structure opened this issue on Nov 27, 2013 · 173 posts
structure posted Wed, 27 November 2013 at 5:30 PM Forum Coordinator
this thread is for vendors to state the fundamental flaws of various characters in poser, these characters can be
Dawn, miki, roxie, rex,or whatever
hopefully we can build a list of things needing changing on the various characters.
what irks you about what character ?
let it all out and maybe we can get the creators attention to fix them :)
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shvrdavid posted Wed, 27 November 2013 at 5:52 PM
The only problem with fixing them, is that you will probably break everything made for them.
It is far easier to deal with an issue in a character, than fix all the content that breaks.
Chances are more than good, that this thread will get deleted or locked before page 2....
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vilters posted Wed, 27 November 2013 at 6:08 PM
My 2 biggest issues are :
Secondary :
As stated above : Fixing is NOT possible without FULL support from SM.
Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7,
P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game
Dev
"Do not drive
faster then your angel can fly"!
Teyon posted Wed, 27 November 2013 at 8:21 PM
Listening in. :)
Magnatude posted Wed, 27 November 2013 at 8:44 PM
It does amaze me at how little stuff is made for the native poser figures, why is that? Are they THAT bad?? They have the most flexability within poser with the face room and all. It would be nice to see more skins.
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WandW posted Wed, 27 November 2013 at 9:08 PM
Indeed; speaking of that, I was playing recently with your weight mapped Sydney. In spite of her issues she's better than most. I wish I could find out how to create an add bones pose for Outfitter to make her clothes fit better, but the Poser Place Forum seems to be gone forever.
I know that Syd's mesh and symmetry issues drove you crazy....
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EClark1894 posted Wed, 27 November 2013 at 9:27 PM
I'd like to see more morphs and textures for Rex and Roxie. Preferably some African American or Asian morphs for her and textures. If you don't want to include the morphs in the figure, then perhaps Roxie and Rex should have their own Morphs ++ package.
meatSim posted Wed, 27 November 2013 at 9:34 PM
infinity10 posted Wed, 27 November 2013 at 10:20 PM
Quote - I've always liked alyson2 mesh... here is what breaks her for me
Exactly !! Ditto for me.
Eternal Hobbyist
AmbientShade posted Wed, 27 November 2013 at 10:35 PM
I also want to get rid of his vampire claw fingers and make them more masculine, less fingernails. Those have always bugged me.
If I ever finish it, I may do the same to G2 James. Never have liked how long and awkward his body is. He's virtually the same mesh as original James, just reworked a bit and reqrouped.
Also been doing some reworks to Jessi and Ben, but there's nothing to show there on him, since it's just been UV work so far.
Also started resculpting Miki4 to look more like Miki2, but that has a long way to go too.
Most of this all started for experimental purposes to put their rigs through the gauntlet and see how much could be done. Haven't been able to do much with them lately tho, been busy with other things. But I've always liked the P6 figures the best and intend on finishing them eventually even if its just for my own use.
But yes, the more fixing that's done to existing figures, the more content that's broken. Anything done that changes the geometry breaks every morph - to include facial/expression morphs, so they all have to be rebuilt. ZBrush makes this a bit less of a headache, as a lot of things can be reprojected, but it's still tedious and extremely time consuming.
~Shane
NanetteTredoux posted Wed, 27 November 2013 at 10:39 PM
Kate and Ben: Lack of face morphs. They don't work in the face room, and have very little else to make them more versatile.
Poser 7 Kate: Shoulders slope too much.
Alyson 2: Strange eye shape that gives her a hard and staring look. Not even Blackhearted was able to overcome that fully with Anastasia. It is very difficult to morph these features away.
Ryan 2: Similar problem with the eyes to Alyson. Pinched cynical mouth that is also very hard to overcome.
Poser 6 Jessi: Oversized skull dome. I can fix that in Blender, but it is extra work. Poser 6 James has a similar issue.
Roxie and Rex - Modelled lashes that limit the ability to change the eyes.
Simon: Strange eye shape, very difficult to change.
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JoePublic posted Wed, 27 November 2013 at 11:12 PM
Way too much to list, as they are all broken beyond repair.
Biggest problem is the badly made mesh topology that ignores anatomical correct muscle and bone structure, so developing new, correct shapes is nigh impossible. On the one hand edgeloops are missing, on the other hand there are tons of redundant vertices doing nothing.
(I've created versions of MIKI-1 that had 30.000 instead of 130.000 polygons and rendered just as nicely as the original long before Poser had SubD.)
Second problem are the stylized, unrealistic bodyshapes that ignore human anatomy. (MIKI -1/2 being the only exception, but her mesh topology is some of the worst I've ever seen)
Third is the bad rigging. Often magnets are used to "fix" problem zones but the results are generally pathetic. It's a spaghetti shoulders and balooning buttocks bonanza.
Finally there is the lack of any support to speak of. No texture convertor to tap into the vast array of Vicky/Mike textures. (Don and Judy being the only exception as they can use V2/M2 textures. Sort of)
There is WW support, but the results are usually not good enough for frontpage work and take way too long to convert.
My advice ?
Make a deal with DAZ and licence Genesis 1 or 2. (If we get HD technology in the future, there will be no noticeable difference between them, so I'd actually prefer Genesis 1)
Rework it so that it a) works natively in Poser and b) give it a new default morph it loads with so that Poser has it's own signature figure for marketing reasons. It would still be Genesis, but "our" Genesis.
(After all, Dork and Posette were licensed from Zygote which later became DAZ, so I don't see any "ethical" problem here)
Other than that, copy Genesis as closely as you can get away with it.
(No ethical problems here either, as DAZ usually copies any new figure development as soon as possible. (T-chest and buttock actors were first introduced on a modified Posette. No buttocks and waist actors were introduced by Apollo and the Poser 6 folks. JCMs and ERC were a Poser "invention". And so on, and so on.)
Everybody copys, so again, look at Genesis and copy it, but raise the polycount to about 50.000 so it will render fine without SubD.
Any other solutions or half-hearted "fixes" will just be a waste of time.
We need a new start, but we have to do it right !
shvrdavid posted Wed, 27 November 2013 at 11:12 PM
Quote - Indeed; speaking of that, I was playing recently with your weight mapped Sydney. In spite of her issues she's better than most. I wish I could find out how to create an add bones pose for Outfitter to make her clothes fit better, but the Poser Place Forum seems to be gone forever.
If you can tell me which version of Sydney~WM you have I may still have the Outfitter files for her. The poses are not that hard to make out of the cr2 that you have. Look how they are set up in V4~WM, all you have to do is make a pose file with just the helper bone info in it then apply it to the clothes.
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JoePublic posted Wed, 27 November 2013 at 11:24 PM
That's a nice rebuild of James. Shane. Looks good.
My only niggle would be the inward facing kneecaps.
Could you share your method of making meshes symmetrical again ?
I have my own method using some of Ockham's python scripts, but it takes a lot of manual work and is still not perfect.
BTW, unless you drastically reworked the shape of the head, all the three "morph projection" scripts (Cage's python script, D3D's morphing clothes and the PP-2014 morph transfer) should be able to rebuild the expression files quickly, no matter the changes you made to the geometry.
Sometimes a vertice can get "stuck" if the mesh intersects, but this can be easily fixed with the smoothing brush.
shvrdavid posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 12:04 AM
Quote -(After all, Dork and Posette were licensed from Zygote which later became DAZ, so I don't see any "ethical" problem here)
The issue is not exactly an ethical one, it is a copyright/tradmark/licensing/opps, they changed it and it broke Poser one. Dork and Posette were just text files, kind of hard to break that. Genesis is programmed into the code of Studio, and that is a tad more complex than loading a simple text file.
If Genesis is such a great character in Studio, why do people insist that is should work in other programs? Just use it in Studio. Yes you can use DSON in Poser, but other than that it doesn't work in anything else. If it was the best character in the world it would work in just about every 3D program, but it isn't.
Think about it, if developers looked at Genesis as the best character out there it would be in every 3D program by now. But it isn't. Yes there are users that think it should be in there, but it isn't..... It isn't in Houdini, Cinema4D, Blender, Autodesk anything, etc, etc, etc.... Face it, other developers don't want it for a good reason. It is not open source, and it isn't the best way to go.
How does this relate to the fundemental flaws in characters?
It points out that any character you want to look at can be picked apart, because there will never be one that works in every situation using the current setups.
The best way around having the perfect character would be to figure out a way to make anything work, with anything else. Then it doesn't matter what character you use. Lots of developers have been trying to do just that, and we are getting a little closer....
The first key to it, is to use things that are open source. Every 3D program out there is based on the gift of open source. Without those gifts, we would still be using a wooden doll which ironically is what Poser set out to replace.
We don't need more characters, we need to figure out a better way to use what we have.
But, if what someone comes up with is proprietary it will only be in that program. That's the way it usually works.
Nothing proprietary in programs works in anything else, nothing new about that....
Open up a .max file in each of your 3D programs and see what you get....
Opps, wait, you can't... It's proprietary...
Open up a Blender character in Poser or Studio.... Hmm, that doesn't work either...
If only there was a free standard...
Wait, that would make it open source wouldn't it?
(disclamer... this post is not meant to bash, just explain things)
Carry on.....
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JoePublic posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 12:52 AM
I'm trying to give a practical suggestion , not an ideological.
I don't care what brand something is or if it's proprietary or not, as long as it works and I have full control.
Professional CGI Studios will never use "Poser" characters because they don't need a character that can withstand the abuse of hobbyist users and can morph into a gazillion of shapes with a mouseclick.
And they want proprietary figures because they want to build a brand that can be copyrighted for marketing.
So the idea of an "universal" figure makes no sense.
BTW, Genesis 1and 2 are also "just text files" once exported as objects. So are their morphs. All the "tech" is built right into Poser already. The DSON-importer just translates the DSON files into something Poser can understand.
Save Genesis as a cr2 and it'll still functions. (Maybe not as good as Genesis in Studio, but still much better than anything else.)
Anyway, if someone builds a mesh that is as anatomical correct as Genesis II, provides some morphs and expressions that are as good or superior to Genesis', writes a texture convertor and also builds some (high quality) basic content, and then makes it all open source, I'll happily use that mesh then and ditch Genesis from my runtime.
But until this happens, I have way better things to do with my time than bthering whether a mesh is proprietary or not or holding a grudge because of a buisiness decision that was made in the past.
(To be frank, Poser (and it's users) got what they deserved when DAZ kicked them out of the party. I told them exactly this would be happening long before it actually happened, but everybody was just too busy playing with V4's knickers.)
I'm 48, and after 13 years of working my ass off creating better figures, I'm done with promises and big plans.
Genesis is happening right now and it's the most realistic, most perfect Poser figure I've ever seen.
I'd rather wish Poser had it's "own" set of high quality figures, but unless we find an angel investor willing to dump a couple 100.000 $ into such an endavour, I don't see any viable alternative.
structure posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 3:32 AM Forum Coordinator
Quote - My 2 biggest issues are :
- Not fully welded obj files
- Not fully symmetrical obj files
Secondary :
- a lack of textures for the default Poser figures
- rigging problems
As stated above : Fixing is NOT possible without FULL support from SM.
I see a lot of good and constructive critiques so far, but which characters are affected by these problems? all of them? a specific few? I do like too, the idea of an open source character that could be taken on board by the community and show the big companies that something that is good, WILL be supported.
I was talking to a vendor about the rigging in miki4 for instance - apparently it is pretty bad, her breast is connected to her butt (not quite that simple but that is the gist of it.)
I myself have found posing the newer native SM figures hands (roxie in particular) to be a chore, I don't use use Genesis or D|S so I can't comment on them, and I always end up back with V4, with all her flaws, she is still (for me) the easiest model to work with. I would love to make poses across a range of characters but some of them are just frustrating or take too long to get right, so I don't bother.
I made poses for Roxie, but apparently the new fixes break the poses, so I will have to remake all of those.the frustrating thing is, they took long enough in the first place.
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JoePublic posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 3:54 AM
Yes, all of them are bad. Very bad. Some are better than others, but still not even close to the quality you get from DAZ.
I so, so wish I could tell you otherwise, but unless you want to give Genesis a try (No installation of Studio necessary. How did that rumour get even started, btw ?), I'd say sticking with V4 is your best option.
There are several JCM-fixes out there for her joint problems or you could use one of the weightmapped versions.
I sometimes play with the Poser meshes and just made a new custom face morph for P5 Judy.
You can do "nice" things with them with a little spit and polish.
But for serious work, there are simply too many problems that need fixing.
And even if you fixed all of them, you'll need to convert/modify/rebuild all the content you have.
Right here, right now there simply is no other practical solution than using V4 or Genesis if you need high quality figures for your work.
vilters posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 4:26 AM
I forgot a critical one : The magnets.
All native Poser figures come with magnets, and most figures have around 40 symmetrical magnet errors. Some small, some huge.
The magnets, their zones, the dependencies are not the same left-right.
With all those magnet errors in place, the figures are simply unusable.
Not a big issue for me, as the very first thing I do with all Poser native figures is : DELETE the MAGNETS.
Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7,
P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game
Dev
"Do not drive
faster then your angel can fly"!
vilters posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 7:05 AM
Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7,
P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game
Dev
"Do not drive
faster then your angel can fly"!
vilters posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 7:08 AM
To answer the question of what figures are affected => All of them.
I think Sydney is in the worst shape
Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7,
P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game
Dev
"Do not drive
faster then your angel can fly"!
MistyLaraCarrara posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 8:05 AM
i don't like the magnets either. was a nice feature in p4.
first time i saw a Roxie render with her arms bent made me wanna cry.
couldn't they have spent a couple more days working on her?
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shvrdavid posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 8:30 AM
Joe, I understand that Genesis can be exported as plain text. As we both know, once you do that, you loose the benefits of that system as soon as you do so. The Genesis wire frame is laid out pretty good, but it has issues as well. All characters have issues, even the proprietary ones that studios use. (they can actually be even worse on purpose)
No one is stopping anyone from using Genesis in Poser thru export or DSON. And at the same time there is little content/developement for it in Poser. Everything is there to use it in Poser, yet it gets very little use or support in that fashion. That tells me that here are not enough people interested in using it in Poser to make it worth the trouble.
You don't need a killer mesh in high end programs simply because there are more geometry controlling options than Poser and Studio put together. And they use multiple versions as well. If there was a perfect design they wouldn't need to use different versions of the same character. But they still do it that way, with the best software available... If there was a killer mesh, they would reuse it all the time, but there is no such thing.
Ironically Poser characters are used in the developement stage. It is far faster to make a storyboard in a program like Poser than to do it in Houdini or Cinema4D. There are a few threads about it. One that comes to mind was on the Reality site.
