Is there a way to selectively change areas in the faked bump map node? For example, if you use the main texture as a bump map then you have inverted nipples, body hair, eyebrows, etc. It is what a lot of people do but it just isn't right. If there is a way to do that without adding another map to the mix to invert them then that might be something to consider, for me, but the separate maps work much better than simple inverting the diffuse or addint the diffuse as a bump etc. The makeup thing is an option but I don't do that so it doesn't affect me really. But, once again, that kind of thing totally leaves out anyone that doesn't render in P5/P6. Plus it is a lot of work for what can be done in three minutes in Photoshop.

The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
Robert A. Heinlein

11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-11900K @ 3.50GHz   3.50 GHz
64.0 GB (63.9 GB usable)
Geforce RTX 3060 12 GB
Windows 11 Pro

As you said though - you cut out PP/P4 users, but that's a decision that we as merchants have to make if we are going to use the newer functions of P5/P6.

There is no great secrets in any of these setups they are all out there in one tutorial or another, it just seems a reluctance to use them in commercial items...

Message edited on: 11/20/2005 21:44

The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
Robert A. Heinlein

11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-11900K @ 3.50GHz   3.50 GHz
64.0 GB (63.9 GB usable)
Geforce RTX 3060 12 GB
Windows 11 Pro

I have P4, PP, P6 (and DS). I mostly use PP and switch to P6 for features like shaders, dynamic cloth, and firefly. What I would like to see happen is: 1) All clothes, figures, and props should come without maps applied. 2) Make Mat poses for P4, PP, P5/P6. This is VERY easy to do in seconds with Shader Spider. 3) Conforming clothes should also come with a dynamic version. This is very easy to do. 4) More Shaders. Shaders are truely wonderful. bB

um, as a customer, i actually tend to turn down many products because they don't take advantage of displacement. i can't tell you how many clothes i don't even look at because of the lack of wrinkles and folds that could be easily added with displacement. same goes for environments and scenes. yeah, i could do it myself, but frankly, advertising works. i look, i see a perfectly smooth mesh wrapping around a figure's body, and i just think "wow, that looks like plastic," and move on. i don't spend a lot of time trying to picture what products could be like. and since D|S supports displacement, i would think that would mean that making a D|S compatible version would be easier. as for the material room node stuff, yes, please. i mean, maybe people using p5 and p6 aren't making their own skin shaders. but isn't face_off still one of the top merchants here because of his products? and his last product came out in august. all the most photorealistic renders in the galleries here seem to mention either one of face_off's products or individually derived shader. so human textures don't need node work? i beg to differ. frankly, just adding ambient occulsion would be a nice addition to materials (face_off has posted that ao is better placed in the materials than the lights, in his forums if i remember correctly). using bitmap textures and using materials aren't at all mutually exclusive. in fact, they're best when they complement each other. i'd rather have a bunch of material settings to change hair color than a bunch of textures with their hue shifted in photoshop. i'd rather have stone that looks like actual bumpy or carved stone than fake looking bas-reliefs with no dimension or roughness. i'd much rather have properly reflective eyes. as for the hair, well, even the beautiful sapphire fox hair shows it's mapping, so to me, it's 6 of one, half dozen of the other. i still haven't seen any transmapped skull caps get as realistic as this render by Olivier at RDNA. frankly, since shader spider lite is now free and distributable, i've been hoping more merchants would make partial shaders, so that their special effects, tattoos and make-up could be applied to various textures. maybe i want that awesome dragon tattoo to be a mark of a gang, and all my characters need it. and then i wouldn't have to download and store an entire separate head or body texture just to have a small difference like a different color of eyeshadow. it just seems like so many problems could be solved with proper use of displacement, shader nodes and mesh smoothing. i mean, i'm not saying, "don't support the p4/ppp group." but i definitely feel that stuff doesn't need to be so resource intensive and less realistic just to cater to people still using software 5 or 6 years old. if the p4 version doesn't look as good, well, then they have a reason to upgrade. but how is releasing a product that just doesn't look as good as it could without the more advanced alternative better than offering the choice? but you tell me: outside of the rigging issues that anton mentioned, if you don't use only procedural textures, how hard is it to make a p6 product into a p4 "lite" version? i mean, i'm sure morris could sell a p4 version of the hyperreal texture, or of g.i. jill, and it would be popular even if it didn't look as good. it seems to me, as it is, there's also less pressure to upgrade because only a few of the experts show what can be _done. to be honest, i think most poser users assemble more than create from scratch. if only a few products make use of the new p5/p6 features, what incentive do p4 users have to upgrade? g.o.m. - didn't you say you were coming out with a new product for v3 using displacement? and isn't p5/p6 displacement and materials a selling point of your rogues for david (at daz)?

