Now that Renderosity owns Poser, a question comes to mind. I mean, I have an idea of what they should do to make Poser a better app, but it seems everybody has a different idea about what Renderosity should do about the next Poser figure. So, should Renderosity make a new Poser figure when it releases the next version of Poser? Or should they just stick with and market what they already have for just a little bit longer?

"What makes a good figure?"

one the community will use. unfortunately we all see how that goes these days...

Why would you want them to make the same errors as the last team did? If I have a model Roxie, Pauline or La Femme anyone of them is a good model and Poser can bend them fairly well and they perform as expected. The biggest issue is putting the color (skin) on them. The biggest part of new characters is the makeups (there is also shape changes). So why just as you start to build up a collection of content for a figure you dump it and start over. The problem is not that Poser figures are bad its that they never stay the same long enough to be useful.

I never understood why the old team would put out a new figure with each release of Poser. I get that they wanted to show off the new features such as scaling bending etc. however they could have used the last figure put the new rigging in and called it Roxie 2.0 instead of Pauline. And all the time spent on making a new mesh could have been spent making a Morph of Roxie to make her look like Pauline. That is one of the things that made no sense from a software company that reuses old code modify it a bit and put out a new product, except when it came to figures at which point they said build something new from scratch and do it in 4 weeks.

The best thing Renderosity could do is make it clear they have ONE flagship figure and that it will be around for sometime so they can build up content. When the next version of Poser comes out and they need to make changes to the Flagship have the program be able to transfer the changes into the content easily.

Poser 5, 6, 7, 8, Poser Pro 9 (2012), 10 (2014), 11, 12, 13

"What makes a good figure"

One you find functional and enjoyable to use. Everything else is nonsense.

Richard60 posted at 3:36PM Fri, 05 July 2019 - #4356116

Why would you want them to make the same errors as the last team did? If I have a model Roxie, Pauline or La Femme anyone of them is a good model and Poser can bend them fairly well and they perform as expected. The biggest issue is putting the color (skin) on them. The biggest part of new characters is the makeups (there is also shape changes). So why just as you start to build up a collection of content for a figure you dump it and start over. The problem is not that Poser figures are bad its that they never stay the same long enough to be useful.

I never understood why the old team would put out a new figure with each release of Poser. I get that they wanted to show off the new features such as scaling bending etc. however they could have used the last figure put the new rigging in and called it Roxie 2.0 instead of Pauline. And all the time spent on making a new mesh could have been spent making a Morph of Roxie to make her look like Pauline. That is one of the things that made no sense from a software company that reuses old code modify it a bit and put out a new product, except when it came to figures at which point they said build something new from scratch and do it in 4 weeks.

The best thing Renderosity could do is make it clear they have ONE flagship figure and that it will be around for sometime so they can build up content. When the next version of Poser comes out and they need to make changes to the Flagship have the program be able to transfer the changes into the content easily.

I never said I wanted them to make the same errors as the last team. That would be insane! I haven't used Pauline or La Femme, to be honest. I've stuck with Dawn. And to be perfectly honest, I wasn't disappointed with Roxie. I know she wasn't everyone's cup of tea, and she could have bent better, but I liked her.

It's rather obvious you don't like La Femme. Be nice if you could point out some reasons why instead of making everyone guess what you don't like. And we already have a growing amount of content for La Femme. Maybe La Femme 2.0 could address some of those problems.

The only thing you said that I do agree with is that Poser, for some reason, and with the apparent exception of Miki 1, 2, 3, and 4 could never seem to go past one update to a figure before making a brand spanking new one.

Well ... generically ... one that is fully functional, pleasing to look at from the get-go. And for me, realistic physically. Too many times I have found noses, eyes and mouths too rudimentary and not easily turned into realistic looking. Posing rigs is a must for me now ... and spinal flexibility. better foot rigging (Like PE, La Femme). And never leave out the more realistic "look-up/down" and "look-side-to-side" with eye-lid adjustments. Texturing? that is all open for 3rd party opportunities. And finally for me ... a HUGE selection of morphs. Particularly for the face.

Bonus: is to make the texture maps and mesh and morphs MR's to encourage marketable character development. (thank you Paul/Pauline and La Femme!!)

Boni

---

"Be Hero to Yourself" -- Peter Tork

My opinion:

• A simple, smooth, realistic and low resolution mesh in the base Geommetry as La Femme:
• A figure only with the essential body groups (easy to work with). Avoid unecessary body groups that most of the times aren't used.;
• Nice and very well made Face morphs and expressions morphs; A nice diversity of Body morphs;
• A figure that works fast!;
• A simple and very well made rigging;
• The UVmap of the figure must be simple, must allow the creation of very detailed Skin textures but with the less seams as possible (The UVmaps of La Femme and Raffael are nice); Don't forget that textures can have a resolution of 8192 x 8192 pixels;
• A professional, good and creative support from merchants in the creation of related products :)

STORE: https://www.renderosity.com/marketplace/vendors/3Dream

FREEBIES: https://www.renderosity.com/users/3Dream/freestuff

I agree with Boni. What I want is a lot of morphs in the face, whether built-in or as an add-on. I like to be able to make Poser figures look like real people - celebrities, family members, politicians, etc. I also want some ethnic diversity. I've bought my share of gorgeous young white characters, but I also want the ability to render different races, ages, etc. (I liked the G2 figures for that reason, though they had other issues.)

But what I think what Poser really needs is figures that will be supported. That is, IMO, what DAZ does right. When they release a figure, it comes with tons of support - textures, hair, clothing, etc. There's never any doubt that their figures will be supported, and will keep being supported. Not sure if Rosity can emulate that, but they should try.

randym77 posted at 5:57PM Fri, 05 July 2019 - #4356138

But what I think what Poser really needs is figures that will be supported. That is, IMO, what DAZ does right. When they release a figure, it comes with tons of support - textures, hair, clothing, etc. There's never any doubt that their figures will be supported, and will keep being supported. Not sure if Rosity can emulate that, but they should try.

From what I understand, but don't know for certain, DAZ has a vendor forum for vendors only. So they know what and when something is being released. I'm only assuming that they get advanced releases of this figure to make content for.

There is a vendor forum here too. It's only for the vendors. Don't know what's discussed there, but now that poser is here, maybe they can look into getting some creators helping with more content.

---

Available on Amazon for the Kindle E-Reader Monster of the North and The Shimmering Mage

Today I break my own personal record for the number of days for being alive.
Check out my store here or my free stuff here
I use Poser 13 and win 10

EClark1894 posted at 7:12PM Fri, 05 July 2019 - #4356132

Richard60 posted at 3:36PM Fri, 05 July 2019 - #4356116

Why would you want them to make the same errors as the last team did? If I have a model Roxie, Pauline or La Femme anyone of them is a good model and Poser can bend them fairly well and they perform as expected. The biggest issue is putting the color (skin) on them. The biggest part of new characters is the makeups (there is also shape changes). So why just as you start to build up a collection of content for a figure you dump it and start over. The problem is not that Poser figures are bad its that they never stay the same long enough to be useful.

I never understood why the old team would put out a new figure with each release of Poser. I get that they wanted to show off the new features such as scaling bending etc. however they could have used the last figure put the new rigging in and called it Roxie 2.0 instead of Pauline. And all the time spent on making a new mesh could have been spent making a Morph of Roxie to make her look like Pauline. That is one of the things that made no sense from a software company that reuses old code modify it a bit and put out a new product, except when it came to figures at which point they said build something new from scratch and do it in 4 weeks.

The best thing Renderosity could do is make it clear they have ONE flagship figure and that it will be around for sometime so they can build up content. When the next version of Poser comes out and they need to make changes to the Flagship have the program be able to transfer the changes into the content easily.

I never said I wanted them to make the same errors as the last team. That would be insane! I haven't used Pauline or La Femme, to be honest. I've stuck with Dawn. And to be perfectly honest, I wasn't disappointed with Roxie. I know she wasn't everyone's cup of tea, and she could have bent better, but I liked her.

It's rather obvious you don't like La Femme. Be nice if you could point out some reasons why instead of making everyone guess what you don't like. And we already have a growing amount of content for La Femme. Maybe La Femme 2.0 could address some of those problems.

The only thing you said that I do agree with is that Poser, for some reason, and with the apparent exception of Miki 1, 2, 3, and 4 could never seem to go past one update to a figure before making a brand spanking new one.

I don't know what, in Richard60's comment, made you think he doesn't like La Femme.

Honestly, he's been a very good customer of my La Femme products, very supportive and, I assume, of other vendors as well.

Some people have mentioned rather than new figures each time, upgrade the old figure. One person pointed to the Mikis. Others in the past have pointed to the Daz generations. What difference does it make if they are all new figures or next generations? It's not like content can be traded between the figures. Yes, the genesises can do that in daz, but it's not the figures, it's the program that converts it.

---

Available on Amazon for the Kindle E-Reader Monster of the North and The Shimmering Mage

Today I break my own personal record for the number of days for being alive.
Check out my store here or my free stuff here
I use Poser 13 and win 10

I think what makes a good figure is one that is pleasant to work with. Dawn, Dusk and La Femme fall into this category.

I don't pull my hair out, cuss and scream, and generally groan when I get to the rigging part of making content for those figures. They are clean, well made models, without gimmicks and tricks that mean jumping through rigging hoops just to get a bend to work properly. They are enjoyable to rig for.

There are a couple other things I think make a figure successful in vendor support: a) not changing the creation environment so much that the vendor has to learn their craft all over again for THIS figure; and b) so many changes and differences that a long established work pattern has to be completely re-worked.

Those 2 items above are figure killers - vendors simply will not support the figure.

Orion & Venus look cool & good outa de box n all. Readin' all that AS is doin' to 'em and the reasons for doin' 'em the way he is makes me feel all warm inside like they be the best so far. Best lookin' too. Was said they might come wif starter stuff too, which is good plannin'.

RedPhantom posted at 7:03PM Fri, 05 July 2019 - #4356147

Some people have mentioned rather than new figures each time, upgrade the old figure. One person pointed to the Mikis. Others in the past have pointed to the Daz generations. What difference does it make if they are all new figures or next generations? It's not like content can be traded between the figures. Yes, the genesises can do that in daz, but it's not the figures, it's the program that converts it.

But even before Genesis...DAZ gave some thought to backwards compatibility. V2 was meant to be able to take V1's clothing and textures. V3 came with a V3 to V2 version, with V3's head on V2's body.

That's a subjective question. For me realism is key, As for figure releases - I think they should just work on improving the figures until the software itself exceeds what the then current figures can do. then with that release of the software. upgrade the figures so the 2 cycle together. I think clothing should be interchangeable as much as possible and a major deal is...(getting ready for the blow back) I think that vendors, content creators AND R'osity should support ALL the figures available equally. Think about it: what is a broader base for content creators profits...3 figures or 13 figures all getting needed support.

Just to clarify - I think Darkseal's H-Girl is fantastic work and I have a tendency to buy things I think are great work whether or not I'll ever use them lmao H-Girl isn't realistic but I think she's very very good :)

Just to be clear I do own La Femme and a lot of content for her. I also have a lot of content (characters) for Pauline. The only reason I did not mention her (La Femme) more was she was not a figure released with the program. And my point with out being mean and saying nasty things about any of the ex-Poser team was why wait till the near release of the program and then rush to make a new figure and then rig with the Beta code. There have been a lot of comments over the years from a lot of figure creators (without naming names) that they quote unquote had stated they don't want to redo an old figure to fix issues and making a new version is easier. Which from their point of view is true, however it then restarts the content to Zero and then you have to hope it gets vendor support.

From my perspective as a computer programmer and data miner If any of the Object files had stayed the same then the current textures could be used with the up coming figure even if the rigging had changed. And if the Content for a figure needed to be redone because of the rigging change it would be a lot easier if the default figure were the same as there would be no scaling required. The fitting room does a good job given that figures could have different scales for body parts and needs to shrink or expand to fit. So that it would be easy for the end user to upgrade by themselves if they so choose or allow the vendors to have a starting point that will allow for easier conversions.

Poser 5, 6, 7, 8, Poser Pro 9 (2012), 10 (2014), 11, 12, 13

Richard60 posted at 9:05PM Fri, 05 July 2019 - #4356158

Just to be clear I do own La Femme and a lot of content for her. I also have a lot of content (characters) for Pauline. The only reason I did not mention her (La Femme) more was she was not a figure released with the program. And my point with out being mean and saying nasty things about any of the ex-Poser team was why wait till the near release of the program and then rush to make a new figure and then rig with the Beta code. There have been a lot of comments over the years from a lot of figure creators (without naming names) that they quote unquote had stated they don't want to redo an old figure to fix issues and making a new version is easier. Which from their point of view is true, however it then restarts the content to Zero and then you have to hope it gets vendor support.

From my perspective as a computer programmer and data miner If any of the Object files had stayed the same then the current textures could be used with the up coming figure even if the rigging had changed. And if the Content for a figure needed to be redone because of the rigging change it would be a lot easier if the default figure were the same as there would be no scaling required. The fitting room does a good job given that figures could have different scales for body parts and needs to shrink or expand to fit. So that it would be easy for the end user to upgrade by themselves if they so choose or allow the vendors to have a starting point that will allow for easier conversions.

The truth is, though, that some of the old Poser figures are simply irredeemable. The models themselves have so many errors and bad modeling, they simply aren't fixable. Some models have holes in the geometry, poles and ngons galore.

And, I'm sorry, the little creature toed Poser 4 Infant is a perfect example. Compare that to Hivewire's Baby Luna!

To be fair, the ancient P4 stuff were 1990's era meshes that barely ran on the PCs of the time w/o blowing everything up. Joint Params were fast becoming old tech even back then, as the full-Pro world (Maya, 3DS Max, Lightwave, etc) shifted to rigged skeletons. And flexibility? Umm, LOL, nope. Not incredibly ugly, but not really too awful usable. If you were doing a dancing figure (stills - forget animation!), you had to make them dance like frickin' baptists, else the mesh would tear at the slightest provocation.

So yeah, today is way different. I promise, I'm way grateful for that.

Now as for OP?

I say find a figure that...

• isn't Genesis-based. (I'll explain in a few, so pick your jaws back up)
• folks use more than any other.
• that can be bought or licensed outright, and in perpetuity.
• has the flexibility to withstand foreseen upgrades and added functionality.
• has the flexibility to be made androgynous (I'm serious here - cheaper to maintain one mesh/rig setup than to maintain 2, 3, or four of them)
• has the flexibility to be made into a credible baby, all the way to a credible giant superhuman uber-muscled thingy, to an alien, to...

