There is a fact that, Poser is one of the worst 3D program now. It was one of the best for it's purposes but sadly it's not today. The development is ultra slow, there is very limited new content and even old content is expensive to buy at certain places. As Poser 11 was very not-user-friendly and got weird bugs, Poser 12 is just some fixes but most of the things are dated/not working. The few new guides/tutorials are ultra simple and bland and better ones are from poser 7 era.

So the question is, why is this program still not free at all? I am using Poser since 5 and as an animator, I did not see any animation from poser for years. I got hopes to have this program get better with time even it's slow progress but as I see, Blender will get all the poser things way before poser gets on feet again.

At least make it free and let the community grow.. I really don't see any reason to pay for this program at this state even for 1-2 years with the development/progress speed. 

There is NO free 3D program: at one moment, you pay, be it by the services, the plugins, the advertising or its market.
This is a global rule, for absolutely all items you can find on any market: nothing is 100% free, and it's even more true with markets that are tied to crypto-nightmares...

Something free has always been already paid.

Google, Facebook, Twitter everything free work this way.

Y-Phil posted at 7:26 AM Wed, 1 June 2022 - #4439389

There is NO free 3D program: at one moment, you pay, be it by the services, the plugins, the advertising or its market.
This is a global rule, for absolutely all items you can find on any market: nothing is 100% free, and it's even more true with markets that are tied to crypto-nightmares...

Something free has always been already paid.

Google, Facebook, Twitter everything free work this way.

You did not answer my question as I don't ask the philosophy behind free things in capitalism. But you are asking same question with your own words, why is Poser not "free but not free" already?

Yes, DS is 'free', but DAZ are 'content sellers', their figures are expensive. Think free shaving handles but pricey disposable blades. Yes, you can find lots of freebies there if you watch like a cat, but most are add-ons to add-ons to $$ purchases. And, too many of their budget items come with 'gotchas', like their discounted legacy products that say 'templates available', but don't due age of model and/or forum culls. Oops...

There are many DS freebies etc here at Rendo', over at eg SCG, EE and the like, but...

I began with Poser_3 'free' off a mag's cover-disk, bought #4, was moving to #7 when a multi-HDD disaster and family priorities took me out for almost a decade. Got discounted #10, soon moved to #11. The legacy of previous owners' neglect was glaringly obvious: There's still UI bugs & quirks I remember un-fondly from #4...

IMHO, Rendo' are doing the best they can to untangle the many, deep legacy issues, drag Poser " kickin' & screamin'  " into contention with Unity, XNA/Lara etc etc. I reckon DAZ is determined to move away from Poser-compatibility, and each generation of 'Genesis' makes it worse.

Two things:
When Poser gets 'Unimesh' working, which will be no small feat (*), that opens a window to 'modern' rigging. Then, eg FBX figures may become truly inter-operable.

I've found an easy route from rigged XPS to FBX via free Noesis. It usually 'plays well-ish' with Poser_11. Is there such from MMD's rigged PMX without a total re-build ??

--

*) Long ago and far away, I used to code '6502' for fun, wrote robust 'utility' software for my lab in several BASICs. A wary amateur, I knew my limits, crafted 'clean code'...

First of all, I am an animator working full time at Poser. So I am using poser 10 hours per day. So I know poser, I know daz, I know others, I know the history and I know capitalism.

So, I got another explanation but not an answer. They are working on Poser, good.. but time is running. Poser is forgotten-ware already as I don't see anything from anyone at anywhere.. and there is no reason to buy Poser today if you are someone who is interested at 3D for any reason. Making poser not free, you just stop the communities to join.

As Renderocity marketing is about 10-15 years old with mails and a moderate forum without any proper live channels like discord, it becomes more harder to get new people.

IF poser gets somewhere, someday, all others would be miles away already.

I am at Poser side and I want to able to use it with proper content and program. We don't have both today. I use modified V4, Shasa-16 version which is way better at anything from that Le Famme thing.. Animation and IK systems are not working as I am losing tons of time just to correct feet on the ground..

I don't compare or talk about Daz3D.. it's an old discussion.. they won years ago, there is nothing to discuss.. But even Blender starts to bring pose saving, human creations and it gets better and easier everyday.

Why does Poser not have proper tutorials for years? Someone will pay for a bad, dated product to get, he won't able to find proper new content and there is no tutorials to explain how things work on it.. Am I the only person who finds that absurd? 

