We've created a Poser User Survey to get your feedback on how you use Poser and which features are important to you. Your answers will help guide where Poser is headed in the future. The survey should only take you a few minutes to complete.

http://www.contentparadise.com/phpQ/fillsurvey.php?sid=66

Thank you for participating!

Steve Cooper
Poser Product Manager

There are already many ideas and suggestions here on the forum
I'm sure everyone will be very happy to take this survey if it is for a better poser :biggrin:

My FreeStuff

Hi Steve

You're welcome, and thank you for taking the time to solicit our opinions.

There wasn't a text field to enter comments so here goes:

the current documentation is incomplete in that it technically explains what the controls are but offers no insight on how to make use of them. Said another way, it is not user friendly.
Not everyone renders stills, so animation support and reasonably short render times (within Firefly's limitation) is always welcome.
more rigging options; i.e. the ability to create custom rigs (possibly not based on spherical falloff) with custom controls, handles, attributes, more efficient IK, IK/FK switches, IK splines, "secondary animation" deformers, matrix or "patch bay-like" ability to connect attributes, so on
Some would ask for GI, but it seems very impractical at its current state of development.
lower res figures (<=4K polys) + rendertime subD smoothing.

Thanks for the survey, Steve! (Btw, I'm going to make this a sticky. Please let us know when the survey is over :).)

Jeni

Sitemail | Freestuff | Craftythings | Youtube|

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it into a fruit salad.

Quote - Thanks for the survey, Steve! (Btw, I'm going to make this a sticky. Please let us know when the survey is over :).)

Jeni

That'd be a great help! I'll keep you posted on dates.

Adding to Replicand's comments:

It would be really helpful for animation if everything could be changed
'on the fly', with keyframed switches. Switch parenting, change from
one camera to another, switch IK on and off. Having to start a new
PZ3 at these points is a big obstacle to animation.

Also, the animation keygraph has needed renovation for a long time.
It needs to be re-planned along with a better Layering system.

My python page
My ShareCG freebies

WEIGHT MAPPING please.

.

A HOMELAND FOR POSER FINALLY

I said no on question 49 and it still wanted me to answer question 50. 53 is kind of personal so I had to lie because there wasn't a prefer not to answer statement. There was also no way to leave written feedback.

Someone really needs to explain to the people that designed and managed that survey how they are supposed to be created and that people should be allowed to opt out of demographic questions... Does it really matter in the great scheme of things if I have an XX or XY chromosome if poser really needs the rigging system for figures to be improved or the lighting needs a ton of work?

WARK!

Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.

(using Poser Pro 2014 SR3, on 64 bit Win 7, poser units are inches.)

I would have asked for access to the Materials Tab on the library without having to go to the material room to apply materials on the fly.

Long time no see Steve, you & the family keeping well?

Windows 7 64Bit
Poser Pro 2010 SR1

Hey Steve if you need some help to translate this survey to Brazilian Portuguese just let me know.
I also posted in my brazilian forum too.

Follow me at euQfiz Digital

I also objected to the demographics questions. Those should at the very least be optional. So, I lied about them all.

I also have a problem with 42/43, namely "how important is it that the poser human figures look attractive/look normal." This panders to the "Default Junkies." I have railed against them a few times. They have these stupendous opinions/judgements about the default appearance of the model and take up oxygen on the planet arguing as zealots one way or another about this or that model's value based on the default , which tends to muck up discussions of how to 'get the most' out of a given model.

You asked a question or two about modifying the default as well, it should be noted.

Since no place for comments, here are mine.

The hair room could be great. The biggest failure is jitter with collision on. No matter what settings you use, whether you use a low-poly proxy or not, you cannot stop the hair from bouncing around. So even if I get sim time down by colliding against a lowPoly proxy, that only solves half my problem, because there is jitter. This one issue prevents the hair room from being 'nearly pro.'
Animation controls have not improved in a long time.
-- at least put tangents on the graphs. if you want to see a good simple implementation, check out Carrara. You can make a left or right independent tangent, or tandem. You can grab the handle of the tangent and pull it shorter/longer, as well as of course up and down. This is the great way to control the shape of a spline.

-- let me see more than one graph in a window. at the very least let me see all six translation/rotation lines on one graph. I ought to be able to make graphGroups where I pick up to 6 (or so) actors and have a trigger to open the graph lines on every actor in that group.

-- trigger graph from paramenter wheel with a double click. double click (or some other quick trigger) should open the graph of that actor or the GraphGroup with that actor in it.

-- how about a translate/rotate remote pad as in other apps? this is not for morphs. you see a 'cartoonish' representative of the model with little pads at the animateable joints in a floating UI window. Instead of using direct manipulation and it's attendant selection frustrations, or dial spinning with it's scroll/grab/changeactor issues, you instead put he mouse pointer on the pad and trigger either translation or rotation by moving the mouse on/with the pad.

You had a question in there about subdivision. I'd like to see selective (painted?) subdivision in the MorphBrushTool. You are working along on the face and want to sculpt fine ridges on the brow. Currently you are limited to the mesh that is there, of course. But if you could elect to subdivide a small, targeted area in order to deform it with TheBrush, that would be splendid. You should be able to elect/control a second or third or fourth level etc. of subdivision on the area, as well, not just one level. My vision is the 17K poly V4 with a few hundred thousand polys added on the face. (small exaggeration to make my point)

Thanks for asking us, I hope our suggestions are considered seriously.

::::: Opera :::::

Survey completed.

One thing I thought was inordinately funny is the question about which Poser online forums does one belong to. One of the choices was CG Society. (Which should have said "CG Talk", since that's the actual forum).

But... there is no Poser forum at CG Talk, and I very seriously doubt there ever will be one. ;-)

Having said that, I can think of at least a few other things about Poser which need to be changed but weren't on that list.

The initial, factory-installed opening default scene should have NOTHING in it. No Simon, No Sydney, no Peter, Paul or Mary - nothing at all.
There should be a global control for overall light intensity.
The cameras should have the ability to revolve around a selection.
The "point at" cameras, e.g., Face and Hand and Pose cameras should be as fast as the Main Camera, and should not be slowed down just because IK is on.
Poser needs to have the same kind of multi-thead rendering performance other "pro" apps have. That is, all 2,4,8.... cores are used in rendering. Not two for the top and two for the bottom and then drop out after their task is completed - all cores should assist in all parts of the render.
*Poser ought to have its own color picker. The current one sucks ass. A Mac or Photoshop type color picker would be ideal.

That's just what I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there's plenty more...

Quote -
I also objected to the demographics questions. Those should at the very least be optional. So, I lied about them all.

Heh.. me too. ;-)

Selective subdivision would very much be welcome. To use one example, when I did that headmorph for my lekku freebie, the reason the tentacles don't match up very well with the head morph is that there just aren't enough polygons at the back of the head (for just about all of the available human figures) to push around to meaks a nice, clean transition. Now, probably 99% of the time it doesn't matter, but for the few times it does, it would be nice to be able to selectively increase the resolution of the area you need witout having to bump up the res for the rest of the body.

Quote -

Quote -
I also objected to the demographics questions. Those should at the very least be optional. So, I lied about them all.

Heh.. me too. ;-)

You mean I wasn't the only 75 year old woman making over a million dollars a year to fill out the survey? I'm shocked.

the survey is anonymous so why people "lied" on the demographic questions is beyond me,
even these factors represented fairly accurately all contribute to an improvement of our beloved software i'm sure steve would agree.
in the what forums question they could have put renderotica(oh no is someone offended now?)

Quote - the survey is anonymous so why people "lied" on the demographic questions is beyond me ...

Anybody who stays logged into CP would send the relevent cookies when accessing the survey pages.
Also they could match up IP addresses to CP users if they wanted to.

Rendering speed for a 32 bit system need to be looked at. Poser needs to render faster on 32 bit systems. If other similar applications can do it, why can't Poser.

And, the amount of content that can be placed in a scene. Poser is limited on this also.

Poser is so well loved but is frustrating to use due to system instability and a perceived sense of dis-integrated modularity.

Oh a list...lol

Better 64 bit and multiple thread support,not just in rendering (which still needs sorting)
Better lights(including radiosity and GI)
Better and faster preview window
No more memory issues
better rigged figures and bone system
Better hair system
Better and faster render system
updated and fixed(where needed) materials and nodes
physics (for all us who like animation)
as mentioned in this thread, an updated animation system
Get rid of the content tab(or whatever its called, who shops inside poser???? really)
i would add more but that lot has exhausted me,lol......

Getting old and still making "art" without soiling myself, now that's success.

There are a few improvements that the survey didn't cover:

Fix the reversed normals issue. It wasn't a problem in Poser 4. It's frustrating that the problem remains three versions after creating it.
Realistic lights. It's frustrating having lights that don't act like real lights. I've had times where adding a light darkens an image and when moving lights had the opposite of the intended effect.
Better selecting. I've never understood why I can click on something large in the foreground and wind up selecting a small object, that cannot be seen, in the background.

My visual indexes of Poser content are at http://www.sharecg.com/pf/rgagnon

Quote - they could match up IP addresses to CP users if they wanted to.

We are only be using the IP addresses to remove duplicate submissions from a few overly enthusiastic respondents.

Your honest answers in the demographics area are extremely helpful to the future of Poser.

Thank you!

Quote - We are only be using the IP addresses to remove duplicate submissions from a few overly enthusiastic respondents.

This is as I would expect.

Quote - Your honest answers in the demographics area are extremely helpful to the future of Poser.

You really have no way of knowing what answers to these questions is valid, meaning you'll have to arbitrarily filter out what you think is obviously invalid, which makes asking them in the first place pointless as you're imposing a bias that you have no way to verify.

If that weren't enough, the fact that exchange rates are varying means that your data can only be valid for US respondents if you were able to seperate them from those from the rest of the world.

Making them optional would have made the data collected much more useful, as it's much more likely that anybody answering would then be being truthful.

nruddock is right.

For myself, I am not worried that the survey will break my privacy or whatever.

Here is my contention,

when you don't ask for proactive agreement on the demographics, it just gets the back up of most independent people. Its as if you have no respect for the person's person; you only want to "harvest" them.
this approach gives me the impression the survey is being done for MARKETING, not for features the program needs.

::::: Opera :::::

The results so far are very informative. And the demographic data helps us view the results based upon generalized groups of users. The greater the number of unique responses we receive, the better, statistically, the data becomes. And the better the data, the better the window into what our users want.

It's useful to see how differently men versus women answer, how non-forum versus casual forum versus active forum members answer, and even segmenting out by age and income brackets (converting from EU or Pound to USD is easy) produces different commonalities in the results. The information we're collecting will absolutely be used to determine how useful users perceive various features to be. This will help us in the development process.

Thank you to everyone that has participated! If you haven't had a chance to fill out survey, it is still active if you're interested.

Cheers!

Cooper

One of the things that is difficult in Poser is aiming spotlights and determining light area and light falloff. It would be nice if you could aim a spotlight by having a view from the light, as if the light were a camera. Second, a visual representation of the lights "cone of influence", and a visual representation of min/max falloff that would change as falloff values change.

Having the visible "bar" to show rendering progress is nice, but when rendering an image larger than the preview window, you can't see the progress of the entire image since the image in the preview window is "locked" until the render completes. I'd like to be able to "move" the preview area around the image area during rendering so the rendering progress of the entire image can be monitored.

Thanks for taking the time to survey users. It's nice to see there is an interest in our point of view when it comes to future versions.

It's all fun and games...
Until the flying monkeys attack!!!

tainted.

the feature you asked for already exists. it is called the "Shadow Camera" and there is one for each spotlight. Search on the term here in Rendo and/or look it up in the Poser docs. You can look right thru the light and see what it will illuminate.

Another trick I have is to make the spotlight one color like "red" and turn intensity up to 5000. I guarantee you will see where the spot touches. You then just turn it down and to white before render.

::::: Opera :::::

Cooper - will you be publishing the results?

I'd be interested to see how your survery matchs the academic research a few of us did last year.

Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.

Quote -
And the better the data, the better the window into what our users want.

Then why don't you just ask the users directly what we want?
I too was thinking "marketing" through much of the filling out of that survey. The questions were rated on levels of importance, but the questions were the questions you Poser guys were asking.

Do I think it's important that Poser have a more traditional interface?
What does that mean? I guess it means you're considering changing the interface, possibly after a decade of reading complaints about it? But that depends on if you perceive through this survey that the users who filled it out think so? And I guess that could be applied to all the questions.

Why was there no empty form where we could list things we would like to see? You've commented a few times to comments people have made regarding the survey, but have not commented at all to the number of intelligent suggestions made just right here in this post, if even just to say "thank you for the suggestions."