There are a couple figures out there - they need to find a good one and throw their weight behind it. Maybe hire a modeler or two to help things out a bit, and dedicate a developer towards a means to convert stuff made for other figures into the chosen figure (like what Crossdresser does, but all in one direction.)

Now yes, Renderosity, I mean that you don't want to do Genesis.

The licensing costs for distribution, even if DAZ were to want to grant one, would be crippling. DAZ isn't going to track Genesis' development to yours or to your wishes, because they no longer have to. Your long-term survival depends on doing your own thing as much as possible.

Oh, and two other things:

1. do a very generous store cut for merchants who make stuff for your favored figure - 75-25% in the merchant's favor. Maybe 80% for early-adopter merchants until you get a big enough stable of goodies.

2. do not flop over to a new figure every other week... give it maybe two years, unless the changes you propose do not break backwards compatibility with stuff made and sold for meshes up to, say, 2 years old.

There's tons more, but this should give an idea.

movida posted at 11:13PM Fri, 05 July 2019 - #4356154

I think clothing should be interchangeable as much as possible and a major deal is...(getting ready for the blow back) I think that vendors, content creators AND R'osity should support ALL the figures available equally. Think about it: what is a broader base for content creators profits...3 figures or 13 figures all getting needed support.

No blowback intended here ... The way Poser features stand now, supporting 13 figures vs 3 is not a simple process for conforming clothing. Supporting 13 different figures instead of 3 might seem like there would be not as much work ... but actually the modeling is the easy part. It's the rest of the stuff to make the figure work that is the tedious part.

The Fitting Room is OK for personal use, but the results will not be commercial quality without a fair amount of additional work..Because of that, I do my refits and regroups manually (it's more predictable and better quality, and it actually takes me less time to do it that way).

-- The textures can usually be reused, but new materials have to be recreated or updated for later versions of Poser.

-- Weight mapping between DS and Poser is entirely different if you are looking for clothing that is compatible with both. Figures and clothing weights made in one program do not automatically transfer to the other. The weight maps have to be tweaked in their native application.

-- Figures usually don't share the same groups. Regrouping a model will mean that morphs will have to be redone, and sometimes they don't transfer well..

-- Add to that, that each figure has its own full body morphs and they might not be cross-compatible with other figures.

So ... not quite as straightforward as one might think. ;-)

Deecey posted at 11:33PM Fri, 05 July 2019 - #4356167

movida posted at 11:13PM Fri, 05 July 2019 - #4356154

I think clothing should be interchangeable as much as possible and a major deal is...(getting ready for the blow back) I think that vendors, content creators AND R'osity should support ALL the figures available equally. Think about it: what is a broader base for content creators profits...3 figures or 13 figures all getting needed support.

No blowback intended here ... The way Poser features stand now, supporting 13 figures vs 3 is not a simple process for conforming clothing. Supporting 13 different figures instead of 3 might seem like there would be not as much work ... but actually the modeling is the easy part. It's the rest of the stuff to make the figure work that is the tedious part.

The Fitting Room is OK for personal use, but the results will not be commercial quality without a fair amount of additional work..Because of that, I do my refits and regroups manually (it's more predictable and better quality, and it actually takes me less time to do it that way).

-- The textures can usually be reused, but new materials have to be recreated or updated for later versions of Poser.

-- Weight mapping between DS and Poser is entirely different if you are looking for clothing that is compatible with both. Figures and clothing weights made in one program do not automatically transfer to the other. The weight maps have to be tweaked in their native application.

-- Figures usually don't share the same groups. Regrouping a model will mean that morphs will have to be redone, and sometimes they don't transfer well..

-- Add to that, that each figure has its own full body morphs and they might not be cross-compatible with other figures.

So ... not quite as straightforward as one might think. ;-)

I didn't mean to go backwards and refit or redo what's available now. What I was thinking was that a bit of planning now would enable the clothes and figures to be migrated forward from here on.. As for the differences between DAZ studio and Poser, I wasn't even thinking about DAZ at all just where Poser would go from here on because cross compatibility isn't important to me and it would cost development money.

I know this may sound really odd. But as far as cross figure clothing in Poser, dynamic is the best answer for it. Which would require a better handling system for that to begin with.

What makes a good figure? Well that depends who you ask, what they want from a figure, and what they want to do with it in the first place.

Top of my list....

The geometry must be fully symmetrical. The grouping must work with the skeleton used. The UV mapping must be logical, and have seams thought out. And the figure has to get vendor support and consumer support of the vendor.

The last one is what kills figures. And there is no easy answer for that short of binding a base figure to the program for features that you can't get otherwise. Sound familiar?

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shvrdavid posted at 2:23PM Sat, 06 July 2019 - #4356208

I know this may sound really odd. But as far as cross figure clothing in Poser, dynamic is the best answer for it. Which would require a better handling system for that to begin with.

What makes a good figure? Well that depends who you ask, what they want from a figure, and what they want to do with it in the first place.

Top of my list....

The geometry must be fully symmetrical. The grouping must work with the skeleton used. The UV mapping must be logical, and have seams thought out. And the figure has to get vendor support and consumer support of the vendor.

The last one is what kills figures. And there is no easy answer for that short of binding a base figure to the program for features that you can't get otherwise. Sound familiar?

I still think that Bullet Physics is the way Poser and the community should go with Dynamic clothing. Right now, it takes a little while to set things up, so it's not for the 'just pose and render' crowd.

The problem with bullet physics is that it works best with flat planes or enclosed objects. So you can make a flag or cape and you are good. You can also make a Jello cube that wiggles or a Santa Belly that jiggle. But you can not put a pair of legs inside a skirt, because Bullet will make a proxy object to calculate from and for a skirt it will look something like a bell, with the bottom closed. Years ago someone on the old RDNA forums asked about dropping balls into a bowl and that they were falling off the sides without going into the concave part of the bowl. That was because the opening was being closed by an invisible topping. To get around this I told him to put a bunch of flat planes inside the bowl make them invisible and drop the balls onto those planes. It mostly works if you make the planes small enough . The problem you run into with the skirt is that as soon as you make the legs a collision target and they are inside the skirt then bullet tries to avoid the collision and starts the skirt moving until it is going fast enough to fly off the body. I know I have tried it.

So there are two ways around this. One make the bullet physics move a bunch of weights tied to a skirts body handles. Two make objects that move and have the clothroom handle dynamics of the skirt colliding with the objects.

Poser 5, 6, 7, 8, Poser Pro 9 (2012), 10 (2014), 11, 12, 13

I think the question is too open ended and vague You may as well be asking: "what makes a good Pizza?"

Well ...you will get a variety of subjective answers based on wether the person is a vegeterian (No meat). A muslim ( meat, but no pork products) or lactose intolerant ( no cheese)or even wheat sensitive etc etc.

People can bang on all they want about their personal requirements such as "nice detailed feet" or the ability to morph from a cute infant to"Thanos" or the "Hulk"

But none of that matters if the figure has no content supported by UNIFORM STANDARDS, rigidly enforced by the content creation tools of the native/target program.

Bondware is finally in the position to do this with poser,the RMP and whatever figures become the "flagships"

Now before anyone bleets that such an "autocratic" system is "too much like Daz " and that "stifles" the creativity of all of the special Snowflake creators who will have to conform to the will of the gatekeepers.

I humbly suggest you look at other markets and the companies that have risen to dominate them.

Apple: starting with the return of jobs and the killing of the "Mac Clones" that had quality standards all over the spectrum.

Today very nearly sovereign entity more valuable than Exxon Mobile,only producing expensive luxury brand computers with rigidly controlled hardware specs.

Then the IPhone with a controlled retail outlet, forcing App developers to meet the uniform standards for the IOS platform.

The same business model with google and Android OS.

Now take a look at the long sad history of sony's consumer electronic division,one failed closed format ,music playing, hardware device after another.

Each with different physical content delivery mediums.expecting consumers to repurchase their Pink Floyd collections
over and over with each new innovative "mini-disc" etc

By the time the digital MP3 format liberated everyone from ever changing physical delivery mediums no one cared about a sony "walkman/discman"music player and were all using Apple Ipods.

Now consider the long ,sad history of the third party "Saviour figures "for poser, after Daz effectively abandoned the poser platform in favor of their own where they control both the content creation standards AND the Primary retail outlet ( See Apple,see Google).

Even Hivewire requires a Submission of DAZ genesis content to have a matching product for THEIR native figures and lafemme's team seems to be at least trying to have some uniform content creation standards IMHO.

NONE of the failed predecessors even bothered with the pretense. Each Apparently built a figure informed by a coffee klatch commitee of tribal loyalists, who themselves were not active content creators/merchants ,but easily impressed by Nerdy McNerd technobabble about exotic rigging schemes and bloviating "mission statements" accompanied by brobdignagian forum signature banners " ..They are coming!!"

Some decided make the noble sacrifice for "the good of the community" and provide all of the content support for their exotic, nonstandard figures themselves

To his credit, at least Anton Kissel actually toiled for a few years supporting Apollo Max Likely fueled by personal hatred of ,and a desire for"revenge" against his former Affilate ..Daz inc.

And now we see Mr: " I am not a business man" .. "I am Crowd sourcing further development" of my exotic nonstandard Female figure.

Posting recently the that if Bondware is "For Real" and willing to remake the rigging system of poser to conform to his exotic Female figure. He may consider revisting that effort....wow!!

IMHO Bondware should look at history and choose wisely ,their course, going forward.

My website

YouTube Channel

wolf359 posted at 5:47PM Sat, 06 July 2019 - #4356238

I think the question is too open ended and vague You may as well be asking: "what makes a good Pizza?"

Well ...you will get a variety of subjective answers based on wether the person is a vegeterian (No meat). A muslim ( meat, but no pork products) or lactose intolerant ( no cheese)or even wheat sensitive etc etc.

People can bang on all they want about their personal requirements such as "nice detailed feet" or the ability to morph from a cute infant to"Thanos" or the "Hulk"

It was supposed to be vague and subjective. I want people to explain why they want what they want in a figure.

I've long thought a really good male figure and really good female figure with interchangeable heads would be useful. Kind of like Lady Littlefox did with Melody 2, That way merchants can make a highly detailed head with expressive morphs and facial expression but all the clothes would still fit the male/female figure.

This variation of what is a good figure has been done to death before. So lets flip the question and ask what new feature do you expect Poser to have that requires a new figure?

As a recap under Smith Micro Posers 8-11 had Ryan and Alyson, Ryan2 and Alyson2, Rex and Roxie, Paul and Pauline. Poser 8 had Capsule fall off joints. Poser 9 had Weight Maps. Poser 10 had subdivision and Poser 11 has control chips and scaling. I am sure there are a lot more things but these are the biggies when it come to figures. Myself not dealing with Ryan and Alyson much can't say much about them. Ryan2 and Alyson2 were judged by the community to be ugly. However BlackHearted provided that a good morph can change all that and Produced Anastasia and Tyler. And those two have a small amount of content for them. Rex and Roxie were made to show off subdivision and by the nature of that feature required a new mesh instead of reusing Ryan2 and Alyson2. Paul and Pauline had better scaling and the control chips and instead of making two new figures Rex and Roxie could have been updated to 2.0 and have had morphs made to transform Roxie into Pauline. And showed off the new features.

So given that La Femme appears to be a successful figure what about her needs to be changed? My money is on Poser putting in a easier way to change a figures UV maps. The code is in the program as you can go in and using Python change each Vertex's UV mapping just that it is slow to do, and you need to know what each Vertex does and where it is located. With this feature there is no need to create a brand new figure such as was the case of Anastasia and Roxie.

So that is the more relevant question What new feature is Poser going to come out with that Requires a new figure.

Poser 5, 6, 7, 8, Poser Pro 9 (2012), 10 (2014), 11, 12, 13

Richard60 posted at 11:56PM Sat, 06 July 2019 - #4356259

This variation of what is a good figure has been done to death before. So lets flip the question and ask what new feature do you expect Poser to have that requires a new figure?

As a recap under Smith Micro Posers 8-11 had Ryan and Alyson, Ryan2 and Alyson2, Rex and Roxie, Paul and Pauline. Poser 8 had Capsule fall off joints. Poser 9 had Weight Maps. Poser 10 had subdivision and Poser 11 has control chips and scaling. I am sure there are a lot more things but these are the biggies when it come to figures. Myself not dealing with Ryan and Alyson much can't say much about them. Ryan2 and Alyson2 were judged by the community to be ugly. However BlackHearted provided that a good morph can change all that and Produced Anastasia and Tyler. And those two have a small amount of content for them. Rex and Roxie were made to show off subdivision and by the nature of that feature required a new mesh instead of reusing Ryan2 and Alyson2. Paul and Pauline had better scaling and the control chips and instead of making two new figures Rex and Roxie could have been updated to 2.0 and have had morphs made to transform Roxie into Pauline. And showed off the new features.

So given that La Femme appears to be a successful figure what about her needs to be changed? My money is on Poser putting in a easier way to change a figures UV maps. The code is in the program as you can go in and using Python change each Vertex's UV mapping just that it is slow to do, and you need to know what each Vertex does and where it is located. With this feature there is no need to create a brand new figure such as was the case of Anastasia and Roxie.

So that is the more relevant question What new feature is Poser going to come out with that Requires a new figure.

Wouldn't that go hand in hand with what do you want in a figure? Personally, I'm okay with Poser not having any new figures, or maybe updating Paul and Pauline to take advantage of any new tech. I'd much rather Poser updated or fixed features it already has such as letting Poser read and incorporate Cycles nodes, the Cloth Room, Simplifying Bullet Physics,yes, I know that's third party tech, fixing the Hair Room, and adding Particles. As it is, Poser is chock full of features that just miss the mark and could use some improvements. Oh, and I'm okay with tossing the Face Room.

Sorry. This is going to be inflammatory. Seems like more bullshit from the "armchair on the sidelines, shit on everything and contribute nothing" crowd. Maybe that's inaccurate or unfair and if so I apologize. I honestly don't get what childish grudge the rendo crowd has against E. With as small as the community has become, with poser being in as deep of a shit hole as it currently is, the sentiment of 'pitch in or F off' come to mind.

That being said, no, becoming more like daz is not the way to go. If posers' remaining community wanted it to be daz they'd be using daz. Posers new owners don't have the time or resources to out-daz daz.

Figures aren't the problem. There is nothing wrong with E or Lafemme. Content for figures is the problem. If there is ways they can change poser that makes content easier or more portable that should be the focus. If a figure, exotically rigged or not, exposes bugs or deficiencies in the way the app works they should certainly address those, even if it does bruise inflated egos.

wolf359 posted at 11:59PM Sat, 06 July 2019 - #4356238

I think the question is too open ended and vague You may as well be asking: "what makes a good Pizza?"

