AmbientShade posted at 10:06AM Tue, 16 July 2019 - #4357043

Restrict To" Bug in Weight Map menu

There is a bug in the restrict to menu that often prevents selection from the menu. I have to tab out of Poser and back in or change display option in order to get the menu to respond.

I can guarantee that this one is in the bug logs already, because I was one of the beta testers who reported it.

But then again, I don't know if Renderosity has access to the previous log of bug reports.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 11:45AM Tue, 16 July 2019 - #4357131

AmbientShade posted at 10:06AM Tue, 16 July 2019 - #4357043

Restrict To" Bug in Weight Map menu

There is a bug in the restrict to menu that often prevents selection from the menu. I have to tab out of Poser and back in or change display option in order to get the menu to respond.

I can guarantee that this one is in the bug logs already, because I was one of the beta testers who reported it.

But then again, I don't know if Renderosity has access to the previous log of bug reports.

They should, but if not, it would be in Renderosity's best interests to ask that it be given to them.

Real time cloth simulation for the next version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLUC7xbuTlU

A way to delete multiple renders from the recent queue. Perhaps clear it all together. It's not essential but if you do a lot of test renders like me, it would be nice to have.

My "suggestions." (Demands)

Renderosity has to treat Poser like a "Product" and not as a gallon of milk on sale that draws consumers to buy high-profit chocolate bars at the checkout counter. If they do not do that and insist on continuing the "same old thing" they will simply end up as another entry on the long list of companies that used to own Poser's IP.

This is a fact. It's not a debatable point as the evidence for failing to do just that can be found with every iteration of Poser and the repeated redistribution of the IP, as the ONLY source of profit potential the previous owner had left from it, and the failed exclusive marketplaces that thought all they had to do was "build it and they will come."

Poser IP owners need to put on their Big Boy pants. If you want to make money in business, you have to act like you want to make money in business. Artists starve and the gallery owners and auction houses thrive. Guess why?

First, Renderosity has to see what they have... They need to sit down around a conference table and develop a strategy for first examining their product. All portions of their product, from each Room and process that product performs. EVERY BIT OF IT. That is the only way anyone can sensibly create a plan to exploit the profit potential of a product. This is also a moot point and is not debatable. Anyone who says that is not an appropriate process is wrong.

(And, I'm being so forceful here because what we all want is for Poser to continue to exist. I'm here not because I love posting on Renderosity forums, but because if Renderosity does not do what I am saying then Poser will cease to exist in a year or so, maybe two at the most. Gone. Sold off as the only way to make profit from owning the Poser IP, just like every other IP holder has been forced to do.)

Renderosity must then design and successfully implement and steward a plan that exploits each of Poser's included features. What does that mean? A lot... Poser has a ton of stuff in it, many of which a basic user never touches and doesn't know how to touch. Renderosity must maximize the profit potential of the entirety of their acquired IP and that means developing nice, flashy, cool, and completely noteworthy products that further encourage sales and illuminate the value of the IP they now own.

Renderosity must not make the mistake of thinking that all they have to do is "build it and they will come." That never happens. They can't just produce a series of esoteric tutorial vids and included pre-installed content highlight vids with a droning yammering series of presenters that is about as exciting as watching paint die. Not dry... Actually die. On the wall. Like Poser has done for years in the hands of every single IP holder that thought all they had to do was "teach and they will come." So_much_garbage_effort. It don't work. None of that sort of thing ever works for anything... Yet, people think that's all they have to do and the money will just start rolling in.

So, wat do?

When I open Poser, I see a blank scene. Actually, SM's take on putting that cool looking default figure in the opening scene with good lighting and neato stuff focused on it was pretty good. But, they didn't move their inspiration forward into anything else at all. Their marketplace looked like the back-section of a Good Will Store where pants with stains-of-unknown-origin sit on shelves, as if being there will make someone buy them. So...

Renderosity must steward a program that is developed not only to exploit Poser, itself, and all its neato interesting features (tutes, highlights, capabilities, technical sales) but must also steward a program that seeks to provide nice, shiny, cool, products focused on each of Poser's main features. They should also, of course, focus on quality products that use multiple features, but they need to single out some of Poser's more arcane and least-used features in order to fully exploit their new IP gain. That means encouraging, through whatever means they have at their disposal, products for Animation, Dynamic Hair, Cloth, Python libraries that don't friggin break on every iteration, advanced products with lots of rigging choices, quality controlled lighting products with "Do Art" one-button press functionality...

Marvelous Designer is NOT in the business of providing products to promote Poser. See how that works? Nobody is going to come donate money to keep Poser running. Nobody who doesn't have a specific profit-motivated interest in Poser is going to do anything to support Poser "in the real world." Renderosty has to force people to become fans of Poser, itself, not just of "3D rendering dollies in cool outfits." They can go anywhere, these days, for that and Poser has to stand alone, else anyone else can easily compete with it.

And, they have to put 110% into developing marketing and promotion for each and every single product that is in this super-secret "We're going to make them love this IP" Internal Program.

Honestly, I'm not really confident. It's not that I don't think Renderosity et al could make this a success. It's that I think they believe all they have to do is own the product and then they can sit back and patch decades-old bits and pieces that are cobbled together while the sales just keep pouring in, thanks to the efforts of third-party independent artists trying to make a buck in their marketplace...

That is not going to happen. It has never happened. Ever.

I know there are some really cool and often looked-for improvements suggested in this thread. There always are. But, they are immaterial... Nothing matters right now except Renderosity's complete dedication to actually making money by owning the Poser IP. Everything else is secondary. I do not know that a marketplace service provider who has both Vendors and Customers as profit-potential customers can easily make the leap to "product manufacturer and primary representative." A Distributor is a completely different business animal than a "Manufacturer."