This question has been asked hundredth of times.

DS is free, but free DS is very far from Poser in terms of tools. consider DS + equivalents tools such as those included in Poser.

Y-Phil posted at 3:05 PM Wed, 1 June 2022 - #4439427

This question has been asked hundredth of times.

DS is free, but free DS is very far from Poser in terms of tools. consider DS + equivalents tools such as those included in Poser.

Why do you tell me that Daz is free? I don't talk about Daz, I don't care Daz. Please don't change the topic.

So if asked so many times, what is the answer? 

Why is Poser not free when we got Blender, Unreal Engine, Unity and tons of products are free. 

Tools at poser are outdated already, mostly bugged or you need to know exactly how it works..

On the other hand, today, Poser failed so badly as it does make morphs unusable at some models if you save the project when those models are invisible. Again, I try to save my animation pose of V4 to library with all ticks on, but it refuse to save the size parameters of body parts.. Why? Because it's buggy and it does not work as intended.. What do you try to defend against me, a broken and expensive product?

If you know poser well enough and you think it works fine, go make some tutorials.. all the old experienced guys here does not have even a tutorial video... only some wall of texts time to time which you already need experience to understand it..

Try to make a single animation with IK first then talk to me too about your poser with equivalents tools..

First V4 is so old I'm actually ashamed that poser stile bothers to support her.

Second if you already have a version of Poser than it IS free, just don't bother upgrading to any newer versions.

Third if you are so sure that the that the other programs you mentioned as being "free" are so much better then why are you still trying to work in Poser? AND complaining about it when you can just change programs?

And Finally if you are so disappointed by Renderosity as a whole, why are you even still here?

Have a great Day

I see that we're back in that time of the year when people who are never in the poser forums come to randomly complain about poser again. Do you guys get a salary to do it or something? It's getting really boring by now.

Oh, you know. New release work was discussed which would support Unimesh. This must hurt someone.

I see that, you created a temple here with probably 50+ years old fanboys with female avatars :)... No answer for any critic questions, just harassments. You can't even see whats going on out there.. 

Fine.. Just continue to live at your little corner, happily forever. Close your ears to any questions that the answers would hurt your old feelings...

"First V4 is so old I'm actually ashamed that poser stile bothers to support her." Just I laughed that so hard.. Poser does not support anything for a decade, my friend. V4 supported by fans as it's still the best model for Poser. 

your replies are sad and pathetic when you try to act funny or cool.. 

bye..

I see that, you created a temple here with probably 50+ years old fanboys with female avatars :)... 

Calm down, every-one !! Please !!

Rendo' & Co have a dire legacy of neglect to untangle, no thanks to the 'Old Owners' who saw it as a commodity rather than an eco-system.

Upside, 'Unimesh support' touches so many aspects of core-code that it must come via a massive 'Spring Clean'.

Which also offers an opportunity to 'Do the Needful' and add 'hooks' to provide future facilities such as, well, browse the 'P_12 Wishlist' for inspiration.

FWIW, V4 may be a couple of LODs down on the current 'Genesis' crew, but both have their place in CGI...

Legacy models ? Yeah, I've several terabytes of them --figures, props, accessories etc etc-- some from before P3 and 'RuntimeDNA'. Funnily enough, a lot of them have similar LOD to recent ports you see from XNA/Lara, SFM, MMD, Mixamo etc etc.

I began with 3DS --static, hues-- to accessorise my 'Classic' FP3D 'Home Design / Architecture' suite for a Medieval-ish look. P3 had figures that could be 'posed', however clunkily, and could use my collection of props. I still collect such, though current challenge is the oft-exasperating rigging differences between Autodesk and 'Open' FBX formats...

Um, is there a convenient workflow between an MMD 'rigged' PMX and something Poser will load ? Without total re-build / re-rig ??

I've sorta-solved for XPS...

drages posted at 1:07 AM Thu, 2 June 2022 - #4439463

"First V4 is so old I'm actually ashamed that poser stile bothers to support her." Just I laughed that so hard.. Poser does not support anything for a decade, my friend. V4 supported by fans as it's still the best model for Poser. 

Most figures with enough polygons in their face can be morphed in a dedicated morphing app.

I have morphs of the Poser 4 Dork that are prettier than most Vickys.

Most figures look more or less OK if just standing around and with a nice texture on them.

