Now that Renderosity owns Poser, a question comes to mind. I mean, I have an idea of what they should do to make Poser a better app, but it seems everybody has a different idea about what Renderosity should do about the next Poser figure. So, should Renderosity make a new Poser figure when it releases the next version of Poser? Or should they just stick with and market what they already have for just a little bit longer?

"What makes a good figure?"

one the community will use. unfortunately we all see how that goes these days...

Why would you want them to make the same errors as the last team did? If I have a model Roxie, Pauline or La Femme anyone of them is a good model and Poser can bend them fairly well and they perform as expected. The biggest issue is putting the color (skin) on them. The biggest part of new characters is the makeups (there is also shape changes). So why just as you start to build up a collection of content for a figure you dump it and start over. The problem is not that Poser figures are bad its that they never stay the same long enough to be useful.

I never understood why the old team would put out a new figure with each release of Poser. I get that they wanted to show off the new features such as scaling bending etc. however they could have used the last figure put the new rigging in and called it Roxie 2.0 instead of Pauline. And all the time spent on making a new mesh could have been spent making a Morph of Roxie to make her look like Pauline. That is one of the things that made no sense from a software company that reuses old code modify it a bit and put out a new product, except when it came to figures at which point they said build something new from scratch and do it in 4 weeks.

The best thing Renderosity could do is make it clear they have ONE flagship figure and that it will be around for sometime so they can build up content. When the next version of Poser comes out and they need to make changes to the Flagship have the program be able to transfer the changes into the content easily.

"What makes a good figure"

One you find functional and enjoyable to use. Everything else is nonsense.

Richard60 posted at 3:36PM Fri, 05 July 2019 - #4356116

Why would you want them to make the same errors as the last team did? If I have a model Roxie, Pauline or La Femme anyone of them is a good model and Poser can bend them fairly well and they perform as expected. The biggest issue is putting the color (skin) on them. The biggest part of new characters is the makeups (there is also shape changes). So why just as you start to build up a collection of content for a figure you dump it and start over. The problem is not that Poser figures are bad its that they never stay the same long enough to be useful.

I never understood why the old team would put out a new figure with each release of Poser. I get that they wanted to show off the new features such as scaling bending etc. however they could have used the last figure put the new rigging in and called it Roxie 2.0 instead of Pauline. And all the time spent on making a new mesh could have been spent making a Morph of Roxie to make her look like Pauline. That is one of the things that made no sense from a software company that reuses old code modify it a bit and put out a new product, except when it came to figures at which point they said build something new from scratch and do it in 4 weeks.

The best thing Renderosity could do is make it clear they have ONE flagship figure and that it will be around for sometime so they can build up content. When the next version of Poser comes out and they need to make changes to the Flagship have the program be able to transfer the changes into the content easily.

I never said I wanted them to make the same errors as the last team. That would be insane! I haven't used Pauline or La Femme, to be honest. I've stuck with Dawn. And to be perfectly honest, I wasn't disappointed with Roxie. I know she wasn't everyone's cup of tea, and she could have bent better, but I liked her.

It's rather obvious you don't like La Femme. Be nice if you could point out some reasons why instead of making everyone guess what you don't like. And we already have a growing amount of content for La Femme. Maybe La Femme 2.0 could address some of those problems.

The only thing you said that I do agree with is that Poser, for some reason, and with the apparent exception of Miki 1, 2, 3, and 4 could never seem to go past one update to a figure before making a brand spanking new one.

Well ... generically ... one that is fully functional, pleasing to look at from the get-go. And for me, realistic physically. Too many times I have found noses, eyes and mouths too rudimentary and not easily turned into realistic looking. Posing rigs is a must for me now ... and spinal flexibility. better foot rigging (Like PE, La Femme). And never leave out the more realistic "look-up/down" and "look-side-to-side" with eye-lid adjustments. Texturing? that is all open for 3rd party opportunities. And finally for me ... a HUGE selection of morphs. Particularly for the face.

Bonus: is to make the texture maps and mesh and morphs MR's to encourage marketable character development. (thank you Paul/Pauline and La Femme!!)

My opinion:

• A simple, smooth, realistic and low resolution mesh in the base Geommetry as La Femme:
• A figure only with the essential body groups (easy to work with). Avoid unecessary body groups that most of the times aren't used.;
• Nice and very well made Face morphs and expressions morphs; A nice diversity of Body morphs;
• A figure that works fast!;
• A simple and very well made rigging;
• The UVmap of the figure must be simple, must allow the creation of very detailed Skin textures but with the less seams as possible (The UVmaps of La Femme and Raffael are nice); Don't forget that textures can have a resolution of 8192 x 8192 pixels;
• A professional, good and creative support from merchants in the creation of related products :)

I agree with Boni. What I want is a lot of morphs in the face, whether built-in or as an add-on. I like to be able to make Poser figures look like real people - celebrities, family members, politicians, etc. I also want some ethnic diversity. I've bought my share of gorgeous young white characters, but I also want the ability to render different races, ages, etc. (I liked the G2 figures for that reason, though they had other issues.)

