It has already been heavily hinted at elsewhere that Poser 9 will have weight mapping - and not just at DAZ. So, given that I upgrade Poser on day of release I'm really not worried about that.

The risk for DAZ is if they release before a new version of Poser and lose a lot of early sales - they may get them back later but the initial sales could be poor. The other problem for them is that a whole lot of users will be ballancing new rigging features against what they can do with the 4th generation figures and all the stuff they have bought for them.

Personally, as much as I like the idea of weight mapping, I can't even begin to consider buying all the same sort of stuff again just so that I can do the same things I do now but a little better. I have a solid collection of textures, I have a good collection of interesting morphs, I have an excellent collection of hair models, I have more clothes that I actually use. The cost/benefit ratio just isn't right for me. In fact, most of my spending now is on props and places and the new rigging doesn't matter one jot for them.

And who knows - perhaps, if SM really have gone with a new rigging system, they might find they are better at implimenting than they have been with the old and provide us with some nice new figures with the software. It could happen. Possibly. Maybe.

The point is, a new generation of DAZ figures isn't taking down the Poserverse just yet, so let's not worry.

I found that lots of runtimes became too much of a headache to keep track of and switching between them on pre-P8 versions too slow.

Soooo, like SamTherapy, I keep everything in one runtime - and that's now Poser's own. It's not just because of the whole exp thing but also because some Python scripts need to find items in their default location.

The primary subdivisions are fairly basic:

Human

Fauna

Props & Places

Toons

The Human catagory is then subdivided by family (ie DAZ/e-frontier generations), and then by figures. Within each human figure there are further simple subdivisions.

For Character: Figure, Body Props (such as creature creator, wings, etc) and Clothes (subdivided into Modern, Historical, Fantasy, etc).

For Poses: Characters, Injections,Body Props, Clothes (further divided into the same catagories as the clothes character files), Magnetize, and Poses.

The Fauna get divided into Fantasy (which is further divided into Dragons, Ogres, Nursoda, Smay, aliens, etc), Robots, Domestic, Mounts, and Wild (divided into Aquatic, Bugs & Insects, Birds, Reptiles, Simians, etc).

Props and Places are divided into Modern, Historic, Fantasy, Other Cultures, Environment. Modern is then divided into Exteriors, Interiors, Furnishings, Vehicles, Weapons, Props. There are further divisions from them.

It takes a little while to set up but is well worth it. And once it is done it is done and easy to maintain. I maintain three copies of the runtime. One is Poser's own and so in the internal hard drive, the second is on the back up of my external drive, and the third is on my laptop.

The steps to maintaining these are fairly easy. Once my initial runtime was created, I made an empty runtime with all of the catagories that I had created, this empty template was then put into a zip folder. When I'm ready to install my purchases, I simply unzip the template to a temporary folder and install the content to that. Next I run a simply runtime repair utility (optional, I guess). Now I start to move the items into their correct catagories, copy the result to the external drive, the internal runtime and then move it to a usb stick to transfer to the laptop.

It all sounds long winded but it is simple in practice and means that I can find what I need and sleep secure in the knowledge that if anything goes wrong, there should still be one working copy of the runtime to rescue me.

Quote - This sounds similar to the free version of Daz Studio but if Poser Debut can't compete on that same level as the free version of Daz Studio then I'm not sure anyone is going to be interested in buying something that does less than the free version of Daz Studio.

Just based on the Poser workshops that I teach, it seems as if Poser Debut has been reduced to the bare minimums that's actually required to render decent art.  Poser itself is powerful enough to create good renders (in my opinion) with using the basics. The majority of the art in my gallery rarely goes beyond the basics (meaning no material changes or advanced lighting). Many beginners and intermediates are confused by the intermediate and advance features of Poser so maybe Smith Micro is working on a Beginner's Version of Poser?

Either way, if it falls behind the free version of Daz Studio then I don't think it will do to well. Not unless it has some really good beginner automated features. 

The first point is that being a physical edition with a price tag means that Poser Debut can reach parts that free DAZ Studio cannot - the shops! Be they high street, or Amazon. That alone takes the software to a costomer base that might otherwise never see or hear of either Poser or Studio.

You are right that they have stripped it to the basics, less a couple of basic features like displacement. But it is enough for people to get results from. The idea of course, is to provide an upgrade path to Poser 8 for those who want to take it more seriously.

So, in short, this just isn't intended to be a competitor to DAZ Studio, it is intended to introduce new customers to the software that DAZ isn't reaching. Also, if they get themselves started with Poser's interface, there's a chance they'll want to stick with it even after discovering Studio. A lot of us, though not all, who started with one interface find the other less intuitive.

I was a little shocked by the level of hysteria about this at the DAZ forums. Things seem a little more sane here.