*

But this is Poser. A hobbyist app for pople that can not morph from or texture from scratch.

They need a figure that looks good out of the box and/or comes with enough morphs to be adapted to whatever the customer needs.

They need a figure that can bend in a realistic manner, because a lot of time "standing around and looking pretty" won't do.

*

So why I am so dead set against La Femme as the "Face" of Poser?

Here's why:

1. Her default shape looks very strange. I now "thighgap" is en vogue right now, but L'Femme looks almost like an alien.

Even though I am no friend of V4's strange triangular thigh shape, La Femmes looks even more unnatural.

They are almost twice as deep as they are wide!

Before I pose her, this is the number of JCM's that La Femme uses in her rig:

Shin: 2x3

Thigh: 2x8

Hip: 10

Waist: 10

Abdomen: 8

Chest: 16

Neck: 14

Collar: 2x8

Shoulder: 2x10

Remember: JCM's are bad. They complicate the cr2, they use up resources, they make cloth design harder.

They should only be used when absolutely necessary.

And this is the number of JCM's I used for my weightmapped copy of V417K shown above:

0

(Yes, ZERO)

So, let's see what we've got here:

First a full sidebend:

L'Femme shows a bulge on the inside of the thigh while V4WM's is nicely flat.

Then a half / half pose:

That's some nasty deformations La Femme develops here, despite her gazillon of JCM's. Ouch!

Now the piece de resistance. A full frontbend Yoga pose with legs crossed behind the head:

Remember that my V4WM does not use A SINGLE JCM to do this. Yet she looks way more natural even in this extreme pose.

Now Imagine how a professionally made and rigged Poser figure could bend!

*

Well, are at least the expressions any good?

Well, here is La Femme's default smile:

Need I to say more? (And I haven't even mentioned her lack of proper mesh topology that makes detailed figure sculpts impossible)

L'Femme is not what I consider a quality figure. She's not even remotely suited to be the "Face of Poser".

Looking at her, I feel actually ashamed to call myself a Poser Artist.

If she'd be a freebie, I wouldn't even bother downloading her.

*

I can respect the sheer effort and time it takes to create a Poser figure from scratch.

But she is so flawed that she is beyond fixing.

*

I now some members here make it a point to "support" each and any figure that someone creates for Poser, come hell or high water.

This is fine and well, as long as these figures aren't supposed to represent Poser and entice new customers to pick up Poser as a tool for their hobby.

Accuse me of being "negative" all you want, but this relentless support of even the most flawed figures is a disservice to both Poser and this community.

This refusal to acknowledge that there IS a problem, is exactly what brought us in the position we are now in.

If we want Poser to survive, we need better figures.

MUCH better figures.

*

But we'll never get them as long we settle for something like La Femme.

We deserve better than this.

Quote:
"Remember: JCM's are bad. They complicate the cr2, they use up resources, they make cloth design harder."

I can see your point, but I still disagree.
With nowadays computer powers, I don't think much of resources anymore. 
Unless you'll have a well developed AI driven joint system, there always will be the needs for JCMs.
As far as I know, not even professional CG figures in the movie industry are JCM free.
The point is, that the figure software should automatically transfer those JCMs to clothes, without the user having to think about it. 
Some other consumer applications are quite good at that.  
I agree, that La Femme is a complete fail - again.
At this moment Dawn 2 is about to be released SOOOON ;-) .
I was not impressed by Dawn at all. At least previews of Dawn 2 do actually look quite promising.
Let's see...

Oh, I'm not against JCM's at all. My V4WM shown above is far from "perfect", and sure can use a few.

I just think that one should first try to do get as far as possible by refining weight- and bulgemaps, before adding a JCM.

Personally I prefer "Full-body-pose" JCM's. When I make an "extreme" pose like above, I create a matching JCM that fixes the whole body and save it within the pose file.

That way if I use that pose file, all problems get automatically fixed, including flesh deformations

This "Brute force" method avoids any complicated "matrix-like" JCM tech inside the cr2.

(I like to keep things as simple as possible. For example, I just discovered that the "native" Poser Genesis I and II figures I made a couple years ago for PP 2014 won't work in Poser 11 anymore. They load, but loose their UV's when you add another figure and once you delete them, make Poser 11 crash!)

But that's probably not a solution viable for the average / beginner / user.

*

Yeah, Dawn.

I had really high hopes for her, given that she was developed by the same guy who created the wonderfull Michael I/2 mesh as well as Stephanie I.

