Okay, I admit I was going to do a What Feature do you use MOST in Poser, but I decided to turn it around and ask what Feature do you feel is the MOST UNDERUSED in Poser? I was going to rattle off a few features and let you choose among them, but instead, I'll let you tell me.

The Face Room has become the wasteland of Poser. With under-supported figures and the inability to create 3rd party modules for non-legacy figures, it's pretty much a feature that is occupying valuable software space. Imagine what could have been possible if you could create custom morphs for La Femme, L'Homme, Dawn, V4, M4, etc if you had access to developing face module for them. Unless you could revamp the entire aspect of that room to something amazing, it's just a waste.

Ditto on the Face Room. There are lots of specific menu choices I never use, but among the major pieces the Face Room is the least useful.

Yup, Face Room. Never used it and probably never will.

Looks like ditto and yup are taken. The Face Room.

Well, I can't say that because I HAVE used the Face Room to create a new Character called Gwen for Roxie. And truth is, it could be a lot more useful, but it does need to be expanded. Perhaps Bondware can do something about that. Personally, I actually find it harder to use the Wind Force. Haven't been able to get it working right since they first put it in, so I just don't use it. Only thing I find harder to use is magnets.

even before I finished reading the question I knew what most would say, and I agree. the face room. A few use it, but as hborre said, it's too under-supported. Even the last few characters that were supposed in it seemed to have only token support.

The Face Room is based on an ancient version of FaceGen. The latest version of FaceGen is far more useful...

Yep the Face Room

EClark1894 posted at 5:59PM Sat, 20 June 2020 - #4392594

Personally, I actually find it harder to use the Wind Force. Haven't been able to get it working right since they first put it in, so I just don't use it. Only thing I find harder to use is magnets.

Magnets are awful, though there's many old school users who swear by them and scoff at the suggestion they're clunky. Never used wind force, but seems like some do.

I use wind force all the time. It's a good way to get dynamic clothing into interesting configurations, and to keep dynamic hair out of a figure's face.

IMO, the problem with wind force is that it comes in with a ridiculously short range. Like, 0.1 or something like that. That's way too short to actually affect anything. So people try it, can't get it to work, and give up. The default range should be larger. 10, maybe.

I've fooled around in the face room and would probably use it more if it supported the figures I use most. But it doesn't, so I don't.

randym77 posted at 7:16PM Sat, 20 June 2020 - #4392601

I use wind force all the time. It's a good way to get dynamic clothing into interesting configurations, and to keep dynamic hair out of a figure's face.

IMO, the problem with wind force is that it comes in with a ridiculously short range. Like, 0.1 or something like that. That's way too short to actually affect anything. So people try it, can't get it to work, and give up. The default range should be larger. 10, maybe.

I've fooled around in the face room and would probably use it more if it supported the figures I use most. But it doesn't, so I don't.

Apparently, not even La Femme, which is rather odd considering he's Poser's default figure. But I get the Face Room notice that the figure is not supported.

I've never used the Face Room, and probably never will. Other than that, I have no use for the Setup Room either, and only recently started playing in the Fitting Room so I could try refitting clothes from one character to another. I'm not a fan of magnets, though I use Joe/Netherworks Hair Conversion System, which utilizes magnets, but have never tried using it myself. I did use Wind Force a couple of times while beta testing for one of the CAs at HiveWire, but he gave me instructions on how to use it, so it wasn't all that hard.

Other than that, I don't do animations, but then I've never done them in any software, as they're not my thing, as it were.

Given some of the other conversations I've seen here, I'd say the combine figures and reduce polygons features probably don't get used much. Create wave is one I often forget about and I'll bet others do too.

Agree with what everyone is saying about Face Room... the moment I heard it had no V4 or M4 support, it was DOA useless.

Other candidates: Hair Room, Setup Room.

I'd prefer it if Hair Room could be used to make the more simpler, faster-to-render, less memory-consuming, transmap hairstyles quite frankly. Or it should come with a ton of presets for popular hairstyles that you can load in, and then only have to tweak to get a more customized look.