cobaltdream said "there's also less pressure to upgrade because only a few of the experts show what can be _done. to be honest, i think most poser users assemble more than create from scratch. if only a few products make use of the new p5/p6 features, what incentive do p4 users have to upgrade?" Thank you - you have managed to put into plain english the exact thoughts I have been trying to communicate in this thread.....

The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
Robert A. Heinlein

11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-11900K @ 3.50GHz   3.50 GHz
64.0 GB (63.9 GB usable)
Geforce RTX 3060 12 GB
Windows 11 Pro

I intend (hopefully starting in Jan) to be offering a regular p4/pp version of all the PW stuff I make, but also a P6 shader set. There are many very cool things I could do with the nodes in the cloth room ... but right now my hardware is too old to make running p5/6 anything but pure tedium. A pp compatible base and optional p6 libraries should cover both crowds, hopefully. And for that matter once I can make the complete switch over (instead of having 2 runtimes and BOY is that a mess) then I can start to develop the environmental p6 textures my users have been clamoring for. Lyrra

yay! thank you, lyrra!

question plese... where do you get a copy of Shader Spider Lite? I looked over at Daz but no luck. I managed to get my text size larger with higher res so now I can use P5...yay!

Let me introduce you to my multiple personalities. :)
     BluEcho...Faery_Light...Faery_Souls.

BluEcho Do a search in this forum for Shader Spider Lite - I'm sure the link was in that thread - it was about a week ago

The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
Robert A. Heinlein

11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-11900K @ 3.50GHz   3.50 GHz
64.0 GB (63.9 GB usable)
Geforce RTX 3060 12 GB
Windows 11 Pro

tastiger: Thank you. i'll check it out. :)

Let me introduce you to my multiple personalities. :)
     BluEcho...Faery_Light...Faery_Souls.

"it seems to me, as it is, there's also less pressure to upgrade because only a few of the experts show what can be _done."<< That really isn't fair. So many people both here, at RDNA and PoserPros have done extensive walk throughs and tutorials. Just in this forum do a search for AKmaterialroombookmark I haven't updated the list but people have tried to educate and show how to do things. And there are many products that do take advantage of new features. I think the problem is many merchants feel overwhelmed by pressure to include everythingand end up defaulting back to the basic MAT.

-Anton, creator of Apollo Maximus
"Conviction without truth is denial; Denial in the face of truth is concealment."

Over 100,000 Downloads....

see this thread in the daz commons

shrug Everyone is welcome to do as they like. Frankly, I couldn't care less which version of Poser anyone else chooses to use.

Now, having said that:

Poser is about the only software package that I've ever seen where a determined group of users insist on sticking with a five-or-six year old, clearly outdated version of the program. To me, this is no different from insisting that Windows 98 is still the way to go.........

When P5 came out, I dropped P4. When P6 came out, I dropped P5. When P7 comes out, then I'll drop P6.

But if anyone out there wants to continue to use P4 or PP -- it's nothing to me. The way that I see it, it's their loss.

In another 10 years (assuming that we are around then), when we're working with Poser version #21....and who knows what kind of operating system......I doubt that there will be very many P4 users left. It's sort of inevitable.

Sure, a few individuals still use Ataris. Good for them -- but I'm not one of 'em.

This post isn't meant to hurt anybody's feelings. Some things simply are what they are.

Something To Do At 3:00AM 

"In another 10 years (assuming that we are around then)"<< From your mouth to gods ear. knock on nearest wooden object

-Anton, creator of Apollo Maximus
"Conviction without truth is denial; Denial in the face of truth is concealment."

Over 100,000 Downloads....

