It does amaze me that certain people claim to know about rigging and have not released a single base figure.

People have said the same about me and I have been involved with a lot of them.

When a figure gets released and gets nothing but bashed because whoever rigged it decided to do it one way or the other, it doesn't really matter how they did it in the end. Some people will just complain LOUDLY that it should have been done another way.

There are so many different approaches you can take. Oddly, no matter what way you approach it, you wil run into something that you didn't for see in the beginning. Poser figures (and the Daz ones) are some of the more complex figures out there simply because they are not one off figures. In production, you may have 6 or 7 figures that look the same, but the internals are very different for scene dependent things.

Making a figure that can transform into a bazillion others is sort of unique in this area a 3D. Making one that everyone like, well that just isn't possible.

What makes a good figure? Well in the end that depends on who is using it, for what. And nothing more. It doesn't matter how it is rigged, who rigged it, how many jcm's, etc.

What matters in the end, is that the person using it can do what they want with it....

I can see this forum going the same route that RuntimeDNA did, and it has not been a month since Poser came to Bondware/Rendo.

But what do I know about any of that? lol.

shvrdavid posted at 3:43PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356365

It does amaze me that certain people claim to know about rigging and have not released a single base figure.

People have said the same about me and I have been involved with a lot of them.

When a figure gets released and gets nothing but bashed because whoever rigged it decided to do it one way or the other, it doesn't really matter how they did it in the end. Some people will just complain LOUDLY that it should have been done another way.

There are so many different approaches you can take. Oddly, no matter what way you approach it, you wil run into something that you didn't for see in the beginning. Poser figures (and the Daz ones) are some of the more complex figures out there simply because they are not one off figures. In production, you may have 6 or 7 figures that look the same, but the internals are very different for scene dependent things.

Making a figure that can transform into a bazillion others is sort of unique in this area a 3D. Making one that everyone like, well that just isn't possible.

What makes a good figure? Well in the end that depends on who is using it, for what. And nothing more. It doesn't matter how it is rigged, who rigged it, how many jcm's, etc.

What matters in the end, is that the person using it can do what they want with it....

I can see this forum going the same route that RuntimeDNA did, and it has not been a month since Poser came to Bondware/Rendo.

But what do I know about any of that? lol.

Gee. Ya gotta stop talking sense there, Scott. It might actually catch on. LMAO

And I would remind myself that the original forums at Content Paradise got shut down as well. Remember there used to be forums at CP? They went away when SM took over.

That would be nice if it did catch on......

EClark1894 posted at 4:27PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356374

Deecey posted at 4:12PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356359

I wouldn't consider you as one to judge Tony. And that is about as kindly as I can put it.

This thread does need to be locked.

No, it doesn't. I started this thread to get people to talk about what they want in a figure, but I also asked those people to support their arguments. You and Tony seem to be arguing back and forth, about certain issues and if you disagree, fine. Make your point and move on. Don't keep feeding the bear, then complain that he keeps coming back for more. Both you and Tony appear to be more knowlegeable than me when it comes to figures, but I recognized a long time ago that Tony is a minimalist. To him, the less in a figure, the better. See his idea about one texture map for a figure. I hate that idea, but I don't argue it with Tony any more, because I'm never going to change his mind. I moved on. Last person to make their point doesn't win.

There is a way to make constructive criticism, and a way not to.

I have responded with images and points that disprove Tony's claims when he says that chips can't do the things that morphs can. When he replies with things like "If Nerd 3D "knows" as much as he "knows" about rigging, it is better to clean the board" that is flat out a personal attack. NOT an opinion on what makes a good figure.. If those types of replies persist, then YES, the thread needs to be locked.

I "fed the bear" because his claims were incorrect.

What I need from 'Rosity (as the owners of Poser) for a figure.....

1. 32-bit support is going away for both OSX (September) and Windows 10 (2020) - what is the game plan here? (Ref: Python 2.7 - you need to get on this NOW).

2. Texture Transformer support - Day 1. Contract with Blacksmith 3D so we have it.

Expecting vendors to move out of their comfort zone is a lost cause. They are going to continue to make what they are personally interested in and no more - a bunch of bland, generic early 20's Caucasian siblings for the most part, except for when they are making those creepy blue-eyed Asians (and whining about a lack of sales - never acknowledging that the market for 20-something Caucasians was saturated a decade ago).

Texture Transformer support will allow me to get out of the Aryan cul-de-sac that vendors have placed themselves and actually use the figure. This is a MAJOR reason I haven't bought much LF stuff - I have 1,000+ Caucasians - don't need any more - and the reality is that it isn't much of an improvement (from the end-user's perspective) over a WMV4 or Sasha 16, but I digress.....

1. Hair Control System support - Day 1. Contract with Netherworks so we have it - because we can't depend on vendors to provide us a variety of hairs. If you can't do this, insure there is a V4 "Fit" built into the figure.

2. Shoe Last support - Integrate it into Poser - because we can't depend on vendors to provide us a variety of shoes.

3. A Male Figure. There was a time when a Poser user could illustrate anything - Vendor "creativity" limits us to 3rd rate pin up art in 2019. (OTOH, at least that Bishi nonsense from the M3 era has died out.).

4. Children. We haven't had kids since Ben and Kate (and they weren't supported). My art doesn't live in a Logan's Run universe.

5. NORMAL SIZED PEOPLE. 5'11" women make up less than 4% of the world population. This is why the SM G2 series (Jessi, Sydney, Olivia, Miki 2, James, Kelvin, Koji, and Simon) are still my go-to figures. Personally - I thought the G2 series was the way to do it - 1 body, 3 different heads.

And most importantly - answer the following question:

Why should I use this figure? - I have (a weight mapped V4, or Sasha 16). I have access to literally terabytes of V4 content - why should I invest?

None of the Post-V4 figures answered this question. Of course, if Chris Creek had focused on a proper morph set for Dawn instead of that stupid horse, we'd all be saying Vicky who ? now.

ssgbryan posted at 6:04PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356381

Personally - I thought the G2 series was the way to do it - 1 body, 3 different heads.

I really liked that, too. I think ethnic diversity is probably more important for Poser than for DAZ. Since Poser seems to have some corporate type users, while DAZ customers seem to be almost entirely hobbyists. (I recently saw James as an evil hacker in a corporate training video. That bulbous head of his is pretty distinctive.)

Anyway, these days you're expected to show diversity in such training videos. Not just ethnic, but age, weight, ability, etc. It would be nice if Poser could offer at least the basics of that. I think that's more important for corporate users than a lot of clothes, hair, etc. (Those can be sold separately.)

randym77 posted at 7:53PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356387

ssgbryan posted at 6:04PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356381

Personally - I thought the G2 series was the way to do it - 1 body, 3 different heads.

I really liked that, too. I think ethnic diversity is probably more important for Poser than for DAZ. Since Poser seems to have some corporate type users, while DAZ customers seem to be almost entirely hobbyists. (I recently saw James as an evil hacker in a corporate training video. That bulbous head of his is pretty distinctive.)

Anyway, these days you're expected to show diversity in such training videos. Not just ethnic, but age, weight, ability, etc. It would be nice if Poser could offer at least the basics of that. I think that's more important for corporate users than a lot of clothes, hair, etc. (Those can be sold separately.)

I got as far as creating African and Asian morphs, but they wouldn't have done much good without complimentary textures. Try as I might, I couldn't find a suitable set of photo references to make a texture set that I would have been happy with. I have some now, but still trying to figure out where to fit it in.

It's not so much the morphs that are the issue, as it is finding decent photo references to create an "A-Game" texture set. The darker the skin is, the more shine there is to edit out in the majority of those that are available, which reduces the realism.

The only reason you start these threads Earl is because you know exactly how things will progress.

You love to stir things up. You've been doing it for years. In every forum you're part of, as soon as you don't get the attention you seek, you start another thread like this so you can sit back and watch the chaos that inevitably ensues.

You'll of course claim innocence, then you'll claim you're being picked on, then you'll threaten to leave the Poser world and go to Blender (again), then you'll elicit sympathy about your health. Then you'll go to another forum and whine about how everyone picks on you.

Same bloody story, same formula, every bloody Poser forum you're part of.

I'm not the only one who thinks "discussions" like this are pointless. It's been stated in this thread.

And this is the point where you'll again find a way to point smugly back at me and say I'm the problem for speaking up and people will pile on in defence of poor hard done by Earl.