But what I think what Poser really needs is figures that will be supported. That is, IMO, what DAZ does right. When they release a figure, it comes with tons of support - textures, hair, clothing, etc. There's never any doubt that their figures will be supported, and will keep being supported. Not sure if Rosity can emulate that, but they should try.

randym77 posted at 5:57PM Fri, 05 July 2019 - #4356138

But what I think what Poser really needs is figures that will be supported. That is, IMO, what DAZ does right. When they release a figure, it comes with tons of support - textures, hair, clothing, etc. There's never any doubt that their figures will be supported, and will keep being supported. Not sure if Rosity can emulate that, but they should try.

From what I understand, but don't know for certain, DAZ has a vendor forum for vendors only. So they know what and when something is being released. I'm only assuming that they get advanced releases of this figure to make content for.

There is a vendor forum here too. It's only for the vendors. Don't know what's discussed there, but now that poser is here, maybe they can look into getting some creators helping with more content.

EClark1894 posted at 7:12PM Fri, 05 July 2019 - #4356132

Richard60 posted at 3:36PM Fri, 05 July 2019 - #4356116

Why would you want them to make the same errors as the last team did? If I have a model Roxie, Pauline or La Femme anyone of them is a good model and Poser can bend them fairly well and they perform as expected. The biggest issue is putting the color (skin) on them. The biggest part of new characters is the makeups (there is also shape changes). So why just as you start to build up a collection of content for a figure you dump it and start over. The problem is not that Poser figures are bad its that they never stay the same long enough to be useful.

I never understood why the old team would put out a new figure with each release of Poser. I get that they wanted to show off the new features such as scaling bending etc. however they could have used the last figure put the new rigging in and called it Roxie 2.0 instead of Pauline. And all the time spent on making a new mesh could have been spent making a Morph of Roxie to make her look like Pauline. That is one of the things that made no sense from a software company that reuses old code modify it a bit and put out a new product, except when it came to figures at which point they said build something new from scratch and do it in 4 weeks.

The best thing Renderosity could do is make it clear they have ONE flagship figure and that it will be around for sometime so they can build up content. When the next version of Poser comes out and they need to make changes to the Flagship have the program be able to transfer the changes into the content easily.

I never said I wanted them to make the same errors as the last team. That would be insane! I haven't used Pauline or La Femme, to be honest. I've stuck with Dawn. And to be perfectly honest, I wasn't disappointed with Roxie. I know she wasn't everyone's cup of tea, and she could have bent better, but I liked her.

It's rather obvious you don't like La Femme. Be nice if you could point out some reasons why instead of making everyone guess what you don't like. And we already have a growing amount of content for La Femme. Maybe La Femme 2.0 could address some of those problems.

The only thing you said that I do agree with is that Poser, for some reason, and with the apparent exception of Miki 1, 2, 3, and 4 could never seem to go past one update to a figure before making a brand spanking new one.

I don't know what, in Richard60's comment, made you think he doesn't like La Femme.

Honestly, he's been a very good customer of my La Femme products, very supportive and, I assume, of other vendors as well.

Some people have mentioned rather than new figures each time, upgrade the old figure. One person pointed to the Mikis. Others in the past have pointed to the Daz generations. What difference does it make if they are all new figures or next generations? It's not like content can be traded between the figures. Yes, the genesises can do that in daz, but it's not the figures, it's the program that converts it.

I think what makes a good figure is one that is pleasant to work with. Dawn, Dusk and La Femme fall into this category.

I don't pull my hair out, cuss and scream, and generally groan when I get to the rigging part of making content for those figures. They are clean, well made models, without gimmicks and tricks that mean jumping through rigging hoops just to get a bend to work properly. They are enjoyable to rig for.

There are a couple other things I think make a figure successful in vendor support: a) not changing the creation environment so much that the vendor has to learn their craft all over again for THIS figure; and b) so many changes and differences that a long established work pattern has to be completely re-worked.

Those 2 items above are figure killers - vendors simply will not support the figure.

Orion & Venus look cool & good outa de box n all. Readin' all that AS is doin' to 'em and the reasons for doin' 'em the way he is makes me feel all warm inside like they be the best so far. Best lookin' too. Was said they might come wif starter stuff too, which is good plannin'.

RedPhantom posted at 7:03PM Fri, 05 July 2019 - #4356147

Some people have mentioned rather than new figures each time, upgrade the old figure. One person pointed to the Mikis. Others in the past have pointed to the Daz generations. What difference does it make if they are all new figures or next generations? It's not like content can be traded between the figures. Yes, the genesises can do that in daz, but it's not the figures, it's the program that converts it.