I would have felt better about it - felt more like it was a sincere gesture if there had been a space to put suggestions.

Or, you could just do like Autodesk does and tells us all to fork off and deal with whatever we get. ;-)

Quote - > Quote -

And the better the data, the better the window into what our users want.

Then why don't you just ask the users directly what we want?
I too was thinking "marketing" through much of the filling out of that survey. The questions were rated on levels of importance, but the questions were the questions you Poser guys were asking.

Do I think it's important that Poser have a more traditional interface?
What does that mean? I guess it means you're considering changing the interface, possibly after a decade of reading complaints about it? But that depends on if you perceive through this survey that the users who filled it out think so? And I guess that could be applied to all the questions.

Why was there no empty form where we could list things we would like to see? You've commented a few times to comments people have made regarding the survey, but have not commented at all to the number of intelligent suggestions made just right here in this post, if even just to say "thank you for the suggestions."

I would have felt better about it - felt more like it was a sincere gesture if there had been a space to put suggestions.

Or, you could just do like Autodesk does and tells us all to fork off and deal with whatever we get. ;-)

Sorry I can't engage on any potential feature discussion. It's too competitve a landscape to reveal ones hand. As for the survey questions? They are presented in a classic Likert Scale which allows for us to debate internally at great length the meaning of each.

There are many staffers with a long history of working with Poser and this community that are reading through the various threads, thinking about the many suggestions, figuring out what can or can-not be delivered. And the survey complements that knowledge base with a more statistical way to look at everyone's global perspective on Poser.

Quote -
...Or, you could just do like Autodesk does and tells us all to fork off and deal with whatever we get.

From my experience, Autodesk excels on integrating useful features. Their Bonus Tools (which are often written by users) tend to appear as new, fully supported features of future releases.

I believe that the inability to enter text may've been a serious shortcoming in the survey but I don't understand why people got bent out of shape by the demographics questions. I personally (a) don't believe that anyone's identity was compromised and (b) am fully cognizant that such questions are fundamental to the way new products such as cars, computers, underware and toothbrushes are marketed towards our rational and emotional beings. Really, a better product with awesome features sells better, period. What's the harm in that?

"such questions are fundamental to the way new products such as cars, computers, underware and toothbrushes are marketed towards our rational and emotional beings"

Just because it "is" done that way does not mean it "should" be done that way.

when you see a survey combining feature requests with demographics, it does not take too much math to figure out that the marketing department will tell the development team to implement the features that the 'target demographic for optimal sales'' wants. That is the ONLY reason to combine feature requests with demographic information.

I don't know about you, but putting my requests down but indicating my true demograhics, which I know to be not exactly in the marketing departments sweet spot, is nuts.

MikeJ you made good points. Agree.

::::: Opera :::::

Quote -
From my experience, Autodesk excels on integrating useful features. Their Bonus Tools (which are often written by users) tend to appear as new, fully supported features of future releases.

Yes, I know. I was only kidding. :-)
But what I meant was you don't see them pretending to take requests then not deliver. And you also don't see them releasing the same thing year after year with only minor changes to the same theme.

Quote -

Sorry I can't engage on any potential feature discussion. It's too competitve a landscape to reveal ones hand

While I can understand you not wanting to discuss features or plans, I don't think that's correct reasoning for not doing so. Poser has no competition, really. No program does what it does and does it so quickly and so well. maybe DAZ Studio, but that's a free program - they're gonna be competition no matter what as long as the price is zero.

But aside from that, the "biggies" in the 3D world announce what they're up to. We know what cool new features the next version of 3ds max, maya, Lightwave, Vue, etc. is going to have, well ahead of time. Mudbox is attempting to overtake ZBrush right now and seems to be having good success at it, and Autodesk was making people aware of what was on the horizon for quite a bit ahead of time.
If anything, it's those complete 3D packages which have real competition to worry about. Somehow I can't see the makers of Quidam saying to themselves one day, "Look, SM is gonna put real functionality into Poser - quick call in the programmers!". ;-)

Actually I wish Poser had more real competition than it does. I wish it didn't have this hobbyist stigma attached to it and y'all were more concerned with making it actually compete in The Big Market. It could be so much more if you had that competition and desire to see it through to what it could be.

I'll tell you another thing I would like to see, FWIW. I'd like to see a $1500.00 Poser which can stand on its own and not need badly-implemented plugins just to get it into more capable apps.

I would pay the upgrade price to get to a $1500 Poser.

Maybe Poser and Modo could get married. Then you'd have the modeling and the spectacular render engine. And then it would have character animation and read the Runtime folder. You could let the new ModoFurEngine grow up to be great dynamic hair, kick up the power of the Poser cloth, but the animation tools....the animation tools have to get better.

The name? Wouldn't it have to be Pomodoro?

::::: Opera :::::

Quote - Just because it "is" done that way does not mean it "should" be done that way.

when you see a survey combining feature requests with demographics, it does not take too much math to figure out that the marketing department will tell the development team to implement the features that the 'target demographic for optimal sales'' wants. That is the ONLY reason to combine feature requests with demographic information.

I'm not trying to be antagonistic but I see this as a healthy debtate. That said, what way do you propose that this information should be obtained? In writing (and in marketing I can suppose since I've never studied it) one must know one's audience.

Honestly, do you really expect for the development team to focus on one person's desire to implement a "spot-light target null object" (which coincidentally isn't a bad idea) when so many others are vying for GI implementation, as an example? I mean, that is the whole purpose of the survey, no? And really it's an insignificant thing in contrast to the fact that certain, common keywords spoken over the telephone can get one landed in jail as a terrorist (in the US).

So, how would you propose they get the information they're requesting without infringing on your alleged "consumer rights"?

Quote - I would pay the upgrade price to get to a $1500 Poser.

Yeah, same here.

I know we've had this conversation before. Just to clarify though, for others who might see this, having some kind of "Super Poser" doesn't negate the fact there should still be a "regular Poser", for those who desire it as it is, or don't want all the bells and whistles.

E-on does it, Autodesk does it with Maya, and many apps have their stripped-down versions alongside their advanced versions. Seems like a good idea to me.

Yes, the other levels of Poser could continue on their merry way.

=================
replicand

I did not claim my rights were infringed. I don't mind contention, but please do not totalize. I also did not ask for "only my single wishlist" to somhow gain ascendancy over others! What I did object to was being shoehorned by the combination of demographics and feature request.

the answer to the last question you put: "...how would you propose they get the information they're requesting..." is that

a) i don't support them getting the information they requested, namely marketing demographics combined with feature importance ratings. That's why I lied, to not give them that. I could have also simply not answered the survey.

b) they could have simply asked for the ratings of the features. That would be 'interesting' but pretty rigid, since only the features they preselected as candidates would be discussed, and the syntax and slant of the questions are under the power of the person asking.

c) they could have asked for the ratings of the features, but also included a freeform text box for the creative community to unload. The fact that such an obvious opportunity as not offered is suspicous of them not "really" wanting the messy, scattered lists of the wild poser community.

::::: Opera :::::

Again, none of this is meant as a personal attack. I haven't interpreted this as "your desires over the community's" but made my statement as a pseudo-statistic example.

As far as I can see, the questions asked at the survey (and the lack of a text field) says that while the developers are interested to gauge the climate of the community's feature requests, the only possible new change in Poser 8 would be an interface change. Otherwise Poser will remain tremendously stagnant and fall farther behind other mid-priced apps that are less specialized. A shame.

Users will continue seek other ways to host Poser content in more robust apps, Poser will get sold to yet another company who will fail to recognize that adding more fluff is no substitute for creating a solid core.

Well, you might be right!

I hope not.

As far as I know, very few people asked for output to openEXR format. Yet that one feature has revived Poser for me as a great app. I hope Poser8 rocks.

:::::: Opera :::::

Quote - > Quote - Then why don't you just ask the users directly what we want?

Sorry I can't engage on any potential feature discussion. It's too competitve a landscape to reveal ones hand.

I have to laugh at this! I'm sorry.

Just a thought....guys, can we stop bustin' the guy's chops? He's doing his job. I'm pretty sure he didn't write the survey, and we need to remember that Smith Micro IS a company, probably with a marketing department. Just because the userbase is a community doesn't mean that the company that creates it is going to treat the userbase like family. PSP has a community of users. I doubt Corel is clammoring to hear every single thing the userbase wants to say. The fact is, the survey is meant to see what the userbase AS A WHOLE wants, not just what the vocal minority wants.

Anyway, guys, if you're REALLY that bent out of shape about whatever you think is missing/was unnecessary/gets your goat right this moment, why don't you write into Smith Micro's customer service?

Sitemail | Freestuff | Craftythings | Youtube|

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it into a fruit salad.

Hi JenX

I agree with you. Guys lighten up or it's clobberin' time.

Cheers

Pat

Nobody's got my goats! They're in the shed out back! I filled out the survey just fine and din't cheat. I just find corporate double speak to be hilarious.

Quote - Nobody's got my goats! They're in the shed out back! I filled out the survey just fine and din't cheat. I just find corporate double speak to be hilarious.

Yeah, and telling him that it's laughable that he's not at liberty to share what they're deciding in the business room is kinda rude. Let the man do his job, and let's work WITH him to make Poser better, not against him. You guys wonder why corporate types never take us seriously...well, with threads like this, I wouldn't, either.

Sitemail | Freestuff | Craftythings | Youtube|

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it into a fruit salad.

I'm not the one busting his chops about the survey here Jen. I just found his remark about the competative landscape being the reason they can't discuss their plans to be laughable. If he had just said he wasn't at liberty to discuss it. I wouldn't have said a peep. But the excuse was just not believable. Sorry if I find that humourous.

Well, the 3D business, regardless of what the program is used for, is a VERY competitive business. Heck, even content creation is competitive. Think about it...how often do you see top sellers in the forums giving tutorials for how they do what they do? Business stays good when you do what you're best at, and don't market what you're doing before you can deliver. I know a couple companies (no, not mentioning names) that constantly market what they're up to, and promise it months BEFORE they can deliver. That's not good business sense, either. So, if they were, let's say, throwing around the idea of adding the ability to swap heads at the click of a mouse...but nowhere near even finishing the logistics of it...mentioning it here would be tantamount to promising it, and they'd never hear the end of it.

Coop's doing a heck of a job staying straight and fielding blows, but he shouldn't have to. You want to give feedback on your program? Tell them directly :) Steve's just the messenger. Don't shoot 'im.

I'm going to bed now. Please be nice overnight, LOL.

Sitemail | Freestuff | Craftythings | Youtube|

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it into a fruit salad.

Hey Steve

I was wondering if you could help me on something. You see, I had an accident with Poser today, since then everytime I try and access my runtime I get this message...Which button should I choose?

I wasn't busting anyone's chops, and I don't think anyone here said anything unreasonable.
Besides, if S-M sends someone in under the guise of "family", they should expect to get a "family" response, no?

What if, instead of making the responses we did, we had put on some sickening fanboy display....
"Yeah, way to go Steve!"
"WOOHOO, u guyz ROCK!"
"Best survey ever!"
"Smith Micro is sooo kewl!"

Would you have felt the need to try to put an end to that, Jen? :-)

Quote - Well, the 3D business, regardless of what the program is used for, is a VERY competitive business. Heck, even content creation is competitive.

Business stays good when you do what you're best at, and don't market what you're doing before you can deliver. I know a couple companies (no, not mentioning names) that constantly market what they're up to, and promise it months BEFORE they can deliver. That's not good business sense, either.

Jen, this is Poser we're talking about here. You know, the program which has been shuffled from one company to another and offloaded again as soon as the money or the love ran out...
Somehow I've never been able to equate Poser with Good Business Sense. Every company which has owned it has taken what could have been an AMAZING program and sold it short to keep it the hobbyist niche app it is. And then just plain sold it.
The result has been that instead of it being on a par with 3ds max, XSI and maya (which it COULD HAVE BEEN), it is something of a laughing stock among the professional 3D artists in the industry.

What did Smith-Micro pay for it? Seven million, right? It should have been ten times that amount, and it might have been if it weren't for the fact that it seems to be barely hanging in there. Poser is the 3D world's dark little secret - some Pros use it, but will rarely admit to it; you can barely mention Poser at places like CG Talk without getting laughed out of the place.
Why is this? Like I said, because they have always played it safe and appealed to the hobbyists. Even their marketing positively SCREAMS "Hobbyist!". All that talk about all the ready-made content and all, and even a ridiculous tab within the program to get online to buy stuff - the entire core of Poser has been built around the idea of using other people's stuff, and very little attention has been paid towards using it as either a professional production tool or a content creation tool. Its animation tools, for example, though workable, are a joke. I could eventually chisel a hole in a concrete slab with a fork, but I'd rather use a jackhammer.

