Blender 3.0 is on the horizon now.  It has been through at least 2 API changes since 2.58.  3.0 is getting an asset library with thumbnails, along with several other key features.

The version of Cycles that Poser uses was old when it was put into Poser many years ago now. Cycles today is worlds better than what's in Poser. You might want to learn more about Cycles before jumping to conclusions about it. Second of all, Cycles has worked in preview in Blender since before it was added to Poser. Poser just doesn't support using it there. Third, showing that you can render metal and shiny things well with a dark plain background avoids pretty much all the reasons that Cycles was needed.

The reason Firefly is problematic in most modern scenes is down to hard weaknesses, some of which your renders make really clear, IMHO. Its GI (IDL) is splotchy, and works so bizarrely that it can't be made efficient in any modern sense. That's not so visible on surface with details, but it's glaringly obvious on anything solid or simple. It doesn't support caustics, so rendering glass in any way that works is out of the question. Which also interacts with that GI/IDL problem, since then your only solution is to fake refraction with transparency, and transparency with reflection and IDL grinds FF to a halt. Hence your completely unrealistic windshield and problematic water. Its SSS is also problematic in terms of efficiency. It also only works properly if you specifically use the node that doesn't allow you to change the scattering radii except by pull-down presets. There's a lovely softness to FF's scattering that I really appreciate, but nothing that improves on SF's scattering so much I'd choose it. And more importantly, modern Cycles has random walk scattering, which works so much better and more realistically than the algorithms available in Poser. Then there's translucency. FF just doesn't support it, regardless of what the Poser root node says. FF also only partially supports emission shaders. You can kind of fake it with IDL, but it creates blotches and renders slowly and doesn't illuminate much even with settings in the 1000s unless you're using a huge mesh. Even in the old version of Cycles in Poser, it's not hard to light cleanly with meshes in SF.

Firefly can definitely make beautiful renders. But it also forces anyone who wants to render, say, regular jewelry with gems or a wall with a window that isn't its own actor, to come up with outlandish hacks just to have something that looks halfway decent. And I know, because I've made those hacks after trying everything I could to avoid them. They can come out OK, but often they take forever to render and tend to look like the hacks they are. In terms of shading, it only handles reflection and albedo/diffuse solidly. Literally everything else, from emitting to refracting to scattering, has significant problems and limitations. In a world where DS offers Iray for free, Poser can't survive being restricted to a renderer that can't render caustics, can't render translucence, has splotchy, error-ridden GI, has splotchy, error-ridden emitters, and is mad slow the moment you add transparency to anything.

That all said, by far what makes Poser's SF renders so much less realistic than Blender's Cycles ones is less about the renderer and more about Filmic's superior color management. I'd really love to see that in Poser as much as I'd like to see modern Cycles features like adaptive microdisplacement and random walk SSS.

Well, and the product says it comes with instructions and tips. If costathomas followed those and had a problem, that's a lot different than not knowing where to begin.

Did you look at its instructions and tips? If so, at what point did you get confused?

IMHO, that would be a shame. Admittedly, I never want to subscribe to software. If I pay for software, I want to be able to use it as long as it runs on my system. But outside of that personal consideration, the subscription model conflicts with Poser's dependence on a content community. Even if you say a little over 50% of the customer base likes it, I'd bet it at least rankles at least a little under 50%. Poser content is largely useless outside of the software. I'd bet about one in ever two customers would feel less confident about buying Poser content if they had to subscribe to use both Poser and the content.

What was the community buying at it's height in activity? Say an average of $50 per month per Poser (and then DS) user? Maybe even $100 per month? Even if the wages/cost of living ratio rose to where it was then, I can't see people paying that kind of money per month on top of a subscription, let alone risking that kind of investment on something they might stop subscribing to. I think I wouldn't ever risk buying any Poser specific content if I had to subscribe to Poser. After all, life happens. eclark is talking about not being able to pay for internet at all. And that's not uncommon here in the states. Last I saw any numbers, Poser is mostly used by hobbyist illustrators who are older. It seems to me a Poser subscription would be the first thing to go if people needed to tighten their belts even a little.

I own a lot of content I got on the "better safe than sorry" principle. I own a lot I haven't used yet. Having been around since 2002 or so, I would have spent hundreds, if not thousands, less if I'd been pressured to only buy what I had plans to use immediately, when I could be sure of still renting Poser. Heck, I'm not even sure I would have bought V4 under those circumstances. I had a lot of issues with her, especially compared to V3, and almost none of them were ever fixed by anyone.

