Woke, as in catering to the whims of a small , but loud minority, without regard to reality or the greater good.

Basically:

Poser was always aimed at hobbyists, not professionals.

It was most popular when it encouraged tinkering and broad participation.

Now even the python scripts are decrypted. (And phone home)

Figures are not user friendly. Overly "clever" rigging disencourages do-it-yourself modifications without even resulting in superior bends.

All those extra bones add to memory consumption and the more complicated a cr2, the more likely something will fail.

When I look at Superfly renders, I see no consistency. Some turn out quite nice, like shvrdavid's second render, but many don't.

It seems that every texture change, every change of light needs a different approach to shader construction.

Firefly is way more stable IMO.

I already mentioned the lack of displacement. Combined with the lack of proper edgelooping in current Poser figures, that means that any bodydetail, even down to minute details, has to be created via subdivision.

That is quite taxing on your average customers' laptop.

Why are you so eager to meet "CGI industry" standards?

in my opinion a figure like Michael 2 is the most "easy to use" and "Bang for the buck" Poser figure ever made.

Just 31.000 polygons and see how much detail you can squeeze out of him:

Yes, ALL of these three figures are based on the Michael 2 mesh!

First one is just a bit of dial spinning and scaling. Third one is a Rikishi clone I made with the Morphbrush.

And the lady in the middle is the original Aiko, based on Stephanie 1, which was created using Michael's mesh.

(Well, I guess men DO make better females after all)  ;-P

And there is no subdivision or displacement going on here.

So if I wanted, I could up the level of detail considerably, while still getting better performance than those "industry standard" Poser figures.

And that mesh works extremely well with weightmapping and the MorphBrush.

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So this is what I'm fighting for since the day I noticed that DAZ meshes started to have Studio only features.

Our very own "as complicated as necessary but as simple as possible" hobbyist-friendly allrounder mesh, that brings the FUN back into Poser.

*

But as the saying goes: "You can lead a horse to water..."

*

And maybe there IS a different explanation for the fact that 99% of the items in the Rendo Marketplace are not Poser assets anymore.

Maybe it's because everyone just hates Poser so they are blind for all the wonderful things you guys did with in the past.

And it has nothing to do with strategic decisions like disabling thousands of hours worth of Python scripting.

Or implementing a renderer not even the experts seem to be able to properly understand.

Or creating Z-brush friendly figures that are so appaling that no professional CGI artist feels the impulse to actually support them.

Nope, can't be.

Must be totally something else.

:-)

I've decided to pretend that Poser 12 and 13 don't exist, just like Ghostbusters 3 or the final trilogy of SW.

It almost feels like Poser has gone woke, completely ignoring its original audience.

And thus, turned completely insignificant now.

Like Hollywood.

;-)

Anyway, Poser 11 still serves me well.

Guess I prefer waxy Firefly skin over a render engine that can't even do displacement properly.

And if you don't like to fix grainyness with a blur filter, isn't even that fast at all.

(That's the original DAZ GIRL with V3UV mapping, btw)

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I also enjoy the immediate What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get functionality of the morphbrush.

So far Poser's habit to cut a mesh into separate actors and weld it back together has never prevented me from doing with my figures exactly what I wanted to do:

If the morphbrush doesn't care about the way Poser handles its meshes, why should I?

*

No, I don't think Poser has a (commercial) future anymore and I don't see any tendency of Poser 14 to change that outlook.

Dawn and La Femme as well as La Homme are proof that the Poser Team has learned nothing from their past failures or the honest feedback that has been given again and again.

Instead they double down and blame others.

Just like Hollywood.

:-P

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But that's not my problem anymore.

As long as I have a working copy of Poser 11 and a machine to run it on, I'm golden.

And that, to me, is all what matters.

:-)

2nd skin is generally preferrable, but some stockings are too elaborate for this to work.

Also, if you need to drastically morph a figure, a 2nd skin stocking will distort. An actual stocking mesh can be "bespoke UV mapped" to fit the final morph.

Here's an early WIP for a V4 character I'm working on:

The skin texture still works quite well, but' I'm pretty sure all clothing needs to be heavily modified or custom made to look good on her.

Use the Morphbrush (Tighten/Losen Fit) with the V4 figure selected as a goal to create a fit morph.

