Yes, I know, Dawn 2.0 has been "coming soon" for months. But now there's a date, of sorts. Chris said:

We now have a Dawn 2 release candidate as of August 18th. We'll wait til Paul has the Poser conversion done before we open it up for content creators to make extra goodies for about 6 weeks before release.

So, maybe mid-October?

I know, we've all been waiting with baited breath over at HiveWire forums to see her. Now it all depends on how long it takes Paul to get everything set up in Poser. Hopefully not too much longer.

I hope the date doesn't slip too much, or my credit card will melt down, with the traditional Black Friday sales in November. ?

Oh goody!!!!

someone had posted some renders on the old Smith Micro forum that looked incredible. I'm really looking forward to this figure.

Hopefully Chris has learned from the trainwreck that was the Dawn 1.0 launch.

trainwreck?

In any case, Poser is in a different place from that time. As is DS. As is the community.

A cross platform figure, SOA on both platforms.

Tasty :)

I don't know that I'd call it a train wreck, but I think it was a mistake not to have more support for Dawn from the beginning. Supposedly, they were working on the animals instead.

IMO, it really hurt the adoption of Dawn, that there was so little support for her. Particularly morphs. I remember at first, most of the Dawn characters looked alike because there weren't a lot of morphs for her face, and her face was so distinctive, with that long, pointed chin.

Dawn 2 does have a more generic face, from what I've seen.

randym77 posted at 9:59PM Mon, 06 September 2021 - #4426839

I don't know that I'd call it a train wreck, but I think it was a mistake not to have more support for Dawn from the beginning. Supposedly, they were working on the animals instead.

I wouldn't say "instead". I think they were "also" working on the animals, and Dusk, and Baby Luna. I always believed they wanted more than just one character in their marketplace, and they are a very small team, so each product took a long time to get out to the public.

As much as I would like Dawn 2 in my hands right now, I'm also inclined to wait, as experience with the HiveWire figures over the years has shown me the final product is worth the wait.

They said they're giving vendors six weeks to make products for Dawn 2, which sounds promising.

But I also think they should have a bundle of official products, like DAZ does. A standard morph pack or two, and clothing basics (the ultra bodysuit, the fantasy dress, etc.). Relying on vendors to provide that stuff doesn't work as well, because people are less likely to buy it. Or there might be three different versions of the same item, from three different vendors. Having one "official" version makes it a lot easier for vendors and customers to support it.

True, though I think there will most likely be skin textures, poses, and I believe, though I'm not sure, morphs as well. I just don't know if they'll do "separate" morph packs. I also don't know if they'll be including a clothing pack too. I just know what I read on the forum as to who's doing clothing.

We're just going to have to wait and see, and I am hoping there will be more than just Dawn 2 herself.

It would be wonderful to finally see a well-made non-DAZ figure become successful in the Poser world.

I have my doubts, to be honest. Another figure with no doubt limited compatibility with existing figures (unless maybe current Dawn who is rig-wise pretty much an exception) is yet more dilution.

I have not heard of any features that would make her indispensable. Rig is still T-pose so just as (un)suitable to use with dynamic clothing as any existing Poser figure except Ali's Angels. Why do you think these popular G... figures went to an A pose when DForce was about to come? Why do you think the Gxx series were introduced with backward compatibility options?

I did put some cards on Paul/Pauline when she came out, made investments, only to see them trashed when Rendo took over and showed reluctant to even admit the figures exist, let alone provide tools to re-use content. ​I do not think they will give new Dawn any priority over or next to the Gaul figurehead couple.

**I sincerely hope that time will prove me wrong, though. **

Unless Dawn2 comes with uv alternative mapping and material definitions to seamlessly load textures made for some popular existing figures and on-the-fly conversions and refits of conformers I see no reason to invest in Dawn2. I will make a Dawn2 plugin for the Prefitter when requested, and, when MD fixes their support for Python in MD10, a Dawn2 base for the MDBridge.

FVerbaas posted at 11:20AM Tue, 07 September 2021 - #4426876

I have not heard of any features that would make her indispensable. Rig is still T-pose so just as (un)suitable to use with dynamic clothing as any existing Poser figure except Ali's Angels.