It just seems to me that if Poser went subscription, Poser content sales would take a medium to enormous hit. Depending on how much of the market was pushed to switch from buying based on long term potential to buying for immediate use. I can't imagine a scenario where people who couldn't afford to pay for Poser outright decided to subscribe and buy content, so I can't imagine sales rising. Maybe I'm wrong (I'm sure there are numbers somewhere on this), but for something as non-essential as Poser is for most, I'd bet a one time splurge, at Christmas or a birthday if necessary, would be a more common fit.

But that's just my analysis given what I know. Bondware's data far supersedes mine. If they numbers say subscription would work best, I certainly won't argue. Though I would try to make the best decision for myself.

cspear posted at 10:34PM Wed, 25 December 2019 - #4373084

Since I do this kind of printing for a living, let me throw in a few thoughts.

The 300ppi standard is based on really old requirements for photo-mechanical reproduction technology, where a 150 line screen was very common. A lot of the technology used for digital printing uses the 300ppi standard as the basis for its printing resolution, which can be 600dpi, 1200dpi, 2400dpi etc. Note the difference between pixels per inch (ppi) and dots per inch (dpi). Do not assume that you have to make an image (PIXELs per inch) match the print resolution (DOTs per inch).

A poster of this size is likely to be printed on an inkjet system, and it is highly unlikely that a regular dot pattern would be used for screening: it's almost certain to use 'stochastic' or 'frequency modulation' (FM) screening. Traditional screens rely on Amplitude Modulation (AM). AM means the dots get bigger to deliver more of a particular colour. FM means that there are more dots of a particular colour where required.

About 25 years ago I was involved in conducting research into how image resolution impacted on perceived printed results, and long story short, for most images the difference between the same image at 200ppi and 300ppi, printed at the same size using the same paper and ink (actually printed on the same page) was, if noticeable at all, negligible.

Images rendered out from 3D apps have not been softened by lenses, scanners, etc. so should not need artificial sharpening to 'improve' them.

A poster this size will be viewed mostly from a distance in excess of 1 metre and will not be scrutinised as closely as a print held in the hand.

Many of the more recent RIPs and print control systems have built-in upscaling engines which can, depending on the image, produce astonishing results even from poor quality originals. I did a job this week where a 900pixel x 600pixel image was printed at A3 (12in x 16.5in) and looked, well, not great, but by no means terrible.

With all that in mind, I'd be inclined to render out to 100ppi equivalent (2400 x 3600 pixels); keep the image in RGB, DO NOT convert to CMYK; and DO NOT apply any sharpening.

Wow. That is just invaluable information.

Just to add, Blender 2.81 has the Intel denoiser as a filter in its compositor. Which means you can use that filter on image files, like, say, Poser renders. Denoising has made my life considerably easier from the start, and I've seen comparisons show the Intel denoiser as better than both the nVidia denoiser and the Cycles one. Also, it doesn't need specific hardware or software, which the nVidia one does. That said, all of those denoisers are specifically good at raytraced noise. For instance, the Intel denoiser doesn't work on noisy digital photos or Eevee renders.

AmbientShade posted at 1:30PM Tue, 30 July 2019 - #4358341

I don't understand what you mean by this, "exist outside the library" ? The best place to put all referenced files is outside of the libraries folder. For example, Runtime > Geometries, or Runtime > Images. If this folder doesn't exist already, make it. It will install like any other folder.

In modern versions of Poser, morphs are in .PMD files. By default, Poser puts those .PMD files in the library with the .cr2, .pp2, or .pz2 files that reference them. Many people, Poser team included, leave them in the library with the presets that access them. Which is a bad idea for the same reason it's a bad idea to put meshes and images in the library with their presets.

Poser preset files link from the Runtime folder down. Let's say you bought a figure. If a preset file (.cr2), mesh (.obj or .obz), images (.jpg), and morphs (.pmd) files are all in a folder "My Fig" in the library, unless the creator edited the links by hand in the preset, all of the links to the resources will start like ":Runtime:libraries:character:My Fig:". But let's say you decide this one figure doesn't need it's own folder, and you want to group it with other figures. Or you find its folder is (or will be) packed full, and you want to put the base figure in MyFig > Base. So you move the figure and its files, but now all the links are broken.