But when I saw her mesh topology, I was shocked how primitive it was, compared to Michael.

Heck, even the Poser 4 figures have a more elaborate mesh!

Anyway, I tried to at least fix her rigging and her homely default body shape and face.

Looks like my original Renderosity post "From Dawn to Danielle" has been lost so allow me to re-post the pictures I made of my fix.

Her problem was that she was actually rigged INSIDE DAZ Studio and the Poser version was just an automated export.

A few hours of native Poser rigging would have at least fixed the major flaws, as my Danielle character prooved.

Anyway, I wasn't allowed to distribute my cr2 fix for free, so it was "Bye, bye Dawn" for me.

*

Understandably, my hopes towards "Dawn 2.0" are quite low now, but we'll see.

Hope springs eternal, as they say.

;-)

Upps, forgot to show "Danielles' new body shape.

Left original Dawn, right SP3.

Here it is:

Joe, your diatribe against LF makes no sense in this thread. The point here was "Poser does not support anything for a decade", implying that there was never new tech in Poser since V4. I showed one example that that claim is just not true - unlike V4, we now have figures that are (natively) weight mapped, with face rigging, pose chips, Superfly-ready. 

You hate LF, we know, it doesn't matter here at all.

By the way, on the "dedicated morphing app": Blackhearted made La Femme's Femme Fatale morph set entirely inside Poser, with its morph tools. Again, it doesn't change anything that you hate LF - it's just an example that yes it can be done and yes Poser has new and good tools, people just REFUSE TO USE THEM.

I don't "hate" La Femme.

She is not a human being.

She is a virtual tool to create art. (Or kitsch, or pr0n, or just having fun with)

The only problem I have is that people think that, despite having paid for Poser, I'm supposed to spend time fixing her numerous flaws, while Studio users can use G8 right out of the box and have much superior results.

It's like selling me a car with half an engine, and then telling me that it's my fault that the car won't run properly, because I always could have fixed it myself.

'

That's not how the world works.

Given my rigging and morphing skills, I could easily improve La Femme in a couple of days.

But there are so many flaws with her, the over-complicated JCM riddled rigging, the unnecessary face and pose chips (What's wrong with good old morphs?) and most of all the complete lack of muscular edgelooping, that I wouldn't know where to start.

Some figures simply are beyond fixing.

*

And again, why should I have to?

Studio is free, but I have to pay for Poser.

Yet Studio comes with a high quality figure I can use immediately while Poser does not.

If we still want to have a chance, we need a figure that is at least technically and aesthetically on par with G8.

Or we should just rename Poser into:

"The 3D App that formerly featured high quality human figures out of the box but now at least still allows you to create your own"

(Results may vary depending on your patience and talent)

*

Yeah, I think that definitely will bring all the lost merchants and customers back.

*

Honestly, Afrodite-Ohki, are you really happy with La Femme?

Wouldn't you rather use your time and talent on a figure that is on the same level as G8?

Or maybe even better?

As I said. Poser figures are tools, just like a brush or a chissel

And the better the tool, the better the artwork you can do with her.

BTW, I used ZBrush many, many years ago when it was new and the UI still made sense. I also used tons of magnets, (Some of my early sculpts literally used hundreds of them)

But since the morphbrush started to work across groups and the smoothing brush became stable, I exclusively use that to create my sculpts.

*

Just had a look at Femme Fatale.

Nice sculpting work, as usual. A little too over the top, for my taste, but he is definitely one of the most talented Poser artists.

Still, he needed to subdivide her mesh TWICE to get that much detail out of her body.

If her mesh had proper muscular edgeloops, he could have achieved the same level of detail with a fraction of the polygons necessary. This would have made her a lot less resource hungry and better suitable for "lesser" machines.

This is not his fault. But shows the problems of a mesh with poor mesh design.

*

Finally, while he created some amazing morphs, it looks like he didn't address any of her rigging problems.

So, sorry, she looks cute but is still not someting I could use.

I rather prefer his NIA (based on the PT-Girl) and his Irina (based on SP3).

(Hmm, I have a weightmapped version of the PT-Girl. I think I should try that out with his NIA morph)

What can I say, I'm an old fashioned guy.

;-)

Joe, Poser is the software. You paid for the software. La Femme comes as a bonus. The question here is if Poser should be free.

