primorge posted at 3:18PM Thu, 09 September 2021 - #4427057

** But I think a lot of the market is simply kept alive by peoples passion for 3D**

I imagine, in many cases, it's supplemental income also...

Yeah sure some will do that, no doubt. But I still think the majority are hobby or self taught people. Imagine working all day with 3D and then you come home and do more of it, maybe they do, I don't know, I don't think they would bother to much with the whole effort to sell stuff and make product presentations, testing etc. Its really a lot of work, compared to "faking" something to look good, which most people do when they create art, the only thing that is important is the final image, but that doesn't really work if you try to sell it :)

Cyogreem posted at 3:03PM Thu, 09 September 2021 - #4427049

@3D-Mobster

I like the work you done on the Handcuffs for example, but hey 4$ that is a joke ! I am not wanting to insult you rather a compliment for the work but considering that such a Handfuffs pack could be sold for a 40$ up for each license you should think about it if you are getting ripped off . just a sample of many , and I even believe that one who really wants them would pay the 40$ up if one does not want them they would now even spend the 4$ on it . At least the time you spent on creating the Pack make the Promo etc. would be payed off , and not just with a salary of cent per hour of work. You might just have to provide a few conversions for the cuffs and puff you are on 10x more for each sale. Add a extended license and you are at 20x more

I agree, everything that is sold on Renderosity or Daz is underpriced, I wouldn't disagree with that, and as you say, even making the promos and turning what you have made into an actual product takes a very long time, at least for me, because I like to create promo material. Like the pose series with the police uniform, you have probably seen it on my store. That uniform for both V4 and M4, I made solely for the promos and that obviously take a long time as well.

I do think that Renderosity could attract more companies, if they focused on that like a "Sister" site aimed at companies, which need certain licenses and maybe focused more on standard 3d stuff, besides Poser and Daz characters. That could help content creators here, to maybe get a bit more for their work and obviously Renderosity to make more as well. But that is kinda of topic.

But thanks for your feedback regardless :)

Cyogreem posted at 2:55PM Thu, 09 September 2021 - #4427047

actually not insane at all , insane is the low prices for Poser or Daz models that actually should be sold at a way higher price. Most models offered below 15$ are way underpriced for all the hard work considering that the creator only gets half of the sale. if you compare with prices at turbosquid or similar sites you will not even get a 3d toothbrush for such a low price. So actually it is just cheap how Poser and DS creators are selling them selves, comes to it that it does not even sell better if it is cheap in contrary it sells less as it is cheap, even if the models below 15$ are of higher quality then to allot of turbosquid sold models over a 200$. If one want to get a 3D file he pay's the price if he does not like it he will not even pay a buck for it . Comes to it that Poser DS models also can be adapted for other 3D apps so in theory these should be sold for 10 times as much as asked until now it would also be more attractive for the creators.

The way Poser DS is priced is almost discriminating for quiet some great 3D works the artists offer, and even if a model is sold at a value of a pack of cigarettes' the customer moans and asks for more because he spent a 5$ on it ( Strange world )

I would agree, given how much knowledge and work is required to even get to a point where you can make a working 3d model with textures, maybe a character with rigging etc. then they are sold way to cheap compared to that effort. But I think a lot of the market is simply kept alive by peoples passion for 3D, but the huge difference, is that people when people buy these things they still have a lot of work ahead of them. The 3d product, only gets you so far. Whereas a youtuber you just have to watch and be entertained. But still not sure why people are so eager at throwing money at them and then potentially complain whenever something increases in cost, to me that makes little sense.

If someone have enough money to just throw 100-200$ at a random youtuber, one shouldn't complain about anything in regards to money, in my opinion :)

primorge posted at 2:51PM Thu, 09 September 2021 - #4427043

How about VTubers like Gawr Gura whose net worth is estimated to be between 1 million and 5 million dollars since her debut in sept 2020. She plays games, chats random stuff, and makes cute noises. Not a bad income. If you ever watch any of these live Superchats, as they're called, you'd be stunned by the ridiculous amount of money people toss at these virtual personalities. Strange world we live in. The writer Kurt Vonnegut once made a humorous remark about the vast sums we will pay to witness someone throw or catch a ball, tell a story, or sing a song... Things commonly associated with children's activities. Can't seem to track down the exact quote.

I don't get it, I can understand that people want to support them with a few dollars here and there if they really enjoy it, but I have seen people throw 100+$ at these people, like it was nothing. Maybe they just have to much money and doesn't care, or maybe its some sort of celebrity thing or wanting to get noticed or something? Its not exactly like they are starving as you say :D Some of them makes millions of dollars on it. It truly is a weird world.

I tried to look up that youtuber you mentioned and you are correct its just some avatar saying weird noises, really don't get it.

