gillbrooks posted at 10:47 AM Mon, 6 May 2024 - #4484374

I'm looking forward to creating new content for Vue - especially as there may be many more users now it's free.  It was out of reach for many, certainly for me after 2015.

Precisely.  It would also boost Poser user creativity and content sales since they integrate so well.

I use a RTX 3060, so I can confirm that GPU should work fine with SuperFly using the latest version of NVIDIA Creator (not game) drivers. Try testing the GPU with GPU-Z or such to ensure its getting all the PCI lanes and all is working.

Something I did not anticipate after trying a drive upgrade.     At one point I saw an open  NVME socket on the AM4+ motherboard so thought more (cache) is better - so I tried a second NVME drive in the slot that was shared 16X PCIE with the GPU and it absolutely crippled performance and some applications would even fail to run. Rendering time increased by a factor 10 or more.   So yeah - um - don't share your GPU's 16 lanes if you dont have too.   

On the topic of backups...
Something compelling I recently discovered as a cloud backup alternative is a DIY home UNRAID server.  For daily backups, many are not finding Cloud backup providers being very reliable (many have shut down due to failed business models) and affordable.  I have found that an  obsolete PC from a decade ago will serve fine as a fault tolerant home backup server running UNRAID, a very simple to use system that can host data volumes of stripe & parity disks of differing sizes/types.  Normally a fault tolerant raid system requires a set of matched hard drives to make a Redundant Array of Independent Disk drives (RAID) data storage system for a server.  UNRAID tosses those expensive and complex requirements by the wayside and provides a very stable platform to host a backup service, VPC instances and many other APP servers.  That means you can take advantage of huge de-commissioned (used) data center hard drives  in the 10TB+ range very affordably (EBAY/NewEgg/ Amazon) ,  used these drives sell for approx. 20% of new, and the data protection and drive fail over  and restoration capability dramatically reduces the risk of data loss in the event one of the used drives fails.  Data centers typically upgrade hard drives inside of 2 years, well within the estimated MTBF (Millions of Hrs), and they operate 24x7 so most have hope users have decent experiences using the devices in a RAID.  Do know that a TB drive takes many hours to initialize.  A 50TB array on a LSI controller will take about 8-10 days depending on the drives.  Also cost in the factor of electricity,  An awake and operating 450watt PC running 24x7 can cost as much as $400/a year depending on the cost of electricity, so a backup system that "sleeps" most of the time is desirable to keep costs down. 

Pretty cool, what a neat MOCAP experience.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 7:43 AM Sat, 3 February 2024 - #4481193

I don't think we've ever said that Poser doesn't create well - just there aren't many resources left for those who want to start learning how to now.

As in Tutorials?

One thing about Poser its been around for generations and the same principals from decades ago largely apply today.  Here is a secret stash worth its weight in gold   http://www.cocs.com/poser/

CobraBlade posted at 7:41 PM Sun, 21 January 2024 - #4480656

dreamcutter posted at 6:08 PM Sun, 21 January 2024 - #4480653

Who knows how long DAZ can support development without charging for Studio or overcharging for content, skimpware can only take you so far.

I don’t think you’ll have to worry about them charging for Studio since they already tried that. DAZ Studio 3 Advanced was their paid version that they locked features like 64-Bit support behind. Was a flop and it’s all free since then. That’s how DAZ burnt me, that much needed 64-Bit was coming soon for the Mac version and they never released it. So don’t know what the heck I paid for in the end.

Yes, and the reverse can happen when a paid product is released free. I recall feeling burned after investing approx $250 in DS4 Pro (Pro having content creation enabled), to soon find teh DS4 Pro released as the free edition because of the 32/64bit unrest.  The only feature from DS4 Pro paid that did not make the free version was the poly decimator - I think it was a licensed technology sold as a add-on module now.  To the stores credit, they did compensate paid DS4 pro users with credit.  But when DS4 went free, I had a feeling development would halt.  It didnt, lots of updates since but I think its still DS4 BETA (IDK, been awhile).

Agreed, a broader and deeper content selection would be great for Poser, however it actually does have a very robust and easy figure creation capability as some of its greatest hinderance has been resolved since P12 (save figure with option to either preserve/overwrite geometry).  I forgot that very important feature in the above list.  Anyways combined with its pioneering SM legacy and the continued stake by user$ and Bondware in Poser development will be a signal to 3d content creators that Poser will be here for the long term.  Who knows how long DAZ can support development without charging for Studio or overcharging for content, skimpware can only take you so far.

Nevertrumper posted at 3:16 PM Sat, 20 January 2024 - #4480612

I skipped Poser 12 and 13 for their tiny upgrade values, after Poser 11 just p*ssed already me off for the same reason.
Maybe Poser 14 could count as a full upgrade from Poser Pro 2024.
Quote:
"Other smaller features and bug fixes"
Can anybody tell them, an upgrade is not for fixing bugs? That's what updates are for.