I rarely use V4 or Genesis. I think that V3 is a better mesh than V4 or Genesis, but that is just my opinion. I have played around with the Genesis mesh, and it too has areas that no morph can fix, simply because there is nothing there to morph. To each his own, that is the nice part about having all of these characters available. And if something is broken in the character, all the tools to fix it are available if you know how.
I have taken many characters into other programs, cut of the most offending side off, fixed the remaining mesh, then exported a mirrored version of it. Thats the easy part, then you have to fix everything else.... Far easier to work around the broken parts and just use it as is most of the time.
We have enough characters available to keep us busy for a while. Adding another one wont hurt, but it wont help unless it has more to offer than all the others put together.
The only way to offer much more, requires the programs offer more as well.
We don't have things like selective tesselation, selective culling, etc, that allow you to add or remove detail anywhere on the mesh, on the fly. There are a lot of tools that Poser and Studio wil never have. Adding all of them would make the program for more complex than the average user is used to using.
It would also put the programs into the same price range as ones that can do all these things.
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Valandar posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 9:24 AM
I'd just like to say that the REASON you will not see genesis - or ANY other Poser figure - in Houdini, anything by Autodesk, etcetera, is simple:
They are not programs that people use at a hobbyist level. People who use these programs will, 99% of the time, MAKE their own figures. If you ever go to their communities, people using any sort of pre-made content will be razzed, shot down, and considered amateurs who can't do their own modelling.
That's my $0.02, adjusted for inflation...
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Zev0 posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 9:36 AM
Without a decent marketing budget, no matter how awesome a new figure is, it will not get off the ground. Want it to survive or make an impact? Well then, you need a strong inhouse content development team that will guarentee it gets the constant support it needs, and not rely mainly on 3rd party. So those fundamentals need to be looked at before you even think of releasing a figure. A figure can only survive if it has the needed support structures in place. No other company (related to this market) other than Daz has this, and that is no cheap thing to implement. It costs serious money. It's why every other non Daz figure, no matter how great, never lasts. There is no business model in place so it ends up all over the place and eventually unused like the other figures. Sort out the business model first, then worry about the figure. A good business model will naturally attract content creators. "Fanboy" type support is not enough. It will never be, and that has been proven over and over. You need the big guns to jump on board and show support. SM does not do this, Hivewire can't because they are to small to take on the big guns (also Dawn is not G quality). So that is the hurdle a figure needs to over come, before it's even in developement. That to me is a figures biggest flaw.
Zev0 posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 9:50 AM
Quote - I'd just like to say that the REASON you will not see genesis - or ANY other Poser figure - in Houdini, anything by Autodesk, etcetera, is simple:
They are not programs that people use at a hobbyist level. People who use these programs will, 99% of the time, MAKE their own figures. If you ever go to their communities, people using any sort of pre-made content will be razzed, shot down, and considered amateurs who can't do their own modelling.
That's my $0.02, adjusted for inflation...
Very true. However they too have their own level of pre-made content:) It's just not ready to use out of the box in most cases:) Same thing with Photoshop, contains plug-ins to use that simplify creating effects. Photoshop artists never do everything from scratch:). Those 3D elitist types are just upset because we can achieve similar results with our little hobby:) It is the end result that matters anyway:)
shvrdavid posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 10:26 AM
Quote - If you ever go to their communities, people using any sort of pre-made content will be razzed, shot down, and considered amateurs who can't do their own modelling.
I do go to those sites, and that mentality is usually not present in the majority of the postings.
Houdini Engine was developed around the idea of reusing content across different platforms. You can take things between Autodesk, Houdini, and Unity very easily now.
I doubt that one of the top 3D companies did it so others would get mocked and to feed the trolls. They did it so you could actually re-use content you already have in other software. The main focus was on getting things you already had into other programs, be it premade or custom. There is a lot of premade content for Autodesk, Unity, and Houdini. You just have to know where to look for it, and actually be a member of the sites.
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Ghostofmacbeth posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 10:45 AM
For me, the biggest issue I have seen with the Poser characters has always been the rigging. I used to try to use a few of them but it ended up that I had to take the heads off and use another body because things like the forearms were bending in the middle, etc. I barely look at the more recent ones but they have always had similar issues.
As to why I might not want to support it, they have a two year life expectancy, at most. Then they will be replaced by the latest and greatest thing that will probably have no support either.
-Timberwolf- posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 11:10 AM
The rigging is the main reason why my Poser enthusiasm is at zero. None of the figures bend well. Not even weightmapped. You end up in an endless chaos of JCMs and some poses still look crappy. Joe Public did a great job on his DAZ People mods and I wish he could be involved into native Poser Figure development. As far I understood him, good mesh topology and well done weight mapping are enough. I am not skilled enough for that yet. I need something better out of the box. I did a lod of character creation for Roxie, made a lot of JCMs, but shoulder and crotch bendings killed all the fun in the end. I am willing to pay more for a real PoserPro !!! with some additional technologies that help to look joint bendings more realistic.
Tunesy posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 11:37 AM
It will be cool if one day somebody comes out with a figure that bends perfectly in every pose. But if Pixar needs, what was it, seventeen rigged versions(?) of a toon for proper bending in various situations then I'm not gonna hold my breath for a miracle Poser character that bends perfectly in all situations. I'm very happy with the figures I have. None of them pose well with their arms straight up over their heads. Shrug. So what? I won't make any basketball animations ;) If we let various shortcomings of content bog us down we'll never get anything done. The other day I had a problem making a shoe fit Angela2. No problem. I put a potted plant in front of it so it couldn't be seen.
shvrdavid posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 11:52 AM
When it comes to Native Poser characters, one of the biggest downfalls is that they only usually work in the latest versions of Poser. That in itself limits who can use it right off the bat. Many of them focus on demonstraiting the newest things in Poser, so they are more geared towards showcasing what you can do over trying to be the next main character in use. Many of them wont work in other programs due to the rigging used as well.
Judy was probably the one that got the most support upon initial release. Ones after that have had issues that made it next to impossible to do much with them.
Sydney is so asymmetrical, that making morphs for the breasts is a challenge in itself. Mirroring weight maps on the wireframe is next to impossible, and using symmetry and copy joints destroys the weight maps. I think her head has more vertices than the rest of her body does. No idea why the inside of her mouth is so detailed....
I have some extensively modified versions of a lot of the Poser characters, including Sydney. But releasing them would not make them popular without an entire library of things to go with it. I know how to use just about anything in my Runtimes with them but the average user may not know how, or want to invest the time to do that. A lot of it can not be done easily from within the Poser itself.
I have played around with code to do so outside of Poser, and you can do a lot to any character that way, including getting it back into Poser. But they way I have been doing it wont work on a Mac or a computer without a Directx11 video card unless you want to wait ages for it to be done on the CPU. When my new workstation is done, there is presently only one GPU that will do what I have in mind to process things. The method I am using is based on a point cloud reconstruction routine and needless to say there is a lot of coding involved, and even more number crunching in the background.
Like I said before, what we really need is a way to use the best of everything, in one character no matter which one you choose to load first. It is a tall order to code something like that, and to date no one has come up with a reliable way of doing so.
Not even me.... I can get BSOD just as well as any other programmer. The other day I forgot to release an a rather complex looping object in the code I tried, and it was still running after I exited the program.... Needless to say, Windows ran out of memory in a freaking hurry.... Opps.... Crash....
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AetherDream posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 11:58 AM
Quote - It will be cool if one day somebody comes out with a figure that bends perfectly in every pose. But if Pixar needs, what was it, seventeen rigged versions(?) of a toon for proper bending in various situations then I'm not gonna hold my breath for a miracle Poser character that bends perfectly in all situations. I'm very happy with the figures I have. None of them pose well with their arms straight up over their heads. Shrug. So what? I won't make any basketball animations ;) If we let various shortcomings of content bog us down we'll never get anything done. The other day I had a problem making a shoe fit Angela2. No problem. I put a potted plant in front of it so it couldn't be seen.
I agree with this. I think every character has it's own set of drawbacks and it's own set of attributes. There are things I like about most of them and things I don't like, but like you said, pros often have multiple riggs for the same character and we are talking about a toon that does not have the high level of texture detail that we see on some of these models here. I love my V4/M4, but her shoulders leave something to be desired and she is best used only for taller models;neither of them really bend well in some extreme poses. I love Anastasia/A2, great body morphs and control, but she is difficult to morph into original looking faces and did not have much support. I love My Michelle and Miki 4, but neither of them had extensive morphs. I love Dawn and the fact that I can make a shorter character with her, but she does not yet have extensive morphs to use. I love Genesis, but did not like the all in one concept and I hate DSON, so there is always something that we can critique, but there will never be a "perfect" figure because perfection means something different to everyone.
"People who attempt define what art is or is not, are not artists"---Luminescence
JoePublic posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 12:35 PM
Perfection in model building simply means having the correct shape.
It's that simple.
If I build a model of a car and I make the roof too short, the wheels to small, the doors too long, then the model is garbage.
If I get every shape and detail exactly right, the model is perfect.
Making a model of a human being is no different.
If the shape is correct, the model is perfect. If the shape is not correct, it is garbage.
There are no "different kinds of perfect" for a modeller. Not if the goal is realism.
While there might be no "absolute" perfection ever, M6 and V6 are the closest I have ever seen a Poser figure coming to perfection.
They are at least good enough for me that I don't feel the need to immediately "fix" anything that doesn't look right. This is something I never experienced with another Poser figure before.
If you don't "need" that perfection, fine. Enjoy spaghetti shoulders, balooning butts and weird anatomy. Or just hide your figure of choice behind a tree or under a table cloth.
But I do need that kind of perfection for my figures, just like I need that kind of perfection for anything I build.
All the stuff I build for Poser is made by using blueprints and photographs and every shape and dimension is exact down to a tenth of an inch. That's how I built my physical models, that's how I build my virtual ones.
And that dedication to detail and correctness I expect from the virtual humans I use, too.
Bad craftsmanship is not "art", it's just bad craftsmanship.
What I "do" with my figures is "art". (Or maybe not. Lol)
But the figures themselves are just tools like a brush or a pencil.
And I rather use the best tools available than make do with second rate.
Tunesy posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 12:38 PM
That's great, Joe. Where can we buy these figures? If we can't buy them then I'll work with what I have.
RorrKonn posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 5:28 PM
I swore they just locked a thread like this.
Anyways
If ya could create your own character model,map,texture,rig etc etc.
If ya could run all the CGI software C4D,Max,Maya,Poser,DAZ etc etc.
Then ya would get why things are the way they are.
============================================================
The
Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance
Tunesy posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 5:43 PM
Bingo. Most of us hobbyists have careers unrelated to cgi, businesses to run, mortgages to pay and limited time for the 3d stuff. If some of the perfectionists want to create and sell some of these phantom ideal figures I'll buy them so long as the base figure is less than, say, a hundred bucks. But I don't see them for sale anywhere. Pointing out flaws in other peoples figure creations in Poser is an old and tired topic. We all know about the flaws, but we work with what's available.
joequick posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 7:32 PM
You guys clearly haven't seen the wip images of my genesis style vicky killer figure, it even has multiple uv maps.
Tunesy posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 7:47 PM
Haha. Very cool, Joe :) Nice work.
RorrKonn posted Thu, 28 November 2013 at 8:11 PM
Quote - You guys clearly haven't seen the wip images of my genesis style vicky killer figure, it even has multiple uv maps.
Vicky R.I.P.
============================================================
The
Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance
AmbientShade posted Fri, 29 November 2013 at 12:48 AM
Quote - That's a nice rebuild of James. Shane. Looks good.
My only niggle would be the inward facing kneecaps.
Could you share your method of making meshes symmetrical again ?
I have my own method using some of Ockham's python scripts, but it takes a lot of manual work and is still not perfect.
Sometimes a vertice can get "stuck" if the mesh intersects, but this can be easily fixed with the smoothing brush.
Thanks for the compliments Joe.
Yes, his knees are turned in too much. They're like that on the original shape too. I haven't done much sculpting work to most of his body yet. I Just did some smoothing through the shoulders, traps and a bit through the chest so far. Like I said he still needs a lot of work. Most of that pic is just scaling and posture in Poser. His hips need reworking and there's some questionable muscle flow through his uppper thighs. But I want to get the rig adjusted before I do much reshaping. That probably sounds backwards, since it will just need more adjusting after, but I have my reasons.
I fixed his symmetry in ZBrush. It requires some basic math, but basically, there's a feature in the deformations pallet called smart resym that helps with that. Depending on the quality of the mesh, it can be as quick as 5 minutes to fix, or you could struggle with it for hours. James was fixed in about 4 attempts, and less than 20 minutes.
As I recall you stated you stopped using ZB at v3, so I don't remember if 3 even had smart resym. I think it's been there for quite a while but I've been on 4+ since sometime in 2009/10 whenever it was released, so it's hard to even remember what ZB3 looked like, much less what features it had.
The geometry has to be consistent across the X axis in order for that feature to work tho, so some meshes, such as G2 Sydney, won't work because the left side of her chest is damaged due to some seriously sloppy production work and lack of quality control. (Sorry G2 creators - whoever they are - but I call it as I see it). Edges are merged, so the polys are actually non-existant so there's nothing that can be... re-symetrified ? - and I think I just created a new word there. G2 Jessi doesn't have this issue as far as I recall (and her rigging is much better than Sydneys, making her a better candidate for rebuild work anyway).
Worst case scenario, you split the model in half and mirror it. This can be done in ZB too, and retain all your groups. Then it will definitely work. But so long to all your morphs, and your UV maps have to be mirrored now too.
Keep in mind also, that many of the older Poser meshes can't be worked in ZBrush due to their inconsistent geometry, N-Gons, stray verts, etc. The P4 baby, for example, has N-Gons. ZB spits these out automatically, even via using GoZ. It gives you the option to rebuild the faulty faces with tris or quads, but either way the mesh will be broken back in Poser. You can morph it, and then try transfering the morphs in Poser via one of the various python scripts, but results will vary.
This is one of the reasons why it's so important to keep your mesh all quads, or at least quads and tris. N-Gons are bad for most any modeling app.
There is a ZBrush plug-in for Poser that helps with keeping groups and vert orders intact, but again, results vary. And I'm not even sure if it is built for any version of ZB prior to 4r4 or so, but not sure about that cause I don't even know who wrote it.
Quote - BTW, unless you drastically reworked the shape of the head, all the three "morph projection" scripts (Cage's python script, D3D's morphing clothes and the PP-2014 morph transfer) should be able to rebuild the expression files quickly, no matter the changes you made to the geometry.