At the simplest level, just having a MAT pose for P5/P6 so that bumpmaps are loaded better-than-default is a good idea. The next step is to use procedural shaders where the materials grouping allows it. I quite often replace texturemaps for metals with shaders from Mapps' collection. You can do the same with leather. I think as long as EF are selling Poser Artist there's going to be a market for P4-compatibility, and there will be the P4 render engine available in later versions. But some of the P5/P6 features really need better support from EF. The manual is full of holes, and dynamic hair and clothing still seem to be something of a black art. DAZ Studio -- let's wait and see. I know some people are using it as a tool to prepare scenes for Poser, because one or two of the add-ons do stuff that Poser doesn't.

although I have installs poserpropack4 poser5 and poser6 SR2 I personally dont have any real stake in what poser version is supported by merchants as i dont use posers render engine/materials for anything other than pre vis. and various python scripts to convert clothing and assist in animation tasks before opening the file in Carrara pro for animation or C4D for stills. but the P4 holdouts will have to accept reality eventually for a variety of reasons including the eventuality that some future version of thier computers main OS that may no longer even run P4 i know a fellow mac guy who refuses to accept that Mac OSX is here to stay. and remains huddled in the crumbling cave of OS8.6 running poser4 on an ancient "powermac" computer cursin Apple for "stabbing us in the back" The really sad part is that he is addicted to DAZ/poser content and $$purchases$$ alot of it yet he cant even use most of it because of his old assed hardware/OS setup and is relegated to an endless search of freestuff archives for legacy stuff that will run on his old system. this is the eventual fate of all people who choose to remain stuck in the past of an anachronistic wasteland of vestigial hardware/software. so to my fellow merchants I say, continue to look FORWARD !!. that passage of time itself will deal with those who choose not use modern versions of the tools we all enjoy.

My website

YouTube Channel

I have ProPack, 5, P6 and DS installed and guess what I use 95% of the time ? Good old ProPack.

When I create new characters I generally use several dozend magnets in combination with the default morphs.
Poser 5 and 6morph dials are loose, so to get exact values, you have to type in the numbers, whereas in P4/PP I just can just use my mouse.
No problem for spinning one or two dials, but not if you need to spin those dials several hundred times again and again during charcter creation.

I also do my own posing from scratch.
Again, P4/PP allows me to access the dials of a bodypart with one click, while in P5/6 you have to at least click twice to access the body dials, even a third time to morph a body part.

It already takes long enough to do character and pose work in PP, but P5/6s behaviour makes it useless for me.

Oh, the cloth room sure is great, but lets be honest, both the face and the hair room havent been used too often, have they ?

Show me a clone made entirely in the face room that really looks like the person its meant to represent, and show me a strand based hair that looks better or at least equal to Kozaburos old fashioned backwards compatible transmpped hairs.

Frankly, these arrogant "Poser6 is the next best thing than sliced bread and if you dont upgrade youre not part of the elite brotherhood of REAL Professional Poser users" comments are just lame.
At least the folks at CGSociety have the skills to back up their arrogance.

As for the oh so wonderfull material room, I still have to see that "ultra photorealistic render" that would convince me to invest my time learning those myriads of nodes.

What you good people forget is that the average Poser user just wants to make pretty pictures and not apply for a job at Pixxar.

Set the threshold too high, and he will just give up, delete Poser and NOT keep the Poser economy running by buying all your products.

"Im an Artist, not a Tech Geek, Jim." ^-^

Thats why D/S is so "primitive" compared to Poser 6, and thats why there is still "Poser Artist" around.
Because both DAZ and EF do not get carried away in "My software is better than your software" pissing contest like the fanboys here.
They even brought back the backwards P4 material room to Poser6.

Please and by all means support only the programs you WANT to support, and delete whatever obsolete program from your harddrive that you think could endanger your "Poser-fan #1" status.

But spare me the whining that youll mabe loose a sale or two, or how sad apple it makes you that not everybody is as enlightened as you are.

stahlratte

Message edited on: 11/21/2005 06:14

Tough day stahlratte? Someone needs a hug. :)

-Anton, creator of Apollo Maximus
"Conviction without truth is denial; Denial in the face of truth is concealment."

Over 100,000 Downloads....

