Really excited to get my hands on this in the next couple of weeks, especially since it was thought to be the end of Poser 13 updates.
Fingers crossed that some of the bugs I reported are amount the many that will be fixed in this release.

Next Update to Poser 13.3 in Beta Testing

Some of you asked recently about the Poser 14 release date. While there is progress in this regard, there are not yet enough headline features to justify a major version release and meanwhile we have a backlog of completed bug fixes and smaller feature improvements.

This means there will be at least one more update to Poser 13.3 coming in the next couple of weeks with many bug fixes, small feature improvements and a few core code updates that are a necessary prior to a Poser 14 release.

 
It’s the perfect time to get Poser 13. Don't miss out - grab your discount today and unleash your creativity!
https://www.posersoftware.com/store/category/2/poser-software?aid=4

Good, always a good idea to release frequently so we can benefit if we want of the work done !

Great news, thanks !

Anyone know when this will be out? I've had a ticket open for a major bug for most of 2024.

I also just noticed in Poser 13 (Mac), if you click Help > Renderosity Community, it sends you to the Poser 11 forum. Not really a bug but hey it could maybe do with updating :)

I put that in as a bug report.

@dt00swc the issue you're talking about, I presume is the problem with strand hair messing up the preview and making it super slow.

It turns out that it's a problem in the dynamic hair library we use. We're waiting on a the developer of that library to fix it. It's not going to be in the next service release. I wish I could say it was fixed.

There are other Mac-only issues in that library and we may end up having to migrate to a different dynamic hair library as we did with the Talk Designer. (Which is an open source library now)

Again sorry for not having a solution yet.

Aha okay - well no problem, thanks Nerd3D for the response/update. It's good it's been identified as a legitimate bug, and narrowed down to the dynamic hair library, that gives me some hope of resolution.

And Redphantom - thanks for logging that one 👍

Got it, thank you !

13.3.824

I just wanted to say Thanks! I think this is the best version of Poser. Lightning-fast realistic Renders. Fewer crashes than ever before. The Team has done a fantastic job. 

Aha! Poser 13.3.895 is out, and there's something cool to check:
"Implemented displacement node for SuperFly materials. (App) #2234"

Aha! Poser 13.3.895 is out, and there's something cool to check:
"Implemented displacement node for SuperFly materials. (App) #2234"

Both the Cycles and PhysicalSurface root nodes already had displacement, so I'm curious what actually changed.

No, it actually is a displacement node. The other node that was introduced is a VectorDisplacement node.  Apparently, there is a difference.

Hmmm, I assume that's this? https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/shader_nodes/vector/displacement.html and https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/shader_nodes/vector/vector_displacement.html

That actually looks pretty useful. You could do scaling with a math node but it's a cleaner way to adjust the height and also you can shift the neutral point (I keep forgetting where it is).

I guess vector displacement is sort of equivalent to using normal maps where regular displacement is like using bump maps.

The displacement as implemented in the physical node was behaving weird ... wrong ... uspidebackwards? It's really hard to explain. Let's go with "Busted". It was actually  using the vector displace which is (evidently) supposed to be weird. At least it's the same kind of weird in Blender's implementation of Cycles. It makes the displacement all go in one direction instead of along the surface normal. So it does something, but it's definitely not what Poser users are expecting. The vanilla Displacement node is what you're expecting displacement to do.

The Displacement input on the Physical node now has a Displacement node built into it so it should behave more sensibly. If you are working with the Cycles root you should Put a Displacement node inline between the Displacement texture map and the root input.

Well, it is sobering to know that displacement for PBR was broken all along and finally got repaired.  The addition of a proper Displacement node was a long time in coming to Poser.  Now to go back and examine all the content transposed into physically-based reality, making the necessary repairs to make them render correctly.

Dis place meant to do it right de foist time, but dis place got it right now! (Sorry. Couldn't resist.)

Is this "actual" displacement like Firefly can, or does it still need the underlying mesh to be subdivided a gazillon times?

What Firefly does is essentially just localized subdivision. Even the Blender documentation (linked above) says "For best results when using true displacement, the mesh must be subdivided finely to bring out the detail in the displacement texture." It's still "actual" displacement.

how much you need to subdivide depends on the details of the displacement map. You aren't going to be able to use a noise node to make grass. I used a dirt map on the sphere without any subdivision and it looked as good as if I divided it a bunch.

I am currently using Poser 13.2.581 and know that 13.3 is available.  I'm happy (now) with 13.2.581.  However, I am wary of downloading and upgrading the software for fear that it will wipe out the Python scripts I bought and currently use and will require redoing the complicated tweaks I had to do to get 13.2 to work (e.g., changes to video scaling issues that make Poser 13 menus too small to read as described here:  Fix for Poser 13 Menu Items too Small to Read | Renderosity.)  Are the "improvements" in 13.3 worth the risk or should I let sleeping dogs alone?

If you instruct the installer to retain your preferences, it shouldn't touch your settings.

The upgrade is pretty safe opposed to when you switched from Poser 11 to 13. As there hasn't been any major update to Python that will render your older scripts unusable. You can also certainly continue to use the High DPI scaling override.

If everything is running perfectly for you and you're not affected by any bugs or issues though, there is no harm in sticking with what is working for you.

Below is what has been fixed so far if you are curious as to what has changed.

