Having been a previous content creator for Poser I'm wondering how much people are still invested in Poser whether it be older versions or newer versions doesn't matter to me?

Are there still a high number of people that still use Poser to make it worth the time for a content creator?

It might be helpful to have input from Renderosity and/or content creators still working with Poser as far as how well you are currently doing or still doing by providing content. I can see that people are providing content for both Poser and Daz Studio simultaneously which of course is always a great idea but there's going to be a higher concentration in one over the other I assume with how things have shifted.

If anyone no matter who you are willing to provide me with input and you'd prefer to do it privately please feel free as well.

If checking forum posts and being busy monitoring the "La Femme Fan Club" on facebook is any indication. Yes! Poser is strong and we welcome more vendors!!!

I'm currently using both Poser Pro 2014 and Poser Pro 11.3 as well as DS. I'm still heavily using the Mil4 figures even, and still on the lookout for good Poser (and Poser-friendly) content. ?

Occasionally, I will use DS primarily for its content...my preference is Poser and do wish more new, appealing content was being created for the program and not just for La Femme--generation 4 figures, in the right hands, give the newer versions a run for the money...new is not necessarily better.

I'm a dedicated Poser user and have been with Poser from Poser3 through Poser Game Developer (I bought Poser 11 but have not loaded it). However, I have experienced problems unrelated to the quality of the software. They installed a "Kill Switch" starting with Game Developer, which means if you go too long without connecting to the internet and re-validating your software it will stop on its own.

Right now when my Game Developer version of Poser stops there is no way of re-starting it. Ever.

I really, really, really and truly object to being in this position. I have invested hundreds perhaps even thousands of dollars worth of content over the years which can only really be used by Poser or Daz. I have happily paid for periodic Poser updates.

I've decided to run it (Poser Game Developer) out and whenever it quits that will be the end of Poser. Daz doesn't have any such problem and I figure I will switch to and start using Daz. With my content investment I feel I would be foolish not to. I'm sure the initial switch will be painful and unpleasant and I'm not looking forward to it.

Similarly I have version 5 of Blacksmith which I like, but the interface is terribly outdated. I purchased the latest version of Blacksmith but had to return it when it wanted access to the internet which I would not permit.

I'm hedging and buying some of the new characters, but not much, in hopes that Renderosity and CEO/owner Tim Choate will reconsider the kill switch strategy.

I would like to purchase the upgrade but I cannot download. Only have satellite internet and terrible bandwidth. I want to know if it's possible to get it on CD along with a content CD. As long as they leave the firefly render engine in it I'm still gonna be using Poser.

kelchris3 posted at 5:01PM Sun, 12 April 2020 - #4385764

I would like to purchase the upgrade but I cannot download. Only have satellite internet and terrible bandwidth. I want to know if it's possible to get it on CD along with a content CD. As long as they leave the firefly render engine in it I'm still gonna be using Poser.

As far as I'm aware Poser 11.3 needs to be able to phone home every few weeks so if you do have an unstable connection Poser may not be the best choice for.

Well that stinks. Guess I will stick with 10 and use Daz Studio.

I stopped using Poser when pp2014 game dev unregistered itself. And this new one sounds like a fiasco if it has to have an internet connection. I do welcome coices in software, and competition is badly needed, but a requirement for a connection and invalidating software I bought from Smith Micro pretty much kills any interest in Poser content for me.

Yep that's a deal breaker for me. Feels like you are being held hostage. No thanks.

From a vendor point of view, I can assure you that DS sells 2:1 or better over poser. I release products (not here at renderosity) and DS hands down beats poser in sales. Now, if Poser had a free version for people to pick up on, maybe a limited "render" only version without all the bells and whistles, Poser might pick up a larger share of the market as I firmly believe it is way easier to use than DS and with Firefly renders, you don't have to wait hours and hours for a final render.