And by this stage in Poser's lifecycle, there should be an Auto-Rigging feature built in to quickly rig up biped figures at the very least.

EldritchCellar posted at 9:08AM Sun, 21 June 2020 - #4392598

EClark1894 posted at 5:59PM Sat, 20 June 2020 - #4392594

Personally, I actually find it harder to use the Wind Force. Haven't been able to get it working right since they first put it in, so I just don't use it. Only thing I find harder to use is magnets.

I use the wind force tool in every (or almost every) cloth simulation. Gives the fabric an realistic touch.

Face room I never used and will never do it.

Magnets are awful, though there's many old school users who swear by them and scoff at the suggestion they're clunky. Never used wind force, but seems like some do.

Ladonna posted at 3:21AM Sun, 21 June 2020 - #4392618

EldritchCellar posted at 9:08AM Sun, 21 June 2020 - #4392598

EClark1894 posted at 5:59PM Sat, 20 June 2020 - #4392594

Personally, I actually find it harder to use the Wind Force. Haven't been able to get it working right since they first put it in, so I just don't use it. Only thing I find harder to use is magnets.

I use the wind force tool in every (or almost every) cloth simulation. Gives the fabric an realistic touch.

In fact, I think that's your render on the index page of the Content Directory right now.

Hmm... maybe I should do another contest.....

I'll add the 44th "me too" about the Face Room. I think I opened it once by accident, but since it never supported the figures I use, I've had no use for it.

I don't use Wind Force often, but when I have used it I found it to be surprisingly simple and easy as a way to get wind "billows" in dynamic and hybrid clothing. I wish it would work on conforming hair!

I've used Magnets to create shaping morphs, and once I understood how they work, I found them not too hard to use (though likely frustrating and clunky for someone who knows how to sculpt). But it was Esha's Grassy Grounds prop set that opened my eyes to the possibilities of using magnets to shape terrains along with fields of grass or flowers. You just add the flat grass or flower fields to the same magnet that's shaping the ground and everything follows along, like the grass and flowers just grew right of the hilly ground!

I've never the Wave deformer, but only b/c I never had a need to distort a figure's arm the way they show in the manual and I don't really know what else it can do! I also don't use Walk Designer or Talk Designer because I don't do animations.

Basically anything that isn't used during "Load, Pose & Render", hell even Debut has unused "Features" as far as the majority of the user base is concerned.

I don't really want to start another thread, but I would like to ask another question. IF it were determined by Bondware that the Face Room was not being used and they asked you, would you prefer Bondware REMOVE the Face Room but REPLACE it with another feature, or would you prefer they just remove the Face Room and NOT replace it with another feature? Why or why not? And for the sake of clarity, I'm only using the Face Room as an example because it seems to be leading in the answers.

Get rid of the Face Room and beef up the Morph Tool. It's useless redundancy.

Since you can't get a figure mesh export out of Poser Scene as unimesh without Zbrush goZ, complicated hoop jumping, or some other exotic script, for many people the Morph brush is the only option for such operations... And this functionality spills over into subdivision level morphs. This option shouldn't be for the few, as in DS HD morphs, but for all.

Poser can only benefit from such an improvement.

To be frank there are mods for Skyrim, made by a couple of modding enthusiasts, with better sculpting capabilities than the morph tool.

Just wanted to clarify a statement made above

"And this functionality spills over into subdivision level morphs. This option shouldn't be for the few, as in DS HD morphs, but for all."

What I mean by this is yes, you can create subdivision morphs with the morph brush in Poser... but being that the morph brush is so primitive, comparitively, in sculpting functionality, this feature suffers. I'm sure that many would say they can work rather comfortably with the Morph brush. And yes, improvements have been made. But compared to sculpting in just about any other software that offers it, the Morph brush is antiquated. The only other option for Subdivision Morphs is GoZ.

One final thought on this. How about a morph room? If the useless Face Room has such a dedicated space in Poser, why not expand the functionality of the morph tool into it's own dedicated space? Everyone that uses Poser uses morphs in one way or the other.