Nothing ever changes.

Yeah yeah I understand that this is a personal commentary on Earl. Yeah I realize the ban hammer is out there somewhere. I don't care. This needs to be said. Poser could have a bright(er) future with Rendo, but the same old crap done by the same old people is going to derail it.

Done. Done done done.

EClark1894 posted at 6:27PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356396

gorgnosh posted at 8:16PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356382

My god. The Poser Rage Curse has shown up here, now. Impossible for this group not to start throwing things at each other. Former (fired) employees versus longtime users versus armchair quarterbacks versus beta testers. Every. Damn. Time. Every. Damn. Forum. Good luck with Poser, Rendo, you're gonna need it.

You're not helping, but contributing to what you're complaining about.

If we didn't care, gorgnosh, we wouldn't be raging......

And this has been quite well-mannered, compared to some of the threads I have seen (although in fairness - the flaming was started by DAZ "exclusive" vendors spending all of their time in Poser forums spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt, rather than spending it in the DAZ Studio forums helping customers with their sub-standard products they were peddling over at DAZ. Why the forum mods refused to send the DAZ vendors packing from the Poser forums is a question that will never be answered, due to embarrassment, I suspect.)

As a customer, I'd say the problem is we have a number of vendors that can't seem to get their heads wrapped around the fact that it isn't Oct 2007 anymore. That business model is gone and it isn't coming back, mainly due to their aggressive unwillingness to support any figure not named V4 and/or learning how any post-Poser 7 feature worked. (I actually had a vendor tell me she didn't have time to learn the features of Poser 9 while making content for DAWN - A figure that only worked in Poser 9.)

Oh, and telling customers that if they didn't like it, they could learn to make content themselves - some folks left in frustration to DS, some learned to make their own content, so they didn't have to give vendors any of their hard earned dollars, some stayed with the figures they liked, and some folks left 3d entirely.

Poser Pro has made most content figure independent, and it is easy to add newer tech to legacy figures, which means as a customer, my purchasing decision making process has completely changed.

Oct 2007 (V4 released - she is significantly better than anything else on the market, other than Apollo Maximus)

Every store front is inundated with V4 content (most of which was priced very, very low). There is no easy way to move content from 1 figure to another (WW was at version 1 at the time), so everybody is buying, everything. Vendors thought this would continue forever.

Jul 2019 (Today)

I pick a character to use.

Load it on the base mesh (I use all the figures to get around the inbred issue many vendors have with their figures) - run it through EZ-skin if I haven't used the figure before. Need a different skin? - Texture Transformer or Texture Converter if necessary, then EZ-Skin.

Dials to Single Morph

Delete all unneeded morphs (figure is now less than 25Mb in size on average). Save figure at this point for future use (the Enterprise has 460 positions, so it is good to have a lot of figures - especially when you have more than 1 ship).

Select clothing - do I have an appropriate outfit already (Probably - I have a very, very large V4 Clothing runtime). If not, go visit 'Rosity or Daz - pick up outfit, prep for fitting room if necessary.

Run through Fitting room (and save for later use).

Copy Morphs From to move the FBM I made with Dials to Single Morph

Select hair - if necessary run hair through HCS so it fits native (save so I don't have to do it again)

Pose figure

A dab or two from the morph brush (if necessary).

There isn't actually a need to move to a newer figure, unless you want to - most people don't want to because:

1. Newer figures lack content that they want.

2. They can quickly move the content they own to a new figure via the fitting room.

3. The "benefits" of newer figures appear to be for either edge cases or vendors.

Example, I really don't care how well a figure bends - I don't spend all of my time making renders of yoga poses of nekkid people (If I did care, I can either up the sub-division to smooth things out, break out the morph brush, or change the pose, or change the camera angle - Problem solved without the need to invest in a new figure) .

Nor am I doing super close shots of facial features, so 4K and 8K maps are a waste of time, hard drive space, and system memory - sorry vendors, but I have no interest in a figure that loads 1Gb of textures in RAM. BS like that makes Poser slow to a crawl once one has a couple of them, fully clothed (and NONE of the other content never seems to get that level of detail, which defeats the purpose of 4K and 8K maps, btw. If you go to that level of detail, EVERYTHING has to go to that level, or it looks off.

(And no, it isn't my computer: Xeon dual hexcore: 12cores/24 threads @2.93Ghz & 96Gb of ram)

Of course if vendors used Poser outside of making their publicity stills, they would know this.

Well if it doesn't have the Dr. Evil pinky finger then it is an epic fail

tonyvilters posted at 11:55AM Mon, 08 July 2019 - #4356324

Hi Deecey,

Just build one morph = Angry.

I wasn't aware there is just one way of looking angry. I guess all those years studying facial expressions was a lie huh.

Maybe those could all be achieved with one morph huh.

My apologies, the sarcasm is strong in this one today.

EClark1894 posted at 1:07PM Mon, 08 July 2019 - #4356232

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.

This doesn't have to be the case tho. Many different programs prove that dynamic cloth can be not only interactive, but real time or near real time. Poser's dynamic cloth tech is VERY old...Poser 5 old really since it hasn't seen a technical update since then really.

Laurie

LaurieA posted at 7:24PM Mon, 08 July 2019 - #4356462

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.

This doesn't have to be the case tho. Many different programs prove that dynamic cloth can be not only interactive, but real time or near real time. Poser's dynamic cloth tech is VERY old...Poser 5 old really since it hasn't seen a technical update since then really.

Laurie

Poser's dynamic cloth tech is from Size8 software. Here's a quick blurb from what I was able to Google.

About Size8software

Size8 Software was formed in 2000 with the mission to bring realistic cloth and garment simulation to the computer graphics, apparel and related industries. Its technology is used in applications ranging from virtual garment design to simulating clothing on animated characters for commercials, game cinematics and film effects. For more information, visit the company’s website at www.size8software.com.

The link to the website still works, but there's nothing there but a link to Turbosquid. There is a name and phone number and email address listed in the Google info. but I have my doubts if the company is even still in business. 19 years is a long time for a company, and Poser lists the Size8 info as open source components.

EClark1894 posted at 9:03PM Mon, 08 July 2019 - #4356503

LaurieA posted at 7:24PM Mon, 08 July 2019 - #4356462

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.

This doesn't have to be the case tho. Many different programs prove that dynamic cloth can be not only interactive, but real time or near real time. Poser's dynamic cloth tech is VERY old...Poser 5 old really since it hasn't seen a technical update since then really.

Laurie

Poser's dynamic cloth tech is from Size8 software. Here's a quick blurb from what I was able to Google.

About Size8software

Size8 Software was formed in 2000 with the mission to bring realistic cloth and garment simulation to the computer graphics, apparel and related industries. Its technology is used in applications ranging from virtual garment design to simulating clothing on animated characters for commercials, game cinematics and film effects. For more information, visit the company’s website at www.size8software.com.

The link to the website still works, but there's nothing there but a link to Turbosquid. There is a name and phone number and email address listed in the Google info. but I have my doubts if the company is even still in business. 19 years is a long time for a company, and Poser lists the Size8 info as open source components.

I'm not sure that Size8 is still in business either. The cloth sim you speak of was originally created for 3DS Max, if I'm not mistaken, and was initially known as Stitch. Later it was renamed to ClothFX. I remember those days, seems like ages ago. At the time it was pretty cool in its day, but tech has moved on quite a bit since then.

Cloth FX was the approved "newer" version for Max. I am fairly sure we have the older version

shvrdavid posted at 11:24PM Mon, 08 July 2019 - #4356519

Cloth FX was the approved "newer" version for Max. I am fairly sure we have the older version

You might be right. Poser 5 was 2003. That was back in the Max 6 days. Info is scarce from back then.

ssgbryan posted at 12:45AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356381

1. NORMAL SIZED PEOPLE. 5'11" women make up less than 4% of the world population. This is why the SM G2 series (Jessi, Sydney, Olivia, Miki 2, James, Kelvin, Koji, and Simon) are still my go-to figures. Personally - I thought the G2 series was the way to do it - 1 body, 3 different heads.

I kinda like them, particularly Miki, Koji and Kelvin. I don't know if it was included in the Poser 11 pipeline or purchased seperately. I used to have them when I purchased them in CP at the time, but alas.

Somehow this doesn't look right to me. The heights yes, but the weights no...

What makes a good figure?

The answer: good artists.

There are people who have made just about every figure look amazing.