This is why almost all brokerages long ago wouldn't accept any products that didn't have their meshes in Runtime:Geometries and their images in Runtime:Textures. In point of fact, most insist on a naming convention within those folders. As in they will not accept your product if its files aren't in the right place. They do not, however, have a similar standard for morphs. But its even more necessary than for those other types of files.

Poser will tell you that it can't find the obj file. It will tell you that it can't find images. It will say nothing when it can't find the .pmd file. The morphs just won't do anything. To the user, it just looks like the morphs are broken. The dials will be there, they just won't do anything. It fails silently, and unless you're fairly knowledgeable, you'll have no clue why. You'll just assume the creator and the product suck.

Imagine I want to make a dial-spin character. Legally and just plain politely, I will do this by referencing someone else's PMD file, not embedding the other person's morphs in my own new PMD. If I do the latter, my customers will get the other person's morphs without paying for them. At least the ones in the new PMD. If I do the former, it's just an add-on to their work, like most V4 dial spin characters needed you to buy Morphs++. But if that person packaged their morphs like Runtime > libraries > pose > My Name > My Morphs > INJ My Morphs. pz2, INJ My Morphs.pmd, then my product referencing their PMD file will break the moment someone decides to move it to libraries > pose > My Morphs, or libraries > pose > Fig Name > My Morphs, or libraries > pose > Fig Name. All of which are pretty logical alternative structures.

Many content users install into an empty Runtime so they can move files where they want them to go.

If the original artist instead treats their PMD morph file like a mesh, and puts it in Runtime > Morphs > MyName > MyFig, anyone can reference those morphs for dial spin characters and give away or sell dial-spin characters for those morphs. La Femme's base morphs, for instance, are in the Geometries folder, not in the Libraries folder. Making her easy to support. But part of why Dawn character support never took off might be because her morphs are in the library. That means that any characters made for her either have to risk breaking the moment a customer decides to reorganize their library to fit their comfort or use entirely custom morphs. I love sculpting and have a free tool for it, and it's still a PITA to have to create my own versions of utilitarian morphs just because I can't build off of any Dawn's morphs. By far most character creators, even best selling ones, do not create their own morphs or 3d paint. They need to be able to reference other people's injections as much as they need merchant resource textures.

One of the ways the Poser team consistently demonstrated how they don't understand their own user base by doing this with their own figures since zipped OBZs were introduced (again, pre-SM). I actually reported this to them, and was rebuffed and told I shouldn't reorganize my library. They thought it was fine to make stuff that breaks and requires hours of hand editing references each time you update (I've done it several times) if you just make your library work for you. Which tells me that they didn't really mean for their content to be used.

What V4 had, what Genesis has, what all DAZ products have, was and is excellent marketing and product design. While good product design can include "high quality," not all versions of high quality enhance product design.

The customer demand that started this market wasn't animation nor even 3D. It was illustration. Poser and Bryce were created to make illustrating with Painter easier. And since they were part of Zygote, DAZ has mostly put that use first. Even after adding game-based aesthetics and game-friendly features, they still primarily design and market their content and software as illustration tools.

I used to be able to spot Poser use in about 50% of top illustrators' works. DS is still used for professional and hobbyist illustration almost as much as photomanipulation. Poser? Not so much.

Well before the SM purchase, the Poser team began to treat content community illustrators as people they had to serve rather than wanted to. They designed and marketed to 3D professionals, totally ignored 2D professionals as a market while occasionally using them in marketing, and talked down to and tried to appease the content community. They repeatedly showed they didn't understand how a content ecosystem worked. For instance, making figures that shared body maps and morphs, but not head maps and morphs. As a result, they steadily lost customers to DAZ, and many customers regarded their innovation packed new releases as having "no new features," since almost all features were specifically designed for animators or content creators.

I'd say about 75% of features added since PPP are used by less than 10% of the Poser customer base. That points to a problem that has nothing to do with SM or budgeting.

If the Poser team had respected illustrators and content users from the start, they would have released the Cloth Room with a workflow that didn't require the timeline (but could use it). They would have normalized the controls and labeled them with real world terms like "Quality," "Elasticity," and "Stiffness". By now, we could have already had weight mapped dynamics with initial tension settings. The morph tool should have settings like "move" (or "grab," as Blender uses), "rotate" or "bend," "billow," "gather," "wrinkle," and "turbulence." Instead, neither cloth nor hair has become any easier to use. All Cloth and Hair Room improvements have been on the performance end, with absolutely no work done on its completely failed UI, despite usage numbers really clearly indicating that failure at their release.