So, is playing it safe Good Business Sense?
The questions seem to indicate they're not really sure which direction they're heading in, but seem to lean towards keeping it more or less the same, maybe adding some halfway-functional stuff in along the way.

I can appreciate the suggestion for people to write to SM directly, and that's a good answer, but to try to quiet down people who are saying what SM needs to know just because you don't want someone's feelings to get hurt is kind off anti-productive. We know Steve Cooper is at least reading this - that's more than you can say for a thoughtful email just tossed out there into cyberspace... who knows who ever sees it?

Quote -
So, if they were, let's say, throwing around the idea of adding the ability to swap heads at the click of a mouse...but nowhere near even finishing the logistics of it...mentioning it here would be tantamount to promising it, and they'd never hear the end of it.

That's more of a reflection on the immaturity of a large portion of the Poser user base. You are, of course, right. But... so what? If they outright promise something, they should be prepared to deliver. If they suggest or imply something and don't deliver, the more mature people will recognize it wasn't an actual promise. Sure, the kiddies will yell and scream bloody murder, but... who cares? They'll get over it.

This whole thing began with a survey some of us thought was poorly thought out and/or poorly implemented, filled with what we see as irrelevant questions. And while we had the opportunity to KNOW our opinions were being heard, we took it. Steve is well aware of the Poser community, and I doubt very much ANYTHING, no matter how ludicrous, insulting or bizarre someone might say, would surprise him or put him off.

Poser, as it stands, probably does more good for the creators of content than it ever has done for the actual owners of the company-of-the-year which happens to own it at any given time.
Not good.
Sure, maybe CP has profited some, but it's done DAZ and various websites and private individuals probably even more good than it's done for itself.

What I want to see is for SM to come out and say, Look, we're going to make Poser what it could be, and should be. Followed by offering a direct line into their thought process - an official thread for suggestions would be a good place to start. It would convince ME at least, and probably many others, more that they're sincere, as opposed to some half-baked survey which screams MARKETING! at the top of its lungs.

The impression I got from the survey is they're equally (or more) interested in helping Content Paradise as they are Poser, which, to me, is not a good sign much is going to be changing for the better for Poser anytime soon.

May I rigg some of the next models?

.

A HOMELAND FOR POSER FINALLY

Thank you MikeJ for so elloquently saying what I was trying to think with a headache last night!

Quote - May I rigg some of the next models?

< THAT is the best idea I've heard YET! Get Bagginsbill to do shaders and some lights and just there, you'd have a kick-ass product!

I cannot save the world. Only my little piece of it. If we all act together, we can save the world.--Nelson Mandela
An inconsistent hobgoblin is the fool of little minds
Taking "Just do it" to a whole new level!

You know what I'd love to see? A fully fledged SDK available to independent developers.

The liver is evil - It must be punished.

I completely agree. HOWEVER, complaining at Steve in this thread isn't going to get bupkis done. HE is playing it safe with what he can and cannot tell us. Most likely due to an NDA. So, we can rail him, which isn't fair to him, or we can complain where it'll do ANY good. Which isn't here in this forum thread.

Quote - > Quote - Well, the 3D business, regardless of what the program is used for, is a VERY competitive business. Heck, even content creation is competitive.

Business stays good when you do what you're best at, and don't market what you're doing before you can deliver. I know a couple companies (no, not mentioning names) that constantly market what they're up to, and promise it months BEFORE they can deliver. That's not good business sense, either.

Jen, this is Poser we're talking about here. You know, the program which has been shuffled from one company to another and offloaded again as soon as the money or the love ran out...
Somehow I've never been able to equate Poser with Good Business Sense. Every company which has owned it has taken what could have been an AMAZING program and sold it short to keep it the hobbyist niche app it is. And then just plain sold it.
The result has been that instead of it being on a par with 3ds max, XSI and maya (which it COULD HAVE BEEN), it is something of a laughing stock among the professional 3D artists in the industry.

What did Smith-Micro pay for it? Seven million, right? It should have been ten times that amount, and it might have been if it weren't for the fact that it seems to be barely hanging in there. Poser is the 3D world's dark little secret - some Pros use it, but will rarely admit to it; you can barely mention Poser at places like CG Talk without getting laughed out of the place.
Why is this? Like I said, because they have always played it safe and appealed to the hobbyists. Even their marketing positively SCREAMS "Hobbyist!". All that talk about all the ready-made content and all, and even a ridiculous tab within the program to get online to buy stuff - the entire core of Poser has been built around the idea of using other people's stuff, and very little attention has been paid towards using it as either a professional production tool or a content creation tool. Its animation tools, for example, though workable, are a joke. I could eventually chisel a hole in a concrete slab with a fork, but I'd rather use a jackhammer.

So, is playing it safe Good Business Sense?
The questions seem to indicate they're not really sure which direction they're heading in, but seem to lean towards keeping it more or less the same, maybe adding some halfway-functional stuff in along the way.

I can appreciate the suggestion for people to write to SM directly, and that's a good answer, but to try to quiet down people who are saying what SM needs to know just because you don't want someone's feelings to get hurt is kind off anti-productive. We know Steve Cooper is at least reading this - that's more than you can say for a thoughtful email just tossed out there into cyberspace... who knows who ever sees it?

Quote -
So, if they were, let's say, throwing around the idea of adding the ability to swap heads at the click of a mouse...but nowhere near even finishing the logistics of it...mentioning it here would be tantamount to promising it, and they'd never hear the end of it.

That's more of a reflection on the immaturity of a large portion of the Poser user base. You are, of course, right. But... so what? If they outright promise something, they should be prepared to deliver. If they suggest or imply something and don't deliver, the more mature people will recognize it wasn't an actual promise. Sure, the kiddies will yell and scream bloody murder, but... who cares? They'll get over it.

This whole thing began with a survey some of us thought was poorly thought out and/or poorly implemented, filled with what we see as irrelevant questions. And while we had the opportunity to KNOW our opinions were being heard, we took it. Steve is well aware of the Poser community, and I doubt very much ANYTHING, no matter how ludicrous, insulting or bizarre someone might say, would surprise him or put him off.

Poser, as it stands, probably does more good for the creators of content than it ever has done for the actual owners of the company-of-the-year which happens to own it at any given time.
Not good.
Sure, maybe CP has profited some, but it's done DAZ and various websites and private individuals probably even more good than it's done for itself.

What I want to see is for SM to come out and say, Look, we're going to make Poser what it could be, and should be. Followed by offering a direct line into their thought process - an official thread for suggestions would be a good place to start. It would convince ME at least, and probably many others, more that they're sincere, as opposed to some half-baked survey which screams MARKETING! at the top of its lungs.

The impression I got from the survey is they're equally (or more) interested in helping Content Paradise as they are Poser, which, to me, is not a good sign much is going to be changing for the better for Poser anytime soon.

Sitemail | Freestuff | Craftythings | Youtube|

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it into a fruit salad.

Since it wouldn't be attacking, probably not. I WOULD, however, roll my eyes a lot.

Quote - I wasn't busting anyone's chops, and I don't think anyone here said anything unreasonable.
Besides, if S-M sends someone in under the guise of "family", they should expect to get a "family" response, no?

What if, instead of making the responses we did, we had put on some sickening fanboy display....
"Yeah, way to go Steve!"
"WOOHOO, u guyz ROCK!"
"Best survey ever!"
"Smith Micro is sooo kewl!"

Would you have felt the need to try to put an end to that, Jen? :-)

Sitemail | Freestuff | Craftythings | Youtube|

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it into a fruit salad.

Quote -
So, we can rail him, which isn't fair to him, or we can complain where it'll do ANY good. Which isn't here in this forum thread.

I don't see where he's been either "railed" or "attacked", Jen.

But it doesn't matter anyway. I've said all I intended to say and even more, and have virtually zero interest in getting into an argument with you about it, or with Steve about Poser and Smith Micro.

When you render in queue (poserPro), poser throws off a file to work from. Do the same for the cloth room. IE: Like render in background...clothify in background. Throw off a file of some sort and bring it back into the scene when done. I would use dynamic cloth a bunch more if it didn't take me offline while I wait for it to complete. Like with a floort lenght gown on Sydney into a sitting position can take a long time vs a simple short skirt in a standing pose.

Gary

"Those who lose themselves in a passion lose less than those who lose their passion"

it's normal for them to wanna grill any of the poser developers who post msgs here.
kupa has been around long enuff not to take it personally AFAIK. we welcome any
comments here by him or the others in regard to poser 8.

So. It seems SM intend to develop Poser and need to know which features are most needed / desired: what they should be spending most time & effort on. You might want kick-ass animation tools, I don't care. I might want a properly sorted FireFly renderer, you might be happy with the Poser 4 thing.

Whatever Poser 8 turns out to be, it won't be exactly what any of us wants. I think the idea is to get it as close as possible to the ideal of the largest number of users. The better SM do this, the happier everyone will be.

It therefore makes sense to ask as large an existing user base as possible for their opinions. So they have.

What's the problem? That they asked how much you earn / how old you are? These are questions that are frequently, er, posed in a social context, and in those situations I have no qualms about answering... though I might exaggerate a little. I really don't mind SM asking and I really don't mind answering.

I seriously doubt whether SM care what you, as an individual, earn. Or when you were born, or what sex you are. I think they're interested in the bigger statistical picture. This talk of tracing you via your ISP and CP cookies... that's just paranoia.

Windows 10 x64 Pro - Intel Xeon E5450 @ 3.00GHz (x2)

PoserPro 11 - Units: Metres

Adobe CC 2017

I still say the vast majority of that poll was centered around the idea of how they can make CP more profitable, not how they can make Poser, itself, the application, better.

From one end to the other, with the exception of a few questions regarding Poser's core application, the theme is "Content". Meaning, of course, Content Paradise. And, IMO, all but maybe two or three questions could be interpreted as trying to find how people want to use CP purchases within Poser.

I found the questions themselves unsatisfying, to say the least. Let's hope this isn't ALL they're considering for how to improve Poser.

Consider this:
There was a question regarding if the interface should be more "traditional". The interface - let that sink in for a minute. That would be a huge undertaking!
Many people over the years have requested a more traditional interface, and on the surface it would appear they may be considering granting that request.

However, many, many people over the years have also asked for even rudimentary modeling tools within Poser, yet I couldn't help but notice there was no question about that.
Why? If they're considering a whole new interface, putting some polygon creation/editing tools in there would be a relative stroll through the park. Every 3D code monkey and his brother could write a simple 3D modeling program, so I'm sure SM could handle it.
So, why not ask if we want 3D modeling tools inside Poser itself?
That answer is simple - the less easy it is for people to make their own stuff, the more likely they will buy other people's stuff, namely CP's stuff.
Or maybe they'll be encouraged to buy Shade....

One might suggest question number ten is along those lines: "How important would it be to customize characters by creating your own morph targets?"

But then again, we already CAN do that. Are they considering removing that functionality?
Or is that just a question sloppily added as filler by someone with marketing on the brain?

That's just one example from the conspiracy theory department. ;-)

This was largely a CP poll masquerading as a Poser poll. I believe they realize new versions of Poser will continue to be bought as long as they make at least minor improvements. I also believe they realize that there's FAR more money to be made in supplying Content. I almost believe future versions of Poser might be limited to using only Content Paradise content...
I believe the vast majority of their efforts will be spent on improving the add-on Content they want to sell, and the way in which future Poser deals with said Content.

Yeah, I said I was through adding to this thread, but...

Quote - Yeah, I said I was through adding to this thread, but...

It's a Poser survey. About Poser. Content comes with Poser. 'nuff said.

For the conspiratorialists, here's an interesting site that uses Poser content:
zapatopi.net/afdb/

Signing out.

Don't know about anyone else but getting tired of the whingers here (sorry Mike but staring at you). Yes we all know about the stresses we've all had with poser but at the very least SM is actually willing to listen to our thoughts. Sure there's a bunch of things which do annoy us ( i was recently working on an animation for 6 hours straight and Poser decided to crash without a save). But at the end of the day all I want to say is let's give them a chance to make things right. Don't just rip shreds off them for the way they did the survey or the probs we have with Poser at the moment, It's counter productive.
All I'm saying is give them a reason to make it a better product. If you've got a problem with a certain area give them a reason and a solution to make it right, simple cause and effect. Get behind them, don't attack them. Give them something they can take back to their superiors and say "hey we've got this problem, but if we do this, this and that we can solve it". We're all working for the same goal here people. They want to make money by making a good product, we just want a good product which works well, we all want the same thing.
We know Poser is the hot potato of the 3d animation world but it doesn't have to be. All I'm asking is we stop attacking the very people who are here to potentially solve our problems, give them a chance to prove themselves with productive solutions, to help us and them to make a better product.