Poser 13.3.895 - 2024-11-14
--------------------------------
- Use Cache removed from SuperFly render settings to avoid memory leaks. (App) #2421
- Exporting Partial scene no longer shows file chooser twice. (App) #2424
- Implemented displacement node for SuperFly materials. (App) #2234
- Displacement renders will no longer invert shading on curved surfaces. (App) #2285
- Documentation: Poser's system requirement for the Mac is now OS 12.7.1 (Monterey or higher).  (App) #2422
- Documentation: Updated details for Default Exposure and Saturation in PostFX. (App) #1846

Poser 13.3.864 - 2024-10-14
--------------------------------
- SuperFly Depth of Field checkbox correctly turns off setting.  #2417 (App)
- Camera Shutter_Close parameter dial no longer breaks 3D Motion Blur in SuperFly. #2418 (App)
- Graph context value by right clicking the Parameters Palette is now correctly scaled. #2284 (App)

Poser 13.3.853 - 2024-10-04
--------------------------------
- Fixed memory leak affecting large scale SuperFly renders, like 2048x2048 (App) #2414

Poser 13.3.846 - 2024-09-24
--------------------------------
- Fixed issue with Make Movie (when Auto checked) with Japanese localization (App) #2369
- Fixed issue with Uncompress Files Python script to fail with Japanese localization (App) #2408

Poser 13.3.837 - 2024-09-15
--------------------------------
- Fixed issue where number of cores used for CPU renders was limited to 4 (App) #2407

Poser 13.3.824 - 2024-09-04
--------------------------------
- Fixed crash when trying to render SuperFly in Non-progressive mode. (App) #2393, (Beta) #484
- Fixed crash rendering HDR scenes (App) #2397
- Fixed accelerator Restore All setting so it doesn't return after removing it. (App) #2379
- Properties palette no longer scrolls out of view. (App) #2375
- Corrected mismatched naming of joints in Setup Room (App) #2391
- Corrected Poser Python DialogDirChooser docstring and pydocs parameter names (App) #2388, (Beta) #481
- Fixed issue where German or Japanese localization causes render without producing HDRI image (App) #2400
- Completed feature request - create flipped morph (App) #1813 (Beta) #211


Poser 13.3.797 - 2024-08-08
--------------------------------
- Overhaul of Superfly render pipeline to preserve Cycles session and use caching for faster renders #2327
- Fixed a Crash reparenting with Hierarchy Editor. #2356 (App)
- FireFly Render no longer crashes at end of render. #2380 (App)
- Queue Render not longer crashes cycling frame 1 continuously. #2381 (App)
- Added "Type-to-find" to Parameter Palette. #2345 (App)
- Fixed Parameters search box overlapping rename field in Properties tab. #2376 (App)
- Added preference to not collapse all hierarchy displays or remember collapsed state. #2082 (App)
- PostFX on some Firefly renders no longer washed out. #664 App)
- Added a scrolling to PostFX dials panel. #1590 (App)
- "Target geometry has wrong number of vertices" dialog box no longer stuck in infinite loop. #2351 (App), #479 (Beta)
- Added ability to reintegrate a denoise channel back into the render process. #1975 (App)
- Added Save for Sharing back to localized German & Japanese versions. #2344 (App)
- Added Collada|RWY exporter back to the Mac version. #2300 (App)
- Improved Joint center to eliminate getting into a confused state. #2318 (App)
- Poser no longer freezes if wrong PMD is loaded. #2203 (App)
- Improved the use of the Gradient Bumps in the Material Room. #2341 (App)
- Unimesh figures in group now correctly respond to group visibility setting. #2181 (App)
- Cleaned up the UI on the Materials Apply tab. #544 (App)
- Fixed a crash in Cg preview gl shader scripts causing memory leaks. #2385 (App)
- Increased Joint zones list in Joint Editor item selection events from 50 to 500. #2340 (App)
- Fixed the Environment Texture shader node to correctly load map from Python SetString(). #1811 (App), #217 (Beta)
- Added new Python ImageType object which supports loading any image file from disk and creating wx.Image/wx.Bitmap. #1799 (App), #214 (Beta)
- Added ability for Poser Python command to get and set light intensity. #2387 (App)

Poser 13.3.686 - 2024-03-13
--------------------------------
- Fixed issue with Background Renders failing

Poser 13.3.680 - 2024-03-08
--------------------------------
- Talk Designer: Transcript correctly clears out previous supplemental text when loading a text file. #2323 (App), #472 (Beta)
- Talk Designer: Updated default Viseme mappings so all Cartoon Characters work. #2328 (App), #473 (Beta)
- Parameters Dials: Locked the min max and disabled the controls for geometry dials. #2320 (App), #469 (Beta)
- Added Denoise to the Raytrace Preview when set to SuperFly render. #2123 (App), #470 (Beta)

Poser 13.3.669 - 2024-02-29
--------------------------------
- Fixed issue with Vicky 4 pmd not injecting external morphs. #2309 (App)
- On the Mac: fixed Crash when renaming a figure from the hierarchy panel. #2294 (App)
- Replaced current Lip Sync tech with Rhubarb Lip Sync. #2308 (App)
- Fixed 'Install from Zip Archive' to be case insensitive on .ZIP suffix. #2311 (App)
- Scenes sent to Render Queue correctly recognize the adaptive sampling setting. #2297 (App)
- Scenes with HSV node no longer ignored in Render Queue and Render in Background. #2292 (App)
- Normal maps correctly rendering when using PoserSurface root. #2276 (App)
- Replacing figures or props now gives warning message saving to the library when file compression/uncompression doesn't match. #2301 (App)
- Corrected Simple Color node so that it no longer creates invalid results in the cg shader code. #2286  (App)
- Corrected Joint center going into a confused state in the Joint Editor. #2318 (App)

And if you are really worried then you can shut down Poser so it is not running and then rename the folder that Poser is located in to something else.  Then install the latest version and it will create a new folder with the Poser 13 name.  I do this all the time with each of the Beta's that come out that way I can go back and see what has changed.  I have something like 40 versions of Poser 13 on my computer and when I want to use an older version just close the current version find the folder for the older one and run the Poser.exe from that folder.  This works because the program and the content are at two different locations and all the preferences are in third.