I'll keep that in mind. I prefer to use projection morphing in ZB tho, as I have more control over it than what any script would allow, and I can modify them as needed, while I'm projecting them. Scripts can be a decent starting point though. But, especially with James, a lot of his expression morphs just look retarded and need reworking anyway. Same is true for a lot of other figures.
~Shane
edgeverse posted Fri, 29 November 2013 at 1:43 PM
Personally, the only figures (Poser) that irked me were the poser 8 and above figures. They have short arms anbd the facial features are odd.
Poser 6,7, I liked. My favorite poser women to use for promos and comics are Poser 6 Jessi and Poser 7 Sydney (and JessiG2).
3D Digital Comics & Art/My homepage
http://www.edgeversemedia.com
wolf359 posted Sat, 30 November 2013 at 9:56 AM
"(To be frank, Poser (and it's users) got what they deserved when DAZ kicked them out of the party. I told them exactly this would be happening long before it actually happened, but everybody was just too busy playing with V4's knickers.)
I***'m 48, and after 13 years of working my ass off creating better figures, I'm done with promises and big plans.***
Genesis is happening right now and it's the most realistic, most perfect Poser figure I've ever seen.
I'd rather wish Poser had it's "own" set of high quality figures, but unless we find an angel investor willing to dump a couple 100.000 $ into such an endavour, I don't see any viable alternative."
Bluntly stated sir^^...but essentially Correct
DAZ has won. and rather decidedly.
SM has made the obvious Mistake of focusing on bullet point features to add to the Poser program itself while consistently
ignoring the very area where DAZ has long been prevailing.
Human Figures!
Where Exactly Did SM see a broad based Demand for a bullet physics engine that Does not add native ragdoll physics
and appears to not offer much in the way of an improvement over paul's Affordable Physics Engine in the area of hard body Dynamics ( Collapsing buildings etc.).
BTW ,not to nit pick,but Physics simulations are an ANIMATION FEATURE are they not??
Would not it have been better to improve the FIGURE animation features such a new graph editor,Dope Sheet, or perhaps some poser version on a non linear motion mixer like the aniMAte feature in Daz Studio?
But (Oh joy!) ,instead you few remaining ,poser only, animators can now have primitives & things knocking about in poser "2012".
when in reality you have had that option, at a VERY affordable
price ,>>PLUS interaction with figures<< , since 2006 WITH paul's well executed PHYSICS plugin.
Nicely Done SM
you certainly are "in touch" with your user base.
Tunesy posted Sat, 30 November 2013 at 10:55 AM
"DAZ has won. and rather decidedly."
That's highly subjective. I love working with Poser. I never liked working with ds. That's highly subjective too, of course. I wasted too much time on ds in the past and so finally deleted it from my systems. It's redundant to Poser and just a time sink to learn how to do things in ds that I already know how to do in Poser. Daz made the decision to not make Poser figures. That's their prerogotive, but I'm a Poser user and I only buy Poser product. To me 'Daz has lost, and rather decidedly.' I buy a lot of Poser content sometimes, but there's no longer a reason for me to go to their store. No problem. I buy elsewhere. In my industry we call what Daz has done "winning arguments and losing sales."
edgeverse posted Sat, 30 November 2013 at 12:15 PM
I have used both programs (poser since poser 4 and ds since 1.8). To be honest, I favor Poser over DS.
3D Digital Comics & Art/My homepage
http://www.edgeversemedia.com
estherau posted Sat, 30 November 2013 at 11:17 PM
I don't like dawn's oversized chin or the little line that extends horizontally from the side of her mouth as soon as she starts to smile a bit.
Not saying people don't have mouths like that. The guy who acted luke skywalker in starwars has exactly such a mouth. I just find it unappealing.
As for her chin, i bet it can be morphed smaller, but the fact that most people don't change it in renders makes me think that maybe it isn't that easy to get rid of it.
Love esther
I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!
RorrKonn posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 12:08 AM
Quote - I don't like dawn's oversized chin or the little line that extends horizontally from the side of her mouth as soon as she starts to smile a bit.
Not saying people don't have mouths like that. The guy who acted luke skywalker in starwars has exactly such a mouth. I just find it unappealing.
As for her chin, i bet it can be morphed smaller, but the fact that most people don't change it in renders makes me think that maybe it isn't that easy to get rid of it.
Love esther
You can morph Dawn all ya want chin and all.
============================================================
The
Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance
estherau posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 1:38 AM
I have not seen one render without thte distinctive mouth corner thing, and I have seen very few renders with a reasonable sized chin, so that makes me wonder about it. are people just too lazy to make a good morph for her or do they like her default maybe?
and what about animatable joint centres? I heard that would make scaling easier to make teens etc?
Love esther
I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!
AmbientShade posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 2:20 AM
Quote - and what about animatable joint centres? I heard that would make scaling easier to make teens etc?
Love esther
Do you mean on Dawn? Or on Poser native figures?
It likely won't ever happen on Dawn, at least not officially, as that will break her pseudo "compatibility" with DS. So it will have to be done as a 3rd party injection and it will only work in Poser. There are some scaling features in her new morphs set, but I don't know how it was done.
As for the Poser figures, scaling works pretty decent on several of them without need for animated joints. Some not so much. And it depends on the body part you're trying to scale, AND how much scaling you're attempting. Most only need a few points, + or - 5% or so is usually plenty. Buttocks usually get scewed on the X axis, but Y axis works. It just depends on the figure's individual rig as to how well it works.
~Shane
JoePublic posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 2:20 AM
meatSim posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 2:23 AM
Quote - I have not seen one render without thte distinctive mouth corner thing, and I have seen very few renders with a reasonable sized chin, so that makes me wonder about it. are people just too lazy to make a good morph for her or do they like her default maybe?
and what about animatable joint centres? I heard that would make scaling easier to make teens etc?
Love esther
A lot of people are lazy with all figures TBH and the dial spinners to change her look have just come out. Everything I have heard is that she is easy to morph. I've never been too much into making morphs for figures so I couldn't say.
As to animatable joint centers.. forgive my ignorance here.. but isn't that just like a check box that can be hit in each body part to bring up the offset dials? Or is there something else that must be done?
JoePublic posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 2:32 AM
What Shane said ! Scaling, or more precisely, single-axis-scaling, can work quite nicely if the figure's rigging was prepared to use it. But it's hit and miss. MORPHING a leg longer or a shoulder wider and then linking the new joint center coordinates to that morph is a much more precise and error proof method. But it's a lot of work to make those morphs manually in Poser, while it's a simple click-click-click set-up in Studio. For Genesis. You simply morph a new shape and the rigging snaps back into place, and then both the morph as well as the new joint centers are a single morph dial.
Teyon posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 2:43 AM
Attached Link: http://youtu.be/ogVjot24X20
> Quote - > As to animatable joint centers.. forgive my ignorance here.. but isn't that just like a check box that can be hit in each body part to bring up the offset dials? Or is there something else that must be done?
http://youtu.be/ogVjot24X20
JoePublic posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 3:06 AM
@wolf359 : Thanks ! While I'm not much of an Poser animator, I was quite unimpressed by that new "physics" engine, too. SM notoriously tacks on new "features" that take one or even more new iterations of Poser before they become actual usable. The Morph Brush was introduced in 2006 and didn't even work across groups in the beginning. And only now they fixed the corruption that occured when you mirrored a morph more than once. I'm an "PP-2014" early adopter, but only because I can make any figure work in Poser. If I couldn't do the things I can do, or simply wanted to make nice pictures with a few mouseclicks, I'd rather download Studio and spend a few weeks (re-)learning it. DAZ might have lost a lot of Poser customers, but I'm sure winning over the 3D newbies with easy to use, yet high quality figures, made more than up for it. Still, all those disgruntled "DAZ-haters" still promote them indirectly by using V4 and her content, and I'm sure would forget about their grudge the second there would be a fully Poser compatible Vicky out there. ;-)
JoePublic posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 3:11 AM
@AmbientShade: Thanks for explaing your re-symmetry workflow. Guess one of these days I'll have to upgrade ZBrush, if only to see if that GoZBrush thingy works as well as people say it does ! :-)
AmbientShade posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 3:20 AM
Quote - But it's a lot of work to make those morphs manually in Poser, while it's a simple click-click-click set-up in Studio. For Genesis. You simply morph a new shape and the rigging snaps back into place, and then both the morph as well as the new joint centers are a single morph dial.
Only because it was already set up for you to function that way in DS/Genesis.
The same simplicity can be set up in a figure's rig in Poser, by the figure's creator, OR by the figure's user, if it wasn't built into the rig originally. On top of that, 3rd party character creators can expand on it by creating custom injections, where they decide how the joints are repositioned, instead of having the program do it for them automatically, which may not give the same results as what they're wanting.
And that's what I prefer about Poser, over DS. Poser is a bit more hands-on, but by being that way, it allows for much more control and customization than it's given credit for.
~Shane
AmbientShade posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 3:31 AM
Quote - @AmbientShade: Thanks for explaing your re-symmetry workflow. Guess one of these days I'll have to upgrade ZBrush, if only to see if that GoZBrush thingy works as well as people say it does ! :-)
You should. Your work will be that much better for it (and faster). And I'm sure over time SM will be adding more features to the GoZ plugin. At least I hope they do.
~Shane
JoePublic posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 4:23 AM
Shane, that might very well be all like you say it, but don't forget that almost all Poser/Studio content creators are advanced amateurs or semi professional at best. So, tools to simplify the content creation process are very important. I was always extremely reluctant to, for example, re-rig the hands of one of my custom figures, because that is such a chore and you can easily mess up with joint orientations. I rather re-rigged the rest of the body but left the hands in place so I didn't have to deal with it. Being able to simply morph a figure and then let the new rig "auto-snap" back in place would be an imense help in Poser, even if the result would be only 99% perfect. Yes, Poser has the tech to have a Genesis style figure and I've already shown a few examples in the past. But it's one thing to have a prototype and another thing to have a fully supported, complete figure line that is basically "idiot proof" and is backed up by profesional marketing. Let's just admit the "war" is over and let us start to rebuild instead of trying to prolong the suffering by hoping for another "saviour mesh". My opinion might change, of course, depending on what is happening in the future, but right now, I think our best course of action would be to pester SmithMicro for better Genesis integration and trying to find ways to make Genesis at its current state to be as usable as possible in Poser. (I bet a good python coder could automate some of the manual fixes I'm currently making) The "My way or the highway" attitude of the disgruntled "My Poser, right or wrong" patriots will only lead to a slow decline because new users only care about one thing: The figures.
AmbientShade posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 5:54 AM
Quote - Yes, Poser has the tech to have a Genesis style figure and I've already shown a few examples in the past. But it's one thing to have a prototype and another thing to have a fully supported, complete figure line that is basically "idiot proof" and is backed up by profesional marketing.
Anyone that buys Poser has all the figures that come with Poser. They don't have to buy $150 worth of extra content (morphs, poses, etc) from anyone else in order to start using them. Really can't get better marketing than that.
I agree that Poser needs better figures.
I don't agree that Poser needs Genesis.
Leave Genesis in DS where it belongs.
If DAZ wanted to make Genesis functional in Poser they could do that, without DSON. You've proven it with your own prototypes. They don't want to do that because they want their users using Genesis in DS.
And this thread is supposed to be about flaws in Poser figures and ways to improve/update them. Not being Genesis doesn't count as a valid flaw.
I have nothing against improved content creation tools in Poser, as long as it doesn't pigeonhole me into doing it ONLY this way OR that way. I like Posers open-ended approach that allows figures to be created in multiple ways and do various things. I don't mind working a little bit harder to achieve exactly the results I want or need. It's not rocket science. Poser is not difficult to learn or master and never really has been. Sure there are some frustrating components to it that need ironing out, but every software has that no matter who makes it. Try mastering Maya. Now there's some difficulty for you.
~Shane
estherau posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 8:36 AM
I have a feeling that HiveWire will come up with another figure - maybe a male or a teen, that will be very much better. Dawn was just the start, and I feel she has too many flaws to be a main character for my comic. I would think the promo rendering people would have made a big effort to make her look good, but I haven't seen many promos that i've liked of dawn particularly.
One or two were excellent I have to say. But those were invariably with her not smiling.
I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!
RorrKonn posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 9:44 AM
Rox's,Dawn,V5 are all just a mesh.
What ever you can do with one you can do with the other in zBrush ,Maya.
Atually if Poser had all of Maya tools .would be killer.
============================================================
The
Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance
JimTS posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 11:26 AM
Quote - It will be cool if one day somebody comes out with a figure that bends perfectly in every pose. But if Pixar needs, what was it, seventeen rigged versions(?) of a toon for proper bending in various situations then I'm not gonna hold my breath for a miracle Poser character that bends perfectly in all situations. I'm very happy with the figures I have. None of them pose well with their arms straight up over their heads. Shrug. So what? I won't make any basketball animations ;) If we let various shortcomings of content bog us down we'll never get anything done. The other day I had a problem making a shoe fit Angela2. No problem. I put a potted plant in front of it so it couldn't be seen.
Tunesy
A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket
Charles Péguy
Heat and animosity, contest and conflict, may sharpen the wits, although they rarely do;they never strengthen the understanding, clear the perspicacity, guide the judgment, or improve the heart
Walter Savage Landor
So is that TTFN or TANSTAAFL?
ssgbryan posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 1:08 PM
Quote - I have a feeling that HiveWire will come up with another figure - maybe a male or a teen, that will be very much better. Dawn was just the start, and I feel she has too many flaws to be a main character for my comic. I would think the promo rendering people would have made a big effort to make her look good, but I haven't seen many promos that i've liked of dawn particularly.
One or two were excellent I have to say. But those were invariably with her not smiling.
The male figure is called Dusk. No idea on ETA, but since the folks making him are from DAZ, I am expecting it "soon".
RorrKonn posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 4:30 PM
Pixar could afford MoCap or any tech they wanted.
So If Pixar had 17 rigs for one mesh
,it's just cause that's the way they wanted it done.
Not cause that's the way Pixar had to.
DAZ Poser rigs
Some of it's they don't know how to rig.
Some of it's they rig for diffrent versions.
Some of it's compromise for Morphs so the rigs work with a gaint warrior and a small elf.
Some of it's for conforming cloths.
only DAZ Poser ,make human has morphs from boys to girls monsters & conforming cloths.
to do this they compromise on rigs.
============================================================
The
Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance
Tunesy posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 4:54 PM
"Pixar could afford MoCap or any tech they wanted.
So If Pixar had 17 rigs for one mesh
,it's just cause that's the way they wanted it done.
