I love to play with the materials in Poser and to kit bash many of the outfits but I accept that I may well be in the minority of Poser users.  I love Superfly but accept that it did raise a few problems when using Firefly materials particularly when is came to figures but life has moved on.  These days it is fairly easy to  easy to find a character with Superfly materials and there are scripts with can make a decent job of converting Firefly materials to Superfly at the click of a button.  OK it is another script but if that is what is needed to keep the cost of the main program down and let users fine tune their own installation then so be it.   The truth is that Firefly still works and there are few hurdles to using Superfly if that is what users prefer.  These days Poser provides a powerful piece of software that is relatively stable and at a cost not beyond the pocket of the average hobbyist.  Of course it can be improved but by using the scripts available it can be tuned to do a great deal more at minimal cost.

So far Bondware have, I believe, made a relatively good job of cleaning up Poser and adding to the existing program.  I am happy to buy Poser 13 based upon their efforts with Poser so far and to use scripts to make the program even more powerful yet easier to use.  It has come a long way since Poser 5 and, for me at least, it has been a journey of both fun and discovery.

Those who still insist that FireFly is the most important, those who are reluctant to implement a new system, and users who are happy with their current system.

That's all well and good.

In the past POSER has always led the way in implementing new systems before DAZ.

Up until POSER2014, POSER was the mainstream, and there were tons of blogs, forums, POSER content stores, etc. all over the world, by users and vendors.

However, since POSER11, no significant new systems have been introduced except for SuperFly. SuperFly has not even caught up with Iray yet.

In the world of 3DCG, toons and artistic methods are necessary, but there are far more people who continue to do 3DCG because they want to create realistic works.

What happened as a result?

In fact, that's why many users, vendors, etc. have migrated to DAZ.

Now POSER is becoming a hobby toy for those who reject the new system.

We don't need to become a DAZ.

No need to follow DAZ.

No need to use DAZ figures.

But if we stop evolving, we will be even more separated from both users and vendors than we are now.

Isn't that where we should learn from DAZ?

And no one left, should not be the case.

3DCG applications that cannot represent the real world will be eliminated.

Dear POSER system programmers, please bring back many users and vendors so that we can have fun and enjoy POSER again, with each amazing room, significant system improvements and exciting new features, just like the old POSER.

From a POSER devotee

hornet3d posted at 9:45 PM Thu, 2 March 2023 - #4457473

I love to play with the materials in Poser and to kit bash many of the outfits but I accept that I may well be in the minority of Poser users.  I love Superfly but accept that it did raise a few problems when using Firefly materials particularly when is came to figures but life has moved on.  These days it is fairly easy to  easy to find a character with Superfly materials and there are scripts with can make a decent job of converting Firefly materials to Superfly at the click of a button.  OK it is another script but if that is what is needed to keep the cost of the main program down and let users fine tune their own installation then so be it.   The truth is that Firefly still works and there are few hurdles to using Superfly if that is what users prefer.  These days Poser provides a powerful piece of software that is relatively stable and at a cost not beyond the pocket of the average hobbyist.  Of course it can be improved but by using the scripts available it can be tuned to do a great deal more at minimal cost.

So far Bondware have, I believe, made a relatively good job of cleaning up Poser and adding to the existing program.  I am happy to buy Poser 13 based upon their efforts with Poser so far and to use scripts to make the program even more powerful yet easier to use.  It has come a long way since Poser 5 and, for me at least, it has been a journey of both fun and discovery.

I do not understand the Superfly bashing. Superfly is a fantastically versatile tool and a superb render engine. First and foremost, it is not locked to NVIDIA like IRAY, but it will work with AMD hardware as well. Secondly it provides both a physically based method, like IRAY with the use of the standard set of PBR textures, but it also includes a way to make high quality procedural textures, which is light om memory and produce wonderful pictures.

I understand that for those less tinker-minded there needs to be texture packages, and there are. Really good ones too. Like VinceBagna's or the one produced by the late great Dimensiion3D.

As an aside a tip: If you find porting textures for old figures, like V4, to Cycles difficult. Try using the Physically root node and simply attach your available textures to that. Even just doing that will give absolutely decent results.

And if that doesn't float your boat, then I am happy there is still a very effective render engine in Firefly.

Both bases covered as far as I am concerned.

So I have some wishes for P13, which will probably not be fulfilled. At least not all of them. And I'll be cursing that I do not get what I want. But I'll buy the thing anyway I am sure.