Well ...you will get a variety of subjective answers based on wether the person is a vegeterian (No meat). A muslim ( meat, but no pork products) or lactose intolerant ( no cheese)or even wheat sensitive etc etc.

People can bang on all they want about their personal requirements such as "nice detailed feet" or the ability to morph from a cute infant to"Thanos" or the "Hulk"

But none of that matters if the figure has no content supported by UNIFORM STANDARDS, rigidly enforced by the content creation tools of the native/target program.

Bondware is finally in the position to do this with poser,the RMP and whatever figures become the "flagships"

Now before anyone bleets that such an "autocratic" system is "too much like Daz " and that "stifles" the creativity of all of the special Snowflake creators who will have to conform to the will of the gatekeepers.

I humbly suggest you look at other markets and the companies that have risen to dominate them.

Apple: starting with the return of jobs and the killing of the "Mac Clones" that had quality standards all over the spectrum.

Today very nearly sovereign entity more valuable than Exxon Mobile,only producing expensive luxury brand computers with rigidly controlled hardware specs.

Then the IPhone with a controlled retail outlet, forcing App developers to meet the uniform standards for the IOS platform.

The same business model with google and Android OS.

Now take a look at the long sad history of sony's consumer electronic division,one failed closed format ,music playing, hardware device after another.

Each with different physical content delivery mediums.expecting consumers to repurchase their Pink Floyd collections
over and over with each new innovative "mini-disc" etc

By the time the digital MP3 format liberated everyone from ever changing physical delivery mediums no one cared about a sony "walkman/discman"music player and were all using Apple Ipods.

Now consider the long ,sad history of the third party "Saviour figures "for poser, after Daz effectively abandoned the poser platform in favor of their own where they control both the content creation standards AND the Primary retail outlet ( See Apple,see Google).

Even Hivewire requires a Submission of DAZ genesis content to have a matching product for THEIR native figures and lafemme's team seems to be at least trying to have some uniform content creation standards IMHO.

NONE of the failed predecessors even bothered with the pretense. Each Apparently built a figure informed by a coffee klatch commitee of tribal loyalists, who themselves were not active content creators/merchants ,but easily impressed by Nerdy McNerd technobabble about exotic rigging schemes and bloviating "mission statements" accompanied by brobdignagian forum signature banners " ..They are coming!!"

Some decided make the noble sacrifice for "the good of the community" and provide all of the content support for their exotic, nonstandard figures themselves

To his credit, at least Anton Kissel actually toiled for a few years supporting Apollo Max Likely fueled by personal hatred of ,and a desire for"revenge" against his former Affilate ..Daz inc.

And now we see Mr: " I am not a business man" .. "I am Crowd sourcing further development" of my exotic nonstandard Female figure.

Posting recently the that if Bondware is "For Real" and willing to remake the rigging system of poser to conform to his exotic Female figure. He may consider revisting that effort....wow!!

IMHO Bondware should look at history and choose wisely ,their course, going forward.

EClark1894 posted at 1:45AM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356232

I still think that Bullet Physics is the way Poser and the community should go with Dynamic clothing. Right now, it takes a little while to set things up, so it's not for the 'just pose and render' crowd.

The only problem with that, is that Poser doesn't have the version of Bullet that supports decent cloth sims..... Poser has Bullet 2, which is hull based. Bullet 3 supports geometry collisions. Even if we get Bullet 3, that isn't pose and click by any means either.

I can understand wanting everything to be point and click. I also understand that not including anything that isn't point and click, and what it does in the long run feature wise.

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tonyvilters posted at 11:57AM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356273

The quality of the obj file, that is where it all starts or ends. And have it properly tested and looked at BEFORE doing all the rest of the work.

Agreed. Same for dynamic cloth. Bad geometry, bad dynamic results.

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meatSim posted at 6:12AM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356270

Figures aren't the problem. There is nothing wrong with E or Lafemme. Content for figures is the problem.

I agree with that. But I'm not sure that's independent of the figures. Some figures are just harder to create for than others, if only because they are different from what people are used to.

One thing they're doing right, IMO, is they are clearly trying to make it as easy as possible for people to create content for La Femme. Everything from the developer rigs to allowing people to redistribute her default texture.

(I assume La Femme is going to be the new Poser female. They said as much, before the Poser sale was announced. That is a big reason I bought her, after being burned on previous Renderosity-sponsored figures.)

Oh, LOL; and I forgot: The control chips. Those chips that are so in hype fashion? Control chips offer more limitations then options and are like plastic in the ocean. Get rid of it. ASAP. They are always in the way, enlarge file size, and complicate prop building. Just like some need to learn how to rig, there are plenty of tutorial videos on how to morph properly and have NO limitations at all.

It would take six morphs to accomplish what one single chip does. (Actually, wait ... nine morphs if you include scaling). How much do you think that will increase file size by?

And "always in the way"? You can hide them.

Complicate prop building? How? The control chips are not part of the base geometry.

tonyvilters posted at 5:11PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356284

Oh, LOL; and I forgot: The control chips. Those chips that are so in hype fashion? => With a cold Coke or Pepsi, chips are nice on a couch before the TV but they have no room in ANY 3D figure.

Control chips offer more limitations then options and are like plastic in the ocean. Get rid of it. ASAP. They are always in the way, enlarge file size, and complicate prop building.

Just like some need to learn how to rig, there are plenty of tutorial videos on how to morph properly and have NO limitations at all.

P11 brought us many things, but none of what was asked for.

• Obj file handling improvements
• Hair, cloth, face room improvements.

Nope, we got chips (without the mandatory Coke) and a measuring tool. LOL. But, and that was a welcome improvement ; The bulge map transfer.

Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.

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Hi Deecey,

Just build one morph = Angry.

Now how many chips are you going to shuffle to get "not exactly " what you wanted.

Angry, happy, sad, disgust, contempt, each one can be build as a single morph, but can never be achieved with chips (no matter how hard you try).

Next are the breasts, Chip them around, now get that "movement in clothes".

Next are masks; Think a Zorro mask. Chip the eyes and brows and get it in the Zorro mask. (Just an example)

Morphs are :

• easy to build
• get exactly what you want them to do, where you want them, and when you want them (fully animatable is ONE go)
• easy to transfer

Next are masks; Think a Zorro mask. Chip the eyes and brows and get it in the Zorro mask. (Just an example)

You were saying?

The chips in LaFemme control the mask. No additional morphs added to the mask.

LaFemme's breasts are enlarged with the chips. No additional morphs added to the clothing.

Fully animatable in one go too.

I was saying, and having Chips with a cold Coke, and morphs from external 3D apps.

I never loved those chips. Way too labor hungry, and never delivering what you ask them to do.

New features are supposed to make life easy, not harder.

the facepalm is strong with this one.

the show us the money tony.

give us your scratch built and rigged by you figure.

put it up big guy, you've made all the noise...

Chips are easy for the quick and fast dial, but will never replace properly build morphs.

There are 30 face chips in LaFemme's face. Tell me, Tony, what will the parameters palette look like if, instead, you make one "properly built" morph for each twist, bend, side to side, XTranslate, YTranslate, ZTranslate, Scale, XScale, YScale, and ZScale, to replace what those chips will do? 300 morphs to accomplish what those chips do. Do you think that is realistic?

And note, I have still not said a word about your figure. Not going to stoop down to that level.

I've had enough. Over and out.

Khai-J-Bach posted at 12:56PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356333

the show us the money tony.

give us your scratch built and rigged by you figure.

put it up big guy, you've made all the noise...

Exactly.

Tony, you have said yourself, that you will never be a paying customer. Thus, your opinion is quite irrelevant. Instead, we should listen to those who actually buy things.

Khai-J-Bach posted at 12:37PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356333

the show us the money tony.

give us your scratch built and rigged by you figure.

put it up big guy, you've made all the noise...

Popcorn ready.

Deecey does have a point about the chips, they do cut down drastically on the number of morphs required.

And in a way, they are nothing new in 3D at all. The only thing I would like to see with the chips, is to have what they do expanded upon. But I am not going to go into details on what I would like to see done with them, that will just get shot down by the couch flyers....

I keep seeing topology brought up in many of these discussions. People say that figures must use proper topology, etc.

There is a better fix, and it isn't new either. Adaptive topology and tessellation. But that would require Poser to actually take advantage of things everyone has.

But why use the tech everyone already has? Its far better to just let Poser languish and listen to the couch experts about whats best to make it do better in the end..... We don't need Directx, Metal, etc.... there is no need for that, right?

Threads like this should be locked...........................

Nothing makes a "Good Figure", get over it............ lol....

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DreaminGirl posted at 2:15PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356337

Tony, you have said yourself, that you will never be a paying customer. Thus, your opinion is quite irrelevant. Instead, we should listen to those who actually buy things.

Where's that LIKE x 1000 button?

So if we go with Tony's believe that morphs are better then chips, then it follows that morphs are better then bones and joints. After all a morph puts each vertex in exactly the correct location and makes all the mussels bulge correctly. And image how neat it would be to take the right arm pointing backwards behind the body and applying a morph to have it punching towards the front. The hand and arm would slowly shrink until they meet the shoulder and then expand out again. This due to morphs being a linear translation.

Poser 5, 6, 7, 8, Poser Pro 9 (2012), 10 (2014), 11, 12, 13

so no figure from tony to prove his points then.

as usual. all mouth.

Bondware/Renderosity bought Poser and they have the fullest right to know everything there is to know.

What makes you think that they aren't being told "everything there is to know" in private, by those who ACTUALLY know?

so no backing up your shout... sorry claims then.

why should we listen? others have put their work out there to be judged.

you have given us - repeatedly and to the point of trolling - your opinion but won't do us the courtesy of seeing YOUR work on an equal footing?

whatever tony. whatever dude. goodbye...

It does amaze me that certain people claim to know about rigging and have not released a single base figure.

People have said the same about me and I have been involved with a lot of them.

When a figure gets released and gets nothing but bashed because whoever rigged it decided to do it one way or the other, it doesn't really matter how they did it in the end. Some people will just complain LOUDLY that it should have been done another way.

There are so many different approaches you can take. Oddly, no matter what way you approach it, you wil run into something that you didn't for see in the beginning. Poser figures (and the Daz ones) are some of the more complex figures out there simply because they are not one off figures. In production, you may have 6 or 7 figures that look the same, but the internals are very different for scene dependent things.

Making a figure that can transform into a bazillion others is sort of unique in this area a 3D. Making one that everyone like, well that just isn't possible.

What makes a good figure? Well in the end that depends on who is using it, for what. And nothing more. It doesn't matter how it is rigged, who rigged it, how many jcm's, etc.

What matters in the end, is that the person using it can do what they want with it....

I can see this forum going the same route that RuntimeDNA did, and it has not been a month since Poser came to Bondware/Rendo.

But what do I know about any of that? lol.

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shvrdavid posted at 3:43PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356365

It does amaze me that certain people claim to know about rigging and have not released a single base figure.

People have said the same about me and I have been involved with a lot of them.

When a figure gets released and gets nothing but bashed because whoever rigged it decided to do it one way or the other, it doesn't really matter how they did it in the end. Some people will just complain LOUDLY that it should have been done another way.

There are so many different approaches you can take. Oddly, no matter what way you approach it, you wil run into something that you didn't for see in the beginning. Poser figures (and the Daz ones) are some of the more complex figures out there simply because they are not one off figures. In production, you may have 6 or 7 figures that look the same, but the internals are very different for scene dependent things.

Making a figure that can transform into a bazillion others is sort of unique in this area a 3D. Making one that everyone like, well that just isn't possible.

What makes a good figure? Well in the end that depends on who is using it, for what. And nothing more. It doesn't matter how it is rigged, who rigged it, how many jcm's, etc.

What matters in the end, is that the person using it can do what they want with it....

I can see this forum going the same route that RuntimeDNA did, and it has not been a month since Poser came to Bondware/Rendo.

But what do I know about any of that? lol.

Gee. Ya gotta stop talking sense there, Scott. It might actually catch on. LMAO

And I would remind myself that the original forums at Content Paradise got shut down as well. Remember there used to be forums at CP? They went away when SM took over.

That would be nice if it did catch on......

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EClark1894 posted at 4:27PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356374

Deecey posted at 4:12PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356359

I wouldn't consider you as one to judge Tony. And that is about as kindly as I can put it.

This thread does need to be locked.

No, it doesn't. I started this thread to get people to talk about what they want in a figure, but I also asked those people to support their arguments. You and Tony seem to be arguing back and forth, about certain issues and if you disagree, fine. Make your point and move on. Don't keep feeding the bear, then complain that he keeps coming back for more. Both you and Tony appear to be more knowlegeable than me when it comes to figures, but I recognized a long time ago that Tony is a minimalist. To him, the less in a figure, the better. See his idea about one texture map for a figure. I hate that idea, but I don't argue it with Tony any more, because I'm never going to change his mind. I moved on. Last person to make their point doesn't win.

There is a way to make constructive criticism, and a way not to.

I have responded with images and points that disprove Tony's claims when he says that chips can't do the things that morphs can. When he replies with things like "If Nerd 3D "knows" as much as he "knows" about rigging, it is better to clean the board" that is flat out a personal attack. NOT an opinion on what makes a good figure.. If those types of replies persist, then YES, the thread needs to be locked.

I "fed the bear" because his claims were incorrect.

What I need from 'Rosity (as the owners of Poser) for a figure.....

0. 32-bit support is going away for both OSX (September) and Windows 10 (2020) - what is the game plan here? (Ref: Python 2.7 - you need to get on this NOW).

1. Texture Transformer support - Day 1. Contract with Blacksmith 3D so we have it.

Expecting vendors to move out of their comfort zone is a lost cause. They are going to continue to make what they are personally interested in and no more - a bunch of bland, generic early 20's Caucasian siblings for the most part, except for when they are making those creepy blue-eyed Asians (and whining about a lack of sales - never acknowledging that the market for 20-something Caucasians was saturated a decade ago).

Texture Transformer support will allow me to get out of the Aryan cul-de-sac that vendors have placed themselves and actually use the figure. This is a MAJOR reason I haven't bought much LF stuff - I have 1,000+ Caucasians - don't need any more - and the reality is that it isn't much of an improvement (from the end-user's perspective) over a WMV4 or Sasha 16, but I digress.....

2. Hair Control System support - Day 1. Contract with Netherworks so we have it - because we can't depend on vendors to provide us a variety of hairs. If you can't do this, insure there is a V4 "Fit" built into the figure.