So, Poser fans, when you see Renderosity not trying to make money by directly exploiting their Poser IP, without unduly exploiting us, of course, then say something. Wake them up. Tell them they have to make money by doing more than just including a new algorithm or adding some neato new feature that literally most of the Poser World will never, ever, use or pay attention to without the appropriate inducement to do so with a "cool new visually and technically awesome product" that showcases those features and gets the owner and user of it enthusiastic about using those features. Srsly... If we don't demand quality and good marketing and business stewardship, Poser is going to go away. Forever.

PS - Everyone has learned there is little profit, these days, in selling the Poser software package. We know this. Some people didn't, evidently, but they also had other problems and did too little, too late, to shore up their marketing of Poser merchandise. A glance at their stock reports last year told me all I needed to know about the direction they were going. Said as much, too. But, the "too little, too late" effort is what pressages a Poser IP sale. WE have to ensure that doesn't happen again, since IP holders seem to forget their basic responsibilities.

PPS -And, if someone insists I provide yet another "me too" suggestion, then mine is - EVERY half-decent 3D software rendering package out there has its own claim-to-fame Dynamic Hair module. Poser has the "Hair Room" which is an infested slime-pit of "Doesn't Work, But When It Does It's Hideous." There are fifty-eleven darn different coding and research projects out there all with enthusiastic supporters and cool algorithms taken directly from super-awesome SCIENCE. Go subsume one of those or kidnap the developers and give us a Hair generator worthy of the title instead of some garbage that spews up groups of frightened wire-wool badgers when a "Do Hair" button is pressed. I have never seen Poser Dynamic Hair that is worth rendering. Never. I've been here since Poser 6 and it wasn't worth it then,not worth it now.

(I have seen and have constructed dynamic hair items that were worth rendering, but none suitable for "Human Hair" styles. A parka aint a Farrah...Even then it wasn't really worth rendering, but I was proud of it, so had to mention it... :) )

PS - Yes, I'm forceful about all this. That will likely wear off as futility sets in as I see the complacency slowly build around achieving the critical needs of a Poser IP-Holder to fully develop and exploit their product. U.E. should marry Blender and they can have a child that will supplant Poser et al. and I won't waste my blood-pressure on this anymore.

Yep. Do this. 100, 200 or400 is a lot to invest unless you are already famiar with thd product and know its value.

The challenge is making debut good enough that it conveys the value of the full program but there still remains enough differentiators to entice customers to spend on the upgrades. It's a fine balance.

AmbientShade posted at 10:45AM Thu, 18 July 2019 - #4357042

Bring back Poser Debut and make it FREE.

Seriously.

Treat it as a loss leader.

This is how you attract new customers and compete with other software that is and has been free for years.

Don't know if it's been mentioned, but here are a few things I'd love to see added to Poser:

• Being able to turn on and off the visibility of items either based on grouping or layering. For example, being able to assign an object or figure to a base layer that can have it's visibility controlled with a click of button. Not sure if this could be implemented into the hierarchy editor or not. That would be nice.

• A "back" and "forward" button on the library. Lets you go back and forth to previous and next libraries you were just in.

• A "delete" button in the library, gets rid of a folder entirely. I know this isn't 100% efficient since it doesn't get rid of the associated content, but it would be helpful to some people.

• Improvements to the toon outline feature on the renderings. Instead of 'thin, medium, thick' options, have a percentage from 1-10 or 1-100 to more tightly control the thickness to the added lines post render.

Please don't delete the toon outline feature, it's one of the main reasons I don't make a switch to DS. Please don't do away with firefly. I like it's speed and simplicity. I'm not one of those "photo real" fanatics. I like graphic art.

Just my 2 cents. Cheers, Davo

I've not had chance to read all the posts so I'm not sure if this has been mentioned. A native Linux version of Poser for those of us wanting to escape the MS or Apple ecosystem. A biggie I know but you did ask

A couple of things from me, if it's ok?

• Fix the smoothing blow-up bug.
• Fix geometry breaking. When I rig a fresh OBJ and try to save it back to the library, it re-saves a broken obj. If it's not going to reference the original OBJ I would prefer it just re-save the old one over again.
• Simulate cloth in background. I know there are some problems with doing -anything- with the cloth system, but if there was just some way to move it to a background process it would make life so much easier.
• Break down Visible in Raytracing to Raytraced Reflection/Refraction/Shadows. This would speed up rendering for me so much.
• Any integration of the existing 3rd party Poser plugins would be fabulous. Netherworks, Nerd3D, Semidieu, PhilC, D3D, EvilInnocence, anything that puts it all in one place is a blessing. This includes things like Poser File Editor, PMD Editor, Morphing Cloth, Content Mirror, EasyPose Underground, etc. I have -so- many utils, many of which are not available anymore, and I know that there are a lot of new/current users of Poser that don't have them that would love the capabilities inherent in them. I realize there are a lot of problems with this request but it's still a dear wish to my heart.
• Automation of common tasks. I really, really, REALLY LOVE that you can hand edit Poser files to accomplish a thousand tasks, but the more that we can accomplish inside Poser without having to break out the text editor, the better.
• In QM I would love to be able to just clear the whole Queue of finished entries at once, and to be able to select entries from a paused Queue in order to change the rendering options/dimension/output name without having to track down and load the relevant file and do it manually. Also being able to see the file dimensions in the QM would be helpful for those of us that use it for mass thumbnailing.
• To be able to control the number of processors that the QM uses without having to load Task Manager and constantly set it manually.

Also my vote is with Davo, please don't remove the Firefly or NPR features. There is a place for them. Actually all of their suggestions were really good ones.

For what its worth, I don't think I've heard of anyone requesting removal of Firefly.

That's a blessing, at least. With software changing hands, it's always hard to tell what sort of changes there will be! (We need a way to upvote posts!)

nightsong posted at 6:44AM Sat, 20 July 2019 - #4357515

A couple of things from me, if it's ok?