But even before Genesis...DAZ gave some thought to backwards compatibility. V2 was meant to be able to take V1's clothing and textures. V3 came with a V3 to V2 version, with V3's head on V2's body.

That's a subjective question. For me realism is key, As for figure releases - I think they should just work on improving the figures until the software itself exceeds what the then current figures can do. then with that release of the software. upgrade the figures so the 2 cycle together. I think clothing should be interchangeable as much as possible and a major deal is...(getting ready for the blow back) I think that vendors, content creators AND R'osity should support ALL the figures available equally. Think about it: what is a broader base for content creators profits...3 figures or 13 figures all getting needed support.

Just to clarify - I think Darkseal's H-Girl is fantastic work and I have a tendency to buy things I think are great work whether or not I'll ever use them lmao H-Girl isn't realistic but I think she's very very good :)

Just to be clear I do own La Femme and a lot of content for her. I also have a lot of content (characters) for Pauline. The only reason I did not mention her (La Femme) more was she was not a figure released with the program. And my point with out being mean and saying nasty things about any of the ex-Poser team was why wait till the near release of the program and then rush to make a new figure and then rig with the Beta code. There have been a lot of comments over the years from a lot of figure creators (without naming names) that they quote unquote had stated they don't want to redo an old figure to fix issues and making a new version is easier. Which from their point of view is true, however it then restarts the content to Zero and then you have to hope it gets vendor support.

From my perspective as a computer programmer and data miner If any of the Object files had stayed the same then the current textures could be used with the up coming figure even if the rigging had changed. And if the Content for a figure needed to be redone because of the rigging change it would be a lot easier if the default figure were the same as there would be no scaling required. The fitting room does a good job given that figures could have different scales for body parts and needs to shrink or expand to fit. So that it would be easy for the end user to upgrade by themselves if they so choose or allow the vendors to have a starting point that will allow for easier conversions.

Richard60 posted at 9:05PM Fri, 05 July 2019 - #4356158

Just to be clear I do own La Femme and a lot of content for her. I also have a lot of content (characters) for Pauline. The only reason I did not mention her (La Femme) more was she was not a figure released with the program. And my point with out being mean and saying nasty things about any of the ex-Poser team was why wait till the near release of the program and then rush to make a new figure and then rig with the Beta code. There have been a lot of comments over the years from a lot of figure creators (without naming names) that they quote unquote had stated they don't want to redo an old figure to fix issues and making a new version is easier. Which from their point of view is true, however it then restarts the content to Zero and then you have to hope it gets vendor support.

From my perspective as a computer programmer and data miner If any of the Object files had stayed the same then the current textures could be used with the up coming figure even if the rigging had changed. And if the Content for a figure needed to be redone because of the rigging change it would be a lot easier if the default figure were the same as there would be no scaling required. The fitting room does a good job given that figures could have different scales for body parts and needs to shrink or expand to fit. So that it would be easy for the end user to upgrade by themselves if they so choose or allow the vendors to have a starting point that will allow for easier conversions.

The truth is, though, that some of the old Poser figures are simply irredeemable. The models themselves have so many errors and bad modeling, they simply aren't fixable. Some models have holes in the geometry, poles and ngons galore.

And, I'm sorry, the little creature toed Poser 4 Infant is a perfect example. Compare that to Hivewire's Baby Luna!

To be fair, the ancient P4 stuff were 1990's era meshes that barely ran on the PCs of the time w/o blowing everything up. Joint Params were fast becoming old tech even back then, as the full-Pro world (Maya, 3DS Max, Lightwave, etc) shifted to rigged skeletons. And flexibility? Umm, LOL, nope. Not incredibly ugly, but not really too awful usable. If you were doing a dancing figure (stills - forget animation!), you had to make them dance like frickin' baptists, else the mesh would tear at the slightest provocation.

So yeah, today is way different. I promise, I'm way grateful for that.

Now as for OP?

I say find a figure that...

• isn't Genesis-based. (I'll explain in a few, so pick your jaws back up)
• folks use more than any other.
• that can be bought or licensed outright, and in perpetuity.
• has the flexibility to withstand foreseen upgrades and added functionality.
• has the flexibility to be made androgynous (I'm serious here - cheaper to maintain one mesh/rig setup than to maintain 2, 3, or four of them)
• has the flexibility to be made into a credible baby, all the way to a credible giant superhuman uber-muscled thingy, to an alien, to...

There are a couple figures out there - they need to find a good one and throw their weight behind it. Maybe hire a modeler or two to help things out a bit, and dedicate a developer towards a means to convert stuff made for other figures into the chosen figure (like what Crossdresser does, but all in one direction.)

Now yes, Renderosity, I mean that you don't want to do Genesis.

The licensing costs for distribution, even if DAZ were to want to grant one, would be crippling. DAZ isn't going to track Genesis' development to yours or to your wishes, because they no longer have to. Your long-term survival depends on doing your own thing as much as possible.

