I'm thinking that could be the explanation for the style of the new characters. 

if they're designed for games, manga/anime etc.

its easier to do stylized characters.

it takes a lot of time for realism and it still doesnt look realism enough.  antonia looks like a very realistic poser figure.

i dream of a TY3. 

She's soo cute and innocent looking.

Take the "8" out of your question - practically all Poser characters have glaring anatomy problems in some form or other.  None of the DAZ figures is especially realistic e.g.

No, I don't think so. I think when the bugs with IDL are ironed out it will be a whole lot easier. Tone mapping will also help the non-Pro users to get more realistic renders without the complexity of material-based gamma correction.

I'm not sure of the rationale behind the new Poser figures. I'm pretty sure that SM's intention was not to challenge the position of DAZ V4/M4, not with these figures. Time will tell what can be made of them by those who aim for realism.

 Maybe it's just me, but I'm finding the new figures to be easier to work with. Of course, I'm not looking for realism in my art.

Quote - i dream of a TY3. 

She's soo cute and innocent looking.

Unfortunately, any future development will be done by e frontier japan, we do not own the rights to this figure at Smith Micro.  They may not know there is a demand for future work on her, I strongly encourage you to consider contacting them.

Quote - i dream of a TY3. She's soo cute and innocent looking.

<----------  Innocent?

Quote - Take the "8" out of your question - practically all Poser characters have glaring anatomy problems in some form or other.  None of the DAZ figures is especially realistic e.g.

The very few successful photorealistic images I've see from Poser were usually head and shoulder shots. I cant think of any that were full body for the very reason you state. The DAZ figures seem to be built along the lines of fashion illustration proportions, and the CP figures, while better proportionally, are too stylized.

Ironically, the very best photorealistic image I ever saw used Posette. I dont remember who did it (we're talking like six years ago), but it was pretty amazing. Obviously, a lot of work went into it to get it to look that real.

Don't sweat it; it's not like anybody is actually gonna use the Poser 8 figures anyway.

It's not just proportions, it's a lot of aspects of anatomy.  For the new Poser 8 figures e.g., the proportions are pretty OK, but the feet are just plain weird, the navel is an almost perfectly circular dent, the torso is too narrow etc. etc.  I can't think of any Poser figure on the market that has convincing anatomy at the shoulder and armpit.  And then there's the boobs on the females, practically always wonky.

 What's a realistic boob look like? Even on real women, you can't always say what's real and what's faked.

Of course, as long as they're attached to a REAL woman (Read BORN FEMALE), I'm pretty happy.

:biggrin:

Quote - I'm thinking that could be the explanation for the style of the new characters. 

if they're designed for games, manga/anime etc.

It's obvious these characters aren't realistic at all. Neither are they really manga or gaming characters.

The problem is this. SM hired someone to do the new models. This person has a deadline. Because of that, he or she is working day and night. This person has no time to go out and socialize, so he/she has no clue what real humans look like. No time to look in the mirror either. This person has no time to read/watch anime/manga, so the model doesn't look like those either. No time to play games at all, so the model doesn't look like a gaming model at all.

So.... all that this person came up with where Alyson and Ryan, obviously somewhere based on the previous Poser included models. A mix between Dork, Don, James and Simon, but mixing the worst features they had to offer and thus Ryan was born. Same goes for Posette, Judy, Jessi and Sidney.... the modeler took their worst and turned it into Alyson.

I'm not sure where all the people that work for SM come from, but they sure have a weird taste. It sad to see that they can't come up with anything better, after all these years. One would think they've learned by now, but no, they haven't. They still manage to release models most people will never use. Well, at least they're consistent..... releasing models that most Poser user do not care for or will never use.

Quote -
I'm not sure where all the people that work for SM come from, but they sure have a weird taste. It sad to see that they can't come up with anything better, after all these years. One would think they've learned by now, but no, they haven't. They still manage to release models most people will never use. Well, at least they're consistent..... releasing models that most Poser user do not care for or will never use.

I know I'm not the trend setter, but I stay away from Daz figures. I don't like them. I pretty much limit to using Poser 6 and 7 figures, along with Miki and Terai Yuki. And Apollo once in a while.

I consider the poser 8 figures to be a big improvement. Granted, their default faces don't look elvish or supermodel-ish, but there are quite some morphs included to tweak them out, without having to purchase anything else.

