Hot take: make LaFemme/LHomme figures more adult content friendly.

Have you seen the huge Adult Visual Novel market out there? That will definitely get some interest in Poser. Someone had to make a whole different LaFemme2 version to add female genitalia and, while I praise the effort, afaik it's not able to use LaFemme2 stuff easily on it so it's a clunky solution. On Genesis figures you just slap on the proper geograft and you are good to go (with G9 kinda messing things up a bit but still not as much)

If Reallusion also made their CC figures adult content friendly I'm sure they would also get more sales considering how good their apps are (CC and iClone) but that's also why they probably don't need to, plus they keep making it much easier to use their apps with figures other than their own.

Poser doesn't really have a selling point to stand out besides not needing a Nvidia card, which would be great for some wanting to make their own Adult Visual Novels if the figures could be used for that.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 6:44 AM Thu, 27 April 2023 - #4463531

Though at this point, if you're starting a new figure collection, you might wanna wait on the new figure they've promised to release soon.

I've read people saying that around here but, the P13 store page just says it will have continued support for LH and LF, which makes me think they plan on improving them?

I mean, since being able to use them in P13 pretty much was a given I don't see why else say that if it was just that.

If they do release a new figure I wonder how soon is "soon"...

Also, thank you both for the info

In the end I just got full P13, I didn't feel like juggling around with another app =P

So... I installed it and downloaded some of the content, mostly the LF, LH and I think some environments and props.

I just messed around a bit with it without going through any manual or tutorial about the interface, etc, loaded a LF figure and didn't seem like I could do much with her out of the box beyond posing her, at least I didn't see any morph. On one hand I didn't mind, as a Daz user I'm used to Genesis figure being like that out of the box too (though at least now they added several skins for free). On the other hand, you get Daz and the Genesis figures for free while the whole point of Poser's price is the content. Anyway, not 100% sure how I feel about that but eh, it is what it is.

So, wanted to ask what's the minimum stuff I should get from the store so I can start customizing the LF figure decently. Saw some "LF pro" stuff, I think it was called, but wasn't very clear if that added anything extra, or what exactly. (Maybe I didn't read properly, being in a hurry).

I don't mind getting some extra stuff, but for now I'm definitely not planning on starting a huge LF collection, so yeah, I mean the basic stuff like having the Daz and zev0s morphs for the genesis figures, and which vendors have a good variety and quality of textures. Maybe some clothes (I buy a bunch of Rhiannon stuff for Genesis and noticed they have also some LF stuff)

At the moment I'm very busy but I do want to tinker a bit more with Poser 13 soon-ish

AmbientShade posted at 12:53 PM Sun, 16 April 2023 - #4462353

The price for P12 seems to have been reduced, so might as well get both as it'd cost the same. You could see the improvements from 12 to 13 that way.

Well, I don't really have the time to get them both just to check the differences myself, I was mostly concerned with how stable is P13 compared with P12 but apparently there isn't a need to worry.

Thank you all for your help

Rhia474 posted at 12:25 PM Sun, 16 April 2023 - #4462349

I agree what was said about the content and quality thereof, but the issue goes deeper there, intothe question  of 'why', and 'how easy it is to create content ' on which am not qualified to speak, being simply an end user. 

Creating content has never been easier, but creating good quality content is a different thing, not only creating the content itself but the whole time involved in getting good enough to do it. It is also a very competitive market. So artists wanting to make a living out of it have to make the most of each piece created which means going where the money is, and the money is where the most popular stuff is. And what's popular? Genesis stuff, and even more specifically, sexy female stuff. It is a common complain around the Daz forums how there is so much more good content for the female figures than for the males.

JoePublic posted at 5:38 PM Sun, 16 April 2023 - #4462390

IMO, if they REALLY want to compete with more modern apps like Blender or whatever, they'd probably have to re-invent Poser from the ground up.

That means no legacy content anymore whatsoever. No Firefly, no spherical falloff zones, no eliptical falloff zones, not even legacy weightmapping.

That of course would mean to me that 23yrs of sculpting and rigging work as well as countless hours developing Firefly materials and lightsets would all go down the drain.

IF (A big IF!) they would supply 100% perfect (Or at least near perfect) conversion tools, perhaps I might do that switch.

But I'm 58yrs now. I can't invest another 23 years to redo everything again from scratch.

