (which is pretty much limbo), maybe we all need to make some compromises that can suit everyone, not just one side or the other. Yes, there are DS users in this thread. But most of us were once Poser users and would like to maybe be Poser users again. We want to see it succeed, not fail.

Laurie

FlagonsWorkshop posted at 3:24PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354710

[...]

So now Renderocity is in charge. How much would it take for scripts to be written in python to convert the entire V4 wardrobe over to La Femme and have a sale on all the old V4 content?

If you shift the focus to content and the end user a whole lot of possibilities open up.

And how many sales would that add to Poser if it only worked in Poser 11?

I already have Poser 11 obviously, but such a script I would pick up faster than it'd hit the store, that's for sure (wistful thinking...)

LaurieA posted at 4:52PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354728

You guys can make fun all you want and maybe you're happy with Poser and the status quo, but obviously something is not working or Poser wouldn't be where it is. It is because SM listened to people who feel like you. Unless you want Poser to end up in the $3.00 bargain bin at the local Walmart, opinions like OURS are things that Renderosity needs to take into account. I'm not saying listen and do EVERYTHING we say for crying out loud, but really consider what people are telling you. The majority of ppl that went to the "other side" were former Poser users. Something is obviously not working. People want really good looking, easy-to-use figures. They want an easier time fitting clothing to other figures. They don't want to have to spend hours converting, smoothing, cajoling, tweaking, pushing or otherwise fiddling with figures to get them to look like they want them to. All people are saying is that Rendo, if they want people to BUY Poser when there is a free competing software, is that they're going to have to make it as easy and as fun to use as humanly possible. Right now, that is not the case. I might be weird that I like to experiment with shaders and materials, but I can guarantee you that most people do not. Most people are never going to learn how to model their own things, or morph or rig. I know you say it's possible to get something good out of Poser...of course it is! But it's going to take you 10 times as long with 50 times the frustration as the competition. THAT is what the new owners need to consider.

Think about all the former Poser vendors that are now making content only for DS. Do you think they wanted to? Maybe some did, but some vendors do this for a living. If people were buying for Poser, they'd still be there making things. But the fact of the matter is that most people are not. V4 content is saturated. Poser is bleeding users. So unless you want Poser to stay right where it is (which is pretty much limbo), maybe we all need to make some compromises that can suit everyone, not just one side or the other. Yes, there are DS users in this thread. But most of us were once Poser users and would like to maybe be Poser users again. We want to see it succeed, not fail.

Laurie

I am hoping you know me well enough to know that I'm not making fun of people's requests. It's just the opposite. Because I've made content for both sides, because I was a DAZ PA for something near 14 years, because I worked for Smith Micro, I well see both sides. I think there are several who do.

I only ask one thing, to be patient. Just because a feature isn't addressed immediately doesn't mean it's being ignored. It means that there may be other things that have to be done first to make the other things fall into place.

With Rendo at the helm I think content WILL be king. Please give it time. 8-)

Holy damn, I had typed out a huge reply to this, full of personal things... then I accidentaly hit the button in my mouse that I forgot makes my browser go back a page. When I had it go forward again, my reply was gone. SIGH.

LaurieA posted at 5:23PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354728

You guys can make fun all you want and maybe you're happy with Poser and the status quo, but obviously something is not working or Poser wouldn't be where it is. It is because SM listened to people who feel like you.

I'm not poking fun, Laurie. I really had given up on Poser, watching people lose interest, everyone grabbing onto Genesis. I don't like DS for its history, and I don't like Genesis for its functionality, and as people had stopped buying for Poser, I had just moved on, as it had timed with some real life things I was going through.

Then that email about La Femme came right when I was searching for another source of income when my life was less shaken and I was curious enough to check her. And I love her, I really do. And now, with my ADHD being treated which is allowing me to finish a product in a couple of weeks instead of several months, and me rediscovering my love for 3d creation, if all goes down with Poser (and I hope it doesn't), I might actually try DS if there's no other way.

But then Renderosity picks Poser up, and my hopes are re-renewed.

The problem wasn't that SM listened to us - we've asked for all the things you've listed, we just didn't want that to mean that Poser would be enslaved to Genesis, that's all. The problem was that SM wasn't listening at all, not even to their beta testers.

And if you're not asking for Genesis-Poser, why is this even a discussion? Renderosity has JUST picked Poser up. We don't even know their intentions with the program, what they'll try to focus for it. I have a feeling they will go exactly this path, making it more user-friendly, more fun for the casual user, easier for the content creator. Because that's what I feel from Renderosity overall, for years.

Deecey posted at 5:04PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354733

LaurieA posted at 4:52PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354728

You guys can make fun all you want and maybe you're happy with Poser and the status quo, but obviously something is not working or Poser wouldn't be where it is. It is because SM listened to people who feel like you. Unless you want Poser to end up in the $3.00 bargain bin at the local Walmart, opinions like OURS are things that Renderosity needs to take into account. I'm not saying listen and do EVERYTHING we say for crying out loud, but really consider what people are telling you. The majority of ppl that went to the "other side" were former Poser users. Something is obviously not working. People want really good looking, easy-to-use figures. They want an easier time fitting clothing to other figures. They don't want to have to spend hours converting, smoothing, cajoling, tweaking, pushing or otherwise fiddling with figures to get them to look like they want them to. All people are saying is that Rendo, if they want people to BUY Poser when there is a free competing software, is that they're going to have to make it as easy and as fun to use as humanly possible. Right now, that is not the case. I might be weird that I like to experiment with shaders and materials, but I can guarantee you that most people do not. Most people are never going to learn how to model their own things, or morph or rig. I know you say it's possible to get something good out of Poser...of course it is! But it's going to take you 10 times as long with 50 times the frustration as the competition. THAT is what the new owners need to consider.