I can't see Studio losing its free status for a while as they are tied to a render engine that they don't own. They can supply it without the cost of a licence because they supply it for free - they can only charge for Advanced on the grounds that you are paying for extra tools to those given for free.

If they begin charging then they will have to pay to licence the render engine, which will bump up the cost of both Studio versions. To sell the software, they will also need to start including some content and before you know it, they would be competing directly with Poser on the same basis. I suspect that they would be at a disadvantage to SM in that market and pricing (who now have a physical basic version with a rrp of just $49).

Ironically, if DAZ had directed their development and marketing efforts toward Carrara instead of Studio, they could have been in a position to take over that market. Unless they are prepared to invest a lot in supplying new materials, that boat might have sailed.

This seems like a good idea - the suggestions that this product should be free in the way DAZ Studio is are missing a point.

Studio can be given away free for two reasons: first its on-line distribution as a download and second because DAZ makes its money on the content sales made by those who download it. The downside is that by being on-line availability only and not being a shop product limits the product exposure.

SM is a different kettle of fish. While it is true that they want a slice of the content market, their main income is still from the software itself, which does come with a fairly big chunck of content now. It may not stand next to 4th Gen DAZ figures but it is enough to get people started. Being a sold item, available in a box, no doubt discounted from its rrp, it will be able to reach a potential customer base that won't notice DAZ Studio - shoppers in stores, both in the high-street and on-line. You won't stumble upon Studio in Amazon, but you might Poser.

On the subject of materials - it does look like it might be able to apply more advanced materials through the content browser - but you won't be able to edit them.

Here you go...

http://www.runtimedna.com/Semidieu/

Some folk over on the DAZ forums have also reported this happening to them. I don't think anyone has any answers but you're not alone.

Quote - If you prefer un-realism, then Poser 5 is more than anybody needs and we would not need to discuss purchase decisions at all.

This is a really interesting thread and helped swing my decision to side-grade to pro with the extra 50% off at CP - $99 didn't seem too bad a deal to me.

However, as one of those who has had little interest in photorealism in the past, I would like to correct BB on this statement. The chief way of getting non-photorealistic results is through the use of filters/styles such as those in Postworkshop or the old Painter plug-in that I used to use. While these offer some control over the result (and that can be a lot of control when you have the node based style creation in PSW or FF) they are still limited by the initial image and their output is particularly dependent upon the lighting.

This is where 3D users have some advantage over photographers with filters, in that we have greater control over all the variables that produce the final image. Being able to set up lighting to best suit the filter you want to use is a major boon, so any new lighting trick that your software can offer is worth having. A good example is in sketch effects I was using a while back - I was getting much better results using IDL than any other lighting set ups. I dare say that if I spent a little longer setting up other lights I might be able to get results close to it but IDL is much quicker to set up (so far, I've not yet needed anything too sophisticated for the sketches) and then leave to render, so why bother? (It is slower to render but there are always other things to do in the mean time.)

Another anticipated boon will be the 64bit rendering. If you want to over-paint images in Painter or Art Rage, then a bigger canvas makes a whole lot of difference (at least to a ham fisted painter like me!). I hope this will do a better job of bigger renders.

Having said that, you've all awoken an interest in playing with some realism - if only for fun. I did try a couple of test renders with different textures and MAT set ups and wow, what a difference a simple set up makes with GC against the DAZ ones! However, those baked in highlights in many textures look awful with it. I'm going to have to have a good look through all the old stuff in my runtime to find the right texture sets and then work on simplifying the MATs for them. I have a feeling that Semidieu's new script might make short work of the later.

I have to agree with estherau, Semidieu's scrips at Runtimedna are a major boon.

I use his library over that included in Poser, finding it both more versatile and a whole lot faster.

If you use any of RDN'a lighting studio products, you will find his support scripts make them much easier to work with.

Also, if you use the PICK products, he has support scripts that makes working with them much, much easier.

You should also check his scrips for setting up lighting, his scene manager, and Advanced Render Settings - a major boon that also gives you multi pass rendering.

Also at RDNA, you should check out Netherworks scrips. If you use a lot of scripts, then his Palette Master will help you set them up for easy access. He has quite a few handy scripts though, adding things like a camera menu bar, and lights to your memory dots!

If you want to do any morphing in other programs, such as full body morphs or adjusting a figure once it is posed, then the Pose Morph Loader by colorcurvature is available here at Renderosity.

Someone else mentioned a similar problem. I think that you need to deactivate the basic version, then you can activate the new pro serial.

Quote -  aaaaaaaaaaaand I'd like to point out that mudslinging in any direction is one of the fastest way to get a thread closed, so let's not walk down that road, please.