3. Shoe Last support - Integrate it into Poser - because we can't depend on vendors to provide us a variety of shoes.

4. A Male Figure. There was a time when a Poser user could illustrate anything - Vendor "creativity" limits us to 3rd rate pin up art in 2019. (OTOH, at least that Bishi nonsense from the M3 era has died out.).

5. Children. We haven't had kids since Ben and Kate (and they weren't supported). My art doesn't live in a Logan's Run universe.

6. NORMAL SIZED PEOPLE. 5'11" women make up less than 4% of the world population. This is why the SM G2 series (Jessi, Sydney, Olivia, Miki 2, James, Kelvin, Koji, and Simon) are still my go-to figures. Personally - I thought the G2 series was the way to do it - 1 body, 3 different heads.

And most importantly - answer the following question:

Why should I use this figure? - I have (a weight mapped V4, or Sasha 16). I have access to literally terabytes of V4 content - why should I invest?

None of the Post-V4 figures answered this question. Of course, if Chris Creek had focused on a proper morph set for Dawn instead of that stupid horse, we'd all be saying Vicky who ? now.

ssgbryan posted at 6:04PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356381

Personally - I thought the G2 series was the way to do it - 1 body, 3 different heads.

I really liked that, too. I think ethnic diversity is probably more important for Poser than for DAZ. Since Poser seems to have some corporate type users, while DAZ customers seem to be almost entirely hobbyists. (I recently saw James as an evil hacker in a corporate training video. That bulbous head of his is pretty distinctive.)

Anyway, these days you're expected to show diversity in such training videos. Not just ethnic, but age, weight, ability, etc. It would be nice if Poser could offer at least the basics of that. I think that's more important for corporate users than a lot of clothes, hair, etc. (Those can be sold separately.)

randym77 posted at 7:53PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356387

ssgbryan posted at 6:04PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356381

Personally - I thought the G2 series was the way to do it - 1 body, 3 different heads.

I really liked that, too. I think ethnic diversity is probably more important for Poser than for DAZ. Since Poser seems to have some corporate type users, while DAZ customers seem to be almost entirely hobbyists. (I recently saw James as an evil hacker in a corporate training video. That bulbous head of his is pretty distinctive.)

Anyway, these days you're expected to show diversity in such training videos. Not just ethnic, but age, weight, ability, etc. It would be nice if Poser could offer at least the basics of that. I think that's more important for corporate users than a lot of clothes, hair, etc. (Those can be sold separately.)

I got as far as creating African and Asian morphs, but they wouldn't have done much good without complimentary textures. Try as I might, I couldn't find a suitable set of photo references to make a texture set that I would have been happy with. I have some now, but still trying to figure out where to fit it in.

It's not so much the morphs that are the issue, as it is finding decent photo references to create an "A-Game" texture set. The darker the skin is, the more shine there is to edit out in the majority of those that are available, which reduces the realism.

The only reason you start these threads Earl is because you know exactly how things will progress.

You love to stir things up. You've been doing it for years. In every forum you're part of, as soon as you don't get the attention you seek, you start another thread like this so you can sit back and watch the chaos that inevitably ensues.

You'll of course claim innocence, then you'll claim you're being picked on, then you'll threaten to leave the Poser world and go to Blender (again), then you'll elicit sympathy about your health. Then you'll go to another forum and whine about how everyone picks on you.

Same bloody story, same formula, every bloody Poser forum you're part of.

I'm not the only one who thinks "discussions" like this are pointless. It's been stated in this thread.

And this is the point where you'll again find a way to point smugly back at me and say I'm the problem for speaking up and people will pile on in defence of poor hard done by Earl.

Nothing ever changes.

Yeah yeah I understand that this is a personal commentary on Earl. Yeah I realize the ban hammer is out there somewhere. I don't care. This needs to be said. Poser could have a bright(er) future with Rendo, but the same old crap done by the same old people is going to derail it.

Done. Done done done.

EClark1894 posted at 6:27PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356396

gorgnosh posted at 8:16PM Sun, 07 July 2019 - #4356382

My god. The Poser Rage Curse has shown up here, now. Impossible for this group not to start throwing things at each other. Former (fired) employees versus longtime users versus armchair quarterbacks versus beta testers. Every. Damn. Time. Every. Damn. Forum. Good luck with Poser, Rendo, you're gonna need it.

You're not helping, but contributing to what you're complaining about.

If we didn't care, gorgnosh, we wouldn't be raging......

And this has been quite well-mannered, compared to some of the threads I have seen (although in fairness - the flaming was started by DAZ "exclusive" vendors spending all of their time in Poser forums spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt, rather than spending it in the DAZ Studio forums helping customers with their sub-standard products they were peddling over at DAZ. Why the forum mods refused to send the DAZ vendors packing from the Poser forums is a question that will never be answered, due to embarrassment, I suspect.)

As a customer, I'd say the problem is we have a number of vendors that can't seem to get their heads wrapped around the fact that it isn't Oct 2007 anymore. That business model is gone and it isn't coming back, mainly due to their aggressive unwillingness to support any figure not named V4 and/or learning how any post-Poser 7 feature worked. (I actually had a vendor tell me she didn't have time to learn the features of Poser 9 while making content for DAWN - A figure that only worked in Poser 9.)

Oh, and telling customers that if they didn't like it, they could learn to make content themselves - some folks left in frustration to DS, some learned to make their own content, so they didn't have to give vendors any of their hard earned dollars, some stayed with the figures they liked, and some folks left 3d entirely.

Poser Pro has made most content figure independent, and it is easy to add newer tech to legacy figures, which means as a customer, my purchasing decision making process has completely changed.

Oct 2007 (V4 released - she is significantly better than anything else on the market, other than Apollo Maximus)

Every store front is inundated with V4 content (most of which was priced very, very low). There is no easy way to move content from 1 figure to another (WW was at version 1 at the time), so everybody is buying, everything. Vendors thought this would continue forever.

Jul 2019 (Today)

I pick a character to use.

Load it on the base mesh (I use all the figures to get around the inbred issue many vendors have with their figures) - run it through EZ-skin if I haven't used the figure before. Need a different skin? - Texture Transformer or Texture Converter if necessary, then EZ-Skin.

Dials to Single Morph

Delete all unneeded morphs (figure is now less than 25Mb in size on average). Save figure at this point for future use (the Enterprise has 460 positions, so it is good to have a lot of figures - especially when you have more than 1 ship).

Select clothing - do I have an appropriate outfit already (Probably - I have a very, very large V4 Clothing runtime). If not, go visit 'Rosity or Daz - pick up outfit, prep for fitting room if necessary.

Run through Fitting room (and save for later use).

Copy Morphs From to move the FBM I made with Dials to Single Morph

Select hair - if necessary run hair through HCS so it fits native (save so I don't have to do it again)

Pose figure

A dab or two from the morph brush (if necessary).

There isn't actually a need to move to a newer figure, unless you want to - most people don't want to because:

1. Newer figures lack content that they want.

2. They can quickly move the content they own to a new figure via the fitting room.

3. The "benefits" of newer figures appear to be for either edge cases or vendors.

Example, I really don't care how well a figure bends - I don't spend all of my time making renders of yoga poses of nekkid people (If I did care, I can either up the sub-division to smooth things out, break out the morph brush, or change the pose, or change the camera angle - Problem solved without the need to invest in a new figure) .

Nor am I doing super close shots of facial features, so 4K and 8K maps are a waste of time, hard drive space, and system memory - sorry vendors, but I have no interest in a figure that loads 1Gb of textures in RAM. BS like that makes Poser slow to a crawl once one has a couple of them, fully clothed (and NONE of the other content never seems to get that level of detail, which defeats the purpose of 4K and 8K maps, btw. If you go to that level of detail, EVERYTHING has to go to that level, or it looks off.

(And no, it isn't my computer: Xeon dual hexcore: 12cores/24 threads @2.93Ghz & 96Gb of ram)

Of course if vendors used Poser outside of making their publicity stills, they would know this.

Well if it doesn't have the Dr. Evil pinky finger then it is an epic fail

Poser 5, 6, 7, 8, Poser Pro 9 (2012), 10 (2014), 11, 12, 13

tonyvilters posted at 11:55AM Mon, 08 July 2019 - #4356324

Hi Deecey,

Just build one morph = Angry.

I wasn't aware there is just one way of looking angry. I guess all those years studying facial expressions was a lie huh.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

Maybe those could all be achieved with one morph huh.

My apologies, the sarcasm is strong in this one today.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

EClark1894 posted at 1:07PM Mon, 08 July 2019 - #4356232

shvrdavid posted at 2:23PM Sat, 06 July 2019 - #4356208

I know this may sound really odd. But as far as cross figure clothing in Poser, dynamic is the best answer for it. Which would require a better handling system for that to begin with.

What makes a good figure? Well that depends who you ask, what they want from a figure, and what they want to do with it in the first place.

Top of my list....

The geometry must be fully symmetrical. The grouping must work with the skeleton used. The UV mapping must be logical, and have seams thought out. And the figure has to get vendor support and consumer support of the vendor.

The last one is what kills figures. And there is no easy answer for that short of binding a base figure to the program for features that you can't get otherwise. Sound familiar?

I still think that Bullet Physics is the way Poser and the community should go with Dynamic clothing. Right now, it takes a little while to set things up, so it's not for the 'just pose and render' crowd.

This doesn't have to be the case tho. Many different programs prove that dynamic cloth can be not only interactive, but real time or near real time. Poser's dynamic cloth tech is VERY old...Poser 5 old really since it hasn't seen a technical update since then really.

Laurie

LaurieA posted at 7:24PM Mon, 08 July 2019 - #4356462

I still think that Bullet Physics is the way Poser and the community should go with Dynamic clothing. Right now, it takes a little while to set things up, so it's not for the 'just pose and render' crowd.

This doesn't have to be the case tho. Many different programs prove that dynamic cloth can be not only interactive, but real time or near real time. Poser's dynamic cloth tech is VERY old...Poser 5 old really since it hasn't seen a technical update since then really.

Laurie

Poser's dynamic cloth tech is from Size8 software. Here's a quick blurb from what I was able to Google.

About Size8software

Size8 Software was formed in 2000 with the mission to bring realistic cloth and garment simulation to the computer graphics, apparel and related industries. Its technology is used in applications ranging from virtual garment design to simulating clothing on animated characters for commercials, game cinematics and film effects. For more information, visit the company’s website at www.size8software.com.

The link to the website still works, but there's nothing there but a link to Turbosquid. There is a name and phone number and email address listed in the Google info. but I have my doubts if the company is even still in business. 19 years is a long time for a company, and Poser lists the Size8 info as open source components.

EClark1894 posted at 9:03PM Mon, 08 July 2019 - #4356503

LaurieA posted at 7:24PM Mon, 08 July 2019 - #4356462

I still think that Bullet Physics is the way Poser and the community should go with Dynamic clothing. Right now, it takes a little while to set things up, so it's not for the 'just pose and render' crowd.

This doesn't have to be the case tho. Many different programs prove that dynamic cloth can be not only interactive, but real time or near real time. Poser's dynamic cloth tech is VERY old...Poser 5 old really since it hasn't seen a technical update since then really.

Laurie

Poser's dynamic cloth tech is from Size8 software. Here's a quick blurb from what I was able to Google.

About Size8software

Size8 Software was formed in 2000 with the mission to bring realistic cloth and garment simulation to the computer graphics, apparel and related industries. Its technology is used in applications ranging from virtual garment design to simulating clothing on animated characters for commercials, game cinematics and film effects. For more information, visit the company’s website at www.size8software.com.

The link to the website still works, but there's nothing there but a link to Turbosquid. There is a name and phone number and email address listed in the Google info. but I have my doubts if the company is even still in business. 19 years is a long time for a company, and Poser lists the Size8 info as open source components.

I'm not sure that Size8 is still in business either. The cloth sim you speak of was originally created for 3DS Max, if I'm not mistaken, and was initially known as Stitch. Later it was renamed to ClothFX. I remember those days, seems like ages ago. At the time it was pretty cool in its day, but tech has moved on quite a bit since then.

Cloth FX was the approved "newer" version for Max. I am fairly sure we have the older version

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shvrdavid posted at 11:24PM Mon, 08 July 2019 - #4356519

Cloth FX was the approved "newer" version for Max. I am fairly sure we have the older version

You might be right. Poser 5 was 2003. That was back in the Max 6 days. Info is scarce from back then.

ssgbryan posted at 12:45AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356381

6. NORMAL SIZED PEOPLE. 5'11" women make up less than 4% of the world population. This is why the SM G2 series (Jessi, Sydney, Olivia, Miki 2, James, Kelvin, Koji, and Simon) are still my go-to figures. Personally - I thought the G2 series was the way to do it - 1 body, 3 different heads.

I kinda like them, particularly Miki, Koji and Kelvin. I don't know if it was included in the Poser 11 pipeline or purchased seperately. I used to have them when I purchased them in CP at the time, but alas.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Asus N50-600 - Intel Core i5-8400 CPU @ 2.80GHz · Windows 10 Home/11 upgrade 64-bit · 16GB DDR4 RAM · 1TB SSD and 1TB HDD; Graphics: NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1060 - 6GB GDDR5 VRAM; Software: Poser Pro 11x

Somehow this doesn't look right to me. The heights yes, but the weights no...

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What makes a good figure?

The answer: good artists.

There are people who have made just about every figure look amazing.

What makes a good artist?

A good vision and obsessive pursuit of their vision.

Maybe a better question is: what makes a figure successful in the market?

I'd suggest: a large selection of commercially available high quality content, at an affordable price. Because that makes it easier for a variety of artists to achieve a variety of visions.

How does that happen? The cost/return equation needs to favor the content creator. The better it does, the more content there will be.

Looping it back around: a good figure is one that favors content creator's income.

shvrdavid posted at 10:58PM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356340

Deecey does have a point about the chips, they do cut down drastically on the number of morphs required.

And in a way, they are nothing new in 3D at all. The only thing I would like to see with the chips, is to have what they do expanded upon. But I am not going to go into details on what I would like to see done with them, that will just get shot down by the couch flyers....

I keep seeing topology brought up in many of these discussions. People say that figures must use proper topology, etc.

There is a better fix, and it isn't new either. Adaptive topology and tessellation. But that would require Poser to actually take advantage of things everyone has.

But why use the tech everyone already has? Its far better to just let Poser languish and listen to the couch experts about whats best to make it do better in the end..... We don't need Directx, Metal, etc.... there is no need for that, right?

Threads like this should be locked...........................

Nothing makes a "Good Figure", get over it............ lol....

Speaking of Metal.... Anyone see Metal 2 in latest Affinity? Holy Bajesus! And Affinity on an Ipad Pro has like performance.