• Any integration of the existing 3rd party Poser plugins would be fabulous. Netherworks, Nerd3D, Semidieu, PhilC, D3D, EvilInnocence, anything that puts it all in one place is a blessing. This includes things like Poser File Editor, PMD Editor, Morphing Cloth, Content Mirror, EasyPose Underground, etc. I have -so- many utils, many of which are not available anymore, and I know that there are a lot of new/current users of Poser that don't have them that would love the capabilities inherent in them. I realize there are a lot of problems with this request but it's still a dear wish to my heart.
• Automation of common tasks. I really, really, REALLY LOVE that you can hand edit Poser files to accomplish a thousand tasks, but the more that we can accomplish inside Poser without having to break out the text editor, the better.

I just want to say with Poser 11, as someone who does content creation almost daily, I rarely leave Poser for that purpose at this point. I use PFE rarely, and only for minor things like setting a morph to activate on load.

I no longer use Morphing Clothes because I have the Copy Morphs From inside Poser.

For morph creation I do still use colorcurvature's PML, but it not an unsupported product. Hannes responds to email support questions.

I use Creator's Toybox (from Netherworks) to deliver clean CR2s and unify my distribution files. Toybox even does geometry re-pointing and/or stripping.

I have several small utilities created by Structure that I use with each product cycle like ReadME Generator, Image Searcher (to detail what texture files are in use) and Hidden Parameter Switch to hide superconforming morphs in the clothing. All of which are python scripts used inside Poser.

Injection files are now created inside Poser. JCMs are easily created.

In short, for content creation I don't have much reason to leave Poser at all once the model is complete and the grouping done.

AmbientShade posted at 4:53PM Sat, 20 July 2019 - #4357042

Bring back Poser Debut and make it FREE.

Seriously.

Treat it as a loss leader.

This is how you attract new customers and compete with other software that is and has been free for years.

Poser Debut could be just for posing/rendering content, Figure setup, fitting room, advanced material editor etc. could all be sold separately. Combined price of all modules should be the approximate price of Poser Pro. Reallusion's Character Creator or the Vue line use similar models. There are many ways they could strip down Pro to make a free version, depending how generous they feel. Could do away with material room entirely, or lock most modes simply allowing basic(diffuse) color change. Render sizes could also be capped to display resolutions. It does seem like a no-brainer to give away a bare-bones version though.

moogal posted at 8:41PM Sat, 20 July 2019 - #4357563

AmbientShade posted at 4:53PM Sat, 20 July 2019 - #4357042

Bring back Poser Debut and make it FREE.

Seriously.

Treat it as a loss leader.

This is how you attract new customers and compete with other software that is and has been free for years.

Poser Debut could be just for posing/rendering content, Figure setup, fitting room, advanced material editor etc. could all be sold separately. Combined price of all modules should be the approximate price of Poser Pro. Reallusion's Character Creator or the Vue line use similar models. There are many ways they could strip down Pro to make a free version, depending how generous they feel. Could do away with material room entirely, or lock most modes simply allowing basic(diffuse) color change. Render sizes could also be capped to display resolutions. It does seem like a no-brainer to give away a bare-bones version though.

Only thing is, if the software being free is the only reason I chose Poser, why would I choose a crippled (or stripped down) version over a fully functional DS?

EClark1894 posted at 5:39AM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357581

Only thing is, if the software being free is the only reason I chose Poser, why would I choose a crippled (or stripped down) version over a fully functional DS?

You would choose the free version to load Poser specific content, just as you would use D|S to load D|S specific content. To re-phrase your question: If you would only choose Poser if it were free what interest would you have in the current not-free versions?

moogal posted at 6:25AM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357595

EClark1894 posted at 5:39AM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357581

Only thing is, if the software being free is the only reason I chose Poser, why would I choose a crippled (or stripped down) version over a fully functional DS?

You would choose the free version to load Poser specific content, just as you would use D|S to load D|S specific content. To re-phrase your question: If you would only choose Poser if it were free what interest would you have in the current not-free versions?

Exactly. I CHOOSE to buy Poser. DAZ keeps putting free versions of DS in my product library. To this day, I've only used two versions of DS. Version 2 because it was the only one that would run on my Mac at the time, and version 4.8 because I was trying to see if I could create content for both software. Aside from managing to do the most rudimentary things in DS, I didn't like having to learn everything over again and gave up. I've asked a couple of Studio vendors for their help, and I am grateful, but I prefer Poser, even if I have to pay for it.

The majority of folks that use Poser or DS do not use all the content creation tools. Back when Poser Debut was available (for around 25-50 I think), all it did was load pose and render content. You couldn't make or modify anything. I'm not sure it even had animation features. The goal here is to provide a vehicle that anyone can start using and get interested in the content that's available. Chances are they'll eventually decide to start making or modifying stuff and want to upgrade to the full premium version. Rosity is still a content store primarily. So if they gave their customers a free entry version of Poser to use some of that content in, then its more likely they'll keep folks coming back to buy more content and statistically at least a portion of those users will eventually upgrade. A lot of people still prefer the Poser interface over the DS interface anyway, so Poser/Rosity has that working for them too.

AmbientShade posted at 7:02PM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357658

...The goal here is to provide a vehicle that anyone can start using and get interested in the content that's available. Chances are they'll eventually decide to start making or modifying stuff and want to upgrade to the full premium version....

I can't stand predatory "Lite" versions of software packages. :) By "Predatory" I mean software who's only purpose is to show you how much you didn't get for the amount of money you spent. (Which is what a ton of top-end 3D software developers produce for "non-professional" licenses for their darn software, despite claims of "giving non-commercial users the tools they need without the price of full professional licensing..." etc.)