Not cause that's the way Pixar had to."
I don't buy that. For starters, what's your mocap source going to be for a toon figure with proportions and movements that don't resemble any existing humans or animals? I'm sure if there was a way to rig a single instance of a figure to bend properly in all situations Pixar would be doing that and not paying to do the rigging sixteen additional times. So, if any Poser creators come up with a way to make a figure that bends perfectly in all situations don't sell it here. Sell it to Pixar.
WandW posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 5:54 PM
Quote - My advice ?
Make a deal with DAZ and licence Genesis 1 or 2. (If we get HD technology in the future, there will be no noticeable difference between them, so I'd actually prefer Genesis 1)
Rework it so that it a) works natively in Poser and b) give it a new default morph it loads with so that Poser has it's own signature figure for marketing reasons. It would still be Genesis, but "our" Genesis.
(After all, Dork and Posette were licensed from Zygote which later became DAZ, so I don't see any "ethical" problem here)
Other than that, copy Genesis as closely as you can get away with it....
There is something to this; one can copy it really closely, and here's how;
One can simply export it from Studio as a cr2, and drop in a new rig. You would need a script to strip out the weightmaps and the rig could be put in with Poser Place's Applicator script a la V4WM.
Secondly, someone noted that Poser figures are text files. So are DSON files. They are simply Gzipped, as are Poser's compressed files. Inside is stuff like this...
* "geometry_library" : [*
* {*
* "id" : "blSubDragon",*
* "name" : "blSubDragon",*
* "type" : "subdivision_surface",*
* "edge_interpolation_mode" : "edges_only",*
* "vertices" : {*
* "count" : 14162,*
* "values" : [*
* [ 29.70971, 125.0082, 56.91178 ],*
* [ 29.22422, 125.4993, 56.91933 ],*
* [ 35.0303, 131.3556, 57.66353 ],*
One could should be able to write a python script to extract the geometry from the .duf files and have a cr2 that references that file and contains a new Poser rig. If the python is not feasible, just grab the .obj from DSON Importer...
EDIT To explore compressed DSON files use 7-zip. In Windows Explorer, Right click on the .duf and from the 7-zip menu select "Open Archive"...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Wisdom of bagginsbill:
"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
AmbientShade posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 7:15 PM
Quote -One could should be able to write a python script to extract the geometry from the .duf files and have a cr2 that references that file and contains a new Poser rig. If the python is not feasible, just grab the .obj from DSON Importer...
Without proper licensing, that would most likely be against DAZ's EULA.
There have been other attempts to make a redistributable figure based on DAZ figures, and all of them have been shot down.
Even if such a license was granted, every time Genesis mesh changed (should be sometime next year if they keep to their current schedule), a new license would have to be granted, and a new Poser rig built.
Plus, Genesis' mesh is not all that great. It lacks important details that other Poser meshes actually do have. Seratus and abdominals, for example.
SM needs its own refined mesh that they can do with what they want, without being shackled to somebody else's. Why they haven't been refining their best meshes over the years instead of continually creating new ones is beyond me, but they could always start.
~Shane
WandW posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 7:37 PM
Daz changed its EULA this past year, and derivative works are allowed if they require the DAZ product they are derived from and they don't duplicate an existing DAZ product. A built-from-scratch cr2 that requires the geometry from Genesis Base that has to be obtained from DAZ falls well within those confines; it would be no more infringing than V4WM.
SM's business just isn't figures. Even E-frontier, who is in that line, didn't get it right with the G2 figures...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Wisdom of bagginsbill:
"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
edgeverse posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 8:04 PM
I like the G2 figures.
3D Digital Comics & Art/My homepage
http://www.edgeversemedia.com
meatSim posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 8:39 PM
I'm actually glad to hear you say that... not as anything against genesis2 (I do like the mesh also, its a bit more detailed than dawns)... but I was looking at it after reading some of the shortcomings you posted about dawns mesh and thinking that some of those shortcomings could be leveled at Genesis 2 also.
I think your right though.. it would be fantastic if SM would take one of their best mesh and focus on making it the best figure it could be vs the unending parade of not quite fully baked figures
Quote -
Plus, Genesis' mesh is not all that great. It lacks important details that other Poser meshes actually do have. Seratus and abdominals, for example.
SM needs its own refined mesh that they can do with what they want, without being shackled to somebody else's. Why they haven't been refining their best meshes over the years instead of continually creating new ones is beyond me, but they could always start.
~Shane
meatSim posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 8:48 PM
While this is true.. and, provided the rig was completely original, there is not much daz could do about it(same as v4WM... but you break a lot of the content this way as well. Clothing wouldnt likely be 'too' difficult to get working but ANY work seems to be too much for a lot of users.
Does it really need a new rig though? I was under the impression that the new genesis bends about as well in poser as it does in studio... or is that not true?
Quote - I have been playing with the Genesis 2 male (no flames please!) and its a really nice looking mesh As seen here it incorporates geometry that follows the human musculature that AmbientShade noted as important in another thread (there is even geometry at vertebra 7!). The "Male" and "Female" meshes appear to be morphs of the same mesh, and I exported the male and brought it into Poser as a morph target of the Female, and the morph works and even bends decently when applied.
Quote - My advice ?
Make a deal with DAZ and licence Genesis 1 or 2. (If we get HD technology in the future, there will be no noticeable difference between them, so I'd actually prefer Genesis 1)
Rework it so that it a) works natively in Poser and b) give it a new default morph it loads with so that Poser has it's own signature figure for marketing reasons. It would still be Genesis, but "our" Genesis.
(After all, Dork and Posette were licensed from Zygote which later became DAZ, so I don't see any "ethical" problem here)
Other than that, copy Genesis as closely as you can get away with it....
There is something to this; one can copy it really closely, and here's how;
One can simply export it from Studio as a cr2, and drop in a new rig. You would need a script to strip out the weightmaps and the rig could be put in with Poser Place's Applicator script a la V4WM.
Secondly, someone noted that Poser figures are text files. So are DSON files. They are simply Gzipped, as are Poser's compressed files. Inside is stuff like this...
* "geometry_library" : [*
* {*
* "id" : "blSubDragon",*
* "name" : "blSubDragon",*
* "type" : "subdivision_surface",*
* "edge_interpolation_mode" : "edges_only",*
* "vertices" : {*
* "count" : 14162,*
* "values" : [*
* [ 29.70971, 125.0082, 56.91178 ],*
* [ 29.22422, 125.4993, 56.91933 ],*
* [ 35.0303, 131.3556, 57.66353 ],*One could should be able to write a python script to extract the geometry from the .duf files and have a cr2 that references that file and contains a new Poser rig. If the python is not feasible, just grab the .obj from DSON Importer...
EDIT To explore compressed DSON files use 7-zip. In Windows Explorer, Right click on the .duf and from the 7-zip menu select "Open Archive"...
AmbientShade posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 10:14 PM
Quote - Daz changed its EULA this past year, and derivative works are allowed if they require the DAZ product they are derived from and they don't duplicate an existing DAZ product. A built-from-scratch cr2 that requires the geometry from Genesis Base that has to be obtained from DAZ falls well within those confines; it would be no more infringing than V4WM.
Until DAZ decides to change their EULA. Again.
Which they could do at any point they choose.
So the only sure way of safely building a Poser-built Genesis is for someone to license it from them.
Plus, it wouldn't function in DS fully if it was built for Poser. So you create more confusion among the user base and the vendor base and the crowd is still split over which version to support, just like with Dawn.
So again I say SM needs its own quality, refined mesh that functions optimally with Poser's tech. The mesh is only half the process anyway. The rig is where all the magic happens. They're symbiotic. If one sucks then the other won't be nearly as good as it could be.
Quote - Does it really need a new rig though? I was under the impression that the new genesis bends about as well in poser as it does in studio... or is that not true?
The basic skeleton/rig wouldn't have to change much, (bones, JPs), but in order to get the full functionality of a Genesis type figure in Poser, Genesis' rig would have to be Poserized. It doesn't function as well in Poser as it does in DS because the software is different, so the rigs have to be built differently. A Poser-built rig wouldn't function as well in DS for the same reasons.
Laying out bones and adjusting JPs is only about 25% of what actually goes into rigging a figure. Weight maps, JCMs, magnets (if necessary), animated joints, proper scaling setup and ERCs make up the other 75%. Those are the areas where DS and Poser don't agree, because while they both do those things, the coding for it is completely different between the two platforms, so they don't translate the same.
~Shane
EClark1894 posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 10:34 PM
Quote - It will be cool if one day somebody comes out with a figure that bends perfectly in every pose.
Yeah, but humans are rigged about as good as they're gonna get. and you can't morph them or change their texture's worth a damn either.
mylemonblue posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 11:22 PM
Just this. Eye lashes. If they were part of the character's own mesh I'd use that character. Hint hint wink wink. ( -.^)/
My brain is just a toy box filled with weird things
JoePublic posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 11:40 PM
JoePublic posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 11:41 PM
JoePublic posted Sun, 01 December 2013 at 11:42 PM
JohnDoe641 posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 12:04 AM
Breast/chest movement when arms are moved should be a no-brianer, so why are the newer figures not including these movements?
I don't have the newest PP to test Roxie so I have no clue if she's missing the movements or not.
RorrKonn posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 12:53 AM
Quote - "Pixar could afford MoCap or any tech they wanted.
So If Pixar had 17 rigs for one mesh
,it's just cause that's the way they wanted it done.
Not cause that's the way Pixar had to."I don't buy that. For starters, what's your mocap source going to be for a toon figure with proportions and movements that don't resemble any existing humans or animals? I'm sure if there was a way to rig a single instance of a figure to bend properly in all situations Pixar would be doing that and not paying to do the rigging sixteen additional times. So, if any Poser creators come up with a way to make a figure that bends perfectly in all situations don't sell it here. Sell it to Pixar.
Probably should have said
Pixar can aford any tech they want MoCap,Rigs etc etc.
Guess I should have specified what charaters in Shrek could be MoCaped.
All the Bipeds can be MoCaped buy a real human .
Shrek ,Fiona even the cat when he stands upright.
============================================================
The
Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance
meatSim posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 12:57 AM
Quote - > Quote -
As to animatable joint centers.. forgive my ignorance here.. but isn't that just like a check box that can be hit in each body part to bring up the offset dials? Or is there something else that must be done?
http://youtu.be/ogVjot24X20
Just as i thought.. so really anyone can add animated joint centers if it becomes necessary for a particular morph they are making for any figure. Are the animated joint centers distributable with something like an injection pose?
meatSim posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 1:00 AM
I have to agree with you on this.. though G2F has this feature and (at least in my friends version of poser) her boobs are rotated in oposing direction at all times unless you limit her pectoral bones to zero roatation in the parameter editor. Itried to much about and help fix it, but it seems something is gibbled in the dependancies she imports with via dson
Quote - They got it right with Ryan but totally forgot to add any type of breast deformation/lift/movement when Alyson moves her arms up or down/back or front. I don't understand how something so simple was overlooked and it just annoys the hell out of me. The problem was brought to Miki4 if you select and move her collar parts, the chest is completely unaffected and is another oversight that bugs the crap out of me.
Breast/chest movement when arms are moved should be a no-brianer, so why are the newer figures not including these movements?
I don't have the newest PP to test Roxie so I have no clue if she's missing the movements or not.
AmbientShade posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 1:04 AM
Joe, you're asking for Smith Micro to sell out to DAZ because you seem to think no one else is capable of building a realistic human model.
I don't see that happening.
Maybe at some point they'll concede and do just that. I think that if they thought Genesis was a threat then they already would have invested in their own Genesis, or in licensing Genesis and its tech from DAZ.
DAZ doesn't have the market cornered on human models. If that were the case then you'd see DAZ's figures in all sorts of media - tv, games, etc. I've personally never seen a single DAZ figure being used in anything that didn't come out of DAZ's promo ads - (aside from the hobbyist renders that litter the internet), while I see James and other Poser figures being used in tv commercials, tv series and product ads at stores all the time.
There are tons of solo artists out there that can sculpt, rig and animate humans that are far more realistic than anything DAZ has ever done. If you spent a little time visiting the higher end 3D sites you'll see plenty of examples every day.
The bottom line is, the only way Genesis is ever going to get into Poser natively is if SmithMicro wants it in there, and so far they have made it pretty clear that they don't. The only other way it will happen is if DAZ decides to make a Poser-native version themselves, and so far they've made it pretty clear that they have no intention of ever doing so.
It's great that you've gotten Genesis to work in Poser for your own work, and any other Poser user who wants to do so can follow your examples, and all your demo threads on how to do so. But continously ranting about how Genesis should be native to Poser, especially in a forum that isn't even an official Poser forum, only leads to threads getting locked. You know that I respect your work, and several others here do as well, but this argument is old and tired and after 3 years, none of it has changed a single thing. It's only caused good threads to go bad. And I really have to question, since you have done all the things you've done with your own Genesis figures, why do you care whether it's native to Poser or not? You aren't a vendor and you can clearly make all your figures be whatever you want them to be already, in either platform. So why the constant rants?
I like Genesis too, I think it's a pretty cool figure. And when I want to use it, I use it in DS, where it was designed to work its best. But I don't want to see Poser sell out and lose it's open ended feel where everything has to look and function the same or nobody wants to use it.
Let DS do what it does best, and let Poser do what it does best, and the users will decide which one they want to use for themselves, like it has been all along. And please, stop turning every thread about figures into a Genesis-Should-Be-In-Poser thread.
~Shane
RorrKonn posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 1:05 AM
You know you all could buy what ever characters,cloths etc etc ya wanted .
load them in Blender,LW,C4D,Max,Maya,Softimage.Have any and all tools at your finger tips.
Blender,LW,C4D,Max,Maya,Softimage Don't care if they where made for DAZ or Poser.
Just a thought....
============================================================
The
Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance
AmbientShade posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 1:12 AM
Quote - Just as i thought.. so really anyone can add animated joint centers if it becomes necessary for a particular morph they are making for any figure. Are the animated joint centers distributable with something like an injection pose?
In theory, yes. Nerd3D has a tutorial on their site on how to do just that.
~Shane
JoePublic posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 1:15 AM
meatSim posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 1:42 AM
Quote - "...though G2F has this feature and (at least in my friends version of poser) her boobs are rotated in oposing direction at all times unless you limit her pectoral bones to zero roatation in the parameter editor." G2F works perfectly fine on my machine, including her automated breast movement. Did your friend upgrade his version of Poser, the G2F installer, the companion files and also the DSON importer to the latest versions ? DAZ is constantly updating them, so it's easy to fall behind a version or two.
we re-downloaded & re-installed the files from the install manager. Did we need to tell it to check for newer files or will it do that automatically. Is there a way to tell which version of the files it is using?