"Frankly, these arrogant "Poser6 is the next best thing than sliced bread and if you dont upgrade youre not part of the elite brotherhood of REAL Professional Poser users" comments are just lame."

as apposed to the "why don't you support poser 4!?! you'll loose sales if you dont!" that far outnumber the calls to support poser 5+?

and who's arrogant? the minority screaming for poser 4 compatibility (minority based on sales figures) or the few thousand others that just get on with life and don't spend their time whining on forums?

yes. I said whining. get over it. there are far more important things to worry about than poser. Not pointed at any one person - this is pointed at all those who just love to bitch and whine on forums. this disclaimer will of course be ignored.

Message edited on: 11/21/2005 06:37

Actually, if we're only talking PRO PACK support, I could live with it. I mean it would mean that the PPP users had to live without real reflecting mirrors (like the ones in my Men's Room) and that a few other thing on that model looks less than optimal, but it ANNOYS me that I have to create two thumbnails every time. And as Im not sure if Daz Studio can read rsr thumbnails, I include both the rsr and the png. For a time I only included the rsr, as Poser generates the png automagically ... but then someone pointed out that there nmight be a problem with that... And then there's the bump maps. As I don't have a "raw" Poser 4 installed anywhere, there's no way I CAN make the greenscale .bum files. so I have to tell the Poser 4 / Artist users that they should do that themselves. And knowing how annoying I personally find it if something is encoded or something, then I imagine it must be equally annoying to load all the Bump textures first to convert them to .bum AND the MAT files won't work any more either, as they're made to go look for a .jpg. But I doubt we'll see Poser 4 on a cover CD anytime soon, Poser 4 is Poser Artist, remember? It's still being sold! And in many ways it's a good program despite its age. But then again, BetaMax were actually in many ways superior to VHS, yet... when did you last see a betamax videorecorder?

FREEBIES! | My Gallery | My Store | My FB | Tumblr |
You just can't put the words "Poserites" and "happy" in the same sentence - didn't you know that? LaurieA
  Using Poser since 2002. Currently at Version 11.1 - Win 10.

For Betamax, look for professional equipment, you'll find still Betamax ;)

Ulli

"Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience!"

Yep, I know, but where do you buy the latest blockbuster movie on Beta tape? ;o)

FREEBIES! | My Gallery | My Store | My FB | Tumblr |
You just can't put the words "Poserites" and "happy" in the same sentence - didn't you know that? LaurieA
  Using Poser since 2002. Currently at Version 11.1 - Win 10.

BTW, I'm still using P4 for some testing but, to be honest, when I get a new item, mostly there are poses for P4, PP and P5/6 included, means I have to delete manually the unneeded poses to keep the runtimes as small as possible. This shows on one hand side that the support for P4 is still in place, on the other hand side, you get, as P5/6 user, a lot of unwanted (not necessary) files. You are right, P4 is simple to handle, although I have to remember how to do something in P4 as I am using usually P6. But time is running. I remember Windows 3.11, it was a wonderfull stable programme, if you used it under OS/2. Now, both are gone, also most of the Win 95, Win 98, Me users upgraded to XP or Windows 2000. But oldies are obviously goldies. The very old ones of us (sorry for that but I'm included) remember a graphics software called GEM. This format is still supported by many programmes although the original programme is out of the market for more then 20 years.

Ulli

"Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience!"

running macwrite on 512K Mac, Finder/System 3.2 which was kicked up from 128k on the famous day the "fat mac" came out. I like the clackity keyboard. I only use it to write when inspired up in my loft, then print out ideas. No way to transfer. It is perfectly silent, no fan, no hard drive. My original Imagewriter works, too. Purchased the Mac and imagewriter in April 1984 in first 90 days, $3100, i kid you not. This is a fascinating thread. I am not a developer, just a consumer, I abandoned PP as soon as I saw the power of P5, then P6. ::::: Opera ::::: P.S. Oh....the 512K? That is the size of the main memory. 512K RAM.