I am more in favor of "Free Trial Periods" of fully-functional software that may have some limitations. For instance, the old "Everything you render has a big watermark" and/or "Content can not be expanded" or resolution/etc limitations. The point being that, in my opinion, everything a developer puts out needs to be a top-grade product that is fully functional for its intended use, not a "Give us money for something that is not worth buying."

Ages ago, I bought a Photoshop product that acted as a sort of introduction to Photoshop. What the heck was that thing? You could do some editing, cleaning up, etc with it, but it wasn't "Photoshop Lite" really. It was more of a full-featured stand-alone product that pushed itself up to the full limits of a "Novice Image Manipulator" sort of thing. Great product, got my full money's worth out of it, it was great for what it said it was targeted to do on the box description, and inspired me to end up getting the full suite. (I even had Corel Draw 4/6 whatever, IIRC, and still got CS because of the quality of that psuedo "Lite" version.) Unless a sort of Intro package does that for Poser, there's no point in producing one. It'd be better to have a free limited trial version, IMO. (Provided Renderosity/Bondware have the expertise to do that.)

How exactly is giving away a lite version of the software in order to promote content sales predatory? What you described about Photoshop essentials is much more predatory and fits the description that you just gave more accurately "look at all the features you didn't get because you didn't pay enough", and yet you praised it for getting a lot of work done anyway.

Like I said, most people don't use the content creation tools in Poser or DS. So why charge them for something they may never use, when that money could instead be spent in the content store, buying content to use in the basic 'debut' version of Poser. It's pretty difficult to compete with free. There's a number of people that think Poser should be free just like DS is free. And I'm willing to bet one of the primary reasons DS has so many users is because it's free. So provide a similar means for new and returning users to get familiar with Poser and get them hooked without first forking out a few hundred bucks only to discover it may not be what they're looking for.

"Fully functioning software that may have some limitations" is not fully functioning software. Contradiction within the same sentence there. "It's %100 yours free! Just pay $59 shipping and handling!"

AmbientShade posted at 8:58PM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357664

How exactly is giving away a lite version of the software in order to promote content sales predatory? What you described about Photoshop essentials is much more predatory and fits the description that you just gave more accurately "look at all the features you didn't get because you didn't pay enough", and yet you praised it for getting a lot of work done anyway.

Like I said, most people don't use the content creation tools in Poser or DS. So why charge them for something they may never use, when that money could instead be spent in the content store, buying content to use in the basic 'debut' version of Poser. It's pretty difficult to compete with free. There's a number of people that think Poser should be free just like DS is free. And I'm willing to bet one of the primary reasons DS has so many users is because it's free. So provide a similar means for new and returning users to get familiar with Poser and get them hooked without first forking out a few hundred bucks only to discover it may not be what they're looking for.

"Fully functioning software that may have some limitations" is not fully functioning software. Contradiction within the same sentence there. "It's %100 yours free! Just pay $59 shipping and handling!"

Well, if all you're interested in is selling the content, then you may as well give out the fully functioning software for free.

AmbientShade posted at 8:02PM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357664

". So provide a similar means for new and returning users to get familiar with Poser and get them hooked without first forking out a few hundred bucks only to discover it may not be what they're looking for."

"Fully functioning software that may have some limitations" is not fully functioning software. Contradiction within the same sentence there. "It's %100 yours free! Just pay $59 shipping and handling!"

Is there not a way to set up, online at Rendo, 1 fully functional version of Poser that could be accessed over the internet, by interested people to try out for say 2 weeks or so? They wouldn't get anything to take home but it wouldn't cost them anything either - as long as you could keep it secure?

Nothing accessed over the internet is completely secure. If it can be accessed by your device then it can be copied. And if they were going to go to all that trouble setting up servers to handle all that traffic then they might as well make the entire app cloud/server based, since the hard work would be done by that point. Lets not open that debate.

AmbientShade posted at 8:14AM Mon, 22 July 2019 - #4357670

Nothing accessed over the internet is completely secure. If it can be accessed by your device then it can be copied. And if they were going to go to all that trouble setting up servers to handle all that traffic then they might as well make the entire app cloud/server based, since the hard work would be done by that point. Lets not open that debate.

Or they could do what DAZ does and place a free copy of the software in your product library. Of course, that still doesn't stop someone from copying it, but if they tie the serial number of each copy to the person they gave it to...

Mind you, I'm still against the free version. I think of it as switch and bait, because the end game is to get them to switch over to a full version, which I just don't see them doing.

Has nothing to do with bait and switch, which is illegal.

So then what would be your suggestion for attracting new users when those users have so many other free options?

EClark1894 posted at 12:51PM Mon, 22 July 2019 - #4357668

Well, if all you're interested in is selling the content, then you may as well give out the fully functioning software for free.

That's a big "if", though. I think we can all agree that there have long been two main camps of users: those who just want to mix & match "content" and those who want to produce some portion of what they render/animate themselves. People who simply want to load pre-existing figures and props aren't going to want to pay for a platform to do that. They are the ones who will likely be buying the most content from the marketplace(s), and so it should be common sense to make getting on board as appealing as possible to attract as many of them as possible. Then you have people like myself who have hardly bought anything over the years. Sure, I've bought a few morph packs here and there. I've bought hair and and things like that on occasion as well, but I've not bought enough to call myself the kind of customer who keeps the content ecosystem thriving. But I will however pay for tools and features that allow me to make my own content more easily. The morph brush, the set-up and fitting rooms, physics... Those are the types of things my wallet opens up for, yet I accept that a fair portion of Poser's target audience never touches them. They may be indebted to their existence but don't want, need or want to need to use them themselves. Why charge those users for the features they will never use? Also, why give those features away for free when users like me will happily pay for them? I'll admit I long hated the idea of deliberately borked programs. I thought that if a feature was implemented it should be included, and particularly hated any program that added watermarks or limited output size. But I now feel there is nothing wrong with this if done properly. Reallusion were horrible about making it difficult to know which things their programs did out of the box vs. which required additional, often pricey, content. While they've gotten better in general, they still do things like selling their animation curve editor for $149. That's $150 for a plug-in that does one, albeit important, thing. Presumably people are using iClone and getting by without it. And if you did need it, I suppose you'd pay the asking price. It seems to me like something that should be included in the program, but if only a handful of people will ever need it should its cost be spread across everyone using iClone? These things don't develop themselves, the money has to come from somewhere.