Then set this morph up as a JCM.

Looks like they're afraid of less than enthusiastic comments.  Can't imagine why?  ;-P

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All I have to say is: If they would have wanted a better looking, better bending Dawn, they could have had that 11 years ago:

https://www.renderosity.com/forums/threads/2871446

For Free.

I don't know. Looks a bit different than usual:

https://web.archive.org/web/20020206001344/http://store.daz3d.com/store/merchant.mv?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=ZP1

:-)

"Personally, I find the idea of paying for a dozen models all with their own proprietary accessories galling - especially when the V4 model is already as versatile as I'll ever need. What would be really great is a place where all non-V4 accessories [clothing/hair/props] have been converted from any other proprietary model for easy and convenient use with V4."

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While I can't agree with neither of the OP's statements, I do know exactly where he's coming from.

I actually do dislike V4, because of her magnet infested cr2 file and her weird bodyshape and default look.

I tried to improve her usability by weightmapping her 17K "sister"-mesh plus a ton of other modifications, but in the end I still believe that the original Michael mesh (And his "Mystery-Mate", the original Stephanie) are the most efficient, robust, hobbyist friendly and versaitile Poser meshes ever designed.

(And the original Vicky isn't half-bad either)

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Of course it's 2024 now, and everyone is ridin' the "Photorealism" train by now (Only to be derailed by AI, soon, but that's another story), so no content creator trying to put food on the table for his/her family will ever touch those old and obsolete meshes ever again.

*

But as they say: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime"

So I learned how to model, sculpt and rig in Poser, and I solved my "support problem" by creating a bunch of clones for my favorite meshes.

These are my "Stephanie 1-to-V3" and "V2-to-V4" clones, for example:

Thanks to their simplicity, this was actually easier than you might think, with each taking me roughly a day to create.

"V2-to-V4" is based on the V2P4Lo figure, so there are no original body morphs, but I could easily transfer V4's body morphs over, if I wanted.

"Stephanie 1-to-V3" is based on the original StephanieLo mesh, but I had to fuse her dual necks first to match V3's grouping.

So, except for that, bot Steph's and V3's bodymorphs are possible.

But in the end I made these to wear V3's and V4's clothing, so I reserve the more elaborate sculpts for the original figures.

Similarly, I have M2-to-M3, M2-to-David and M2-to-M4" figures in my runtime and several more planned.

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ANYWAY.....

So instead of asking for converted V4 clothing, why not asking for a set of "V4-to-Genesis" clones?

I'm not a coder, so I don't know how easy/complicated it would be to get the Genesis clothing out of Studio, or load the .duf files directly into Poser.

But even if you'd have to do it the "Brute Force" way by exporting the raw object files out of Studio and then adding the rigging back inside Poser, a set of "V4-to-Genesis" clones would be a tremendous help.

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Basically, Poser and Studio tech isn't exactly Rocket Science. A mesh is a mesh is a mesh and a joint center a joint center.

And even if I personally don't like her that much, I'm sure V4 is still the most popular figure for Poser users by a wide margin.

So I'm pretty sure there IS a way to get the OP what he wants (And probably many other users, too), holding on to the figure he prefers while still having a supply of new clothing.

Hello ima70,

please check your sitemail.

:-)

Of course...

A SINGLE magnet can do the trick, too....  :-)

(Which also should with a little editing work with clothing, too)

Aaah, here he is....

"The Figure that DAZ forgot..."

M4toM3, made from M4 mesh, so it takes M4 textures.

Unfortunately I never came around to fix the head and expression morphs.

I used V4toV3 as a donor rig, then transferred M3's joints over.

But for the expressions to work properly, someone would need to edit /fix the cr2.

You could save the M4 expressions as regular morphs, though, and then transfer them over.

In any case, if someoone wants this figure to play around with, (or finish it properly) send me a PM.

You can try my Weightmapped M3RR.

It's the Reduced Resolution mesh, but it should be easy to transfer M3 characters faces over to M3RR in Poser.

It also wouldn't take long to at least weightmap M3's shoulders.

(You can also try to transfer the weightmapping from my M3RR over to regular M3, but you would have to smooth out/edit some of the weightmaps because of M3's higher resolution.