This thread is pretty funny

The people at SM (real people, with real lives nothing to do with Poser, and real husbands and wives and children) are not fools or sociopaths, they know what they're doing.

It really depends what the reasoning was behind these figures. I don't know that, do you?
No, you don't..

I can appreciate the reaction you guys have, no problem with what you're saying.

But these models are clearly not useless, although Alyson is really just no comparison to the free Antonia that odf is working on, for example.

But I just want to say three things.

First - Alyson has the potential to be shaped quite differently with a bit of custom morphing. I forget who, but one poster already showed proper free-hanging breasts on her. Actually her breast shape is quite correct for somebody wearing a bra. I suppose there should have been a morph to select "hanging free" versus "sports bra", but this is easily remedied. For the artist interested in clothed people (unusual I know) her body is no impediment, really. Have a look here:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1929944

Second - while I appreciate that a figure creates strong reactions, perhaps being a little less hard on the guy who made it is in order. I don't know him, but I know he's a hard-working SM employee (not a contractor) and he's devastated by this community's vituperation. Really, if he was standing before you, would you really find it necessary to bring him down? Yesterday, somebody called me a genius dork, which is fine because it's actually sort of a compliment and I have a pretty thick skin.

But Alyson's createor was given a ridiculous deadline. The new joint system was not squared away soon enough, so he had to crank out the rig in like zero time. Compared to od'fs 4-year effort on Antonia, the difference in quality is actually understandable. Plus, odf had the benefit of months of feedback from hundreds of us telling him the ear is wrong, the navel is wrong, the wrist looks stupid. The guy making Alyson had to work in secret. Very few of us do an awesome job solo. Collaboration always produces a better outcome.

Finally, who cares? Poser 8 is worth the upgrade price even if it came without any new content. And there's a lot of silly nearly useless content in Poser 8, like the gigantic crane. Why is that a core piece of equipment that should be in everybody's content library, LOL? Let's make fun of that decision and give this guy a break.

Quote - I'm not sure where all the people that work for SM come from, but they sure have a weird taste. It sad to see that they can't come up with anything better, after all these years. One would think they've learned by now, but no, they haven't. They still manage to release models most people will never use. Well, at least they're consistent..... releasing models that most Poser user do not care for or will never use.

So where is your human mesh ?  If it's that easy, you should be able to knock one out without any problems.  If you don't have a modeller, Blender is free or you could use Wings (as I believe odf does.)

If you don't have one then quit bitching at the poor SOB who actually had to make these meshes, I've been making models for a while now and I'm damn sure I can't model a human figure.  If they offend you that much then don't use the bl**dy things, nobody has a gun at your head saying you have to use them.

 Well, actually, I DO care,BB. I mean sure, I'm willing to cut the guy some slack, and even more willing to hold SM responsible for making it's people work without feedback. May of the bugs in this first release could have already been squashed just by having a few alpha and beta testers before the final release.

At least they seem to e on the right track by having some beta testers for Poser Pro 2010.
 

i morphed the collars, chest, and abdomen, made a full body morph out of them, and now I can choose.
No morph, for clothed.
Half morph for a loose bikini.
And 1.000 for , well, as you see.

or anything in between. ;-)

 How about some morphs to move her breasts around?. Like Up, Down in, out, etc.

Quote -  Well, actually, I DO care,BB. I mean sure, I'm willing to cut the guy some slack, and even more willing to hold SM responsible for making it's people work without feedback. May of the bugs in this first release could have already been squashed just by having a few alpha and beta testers before the final release.

At least they seem to e on the right track by having some beta testers for Poser Pro 2010.
 

Wait, I may be misinterpreting this. It sounds like you think there were less than a few testers before the release. Is that what you think? I don't want to argue the point if that's not what you think. I have a response about how many testers there were and how many bugs you never saw, but I just want to make sure I'm reading you correctly.

Well, for those that did not find them, they are included.
But!!!!
Select; body parts: and you will find Left Collar and Right Collar but also lBreast and rBreast

They have separate  x, y, z, scales and also; up-down, or side-side

I said it in another thread, but I'll say it again. Excellent work, vilters.

It's a shame.
We have affordable laser scanners these days and we have extremely capeable sculpting programs like ZBrush.