When it comes to poorly designed features, the Poser team has always tried to either entice users with better performance or change users with tutorials instead of accepting that usage sets the standard, and changing the interface. Bondware needs a Poser team willing to respect how customers work and be willing to accommodate it.

Mind, I don't mean listening to us whine and argue in the forums, or catering to the "Make Art" complaints. I mean taking into account the most common workflow(s) in the community. Using labels that make sense to most users. Providing features that make it easier to make awesome stills, features that would benefit animators anyway.

The strategy of adding 3D professional features has mostly failed the Poser team from the start, and they did nothing but double and triple down on that failure. But we still don't have things like in-camera composition guides, a post-production bloom feature, a background that makes an environment sphere unnecessary, or a set of HDRI for fantasy renders (no modern structures or people), or a set of pure skies. Those simple, low-hanging fruit additions would make it so much easier to make illustrations, and would also benefit Poser animators.

Who will never number more than a handful. Professional 3D animators who make their own models don't need a separate posing tool. They've done just fine without one for the past two decades. Game content creators need Poser even less. Even if Poser worked perfectly and were free, adding Poser to a professional workflow would just complicate it. They have to model, UV map, texture, and do particle effects in the application of their choice, one which probably supports rigging and animation. If they switch to Poser as the final stop, they're giving up particle effects and advanced physics and most likely a much better renderer. If they're ending in a game engine, it's almost definitely easier to go from their chosen app directly to the game engine.

There's pretty much zero benefit to using Poser if all you do is make content for your own animations or for games. And I say that as a Blender user. There are other 3d studio apps that have stronger rigging and/or animation tools. Still, even I, who have never used Blender for animating or posing, know that you can do so much more in terms of animating in Blender than in Poser. Like making complex meshes follow a dynamic cloth base.

The best Poser figure is one designed for the content community. One that makes illustration using 3rd party content easier. That assumes its users will mostly use a different character and entirely different clothes and scenery with each illustration. That assumes the majority of its users will never make their own 3D content, and will focus entirely on the ability to make a new image every day or so.

That means designing a base figure with a flexible topology that can take definition. That means lots of morphs at release. That means doing everything, and I mean everything, to make vendor support easy.

For instance, a good Poser figure needs morphs that either can be burned into new morphs or exist outside the library where they can be referenced. The creator should make very clear that morph artists supporting the figure should put them outside of the library, so others in the community can build off them. The figure needs to support merchant resource texture and dial-spin morph characters. While people complain about the flood of similar characters for figures like V4 or Genesis, the fact is that you need that flood if you want at least hundreds of customers to each go through about 7 unique characters a week without it looking like they all used the same 7.

Content creators should be able to detail the figure easily in any 3D application. Poser content creators, especially the ones that remain, often use free or cheap tools. This is the main reason I love Dawn. Her topology makes her a dream to sculpt.

A good Poser figure needs to make it easy for vendors to publish both skimpwear and flowing fantasy dresses for her. And until Poser gets a much more usable and functionally improved cloth room, that means making it easy to build conformers for her. La Femme is absolutely great at this, and Deecey's video tutorials for this are amazingly clear and easy to follow.

Ideally, a figure and its basic morphs should be designed and built with the testing and feedback of at least one clothing creator, one morph artist, one dial-spin character creator, and two or more top illustrators who do not make 3D content. It should be designed first as a community tool, rather than a specific dream girl. A Poser figure is a canvas. Make it easy for content creators to provide the paints and brushes, and customers will come to paint.

As much as DAZ has focused more on illustration, there's still tons that neither DS nor Poser does to make illustration easier. If all Bondware did was change the Poser UI to either make general tools usable for illustrators or get rid of them (Face Room, I'm looking at you), and add features and content to make illustration easier, I think there are a lot of people out there who would take notice.

Shadow_Fyre posted at 10:54PM Thu, 18 January 2018 - #4322506

Is this still true for Poser 11 now? I'm trying to get the results from this thread and it's getting confusing because of all the missing pictures. Nothing like resurrecting an old thread!!