Think about all the former Poser vendors that are now making content only for DS. Do you think they wanted to? Maybe some did, but some vendors do this for a living. If people were buying for Poser, they'd still be there making things. But the fact of the matter is that most people are not. V4 content is saturated. Poser is bleeding users. So unless you want Poser to stay right where it is (which is pretty much limbo), maybe we all need to make some compromises that can suit everyone, not just one side or the other. Yes, there are DS users in this thread. But most of us were once Poser users and would like to maybe be Poser users again. We want to see it succeed, not fail.

Laurie

I am hoping you know me well enough to know that I'm not making fun of people's requests. It's just the opposite. Because I've made content for both sides, because I was a DAZ PA for something near 14 years, because I worked for Smith Micro, I well see both sides. I think there are several who do.

I only ask one thing, to be patient. Just because a feature isn't addressed immediately doesn't mean it's being ignored. It means that there may be other things that have to be done first to make the other things fall into place.

With Rendo at the helm I think content WILL be king. Please give it time. 8-)

As one of those long time Poser vendors who completely switched gears and moved to producing content for Daz Studio, I completely agree with you Laurie, and I'm fairly certain that Renderosity is listening. AND yes Dee, we all need to be patient. It's pretty exciting news, but now comes the hard work and that takes time. I'm definitely one of those folks who has seen both sides, produced for both sides, so for me, there's no request or conversation that will be discounted or made fun of. All experiences and observations are valid, in my opinion, and I'm sure Rendo feels the same.

Deecey posted at 6:10PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354733

LaurieA posted at 4:52PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354728

You guys can make fun all you want and maybe you're happy with Poser and the status quo, but obviously something is not working or Poser wouldn't be where it is. It is because SM listened to people who feel like you. Unless you want Poser to end up in the $3.00 bargain bin at the local Walmart, opinions like OURS are things that Renderosity needs to take into account. I'm not saying listen and do EVERYTHING we say for crying out loud, but really consider what people are telling you. The majority of ppl that went to the "other side" were former Poser users. Something is obviously not working. People want really good looking, easy-to-use figures. They want an easier time fitting clothing to other figures. They don't want to have to spend hours converting, smoothing, cajoling, tweaking, pushing or otherwise fiddling with figures to get them to look like they want them to. All people are saying is that Rendo, if they want people to BUY Poser when there is a free competing software, is that they're going to have to make it as easy and as fun to use as humanly possible. Right now, that is not the case. I might be weird that I like to experiment with shaders and materials, but I can guarantee you that most people do not. Most people are never going to learn how to model their own things, or morph or rig. I know you say it's possible to get something good out of Poser...of course it is! But it's going to take you 10 times as long with 50 times the frustration as the competition. THAT is what the new owners need to consider.

Think about all the former Poser vendors that are now making content only for DS. Do you think they wanted to? Maybe some did, but some vendors do this for a living. If people were buying for Poser, they'd still be there making things. But the fact of the matter is that most people are not. V4 content is saturated. Poser is bleeding users. So unless you want Poser to stay right where it is (which is pretty much limbo), maybe we all need to make some compromises that can suit everyone, not just one side or the other. Yes, there are DS users in this thread. But most of us were once Poser users and would like to maybe be Poser users again. We want to see it succeed, not fail.

Laurie

I am hoping you know me well enough to know that I'm not making fun of people's requests. It's just the opposite. Because I've made content for both sides, because I was a DAZ PA for something near 14 years, because I worked for Smith Micro, I well see both sides. I think there are several who do.

I only ask one thing, to be patient. Just because a feature isn't addressed immediately doesn't mean it's being ignored. It means that there may be other things that have to be done first to make the other things fall into place.

With Rendo at the helm I think content WILL be king. Please give it time. 8-)

Nah Dee...wasn't talking to you ;). I know ya won't do that. Didn't mean to imply that.

Laurie

@Rhiannon Oh, I am prepared to be patient...from here on in could be a couple to a few years before we see anything significant and I'm ok with that. I've been lurking around the Poser forums looking for a glimmer of life for 4 years now ;). I just get upset when someone's opinion is deemed less valid than another's just because they happen to use different software. In this particular case, I think those opinions might be even more valid that other people think: the developers need to know why people left. It might give them some insight on how to bring them back, which is a good thing. I'm sure Renderosity has some idea of the task before them ;).

Laurie

LaurieA posted at 7:44PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354746

Nah Dee...wasn't talking to you ;). I know ya won't do that. Didn't mean to imply that.

I figured as much, but some people in this thread probably might not realize that.

I'm older than dirt. LMAO

LaurieA posted at 6:48PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354751

@Rhiannon Oh, I am prepared to be patient...from here on in could be a couple to a few years before we see anything significant and I'm ok with that. I've been lurking around the Poser forums looking for a glimmer of life for 4 years now ;). I just get upset when someone's opinion is deemed less valid than another's just because they happen to use different software. In this particular case, I think those opinions might be even more valid that other people think: the developers need to know why people left. It might give them some insight on how to bring them back, which is a good thing. I'm sure Renderosity has some idea of the task before them ;).

Laurie

OH yeah girl, the developers definitely need to know all these things and more!! Keep it coming!

LaurieA posted at 8:10PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354751

@Rhiannon Oh, I am prepared to be patient...from here on in could be a couple to a few years before we see anything significant and I'm ok with that. I've been lurking around the Poser forums looking for a glimmer of life for 4 years now ;). I just get upset when someone's opinion is deemed less valid than another's just because they happen to use different software. In this particular case, I think those opinions might be even more valid that other people think: the developers need to know why people left. It might give them some insight on how to bring them back, which is a good thing. I'm sure Renderosity has some idea of the task before them ;).