Just saw it, I assume that it is only the end part that is CGI and the rest is just old footage?

Its nicely done, nothing to say to that, however the scenes are fairly short and a bit dark, so its difficult to get a good look.

randym77 posted at 5:33PM Wed, 19 May 2021 - #4419520

@3D-Mobster: Oh, Snarly's scripts are amazing. I use them a lot. Probably EZskin is the most used. It will fix the shaders of popular figures for Firefly or Superfly with one click. A lot of the older shaders look terrible in today's Poser, but EZskin fixes them. SceneFixer does something similar, but isn't specialized to specific figures; you can even use it on props.

Ahh ok, I know EZskin, haven't really used it though. But that seems handy. Might have to look into that at some point. Thanks

bagginsbill posted at 5:23PM Wed, 19 May 2021 - #4419518

You might be able to get ideas from this for a SuperFly shader.

I tried using it and it seems to work nicely for Firefly, but as you also pointed out not so much for Superfly.

Creating foam is really not easy :D

Its extremely complex or at least well above my abilities with cycles. With all the bubbles etc. I wouldn't even know where to start :D

I was wondering, given that you are very good at all this node based texturing, have you tried Substance designer? because I would assume that it is a playground for you with all these nodes, and maybe you could make some nice PBR textures along the way, like foam :D

Substance designer

Eronik posted at 9:00AM Wed, 19 May 2021 - #4419509

Sorry randym & Mobster, but that beer shoot is an actual picture. And every time I scroll through this thread, I feel the urge to drink one of them beers, the PBR (short for Pabst Blue Ribbon) :}

But we could make it a fun challenge and see who can come close to that pict with SuperFly.

Yeah that could be a fun challenge, I really don't know how to make the foam though :D

randym77 posted at 8:16AM Wed, 19 May 2021 - #4419506

I think this a major factor holding Superfly back. It's seen as not finished yet. Vendors and users are hesitant to commit, because Poser 13 (or even the next update of Poser 12) might break the shaders that used to work. You have the early adopters who are excited about a new toy, but most users don't want to learn a whole new system when it might go away with the next update.

Someone updating Snarly's scripts to work in Poser 12 would be a big help. Even if you know what you're doing, adjusting shaders for an entire human figure is a pain in the butt. If you don't, forget about it.

I do think they may have released Poser 12 too soon. They probably needed the money, but for most users, it's probably not worth it to upgrade, and I suspect it's kind of made a mess of the content market.

Not sure about your marketing plan, though. It sounds like that would leave them in turf war with DAZ, and I don't think they'll win.

I don't think its a huge issue that Superfly is not a 100% completed, this issue is with all renders, where you have new and improved versions being released, which might require some adjustments to shaders etc. Stuff like that can be worked around, if people have access to the same versions. The problem is, that a person might make a product using a node in Poser 12, which means that it will probably just make an error in Poser 11, so potentially all those people are removed. Which is why vendors would probably target the lowest possible version. Which again sort of ruin the idea of a new release, because in a program like Poser which is 99% content driven, you want your content creators to adapt to the new features as fast as possible, because they help "sell" your product, otherwise what would be the point of a new version in the first place?

But as it is now, since users and vendors are split all over the place, its a nightmare for everyone, including Renderosity, because obviously they would like people to buy Poser 12 and content for it. That is how they make money, but the content creators are basically stuck in an old version and a lot of users are not going to upgrade to Poser 12, because of a single piece of content. So its kind of like everyone is stuck in a deadlock. Because even for vendors buying Poser 12 is still expensive, its not like we make millions of dollars from this. I think by far the most of us do it, because we enjoy making 3D and making a bit on the side is nice. But you have to remember that pretty much all content creators have experience with other 3D programs as well, which means that if we are working on personal projects, we wouldn't go through the whole process of turning them into products, which does take a lot of time already. So further complicating the whole process for us, I simply don't think is very beneficial for anyone in the community or again Renderosity themselves.

I don't know Snarly's scripts as I rarely use any scripts at all. But if they are useful, probably Poser should include a version of them which does whatever they do, because as you say it might be something that people really want.

Whether they released it to early or not, I don't know. But I definitely think they released it with the wrong price tag :D

In regards to Daz, they are already in a tug of war with them, and I don't think its about Poser winning over Daz or the other way around. But a lot more about Poser adjusting to things and the market they are in. Because again, they need users because that's how the make money and the users want content. So Renderosity have to figure out how the please these two sides, while making profit as well. And I just don't think that the way they are doing it now, is going to work in the long run, because they don't really satisfy any sides at the moment as I see it, because they drive this knife between the user base purely due to their own releases, which divide users and ultimately affect their own business model. And at some point, someone is going to give and then it all collapses. Because as I see it, it will only get worse with Poser 13 or 14 etc.