I kept turning the chips off (old workflow dies hard). Then I needed to make expressions and Deecy mentioned the chips and I was like "derp! I always turn them off". First I was like O.O

But, like ordering something you don't know off the menu of a famous chef, you put your hands into the team that built La Femme. I figured, they seem pretty sharp (like a stiletto), they probably know what they're doing. I'm happy to say: yes. They are. And they do.

Things I learned: really keep in mind how the skin would be moving in real life. Then dive in. Small numbers over a lot of chips. Then, wire those together into a master. There's your "morph". Distribute that as a morph injection. No verticies, just a bunch of valueops on parameters. Even write a little script that does just that.

Long story less long: I like the chips, now :)

CHK2033 posted at 10:10AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356543

Somehow this doesn't look right to me. The heights yes, but the weights no...

When you consider the explosion in the rate of obesity in the US over the last 50 years, and you're looking at averages across the country then it makes sense that the average weight has increased. I'm surprised it's only 30%, just walk through any walmart and look around.

164 pounds on a 5'3" female frame? Holy crap. That is considered a healthy weight for a man at 5'10".

AmbientShade posted at 11:45AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356554

CHK2033 posted at 10:10AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356543

Somehow this doesn't look right to me. The heights yes, but the weights no...

When you consider the explosion in the rate of obesity in the US over the last 50 years, and you're looking at averages across the country then it makes sense that the average weight has increased. I'm surprised it's only 30%, just walk through any walmart and look around.

164 pounds on a 5'3" female frame? Holy crap. That is considered a healthy weight for a man at 5'10".

Look at the other extreme. 90-120 pounds at 6 feet tall? Sheesh. When I was younger I weighed 115 pounds at 5'7" and I was a stick. OMG

Deecey posted at 11:47AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356564

AmbientShade posted at 11:45AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356554

CHK2033 posted at 10:10AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356543

Somehow this doesn't look right to me. The heights yes, but the weights no...

When you consider the explosion in the rate of obesity in the US over the last 50 years, and you're looking at averages across the country then it makes sense that the average weight has increased. I'm surprised it's only 30%, just walk through any walmart and look around.

164 pounds on a 5'3" female frame? Holy crap. That is considered a healthy weight for a man at 5'10".

Look at the other extreme. 90-120 pounds at 6 feet tall? Sheesh. When I was younger I weighed 115 pounds at 5'7" and I was a stick. OMG And I knew someone with anorexia who weighed 85 pounds at 5''7". Those figures seem really wrong.

It all depends what you use as scale. There is the 8 ft/unit school and the 8.6 ft/unit.

Poser measurement tools use 8.6 ft/unit. Many content makers use however 8 ft/unit, leading to exaggerated figures.

As to what is most common the wisdom of the market may be the best advisor. What clothing size does your local shop sell most of?

Anyway there are considerable variations around the globe

Deecey posted at 10:50AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356565

Deecey posted at 11:47AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356564

AmbientShade posted at 11:45AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356554

CHK2033 posted at 10:10AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356543

Somehow this doesn't look right to me. The heights yes, but the weights no...

When you consider the explosion in the rate of obesity in the US over the last 50 years, and you're looking at averages across the country then it makes sense that the average weight has increased. I'm surprised it's only 30%, just walk through any walmart and look around.

164 pounds on a 5'3" female frame? Holy crap. That is considered a healthy weight for a man at 5'10".

Look at the other extreme. 90-120 pounds at 6 feet tall? Sheesh. When I was younger I weighed 115 pounds at 5'7" and I was a stick. OMG And I knew someone with anorexia who weighed 85 pounds at 5''7". Those figures seem really wrong.

I knew someone like that (Model) and I honestly never ever actually seen her eat a whole meal, like a normal person would. Reese peanut butter cups (not even the normal sized one but the little fun sized kids cup ones) Doritos, or fried Jalapenos,more chips and water (everyday ),And the fried Jalapenos didnt even have tzatziki sauce ! I mean like who even does that ? smh... But she did start drinking one of those nutriments can drinks in the morning so dont know, maybe that evened it all out ? We didnt last too long anyway, I think I was just a bad influence on her, Because I kept wanting to do weird strange shit around her all the time, you know..... like eat food.

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CHK2033 posted at 1:30PM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356583

Deecey posted at 10:50AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356565

Deecey posted at 11:47AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356564

AmbientShade posted at 11:45AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356554

CHK2033 posted at 10:10AM Tue, 09 July 2019 - #4356543

Somehow this doesn't look right to me. The heights yes, but the weights no...

When you consider the explosion in the rate of obesity in the US over the last 50 years, and you're looking at averages across the country then it makes sense that the average weight has increased. I'm surprised it's only 30%, just walk through any walmart and look around.

164 pounds on a 5'3" female frame? Holy crap. That is considered a healthy weight for a man at 5'10".

Look at the other extreme. 90-120 pounds at 6 feet tall? Sheesh. When I was younger I weighed 115 pounds at 5'7" and I was a stick. OMG And I knew someone with anorexia who weighed 85 pounds at 5''7". Those figures seem really wrong.

I knew someone like that (Model) and I honestly never ever actually seen her eat a whole meal, like a normal person would. Reese peanut butter cups (not even the normal sized one but the little fun sized kids cup ones) Doritos, or fried Jalapenos,more chips and water (everyday ),And the fried Jalapenos didnt even have tzatziki sauce ! I mean like who even does that ? smh... But she did start drinking one of those nutriments can drinks in the morning so dont know, maybe that evened it all out ? We didnt last too long anyway, I think I was just a bad influence on her, Because I kept wanting to do weird strange shit around her all the time, you know..... like eat food.

??

What makes a figure good to me is that it's baseline realistic, neutral in proportion, versatile, extensible, it comes with a good variety of body/facial morphs, and most of all that the head has a large enough poly count to make character sculpting possible without subdivision. It goes without saying that the mesh is symmetrical because too many tools rely on that expectation.

I've put quality time into both PE and LF and each has its strengths and weaknesses. I am of the opinion that PE edges out LF due to having more realistic expressions, better tooth sculpts (LF needs braces), a wider variety of shaping morphs, and an eyeball sculpt/rig you could do anatomical closeups on (the pupil is actual iris geometry, not a black dot on a diffuse map). That being said, LF has a smaller learning curve. takes V4 poses pretty gracefully, is faster to pose being mostly weightmap in rigging, but is more difficult to get unique faces out of without resorting to an external sculpting application (as useful as the morph brush is, it lacks some necessary selection transforms). I'd recommend LF for newer users and PE for advanced developers.

There was something about the above body chart that bothered me and I finally figured out what it is. The chart takes an AVERAGE of adult women over the age of 20 and condenses them down. Problem is that we (in the US and the world in general) are culturally and genetically diverse in population. And as any high school student can attest, except for those on the low end of the spectrum, grading on a curve will generally bring DOWN the class average. At the very least it will throw the average off. US citizens tend to be fatter, but taller. But we have a lot of immigrants coming to this country and some of them are shorter, leaner, whatever. It's going to throw off the average.

A nice summary! Boni posted at 6:32PM Sat, 13 July 2019 - #4356133

Well ... generically ... one that is fully functional, pleasing to look at from the get-go. And for me, realistic physically. Too many times I have found noses, eyes and mouths too rudimentary and not easily turned into realistic looking. Posing rigs is a must for me now ... and spinal flexibility. better foot rigging (Like PE, La Femme). And never leave out the more realistic "look-up/down" and "look-side-to-side" with eye-lid adjustments. Texturing? that is all open for 3rd party opportunities. And finally for me ... a HUGE selection of morphs. Particularly for the face.

Bonus: is to make the texture maps and mesh and morphs MR's to encourage marketable character development. (thank you Paul/Pauline and La Femme!!)

It has been a long time for me. (Lots of reasons) But..

What makes a good figure?

1. There needs to be lots of GOOD content available for it. (To help fuel the market for it.)
2. A figure that is easy for experienced creators to work with so that Good content can be produced. (So quality-content can be highlighted.)
3. Brand Stewardship. (Usually completely lacking on Renderosity. There's a seven dollar coffee cup for sale in the marketplace...Seven bucks. Coffee cup. And, it doesn't even look like the handle is decent on it...)

You want a good product?

You have to act like that is what is desired to be produced?

Everything in that matters, from topo to joints to available morphs and any special Bells&Whistles you want to add to it. IT ALL MATTERS. People have to stop thinking that "the one thing matters" and start thinking "everything matters."

A recent figure has wtfbad topo. Sorry, that's the truth. And, just looking at it makes it apparent that certain things just can't be well done for it. That's the truth, too. Sorry. But, it will get its defenders because... Well, every figure has it's draw and die-hard fans because that's what they use. Even the P4 Baby mentioned above is gonna have it's "one fan that will jump out of the trenches of obscurity to defend it."

Here's the same constructive criticism I have always put forward, never flagging from this "One Thing" that could make everyone's experience with Poser content and the Renderosity marketplace offerings "much more betterer:"

Brand Management

Renderosity doesn't steward its offerings appropriately and, IMO, hasn't done so in a long time. If you can put together something that sort of works, regardless of its ultimate quality and how that reflects upon the item you're making the product for, then you can sell it! Yay?

A "Bad Figure", if it's not broken out of the box, is usually the result of a quality failure somewhere along the line. But, nobody wants to criticize that because they're too enthusiastic about some possible future "potential." Someone sitting at the table during the construction phase did not speak up and appropriately say "this sucks and we are not going to allow portions of our product to suck." They just hit the submit button and hoped for the best...

A marketplace will not act to correct errors of quality. None of this works like that...

I got resurrected due to an IP license change. OK, so, now I'm awake. I go to the indicated page and it no workee. I go to Renderosity, looking for important infos and get a press release with no highlighted link for current owners and any critical questions they need answered by the new license holder. I post my question and got a great response, but I had to put in extra effort to do that, right? Then, I decide to see what Renderosity has to offer for its new flagship IP and... there's a seven dollar coffee cup that doesn't even look well made sitting there in the Poser Marketplace staring at me.

Owning a brand is a responsibility to the shareholders and the customer base. Does Coca-Cola "taste great?" ... not really. But, it's through Brand Management and diligent and constant stewardship that has turned it into what it has become. There is a company in this spectrum of products that has always put forth that attitude and has also coupled it with aggressive, sometimes a bit psychotic, gorilla marketing tactics. Well, Renderosity doesn't have to go that far. ALL it has to do in order to put forth a "Good Figure" and to make that successful is... Manage Their Brand.

If they accept or create a "Good Figure" with everything that entails along the entire production and marketing process, then.. guess what?

As its stands, the only truly "Good Figure" in recent, post P11 release, that I know of is Project E. What I have seen from every other offering from S.M. on down the line is substandard work and evidence of limited dedication to quality or capability. Even so, PE isn't "perfect." But, it's light-years better in terms of completeness and quality than anything else in the recent Poser lineup of exclusive figures.

Note: V4 is a darn nice bit of work and, considering the tech/capability at the time and even stretching into today, it's still an awesome bit of work and hard to exceed in terms of topo and Poser-standard rigging. Yes, i know all about its issues, but its longevity is due to its quality, not its pitfalls. To supplant it, wholly, requires MORE quality and work than went into creating Victoria 4. That includes participatory Brand Management efforts from the marketplace provider. (Renderosity) That's... just the way it is. (There isn't better topo for rendering static images in the current marketplace, including all the competing programs. There just isn't. Friggin' awesome topo, even with the symmetry issues.

I'm still working with modified 3rd Gen Unimesh figures in Poser. They feature enough polygons and "smart" mesh topology to easily cover a wide range of human body types.

(All figures based on the V3, M3, David and Stephanie Petite 3rd Generation Unimesh)

Yes, you can "replace" a high polygon count and a smart mesh topology with fancy subdivision tech and elaborate textures to make them adhere to so-called "professional standards". But this "newfangled" tech is even more taxing on older systems than the "old fashiond" high polygoun count and morph size.

As for rigging, yes, high polycount meshes like V3, M3, David, etc are a tad harder to weightmap. But I've weightmapped both high and low-polycount figures for Poser, and I still rather spend an hour or two more on rigging than trying to make do with the low-polycount meshes of "professional standard" figures:

(For those not old enough to remember, that's Vicky 3 in all her "high-res" glory) ;-)

To sum it up: Poser is fairly "Lo-Tech" and so was most of it's user base. It works best with old fashioned, "Lo-Tech" figures: High polycount, elaborate mesh topology to realistically replicate musculature, no 'fancy" rigging tricks and standard "one morph per expression" morphing. This also allows for easy modification by laymans. Making clothing, morphs and add-ons for V3 was fairly easy. Almost everybody could do it so support thrived.

Figures that try to adhere to "professional standards" (Low polygon count, all quads only topology, "morphless" morphing) require the support of a professional program to "make up" for their deficiencys. No problem with Genesis, as Studio was "built around" the Gensis mesh. What the mesh itself can't do, Studio can.

But a big problem for Poser, as all the modern tech needed to do that has never been implemented properly. That's why all the various "Vicky killers" have failed in the past.

Anyway, I've long given up hope that I'll ever see a new "Purpose made for Poser" figure that is as flexible as Vicky 3, being able to switch from "stylized toon" to "photorealistic" without any fancy "high tech" trickery.

So this post is just a reminder of what we once had and lost.

Of course given enough money and talent, it would be easy to recreate such a robust, easy accessible, "low tech" figure for Poser. (Or maybe just license V3/M3,D3,SP3 etc. ?).

But given the latest "Poser figures", I see no willingness to even step back and properly analyze all the errors that have been made in the past and try something "new". ;-)

"These days, thought, you have to be pretty technical before you can even aspire to crudeness." (William T. Gibson: Johnny Mnemonic)

JoePublic posted at 4:48PM Tue, 16 July 2019 - #4357171

But given the latest "Poser figures", I see no willingness to even step back and properly analyze all the errors that have been made in the past and try something "new". ;

Great examples! +1 for Johnny Mnemonic ref! ;)

I'd like to add that there are two primary functional uses for Poser. The first is it's main focus - Still Rendering. The Second is a focus on Animation.

But, "figures" are also generally focused on either/or. So, the same figure that makes for a great Still rendering figure may not always make for a great Animation figure. The technologies employed are often different, too. These days, with powerful computing and ton of competing work done by GPU producers and animation studios, we're seeing a bunch more in terms of focus on animation and all that entails. Luckily, for still rendering fans, a lot of that translates well to our needs. Some... does not, but we can thankfully compensate for some of that.

A well modified V3 can work extremely well as you have shown. V4 is good, too, IMO, and has similar capability. But, the implementation in some cash-grab figures seeking to capitalize on the mesh/uv maps to make a "Generation" line aren't so great...