I'll probably then just stay with any version of Poser that still works with my content and let you do that journey without me.

I don't think it's expected of Poser to compete with Blender, it is a different beast. It's more about competing with Daz or CC4/IClone. In that regard, I don't think Poser has to eliminate things like Firefly or being able to use old figures. Daz has managed to keep 3delight (their render engine before Iray) and V4 in there, they simply don't update them anymore and artists rarely make anything for them, if ever. I could be wrong, I don't know the inner workings or the differences between both apps, but that's just how it seems to me.

ssgbryan posted at 7:18 PM Sun, 16 April 2023 - #4462401

Nevertrumper posted at 10:51 AM Thu, 13 April 2023 - #4462029

(BTW: DAZ Studio is free and it includes a render engine, that costs about 300$, if you‘d buy it separately.

Poser costs 250$ and it includes a ripp off of a render engine that comes free with Blender.)

Am I really the only one here, who thinks, that Poser is milking his loyalists in an dishonest way?

Cost isn't the hill you want to die on, Nevertrumper.

To reach rough feature parity, you will drop around $600 dollars in 3rd party scripts. 

That number wasn't picked out of a hat btw, that is what I spent trying (unsuccessfully) trying to make DS my daily driver.

There are a number of things that are simply not possible with DS - like multi-GPU render support out of the box.

Then there are the initial design compromises that crippled DS from the very start.......

I don't know what kind of scripts you are talking about and what kind of features you need to make DS your daily driver, but I just wanted to point out that DS has had support for multi-GPU render for a while now, out of the box. I used to render with a RTX 2060 Super and a GTX 1070, then I had a dual 3060 setup for a while before getting a 3090. Unless you mean that the VRAM of the cards don't get added up. And still, afaik you can do that if you use cards compatible with NVLink.

parkdalegardener posted at 5:18 AM Sun, 16 April 2023 - #4462326

I read it; but will happily ignore everything else you have to say. You have never used the software and thus your post on the function of Poser, and how to use and improve it; are completely useless similar to many of the other posts in this thread. This thread does make for good entertainment each morning while I drink my morning coffee; but has no direct impact on my upgrading from P12 or switching to DAZ. I've watched these amusing threads for years but I still use Poser. Silly me.

No idea about the kind of work that you do with Poser but if you are happy enough with it and the current state of Poser, great for you. Can't speak for others here but at least my goal wasn't trying to stop you from upgrading to P13 or switching to Daz, if that's the impression you got then I feel you didn't get the point. As far as I can see, myself included even though I haven't used Poser yet, the whole point is wanting Poser to be better. That you are content with its current state doesn't change the objective facts that Poser is nowhere near as popular as the other similar apps out there. If you think that's fine because it works for you, you are probably wrong. Sure, Bondware released P12 and P13 but for how long can they continue supporting Poser in its current state or if it keeps getting worse? And it's a fact you can see just by the amount of content made for it, specially figure-wise because people making things like props and environments can simply "double-dip" making it for Daz and Poser. The amount and how much it actually sells what actually gets made.

And yes, not having used Poser I definitely can't speak about the upgrades the app itself needs or doesn't, but it really doesn't matter if it doesn't have the content to back it up anyway, which is why I think they need to do something about that first. I haven't used Poser but I do use Renderosity quite a bit so I believe I can talk about the vast difference there is in content made for Daz vs Poser.

First, I'd like to say I've never used Poser and I've been using Daz for 8 years, and yeah, making "adult" content. I say this so those who think that makes my opinions here moot can just ignore the rest of my somewhat lengthy post.

Basically, I haven't used it but since Bondware got Poser I have been following it. Personally, I'd love for Poser to compete at Daz level, I think that competition would make both programs better and I wouldn't mind also owning Poser if it did. Sadly, it hasn't imho, at least for my needs.