And still if you want a truly realistic and anatomically believeable human figure, you have to do all the work yourself.

And for the record, I dislike V4 and M4 (albeit for different reasons) as much as I dislike the new P8 figures.

her left wrist on the top render looks a bit odd, it looks slightly thick where it joins the hand.  And she could do with a good meal!

Quote - i dream of a TY3. 

She's soo cute and innocent looking.

A TY3 has my vote, Misty! I'm a TY2 fan, myself. :> She's one of my most-used characters :D

Quote - > Quote -  Well, actually, I DO care,BB. I mean sure, I'm willing to cut the guy some slack, and even more willing to hold SM responsible for making it's people work without feedback. May of the bugs in this first release could have already been squashed just by having a few alpha and beta testers before the final release.

At least they seem to e on the right track by having some beta testers for Poser Pro 2010.
 

 

Wait, I may be misinterpreting this. It sounds like you think there were less than a few testers before the release. Is that what you think? I don't want to argue the point if that's not what you think. I have a response about how many testers there were and how many bugs you never saw, but I just want to make sure I'm reading you correctly.

Really? First thing I did when I got P8 was to set out trying to change Alyson's face. SM's tech support says the bug I found wasn't in the figure but in the faceroom data.

Besides, read what you said. You made it sound like the people working on P8 ( well, at least the guy doing Alyson) was secured at Area 51.

Quote - Plus, odf had the benefit of months of feedback from hundreds of us telling him the ear is wrong, the navel is wrong, the wrist looks stupid. The guy making Alyson had to work in secret. Very few of us do an awesome job solo. Collaboration always produces a better outcome.

Huh? You didn't answer my question. I'm not trying to be combative - just the opposite. I interpreted your post to mean you thought there were less than a few beta testers. Literally a few, as in 3 to 4.

I don't want to waste your time trying to convince you otherwise if that isn't your belief. That's all. :-)

If you already believe that there were dozens of testers and hundreds of bugs were fixed that you never saw, then I don't need to write about that, and I can assume you were just using the phrase to emphasize your point that there was insufficient testing. In which case, we would discuss along different lines.

 Dozens? No, but more than 3 or 4. Maybe 10 or 15? 20? :biggrin:

So you think there were more than a few? Even though you said that if only they'd gotten a few testers, we'd not be seeing these bugs?

I'm just trying to figure out what angle to take.

You now say you think there were maybe around 20?

How many should there have been?

Next question: How many testers does it take to find all the bugs?

 Why don't you just stop beating around the bush and go with the interpretation you think is right? You probably are.

And I don't pretend to think I know everything. So I don't mind being corrected if it's called for.

Well I didn't bring this up, so don't get touchy. :)

We were talking about Alyson, when you suddenly said that many of these bugs we're seeing would have been squashed if only there had been a few testers.

I see so much arm-chair quarterbacking, combined with completely invalid assumptions, that these things kind of ring-a-ling in front of me.

So here are the facts as I understand them.

At least 45 people were beta testers, because that is how many people I counted reported bugs during testing to the bug tracking system.

That is a lower bound - the actual number is higher, because in any large group of testers, some never report any bugs, or the only bugs they have to report on are ones others found already. Some just don't bother to log in and write anything.

Based on my 25 years experience doing software product development, I'd say that typically half the beta testers never say anything, even if they find something. So the actual number is probably around 90 people.

Yes, I'd say when i used the word dozens, and you jumped down my throat, that was a bit uncalled for. Even if we assume nobody was silent, 45 is dozens, and certainly more than a few.

Now the question is how many bugs can 45 people find?

Again, based on my experience, it is a near certainty they cannot find them all. In fact, in all the beta tests I've been involved in, which is also in the dozens, none have ever found more than about 70% of the bugs. Typically 25% to 40% of all the bugs found during the life of a product are found after its release. This is normal for software products. This is why there are service releases. Anybody who doesn't believe this is living in a fantasy land.

Typically, commercial software has on average 20 to 30 bugs for every 1000 lines of code. I don't know the total number of lines written for Poser 8, but it is easily in excess of 30000 lines, probably more than that.

Based on that assumption, the number of bugs found before release by those 45 testers is well below software industry averages, and the number found since then is even lower. Despite that, I expect that somewhere around 100 more bugs will be found AFTER TODAY.