Superfly and Firefly are just different artistic media like oil paint and water colors are different media serving to the same end. Both use a brush and a canvas, but the paintings have their own signature. Both have their own techniques to apply color and both have things that are easy to do and things less easy. There is no matter of succession. You can even get the best of both. Make a render with both, overlay the results and rub out where you want to show the lower layer. 

Firefly has its strong points: microfacet displacement is a lot easier in the fake 'artificial' techniques FF is based on, but notoriously fidgety in the physics based processes of SF. Also there is a strong base of legacy content that is based on Firefly. I think Firefly will stay there for a few generations of Poser. The sketch designer is still there also.

FVerbaas posted at 4:33 AM Sat, 4 March 2023 - #4457574

Firefly has its strong points: microfacet displacement is a lot easier in the fake 'artificial' techniques FF is based on, but notoriously fidgety in the physics based processes of SF.

There's nothing fake about Firefly render time Micropolygonal Dicing. The Reyes method produces a quad that is approximately 1/2 a pixel on a side. Now imagine the level of real time subdivision required by Poser Superfly for a comparable result. Not bashing Superfly here, just clarifying Firefly Micropolygonal Dicing

The Siggraph original paper on the Reyes renderer that's built into Poser (Cook/Carpenter/Catmull)...

The Reyes Image Rendering Architecture

It's subdivision, there's no real world physics based analog in either method as far as I know...

FVerbaas posted at 4:33 AM Sat, 4 March 2023 - #4457574

Superfly and Firefly are just different artistic media like oil paint and water colors are different media serving to the same end. Both use a brush and a canvas, but the paintings have their own signature. Both have their own techniques to apply color and both have things that are easy to do and things less easy. There is no matter of succession. You can even get the best of both. Make a render with both, overlay the results and rub out where you want to show the lower layer. 

Firefly has its strong points: microfacet displacement is a lot easier in the fake 'artificial' techniques FF is based on, but notoriously fidgety in the physics based processes of SF. Also there is a strong base of legacy content that is based on Firefly. I think Firefly will stay there for a few generations of Poser. The sketch designer is still there also.

Having said that, I'd still love to see an upgrade of the implementation of the Superfly Cycles nodes to the current development in Blender.

No one is bashing the engine, Graybeard. 

The issue is that there is no easy way to move legacy materials from firefly to superfly - and Bondware doesn't seem to understand why that is an issue.

The only people they seem to listen to are those that are only interested in doing pin up art.

ssgbryan posted at 1:03 PM Sat, 4 March 2023 - #4457623

No one is bashing the engine, Graybeard. 

The issue is that there is no easy way to move legacy materials from firefly to superfly - and Bondware doesn't seem to understand why that is an issue.

The only people they seem to listen to are those that are only interested in doing pin up art.

No one is bashing the engine, Graybeard. 

The issue is that there is no easy way to move legacy materials from firefly to superfly - and Bondware doesn't seem to understand why that is an issue.

The only people they seem to listen to are those that are only interested in doing pin up art.

I reiterate the need to produce tutorials for material conversion and the poser material room. There is a way to work this, otherwise vendors would not be able to produce textures for both. There is way too much misunderstanding and obfuscation. Simple, easy language, step by step. Why is that so hard? As an 'end user' (and why do I have the feeling some use this as a pejorative?), I'd like to understand.

I'm not bashing Superfly.

But I believe every cent invested in it's implementation and development INSTEAD of superior figures is a waste of precious resorces.

And given Poser's track record with previous "new and improved" figure meshes, I really don't have much hope they are getting it right, this time.

They'll probably go the Genesis 9 route, getting rid of every single edgeloop and anatomic mesh topology, resulting in a mesh optimized for ZBrush and Superfly. (And professional content creators)

A figure that needs to be subdivided to a million polygons to show some decent detail.

(I truly wish I'm wrong! I truly wish Poser 13 will provide a mesh that finally looks and bends like a real human being right out of the box. I'm waiting 23yrs now for this to happen)

But, if I wanted to do photorealistic art I'd simply learn Blender.

Why spend time learning a crippled derivative rather than using the original Cycles?

*

Poser always was aimed at the poor, huddled masses. THAT was it's strenght. A save haven for all those that were unwilling / unable to join the competetive professional 3D world.

It was the Bob Ross of computer graphics.

In a few short years, AI will have completly taken over 3D art, anyway.

Why should I spend my time trying to coax photorealistic renders out of a programm that was never designed for this, if all I need to do in the future is to type a few words to get Avatar quality AI art?

So instead of trying to make Poser more competetive, make it more fun and acessible.

*

This won't happen, of course, I'm fully aware of that.