Quote:
"Rendo's Marketplace is 99,9% Genesis, but DAZ will very soon feel the repercussions, too." Very true. Poser once got run over by DAZ Studio, and now DAZ Studio itself is much likely to be run over by IClone and Character Creator. "Those, who are late, will be punished by life." Gorbatschov

Yep generally in software project management versions are set by marketing as new capabilities/changes in scope while interim releases are scoped by developers to fix/improve an existing capability, efficiency and stability based on QA testing and user feedback.    Its not set in stone, version features are the merchandisable component of the software and therefore specified by marketing.

I think the list of new capabilities since P11 is rather impressive, frankly its about as much as the competition has produced.  Much of the industry has been grappling with platform and business model transition, at least Bondware has not gone subscription or thrown the baby out with bathwater post acquisition as did much of the industry.   Even DS which is one of the few 3d applications that has not changed hands stagnated somewhat and only - what went from 4.5 to 4.9 with rather little substantive improvements.  

Meanwhile the Bondware Poser team added this sweeping list since the acquisition:

• Content automatic installation of all included content, including legacy content.

• New version of SuperFly render engine based on Blender's Cycles 1.12, new shadow catcher, background transparency and Adaptive Sampling.

• Nvidia Optix support

• Intel OIDN denoising system.

• Python 3 scripting.

• Material Management tab.

• Content type icons on library thumbnails.

• Post Render FX options for rendered images including: denoise, exposure, saturation, gamma, brightness, contrast, bloom, blur and pixelate.

• Animation create panel now to include Audio Track option and ability to save output to new subfolder.

• GPU rendering with your LAN render farm

• Poser startup panel scene and template launcher

• Walk Designer and Talk Designer updated for latest figure compatibility.

• HDRI environment rendering for SuperFly.

• HDRI environment support in shadow catcher including 360 spherical

• Morph and weight map copying enhancements.

• Integrated Poser/Renderosity Store purchase library

• Searchable HTML Help system & full PDF version of the manual

Nice, well done.  So far creating content in P13 has been smooth and problem free for me.

Oh I get it, Darkseal is finally creating a Soul Sucker 2 

:D

an0malaus posted at 10:44 PM Sat, 2 December 2023 - #4478521

The one(two) question(s) I would have, after poring over hundreds of BVH animated pose offerings, is : Do the animations contain finger and hand pose information, and do they contain facial expressions?

In either case, are they separately applicable?

I'm certainly not trying to make things too hard, but more to set expectations, as I'm definitely interested.

I concur that the poses ought to be compatible with the latest, LaFemme2 figure (an A-Pose default), but I'm also aware that there is a huge (in Poser terms) legacy following for the Victoria 4 figure (a T-Pose default), which would need conversion if only LF2 compatible animations were offered.

LF2 will grow if such content support is provided, so starting there will be very helpful.

Most general and free BVH files ( like C. Mellon collection) do not have fingers, toes or any face features in their BVH rigs, only the matching bone to poser group nodes will convert over in the BVH.  There is no limit on exporting a Poser figures pose or animation to BVH, however only bone rotation and translation so no morphs.  You will have to scale any translations on import.  There are some handy BVH editors including UUWD & BVHACKER to help

Rhia474 posted at 10:13 AM Thu, 30 November 2023 - #4478379

Renderosity,  the owner of Poser, has banned AI here, for reasons Afrodite-Ohki summed up succinctly earlier in this thread. I highly doubt that they:

1.  would entertain including any of its iterations in their software and

2. Would not lock this thread or even delete it if people continue to insist on the inclusion of it.

As this is the forum of a private enterprise, I am inclined to respect their rules.

Yeah, Its the Streisand effect, the more peeps are dissuaded, the more the interest it heightened.  AI, AI, AI...whether actually intelligent or artificial it is the method that aggravates. Shifting the artistic decisions to network intelligence may create hominization in design ref: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23674696/chatgpt-ai-creativity-originality-homogenization

A LIST OF FEATURE SUGGESTIONS by the users should be specified by CAPABILITY and use case example, not the means of how its accomplished.  The means (including level of AI implemented) should be left to the dev engineers.

This AI 3d project seems to be aiming for that, applying animation to a fbx figure based on video/image samples .  https://plask.ai/  

However while many of the objectives you describe like text UI administration of Poser (Py script)  can already and has been done WITHOUT AI, the reliance of an AI webservice to the Poser software application will be a costly dependency and likely convert the use license to subscription or pay per use. Because it woudl so fundamentally change the direction and technical resources behind the development of Poser,  IMO it woudl make more sense for Bondware to license out the Poser API to a 3D AI art front end if the technology required it. 