Laurie

With respect to you Laurie, you know the old saying, "An opinion is like an armpit, because everybody has one." Valid or not, many opinions aren't based on actual facts. The fact is that there are pros and cons to getting Genesis to work in Poser. Like many people I was ready to move on to Genesis when it first debuted. The main reason I didn't was two fold. It didn't work natively in Poser, and to get Genesis, I would have to use DS to even get the figure. That wasn't about to happen. It wasn't because of the figure though. Personally, I don't see the big deal, but then again, I can't tell the difference between one version of Genesis and the next. And to be honest, even if you DID get Genesis to work in Poser, which I understand that Will Dial has done, I probably wouldn't use it any way. I haven't used any figure except Dawn and Dusk since Roxie, so....

EClark1894 posted at 8:39PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354769

LaurieA posted at 8:10PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354751

@Rhiannon Oh, I am prepared to be patient...from here on in could be a couple to a few years before we see anything significant and I'm ok with that. I've been lurking around the Poser forums looking for a glimmer of life for 4 years now ;). I just get upset when someone's opinion is deemed less valid than another's just because they happen to use different software. In this particular case, I think those opinions might be even more valid that other people think: the developers need to know why people left. It might give them some insight on how to bring them back, which is a good thing. I'm sure Renderosity has some idea of the task before them ;).

Laurie

With respect to you Laurie, you know the old saying, "An opinion is like an armpit, because everybody has one." Valid or not, many opinions aren't based on actual facts. The fact is that there are pros and cons to getting Genesis to work in Poser. Like many people I was ready to move on to Genesis when it first debuted. The main reason I didn't was two fold. It didn't work natively in Poser, and to get Genesis, I would have to use DS to even get the figure. That wasn't about to happen. It wasn't because of the figure though. Personally, I don't see the big deal, but then again, I can't tell the difference between one version of Genesis and the next. And to be honest, even if you DID get Genesis to work in Poser, which I understand that Will Dial has done, I probably wouldn't use it any way. I haven't used any figure except Dawn and Dusk since Roxie, so....

Hehe..I know (but I don't think it was armpits...lol). And really, I do see where other people are coming from. It's just that up til now what's available hasn't been working to keep people interested in the software (thanks in no small part to SM), so something needs to be different. Whether it's Genesis in Poser or something else just as nice....frankly, I'm ok with either. First though, the tools probably have to be easier, then the figures can follow I would think. Now, the following is just what I personally think would be nice to see in Poser (not inferring that I know exactly everything it needs....lol) -

Just put all of Cycles, nodes and all in it and dispense with Superfly. If they want to keep Firefly, fine, but but don't try and mesh the two. Let them be separate.

A figure system similar to Genesis would be nice. Before anyone freaks out, I said similar. It doesn't have to be anything at all like Genesis, but similar ease of use and functionality would be fantastic. Forgive me for bringing up DS a lot but, honestly, it's really the only other software to compare Poser to. Sorry.

Something like Autofit. There again, sorry, but...see previous.

Revamp that entire material room. Keep the complicated stuff in the back for sure with all the node wrangling for people that want to use it, but dumb down the shader system in the front. Make it easy, but keep it powerful on its own. Right now it's either all or nothing - incredibly frustrating and harder than it has to be for a casual user or so simple it's useless.

Either get rid of the hair room or revamp. No one uses it other than a precious few (sorry Jenn....lol). Give the cloth room some love. I still like it better than dforce.

Keep the morph brush. It's the one tool I miss the most.

Have some resources included with the base program. Poser has always had plenty of props and clothing (really old now), but almost nothing in the way of a good selection of basic shaders for people to drop onto their scenes and make things easier for them. New light setups would be nice too.

Eliminate the need to have to inject morphs. It's a pain in the butt ;)

I'm sure other stuff will come to me, those are just the most glaring I can think of.

Laurie

Eliminate the need to have to inject morphs. It's a pain in the butt ;)

Hmm ... there's a tradeoff with that.

Figures initially load with base supporting morphs, not because they have to, but because it helps keep scene resources down. That way, a user can inject whatever morphs into the figure that he or she intends to use.

If you don't like using injection morphs, there is a way around it.

Load the figure into a scene. Inject whatever morphs you want to include in the figure each time you load it. Now ... chooose Edit > General Preferences. Switch to the Misc tab in the preferences dialog. UNCHECK "Use external binary morph targets."

Now save that figure to the library under a new filename. All of the morphs should then be embedded in the CR2.

LaurieA posted at 9:24PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354777

Just put all of Cycles, nodes and all in it and dispense with Superfly. If they want to keep Firefly, fine, but but don't try and mesh the two. Let them be separate.

I posted more than once on the now defunct SM Poser Forum that I ABSOLUTELY would love the Principled BSDF node for Poser, as it would do away with the need for so many separate nodes piled up in the Material Room. Unfortunately, I don't know if full on Cycles would work with Poser, but if at least some of the really good nodes which were introduced since Blender 2.79 were made a part of SuperFly, Poser's Material Room would be a whole lot neater, and the results a whole lot nicer.

Miss B posted at 9:55PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354780

LaurieA posted at 9:24PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354777

Just put all of Cycles, nodes and all in it and dispense with Superfly. If they want to keep Firefly, fine, but but don't try and mesh the two. Let them be separate.

I posted more than once on the now defunct SM Poser Forum that I ABSOLUTELY would love the Principled BSDF node for Poser, as it would do away with the need for so many separate nodes piled up in the Material Room. Unfortunately, I don't know if full on Cycles would work with Poser, but if at least some of the really good nodes which were introduced since Blender 2.79 were made a part of SuperFly, Poser's Material Room would be a whole lot neater, and the results a whole lot nicer.