I work with dynamic clothing all the time on figures in the default T-pose, and have not had any issues in the Cloth Room with Poser versions 9 through 12.

Needless to say, the Cloth Room itself could use an overhaul, but changing the necessary default pose to an A-pose, isn't one I'd even consider, and yes, I tried playing in MD, but it was just too expensive for what I would use it for, so never got involved with it.

Seconding Miss B for clarity: as an end user, dynamic clothing, when properly made, works just fine from TPosed figures with no issue in Poser 11 and 12.

I can't speak for creators, but look at how cleverly the updated dynamics system worked out in the Other Software, and people still think dynamics are the devil in Poser.

Having a default of a t-pose doesn't mean that is the pose you have to use for your dynamic clothing. I have seen dynamic clothing made to fit an a-pose for figures that have default t-pose. They just come with a pose file to start you out. It wouldn't be hard to create an a-pose in Poser and save it out quickly.

But like Miss B and Rhia, I use dynamics all the time and don't have issues with the armpits, except in final poses, and it doesn't matter what the starting pose was.

Let's not start disparaging a character before we can even try using it. We may have dome previews, but we don't know what the final product is until they release it.

Dynamic clothing has always worked fine in "T" pose or any other pose you care to use. I have used it since it was included in Poser. Will it be updated? Not a snowball's chance. Size 8 licensed their simulation software to Poser. They are now gone into the either as far as I know so getting an update to the core is pretty unlikely. As for Rendo promoting Dawn? Why not? They promote lots of artists and their products. There will be native versions for each of the competing software platforms. Use the one that suits your platform needs. I personally see this as a bonus for dynamic/DForce garment creators. Same obj(s) and no software specific rigging required. iRay, Superfly, Cycles; all going to use the same textures maps for the cloth. Only difference will be scaling the obj(s) for each. Time for clothing designers to make a little scratch off customers on both sides of the debate. There are folks in this thread that already take the base obj cloth files from software to software to do dynamic/DForce cloth simulations. Remember vendors. One product, both softwares, no figure specific B.S. required. Go forth and cash in.

At the risk of derailing this thread even further, just because Size 8 is gone, doesn't mean the cloth room can't get an overhaul. They just won't be able to use the current code. There are plenty of programs out there that will drape an object like cloth which indicates it can be done without Size 8's code. It would take a lot of work, but it could be done.

I look forward to Dawn's release and seeing what she can do. Always happy to have another figure. I use so many. It's nice to have a variety of them.

I don't care for the A pose for dynamic clothing. If you're fitting the clothing to a different or highly morphed figure, the T-pose is a lot easier. The scaling is straightforward in the t-pose.

I'd rather see the hair room improved than the cloth room. The cloth room works pretty well. The hair room has some serious bugs.

I think Rosity will support Dawn 2. Dawn 1 is included free in Poser. They're clearly working together now.

1 - It was not my intention to initiate a derailment discussing default poses and cloth room. I will happily launch a separate thread to explain my preference.

2 - I do not have high hopes about positive effects of dual platform. Even for props, where the only difference lies in shader definition, DAZ vendors hardly ever care to provide Poser definitions. 'You can export a Poser definition from DAZ'. Yeah, sure. For rigged items I do not expect better. Also compromises made for dual platform means less than optimal for any of the two platforms.

3 - A lot of items come free with Poser, but that does not mean Rendo is expected to make any efforts to promote or support them in the future. They are what they are. Cut off from both the marketplace and the freebie collection the probability that new users link them with supporting items is small. One other thing that DAZ does better. Content that comes with their app is just added to your account.

Please keep this thread focused on Dawn2. My above remarks pertain to how the situation affects the figure and its future. Any other topics better separate thread.

Dawn I was one of the worst designed Poser figures I'Ve ever had the misfortune to work with. The default "looks" were frumpy, the mesh geometry was primitive (No built in muscle edgelloops, not enough "crotch density" to even sculpt rudimentary genitals.

The touted "works in both programs" selling point boiled down to the fact that she was rigged in DAZ Studio and then just auto- exported as a Poser figure without any special adjustments whatsoever to accomodate Poser's rigging peculiarities.