I'm just writing this down, so that in a couple of years I can read it again, and saying to myself:

"Yep, I called it."

Again.

@JoePublic

If one follows what you write, the consequence would be to give up Poser. Because it's superfluous. There is already DAZ Studio. Why another program in this direction?

But the (mostly silent) majority of Poser users want more than that. And something else. For example Cycles. More or less usable directly from Poser, so that the preview is correct.

And yes: Photorealism is a natural part of the 3D area. Even 2D comics are gradually moving in that direction. Why would Poser neglect this?

It may be that your focus is more on stylistic graphics. Reason enough for you to want to force all other users to do what you like?

Although I have been playing with Poser for over twenty years the emphasis really should be on the play aspect.  For this reason I see myself as a dedicated hobbyist with some very limited skills but I am happy with what I can create with Superfly.

I don't profess this to be a stunning render but for someone with limited skills I have to say I am happy with what Poser can do for me.  I have created the character from a lot of playing with, and merging, commercial characters that are available in the marketplace and, although there are few good sci if outfits out there, some of what there is, is stunning.

I have tended to lean towards a sharp image purely on the basis that one of the criticisms often leveled at Superfly is that is produces soft renders. 

Over at Hivewire, they were talking about displacement in Superfly. Supposedly, it's being added to Blender, so maybe it's coming to Poser eventually, too?

I think a big part of the problem with Superfly is it's still a work in progress. Sometimes updates break materials that used to work. I think that discourages some people from wanting to learn it.

Though I guess that happened with Firefly, too. Seems like it wasn't very often, though. It was more stable over all.

I mostly hear ( Read about ) rendering, materials but about the very needed parts almost no one is talking about, nor asking for them. The assets them selves. all seems to be stuck a decade ago. sure there might be enough old figures around as long V4 is supported. But what will Poser be with just a render engine loads of texture settings and no new 3D models. Well sure you might start to make texture settings on primitives. I personally think that the main fun part on Poser is the Posing of 3D models and not spending days on figuring out texturing and running hours of renderings just to get a right texture setting. Well the name already tells it ( Poser = Posing assets ) 

You can run P4 and get stunning render results but well you need a stunning 3D model or are we arrived on a point where majority of users only Want render cycles. For these a better hobby would be to take a camera and go out to make some realistic Pictures, there a 3D model is not needed and the pictures would look most realistic.

I might be wrong and there are just almost no 3D model creators left for poser that could talk about this matter, so what remains is only to talk about texturing the remains.

So if Majority just wants " Render Cycles " Texturing  you might as well cut down poser to a Material room , would not be a big step away as already quiet some features gotten removed, Poser might even end up as a great  Substance Painter. I rather think that the major fun part in poser is the posing of assets, and these actually should be the main discussions rather then loads of confusing texture nodes

Keep the Texturing simple but make the Models great and Complex, with good articulations, as you can not make a crappy old Model better just by using render cycles. But there might not be any other choice then to make better textures for the old models as there are not many new ones. Actually the point where you should start making some changes.

I might be wrong and there are just almost no 3D model creators left for poser that could talk about this matter, so what remains is only to talk about texturing the remains.

vopehov506 posted at 4:17 PM Sat, 4 March 2023 - #4457649

I might be wrong and there are just almost no 3D model creators left for poser that could talk about this matter, so what remains is only to talk about texturing the remains.

👍

So if Majority just wants " Render Cycles " Texturing  you might as well cut down poser to a Material room , would not be a big step away as already quiet some features gotten removed, Poser might even end up as a great  Substance Painter. I rather think that the major fun part in poser is the posing of assets, and these actually should be the main discussions rather then loads of confusing texture nodes

Keep the Texturing simple but make the Models great and Complex, with good articulations, as you can not make a crappy old Model better just by using render cycles. But there might not be any other choice then to make better textures for the old models as there are not many new ones. Actually the point where you should start making some changes.

I'm not bashing Superfly.

In a few short years, AI will have completly taken over 3D art, anyway.

Not too sure about that. A lot of folks collect content the same way people collect action figures, or dolls, or model cars. AI can't replace that. And with the explosion of 3D printing we can now print out our massive collection of 3D content to display on our real book shelves and mantles next to the action figures and model cars.

AmbientShade posted at 6:05 PM Sat, 4 March 2023 - #4457659

JoePublic posted at 2:58 PM Sat, 4 March 2023 - #4457639

I'm not bashing Superfly.

In a few short years, AI will have completly taken over 3D art, anyway.