Just my two cents worth :0

Not whining at all, just pointing out some things - things which I didn't start, btw.

SM listens to our thoughts? Do they? And you know this how?

I am giving them a chance to "make things right". For all you know, if enough people challenged them in the way I have, perhaps they'd be even more inclined to make things right. If you're concerned about them feeling insulted or anything, don't be. I'm sure they can handle the criticism.
And if you're suggesting nobody should challenge them... well, I don't know what to say to that.

Counter productive? How's that? Counter productive would be somehow sabotaging their efforts. Criticism delivered sincerely is never counter productive.

Give them a reason to make a better product? How's that again? Their reason should be profit and that should be reason enough. So, I can't give them a reason to make a better product. If I have to, something is seriously wrong there. I can, however, give them suggestions towards making a better product, which I have, and many others have as well.

Get behind them? Why? How long have you been using Poser for? I've been since late 1999, and have seen it change hands four times since then with at least two flop releases surrounded by major controversy - the original Poser Pro Pack and Poser 5. Other, more successful releases have been buggy and haven't brought anywhere near enough to the table to take Poser too terribly seriously. Their improvements, while many have been steps in the right direction, always feel incomplete and have been fraught with problems.
Even their plugins for getting Poser into other apps like max have been half-assed: the plugins are always for an obsolete version or two years behind, in spite of being released when current versions of the current relevant SDK's are available.

I'm not "attacking" anyone, as I see it.
If they come here with something like this, they have to expect some sort of a reaction. That's all there is to it. I'm not going to apologize for stating my opinion. As I wrote earlier, I knew we had their attention in this thread, and I decided to use that to get my thoughts about it out.
I'm also not going to be a mindless fanboy and just pussyfoot around them because I feel that they're really just here to help us and we should give them a break. They're a business. They want to sell us software. We don't owe them any kind of a break - they owe us good, usable software.
Don't kid yourself - they're not part of the family, not part of the community. While there may be employees of theirs who are, Smith Micro is a business, plain and simple. They make cell phone software and for some odd reason decided to buy Poser.

I can give SM the benefit of the doubt, but their first release of Poser since they bought it is far from impressive. It has some cool new additions, but is still faaaarr from what I would call "Pro". Just like the original PPP in 2000 was. If more people challenge them, maybe their next release won't be yet another in a long string of tragedies and half-assed, half-broken releases.

And maybe their next poll will be a little better thought out.

Quick question about writing the SM CS team: would it do anything? I know for a number of companies working with CS is a herculian effort just to get noticed, much less get something done.

Anyways, at the least P8 will need:
-Better lighting (glowing objects without gather, area lighting, gamma correction, etc)
-A better rigging system
-To stop hanging everytime I try to do anything
-A little faster rendering
-Less crashing or file corruption
-Hair room improvements
-Cloth room improvements

And I'd like to agree with opera guy on two things. The first is I feel that was a marketing survey. Now they might emphasise a feature their target audience wants, but I'm thinking they were looking for how to sell it most of all. The other thing is the base characters should have as close to average looks as possible with this qualification: the models need to be rigged (and hopefully with all the morphs included) to make it as easy as possible to create the character you want.

WARK!

Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.

(using Poser Pro 2014 SR3, on 64 bit Win 7, poser units are inches.)

Quote - the plugins are always for an obsolete version or two years behind, in spite of being released when current versions of the current relevant SDK's are available.

False.

But thank you for the perfect opening to today's news:
Poser Pro SR1.2 with updated 32 bit & new 64 bit Poser Fusion plug-ins

Quote -

But thank you for the perfect opening to today's news:
Poser Pro SR1.2 with updated 32 bit & new 64 bit Poser Fusion plug-ins

Well there you go, that's a step in the right direction. Kudos to SM for paying attention.
I'm not your enemy, Steve, I just would like to see Poser become all it can be - and should have been by now.
But as I said, a step in the right direction. Next thing you guys need to do is start working on a true "pro" version of Poser that eliminates the need for the Max's and Maya's of the world.
You don't have to exclude the hobbyists, casual pros and those who don't need all the bells and whistles in the process, you know.

Quote - Quick question about writing the SM CS team: would it do anything? I know for a number of companies working with CS is a herculian effort just to get noticed, much less get something done.

Anyways, at the least P8 will need:
-Better lighting (glowing objects without gather, area lighting, gamma correction, etc)
-A better rigging system
-To stop hanging everytime I try to do anything
-A little faster rendering
-Less crashing or file corruption
-Hair room improvements
-Cloth room improvements

Just wanted to let you know that they do listen. I offered a solution a couple of days ago which would address all your (and my) issues mentioned. They responded within a couple of hours promising to pass it on to the software engineers. I am still willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Now as to whether they will do something about it remains to be seen, but willing to hold on to that faint glimmer of hope i guess :)

Quote - > Quote - they could match up IP addresses to CP users if they wanted to.

We are only be using the IP addresses to remove duplicate submissions from a few overly enthusiastic respondents.

Your honest answers in the demographics area are extremely helpful to the future of Poser.

Thank you!

Uh, that might be me :)
Had some browser/connection issues taking the survey. Hopefully you got the key responses from me.

Ah the passion of the Poser user!

"Few are agreeable in conversation, because each thinks more of what he intends to say than that of what others are saying, and listens no more when he himself has a chance to speak." - Francois de la Rochefoucauld

Intel Core i7 920, 24GB RAM, GeForce GTX 1050 4GB video, 6TB HDD space
Poser 12: Inches (Poser(PC) user since 1 and the floppies/manual to prove it!)

Quote - > Quote -

From my experience, Autodesk excels on integrating useful features. Their Bonus Tools (which are often written by users) tend to appear as new, fully supported features of future releases.

Yes, I know. I was only kidding. :-)
But what I meant was you don't see them pretending to take requests then not deliver. And you also don't see them releasing the same thing year after year with only minor changes to the same theme.

Quote -

Sorry I can't engage on any potential feature discussion. It's too competitve a landscape to reveal ones hand

While I can understand you not wanting to discuss features or plans, I don't think that's correct reasoning for not doing so. Poser has no competition, really. No program does what it does and does it so quickly and so well. maybe DAZ Studio, but that's a free program - they're gonna be competition no matter what as long as the price is zero.

Uh...QUIDAM2 perhaps??? And who knows what DAZ may decide to do.
DazStudio Pro with key plugins (features that match POSERs built-in and for a competitive price?

But aside from that, the "biggies" in the 3D world announce what they're up to. We know what cool new features the next version of 3ds max, maya, Lightwave, Vue, etc. is going to have, well ahead of time. Mudbox is attempting to overtake ZBrush right now and seems to be having good success at it, and Autodesk was making people aware of what was on the horizon for quite a bit ahead of time.
If anything, it's those complete 3D packages which have real competition to worry about. Somehow I can't see the makers of Quidam saying to themselves one day, "Look, SM is gonna put real functionality into Poser - quick call in the programmers!". ;-)

All it will take is some critical mass. With this world, you never know....
And you don't think there is functionality in Poser?

Actually I wish Poser had more real competition than it does. I wish it didn't have this hobbyist stigma attached to it and y'all were more concerned with making it actually compete in The Big Market. It could be so much more if you had that competition and desire to see it through to what it could be.

I'll tell you another thing I would like to see, FWIW. I'd like to see a $1500.00 Poser which can stand on its own and not need badly-implemented plugins just to get it into more capable apps.

"Few are agreeable in conversation, because each thinks more of what he intends to say than that of what others are saying, and listens no more when he himself has a chance to speak." - Francois de la Rochefoucauld

Intel Core i7 920, 24GB RAM, GeForce GTX 1050 4GB video, 6TB HDD space
Poser 12: Inches (Poser(PC) user since 1 and the floppies/manual to prove it!)

Great to see you back, kupa!

Jay Button from Santa Cruz
Who now lives in Boulder, Colorado

Actually, I did miss the text field in the survey for -my- most favored request; getting the Poser-Vue Infinite functionality hammered out once and nearly for all (I know new features tend to break things....). That particular combo is one of the better low end pairings for one man studio's, and the issues with dynamics not loading have been a real pita, and the stopping of just about any serious work. If the native import can't be hammered out due to architectural changes, then what about collada? If it's a choice between sacrificing texture imports and getting the dynamics back, well, better to do you texturing and shading in your final renderer anyway. But the two apps are made for each other, and smoothing out that native import one way or another would be a blessing.

Quote - There are a few improvements that the survey didn't cover:

Fix the reversed normals issue. It wasn't a problem in Poser 4. It's frustrating that the problem remains three versions after creating it.

Realistic lights. It's frustrating having lights that don't act like real lights. I've had times where adding a light darkens an image and when moving lights had the opposite of the intended effect.

Better selecting. I've never understood why I can click on something large in the foreground and wind up selecting a small object, that cannot be seen, in the background.

What they said ^

I think you could tell from the questions what they are thinking about doing for the next Poser release, and this was thier way of asking the users how well they would be recieved. I think that's great, and what an awesome way to run a company, asking the customer what they want before making the product.

I did have an issue with the demographic details though. Shouldn't they be focusing on what ALL Poser users want, instead of dividing us up into male and female, rich and poor... I mean, are they going to to drop a feature because only 22% of girls under 20 liked it? I know that's how marketing works, but does anyone else find that bizarre? And what's with asking us our income? How does that define us as a poser user? I always lie and put in the lowest option on that question for I feel what they're really asking is, "how much can we charge you?"

if SM were to sell poser to some 3d software company, which could add a new rendering
engine to the basic package as the only major change (other than new content), then that
might cut down on costs enuff so that the upgrade to poser 8 would only be $169.99 american.
discount for students, but whether one is earning $2 per hour or one is a 90-yr.old millionaire
in afghanistan would not matter in regard to sales price. some might suggest that this is a bad
time to sell poser, but it might be a good time for some 3d software company to buy poser.

Or at least make it possible to use a 3rd party render engine as a plugin, such as Mental Ray or V-Ray.

This is what poser needs( And i dont have POser 7 , i'm still on 6):

ability to render 1000 frames full render with antialiasing in 5 SECONDS!!!

That would be great

Okay Vocal, I'll try contacting them as well.

Another thing I'd like to see fixed is this problem with poser hanging on me all the time. I've reinstalled now but every time I try to do something (import an object, conform some clothing to a figure, etc) poser starts to hang on me for a few minutes.

WARK!

Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.

(using Poser Pro 2014 SR3, on 64 bit Win 7, poser units are inches.)

No one has mentioned yet that this survey looks a lot like the one that was put up before Poser Pro was released, what was done with the results of that one?

Artwork and 3DToons items, create the perfect place for you toon and other figures!

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=23722

Due to the childish TOS changes, I'm not allowed to link to my other products outside of Rendo anymore :(

Food for thought.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYZw0dfLmLk

They decided the name Smith Micro needed to be at the top of the interface. Also, apparently what people REALLY wanted were two more characters, male and female, that were even fuglier than anything prior, by a great degree of magnitude. ;-)
And they also answered the need to make it where all your cores were being used at all times when rendering. Wait, no, scratch that last one.

Well, maybe they added some free ringtones in there somewhere, although I have yet to find them.

Just my two coppers:

I understand the survey. However, it's not a technical survey. It's a marketing survey. They want to ask Joe and Jane Userbase what they're focusing on when they use Poser. They want to know what they feel is important about subjects that a regular user is going to be familiar with.

There are plenty of things I think Poser needs improving on but, almost none of them have to do with what Joe and Jane Userbase is concerned with.

One thing they need to do is to increase the tools that content designers can use in order to provide better content. Particle effects would be nifty, wouldn't they? Joe&Jane Userbase would go nuts if Poser 8 had real particle effect ability. They don't know what that means but they DO know that all sorts of new and exciting content would be flooding the shelves of the Poser E-Stores. THAT is what is important in the longrun and it's those types of improvements, which put additional tools in the hands of creators in making Poser content, which will mean the most in the longrun. (Other "tools" like advanced mapping features of new engines could significantly increase the quality of content without subsequent overburdening of the engine itself.)

One thing I DO NOT WANT to see is ANY interoperability with an application search for content and "teh intrawebz." There is absolutely no reason at all that I, as a user, want to use Poser to browse the web for content. That is just a marketing scheme and much too much invasive for practical use. I don't need another connection from my box searching for its intranwebz garbage. It's just a way to obtain a captive audience for marketing, that's all it is.