JoePublic posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 1:45 AM
Shane, don't you think that after 13 years of botched figures there is a pattern emerging ? The folks at SM can't model or rig for sht. Sorry. And they are too stingy to hire professional talent. Sorry. They throw stuff out in the hopes that "the community" will fix it. Which actually worked somehow in the past, but mostly because the average Poser hobbyist can't spot professional work even if it bites him in the a*. But DAZ went serious a couple af years ago, sinking a lot of money into figure development, and now the lack of quality of Poser content becomes obvious even to the most ignorant Poser users. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against "hobbyist" content, not even in the marketpkace. (Although a lot of the stuff sold really keeps me wondering what the modeller and especially his customers were thinking) But when it comes to figures, I don't give an inch. These are the main tools of the program, and without proper, anatomical "correct" humans, we could just as well all stayed with Poser 4 and Posette. Or stay with V4 and a few "fixes" forever. As for professional modellers, who in his right mind would want to work for Poser, given the profit margins you can achieve here ? Unless he is paid in advance ? If someone is willing to pay for a truly professionaly made "exclusive Poser" mesh, I'm all for it. But you still need all the mapping, the textures, the morphs and the clothing getting made and the testing and the marketing. This takes $$$ and can't be done by a group of bright eyed volunteers. Simply not worth the effort given how big we (Everyone of us, including SM) let DAZ' monopoly grow. Sorry, SM was asleep behind the wheel and they've got a rude awakening. So, yes, I'm all for SM "selling out" to DAZ. It would immediately re-unite the communities and give merchants the ability to cater to both systems again without having to make compromises. I think that would be the best for the Poser community in the long run. We basically "licensed" DAZ meshes for Poser since the time Vicky 1 was released. We might as well finally be honest to ourselves and make the deal official. BTW, for quite some time Poser had both its "native" Poser 4 renderer as well the "licensed" Firefly renderer working side by side. So, adding the ability to fully host "triax" rigged figures in .duf format doesnt mean all natively rigged figures in .cr2 format will stop working.
JoePublic posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 2:01 AM
"Did we need to tell it to check for newer files or will it do that automatically. Is there a way to tell which version of the files it is using?" I don't use the install manager so I couldn't say if it auto-updates. But my version of the DSON importer is 1.1.1.33, (Look under "Importer Preferences") The Genesis files should have a version number somewhere, too, but you rather might ask some expert over at DAZ. I just wanted to say that at least on my run of the mill laptop, Genesis works fine in Poser. :-)
meatSim posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 2:04 AM
Joe might be right. Only time will tell. The thing I'm most interested in seeing SM pirate from Daz would be HD morphs more than genesis.
As much as I do love to try to learn about figures and what makes them good or bad, the biggest thing from posers core userbase is re-usability of content. Perhaps the poser team will focus on teh software side of making clothing more universal and drive to refine that side of things to the point that which specific figure you use becomes about as significant as which v4 morph you use is currently. (I remember fitting clothing to a specific morph of v3 or v4 was the biggest headache I encountered with regards to content.. today its almost trivial)
JoePublic posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 2:11 AM
In the end it boils down to a simple question: What do we all want Poser to be ? Do we want it to be just a "fun" place for hobbyists, our cosy little home disconnected from the rest of the CG-universe ? Even if that means a slow fade into obscurity because new users have much higher standards than we had when we used Poser for the first time ? Or do we try to keep up with the Joneses, try to stay relevant in a world of photorealistic game meshes. Should we attempt to finally tackle the uncanny valley even if it means that things get more complicated and uncomfortable ?
AmbientShade posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 2:20 AM
Well, if SM is too "stingy" as you say, to hire professional talent, then I don't see them paying DAZ to license Genesis, as that would definitely cost them considerably more than it would to pay for professional modelers. If not up front, then in the long run as they'd have to continually pay for a new license every time Genesis' mesh is changed.
If SM doesn't want to invest in better figures, then they'll suffer for it in time. So far I don't see how they can be suffering too badly since they're continuing to update and expand its features. That costs money too. If they weren't still selling, then I doubt they'd be putting in the same efforts to expand the software as consistently as they have been. And in fairness, SM has done a better job at updating and investing in Poser than most of its previous parent companies have. None of us knows what they're working on next.
~Shane
JoePublic posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 2:38 AM
Someone will correct me if I'm misinformed, but as far as I understand wanted DAZ to GIVE Genesis and its triax tech to SM. Free. No license charged. The only compensation would have been the constant stream of money Poser users spending for Genesis stuff over at DAZ. But part of the reason for my "rants" is the fact that there is quite a bit of disinformation floating around about Genesis. I'd just like people to make an informed decision. :-) Anyway, I don't want to go on anyone's nerves, so I'll go back to weightmapping older figures and hacking Genesis. I'm just concerned about Poser's future after two years of this state of limbo we are in. I just don't think we can (or should) go on like this much longer.
AmbientShade posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 3:02 AM
I don't know. It was my understanding that DAZ was trying to license the tech to SM, as well as other much bigger brands like Autodesk, etc, and various game engines, in an attempt to generate more sources of revenue and open it up to the more professional studios.
It's also my understanding that those other brands wanted nothing to do with it. I have yet to see any evidence of it being used in any game engines or anything from Autodesk, or any other software for that matter, outside of DS. But who knows.
~Shane
mylemonblue posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 3:41 AM
Quote - Well, if SM is too "stingy" as you say, to hire professional talent, then I don't see them paying DAZ to license Genesis, as that would definitely cost them considerably more than it would to pay for professional modelers. If not up front, then in the long run as they'd have to continually pay for a new license every time Genesis' mesh is changed.
If SM doesn't want to invest in better figures, then they'll suffer for it in time. So far I don't see how they can be suffering too badly since they're continuing to update and expand its features. That costs money too. If they weren't still selling, then I doubt they'd be putting in the same efforts to expand the software as consistently as they have been. And in fairness, SM has done a better job at updating and investing in Poser than most of its previous parent companies have. None of us knows what they're working on next.
~Shane
AmbientShade you are right about SM doing a better job at updating Poser than previous parent companies. I have to thank SM for that. It's an amazing program and they've given those working on it the chance to make it excel beyond all my previous expectations. It really is an amazing software. =)
My brain is just a toy box filled with weird things
vintorix posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 3:57 AM
Daz as a company is very successful and all the vendors I know report that their stable diet come from Daz sales. They are also on the verge of branching out to lot of new markets. These fanatic knights of lost causes will persist with their quixotic dreams in absurdum until the Poser ship finally sink. I wonder if by any chance they are related to hobbits? According to Tolkien they also could discuss bagatelles on the brink of disaster such as their grandfathers pipe while the world fall apart around them.
hornet3d posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 4:58 AM
Good grief , just how many more times must we hear that Poser is doomed. It was being predicted when I upgraded to Poser 2012 and was still going when I upgraded to 2014. The only really major change have have done in that time is stop shopping at Daz.
Talk of flogging a dead horse, most Poser users do not read or write to forums. Most Poser users use Poser because they like the program not because they hate Daz as a company. To my mind SM has done a great deal to improve Poser and at a reasonable price.
Twenty years down the road, or thirty, or forty Poser will fail. at that point all the doom sayers can then sing a chorus of 'We told you so', until then give it a rest, you are convincing nobody of anything other than a bias to Daz.
I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 - Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU . The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.
Hana-Hanabi posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 5:07 AM
Okay, guys. Seriously. Can we please stop with the dogging of programs? We're all entitled to our own opinions, and we get to use the programs we want to use.
Some of this thread has actually been educational. It's really a shame the old acid argument has been spat on it. THIS is why we can't have nice things, guys. This right here.
花 | 美 | 花美 | 花火
...It's a pun.
vintorix posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 5:21 AM
That is not the case- it is to say something positive about Daz that is forbidden. Along with the whole time, directly or indirectly Daz, both company and software is bashed. This has been the policy for a loong time and is responsible for the state of things. If it weren't for the antiDaz maffia Renderosity would have a larger sale. Until they realize that things wont change.
edgeverse posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 6:03 AM
I love Poser and its figures. To me, they re rigged fine and I have no problems posing them or using them in renders and other various scenes.
I'm not that impressed wih the Genesis figures.
3D Digital Comics & Art/My homepage
http://www.edgeversemedia.com
caisson posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 6:06 AM
As far as figure development from SM goes, Teyon has posted in another thread that Rex and Roxie v1.1 are due, and they hope to get the update out this side of Xmas.
‘HD’ tech is nothing new. Essentially that’s just taking a subdivided mesh and sculpting finer detail onto it. With (I think) SR2.2 Poser added the ability to export the subD mesh via a Python command, hence face_off’s Poser to Octane plug-in can now send a finer mesh to Octane (which has no subD itself) for figures, and he’s working on doing the same for props too.
In my opinion, the most exciting thing added to Poser recently is OSD (Pixar’s OpenSubDiv). Here’s an article for those interested - http://www.fxguide.com/featured/pixars-opensubdiv-v2-a-detailed-look/
Adding the ability to select edges and apply weighting values is something I would dearly love to see in a future Poser version as it would provide huge benefits to both modellers and end users.
The other thing I’m wishing for? If the subD surface could be edited directly in Poser with the Morph brush, or by creating and importing morphs from an external app for a given subD level, then that would open up a new way of working with figures. I can see there would be problems to solve - there would a lot more data to process - but the potential gains from having multi-resolution figures would be huge. It would also make some of the discussion around different figures’ flaws irrelevant.
----------------------------------------
Not approved by Scarfolk Council. For more information please reread. Or visit my local shop.
shvrdavid posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 6:19 AM
Quote - ...They are also on the verge of branching out to lot of new markets....
This might sound kind of strange, but would that be the market they talked about a few years ago and now is being developed by another company???
Daz talked about integration into all 3D, and the tools to make things cross compatable. It all sounded great in theory and they even posted some screen shots of work in progress with Unity and Autodesk.... Then silence....
No idea what happened to that, but since Houdini Engine will now do everything they wanted to accomplish and far more, without Genesis, I would have to assume that no one else in the 3D community cared either. Accept for Poser and Studio users, which is ironic.
Well, technically Side Effects must have cared, they wrote the Houdini Engine that took Daz's thunder...
From what I have read most 3D companies consider Genesis System to be a really neat idea, because it is novel and a new approach. At the same time it is flawed because of the wireframe and rights limitation. If you want to look at the whole picture, Genesis System is just as flawed as any other character when it comes to making changes to the wireframe that are not apart of the Genesis code base.
Does Genesis in Studio work well??? Yes it actually does contrary to what some people might say.
Does it work in Poser? To a point, yes it does.
Is it flawed? Of course it is. With all the opinions around here, nothing will ever be good enough.
While we are talking about character flaws, maybe we should discuss the flaws with some of the characters posting here. Because from this side of the screen there appear to be a few flaws.
That would fit right on topic......... It would also be interesting to see how anyone could blame those flaws on SM or Daz...
lol........... (sarcasm intended)
Some things are easy to explain, other things are not........ <- Store -> <-Freebies->
vintorix posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 6:24 AM
Point taken. I know that I'm not perfect but when I am humble I will be perfect!
So, how much are you willing to pay for the privilege? I suggest a tax for those who want to keep the Poser forum a Daz free zon. After all Daz content is Renderosity's merchandise! Their patience with people who bash their wares entitles them to some compensation IMO.
hornet3d posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 7:57 AM
It is not a question of making this a Daz free zone and everyone is entltled to their opinion but when it comes to the question of the future of either company it is just that, a personal opinion. Very few people really know the finacial state of either company and those that do certainly won't mention a word about it on any forum.
Anyone who has been reading the forum for more than a month should have a very good idea of the personal opinion of posters when it comes to Daz or Poser. Why oh why then must this personal opionion be bleated out day after day, week after week, month after month, and in any thread that happens to be handy.
This has been a good thread with very different opininons until the same arguments cropped up again, almost word for word as the same opinions posted more than a year ago. It suggests that the thread is quickly heading to be locked and yet another potentially interesting and helpful thread goes the way of all the others. There are many possible outcomes that might stem from this ongoing trend. One is that people get the message or get blocked or the vaulable people all leave and then the financial wizards can argue it all out without interuption. I know which I would prefer if it came to a stark choice.
All of the above is of course off topic, for which I apologise, but then so has a lot of other stuff and it is time for me to find a new thread, hopefully before the usual suspects jump on that one as well.
I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 - Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU . The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.
vintorix posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 8:02 AM
Very well, I leave you to your "interesting and helpful things" then.
Bye!
Teyon posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 8:10 AM
Just hopping in to say it's a 1.1 update. Not like a Rex and Roxie 2.0 or anything. I wouldn't expect huge changes. I don't know everything that got worked on, I know the eyelashes were changed and that face room support for them got improved but I don't know what else was done, as I was on another project at the time. We do plan on supporting the figures beyond the 1.1 update.
Ok, get on back to what needs fixing.
edgeverse posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 9:03 AM
Lets just say, some like poser and what they offer, and some like daz with what they offer.
3D Digital Comics & Art/My homepage
http://www.edgeversemedia.com
wolf359 posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 10:13 AM
**Quote>>"I don't know. It was my understanding that DAZ was trying to license the tech to SM, as well as other much bigger brands like Autodesk, etc, and various game engines, in an attempt to generate more sources of revenue and open it up to the more professional studios. **
It's also my understanding that those other brands wanted nothing to do with it. I have yet to see any evidence of it being used in any game engines or anything from Autodesk, or any other software for that matter, outside of DS. But who knows."<<end Quote.
So far only "iclone" from "Reallusion" has somewhat Direct support for the genesis
http://www.reallusion.com/iclone/pipeline/flow_motion_daz3d_export.aspx
figure and Dont expect any others( Autodesk,SideFX,Maxonetc).
But by the same Token no major pro app supports the poser format natively
without third party plugins such as interposer pro for Maxon Cineam4D
http://www.kuroyumes-developmentzone.com/cinema-4d-commercial-plugins/interposer-pro/
The reality for DAZ & SM is that trying to get the "pro CG" companies to officially adopt your character&content formats is probably not a good business plan
because such companies are founded on pipelines that demand that they build custom assets on a per project basis such as a new game title or the VFX/chracters for a movie.
-Timberwolf- posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 10:21 AM
Quote - Lets just say, some like poser and what they offer, and some like daz with what they offer.
Ahem yes, I prefer Poser , but that DAZ competition is important. It is just to have the choice, decideing which app will do a better job. I think without the DAZ competition we would still be stuck with Poser4.