If you think that's unacceptable and your opinion can change the industry, you should probably start a software company. You'll make billions.

It's darn hard to make billions on unreleased software. :)

You can have as many testers as you want because us users will always find the bugs they missed & complain about them loudly. It's the way of the world. ;)

Anyway my real reason for posting is to say although I don't particularly like the look of the new figures they are still a darn sight better than what I personally could come up with in the same amount of time as the creator of them had.

 I don't think I'm the one being touchy.  Hey, look, I'm not privy to what you know about P8's development. So when you say things like Alyson's creator had to work in secret and how you create something better if you have a few more collaborators, then yeah, I kind of thought that SM only had a few people bug testing Poser.

For the record, no, I don't think twenty people are enough to bug test software decently. But I don't think you need hundreds either. BTW, I didn't jump down your throat. 

Do I have to change the industry to start my own software company? "Cause , you know, I got this whole world peace and curing cancer thing going on right now...

:biggrin:

Aaah, EC, I just began to understand what two things you've connected.

The "development" of Alyson happened before testing began, just as the development of the application happened before testing began. By definition, the testers don't see a figure until it is nearly a finished product, just as with the software. The testers can influence some minor things, but they are generating so much information about crucial things that minor things do not get addressed.

In the case of Alyson, I meant that the only people seeing Alyson at a time when it would be reasonable to change her shape were SM employees, not Beta testers.

You used the word "Beta" tester, and I (perhaps wrongfully) assume that when people use that term, they know why they're using it, what it means. In the software industry, testing has many forms and happens throughout the development cycle. But Beta testing specifically involves actual customers and happens as the very last step before product release. Traditionally, though not in practice, the software is termed "frozen" during Beta. No new features are developed, only problems found by the testers can be solved. This is considered best practice. Beta cannot begin until development is largely finished.

By the time Beta test rolled around, the only things being fixed on Alyson were things like missing bend limits, poke through, missing morphs on clothing, etc. No feedback at that point was going to get the lips or chin or collarbone changed.

Furthermore, the testers were far more concerned with testing the software. Think about it - users can morph Alyson themselves, but they can't change the software if something is wrong or unappealing.

And sometimes, the fixers would accidentally break something else. I suspect the Face Room data for Alyson was an example. While tweaking some parameter, perhaps somebody accidentally changed another one.

That's why there is a thing called a regression test. In a regression test, you verify that while fixing bugs, you did not accidentally introduce new ones. You do this by testing everything you've tested before and you thought it worked right.

Regression testing is impossible with Poser content. There's no way to automate it, so everybody would have to do everything they ever did over again.

 Thanks BB. As I said, I don't pretend to think I know everything. But I could probably win $750 on the Cash Cab. :biggrin:

Quote - Typically, commercial software has on average 20 to 30 bugs for every 1000 lines of code. I don't know the total number of lines written for Poser 8, but it is easily in excess of 30000 lines, probably more than that.

A bug every 33-50 lines, in its release state? Really that bad?

Quote - > Quote - Typically, commercial software has on average 20 to 30 bugs for every 1000 lines of code. I don't know the total number of lines written for Poser 8, but it is easily in excess of 30000 lines, probably more than that.

A bug every 33-50 lines, in its release state? Really that bad?

No, before Beta testing begins, not in release state. The release rate is 1 in 200.

Quote -  Thanks BB. As I said, I don't pretend to think I know everything. But I could probably win $750 on the Cash Cab. :biggrin:

I forgot to add, that if we remove the words Alpha and Beta from your remark, then I totally agree!!

It is a mistake for them to develop their main figures without constant, immediate, and most important early feedback. Aesthetic feedback, especially, cannot be fixed instantly and unambiguously like software.

If some tester says "Ctrl-R isn't starting a render like it should", then a developer fixes it, and the developer knows it is right, because either he or someone in QA does a functional test to verify it. This is unambiguous and does not require much further feedback from the customer/tester.

If someone says "chin too big", then the change to make it smaller may be not far enough, or too far,. Many iterations have to happen. There's no certainty, so it can take a long time. There is also variation of opinion, while we can all agree easily on whether Ctrl-R is rendering or not.

So real people, not SM employees (joking) should be giving constant, early feedback to the content creators, and especially to the main figure creator.