What SM should do is focus on making the overall Poser application more rebust and more full featured from a content creator's point of view. Content is king in anything. Without content, the best application in the Universe would end up in the "discontinued" aisle. But, if content is king, good content is Emperor-For-Life. People do a lot with what they have to work with in Poser's repetoire. The steps people have taken to make Poser do what it is they want it to do are sometimes awe-inspiring. And, "awe-inspiring" is what sells boxes like nothing else. If they want to sell Poser, they need to be looking to these people for help. (I wonder if content creators have received their own versions of a product-development survey? If not, then Smith Micro would be making a hugely stupid mistake in not approaching the people that actually create content that keeps them in business.)

Poser's rendering, Firefly or not, needs to be reworked. Like it or not, the best content in the world looks like crap if it is rendered with crap. I would hazard a guess and say that 99% of the people dissattisfied with Poser who have stopped using it have done so simply because they can't hit the "Create Art" button because 1)Doing good quality renders in any application is NOT easy and 2) It takes monumental efforts to get very high-quality renders out of Poser.

So, they need a "create Art" button for Joe&Jane Userbase who don't know the first thing about rendering 3D objects. That can be done by making some default settings that actually mean something and with SM Created and supplied lighting that doesn't look like garbage. For more knowledgeable users, they need to ask them what it is they want to see as far as rendering-engine components go. I don't consider myself knowledgeable enough to comment on that.

I like Poser. I think it's a pretty powerful application when combined with certain other tools. But, what it needs is not application specific garbage focused on Joe & Jan Userbase. It relies on content to stay alive, it relies on good content to sell boxes and it relies on content creators to stay in business. These are the people that SM should be catering to. Joe & Jane will be very, very happy if good quality content creators are happy with the ability to use better tools and take advantage of advanced concepts.

I think those wishing for the $1500 Poser will have better luck praying for world peace. Take a look at SmithMicro's product line. Does anything suggest that they have either the financial or technical expertise to pull off a high-end professional 3D application? That's not a knock on them, just reality IMO. Most people seem to acknowledge that what Poser needs is a complete clean slate rewrite. To create a product that would be able to compete at the lever people seem to want is a daunting task. During that lengthy process, development of the existing product would probably be minimal unless they had the money for a whole new development team. I don't think that anyone throughout Poser's long odyssey, with the possible exception of e-Frontier, has had the resources to even seriously contemplate such a move. Poser's best chance for such a development probably dies when Corel picked over MetaCreations catalog and decided to pass on our beloved application. The only realistic prospect remaining in that direction would be for AutoDesk to look behind their sofa cushions and come up with the pocket change to buy Poser. But why would they do that? They'd have to rewrite it anyway so all they'd be buying is the name (which they probably wouldn't use) and a vocal user-base who are, to put it politely, are probably not within their preferred demographic. I also tend to disagree that such an acquisition would not mean the end of the "hobbyist" level Poser. Sure, they have student versions of their products and limited, non-portable file format versions of their pricey applications but AFAIK, they done tend to have sub $300 consumer priced versions.

Poser has always been a hobbyist level application which some people have used for professional purposes. That has been and will probably continue to be the sweet spot for profit. Advanced rigging schemes and more professional animation tools are all well and good but I doubt that they are what a good 90% of users want. How many users have achieved a good degree of competence and comfort with dynamic hair and cloth? The continued robust sales of conforming hair and clothing suggest to me not that many. It's not that those aren't great features but they seem to be implemented with a degree of complexity similar to their counterparts in high-end 3D applications. Maybe that's the way it has to be but I've long advocated for a multi-level interface with oodles of presets and wizards for the masses and number crunching for the more geekily inclined. I think this is essentially one of Morkonan's points though I'm not sure that Poser itself should be focus on development tools - that should probably be done in a full-fledged SDK developer's version. More easy to use ZBrush style figure sculpting tools might be good and Poser could certainly learn something from Daz Studio's dForm tool and their new AniMate plug-in. The first cut questions for any improvements should be,' Will it be easy to use?' and 'Will it be fun?' Those aren't the criteria some would prefer but if they're not met, the vast majority of folks won't use them. More importantly, if DS implements something similar that does meet them, guess what?

Poser can and should improve its ease of integration with applications that can supply the advanced functions that exist in abundance at every price point. Poser itself should stick to what it does best, providing a fun and easy way for the masses to pose their Vickies and create what to them at least is art. The vast barely tapped market today is in the virtual world of games and online universes where people are probably eager to have their "custom" characters and avatars. Put a make Second Life or GTA button next to the Make Art button and you'll sell far more copies of Poser than adding GI with a rocket scientist interface. And yes, selling content is an integral part of making enough to keep the application alive. If SM stops hawking CP then look for Poser to be seeking another home. That just may be when Microsoft comes looking for a way to populate their TrueSpace worlds. Did you know they actually owned XSI at one time :-)

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

That's all well and good, lmckenzie, and I agree with you for the most part.
The thing is, Poser will have to be developed further. All software companies need to release new versions, or else the public gets restless, or other apps fill the void. D|S for one, Quidam for another, are willing to fill that void.
So what kind of improvements can future versions of Poser implement if not something more advanced and better? You know, just working with what they currently have isn't going to cut it.
And even if they put all their effort into CP and forget about updating Poser entirely, CP is only a retail outlet for Poser content. I can't see it as being any kind of intelligent business move to let the app stagnate while working on better content, just as I can't see it as good to only make minimal advances to the program itself.
Where else is there to go but up? Well, "down" or "nowhere" would be alternatives, but would only result in Poser losing everything it's gained as a program.

I agree 100% that they can't rest on their laurels or let their technology languish. I don't follow Quidam much but DS has already begun to come up with some more innovative ways of doing things. My whole point is that in incorporating advances - it'll be interesting to see how their cloth solution works, they should not lose sight of the ease of use and accesibility that has enabled their success. Bolting on more gee whiz stuff that the majority of the user-base will find overwhelming will mean that they will defect to DS and I doubt that the gains among more sophisticated users will make up the difference. If they can manage to add complexity under the hood while enabling people to accessa good portion of it without a steep learning curve then everyone will be happy and they will sell beaucoup uints to boot.

As an example, everybody and his brother it seems had written a renderer. They all seem to take it for granted that you have to endure learning the ins and outs of irradiance chaches, photons and who knows what to get a decent render. I'm a programmer but I couldn't write line one of a raytracer so perhaps I'm naieve but I have to believe that there's a better way - it's simply that heretofore, noone has seen the need to create a more accessible solution. If Poser wants to continue to serve its mainstream audience while advancing with 3D, they need to be the ones to make that leap IMO. It's a win-winproposition but it will take the resources and commitment that none of Poser's owners has yet shown. Now maybe if SM and Daz cooperated. . .

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

I had heard that Poser was going to be sold to Autodesk, if this is true perhaps they will put something in to upgrading Poser to a more advanced state.

.

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If that would be true, it's more likely Poser will become part of 3DS or so...... I've heard that rumor also, but I do doubt it's true.

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Due to the childish TOS changes, I'm not allowed to link to my other products outside of Rendo anymore :(

Food for thought.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYZw0dfLmLk

They just bought XSI so there's not much left for them to buy save Poser. Why the would though I don't know. I doubt for the code and the name is not exactly admired amongst their typical market and I don't think they'd want to support the consumer market. Vickie sure would seem out of place with the $500 basketball mesh crowd but who knows. We have a Kenyan-Kansan President to be named Hussein so AutoDesk Poser? Yes We Can, You Betcha!

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

It would be nice to be able to see whats in a file without having waiting for Poser to load.
It would nice to have property node for characters, props and scenes
as to the textures used, the figure type or obj file, any external references. and place to hold comments and notes.
-A scene thumbnail creator that could create a thumbnail appear by right clicking on the file from the open dialog or with windows explorer outside the application

P3dO's "InDepth" view will give you much of that info with a hierarchical list of figures, textures, geometry files, etc. for figure, prop and scene files. It would be nice to have that available in Poser itself though. It did sound like they might be looking at better file organization and management so maybe...

On a side note, www.3dlinks.com/3DNews.cfm, looks like the Quidam folks are announcing something new "N-Sided announces the launch of its offer for avatars creation dedicated to Virtual Worlds" I still think this is going to be the big market for3D in the next few years.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

Quote -

I still think this is going to be the big market for3D in the next few years.

I don't know about that. The whole avatar/VR thing been trying to take off for a decade now, but always failing to meet with any real, lasting enthusiasm aside from its relatively small group of dedicated fans.

But back to Poser - I really can't see Autodesk buying Poser. I would love to see it happen though, for many reasons, not the least of which being the hilarious shitstorm that would ensue. ;-)

However, I predict that Poser 9 - at the latest - will see its unveiling at the hands of a company which isn't Smith Micro. It wouldn't at all surprise me if it were sold even before Poser 8.

I hope Autodesk doesn't buys Poser. They bougth Kaydara Motionbuilder just a year after promoting the Motionbuilder Freelance Artist version which was a very powerful package for animators at a similar price point of Poser. I invested a lot of time learning that software because of its power and price range. Once autodesk bought it the first thing they did was cut development of the Freelance artist edition and hike the price to $4000. Oh and we the owners of the Freelance artist edition were given the option of upgrading to the Pro version for the incredible price of $2000.

Now, what Poser really need above everything else is better animation tools (animated constraints, keyable parenting and circular IK-double solving) and perhaps integrate Particle Illusion as an FX Room. Just that and improving the code all around and make it full 64 bit would guarantee a succesful upgrade in my eyes. I love Poser, it is a wonderful application at an incredible price point I want it to stay so.

Yes P3Do's is nice but I would like to have it work inside of Poser and from Explorer. You can do alot of this in Poser but the information requires several steps and wading through files uses kludgy scrip menus,And there is no place to put comments, Maybe they could include it
the property node with a text box for comments

"I don't know about that. The whole avatar/VR thing been trying to take off for a decade now..." True. Most of these things happen so gradually that one day you look around and they've quietly become commonplace. It'd probably more accurate to expand the definition beyond avatars and games to include all advertising & the whole range of 3D internet content. Things like the Microsoft Agent characters were a primitive attempt at combing AI and interactive characters. People have tried similar thing with animated website hosts as well. Meta Creations sold off Poser and their other apps to do the Viewpoint thing though I think they were a bit premature.

I see 3D animated human content as too compelling not to be huge - eventually - both for business and entertainment. What has been lacking is the infrastructure in terms of bandwidth and processing power. Those are being solved. The other big limitation has been IMO, the content creation tools have been too expensive and/or too complex. I think that most Poser users don't do animation, not because they wouldn't like want to - who doesn't want to make a movie - but rather because it's been too difficult. Studio's AniBlocks are a cool attempt at making things a bit easier & a move in the right direction I think. That's not to say there isn't a need for the more technically oriented tools - there's a place for both.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

One of the things not mentioned yet: scripting!
Incorporating Python into Poser was arguably the best move ever made in the history of the app. Smith Micro can't predict everything users want, there have always been those weirdos that use Poser in unusual ways, but if everything that Poser can do is also accessible via well-documented Python calls, there will always be a Python scripter that'll build the desired functionality.
So what I want most in the next version of Poser is that EVERYTHING is scriptable via Python.
What would be even better: Poser as a Python library, so that it can be automated from the outside. Then it would be possible to script Poser into an automated 3D workflow.

I'm not really interested in content provided with Poser itself. I buy the content I like at CP (animals), Renderosity (clothing and hair), DAZ (human figures, environments) and RDNA (human figures and environments). Morphing tools? The Morphbrush is nice, but I prefer to build my morphs using a full fledged modeler and import it back into Poser - I've written a couple of nifty Python scripts to assist me there.
Rendering? Yes, I'd love to see some improvements in the Firefly engine. Rendering a decent water surface, reflecting metal or glass is sort of hit-and-miss magic with Firefly, while it's a breeze in Bryce, Vue or Carrara. I'd also love to be able to render more complex scenes - the full 64 bit renderer in Poser Pro is a step in the right direction, but I still can't render a crowd of medium to high-res people with clothing, hair, and a believable environment - which is easily doable in Vue.

The Hair Room. In fact, it's not bad at all. Easier manipulation of the hair for styling would be a big plus - named selections would be great. Better than hair groups, since named selections can be created on the fly, while hair groups must be planned in advance.

