wolf359 posted at 9:23AM Sat, 01 February 2020 - #4378504

I"m hoping someone from Bondware will step up and tell us why this is such >a valuable "feature".

Stems piracy & provides data on number of installed users.

(1) Poser is most likely not high on the piracy lists, especially since its market appears to be shrinking.

(2) Sales figures and downloads will tell you how many users you have.

@ Deecey: understood. But Bondware has refused, thus far, to say why they're keeping it in... which they intend to do, as far as I can tell from their replies to date. People have been asking about this for some time, and the replies have been vague at best.

So I"m hoping someone from Bondware will step up and tell us why this is such a valuable "feature".

JennBlake, please explain something, if you would.

You say the call-home "feature" is in there for continuity, even though it's only been in Poser Game Developer, not the main program itself, until now. The people who dont like it — myself included — want it out. We already had one occasion where the Bondware server went down and no one whose copies were trying to call home could even open the program. Granted, that was only for a few hours, but nevertheless, what if something catastrophic hit and shut the server down for a few weeks (and yes, that's possible)? What possible advantage does this thing that nobody wants serve you? If Bondware could put a credible explanation out there for it (something better than "well, it was in there when we got it"), it might alleviate some concerns. But thus far, I havent heard one.

Not sure what "favourites" are, but you might take them and categorize them in a separate RT (maybe one called "Favourites", so you know what's in it), then link to that.

IIRC, they were either giving it away or offering it dirt cheap when it was first introduced, and I snagged it up. Installed it, opened it, and thought, "Oh. Okay. Whatever." I didnt look at the program again until v4.

Man, has it improved since then or what...

I havent seen that, but — running Poser 11.329 on a Mac 10.10 — I've noticed that if I add an external runtime in the middle of a project and then try to go to the Materials window, everything will crash. Been that way since SM introduced 11.

Sorry for not posting of late, but going through a period of extreme self-doubt about the quality of my work after devoting so much time and energy to it.

I'll get over it, I'm sure, but right now... life as a comics artist kinda sucks, and not in a good way.

CHK2033 posted at 3:07PM Sat, 04 January 2020 - #4375490

SeanMartin posted at 1:42PM Sat, 04 January 2020 - #4375486

Hauling this back on topic...

Apparently the phone-home thing was put in with Poser GameDev 2014. You're seriously telling me that you cant take it out, even though it annoys the be-jeezuz out of the user base? We've already had one instance where the server went AWOL, and no one could use the program till that went back up. What's going to happen when that same server really goes offline for an extended period of time?

When did that happen? The no one could use the program part.

The server went down for a while, and during that time, the phone-home thing wasnt working, which stopped any access to the program.

Hauling this back on topic...

Apparently the phone-home thing was put in with Poser GameDev 2014. You're seriously telling me that you cant take it out, even though it annoys the be-jeezuz out of the user base? We've already had one instance where the server went AWOL, and no one could use the program till that went back up. What's going to happen when that same server really goes offline for an extended period of time?

Probably a minor thing, but it would be nice to have lights that, in preview, do a better job of mirroring what's actually going to happen in render.

Just thought I'd check and see if anyone actually bothered to answer any of my questions. And nope, no one really did.

I wish I could say I was surprised. With all the work that went into this, you'd think someone would want to explain what the team was thinking or maybe why the physical structure of the mesh demanded otherwise or... well, something. But as it turns out, the silence around such a major release speaks a heckuva lot more, I guess.

Sam, I really have to ask: why do we have to automate everything in order to enjoy using this program? I mean, yes, apply the pose, then tweak it to make it work for the character mesh of choice — that's part of the fun of working with this stuff, IMHO. And at the end of it, you may find you've created something even better along the way.

A_Sunbeam posted at 4:30PM Mon, 30 December 2019 - #4375004

I note, by the way, that gate's account has been deleted. No reason given, though it would appear he had been rather critical of both LaFemme and LHomme. ....

No, there was the issue that he was distributing model meshes from games that he'd re-rigged for Poser.

Sean, I'm going to TRY to have a reasonable conversation with you........

Let's not even start with that, shall we? To be searingly blunt, every time anyone raised a comment on the progress of LH, you acted like we were killing your baby. All we were trying to do was make this the best possible product so people would buy it.

Yes, it's I who set that sixty dollar bar. Based on the full prices of both, that's what it comes down to. But assuming the half price sales continue for whatever period of time, you're still looking at a thirty dollar investment of an impulse item just to get started. Adding in the general resistance to male figures, that's going to be enough for folks to say, "Sorry, no."

Yes, those of us who asked for a male figure did so because we wanted one. I dont see why the concept of a separate, baked-in morph/cr2 is such an impossibility. I dont see it as cutting the floor out from under anyone, nor do I see as "not smart". I'd see it as a way of having a single level character, not requiring a separate cr2 to make it viable — and as a result, a product that more people would be willing to buy instead of putting a purchased requisite in front of it. Why is that so difficult? What would make that such a threat to the sales of Dusk and/or Orion? Does anyone complain when we see countless female "characters", even as morphs of an existing mesh? Are any of them perceived to be a threat to sales of Dawn or LF? I just find the whole mentality around the way male characters are marketed here as utterly bewildering.

I am going to repeat again, for the benefit of those who clearly need to see it: I'm hoping I'm wrong about all this. I'm hoping the vendors will pick up on LH and give the users all manner of inventory to work with. But I also think it's a reasonable fear that that's not going to happen.

Well, whatever, I guess. Moving on, because, you know, I'm just one customer, and what do I know, right?

Look, I get it: people want to be paid for their work. That's a given. My complaint is that cutting through it all, the way LF was introduced — and, as a result, unleashing an awful lot of product in the process — is very different from what we're seeing now with LH. Yes, Jenn, right now it's 50% off. It wont be forever, just as LF started out a freebie with a 3.50 purchase of anything else. So if someone wanted to get LH, it's going to be thirty bucks here plus another thirty for the pro base model of LF just so you can load in the morph. IMHO, the market wont accept that, and LH will eventually become just another forgotten male character, and all the work that went into it will be wasted.

Let me re-iterate what I said at the beginning, nice work. Kudos to those who made it happen at all. But there were so many core concept problems that I really dont understand what you folks were thinking. I mean, if indeed it's a morph, why not just release it with the LF geometry but as its own cr2 with morph baked in? Why the insistence on having another thirty-dollar mesh as a requirement? My goto mesh, Kyle, uses the same geometry as Krystal, but you dont need Krystal to work with Kyle: everything is already there in the Kyle cr2 and ready to go. So was there something in the ownership rights to the LF geometry that prevented a similar situation here?

Honestly, I wonder if anyone on the team actually talked to those of us who use male meshes to see what we wanted. Trust me, marketing something that "can wear LF's clothes!" wasnt exactly a major selling point, as far as I was concerned. I understand what you were trying to say, but it comes down to how it would be received by the market you want to buy this in the first place. It's all just slightly bewildering.

Oh, and to respond to the statement about the ninety-dollar pro-version of a DAZ character: DAZ's prices across the board are a lot higher than what we see here — and for no real reason, as far as I can tell. That said, a pro bundle usually includes a lot of stuff. That comparison wont fly here, sorry.

Again, I'm hoping I'm wrong about all this. I'm hoping the vendors will pick up on LH and give the users all manner of inventory to work with. But between the way all this was handled, coupled with the mentality of "well, no one buys male stuff anyway", I"m not even sure now why Rosity went down this road in the first place.

Just my 0.02. No doubt worth every penny.