To be honest, I'm not really sure what people are screaming about when they say they want a "new figure." Is it the "tech?" Yet, the products being sold don't normally reflect any "new tech." (Mostly, because a great many new products on offer aren't made by those who know how to do "new tech.") As far as figure-creation goes, I haven't seen anything dramatic in "new tech" that was successfully implemented other than Weight Mapping capabilities for figures. There are a few bits and pieces, here and there, but nothing successfully exploited in the marketplace. For instance, how many products have ever been created that used "capsules?" Zero? Probably. It's nice for purpose-built figures for studio use and the like, though. But, for the average Poser consumer, it didn't do much.

IMO - One of the most problematic, for creators, in V3 vs V4 are the built-in magnet deformers for V4 that can't just be scrubbed out from inside Poser or easily changed. They work decent for a figure "up to a point." Then, it's all tears...

No problem with Genesis, as Studio was "built around" the Gensis mesh. What the mesh itself can't do, Studio can.

Indeed Daz studio was designed ,from the start, to be a support framework for the Genesis figures which is why a genesis exported from Daz studio loses effectively all of its special features.

Nothing wrong with that approach ,for a content company ,IMHO as it does allow for more "standardized" or uniform content creation tools for any potential vendor ,which helps foment $$store sales$$.

I am not a Daz clothing vendor however their three mouse click process to rig my custom , one off clothing for my "in house" use, has certainly liberated me from the Daz content hamster wheel to support my preferred Generation of G2 indefinitely.

But a big problem for Poser, as all the modern tech needed to do that has never been implemented properly. That's why all the various "Vicky killers" have failed in the past.

I am given to understand that poser 11 has taken some steps toward more advanced figure support (Facial posing chips etc)

Of course given enough money and talent, it would be easy to recreate such a robust, easy accessible, "low tech" figure for Poser.

Not an impossible task but IMHO Bondware has to be the one establishing and frankly Enforcing the standards.

The many FAILED third party"saviour "figures ,of the past, have laid bare the utter failure of "crowd sourcing" this type of thing.

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wolf359 posted at 7:51AM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4356238

I think the question is too open ended and vague You may as well be asking: "what makes a good Pizza?"

A most excellent post.

I hope I avoided most of the pitfalls, and stuck to the business side of it. The gee-whiz technical side of it, at the point, doesn't matter nearly as much.

Morkonan posted at 8:07AM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4357166

3. Brand Stewardship. (Usually completely lacking on Renderosity. There's a seven dollar coffee cup for sale in the marketplace...Seven bucks. Coffee cup. And, it doesn't even look like the handle is decent on it...)

Careful with this one. I think the powers-that-be are still smarting from the last time I poked any heavy fun at the marketplace, and that was well over a decade ago. ;)

You are right though... what this marketplace will need, is an enema. It's a damned good viewpoint that I think everyone else has left out.

I get the whole Bazaar vs. Cathedral theory, and sometimes a Bazaar is a nicer place to be, but one thing that is really lacking here (and not just with figures) is that stewardship. I love rooting around through thrift stores for fun sometimes, but I damned sure won't buy my smartphone from one.

I'd love to see a published set of entry-level content standards that must be adhered to, else the product gets rejected. It's not hard to line-out those standards either... just some basic stuff (e.g. joints must bend to reasonable limits without displacement errors, etc) And yeah, they might want to put in a little subjective wiggle-room as well, to weed out the objectionable, and to gently push off the earnest-but-utter-crap attempts. I mean, sure, they have packaging and even documentation standards to an extent, but content standards would be helpful as well.

The reason why is simple: When I go to a properly curated store, I know that whatever I buy there is going to a) work and b) always have at least a certain minimum level of quality that is sufficient for both my expectations, and the purchase price. OTOH, if I buy something here, it's caveat emptor all the way, baby! Sure, they do refunds, but that's a hassle, so, well, why? I do buy stuff here on occasion still, but I stick to merchies that I already know and trust (known from stuff they sell at the curated stores, or from freebies they've made and distributed - that's why if you wanna be an exclusive merchie here, you make the freebies first, you snots!).

Make the store contents live up to a higher level, and it elevates the reputation and quality. Not saying to go overboard or get byzantine with the rules, but I am saying put some real effort into it, eh?

What makes a good figure is still the topic.

Is it for the next generation of La Femme? I mean, she just came out. A bonus question. Are Dforce and Poser dynamics the same thing? Oh and what is the best tutorial for dynamics. I bought this incredible kimono for V4 by Sveva and LilFlame and it requires dynamics. I'm wary! It's new (to me)!

Penguinisto posted at 1:00PM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4357224

Morkonan posted at 8:07AM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4357166

3. Brand Stewardship. (Usually completely lacking on Renderosity. There's a seven dollar coffee cup for sale in the marketplace...Seven bucks. Coffee cup. And, it doesn't even look like the handle is decent on it...)

Careful with this one. I think the powers-that-be are still smarting from the last time I poked any heavy fun at the marketplace, and that was well over a decade ago. ;)

You are right though... what this marketplace will need, is an enema. It's a damned good viewpoint that I think everyone else has left out.

I get the whole Bazaar vs. Cathedral theory, and sometimes a Bazaar is a nicer place to be, but one thing that is really lacking here (and not just with figures) is that stewardship. I love rooting around through thrift stores for fun sometimes, but I damned sure won't buy my smartphone from one.

I'd love to see a published set of entry-level content standards that must be adhered to, else the product gets rejected. It's not hard to line-out those standards either... just some basic stuff (e.g. joints must bend to reasonable limits without displacement errors, etc) And yeah, they might want to put in a little subjective wiggle-room as well, to weed out the objectionable, and to gently push off the earnest-but-utter-crap attempts. I mean, sure, they have packaging and even documentation standards to an extent, but content standards would be helpful as well.

The reason why is simple: When I go to a properly curated store, I know that whatever I buy there is going to a) work and b) always have at least a certain minimum level of quality that is sufficient for both my expectations, and the purchase price. OTOH, if I buy something here, it's caveat emptor all the way, baby! Sure, they do refunds, but that's a hassle, so, well, why? I do buy stuff here on occasion still, but I stick to merchies that I already know and trust (known from stuff they sell at the curated stores, or from freebies they've made and distributed - that's why if you wanna be an exclusive merchie here, you make the freebies first, you snots!).

Make the store contents live up to a higher level, and it elevates the reputation and quality. Not saying to go overboard or get byzantine with the rules, but I am saying put some real effort into it, eh? Do you think the products quality here are at a high level? Not to start a flame war but you seem well versed in 3D, so what do you think? Because I've dabbled rather than immersed, most of the products here seem very high quality to me. They may all be high quality as sometimes the presentations promo don't reflect just how good a product is.

That's a good idea Penguinisto, but I don't see it happening.

'Rosity doesn't enforce their current standards for selling content here - I don't see them upping what few standards they have. Take materials (please). It has been a requirement to provide material .mc6s at 'Rosity for YEARS. And yet in July 2019, Poser vendors are still making content with .pz2s for materials and not a single .mc6 in sight. Almost every Poser Product released today (17 July 2019) comes with material .pz2s instead of .mc6s. Poser moved materials from the .pz2 format, first to Mt5 with Poser 5 and then to .mc6 (for POSER 6) - OVER A DECADE AGO.

The worst part - it is literally a 2 second fix - (Vendors - run your .pz2s through Netherworks' Batch Material Converter and voila! .mc6 materials.) As a customer, I shouldn't have to still be doing this in 2019 - and yet I am. If I have to do the QA that both the vendor and the storefront didn't do, that product needs to be heavily discounted. Over 90% of us were on Poser 9 or later 4 years ago - so why are we still getting content developed for Poser 6?

Someone here is upset that I am constantly on vendors - that person has never spent an afternoon batch converting (literally) thousands of .pz2 files to .mc6s or renaming over 200 files (per product) so Poser's search function would pick them up.

Standards enforcement will require a level of attention to detail that no storefront is willing to do (It is a LOT worse with g figure content sold at DAZ - their stuff is nightmare inducing as far as organization or adherence to any type of standards, but that is also why it has to be at least 60% off before I buy it.).

quietrob posted at 2:18PM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4357242

What makes a good figure is still the topic.

Is it for the next generation of La Femme? I mean, she just came out. A bonus question. Are Dforce and Poser dynamics the same thing? Oh and what is the best tutorial for dynamics. I bought this incredible kimono for V4 by Sveva and LilFlame and it requires dynamics. I'm wary! It's new (to me)!

Could be. There isn't a whole lot of content for her, but thanks to the fitting room, outside of shoes she is pretty easy to clothe and provide hair for. Still lacking everything outside of early 20's Caucasians, but 90% early 20's Caucasians is pretty much standard for all Poser/DS figures, which is why I continue to use every figure I have purchased over the past 15 years - the Poser toolbox really makes it easy to use whatever figure strikes your fancy..

Dforce and Poser dynamics do the same thing, but in completely different ways. Thanks to the tools available in Poser, it shouldn't be too hard to move dForce outfit into Poser and make it dynamic. Reminder, it is also pretty easy to take Poser conforming clothing and make it dynamic (if it was welded properly in the 1st place.)

Don't be wary about dynamics - once you grok the interface, you will love it.

quietrob posted at 1:13PM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4357243

Do you think the products quality here are at a high level?

The answer is - it depends. Some stuff here is frickin' awesome, and out-does anything similar you could ever hope to find at DAZ. Seriously - some of the vendors's here I positively respect and love for their work (even if not their ideology, politics, whatever), but damn it;s good work!

Some stuff? Hoo-boy; you can tell in the promo images that sometimes shiz is just flat-out broken, that no thought was given to UV Mapping at all (because procedurals!), that it was a good first effort, would make a decent freebie, but man... charging actual money for the thing? Really?

Sometimes? Sometimes (but rarely nowadays) I wonder why it is the promo images are (even partially) photoshopped, or filtered to mask/mute/over-enhance/etc the colors; nothing makes me suspicious faster than seeing that.

Not to start a flame war but you seem well versed in 3D, so what do you think?

Compared to many in here, I suck at this 3D stuff - don't ever let anyone lie and tell you otherwise. :)

Because I've dabbled rather than immersed, most of the products here seem very high quality to me. They may all be high quality as sometimes the presentations promo don't reflect just how good a product is.

I used to be eyeball- (and other spherical body parts) deep in the scene, but it's been years now since I got out. So, with that in mind...

(you know what? I had this long drawn-out thing typed up, but yuck... let's not go down that road. Instead...)

You, as the non-professional buyer, shouldn't have to worry about crap like that. You shouldn't have to worry about paying for something, only to have it cause your Poser install to crash every time you go to render something with that item in the scene. You shouldn't have to discover that the vendor forgot to specifically document that the item is Windows-only, after you download it to your Mac ("but the screenshots are all Windows! How could you not figure that out!?") You shouldn't have to find out that the thing you just bought doesn't bend worth a damn, or looks like utter crap from all the angles not shown in the promo renders.

Basically, you shouldn't have to worry about quality issues. That's supposed to be the store and the vendor's job.

...that goes double for figures sold here, folks.

Dforce and Poser dynamics do the same thing, but in >completely different ways. Thanks to the tools available in >Poser, it >shouldn't be too hard to move dForce outfit into >Poser and make it dynamic

DForce is a Hybrid system similar to Iclone's cloth physics. It uses weightmaps to define what parts of a garment are to be conforming and what parts are affected by the cloth dynamics. This is so that your evening dress can have a nice form fitting upper section that auto follows any figure morph while the bit below the waist drapes dynamicly in a still or animation. (See pic below)

Poser Cloth engine does not recognize any clothing weight maps and is thus a global dynamic system affecting the entire garment for a simulation so importing a Dforce garment into poser as a .obj file would not be very useful for things like strapless evening dresses or similar

My website

YouTube Channel

ssgbryan posted at 3:26PM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4357247

That's a good idea Penguinisto, but I don't see it happening.

'Rosity doesn't enforce their current standards for selling content here - I don't see them upping what few standards they have. Take materials (please). It has been a requirement to provide material .mc6s at 'Rosity for YEARS. And yet in July 2019, Poser vendors are still making content with .pz2s for materials and not a single .mc6 in sight. Almost every Poser Product released today (17 July 2019) comes with material .pz2s instead of .mc6s. Poser moved materials from the .pz2 format, first to Mt5 with Poser 5 and then to .mc6 (for POSER 6) - OVER A DECADE AGO.

Most do that because they're lazy and they want compatibility in one go. But then, nobody uses Poser 4 anymore, so, well...

(To be honest, when I open a Poser-built item in DS, the first thing I do is replace all the textures/materials with (usually purpose-built) shaders, to match the render engine (and keep render times down, avoid flat-looking post-conversion textures, etc). So yeah - they really should provide the .mc6 files.)

Someone here is upset that I am constantly on vendors - that person has never spent an afternoon batch converting (literally) thousands of .pz2 files to .mc6s or renaming over 200 files (per product) so Poser's search function would pick them up.

Kinda what I was getting at. Now imagine being a total n00b who has no clue about file conversions, writing batch scripts, etc...

Standards enforcement will require a level of attention to detail that no storefront is willing to do (It is a LOT worse with g figure content sold at DAZ - their stuff is nightmare inducing as far as organization or adherence to any type of standards, but that is also why it has to be at least 60% off before I buy it.).

Meh - they do have a set of standards, but they're largely unpublished and are sometimes capricious (a far cry from the old days, anyways - I chalk it up to their policies not scaling very well.)

As far as organization, so far, Renderotica's marketplace (that is, their "Catalog") is the only one I find usable enough IMHO... but only because they're still using the same layout and categorization that I suggested (then helped emplace) for them back in 2008 (yeah, I'm biased. Sue me). 2nd place would be ShareCG (stop laughing... the implementation isn't perfect, but the concept almost is.) I like a lot of what the miraheze.org freebie cataloging site was thinking too, but I know that no one has time to refine it much.

I do know that Rendo really does need to overhaul how it lays stuff out (and so does DAZ - they're both horrendous if you're just wanting to browse specific categories of items.)

quietrob posted at 6:37PM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4357243

Penguinisto posted at 1:00PM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4357224

Morkonan posted at 8:07AM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4357166

3. Brand Stewardship. (Usually completely lacking on Renderosity. There's a seven dollar coffee cup for sale in the marketplace...Seven bucks. Coffee cup. And, it doesn't even look like the handle is decent on it...)

Careful with this one. I think the powers-that-be are still smarting from the last time I poked any heavy fun at the marketplace, and that was well over a decade ago. ;)

You are right though... what this marketplace will need, is an enema. It's a damned good viewpoint that I think everyone else has left out.