Daz Studio is free because it is, in essence, just the Genesis tool. It gets money from the sales of (many times overpriced) Genesis stuff. It's NOT the same business model as Poser.

I'm tired of seeing people complain about pokethrough, when the Poser Morph Brush is right there, stupidly easy to use. And that's just an example.

Poser has an enormous set of tools, and me being now 36 having been using it since I was a teen, haven't even scratched the surface of things like animation, or the physics engine. There's a lot packed.

But you're stuck talking about figures.

You wanna ask me what I'd change in La Femme, let's make a thread for that - it's completely out of topic in this thread. But I'll give you a spoiler of how that convo would go: I'd change a lot of things in her, but DEFINITELY not to make her more like Genesis.

Now, back to topic at hand please. La Femme does not equal Poser - and neither does Dawn.

It's like selling me a car with half an engine, and then telling me that it's my fault that the car won't run properly, because I always could have fixed it myself.

And just to use your metaphor here: nobody's selling you a car with half an engine - they're selling you an entire car that comes preloaded with a brand of fuel you don't like.

I'm just using G8 as she is the most obvious competition.

(And for the record, I also have a lot of things to criticize about G8.)

*

Yes, Poser has a lot of tools. And I pretty much use or used all of them in the past 22yrs.

But I disagree that Poser is bought for the tools.

I bought Poser because it promised me to add realistic human beings to my artwork.

Well, neither Posette nor Dork were especially "realistic".

Nor were any of the many figures that followed, including the DAZ ones.

So I learned to fix them with the tools Poser provided.

It was fun, but I did it because I HAD to. Because there was no ALTERNATIVE.

I much rather had started with a figure like G8, that at least is 85% "correct" right out of the box instead of having to fix basic functionality.

More time fixing things makes less time making art.

So, no, I think both Studio as well as Poser are bought for the same reason: The figures.

*

And don't understimate Studio's toolset. (I was one of the first actually paying for Studio's rigging tools)

They even have a type of "Morphbrush" plugin. It is still a bit primitive, but in a year or so it might be just as capeable as the Poser morphbrush is now!

If it doesn't suit your needs, just find something else that does, then. Honestly if I just wanted the figures I'd use DS - I don't like Genesis but I'm sure I'd be able to bend it into my liking.

Severely lacks the tools I like using though.

But saying that Poser should be free just because there's free competition in DS is like saying Maya should be free just because there is free competition in Blender. Different tools, different companies, different income models.

drages posted at 9:00 AM Wed, 1 June 2022 - #4439398

Why does Poser not have proper tutorials for years? Someone will pay for a bad, dated product to get, he won't able to find proper new content and there is no tutorials to explain how things work on it.. Am I the only person who finds that absurd? 

https://www.youtube.com/c/renderosity/playlists

There is also the Tutorials section right here onsite:

https://www.renderosity.com/premium-tutorials?section_id=1&page=1

Those date back to at least Poser 10/2014.

As for animation, SKAmotion on YouTube has some decent beginner tutorials on Poser's walk cycles and some nice examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI4iBwyrerg&t=17s

If you just do a search on Poser animation tutorial on YT it will bring up several. Animation hasn't changed much in Poser that I'm aware of over the last several versions so anything from at least Poser 8 to now should still apply.

Try to be more specific with what you're asking for and someone here should be able to help.

There are some other webinars that haven't made it over from Smith-Micro yet but hopefully they will some day.

JoePublic posted at 5:46 PM Fri, 3 June 2022 - #4439530

I'm just using G8 as she is the most obvious competition.

(And for the record, I also have a lot of things to criticize about G8.)

*

Yes, Poser has a lot of tools. And I pretty much use or used all of them in the past 22yrs.

But I disagree that Poser is bought for the tools.

I bought Poser because it promised me to add realistic human beings to my artwork.

Well, neither Posette nor Dork were especially "realistic".

Nor were any of the many figures that followed, including the DAZ ones.

So I learned to fix them with the tools Poser provided.

It was fun, but I did it because I HAD to. Because there was no ALTERNATIVE.

I much rather had started with a figure like G8, that at least is 85% "correct" right out of the box instead of having to fix basic functionality.

More time fixing things makes less time making art.

So, no, I think both Studio as well as Poser are bought for the same reason: The figures.

