LaurieA posted at 9:40PM Tue, 25 June 2019 - #4354728

You guys can make fun all you want and maybe you're happy with Poser and the status quo, but obviously something is not working or Poser wouldn't be where it is. It is because SM listened to people who feel like you. Unless you want Poser to end up in the $3.00 bargain bin at the local Walmart, opinions like OURS are things that Renderosity needs to take into account. I'm not saying listen and do EVERYTHING we say for crying out loud, but really consider what people are telling you. The majority of ppl that went to the "other side" were former Poser users. Something is obviously not working. People want really good looking, easy-to-use figures. They want an easier time fitting clothing to other figures. They don't want to have to spend hours converting, smoothing, cajoling, tweaking, pushing or otherwise fiddling with figures to get them to look like they want them to. All people are saying is that Rendo, if they want people to BUY Poser when there is a free competing software, is that they're going to have to make it as easy and as fun to use as humanly possible. Right now, that is not the case. I might be weird that I like to experiment with shaders and materials, but I can guarantee you that most people do not. Most people are never going to learn how to model their own things, or morph or rig. I know you say it's possible to get something good out of Poser...of course it is! But it's going to take you 10 times as long with 50 times the frustration as the competition. THAT is what the new owners need to consider.

Think about all the former Poser vendors that are now making content only for DS. Do you think they wanted to? Maybe some did, but some vendors do this for a living. If people were buying for Poser, they'd still be there making things. But the fact of the matter is that most people are not. V4 content is saturated. Poser is bleeding users. So unless you want Poser to stay right where it is (which is pretty much limbo), maybe we all need to make some compromises that can suit everyone, not just one side or the other. Yes, there are DS users in this thread. But most of us were once Poser users and would like to maybe be Poser users again. We want to see it succeed, not fail.

Laurie

This +1

I'm very glad to see Poser go to an owner that cares, and that understands (or should understand) the market niche that Poser is in.

If you were on a Vue artist product subscription plan at Cornucopia 3D, your "unused" payments were converted to the new subscription plan. You should receive an email sort of explaining it (see excerpt below from the email I got). I got one month, seems like I should have had more than one month, but they aren't real clear about how it was calculated.

From email I received: "In the coming days, all subscription fees you had accumulated within your former product subscription plan will be transferred to a Creator Solution subscription ($1 paid towards the old plan is automatically credited towards the new subscription plan). "

DUDU.car posted at 5:08PM Tue, 21 August 2018 - #4335008

DustRider, if you want the answer, go with your horse in a large canyon and just yell very loudly your question, and the echoes will answer "Carrara... Carrara...rara...rara.....!

lol :)

Thanks dr_bernie for responding to my questions from the other thread. While Shade3D looks very interesting, and is no doubt a great product (I actually own an old version ... 6??? ...), and has some great modeling and rendering tools. But for me, it would have to offer a lot to get me to want to use it with Poser Fusion.

Marks video makes it sound tempting, but the issues with seams on the un-welded body parts looks, well, lets just say pretty bad and a big step backward IMHO (maybe Shade handles this better??). Plus with Shade it seems that anyone who doesn't speak/read Japanese will be stuck using the version that came out in 2016 for the foreseeable future. Again, from my point of view not ideal.

I just can't see why I would switch (and invest more $$$) to a Shade/Poser workflow when I can use easily use almost everything up to Genesis 2 in Carrara with no export/import/hosting issues (and use Misty's work arounds for G3/G8). Yes, it would seem that Carrara development is dead, but for all intents and purposes it would seam that English development of Shade 3D is dead as well. Plus, Poser IMHO seems to be on life support (just look at how few people participate in the forums now, and how the number of new products/content has dropped in the past few years), and nobody except for Smith Micro knows what the next version will be (and if they will continue to develop the Poser Fusion SDK).

Thanks again for all the info, but for now I think I'll stick with DS and Carrara (I own PoserPro 2014, but don't use it anymore, for me, DS, and Carrara (plus Octane render) provide much better results, and fewer hassles. But I'm glad you found an alternative you like. Please let us know if the newest version of Shade3D ever gets an English version. I'm sure some people in the Poser forum might find this interesting, and possibly in the Shade 3D forum (though it looks like it gets virtually no traffic, probably because of the lack of English version updates).