Not too sure about that. A lot of folks collect content the same way people collect action figures, or dolls, or model cars. AI can't replace that. And with the explosion of 3D printing we can now print out our massive collection of 3D content to display on our real book shelves and mantles next to the action figures and model cars.

(Hides box of Poser 6 CE behind his back he just bought on US ebay for $200 just to get that old MIKI content)

;-)

All the more a reason that we don't water down Poser's "soul" by trying to keep up with the Joneses.

That we keep Poser "personal" and welcoming. Photorealism is great, but needs a lot of dedication and training and discipline:

https://www.cgtrader.com/blog/portraits-of-the-21st-century-the-most-photorealistic-3d-renderings-of-human-beings

Make even the slightest mistake, and the Uncanny Valley will swallow you whole.

But this part of 3D will soon become obsolete by AI, I'm convinced:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCgl1NkENQI&t=9s

*

Instead give people Figures with personality they can love, like Posette and Dork or Vicky 3.

Make them better, sure, no need anymore for bowling ball shoulders or intersecting limbs.

But keep them easy to modify and accessible, so people can make them "theirs" even without years of formal training.

I wish the heydays of Poser back, with a thriving community. Noone needed Z-Brush or a 3D painting suite to take part in the fun. Dr Geep built houses from Poser primitives and Wings 3D was almost like black magic.

Yes, even back then some were more professional than others, but the standards were still so low, that noone felt excluded.

*

Anyway, it is what it is now.

Poser will go more and more "Pro" and leave the amateurs behind.

We'll see how that plays out.

On what basis do you say that they will be replaced by AI?

As with POSER, DAZ, and Blender, there are many users who enjoy creating.

It doesn't end with just buying content, arranging it, and rendering it.

You can make your own props and figures, import them to POSER, and create scenes.

There are many users and vendors who enjoy POSER in this way.

I am one of them.

It is an enjoyment that cannot be experienced with automatic processing by AI.

To do so, I have to learn new functions and systems.

Any application, even Excel or Word, requires learning new features in new versions.

Even more so with 3DCG applications, a lot of learning is required.

However, it is a great pleasure to build a scene with objects and figures that I have created in this way.

Therefore, the evolution of POSER should not be stopped.

Vendors will be lost.

That means there will be no new content to buy.

POSER has always retained the much-criticized user interface and maintained usability for the end user.

Therefore, even if POSER evolves, the simple use of buying content, arranging it, and rendering it will remain the same.

I am now taking a break from POSER.

I am taking a break from POSER because I am losing the desire to create things to import into the current POSER.

So,   that everyone who creates

To create great content,

To maintain that motivation, 

I must not stop the evolution of POSER.

"AI will have completly taken over 3D art, anyway."

I wonder how many specialties died down ONLY because someone predicted they would die down. In any case, cinema didn't kill the radio, tv didn't kill cinema, internet didn't kill tv, etc etc.

More options doesn't mean the death of an option. Only if you give up on it ;)

Edit because I remembered a piece  of trivia: can't remember who was big in tech business in the early 90s said that the internet was just a passing fad and would go away in less than a decade. LMAO. Predictions don't usually stand the  pass of time.

Sorry, powerful though it is, when compared to Poser I cannot think of AI as anything more than a make art button.

As MNE said: if your purpose is to simply create pictures, you've got the 3D programs, the A.I. programs, the 'shop-alike program etc...
And you will probably get lost because all the time you will be looking for an ever changing said-perfection, kind of running after... what?
Even though making art can be done in several ways, the "fastfood" way of making pictures using A.I. is tiring in the long way. I've used and sometimes I play with Stable Diffusion, but in ma case it's just because I'm lazy, ending in doing hundreds of pictures during a many hours session.

IMO: nothing constructive, very few things to learn (oh yes just the right words for both prompts)
Our brains are requiring more than this laziness or they shrink. They require to learn new things on a regular basis. The learning curve of the A.I. is not so steep, it is quickly covered, even tough new modules and tools are coming regularly.

Psychologically, I remain unsatisfied if not bored with A.I., even if sometimes the resulting picture is amazing
I repeat: IMO.

Now, even though you're not a modeler (and I'm not, indeed, at least as long as I don't retire), building a scene, looking tor the items that are missing in it, building the material, looking for the perfect lighting, posing the characters (am I going to keep them partially naked or will I use a dynamic, complex cloth) etc... is part of the process and for me the most important part of the fun.

These 3D program won't die: many users have gone beyond the simple drop'n'click milestone. The users that are staying back in it either have a whole other process in mind, such as virtual novels (adult or not) or comic books in the process, or they'd better leave the 3D world for A.I. programs.