Cloth Room: I love it. In fact, I like it better than 3DS Max Cloth.
But it sure can use some improvements.

easier selection of vertices (I'd love tools like "grow selection" and "shrink selection" comparable to 3DS Max subobject selection tools). Would be great for polygon selections too.
multiple constrained groups, specifying WHAT object they're constrained to;
multiple choreographied groups that can be keyframed independently;
multiple soft decorated groups/rigid decorated groups, where one can specify what dynamic group they should follow;
rigid decorated groups that are truly rigid (I haven't had much luck with those, buttons and the like tend to deform despite being designated as rigid decorated).
pre-stretched cloth (think elastic bands);
dynamic rope!!!! Would be a MAJOR plus.
keyframed group switching: think buttons being undone and redone, think hanging a towel on a hook, think putting on/off a coat, knotting a belt, etcetera).
last but not least: thickness of the cloth. Collision offset and collision depth specify the thickness for the simulation, but I'd love to see this same thickness in the render.

Setup room: please, please make it possible to let the first child bone have its origin at a different location than the parent bone's endpoint. And a precision of 3 digits in the numerical fields just is not enough. For precise manipulation you need at least 5 or 6 decimals.
Working with spherical falloff zones is also a regular pain in the neck. They always start out FAR too large and in a non-logical position. It would be better to spawn the zones right around the joint you're editing, with the inner mat sphere having a radius half the length of the current bone, and the outer mat spere having a radius equal to the length of the current bone. Those are far more sensible starting values.

Useful in more than just the setup room: a grid in the orthogonal views that can be snapped to. The grid units should be customizable to the units Poser recognizes (Poser Native, feet, inch, meter, centimeter, millimeter) with sensible subdivisions that appear when zooming in (and disappear when zooming out). A "snap to grid" toggle would be most helpful.

A "drop to underlying surface" button would also help. The current implementation of collision detection is far too slow, probably due to the insane amount of vertices/polygons that have to be included in the calculations. (On a side note: "drop to underlying surface" can be implemented from Poser 5 upwards using Python. I've made a start, but I just haven't got the time to finish the script).

What else? Oh hes, the "more traditional user interface". If that means getting rid of the space consuming palettes and buttons in lieu of dockable toolbars/palettes, I'm all for it! And a hierarchical scene graph that allows grouping of multiple objects - much like the Hierarchy editor already does, but one that's more stable and responsive - would be greatly appreciated.

Oh, and don't forget the documentation. The current documentation is fairly hopeless. Yes, I understand that the "Bias" dial on a material node adjusts the bias. Putting that in the documentation is a waste of paper/screen space. What I want to know is what it DOES. What are sensible values? What effects does it have on the node? The primitive basics of Poser - those that haven't changed since version 3 or so - are laid out reasonably well, but the newer features are truly horribly documented.

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My suggestions for what they are worth would be:

an auto save feature
a foot cam
better lights control
those little up and down arrows for fine tuning the the posing
mouse controlled camers movement (like the scroll wheel for zooming in)
Better documentation
Having a preveiw window in the open file window
not having to turn my video card inside out to get poser to work with it
having the porgram be as powerful as maya ( or anyother pro lever software you want) be super easy to use and cost less than $200.00

ok I realize #9 isn't going to happen but if you're gonna wish why not wish big?

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Quote - A "drop to underlying surface" button would also help. The current implementation of collision detection is far too slow, probably due to the insane amount of vertices/polygons that have to be included in the calculations. (On a side note: "drop to underlying surface" can be implemented from Poser 5 upwards using Python. I've made a start, but I just haven't got the time to finish the script).

I would kill for this feature or a decent script to do it! I never understoond why Bryce had it and Poser didn't since I bought both when Metacreations owned them both. Of course I understand now that they didn't originally own both of them, but hey, back then I was a newbie.

I'm with Svdl about the interface. The current set of buttons and widgets are kind of silly and take up too much room. I do use the widgets but Parameter Dials are way, way, more important. Having IK accessable right on the interface, I think, would be an improvment. Using the menu for this feature is kind of clunky and interrupts work flow. The application IS Poser. Support for model creation is great but the core application, at least for poor modelers like myself, is posing and animating finished figures. Easy click IK would be great.

That and I wish Poser would wash my dishes ...

-Rªnce

AHA! (or is it EUREKA!)??

More types or, alterable Magnetic Zones. The Sphere is nice, but how about waveform type envelopes or squares, or influence over multiple zones, if we are stuck with spheres?

An upgraded or enhanced render engine would be nice. (I still like Firefly. Have the programmers really tapped its abilities? And if another render engine is available, have it plugin.)

Of course, (an most important) we want to keep the price reasonable.

"Few are agreeable in conversation, because each thinks more of what he intends to say than that of what others are saying, and listens no more when he himself has a chance to speak." - Francois de la Rochefoucauld

Intel Core i7 920, 24GB RAM, GeForce GTX 1050 4GB video, 6TB HDD space
Poser 12: Inches (Poser(PC) user since 1 and the floppies/manual to prove it!)

Forgot something about the Python scripting: more UI widgets for the Poser 6 style dialog interface! The textbox is sorely missed, and a listbox (both standard and hierarchical) wouldn't go amiss either. Dials would be nice too, so would a progress bar.
As for the dropdown buttons, it would be very nice to be able to set a default value.
Encapsulating those widgets in easy to use Python objects would be nice. It has been done (kudos to Poserworks for pzrXml30!), but it would be better if it came with Poser itself.

The pen is mightier than the sword. But if you literally want to have some impact, use a typewriter

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Quote - ... more UI widgets for the Poser 6 style dialog interface!

Hopefully they'll just expose the underlying wxWindows to Python rather than implementing more of their own controls.

A couple of thoughts that I haven't seen touched on too much yet:

Python:

I'd personally would love to see a couple of changes in Poser's Python implementation. First, the ability for Poser ot use a non-embedded python interpreter would be nice, that would address a lot of issues of scripts designed to run on one version of poser not being able to run on another. Also, the ability to make python scripts more accessible to folks who are a bit less technical I think would be a boon as well. I use a lot of python scripts myself and just getting my favorites setup on the default menus is a bit of a chore, and then of course having to run the menu first before selecting an option is a bit of a pain after the first 30 or so times. Having an easily accesible python menu that works more like the library section does would be fantastic.

Memory Bug:

This one has been an ongoing issue for quite some time, as you increase the size of Poser's default library the application itself begins to slow down and eat more memory, and even if you switch to extenernal runtimes that memory never free's itself up. This is a horrible bug that really needs to be addressed before your next release. If you do nothing else for your next revision, fix this. It has been a problem in Poser for a very, very long time and it makes the application seem, well, at the risk of sounding harsh, like a 2 bit hobbiest app. There is no reason why Poser should eat up a ton of RAM just because you have a large default library, much less never release that memory back to the system.

Face Room

If your going to keep the face room, make it so you can load and use external geometries for various figures like V3, V4, M3, etc. Otherwise get rid of it or make it an external module of some sort that doesn't load by default. The face room is useless for most of us because it only works for Poser's default figures. It's a grand idea, don't get me wrong, but honestly it's too limited in it's current form to offer any real value.

Content Tab

Ditch it. It's annoying in the extreme and a total waste of space. I don't shop from within an application and neither does anyone else, if you really want something like this setup a menu option somewhere that loads the default browser and points it at your website. Taking up an entire tab for this was a terrible idea from the get go.

Firefly Renderer

Again, this is one of the biggest bottleneck areas of Poser, the rendering system. A lot of us use Poser for posing figures, but most of the serious artists I know don't use Poser for rendering because firefly is, well, again just being honest, way behind the curve in terms of rendering capabilities. My suggestion would be twofold. First, in the next release of poser give it the ability to very easily select and use a variety of external rendering systems of the gnu variety. Renderering systems such as yafray and the like. Then take some time and overhaul the firefly rendering system to make it much more competitive with what's currently available on the market. Firefly needs a ton of work done, more than I think you could reasonably accomplish prior to a next revision of Poser.

What I find amazing, is all the people complaining about Posers shortcommings, and how good the high end programs are. How come they are spending so much time on the Poser Forum Complainging.

Yes there are improvements that I would like to see. But what I do is send them a list. What they do with it is up to them. DAZ Studio has a lot of great features, but they haven't perfected all the features they have either. It is a pain to work with. From the moment I tried Poser 4 many a year ago. I was able to animate within a few hours. I had a lot to learn with the system, but This is a great program. And for a lot of people, propelled them to a higher end program.

What happened to manners. Make your list of what you like and would like to be better. If you just want to complain about something, just to complain. There are a lot of chat rooms that would lover to go down that road with you.

The truth is Poser is on a class of its own. I wish the developers would give more importance to animation. With youtube and all the web video explosion on the internet is easier than ever to showcase your animation work. Poser has a good basic engine to animate, it has been in place since Poser 4 but the advances in the features it offers has remained stale. In the last 4 releases only the inclussion of layers has been added. Still no way to key parenting or easier ways to parent figures to each other and have a better control during an animation.

Quote - What I find amazing, is all the people complaining about Posers shortcommings, and how good the high end programs are. How come they are spending so much time on the Poser Forum Complainging.

Yes there are improvements that I would like to see. But what I do is send them a list. What they do with it is up to them. DAZ Studio has a lot of great features, but they haven't perfected all the features they have either. It is a pain to work with. From the moment I tried Poser 4 many a year ago. I was able to animate within a few hours. I had a lot to learn with the system, but This is a great program. And for a lot of people, propelled them to a higher end program.

What happened to manners. Make your list of what you like and would like to be better. If you just want to complain about something, just to complain. There are a lot of chat rooms that would lover to go down that road with you.

Ok, well the entire point of this thread was suggestions to improve poser - so naturally the conversation is going to dwell on the areas of Poser that need improvement. Not much point in singing Poser's praises in this particular thread.

But yes, Poser does have a lot of really great capabilities - if it didn't, most likely we'd all be posting in another forum, nes pas?

You know what I really wish, and maybe this won't be getting to the actual person in charge...but I really wish for a solid, good, prionted manual that doesn't skip on all the features of Poser. I've run into some information in the Poser 7 manual that is rather incomplete. The manual doesn't really go into detail about any specific Poser feature, and in my view, this really frustrates me. Yeahy, I could probably look online, and ask in the forums, and that's ok, but the answers aren't really that quick to come anyways. Perhaps there could be a Poser Bible coming with the next version?

Eddy

oh, and how about better Poser/DAZ Studio interchangeability? I am sure that if our people on the Poser end actually sit down and talk with the DS end we could come into some sort of agreement?

Yes, I do believe in miracles!

Eddy

My 1¢: I think everybody should pick the lowest income range so the next version of poser won't skyrocket in price.

Seriously, though: ditto the others who mentioned wanting a text field.
The questions were too limited.

Well, I think improve Cloth room and Hair room will be great. For example, making templates in the cloth room for different clothes materials and better support to save your clothes simulations. For the hair room, a great thing would be make general hairstyles templates in the library.

Other good thing would be improve the walk designer too, make support for quadrupeds ...

adh3d website

More templates for the material room. I have seen wonderful work done here in the forums just going and buying some of the best work like the wet & wound work from skinvue or the mud node work that was done here recently and some others and offering it in the package would make a nice addition.

But again, I want to see improvements in the animation capabilities spacially involving coreography of movement of two figures interacting--circular IK, keyable parenting.

Also softbody dynamics, a Particle Illusion new tab for special effects and Poser Physics.

Quote - Well, I think improve Cloth room and Hair room will be great. For example, making templates in the cloth room for different clothes materials and better support to save your clothes simulations. For the hair room, a great thing would be make general hairstyles templates in the library.

Other good thing would be improve the walk designer too, make support for quadrupeds ...

Clothing material templates? See my Cloth Room Preset utility in freestuff. As has been said before - Smith Micro doesn't have to include everything in the application, they just have to provide the scripters with the tools to make whatever is wanted/needed.... In this case, it wasn't too hard to script it.

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SVdl, if SM doen't include anything new in Poser, Why anybody is going to update?

adh3d website

Poser needs a proper plugin concept, so plugins can be integrate into the UI and can run concurrently...

I want to see poser turned into a mudbox with Z brush like functions, hows that for an idea?

I've been thinking about it for a few days, and I would like to see a better (or easier) toon rendering option than what there is. If it could do some cel-shaded things like Dragon Quest 8 easily, which is the best example I can think of right now, that'd be great.

WARK!

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(using Poser Pro 2014 SR3, on 64 bit Win 7, poser units are inches.)

Even though I am a DAZ Studio user I did take this survey when it first was offered. My only gripe I really have with Poser is the UI. I'd like to see full rewrite of it to give as much versatility and options to customize it as possible. A way to multi select body parts and a way to multi select material area without the 1 or all option. Then you will get me to upgrade again but only then!! I'm done buying software I'm not going to use!!