The issue isn't the app itself, Superfly might not look as good as Iray (imho and at the moment; being based on Cycles and seeing what Blender can do, it could get much better in the future) but it still allows to make decent physically based renders while not being limited to using Nvidia cards. The issue is the content. Or lack of it. They claim you get so much content for the price but the truth is much of it is reeeally old stuff that is unusable (at least if you want to make realistic renders with decent quality). You can probably salvage some of it but it's going to take work, and that means time. As they say, time is money, so you could just buy a better one. AcePyx mentions on his video that Daz content is expensive, having to spend around 100$ to get one figure with hair and fully clothed. This isn't true. Same as this site or other sites selling stuff like online courses, you never buy the stuff at the base price. There are always huge sales and things like the Prime Membership or Daz+. Just as a reference, Daz released Julia 9 this week and I was able to get her "gamer bundle" which includes the figure, 2 clothes, 1 hair, make up, props and an environment for something like 15$.

I know some people get annoyed by the unimesh talk but that's just the way it is. I don't know the specifics of what it would break but afaik it's old stuff. I personally think Poser needs to start thinking more on the future than on the old stuff. Sure, Daz has managed to still let people use old content but they don't really support it anymore. If Bondware doesn't have the money to invest in a figure that can actually compete with the Genesis or the CC4 base figure, then I'd honestly just try to make the Genesis figure their main figure too. I doubt Daz would have an issue with it considering how they are making and sponsoring all sorts of ways to send their content to other apps, and I'd hope there isn't anyone still holding on old grudges from both sides. It'd mean Poser would get instantly a ton of more content, Bondware doesn't have to find a way to make artists create stuff for their figure instead of Genesis (which they won't because that's where the money is at) and Daz would just get more people buying their content.

Even Reallusion with their awesome figure and way more expensive apps put a lot of effort on making them usable with all sorts of external content. And that's really it, imho. Poser seems to want to compete keeping itself in a bubble of outdated content while not having the money needed to actually do that. At the very least I really doubt going all in with the L'Femme/L'Homme figures is the way to go.

Anyway, again, this is me hoping for Poser to get better, not trashing it. I sincerely congratulate Bondware on keeping Poser alive and I imagine they have had to make difficult choices and surely will have to make more in the future. I really hope they can get Poser to give Daz its run for their money one way or another so they also get off their asses and make better improvements (I mean, we have been waiting for Daz 5... for quite a while now xD)

wolf359 posted at 4:24PM Fri, 06 November 2020 - #4403595

I am glad to see someone else acknowledge this.

There is a subjective ,floating standard for what various people consider having 'Genesis support" in another program (outside of Daz studio)

However the reality is this:

Genesis is only truly Genesis while residing inside Daz studio with its massive amount of JCM/HD etc morph data being live streamed into the Daz studio viewport from your Daz Data folder.

Everything else is just an approximation ,some debatably better/worse than others.?

Here are three quick renders of the same Daz genesis G3 female in three different programs.

Iclone/CC3 uses shape projection to make an Iclone Avatar mimic the appearance of any Daz figure from Millenium 4 to G8 imported into CC3 via FBX from DS.

Fully,posable animatable and can change clothing,skin,hair after import because it not actually genesis but an Iclone realtime impostor.?

"Diffeomorphic" is a free Blender Add-on that imports any G1-G8 figure with high subD levels and really good auto conversion of Iray skins to Blender Shaders it is Fully posable in Blender with some limited post import morphing options and can be converted to a Blender native rig for animation with one button.

You poser users have the Willdial script method and FBX/.obj ( such as they are)

However no matter what method you choose

the REAL 100% functioning Genesis is only Available inside Daz studio.?

I'm actually in the middle of deciding if getting CC3/iClone7 or not xD

Want to get into animation and seems like a great pipeline to make animations and render them inside Daz. Would even consider rendering in iClone7 for the speed but so far I can't find if it's possible to get figures with geografts from Daz into iClone7 without issues.

CC3 is also looking pretty good with all the SkinGen Pro and so on, but I did find out it has zero compatibility with grafts, sadly, so I can't use any of the stuff I already own in Daz to shape characters in CC3.

