re hborre's comment re copyrights, I might disagree. Cosmetic touches might make the image a derivative works, or it might not depending on what exactly one changed. But, having read all these comments I want to relay what a speaker at a WSBA CLE I attended back in the early 90's said: erotica has driven technology. That was true then, it is true today, ever since the Super 8 movies to today's version of digital information. Back in the day, no one believed these college kids stayed up al night trying to find a faster way to send their mother's cookies recopies to their friends. There is no reason to assume anything has changed today. No one needs to like or support erotica, but everyone must realize how it's influenced the technology we use. 

As always, just my contribution to the marketplace of ideas.   

Further to Rhia474's observation, the latest edition of the Poser 13 manual appears out-of-date. Recently I searched for insight on the Subsurface Skin's ScatterScale function/settings and found nothing using the manual's search function. Clicking around didn't help.

As for content development, I've held off posting this because I don't know how many users this affects. But at least for me, new figures that only have dynamic clothes are non-starters and will not replace the SASH2019 version of V4.2+ I use. I may be the only one, but I get dynamic clothes to drape correctly less than 10% of the time. In fact, I bought an item that included two versions of the same thing plus a simulation and instructions. One draped as it should have. The other didn't even come close, leaving me to wonder whether the vendors even understood this process. And for those who actually figured out the dynamics, it seems dynamic clothes may work well for single character pin-up renders. But for those of us who create scenes that include, for example, three characters on a sidewalk, buildings in the background, and a motion-blurred car driving down the street, dynamic clothing completely hoses up the render. I realize that may be simply due to my lack of knowledge, but as Rhia474 noted, a little information may cause some of us to finally understand the dynamic morass and buy new products. As it is now, I'm sticking with conforming clothes that I can adjust/alter with the morph and grouping tools. I would very-much like an up-to-date tutorial on how to convert dynamic clothing to conforming and how to actually make conforming clothing conform. But if LF2.0 and Dawn2.0 are dynamic clothing only figures, SASHA 2019 will remain my figure of choice.

As always, just my contribution to the marketplace of ideas.   

Completely off-topic, a topic I started no less, but nonetheless a concern. As the person who started this thread, I receive EML notifications when any of you comment. I look at those but a few minutes later, I notice that some posts no longer exist. WT?

Years ago, the Holmes-Brandies Marketplace of Ideas moved me into a legal profession. For anyone unfamiliar, Justice Holmes believed that everyone gets to toss her/his ideas into the marketplace, where each will be debated and the best ideas will rise to the surface. Obviously, the 1930s couldn't fantom today's age of social media disinformation because it assumed the public employed some ability for critical thinking. But . . . none of that justifies a forum's dismissal of ideas it, for whatever reason, doesn't like. So, what exactly is happening here?

Just as a note, I'll be traveling Monday through at least the middle of June and won't have regular access to the highly insightful insights you may post. Nonetheless, I hope you all prevail in the marketplace of ideas.

I appreciate everyone’s comments. My question derived from posts I read some time ago in which some noted that revenue from poser products didn’t justify the effort needed to create the product in both formats. Your replies highlight that the decision to develop content for only one program involves much more than sales revenue. While I was exploring only the cost concept, you’ve shown that both the concept and implementation are unworkably complex, especially with figure-based content as opposed to scenes, architectural structures, props, etc.

I think the issue here is Poser, you are required to purchase a license, to use and be able to see what you create for Poser, whereas in DAZ Studio you can start creating content right away, without any worries that you have to purchase Poser, purchase LaFemme, if you're looking to create clothes or hair or other props. Creators are looking to make money not spend money on additional software.

Qaz, I don't mind at all. Please go ahead and post on-going improvements. As a side note, I found that getting a single figure to look like the original is much easier than getting a scene of several figures with a background to look like the figures. I'd appreciate any insight you discover re that. 