Oh, and two other things:

1. do a very generous store cut for merchants who make stuff for your favored figure - 75-25% in the merchant's favor. Maybe 80% for early-adopter merchants until you get a big enough stable of goodies.

2. do not flop over to a new figure every other week... give it maybe two years, unless the changes you propose do not break backwards compatibility with stuff made and sold for meshes up to, say, 2 years old.

There's tons more, but this should give an idea.

movida posted at 11:13PM Fri, 05 July 2019 - #4356154

I think clothing should be interchangeable as much as possible and a major deal is...(getting ready for the blow back) I think that vendors, content creators AND R'osity should support ALL the figures available equally. Think about it: what is a broader base for content creators profits...3 figures or 13 figures all getting needed support.

No blowback intended here ... The way Poser features stand now, supporting 13 figures vs 3 is not a simple process for conforming clothing. Supporting 13 different figures instead of 3 might seem like there would be not as much work ... but actually the modeling is the easy part. It's the rest of the stuff to make the figure work that is the tedious part.

The Fitting Room is OK for personal use, but the results will not be commercial quality without a fair amount of additional work..Because of that, I do my refits and regroups manually (it's more predictable and better quality, and it actually takes me less time to do it that way).

-- The textures can usually be reused, but new materials have to be recreated or updated for later versions of Poser.

-- Weight mapping between DS and Poser is entirely different if you are looking for clothing that is compatible with both. Figures and clothing weights made in one program do not automatically transfer to the other. The weight maps have to be tweaked in their native application.

-- Figures usually don't share the same groups. Regrouping a model will mean that morphs will have to be redone, and sometimes they don't transfer well..

-- Add to that, that each figure has its own full body morphs and they might not be cross-compatible with other figures.

So ... not quite as straightforward as one might think. ;-)

Deecey posted at 11:33PM Fri, 05 July 2019 - #4356167

movida posted at 11:13PM Fri, 05 July 2019 - #4356154

I think clothing should be interchangeable as much as possible and a major deal is...(getting ready for the blow back) I think that vendors, content creators AND R'osity should support ALL the figures available equally. Think about it: what is a broader base for content creators profits...3 figures or 13 figures all getting needed support.

No blowback intended here ... The way Poser features stand now, supporting 13 figures vs 3 is not a simple process for conforming clothing. Supporting 13 different figures instead of 3 might seem like there would be not as much work ... but actually the modeling is the easy part. It's the rest of the stuff to make the figure work that is the tedious part.

The Fitting Room is OK for personal use, but the results will not be commercial quality without a fair amount of additional work..Because of that, I do my refits and regroups manually (it's more predictable and better quality, and it actually takes me less time to do it that way).

-- The textures can usually be reused, but new materials have to be recreated or updated for later versions of Poser.

-- Weight mapping between DS and Poser is entirely different if you are looking for clothing that is compatible with both. Figures and clothing weights made in one program do not automatically transfer to the other. The weight maps have to be tweaked in their native application.

-- Figures usually don't share the same groups. Regrouping a model will mean that morphs will have to be redone, and sometimes they don't transfer well..

-- Add to that, that each figure has its own full body morphs and they might not be cross-compatible with other figures.

So ... not quite as straightforward as one might think. ;-)

I didn't mean to go backwards and refit or redo what's available now. What I was thinking was that a bit of planning now would enable the clothes and figures to be migrated forward from here on.. As for the differences between DAZ studio and Poser, I wasn't even thinking about DAZ at all just where Poser would go from here on because cross compatibility isn't important to me and it would cost development money.

I know this may sound really odd. But as far as cross figure clothing in Poser, dynamic is the best answer for it. Which would require a better handling system for that to begin with.

What makes a good figure? Well that depends who you ask, what they want from a figure, and what they want to do with it in the first place.

Top of my list....

The geometry must be fully symmetrical. The grouping must work with the skeleton used. The UV mapping must be logical, and have seams thought out. And the figure has to get vendor support and consumer support of the vendor.

The last one is what kills figures. And there is no easy answer for that short of binding a base figure to the program for features that you can't get otherwise. Sound familiar?

shvrdavid posted at 2:23PM Sat, 06 July 2019 - #4356208

I know this may sound really odd. But as far as cross figure clothing in Poser, dynamic is the best answer for it. Which would require a better handling system for that to begin with.

What makes a good figure? Well that depends who you ask, what they want from a figure, and what they want to do with it in the first place.

Top of my list....

The geometry must be fully symmetrical. The grouping must work with the skeleton used. The UV mapping must be logical, and have seams thought out. And the figure has to get vendor support and consumer support of the vendor.

The last one is what kills figures. And there is no easy answer for that short of binding a base figure to the program for features that you can't get otherwise. Sound familiar?