What makes a good artist?

A good vision and obsessive pursuit of their vision.

Maybe a better question is: what makes a figure successful in the market?

I'd suggest: a large selection of commercially available high quality content, at an affordable price. Because that makes it easier for a variety of artists to achieve a variety of visions.

How does that happen? The cost/return equation needs to favor the content creator. The better it does, the more content there will be.

Looping it back around: a good figure is one that favors content creator's income.

shvrdavid posted at 10:58PM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356340

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....

Speaking of Metal.... Anyone see Metal 2 in latest Affinity? Holy Bajesus! And Affinity on an Ipad Pro has like performance.

I kept turning the chips off (old workflow dies hard). Then I needed to make expressions and Deecy mentioned the chips and I was like "derp! I always turn them off". First I was like O.O

But, like ordering something you don't know off the menu of a famous chef, you put your hands into the team that built La Femme. I figured, they seem pretty sharp (like a stiletto), they probably know what they're doing. I'm happy to say: yes. They are. And they do.

Things I learned: really keep in mind how the skin would be moving in real life. Then dive in. Small numbers over a lot of chips. Then, wire those together into a master. There's your "morph". Distribute that as a morph injection. No verticies, just a bunch of valueops on parameters. Even write a little script that does just that.

Long story less long: I like the chips, now :)

CHK2033 posted at 10:10AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356543

Somehow this doesn't look right to me. The heights yes, but the weights no...

When you consider the explosion in the rate of obesity in the US over the last 50 years, and you're looking at averages across the country then it makes sense that the average weight has increased. I'm surprised it's only 30%, just walk through any walmart and look around.

164 pounds on a 5'3" female frame? Holy crap. That is considered a healthy weight for a man at 5'10".

AmbientShade posted at 11:45AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356554

CHK2033 posted at 10:10AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356543

Somehow this doesn't look right to me. The heights yes, but the weights no...

When you consider the explosion in the rate of obesity in the US over the last 50 years, and you're looking at averages across the country then it makes sense that the average weight has increased. I'm surprised it's only 30%, just walk through any walmart and look around.

164 pounds on a 5'3" female frame? Holy crap. That is considered a healthy weight for a man at 5'10".

Look at the other extreme. 90-120 pounds at 6 feet tall? Sheesh. When I was younger I weighed 115 pounds at 5'7" and I was a stick. OMG

Deecey posted at 11:47AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356564

AmbientShade posted at 11:45AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356554

CHK2033 posted at 10:10AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356543

Somehow this doesn't look right to me. The heights yes, but the weights no...

When you consider the explosion in the rate of obesity in the US over the last 50 years, and you're looking at averages across the country then it makes sense that the average weight has increased. I'm surprised it's only 30%, just walk through any walmart and look around.

164 pounds on a 5'3" female frame? Holy crap. That is considered a healthy weight for a man at 5'10".

Look at the other extreme. 90-120 pounds at 6 feet tall? Sheesh. When I was younger I weighed 115 pounds at 5'7" and I was a stick. OMG And I knew someone with anorexia who weighed 85 pounds at 5''7". Those figures seem really wrong.

It all depends what you use as scale. There is the 8 ft/unit school and the 8.6 ft/unit.

Poser measurement tools use 8.6 ft/unit. Many content makers use however 8 ft/unit, leading to exaggerated figures.

As to what is most common the wisdom of the market may be the best advisor. What clothing size does your local shop sell most of?

Anyway there are considerable variations around the globe

Deecey posted at 10:50AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356565

Deecey posted at 11:47AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356564

AmbientShade posted at 11:45AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356554

CHK2033 posted at 10:10AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356543

Somehow this doesn't look right to me. The heights yes, but the weights no...

When you consider the explosion in the rate of obesity in the US over the last 50 years, and you're looking at averages across the country then it makes sense that the average weight has increased. I'm surprised it's only 30%, just walk through any walmart and look around.

164 pounds on a 5'3" female frame? Holy crap. That is considered a healthy weight for a man at 5'10".

Look at the other extreme. 90-120 pounds at 6 feet tall? Sheesh. When I was younger I weighed 115 pounds at 5'7" and I was a stick. OMG And I knew someone with anorexia who weighed 85 pounds at 5''7". Those figures seem really wrong.

I knew someone like that (Model) and I honestly never ever actually seen her eat a whole meal, like a normal person would. Reese peanut butter cups (not even the normal sized one but the little fun sized kids cup ones) Doritos, or fried Jalapenos,more chips and water (everyday ),And the fried Jalapenos didnt even have tzatziki sauce ! I mean like who even does that ? smh... But she did start drinking one of those nutriments can drinks in the morning so dont know, maybe that evened it all out ? We didnt last too long anyway, I think I was just a bad influence on her, Because I kept wanting to do weird strange shit around her all the time, you know..... like eat food.

CHK2033 posted at 1:30PM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356583

Deecey posted at 10:50AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356565

Deecey posted at 11:47AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356564

AmbientShade posted at 11:45AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356554

CHK2033 posted at 10:10AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356543

Somehow this doesn't look right to me. The heights yes, but the weights no...

When you consider the explosion in the rate of obesity in the US over the last 50 years, and you're looking at averages across the country then it makes sense that the average weight has increased. I'm surprised it's only 30%, just walk through any walmart and look around.

164 pounds on a 5'3" female frame? Holy crap. That is considered a healthy weight for a man at 5'10".

Look at the other extreme. 90-120 pounds at 6 feet tall? Sheesh. When I was younger I weighed 115 pounds at 5'7" and I was a stick. OMG And I knew someone with anorexia who weighed 85 pounds at 5''7". Those figures seem really wrong.

I knew someone like that (Model) and I honestly never ever actually seen her eat a whole meal, like a normal person would. Reese peanut butter cups (not even the normal sized one but the little fun sized kids cup ones) Doritos, or fried Jalapenos,more chips and water (everyday ),And the fried Jalapenos didnt even have tzatziki sauce ! I mean like who even does that ? smh... But she did start drinking one of those nutriments can drinks in the morning so dont know, maybe that evened it all out ? We didnt last too long anyway, I think I was just a bad influence on her, Because I kept wanting to do weird strange shit around her all the time, you know..... like eat food.

??

What makes a figure good to me is that it's baseline realistic, neutral in proportion, versatile, extensible, it comes with a good variety of body/facial morphs, and most of all that the head has a large enough poly count to make character sculpting possible without subdivision. It goes without saying that the mesh is symmetrical because too many tools rely on that expectation.

I've put quality time into both PE and LF and each has its strengths and weaknesses. I am of the opinion that PE edges out LF due to having more realistic expressions, better tooth sculpts (LF needs braces), a wider variety of shaping morphs, and an eyeball sculpt/rig you could do anatomical closeups on (the pupil is actual iris geometry, not a black dot on a diffuse map). That being said, LF has a smaller learning curve. takes V4 poses pretty gracefully, is faster to pose being mostly weightmap in rigging, but is more difficult to get unique faces out of without resorting to an external sculpting application (as useful as the morph brush is, it lacks some necessary selection transforms). I'd recommend LF for newer users and PE for advanced developers.

There was something about the above body chart that bothered me and I finally figured out what it is. The chart takes an AVERAGE of adult women over the age of 20 and condenses them down. Problem is that we (in the US and the world in general) are culturally and genetically diverse in population. And as any high school student can attest, except for those on the low end of the spectrum, grading on a curve will generally bring DOWN the class average. At the very least it will throw the average off. US citizens tend to be fatter, but taller. But we have a lot of immigrants coming to this country and some of them are shorter, leaner, whatever. It's going to throw off the average.

A nice summary! Boni posted at 6:32PM Sat, 13 July 2019 - #4356133

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!!)

It has been a long time for me. (Lots of reasons) But..

What makes a good figure?

1. There needs to be lots of GOOD content available for it. (To help fuel the market for it.)
2. A figure that is easy for experienced creators to work with so that Good content can be produced. (So quality-content can be highlighted.)
3. Brand Stewardship. (Usually completely lacking on Renderosity. There's a seven dollar coffee cup for sale in the marketplace...Seven bucks. Coffee cup. And, it doesn't even look like the handle is decent on it...)

You want a good product?

You have to act like that is what is desired to be produced?

Everything in that matters, from topo to joints to available morphs and any special Bells&Whistles you want to add to it. IT ALL MATTERS. People have to stop thinking that "the one thing matters" and start thinking "everything matters."