I haven't heard Radio since I got a Casette Recorder in 1980.

I wasn't in a cinema since I could afford a Video Recorder in 1982.

I don't own a TV (Or a record player, a casette recorder or a video recorder) since I bought my first PC in 2000.

I stopped physical scale modelling since I started doing 3D modelling.

(I still collect vintage scale modelling kits, though)

*

We already have Deepfakes, allowing us to resurrect long gone movie stars. We already can recreate convincing photorealistic pictures.

Perhaps in a year or two, we probably can feed a movie script to an AI and out comes the next Marvel blockbuster.

"Hand made" visual art will be deader than a hobnail.

There might be some "artistic" niches left, like there are still audiophiles left who mess about with physical records or even tapes instead of mp3's. Heck, even downloading mp3'sis obsolete now, since the majority is streaming music on demand. Same for movies. Physical CD's? My latest laptop doesn't even have a CD player anymore. Lol.

*

I really don't know Poser's endgame here. What's their vision?

Do they really think a slightly less crippled implementation of Cycles would bring all the high end DAZ content creators back to Poser?

Or even lure in new content creators?

Honestly...To Hell with all that tiresome 3D modelling and scene building and rendering.

I only learned that because there was no alternative.

(Forgot to mention I never picked up a pen anymore, since I bought Poser)

I want a working Replicator (Almost there, thanks to Photogrammetry and 3D Printing) and a Holodeck.

;-)

I might keep a few books, though. I just like their smell.

Yes, AI can do a lot nowadays, but for me it’s just the satisfaction to do things myself!

Coming back to the actual Conversation:

After taking a closer look at the pre announcement of Poser 13 and the notice that Unimesh will not come at the launch of P13, I was wondering if the cause might be all the changes made on Poser since PP11.2 . My self already producing Single skin ( Unimesh figures ) with no trouble since about 2016  that work perfectly in Poser, this could be the main issue that is preventing them making that start up release. Concluding that I tried making these figures in Poser 12 and there sure came up some issues due the removal of certain Poser functions. So could say ( Stuck in the PP11 universe for this amazing feature ) Sometimes upgrades can also cause a loss of something that was consistent,  it was not commonly used causing the function not to work properly any more.

The function made by SM for Poser to be able to communicate in a better way with external 3D Programms witch actually is a Import export function for single skin models it might have been overseen and broken after all these upgrades, all was rather concentrated on the render engine, material room and store integration instead of being concentrated on rigged figure creations upgrades.

Allot of times Upgrades can cause also more damage then it could be doing any good.

Sure, users ask for Improvements, upgrades for there habits and what they are using the Program for, but sometimes they just overlook that it is already there, already a part of the program just not as a simple button. 

In the other hand it also might be better to skip that Single skin (Unimesh) upgrade as I doubt that there are enough  3D mesh creators what are willing to make such a jump. A later upgrade on Poser 13 for this feature also might be very difficult as it would simply change the whole tech, so it might eventually be a poser 14 or 15 plan who knows. So I do not really think that this single skin setup room feature will be a simple update of Poser 13 later on.

In any case, we're not getting full unimesh support, as it was intended by the developers of Poser, this time around. Time to continue on with our projects as we have, business as usual. The render folks get their toys. The figure/content creators get improved implementations of copy morphs and weights (and perhaps a couple hidden tweaks besides to minor things), the animators get tweaks to walk and talk designer. There's plenty to do with Poser if you like working with it, things continue on as they were. That about sums it up.

I haven't heard Radio since I got a Casette Recorder in 1980.

I wasn't in a cinema since I could afford a Video Recorder in 1982.

I don't own a TV (Or a record player, a casette recorder or a video recorder) since I bought my first PC in 2000.

I stopped physical scale modelling since I started doing 3D modelling.

(I still collect vintage scale modelling kits, though)

Yes, because the success of everything in the world spins around your specific bellybutton.

Sorry, I know no kinder way of saying that your single personal experience doesn't mean a lot in the grand scheme of things. You might move on, and you're very much allowed to. It doesn't change things for everyone else. My father listens to radio 8+ hours a day, and he STARTED doing that a couple years ago. Up until I separated from my ex-husband, we'd go to the movie theater so much we had a collection of cinema cups themed around the movies we'd watch. And it's not out of nostalgia: I'm 37 and those were mostly Marvel superhero movie cups.