Would love Filmic too, but I didn't wanna be completely unreasonable ;) LOL

Laurie

Miss B posted at 9:44PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354780

LaurieA posted at 9:24PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354777

Just put all of Cycles, nodes and all in it and dispense with Superfly. If they want to keep Firefly, fine, but but don't try and mesh the two. Let them be separate.

I posted more than once on the now defunct SM Poser Forum that I ABSOLUTELY would love the Principled BSDF node for Poser, as it would do away with the need for so many separate nodes piled up in the Material Room. Unfortunately, I don't know if full on Cycles would work with Poser, but if at least some of the really good nodes which were introduced since Blender 2.79 were made a part of SuperFly, Poser's Material Room would be a whole lot neater, and the results a whole lot nicer.

One major change I hope Renderosity WILL make in Poser is it's adherence to backward compatibility. I believe that is one of the things that is holding Poser back. That's why we have Superfly instead of full blown Cycles. I'll say it again, Cycles is hopelessly crippled in Poser. Primarily because all of the nodes aren't there. With a lot of fussing and fidgeting, I was able to rebuild a few shaders from other Cycles and Blender sources, but it's a tasking endeavor.

While the older figures are good for crowd scenes or long distances shots, let's dump those too. I don't even load them when I download a new version of Poser. With the exception of 1, 3 and 5, I have every version of Poser ever released. How many times do I need to download them?

Btw, does any one know how I erase my signature? The Patreon one doesn't even show up in my profile.

The Physical Surface root can do a lot of what the Principled BDSF does. Plus, the way that the devs (and I think it was pretty much one person writing the code) integrated Cycles means that it is possible to mix and match between Cycles and Poser nodes to an interesting extent. BTW the nodes that aren't in Poser needed too much time to code UI stuff, that's the only reason there are some missing. An update building on Superfly (as its a few years out of date now) would be great, but the work that was done was done well ;)

As far as making materials easier goes - well, opportunities for content creators, surely?

Miss B posted at 9:57PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354780

LaurieA posted at 9:24PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354777

Just put all of Cycles, nodes and all in it and dispense with Superfly. If they want to keep Firefly, fine, but but don't try and mesh the two. Let them be separate.

I posted more than once on the now defunct SM Poser Forum that I ABSOLUTELY would love the Principled BSDF node for Poser, as it would do away with the need for so many separate nodes piled up in the Material Room. Unfortunately, I don't know if full on Cycles would work with Poser, but if at least some of the really good nodes which were introduced since Blender 2.79 were made a part of SuperFly, Poser's Material Room would be a whole lot neater, and the results a whole lot nicer.

Actually, in looking at the Principled BSDF shader, it looks quite similar to the Physical Surface root node in Poser, which is effectively a PBR root node shader. I prefer using that, and then creating PBR texture maps in Substance Painter or whatever. For the reason you state ... no spaghetti mess. ;-)

So maybe that physical surface root node can be beefed up some.

caisson posted at 10:10PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354783

The Physical Surface root can do a lot of what the Principled BDSF does. Plus, the way that the devs (and I think it was pretty much one person writing the code) integrated Cycles means that it is possible to mix and match between Cycles and Poser nodes to an interesting extent. BTW the nodes that aren't in Poser needed too much time to code UI stuff, that's the only reason there are some missing. An update building on Superfly (as its a few years out of date now) would be great, but the work that was done was done well ;)

As far as making materials easier goes - well, opportunities for content creators, surely?

Great minds think alike 8-)

Deecey posted at 10:09PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354784

Miss B posted at 9:57PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354780

LaurieA posted at 9:24PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354777

Just put all of Cycles, nodes and all in it and dispense with Superfly. If they want to keep Firefly, fine, but but don't try and mesh the two. Let them be separate.

I posted more than once on the now defunct SM Poser Forum that I ABSOLUTELY would love the Principled BSDF node for Poser, as it would do away with the need for so many separate nodes piled up in the Material Room. Unfortunately, I don't know if full on Cycles would work with Poser, but if at least some of the really good nodes which were introduced since Blender 2.79 were made a part of SuperFly, Poser's Material Room would be a whole lot neater, and the results a whole lot nicer.

Actually, in looking at the Principled BSDF shader, it looks quite similar to the Physical Surface root node in Poser, which is effectively a PBR root node shader. I prefer using that, and then creating PBR texture maps in Substance Painter or whatever. For the reason you state ... no spaghetti mess. ;-)

So maybe that physical surface root node can be beefed up some.

Well, maybe if they make the advanced Material room window scalable, and stop the nodes from jumping all over the place when I click the uncollapse button.

+1 for material room navigation. Zoom, click and drag to pan, buttons to align selected nodes horizontally, vertically or by grid ... like Substance Designer. Would make life much easier.

People want to do away with backwards compatibility. I get that maybe we don't need to have posset in poser anymore. But what about the hundreds of props we've acquired over the years that look great with a new shader on it? And furniture that's rigged. Dressers that open and close. I even have a set dishes that load as figures (I don't know why.) How many of us can afford to replace all of that?

And Laurie, I don't care if they replace the hair room. If they can come up with something practical to use, I'd remake all my hair. I played a little with daz's strand hair and could do in an evening what it takes me weeks to so in poser.

RedPhantom posted at 11:04PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354792

People want to do away with backwards compatibility. I get that maybe we don't need to have posset in poser anymore. But what about the hundreds of props we've acquired over the years that look great with a new shader on it? And furniture that's rigged. Dressers that open and close. I even have a set dishes that load as figures (I don't know why.) How many of us can afford to replace all of that?