I was the one who ran the Poser User survey a while back. I published the results of it publically, as well, and I'm about to do another version of it, more involved. The initial results showed that Poser users actually follow the standard industry trends -- that is, they generally keep up with the times. The majority also don't read or use the forums. When they find out about them, the overwhelming majority use them for advice on how to's. The majority of people using Poser will own either version 5 or version 6. They will most likely use P4 or P5, as that's what they are familiar with. Every merchant supports P5/6. Both of them are backwards compatible. Comparatively few of the older, longer term, more established merchants support specific capabilities (material, cloth, and hair) of P5/6. It took four years for Poser 4 to develop the level of support it did -- a level that has yet to be matched by Poser 5 or 6. Unless there is a significant delay in getting Poser 7 out, the community simply won't catch up to that level again, where one program became the standard. Even then, its unlikely, given that D|S is now out and the follow up to it is being developed. The support of Poser 4 will continue for as long as people find the value in doing so. Since the most likely to be using an older version of the software is someone who is a merchant (using the proceeds from their sales to allow them to buy more stuff), the overall push to continue using Poser 4 comes from them. My stuff works in everything. Generally you will get the best result from Poser 5 and 6, as those are what I develop in. The same applies to any merchant. If they develop in one program, they are going to know that program, and generally they are going to use the features available in it. It takes time to learn a program. Time that takes away from their ability to develop, which, especially for those who make their living doing this, affects their ability to make a living. So whether they support P5/6 or not often isn't a matter of choice, but of available time and personal ability to adapt, as opposed to simply deciding to stick with a particular program. Hell, even Jim Burton's doing dynamics -- and the Big Red Guy is ice skating... (... on my pond, of course, using the winter textures available in freestuff at ODF. With plants by Transpond from RDNA. Used the DAZ Freak for a base. Was... er, um, nevermind.)

thou and I, my friend, can, in the most flunkey world, make, each of us, one non-flunkey, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroes to begin with. (Carlyle)

I don't normally say much in threads like this, but there are a multitude of reasons why so many users still rely on P4/PP. Some of them have been mentioned, some have not. For myself, I reluctantly use P5 now. The primary reason for use is the nested folders and separate runtimes. It's much less hassle for me than the old ProPack/PBooost combo. Yes, I still hate the fact that I have to change my screen resolution to use it. As for P6 - well, I own it, and it seems to work fine BUT every single time I use it I wind up with corrupted files on drives where P6 is NOT located, in folders that have no reason to be accessed by P6 (in one instance it was my web browser that was corrupted, in another instance it was the entire contents of my d:/ drive.) I can't PROVE that P6 is the cause of the file corruption, but since it ONLY happens when I've opened P6 (Yes, just OPENING the program causes the corruption) and I've gone so far as to remove and re-install the program just to be sure it isn't some other application doing the damage, I'm fairly certain that P6 is the culprit. So, as long as things like that continue to occur to those odd few of us out here, we won't be "upgrading" or "moving on" to the latest and greatest versions. Kate (who always gets the weird and totally undocumentable glitches, errors and general foul ups for some reason. Darn that Karma thing anyway!)

This is in response to a lot of posts so please forgive the length etc. Tastiger .... That is a good example but from what I can see it is also wrong. Please don't take offense :) That is what I mentioned with the inverted images for the bump map. Right now, when rendered, the beard would sink into the face, the eyebrows would as well. At least from how I am interepreting the node set up. You would also need another map (the beard) which is what you are trying to avoid. So you are saving on space a tiny bit because it isn't the full bump but not overly much. The same for the makeup option since you would need another one for brown eyeshadow, another for gold etc. The way to do that would be as a grayscale image that is seperate for eyeshadow and seperate for blush and seperate for lipstick etc. You could then control the color overlay. It also shouldn't be tagged into the bump node unless those area sink into the skin. It is good work but I just take the bump map ver seriously and have always hated jut making it grayscale and calling it a bump map. That isn't how it works. Moles aren't huge craters in the skin, eyebrows don't go in, etc ... And that is what you normally get when you convert something over. And, to me, that node setup for the makeup is a lot more labor, time, and hair pulling than than the photoshop option. Especially when you do all of the other node setups. And you aren't cutting out just the P4/PP users, you are cutting out everyone that doesn't render in P5/P6 ... No vue, no Bryce, no CD4 etc ... Though some of them might be able to grab some of the information from the various map overlays. They would be out of luck with the other types of node setups unless they can replicate it or do it on their own. This is still a map based system though, just one that has more bells and whistles. Other people have been saying that is too much and you should do it all with math nodes, etc and you just don't get convincing results that way. At least for people. I am not saying that they don't need node work, but I am saying that they do need textures. Everything else is bells and whistles. Textures are universal and they can be set up in P4/PP/P5 etc ... and what you do on top of that is all fine and good. But basically nothing "has" to be P6 only ... it can just look a lot prettier in there. I personally use P6 a lot now but I really like it when I go into P4 because the whole setup is a lot faster. It doesn't do as much but it is soooo much faster. I do release all of my new stuff with P4/PP/P5/P6 mats and files and I use displacement, node work, etc. so don't get me wrong. I do see the benefits of it and have adapted. I also see the benefits of P4 files being included. It is also a lot easier to do stuff in P4 but that isn't possible to do just that anymore. cobaltdream How would spider shader do partial shaders? I haven't messed with it that much except for adding the settings to the body materials but how would it be good for tattoos and makeup? Can you save just that part of a setting? Actually, the displacement isn't for V3 but it works fine for her or any of the unimesh. At least that aspect of it. But yes, and I do support it. Some things are just a pain is all I was saying :) But as you said, the merchants can still sell a dumbed down P4 version as long as it isn't pure nodes. Gonna start a new part to this post ....