Meaning that she did bend poorly in Studio, but even worse in Poser.

I still wasted a couple hours to fix at least some of her major problems, but wasn't allowed to distribute the fixes: https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2871446

Sooo.... No, I don't think I'm in danger of getting too exited anytime soon about the imminent release of another figure designed by the same creative team behind Dawn 1.

But, hey, whatever floats yer boat. If your hobby is spending money on just another "unsupportable" Poser mesh, more power to you. ;-)

Me, I rather spend my time trying to improve and maximize the useability of tried and true meshes I already have in my runtime.

But enough of that. I don't want to derail this thread. Sorry that I can't be more positive about Dawn II, but really folks... Right after "Renda" and "Eve", "Dawn I" was probably the biggest failure this little corner of the 3D universe has ever seen. (Especially after the over-the-top hype we've been bombarded with.)

I admit I really was exited myself at the prospect of getting a new Poser figure by the designer who gave us the wonderfull Michael I/II (And Steph I) mesh.

But as they say...Fool me once... ;-)

I'm more looking forward to Dusk 2.0 so when Dawn 2 hits hopefully the momentum will continue and he will follow quickly since they are Unimesh and share ALMOST the same rigging.  While I like La'Femme and L'Homme I'm more of a HIVE person in the long run.  

Chris said on Monday that the Poser version is almost done.

For awhile they were flirting with the idea of releasing Dawn 2 and Dusk 2 at the same time, but I think they've given up on that. Hopefully there won't be too long a delay between them, though.

As opposed to the original Dawn, Dawn 2 was created with direct participation from the community and vendors, and that alone makes her something special. I have personally participated in every aspect of her design, from the geometry, topology, edge flow, grouping, skeleton, and rigging. This is a figure that has been redesigned from ground up based on 7 years experience over the first Dawn, where no stone was left unturned. Even her fingernails and toenails were redesigned, now being double-sided for better texturing, and detached for better morphing.

Her posing quality is miles better than Dawn1, even without JCMs added. That alone speaks for the quality of her new topology, grouping, and rigging refinement. When a figure can pose well without pose correction JCMs, that speaks for itself. A well designed figure only needs JCMs to do very little work on pose correction, and that's what we get with Dawn2. As opposed to LF, she can be sculpted at base resolution without requiring any subdivision. I made a few body morphs for her, and her topology made things fall into place where they needed to be. From first hand experience, I can attest that sculpting Dawn2 was easier and better than it was with Dawn1. 

Like mentioned above, Dawn2 has a more generic default face, free of the strong features we had with the original Dawn. This makes it easier to create character morphs for her that have a unique shape, distinct and original. This part was suggested by 3DUniverse, who is known for making some of the most unique character morphs in this market. That's the advantage of listening to the community and vendors when designing the figure, so it becomes what they need it to be. 

One of my favorite change was the addition of the metatarsal bone on the feet. This allows for a more organic and natural feet posing that was not possible with the original Dawn. This was one of my personal requests, and to make this more vendor friendly, this is a ghost bone, meaning it doesn't require a dedicated extra group on the feet. In other words, this makes the feet more posable, but has zero impact when making shoes for Dawn2, which is good for both users and vendors. That's the kind of attention this figure's design has. 

Another of my personal requests was the addition of the new pectoral bones, which were missing in Dawn1. This can cut down on the amount of extra breast posing morphs we had to deal with the original Dawn. Posing with bones is not only faster, but also more intuitive. In addition, Dawn2 will be Hivewire3D's very first figure to ship with a facial rig, which is a big improvement over the original Dawn.

Having that said, any comparisons with the original Dawn would be rather pointless, because Dawn2 was completely redesigned from ground up. A lot was learned from 7 years of real world experience from Dawn1, where the idea was to learn from the mistakes, and make this a much better base to work with for both users and vendors. 

Thanks for the insight, Ken! Sounds promising. 

I do hope they release her with a clothing bundle. I think that goes a long way toward building support. Having an "official" imprimatur makes it more likely vendors and freebie makers will support it. DAZ's bodysuit isn't the best one available, but it's the one everyone uses. The one you need if you want to make V4 into a superhero or Star Trek officer or gaming character.