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, while FBX and sometimes Collada export of Genesis figures does work, often the morphs (and/or JCM.s) are lost on import. The "Genesis 8 to Maya" plugin solves this for Genesis 8 and Maya, and it appears that the Diffeomorphic plugin has solved this for Blender, But AFAIK, the morphs, or "shapes keys', are lost in other software (i.e. Lightwave, 3DS Max, C4D, etc.), though I do think that iClone imports everything, so I could be wrong about some of the other software mentioned (I do know from experience that without the plugins, Maya and Blender don't import all the morphs in a usable fashion).

Since I'm pretty sure that at some point, without updates from DAZ, Carrara, I will eventually need to move on from Carrara. So I am begrudgingly looking for something to augment Carrara for now, and probably eventually replace it. The best low cost option for me seems to be the upcoming Blender 2.8 with it's new interface and Diffeomorphic. But I'd much rather stay with Carrara, if DAZ makes that possible (the new iClone and CC3 also lost interesting, but expensive).

dr_bernie said: "Well, what can I tell you. If you want Shade to act like Carrara in every respect, then don't use it, because it's not for you".

Sorry to take this thread a little more off topic here. But I do have a couple of questions regarding the workflow to create your image, and I'd like a little more clarification to questions asked.

How did you get the assets into your example scene. I'm guessing that they are all either Poser or DS content, or are they Shade3D native items (the figure really looks like V4, and the architecture looks very familiar). Are you able to load these directly from your content library, did you load them into Carrara, DS, or Poser, pose them there and then export them (what format) and import into Shade3D, or did you use Poser Fusion for hosting/importing the scene in Shade3D?

Did you do any adjustments to the materials and/or shaders, or are they exactly as imported?

Did you add/adjust the lighting, or is it exactly as imported (and what was the source)?

I really don't expect to another software to act like Carrara in every respect, or actually in any respect (DS is much different than Carrara, but I enjoy using it). However, being able to leverage my investment in content in a rather simple and integrated way is important if I'm going to pay for alternate software (I have Maya, so if I wanted to go that way I could get the DS to Maya plugin, or I could use Blender for free too, but those do require a lot more work on the user side of things). I also don't really want to go down the Poser Fusion road because IMHO scene hosting is just a marginal step above export/import. However, it would be nice to know how you got your DAZ/Poser assets into Shade3D, as even if you are importing them or using Poser Fusion, others reading the thread might be interested and find whatever process you used isn't a problem. Also, what steps are required to get Genesis figures into Shade3D, especially Genesis 3 & 8. Oh, I almost forgot to ask, if the figures are imported (V4, Genesis, etc.) do they retain the rigging, and are pose-able in Shade3D?

One last question, as you didn't respond before. Is there an English version of Shade 18 available?? Or are people who don't speak Japanese stuck on the two+ year old version 16.

Sorry for all the questions, but they really are important for anyone looking for an alternative or companion software for Carrara. Thanks in advance for your help.

Just a few comments/questions:

It looks like. IMHO, your image from Shade is composited. I'm not saying it is, in fact, I am taking you at your word and believe it isn't, but there are some issues with what appear to be inconsistent shadows that make it look like the figure was added to the image. Note the strong shadows on her right leg, and the shadow of her left hand are fairly strong, but I don't see any similar shadows on the floor. My guess is that this may also be due to very poor lighting, shader settings on the floor, or possibly some odd effects caused by your "vampire effect"???

Can you pose your DAZ3d figures in shade, or are they static object imports? If importing/posing is possible, can you import Genesis figures and retain all of the morphs/JCM's, and have seamless use of clothing/etc. so that the figures are as functional in Shade3D as in DS and Carrara? If not, then I think for the most part it would be a downgrade compared to Carrara for me (or most other content users). I've never needed the Vampire effect, so not a big deal here (though it sounds as if it can be done in Carrara anyway), and Carrara render nodes have always functioned flawlessly for me, so also not a big issue (sometimes I need to manually set up ports or do some other network management, but not a big deal for me, since I've done similar things for about 30 years - you have noted in another thread that you have great computer skills, so I would think that using Carrara's render nodes would be equally easy for you).