I still think that Bullet Physics is the way Poser and the community should go with Dynamic clothing. Right now, it takes a little while to set things up, so it's not for the 'just pose and render' crowd.

The problem with bullet physics is that it works best with flat planes or enclosed objects. So you can make a flag or cape and you are good. You can also make a Jello cube that wiggles or a Santa Belly that jiggle. But you can not put a pair of legs inside a skirt, because Bullet will make a proxy object to calculate from and for a skirt it will look something like a bell, with the bottom closed. Years ago someone on the old RDNA forums asked about dropping balls into a bowl and that they were falling off the sides without going into the concave part of the bowl. That was because the opening was being closed by an invisible topping. To get around this I told him to put a bunch of flat planes inside the bowl make them invisible and drop the balls onto those planes. It mostly works if you make the planes small enough . The problem you run into with the skirt is that as soon as you make the legs a collision target and they are inside the skirt then bullet tries to avoid the collision and starts the skirt moving until it is going fast enough to fly off the body. I know I have tried it.

So there are two ways around this. One make the bullet physics move a bunch of weights tied to a skirts body handles. Two make objects that move and have the clothroom handle dynamics of the skirt colliding with the objects.

I think the question is too open ended and vague You may as well be asking: "what makes a good Pizza?"

Well ...you will get a variety of subjective answers based on wether the person is a vegeterian (No meat). A muslim ( meat, but no pork products) or lactose intolerant ( no cheese)or even wheat sensitive etc etc.

People can bang on all they want about their personal requirements such as "nice detailed feet" or the ability to morph from a cute infant to"Thanos" or the "Hulk"

But none of that matters if the figure has no content supported by UNIFORM STANDARDS, rigidly enforced by the content creation tools of the native/target program.

Bondware is finally in the position to do this with poser,the RMP and whatever figures become the "flagships"

Now before anyone bleets that such an "autocratic" system is "too much like Daz " and that "stifles" the creativity of all of the special Snowflake creators who will have to conform to the will of the gatekeepers.

I humbly suggest you look at other markets and the companies that have risen to dominate them.

Apple: starting with the return of jobs and the killing of the "Mac Clones" that had quality standards all over the spectrum.

Today very nearly sovereign entity more valuable than Exxon Mobile,only producing expensive luxury brand computers with rigidly controlled hardware specs.

Then the IPhone with a controlled retail outlet, forcing App developers to meet the uniform standards for the IOS platform.

The same business model with google and Android OS.

Now take a look at the long sad history of sony's consumer electronic division,one failed closed format ,music playing, hardware device after another.

Each with different physical content delivery mediums.expecting consumers to repurchase their Pink Floyd collections
over and over with each new innovative "mini-disc" etc

By the time the digital MP3 format liberated everyone from ever changing physical delivery mediums no one cared about a sony "walkman/discman"music player and were all using Apple Ipods.

Now consider the long ,sad history of the third party "Saviour figures "for poser, after Daz effectively abandoned the poser platform in favor of their own where they control both the content creation standards AND the Primary retail outlet ( See Apple,see Google).

Even Hivewire requires a Submission of DAZ genesis content to have a matching product for THEIR native figures and lafemme's team seems to be at least trying to have some uniform content creation standards IMHO.

NONE of the failed predecessors even bothered with the pretense. Each Apparently built a figure informed by a coffee klatch commitee of tribal loyalists, who themselves were not active content creators/merchants ,but easily impressed by Nerdy McNerd technobabble about exotic rigging schemes and bloviating "mission statements" accompanied by brobdignagian forum signature banners " ..They are coming!!"

Some decided make the noble sacrifice for "the good of the community" and provide all of the content support for their exotic, nonstandard figures themselves

To his credit, at least Anton Kissel actually toiled for a few years supporting Apollo Max Likely fueled by personal hatred of ,and a desire for"revenge" against his former Affilate ..Daz inc.

And now we see Mr: " I am not a business man" .. "I am Crowd sourcing further development" of my exotic nonstandard Female figure.

Posting recently the that if Bondware is "For Real" and willing to remake the rigging system of poser to conform to his exotic Female figure. He may consider revisting that effort....wow!!

IMHO Bondware should look at history and choose wisely ,their course, going forward.

wolf359 posted at 5:47PM Sat, 06 July 2019 - #4356238

I think the question is too open ended and vague You may as well be asking: "what makes a good Pizza?"

Well ...you will get a variety of subjective answers based on wether the person is a vegeterian (No meat). A muslim ( meat, but no pork products) or lactose intolerant ( no cheese)or even wheat sensitive etc etc.

People can bang on all they want about their personal requirements such as "nice detailed feet" or the ability to morph from a cute infant to"Thanos" or the "Hulk"

It was supposed to be vague and subjective. I want people to explain why they want what they want in a figure.