Thanks to qaz for informing us about this site. As a photographer who ventured into creating (or at least trying to create) photorealistic images entirely from 3D objects, the site’s “enhancement” feature shows promise. But for those who focus on photorealism (and I realize many don’t) compare the following: The first image is something I created with the latest Poser 13 update. The woman is the 2019 version of SASHA 16 using Faceoff’s real skin shaders (which I know others have unfortunately long abandoned) rendered in Firefly:

The next image is what the AI program created with its default (50/50) settings:

Which, if either, looks photorealistic?

Not sure what a "proer way" requires--but I've used Paul's shader consistantly since he first released it. And (no offense to the Superfly guys) but I haven't found anything comperable. Of course, each of us focuses on what our own art requires. Mine is good with what was, aslthough I wish it might have improved to what might be today. But, as I've said in other posts--the end line is what you want your art to be. Poser is only a tool towads that objective. And that tool includes everything from the original release to Poser 13.

Like noxiart, I only use firefly and can’t speak to Superfly or Cycles rendering. I use Structure’s Node Tider 3.0 in both Poser 12 and Poser 13 with the settings shown below. Haven’t experienced any problems—and I rely upon it extensively. But as Y-Phil noted, one must load it directly from the python script menu as opposed to wherever the “install from Zip Archive” function puts it. As shown below, it aligns all the nodes Face-Off included in his original real skin shader, which predates Poser 11. It also works for things more current.

I’m very sad to hear of Structure’s passing. Always appreciated the insight he passed along.

Hi Iklorio!

I’m reluctant to jump in here because undoubtedly others who regularly post to these forums know considerably more about Poser’s technical features than I. Yet, your post prompted me to respond from a photographer/graphic artist perspective.

First and foremost (and no offence intended because this is a comment for the entire community) your self-depreciating comment about being an idiot is grossly misplaced. Anyone who, as you have, seeks knowledge is not an idiot. I’ve never bought a “Anything for Dummy’s” book because I thought it entirely offensive that anyone seeking knowledge should have to label him/herself a dummy to receive it. Yet, I’ll agree some who regularly contribute to these forums inappropriately assume the rest of us, who are looking for knowledge, have their level of real or imagined sophistication.

With that (likely unwarranted) introduction, I have to say I lost track of your rendering issues somewhere in mid-post (again, no offense intended). As I am also an old guy, perhaps the following may suggest a path forward.

I have a 24 core processor running Windows 11; Poser 13 recognizes 48 threads. Not sure how many it actually uses for CPU rendering:

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.

While I have no idea how to recreate what Boni needs, I share her vision of the Monkees. Shades of Gray still moves me. Here in the US, the 1960s were tubelent. The 1970s were somethiung else--albeit hard to describe to anyone who didn't live through the adeventure. But those of us who did were forever enlightened. Go figure?

Not sure whether this is relevant to the current Threadripper, but nonetheless thought I’d toss my observations into the Marketplace of Ideas. In 2019, I bought the Threadripper 1950x processor on a PRIME X-399a motherboard with 128 GB of RAM. In Poser, I render exclusively in Firefly and wanted the 16-core configuration. My configuration has a Nvidia Titan V graphic card, which I bought for other applications. I use Nvidia’s Studio Drivers.

I render images to my iPad Pro’s resolution (2732x2048x264). Most of my images are full scenes with up to 6-7 V4/M4 clothed characters, architectural elements, and background stuff. Rendering is very fast—from seconds for a single character to a few minutes for the full scene I described. However, if the scene has extensive raytracing on leaves, trees, hair, the rendering time increased as we’d all expect.

In P11 and to a slightly lesser extent in P12, Firefly periodically crashed my system. In some instances, I’d get a message that Windows has to close Poser. Other times, Firefly would simply trigger a BSOD. Recently I discovered AMD’s Ryzen Master program, which as everyone likely knows, has a ‘creator’ mode. It appears the 1950X Threadripper default mode sets the core’s Mhz at 3700. Creator mode drops it down to 3400, which vastly stabilized my system. Ninety-seven of my Firefly renders in creative mode complete without crashing Poser. And I’ve noticed no impact to my other programs.

So, while the Threadripper’s speed increases render time, overclocking may not be the answer.