Eronik posted at 5:28AM Wed, 19 May 2021 - #4419483

Thanks for the link Mobster! Except that all this PBR talk is really making me thirty for a cold PBR :)

To your health!

If that is a 3D render, I have to say well done. That looks freaking awesome :D

Hopefully that will help me on my holy quest for spreading PBR to the masses :D

(PS. I think I missed the name of the beer, anyway looks awesome regardless :D)

randym77 posted at 4:00AM Wed, 19 May 2021 - #4419482

This must be a right pain for vendors, with basically three renderers to support (or at least consider). At this point, there's probably a lot more people using Firefly and Poser 11 Superfly than Poser 12, which makes it hard to get rid of one.

It is in my opinion a big issue, because which users should you make content for and which render engines? Then one could argue that we could just include materials for all of them. But I don't think people know how long it takes to make textures, PBR makes it slightly faster and allow all vendors to use the same basic method to describe the most common used materials that you will basically find in all scenes, which is really awesome.

Obviously the big issue as you also say is that both vendors and users, have different versions of Poser. Which obviously was an issue the moment Superfly was introduced, its to be expected, as its a completely new render engine. However Poser 12 have access or uses different nodes than Poser 11 does. And when Poser 13 comes out at some point I can only imagine that it will be even worse, because obviously users of Poser 12 want to make use of the benefits with their version and so does potential users of 13, but for vendors to make content for as many users as possible, it makes sense to make them for lowest possible version of Poser :D Which means that you have to use the nodes which are available in all the versions. And that is simply when we are talking Superfly, then you have to deal with Firefly as well, because a lot of people prefer using that, due to whatever reason.

So even for content creators there is probably not a huge incentive to switch to Poser 12, because as long as the majority of the community is stuck in Firefly or earlier versions of Superfly, the benefits which potentially comes with Poser 12 and above, is not really needed. I don't think that Poser 11 or 12 improves on Firefly compared to Poser 10 or maybe even 9, for instance?

And that is a huge issue, and I also think that its the wrong way for Poser to go, their strategy for Poser is wrong in my opinion. If you compare it to Daz and their method of doing it. Content creators as well as the users, will always work with the same version, some might choose not to upgrade, but 95% or more of the community will use the latest version.

I have no clue how many people are using the different versions of Poser, absolutely no clue, and I don't even think that Renderosity knows. They obviously have some sales indications. But I don't think they have any good numbers to work with when it comes to each version of Poser.

I suggested it back when they started talking about Poser 12, that they should make it free and I still think that it is the way to go. Yes, they might lose a bit of sales from Poser itself, but it will probably also boost the number of users, which will potentially buy content for it. So what Renderosity ought to do, is to boost and work on getting top of the line content. Like investing in top of line characters, animals etc. boost the relationship (not that it is bad) with content creators. Because content is what drive both Daz and Poser. Without that, these programs dies it's that simple really.

But constantly releasing new versions of Poser, which lets be honest is quite expensive, especially when you as a user also have to buy all the content. So the strategy they are using, is sort of like driving a knife deeper and deeper between content creators and users and their own business model, where the gap constantly gets wider and wider.

So if I were them, I would change the strategy for Poser completely.

1. Make Poser free.

2. Release high quality models (humans and animals like what initially drew people to Poser, yes it will have an initial cost, but it would be money well spend)

3. Make constantly small improvements to Poser, like adding new shaders and other minor improvements, that will help the average user.

4. Listen to the community about what changes they would like and slowly implement them, not in one huge release, but as above slowly over time.

5. If they want they can work on a more massive version in the background and release that when ready.

6. Work closely with the content creators and work on getting Poser out there so people are made aware that it exists and it's now free and there are lots of content for it. Basically increasing the user base. And as that happens, the sales in content should follow, which most likely will draw in more content creators as well, which again will most likely increase their revenues from content sales.

And finally everyone is working with the same version of Poser, which will make the marketplace a lot more consistent.

I personally think that if they are continuing with the strategy they have now, that they are potentially going to kill Poser, because it becomes too complicated or to messy for content creators to work between all these versions and for users also having to navigate between it, to find content that works in their version is not the right way to go.

Rhia474 posted at 7:56PM Tue, 18 May 2021 - #4419468

That site is amazing. I'm rendering a quickie tabletop (wood) with a patterned brass texture on a ball, and it already looks 200% better than most stuff I tried as 'Superfly shader' before for those type of textures.

Thank you. Off to obsess a bit and experiment. Those tutorials Caisson posted go WAYYY over my head. Heck, most of his explanations go way over my head, I really need small words. Or just tell me 'this goes here, hook it up', this is the value. LOL.