I've long thought a really good male figure and really good female figure with interchangeable heads would be useful. Kind of like Lady Littlefox did with Melody 2, That way merchants can make a highly detailed head with expressive morphs and facial expression but all the clothes would still fit the male/female figure.

This variation of what is a good figure has been done to death before. So lets flip the question and ask what new feature do you expect Poser to have that requires a new figure?

As a recap under Smith Micro Posers 8-11 had Ryan and Alyson, Ryan2 and Alyson2, Rex and Roxie, Paul and Pauline. Poser 8 had Capsule fall off joints. Poser 9 had Weight Maps. Poser 10 had subdivision and Poser 11 has control chips and scaling. I am sure there are a lot more things but these are the biggies when it come to figures. Myself not dealing with Ryan and Alyson much can't say much about them. Ryan2 and Alyson2 were judged by the community to be ugly. However BlackHearted provided that a good morph can change all that and Produced Anastasia and Tyler. And those two have a small amount of content for them. Rex and Roxie were made to show off subdivision and by the nature of that feature required a new mesh instead of reusing Ryan2 and Alyson2. Paul and Pauline had better scaling and the control chips and instead of making two new figures Rex and Roxie could have been updated to 2.0 and have had morphs made to transform Roxie into Pauline. And showed off the new features.

So given that La Femme appears to be a successful figure what about her needs to be changed? My money is on Poser putting in a easier way to change a figures UV maps. The code is in the program as you can go in and using Python change each Vertex's UV mapping just that it is slow to do, and you need to know what each Vertex does and where it is located. With this feature there is no need to create a brand new figure such as was the case of Anastasia and Roxie.

So that is the more relevant question What new feature is Poser going to come out with that Requires a new figure.

Richard60 posted at 11:56PM Sat, 06 July 2019 - #4356259

This variation of what is a good figure has been done to death before. So lets flip the question and ask what new feature do you expect Poser to have that requires a new figure?

As a recap under Smith Micro Posers 8-11 had Ryan and Alyson, Ryan2 and Alyson2, Rex and Roxie, Paul and Pauline. Poser 8 had Capsule fall off joints. Poser 9 had Weight Maps. Poser 10 had subdivision and Poser 11 has control chips and scaling. I am sure there are a lot more things but these are the biggies when it come to figures. Myself not dealing with Ryan and Alyson much can't say much about them. Ryan2 and Alyson2 were judged by the community to be ugly. However BlackHearted provided that a good morph can change all that and Produced Anastasia and Tyler. And those two have a small amount of content for them. Rex and Roxie were made to show off subdivision and by the nature of that feature required a new mesh instead of reusing Ryan2 and Alyson2. Paul and Pauline had better scaling and the control chips and instead of making two new figures Rex and Roxie could have been updated to 2.0 and have had morphs made to transform Roxie into Pauline. And showed off the new features.

So given that La Femme appears to be a successful figure what about her needs to be changed? My money is on Poser putting in a easier way to change a figures UV maps. The code is in the program as you can go in and using Python change each Vertex's UV mapping just that it is slow to do, and you need to know what each Vertex does and where it is located. With this feature there is no need to create a brand new figure such as was the case of Anastasia and Roxie.

So that is the more relevant question What new feature is Poser going to come out with that Requires a new figure.

Wouldn't that go hand in hand with what do you want in a figure? Personally, I'm okay with Poser not having any new figures, or maybe updating Paul and Pauline to take advantage of any new tech. I'd much rather Poser updated or fixed features it already has such as letting Poser read and incorporate Cycles nodes, the Cloth Room, Simplifying Bullet Physics,yes, I know that's third party tech, fixing the Hair Room, and adding Particles. As it is, Poser is chock full of features that just miss the mark and could use some improvements. Oh, and I'm okay with tossing the Face Room.

Sorry. This is going to be inflammatory. Seems like more bullshit from the "armchair on the sidelines, shit on everything and contribute nothing" crowd. Maybe that's inaccurate or unfair and if so I apologize. I honestly don't get what childish grudge the rendo crowd has against E. With as small as the community has become, with poser being in as deep of a shit hole as it currently is, the sentiment of 'pitch in or F off' come to mind.

That being said, no, becoming more like daz is not the way to go. If posers' remaining community wanted it to be daz they'd be using daz. Posers new owners don't have the time or resources to out-daz daz.

Figures aren't the problem. There is nothing wrong with E or Lafemme. Content for figures is the problem. If there is ways they can change poser that makes content easier or more portable that should be the focus. If a figure, exotically rigged or not, exposes bugs or deficiencies in the way the app works they should certainly address those, even if it does bruise inflated egos.

wolf359 posted at 11:59PM Sat, 06 July 2019 - #4356238

I think the question is too open ended and vague You may as well be asking: "what makes a good Pizza?"

Well ...you will get a variety of subjective answers based on wether the person is a vegeterian (No meat). A muslim ( meat, but no pork products) or lactose intolerant ( no cheese)or even wheat sensitive etc etc.