I hesitate to mention this, as I don't like to say anything negative about someone's art. But to be honest, the lighting and shaders in the image you posted above are less than inspiring. Yes. I have seen some amazing renders done with Shade3D, but if this is the either the "out of the box" image quality, or even an image with modestly tweaked shaders and lighting, I think I will pass on Shade3D. I get much better results with DAZ Studio "out of the box", and why change to Shade3D as a replacement for Carrara when I would have to redo all of the shaders anyway?? Not trying to slam your work here, as this may be what you are wanting, and that's fine, but it's not my style (and before you start flaming my "art", like you did Diomede's work, I know I'm not an artist, I just try to do the best I can to get images I like, and even though we may have different styles, from your image it looks like it would require just as much work as Carrara to get my "style").

Finally, I must be looking in the wrong places. It seems that the most recent version of Shade3D, Shade3D 18, is not available in English. I could find Shade3D 16 for sale in English, and a post on their website that said Shade3D 17 would not have an English version. So does that mean there is no English version available for the last two versions (17&18)? If so, it's definitely not something I would even begin to consider as a Carrara replacement, since I don't speak/read Japanese.

dr_bernie posted at 10:43AM Sun, 29 July 2018 - #4272983

Kixum posted at 4:47AM Sun, 19 June 2016 - #4272977

I guess I'm a little confused. If all you want to do is render Daz content, why isn't Daz studio a passable option?

Very good question.

I want to go way beyond rendering contents.

I want to experiment with dazzling special FX'es, physics and get very high quality renders at a blink of an eye. Daz Studio and Carrara are unfit. for this kind of work.

Possible candidates:

Houdini: At $ 199.- per year it's a steal of a deal, but it's too hard to learn. It's for pros, not hobbyists.

Cinema4D: Excellent package but you need the full studio version - a $3800 deal - to do FX'es and particles and physics and things like that. That is way out of my price range.

Strata 3D: Excellent package. Relatively easy to learn. It has a $19.- monthly subscription plan that you can cancel at anytime. It is more suitable for a photoshop / illustarator / Strata3D pipeline, but it might work with Daz/Poser content. It has an excellent modeler too, in the Hexagon / Silo league.

Cheetan3D: At $99.- it's a literally jaw-dropping deal. It can be viewed as C4D's little brother. It has a particularly well implemented Bullet physics engine with real time simulations, real time particles, a modeler that almost matches Hexagon and Silo features, 2 built-in renderers one of which uses Intel's Embree and is super-fast and, from what I have seen so far, its render quality is superb.

I am right now evaluating Cheetah3D for some possible hobbyist projects. From what I have seen so far it beats Carrara hands-down in almost every respect. Its only 'weakness' is that it is Mac only, so Windows users are left in the cold.

More on Cheetah3D later.

Funny, you state that DS and Carrara are unfit for your needs, but yet you return here again, and again, and again, dissing DAZ and Carrara. Maybe it's time to get on with your life and your pursuit of what ever it is in 3D you want to do. If you insist on returning here over and over, maybe you should also show what you can do with these other apps, not what others have done. All I see from you is a lot of talk, and very little, actually almost no examples of what you can do, other than read marketing hype and reference others work(s). If you were to provide a real alternative to Carrara and DS that can actually use DAZ3D content as easily as DS and Carrara, I would be interested, but so far your posts have been just digs mostly on Carrara, and some what on DS, disguised as sharing viable alternatives (that really aren't).

As far a Genesis 3/8 in Carrara, there are ways to get the figures into Carrara, just no official support from DAZ3D. The same can be said for Maya, iClone, Blender, Shade 3D (which you make indication that you like a lot, yet example results from** you** are quite scarce as well), etc.. But yes, you can get G3/G8 into Carrara. There are actually several different ways to do it .... but I don't think you really care about that, you seem to just be here to get a rise out of Carrara users.

Seriously "dude" (to use one of your favorite terms from a recent troll...ummm....I mean post), I do think you need to move on, it's beginning to look very sad that you can't let go.

Opps!! Sorry, I had a bit of under-boob poke through on the last image, and I just had to fix it (yes, I do need therapy).

The moderators don't need to worry though, it's "safe" poke through.

Image Title: Troll Hunter

Wow Eric!

So sorry to see you go, your plugins are such great addition to Carrara. I have used, and abused Ground Control a lot!! It's amazing, I have used it to import DEM's created from Lidar for several years, something that Isn't that easy in other software because I create huge DEM's (I can finally do it in Vue Complete). Thanks so much for your support over the years, you will be greatly missed!!