UPSCALING is always more difficult than DOWNSCALING a weightmap rig.)

BTW, I think I also have an M4toM3 figure lying around somewhere, that I made from all M4 mesh.

Let me see if I can find it.

:-)

You'll have to uncheck "Visible in Raytrace" for the body (or the various Body Parts actors) OR set Raytrace to 0 bounces.

Otherwise the figure will be "see-through"

Like this?

MIKI (Yes, that old mesh from 2005) had several problems: A ridiculously high polygon count and very, I mean VERY poor rigging.

But her body was an exact duplicate of porn actress Aneta Keyes. And I do mean EXACT. Almost as good as a LIDAR scan!

So, naturally, I copied that bodyshape over to various meshes, including V4.

As V4 and LF2 now share the same shape, this allows Poser to easily transfer bodymorphs between them.

So, If you dislike V4's stylized default bodyshape (like me), here's something more natural looking:

As I said: Efficiency.

Once you have created ONE "translator" figure, you gain acccess to all of this figures content.

In this case, the new shape includes single-axis scaling. Which makes cloth adaption to this new bodyshape much easier.

But I also could export that new bodyshape as a morph, then tell Poser to create new joint centers. This would allow me to create even better joints for more natural looking nude renders.

But given her convoluted mesh topology and here overcomplicated face rigging, LF2 surely is not the best model to demonstrate what's actually possible in Poser.

But I think I could proof that cloth support doesn't have to be complicated. It can be just "one click" as usual.

And that still doesn't mean that every figure needs to look the same.

This was a custom V4 morph I transfered, but you could also transfer all of V4's original bodymorphs. (Remember that The Girl 4 or Aiko 4 also just V4 morphs. Or how about Kids 4? Or Stephanie 4)

The possibilities are endless, once you go down that rabbit hole.

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Finally, I wasn't happy with LF2's default look, so I made me a new one:

(The ears are still weird, sorry!)

And also sorry, no, I won't support LF2, as I already have a lot of other figures to spend my time with.

But if you're a diehard LF2 fan, now you know what can be done to expand her possibilities.

Thanks for the look.

"What is stopping Poser from having "one-click sharing of clothes"?"

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That's a good question. I made a tutorial back in 2013 how to turn Genesis (1) into a native Poser figure. (No DSON needed, faster loading times, etc)

The "on the fly" UV-Swapping didn't work anymore, but the "clothing - autofit" STILL WORKED! INSIDE POSER!

https://www.renderosity.com/forums/threads/2874695/print

Sooo....

1. This was proof that Poser was perfectly capeable to support it's own Genesis-type figure. ONE well designed mesh that could be anything from young woman to old man, from Zombie to baby, from monkey to monster.

2. If clothes can one-click "autofit" to a completely different body shape, then it should be perfectly possible to have them one-click "auto-convert" from one figure to another. (Probably a "translator" figure would be needed though. But making these is just a matter of hours as I've just shown with LF2-to-V4)

But I'm no coder, and probably some real coder will soon join in, explaing to us why this is all A VERY BAD IDEA, and that it is much more benefitial for the community to have a new set of hastily designed, poorly supported one-off figures that are as quickly forgotten as they were created, with every new iteration of Poser.

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Rather than to shamelessly copy (and probably improve) a method that obviously works very well for DAZ.

(After all, they copied Poser in the first place)  ;-)

But as I said, that was in 2013!!!

I've long given up to make sense of this, and went on my own merry way. I even "invented" my own posing system to make my figures look more realistic.

But I still dream of a native Poser figure that:

1. Looks like a real person. Regardless what body type it is morphed into.

2. Bends like a real person. Even in extreme positions.

3. Does have genitals like a real person. Or not. (There was nothing wrong with Poser's genital switch. It was just swapping hips)

4. Has as few polygons as possible, but as much as needed. (And is not afraid of tris or poles to achieve an efficient topology, because Poser doesn't mind them)

5. Has a cr2 that is as simple as possible, so even dummies like me can hack and edit it.

6. Relies on morphs and morphs alone, because with Poser's ability to inject morphs only as needed, this is way more practical than a complicated rigging armature.

*

AI will probably "kill" this hobby, anyway, but I'd rather see Poser go out with a BANG, than with a whimper.