People can bang on all they want about their personal requirements such as "nice detailed feet" or the ability to morph from a cute infant to"Thanos" or the "Hulk"

But none of that matters if the figure has no content supported by UNIFORM STANDARDS, rigidly enforced by the content creation tools of the native/target program.

Bondware is finally in the position to do this with poser,the RMP and whatever figures become the "flagships"

Now before anyone bleets that such an "autocratic" system is "too much like Daz " and that "stifles" the creativity of all of the special Snowflake creators who will have to conform to the will of the gatekeepers.

I humbly suggest you look at other markets and the companies that have risen to dominate them.

Apple: starting with the return of jobs and the killing of the "Mac Clones" that had quality standards all over the spectrum.

Today very nearly sovereign entity more valuable than Exxon Mobile,only producing expensive luxury brand computers with rigidly controlled hardware specs.

Then the IPhone with a controlled retail outlet, forcing App developers to meet the uniform standards for the IOS platform.

The same business model with google and Android OS.

Now take a look at the long sad history of sony's consumer electronic division,one failed closed format ,music playing, hardware device after another.

Each with different physical content delivery mediums.expecting consumers to repurchase their Pink Floyd collections
over and over with each new innovative "mini-disc" etc

By the time the digital MP3 format liberated everyone from ever changing physical delivery mediums no one cared about a sony "walkman/discman"music player and were all using Apple Ipods.

Now consider the long ,sad history of the third party "Saviour figures "for poser, after Daz effectively abandoned the poser platform in favor of their own where they control both the content creation standards AND the Primary retail outlet ( See Apple,see Google).

Even Hivewire requires a Submission of DAZ genesis content to have a matching product for THEIR native figures and lafemme's team seems to be at least trying to have some uniform content creation standards IMHO.

NONE of the failed predecessors even bothered with the pretense. Each Apparently built a figure informed by a coffee klatch commitee of tribal loyalists, who themselves were not active content creators/merchants ,but easily impressed by Nerdy McNerd technobabble about exotic rigging schemes and bloviating "mission statements" accompanied by brobdignagian forum signature banners " ..They are coming!!"

Some decided make the noble sacrifice for "the good of the community" and provide all of the content support for their exotic, nonstandard figures themselves

To his credit, at least Anton Kissel actually toiled for a few years supporting Apollo Max Likely fueled by personal hatred of ,and a desire for"revenge" against his former Affilate ..Daz inc.

And now we see Mr: " I am not a business man" .. "I am Crowd sourcing further development" of my exotic nonstandard Female figure.

Posting recently the that if Bondware is "For Real" and willing to remake the rigging system of poser to conform to his exotic Female figure. He may consider revisting that effort....wow!!

IMHO Bondware should look at history and choose wisely ,their course, going forward.

EClark1894 posted at 1:45AM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356232

I still think that Bullet Physics is the way Poser and the community should go with Dynamic clothing. Right now, it takes a little while to set things up, so it's not for the 'just pose and render' crowd.

The only problem with that, is that Poser doesn't have the version of Bullet that supports decent cloth sims..... Poser has Bullet 2, which is hull based. Bullet 3 supports geometry collisions. Even if we get Bullet 3, that isn't pose and click by any means either.

I can understand wanting everything to be point and click. I also understand that not including anything that isn't point and click, and what it does in the long run feature wise.

tonyvilters posted at 11:57AM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356273

The quality of the obj file, that is where it all starts or ends. And have it properly tested and looked at BEFORE doing all the rest of the work.

Agreed. Same for dynamic cloth. Bad geometry, bad dynamic results.

meatSim posted at 6:12AM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356270

Figures aren't the problem. There is nothing wrong with E or Lafemme. Content for figures is the problem.

I agree with that. But I'm not sure that's independent of the figures. Some figures are just harder to create for than others, if only because they are different from what people are used to.

One thing they're doing right, IMO, is they are clearly trying to make it as easy as possible for people to create content for La Femme. Everything from the developer rigs to allowing people to redistribute her default texture.

(I assume La Femme is going to be the new Poser female. They said as much, before the Poser sale was announced. That is a big reason I bought her, after being burned on previous Renderosity-sponsored figures.)

Oh, LOL; and I forgot: The control chips. Those chips that are so in hype fashion? Control chips offer more limitations then options and are like plastic in the ocean. Get rid of it. ASAP. They are always in the way, enlarge file size, and complicate prop building. Just like some need to learn how to rig, there are plenty of tutorial videos on how to morph properly and have NO limitations at all.

It would take six morphs to accomplish what one single chip does. (Actually, wait ... nine morphs if you include scaling). How much do you think that will increase file size by?

And "always in the way"? You can hide them.