I get the whole Bazaar vs. Cathedral theory, and sometimes a Bazaar is a nicer place to be, but one thing that is really lacking here (and not just with figures) is that stewardship. I love rooting around through thrift stores for fun sometimes, but I damned sure won't buy my smartphone from one.

I'd love to see a published set of entry-level content standards that must be adhered to, else the product gets rejected. It's not hard to line-out those standards either... just some basic stuff (e.g. joints must bend to reasonable limits without displacement errors, etc) And yeah, they might want to put in a little subjective wiggle-room as well, to weed out the objectionable, and to gently push off the earnest-but-utter-crap attempts. I mean, sure, they have packaging and even documentation standards to an extent, but content standards would be helpful as well.

The reason why is simple: When I go to a properly curated store, I know that whatever I buy there is going to a) work and b) always have at least a certain minimum level of quality that is sufficient for both my expectations, and the purchase price. OTOH, if I buy something here, it's caveat emptor all the way, baby! Sure, they do refunds, but that's a hassle, so, well, why? I do buy stuff here on occasion still, but I stick to merchies that I already know and trust (known from stuff they sell at the curated stores, or from freebies they've made and distributed - that's why if you wanna be an exclusive merchie here, you make the freebies first, you snots!).

Make the store contents live up to a higher level, and it elevates the reputation and quality. Not saying to go overboard or get byzantine with the rules, but I am saying put some real effort into it, eh? Do you think the products quality here are at a high level? Not to start a flame war but you seem well versed in 3D, so what do you think? Because I've dabbled rather than immersed, most of the products here seem very high quality to me. They may all be high quality as sometimes the presentations promo don't reflect just how good a product is.

First, quoted the whole post 'cause I'm terrible at parsing quotes with Renderosity's forum stuffs.

Next - I'm posting at Renderosity. They own the Poser IP (Well, their affiliate/parent, still haven't checked on that.). I have nothing bad to say about Renderosity. Good, well meaning, positively presented criticism is not "A Bad Thing."

But, let's get the elephant out of the room, right now - The marketplace appears to be a semi-automated vending machine. OK, fine. Really. That is just fine for what it is - A place for people to go to get stuffs and browse stuffs and yammer about 3D stuffs. Cool!

HOWEVER...

Now, Renderosity are, themselves, a "Product Provider and Producer." Yes, that's right. Instead of being an "Intermediary Service Provide and Distributor for Third-Party Products" they are a manufacturer and provider of an exclusively licensed product. That is "A New Thing." And, it's an important distinction that has to be incorporated into their "mind-set." (I hate the use of the phrase "corporate culture" because it's a load of hooey...)

WE, being the people who spend money here and look at and judge "product quality" every time we open the browser window, know that we are, as someone pointed out, shopping at a "Bazaar" that has a wide variety of stalls and vendors in it. Some have worked hard on their own "brand" and have recognized names and a reputation for producing quality work and command premium prices for their products, as is only just. Some have yet to make a name for themselves and some are still rendering product pages in Poser 4... with completely borked joints evident in clothes that anyone with experience could fix in five minutes to textures ripped right off the net. (Anyone who has scrabbled for free textures online for as many years as most of us have can likely recognize at least five textures over ten marketplace pages being hamfisted into substandard objects and texture collections... Honestly.)

OK, that's all "good." Seriously, it is. We've dealt with this for years. The evidence in fact is that Renderosity is still here, has enough drive to grab the Poser IP, and has thousands of members viewing its store at any one time. Some of those aren't even bots! So, that's enough of that... Today is a new day. Today, Renderosity is now a Product Manufacturer/Owner and now has to "think differently." Instead of focusing on units-sold driving their overall gameplan and relying on a shotgun content approach to bring in products to sell, things have to be different. Why? Because, if they do not change their approach, then they will be degrading the value of their own newly acquired product by pushing substandard content through their very own pipeline. That's "A Bad Thing" to do as a manufacturer or provider of a platform who's purpose is to actually use these products.

How many Poser Physics Enabled bits are in the marketplace pipeline? None? OK, how many Poser users are as intimately familiar with Poser Physics as they are with simple joint rotation and basic JCM creation? None? A few?

The savvy among you will understand the full scope of the above problem. Poser Physics has a lot of potential. But, every single penny of development costs associated it with it was practically wasted. It's not a "selling point feature" for most Poser users. Why? Even if it's advertised on the box, nobody knows what the heck it really is. Wasted Development Monies. (A few people use this feature a great deal and are familiar with it. But, it doesn't push ANY MARKETPLACE SALES AT ALL, does it? :) )

But, the same thing goes for figures. Everyone remarks on "expression chips" but that's not "new." That's just extra rigging/weightmapping. Big deal. Sure, it's nice, but it's not "new tech." You can do the same thing in the Setup room and rig V4 with "expression chips" and have a big time... (Though, incorporating the geometry in the object file is not recommended to really do. But, you don't need no stinkin' "chips," just the rigging and weightmapping.) Still, a good figure with good content will push marketplace sales.

With certain exceptions, most of the characters based on any "new" figures produced out of SM or certain Indy's look like they're intended to be surprised hobos crafted by nearsighted aesthetics with a debilitating lack of understanding of human anatomy. And, guess what that is? Yes, you guessed it! That means that all the effort and development and money that was spent producing these figures results in... little in the way of Marketplace Sales driven by product quality. In fact, I'm willing to say that for most new figures presented for Poser, the marketplace was driven by "Desperation for a new figure" and not by "product quality." A thirsty man will drink anything that looks like water.

But, as soon as someone comes by with a nice, refreshing, glass of cool water, that's what they'll drink from then on. Guess who did that to this particular 3D market? Uh huh, you're right.

OK, enough of the diatribe - Time for a solution.

ALL vendors currently selling in the marketplace must be "Approved" before being allowed access to the Poser Marketplace. And, before someone has a heart-attack, the initial process would be simple. A vendor that has xx units sold or $$ sold, depending, get's automagic Approval. They will get a nice little "Renderosity Approved Vendor" seal to put on all their marketable stuffs. Vendors that do not yet have that Seal of Approval will have their products reviewed before they're allowed into the marketplace. They will, in effect, go into a "Probation Period" where the diligent and hard working and knowledgeable and well-rested Renderosity staff... will review their products for approval and will monitor the sales, returns, complaints and compliments of successfully submitted products until such a time as the vendor surpasses what Renderosity considers to be their acceptable product standards.

Period. End of line.

Note: It would not be acceptable to establish an "elite" program that gets a nice shiny Seal while still allowing...unelite vendors and products. That's the sort of kneejerk common path that is really just shooting oneself in the foot. "Here's the good stuff for sale, but we also sell crap" would be what that message would be sending out.

Renderosity also needs a "Creator Program." There are few major manufacturers out there that do not have vendor outreach and collaborative programs. That's what smart people do and successful manufacturers are generally "smart." Renderosity needs a Creator Program to take advantage of the wealth of true talent that's out there in the wild. They can't afford to hire it, but they can afford to collaborate with it and to subcontract with it or take advantage of today's "gig economy."

PS - I know I'm writing like someone who is in power to affect change might actually be reading it, right? Silly, I know. But, darnit, Poser is a great product with a wonderful UI and tons of depth and technogimcrackery access opportunity and customization. It's a nice gem. It could be a great product. But, the developers have treated it as a loss-leader to lure future purchases and then they forgot that's exactly what they didn't actually put any effort into ensuring it would happen. THAT is the problem and it comes from a lack of basic business practices, not from a lack of "artistic enthusiasm zomgz dollies!" /sigh "Artists" are great, but most can't afford to eat because they don't understand the business they're trying to be successful within. Simple, basic, easy-to-understand common business concepts are... easy to understand. And, none of them are easy to implement without competent knowledge and skill and a bucket-fulls of sweat.

Note: Yes, this is also about "figures." No truly successful figure will be successful until it meets the quality standards of what can generally be considered to be a "successful product." And, for those figures that are truly good? Well, since anyone can make content for them and a ton of people make crap content, what do you expect public perception of a figure will be that, despite being a great product, only has "crap" in giant Poser 4 renders for it? If the world's best engine is in the world's ugliest car, few people are going to be inspired to buy that car. That's simple stuff and it's maddening to see people completely ignoring that simple fact. It's as if they just close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears, and say a mantra of "It's going to be OK" over and over as fifty-eleven crappy products are made and put on display, each acting as third-party advertisement for their quality-made product... This isn't difficult stuff to understand. And, yet? I bet that there's a crappy product for a great figure on display in the first few Poser marketplace pages, right now. What does the public perceive about that otherwise great figure if not exactly [b]that?[/b] /boggle

Wolf - You can do hybrid dynamics in Poser - in that OOT outfit, the vendor would secure the torso and arms via constraining groups and let the rest of the outfit be dynamic. The end user can do the same thing.

Pinguinisto - trust me - there is NO organization with DAZ content. Poser vendors are a model of consistency in comparison. Nor am I talking about their website's broken search engine. I am not talking about the poorly designed software that is almost completely single threaded either. (I could rant on the technical limitations for days). Stuff is scattered everywhere in file folders and there are not only too many levels of ego folders - too many products have the vendor names as the leading characters of products. Makes a search function pointless.

Back on topic......

What makes a good figure is dependent on what the end user is trying to do. At the end of the day, I can't do what I want to do with Poser, if I try to limit myself to 1 figure. Vendors by and large make tall, bland, early 20's Caucasians and if you have 3 characters by a vendor, you pretty much have all of them.

Now, if you are trying to do something realistic - you hit a wall pretty quickly. I am doing graphic novels. As such, I need more than what Poser vendors make in 2019. My characters have jobs and families. In addition, my character collection in these novels are based on real world population spreads. One Aryanized Asian or Black simply isn't going to cut it.

The average Poser/DS figure is around 1.8cm - which make up about 3% of the world's population (and no, the height scaling dial isn't good enough) - great if your stories take place in the Nordic countries, but pretty much useless anywhere else.

I need a bit of everything - old people, young people, non-creepy non-Caucasians - and we don't have vendors making that anymore. Just like they don't make clothing for professional environments. There is a reason I still cloth my females in V4's wardrobe and my males with M3's wardrobe.

The whole concept of a "good" figure can't be considered in isolation. Were Possette or Miki 2 good figures when released? If a new user asked you now to recommend a good figure would you name either of these? We can also see from these posts that many people have different ideas as to what makes a good figure, from technophiles whose main concern is how technically correct the figure is to the figure artists whose concern is how every body part looks in any pose. IMHO the way to judge if a figure is "good" is if lots of people want to use it, and for which vendors find it easy and rewarding to create content. These two are of course linked, I don't think there is any magic formula, for success the figure has to attractive out of the box, well advertised and promoted, and the timing must right. And of course it must not be so "out there" that content creators can't easily work with it. Looking at recent figures, Pauline/Pauline, PE and LaFemme you only have to look at the number of products in the store to decide which are "good" figures.

Wolf - You can do hybrid dynamics in Poser - in that OOT outfit, the

vendor would secure the torso and arms via constraining groups and

let the rest of the outfit be dynamic. The end user can do the same

thing.

You believe this because you clearly do not ever animate any figures.

Those "constrained groups" are a cruel joke ,even for a still, and you essentially would have had to model the garment to the exact shape of the figure in the still pose for them not to penetrate the figure when moving into the final pose.

A true Hybrid conformer ,with morph following ,will let you scale down your despised BIG Amazon Genesis females to a petite size and the strapless even gown will scale down with her still work for dynamics.

Change the figure scale with a static .obj file and its back into your modeling program ..assuming you have modeling skills

Notice how none of those "Dynamic Potato sacks" for PE were using constrained groups for a tighter fit at the waist or anywhere else and for animation they are a nonstarter.

I personally Do not care for Dforce but instead use the old Daz optitex system along with the script by RMP merchant "Lola69" that cracks the optitex encryption allowing me to use My own custom model meshes for my simulations as seen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZAgxGVp6Vg

My website

YouTube Channel

ssgbryan posted at 10:37AM Thu, 18 July 2019 - #4357292

Stuff is scattered everywhere in file folders and there are not only too many levels of ego folders - too many products have the vendor names as the leading characters of products. Makes a search function pointless.

Oh, that's up to you, the user, to sort as you please. Outside of the Data and Runtime->Textures directories, you can organize it pretty much however you want. Most folks stick with the suggested defaults, and that's fine too. A radical departure from the rigid Poser layout, I know, but we can get into the weeds about that (and similar) in another thread if you'd like.

Back on topic......

What makes a good figure is dependent on what the end user is trying to do. At the end of the day, I can't do what I want to do with Poser, if I try to limit myself to 1 figure. Vendors by and large make tall, bland, early 20's Caucasians and if you have 3 characters by a vendor, you pretty much have all of them.

That's the case across multiple vendors (at least the ones who all use the same texture/morph/etc resource kits.) But this is the case with any product (for example, why are nearly all smartphones rectangular candy-bar-shaped things with nothing-but-screen on one side? Because the iPhone came out, that's why. Before 2007, smartphones had a wild variety of form factors. Not anymore.)

Now here's the thing - a figure should, as mentioned 10,000 times, be morphable out to differing ethnicities, shapes, sizes, ages... and by and large, a lot of good figures can do that now, to varying degrees. For those cases where it's not native, the market usually (and eventually) provides. BUT - the market should only be relied on for edge-cases, not mainline features and shapes.

Now, if you are trying to do something realistic - you hit a wall pretty quickly. I am doing graphic novels. As such, I need more than what Poser vendors make in 2019. My characters have jobs and families. In addition, my character collection in these novels are based on real world population spreads. One Aryanized Asian or Black simply isn't going to cut it.

Indeed - But it wasn't Smith Micro's fault, since they only provided a product and some default content to get you started. It wasn't Rendo's fault , since they were just a digital bazaar that helped people sell stuff.

Fact is nobody made and sold figures that were 1) exclusively for Poser and 2) widely supported enough to be considered the real default. But that's not entirely true, is it? Up until 2011, DAZ filled that role.

Y'all lucked out when Rendo bought Poser - seriously. DAZ moved to Genesis, and 'poof', no default figures anymore. Sure, world+dog hung onto Vicky 4 for how long now? It's still popular as all get-out, THIRTEEN YEARS later, and I bet every merchie in Rendo resents the hell out of that fact (can you blame 'em?) It's still hella useful, an was built so well that it managed to keep Poser alive all this time - again, lucky break for Poserdom.

So - here we are.

Various efforts have arisen - Dawn, Erogenesis, LaFemme... all competing to become DAZ' successor.