*

And don't understimate Studio's toolset. (I was one of the first actually paying for Studio's rigging tools)

They even have a type of "Morphbrush" plugin. It is still a bit primitive, but in a year or so it might be just as capeable as the Poser morphbrush is now!

I've seen some pretty nice art made from some of the worst figures in Poser's lineup and I doubt those artists spent days or weeks modifying geometry and rigs to create that work. They just used them as mannequins and adjusted areas as needed to produce a final render. Because that's all any Poser figure really is, a mannequin. Blank canvases you can do with whatever you envision. Even the Genesis figures aren't perfectly realistic, they're highly stylized based on a specific DAZ artistic look. It doesn't take much to recognize a daz figure regardless where you see it because they all have a specific look to them. Much like character models from certain high profile games. If you're familiar with the Warcraft style, for example, then you'll spot it anywhere you see it.

I suspect the lesson Bondware learned from DS is: once you go free, it becomes very difficult to get people to start paying for the program again.

There is nothing wrong about having to pay for Poser. I personally have a big issue with the activation system ( Every 7th day )  causing that allot of Poser users stopped using it! Trust gets lost due the fact if Bondware decides to shut down you loose all your investments, but this is only one part of the issue the second one is like many members experienced that got banned from renderosity through the Forums and with this lost thousand of dollars worth models and the access with Poser to there purchases. In some cases even to run Poser . This just because Renderosity think if they do not like the customer they just shut em off stealing all there Investments made over Decades . A thing that usually only happens on "fraudulent sites".  

So People need to be careful before starting investing into Poser through Renderosity due the mentioned above Facts. I personally would not Invest any further into Poser as long as this it is handled the way it is now , may be when this Kill switch is removed i would consider to support poser again and risk a buy .   

People get banned if they break the rules of the site. There's nothing new with that. I'm very aware that one of those banned people was the one who made fake accounts of me trying to jeopardize my image and my business, so honestly I do hope that person did lose thousands of dollars worth of models or whatever.

Perhaps though there should be a separate ban, from forums and sitemail / from the store.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 7:48 PM Sun, 5 June 2022 - #4439586

People get banned if they break the rules of the site. There's nothing new with that. I'm very aware that one of those banned people was the one who made fake accounts of me trying to jeopardize my image and my business, so honestly I do hope that person did lose thousands of dollars worth of models or whatever.

👍

Perhaps though there should be a separate ban, from forums and sitemail / from the store.

Pretty sure there is, but not 100% on that. Some things have changed since I was a mod. But, its everyone's responsibility to back up their purchases anyway since there's no guarantee they will always be available. Pretty sure the tos states that too.

Drages, your opinion isn't actually a fact. It is an opinion, nothing more.  The folks at bondware are cleaning out 20 years of cruft, and that is going to take a while.  Although I have to admit, I suspect the animation tools won't be at the top of the list.

My opinion is that Poser is easier to use than Blender (it comes with actual documentation and content), and more powerful than DS (because I don't have to spend $600+ for 3rd party scripts to reach feature parity - that number was NOT picked out of a hat, btw). I like the fact that I can pull in Poser content, DS content, and FBX content.  With a little bit of work, I can pull in other 3d assets into Poser.

And most importantly:

The enduser can expand their skills at their pace, rather than getting on the pay train.  If they just want to Load, Conform, Make Art a la Poser 4, nothing stopping them.  When they are ready to join us in the 21st Century, they can, and not lose what they had before.

Yeah, V4/M4 is old - guess what?  It has more content by several orders of magnitude than any other figure in the DS/Poserverse.  The only thing keeping you from having a V4/M4 with all of the latest bells and whistles is you.  I took Sasha-16 & added control surfaces (Using Uncle Ero's Project Evolution as a guide).  Once I get my new system finished, I'll do the same to the G figures that I brought over from DS.

Daz is still on G8????? Shouldn't they be on G9 or G10 by now???

Daz is still on G8????? Shouldn't they be on G9 or G10 by now???

The numbering convention is deliberate - it is just different enough to be very, very annoying.

What else are they going to do to keep people on the hamster wheel buying stuff.

V1,V2, V3, V4, V4.1, V4.2, V5 (Genesis), V6 (Genesis 2), V7 (Genesis 3), V8 (Genesis 8), V8.1 (Genesis 8.1) - As I know Genesis 8.1 is an update of Genesis 8 like V4.2 to V4.1 and V4. Finally it doesn't matter witch Number a figure has, as long the user like the figure. Genesis 8.1 works also with Genesis 8 and Genesis 3 Textures, but it doesn't work the other way.