I'm not sure why people object to software periodically validating licenses through a quick and hardly noticeable online "ping" every few weeks or so. Photoshop CC does it. Many apps do it. It's one of the only ways software makers can be sure that those using their software have a valid license for it, and it should cause no problems for users as long as they can put their computers online for a short while every few weeks. Like, say, while reading and posting to forums :-) (You do have the launch the software for it to "phone home").

As for the original question, I'm also a dedicated Poser user, starting with 9 and currently on Pro 11.3. I have DS, but I only ever use it in order to get things out of it that I can bring into Poser. I'm also a frequent shopper, but mostly what I buy are props and other scene elements, including scripts that provide useful functions (like all of Netherworks' scripts). I usually go for the quirky or whimsical stuff, like everything 1971s makes, or the fantasy stuff like what DM, SV, and a few others make. When I need "regular" humans, I use V4, M4 and/or K4, but I have plenty of characters, clothes, and hair for them. My favorite figures are those made by Nursoda, and anything designed to support them (new characters, clothes, hair, poses, etc.) will go into my wishlist for sure.

I won't buy anything that's for DS only, no matter how much I like it, but if it's a freebie I'll try converting it for Poser. I really don't understand why vendors who make props would ever make them for DS only, since it's so easy to make them work in Poser also, even with just simple texture maps or procedural materials. If a prop set uses DS's instancing, then the Poser version could just have the original item (eg., tree) and not all the instances, and then we could duplicate that item ourselves.

Anyway, I don't know if that's helpful or not! I have some ideas for a few products I might like to make for the marketplace, so I'm also interested in the same question. But my feeling is that if you make something that's notably new and different from what already exists, and that shows a strong sense of unique style and skill, people will probably buy it! If you make yet another bikini for V4, then maybe not ;-)

Short Answer:

Not everyone who creates items, own's Poser (Studio is free Poser is not)

I can literally use Blender Krita and studio and create and sell content without ever spending a dime.

So someone who's already doing that is not going to invest in anything unless it is going to improve their earnings.

Thats from a content creating for sale POV

Does everything have to be a competition? Can’t content be created that can be used equally well on both Poser and DAZ Studio? Does it have to be “one or the other”? Can’t somebody figure out how to fit ALL clothes and ALL hair on ANY figure? So that people can buy everything, instead of half of what is available. I don’t know - somebody tell me - can you use DAZ figures and clothes and hair and textures in Poser? Can you use the new Poser figures in DAZ Studio? What program can you use Dawn and Dusk in? Can they all wear each other’s clothes. Is all this stuff compatible with each other? We are not dealing with physical objects here. I feel we are dealing with company egos.

Fauvist posted at 10:47PM Wed, 17 June 2020 - #4390764

Does everything have to be a competition? Can’t content be created that can be used equally well on both Poser and DAZ Studio? Does it have to be “one or the other”? Can’t somebody figure out how to fit ALL clothes and ALL hair on ANY figure? So that people can buy everything, instead of half of what is available. I don’t know - somebody tell me - can you use DAZ figures and clothes and hair and textures in Poser? Can you use the new Poser figures in DAZ Studio? What program can you use Dawn and Dusk in? Can they all wear each other’s clothes. Is all this stuff compatible with each other? We are not dealing with physical objects here. I feel we are dealing with company egos.

Textures for a mesh are compatible in any 3D application, Poser, DAZ, Blender, whatever modeler or renderer you use. By textures, I mean the image maps that define diffuse color specular color/intensity, transparency, bumpiness, etc. But shaders (those extra nodes between textures and the main surface panel) are application specific. Another app may have similar nodes available in its interface, but there's no way to save an item so that all possible apps can make use of its shaders as they were set up in the original app. Textures, yes; shaders, no.