Completely agree with you, because a lot of people confuses Superfly with a complex web of cycles nodes, adding this and multiplying that. Which is very useful when creating certain shaders, like the glass one we had a long discussion about in another thread and some diamond shader. So you still need a few of them for these materials, which is obviously a shame, because such materials should have been supplied with Poser, these would have been extremely useful. Like having a good PBR glass shader, water, diamond, gems etc. Where the physical shader struggles and because these are the ones that 95% of all people have issues with, because they don't know how to hook up all these nodes.

What is especially nice with PBR textures (using texture maps as above) is that they are extremely easy to read or understand. And since you have used some of the textures from that site, you would probably agree that they are very easy to understand, because they are just grayscale maps, the more white there is, the more rough a material is, so you can simply open the roughness map in Gimp or Photoshop and adjust the white/black values, if you want to make it more or less rough. You don't have to worry about any of the other maps.

And again, since these are PBR you know that they will look correct regardless of which lighting you use and that they will look the same for someone else that uses it as well.

Because as you can see in the example I showed above with the brass spheres, lets assume it was part of a product, so I adjust the lighting in my scene so it looks good in my promotional renders, however anyone that would buy it, might get completely different results, because the material react so differently depending on the lighting they use. And its extremely difficult for content creators to combat this, because how could we? We can't test all lighting settings that people might use to make sure that the product looks like we intended. But PBR solves most of these issues, despite the glass, gems, water etc. because they require cycle shaders and people might create them differently. So I would suggest (If you like the results of the glass shaders in the other thread) that you copy them down and save them to your library. Because it seem to work for all types of glass.

caisson posted at 4:12PM Tue, 18 May 2021 - #4419457

The single biggest thing that made Superfly easier for me to understand was realising that Specular has a completely different meaning -

• in Firefly, Specular is a hack to provide fake reflections (to use raytraced reflections in Firefly you would have to add a Reflect node to the material)

• but in Superfly, as everything has real raytraced reflections all the time, Specular means Base Reflectance.

This is why Firefly is often claimed to be faster. It isn’t, it’s just doing a lot less work. If you add Reflect nodes to every material to compare directly with Superfly you will find that speed difference …. quite different. For kicks, try adding some strong DoF too. Like for like, Superfly is way faster.

The second thing that helped me was a basic understanding of the PBR Metal/Rough workflow. Like, the difference between metal and not-metal. Base reflectance vs fresnel. What roughness means.

For me, it's that it is easy observable in the real world.

• A metal is something that is an electric conductor. And you always work with the outermost layer. So a painted metal pipe for instance is not metal as there is paint.

• Roughness is easy understood, if one looks at it, like how "dirty"/beaten or uneven an objects surface is. A mirror have 0 roughness so its reflection is very high. A piece of wood have a high roughness and therefore doesn't reflect like a mirror.

So its pretty easy to take any object look at it and describe it based on these two values.

• The diffuse color is simply the color of the object, nothing else.

• Normal map is just a 3d bump map that is autogenerated. (No one makes these by hand, that would be insane), so as you said a grayscale bump map can do if needed.

Whereas if you work with fake materials and have to replicate an object, its a lot harder to describe it and even harder to put together all the nodes.

randym77 posted at 1:37PM Tue, 18 May 2021 - #4419444

I remember people trying to use the cloth room for hair back in the early days of Firefly. I think they mostly just textured fairly large pieces of cloth to look like hair. For certain styles, it was okay.

Dynamic hair can be useful even for still images. Even the best hair doesn't have morphs for every situation. This is Kirwyn's dynamic hair, made longer and with a glossier shader:

There really was some nice work done with dynamic hair years ago. Kirwyn had some fantastic ideas, and there were a lot of different shaders that ranged from realistic to shampoo-ad shiny. But really, there's been no improvement in the Hair Room since Poser 6 or 7. (I think the above image was rendered in Poser 7.)

That is so very nice looking hair, that looks very good, I think

Eronik posted at 1:22PM Tue, 18 May 2021 - #4419442

And speaking of not having to becomes nodes gurus, where would one find good starter sets of SuperFLy textures, especially procedural?

This is were PBR becomes very handy :D

I believed we talked a bit about it earlier, the substance painter etc? And if you have followed along in this thread, one of the benefits of PBR is that it works across different render engines... hint hint :D

This is a PBR texture from: Freepbr loaded directly into Poser's Physical node, using the four common maps you need (Diffuse, Roughness, Metal and Normal). Which means that you can use any PBR texture you can find on the internet that use them and use them directly in Poser and expect them to be correct. You want them tileable you can probably find them. I found this site just doing a quick search. :)

This is how you hook it up:

Thing to notice, the diffuse might be called Albedo

Set Roughness and Metal to 1, and make sure that Roughness, Metal and the Normalmap when you load them in is set to Custom gamma value 1.0 in the load box.