Thread's too long to go through it all, but has anyone mentioned adding the ability for the scale parameters to show absolute units rather than percentages?

"First, Renderosity has to see what they have... They need to sit down around a conference table and develop a strategy for first examining their product. All portions of their product, from each Room and process that product performs. EVERY BIT OF IT. That is the only way anyone can sensibly create a plan to exploit the profit potential of a product. This is also a moot point and is not debatable. Anyone who says that is not an appropriate process is wrong."

Code review is going to be the absolute first thing that happens - only a flaming moron would skip this step.

Thing is, I don't know how many of Poser's previous dev team got hired by Bondware/Rendo, if I'm reading that whole Poser-team-getting-sacked thing correctly. Without the tribal knowledge, all the documentation on the planet isn't going to make up for the fact that a whole lot went missing when the last dev walked out the door.

It's a good thing in some aspects, because it lets the new team look everything over with fresh eyes. It's a bad thing in others, because there are always going to be gotchas in there that you're not going to anticipate until you start doing a few initial builds and start testing it out. Rendo is going to have to hire some top-notch devs - people who can really tear into the codebase and know what's going on in there.

Note to all - this is going to take time, so get comfortable. Just to get to a point where you can compile and actually know what's going on when you do will take months if they're lucky and hire/keep some of the old dev team into their fold, around a year or more if not, because you're gonna have newbies who need to get familiar with that beast. Then, the updates... patching bugs and security issues. Bringing third-party components (coughpythoncough) up to date. Keeping up with bugaboos that arise in the interim. Refactoring where you can, if you can (where safe to do so). De-spaghettifying, making maintainable, and streamlining when/where you can, because you're not ever again going to get a better opportunity to do it. Make sure the results line up with any/all feature additions and roadmaps that the PTB have set.

Then, and only then, will they even think of tackling even the lowest-hanging fruit in the massive laundry/wish list of stuff that's been tendered in this thread.

I guess what I'm saying is, give 'em time to clean up the messes and figure out how to properly ride that tiger first... before you start demanding they put $type of saddle and tack on it.

I would like to see the ability to use "gels" with lighting to create such effects as underwater caustics...could do this in Poser 9 and 10. Apparently DS is able to do this.

goldie posted at 3:27PM Tue, 23 July 2019 - #4357787

I would like to see the ability to use "gels" with lighting to create such effects as underwater caustics...could do this in Poser 9 and 10. Apparently DS is able to do this.

Do you mean like in this post from the SM forums? https://forum.smithmicro.com/topic/968/no-light-masks-in-superfly

Penguinisto posted at 3:21PM Tue, 23 July 2019 - #4357779

"First, Renderosity has to see what they have... They need to sit down around a conference table and develop a strategy for first examining their product. All portions of their product, from each Room and process that product performs. EVERY BIT OF IT. That is the only way anyone can sensibly create a plan to exploit the profit potential of a product. This is also a moot point and is not debatable. Anyone who says that is not an appropriate process is wrong."

Code review is going to be the absolute first thing that happens - only a flaming moron would skip this step.

Thing is, I don't know how many of Poser's previous dev team got hired by Bondware/Rendo, if I'm reading that whole Poser-team-getting-sacked thing correctly. Without the tribal knowledge, all the documentation on the planet isn't going to make up for the fact that a whole lot went missing when the last dev walked out the door.

It's a good thing in some aspects, because it lets the new team look everything over with fresh eyes. It's a bad thing in others, because there are always going to be gotchas in there that you're not going to anticipate until you start doing a few initial builds and start testing it out. Rendo is going to have to hire some top-notch devs - people who can really tear into the codebase and know what's going on in there.

Note to all - this is going to take time, so get comfortable. Just to get to a point where you can compile and actually know what's going on when you do will take months if they're lucky and hire/keep some of the old dev team into their fold, around a year or more if not, because you're gonna have newbies who need to get familiar with that beast. Then, the updates... patching bugs and security issues. Bringing third-party components (coughpythoncough) up to date. Keeping up with bugaboos that arise in the interim. Refactoring where you can, if you can (where safe to do so). De-spaghettifying, making maintainable, and streamlining when/where you can, because you're not ever again going to get a better opportunity to do it. Make sure the results line up with any/all feature additions and roadmaps that the PTB have set.

Then, and only then, will they even think of tackling even the lowest-hanging fruit in the massive laundry/wish list of stuff that's been tendered in this thread.

I guess what I'm saying is, give 'em time to clean up the messes and figure out how to properly ride that tiger first... before you start demanding they put $type of saddle and tack on it.

I sure hope this is how they'll go about it. It won't please the crowd that wants shinies, but I'd rather have a new version that just makes the build of the program more stable and capable of future new tech, or to take longer for us to see a new version because it's getting this done and THEN adding new stuff, than having new stuff quick and keep the program instable and with an old core.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 3:50PM Tue, 23 July 2019 - #4357850

Penguinisto posted at 3:21PM Tue, 23 July 2019 - #4357779

"First, Renderosity has to see what they have... They need to sit down around a conference table and develop a strategy for first examining their product. All portions of their product, from each Room and process that product performs. EVERY BIT OF IT. That is the only way anyone can sensibly create a plan to exploit the profit potential of a product. This is also a moot point and is not debatable. Anyone who says that is not an appropriate process is wrong."