Yes, it's still true. Ambient Value controls your brightness, Ambient Color your color, and if you want to involve Transparency, go ahead. EdgeBlend nodes give you a blend from facing you (inner) to facing away from you (edge). Without an exact example of the look you're going for, I can't say what elements you need, but those are the most common elements for glowing things.

Cyberdene posted at 9:08AM Tue, 12 September 2017 - #4312261

To pay their bills, that's a pathetic ass excuse to limit yourself to one race of models and I am sure they don't earn that much money from making content to pay their bills to begin with. Most folks have regular jobs, you know jobs that pay you an actual weekly check so you don't get behind on bills? Add this on top of the fact most people will torrent stuff for free and not pay which is also a stupid excuse to limit oneself to just making white figures onlyGet a regular job if you got that much bills to pay. I have friends who would love to use more ethicities in their work yet they are forced to use whatever jaded vendors are producing, you make it sound like everyone wants their digital world to be full of Whites and no other races. Sorry to break it to you but people use what they are forced to use. I am offended by this, it's like saying "White sells and other races don't." The fuck outta here with that shit. Plus There is way more male stuff for Genesis 3 being made than there ever was for Michael 4.

I sympathize with your longing for more diverse characters. I empathize with your frustration at not being able to find content you want. I think enough people have responded regarding the market realities to make the reasons for the current market clear to you. What prompts me to respond is your reaction to that frustration and longing.

Your words paint content creators as malicious and greedy because they aren't making what you and your friends want. You're not unique in that attitude, even if what you want is. The Poser community has long suffered from this kind of negativity. It's part of why the Poser content community is dying. All but a very few of the content creators I learned from or learned among are still making Poser content. A handful have switched to DS, but most have moved out of the community altogether.

Packaging up a product, doing internal testing (including test renders, test simulations, etc.), managing beta testing and revisions, making thumbnails, writing documentation and ad copy, making a full set of promo renders, making gallery renders and doing marketing on various sites, and managing brokerage communications generally takes at least 20 hours. Making a freebie only takes some of marketing (but not all), some of the promo renders (but not all), some of the ad copy, and brokerage communications off that list. And that's all outside of the main part of production. Almost all vendors are single artists, and the few that aren't generally work in pairs. Making content is not only hugely time consuming, it requires a wide array of skills- from copy editing to modeling to graphic design to managing volunteers (testers) to promotion and marketing.

I know that Poser is only a hobby for most people, and I appreciate all the time and money customers spend on it. I don't think it's a lot for content creators to ask for that same level respect. Try to respond to vendors with the same consideration and restraint you do when you comment on your friend's image. If you can give your fellow gallery artists the leeway to make images that you personally don't like or aren't interested in, give the vendors who make their images possible the same freedom.

The Poser content community is dying because content creators are leaving the Poser community. Yet another figure won't do but so much to change that. It doesn't matter whether everyone's destructively criticizing a figure or some other kind of content. Artists don't tend to feel inspired to create for a community when they see the people in it drag other artists through the mud after tens or even hundreds of hours of hard work.

I think that it is a good idea in general to allow check box filtering everywhere in the MarketPlace by software and figure. I also think it's important to only include something in a software tag if a native version is included. In other words, no "Poser" versions that are simply presets linked to a DSON script. No DS user ever accepted Poser content that loaded in DS as a DS version, and for good reasons. DAZ made the materials translate incorrectly, so that vendors need to set them up by hand. For the same reason and problems with DSON, unlike DAZ, Renderosity should not sell DS versions with DSON scripts as Poser compatible.

Also, to clarify, I don't think this is solely a Poser/DS issue. I've had times where I was disappointed to find the product I wanted was Vue only.

I also think it would be nice to include OBJ or Universal or some such in the software choices. I know there are a few products that include an OBJ version, and also that several people use figures in 3DS Max, Blender, or other full-blown 3D apps. I bet there are people who would like to browse those products.

For me, "Why leave V4?" isn't quite the right question. For me, it's at least three different questions.

Why support a new figure? Because vendors won't keep making things for V4 (or M4). If you like buying new stuff, and you want that new stuff to work in Poser, you should support a modern Poser figure. Otherwise, vendors will eventually stop supporting Poser altogether. It's about time to you know what or get off the pot. We all, including Poser's creators, have lots of choices. I've seen Poser used at the university I used to work at, in all kinds of works randomly online, in the oddly popular anime RWBY (and then talked about by its fans like it's high tech), and even once in a hospital. In every single one of the cases I've seen outside of this community, it was used for creating content, with only the default content used. In none of those cases did its users buy content.