Anyway, Poser 12's best bet most likely is to get a system similar to CC3 that allows it to create "copies" of whatever Genesis figure you want but remain a La Femme/L'Homme figure and dress them up with all the stuff used for Genesis too. I'll still keep an eye on Poser 12, but for now it seems like a pass (especially if I get the iClone animation pipeline xD)

Ah, thanks for the clarification. Then I think the point stands when we say we'd like official support and it's kind of annoying when people come out saying stuff like "you can do it already". Sure, I can also just learn to make a whole figure from scratch and do everything myself in Blender but then what would be the point of apps like these? =P (the last bit not directed at you, btw xD)

CHK2033 posted at 2:37PM Thu, 05 November 2020 - #4403496

MazinkaiserDX posted at 2:09PM Thu, 05 November 2020 - #4403485

Oh .lol and my post wasn't against you, I just like responding to ssgbryan because he always seem angry too me :p

Ah, don't worry, didn't take it against me, if anything it was helpful so I was curious about the details. xD You mention you posed it manually, which it's fine for me, even if I use a premade pose as a starting point in Daz, I like to do everything else manually for the fine tuning. What I'm curious about is if it bends correctly when you pose the character. That's the issue I usually see. Things like elbows looking like wet noodles because, sure, you get the rig, but you don't get all the correction morphs. Or at least that's what I understood from older threads I've read.

Oh, I know you can get the figures in there, but I've also seen in those posts where people get g3/g8 in Poser 11 (I think it was that version) that bending is not the same and many other issues. I meant an officially supported way of using those figures in there pretty much as they would work in DS (rigging, morphing, fitting clothes). Which Azath apparently can't decide if it's something that needs just a little experience or if it's too hard to explain =P (just kidding, BTW, but this is the internet so I got to clarify that)

What I meant with having to pay money to Daz was related to this:

"...'DAZ has since changed their format substantially and the DSON importer plug-in has not been updated to support the newer generations of figures. Genesis 8 is the current figure, DSON only supports up to Genesis 2. It's been a long time since it was maintained,' Taylor said.

With the development of DAZ Studio, DAZ's stand-alone 3D rendering program, the plug-in was depreciated and is no longer supported by DAZ.

'Poser does not own the rights to this plug-in and therefore can not maintain it,' Taylor said, adding the plug-in 'contains parts of the DAZ Studio engine so even if we wanted we couldn't legally reproduce it. Further, We don't have any of the source code for the original plug-in making recreating it not only illegal but impractical as well'..."

From this article talking about the Python update for Poser 12, you can read the whole thing here: How Poser, Python and DSON work together

So I figured one of the "easiest" way for Poser to get better official support for those figures would be getting that plugin and update it themselves for Poser 12, but considering what's mentioned on the article I'd assume Daz would want money to share it, and that's even if they'd want to do that in the first place.

Having said that, I'm curious if you got the figure there and it's also working good for posing, fitting clothes and all that, CHK2033. Like you, I don't have an issue about using DS, but like I mentioned, the good thing about Poser is the render engine not needing Nvidia cards. Beyond that, I don't know, Poser 12 might have some other better things now or in the future, which is something I hope for. I've never understood those with the "get into this app's camp and hate the other" mentality. For me, Poser 12 catching up and even offering things Daz can't do or not very well, means healthy competition which will force Daz to improve as well. Honestly, if it weren't because I don't have time to play with everything I would also get every app and mess around with them, more so if I have to pay 200$+ and might never be able to use it with my library. I even got Carrara for like 5$ and messed around with it a bit with some G2 figures, it was nice but in the end dropped it because I can't properly use newer stuff, heh.

ssgbryan posted at 3:23AM Thu, 05 November 2020 - #4403166

Not going to happen - the code belongs to DAZ, and they have no reason to make it available. 'Rosity cannot force DAZ to make the code available, and it is illegal for 'Rosity to reverse engineer the code.

If you are hell-bent on getting DS content into Poser, you are going to actually have to do a little work. And it is just a little work, and it isn't even very hard.

But YOU have to do it.

This. Renderosity would probably need to pay Daz something for the rights to use the stuff natively within Poser because they have no reason to make them available for Poser just because. I mean, I don't know. With all these bridges Daz is making they might get up from their asses and make one for Poser. Honestly, Poser 12 piqued my interest quite a lot, I have never used Poser but the render engine is looking really good and it's extremely nice that it doesn't require a Nvidia card, which considering the new releases it might be a really good thing. The one reason I don't make the switch ASAP is that I have invested a TON of money on G3/G8 stuff, so even if La Femme/La Homme had as many options as those figures (and they don't), it would still be better just shelling whatever amount of money I have to for Nvidia cards than build my library from the ground up again. Still, going to keep an eye on this (and believe me when I say that the day there is official support for g3/g8 I will instabuy Poser 12 xD)