Victoria (3D figure) - Wikipedia

Why isn't Poser free? Simple answer... Because it is not... Lots of things could be free, but they are not. Get over it.... This thread has run its course and it needs to be closed....

"...and it needs to be closed"

Why?

Poser as a software doesn't need to be free. I'd be alright with the current prizing, BUT !!!...
the step from Poser 10 to Poser 11 has just been an impertinent disaster. 
It would have been an appropriate apology, to offer the upgrade to Poser 12 for free, instead we got nothing more for our money, than a few cycles rip off touch ups.

and still, I have not seen any breath taking Poser renders yet, that makes use of Superfly improvements.
Poser renders still have that brownish, flat oil painted appeal. 
And yes, Poser must be capable of more, for I have seen exceptions from the rule. A rare bunch of Poser renders, that are indeed good.
The first and only coming to my mind are renders by Erogenensis, that are always amazing.
Some folks actually also praise Poser's animation tools, which are way better, than DS' tools.
List to do for Poser developers:
- Better native figures (Stop being sloppy in your figures development)
- Better figure system (Joints, rigging and more)
- Better render and shader system + a real time render system like eevee, IClone or unreal

As soon a new Poser team gets back to work and comes out with a good result, I am happy to pay my 300$ for an upgrade.

Definitely too brownish, you're right

And no: there's no postwork on this pic.
No improvement on Superfly: so sad that it's rendering two to four times faster, with furthermore all these nodes that have been corrected in the mean times... It's heartbreakingly sad.

As already said numerous times: Bondware has inherited of a software whose history is somewhat eventful plus the fact that a huge step had to be done (Python), whereas some other (free) software are still relying on really old framework, no more supported.

So it takes time, but if you volunteer to help Bondware, we'll all be happy.

And speaking of Eevee or something equivalent: it's on the way, but not for next week: it'll take some time, too.

Not brownish, fair enough.

The few actually outstanding very good parts of your render are the pillows, the table glass surface and the martini glass.
Everything else, well...
I assume, your character is intended to be a toon character, right?
Shouldn't a character app, be great at skin shaders, instead of glass shaders?
In the Rendo gallery here, this would not  even had a chance of getting my attention.

Without photorealistic figures, photorealistic rendering makes no sense.

On the contrary, the more "perfect" the render engine, the more the "imperfections" of the figure (bad sculpting, bad rigging) will stand out. Please accept the fact that some people either have a heightened ability to spot artistic problems or just have higher artistic standards than others.

Personally, I intentionally stay on "THIS" side of photorealism, because the "classic" Poser look is less grating on my eyes than all those "near miss" attempts at photorealism I see in the 3D world. (Not just from Poser, but from more "professional" 3D apps, too)

If you want to really go for photorealism, EVERYTHING has to be perfect. Even 99.99% won't do. At least to those with a very keen eye for details.

And Poser figures are so laughable removed thom being truly photorealistic, that putting them in a photorealistic lighting environment is just a waste of time.

*

Poser's main use always was to tell a story or visualize an idea, and it can do this just as well for most hobbyist users in an "almost" realistic way instead of trying to catch up with the "Pro" apps.

Whoever was in charge of Poser since version 5, always had it completely backwards:

You FIRST create the realistic figures and THEN bother with the render engine.

*

And no, there is no time left anymore.

I stopped waiting for better figures around Poser 9 or so, and started creating my own, based on the best existing meshes I could find.

I have no need for Superfly. It's still slow (compared to my optimized Firefly), grainy and it lacks basic functionality like displacement maps. (Not to mention that Poser 12 scrapped a huge library of legacy Python scripts for no good reason at all.)

And if I really ever need a "better" render engine than Firefly, I'd just use a professional one or use the original in Blender.

Right now, Superfly is just a distraction. A consolation prize.

A bone we've been thrown so we'd feel bad bitching about the lack of quality figures.

But the bucket stops here.

I won't buy another copy of Poser until it ships with a set of figures that at least have a proper mesh design with realistic muscle topology and are based on scans of actual human beings.

That's the LEAST I can demand from a 3D app that focusses on depicting the human form and sells for a couple hundred $$$.

After all those duds and wannabe "Vicky killer" figures that were inflicted on us during the decades, I'm not holding my breath, though.