Polygon meshes are likewise compatible in any 3D application. What makes the difference with figures meant to be posed are the different approaches to skinning, grouping and rigging. If, early on, someone had developed the perfect way to skin, group and rig humanoid figures, then all subsequent figures could've used the same methods and then all content for those figures would be more or less interchangeable. But that's not what happened! So a figure that has groups (actors) for a pelvis or buttocks, for example, can't share clothes with a figure that does not have those parts, at least not right "out of the box," because the clothing is designed to respond to those parts. The clothing can be converted (Fitting Room, Wardrobe Wizard, Crossdresser, etc.), which means that it will be re-grouped and re-rigged to adapt to the new figure, but results vary b/c you're basically taking what someone designed as a convertible and forcing it to be an SUV (or some similar analogy!) The closer the original and new figures are in grouping and rigging, the better the results.

That's not really a matter of company egos but of how approaches to designing posable 3D human figures have evolved. When two companies each develop their own approaches to weight mapping to improve rigging, then it's inevitable that those two approaches will not work the same way, so figures designed for one of the apps may have compatibility issues in the other app. For that matter, when a company develops what they feel is an improvement over their own previous approach, its newer figures may have compatibility issues with its own previous figures. That's basically the price of progress in the world of software and hardware!

What affects how figures are designed also affects their clothing. But that's less true with hair, as it's fairly easy to adapt just about any hair model to just about any figure, using translate/scale/rotate parameters and a bit of morph brush or whatever similar tool you have access to. It's true that some styles of hair aren't as easy to adapt to some styles of figure head (esp. around the ears). But I've never understood why hair would need to be a conforming item, when you can simply parent the hair (figure or prop) to the figure's head and it'll stay put. Then you can use whatever controls exist (or make them) to pose the hair as needed.

Something else I've never understood is why so many static prop sets are sold as "DAZ Studio only," given that there's nothing about OBJs and textures that can't also work in Poser or any other 3D app. The shaders used to apply the materials might be different, but a basic setup of diffuse, specular and bump texture maps is all you need for the item to work in Poser. You can easily see that they'll work by exporting the items out of DAZ and importing them into Poser, so why don't vendors just offer the Poser versions in the package (and increase the chances of a sale, since I'm not going to spend $$ on a product if I have to do the conversions myself)!

Just a few thoughts in response to your post, which I realize may have been asking rhetorical rather than "real" questions :-)

Thanks for answering. The questions were not rhetorical. Do the new Poser figures work in DAZ Studio or not? Do DAZ figures work in the new Poser or not? What program do Dawn and Dusk work in?

I am aware of the products that convert clothes and hair (which by the way could very well just be built right into the new versions of the software instead of costing hundreds of extra dollars ). Which of the converter products allow you to convert figures made for one program to the other? Which converter allows the Poser figure clothes to fit on the DAZ figures. Nobody needs both DAZ Studio and Poser. If Renderosity is expecting to sell Poser content, it better be usable in DAZ Studio. It’s no secret to anybody that the best Renderosity vendors are now turning up at DAZ selling DAZ Studio content.

**Something else I've never understood is why so many static prop sets are sold as "DAZ Studio only," given that there's nothing about OBJs and textures **

I dont think they will accept it saying Poser as well (the store, the testers) if it isn't properly setup for Poser as well (file structures/ the textures....)

Dawn and Dusk were created to work in Poser and Daz - it was an attempt to keep the community together - they didn't really take off as was envisaged.

Poser figures that are weight-mapped in Poser do not work in Daz Studio.

Daz Studio figures that are weight-mapped in Daz Studio do not work in Poser.

Poser and Daz do not read objects the same way - so a lot of static props that will work in one, will not work in the other - they will distort. It happens that people buy props thinking it will work in the "other" and then wanting a refund because it does not.

Because a lot of your textures / materials are procedural and not external - it's not a simple matter to convert from the one to the other. It takes weeks.

Historically, Daz has read Poser files and they've kept some compatibility there because people used to only have "Poser" content. This allows Daz Studio users to buy Poser content if it's setup in a certain way and use it, but Poser has never been able to read Daz Studio files natively.

No, the best Renderosity vendors are not turning up at Daz. There's always been a migration from Renderosity to Daz - but the quality and content of what's available has always been equally good at Renderosity and in some cases better. What Renderosity does is allow more quirky content, new vendors and gives everyone an equal opportunity to try their luck. That's unique and that's something Daz does not do - Daz won't accept a product if they feel it's not going to sell a lot.

