Big thank you, Bryster!

I had a lot of fun with his textures, back in the Bush Administration!

. . . from 2004. Still not bad looking really-- and at the time I remember being very happy with this kind of thing. What I really loved about Bryce and doesn't really work the same was is the way that Booleans and metaballs with transparent materials produced blended textures, some amazing effects. If I understood the intricacies of node based surfacing a little better, I suppose I could do it with something else, but it was elegant and easy in Bryce in a way that hasn't been easy to replicate since.

Found it in the archive dot org's wayback machine -- was "Bruce Macleod" -- the site was called watchfuleye dot com. . . exists only as a webarchive.

I know Brinnen and Horo's work, which is nice . . .

What I once had was called "Bryce Deep Texture Materials Library CD-ROM: VOLUME 1" -- was really subtle stuff

I think Macleod posted his work here, back in the day, but I don't know what his handle would have been.

There's a wonderful old lightwave plugin for knots and ropes. . . . "Rope Editor Plus" from Next4d

Doesn't run on Macs, so I can't use it any more, but I miss it . . . really elegant

http://next4d.com/index.htm

I go way back with Poser, and at one time used it extensively. First installed an early version of Daz Studio some years ago-- it was terrible, frustrating and buggy.

Fast forward the better part of a decade, and I use Daz almost exclusively. . . I run Poser now only because of some of my old scripts.

But it's naive to think that an application that's fallen so far behind will remain relevant. I used to use Lotus 123, too. Now I don't.

The hobbyist 3D community does need an alternative to DS, but it's not Poser.

I'd prefer to see Lightwave and Newtek grab the market, but I doubt they will. A more likely platform is Blender; the right price, a commitment to openness. Very steep learning curve, but it's got all the tools, and steady improvement.

bagginsbill posted at 8:35AM Sun, 13 March 2016 - #4259748

Sigh. I have said so many times but for some reason it doesn't get passed around.

SM wanted one library for all their graphic apps, particularly Poser and Anime Studio. AS was written in Visual Basic and so the only "native" library for it would be in VB. Poser was written in C++ so the only native library would be in C++. So to share a library (which is, indeed, not easy to write) would require some sort of graphic-rich cross platform library with a language that works on every platform.

Flash fits that bill perfectly and was easy to embed into any application by embedding a browser.

Any solution not using a browser, common language, and common runtime would increase the cost of both applications considerably.

People hated the Flash, so they dumped it and switched to HTML 5. But HTML is notoriously difficult to write in.

I wrote the Flash + ActionScript + Flex version (for Poser 8) originally in just a few weeks, and the first update for Poser 9 in less than two weeks.

They've spent months and months on this HTML + Javacript version. Maybe more than a man year. It's really a pain in the ass.

Wow. What a crazy story. Makes perfect sense, and tragic. So Smith, with a product written in perfectly good and appropriate to task C++ decided it had to be reengineered to share a library structure with a Visual Basic application?

Wowzers, that goes into a project management hall of shame . . .

Why anyone wanted a web technology for a database application always puzzled me, thank you for explanation.

Beyond you attempting to change the argument once proven wrong (let's not do that), the fact is still DAZ Studio still has it. And there are products that do use it. However in >this space, if people want more capability, they would move up into the more expensive applications like Lightwave, Maya, etc and they would be making their own content. >Also it serves no purpose to turn yet another thread into an app war, so let's stick to what the OP wanted.. and that's where it's feasible to open another store.

It has a very limited instancing, which means for practical purposes, it doesn't/

If you want to create an army of identically posed, oriented and textured Orcs, then Daz' feature is adequate. That's roughly the technology of a decade ago, and few have much use for that. It certainly is possible that a more useful instancing will come out of Daz/iRay's platform, but its not there yet. There are some third party plugins (Instances+) that add a small amount of functionality, but its still limited.

Meaning there's an opportunity for someone to deliver something useful.

RorrKonn posted at 8:21PM Sat, 27 February 2016 - #4257958

I never got why there's such a thing as this app vs that app. Now if some ass hole could enforce a rule that you can only use one certain app. No ,just eliminate the enforcer. What's it take to have a successful Store ? That a easy answer.

What's it take to have a successful store?

Modern products for modern technology.

V4 is a decade old (V4 introduced 2006, 4.1 2007, 4.2 2008) . Smith Design has brought new figures to market since then (Allison, Kate, now Pauline), but vendor support for them is very thin, and hobbyist use is similarly thin.

Judging by the content here and and RDNA, Poser content vendors have, until recently, been living on V 4.2.

There are all kinds of advances in graphics technology since 2005, and folks, including hobbyists, will pay for "cool stuff".

But I doubt they'll continue to pay for 2006 for much longer.

Male_M3dia posted at 5:49PM Sat, 27 February 2016 - #4257923

crocodilian posted at 6:08PM Sat, 27 February 2016 - #4257897

Still no instancing in Daz or Poser, so you're left with one shots and two shots. Look at the Poser galleries-- have you seen an army of Orcs?