BTW, anyone remember "Renda"?

https://www.renderosity.com/forums/threads/2310060/print

LOL!

But as I said, I have my own figures, so I'm not dependent on Poser anymore.

But the point is that many hobbyist users DO depend on whatever ships with Poser.

And those users have made it abundandtly clear that they don't like what they are seeing.

They left for G8, and nothing else.

Give them something comparable, and they might come back.

Give them a Renda, a La Femme or a Dawn and they'll stay where they are.

It is really that simple.

Nevertrumper posted at 7:04 AM Thu, 9 June 2022 - #4439732

the step from Poser 10 to Poser 11 has just been an impertinent disaster. 
It would have been an appropriate apology, to offer the upgrade to Poser 12 for free, instead we got nothing more for our money, than a few cycles rip off touch ups.

I'm going not contradict you: I understand your arguments, but  personally, if i wanted to create true realistic pictures, I would invest in more expensive softwares and expensive figures such as the one that has been pointed out a few days ago, but this is not going to be my world as I will  never buy a $999 figure for my hobby.

That's why the more or less realistic Poser way is perfect for me, especially with my collection of Sasha-19 based characters.
And I know I'm not alone in this case.

Poser is capabel of very realistic images. It is not the software but the limits of the artist. Poser 12 has a lot of tools that can mimic realistic renders. 

This image is done in poser 12. I tested la femme. I agree on a lot of things said about her. I find her hard to work with but it can pay off. I painted the skin in zbrush, no photos used. Also morphed her in zbrush. My only wish is better a hair engine and cloth engine.

I would like to address one of the many misconceptions in this thread.

What is that? Superfly does not support displacement. Which is not true at all, Superfly fully supports displacement and it always has.

What it doesn't support is micro displacement, which is not the same thing as displacement. Not even close...

Just about every Monte Carlo based render engine on the planet supports micro displacement.

Just about every path tracer based engine does not, will not, and never will either. Some do thou, at a huge cost...

Path traced micro displacement is a huge memory hog, and on most systems the render will come to a crawl. If it has to page, forget it..

How many hobbyists have 256 gig plus systems? How many have GPU racks with massive memory pools? Not many, if any, so why add a feature that will bring their system to a freaking crawl.

Systems that can take advantage of path traced micro displacement are in warehouses, not homes.

This has been explained countless times. The majority of Path trace engines will never have micro displacement, and the ones that do are slow as a snail when using it on a home pc.

Avatar used micro displacement, and it took Weta Digitals 40,000 processor system with 104 terabytes of memory, several hours a frame to render. 34 frames at a time, think about that for a bit. 

Cycles comes to a absolute crawl when using it heavily in a scene, so does every other path tracer. So by all means waste your time adding it to Poser. They already added it to Cycles and Cycles X, and guess what. It is a complete memory hog as well, don't even bother trying to use your GPU.... Do you have the 1360 cpu cores Weta Digital used to render a frame? I didn't think so....

A lot of people ask for things they dont use because "the big companies" use those features. You can do a lot in poser and i think most people dont even use 50 per cent of the program.

The biggest issue is the crowd that thinks anything is possible and that a 5th grader could program it to be fast on a potato.... During recess to boot.

Worse yet, even after it is explained they refuse to believe what they are told because someone else without a freaking clue constantly repeats otherwise on a forum.

There is so much dis information going around due to not having a freaking clue how any of it actually works. Worse yet, there are obviously people that believe them...

Even worse, we now have "I think Bondware should give away" to pay for everything in Posers past.

That it is pathetic, asking for restitution from a company that had no control over the complaint to begin with....

Forums are supposed to be for sharing knowledge, not opinionated dis information from someone claiming not to need the program in question or doesn't even use it anymore.

This is exactly what has destroyed the majority of forums pertaining to any program.

Path traced micro displacement is a huge memory hog, and on most systems the render will come to a crawl. If it has to page, forget it..

Out of interest, do you happen to have a good source that explains why? I have a distinct memory of having watched a whole video course about light transport at some point, but apparently my scatterbrain has not held on to much more of it than "we can go a lot faster than Monte Carlo by picking the rays we trace back smartly." :-)

By the way, if Bondware were to come to the conclusion that what Poser was missing was a new face that passes for human, I might know someone who is free (as in beer, speech and bird), quite flexible and down for a makeover. Just give me a call, Bondware, and I'll get you in touch. ;-)