A recent figure has wtfbad topo. Sorry, that's the truth. And, just looking at it makes it apparent that certain things just can't be well done for it. That's the truth, too. Sorry. But, it will get its defenders because... Well, every figure has it's draw and die-hard fans because that's what they use. Even the P4 Baby mentioned above is gonna have it's "one fan that will jump out of the trenches of obscurity to defend it."

Here's the same constructive criticism I have always put forward, never flagging from this "One Thing" that could make everyone's experience with Poser content and the Renderosity marketplace offerings "much more betterer:"

Brand Management

Renderosity doesn't steward its offerings appropriately and, IMO, hasn't done so in a long time. If you can put together something that sort of works, regardless of its ultimate quality and how that reflects upon the item you're making the product for, then you can sell it! Yay?

A "Bad Figure", if it's not broken out of the box, is usually the result of a quality failure somewhere along the line. But, nobody wants to criticize that because they're too enthusiastic about some possible future "potential." Someone sitting at the table during the construction phase did not speak up and appropriately say "this sucks and we are not going to allow portions of our product to suck." They just hit the submit button and hoped for the best...

A marketplace will not act to correct errors of quality. None of this works like that...

I got resurrected due to an IP license change. OK, so, now I'm awake. I go to the indicated page and it no workee. I go to Renderosity, looking for important infos and get a press release with no highlighted link for current owners and any critical questions they need answered by the new license holder. I post my question and got a great response, but I had to put in extra effort to do that, right? Then, I decide to see what Renderosity has to offer for its new flagship IP and... there's a seven dollar coffee cup that doesn't even look well made sitting there in the Poser Marketplace staring at me.

Owning a brand is a responsibility to the shareholders and the customer base. Does Coca-Cola "taste great?" ... not really. But, it's through Brand Management and diligent and constant stewardship that has turned it into what it has become. There is a company in this spectrum of products that has always put forth that attitude and has also coupled it with aggressive, sometimes a bit psychotic, gorilla marketing tactics. Well, Renderosity doesn't have to go that far. ALL it has to do in order to put forth a "Good Figure" and to make that successful is... Manage Their Brand.

If they accept or create a "Good Figure" with everything that entails along the entire production and marketing process, then.. guess what?

As its stands, the only truly "Good Figure" in recent, post P11 release, that I know of is Project E. What I have seen from every other offering from S.M. on down the line is substandard work and evidence of limited dedication to quality or capability. Even so, PE isn't "perfect." But, it's light-years better in terms of completeness and quality than anything else in the recent Poser lineup of exclusive figures.

Note: V4 is a darn nice bit of work and, considering the tech/capability at the time and even stretching into today, it's still an awesome bit of work and hard to exceed in terms of topo and Poser-standard rigging. Yes, i know all about its issues, but its longevity is due to its quality, not its pitfalls. To supplant it, wholly, requires MORE quality and work than went into creating Victoria 4. That includes participatory Brand Management efforts from the marketplace provider. (Renderosity) That's... just the way it is. (There isn't better topo for rendering static images in the current marketplace, including all the competing programs. There just isn't. Friggin' awesome topo, even with the symmetry issues.

I'm still working with modified 3rd Gen Unimesh figures in Poser. They feature enough polygons and "smart" mesh topology to easily cover a wide range of human body types.

(All figures based on the V3, M3, David and Stephanie Petite 3rd Generation Unimesh)

Yes, you can "replace" a high polygon count and a smart mesh topology with fancy subdivision tech and elaborate textures to make them adhere to so-called "professional standards". But this "newfangled" tech is even more taxing on older systems than the "old fashiond" high polygoun count and morph size.

As for rigging, yes, high polycount meshes like V3, M3, David, etc are a tad harder to weightmap. But I've weightmapped both high and low-polycount figures for Poser, and I still rather spend an hour or two more on rigging than trying to make do with the low-polycount meshes of "professional standard" figures:

(For those not old enough to remember, that's Vicky 3 in all her "high-res" glory) ;-)

To sum it up: Poser is fairly "Lo-Tech" and so was most of it's user base. It works best with old fashioned, "Lo-Tech" figures: High polycount, elaborate mesh topology to realistically replicate musculature, no 'fancy" rigging tricks and standard "one morph per expression" morphing. This also allows for easy modification by laymans. Making clothing, morphs and add-ons for V3 was fairly easy. Almost everybody could do it so support thrived.

Figures that try to adhere to "professional standards" (Low polygon count, all quads only topology, "morphless" morphing) require the support of a professional program to "make up" for their deficiencys. No problem with Genesis, as Studio was "built around" the Gensis mesh. What the mesh itself can't do, Studio can.

But a big problem for Poser, as all the modern tech needed to do that has never been implemented properly. That's why all the various "Vicky killers" have failed in the past.

Anyway, I've long given up hope that I'll ever see a new "Purpose made for Poser" figure that is as flexible as Vicky 3, being able to switch from "stylized toon" to "photorealistic" without any fancy "high tech" trickery.

So this post is just a reminder of what we once had and lost.

Of course given enough money and talent, it would be easy to recreate such a robust, easy accessible, "low tech" figure for Poser. (Or maybe just license V3/M3,D3,SP3 etc. ?).

But given the latest "Poser figures", I see no willingness to even step back and properly analyze all the errors that have been made in the past and try something "new". ;-)

"These days, thought, you have to be pretty technical before you can even aspire to crudeness." (William T. Gibson: Johnny Mnemonic)

JoePublic posted at 4:48PM Tue, 16 July 2019 - #4357171

But given the latest "Poser figures", I see no willingness to even step back and properly analyze all the errors that have been made in the past and try something "new". ;

Great examples! +1 for Johnny Mnemonic ref! ;)

I'd like to add that there are two primary functional uses for Poser. The first is it's main focus - Still Rendering. The Second is a focus on Animation.

But, "figures" are also generally focused on either/or. So, the same figure that makes for a great Still rendering figure may not always make for a great Animation figure. The technologies employed are often different, too. These days, with powerful computing and ton of competing work done by GPU producers and animation studios, we're seeing a bunch more in terms of focus on animation and all that entails. Luckily, for still rendering fans, a lot of that translates well to our needs. Some... does not, but we can thankfully compensate for some of that.

A well modified V3 can work extremely well as you have shown. V4 is good, too, IMO, and has similar capability. But, the implementation in some cash-grab figures seeking to capitalize on the mesh/uv maps to make a "Generation" line aren't so great...

To be honest, I'm not really sure what people are screaming about when they say they want a "new figure." Is it the "tech?" Yet, the products being sold don't normally reflect any "new tech." (Mostly, because a great many new products on offer aren't made by those who know how to do "new tech.") As far as figure-creation goes, I haven't seen anything dramatic in "new tech" that was successfully implemented other than Weight Mapping capabilities for figures. There are a few bits and pieces, here and there, but nothing successfully exploited in the marketplace. For instance, how many products have ever been created that used "capsules?" Zero? Probably. It's nice for purpose-built figures for studio use and the like, though. But, for the average Poser consumer, it didn't do much.

IMO - One of the most problematic, for creators, in V3 vs V4 are the built-in magnet deformers for V4 that can't just be scrubbed out from inside Poser or easily changed. They work decent for a figure "up to a point." Then, it's all tears...

No problem with Genesis, as Studio was "built around" the Gensis mesh. What the mesh itself can't do, Studio can.

Indeed Daz studio was designed ,from the start, to be a support framework for the Genesis figures which is why a genesis exported from Daz studio loses effectively all of its special features.

Nothing wrong with that approach ,for a content company ,IMHO as it does allow for more "standardized" or uniform content creation tools for any potential vendor ,which helps foment $$store sales$$.

I am not a Daz clothing vendor however their three mouse click process to rig my custom , one off clothing for my "in house" use, has certainly liberated me from the Daz content hamster wheel to support my preferred Generation of G2 indefinitely.

But a big problem for Poser, as all the modern tech needed to do that has never been implemented properly. That's why all the various "Vicky killers" have failed in the past.

I am given to understand that poser 11 has taken some steps toward more advanced figure support (Facial posing chips etc)

Of course given enough money and talent, it would be easy to recreate such a robust, easy accessible, "low tech" figure for Poser.

Not an impossible task but IMHO Bondware has to be the one establishing and frankly Enforcing the standards.