Also thanks so much for giving your great plugins to the community, that is extremely generous!!

Take care, and be well.

I got this great new app with my phone that does the most realistic landscapes/environments I have ever seen. All I have to do is start the app, point the back of my phone at a great landscape/environment, and push the "button"....... instant photo-realistic landscape/environment. The app is appropriately called "Camera"! The really amazing thing is that the landscapes can be used with just about any 3D software, or even Photoshop, Gimp or any similar software. I'll never need another landscape software again (but traveling to the right location might get expensive). Below is a quick example using this wonderful new invention (I cheated though, I didn't travel to this awesome forest, I used another equally amazing and useful new invention, the internet, to find the Creative Commons image used, which I'm sure must have come from this new phone landscape/environment capture device .... or not).

Image Title: Troll Hunter

I do think someone here (other than me) really needs to see a therapist to resolve some issues???

"It just seems Poser users don't want new stuff. So really looking at the freebe section seeing all those V4 stuff obviousley rendered with the Poser 4 render engine just gives me an eyeroll. Hivewire website with all its promos looks like the DAZ shop back in 2002. If an app and its comunity is not progressing foreward, than it is time to have an new app."

To be honest, this was one of the big factors (the biggest??) for me to not upgrade to PP11. While trying to make the decision, I took a long, hard, critical look at the community, and the images it was producing with Poser (both at the user and pro level). Having gone through this with my favorite software, Carrara, slowly dying (well, it still is alive, an not quite dead yet), I saw many of the same things. True, the circumstances are vastly different, but I saw what to me was a huge reason for the loss of support for Carrara development while researching P11.

The two main things that in my mind really hurt Carrara were it was/is way too complex for the average new user (at many levels), and the images being produce by a large portion of the community were, IMHO, not as inspiring as what DS was producing. I could get similar, and even better results from Carrara than with DS (before Iray), but I was one of the few making "great" (subjective observation, that could be influenced by personal bias) renders with Poser/DAZ content using Carrara. Without inspiring images, it's hard to attract users. That's not to say there weren't a number of truly inspiring images in the forums and galleries, but there were also a number of flat ...... ummmm .... Poser 3/4 quality images. I'm not saying they weren't good images/art, but they typically didn't compete with output from DS to make people say "I've got to have THAT!!!". The other nails in the coffin were that material/shader translation is typically not the best, meaning users have to get under the hood to make great renders, and Carrara is not as easy to learn as DS. So, even though Carrara provided a much richer tool set than DS, It is simply much less attractive to the average "load, pose, render" user, which TBH, is no doubt the vast majority of the DS/Poser user base.

So, when P11 came out, I was expecting to see hundreds of awe-inspiring images from Superfly featuring the new Pauline. Remember, Chuck said "content is king", so I really thought this time SM/Poser got it, and either had an amazing new figure for us, or that they had somehow brought Genesis into Poser. I was disappointed to say the least. I did almost upgrade to PP11 when the big sale hit (at the same time PE was released), but went to the store/forums here, to the SM forum, and Hivewire (store and forums) one last time before pulling the trigger to see how much things had improved. Was I ever surprised! There were still only a couple of artists making renders that I would be proud of with Superfly. As noted by Timberwolf above, the product promos looked like they were all from 10-15 years ago, as did most of the user renders. But, the straw that broke the camels back was looking through the forums. The primary people posting were the Poser "faithful", most who were still trying to point the finger at DAZ for the situation Poser, and the Poser community were in. Then I had an ah-ha moment, and realized that the community had become so inward looking that there was no way they were moving forward at a pace I would be happy with. Alas, I realized my long love/hate relationship with Poser was either at an end, or at least on a serious long term vacation. The community seemed stuck in an eight year ago time warp, with occasional glimpses of 2017/2018 coming through. There was no real talk about why Poser was losing market share, except to point the finger at DAZ and content vendors as being the evil force that put them in the current situation. All the time, the elephant in the room .... poor decisions and an apparent lack of under standing the user base by SM and the Poser development team.