If the Poser content community supports a new figure, just as we did with the highly expensive, poorly UV mapped, limited morphing V1, it will benefit the Poser content community at least as much as it does the creator, if not more. V4 is what she is today because she got years of community support. In the form of millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of man hours. As someone who felt she was different but not better than V3, and said so when she came out, I'd say she got that support from the beginning. I remember how many vehemently told me the community would fix all the problems I listed immediately (we only fixed her shoulders, and that took years), and how very few had similar criticism. Trust me, you remember when you get dogpiled. V4 got widespread brokerage support immediately, with only a very few vendors supporting older female figures in releases after hers.

No single group, let alone a single person, is going to be able to do the same, no matter how much time they have. If we wait for that to happen, those groups will have to move on from the Poser market long before they're able to duplicate all that work.

If we want future Poser content, we have to support a modern Poser figure. DAZ won't do squat for Poser users anymore. That ship sailed when they made DS, and some people are just now noticing it pulling out of the harbor. It's past time to move on.

Oh, and I also just really like some of the more recent advances, like topological improvements and weight mapping.

Why keep using Poser? In my own opinion, because DS is annoyingly limited, very closed, and poorly documented. Can you sculpt in it like in Poser? No. Sure it's got GoZ, but so does Poser. That's like saying Poser has AutoFit because it has GoZ (instead of more accurately saying it has it because it has the Fitting Room). I could fix the mesh problems I had with V6 in DS in seconds in Poser. I find it hugely frustrating to work without a sculpting tool in my posing software. Can you make your own dynamic clothes, or convert other people's clothes? No. DS users have to use an arcane process just to use MD clothes there, and from how it's been described to me, it's got some significant flaws. You have to treat poses as morphs, which (from what I've been told) has the same problem using morphs instead of rigging does. I can use MD clothes in Poser, and even convert some conformers. And I can do what I do most- make my own clothes in Blender and use them in Poser. For me, that's a whole lot I can't do in DS. Can I make add softbody or cloth dynamics to mesh hair? No. You look at, for instance ken1171, who uses soft body physics on his figures and hair all the time. If wolf359's work is the standard for professional, his animation is more than adequate for professionals. My aspirations aren't so high in that area. I hope to use soft body physics on hair in the future, and if I can get it to work half as well, I'll be ecstatic. Can you build your own materials, like you can in Poser? Well, technically yes, but there's no documentation about any of the nodes (or "bricks"). I mean zero. Can you just load DS source meshes into other programs the way you can in Poser? No, because DS uses a custom, proprietary format for its source meshes. As far as I can tell, they're no more efficient than .obz files, but a whole lot less easy to mess with. Which means it's harder for me to make morphs that work properly in DS. In Poser, it's been dead easy- load mesh from Runtime (maybe after unzipping) and sculpt. In DS, I have to use an exporter, which adds a layer of error to work with. Can you edit DS files in an editor? Only if you mean a text editor. There's no equivalent to the free or commercial apps out there to edit Poser files. And DS files are full of extraneous information that clutters the file. Information you might not want in files you publish. But the community seems to poo-poo the idea of an editor, so I don't see it happening any time soon.

Which is just one of many examples where people flame and rant about an issue in Poser, yet make light of it in DS.

Sure, I'd love for Poser to be even better than it is. But as a content creator, even if I stopped selling Poser content (which I could see happening- brokerages aren't going to accept V4 content forever, and they're already pushing G3 support hard), I wouldn't stop using Poser and use DS instead. I like being able to make what I need and hack what I have. And not only is that sometimes impossible in DS, so far as I've tried and witnessed, it's always crazy difficult. From my perspective, DS is easier when you don't mind the work it forces you to do and/or don't mind working inside of very particular boundaries. DS is the only app I have ever used with gaping holes in its documentation, where even its experts don't know how things actually work. Which frankly, makes sense. DS is a loss leader meant to sell content. Poser is a posing tool for content creators that includes content as a loss leader and an example the way Photoshop includes stock art. Of course DS makes creating harder for ordinary folk. It will probably make things harder and harder as DAZ customers become more and more of a captive audience. I'm sure it's a lot easier for PA's in the DAZ inner circle who get advance copies of DS and access to people who can tell you how stuff really works. But that ain't me, nor is it most people.