And Laurie, I don't care if they replace the hair room. If they can come up with something practical to use, I'd remake all my hair. I played a little with daz's strand hair and could do in an evening what it takes me weeks to so in poser.

To this day, I don't understand what eclark means, even though I've tried to understand it several times.

Poser is able to load content made for older versions. DAZ Studio is able to load content made for older versions.. Photoshop is able to load images created in older versions of Photoshop. Word documents created in older versions of Word can be loaded in Word. BUT ... you cannot save in any of these applications and expect all of the features you add in the new version to be compatible with earlier versions of the software.

In all the above cases, that is what "backward compatibility" means to me.

As far as cutting down the amount of legacy content furnished with Poser, yeah, I hear that. Big time I hear that.

LaurieA posted at 9:40PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354728

You guys can make fun all you want and maybe you're happy with Poser and the status quo, but obviously something is not working or Poser wouldn't be where it is. It is because SM listened to people who feel like you. Unless you want Poser to end up in the $3.00 bargain bin at the local Walmart, opinions like OURS are things that Renderosity needs to take into account. I'm not saying listen and do EVERYTHING we say for crying out loud, but really consider what people are telling you. The majority of ppl that went to the "other side" were former Poser users. Something is obviously not working. People want really good looking, easy-to-use figures. They want an easier time fitting clothing to other figures. They don't want to have to spend hours converting, smoothing, cajoling, tweaking, pushing or otherwise fiddling with figures to get them to look like they want them to. All people are saying is that Rendo, if they want people to BUY Poser when there is a free competing software, is that they're going to have to make it as easy and as fun to use as humanly possible. Right now, that is not the case. I might be weird that I like to experiment with shaders and materials, but I can guarantee you that most people do not. Most people are never going to learn how to model their own things, or morph or rig. I know you say it's possible to get something good out of Poser...of course it is! But it's going to take you 10 times as long with 50 times the frustration as the competition. THAT is what the new owners need to consider.

Think about all the former Poser vendors that are now making content only for DS. Do you think they wanted to? Maybe some did, but some vendors do this for a living. If people were buying for Poser, they'd still be there making things. But the fact of the matter is that most people are not. V4 content is saturated. Poser is bleeding users. So unless you want Poser to stay right where it is (which is pretty much limbo), maybe we all need to make some compromises that can suit everyone, not just one side or the other. Yes, there are DS users in this thread. But most of us were once Poser users and would like to maybe be Poser users again. We want to see it succeed, not fail.

Laurie

This +1

The biggest problem Smith Micro and Poser had was it is a publicly traded company and they can't make wild promises and not keep them. So what most of you here think was them not listening was that they can't engage in wild promises and then fail to deliver. Under Renderosity they can talk about anything they want promise the moon and never have to worry about whether it comes true or not.

One of the last questions asked by the old development team was whether anyone used Lux renderer. A lot of people told them basically hell no don't get rid of superfly they don't want to learn a new system. Looking at what the old old team did with making Superfly almost a drop in replacement for Firefly and the material room looked the same and it wasn't all that hard to make the changes to use the new nodes. With Open Shade and several of the free Render Engines using Open Shade it would not be too hard to make a lookup conversion system to translate Poser to Open Shade so it would be a snap to use which ever Renderer you wanted to do. Oh well.

There are two ways to do something fast and easy and slow and thoughtful. The fast way normally has to be done repeatedly and even if though it may not take much time per occurrence it usually takes more time in the long run then the slow and thoughtful method. Since most people want to appear to be busy and productive they won't take the time to learn newer/better methods which in the long run give them more time. As an example a job I had was to analyze manning levels and program in changes to ensure a proper balance for manning. Doing what the guy before me was doing it would take about 20 days to do it by hand. Which gave me about 2 days a month to learn a better way. By the time I left that job I was able to do the same report in under a day. Point being that by doing extra work at the beginning I was able to do more in a shorter time frame and therefore learn and do more.

Deecey posted at 1:16AM Wed, 26 June 2019 - #4354784

Actually, in looking at the Principled BSDF shader, it looks quite similar to the Physical Surface root node in Poser, which is effectively a PBR root node shader. I prefer using that, and then creating PBR texture maps in Substance Painter or whatever. For the reason you state ... no spaghetti mess. ;-)

So maybe that physical surface root node can be beefed up some.

Yes, I've used the Physical Surface root node some, and yes it reminds me of the Principled BSDF, so perhaps that would be a good starting point for the dev team to use in order to expand it to be more like the Principled BSDF.

I don't have Substance Painter, but I'm a long time Filter Forge user (from version 1), and use it a lot in Photoshop to make textures.

EClark1894 posted at 8:37PM Wed, 26 June 2019 - #4354782

Btw, does any one know how I erase my signature? The Patreon one doesn't even show up in my profile.

From your user dropdown on the top, right, choose My Profile, then click Edit Profile. In the list of options to the right of My Settings, you'll see Forums. Click that and you can edit your signature there.

Miss B posted at 7:59AM Wed, 26 June 2019 - #4354780

LaurieA posted at 9:24PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354777

Just put all of Cycles, nodes and all in it and dispense with Superfly. If they want to keep Firefly, fine, but but don't try and mesh the two. Let them be separate.

I posted more than once on the now defunct SM Poser Forum that I ABSOLUTELY would love the Principled BSDF node for Poser, as it would do away with the need for so many separate nodes piled up in the Material Room. Unfortunately, I don't know if full on Cycles would work with Poser, but if at least some of the really good nodes which were introduced since Blender 2.79 were made a part of SuperFly, Poser's Material Room would be a whole lot neater, and the results a whole lot nicer.

I also requested micro displacement as well, which Superfly doesn't have but Cycles does. I'll be waiting.

Though doing away with Superfly would break a lot of existing content.