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it would be nice that we would change the quality of raytraced shadows in the light options. some 3D software have an option called samples or rixels.
sometimes you dotn want to use 0,2 shading rate but you still want soft shadows?

what are the chances for that?

ice-boy: settings for the shading rate are already there: you can set them per object/actor.
The minimum shading rate on the Render Options tab is exactly that: the minimum. If an object has a lower shading rate than the setting on the Render Options tab, the setting on the Render Options tab is used for that object; if the object has a higher shading rate, the object's shading ratie is used.
Most objects/actors come with a default shading rate of 0.2, but dynamic hair comes with a standard shading rate of 8 (which is probably the reason for the smooth color variations in dynamic hair).

But I admit that tweaking the shading rates on all actors in a scene is a major pain. Again, if PoserPython came with more and better UI widgets, writing a script that could adjust groups of actors for shading rate wouldn't be that difficult.

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I think he's talking about shadow sample rate like area lights have. Dunno if that's possible in anything but area lights though.

Of course if FF gets proper area lights, then that would also work :p

i meant area lights. for light shadows.

Ah, now I get it. Yes, area lights would be a great addition to Poser.

The pen is mightier than the sword. But if you literally want to have some impact, use a typewriter

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I find it interesting to see all of the complaints about the rendering engine, Firefly.

Don't get me wrong, I used to loathe Firefly too. But the problem wasn't the render engine, it was me, the operator.

If you've been following Bagginsbill's Material Room tutorials, you know you can get a whole lot more out of Firefly if you learn the Material Room advanced options. He's just unlocking all of the doors for us math-poor folks, and the results are truly amazing.

Poser's powerful material room is because of the Firefly render engine.

The one thing I definately want/need in Poser 8 is Gamma Correction in rendering, like in Poser Pro. A built in Particles system would be nice, too, but there is at least one Wacro available for purchase.

Oh, and anything to help the python scripters out there is a plus in my book.

-- Jeff

Quote - I find it interesting to see all of the complaints about the rendering engine, Firefly.

Don't get me wrong, I used to loathe Firefly too. But the problem wasn't the render engine, it was me, the operator.

If you've been following Bagginsbill's Material Room tutorials, you know you can get a whole lot more out of Firefly if you learn the Material Room advanced options. He's just unlocking all of the doors for us math-poor folks, and the results are truly amazing.

Poser's powerful material room is because of the Firefly render engine.

The one thing I definately want/need in Poser 8 is Gamma Correction in rendering, like in Poser Pro. A built in Particles system would be nice, too, but there is at least one Wacro available for purchase.

Oh, and anything to help the python scripters out there is a plus in my book.

-- Jeff

the problem with gamma correction in poser pro is that when you use black and white map from nodes they get gamma corrected.
so for example i use the ''spots'' node for bump it will ge gamma corrected. but this is nto what you want for bump.for example if you have a transparency map for hair then you can make it 1.0. but when using nodes you can not do this. so until this is fixed i will use GC in materials. i use PP GC only for test renders.

i hope they will fix this. raytraced shadows are more realistic then DM shadows. but when you use 20 blur radius you get pixels. i know that they are like blur reflection. but dont tell me that in 2009 they can not make soft looking raytraced shadows .how long is this happening? tooooo long.

in poser pro they made ambien occlusion better. i get perfect AO now. no artifacts. so do something about RT shadows.

*I hope they will fix this. raytraced shadows are more realistic then DM shadows.
but when you use 20 blur radius you get pixels. i know that they are like blur reflection. but dont tell me that in 2009 they can not make soft looking raytraced shadows .how long is this happening? tooooo long

You can improve this by raising your shadingrate: try shading rate 5 first and then shadingrate 0.2 or 0.1 and notice the difference.

Bopper.

-How can you improve things when you don't make mistakes?

dude i used almost the best settings on this pic.

Quote - You know what I'd love to see? A fully fledged SDK available to independent developers.

There sort of is. But it starts at $10K (which is why everyone paid so much for Reiss Studio's BodyStudio). Poser Python is a better idea but it needs cajones. :)

operaguy: The reason there are no tangents on the animation spline interpolation is that the type of spline being used is C2 continuous. That is, the tangents are autocorrected across the entire spline. To introduce tangent editing would require a different type of spline (C0 or C1 continuous) and would not be easily reconciled with the other type. I know as I tried to do exactly this in Cinema 4D! It uses C0 continuous splines (meaning that the tangents on either side of each point are independent) and there was no equivocable formulas to match the C2 tangents with the C4D tangent attributes in a way that resulted in identical curves. At least, I couldn't find any useful information on how to resolve it. So, if they were to introduce tangent editing into the Poser animation spline interpolation it would either need to be a fourth interpolation choice or exactly match the current spline interpolation so as not to break all previous animations using spline interpolation.

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

-- Bjarne Stroustrup

Contact Me | Kuroyume's DevelopmentZone

Quote - > Quote - You know what I'd love to see? A fully fledged SDK available to independent developers.

There sort of is. But it starts at $10K

But that's for embedding Poser functionality in another application.
The SDK everybody thats mentioned it so far wants, is one for building plugins for Poser.
The two things are very different, and while the latter would require some rearchitecting of the code, it shouldn't have anything like the same price tag (if it has one at all).

That's why I said 'sort of'. ;)

Python is for building plugins for Poser. Yes, it's scripting but so is COFFEE in C4D (and you can build plugins with it). Actually, Python is like Java - it runs bytecode. You really don't want C++ or something like that. Yes, it's faster compiled code but you also have to have the systems (Windows 32, Windows 64, MacOS X), tools (Visual Studio, CodeWarrior, Xcode), and knowledge of how to use them (which can get complex at times). It takes a good bit of expense and time as well.

What would be the viable alternative to Python then?

Robert

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

-- Bjarne Stroustrup

Contact Me | Kuroyume's DevelopmentZone

dude i used almost the best settings on this pic.

Did you also lowered the shading of your ground object?
you won't get better results if the default of 0.2 isn't changed.

Bopper.

-How can you improve things when you don't make mistakes?

but i am talking about the shadow.

Yes but the shadow drops on the ground, the shading quality of a shadow is determined by the shadingrate settings of the object it drops on. You can set the shadingrate in the rendersettings to 0.05 but if drops on an object with a higher setting of 0.2 it will take the higher settings: just try it out: set your shadingrate in your rendersettings to 0.1, and leave the groundobject as it is and then do a render with the shadingrate of your groundobject to 0.1 and render again.

best regards,

Bopper.

-How can you improve things when you don't make mistakes?

I'd love to see:

Additional render engines (how about RENDERMAN?)
Faster renderer and/or better usage of RAM
Soft body physics & weight mapping for human figures
Better default textures (more photorealistic) for default human and animal figures
Larger built in animal library with broader range of built in morphs
Better, more complete default figures --> meaning better modelling and more built in morphs
Python room
Particle physics/water dynamic
Autosave/back up feature

why would a software called poser that is meant for posing figures have water dynamic?

i think if you are already so good to make watter then i guess you need a software like 3dsmax.

Quote - What would be the viable alternative to Python then?

Python is fine.
I suppose they could add other scripting languages but there's really no need.

What is important is being able to hook into the GUI and other bits of the program in useful ways.
Top four things are the ability to add menu items, create new palettes (i.e. non-modal windows), ability to create new shaders, and metanodes.

just give Bagginsbill the POWER to make hes own nodes.

Quote - Python is for building plugins for Poser. Yes, it's scripting but so is COFFEE in C4D (and you can build plugins with it). Actually, Python is like Java - it runs bytecode. You really don't want C++ or something like that.

And it's very simple to wrap C/C++ code in a python library using SWIG. PoserPhysics was done that way, and in a similar fashion it shouldn't be very hard to take for example a 3rd party render engine that has a C++ SDK and turn it into a Poser Python plugin.

interesting . interesting.

More attention to the animation system in general; I just noticed that Optitrak has released a beta of a plugin for Daz Studio to accept the data input from their ARENA $5k mocap system in realtime. And that Poser has had several requests for something similar. Poser is about at the limit vis-a-vis stills; a more robust renderer plugin (ooooh, Renderman.... stewer has given the python guru's a challenge, he has he has....) is what most seem to want in that regard. That leaves the animating aspect....and if that native data plugin happens, Poser would be in an excellent position for the poor man's Body Studio (particularly since the 12 camera rig can handle 2 character capture).....if there were just a little bit more to the animation system. I'd go so far as to say create an animation tab, with dockable windows so that the layout could be configured to meet the users preferences (and no library access in that window; save all the real estate for controls). Multiple graph panes would be lovely, as would the color coded spline handles (like they use in Vue Infinite). Also more control over the IK chains; assigning sticky IK on the fly would really help in motion and action sequences.....but the main thrust should be configurability.

Quote - And it's very simple to wrap C/C++ code in a python library using SWIG. PoserPhysics was done that way, and in a similar fashion it shouldn't be very hard to take for example a 3rd party render engine that has a C++ SDK and turn it into a Poser Python plugin.

Exactly. Therefore, if you want more power from Poser Python and have the C++ capabilities, it is possible.

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

-- Bjarne Stroustrup

Contact Me | Kuroyume's DevelopmentZone

i have been reading some papers from pixar.
graphics.pixar.com/library/HQRenderingCourse/index.html
here something about raytracing and shadows.

''soft shadows can be computed by shooting shadow rays to random points on the surface of the area light source''

could this be used in poser 8?

Quote -
I find it interesting to see all of the complaints about the rendering engine, Firefly.

Don't get me wrong, I used to loathe Firefly too. But the problem wasn't the render engine, it was me, the operator.

If you've been following Bagginsbill's Material Room tutorials, you know you can get a whole lot more out of Firefly if you learn the Material Room advanced options. He's just unlocking all of the doors for us math-poor folks, and the results are truly amazing.

Poser's powerful material room is because of the Firefly render engine.

That may very well be, and yes, bagginsbill has it down about as good as anyone can get in Firefly.

But why defend something that needs an infinite amount of tweaking and all that learning just to get something decent? Even programs like Maya have the basic settings for reflection, shadows, transparency and all that good stuff, which can be used right out of the box and which work as one would expect.
Then of course, you have your Mental Ray and MR shaders and all that, which Poser's material room could be very loosely compared to (and I do mean loosely). In Maya, if you want to learn how to render effectively with MR shaders and materials, then you have alot of learning to do.
In Firefly, if you want to render anything that looks really good, you have alot of learning to do. Hell, you can't even point a light at something and turn on shadows and expect it to look good without a whole lot of tweaking and experimenting.
That's normal for 3D, but what isn't normal is Poser's default lights and shadows simply suck without a whole lot of tweaking. Without a whole lot of knowledge about the material room, you might as well forget about quickly setting up a scene to use as a quick visualization for a project. Even the - ahem- "pro" version is still total crap for that purpose. And I would think pros would appreciate something which enables them to do a quick pre-viz.

i completely forgot about the shadow catcher.

is it just me or isthe shadow catcher in Poser PRO ignoring gamma correction? i read somewhere that Bagginsbills shadow catcher is faster ,uses GC and has even a tint option for colors. i hope you contacted him to get topse options inside poser

-shadow catcher
-material based AO on/off. sometimes i want to use raytraced shadows but no AO in the material. if i have some armor props of a figure with 10 or more materials i can change this the whole night. so an option to turn off material AO
-a new Hair material. yes i know that we have this in the material room. but this is for the hair room.i think more then 50% poser users use modeled hair with planes. and then they use transparency. maybe a shader that fakes hair specularity? that would be great.
-fastscatter that works for raytraced shadows? like i said already in a different thread. this is 2009. we have better computers and faster computers. more people now use raytraced shadows. so it would be grea.t the fastscatter node dosnt even work like it should . but bagginsbill used node tricks to make it work. it works very fast and its not true SSS. if you would be abble to make it work with raytraced shadows then we all win.
-changing the specular light inside the light options. for a strong directional light you need small and sharp specular. for a cloudy day teh specular is more blury. it would be nice to have those options inside the light.
-this is POSER. pose? is there any chance for us to be able to pose a figure more realistic? maybe some physics for posing? like touching anotehr body,touching yourself. and not the hand going inside the figure?
-area lights

so you see i didnt list GI,particles,true SSS

i see that in poser pro AO still doesnt work with transparency. will you ever fix this or are we in the 90's?

i would also like double side shading.
so that i could make one side of the plane green and the other side red. one side specular and the other side not. what are the chances?

plus it would be nice that we could in light settings choose an object or figure. so for example light 1 only works for the ball and light 2 only for the cube. this would be very good so that we could use raytraced shadows for the body and DM shadows for the hair.

I noticed OP didn't post again after like the second page. How nice of a few people to ruin developer communication for the rest of us. It's no wonder why devs are so unlikely to interact with the public these days.