There's a market for Poser and Poser content. There's a market for Daz Studio and Daz Studio content. This is not the same market - it's two different markets. Renderosity supports both, and then also Vue, 2D, photoshop etc. Variety is nice.

Some of the best Rendo vendors are at Daz, too. Some have been for a long time.

PandaB5 posted at 5:08PM Sat, 20 June 2020 - #4392456

Dawn and Dusk were created to work in Poser and Daz - it was an attempt to keep the community together - they didn't really take off as was envisaged.

...

Just to clarify Dawn and Dusk have separate figures one for Poser one for DS, the Poser version won't work in DS and the DS version won't work in Poser the same for all their figures, Luna and all the animals.

CHK2033 posted at 10:11AM Sat, 20 June 2020 - #4392360

**Something else I've never understood is why so many static prop sets are sold as "DAZ Studio only," given that there's nothing about OBJs and textures **

I dont think they will accept it saying Poser as well (the store, the testers) if it isn't properly setup for Poser as well (file structures/ the textures....)

I guess what I mean is: I don't understand why the vendor who created the props wouldn't just set up a Poser version as well, with the caveat that the materials aren't going to look the same as they do in DAZ Studio. If a prop relies mainly on image maps for its color and texture, and not on app-specific nodes (or whatever voodoo makes Iray work), then it's really no trouble to set it up for Poser, even using an old version. UNLESS the prop relies on instancing, dforce, or rigging, that is.

I will happily take freebie props for DAZ Studio and convert them to Poser myself, as it takes only a handful of minutes. But I will not purchase DAZ-only content for conversion just on principle!

Fauvist posted at 10:15AM Sat, 20 June 2020 - #4392350

Thanks for answering. The questions were not rhetorical. Do the new Poser figures work in DAZ Studio or not? Do DAZ figures work in the new Poser or not? What program do Dawn and Dusk work in?

To add to PandaB5's reply: there are several different versions of Dawn and Dusk. They may all be based on the same mesh, but they have different rigging and other features. There's a version for Poser, which uses Poser's weight-mapping, a version for DAZ, which uses DAZ Studio's weight-mapping, and a version for iClone, which uses whatever rigging works in that app. For all I know there are versions for other apps as well!

With the advent of weight-mapped rigging implemented in different ways by different apps, it's not possible to use the exact same figure (meaning, the same CR2) in multiple applications. So no, you can't use La Femme in DAZ Studio b/c she was rigged for Poser. Likewise, you can't use Genesis 8 in Poser b/c the figure was rigged for DAZ. Same goes for Genesis 3, although there's some kind of workaround/conversion for Poser that I haven't tried. You can use Genesis 1 and 2 in Poser, either via the DSON plugin or by exporting the figure out of DAZ in CR2 format, but it won't work exactly the way it does in DAZ Studio b/c of the different rigging systems. The last figures to be natively compatible across both Poser and DS are the Generation 4 figures (V4, M4, K4), but the weight-mapped versions of those figures work only in Poser.

Maybe this analogy will help: some software comes in versions that run on both Macs and Windows. It's not the exact same piece of software but two versions of it, to accommodate the two different operating systems. Software made only for Macs can't be run on Windows, and running software made only for Windows on a Mac requires a "virtual machine" or other similar interface (and even then, doesn't always work). That's just how it is. That's basically the price of having a free market, where consumer choice drives sales and innovations. If Mac and Windows didn't have each other to compete with, there would be far less innovation on either side! The same is true for Poser and DAZ Studio.

I am aware of the products that convert clothes and hair (which by the way could very well just be built right into the new versions of the software instead of costing hundreds of extra dollars ). Which of the converter products allow you to convert figures made for one program to the other? Which converter allows the Poser figure clothes to fit on the DAZ figures. Nobody needs both DAZ Studio and Poser. If Renderosity is expecting to sell Poser content, it better be usable in DAZ Studio. It’s no secret to anybody that the best Renderosity vendors are now turning up at DAZ selling DAZ Studio content.