To your predictions, I say only: humans NEED art. Humans need to create, and to imagine. Tech can come to make entire movies with AI perhaps, people won't stop making them by hand anyway, because our mental health requires art. To make it or to consume it. Industry has created many ways to automatize almost all sorts of crafts, and that hasn't stopped people from crafting anyway. If it stops being profitable, it  will still be done simply because it pleases us  to do.

And we don't know Poser's endgame, but have we ever stopped to think that they can be simply trying their best to get back up to speed with a program that was abandoned for years, after having gone through several different companies and becoming a messy amalgamation of mixed up code? And all that with what seems to be a very small team for such a large task. They might just be fixing up this and that before they can bring out something new. (DISCLAIMER: I am not a Bondware employee, contrary to what people might think. This is me CONJECTURATING, opinions only.)

In the other hand it also might be better to skip that Single skin (Unimesh) upgrade as I doubt that there are enough  3D mesh creators what are willing to make such a jump. A later upgrade on Poser 13 for this feature also might be very difficult as it would simply change the whole tech, so it might eventually be a poser 14 or 15 plan who knows. So I do not really think that this single skin setup room feature will be a simple update of Poser 13 later on.

Supposedly they are re-writing Poser from the ground up. I imagine that's quite difficult, and even with their best efforts, there will be issues with backward compatibility.

And if Bondware has rewritten the Poser core, who knows if they haven't prepared a way to integrate full Unimesh support, probably not yet completely finished, which may mean later.

And if Bondware has rewritten the Poser core, who knows if they haven't prepared a way to integrate full Unimesh support, probably not yet completely finished, which may mean later.

To me that's the most likely scenario.

primorge posted at 4:36 PM Sat, 4 March 2023 - #4457652

vopehov506 posted at 4:17 PM Sat, 4 March 2023 - #4457649

I might be wrong and there are just almost no 3D model creators left for poser that could talk about this matter, so what remains is only to talk about texturing the remains.

👍

Well there is Hivewire3D for a start that has Dawn 2 in the wings and talk of a Dragon, not to mention all the creations that are available here.  Ken 1171_Designs has concentrated on some superb scripts for Poser 12 recently but his store includes outfits and body types for Dawn,  Coflek_gnorg is prolific when it comes to 3D content and most of the more recent creations have both Firefly and Superfly materials included.   ShaaraMuse3D has some wonderful modular 3D kits and also brings a good selection of HDRIs.  Ali and Afrodite-Ohki provides a vast range of hairstyles that can me used with a range of figures.  I could go on but these are the vendors who creations I use on a regular basis.

Let us not forget @erogenesis Project Evolution. That is a wonderful model with heaps of potential and I enjoy using it a lot.

Also LF and LH are not bad models at all, they need a bit more work, but there is potential, not least in the work done by @Afrodite-Ohki

Plus let's not forget the mystery rumour of a new character with P13...

Can anyone clarify something for me?

I have dozens of texture sets that do not work with SuperFly due to showing seams, unless Is use the Poser option: Poser Skinning Method : Poser Unimesh

Are we saying that this workaround will go away in Poser 13? If so that will be a big deal for many folks I suspect.

I think the bug has something to do with displacement maps.  A displacement map moves the actual verts.  Superfly already doesn't do micro displacement.  It seems to me that it displaces the verts but does not maintain the weld on a edge.  If so, unimesh (the real thing, not old Daz Millenial figure unimesh) would correct that as there aren't welds.

I'm impressed they could ever make Poser work with welds.  That is way harder to do than unimesh.  But it's probably a million extra lines of code throughout the product, all over the place, to make welds work.  And a million more lines to make everything else work with the weld code.  I'm imagining that it will be easier to just rewrite Poser from scratch.

hornet3d posted at 5:54 PM Sat, 4 March 2023 - #4457658

vopehov506 posted at 4:34 PM Sat, 4 March 2023 - #4457651

So if Majority just wants " Render Cycles " Texturing  you might as well cut down poser to a Material room , would not be a big step away as already quiet some features gotten removed, Poser might even end up as a great  Substance Painter. I rather think that the major fun part in poser is the posing of assets, and these actually should be the main discussions rather then loads of confusing texture nodes

Keep the Texturing simple but make the Models great and Complex, with good articulations, as you can not make a crappy old Model better just by using render cycles. But there might not be any other choice then to make better textures for the old models as there are not many new ones. Actually the point where you should start making some changes.

Understanding what the majority want is very difficult to define.  You could draw a conclusion from many of the posts here but the problem with that is the majority of Poser users do not visit forums and those that do often only do so in lurk mode, something I suspect is not unique to Poser users.