By the way, these all have special meaning in software development testing parlance. If you say one of these, followed by the word "testing", such as "unit testing", to a software developer, then you're conveying a whole lot of meaning and constraints to the listener, that perhaps you're not aware of. Some you can guess, but others not.

unit
functional
integration
system
performance
stability
usability
security
negative
white box
grey box
black box
coverage
API
acceptance
alpha
beta

Actually, I think Jessi 6 makes some photo-realistic renders.

Sleeping Cutey!

edited by a mod for width and link to larger image

I'm missing something. That's not Jessi 6.... or are you just offering it as another example of realism? Terai Yuki isn't strictly "a Poser figure" to begin with, although she is retailed by CP.

Anyway, as nice as she is, I don't think TY's aim is realism, at least not out of the box.

To me, in this image, it looks like she could get up and start breathing. 

A trick of the lighting, perhaps.

I think it's that TY is very expressive. (And yeah, that lighting in this image is outstanding.)

But her look is not a realistic look. It's a quite a long way in the direction of manga or anime (tho I'm sure a real manga person would tell me that manga isn't anime, and vice versa). There's a fair amount of stylization/exaggeration - most noticeably with the eyes, but also with the overall head/facial shape.

Quote - A trick of the lighting, perhaps.

I think you may have hit the nail on the head... it is not the figures.... ONLY. It is a combination of factors. You can have the best rigged figure, the best Photoreal Texture, with the best possible displacement map or normal map in the best available software with all the best tools and features in the best possible Render Engine and I am sure that the output would have issues for those users that have not learned how to use all the tools available.

Someone said that they had seen Poser 4 female figure that was pretty realistic. I am not sure who may have done that image, but I suspect they could also do the same with most any of the newer figures. I remember a person here at Rendo that use to do Portraits of Photoreal human faces using Poser. It was Poser and the Figures used that allowed him to do those images, but he did those images in Poser with the Figures avaiable.

I also want to say a little something on the comments about the Figure itself. Everyone is right, but they also are wrong. I have seen these discussions about elbows in the wrong place, wrists too thick, (and though I like the work Vilters did) breasts too high.

For my evidence, I recommend everyone that thinks they know what a real woman looks like and where a real breast should fall to check out the SiteMap link at Reference Photos.

http://www.3d.sk/index.php

Warning: Nude Image Reference (I apologize beforehand if this violates the TOS and also am including a search Reference)

Human Photo Reference for 3D Artist

Set the search of the SiteMap to Sets, Images only and in Gender set to Woman, in Poses set to Modeling Reference and in Clothes Type set to Nude. You will see a similar point of view of the female form in every image.  Some with breasts starting at the armpit, some higher, some lower. You will see round navels, oval navels, flat navels, innies, outies, etc...  You will see elbows that are at the navel, above the navel, at the bottom of the rib cage and others between the hip and the bottom of the rib cage. You will see all body types and all breast sizes and shapes. The only thing all these will have in common is they are women. The Human Form in all its glory, sort of like snowflakes, no two alike.

None of these woman are deformed, they are just woman, each unique, different from the next and all are normal and all are beautiful, just as every human is unique, normal and beautiful.

Yabbut.

This is one place where the Poser females do not have variety. G2 Sydney et al and Alyson not only have the same general positioning but the same general shape. It's almost like someone over there thinks this is average. I've used the 3d.sk references, and I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that while the breast placement is within the realm of the real, it's not average at all.

No one claimed Alyson was your average woman (if her breasts are higher, does that mean she is above average!)

There was an interesting article about reports from one of the medical journals about average shape size and proportions. In this article, the author looked at the data, instead of the results. Her conclusion was there is no average, because the studies did not look at whole females, but data from whole females, so the average breast size had nothing to do with the average height, waist, hip, weight, etc... In many cases when locating the data for a woman that was the dead center in the average group for Breast Size, she was not in the average group for weight or height based on the data.

I was only reading an small segment of her article, but to me it seemed like the average woman based on these reports was sort of a Frankenstiens monster.. made up of bits and pieces from many different woman.

And we wonder why young people today have such a unrealistic body view and expectations.

That's a really interesting point.

Consider the variations in shape of stone mulch chips.

Were we to create mesh models from a few thousand of these, and then average them, we'd probably end up with a sphere, which looks absolutely nothing like any one of the stones.