Letterworks posted at 5:51PM Sun, 15 March 2020 - #4383646

At this point reading this thread it seems any effort i make now or in the future is useless. I don't really think I could ever make a living at this but it would be nice to offset the cost of the software needed, but it seems to me reading this that everyone is settled and happy with the status quo to the point that noting new for Poser is worth the effort involved in it's creation.

Am I true in this belief? would it be better just to let Poser content die out to the point where only approximately 15 year old figures are available to use in 10-15 year old technology? And that everything needed for those old figures and old technology has already been made so any attempt to add to it is useless?

Please let me know if what I am reading this correctly so I can move along now and now waste any more time effort and yes, money on this area of 3D.

My family will thank you

Sometimes "new technology" isnt worth the spit it takes to hurl. Poser has introduced several new features that hardly anyone uses — not because there isnt call for them but because the learning curve is steeper than your usual hobbyist artist wants to handle... and let's get real, shall we? Poser and Studio both are hobbyist programs. If you choose to use either for anything beyond that point, you have to put in some considerable time and effort, just as you would with any art form.

But I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. There are several programs out there with considerable years on them — Photoshop and Illustrator leap to mind — and no one's complaining about those. They havent really changed the basics of either since the late 80s... does that make them something to avoid?

As for the grief about M4 and V4... they're solid mesh designs, capable of a lot more than what most people give them. Unlike the incessant parade of "characters" from that other place, they're adaptable if you just look under the hood a bit. So people still make things for them and you seem to think that's not worth their time? Seriously? Sorry, but that's sounding awfully presumptuous. I'd much rather use a character mesh with a proven track record than have to rebuild my runtime every two or three months when a new "character" is introduced that will have a limited shelf life.

As for Poser's flagship characters, yeah, not so great out of the box. But then look what the community has done with them, just as V4 was pretty dreadful until the community rose to the challenge. I may my own issues about how the launch of L'Homme was handled, but seeing what people are creating for it — and La Femme — has been pretty amazing. Maybe that's not good enough for you? Sorry. We'll all try harder in the future to make you happy.

Kyle 1.5. Incredibly versatile beyond his simple toon appearance, with a lot under the hood if you want to work with it. Hardly any support, but I've managed to put together about 30 gigs of stuff, thanks to WW.

Many thanks, good folk.

Lotsa old stuff in here, including the incredibly ancient Dragon Rider (anyone else remember that?), who's been rebuilt, re-proportioned, and re-textured. Two passes in Firefly, for different lighting, then composited.

Many thanks and congratulations to everyone.

Anim8dtoon posted at 9:58AM Sun, 09 February 2020 - #4379623

It would be awesome if any of you were to create and post renders from the original Poser version, but then I'm assuming you'd no longer have the computer systems it was compatible with then. I remember having Poser 3 or 4 on an ancient Power Mac running OS 9.x (Classic) long before Apple went to Intel and OS X. My, how things have changed!

I still have all my old renders on CD. This wasnt using the original version but it was one of my earliest renders in v4. Even then I was building custom textures for my meshes, because I really hated what was out there for them. This is the infamous Dork, incidently. He could clean up pretty nicely.

Did Elements kill Photoshop? Nope. It brought more users to the table.

If people want to learn more, they'll do it. Hell, I started with a bare bones 3D modelling program thirty years ago, and now I work with FormZ and StudioMax. But there are plenty of folks out there who simply dont want to. They want something simple and easy and provides immediate results. It's hardly myopic to say this market doesnt exist: look at any of the galleries — here or anywhere else 3D art is found — and you'll find plenty of people who took Figure A, Pose B, Lighting Set Up C, and Hit Render Button, because that's what they want to do.

And if you notice, I didnt mention NVIATWAS. :-) I doubt many of the newer users would even understand that. But NLFIHSB? Oh yeah, they'd get that.

And of course Poser is used for more than just that. I have some 5500 cartoons and countless book illustrations and a whopping cool portfolio that have come from it, and to be terribly immodest for a moment, it's damn good work. But that's just because I decided to go further than the NVIATWAS renders. A lot of people dont. They're perfectly content as is. But to expect that everyone will want to become a Master Poser User is about as silly as saying anyone who picks up Photoshop wants to be an Accredited Photoshop Genius. Like I said, I doubt most users could care about nodes or how well Poser works with other rendering engines or the intricacies of the Cloth Room. So let's not pretend that they're all out there wondering how best to set their Superfly specifications or the subtle nuance of lighting. They're not. A bare bones version is what the OP's friend wanted. She couldnt get it and didnt want to spend 250 — even with the free trial. So she dropped it and went with Studio. If that's what you guys want to see happen more and more... well, there you are. Hope it works for ya.

Off to get some illustration work done. Y'all have a nice day, eh?

EClark1894 posted at 7:39PM Tue, 04 February 2020 - #4379070

People don't really grow unless they challenge themselves. Seems to me limiting the software will lead them to search elsewhere to learn. They may think well is this all there is?

I daresay most users dont want to grow. They want to make some pretty pictures to show their friends or maybe to enjoy in the middle of the night when no one's looking. :-) That's all they want. They dont give a gosh darn about cloth dynamics or nodes or any of that, so why force it on them with a program more expensive than they really want?

If it's going to bring more people to this program, then I say go for it. Otherwise, the market will just shrink more and more. If that's the future you want for this thing, okay, so be it. But I say open the door and let them do what they want to do — and if it's just 43 versions of Naked LaFemme in her Secret Bedroom, fine.

EClark1894 posted at 6:18PM Tue, 04 February 2020 - #4379064

So all you want them to do in Poser is render?

Basically, yeah: position your hot-yo-mama, set your lights, hit the render button, and marvel at the art you made. C'mon, EClark, that's all a lot of people are interested in doing. They dont care about the difference between Firefly and Superfly. They probably dont even bother changing materials because most vendors have it done for them. They just want something they can use quick and dirty. A few months down the road, some of them will say, Hey, what else can this thing do? — and they'll consider upgrading to the full thing. But we're talking a basic, bare-bones version that doesnt cost two hundred bucks and can get more people trying this thing out. So why not provide a version that allows for that?

EClark1894 posted at 5:19PM Tue, 04 February 2020 - #4379061

I never used Debut, but if it's stripped down, won't you have to upgrade to get full function?

And that would be the whole idea: take out things like the cloth room, the hair room, and the face room; maybe remove the advanced side of the Materials room and Superfly capabilities, so you wind up with a basic but usable version for most rendering needs for a hobbyist. Sell it for thirty bucks. At the end of, say, two or three months, give the buyer the option to upgrade to the full program (probably with an "unlock" that would turn on all these missing capabilities) or keep it as is. Let the buyer decide if it's worth sticking with the basic one or moving on to a more fully-featured version. And then market the hell out of it.

And then it's a couple of hundred dollars. So strip out some of the bells and whistles and sell it for a reduced price, like Photoshop Elements.

TO DRAG THIS BACK TO THE ORIGINAL TOPIC...

@ Jennblake: Has there been given any thought to a stripped-down "starter" version of Poser that the thread's OP's friend could avail? It really does seem like a natural of a product.

I've worked with Macs for many, many, many years (going back to vers 7 OS), and they have definitely lost their edge since Jobs passed on. Everything now is so "cool" and geared towards the "mobile devices" that the actual computers are lost in the shuffle and left to die. The new Mac OS is a joke, and the new cheese grater Macs are overpriced and ludicrous. I figure I have three or four more years on the machines I have, and then it'll just be retiring from the computer world all together... and I will not miss it.

You also have the option to fade back the texture map in the materials room. With a white base underneath it, that should lighten the colour.