Winterclaw posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 11:08 AM
They fundemental problem is they aren't built for lazy people. Or people who aren't 100% committed to learning all the nitty gritties.
Take that stuff about deleting magnets. I would in no manner think of doing that. Part of it is because I don't know how to off the top of my head. I have enough problems getting the mat room to do anything on my own. The other part is I'd kind of expect those to be symmertrical by default.
IMO here's the hugest problem with all poser's figures (including genesis and V4). I've done a lot of research on the matter so I know it to be true. There's got to be at least 8 fixes and options for this one thing for V4 alone.
Boobs.
Base characters don't have enough or good enough boob options for females. You've got size, gravity, squish, and movement. You've got both morphs and magnets to fix 'em. It's good there are so many fixes on the market but still, all breasts are horribly broken and insufficent by default. We probably need some kind of dynamic breasts, but I don't think poser is built to handle that.
:D
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.)
WandW posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 11:16 AM
Quote - Plus, Genesis' mesh is not all that great. It lacks important details that other Poser meshes actually do have. Seratus and abdominals, for example.
SM needs its own refined mesh that they can do with what they want, without being shackled to somebody else's. Why they haven't been refining their best meshes over the years instead of continually creating new ones is beyond me, but they could always start.
So, perhaps a more fruitful discussion might then be to give examples of meshes that are particulary good in certain areas...
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The Wisdom of bagginsbill:
"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
RorrKonn posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 11:51 AM
I'm not ragging on DAZ or Poser ,but none of there tech is new.
Any tech ya find in DAZ or Poser .The High End app's all ready have.
So eventually some of the High End Tech makes it to DAZ Poser.
Around the Poser 4 days.
There was a Max Plug called Charaters Studio.
Had all the Poser 4 Characters in it.
Back in the Poser 4 days I always thought eventually in the furture one of the HighEnd App's would make there own Poser like software.
They never did make a C4D Poser .
What they done was make character tools build in to C4D,Max etc etc.
Ya know how the online millions to make RPG use to be $15 a month and now there FREE.competition keeps the price down.
All the times Poser Company has been for sell DAZ never bolt Poser.
I never want to see Poser owned buy DAZ.
============================================================
The
Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance
basicwiz posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 12:01 PM
Can we just discuss the FIGURES and leave the companies and their motivations out of it? I've been tempted to lock this thread from message one just because of the childishness further up on this page. If any dog returns to that vomit, please notify me. I will delete all messages that are off topic at that time, and issue repremands to those who cannot stay on topic.
Clear?
Upon review of the entire thread, I have a question: What has been posted in this thread that is productive? By productive, I mean, what has been posted that the poster REALLY expects will have the slightest minor iota of impact on any of the mentioned figures? Do you REALLY think this is going to change what Daz, SM, or anyone else does with their figures?
My personal opinion (clearly labeled) is that this entire thread is a thinly disguised troll to see what fights can be started. Sure enough, some of the usual suspects took the bait. Oh, well...
I am, however, giving the thread and the OP the benefit of the doubt, as on rare occasions I AM wrong about things. (Sarcasm flagged)
Winterclaw posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 12:13 PM
You mean we aren't going to get dynamic breasts? :`(
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.)
WandW posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 12:17 PM
Quote - Can we just discuss the FIGURES and leave the companies and their motivations out of it? I've been tempted to lock this thread from message one just because of the childishness further up on this page. If any dog returns to that vomit, please notify me. I will delete all messages that are off topic at that time, and issue repremands to those who cannot stay on topic.
Clear?
Upon review of the entire thread, I have a question: What has been posted in this thread that is productive? By productive, I mean, what has been posted that the poster REALLY expects will have the slightest minor iota of impact on any of the mentioned figures? Do you REALLY think this is going to change what Daz, SM, or anyone else does with their figures?
:biggrin:
...As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;..
.--Rudyard Kipling
Teyon, who creates figures for SM, is in on this thread, so it may not be simply an intellectual excersise... 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Wisdom of bagginsbill:
"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
AmbientShade posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 12:26 PM
I tried talking about good meshes in the Dawn thread and got accused of having an agenda. Then it got locked.
Good topology follows muscle flow. If you want the figure to bend and distort like a real human then the figure needs to have the same muscle groups that a real human has. Those muscle groups are the geometry (topology/geometry, the terms are interchangeable in this regard).
When building a figure for facial animation, the facial topology follows the muscles of the face so that eyes and mouths move and stretch, open and close, like a believable human's face does. So it makes sense that the same rule applies to the rest of the body.
Anyone that intends on being a figure artist needs to spend significant time learning anatomy. Along with that, they need to learn how geometry distorts, stretches and collapses and how to use edgeflow to control all that distortion.
Examples of good topology in previous Poser meshes are the G2 males. Most of the major muscle groups are defined. The poly count is heavier than necessary, but the figures are all quads, which Poser (and most other 3D apps) likes the best. P6 James is another example of good topology and a very lightweight mesh, at right around 22K total. He does have a lot of tris, but his muscles are defined. Another good mesh is Ben. Much less geometry, but he's all quads and because he's relatively lightweight, the missing groups could be added in with some minor edgeflow adjustment.
Female meshes tend not to be as detailed, because you generally don't see a lot of muscle tone in females. This isn't a good thing though because without the geometry that makes up the male mesh, the female mesh will never have the ability to show muscle tone properly, or the flexing and contracting that happen in muscles when limbs are posed and animated.
In the attached image - just follow the darkest lines that define the muscles. The mesh should follow those lines as closely as possible.
~Shane
WandW posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 12:39 PM
I loaded up 2 G2 Simons and swapped right and left on one and it doesn't appear to have the Symmetry issue that Syndey does...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Wisdom of bagginsbill:
"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
AmbientShade posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 1:09 PM
Correct.
That would be due to this issue right here:
Notice the extra row of polys just above/to the side of the G2 female's breast on the left (right in the pic) along with the collapsed edge in the breast. This isn't present on the right side (left in the pic). This makes mirroring morphs impossible. Somehow the geometry was collapsed, or just built wrong to begin with, and nobody noticed it. Or if they did notice it, it was too late to correct it before release. Maybe due to all the other work that had already been done would have to be undone in order to fix it. I don't know, but it should never have been released this way.
I had thought before that it was only in Sydney, (because she has issues with her rig that Jessi doesn't have), but it's in Jessi too. I don't have Olivia, but I can assume that she has the same problem. There may be other geometry issues with them that I haven't spotted yet, but so far this is the only one. It's enough to break any symmetry regardless.
ETA: Actually it would be an easy fix as it's just a couple edges that need extending, and uncollapse the one edge in the breast. It wouldn't affect the rig. So yeah, don't know why it wasn't fixed. It would affect any morphs that were built, and would have to be rebuilt. At the time the G2 figures were created, it was much more difficult to redo morphs as there was no software available to project morphs onto a mesh like there is now. So maybe that's why.
~Shane
WandW posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 1:28 PM
It is in Olivia too, which isn't surprising....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Wisdom of bagginsbill:
"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
JoePublic posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 1:34 PM
JoePublic posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 1:48 PM
"Actually it would be an easy fix as it's just a couple edges that need extending, and uncollapse the one edge in the breast. It wouldn't affect the rig. So yeah, don't know why it wasn't fixed." Could be also it was done to prevent theft. On Turbosquid you can find tons of subdivided Poser figures passed of as original sculpts.
ssgbryan posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 2:19 PM
I have a question for all of you who are expecting "someone" to make a "better" figure or "fix" the issues with legacy characters.
Just how do you plan on getting both the vendors & customers on board with a new figure?
Just for the sake of argument, let's say someone rebuilt G2 Sydney - all "issues" to include symmetry issues are resolved. We'll call her G3 Sydney.
Just how do you plan on getting the vendors to rebuild all of the morph packs and the figures that no longer work? Or for that matter, getting SM to build morph sets for it - the only figures that SM built morph sets for were Alyson and Ryan.
Why would I upgrade to this "new, improved" figure? I don't do NSIATWAS or yoga renders, so the bending issues that you folks are obsessing over are irrelevant.
Customers by and large, don't appear to care about the mountains that all of you are making out of molehills. They want to "Load, Conform, and Make Art." They have no interest in learning the ins-and-outs of Poser (or anything else for that matter). Most would be content with Poser Debut and it's Poser 4 feature set, and they certainly are not going to be adding modeling tools to their workflow - they are too cheap. It's a hobby, not a lifestyle for most of them.
With respect to the vendors, they have no interest in any figure not named Victoria 4. This is the same issue we have been dealing with for the past decade - see all of the male clothing threads.
In addition to that, many are firmly welded to a Poser 4 production flow and have no interest in changing that. That is why we are still dealing with crap like materials as .pz2 files in late 2013, DOS naming conventions, texture maps with burn-in, etc.
All the marketing at DAZ's disposal hasn't made the grey golum a Gen4 replacement. After 2+ years the golum has less content available for it than V4 had in the first 90 days.
For those of you clamoring for the golum, I'd recommend taking a look at the content available for it - Clothing comes in 3 flavors: European Mediveal Fantasy, Space Fantasy (i.e. not practical), and hookerware. The figures are all caucasians, all the time. In comparison, both Miki 4 & Dawn have more ethnic figures available for them than the golum does.
New figures that bend better are ignored by both customers & vendors (See Antonia, Michelle, Apollo Maximus, etc).
We have about 6 years worth of empirical evidence that the "If you build it, they will buy it." is a failed business model.
So just what would be the business plan?
Tunesy posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 2:33 PM
The only "really good idea" I've seen in this thread was the suggestion that SM, instead of creating new figures with each Poser release, improve the existing ones. For example Rex & Roxie 1 this last Poser release, Rex & Roxie 2 for the next Poser release, etc. I think that's a wonderful idea. Don't remember who suggested it but I think it was somewhere in this thread. There is one possibly major downside to that idea though. We don't know if in doing that the lack of 'shiny brand new' figures might hurt sales of the Poser app itself. But I still like the idea a lot so I'm going to steal it and put it in the SM suggestion box.
WandW posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 2:43 PM
Quote - So just what would be the business plan?
We're not talking business plans here; we're talking about meshes and rigging...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Wisdom of bagginsbill:
"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
Tunesy posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 2:45 PM
. . . it's not a business plan. It's a plan to improve the mesh ;)
edit: oops -- maybe kind of a xpost there.
WandW posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 3:03 PM
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The Wisdom of bagginsbill:
"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
Teyon posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 3:18 PM
AmbientShade posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 3:51 PM
Quote - "Actually it would be an easy fix as it's just a couple edges that need extending, and uncollapse the one edge in the breast. It wouldn't affect the rig. So yeah, don't know why it wasn't fixed." Could be also it was done to prevent theft. On Turbosquid you can find tons of subdivided Poser figures passed of as original sculpts.
Ah, good point. I hadn't thought of that.
But things like that don't prevent theft anyway. It just makes it more difficult to create content for, and breaks features years later, such as the ability to mirror morphs and weightmaps.
~Shane
vilters posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 4:33 PM
I know I am repeating myself but a mesh should be ;
The rigging should get extra attention.
NO Magnets => There is NO excuse to use magnets in Posers native figures in 2013 any more.
Weight maps we know now, but who paints bulge maps? ?
Textures, Posers native figures need lots more Quality textures in the box (or download).
JCM's in Posers native figures; You know how to rig? To Weight map and Bulge map? Then you do not need JCM's. Period. End of Story.
Remember;
ANYTHING, and I mean ANYTHING, you put in a native Poser figure can and will go wrong.
See my magnet inventory page 1; Open the xls file, and study the xls file.
(Same assymetry errors can be found in JCM's, that is why they are also a NO-NO in default native figures.)
Think : Usablility.
Be : Usability.
Think : End user friendly
Be : End User and Content Creator friendly.
Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7,
P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game
Dev
"Do not drive
faster then your angel can fly"!
vilters posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 4:37 PM
And, allow to add; Ha-ha-ha-, we are no dentists. LOL.
Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7,
P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game
Dev
"Do not drive
faster then your angel can fly"!
mylemonblue posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 5:26 PM
Quote - > Quote -So, perhaps a more fruitful discussion might then be to give examples of meshes that are particulary good in certain areas...
I tried talking about good meshes in the Dawn thread and got accused of having an agenda. Then it got locked.
Good topology follows muscle flow. If you want the figure to bend and distort like a real human then the figure needs to have the same muscle groups that a real human has. Those muscle groups are the geometry (topology/geometry, the terms are interchangeable in this regard).
When building a figure for facial animation, the facial topology follows the muscles of the face so that eyes and mouths move and stretch, open and close, like a believable human's face does. So it makes sense that the same rule applies to the rest of the body.
Anyone that intends on being a figure artist needs to spend significant time learning anatomy. Along with that, they need to learn how geometry distorts, stretches and collapses and how to use edgeflow to control all that distortion.
Examples of good topology in previous Poser meshes are the G2 males. Most of the major muscle groups are defined. The poly count is heavier than necessary, but the figures are all quads, which Poser (and most other 3D apps) likes the best. P6 James is another example of good topology and a very lightweight mesh, at right around 22K total. He does have a lot of tris, but his muscles are defined. Another good mesh is Ben. Much less geometry, but he's all quads and because he's relatively lightweight, the missing groups could be added in with some minor edgeflow adjustment.
Female meshes tend not to be as detailed, because you generally don't see a lot of muscle tone in females. This isn't a good thing though because without the geometry that makes up the male mesh, the female mesh will never have the ability to show muscle tone properly, or the flexing and contracting that happen in muscles when limbs are posed and animated.
In the attached image - just follow the darkest lines that define the muscles. The mesh should follow those lines as closely as possible.
~Shane
I love that illustration of anatomy. Looking at that I see one issue with all the figures made that troubles me. Almost all of them are missing a tight set of vertices that follow the ridge of the hip bone. The Obliques turn inward and terminate at that line and without a tight set of vertices following that hip bone's ridge it's not possible to really show that as well I'd like on an athletic figure. Also if the figure is to be made to be slender that ridge's forward prominence would be visible and that also can not be done well without a tight grouping of verts that follow the hip bone all the way around to the front. I think there is a need for a tight grouping of verts along that hip bone ridge line on a figure.
My brain is just a toy box filled with weird things
AmbientShade posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 5:55 PM
Quote -JCM's in Posers native figures; You know how to rig? To Weight map and Bulge map? Then you do not need JCM's. Period. End of Story.
This isn't entirely true.
Weightmaps still have their limitations.
You don't need as many JCMs as before, but they're still an important part of rigging that can fill in where weightmaps can't. Until weightmaps can be controlled via ERC and called up and removed on the fly, JCMs are still important.