I tried some of the suggested tools, that masterpieceX output is not render worthy... not close.  Maybe background characters for some amature low poly retro game, but not art quality renders,  Seems like embracing AI at the moment would be be foolhardy and reactionary to the hype and buzz... Poser is not NVIDIA.  I do not think Poser NEEDS AI integration to succeed... perhaps the depreciated FUSION capability could be replaces with OpenUSD & Omniverse support.  That would enable more than just AI in the pipeline.

3D-Mobster posted at 1:41 PM Fri, 24 November 2023 - #4478100

If you look at this AI-generated movie. Based on the description it is an animator with 25 years of experience making his first AI video. Now imagine how it will be in 5-10 years, given that AI video generation is very new. But I think one could imagine how Poser could be used to help control scenes and shots etc.

AI movie

To make this movie it appears the AI is applied as 2D compost and AfterFX. Iin other words, the AI system is not building the scene in 3d in its memory, then rendering it out - it it using pixel morphing at the 2D level - aka PS perspective warp and blending. You could render scenes in Poser today, use as source data for an AI Image/movie generator and get this result.  Today the text and image interfaces necessitates enormous Trial and Error in production to have the AI LERN and produce teh desired output.  The trial and error nature of artist produced AI creations means LOTS and LOTS of attempts, therefore 3d raytraced rendering by an AI scene builder would require cloud based virtualized GPU hardware and be VERY expensive, unless the AI API option for local rendering system was used.  That would tie up your system for ages.... because AI is not as smart as the intelligent human artist at getting it (near) right the first time before hitting render.

>> Why would you need to Mocab anything if Poser could hook up to your webcam and the AI transfer your movement to the character? << This literally IS the definition of Motion Capture (MOCAP), and there are affordable hobby grade camera pose and animation capture systems available today for your 3d pipeline. Intel makes the realsense, and I still have an old Microsoft MOCAP camera some where... It was used by IClone's MOCAP. Reallusion, a competitor to DAZ/Poser actually created a DAZ to to IClone 3d pipeline exchange figure converter and a Camera Mocap system was developed to merge figures with Poses animation. So Blenders AI 2D to Pose approximator script could be applied to a Poser grouped figure in Blender and export BVH file. .BVH is the general file standard to exchange pose/animations to .FBX and Collada figures and Poser imports BVH fine now, even in a parametric grouped rig.

AI creating scenes in your Local Poser instance would be weird again, seems like automation is what you are seeking rather than Artificial Intelligence... are you looking to describe in text what you want in scene rather than grab the content from your library or are you expecting Magician AI to procure the 3D scene content on demand and charge your credit card for the scene you described... I hope accurately or $ wasted...

Recall this thread is a CONTENT DEVELOPER Wishlist for future Poser versions so coming up with a way to eliminate the need for a artist, or even the content store itself would be a bummer to most reading this. Dang we could have AI be the audience for the Gallery and have AI appreciate the AI artists,,, we could save power to our PC's and just eat left over Turkey all day.

3D-Mobster posted at 6:56 AM Fri, 24 November 2023 - #4478089

I know this might be unpopular, but Poser needs AI integration or it will simply be obsolete, it's a fact.

We all like Poser, but missing out or ignoring AI is going to kill it and any potential it has for being able to turn into a really useful and cool tool.

Watch this video, I suggested that Poser should do something like this before AI was banned from the site, which is still a huge mistake. This is what Poser could and should aim for. The program is basically designed for stuff like this, "just" needs an integration to Stable diffusion and we know that Poser already uses a lot of Blender stuff, so why not support it. Im sorry it is ridiculous to not do it.   

Blender and AI

Even if you hate AI, Poser won't survive without it.

What do you mean that Poser needs AI integration? It's confusing because its a human artist tool, generally machine learning does not need software user interfaces or applications to create 3d art renders.  If not in the actual auto creation of 3d renders, perhaps you want the Poser scene and material creation to have some sort of AI assist?  To accomplish this privacy and other IP considerations important to Artists must be carefully weighed  as AI learning can be locally evolved so YOUR application techniques become more intuitive over time,  or client/server based (cloud) based where user data is shared with AI networks so that advancements evolve rapidly and broadly with other peoples techniques analyzed and adapted.... do we want that - would it ruin art through technique hominization?

The from my understanding of the Blender script, is that it is able to approximate a figures Pose from a representative 2D image. Not certain why/what "AI" has to do with that but it could be a programmed capability rather than learned on the fly. Is AI even necessary in this capability, as MOCAP exists.

Please provide some use case or examples of the specific AI capabilities in Poser you are seeking?