DAZ Studio has had instancing for a few years now.

Quite limited, but you're right Daz (sort of) does. Can't do morphs, can't alter surfaces . . . makes them of limited utility, but they are there.

Compare to the richness of Vue's Ecosystems . . . very basic. Have yet to see anyone do much of anything with them . . . though with some work, you can get something.

In any event my point remains: there's room for a competitor to Daz for two reasons

1. Daz is an increasingly closed, proprietary universe . . . and artists don't like that (see Eon's experience with encrypted content)
2. Better technologies are available

Besides instancing . .. think of a hobbyist application with native support for Zbrush. Or Octane-like cloud rendering at a consumer price.

So there's an opportunity, but I don't think that either Smith or their ecosystem are capable of taking advantage of it.

_ " Do enough Poser users exist to support the need for another site/marketplace to take over for RDNA on the Poser side, since RDNA is seemingly phasing out their support of Poser with this merger?" _

Not likely; Smith Design has dropped the ball both technically and in marketing. The price of admission to Daz is "free". That's a good price, and the provide at this point a superior product.

I use Poser at this point only because I have used Poser for so long, and there are old scenes and resources that are in Poser format. That's a legacy market; legacy markets can be milked but don't warrant new investment.

_ " Is this community ready for an entirely different approach to managing figure creation that could solve Poser’s need for a truly modern figure pair?"_

Me, yes, but its not Poser or Daz; neither of which are up to the technical standards of Lightwave -- even Lightwave of years ago. More advanced applications long ago moved to lighter geometries, subdivision surfaces and a host of other "innovations" still unseen in Daz and Poser-verse.

Take instancing. Lots of folks are doing fantasy scenes . . . instancing technology has been around for years in applications like Lightwave -- and spectacularly in Eon's Vue products.

Still no instancing in Daz or Poser, so you're left with one shots and two shots. Look at the Poser galleries-- have you seen an army of Orcs?

So I think there's a place for a competitor to Daz; they've demonstrated that there's real money in selling content . . . and they are improving their technology.

But there's time for a competitor coming "from above" -- my pick would be Lightwave, but obviously Autodesk could do it, and has much more financial resources. Less obvious but possible players would be Eon (which seems to be heading in a different direction following purchase by Bentley), some bolt on to Blender (tricky because of open source issues with for profit material), Modo (pointing at a different market these days, but always had a keen marketing and community sense).

Here's a quick render of the sword. I want to give the blade a "brushed steel" kind of look. Shiny, metalic, but not mirror refelective. I think the word is "Anisotropic".

The problem with this render is no environment. You'll have a hard time getting a convincing looking reflective metal without an environment -- either a map on the material itself, or raytracing with a world to reflect. This is one of those occasions when HDRI environments and raytracing really shine. What metals "look like" is a function of the environment around them. If you create a synthetic 3D environment with no lights and nothing to reflect, they'll look like nothing much.

This is something that is easier to do in Poser-- the Faceroom is designed for this.

The technology is actually something called "Facegen" from the folks at Singular Inversions. They have a version of the software for Daz, but it costs. If you have a copy of Poser, then you already have the technology.

Realistically, if you're not experienced in 3D modelling, you'll have a tough time doing this by hand. You certainly could use a tool like Blender to do it-- but facial modelling is like sculpting, takes talent and experience.

@razor42

thank you. I do have these files, but they're under a shared library, rather than a user one. I suspect that its something to do with permissions (?)

I am going to have to do some work on this. I think that I once installed Daz "for all users" and it stuck some files into a shared directory, and some files point to the wrong place.

Its peculiar, because when I load up the Genesis figures in Poser, Poser can find the morphs.

I appreciate your input

I highly recommend the DittoGUI program. It is probably the best $2 you'll ever spend.

For whatever reason, Mac OSX has never equalled Windows for drag and drop recursive merging, and it makes me crazy (my workflow was to merge Poser runtimes on a Windows box and then copy the whole merged runtime over to my Mac . . . kludgy and a pain, but better than the alternatives).

For $2, DittoGUI fixes this.

I'd had some problems with an earlier version a while back, but this version works perfectly.

No Mac Poser user who buys content should be without it . . .

Question: I'm ugrading from 2012-- do I need to download all the new content installers?

They seem similar in size to the 2012 versions . . .

I must say, Daz really impresses. Daz Studio started out clunky and more or less useless, but they have made steady improvements, I'm impressed. 4.5 was good, but 4.6 seems more stable, starts quicker, and the renders look better and seem faster.

The content management is also a big plus. My biggest rap on Daz had been the install headaches, just made it not worthwhile to buy stuff on their store, as the mutiple downloads and install hassle weren't worth it.

2013 has been a good year for Daz. Now I'm looking forward see what the new Poser brings . . . Two thumbs up for competition!