~Shane
vilters posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 6:02 PM
JCM's in Poser native figures, for general purpose, are as lost disk space and bad clusters.
I have never seen a set that had no left-right errors in it.
Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7,
P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game
Dev
"Do not drive
faster then your angel can fly"!
shvrdavid posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 6:53 PM
ssgbryan brings up valid points. But doesn't address another side of it.
As far as Sydney goes, the mesh has far more wrong with it than just the breast area.
There is a line down her belly that has double vertices, single vertices all over her head that do not make polygons. If I had to guess, I would say that I found over 100 issues in the wireframe.
Bring Sydney into Poser, set subdivide to 1 on the body and move her body back about 10 feet, switch to hidden line view. There are a lot of places in the mesh that divide to 0,0,0 because the mesh is a disaster by todays standards.
Weight map either side of the spine (all of it) then try to mirror it. Suddenly you will see the area on the belly I am talking about. There more areas that will drive you nuts as well.
Even with custom scripts that know where every vertex is in 3D space there are still issues mirroring it because there are vertices from the left side of the mesh on the right side of the body. There are only a few of these, and the wreck havoc on the mesh when mirroring it or doing any type of math to it.
I have a corrected version (symmetry) of the mesh somewhere. I cut the left side of her off, fixed the right side, then did all the other stuff to it. It uses Alysons teeth and eyes to cut down on the poly bloat in Sydneys head and is symmetrical.
The only problem with fixing a character, is that you technically just made a new one. It is at square one.
If I could release a correct version of Sydney would anyone use it? Or would the stigma of Sydney still apply to the corrected mesh?
If I scuplted it into a different character, it will still resemble Sydney's mesh and have the same joint issues that are in the mesh. Worse yet, the stigma of being "just a corrected G2 mesh".
People could fix every legacy mesh that is out there, but the stigma is still unchanged. Nothing previously released for the character would work in a point and click fashion. Scripts need written to do conversions, etc, etc, etc...
Wow, all of this sounds really familiar for some reason...
Do you see where this is going?
Few would use it, support it, etc. But lots of people would say that "X"is still better because my armchair knows...
It happened with Antonia Standard.........
It happened with Antonia WM.................
It happened with V4 WM........................
It happened with Sydney WM, and the people complaining about it saw nothing more than screen shots.
There were a lot of people that poured a lot of time into all of those projects including myself, and what did the community have to say about it?
If you can see my point, that's great. If you can't, oh well...
Model, re rig, whatever, the next big character and see how that works out for you.
The same people will do everything in their power to point out the flaws in, at the first chance they get.
Some things are easy to explain, other things are not........ <- Store -> <-Freebies->
EClark1894 posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 6:59 PM
There is one thing I'd like to see from Poser SM. I really like the Kate and Ben figures, but I wonder if Poser/SM wouldn't mind weightmapping them and giving them face room support?
shvrdavid posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 7:06 PM
Quote -JCM's in Posers native figures; You know how to rig? To Weight map and Bulge map? Then you do not need JCM's. Period. End of Story.
A weight map and a bulge map can only move a vertex on one plane.
Too and from the center of the joint, perpendicular to the axis. That's it.
To move a vertex in 3D space you either have to dump scaling and use that map, add a bone, or use a jcm.
We need more available channels to do 3D weight mapping, that is why Antonia and V4 WM have added bones, it allows for 3D weight mapping without scrapping the scaling.
Some things are easy to explain, other things are not........ <- Store -> <-Freebies->
AmbientShade posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 7:33 PM
All valid points, ShvrDavid, however, don't assume that no one is using the G2 figures and other figures like Miki and Terai Yuki, even with all their flaws.
If you go to CP's site, you'll see their best sellers in last 30 days and all time. Miki4 tops the 30 days list, and most of the all time list is all G2 content.
Some vendors have said they get better sales at CP than they do here at rosity or at rdna.
So my theory is that there are people actually still using the G2 figures, even 7 years later and with all their flaws.
Roll all of that into a new set of SM figures, that are well designed and error-proofed, and add some good supporting content from SM to get the ball rolling, and I think folks might be surprised at just how much potential there would be for real vendor support to follow it. It won't happen over night of course. The stigma of Poser natives being badly designed would take time to wear off, but that just makes it all the more important for SM's next set of figures to be that much better. It's not an impossible task, it just takes determination. The supporting content already exists in the Poser library, it would just need updating to work with the new figures. A fresh coat of paint on an old house can do wonders for its curb appeal.
~Shane
meatSim posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 7:41 PM
I think the idea that 'someone' can fix/build the ideal poser figure and have it make a serious run of it is pretty much discredited by now. Firstly the idea of an ideal figure is elusive enough as it is. In one sense we are too emotionally attached to our dolls for one thing to be 'ideal'.
Though I dont think they are saying 'someone' should do it.. people are naming names here. SM should pick one mesh to fix and refine and grow upon. Daz should make a CR2 version of genesis/genesis 2 or 3 or whatever... HW3D refine their concept/product a bit more if there is a next iteration...
For me the focus should be less on the figures in all honesty. SM in my opinion would pull out a win by making serious/revolutionary improvements in the re-fitting pipeline. I dont know what is technically possible, but it may take a complete re-imagining of how conforming clothing works.
basicwiz posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 8:07 PM
Quote - Roll all of that into a new set of SM figures, that are well designed and error-proofed, and add some good supporting content from SM to get the ball rolling, and I think folks might be surprised at just how much potential there would be for real vendor support to follow it. It won't happen over night of course. The stigma of Poser natives being badly designed would take time to wear off, but that just makes it all the more important for SM's next set of figures to be that much better. It's not an impossible task, it just takes determination. The supporting content already exists in the Poser library, it would just need updating to work with the new figures. A fresh coat of paint on an old house can do wonders for its curb appeal.
THIS has been my argument for years!
IF the support were to include a set of base clothing meshes, textures in white that could then be easily colored in the material room... WOW! Poser would suddenly become a killer suite right out of the box!
(And btw... the expansions don't have to ship with Poser. The could be put iun place the day of Poser's release on CP is SM wants more money out of the project...)
The question is simply, will they follow this line of reasoning?
Several things Teyon has hinted at give me hope.
shvrdavid posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 8:16 PM
Ambient:
Im not assuming that they are not used at all. But fixing them can make that happen to either version.
Fixing them means a few things can, and need to happen.
Vendors can update the content already out there, or make new content for the corrected version.
In Sydneys example:
If someone already has a bunch of old Sydney/G2 content and an older version of Poser, the new character and content are irrelivant to them and they will not need or buy any of it.
There is a flip side to that, the customer that has all the old content, the newest version of Poser, the updated character, and the content does not get updated.
They will either buy the new content, or move on to another character that they have content for.
I have V4 content that was never updated when V4 was. The vendors for one reason or another didn't update it. I never bought another thing from those vendors again. I eventually went back to V3 after it happened repeatedly. I have over 200 gig of V3 content that at the time would have just sat there if moving to V4 anyway.
What's to blame, the content creators or the update that broke it? Hmm....
Updating a character is a double edged sword. Catering to everyone can not be done by one group of people, everyone that ever created anything for it has too as well.
What are the chances of that happening with any character if it didn't happen with V4?
2 versions of Antonia and V4~WM are proof positive of that. No one really showed any interest in updating content, and the script to do so didn't really help the image of V4~WM that much either. People wanted a better character for Poser, a bunch of us pumped out 3 of them in less than a year. V4~WM can use practically anything that was for V4, and people still complained because it wasn't "whatever".
I probably look at it from another perspective because I was one of the people that wanted to give people better characters. Then quickly discovered that they really didn't know what they wanted to begin with.
Some things are easy to explain, other things are not........ <- Store -> <-Freebies->
shvrdavid posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 8:33 PM
Quote - ... the expansions don't have to ship with Poser...
People complained for years that there was no way to add expansions to Poser.
Smith Micro put the Addon Framework into Poser, and now you can add very complex ones.
How many addons are there now?
Not many at all considering how many people wanted the capability so they could add "whatever"....
Ideas are great, applying them is usually sparce.
There is an old saying.
"Be careful what you wish for, you might get it"
Rings all to true....
Some things are easy to explain, other things are not........ <- Store -> <-Freebies->
Teyon posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 9:15 PM
I find this all very interesting however...
meatSim posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 9:17 PM
Quote -
I probably look at it from another perspective because I was one of the people that wanted to give people better characters. Then quickly discovered that they really didn't know what they wanted to begin with.
I think this exact realisation is what has soured a lot of the really great community members that had mountains of telent and skill and were primarily interested in bettering the poser community and giving us better things to work with.
I dont know if we will see anything quite like the poser place projects again.. my gut says no, but maybe thats just me being jaded. It was sure an amazing experience though, I just wish that I had more skill at the time to contribute more... it really did change the way I look at figures, modelling and poser in genreal
DarkEdge posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 10:04 PM
I am not sure I would put much faith into the CP best selling list Ambient, if a hitler morph is best selling then I need to re-think the whole Kevorkian thing. 
Imo:
Part A: Users don't fully understand the limitations/challenges that currently exist in regards to character creation. This can include (but not limited to) bending, jcm's, topology, poly counts, artist interpatation, cr2 coding, etc.
Part B: Artists try to create a figure that appeals to all, when in reality we all come in different shapes and sizes and have as many different whims as we do opinions...good luck on finding two of those that are identical.
Now mix Part A and Part B from above and tell me what you get?
EClark1894 posted Mon, 02 December 2013 at 10:51 PM
THE MOsT FUNDAMENTAL FLAW with any figure is CONTENT SUPPORT. Talk about Topology and bending and rigging is all well and good. Maybe in later iterations they can even be fixed, but look at V4. She's got a LOT of flaws. So many in fact that there have been vendors who've made money off making fixes for those flaws. And annecdotely at least, judging from the number of people who download my freebies for the native Poser figures, people will use them.
Blackhearted morphed the hell out of Alyson2 with Anastasia and Shaeand several vendors even supported her.
The second biggest flaw that the Poser figures have are their limitation of use. Like Genesis, those figures are pretty much tied to the Poser application. The G2's and Miki are at least available independent of Poser. It would be nice if their rigging worked in other programs as well.
JoePublic posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 12:16 AM
Just wanted to add this: "Ghost bones" are as bad an idea as joint smoothing magnets are. Every additional actor slows Poser down, adds complexity to the cr2 and the weightmapped ghost bone is still not nearly as versatile as a simple JCM is. The weightmapping brush has a nasty tendency to "scramble" high res meshes. Especially at the buttocks and thighs this can become a problem. "Smoothing" won't help, so the only solution is to add a JCM to re-smoothen the mesh. This is no problem for LoRes meshes that get subdivided/smoothed while rendered, but it is visible on your average un-subdivided HiRes mesh. Ghost-Bones also makes cloth-refitting harder. You need to run an "outfitter" tool, whereas if you use JCM's, you either dont need to do anything at all, or simply transfer the weightmaps and JCM morphs to your clothing, which you can do directly in the PP-2014 pose room. Finally, you can't easily select ghost-bones by clicking on them, which makes manual posing a lot harder. The only real niggle I have about Genesis is the fact that I constantly have to manually select the hip bone in the menu, because clicking on the figure's hip selects the "pelvis" actor. The old "buttocks" grouping was much more "posing friendly", And, yeah, I know you can add "handles" to ghost bones, but then the figure looks rubbish in OpenGL. I want my figures to look like actual human beings even in OpenGL and not like some artificial 3D dummy, so here again, JCMs are the much more elegant solution. Ghost bones were a clever kludge as long as we didn't have an easy JCM making pipeline in Poser, but now they are mostly obsolete. I definitely would not want to use a figure that relies on them.
RorrKonn posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 12:56 AM
Quote - The second biggest flaw that the Poser figures have are their limitation of use. Like Genesis, those figures are pretty much tied to the Poser application. The G2's and Miki are at least available independent of Poser. It would be nice if their rigging worked in other programs as well.
You lost me here.
Poser has Fussion .& DSON for Genesis so Poser can be used as a plug for Max,C4D etc etc.
You can export anamtions out of DAZ.So DAZ can be used as a plug for Max,C4D etc etc.
Not that this gets done a lot if ever.
You could export animations out of one Main App n use the animation in a other Main App.
Any exported anamations out of main app's probably done for Games.
99% of Main App's tech rigs,dynamics,shaders etc etc don't cross over from one app to another.
Just like DAZ n Poser about all ya can do is export a .obj .
Get a mesh with UV's,
Probably half to fight with the textures to get them where they belong.
You can get any of DAZ n Poser Meshes ,UV's n textures in any app that has .obj.
============================================================
The
Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance
meatSim posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 12:59 AM
Quote - Finally, you can't easily select ghost-bones by clicking on them, which makes manual posing a lot harder.
but isn't it the point of ghost bones for them not to manually positioned.. Are they not generally slaved to the rotations of selectable bodypart and used mostly, shrdavid, said to give an extra dimension to the weighmapping of a particular bend?
From an end user standpoint, I didn't find the ghost bones in Antonia to negatively affect my user experience at all. The figure always behaved exactly as I would expect. I'll grant you that they did complicate clothing creation slightly as there was always an extra map in play, so it was more challenging to isolate exactly which map was responsible for any particular problem that needed solving. Aside from that though, the ghost bones never caused issues for rigging clothing.. they transfered just fine in the setup room (I didn't have th fitting room to play with back then so I cant speak to how they work in there)
The one thing that I personally like about ghost bones over JCMs is that you can map them right in poser, while you set up the joint as oposed to setting up your joints then creating the JCM (in my case something I would probably do in a modelling program as I just have never gotten along well with the morph brush)
of course this all comes from an intermediate hobbyist point of view so take it for what its worth
RorrKonn posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 1:12 AM
I'd say we found the probleam.
There's no accepted rules.
On how to model,rig etc etc characters or for content creaters creations.
Everyones playing there own ball game.
So we have a field full Chaos.
Can't play ball with out rules.
============================================================
The
Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance
JoePublic posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 1:24 AM
Ghost bones still don't have the infinite granularity a JCM has. You are still tied to a map. Antonia isn't a good example because her shape lacked nearly all antomical detail. The more detailed, the more complicated a figure's default shape is, the more complicated the fixes will have to be. As for creating them, since PP-2014, I do them all in Poser using the MorphBrush and the PoseMorphLoader script. I always tried to keep things as simple and backwards compatible as possible, and a JCM is just an ERC-controlled morph, so it doesn't break any of the existing "helper" tools that were developed over the years. People tend to get carried away with "cool new stuff", but my priority was always to create improvements that were "idiot-proof", so to say. Mainly because I wanted my figures to be as easy as possible to use for myself. :-)
AmbientShade posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 2:42 AM
Quote - Ambient:
Im not assuming that they are not used at all. But fixing them can make that happen to either version.