I believe they'll be including a character skin set, and a set of base poses, but not sure if they (HW3D) will be including any clothing sets initially.

That said, however, I know a number of HW's CAs (vendors) are working on a good many clothing products for Dawn 2.0, which I believe they'll be introducing at the same time Dawn 2.0 will make her appearance.

@Ken1171_Designs

Right now my only concern is that the vendors making stuff for Dawn 2 will ignore Poser users and only make stuff for DS. Big issue with Dawn 1 that still goes on to this day with new character morphs and stuff that only work in DS. No, I'm not going to load DS and convert something that should already be made for Poser. 3D-Universe might be a great vendor but they abandoned Poser a long time ago and afaik don't make any Poser compatible products any more.

As I mentioned above, there are several HW vendors who are creating for Dawn 2.0, and I know of at least 2, whom I beta test for, are only Poser users, so there products will only be for Poser.

That said, HW creates all it's characters for both apps so, of course, there will be those creating only for DS, and there will be some who will create for both.

It is market driven. If vendors will only make content, or majority of content for Dawn 2's DS version, Poser user will not use Dawn 2.

We don't know  yet. But as a Poser user, if i don't see decent morphs, skins, clothes and shoes right out of the gate made for her Poser version, i see no reason to get her. I supported Dawn and Dawn SR as much as i could, but the majority of her stuff ended up being DS. 

It's the sad reality of how divided the market is these days. (And dont ask me why my post is in different fonts and bold, the new forum version is *hell* on a phone to type into, or edit.)

I'm excited about Dawn 2, and will get her. How much I'll actually use her depends on how much support she gets. 

I like La Femme, her default look is very cute, but she doesn't have enough support for me to use her much. Not a lot of morphs or textures, and not much clothing if you're not looking for pinup or club wear.

I do really like the dress Glitterati made for her, but I think when she pulled it from the market, that ended its chances of getting a lot of support. Even though it's free now...vendors seem hesitant to make add-ons for freebies.

I'm excited about Dawn 2, and will get her. How much I'll actually use her depends on how much support she gets. 

I like La Femme, her default look is very cute, but she doesn't have enough support for me to use her much. Not a lot of morphs or textures, and not much clothing if you're not looking for pinup or club wear.

I do really like the dress Glitterati made for her, but I think when she pulled it from the market, that ended its chances of getting a lot of support. Even though it's free now...vendors seem hesitant to make add-ons for freebies.

Same here, randym77.  I've been pretty much checking out the BTS, and hoping that it becomes a success - finger's crossed.  

JB

..............Nov 22 YAWN 2.0 vaporware alert nothing to see here move along folks

In time. In time.

A month ago, Chris said:

"Yet waiting on some updating and conversion of textures and materials settings that have been created for Dawn 2. Paul is currently working on this for us.

We're wanting to make sure everything looks good for both Poser and Studio. This is the current focus right now. All rigging is completed. All morphs are completed as well."

I love my La Femme well enough and I'm not really hanging on a new figure, but I keep wondering: how does Poserdom expect creators to make nicer, better things with an attitude like this? You haven't even actually tried the figure - she's not even out yet - and this is the attitude she's received with! Of course she'll be a trainwreck if potential buyers are like this.

As I said...fool me once.

"Another of my personal requests was the addition of the new pectoral bones, which were missing in Dawn1. This can cut down on the amount of extra breast posing morphs we had to deal with the original Dawn. Posing with bones is not only faster, but also more intuitive. In addition, Dawn2 will be Hivewire3D's very first figure to ship with a facial rig, which is a big improvement over the original Dawn.

Having that said, any comparisons with the original Dawn would be rather pointless, because Dawn2 was completely redesigned from ground up. A lot was learned from 7 years of real world experience from Dawn1, where the idea was to learn from the mistakes, and make this a much better base to work with for both users and vendors. "

And just by this I already know that Dawn 2 will be absolutely useless for me.

"Ghost bones" and a "facial rig" are some of the dumbest things some people "invented" for Poser rigging.