XENOPHONZ .. Part of the problem, as was mentioned, was that P4 is actually a current version Poser Artist. But part of it is that Poser isn't really that great a render engine and a lot of people render outside of it. Pro Pack with added bells and whistles is the most flexible. Added bells and whisles include displacement, specular maps etc ... But map based stuff and not totally node bade based. I know not a lot of people are doing or advocating total node technology but when they do I have to completely write off the product. ernyoka1 There is no need to make the .bum file, you just have to tell them how do it and do it first. Just take your PP version and do a find/change from "textureB.jpg" to "textureB.bum" in a text editor and you should be set. Anyway, I think that is it for now.

KateTheShrew me to. Your not alone. Lets keep fingeres crossed and hope for SR3.

My brain is just a toy box filled with weird things

Ghostofmacbeth, No offence taken, this using the nodes to augment the maps is a subject that I'd love to discuss more - but won't do it in this thread. soon as I get a chance I'll throw together some more experiments in new topic and then folk can do an autopsy on them....

The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
Robert A. Heinlein

11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-11900K @ 3.50GHz   3.50 GHz
64.0 GB (63.9 GB usable)
Geforce RTX 3060 12 GB
Windows 11 Pro

Hops into the time machine, travels 5 years into the future -- logs onto Renderosity. Reads Bondware ver. 5.239 thread:

Post by cyber_creaker1999 --

I just don't understand any of this. How come some of you jerks are tellin' me that I gotta upgrade my 3Ghz box? I can't even afford the $1000 to buy a new 15Ghz machine! Not to mention springing $3000 for one of the new TerraTerror Models with internal superconductor ElectraPipes! And MAC-WIN HyperXXP OS? Pfffett! Who needs it?!!! Things just ain't been right ever since that &#@@$$$!!! piece of garbage came out. It's too complicated!

Merchants should still be designing their models for those of us with Poser 8! I don't want to upgrade to Poser Reality 15! I can't afford it anyway! Grrrrrr........!!!!!!!! And don't even TALK to me about Ultra D|S 10!! Who can figure that one out, anyway?

It's just not like the old days anymore. Back when everything was so much better than it is now.

Post by LightSpeedInfinity:

Don't you see the advantages of using the REALLY REAL VICTORA 7 model in Poser Reality? I'm able to make RRVicky look just like Nicole Kidman did back when she was young! I challenge anybody to tell the difference after looking at my 2 hour long Silk Nights in Purple Poses animation-vid in the Blue Light DVD-Rip gallery! Zoom in close enough, and you'll see that all of the pores are even in the right places!

Who uses Poser 8 anymore, anyway? Wasn't that back when they first introduced Texture Projection with the Refracted Coherent Lighting Matix? Talk about yesterday's news.........

Post by AncientWind:

How come I can't find any freebies designed for ProPack anymore?

********Hops back into time machine. Travels back to Modern Times. Whew. It's good to be in peaceful surroundings again.**Message edited on: 11/21/2005 12:59

Something To Do At 3:00AM 

Post by LightSpeedInfinity:

What's ProPack?

Something To Do At 3:00AM 

Ernyoka, daz studio can read .rsrs when they're in a poser library. It just doesn't convert them to .pngs, is all. mac

You know, it's funny.
I see people screaming for P4/PP content.
Well.
Almost everything sold on Renderosity / PPro / Daz / 3D Commune etc etc etc is PPP specific.