I'm sorry if my reply looks that way, I did try to keep it politically neutral and factual with regards the distinction between a political philosophy and articles of religious dogma. I think that I'm more concerned with going too far off topic.

Quote - > Quote - *With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

Steven Weinberg - Nobel laureate 1979*

Just like liberalism, which is a religion for many on the left.

Without taking sides on politics here, the distinction you may be missing is that a political ideology is in principle open to debate, while religious dogma is not.

Quote - > Quote -

I do, however, take great exception to being told (not by philebus) that I base my beliefs on celebrities and/or governments.  They would be the very last people I would ever look to for enlightenment, instruction or truth.  In fact, I have a hard wired distrust of anyone in a position of "authority", simply because the people who gravitate to such posts are usually those least fit to hold them.

I read that and thought of "intellectual authorities", such as Sagan, Fermi or Hawking.  If Hawking goes looking for god, a number of people may give the ideal more credit.  If Hawking says there's no need of god, another number of people may get excited...

 

The excited parties in this case were mostly the Press and some religious heads who spoke out before the book was even in print. Others bother to read the book and consider it more carefully. I'm not done considering it but I'm not as impressed as I would have liked.

Of course, intellectual authorities usually have a track record that makes it reasonable to listen to them and consider seriously what they have to say and sometimes, to some extent at least, we must defer to their judgement where they have expertise in a field which we cannot hope to attain. When my doctor tells me what he thinks could be wrong with me, I would be stupid not to pay attention.

Quote - i hate to alienate those whose "side" i'm on but i have to mention something about science.

science boosters tend to have the opinion that science is proving things and talk about what science knows.  they're pretty secure in this position.  i think this is an error.  science is not about what is known.  science is an admission that things are unknown, and that even today's comfortable "facts" will become yesterday's misinformation or disproven scientific theory.

after all, look at what happened to newtonian physics.  now regarded as close enough for government work at macro scales, but not really accurate.  remember the theory had been long held that life arouse spontaneously, until evolution came along.  and don't get me wrong, evolution sounds pretty solid to me, especially how it fits in to my own idea of the universe as stated above a bit.  but that doesn't mean another idea might not come along to disprove it.

there was the solar system, then the galaxy, then the universe, then string theory, then m theory, and there will be more.  there are lots of neat entirely alternative theories to the universe out there right now, like holographic theory, and the idea that we are a simulation within a device.

let's not even get into how the social and psychological sciences change continuously, always confident in their current realities, shaking their heads later at their mistakes.

religion gets comfortable in it's realities, yet it's realities change too.  religious folks (especially on the right) get to assert their certainty about it's ideas, based on text or custom or whatever they are using.  they have problems admitting at times that the belief they are backing currently was ever not the popular belief, or they may be of the opinion that earlier takes on religion were wrong, and just now they got it right. 

i like religion that talks more about mystery.  it seems ridiculous and arrogant for anyone, scientist or religious person, to state that they know the laws of the universe or what's wrong or right.  for the scientist, the universe is just to big for anyone to get it.  even all of us together in sync are not gonna get it.  for the religious person, you're talking about god here.  i'm pretty sure you don't know what he's thinking.  he's also at least the size of the universe.

I don't think that you are going to alienate anyone. You are right that scientific knowledge is largely about probabilities rather than certainties - though it can conclusively falsify empirical claims, which is perhaps where it has had its greatest impact on religion in the past and the experience of this has put paid to any thoughts of a God of the gaps. Perhaps if theologians would put forward a coherent concept of a God, that too might be subject to scientific falsification - but as yet, I've yet to see something coherent presented from monotheism and so with regards to the presented beliefs, I feel that I can be certain (being of the position that to entertain the posibility of square triangles existing would be to not understand the concepts). Of course, it would be a fool who denies any posibility that he is wrong but there are diferent kinds of doubt - doubt of myself is very different from doubting logic or scientific method.

Quote - > Quote - Religious people often say that science has the burden of proving that there is no God - no, the religious has the burden of proving that there is a God, heaven, hell, and everything else we cannot see, and all they seem to have are the writings of people who didn't know a whole lot about how things worked back then.

Right, religion predates science.  That's why it's up to science to disprove god.  Before science, religion didn't have need for proof of god.  Only if religion had arrived after science would it need proof of god to base its claims on.

I do hope that I haven't misunderstood you here, so do correct me if I'm wrong about your meaning.

Science is just a methodology. That religion predates science is irrelevant to the burden of proof - that burden is determined by reason and did not require anyone to understand that to be so. It is an extraordinary claim and like any other must pass two hurdles 1) it must be shown to make sense and 2) it must either be supported by empirical evidence or shown to be necessarily true. Reason shows no bias in this, which applies to all such claims, be they in God, cold fusion, or bacteria causing stomach ulcers.