Look, some people actually do their own posing in Poser (instead of buying pre-made stuff). So ghost bones are a big annoyance because you can't easily select them just like actual bones. You have to constantly scroll down an actor list to select a ghost bone.

Wheras with a figure without ghost-bones, you can easily pose each actor just by clicking on them with your mouse.

Face-rigs are also utter nonsense. DAZ "invented" them because they wanted to pander Genesis off to the "Big Boy" Studios.

A strategy that utterly failed.

I want a Poser figure to be simple, sturdy and easily accessible.

I want a Poser figure to play on Poser's strenghts, but not to succumb to some arbitrary "professional standards".

So, again, here is my "recipe" for the perfect Poser figure:

1. Built in muscle-edgeloop mesh topology, as Poser can easily handle tris and poles, and this saves a lot of processing power and makes sculpting so much easier for hobbyists.

2. Simple, but efficient mapping. There used to be a time where we had tons and tons of DIY-made textures available because making your own textures was so easy and fun, everyone could do it.

3. NO GHOST BONES. There is absolutely, positively no use anymore for ghost bones, now that we have weightmapping and easy JCM creation. Ghost bones are a kludge that was needed back in the dark ages of spherical rigging.

4. NO FACIAL RIGS. I want a POSER figure, not a figure that was designed along some arbitrary PRO standards. Facial rigs are good for animations done with professional software for movie studios.

They are just an unecessary overcomplication for Poser hobbyists. Everything a face rig can do, can be more easily done with a morph. We developed tons of tools during the last decades to make morph creation and handling easy and accessible even for beginners.

5. NO CROSS COMPATIBILITY. Dawn I was claimed to be "Rigged for Poser". The truth was, that Hivewire rigged Dawn for DAZ-Studio and then just exported her, relying on DAZ-Studios rudimentary export tools.

Poser is already commercially dead. All the quality vendors voted with their feet long ago.

This is mostly because of the stupidity and stubbornness of Poser's previous owners. Instead of wasting money and time shoehorning yet another render engine into Poser, they should have used these resources to give us a professionally designed, officially backed set of figures.

Or even better bring the meshes we already had to a modern standard.

Instead they treated the meshes like an afterthought and hoped "the community" would sort it all out by themselve.

So we got a slew of half-a**ed "Vicky-Killers", all pretty much vanity projects without any thought about actual usability.

Poser is a hobbyist app. It's great strenght used to be its acessibility. All you needed was a notepad and maybe a modeller like Wings3D to be truly creative.

This accessibility is completely gone, by bowing to "professional standards".  And with it is the community spirit.

Ironically, with the community spirit gone, so is its commercial appeal.

Anyway, I have absolutely no skin in this game. I own Poser 11, but PP 2014 is my daily workhorse. I do my own figures based on

Dork, Posette/NEA, Don, Judy, MIKI I, M2, V2, M3, V3, David, M4LOD, V4LOD and the Kids4 meshes.

I don't do Supahfly. Much too grainy, takes forever and not intuitive at all. (Not to mention that if I want to render with Cycles, I just go to the original)

BTW, I said these same things since Vicky 4 was introduced!

So yeah, no need to issue a poorly made figure and waste 7 years to get some "real world experience".

Instead you could just have asked me, as I can now look back on 21 yrs of experience and hard work to create better, more realistic and still "hobbyist friendly" Poser figures.

;-)

This, pretty much, is the main problem. Many people here, the (previous) owners of Poser especially, had a problem with Poser being a hobbyist app.

The wanted to get rid of the dirty, unwashed masses, and instead playing with the "big boys".

The problem is, without good figures, Poser stopped being fun for many people.

The Poser community is now a barren wasteland.

And the last thing we need is just another "pro-features" figure that on the one hand is too complicated to be fun to tinker with, yet not good enough to justify all that complication.

Genesis 8 is also way too complicated for my taste, because DAZ fell into the same trap as Poser.

But here all the "high tech" is well hidden "under the hood", and DAZ has created a lot of tools to modify the Genesis mesh.

Still, the divide between "Professional Vendors" and simple "Users" is much more strickt in the DAZ-community, compared to how it was with Poser.