Fixing them means a few things can, and need to happen.
Vendors can update the content already out there, or make new content for the corrected version.
In Sydneys example:
If someone already has a bunch of old Sydney/G2 content and an older version of Poser, the new character and content are irrelivant to them and they will not need or buy any of it.
There is a flip side to that, the customer that has all the old content, the newest version of Poser, the updated character, and the content does not get updated.
They will either buy the new content, or move on to another character that they have content for.
After this long, I'm not talking about just an update to fix the issues that the old models have. Those updates should have been done within the first few months of their release - within the first year at most.
An updated G2 Sydney should instead be marketed as G3 Sydney at this point, with a revised mesh, a new body shape, new textures, etc. Definitely an improved rig. The mesh doesn't have to be rebuilt entirely from scratch. Just clean it up, get rid of all the junk so that it's optimized for the latest versions of Poser. Follow the pattern that has been done with Miki 1 - 4. (only make the improvements better). Miki seems to be the more successful of the SM figures, so using her development pattern as a template would make sense. Just push it a bit further.
Since SM owns a good chunk of the content for their figures, it wouldn't be difficult to update old content to work with the new figures. Why build yet another pair of jeans, when there's already a dozen or more pairs sitting in the library that have been built for all the figures previously? Just rework them to fit the new figure. With tools like ZBrush, this would be a piece of cake, and in a very short period of time any new/updated figure SM created would have a good selection of clothing ready to go. Doesn't matter what figure its for. Could be done for Rex and Roxie too, since those seem to be the figures SM are focusing on at the moment.
~Shane
millighost posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 6:07 AM
WandW posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 6:40 AM
Quote - Ghost-Bones also makes cloth-refitting harder. You need to run an "outfitter" tool, whereas if you use JCM's, you either dont need to do anything at all, or simply transfer the weightmaps and JCM morphs to your clothing, which you can do directly in the PP-2014 pose room. Finally, you can't easily select ghost-bones by clicking on them, which makes manual posing a lot harder. The only real niggle I have about Genesis is the fact that I constantly have to manually select the hip bone in the menu, because clicking on the figure's hip selects the "pelvis" actor. The old "buttocks" grouping was much more "posing friendly"
There's a hip handle for Genesis in my IK for Genesis package...
http://www.sharecg.com/v/67133/browse/11/Poser/Inverse-Kinematics-for-DAZ-Genesis-in-Poser
As far as ghost bones go, they are harder for cloth refitting, but easier for cloth creation, and they work better for tight fitting clothing, at least on V4WM vs fixed V4 with fix morphs added to the clothing...
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The Wisdom of bagginsbill:
"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
WandW posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 6:54 AM
Quote - I dont know if we will see anything quite like the poser place projects again.. my gut says no, but maybe thats just me being jaded. It was sure an amazing experience though, I just wish that I had more skill at the time to contribute more... it really did change the way I look at figures, modelling and poser in genreal
Those were indeed fun times, and I learned so much. In retrospect, the downside was that it was tied too much to one person; it was Mike's goal to teach people to create content to have them fully in the loop, but his health and website problems intervened before that happened, and it faded away. I think for such a project to be sucessful, several principal players are needed, but they need to come to a consensus on certain things, and but as seen from the discourse here, that is not an easy thing...
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The Wisdom of bagginsbill:
"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
shvrdavid posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 7:17 AM
I have to disagree with this for a few reasons, How many meg does the average Poser Character consume when you load it?
It is usually a few hundred meg right off the bat depending on the number of morphs.
What if you could load a character that was only about 50 and did not have a single morph in it? What type of character is that? A Blend shape one. Yeah they are not for everyone, simply because it is far easier to use Dynamic clothes with them.
As far as G3 is concerned, dunno if that will ever happen or not. I have more than a few versions of G3 that I have been playing around with. One in particular takes size reduction to extremes by using some interesting tricks to reduce the size as far as possible.
Some things are easy to explain, other things are not........ <- Store -> <-Freebies->
vilters posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 7:17 AM
It all starts with a lean and clean object file.
Edgeflow and topology are WAY more important then brutal poly count.
Then try to keep the cr2 as lean and clean as possible too.
The more stuff you put into it, the less end user friendly it becomes, and the more prone to errors it gets.
Some figures do have good meshes, but the cr2 completely ruins them.
From Poser 1, and that has been a long time, I have been:
Corecting object files
Deleting unwanted stuff; Magnets, JCM's, Material zones; You name, I delete it.
Never-ever seen symmetrical ones, so out they go by definition. I do not even look at them any more.
Allow me to add : Deflating balloons into breasts that look like breasts.
HUGELY IMPORTANT and highly underestimated: DELETING or MERGING material zones.
Why, oh why so many material zones? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
They are also a pollution in a DEFAULT NATIVE Poser figure.
If some end user wants extra material zones?
Its a piece of cake to make them from inside Poser.
But, once you have them?
Poser has no native way to delete them.
It is technically impossible as they are in the object files and int he cr2.
Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7,
P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game
Dev
"Do not drive
faster then your angel can fly"!
shvrdavid posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 7:18 AM
Some things are easy to explain, other things are not........ <- Store -> <-Freebies->
shvrdavid posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 7:18 AM
Some things are easy to explain, other things are not........ <- Store -> <-Freebies->
shvrdavid posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 7:19 AM
Some things are easy to explain, other things are not........ <- Store -> <-Freebies->
shvrdavid posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 7:22 AM
None of the additional bones need to be selected unless you want to edit something. There are dials for all of them.
I have a lot of characters that are set up this way, and I can honestly say that they are far faster to work with than any traditional cr2 is.
Yes, clothes can be an issue, no doubt about that. Last time I checked there are only 2 programs in my stable of programs that use conformers. All the rest use dynamic, because that is the 3D standard for clothing 99% of the time.
Some things are easy to explain, other things are not........ <- Store -> <-Freebies->
JoePublic posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 8:12 AM
WandW posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 8:30 AM
Quote - Maybe this will make my point clearer: Of course a fuel injected, computer controlled engine will be more efficient, run faster and be all around "better" than an old fashioned one with a carburettor and a simple mechanical ignition. But if even the slightest thing breaks with that modern engine, you're SOL without professional help because it's way too complicated for the average layperson to repair. But the conventional engine can be easily fixed with a handbook and a few simple tools unless something really serious has gone wrong.
Speaking as someone who works on my own cars, that's a bad anology. Remember the annual tuneup and having to rebuild the carburetor every couple of years? Or was that before your time? Not only do fewer things go wrong with a modern auto, I have a $30 box that plugs in under the dash and the computer tells me what is wrong with the engine or transmission if there is an issue. I spent more than $30 years ago to purchase the dwell meter and timing light needed to set the "simple mechanical ignition" timing annually.....
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The Wisdom of bagginsbill:
"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
-Timberwolf- posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 8:38 AM
@ shvrdavid: I really liked Sydney. Is there any legal way I can test one of your advanced "G3" Sydneys ? So curious to morph and pose her and explore her limits.
WandW posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 8:43 AM
Quote - @ shvrdavid: I really liked Sydney. Is there any legal way I can test one of your advanced "G3" Sydneys ? So curious to morph and pose her and explore her limits.
Ditto for me; I love Syd and Miki 2...
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The Wisdom of bagginsbill:
"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
WandW posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 8:50 AM
Quote - Bone driven expressions.
That always intrigued me, Something similar to Dizzi's Hampelmann control panels for posting figures ( http://neocron.webspaceforme.net/hampelmann/ ) to drive the expression bones would be really useful (and wicked cool! :biggrin: )
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The Wisdom of bagginsbill:
"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
JoePublic posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 8:59 AM
"Speaking as someone who works on my own cars, that's a bad anology. Remember the annual tuneup and having to rebuild the carburetor every couple of years? Or was that before your time? Not only do fewer things go wrong with a modern auto, I have a $30 box that plugs in under the dash and the computer tells me what is wrong with the engine or transmission if there is an issue. I spent more than $30 years ago to purchase the dwell meter and timing light needed to set the "simple mechanical ignition" timing annually....." But taking care of your car and learning how it works is part of the fun of driving a vintage car. So far all the cars I've owned were built between 1961 and 1969, except one, but I hated every second I had to spend in it. Besides, what if the computer chip of your car fails ? And there's no replacement because it's "too old" ? This has already become quite a problem with older "modern" cars. 10 years are an eternity when it comes to computer technology. Nope, I'll stay with vintage cars. If something worked for the last 50 years, there's a good chance it'll work for the next 50 years, too. :-)
Teyon posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 9:02 AM
Also, any bone in the figure should be selectable via the pull down menu as far as I'm aware. Even ghost bones unless made hidden in the CR2 in some way. Good example there would be the glute bones on rex and roxie - they are ghost bones but you can select them via the pull down.
Ok, carry on and like before....
isikol posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 9:35 AM
Quote - Way too much to list, as they are all broken beyond repair.
Biggest problem is the badly made mesh topology that ignores anatomical correct muscle and bone structure, so developing new, correct shapes is nigh impossible. On the one hand edgeloops are missing, on the other hand there are tons of redundant vertices doing nothing.
(I've created versions of MIKI-1 that had 30.000 instead of 130.000 polygons and rendered just as nicely as the original long before Poser had SubD.)
Second problem are the stylized, unrealistic bodyshapes that ignore human anatomy. (MIKI -1/2 being the only exception, but her mesh topology is some of the worst I've ever seen)
Third is the bad rigging. Often magnets are used to "fix" problem zones but the results are generally pathetic. It's a spaghetti shoulders and balooning buttocks bonanza.
Finally there is the lack of any support to speak of. No texture convertor to tap into the vast array of Vicky/Mike textures. (Don and Judy being the only exception as they can use V2/M2 textures. Sort of)
There is WW support, but the results are usually not good enough for frontpage work and take way too long to convert.
My advice ?
Make a deal with DAZ and licence Genesis 1 or 2. (If we get HD technology in the future, there will be no noticeable difference between them, so I'd actually prefer Genesis 1)
Rework it so that it a) works natively in Poser and b) give it a new default morph it loads with so that Poser has it's own signature figure for marketing reasons. It would still be Genesis, but "our" Genesis.
(After all, Dork and Posette were licensed from Zygote which later became DAZ, so I don't see any "ethical" problem here)
Other than that, copy Genesis as closely as you can get away with it.
(No ethical problems here either, as DAZ usually copies any new figure development as soon as possible. (T-chest and buttock actors were first introduced on a modified Posette. No buttocks and waist actors were introduced by Apollo and the Poser 6 folks. JCMs and ERC were a Poser "invention". And so on, and so on.)
Everybody copys, so again, look at Genesis and copy it, but raise the polycount to about 50.000 so it will render fine without SubD.
Any other solutions or half-hearted "fixes" will just be a waste of time.
We need a new start, but we have to do it right !
I second this proposal...unfortunately the 2 companies need to find a way to collaborate
RorrKonn posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 9:41 AM
Quote - These blendshapes might work well for animated toons and characters without much body detail, but you can't get as detailed a deformation from a single bone (Or a combination of several) than you can get from a morph. You also destroy the whole infrastructure people built around "conventional" cr2's. I also find it hard enough to navigate a standard cr2. I rather not imagine how convoluted it gets with all those additional actors. ( I think I opened V4's once in a text editor, recoiled in horror and never touched it again) And of course I want to select ghost bones, as they often need manual re-adjusting for complicated poses. At least with the figures I've worked with so far. Poser simply is not the same as professional 3D. Maybe this will make my point clearer: Of course a fuel injected, computer controlled engine will be more efficient, run faster and be all around "better" than an old fashioned one with a carburettor and a simple mechanical ignition. But if even the slightest thing breaks with that modern engine, you're SOL without professional help because it's way too complicated for the average layperson to repair. But the conventional engine can be easily fixed with a handbook and a few simple tools unless something really serious has gone wrong. That's what I want a Poser figure to be: So easy to "maintain", so rugged that those who are interrested in it can still tinker around with it without getting frustrated immediately. So, sorry, I'll stay with my old fashioned morphs. Poser is built upon object files and morphs, and all the tools were made to handle object files and morphs. BTW, the cr2s of my custom figures are about 5mb each compressed. That includes expression morphs and a couple JCM fixes. It's not that I need a couple dozend JCM's or so for good bending. It's usually a pair for the armpits and a pair for extreme "ankles behind your neck" poses. M3RR's cr2 above is 4.83mb including all his default body and expression morphs with just a pair of JCMs. I don't think you can get any simpler and easier to use than that.
What's ya render look like with a bodysuit on or just cloths ?
============================================================
The
Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance
JoePublic posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 10:38 AM
JoePublic posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 10:41 AM
JoePublic posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 10:52 AM
RorrKonn posted Tue, 03 December 2013 at 4:56 PM
JoePublic : Thanks for the info :)
============================================================
The
Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance
shvrdavid posted Thu, 05 December 2013 at 6:41 PM
Quote - These blendshapes might work well for animated toons and characters without much body detail, but you can't get as detailed a deformation from a single bone (Or a combination of several) than you can get from a morph. You also destroy the whole infrastructure people built around "conventional" cr2's. I also find it hard enough to navigate a standard cr2. I rather not imagine how convoluted it gets with all those additional actors.
You obviously didn't read what I wrote. It is no harder to navigate than any other CR2, if you loaded the cr2 and stayed in the pose and mat room it would look and work like any other Poser character. You wouldn't even know there were additional bones.
Condem what you have never seen.......
Your analogy of classic cars is fitting....... In ways you may not even realize....
Some things are easy to explain, other things are not........ <- Store -> <-Freebies->
icprncss2 posted Fri, 18 April 2014 at 8:11 PM
Actually eFrontier invested the money to bridge the gap between Poser and higher end apps.
Shortly after Poser 7 was released, they purchased the Poser Fusion plugins and added them to the first Pro version of Poser.
IIRC, there is a thread in one of the offical Poser forums over at RDNA detailing SMS's reasons why they made the choices they made. One of the biggest was that they did not want to tie their app to another companies development schedule. Another had to do with Triax being trademarked or whatever and SMS choosing to continue as previous owners have with an open file system. There were others but these were two of the biggest.
Wasn't Genesis supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread to hit the Poser/DS market? Wasn't it supposed to be the be all end all of all figures?
That lasted what? Two years? Now it's back to the gender split. Two steps forward and then three steps back.
