DustRider posted at 9:12AM Mon, 14 November 2016 - #4289992

EClark1894 posted at 6:29PM Sun, 13 November 2016 - #4289900

DustRider posted at 12:19AM Sun, 13 November 2016 - #4289896

Just my opinion and point of view.

I have Poser 2 through PoserPro 2012, but haven't upgraded to PoserPro 11. I was excited about Cycles coming to Poser, and was hoping that SM would finally either provide better support for Genesis figures or have their own "great" figure. Unfortunately I was a bit disappointed with both. Even though I know Cycles is an excellent render engine, I was rather underwhelmed by the renders from SM, and extremely disappointed by the renders from the early adopters. This made it seem like a product that wasn't quite ready for prime time. Then there were all the issues with the new figures, this really made if feel like a product that was pushed out the door way tooo soon. The lack of instancing was also a big negative for me.

I'm a Carrara user "first", and have been using DS a lot more since the introduction of Iray, and Poser in now in a distant 3rd place. P11 for me just didn't provide enough bang for the buck compared to what I already have with Carrara and DS (I also have the Octane plugin for both). I still check out the Poser forums every now and then to see how it is progressing. So for me, it's not dead yet, but it is on a wait and see status (life support??).

Keep in mind, I was able to create great renders (or at least great to me) within a few hours of installing the DS beta with Iray, as were many, many other people. With Superfly, there were very few inspiring renders being posted (with the exception of a small handful of users) for months. Superfly "shouldn't" be that hard to use and get great results from. This also gave me great pause, not being sure what was the real problem with the inability to create great renders.

Anyway, between Poser and DS, for me, the way I like to work, and to the results I want, right now I like DS better (and I prefer the Genesis line of figures). I'll keep watching Poser to see what happens in the future. For those that prefer Poser, I wish you and SM the best of luck, and maybe someday I'll be a P11 (or later) user again.

I don't know quite how to respond to you Dustrider. Superfly really isn't that hard to use once you really invest a little time into learning it. But no you're not going to instantly be producing Michangelo or DaVinci grade "great renders" out of the box either. If you couldn't draw well with a crayon, giving you a paintbrush probably isn't going to help much.

I guess I was trying to say something, without actually saying it (seldom works). There were several issue regarding the implementation and general user results of Superfly that concerned me, but the quality of the render engine wasn't one of them. Keep in mind the following are opinions based on what I could get from various forum posts and other web sources, as a perspective purchaser.

First, IMHO, it seemed as if Superfly (PBR renderer) was a quick last hour addition to P11 in response to Iray in DS. Maybe it wasn't, but it did seem that way, and perceptions are very important. If we were to view DS and Poser as "competing" products, then I would expect SM to provide at least a rudimentary set of shaders/scripts/lights to provide good quality skin with the most popular figure for poser (V4) when launched. I would also expect them to provide an outstanding texture/shader set for their own flagship new figures. I would expect many outstanding renders from both SM and beta testers to show case the new render engine. Additionally, I would expect that early adopters would also be producing a lot outstanding renders within 1-2 months. From what I saw in the forums, this wasn't the case (but this is what happened when DAZ introduced Iray in DS).

Yes, I know that it takes time to learn a new render engine. But my expectation is that more users should have been able to produce great renders within 1-2 months. These expectations are based on my own experiences using Poser (Firefly, Reality/Lux), Daz Studio (3Delight, Iray, Octane, Reality/Lux, Luxus), Carrara (Carrara's internal renderer, Octane, LuxCore), and Vue Complete. With all of the mentioned applications and render engines, I have been able to produce images in less than 2 weeks that I would consider better than 90+% of the images I saw posted for almost a year from Superfly. Of course this is just my opinion, which may be completely different than most other people (but I kind of doubt it), but it is an important factor in my decision to not purchase the upgrade yet.

I'm not so concerned that I can't produce something I would be happy with using Superfly, because I feel I could. What concerns me is that for a product where the quality of the images being produced by said product are very important to "lure" new (and old) users to invest in the product, I haven't seen a lot of the WOW factor that I would expect is needed to attract the masses. This makes me question what/where the focus for Poser now is. As so many have noted, is it for the 3D figure "tinkerer", those that enjoy creating and doing their "own" thing, and don't really care about the visual quality of their renders, and/or the figures/textures/shaders they use? If that is the case, then I'm definitely not too interested in Poser going forward. Not because I don't enjoy tinkering too, but my ultimate goal is to create images I find visually pleasing, and that I'm proud of.

Also, I have a huge personal investment in this hobby in terms of time (learning and making/tweaking stuff) and funds (buying things I don't have the talent and or time to make such as human figures and accessories). As Poser and DS/Carrara diverge, I feel a bit compelled to protect my personal investment, and look at which may be moving forward in a direction that both best fits my interests and goals, and is pushing technology to improve and attract a strong new user base.