I love that Winter Adventurer outfit. I know sex sells, and heck, I've bought some chain mail bikinis in my time (for Poser, not for me!), but I much prefer clothing that looks like something someone might actually wear on a quest or to battle.

As for the future of Poser...who knows. I can understand wanting to make it as easy for the user as possible, but I wonder how profitable that niche is. DAZ makes their money off content, not software. And just from what I've seen "in the wild"...people who might have used Poser before are now using games like The Sims to make art and videos. Not sure Poser can compete with that, when it comes to ease of use.

an0malaus posted at 12:19PM Wed, 26 June 2019 - #4354813

EClark1894 posted at 8:37PM Wed, 26 June 2019 - #4354782

Btw, does any one know how I erase my signature? The Patreon one doesn't even show up in my profile.

From your user dropdown on the top, right, choose My Profile, then click Edit Profile. In the list of options to the right of My Settings, you'll see Forums. Click that and you can edit your signature there.

Thank you. That did the trick alright.

This is Not "Daz bashing"

My advice to bondware is this: DO NOT tie the future of YOUR POSER application to a figure framework who's development cycle you can not predict or Do not Directly control!!

I mean : Daz Genesis.

Now the unrealistic,Pie in the Sky, Dreamers will bleet: "Oh but if the two companies worked together Bondware wont be cut off at the knees when "Gensis X.5" is introduced with just enough Pooware ornamental embellishments to break poser compatibilty ..they will know in advance"

Anyone paying attention ,is certainly aware by now, Daz does not operate that way.

Consider that every POSER SPECIFIC figure related enhancement, that the new bondware team might be planning, would have to be measured against wether it will break current compatibility with the Oh so magical & elusive golden unicorn.,,now and in the future.

Putting bondware in the submissive postion of a paralyzed child who's every decision has to be filtered through Mommy& Daddy in Draper Utah.

Does anyone really want that??

This is Not "Daz bashing"

As Many may know, I am neck deep in the Genesis figure framework as part of my IclonePro -Daz studio-Maxon Cinema4D/Newtek Lightwave animation ,VFX pipeline.

However I have the Luxury of staying with the older G-1,2,3 figures because I liberated Myself from the Daz content hamster wheel by acquiring advanced 3D modeling/sculpting skills to develop my own Custom clothing and morphs for the figure generations I prefer.

A person developed a very feature rich Plugin for genesis to Maya using the official DSON specifications ( JCM's,Morphs direct loading from DS content libraries into Maya etc etc )

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

Daz Immediately Co-opted it ,giving the plugin creator access to Private ,internal Daz SDKs to further enhance the plugin and promptly publiclycalled for beta testers to test "their" new plugin for Autodesk Maya.

A Daz employee, boasted Yesterday, That Late summer will see "Major enhancements to Daz's Character animation tools"( IK solver Yayy!!) "and the ability to use Daz content in "Other programs"

Daz studio Already exports to FXB,Alembic,obj,MDD ,BVH for use in "other programs"

So it seems the new DEX plugin for Maya is ready for a late summer roll out.. good for them.

What if the Mighty "Sovereign Nation" of Autodesk Makes major changes to the core of MAYA 2020 and breaks that new DEX plugin in the fall?

Well... too bad!! Daz will have to meet the new standard and "fix" their DEX plugin... that is the way this industry works.

Reallusion Finally Woke up to this Reality After years of chasing the Oh so magical & elusive golden unicorn, They developed their own advanced shape projection algorithum for Character creator 3 knowing that Daz will likely never remove FBX export from DS . Thus we do not need actual "genesis support "Iclone as you can create a perfect Iclone native Doppleganger of any genesis Character, along with the clothing/Hair with all of the realtime animation functionality that an ilcone AVatar offers with use of your existing iclone content Plus IRay rendering for high quality stills.

I have seen many "poser to Lightwave, poser to C4D,poser to Max" plugins come and quickly go over the years ,as Maxon.Newtek,Autodesk etc etc forged ahead with THEIR program agendas leaving those plugins useless..often within a year.

Why should Bondware be any different in their sovereignty to develop Poser according to their own agenda ?

Now the unrealistic,Pie in the Sky, Dreamers will bleet: "Oh but Daz& Bondware will make more money if genesis works fully in both programs"

No... not really You see you GROW your market by getting new users on board (which is why Daz so desparately wants the millions?? of Maya users embracing Genesis 8)

A new user looking at his /her options will Have to risk buying poser first before using Genesis in poser and hope that Bondware remains an obedient and Loyal serf and keep poser updated for the latest Daz figures.

...or Just Download his FREE Daz Studio application with ZERO risk and start buying content from the Daz store

Who likely wins in this scenario?

I was excited to get the email announcement. I think Renderosity could do some fantastic things with Poser. It's a great idea to eliminate all the different Poser versions, and focus on Poser Pro 11. I haven't used Poser much for many years. I've been waiting for the introduction of something that would entice me back. One example would be a whole new set of more realistic Poser characters. Maybe Renderosity will decide to avoid the DAZ Genesis people and create some of their own people which would challenge the Genesis people.

Saying I'm not bashing DAZ repeatedly does not mean you are not bashing DAZ ;)

I think that is what a lot of the resistance is to having native support for Genesis in Poser is to start with and it is valid. And frankly I don't care if Genesis is included or not, Poser shouldn't be a clone of DAZ, what would be the point?

Poser is going to need a line of morphable characters that can share clothes, poses, and accessories, implement it any way you want. If future generations can carry over at least poses and clothes so much the better. What DAZ seems to have, and Poser has been lacking, is a class of Published Artists, Vendors, or what ever you want to call them, that create scripts and sell them that automate process that the common user finds difficult or time consuming. We don't all want to be content creators.