The many FAILED third party"saviour "figures ,of the past, have laid bare the utter failure of "crowd sourcing" this type of thing.

wolf359 posted at 7:51AM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4356238

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

A most excellent post.

I hope I avoided most of the pitfalls, and stuck to the business side of it. The gee-whiz technical side of it, at the point, doesn't matter nearly as much.

Morkonan posted at 8:07AM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4357166

1. Brand Stewardship. (Usually completely lacking on Renderosity. There's a seven dollar coffee cup for sale in the marketplace...Seven bucks. Coffee cup. And, it doesn't even look like the handle is decent on it...)

Careful with this one. I think the powers-that-be are still smarting from the last time I poked any heavy fun at the marketplace, and that was well over a decade ago. ;)

You are right though... what this marketplace will need, is an enema. It's a damned good viewpoint that I think everyone else has left out.

I get the whole Bazaar vs. Cathedral theory, and sometimes a Bazaar is a nicer place to be, but one thing that is really lacking here (and not just with figures) is that stewardship. I love rooting around through thrift stores for fun sometimes, but I damned sure won't buy my smartphone from one.

I'd love to see a published set of entry-level content standards that must be adhered to, else the product gets rejected. It's not hard to line-out those standards either... just some basic stuff (e.g. joints must bend to reasonable limits without displacement errors, etc) And yeah, they might want to put in a little subjective wiggle-room as well, to weed out the objectionable, and to gently push off the earnest-but-utter-crap attempts. I mean, sure, they have packaging and even documentation standards to an extent, but content standards would be helpful as well.

The reason why is simple: When I go to a properly curated store, I know that whatever I buy there is going to a) work and b) always have at least a certain minimum level of quality that is sufficient for both my expectations, and the purchase price. OTOH, if I buy something here, it's caveat emptor all the way, baby! Sure, they do refunds, but that's a hassle, so, well, why? I do buy stuff here on occasion still, but I stick to merchies that I already know and trust (known from stuff they sell at the curated stores, or from freebies they've made and distributed - that's why if you wanna be an exclusive merchie here, you make the freebies first, you snots!).

Make the store contents live up to a higher level, and it elevates the reputation and quality. Not saying to go overboard or get byzantine with the rules, but I am saying put some real effort into it, eh?

What makes a good figure is still the topic.

Is it for the next generation of La Femme? I mean, she just came out. A bonus question. Are Dforce and Poser dynamics the same thing? Oh and what is the best tutorial for dynamics. I bought this incredible kimono for V4 by Sveva and LilFlame and it requires dynamics. I'm wary! It's new (to me)!

Penguinisto posted at 1:00PM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4357224

Morkonan posted at 8:07AM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4357166

1. Brand Stewardship. (Usually completely lacking on Renderosity. There's a seven dollar coffee cup for sale in the marketplace...Seven bucks. Coffee cup. And, it doesn't even look like the handle is decent on it...)

Careful with this one. I think the powers-that-be are still smarting from the last time I poked any heavy fun at the marketplace, and that was well over a decade ago. ;)

You are right though... what this marketplace will need, is an enema. It's a damned good viewpoint that I think everyone else has left out.

I get the whole Bazaar vs. Cathedral theory, and sometimes a Bazaar is a nicer place to be, but one thing that is really lacking here (and not just with figures) is that stewardship. I love rooting around through thrift stores for fun sometimes, but I damned sure won't buy my smartphone from one.

I'd love to see a published set of entry-level content standards that must be adhered to, else the product gets rejected. It's not hard to line-out those standards either... just some basic stuff (e.g. joints must bend to reasonable limits without displacement errors, etc) And yeah, they might want to put in a little subjective wiggle-room as well, to weed out the objectionable, and to gently push off the earnest-but-utter-crap attempts. I mean, sure, they have packaging and even documentation standards to an extent, but content standards would be helpful as well.

The reason why is simple: When I go to a properly curated store, I know that whatever I buy there is going to a) work and b) always have at least a certain minimum level of quality that is sufficient for both my expectations, and the purchase price. OTOH, if I buy something here, it's caveat emptor all the way, baby! Sure, they do refunds, but that's a hassle, so, well, why? I do buy stuff here on occasion still, but I stick to merchies that I already know and trust (known from stuff they sell at the curated stores, or from freebies they've made and distributed - that's why if you wanna be an exclusive merchie here, you make the freebies first, you snots!).

Make the store contents live up to a higher level, and it elevates the reputation and quality. Not saying to go overboard or get byzantine with the rules, but I am saying put some real effort into it, eh? Do you think the products quality here are at a high level? Not to start a flame war but you seem well versed in 3D, so what do you think? Because I've dabbled rather than immersed, most of the products here seem very high quality to me. They may all be high quality as sometimes the presentations promo don't reflect just how good a product is.

That's a good idea Penguinisto, but I don't see it happening.

'Rosity doesn't enforce their current standards for selling content here - I don't see them upping what few standards they have. Take materials (please). It has been a requirement to provide material .mc6s at 'Rosity for YEARS. And yet in July 2019, Poser vendors are still making content with .pz2s for materials and not a single .mc6 in sight. Almost every Poser Product released today (17 July 2019) comes with material .pz2s instead of .mc6s. Poser moved materials from the .pz2 format, first to Mt5 with Poser 5 and then to .mc6 (for POSER 6) - OVER A DECADE AGO.

The worst part - it is literally a 2 second fix - (Vendors - run your .pz2s through Netherworks' Batch Material Converter and voila! .mc6 materials.) As a customer, I shouldn't have to still be doing this in 2019 - and yet I am. If I have to do the QA that both the vendor and the storefront didn't do, that product needs to be heavily discounted. Over 90% of us were on Poser 9 or later 4 years ago - so why are we still getting content developed for Poser 6?

Someone here is upset that I am constantly on vendors - that person has never spent an afternoon batch converting (literally) thousands of .pz2 files to .mc6s or renaming over 200 files (per product) so Poser's search function would pick them up.

Standards enforcement will require a level of attention to detail that no storefront is willing to do (It is a LOT worse with g figure content sold at DAZ - their stuff is nightmare inducing as far as organization or adherence to any type of standards, but that is also why it has to be at least 60% off before I buy it.).

quietrob posted at 2:18PM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4357242

What makes a good figure is still the topic.

Is it for the next generation of La Femme? I mean, she just came out. A bonus question. Are Dforce and Poser dynamics the same thing? Oh and what is the best tutorial for dynamics. I bought this incredible kimono for V4 by Sveva and LilFlame and it requires dynamics. I'm wary! It's new (to me)!

Could be. There isn't a whole lot of content for her, but thanks to the fitting room, outside of shoes she is pretty easy to clothe and provide hair for. Still lacking everything outside of early 20's Caucasians, but 90% early 20's Caucasians is pretty much standard for all Poser/DS figures, which is why I continue to use every figure I have purchased over the past 15 years - the Poser toolbox really makes it easy to use whatever figure strikes your fancy..

Dforce and Poser dynamics do the same thing, but in completely different ways. Thanks to the tools available in Poser, it shouldn't be too hard to move dForce outfit into Poser and make it dynamic. Reminder, it is also pretty easy to take Poser conforming clothing and make it dynamic (if it was welded properly in the 1st place.)

Don't be wary about dynamics - once you grok the interface, you will love it.

quietrob posted at 1:13PM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4357243

Do you think the products quality here are at a high level?

The answer is - it depends. Some stuff here is frickin' awesome, and out-does anything similar you could ever hope to find at DAZ. Seriously - some of the vendors's here I positively respect and love for their work (even if not their ideology, politics, whatever), but damn it;s good work!

Some stuff? Hoo-boy; you can tell in the promo images that sometimes shiz is just flat-out broken, that no thought was given to UV Mapping at all (because procedurals!), that it was a good first effort, would make a decent freebie, but man... charging actual money for the thing? Really?

Sometimes? Sometimes (but rarely nowadays) I wonder why it is the promo images are (even partially) photoshopped, or filtered to mask/mute/over-enhance/etc the colors; nothing makes me suspicious faster than seeing that.

Not to start a flame war but you seem well versed in 3D, so what do you think?

Compared to many in here, I suck at this 3D stuff - don't ever let anyone lie and tell you otherwise. :)

Because I've dabbled rather than immersed, most of the products here seem very high quality to me. They may all be high quality as sometimes the presentations promo don't reflect just how good a product is.