Code review is going to be the absolute first thing that happens - only a flaming moron would skip this step.

Thing is, I don't know how many of Poser's previous dev team got hired by Bondware/Rendo, if I'm reading that whole Poser-team-getting-sacked thing correctly. Without the tribal knowledge, all the documentation on the planet isn't going to make up for the fact that a whole lot went missing when the last dev walked out the door.

It's a good thing in some aspects, because it lets the new team look everything over with fresh eyes. It's a bad thing in others, because there are always going to be gotchas in there that you're not going to anticipate until you start doing a few initial builds and start testing it out. Rendo is going to have to hire some top-notch devs - people who can really tear into the codebase and know what's going on in there.

Note to all - this is going to take time, so get comfortable. Just to get to a point where you can compile and actually know what's going on when you do will take months if they're lucky and hire/keep some of the old dev team into their fold, around a year or more if not, because you're gonna have newbies who need to get familiar with that beast. Then, the updates... patching bugs and security issues. Bringing third-party components (coughpythoncough) up to date. Keeping up with bugaboos that arise in the interim. Refactoring where you can, if you can (where safe to do so). De-spaghettifying, making maintainable, and streamlining when/where you can, because you're not ever again going to get a better opportunity to do it. Make sure the results line up with any/all feature additions and roadmaps that the PTB have set.

Then, and only then, will they even think of tackling even the lowest-hanging fruit in the massive laundry/wish list of stuff that's been tendered in this thread.

I guess what I'm saying is, give 'em time to clean up the messes and figure out how to properly ride that tiger first... before you start demanding they put $type of saddle and tack on it.

I sure hope this is how they'll go about it. It won't please the crowd that wants shinies, but I'd rather have a new version that just makes the build of the program more stable and capable of future new tech, or to take longer for us to see a new version because it's getting this done and THEN adding new stuff, than having new stuff quick and keep the program instable and with an old core.

It actually depends. Mind you, I'm not privvy to any information that any of you don't have, but Rendo may want to put out a new version, or beta version, as quickly as POSSIBLE in order to rebrand Poser under the Renderosity/Bondware brand name.

EClark1894 posted at 5:26PM Tue, 23 July 2019 - #4357855

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 3:50PM Tue, 23 July 2019 - #4357850

Penguinisto posted at 3:21PM Tue, 23 July 2019 - #4357779

"First, Renderosity has to see what they have... They need to sit down around a conference table and develop a strategy for first examining their product. All portions of their product, from each Room and process that product performs. EVERY BIT OF IT. That is the only way anyone can sensibly create a plan to exploit the profit potential of a product. This is also a moot point and is not debatable. Anyone who says that is not an appropriate process is wrong."

Code review is going to be the absolute first thing that happens - only a flaming moron would skip this step.

Thing is, I don't know how many of Poser's previous dev team got hired by Bondware/Rendo, if I'm reading that whole Poser-team-getting-sacked thing correctly. Without the tribal knowledge, all the documentation on the planet isn't going to make up for the fact that a whole lot went missing when the last dev walked out the door.

It's a good thing in some aspects, because it lets the new team look everything over with fresh eyes. It's a bad thing in others, because there are always going to be gotchas in there that you're not going to anticipate until you start doing a few initial builds and start testing it out. Rendo is going to have to hire some top-notch devs - people who can really tear into the codebase and know what's going on in there.

Note to all - this is going to take time, so get comfortable. Just to get to a point where you can compile and actually know what's going on when you do will take months if they're lucky and hire/keep some of the old dev team into their fold, around a year or more if not, because you're gonna have newbies who need to get familiar with that beast. Then, the updates... patching bugs and security issues. Bringing third-party components (coughpythoncough) up to date. Keeping up with bugaboos that arise in the interim. Refactoring where you can, if you can (where safe to do so). De-spaghettifying, making maintainable, and streamlining when/where you can, because you're not ever again going to get a better opportunity to do it. Make sure the results line up with any/all feature additions and roadmaps that the PTB have set.

Then, and only then, will they even think of tackling even the lowest-hanging fruit in the massive laundry/wish list of stuff that's been tendered in this thread.

I guess what I'm saying is, give 'em time to clean up the messes and figure out how to properly ride that tiger first... before you start demanding they put $type of saddle and tack on it.

I sure hope this is how they'll go about it. It won't please the crowd that wants shinies, but I'd rather have a new version that just makes the build of the program more stable and capable of future new tech, or to take longer for us to see a new version because it's getting this done and THEN adding new stuff, than having new stuff quick and keep the program instable and with an old core.

It actually depends. Mind you, I'm not privvy to any information that any of you don't have, but Rendo may want to put out a new version, or beta version, as quickly as POSSIBLE in order to rebrand Poser under the Renderosity/Bondware brand name.

Sorry, but that's just not going to happen. You get one chance to make a first impression and Renderosity knows better than to release a buggy, untested piece of software as their first step as Poser owners.

Glitterati3D posted at 7:56PM Tue, 23 July 2019 - #4357859

Sorry, but that's just not going to happen. You get one chance to make a first impression and Renderosity knows better than to release a buggy, untested piece of software as their first step as Poser owners.

Well, as I see it, you're never going to squash ALL the bugs in Poser, but you can do your best and address the foremost concerns. I'm not saying just put something out to be putting it out, but maybe something like another service release because a full version Poser 12 release may be as far away as 2 or even three years if you're intent on squashing all the bugs. But you can put your best foot forward and show that you're serious about updating Poser and it's features.

EClark1894 posted at 6:40PM Tue, 23 July 2019 - #4357855

It actually depends. Mind you, I'm not privvy to any information that any of you don't have, but Rendo may want to put out a new version, or beta version, as quickly as POSSIBLE in order to rebrand Poser under the Renderosity/Bondware brand name.