Poser is going to need a line of morphable characters that can share clothes, poses, and >accessories, implement it any way you want. If future generations can carry over at least poses and >clothes so much the better.

Daz has clearly Demonstrated the way to achieving this. Much in the Way Google Android and Apple OS has and eliminated Blackberry, Nokia etc from the Cell phone market.

Create an innovative Platform.

Establish uniform standards for creating content for that platform.

Make it as easy as humanly possible for interested third parties to

develop for your platform (free dev kits/modern SDKs).

Have a powerful marketing Machine constantly in motion promoting your platform

Own /the primary retail market that supports your platform

This is only possible if you own the Core IP of the platform

BONDWARE now owns the core IP... Poser and the Primary Retail content Market here at renderosity.

We don't all want to be content creators

NO and you should not have to be.

I am an outlier, have No interest in being a Daz PA, I only became a Daz content dev out of sheer frustration of needing very specific genesis clothing items for my animated films. This is not Daz's fault ,this fell upon me to remedy. But at leastDaz had simple/FREE built in tools for me to make conformers in three mouse clicks after I learned how to model.

a class of Published Artists, Vendors, or what ever you want to call

them, that create scripts and sell them that automate process that the

common user finds difficult or time consuming

Correct!!.. NO one would try to sell or even give a free Android or IOS

phone app that users had to compile themselves to "make it work "on

their phones

Yet why did the poser user base continue to rally behind third party

"saviour" figures presented with vague,shaky promises of:

"I will teach My loyal followers how to manually convert V4's clothes themselves"

Or worse: "those Idiots ,who own poser wont re-engineer the program to Conform to my exotic figures non uniform specs!!"

All of the other major 3D application have an official set of uniform

standards for external developers of program native content/ plugins

/addons.

My only advise is that Bondware take a similar approach not only does it bring clarity to your potential content creators but

assures quality standards are maintained as well.

Deecey posted at 4:13PM Wed, 26 June 2019 - #4354798

RedPhantom posted at 11:04PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354792

People want to do away with backwards compatibility. I get that maybe we don't need to have posset in poser anymore. But what about the hundreds of props we've acquired over the years that look great with a new shader on it? And furniture that's rigged. Dressers that open and close. I even have a set dishes that load as figures (I don't know why.) How many of us can afford to replace all of that?

And Laurie, I don't care if they replace the hair room. If they can come up with something practical to use, I'd remake all my hair. I played a little with daz's strand hair and could do in an evening what it takes me weeks to so in poser.

To this day, I don't understand what eclark means, even though I've tried to understand it several times.

Poser is able to load content made for older versions. DAZ Studio is able to load content made for older versions.. Photoshop is able to load images created in older versions of Photoshop. Word documents created in older versions of Word can be loaded in Word. BUT ... you cannot save in any of these applications and expect all of the features you add in the new version to be compatible with earlier versions of the software.

In all the above cases, that is what "backward compatibility" means to me.

As far as cutting down the amount of legacy content furnished with Poser, yeah, I hear that. Big time I hear that.

Well, no, I'm not talking about loading content. First, of all, as I've said, I still use, albeit rarely, poser figures from as far back as version 2, but it's long distance or crowd shots, not as primaries. But I still don't think they should have created Superfly instead of just giving just Cycles. I understand the desire to keep Firefly, but for the sake of backwards compatibility, we didn't move forward, we moved sideways to a new renderer. We're still thinking that way, talking about using the Physical Root Node, instead of Poser just including the Principled BDSF in with Cycles. You can decide for yourself what renderer you want to use. And then there's the Fitting Room. I think I've used it maybe once or twice. In my mind it became a crutch for using V4's clothing on newer figures. I'm not made of money either, but instead of rehashing V4 stuff, we could have supported Poser vendors making content for the newer figures. I'm hoping that because Renderosity is a Content Provider for Poser that they would make the same mistake the SM did.

Varnayrah posted at 4:43PM Wed, 26 June 2019 - #4354442

You can sound quite hurtful, you know, qaz. I shouldn't have answered to your post, my fault. I'll not waste my time again. I'll just concentrate on making images - in poser and with whatever figure I like. I won't take part in the competition about a decent portrait of La Femme? Why? Because I won't cater to your standards of beauty and won't compete where you alone define what's decent and pretty or beautiful.

Wise choice. It's difficult not to feed the trolls sometimes. I think that brown skinned woman looks quite nice myself.

One thing I'd love to see added to Poser is the ability to add runtimes en masse so you don't have to add them one by one, and also a way to change their order without having to edit the xml file. I know it can be done because Daz Studio does it. I generally don't want them to copy Daz Studio in most things, but this is the one Daz feature that I'd like to see in Poser.

Oh, I'd like that, too.

Heck, I'd be happy if the runtimes just sorted alphabetically. I sometimes have a couple of dozen loaded, and searching for the right can be a pain.

randym77 posted at 8:50PM Wed, 26 June 2019 - #4354918

Oh, I'd like that, too.

Heck, I'd be happy if the runtimes just sorted alphabetically. I sometimes have a couple of dozen loaded, and searching for the right can be a pain.

Not saying you shouldn't get your runtimes addition add-on, but sounds like you would be better served with a better runtime naming process.

EClark1894 posted at 8:35PM Wed, 26 June 2019 - #4354919

randym77 posted at 8:50PM Wed, 26 June 2019 - #4354918

Oh, I'd like that, too.

Heck, I'd be happy if the runtimes just sorted alphabetically. I sometimes have a couple of dozen loaded, and searching for the right can be a pain.

Not saying you shouldn't get your runtimes addition add-on, but sounds like you would be better served with a better runtime naming process.