I like dynamic hair, and I use it, though not as often as prop hair. It's hard to beat if you're actually doing animation, or putting figures in positions that most prop hair isn't designed for. (Upside down, swimming underwater, in zero G, etc.)

I do think it needs some updating. In particular, hair shaders that look good in Superfly. The ones that come with Poser are lame.

I would definitely want to keep the face room. While it can't be used on many figures it is great for generating randomised faces for background characters. For those figures it supports it is much quicker and easier to use than the morph tools.

EClark1894 posted at 5:57PM Sun, 21 June 2020 - #4392619

Ladonna posted at 3:21AM Sun, 21 June 2020 - #4392618

EldritchCellar posted at 9:08AM Sun, 21 June 2020 - #4392598

EClark1894 posted at 5:59PM Sat, 20 June 2020 - #4392594

Personally, I actually find it harder to use the Wind Force. Haven't been able to get it working right since they first put it in, so I just don't use it. Only thing I find harder to use is magnets.

I use the wind force tool in every (or almost every) cloth simulation. Gives the fabric an realistic touch.

In fact, I think that's your render on the index page of the Content Directory right now.

Hmm... maybe I should do another contest.....

LOL, yes, . Thanks for putting it up.

Come to think of it, I don't think I ever used the Hair Room or the Setup Room. For hard surface models - and several others - it isn't necessary to use the Setup Room. I rig me figures in the Pose Room and it's a piece of cake.

I've dabbled with the Cloth Room a little but I haven't got the patience to faff about with it. In fact, I haven't got much patience at all these days, which is why I hardly ever bother with human figures now.

Face Room support would be desperately needed for the new flagship figures. It really doesn't look good that they are the ones the program ships with and they cannot be used there. The Cloth Room is great and dynamic is the future, so that would need an update as well. I believe right now the most uniued features are the ones that has not been updated since Poser 7 (like Hair Room).

I think the Face Control chips on LF LH might pose an issue for the Face room. A simple eyelid/eyeball/eyes closed poke fix morph becomes a JCM with the controls.

Most unused feature, the chain break tool??? No idea what it's used for, never seen it mentioned in any forums, but now expect half a dozen people to tell me it's invaluable!

Never used it. I used to know what it does. It's for Faffing About with IK IIRC lol. And apparently extremely useful.

I would say Grouping Tool but it's only because it's underrated... Everytime I ask someone if they tried the grouping tool to quick fix a poke-thru or split a prop in two props or whatever... they're like: "Oh yeah, that's right! You can do that using the grouping tool, I forgot all about it!"

I agree the Face Room you can totally go ahead and turn it into a two-way video chat with other Poser users... or something... to earn its name LOL! I don't think I ever clicked on it... intentionally...

Happy Sunday!

Nails60 posted at 3:48PM Sun, 21 June 2020 - #4392643

Most unused feature, the chain break tool??? No idea what it's used for, never seen it mentioned in any forums, but now expect half a dozen people to tell me it's invaluable!

The Chain Break tool ends the chain of parts affected by the Translate/Pull tools. Basically, it's used to keep the movement of one part of the body from affecting another part, as in a chain, like in IK.

I think the pose room, the library, and the render engines are the least used tools. I'm kidding.

More things I think might not be used much, the select tool, the color tool ( the little bucket on the tool pallet), and the menu choice render>materials which just opens up the materials room.

I'm curious how many of these tools/features people are saying "wait poser has __________?"

Select tool is a lifesaver when loading and exporting many morph targets. In the past there was always the risk of translating slightly when clicking on different body parts in viewport. Much quicker than using the drop downs.

RedPhantom posted at 4:40PM Sun, 21 June 2020 - #4392649

I think the pose room, the library, and the render engines are the least used tools. I'm kidding.

More things I think might not be used much, the select tool, the color tool ( the little bucket on the tool pallet), and the menu choice render>materials which just opens up the materials room.

I actually used to use the color tool all the time in my early days with Poser. It was just quick and easy to change the color of an object. Now, I'm more into using the color wheel or hexidecimals.

I’ve never used the hair room. I created some freebie characters for Pauline and Paul in the face room that turned out fairly well. I doubt those figures get much use (except by me!), so it is condemned to obsolescence if it can’t handle La Femme. I use the setup room frequently to rig clothes and hair that I import as obj’s from DS.