Must have alot of "Men in Black" poser users, identities so sekret that it would be a national security risk to so much as tell the truth about gender. LOL

I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to answer the survey - seems it must not have been left open for very long. For the record though:

My biggest complaint is the rendering. Understandably the program was initially intended to be a program for what it actually does do better than any other IMO -posing. Please make the rendering easier for those of us not working on Nasa computers though.

Also for the record. I'm a female - I live in Illinois in a ranch style house. I have 3 kids, two cats and one dog. I am married. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE direct any marketing efforts, sales or features towards me =D

I am: aka Velocity3d

how is the render complicated?

Quote - I noticed OP didn't post again after like the second page. How nice of a few people to ruin developer communication for the rest of us. It's no wonder why devs are so unlikely to interact with the public these days.

Excuse me for pointing this out, but that's a crock of shit.
If you're trying to suggest we hurt his little feelings and he ran away crying, you're insulting him far more than you think you're insulting us.

He got his point across. He didn't stick around to argue.
And if you think this is the worst that dude's ever seen, read up on the history of Poser 5...

Quote - [...] Also, apparently what people REALLY wanted were two more characters, male and female, that were even fuglier than anything prior, by a great degree of magnitude. ;-)

To each their own. Don't call something fugly just because it doesn't fit YOUR perception of beauty.

IMO James is the BEST Poser male out there. He looks good, is a dream to morph and doesn't look like yet another Daz clone.

For all I care they could disperse of all the females.. I don't use them except on very rare occasions. I just doubt this would be applauded by the teenaged male userbase ;) (I'd like to see the demographics btw, if there really IS as many teenage bodys among the uses as some of the galleries out there seem to imply :)

I was too late for the actual survey, but I'm pleased there IS one at all. It means that there's actually work going on for Poser 8. And since every version so far has been a lot better than the previous (Been using Poser since Poser 4) I'm certain that Poser 8 will be great ^_^

I hope I'm not too late for the survey but what would make Pose great to use would be the option to resume rendering if it had to be stop midway or to save and then resume rendering. Also I know that GC is native in Pro, so how about making it native in the regular version.

===========================================================

OS: Windows 11 64-bit
Poser: Poser 11.3 ...... Units: inches or meters depends on mood
Bryce: Bryce Pro 7.1.074
Image Editing: Corel Paintshop Pro
Renderer: Superfly, Firefly

9/11/2001: Never forget...

Smiles are contagious... Pass it on!

Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday

GC will be in the render settgins in poser 8.

but belive me GC in the material room is better. you have more control.

i say lets all prey that they will listen to bagginsbill. that they will give him the option to make hes own nodes. if this happens then we all win.

ice-boy, you're right. Let's hope it would be in the material room. However there should be 2 options. One in the mat room and one in the render setting. If one is on, it will cancel the other one.

===========================================================

OS: Windows 11 64-bit
Poser: Poser 11.3 ...... Units: inches or meters depends on mood
Bryce: Bryce Pro 7.1.074
Image Editing: Corel Paintshop Pro
Renderer: Superfly, Firefly

9/11/2001: Never forget...

Smiles are contagious... Pass it on!

Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday

what would be the 2 most important updates in poser 8 for you?

to me it would be :
-subsurface scattering .........SSS
-better soft raytraced shadows.

since poser is first for figures i think that we need SSS. SSS is now out for years.more then 6 years. we now have poser 7 and poser pro. those are 8 versions of poser software. i think its really time for SSS in poser 8
next i said soft shadows. i will admit that when i started to work in poser i always wanted nice sharp shadows with the DM shadows. it was hard to get and it never looked right but it was OK. then i started to use raytraced shadows. they were perfect. after months i started to watch how lighting is done. i started to loko at the shadows. and a lot of times shadows are more blury more soft. this gives a nice visual look. DB blury shadows look IMO very very bad. soft raytraced shadows look accurate but they are noisy. so i think samples in teh light options would be great. and better soft shadows.

those 2 updates would IMO make poser figures 5 times better. with some lighting knowledge even 10 times better. some really good artists on this forum . they know how to do amazing poses with the figures and dramatic lighting. with SSS it would look even better and with better lighting options they could to everything.

What I think about in my mind's eye should render on the screen.

i dont understand?

Quote - i dont understand?

I think Rodma_Hu wants direct neural control of final render output.

aha a joke.

hehe mr jokeman.

are there any news about poser 8? or maybe any leaks? any rumors?

what are the chances for subsurface scattering? would subsurface scattering be really so hard to have in poser?

Maybe if an actual 3D company bought it they could have SSS. I don't know if the demand for SSS has quite hit the cell phone software industry yet, so they might have problems with that.

But seriously, there's alot they have to worry about before adding SSS. That can already be faked, but first they need to work on the render engine, get it up to speed for all the fancy stuff like AO and reflections, add some area lights or some "spreadable" distant lights, and get it to where all the cores in a CPU are working on the render at all times.

SSS can already be "faked" with shaders, so I've seen, but unless they take care of the render engine, they might as well not even bother with real SSS, or you'll be waiting for days for anything to render.

I don't know about anyone else here, but I don't give two shits about what they do or don't do in the interface, or with Content Parasite, but I'm not buying another version of Poser until it steps firmly out of the hobbyist realm and gets serious.

real SSS can not be faked.

''I don't know if the demand for SSS has quite hit the cell phone software industry yet, so they might have problems with that.''

what do you mean with that? only for poser or other 3d software? they all have SSS. its very easie to use now. its 2009 for christ sake.

Stewer what are the chances for SSS?

I guess you missed the sarcasm.
Smith Micro makes " innovative communications software for the wireless industry..."
http://www.mkr-group.com/SMSI/corporate.html
They're deeply invested in more important things. I'm very much doubting Poser is anything particularly important to them.

With a casual glance at their website, you wouldn't even know they have Poser. You actually have to search for it. Like they're trying to hide it from their more important customers.
I think they bought it as a tax writeoff. I think they'll sell it soon. Well, I'm sure they'll sell it, it's just a question of when.

Quote -
"Mr. Smith continued, "Our Connectivity & Security products continued to be our strongest contributor, where revenues increased from $29.6 million in 2007 to $58.7 million in 2008, a 98% increase. Specifically, during the second half of 2008, we expanded our market leadership in connectivity by adding two new WiMAX customers as well as one of the world's largest PC manufacturers."

At any rate, they're more interested in Content Paradise than they are in Poser. That's where the money is. As long as people are churning out new Poser crap, CP will be more important than Poser itself.

Real SSS cannot be faked? That's kind of a contradiction, isn't it? SSS has been faked for years - it's only within the past four years or so that it's become "real". For that matter, everything in CG is faked.

But as to why they might have problems with SSS, that's the sarcasm: there is no need for subsurface scattering in your Nokia cell phone and I doubt it could be added to their Quick Link software. ;-)[*

*](http://www.smithmicro.com/default.tpl?group=subsolutions&id1=1&id2=88)

thank you for this. it really helped me ..............

All I'm saying is if you're wishing for SSS, you might as well first help push them towards doing something about Poser's idiotic render engine, such as...oh, I don't know... throwing it away and replacing it with something good.
And you're never going to get good SSS with Poser's horrendous lights, so they have to go too.

bagginsbill showed us that with some good shaders its not so bad.

just because 60% of poser users are only using the worst settings that doesnt mean that poser is so bad.

Well you're right, "just because 60%... use the worst settings" doesn't make Poser so bad.

What makes Poser so bad is the people who have been running it and pawning it off from one company to the next like clockwork for over a decade.
New versions are always just new crap piled on top of old code. Code that as never meant to do what they're trying to make it do. They update it to keep people's interest... and to keep people buying the latest CP crap.
What Poser needs is a complete rewrite, and a home somewhere with a company interested in seeing it reach its potential.

Why did e frontier sell it? My guess is that a complete rewrite would have been too much more work than they were interested in. And SM bought it because of CP, and used the updates e frontier wrote to call it "pro".

Yes, bagginsbill is good. Very good. There are quite a few Poser technicians who have pushed it farther than alot of people expected. Personally, I don't care for all those workarounds for problems that shouldn't exist. Other 3D apps have good lights and great, fast, efficient ender engines and material eidtors you don't have to be a rocket scientist to use. Why doesn't Poser? As you said, it's 2009 for Christ's sake...

I think the point is that things which can be achieved almost automatically in other apps shouldn't be like pulling teeth to achieve in Poser.

My primary wishlist:

Elimination of artifacts (both re shadowing artifacts and the handling of morphs). It's pretty bad when you can get cleaner renders more easily from DAZ Studio. I don't care how fancy things get if they don't fix this.
Lighting improvements, especially global illumination
Bagginsbill's shaders everywhere
Alternate render engine plugins
SSS

______________

Hardware: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X/MSI MAG570 Tomahawk X570/Zotac Geforce GTX 1650 Super 4GB/32GB OLOy RAM

Software: Windows 10 Professional/Poser Pro 11/Photoshop/Postworkshop 3

Quote - Well you're right, "just because 60%... use the worst settings" doesn't make Poser so bad.

What makes Poser so bad is the people who have been running it and pawning it off from one company to the next like clockwork for over a decade.
New versions are always just new crap piled on top of old code. Code that as never meant to do what they're trying to make it do. They update it to keep people's interest... and to keep people buying the latest CP crap.
What Poser needs is a complete rewrite, and a home somewhere with a company interested in seeing it reach its potential.

Why did e frontier sell it? My guess is that a complete rewrite would have been too much more work than they were interested in. And SM bought it because of CP, and used the updates e frontier wrote to call it "pro".

Yes, bagginsbill is good. Very good. There are quite a few Poser technicians who have pushed it farther than alot of people expected. Personally, I don't care for all those workarounds for problems that shouldn't exist. Other 3D apps have good lights and great, fast, efficient ender engines and material eidtors you don't have to be a rocket scientist to use. Why doesn't Poser? As you said, it's 2009 for Christ's sake...

i agree that they need to rewritte it.

yes it needs to be re-written... but take into account, it's been attempted once. Daz Studio. look how long thats taken to get to where it is right now.

now, think how long it would take to re-write poser from the ground up to modern code practices, make it cross platform AND make sure all content works with it.

now. translate the time you think of into development costs and the size of the poser userbase.

not good huh?

*And SM bought it because of CP, and used the updates e frontier wrote to call it "pro".

*Pro was announced long before the sale to SM. *

Quote - yes it needs to be re-written... but take into account, it's been attempted once. Daz Studio. look how long thats taken to get to where it is right now.

I don't think that's a valid comparison, personally. DS is a free program. 100% of Daz income derives from content (well, okay, there are the other apps, but those don't contribute to DS per se).

______________

Hardware: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X/MSI MAG570 Tomahawk X570/Zotac Geforce GTX 1650 Super 4GB/32GB OLOy RAM

Software: Windows 10 Professional/Poser Pro 11/Photoshop/Postworkshop 3

nope sorry it is a valid comparision. they use the same content no? Daz Studio was created when Daz thought poser was dead no?

I did not mention cost when it comes to DS but TIME. I only mentioned cost when I spoke of poser.

Quote - *And SM bought it because of CP, and used the updates e frontier wrote to call it "pro".

*Pro was announced long before the sale to SM. *

Yeah I know, but I'm sure they knew they were selling it, and it's my belief the "pro" additions were created specifically to help sweeten the deal. For that matter, SM might have insisted on something like that as part of the contract. There's no telling how long e frontier was negotiating with them prior to the sale.

But as I said several times in this thread, I do realize making a "Super Poser" would not necessarily be worth the effort. Although it might be, but it would lose alot of the hobbyists and maybe gain new users, so who knows.
I just meant, for me, it's not worth considering upgrading once again until it becomes something considerably better. If everyone else is happy with it, as is, and with half-assed updates, so be it.

Quote - nope sorry it is a valid comparision. they use the same content no? Daz Studio was created when Daz thought poser was dead no?

I did not mention cost when it comes to DS but TIME. I only mentioned cost when I spoke of poser.

I think you're missing the point. A free product is going to get backburnered all the time. There is less incentive to continue development, particularly with regard to significant, groundbreaking improvements.

______________

Hardware: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X/MSI MAG570 Tomahawk X570/Zotac Geforce GTX 1650 Super 4GB/32GB OLOy RAM

Software: Windows 10 Professional/Poser Pro 11/Photoshop/Postworkshop 3

... erm. no, it's your point your making of your own accord.... I just noted the time it took to make DS. your the one making up your own point there... don't blame me...

it would be really nice to have an option in the light settings to tell the light to ignore something. or to have a list in the settings what object to light.

that way we could use DM shadows that are cheap and fast for transmapped hair. on the figure we could use raytraced shadows.

could this be done in poser 8?

Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL

Subject: Want to help shape the future of Poser?

Cooper