I know what I'm about to say won't be popular here, but it is my honest opinion, and ultimately the factor that tipped the scales away from upgrading to P11. So much of what I saw in the forums with the release P11 was ..... ummm ..... the same old group, doing the same old thing(s). Many of the images coming from Superfly were simply uninspiring. Then there were the people fixing the poor quality figures for SM (this, to me, was totally unprofessional on the part of SM, Charles states that "content is king" the they push out figures like Pauline and Paul ...... really???). The whole release of P11 seemed very unprofessional to me. Yes, SM has addressed and fixed many of the issues, but it really turned me off, and made me feel that maybe Poser isn't for me anymore.

Poser could be so much more than what it is, and P11 could have been a must buy for me had there been a lot of drop dead gorgeous images from Superfly, and had Pauline been a great figure "out of the box", and if they had added instancing (come on SM - it's 2016!!). I really hope they can turn the ship around, and make me want to get Poser again. Just waiting to see now.

I will agree that Poser 11 was rushed out of the door. I think that SM knew that, because they announced far more frequent service releases. Although Pauline was only vaguely human looking, it did show what Poser 11 was capable of with handles, sub D, normal maps. Superfly looked difficult to master, and I didn't even bother trying as I used Reality. However 12 months on I wouldn't even think of using Reality. I can get a PBR image out in Superfly faster than it takes to set up in Reality and it looks better. Huge cheer for Snarly's Ezskin 3

Have you checked out the Physical root node ? You can achieve excellent material settings with just a few clicks. I have an AMD graphics card so I use CPU rendering only. No problem of running out of memory with big scenes. Actually just found that Superfly has no problem with AMD card. Didn't work at all with Reality. Suffice to say Iray would be useless as its Nvidia.

As a test I did a quick Superfly render. Took old model, added Snarly's EZskin and a couple of area lights. Medium quality about an hour. I would like it to be quicker, but I'm not going to upgrade until budget graphics cards hit the 8 gb mark. There is of course the AMD RX 480.

A new Superfly render of the companion.

The morning after revision.

What the heck, I thought I would give Sam a go. First stab:

Redfern posted at 10:25AM Sat, 12 November 2016 - #4289500

-Timberwolf- posted at 3:03PM Wed, 09 November 2016 - #4289340

Yes, I'd like to see a Jenna Coleman character ;-)

This one has been available at ShareCG for awhile...

"Companion"

Sincerely,

Bill

My goodness, this must be the first time someone has mentioned my morph. ! I've toyed for a long time whether to do 'Samantha' and 'Jeannie'. Candice by Jochen38 has long been held to be Charlize Theron. I can see the resemblance to Sam, although the nose is wrong, and lets face it - that's the most important feature !

ssgbryan posted at 10:40PM Fri, 11 November 2016 - #4289783

qaz posted at 9:17PM Fri, 11 November 2016 - #4289780

At present many more people use Daz Studio than Poser. It's free. What would you expect. If you look at the Reality PBR web site, you will see that there are 5 times as many posts from Studio users than Poser users, and that despite Daz Studio having an in built PBR app for quite some time now. Poser users have been content to use V4 and the huge legacy content designed for her. Daz users have had to buy genesis, then Genesis 2 then Genesis 3 and with each release a regurgitation of the same clothes. How many vendors produce Gen 2 products now ? Daz users probably end up paying more than Poser users. However, that doesn't matter. Sex sells, and V7 is far sexier than any Poser figure. Don't get me started about Pauline.

If you are going to attract new users to Poser, you need to offer at least the same access to state of the art figures.

Superfly is starting to get there, and if the next Poser can include shadow catching and instancing that will be attractive. However Poser cannot continue to rely on a 10 year old figure. It desperately needs a decent figure. SM seem completely incapable of producing one. Hopefully Erogenesis will finally complete his figure in 2017 and there will be a decent competitor to V7.

What makes you think people would buy Poser if the "state of the art figure" was actually included

But what is a "decent" figure? Everyone has a different view on that. My definition of a decent figure is one that is realistically proportioned and realistically sized. DAZ figures are freak shows with literally inhuman proportions. Go look at the size of the eyes - there is literally no place to put the brain. Look at the armpits - the same problems with V2 are in V7. That torso? Please. It is why my go to figures are the SM G2 figures - I don't give a rat's ass how they bend, because they keep their clothes on.

There are a lot of folks here that simply will not accept any figure that wasn't made by DAZ. Never in a million years would they apply the standards they give for rejecting a non-DAZ figure to any of the Vickeys.

Many others want everything handed to them, and are aggressively unwilling to spend 5 minutes of their time to adjust anything. They don't want to RTFM and figure anything out for themselves.

That being said - Project E could fit the bill.

