P6 is perfect and has everything I could ever want ;)

"Who in their right mind would ever need more than 640 K of RAM?" -- Bill Gates

my startup time for poser6 from desktop to fully loaded default setup (casual james and my own lights) is 8 seconds. When I get James's girlfriend in there and a few props....shoots up to about 25 seconds.

My startup time depends upon which of my runtimes was selected when I last exited out of Poser -- the selected runtime will be the one that loads the next time that Poser opens. The root P6 runtime doesn't have much in it beyond the defaults that come with Poser. So it doesn't take very long to load. But on the other hand, my various "data" runtimes (30G's plus/minus) vary considerably in size. A couple of them can drive the startup time to around 2> minutes or so.

Message edited on: 02/14/2006 23:18

My P7 wishlist? Only two: - Water. Water. Waterwaterwaterwater. An easy water. In Bryce you have a nice water plane with three mere steps and a couple of minutes. I want REAL water, not to play hours with nodes to obtain a mixed between clay and jelly - A render machine which can create REAL HDRI in USABLE time. By the moment, the idea of HDRI in Poser gives to my mind probable render times of two or three days per pic...

Some of these ideas are highly unlikely to happen, especially the ones making poser work like renderers that are (at least) 10 times the price. If they make poser work like maya or 3dsmax then the price will be similar to maya or 3dsmax.

I agree with xantor to a point. All the people here wishing for things like automatic soft body deformation, hdri with fast render times, blah blah, it's just unrealistic at this point. Think about what Poser offers right now for the price, it's almost unbelievable what you're getting: No other software under $300 offers you strand based hair dynamics, dynamic clothing, a POWERFUL node based shader system that rivals just about anything the 'big guns' have, IBL with AO, awesome 3D characters and meshes that no other package can give for the same price. Compatibility with several really great 3d packages, etc. It's already ridiculous how much Poser offers you, yet people are never satisfied are they? All I want to see in Poser 7 is a good stable program with improvements only to the already existing features. Perhaps an improved raytrace engine that is optimized for faster and cleaner results would be great. More functional and useful undo command, and an SDK for developers.

Their are two things i really would like:

1 a much better interface:

an improved library:

• folders separated, as explorer (or DAZ|Studio)
• no more different folders for different type of files. I would like everything in the same folders and subfolders (for example, for a cloth: the figure in a folder and the subfolders containing MAT pose and Morph pose.) Then, you could have simple filters to show only one type of file.
• a database/bank library. When you select a figure, the library show only the files that are for this figure.

a better way to select the figure and props, a better hierarchy tree (and faster).

a layer system, so you could hide multiple figures without losting the visible features of different parts.

1 a better render engine (raytrace):

The only thing i'm asking is to remove the "scale" artefact (black spots when using refract or AO)

I have lots of little idea about the interface, but a lot are "the way i work" and would not be good for other users. I would also hope there will be only one version of Poser, at a single price.

• Faster program start (man do I hate those names I'm staring at for 10' in a row each time!).
• Better memory management.
• A means to clean memory, when you want to change scene for instance, or before starting a render.
• Render nodes, even if it means buying them.

And more generally, everything which improves render time...

Ah yes, also improving bump/displacement highlights.

More animation tools. Nonliniar animation controol. Finer lines in cartoon render. Physics built in. Faster render.

I'd like better rigging tools as I keep repeating. Something to help the folks who make content do a better job at it. One major thing would be the ability to paint weight maps instead of having to split a mesh or use the group tool on everything. Improved displacement map and normal map support/handling.

A 36 month (three year) cycle I could get comfortable with... On a better renderer - call me one of the people who could care less. If you could save memory on the overall app by giving it a lower quality renderer I wouldn't be bothered. I render in other apps. Bryce, Vue, Carrara, etc... Ever since about 99 I've just looked at Poser as a 'figure building' app for my work in other tools. Obviously many are not in that camp with me, especially newer users. But sometimes I feel newer users need to learn composition, posing, texturing, and lighting a lot more before they start flooding the gallery with renders anyway... :) Of course, wanting them to learn lighting would mean I would want them to have a good renderer... but for my other concerns, I think in a question of priorities between getting them to learn those other skills in as easy a way as possible and giving them a better renderer, I choose the former.