I don't know what SM has decided to do with Poser going forward, but I hope they pick the proper path, as I would really like to see it make a come back. But, the competition is ramping up on all fronts, iClone is certainly a very viable alternative now, as is DS (sorry, but it's the truth). Unreal and Unity are also moving in on the "Poser" space, as is Blender, as well as some recent developments with Genesis/Maya. I do hope they find their way again.

Wolf359 - A large portion of that golum content IS recycled content..........

Maybe you (and the other g users) don’t mind paying for the same content every 24 months or so, but I do - like the rest of the g series, it is a TCO fail unless you get it during a 70% off sale. In fact, after I post this, I am off to Daz to pick up some products for Brodie 6. They are worth $5.39, but not $17.95

Actually, I think your statement might be a bit over the top here? Yes, there is some recycling of older content, but in my experience the vast majority is new content. Some of this recycling is perfectly justified as well, especially with high heel shoes (which don't autofit well, and are a PITA to do manually), and believe it or not, bikini bottoms ((which sometimes stretch in un-natural ways when fit to different figure geometries). Of course, the advanced user doesn't need to buy new, they can always manually adjust the items to work perfectly well with the new figure. However, it seems as if most users, especially new users, would prefer to not bother with the manual fitting. Also keep in mind that the market (customers) for figures and clothing is not stagnant. New users need these basic things for the new figure, and often won't buy stuff designed for older figures. Not everyone has been doing this (Poser/DS) for years, and in fact, there are many new users on the DAZ forums all the time, and they tend to buy a lot (a recent post from on new user indicated he has spent over $18,000 in the past 2 years). So while in your eyes, this may be recycled content (and quite possibly much of the content your interested in is recycled, as my tastes differ greatly from yours), to new users it's .... well ... new content.

Being a "G" user myself, I have to say that I have bought very little recycled content (I'd guess maybe 2-3%). Since I can use anything from V3/A3 to G8 on my figures, there is no real need to recycle (unless it's on a deep discount, and something I would really like to have the perfect fit for on a different generation). So again, I think your blanket statement is more of a exaggeration than fact, since it does not reflect my own experiences. Definitely in my experience very little V4 content is being recycled as G8 content (actually I don't know of even one item, but YMMV).

"Pointing out that most of the g1 content was recycled V4 content got me permabanned in the Daz forums (30 days later Daz built a sale around that fact. Typical Daz.)."

I can kind of see why you got the ban hammer here. Times were difficult, the natives were restless, and, the big thing was maybe your insistence that this was fact. rather than speculation or opinion? On the DAZ forums this is a huge no-no. As I stated above, it has not been my experience that the majority of content is recycled. There was more of it with G1, but even then it didn't seem that the majority (most) of the content was recycled, but we have different interests, so maybe in your specific genre it was.

Speaking of Daz, has anyone noticed that almost all of the g1 & g2 content suddenly aquired Poser Companion Files?

Interesting, nope, I've had them like forever (well since they started making them, as they trickled out). Again, maybe that's just different experiences due to different preferences.

I was showing what one could do then - Still can’t do this in DS in 2018. Needless to say, the fitting room and the occasional swipe of the morph brush does a much better job today.

Actually, not 100% true. If you are willing to make your own autofit clones for the unsupported figures, you can do the same thing. This does however, require much a much greater skill level on the users end.

Those vendors are the reason we have the fitting room. Their aggressive unwillingness to change is what got us here.

Hmmm, while I'm sure this is no doubt what you believe to be true, I don't recall any posts from any official spokesperson from SM stating this as fact. IMHO, the fitting room was SM's response to autofit in DS. Of course I could be wrong as this is pure speculation, but the timing fits. Just like it would seem the integration of Cycles was in response to Iray in DS. But, AFAIK, no one from SM has ever officially stated this either , so it's pure speculation as well.

One final note, and not saying this has happened here, but hopefully to help this to not degrade into another app war thread. An observation from watching the forums for years, and this is purely opinion based on these observations. Many threads about the future of Poser, or questions about Poser and DS, often degrade into a "mines better than yours" type of argument where a Poser user bashes DAZ, DS, or Genesis with opinion as fact, then the DS users (who, like me, may be simply watching the forums to see what SM is up to with Poser because they would like to see Poser succeed) respond with a different view or data, and typically their own bit of bashing, and the "fight is on". Instead, maybe it would be worthwhile to address the elephant in the room, rather than pointing fingers else where. The truth is (OK, lets say my opinion is, based on the changes I've seen over the past 10 years) that the Poser based market share is declining relative to the DS based market share. We need to ask ourselves why that is happening, and have a real critical discussion about SM and Poser. As long as we keep pointing fingers else where, we don't highlight the issues within Poser that may have caused people to move on. IMHO, the opinions of ex-Poser users should be more important than current Poser users, because they are the only ones that know why they moved away from Poser, and what Poser/SM would need to do to bring them back. In the current forum climate, this type of discussion simply can't occur, which is sad for both the community, and for Poser.

