I forgot to mention that while an IBL does light the scene in Superfly, it does not provide a visible background. Since any background would again create shadows and block the IBL, it's useless with Superfly.

IBLs do kind of work in Superfly, but not the same way as they to in Firefly.

IBL is a trick to get ambient light into a scene without calculating indirect light, Superfly/Cycles always calculates indirect light, it does not know this trick.So an IBL will just be a different kind of Envsphere, just with different mapping. You cannot see this light, though, when you still have the construct ("Ground") visible, since it shadows the whole scene.

That's the main difference between an IBL in Firefly and in Superfly - Superfly always calculates shadows, but an IBL was built to provide ambient light and not be shadowed.

If you want the look an IBL gives, you need to render with Firefly.

The result found it's way into EZSkin, if I'm not mistaken. Did you try it?

I used a "studio light" in my previous example too. Here is a portrait with a HDRI as light source:

@boni Sometimes it is possible to upgrade Memory in a Laptop, also it's possible (and makes sense) to Switch to a ssd if you still have a normal hard drive. But you can rarely change the graphics Adapter included, also you usually cannot upgrade the CPU. If you want to get a new Laptop at some Point, look for a Ryzen 7 or a Core i7 for the cpu. Nvidia graphics is nessesary for GPU render, but getting a really capable card for a Laptop will be costly.

@operaguy A Ryzen 7 or even better a Threadripper will give you way shorter render times in Firefly and in Superfly. But that would most likely be a new Desktop, not an upgrade of your actual Computer. I have switched from an older core i7 to a Ryzen 7, my render times are about 34% from what they used to be.

Does this qualify? I don't have that much time right now. If you like it I'm happy to share what I did.

When using subdivision, each level divides each poly to four polys.

so, if you have a model with 4000 polygons,

SubD 1: 16,000 polygons SubD 2: 64,000 polygons SubD 3: 256,000 polygons SubD 4: 1,024,000 polygons SubD 8 :more than 260 million polygons.

Usually going up to 2 is enough, 3 is plenty. More is rarely needed.

gideonnoone posted at 1:14AM Fri, 12 October 2018 - #4337329

To answer the OP's question... no, it's not dead. See Captain von Gilliland's post on the Official Poser Forum.

But Poser is so far behind all the competition that it might as well be dead. There is no way in hell Poser can catch up with Rallusion, DZ, or anyone else at this point. Even bloody Blender. Not without a seismic shift in how Smith Micro sees Poser. Not without a massive injection of money for development. That won't happen. SM neglected taking Poser from really good to outstanding for years. They were more concerned with bloody face posing chips and Pauline than noticing that Reallusion was quietly taking over their animation and figure design market.

I don't know how you can compete Poser with a full-fledged program like Blender with a straight face. Blender is much more than Poser is supposed to be, just the user interface blocks a lot of people. Hey, why not comparing stuff to Maya while you on it?

I've never done animations with Poser, probably Reallusion is better for that. DAZ obviously is better at playing with DAZ stuff. So what? Has everybody now to use IRAY?

There need to be fixes for rigging, which probably will be in the next version if I understand Ero right. I would like to see Superfly updated to what Cycles delivers today, which is likely to happen. If it's just that, I'm sold. Reallusion does not have a serious renderer, as far as I know, DAZ has more content for those who don't make their own or don't have enough. But guess what - there is still a lot of good stuff which works in Poser.

The last Poser dev team was stuck with the idea they had to cater to the existing user base and their longtime pals - you know the ones always screaming and fighting on the Official forum (and here, cough) - instead of paying attention to what the competition was doing and trying to outdo the competition. And Poser is but a tiny little slice of what Smith Micro actually does. If Poser was a huge deal to Smith Micro they would actually spend some budget on promoting it. They never did. Poser's gallery? The one place that Smith Micro could show off - FOR FREE - what Poser can do? It's buried three links deep. It's not out front where everyone can see it. Obviously they don't care.

Well, they assigned a development team to it. Maybe they will shout when they have a new version. We will see.

At this point it's too little too late. Poser is an also-ran and it's Smith Micro's own fault. Sure it'll always have its fans and despite what you now believe I'm actually one of them. I'll use the software until it's done. But it's been three whole years since Poser's last full release. And they've only just now decided to keep users in the loop regarding development? Wow. Way too little way too late. It is a very real demonstration of how Smith Micro and the Poser development team work. "Oh we should have done this three (five, eight) years ago? OK let's start it next week."

What's missing, native support for Genesis? Poser has usable tools for most cases either build-in or as a plugin.

I know I'm gonna get flamed all to hell and back and I know that the knowitalls will come out in force to correct me...but whatever. The truth hurts. It actually sucks.

Unless Poser is totally reinvented in a way that overtakes the competition, it is really done. It won't attract new users. It will just have us loyal longtime users clinging to it till it slips quietly beneath the waves. Poser is Jack in Titanic. No room on the door. Sayonara, Jack.

The state of Poser and the future of Poser makes me incredibly sad, I used Poser from v. 6 to 11 - but it died a slow death by misdirection and neglect.

It's just too late to fix it.

No idea, time will tell. If you need an engine to render Genesis, use Studio. I like the way I can work with shaders in Superfly and I even like the options I have in Firefly, for non-realistic renders.

Poser won't be the giant on the market, though. I use it with ZBrush, which do cost a lot more, but works great for me. Sorry that you did not find what you expected in the last couple of years, but for me, it's far from being dead.

They do have a development team in Portugal. The only reasonable way to generate income out of this is to bring out a new version.

SM has always been very silent before any upgrade. I guess we will see an upgrade this year.

Poser has been declared dead for numerous times. The last published patch was already done by the new team. I expect a new version this fall. I think that Ero said that some of the bugs which pested him while creating Project E will be adressed, so I guess there will be a new version. Just done by a different team.

But even if not, P11 does work for me. I don't like the Genesis figures that much. I don't know if Iray is really that much better. Heck, if there won't be another version this year I will get Octane to see if it renders better.

I assume that this is concrete. The speculars look wrong, though. Concrete is either really rough, or it is polished, IMHO. The flat parts are too rough for being polished but to shiny for not being polished.

Like I said, the morphs are located in the Jaw bone, not in the head. I did not expect them to be there, they are not in the head where you would expect them.

I like her too. By the way there are some expression morphs in the jaw bone. Not very intuitive.

Oops, Parkdalegardener was a bit quicker....

You can use the key behind the visibility switch to generate visibility dial control, which can be controlled by other control dials. You cannot to this for a figure IIRC, you need to do it for every body part.