Why keep using V4? Well, for the same reason you might as well use V3 (much more realistic facial features) or V2 (TenTen, anyone?). Because when you pair modern features like the Morph Tool, subdiv, and bullet physics with older features like cloth dynamics, and render them with modern materials, you can get great results out of unique and high quality content that you already own. I have a ton of content for V4, but I think I have even more for V3 and A3. Sadly, not as many morphs. And I do really appreciate the weight mapped versions of V4.

And here's the thing. If we just replace V4, we'll have exactly the same problem we have now if that one figure creator decides they want to stop supporting Poser. The Victoria line is still full of innovations discovered and shared by the community. If you even look at 3D in general when V1 came out, Victoria wasn't special until we made her so. Most V1 and V2 morphs were custom. It wasn't until V3 that "characters" were just dial spins. JCM and ERC were community inventions. All that time, work, energy, and money will have gone to waste if we don't transfer what we learned to other figures. And it certainly doesn't make sense to make the same singular and risky investment a second time.

Over all, I think we need to get back to our roots. When I came to this community, new projects were greeted with cheers. People tried new things, and others encouraged them. Sure we cheered when people did stuff for new figures, but we were just as enthusiastic when people did things for older or less popular figures. People didn't bitch about Maya Doll, or tell BatLab or Yamato not to bother with her. We didn't try to silence people who liked Terai Yuki. I only saw people marvel when some forum member (I forget who) made the V2 teen into an amazingly real middle aged woman (one of the few Poser or DS figures I've ever seen who had proper hips). IIRC, that was during V3's reign. We championed projects that expanded what was possible in Poser. And we didn't spend so much energy discouraging others just because they wanted to do something different.

And all you need to issue a DMCA complaint is copyright. Which you automatically have upon instantiation your own original works. People in this community successfully issue DMCA complaints all the time about their images being posted on other sites. I know because they post about it in journals at dA. It's not at all uncommon, and on most sites, it doesn't seem to be difficult. Most people here would have a fit if someone took one of their renders and used it to make a new, public work without their permission. I think it's pretty fair to give photographers, character designers, and other artists the same respect we expect from others. Golden rule and all.

Many other countries have even more stringent laws than the US when it comes to copyright. But no, that's not what I said. You can use those photos for references of your own sculpts and your own textures if you use multiple references. That's what most people do.

I still use V4 for the same reason I occasionally use V3 or V2, and keep thinking about using Maya Doll (there's never enough time in my days). I have particular V4 content I want to use. And since I can use the Morph Tool, my own materials, Poser's subdivision, and Blender's many sculpting and modeling tools, I have no problem using pretty much anything I want. That said, precisely because I can make my own content, I'm beginning to prefer Dawn. I've absolutely never found a figure easier to morph. Well, and I like diversity. Outside of Miki, she's been the best at morphing to African and Asian characters. And while Miki 1 is better at both, Miki 4 isn't as well supported as Miki 1. Miki 4 has a decent mesh (though her eyeballs could use some work), but her less realistic looks have made her more replaceable and less well supported.

I also like Dawn because she works in both Poser and DS. While I (personally) still extremely dislike using DS, and can't stand the fact that there is no documentation for about 90% of its features, including almost all of Shader Mixer, I really love using Iray. I got V4 WM to load and work fine in DS, but she mangled after closing the program and re-opening the scene. That was seriously disappointing.

To be very honest, my biggest performance shift has been from Firefly to Iray (so much easier, more powerful, and quicker) and Poser to DS (so much less powerful and more clunky, due to lack of dynamics and the Morph tool). I used V4, V6, G3, and Dawn, and the biggest issues were the limitations of the software. I didn't get wildly improved results out of V6, and didn't see any point at all to G3. Though I did appreciate how the many years of experience- and an infrastructure our money funded- has allowed DAZ to start a figure off with tons of morphs before you spend any money. I was surprised at how much I could do with G3 if I had wanted. I couldn't inject some morphs into V4, and as I said, DS inexplicably mangled V4 WM after handling her just fine for hours (losing me a substantial amount of work).

I'd use Roxie if I had the time to work on her steadily, or if I needed yet another thin, baby-faced female figure of Northern European origins. She's not bad, just not outstanding in any aspect. But who knows, maybe one day I'll see something for her I really want to use.