Hopefully, this discussion will remain civilized like it has so far, so the everyone's voice can be heard.

OK, back to lurk mode.

"My V4 clothing runtime alone is approaching 100Gb, but unlike a g8 runtime, it isn’t full of 500+Mb bikinis."

Interesting notion, but given my experience (i.e. my own purchases), even those of us that do like to do pin-up renders, only a handful of Bikinis is more than enough, since I can easily put every bikini from V3/A3 up to G8 on any genesis figure I own. I have ~10 bikinis for Genesis 1-8. Some I got simply because I needed to complete some insane deal I was offered, and they were the best option, not because I needed another bikini (thoogh some were because I wanted that style too). I will grant you however, you do have a rather large V4 runtime.

"Poser is about leveraging what you own, not constantly purchasing the same products over and over."

True, but keep in mind, the same can be said for the Genesis line and DS. People who want to move beyond "load, pose, render" have the option to create their own clones of external figures to use that content on Genesis (which could then be used in Poser too). So for tinkerers, the options are quite impressive.

"I don’t consider ANY of the g figures attractive. With their freak show proportions, heights, and most “Non-Caucasians” characters Aryanized, I find them to be creepy. They are vastly limited in both character content and clothing content (by several orders of magnitude, even after all this time)."

Another interesting comment, given you are someone who has "moved beyond rank beginner too". Surely you know about the included morphs to change height, arm length, leg length, head size,scale, etc. to make any of the Genesis figures just about any size and proportion you want?? Of course if you want even more options, you can get add on morph packages, or create your own morphs in an external modeling software (Blacksmith3D, sold here, is an excellent option for that). As far as non-Caucasian characters being "aryanized", that is obviously a mater of opinion, one that I do disagree with. Though there are an abundance of Caucasian figures, there are also several very good characters to represent other ethnicity's that IMHO are very well done like Uchenna for Genesis 8 Female (promo image below), as we as some very good ethnic morph sets and full ethnic character sets (IIRC, there are some great options here at Rendo).

But, I understand where you are coming from, and your opinions are biased in that direction. You seem to have all the content you need, and the ability to mix and match what you have. Given the type of comic art you do, you aren't really interested in any sort of PBR rendering, as it doesn't really add to your stories. It seems as if you are also very interested in "tinkering" in Poser to get what you want from it. This is all great, and good on you for doing so, it should provide inspiration for others with similar interests.

But, as Wolf noted in is post, this is not the expressed specific intent of Poser from what SM has noted in their own marketing materials, and from what it appears was the primary draw for users to Poser for many years. IMHO, the rendering of easy to use pre-made content was what made poser popular, and in this area it has fallen behind other options, especially in the the ease of getting great quality images with high quality figures. For those of use that use(ed) Poser for this purpose, it does seem to be falling behind. Yes, I like to do pin-ups, female fantasy warriors, fantasy sci-fi, etc. (a card carrying member of the skimp-wear society), and renders featuring cute females (a real fan of The Girl too). Soooo, my desires for Poser are much different than yours, but I would postulate that Poser has lost significant numbers in it's user base simply because it has fallen behind in the specific things that I like(d) to do with it. I may be wrong, because this is all opinion and conjecture, but it does seem to be true based on what I see in the market places and the galleries.

The problem is, if SM caters to the "tinkering" crowd (I don't mean this in a bad way, as I am into tinkering as well), and not the "render pretty pictures easily" crowd (and I would say, IMHO P11 was a tinkerers update, not a pretty picture makers update), then they will be in more direct competition with Blender, Maya, iClone, Unreal, Unity, etc. I had hoped that at some point Poser might be a replacement for Carrara, but I doubt now that will ever happen. Hopefully, with the next upgrade SM will fully understand who there user base will be, and how to attract and grow that user base. I also hope that my interests will match with where SM decides to take Poser.