I used to be eyeball- (and other spherical body parts) deep in the scene, but it's been years now since I got out. So, with that in mind...

(you know what? I had this long drawn-out thing typed up, but yuck... let's not go down that road. Instead...)

You, as the non-professional buyer, shouldn't have to worry about crap like that. You shouldn't have to worry about paying for something, only to have it cause your Poser install to crash every time you go to render something with that item in the scene. You shouldn't have to discover that the vendor forgot to specifically document that the item is Windows-only, after you download it to your Mac ("but the screenshots are all Windows! How could you not figure that out!?") You shouldn't have to find out that the thing you just bought doesn't bend worth a damn, or looks like utter crap from all the angles not shown in the promo renders.

Basically, you shouldn't have to worry about quality issues. That's supposed to be the store and the vendor's job.

...that goes double for figures sold here, folks.

Dforce and Poser dynamics do the same thing, but in >completely different ways. Thanks to the tools available in >Poser, it >shouldn't be too hard to move dForce outfit into >Poser and make it dynamic

DForce is a Hybrid system similar to Iclone's cloth physics. It uses weightmaps to define what parts of a garment are to be conforming and what parts are affected by the cloth dynamics. This is so that your evening dress can have a nice form fitting upper section that auto follows any figure morph while the bit below the waist drapes dynamicly in a still or animation. (See pic below)

Poser Cloth engine does not recognize any clothing weight maps and is thus a global dynamic system affecting the entire garment for a simulation so importing a Dforce garment into poser as a .obj file would not be very useful for things like strapless evening dresses or similar

ssgbryan posted at 3:26PM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4357247

That's a good idea Penguinisto, but I don't see it happening.

'Rosity doesn't enforce their current standards for selling content here - I don't see them upping what few standards they have. Take materials (please). It has been a requirement to provide material .mc6s at 'Rosity for YEARS. And yet in July 2019, Poser vendors are still making content with .pz2s for materials and not a single .mc6 in sight. Almost every Poser Product released today (17 July 2019) comes with material .pz2s instead of .mc6s. Poser moved materials from the .pz2 format, first to Mt5 with Poser 5 and then to .mc6 (for POSER 6) - OVER A DECADE AGO.

Most do that because they're lazy and they want compatibility in one go. But then, nobody uses Poser 4 anymore, so, well...

(To be honest, when I open a Poser-built item in DS, the first thing I do is replace all the textures/materials with (usually purpose-built) shaders, to match the render engine (and keep render times down, avoid flat-looking post-conversion textures, etc). So yeah - they really should provide the .mc6 files.)

Someone here is upset that I am constantly on vendors - that person has never spent an afternoon batch converting (literally) thousands of .pz2 files to .mc6s or renaming over 200 files (per product) so Poser's search function would pick them up.

Kinda what I was getting at. Now imagine being a total n00b who has no clue about file conversions, writing batch scripts, etc...

Standards enforcement will require a level of attention to detail that no storefront is willing to do (It is a LOT worse with g figure content sold at DAZ - their stuff is nightmare inducing as far as organization or adherence to any type of standards, but that is also why it has to be at least 60% off before I buy it.).

Meh - they do have a set of standards, but they're largely unpublished and are sometimes capricious (a far cry from the old days, anyways - I chalk it up to their policies not scaling very well.)

As far as organization, so far, Renderotica's marketplace (that is, their "Catalog") is the only one I find usable enough IMHO... but only because they're still using the same layout and categorization that I suggested (then helped emplace) for them back in 2008 (yeah, I'm biased. Sue me). 2nd place would be ShareCG (stop laughing... the implementation isn't perfect, but the concept almost is.) I like a lot of what the miraheze.org freebie cataloging site was thinking too, but I know that no one has time to refine it much.

I do know that Rendo really does need to overhaul how it lays stuff out (and so does DAZ - they're both horrendous if you're just wanting to browse specific categories of items.)

quietrob posted at 6:37PM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4357243

Penguinisto posted at 1:00PM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4357224

Morkonan posted at 8:07AM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4357166

1. Brand Stewardship. (Usually completely lacking on Renderosity. There's a seven dollar coffee cup for sale in the marketplace...Seven bucks. Coffee cup. And, it doesn't even look like the handle is decent on it...)

Careful with this one. I think the powers-that-be are still smarting from the last time I poked any heavy fun at the marketplace, and that was well over a decade ago. ;)

You are right though... what this marketplace will need, is an enema. It's a damned good viewpoint that I think everyone else has left out.

I get the whole Bazaar vs. Cathedral theory, and sometimes a Bazaar is a nicer place to be, but one thing that is really lacking here (and not just with figures) is that stewardship. I love rooting around through thrift stores for fun sometimes, but I damned sure won't buy my smartphone from one.

I'd love to see a published set of entry-level content standards that must be adhered to, else the product gets rejected. It's not hard to line-out those standards either... just some basic stuff (e.g. joints must bend to reasonable limits without displacement errors, etc) And yeah, they might want to put in a little subjective wiggle-room as well, to weed out the objectionable, and to gently push off the earnest-but-utter-crap attempts. I mean, sure, they have packaging and even documentation standards to an extent, but content standards would be helpful as well.

The reason why is simple: When I go to a properly curated store, I know that whatever I buy there is going to a) work and b) always have at least a certain minimum level of quality that is sufficient for both my expectations, and the purchase price. OTOH, if I buy something here, it's caveat emptor all the way, baby! Sure, they do refunds, but that's a hassle, so, well, why? I do buy stuff here on occasion still, but I stick to merchies that I already know and trust (known from stuff they sell at the curated stores, or from freebies they've made and distributed - that's why if you wanna be an exclusive merchie here, you make the freebies first, you snots!).

Make the store contents live up to a higher level, and it elevates the reputation and quality. Not saying to go overboard or get byzantine with the rules, but I am saying put some real effort into it, eh? Do you think the products quality here are at a high level? Not to start a flame war but you seem well versed in 3D, so what do you think? Because I've dabbled rather than immersed, most of the products here seem very high quality to me. They may all be high quality as sometimes the presentations promo don't reflect just how good a product is.

First, quoted the whole post 'cause I'm terrible at parsing quotes with Renderosity's forum stuffs.

Next - I'm posting at Renderosity. They own the Poser IP (Well, their affiliate/parent, still haven't checked on that.). I have nothing bad to say about Renderosity. Good, well meaning, positively presented criticism is not "A Bad Thing."

But, let's get the elephant out of the room, right now - The marketplace appears to be a semi-automated vending machine. OK, fine. Really. That is just fine for what it is - A place for people to go to get stuffs and browse stuffs and yammer about 3D stuffs. Cool!

HOWEVER...

Now, Renderosity are, themselves, a "Product Provider and Producer." Yes, that's right. Instead of being an "Intermediary Service Provide and Distributor for Third-Party Products" they are a manufacturer and provider of an exclusively licensed product. That is "A New Thing." And, it's an important distinction that has to be incorporated into their "mind-set." (I hate the use of the phrase "corporate culture" because it's a load of hooey...)

WE, being the people who spend money here and look at and judge "product quality" every time we open the browser window, know that we are, as someone pointed out, shopping at a "Bazaar" that has a wide variety of stalls and vendors in it. Some have worked hard on their own "brand" and have recognized names and a reputation for producing quality work and command premium prices for their products, as is only just. Some have yet to make a name for themselves and some are still rendering product pages in Poser 4... with completely borked joints evident in clothes that anyone with experience could fix in five minutes to textures ripped right off the net. (Anyone who has scrabbled for free textures online for as many years as most of us have can likely recognize at least five textures over ten marketplace pages being hamfisted into substandard objects and texture collections... Honestly.)

OK, that's all "good." Seriously, it is. We've dealt with this for years. The evidence in fact is that Renderosity is still here, has enough drive to grab the Poser IP, and has thousands of members viewing its store at any one time. Some of those aren't even bots! So, that's enough of that... Today is a new day. Today, Renderosity is now a Product Manufacturer/Owner and now has to "think differently." Instead of focusing on units-sold driving their overall gameplan and relying on a shotgun content approach to bring in products to sell, things have to be different. Why? Because, if they do not change their approach, then they will be degrading the value of their own newly acquired product by pushing substandard content through their very own pipeline. That's "A Bad Thing" to do as a manufacturer or provider of a platform who's purpose is to actually use these products.