I see stuff 'Designed for P6' that clearly isn't using anything in there at all that isn't usable in PPP (i.e. Nodes etc). It often seems to mean "Hey! I plug the bump node into the right place, so it's obviously designed for P6!"

Many moons ago... many MANY moons ago, I asked for more P5 support / merchandise.
You know what I was told?
"P5 is so crap, I'm not supporting it, I can't get on with it. Stick to P4 and get over it." (Or words to that effect)
My words of warning that this IS the direction Poser was taking, and they should start to learn how it works or eventually it'll overtake them... were laughed at.
I pointed out that most new users buy P5 - not P4 or PPP
Now most new users (and many old ones) buy P6 - not P4 or PPP

The thing is... if there is a choice between a texture with nodes supported and with specific P6 content, and an equivalent texture that plugs into the diffuse and specular and the (wrong) bump channel...
I'll buy the one that contains specific P6 content.
I think most P6 users, given a situation like that... will choose P6 support with their wallet.
P6 will overtake P4/PPP. Maybe not right away - but that's where it's going. And that means people will need to seriously look at what their goods offer those users. The P4/PPP market will be shrinking rapidly as time goes on, and new users start off with the latest version.

Message edited on: 11/22/2005 21:24

Silke

The problem i see with the "but i import it into another program" argument is that your asking for inferior materials. P4/pp materials will always be inferrior to materials made for the program/render engine that you are using....whether it is P5/6, bryce, vue or whatever. If you really want to change programs to get better results, you should use the material settings in that program.

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agreed!! I dont give a rats ass about P6 "shader nodes" or its lighting schemes. a I have have way better options in Cinema4D and Carrara pro4

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wolf359, sadly some of us can't afford C4d..

And a lot of us dont want it...

thou and I, my friend, can, in the most flunkey world, make, each of us, one non-flunkey, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroes to begin with. (Carlyle)

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"those of us serious about rendering animations usually seek another program to render poser scenes" Keyword: usually. I get paid to render animations in poser. Typically 30 to 50 a minute of animation (inclusive of score and set up). It works perfectly well for the task. It's always the preferences, skills, and knowledge of the end user that make the difference. Odds are pretty damn good I'd get dogshit outta C4D. That doesn't mean C4D is bad. That some people can't get what they want out of poser doesn't mean poser is bad. It is not the tool. It is the artist. Some people can't paint anything in acrylics, others can't paint anything in oil, some can't even handle watercolors. Each of them can get to the same point. Saying that one is better than the other ignores entirely the end result.

thou and I, my friend, can, in the most flunkey world, make, each of us, one non-flunkey, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroes to begin with. (Carlyle)

"That some people can't get what they want out of poser doesn't mean poser is bad." Actually its NOT a matter of a users inability to make poser do what they want its a simple matter of poser being incapable of doing what they need for their specific results So if poser cant render the animated scenes with the /atmosphere/lighting/props/number of characters that I WANT at a rate of 7mins per frame or less than its not a vaible for ME hence I render in other programs. which is not to say poser is somehow useless for example I still prefer to create character animations in poser because of posers fast instant feedback and easy to manage key frame editor and dopesheet and of course Mimic for painless lipsynch to audio "It is not the tool. It is the artist." ahh yes!! that old oft repeated mantra ..BULLSHIT!!!! assuming the talent and experience is there the tools ABSOLUTELY matter Just try to convince Tiger woods to go compete in the Masters Tournament open and shoot his best possible game with a broom stick ;-)

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wasn't aware that the sport of golf was an artistic endeavor. apples, meet oranges. Athletes, meet artists. However, now that you mention it, there are a great number of trick artists who can play as well as Tiger or Babe using things such as poolsticks and hockey sticks and other unusual tools. Also, the Master's has specific rules that require the athletes, er, um, artists to use reguation golf clubs.

thou and I, my friend, can, in the most flunkey world, make, each of us, one non-flunkey, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroes to begin with. (Carlyle)

Just acomment on "But nodes aren't supported in other applications" statements. It is most likely that those programs will never fully support Poser anyway - why? - simply because they choose not to. Honestly if a "lower end" program like MojoWorld can import shaders then any program using the Poser SDK should be able to as well. (Disclaimer - although I have said Mojo is low end, I have the greatest regard for the program, I was refering to it's pricing not the quality of the application) The upper end programs choose to use their own shader systems because they suit that application. And like PhilC said should we as merchants hold back our creativity just because some of you can't import shader nodes into Lightwave or whatever?