"At a higher level, I really don’t think many folks here get Poser is about the tools, not the figures. I don’t have to replace my figures to get new tech, I can simply add it to my figure of choice. As much as I prefer newer figures, legacy figures (as far back as V1/M1) still make up a large portion of what I use. I need more than early 20 something Caucasians, so limiting myself to 1 or 2 figures is a non-starter for me. Over 95% of characters made are early 20’s Caucasians. It went from annoying to creepy a long, long time ago."

Interesting concept, and one I think the Poser "old guard", or should I say the current body of **vocal **users, seems to subscribe to. But, IMHO, this is not the same philosophy many users, and certainly many ex users subscribe too, including me. Now, I've always had a love/hate relationship with Poser. because I've always seen the potential that it has never quite lived up to. I'm still very interested in Poser, would like to see it succeed, and keep trying to find a valid reason to upgrade to Poser 11, but unfortunately it hasn't happened yet (I'm a lurker on the Poser forums here and else where a lot, but seldom offer and opinions as I know they are not welcome since I use other software). But, unlike the above sentiment, I also want software that has a viable, top quality, modern figure to use, along with features in the software that make me say "wow, that is awesome and innovative, this fits my needs better than anything else on the market". Unfortunately, Poser 11 fell short of that mark, and felt like it was rushed to market before it was really ready (no, I'm not going to pay to be a beta tester for software that is playing catch up and doesn't seem to have a clear direction ... just my opinion).

From images and comments posted in the forums, Superfly looks to be less than super. I want to use a PBR render engine with an interactive view-port, because they work better for me. With only a handful of users posting awesome Superfly images (and most other images not even living up to to good Firefly renders), it doesn't seem as if it is very easy to get great results from (or most image posters don't have a clue how to use it, which is equally disconcerting). Now, as an owner of Octane Render, I could purchase the Poser plugin at a decent price, but I have to ask myself what would that give me that DS and Carrara don't. Yes, there are a few nice features in Poser, but I have Poser Pro 2014 (and every version back to Poser 2), so no real need to invest in something that I won't use very often (if ever) when I already have the needed tool set(s). Yes, DS is missing bullet physics and dynamic hair, but if I need those I have Carrara or PP2014 (but there is no simple great alternative to the morph brush).

Dawn is a great figure, and has decent support, but to be honest, in my opinion, for me, she wouldn't be a full replacement for the Genesis figures I have. Again, this is my own opinion, but the other figure options available simply don't do anything for me. Project E looked very promising, and Ero did a great job on her, but she has already lost so much traction I doubt she will be a viable alternative :( . So even though in the sentiment quoted above, there seems to be a belief that the figures don't matter, for me, as an ex Poser user, that simply isn't true.

IMHO, the release of Pauline with Poser 11 was a negative, not a positive. Again, many Poser users were hoping that SM finally got it, and were going to release a great base figure with P11. I know I was excited about Poser finally having a top quality base figure. That excitement turned to disappointment very quickly as I read about all the issues she had, and realized that she would never compete with Genesis figures (i.e. great content and support).

So the two things I was most hoping for with P11, professional PBR integration, and either Genesis support or an equivalent included figure from SM, were both disappointments. Thus, I have not upgraded, and money that would have gone to the upgrade, went else where. The other tech in Poser is important to me, but there was little new tech in P11 that I needed, and chose to focus more on DS (even at the expense of using Carrara less - because Poser certainly wouldn't be able to fill that void, so I needed to learn how to do things better in DS).

Having a well supported, modern tech and quality figure is important to me (and other users too, judging by the number of long time Poser users now posting DS images in the galleries). Knowing that there will be vendor support to provide top quality figures, textures, and make improvements to the base figure is important to me. Being able to easily make great images (at least great to me) with an interactive PBR interface is important to me. Iray isn't perfect, and is lacking many features that Cycles or Octane Render have, but since I already own the DS and Carrara plugins for Octane, I can duplicate virtually every feature in P11 with my existing tool set.

So back to the subject about Poser Development being dead, I certainly hope it isn't, and all sign's seem to indicate it is still in active development. I'm hoping the next version of Poser will be a must have, with some great new and amazing features, figures, and a truly super.Superfly!!