How many Poser Physics Enabled bits are in the marketplace pipeline? None? OK, how many Poser users are as intimately familiar with Poser Physics as they are with simple joint rotation and basic JCM creation? None? A few?

The savvy among you will understand the full scope of the above problem. Poser Physics has a lot of potential. But, every single penny of development costs associated it with it was practically wasted. It's not a "selling point feature" for most Poser users. Why? Even if it's advertised on the box, nobody knows what the heck it really is. Wasted Development Monies. (A few people use this feature a great deal and are familiar with it. But, it doesn't push ANY MARKETPLACE SALES AT ALL, does it? :) )

But, the same thing goes for figures. Everyone remarks on "expression chips" but that's not "new." That's just extra rigging/weightmapping. Big deal. Sure, it's nice, but it's not "new tech." You can do the same thing in the Setup room and rig V4 with "expression chips" and have a big time... (Though, incorporating the geometry in the object file is not recommended to really do. But, you don't need no stinkin' "chips," just the rigging and weightmapping.) Still, a good figure with good content will push marketplace sales.

With certain exceptions, most of the characters based on any "new" figures produced out of SM or certain Indy's look like they're intended to be surprised hobos crafted by nearsighted aesthetics with a debilitating lack of understanding of human anatomy. And, guess what that is? Yes, you guessed it! That means that all the effort and development and money that was spent producing these figures results in... little in the way of Marketplace Sales driven by product quality. In fact, I'm willing to say that for most new figures presented for Poser, the marketplace was driven by "Desperation for a new figure" and not by "product quality." A thirsty man will drink anything that looks like water.

But, as soon as someone comes by with a nice, refreshing, glass of cool water, that's what they'll drink from then on. Guess who did that to this particular 3D market? Uh huh, you're right.

OK, enough of the diatribe - Time for a solution.

ALL vendors currently selling in the marketplace must be "Approved" before being allowed access to the Poser Marketplace. And, before someone has a heart-attack, the initial process would be simple. A vendor that has xx units sold or $$ sold, depending, get's automagic Approval. They will get a nice little "Renderosity Approved Vendor" seal to put on all their marketable stuffs. Vendors that do not yet have that Seal of Approval will have their products reviewed before they're allowed into the marketplace. They will, in effect, go into a "Probation Period" where the diligent and hard working and knowledgeable and well-rested Renderosity staff... will review their products for approval and will monitor the sales, returns, complaints and compliments of successfully submitted products until such a time as the vendor surpasses what Renderosity considers to be their acceptable product standards.

Period. End of line.

Note: It would not be acceptable to establish an "elite" program that gets a nice shiny Seal while still allowing...unelite vendors and products. That's the sort of kneejerk common path that is really just shooting oneself in the foot. "Here's the good stuff for sale, but we also sell crap" would be what that message would be sending out.

Renderosity also needs a "Creator Program." There are few major manufacturers out there that do not have vendor outreach and collaborative programs. That's what smart people do and successful manufacturers are generally "smart." Renderosity needs a Creator Program to take advantage of the wealth of true talent that's out there in the wild. They can't afford to hire it, but they can afford to collaborate with it and to subcontract with it or take advantage of today's "gig economy."

PS - I know I'm writing like someone who is in power to affect change might actually be reading it, right? Silly, I know. But, darnit, Poser is a great product with a wonderful UI and tons of depth and technogimcrackery access opportunity and customization. It's a nice gem. It could be a great product. But, the developers have treated it as a loss-leader to lure future purchases and then they forgot that's exactly what they didn't actually put any effort into ensuring it would happen. THAT is the problem and it comes from a lack of basic business practices, not from a lack of "artistic enthusiasm zomgz dollies!" /sigh "Artists" are great, but most can't afford to eat because they don't understand the business they're trying to be successful within. Simple, basic, easy-to-understand common business concepts are... easy to understand. And, none of them are easy to implement without competent knowledge and skill and a bucket-fulls of sweat.

Note: Yes, this is also about "figures." No truly successful figure will be successful until it meets the quality standards of what can generally be considered to be a "successful product." And, for those figures that are truly good? Well, since anyone can make content for them and a ton of people make crap content, what do you expect public perception of a figure will be that, despite being a great product, only has "crap" in giant Poser 4 renders for it? If the world's best engine is in the world's ugliest car, few people are going to be inspired to buy that car. That's simple stuff and it's maddening to see people completely ignoring that simple fact. It's as if they just close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears, and say a mantra of "It's going to be OK" over and over as fifty-eleven crappy products are made and put on display, each acting as third-party advertisement for their quality-made product... This isn't difficult stuff to understand. And, yet? I bet that there's a crappy product for a great figure on display in the first few Poser marketplace pages, right now. What does the public perceive about that otherwise great figure if not exactly [b]that?[/b] /boggle

Wolf - You can do hybrid dynamics in Poser - in that OOT outfit, the vendor would secure the torso and arms via constraining groups and let the rest of the outfit be dynamic. The end user can do the same thing.

Pinguinisto - trust me - there is NO organization with DAZ content. Poser vendors are a model of consistency in comparison. Nor am I talking about their website's broken search engine. I am not talking about the poorly designed software that is almost completely single threaded either. (I could rant on the technical limitations for days). Stuff is scattered everywhere in file folders and there are not only too many levels of ego folders - too many products have the vendor names as the leading characters of products. Makes a search function pointless.

Back on topic......

What makes a good figure is dependent on what the end user is trying to do. At the end of the day, I can't do what I want to do with Poser, if I try to limit myself to 1 figure. Vendors by and large make tall, bland, early 20's Caucasians and if you have 3 characters by a vendor, you pretty much have all of them.

Now, if you are trying to do something realistic - you hit a wall pretty quickly. I am doing graphic novels. As such, I need more than what Poser vendors make in 2019. My characters have jobs and families. In addition, my character collection in these novels are based on real world population spreads. One Aryanized Asian or Black simply isn't going to cut it.

The average Poser/DS figure is around 1.8cm - which make up about 3% of the world's population (and no, the height scaling dial isn't good enough) - great if your stories take place in the Nordic countries, but pretty much useless anywhere else.

I need a bit of everything - old people, young people, non-creepy non-Caucasians - and we don't have vendors making that anymore. Just like they don't make clothing for professional environments. There is a reason I still cloth my females in V4's wardrobe and my males with M3's wardrobe.

The whole concept of a "good" figure can't be considered in isolation. Were Possette or Miki 2 good figures when released? If a new user asked you now to recommend a good figure would you name either of these? We can also see from these posts that many people have different ideas as to what makes a good figure, from technophiles whose main concern is how technically correct the figure is to the figure artists whose concern is how every body part looks in any pose. IMHO the way to judge if a figure is "good" is if lots of people want to use it, and for which vendors find it easy and rewarding to create content. These two are of course linked, I don't think there is any magic formula, for success the figure has to attractive out of the box, well advertised and promoted, and the timing must right. And of course it must not be so "out there" that content creators can't easily work with it. Looking at recent figures, Pauline/Pauline, PE and LaFemme you only have to look at the number of products in the store to decide which are "good" figures.

Wolf - You can do hybrid dynamics in Poser - in that OOT outfit, the

vendor would secure the torso and arms via constraining groups and

let the rest of the outfit be dynamic. The end user can do the same

thing.

You believe this because you clearly do not ever animate any figures.

Those "constrained groups" are a cruel joke ,even for a still, and you essentially would have had to model the garment to the exact shape of the figure in the still pose for them not to penetrate the figure when moving into the final pose.

A true Hybrid conformer ,with morph following ,will let you scale down your despised BIG Amazon Genesis females to a petite size and the strapless even gown will scale down with her still work for dynamics.

Change the figure scale with a static .obj file and its back into your modeling program ..assuming you have modeling skills

Notice how none of those "Dynamic Potato sacks" for PE were using constrained groups for a tighter fit at the waist or anywhere else and for animation they are a nonstarter.

I personally Do not care for Dforce but instead use the old Daz optitex system along with the script by RMP merchant "Lola69" that cracks the optitex encryption allowing me to use My own custom model meshes for my simulations as seen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZAgxGVp6Vg

ssgbryan posted at 10:37AM Thu, 18 July 2019 - #4357292

Stuff is scattered everywhere in file folders and there are not only too many levels of ego folders - too many products have the vendor names as the leading characters of products. Makes a search function pointless.