I used to be into making things for Poser. As I said, I made a new character for Roxie using the Face Room. And I used to make clothes for several Poser figures using the Setup Room. I eventually stopped and moved on to Dynamic Clothing, and you can still find some of my stuff for free at Sharecg.com

EldritchCellar posted at 7:00PM Sun, 21 June 2020 - #4392630

How about a morph room? If the useless Face Room has such a dedicated space in Poser, why not expand the functionality of the morph tool into it's own dedicated space? Everyone that uses Poser uses morphs in one way or the other.

I like this idea a lot!! Not to limit the morph brush to a new-and-improved Face Room, of course, but to expand what it can do specifically for morphing facial shapes and expressions. I have often wanted to adjust or make new expressions for figures, but the morph brush just doesn't (yet) have enough features to enable that process easily, at least not for those of us who aren't sculptors. I imagine a talented and patient sculptor can do all kinds of things with a simple round brush with varying degrees of falloff, but I often wish for brushes of other shapes, so that everything I try doesn't end up looking like a giant pimple :-)

If the Face Room was revamped to focus on morphing, not on texturing, and would therefore work with any figure, then it could have some dedicated tools to help with face shaping and expressions. And maybe some presets to help with common tasks, like different ways of adjusting smiles.

I don't know how such a thing would work for figures that have facial chips, but I'll just toss out there that those chips never work for me, mostly b/c things never move in the direction I was aiming for. I'd much prefer being able to work on a morph that I can later dial in (and also later edit, if necessary).

RedPhantom posted at 2:28PM Mon, 22 June 2020 - #4392609

Given some of the other conversations I've seen here, I'd say the combine figures and reduce polygons features probably don't get used much. Create wave is one I often forget about and I'll bet others do too.

The Combine figures & reduce polygons are in my top 3 for features used. Every figure in my stories have been through them.

It would be nice if reduce polygons could reduce by percentage points as well as polygons.

well, for me it does not install on my new desktop(windows 10 pro) and "Poser 11" (not 11.3) said it has expired. did content paradise pull the plug on it?

when I tried to open 11.3 on my old desktop today, it demanded the serial number of which I had already entered previously. does one have to download previously purchased products from Renderosity Marketplace in order for 11.3 to see them? I copied my runtime items and placed in the 11.3 runtime downloads and it does not see anything.

I like La Femme( her legs not posing is a problem) and L' Homme but not the difficulty of using 11.3. I first started with Poser 4 Pro and purchased the new releases to Poser 2014 excluding 6. when I started about the year 2000, I had no clue about Poser. but I was able to pick it P4 Pro up and used it. I have not used 11.3 for one hour yet very much to my dismay . already bought some things for LaFemme and L'Homme of which I was able to use on thing

"Poser 11" (not 11.3) said it has expired. Poser 2014 refused my serial number also. probably 10 AND 12 will do the same thing

I too would say face room. The wind tool in combination with the cloth room is my go-to for any pose on a bed or mattress or any soft ground. Easier to let the prop shape to the figure than pose the figure to suit the prop.

As for the face room in Poser12: that will be something similar to display.land, but steroids added. Poser 12 connects to your smartphone camera, scans your face when you move the camera around, gives you instructions to shoot the base facial expressions and phonemes and mounts the result to LF or LH base figure.

Wowsa!

FVerbaas posted at 5:02PM Wed, 24 June 2020 - #4392990

As for the face room in Poser12: that will be something similar to display.land, but steroids added. Poser 12 connects to your smartphone camera, scans your face when you move the camera around, gives you instructions to shoot the base facial expressions and phonemes and mounts the result to LF or LH base figure.

Is this speculation?

If not. Sounds waaaay gimmicky.

I think he was joking.

Thank God. Imagine me trying to make erotic faces to project onto La Femme LOL.

Best if I just stick with Mudbox ;)

for the record: I have idea whatsoever Poser 12 will feature.

Most underused is the "Make Art" button, since nobody can find it.