Dude, I love you like a brother, but... smack! out, demons - out! The power of Jenkins compels you! OUT I SAY!

No, really, don't do that.

Every damned M&A I've done or been a part of comes standard with that pressure from leadership. They're more eager to slap their name on it (oh, and new promotional graphics! new marketing material! new incentives! the whole C-level goes fapfapfapfapfap...!) than they are to even look at the bug reports. In most cases it's a bare compromise, with the new "version" being nothing more than the old version with a pile of fixes lashed on. Urgh. Do not do that. The risk for failure is HUGE over even the smallest mistakes in content or execution.

Give it some time. Figure stuff down, take your time. sort things out. Fix the most egregious crap. Update all the 3rd-party bits you got licensed/added if you feel safe/comfortable doing it - it's low-hanging fruit that actually helps you out. Maybe add a few modest goodies, enough to make it worth the upgrade.

And for the love of all that's holy, do not call it Poser 12. Call it Poser 11.5, so folks know subconsciously that it's just an interim thing, that more/better is coming. It's a subtle way of leaving them sort of expecting more later down the road, but without going full Osbourne Effect.

EClark1894 posted at 6:55PM Tue, 23 July 2019 - #4357870

but maybe something like another service release because a full version Poser 12 release may be as far away as 2 or even three years if you're intent on squashing all the bugs. But you can put your best foot forward and show that you're serious about updating Poser and it's features.

Ah, this is more palatable. I'd still give it some time for even that though. As much as the CxOs can stand, and maybe a couple months after that. I do think you can cook out a new, stable version with modest improvements and the worst bugs gone in about a 12-18 months with a competent team, though... but only if the pressure is that ugly to rebrand it.

I don't know if anybody has talked about this yet. Background lighting needs to be made stable using GPU rendering and in separate process (which it doesn't work in currently). Also needs to be made a regular lighting setup in the lights controls and documented in the manual so people don't have to rely on tricks learned in forums to do this stuff. Using the background "object" in the materials room for lighting gives the best results I have found. Because it's prone to crashing CUDA and Poser and your monitor if the crash is bad enough, it's not really convenient to use. Should be a way to make it a regular feature and viewable in preview and rotatable for quick renders. Take a look:

EClark1894 posted at 8:54AM Wed, 24 July 2019 - #4357870

Glitterati3D posted at 7:56PM Tue, 23 July 2019 - #4357859

Sorry, but that's just not going to happen. You get one chance to make a first impression and Renderosity knows better than to release a buggy, untested piece of software as their first step as Poser owners.

Well, as I see it, you're never going to squash ALL the bugs in Poser, but you can do your best and address the foremost concerns. I'm not saying just put something out to be putting it out, but maybe something like another service release because a full version Poser 12 release may be as far away as 2 or even three years if you're intent on squashing all the bugs. But you can put your best foot forward and show that you're serious about updating Poser and it's features.

"What are the short-term plans for Poser?

From now thru mid-October, we are hyper-focused on putting out a bridge-release that adapts Poser to Bondware's license management system, product download system, etc.

In parallel, we are adding to our dev team, creating a beta testing team and seeking advice from previous Poser team members, contributors and community members to construct a product roadmap for the future.

After mid-October, we will begin to engage the community on potential product roadmap and begin to roll out incremental improvements."

I'm pretty sure this means patches / service releases.

ghostship2 posted at 8:57AM Wed, 24 July 2019 - #4357882

I don't know if anybody has talked about this yet. Background lighting needs to be made stable using GPU rendering and in separate process (which it doesn't work in currently). Also needs to be made a regular lighting setup in the lights controls and documented in the manual so people don't have to rely on tricks learned in forums to do this stuff. Using the background "object" in the materials room for lighting gives the best results I have found. Because it's prone to crashing CUDA and Poser and your monitor if the crash is bad enough, it's not really convenient to use. Should be a way to make it a regular feature and viewable in preview and rotatable for quick renders. Take a look:

I've started using this and never returned - a material setup for the Background that someone (was it you?) posted in the SM forums that I saved here and have been using all the time now.

I guess it's a good thing that I had to switch my older Nvidia card for a newer AMD one (husband's was getting fried, he bought a new one, forgot to check - he NEEDS Cuda as he works in video editing in a fast-paced work environment, so he had to go ahead and buy yet another video card and I inherited his AMD one, that's better for me for everything but Poser rendering). I had no problems with rendering that on CPU

The only bad thing I can imagine for this being default in Poser is that it makes renders drastically different from the ones Firefly will cook out without Indirect Light on, so this might be confusing for new/casual users.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 1:53PM Wed, 24 July 2019 - #4357901

ghostship2 posted at 8:57AM Wed, 24 July 2019 - #4357882

I don't know if anybody has talked about this yet. Background lighting needs to be made stable using GPU rendering and in separate process (which it doesn't work in currently). Also needs to be made a regular lighting setup in the lights controls and documented in the manual so people don't have to rely on tricks learned in forums to do this stuff. Using the background "object" in the materials room for lighting gives the best results I have found. Because it's prone to crashing CUDA and Poser and your monitor if the crash is bad enough, it's not really convenient to use. Should be a way to make it a regular feature and viewable in preview and rotatable for quick renders. Take a look:

I've started using this and never returned - a material setup for the Background that someone (was it you?) posted in the SM forums that I saved here and have been using all the time now.

I guess it's a good thing that I had to switch my older Nvidia card for a newer AMD one (husband's was getting fried, he bought a new one, forgot to check - he NEEDS Cuda as he works in video editing in a fast-paced work environment, so he had to go ahead and buy yet another video card and I inherited his AMD one, that's better for me for everything but Poser rendering). I had no problems with rendering that on CPU

The only bad thing I can imagine for this being default in Poser is that it makes renders drastically different from the ones Firefly will cook out without Indirect Light on, so this might be confusing for new/casual users.