No.

Vendors at 'Rosity only make what they are personally interested in.  Look at the store right now - All skankware, all the time.  If I am not interested in that - why would I shop here? 

If I want to do images that don't revolve around an early 20's Caucasian, why would I use Poser?  The Poser userbase has shrunk for a reason and it isn't just that GenZ doesn't do computers.  They do phones & tablets - neither of which has the horses to do what Poser or DS artists do.

There is a reason people moved to DS - there is a much wider variety of products over there than there is at 'Rosity.  Daz has themes that they have built upon for at least 15 years, that I am personally aware of.  It is more than just skankware.  Poser doesn't have that, because even though the people running 'Rosity now own Poser - they don't have an in house set of content creators to provide anything that the vendors are not personally interested in making.  They don't have the ability to build up themes, like Daz's Egypt collection, for example.

That being said - if Taffi (Daz's parent company) goes bellyup, other possibilities may emerge....

They banked with Silicon Valley Bank.  If you are unaware, Peter Thiel apparently caused a bank run, and the FDIC had to take it over Friday.  Taffi apparently has no access to money right now, and depending on how this is handled on Mon, there is a chance they won't be able to make payroll. 

I absolutely adore the themed releases that, say RDNA of ancient memory used to do. R'osity used to do them a while ago as well. DAZ still does them all the time, as you say. 

I am also baffled about how half-assed the Poser marketing is at R'osity, but I think I beat this horse to death since they acquired Poser, and no one wants to hear another rant from me about the promo renders for Poser products vs. promo renders for DAZ. Of course, if there was a decent lighting system shipped with the product to use for quick setups and not one that was current 10 years ago, this would not be an issue.

@ssgbryan, we will know Monday, as you say. It would suck, despite the fact I don't really use DAZ.

In response to @ ssgbryan: “That being said - if Taffi (Daz's parent company) goes bellyup, other possibilities may emerge....They banked with Silicon Valley Bank.  If you are unaware, Peter Thiel apparently caused a bank run, and the FDIC had to take it over Friday.  Taffi apparently has no access to money right now, and depending on how this is handled on Mon, there is a chance they won't be able to make payroll.”

According to the information DAZ published, they used SVB to process credit card transactions. Ssgbryan may have more insight than I, but I haven’t seen anything to suggest that DAZ had uninsured deposits at SVB. Rather, DAZ is appealing to customers to use PayPal instead of credit cards to buy stuff. It’s ironic that Peter Thiel’s Venture Capitalist fund triggered the SVB run and evidently attempted to shift online purchases to PayPal—the platform he developed. I’m not suggesting the two are related—rather it merely shows how wealthy venture capitalist firms exploit small business concerns. No surprise there.

As for PayPal, years ago when it first emerged, I subscribed to a UK based monthly anthropology newsletter that only took PayPal payment: one USD a month. At some point, the newsletter dropped off the grid. Yet, PayPal continued to charge me for a no longer existent subscription. Its (so-called) customer service was entirely computer-based. There was no way to talk to a real person. Eventually I merely cancelled my PayPal subscription to stop the monthly charges—and PayPal still owes me USD 8.02 plus interest.

Over 95% of the deposits in SVB are not fully FDIC insured (aka they are all over $250k).  The way SVB runs their funding, you WILL do all of your banking with them.  This is actually a good thing - SVB specializes in tech start ups, if there is a finance issue with one of these, they can address it quickly in house.  Money can be moved around to smooth daily or weekly hiccups out. 

The thing is - SVB has the money, they just didn't have enough liquid assets.  They had so much they couldn't lend it all out, so they put the excess in the most secure financial instrument in the world - 10 and 30 year T-bills.  What they didn't do was react to the Fed telling everyone for the past year that interest rates are going up.  SVB should have adjusted their mix - they took a gamble and lost.  The shareholders might take a small cut, but it won't be much.  The money is there - just in 10 & 30 year T-bills.

That being said, no bank on the planet would survive a bank run that has 24% of it's total cash go out in a single day.  Nobody.

A few of the start up will go under - but the ones that do were going under anyway - it will be quick and painless, rather than long and drawn out.

As we speak - hedge funds are calling companies and trying to buy everything right now for between 60 to 80% of it's value.  They know just about everyone will get through this.

And $&#* PayPal.  Everybody has a PayPal story.

That's my personal point of view, but for me the world is changing, and profoundly. A latent awakening is coming and could be brutal for some. What has fallen on our heads since the summer of 2019 had been prepared for a while, and I notice that it has caused many people to become aware. But not all of them, indeed, obsessed as they are with preserving their assets.