Clothing is based on the underlying figure's rigging, so you can't, for example, easily convert clothing for Genesis 8 in DAZ Studio so that it'll work on La Femme in Poser. If I had an outfit for Genesis 8 that I simply must put on La Femme, I'd probably open the outfit's original mesh (along with La Femme's original mesh) in a modeling app, weld it (so that it's no longer broken up into groups), and then adjust the outfit as needed, so that the outfit's body parts cover the figure's body parts in an appropriate way. Then I'd use Poser's Fitting Room to rig the outfit for La Femme, letting it group the mesh automatically.

You ask about clothing converters. Poser ships with Wardrobe Wizard (meaning it's free), and Poser also has an entire "Room" dedicated to giving users the tools to convert clothing from one figure to another: the Fitting Room. The one thing the Fitting Room can't do is convert an outfit that you can't even load into Poser b/c it's DAZ-only. I have no idea how DAZ Studio handles clothing conversions as the only use I have for that software is to export things out of it :-)

Plenty of people have found good reason to use both Poser and DAZ Studio. And plenty of other people have found good reason to use only one but not the other. And that's their choice. Some people also use Carrara, iClone, Blender, Modo, and/or other apps to work with the content available in the marketplace. As PandaB5 pointed out, variety is nice :-)

perpetualrevision posted at 1:02PM Sat, 20 June 2020 - #4392575

CHK2033 posted at 10:11AM Sat, 20 June 2020 - #4392360

**Something else I've never understood is why so many static prop sets are sold as "DAZ Studio only," given that there's nothing about OBJs and textures **

I dont think they will accept it saying Poser as well (the store, the testers) if it isn't properly setup for Poser as well (file structures/ the textures....)

I guess what I mean is: I don't understand why the vendor who created the props wouldn't just set up a Poser version as well, with the caveat that the materials aren't going to look the same as they do in DAZ Studio. If a prop relies mainly on image maps for its color and texture, and not on app-specific nodes (or whatever voodoo makes Iray work), then it's really no trouble to set it up for Poser, even using an old version. UNLESS the prop relies on instancing, dforce, or rigging, that is.

I will happily take freebie props for DAZ Studio and convert them to Poser myself, as it takes only a handful of minutes. But I will not purchase DAZ-only content for conversion just on principle!.

Yes I understand, and I would do the exact same thing as well, but the problem with that is, we know how to do those things, as simple as they may seem, but not everyone's else does. We have all levels here some have a hard enough time just installing the items into poser, or finding where the items is they just installed.

So myself, no offense to any older experienced users of Poser but, I do not pack up things with them in mind, I approach it assuming that the person knows nothing at all about Poser or Studio,and try not to do something where it leaves them trying to figure out how to get it to work inside of the program I claim it works in.

And to answer the other question as to why don't they just create it for both then, Numerous reasons only known to them (they dont know the other program as well/or use it/ or just don't want to/?) My first items here where Poser only, even though I read on some places from studio users that it worked in studio as well and they wondered the same thing, why did I just mark them as Poser Only, Honestly, because that's what I created them in, that's what I knew they worked in and that was the only program I could provide support for (because I did not use Studio or create them in studio or knew anything about studio at the time.)

Pretty sure most of the cases are they just dont know the other program as well and will just stick to what they know.

I got started with Poser 6. Poser 7 was great but everything after that has been a shadow of what Poser once was. My favorite Poser Character still is Terai Yuki, and I'm still fond of Miki and Dawn. I like what is going on with La Femme and her male counterpart but I'm still having trouble with the Dynamic cloth and the fitting room.

I would really like to see both softwares have a healthy share of the market. I really just feel like Poser needs IRay or Octane or some better render engine to be competitive. IRay is so much faster and better looking at this point. There are features of Poser I really love. The interface is more more intuitive, the comic render preview/render is awesome and super fast, but for the photo real looking Renders, it's DS all the way.