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" wasn't aware that the sport of golf was an artistic endeavor."

NO but it is an endeavour that requires a basic innate skill,practice
and specific TOOLS. Like it or not Some tools are just superior to others for
achieving certain results within a specific time ( broom stick vs Nine iron) refusal
to acknowledge this may be ones personal
erm..."choice" but it does not change this reality.

Poser is a Tool with some well known limitations
particularly its UNNACCPEPTABLE render speeds at high quality settings
even on top end specced machines
and inability to handle multiple instances( 5 or 6 ) of its own figures
and I mean jessi & james not some unimess clone weighed down with
800 channels of DAZ inj/rem/chan/vis/delta bloatware.
and I wont even broach the matter of realistic full immersive outdoor
environments.

so frankly to blithely suggest that those who use other, better implemented,
render environments are not trying hard enough to acheive their ends with poser alone because "tools dont matter"
is just silly myopic E/F evangelism.

not reality ;-)

Message edited on: 11/24/2005 13:15

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"so frankly to blithely suggest that those who use other, better implemented, render environments are not trying hard enough to acheive their ends with poser alone because "tools dont matter" is just silly myopic E/F evangelism." blithely assuming I'm evangelizing and that I'm saying you don't have the skills isn't reality either. No dis, unless you had a need to read one in there. Nowhere did I say that tools were worse than others or better than others. You seem to have missed that. It was you who said so. I disagreed. To "like it or not" requires a level of subjective preference. Which indicates that it is not a unifrom reality, but a subjective one, dependent on factors surrounding the individual. Which doesn't make it a reality, unless your reality is subjective. A superior tool often makes things easier to do. That doesn't mean it is a better tools. Superiority, itself, is a subjective measurement -- there is no absolute standards for superiority, only socially accepted norms. all of which is irrelevant -- your example was bad, and ya gotta admit I got ya there. ;) Your point, though, was also invalid, as it relies on a subjective set of requirements that will depend on thw situation and needs of the task. The right tool isn't always the same one in the same situtation for different people. To be the right tool, a lot of other factors are involved. TO use your analogy, there are some professional golfers (mickleson comes to mind) who tend to make some really strange club choices. THis isn't becuase the club, in and of itself, is any better or worse, but because they have the ability to use it better. Nor did I impugn your particular skills. I noted that while I can get the results you cannot in Poser, if I were to switch to C4D, i'd get results similar to the ones you get in Poser. But then, I use poser from a different POV than most, and use a lot of odd little tricks and such that are custom to my methodology and workflow. If someone else were to use them, they'd likely wind up frustrated unless they sahred my particular habits and approach to the task. The same applies to you. Which, ultimately, is why I called ya on your statement. Poser is only a tool. It is the knoweldge, skills, talents, approach, needs, quirks, and situation of the user that determines its value to the task. Incidentally, I used poser last week for a DVD which featured a four minute segment featuring 3 Jessi's, 2 James, 2 Stephanie, 1 Mike, and 2 Aiko's, dynamic hair and cloth, additional mechancial figures, and an "immersive outdoor environment" that I created specifically for poser. Render time was right around 3 minutes per frame (plus or minus 30 to 45 seconds), uncompressed. On a 500MHZ system with 512MB of RAM and an on board intel video chipset famed for being a POS. A limitation isn't the same an incapability. The main difference is that I've spent a lot of time learning what poser can and cannot do, and when it can't do something, I find a way to do it. dammit. I burnt my pies.

thou and I, my friend, can, in the most flunkey world, make, each of us, one non-flunkey, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroes to begin with. (Carlyle)

Colbaltdream in post 49 states my views better than I could myself. I only look for the highest quality stuff I can get. If I see somethign that looks plastic I wont even bother investigating it further. There is so much stuff for free I would think the only way to sell stuff is by making the best. Something to keep in mind: I think the old p4 group will be more vocal than the people with my view. However just because you may get more e-mails with complaints from them doesn't mean you are losing more sales due to what they complain about. I don't e-mail vendors saying "your stuff isn't realistic enough" I just don't buy it. I'm sure I'm not alone.