Oh, that's up to you, the user, to sort as you please. Outside of the Data and Runtime->Textures directories, you can organize it pretty much however you want. Most folks stick with the suggested defaults, and that's fine too. A radical departure from the rigid Poser layout, I know, but we can get into the weeds about that (and similar) in another thread if you'd like.

Back on topic......

What makes a good figure is dependent on what the end user is trying to do. At the end of the day, I can't do what I want to do with Poser, if I try to limit myself to 1 figure. Vendors by and large make tall, bland, early 20's Caucasians and if you have 3 characters by a vendor, you pretty much have all of them.

That's the case across multiple vendors (at least the ones who all use the same texture/morph/etc resource kits.) But this is the case with any product (for example, why are nearly all smartphones rectangular candy-bar-shaped things with nothing-but-screen on one side? Because the iPhone came out, that's why. Before 2007, smartphones had a wild variety of form factors. Not anymore.)

Now here's the thing - a figure should, as mentioned 10,000 times, be morphable out to differing ethnicities, shapes, sizes, ages... and by and large, a lot of good figures can do that now, to varying degrees. For those cases where it's not native, the market usually (and eventually) provides. BUT - the market should only be relied on for edge-cases, not mainline features and shapes.

Now, if you are trying to do something realistic - you hit a wall pretty quickly. I am doing graphic novels. As such, I need more than what Poser vendors make in 2019. My characters have jobs and families. In addition, my character collection in these novels are based on real world population spreads. One Aryanized Asian or Black simply isn't going to cut it.

Indeed - But it wasn't Smith Micro's fault, since they only provided a product and some default content to get you started. It wasn't Rendo's fault , since they were just a digital bazaar that helped people sell stuff.

Fact is nobody made and sold figures that were 1) exclusively for Poser and 2) widely supported enough to be considered the real default. But that's not entirely true, is it? Up until 2011, DAZ filled that role.

Y'all lucked out when Rendo bought Poser - seriously. DAZ moved to Genesis, and 'poof', no default figures anymore. Sure, world+dog hung onto Vicky 4 for how long now? It's still popular as all get-out, THIRTEEN YEARS later, and I bet every merchie in Rendo resents the hell out of that fact (can you blame 'em?) It's still hella useful, an was built so well that it managed to keep Poser alive all this time - again, lucky break for Poserdom.

So - here we are.

Various efforts have arisen - Dawn, Erogenesis, LaFemme... all competing to become DAZ' successor.

I get the accessory and clothing diversity angles, but we'll table that. I believe a basic set of clothing and tools for merchies to make other clothing, with other incentives to get them started on that, should be sufficient. It's the flexibility that counts.

Mind, I'm not in the one-blob-fits-all school of meshmaking for humanoid figures. One male, one female, and one kid (yes, unisex, since pre-pubescent children have the same body shapes, etc... you can incldue an add-on penis for the little boy model if you really felt the need to, but excepting the extreme edge-case-artistas and the pervs? Prolly got no need for one - let the market provide one if it has to.) Anyrate - just three base meshes. Make it morphable in multiple dimensions. Provide logical texture-mapping. Normal maps are a must. SubD? Yes, please. Weight-mapping, etc etc etc... hard to be all things to all people, but do what you can - it's been done before to reasonable extents, even if the application has to accommodate it to complete the featureset (see also Genesis), so maybe Poser can emulate that?

Penguinisto posted at 6:51PM Thu, 18 July 2019 - #4357333

Back on topic......

That's the case across multiple vendors (at least the ones who all use the same texture/morph/etc resource kits.) But this is the case with any product.

DAZ vendors will spend to get merchant resources - Poser vendors won't. If I need characters from the Indian subcontinent for example, DAZ has a bunch, Poser doesn't. That goes with every category outside of early 20's Caucasians. That also applies to every niche outside of hookerware and impractical armor..

Now here's the thing - a figure should, as mentioned 10,000 times, be morphable out to differing ethnicities, shapes, sizes, ages... and by and large, a lot of good figures can do that now, to varying degrees. For those cases where it's not native, the market usually (and eventually) provides. BUT - the market should only be relied on for edge-cases, not mainline features and shapes.

The only place that a rational market place exists is in an economic textbook. Morphs without skin textures is pointless. DS & Poser both have ways of dealing with this. And just like everything else, the DS solution is both more expensive and more limited in capabilities. Poser vendors weren't providing a solution (as usual) , so a coder stepped up to the plate (also as usual). The same can be said for clothing. Good for end-users, not so good for Poser vendors.

Indeed - But it wasn't Smith Micro's fault, since they only provided a product and some default content to get you started. It wasn't Rendo's fault , since they were just a digital bazaar that helped people sell stuff.

You keep going back to the concept of one figure to rule them all , that concept is dead in 2019.

It is no more! It has ceased to be! 'It's expired and gone to meet 'is maker!

Fact is nobody made and sold figures that were 1) exclusively for Poser and 2) widely supported enough to be considered the real default. But that's not entirely true, is it? Up until 2011, DAZ filled that role.

We have a V4 killer - it takes full advantage of Poser's capabilities AND it was even made by the guy that made the original Victoria (can't get a better pedigree than that) - Dawn.

It has the exact same freak show proportions that V4 has, it (now) has a full set of head, body, and expression morphs that V4 has. What it doesn't have is the cottage industry of fixes that V4 (and the G figures) have, although a lot of them aren't necessary.

Most vendors at 'Rosity refused to make content for her (and her male counterpart). A lot of the content made for her initially was built using a Poser 6 workflow that vendors were using with V4 (Stugeon's Law also applied) - they were not going to take the time to learn the features of Poser 9 to get the most out of her. In 2019, end users have a choices of which figure they use - They can use a V3 or V4 (stock, or weight mapped, subdivided, & chipped), or Dawn, Or Anastasia, or Antonia, or, well, you get the idea. As an enduser, I can use any of those figures - vendor support (outside of shoes) is not as important as they think it is.

So - here we are.

Various efforts have arisen - Dawn, Erogenesis, LaFemme... all competing to become DAZ' successor.

The single figure concept for everyone is dead. We use whatever figure we want to use, based on our interests, budget, and skill level with Poser - the more familiar we are with the tools and add-ons, the more choices we have.

I get the accessory and clothing diversity angles, but we'll table that. I believe a basic set of clothing and tools for merchies to make other clothing, with other incentives to get them started on that, should be sufficient. It's the flexibility that counts.

I won't table it - It is directly related to vendor financial health. A LOT of people here conflate Poser health with that of vendors - they are 2 completely separate issues. No one has ever bought a new version of Poser for the figures - we buy for the tools. In 2019, if vendors want to halt declining sales, they need to up their game and understand the marketplace as it is, not how they wish it was. Which brings us to....

LF is the latest figure out - why should I use it? She isn't any better supported than Pauline - and no one has demonstrated why she is better than say, Sasha-16.

Why should I pay for a figure for LF that looks EXACTLY like the character that the vendor made for: Alyson 2 (Anastasia), Victoria 4 (GND 4.3), Victoria 3 (GND2), Stephanie Petite 3 (Irina). Hi Blackhearted!

This is the situation for most character vendors. Moving onto clothing....

There are literally thousands of hookerware outfits. Why should I buy another one @ $15 - especially when it isn't any better made than content that was made a decade ago (and can be picked up for between $1.99 to $3.50).

Mind, I'm not in the one-blob-fits-all school of meshmaking for humanoid figures. One male, one female, and one kid (yes, unisex, since pre-pubescent children have the same body shapes, etc... Anyrate - just three base meshes. Make it morphable in multiple dimensions. Provide logical texture-mapping. Normal maps are a must. SubD? Yes, please. Weight-mapping, etc etc etc... hard to be all things to all people, but do what you can - it's been done before to reasonable extents, even if the application has to accommodate it to complete the featureset (see also Genesis), so maybe Poser can emulate that?

What is your plan to get end users to move to a new figure en mass? That is a requirement for vendor support. What is your plan to get vendors to support that figure? Most vendors here didn't make 1 product for any post-V4 figure. That question has never been answered.

As an end user - what any Poser user outside of a rank beginner needs:

A reason to use a new figure (Most important). Texture Transformer support. (For Skin Textures) Hair Control System Module (for Hair - but a V4 morph like LF has will do in a pinch). Knowledge of Shoe Last (for shoes - shoes are the last place that content decoupling is needed.). Batch Material Converter - because we all know that many vendors are not going to make .mc6s to go in the materials folder.