We had professional vendors, simple amateurs, but also a lot of people willing to get truly creative by themselves.

And even if it was something as simple as tinting a texture and releasing it as a freebie.

Poser is "Lo Tech".

It always was, it always will be.

The moment we stopped embracing it, the moment we thought we could sacrifice it's DIY-Spirit in the name of "professionalism",

the moment it's downfall began.

That's why I stick with my "Lo Tech" figures. (With a bit of "mid tech" weightmapping and JCMs sprinkled in)

:-)

Millennium's are still on top for Poser due the versatile offers over the past decades 

Most La Femme and L'Homme dolls look like Botox injected Characters, must be caused by Chirurgical changed Influencer's ! Guess it is due the Lack of Creators.

Evolution was very Promising would of been a top notch model, here again a lack of Creators that could of supported her, or a group that tried to block popularity for another Model release :)

Dawn.2 might be Promising but as we see again a campaign starts to block Popularity, Might be the fear that the Botox Femme gets some concurrence with a more natural looking one! 

Dawn is handled the same way like Femme at the time, it was also pretended that she is going to be top notch way before release. It is understandable that a community places hope on a new Doll if all previous seem to fail with the lack of support they are getting . For my Part as long as La Femme looks like a Botox Queen I do not have any Interest to support her, going with the hope that the next Incoming will get a deserved support, just like V4 did for the past Decades. 

Maybe they'll put handles on her boobs, like a lot of clothing has.  :-D  Actually, it looks like someone over there is working on a script that lets you pose the face rig and ghost bones by dragging dots with your mouse.

And I've no doubt there will be still be breast morphs, because, well, Poser.

Dawn was always supposed to be cross-platform, and I would guess more of Hivewire's customers are DS users rather than Poser users. She was never going to be a Poser-only figure. Users are probably used to facial rigs by now, if DAZ has them.

I really liked the renders Cath (MEC4D) posted of Dawn 2 and Dusk 2. She's created ethnic characters and textures for them that look fantastic.

I am not really surprised that there are posts stating that Poser is dead, after all Poser demise has been predicted ever since I started using it over twenty years ago.   What I do take exception to is the claim that all the quality vendors have voted with their feet.  True many very good vendors moved away from Poser but by no means all.  I find enough quality Poser content to buy each month and still have a wish list here that would cost me over $700 to clear.  It is also possible to find new and quality content over at Daz if you look carefully.

Then again what do I know I have been using Dawn SE in Poser for years now while many still believe that Dawn does not work in Poser at all.

Wait, what? Why would anyone believe Dawn doesn't work in Poser?

I agree modern figures are quite 'heavy' and it would be good to have a more lightweight version. Poser allows one to adapt the figures to specific needs:

- users who do mot like handles and ghost bones can easily take them out and when the resulting bending is not satisfactory add their own JCM's and magnets.

- likewise for face rigs

Poser does not complain when it receives pose information for bones that are not in the figure posed, so simplified figures remain completely compatible with the 'full' figure.  If there is a demand for simplified versions, he who makes one will have a proficient store product.

What matters for me is uv compatibility with figures for which there are a lot of skin textures available.

randym77 posted at 11:27 AM Tue, 23 November 2021 - #4430804

Wait, what? Why would anyone believe Dawn doesn't work in Poser?

And just by this I already know that Dawn 2 will be absolutely useless for me.

"Ghost bones" and a "facial rig" are some of the dumbest things some people "invented" for Poser rigging.

Look, some people actually do their own posing in Poser (instead of buying pre-made stuff). So ghost bones are a big annoyance because you can't easily select them just like actual bones. You have to constantly scroll down an actor list to select a ghost bone.

Wheras with a figure without ghost-bones, you can easily pose each actor just by clicking on them with your mouse.

... I don't even know how to say.

Sir, you can click and drag face chips. Easily. Just like any bone. Can do with all of the La Femme expression parts. And certainly easier than dial spinning for expressions.

Obviously, I know nothing about figure creation, but it sounds pretty easy. Do we think a weekend would be enough to make my own, or should I take a week off from work?

Locking this thread, it is not going anywhere productive.