They wanted globalization? so more than ever, the flapping of a butterfly's wings somewhere is sure to cause a tsunami elsewhere

As MNE said: if your purpose is to simply create pictures, you've got the 3D programs, the A.I. programs, the 'shop-alike program etc...
And you will probably get lost because all the time you will be looking for an ever changing said-perfection, kind of running after... what?
Even though making art can be done in several ways, the "fastfood" way of making pictures using A.I. is tiring in the long way. I've used and sometimes I play with Stable Diffusion, but in ma case it's just because I'm lazy, ending in doing hundreds of pictures during a many hours session.

IMO: nothing constructive, very few things to learn (oh yes just the right words for both prompts)
Our brains are requiring more than this laziness or they shrink. They require to learn new things on a regular basis. The learning curve of the A.I. is not so steep, it is quickly covered, even tough new modules and tools are coming regularly.

Psychologically, I remain unsatisfied if not bored with A.I., even if sometimes the resulting picture is amazing
I repeat: IMO.

Now, even though you're not a modeler (and I'm not, indeed, at least as long as I don't retire), building a scene, looking tor the items that are missing in it, building the material, looking for the perfect lighting, posing the characters (am I going to keep them partially naked or will I use a dynamic, complex cloth) etc... is part of the process and for me the most important part of the fun.

These 3D program won't die: many users have gone beyond the simple drop'n'click milestone. The users that are staying back in it either have a whole other process in mind, such as virtual novels (adult or not) or comic books in the process, or they'd better leave the 3D world for A.I. programs.

hornet3d posted at 5:54 PM Sat, 4 March 2023 - #4457658

vopehov506 posted at 4:34 PM Sat, 4 March 2023 - #4457651

So if Majority just wants " Render Cycles " Texturing  you might as well cut down poser to a Material room , would not be a big step away as already quiet some features gotten removed, Poser might even end up as a great  Substance Painter. I rather think that the major fun part in poser is the posing of assets, and these actually should be the main discussions rather then loads of confusing texture nodes

Keep the Texturing simple but make the Models great and Complex, with good articulations, as you can not make a crappy old Model better just by using render cycles. But there might not be any other choice then to make better textures for the old models as there are not many new ones. Actually the point where you should start making some changes.

Understanding what the majority want is very difficult to define.  You could draw a conclusion from many of the posts here but the problem with that is the majority of Poser users do not visit forums and those that do often only do so in lurk mode, something I suspect is not unique to Poser users.

I would think sales is a good indicator of what the majority wants, no? :)

Graybeard posted at 10:36 AM Mon, 6 March 2023 - #4457801

hornet3d posted at 5:52 PM Sat, 4 March 2023 - #4457656

primorge posted at 4:36 PM Sat, 4 March 2023 - #4457652

vopehov506 posted at 4:17 PM Sat, 4 March 2023 - #4457649

I might be wrong and there are just almost no 3D model creators left for poser that could talk about this matter, so what remains is only to talk about texturing the remains.

👍

Well there is Hivewire3D for a start that has Dawn 2 in the wings and talk of a Dragon, not to mention all the creations that are available here.  Ken 1171_Designs has concentrated on some superb scripts for Poser 12 recently but his store includes outfits and body types for Dawn,  Coflek_gnorg is prolific when it comes to 3D content and most of the more recent creations have both Firefly and Superfly materials included.   ShaaraMuse3D has some wonderful modular 3D kits and also brings a good selection of HDRIs.  Ali and Afrodite-Ohki provides a vast range of hairstyles that can me used with a range of figures.  I could go on but these are the vendors who creations I use on a regular basis.

Let us not forget @erogenesis Project Evolution. That is a wonderful model with heaps of potential and I enjoy using it a lot.

Also LF and LH are not bad models at all, they need a bit more work, but there is potential, not least in the work done by @Afrodite-Ohki

Plus let's not forget the mystery rumour of a new character with P13...

You continue to use Dawn SE.  A new base mesh doesn't mean you have to replace what you are currently using.  In my stuff I use every figure I have ever collected.  The grey golums take a little more work, but they all can be brought in.

Which is what makes Poser so wonderful.

You can easily upgrade any of your legacy figures as much or as little as you are comfortable with.

And one more thing . . . . It would SURE be nice to have an updated cloth room -- one that can simulate in real time. We've been stuck with the P5 version since it came out, and it's never been improved. The Hair Room, for me, is totally useless, as is the Setup Room.