Complicate prop building? How? The control chips are not part of the base geometry.

tonyvilters posted at 5:11PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356284

Oh, LOL; and I forgot: The control chips. Those chips that are so in hype fashion? => With a cold Coke or Pepsi, chips are nice on a couch before the TV but they have no room in ANY 3D figure.

Control chips offer more limitations then options and are like plastic in the ocean. Get rid of it. ASAP. They are always in the way, enlarge file size, and complicate prop building.

Just like some need to learn how to rig, there are plenty of tutorial videos on how to morph properly and have NO limitations at all.

P11 brought us many things, but none of what was asked for.

• Obj file handling improvements
• Hair, cloth, face room improvements.

Nope, we got chips (without the mandatory Coke) and a measuring tool. LOL. But, and that was a welcome improvement ; The bulge map transfer.

Hi Deecey,

Just build one morph = Angry.

Now how many chips are you going to shuffle to get "not exactly " what you wanted.

Angry, happy, sad, disgust, contempt, each one can be build as a single morph, but can never be achieved with chips (no matter how hard you try).

Next are the breasts, Chip them around, now get that "movement in clothes".

Next are masks; Think a Zorro mask. Chip the eyes and brows and get it in the Zorro mask. (Just an example)

Morphs are :

• easy to build
• get exactly what you want them to do, where you want them, and when you want them (fully animatable is ONE go)
• easy to transfer

Next are masks; Think a Zorro mask. Chip the eyes and brows and get it in the Zorro mask. (Just an example)

You were saying?

The chips in LaFemme control the mask. No additional morphs added to the mask.

LaFemme's breasts are enlarged with the chips. No additional morphs added to the clothing.

Fully animatable in one go too.

I was saying, and having Chips with a cold Coke, and morphs from external 3D apps.

I never loved those chips. Way too labor hungry, and never delivering what you ask them to do.

New features are supposed to make life easy, not harder.

the facepalm is strong with this one.

the show us the money tony.

give us your scratch built and rigged by you figure.

put it up big guy, you've made all the noise...

Chips are easy for the quick and fast dial, but will never replace properly build morphs.

There are 30 face chips in LaFemme's face. Tell me, Tony, what will the parameters palette look like if, instead, you make one "properly built" morph for each twist, bend, side to side, XTranslate, YTranslate, ZTranslate, Scale, XScale, YScale, and ZScale, to replace what those chips will do? 300 morphs to accomplish what those chips do. Do you think that is realistic?

And note, I have still not said a word about your figure. Not going to stoop down to that level.

I've had enough. Over and out.

Khai-J-Bach posted at 12:56PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356333

the show us the money tony.

give us your scratch built and rigged by you figure.

put it up big guy, you've made all the noise...

Exactly.

Tony, you have said yourself, that you will never be a paying customer. Thus, your opinion is quite irrelevant. Instead, we should listen to those who actually buy things.

Khai-J-Bach posted at 12:37PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356333

the show us the money tony.

give us your scratch built and rigged by you figure.

put it up big guy, you've made all the noise...

Popcorn ready.

Deecey does have a point about the chips, they do cut down drastically on the number of morphs required.

And in a way, they are nothing new in 3D at all. The only thing I would like to see with the chips, is to have what they do expanded upon. But I am not going to go into details on what I would like to see done with them, that will just get shot down by the couch flyers....

I keep seeing topology brought up in many of these discussions. People say that figures must use proper topology, etc.

There is a better fix, and it isn't new either. Adaptive topology and tessellation. But that would require Poser to actually take advantage of things everyone has.

But why use the tech everyone already has? Its far better to just let Poser languish and listen to the couch experts about whats best to make it do better in the end..... We don't need Directx, Metal, etc.... there is no need for that, right?

Threads like this should be locked...........................

Nothing makes a "Good Figure", get over it............ lol....

DreaminGirl posted at 2:15PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356337

Tony, you have said yourself, that you will never be a paying customer. Thus, your opinion is quite irrelevant. Instead, we should listen to those who actually buy things.

Where's that LIKE x 1000 button?

So if we go with Tony's believe that morphs are better then chips, then it follows that morphs are better then bones and joints. After all a morph puts each vertex in exactly the correct location and makes all the mussels bulge correctly. And image how neat it would be to take the right arm pointing backwards behind the body and applying a morph to have it punching towards the front. The hand and arm would slowly shrink until they meet the shoulder and then expand out again. This due to morphs being a linear translation.

so no figure from tony to prove his points then.

as usual. all mouth.

Bondware/Renderosity bought Poser and they have the fullest right to know everything there is to know.

What makes you think that they aren't being told "everything there is to know" in private, by those who ACTUALLY know?

so no backing up your shout... sorry claims then.

why should we listen? others have put their work out there to be judged.

you have given us - repeatedly and to the point of trolling - your opinion but won't do us the courtesy of seeing YOUR work on an equal footing?

whatever tony. whatever dude. goodbye...