I had to find out by asking other users there that were using this option already for a couple of years. This stuff should not be "secret menu" items, should be built into Poser so people can use it without having to know what's going on. That is how you get better looking renders out of Poser and in turn get more people interested in Poser. At this point you have to export the image as an Open EXR file and adjust it's exposure settings in Photoshop or GIMP. Blender has all that crap built in and a tool to help you sort out your exposure settings without ever leaving Blender.

Good points for sure but I would lean the other way. I think people WANT to create content but there is a learning curve and people want it now.

I would make creating content easier with more powerful tools. Poser, Vue and Z-brush are already kissing cousins. I'm a novice but I still would like to be able use instancing, UVMAP on the fly and paint directly on a texture overlay that I could merge with todays photoshop or GIMP. Keep the costs down by offering more Poser specific content.

Well, my two cents.

Left foot cam and right foot cam.

That'd be more useful than the right hand cam and left hand cam - not saying they're not useful, but I spend more time trying to make sure the feet don't clip the floor/ground than I do hands with whatever.

MKDAWUSS posted at 4:21AM Thu, 25 July 2019 - #4357944

Left foot cam and right foot cam.

That'd be more useful than the right hand cam and left hand cam - not saying they're not useful, but I spend more time trying to make sure the feet don't clip the floor/ground than I do hands with whatever.

I, on the other hand, spend little to no time with feet, but a LOT of time posing hands and fingers.

So, umm, dumb question here: why not just start your project by tacking in a couple of cameras and binding them to the hands, feet, nose, penis, whatever? Then let the devs just keep what they got now?

Not trying to be (too) snarky, but it would save on clutter for those who don't want the bagful of cameras in each new scene**, and for those who use a lot of 'em, they can still go nuts. Maybe as a bonus, if you have a fave character you can include the camera settings with them as an initial .pz3 for each one?

It'd save the devs a bit of time in deciding defaults...

** us DS-using proles import a .pz3 char, and 'poof' - six new cameras show up that most of us generally don't have a use for... but I don;t mind, really - prolly won't mind once I break down and get Poser (prolly next month though - just paid for a new roof on the house, a new grille guard for the truck, need to rebuild my home file.streaming server, and assorted bits). Anyrate, I'll shaddap on the subject now.

i don't use P11, so i'm curious how well DoF works in it and folks experience with that...

and if it could be improved upon, i'd like that on a list at some point...

Giana posted at 3:56PM Thu, 25 July 2019 - #4358039

i don't use P11, so i'm curious how well DoF works in it and folks experience with that...

and if it could be improved upon, i'd like that on a list at some point...

I'm using it in the image I just posted up the thread. It works well, looks good, and does not really add any time to renders so I use it by default. It adds a lot of realism to the renders.

Giana posted at 7:34PM Thu, 25 July 2019 - #4358039

i don't use P11, so i'm curious how well DoF works in it and folks experience with that...

and if it could be improved upon, i'd like that on a list at some point...

The only improvement DOF could possibly have in Poser is someway other than the crosshairs display to show it in preview mode.

EClark1894 posted at 8:42PM Thu, 25 July 2019 - #4358047

Giana posted at 7:34PM Thu, 25 July 2019 - #4358039

i don't use P11, so i'm curious how well DoF works in it and folks experience with that...

and if it could be improved upon, i'd like that on a list at some point...

The only improvement DOF could possibly have in Poser is someway other than the crosshairs display to show it in preview mode.

I'm using a replacement camtarget.obj in my runtime/geometries/camera which provides a solid plane instead of the crosshairs. I find it much easier to apply DOF using it. Look for Corvas' Focus For Poser freebie here in the Free Stuff area. I believe it does the same thing as what I'm using. Also, I change the camera's focus distance sensitivity dial to 0.001 (default is 0.01) and that gives much more fine control over the focus distance. This may help anyone looking for something better than what Poser provides by default. I certainly encouraged me to use DOF much more often. It's so easy to use now. Hope this helps! :) EDIT: I'm using Poser Pro 2014

many thanks everyone! i appreciate the info...

@ghostship2 - it was your image that sparked the question, btw [smile]

@LeeMoon - i'll take a look into your suggestion as it sounds quite helpful & interesting... ^bounce^

I wish I had kept record of all the fixes, updates and requests for changes that I had sent to Smith Micro over the years. There are a ton of annoying little things in the program that would make life so much easier if they were fixed. Off the top of my head:

• You can rearrange the layout of the screen. Okay. This means you can rip panels off the screen into windows, drag them around and stick them in new places. The problem here is that the layout is not locked down by default, so it's very easy to accidentally rip part of your interface off and very hard to stick it back where it was. The interface should be locked by default, so that a user has to deliberately decide to enable interface changes before things can be moved around.

• The post-render pen-line effect on toon renders isn't applied to the image alpha. So if you render a toon figure and try to export it into something like photoshop or after effects, the outline is always cut off around the outside edge.

• Toon renders with the pen-line effect always seem to come out noisy, covered in little black dots.

I think what has really set Poser back though, is the availability of competing programs that are not only free, but offer far more advanced features. DAZ Studio being one, and Source FilmMaker being another. There is no reason why Poser should not be able to do everything that something like Source FilmMaker can. That includes not just lighting and rendering, real time or not, but also weather effects, particles, water simulation etc...

About the only thing Poser really has going for it is a great interface. If we could get that interface on a modern engine that can compete with something like Source, Poser would be back on top of its game again.

Make Poser figures directly usable inside VR chat platforms (see Siggraph 2019 VTuber playlist for what's already being done: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh3vjfYmdB9nttLIzD6-gyJdK2oRyiQna