What does the naming process have to do with it? Poser shows the runtimes in the order you add them. No matter what you name them, you either have to scroll through the list, or detach all the existing runtimes at the start of a new image, and hope you can guess which ones you'll need in your new project, and add them in the "right" order (whatever that is).

Also, I recently noticed that Poser still doesn't show all the files if you have too many in one folder. One reason why I have so many runtimes. :-P

@EClark1894 So lets say that SM just put in cycles what would have happened when I opened Poser and put in Pauline and added a scene from Poser 10? When I went to render either Pauline would have been black or the old scene would have been as the two render engines would not know what to do with the nodes from the other renderer. That would be great for vendors as they would have 10 versions of Poser content to update to the new cycles engine and would have made a ton of money. NOT. As I said a page or two ago the PM asked about LuxRender and most responses not to put it in as they have learned how to use the new SuperFly. If the only content that came out with Poser 11 could only be rendered with converted content thenit would most likely have been dead on arrival. As it is being able to use the old stuff along side the new even if it is not perfect allows people to make changes as they can. The only people S.O.L are the point and render group.

I have to say I really like SuperFly because how you can just render any existing figures or props. I would much prefer to see SuperFly expanded upon rather than replaced.

Anyway, I think anyone who comes into this forum would be happy that it wasn't DAZ who brought Poser, so we can all still look forward to a new Poser in the future.

A disclaimer before I ask this question ... I am not a programmer and have no idea what is involved under the hood to make all this stuff happen. All I know is I would think it would be a ton of work.

With that said, I have a question for those who would like to see full Cycles support in Poser ... I don't use Blender as there are other modeling apps that I much prefer. And I also have Octane Render.

But for those who do use Blender ... would you expect Poser to then update to Eevee afterward? Because from what I've read on the Blender site, there are still some Cycles shaders that have no equivalent in Eevee.

But I do know it's hard enough to keep track of differences between FireFly and SuperFly/Cycles nodes, and I think adding support for a yet another render engine's nodes would complicate things even further.

Fast search says back in 2012/13 time frame Cycles got Open Shading Language as part of the code. So it should not be too hard to put it into Poser and then have that call the proper render engine. Since for the most part a shader is just a bunch of math formulas put into a visual box to make it easy for a person to use. The nice thing is that done properly it will allow any render engine that uses OSL to be used in Poser. So there will be a slightly new node system to use but nothing that will so different, which is why it was a good idea for the old team to have made SuperFly the way they did as it makes it easy to use the new nodes and allow all the knowledge of the past 20 years to been kept.

Deecey posted at 11:34PM Wed, 26 June 2019 - #4354929

With that said, I have a question for those who would like to see full Cycles support in Poser ... I don't use Blender as there are other modeling apps that I much prefer. And I also have Octane Render.

But for those who do use Blender ... would you expect Poser to then update to Eevee afterward? Because from what I've read on the Blender site, there are still some Cycles shaders that have no equivalent in Eevee.

But I do know it's hard enough to keep track of differences between FireFly and SuperFly/Cycles nodes, and I think adding support for a yet another render engine's nodes would complicate things even further.

I've been using Blender for many years, but happen to be enrolled in a class at Udemy, mostly because I've never done sculpting with it, or what I call spin modelling. I don't recall now what they call that in Blender, but I tried it many years ago with a sample version of Rhino 3D and liked it, and I know Blender has a similar option, so want to learn how to do it.

With that said, they are in the middle of updating the course for Blender 2.8 to include EEVEE rendering, and from what I've seen of some of the renders students in the class are producing, it looks nice, and I'm wanting to try it, but I'm so used to the default Blender render engine, and now the Cycles render engine, which I am no expert at as yet, I'm not sure how often I would use EEVEE after I complete this class. It's taking me a long time to get comfortable with SuperFly in Poser, and from what I see being done as far as texturing for the Cycles render engine, I think that's the only one I'd really be interested in. EEVEE is brand new with the still in development Blender 2.8, so it's going to take a while before folks move over to it completely. Since I rarely do final renders in Blender, for the most part I only render while I'm modeling, uv mapping and texturing. I still do my final renders in Poser, which is why I'd like the newer Cycles nodes, like Principled BSDF, set up for Poser. If it can't be adopted for SuperFly, then I would like Cycles introduced to Poser, if that's at all possible. I can code, though not in Python, yet, so I have no idea if it can be done, but if it can, I'm all for it.

a friend of mine recently mentioned that EEVEE renders more quickly than Cycles and with far less noise/grain; and feels that it is less 'clunky' too [their word, not mine]. they have just recently started playing with it tho', so i'm awaiting to hear the 'Full Report' myself...

i'm not a programmer either, but i'm curious...

people have voiced thoughts/concerns regarding current materials & nodes remaining compatible [or that's how i've read it]...

there have been a number of systems created by vendors to convert such things in the past. wouldn't something like that be a potential solution to such things, or am i missing something? <---- genuine question asked with no trace of snark, fyi - i'm not terribly techie either in case ya can't tell... heh

Giana posted at 1:00AM Thu, 27 June 2019 - #4354935

a friend of mine recently mentioned that EEVEE renders more quickly than Cycles and with far less noise/grain; and feels that it is less 'clunky' too [their word, not mine]. they have just recently started playing with it tho', so i'm awaiting to hear the 'Full Report' myself...

Yes, folks in the class I'm taking that have upgraded to 2.8 have mentioned EEVEE is quicker, but the newer versions of Blender, my 2.79 for instance, has a Denoiser tool, and if you run your Cycles render with that invoked, it will render, and then go through the process of denoising the render. It works very nicely. Whether you need to use that tool with an EEVEE render, I have no idea.

Is Blender going to completely shelve Cycles, or keep both Cycles and Eevee?