"What makes you think people would buy Poser if the "state of the art figure" was actually included" If it does/has things V7 can't, and it's free. But of course bottom line, they sure as heck wont if Poser doesn't have that. The figure itself isn't enough, but if it is well supported and some decent morphs are produced, then you are off the ground. For instance I have had people begging me to release a particular morph I did a few years ago. What if that and others were only available for a Poser figure ?

At present many more people use Daz Studio than Poser. It's free. What would you expect. If you look at the Reality PBR web site, you will see that there are 5 times as many posts from Studio users than Poser users, and that despite Daz Studio having an in built PBR app for quite some time now. Poser users have been content to use V4 and the huge legacy content designed for her. Daz users have had to buy genesis, then Genesis 2 then Genesis 3 and with each release a regurgitation of the same clothes. How many vendors produce Gen 2 products now ? Daz users probably end up paying more than Poser users. However, that doesn't matter. Sex sells, and V7 is far sexier than any Poser figure. Don't get me started about Pauline.

If you are going to attract new users to Poser, you need to offer at least the same access to state of the art figures.

Superfly is starting to get there, and if the next Poser can include shadow catching and instancing that will be attractive. However Poser cannot continue to rely on a 10 year old figure. It desperately needs a decent figure. SM seem completely incapable of producing one. Hopefully Erogenesis will finally complete his figure in 2017 and there will be a decent competitor to V7.

Did this in November within a day or so of getting the figure. When Shvrdavid finishes his improved Pauline I will give her a more attractive head.!

"Integrated oral anatomy"

Will it be possible to change the height and depth of eyes / teeth ? Humans are non uniform. I often have to move these around to integrate with a face morph. It's no problem on V4.

Glad to see you do not have a low definition face :)

Pauline Growing Up. Trying out the new capabilities of Poser 11.

Zev0 posted at 11:55AM Mon, 16 November 2015 - #4238925

First of all your example lacks the eye for fine detail. Your pupils are way to big compared to the photo reference. Your nose isn't even the same. Neither is the ears. Neither is the center gap of the lips. Neither is the teeth. If you cannot pick up on simple things like that, you will never be able to mimic a realistic face structure. HD won't help you in this regard if the basics are overlooked, basics that can be resolved without HD. Now can we drop this argument please? This thread discussion is between Genesis and new Poser figures. Want to talk about hyper realism, start a new thread. Thanks.

I was in a rush to try it out. Don't disagree on your comments re details. Again put up or shut up. Either show me you can do better with V7 or go away. You are just hot air. And I am on topic. The point I was making was that all the figures have issues. The question is whether Low res figures such as V7 and indeed the new Pauline by all accounts have problems in this area. As far as criticizing my eye for detail - I've seen your products and all I can say is "People in glass houses ....."

wolf359 posted at 9:24AM Mon, 16 November 2015 - #4238882

"Thought I'd put V4 through it's paces to see what it could do. The morph shown hasn't come within a mile of a Vendor. It's all mine. I do not have access to Zbrush. Few people can afford it anyway."

Hi sorry.. but no amount of HD morphing or polygons would have helped the V4 "Scarlet J" you posted because you are still SORELY missing: sub surface Scattering. You have eyes that have an obvious painted on highlight You have 1990's era transmapped hair with no stray strands and that is clearly intersecting her ear and I doubt that was rendered in a properly used PBR with an IBL light source.

All this Nerdy Mcnerd technobabble about HD morphs mean Nothing as Long as people keep ignoring the items I just mentioned in their quest for "realism" or "believability" in poser/Daz.

You lot are so sensitive here. This was a discussion about figures not lighting. I note that you lot are are high on verbosity and very low on actual examples. If you can do better then lets see it - show us all. Talk is cheap.

And for the record it WAS done in a PBR with SSS. The "obvious painted on highlight" your 'trained eye' has spotted is a reflection of a mesh light. So now come on SHOW ME WHAT YOU CAN DO !!!!

Of course I've added detail. Check the area around the eyes where it matters. I cannot as yet apply fine details with the tools I have (other than a displacement map) I couldn't care less what the industry is doing. I do care what is available in Daz and Poser. It seems to me your contention is that the tools are available but all the Daz Studio users are either too ignorant or too talent less to exploit them. I find that hard to believe. Put up or shut up. Show me the evidence. Show me a tutorial on how to do it. Show me all these V7s that look like something other than a V7.

Thought I'd put V4 through it's paces to see what it could do. The morph shown hasn't come within a mile of a Vendor. It's all mine. I do not have access to Zbrush. Few people can afford it anyway.

The lighting isn't the same so features are more washed out. Even with the higher density mesh fine detail is not possible ( at least until Poser 11 comes out). However you can get the main bumps with V4 I am saying V7 is too low res to produce this sort of stuff. Scarlett is a popular character - show me a Genesis version.