I get the accessory and clothing diversity angles, but we'll table that. I believe a basic set of clothing and tools for merchies to make other clothing, with other incentives to get them started on that, should be sufficient. It's the flexibility that counts.

Mind, I'm not in the one-blob-fits-all school of meshmaking for humanoid figures. One male, one female, and one kid (yes, unisex, since pre-pubescent children have the same body shapes, etc... you can incldue an add-on penis for the little boy model if you really felt the need to, but excepting the extreme edge-case-artistas and the pervs? Prolly got no need for one - let the market provide one if it has to.) Anyrate - just three base meshes. Make it morphable in multiple dimensions. Provide logical texture-mapping. Normal maps are a must. SubD? Yes, please. Weight-mapping, etc etc etc... hard to be all things to all people, but do what you can - it's been done before to reasonable extents, even if the application has to accommodate it to complete the featureset (see also Genesis), so maybe Poser can emulate that?

Penguinisto posted at 6:51PM Thu, 18 July 2019 - #4357333

Back on topic......

That's the case across multiple vendors (at least the ones who all use the same texture/morph/etc resource kits.) But this is the case with any product.

DAZ vendors will spend to get merchant resources - Poser vendors won't. If I need characters from the Indian subcontinent for example, DAZ has a bunch, Poser doesn't. That goes with every category outside of early 20's Caucasians. That also applies to every niche outside of hookerware and impractical armor..

Now here's the thing - a figure should, as mentioned 10,000 times, be morphable out to differing ethnicities, shapes, sizes, ages... and by and large, a lot of good figures can do that now, to varying degrees. For those cases where it's not native, the market usually (and eventually) provides. BUT - the market should only be relied on for edge-cases, not mainline features and shapes.

The only place that a rational market place exists is in an economic textbook. Morphs without skin textures is pointless. DS & Poser both have ways of dealing with this. And just like everything else, the DS solution is both more expensive and more limited in capabilities. Poser vendors weren't providing a solution (as usual) , so a coder stepped up to the plate (also as usual). The same can be said for clothing. Good for end-users, not so good for Poser vendors.

Indeed - But it wasn't Smith Micro's fault, since they only provided a product and some default content to get you started. It wasn't Rendo's fault , since they were just a digital bazaar that helped people sell stuff.

You keep going back to the concept of one figure to rule them all , that concept is dead in 2019.

It is no more! It has ceased to be! 'It's expired and gone to meet 'is maker!

Fact is nobody made and sold figures that were 1) exclusively for Poser and 2) widely supported enough to be considered the real default. But that's not entirely true, is it? Up until 2011, DAZ filled that role.

We have a V4 killer - it takes full advantage of Poser's capabilities AND it was even made by the guy that made the original Victoria (can't get a better pedigree than that) - Dawn.

It has the exact same freak show proportions that V4 has, it (now) has a full set of head, body, and expression morphs that V4 has. What it doesn't have is the cottage industry of fixes that V4 (and the G figures) have, although a lot of them aren't necessary.

Most vendors at 'Rosity refused to make content for her (and her male counterpart). A lot of the content made for her initially was built using a Poser 6 workflow that vendors were using with V4 (Stugeon's Law also applied) - they were not going to take the time to learn the features of Poser 9 to get the most out of her. In 2019, end users have a choices of which figure they use - They can use a V3 or V4 (stock, or weight mapped, subdivided, & chipped), or Dawn, Or Anastasia, or Antonia, or, well, you get the idea. As an enduser, I can use any of those figures - vendor support (outside of shoes) is not as important as they think it is.

So - here we are.

Various efforts have arisen - Dawn, Erogenesis, LaFemme... all competing to become DAZ' successor.

The single figure concept for everyone is dead. We use whatever figure we want to use, based on our interests, budget, and skill level with Poser - the more familiar we are with the tools and add-ons, the more choices we have.

I get the accessory and clothing diversity angles, but we'll table that. I believe a basic set of clothing and tools for merchies to make other clothing, with other incentives to get them started on that, should be sufficient. It's the flexibility that counts.

I won't table it - It is directly related to vendor financial health. A LOT of people here conflate Poser health with that of vendors - they are 2 completely separate issues. No one has ever bought a new version of Poser for the figures - we buy for the tools. In 2019, if vendors want to halt declining sales, they need to up their game and understand the marketplace as it is, not how they wish it was. Which brings us to....

LF is the latest figure out - why should I use it? She isn't any better supported than Pauline - and no one has demonstrated why she is better than say, Sasha-16.

Why should I pay for a figure for LF that looks EXACTLY like the character that the vendor made for: Alyson 2 (Anastasia), Victoria 4 (GND 4.3), Victoria 3 (GND2), Stephanie Petite 3 (Irina). Hi Blackhearted!

This is the situation for most character vendors. Moving onto clothing....

There are literally thousands of hookerware outfits. Why should I buy another one @ $15 - especially when it isn't any better made than content that was made a decade ago (and can be picked up for between $1.99 to $3.50).

Mind, I'm not in the one-blob-fits-all school of meshmaking for humanoid figures. One male, one female, and one kid (yes, unisex, since pre-pubescent children have the same body shapes, etc... Anyrate - just three base meshes. Make it morphable in multiple dimensions. Provide logical texture-mapping. Normal maps are a must. SubD? Yes, please. Weight-mapping, etc etc etc... hard to be all things to all people, but do what you can - it's been done before to reasonable extents, even if the application has to accommodate it to complete the featureset (see also Genesis), so maybe Poser can emulate that?

What is your plan to get end users to move to a new figure en mass? That is a requirement for vendor support. What is your plan to get vendors to support that figure? Most vendors here didn't make 1 product for any post-V4 figure. That question has never been answered.

As an end user - what any Poser user outside of a rank beginner needs:

A reason to use a new figure (Most important). Texture Transformer support. (For Skin Textures) Hair Control System Module (for Hair - but a V4 morph like LF has will do in a pinch). Knowledge of Shoe Last (for shoes - shoes are the last place that content decoupling is needed.). Batch Material Converter - because we all know that many vendors are not going to make .mc6s to go in the materials folder.

Recap.

From Poser1 (where I started) to Poser 4, everything was NEW. Customers said, "hey, what is THIS? And THIS is fun" ! ! ! ! Most content was hobby and released as freestuff. I remember NEW free stuff each and everyday (and a VERY active Poser forum community)

From Poser4-5 onwards, the setup room, the hair and cloth and face room from Poser 5, gave the tools to enhance the content. There was very little content and most that could weld 2 boxes became hobby vendors because they could make some pocket money.

The problem was the quality of the figures provided, and see => DAZ came with V1, and that is basically how DAZ started.

Onwards a few years, and Poser grows as an app, and DAZ grows as figure provider and releases V4/M4. At the time a HUGE step forwards in figure quality.

Current situation; Everybody knows what happened these last years, and everybody bought a HUGE content closet for V4/M4.

Future; As mentioned above, the vendor that puts bikini number 15.001 up for sale has how many sales? Is it better then the 15.000 before? It has to be, or he can keep it.

Modern figures; Are they "better", are they more "robust" then say, V4/M4, Dawn and Dusk, Rex and Roxy? Recently we had Bella, PE, LF, but are they "better" figures?

On the other hand and this is the contradiction; I read here above that some want Texture Transformer support. Some want to keep shoe, and hair compatibility. That is all OK, but don't you want better textures? Better shoes, better hair? Or do you want more of the same?

In the past I wrote : An obj file is just a coathanger to hang the textures on, because it is textures you see, and it is textures you render. You pose the coathanger, but you render the textures.

To change from figure A to figure B is to change the coathanger and everybody has the tools to morph coathanger A into coathanger B and adapt the rig.

What I see as the biggest handbrake; Everybody asks for better figures, but they want to keep their HUGE past investment in V4/M4 content , (including the textures).

The best figure is the figure that has the fewest errors, easy to pose and to build for, and the figure that puts a smile on your face when you render it.

We have more then 30 "prime" figures to choose from already.

The vendor or site, or group of people, that wants to release a "new" figure will have to release a "better" figure with fewer errors then all figures before.

But the V4/M4 existing closets will prevent massive sales. Unless? ? Unless we also build better closets.

For those that like Figure A, but prefer the shape of figure B?

Goto my YouTube channel and look at Video2. In the second part, where I "project" the HD morph into Pauline?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2BNG8jFr_M

You can do the same between 2 figures obj files. Scale, you can also reposition during the process to get better alignment, and project Figure B into Figure A.

The result is Figure A with the shape of Figure B. (usually not perfect because of the different mesh structures, but one can come pretty-pretty close.)

That is what I like about Poser. The many tools that are open to your imagination.

The V4/M4 heritage, and how it stopped figure development.

Everybody wants to stay V4/M4 content compliant.

Example : They have hip, waist, abdomen, and chest vertex groups. => That was the "old style" rigging system with spheres and so on. There was no other possibility to get "believable" bending in a figure so the torso was split into parts to get it bending properly.

But now we have the weight-bulge map rigging system. Any idea why we keep adding hip, waist, abdomen, chest vertex groups? Because from a technical standpoint this has become obsolete. You can go from the hip vertex group to a torso vertex group to the neck vertex group and weightmap it out.

Ah, ja, the other "hack" buttocks. Any reason why to keep them?

In the above example , the rigging system improved, but the V4/M4 vertex group structure stopped obj file improvements to maintain older content compatibility.

See where this is going?

There are so many ways to "improve" and simplify figure and content building, but maintaining V4/M4 compatibility has its costs in figure and content improvements.

You misunderstood me Vilters.

I want Texture Transformer support because, based on the past decade - I can't depend on vendors to support a new figure.

I want the ability to reuse V4/M4 content because I can't depend on vendor support for a new figure.

I am all about new figures, but it is difficult to move to a new figure, if vendors refuse to make content for them.

Vendors expect to see V4 level of sales from day 1 of any new figure - and that is delusional.

By and large, vendors are unwilling to do their part to grow marketshare for a new figure.

tonyvilters posted at 9:06AM Fri, 19 July 2019 - #4357441

"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2BNG8jFr_M"

You can do the same between 2 figures obj files. Scale, you can also reposition during the process to get better alignment, and project Figure B into Figure A.

The result is Figure A with the shape of Figure B. (usually not perfect because of the different mesh structures, but one can come pretty-pretty close.)

That is what I like about Poser. The many tools that are open to your imagination.

Thank you :)

ssgbryan posted at 7:55AM Fri, 19 July 2019 - #4357421

DAZ vendors will spend to get merchant resources - Poser vendors won't. If I need characters from the Indian subcontinent for example, DAZ has a bunch, Poser doesn't. That goes with every category outside of early 20's Caucasians. That also applies to every niche outside of hookerware and impractical armor..

So one segment has what you need, the other does not. Figure out why, and you've solved a lot of issues.

Morphs without skin textures is pointless.

Granted - I was generalizing (and skin textures aren't that hard to 'gin up in a pinch - sure you won't have perfect accuracy in some cases (esp. with really dark skin), but that can be somewhat improvised if you really need it (for example, adding your paler palmar and planar skin tones to a texmap via pixelbashing in PShop/GIMP/Whatever). This however, crosses a line between the casual end-user and the prosumer (full pros would have most of their stuff and mods homemade anyways unless there's a time crunch).

DS & Poser both have ways of dealing with this. And just like everything else, the DS solution is both more expensive and more limited in capabilities. Poser vendors weren't providing a solution (as usual) , so a coder stepped up to the plate (also as usual). The same can be said for clothing. Good for end-users, not so good for Poser vendors.

First: Forget DS here - I'm not trying to sell you on that app and our opinions will always differ.

Let's talk Poser. If something is missing...

1. ...would that missing function/item be useful to others on a large enough scale? If not, make/fake it yourself. Much as I hate to say it, the market for, say, a plugin that triggers a "Pew! Pew!" sound each time a keyframe shows a hooked finger colliding against a trigger? It's prolly going to be too limited for anyone to bother. Same with lots of clothing items (even if it sounds obvious to you and I, it likely doesn't get made because, well, it doesn't sell.) If you can't make or fake what you need, look into buying a more skilled person's time to have them make it for you.

2. If it would be useful to a large enough group of paying customers, suggest it (or, well, build and sell it.)

Sounds pretty harsh when viewed from some angles, but that's out of necessity. I mean, consider... on the code front, a decent developer living on either coast rakes in $110-175k/yr on average (and way more than that in Silly Valley) to write code. The unit price for some typical plugin is what, $50? That doesn't even cover one hour of their time, and most stores will barely give them 50% of the sale. It may have taken 20 hours to write the thing, and maybe 20 more to debug, idiot-proof, QA for looks and UX, document, and then package to make it saleable (and that's not even counting maintenance costs in the future). So a guy making $120k/yr building a thing that sells for $50 on the Marketplace (w/ a 50% cut of each sale)? He'd need to sell at least 96 copies just to compensate for his time (around 40 hours, $2400 total, @$60/hr).

So yeah - stuff that you want (and that I want!) won't be present - be it features, functionality, or assets.

Note that none of this solves the question of what makes a good figure. Let's table it for a moment though.

You keep going back to the concept of one figure to rule them all , that concept is dead in 2019.

True and false. We'll get to that in a bit.

We have a V4 killer - it takes full advantage of Poser's capabilities AND it was even made by the guy that made the original Victoria (can't get a better pedigree than that) - Dawn.

It has the exact same freak show proportions that V4 has, it (now) has a full set of head, body, and expression morphs that V4 has. What it doesn't have is the cottage industry of fixes that V4 (and the G figures) have, although a lot of them aren't necessary.

Okay...

So, if Dawn were indeed the V4-Killer, why isn't it the defacto-default, and why is it not the most dominant Poser-exclusive supported item in the Marketplace? Why is world+dog chasing the new-shiny with LaFemme right now? Finally, (and most importantly) which one will Rendo/Poser pick to put in as default w/ the app?

Don't get me wrong - Chris Creek is a mesh-mongering badass. If he made it, I trust it. That simple. When I finally get off my butt and buy Poser, it's prolly the first figure I'll reach for because I know, trust, and respect the hell out of Chris and his work.

That said, I don;t think it's the Vicky-killer. Given Rendo's recent purchase, coupled with their need to direct the masses to their marketplace (and not Chris' enterprise over at Hivewire), I suspect that Dawn will get the cold(er) shoulder pretty soon. LaFemme will be an easier purchase for Rendo (or PE? Who knows? The tea leaves say LaFemme, though.) I'm betting that's what ends up being the Next Default in Poser.

Thing is, will LaFemme be a good figure?

Most vendors at 'Rosity refused to make content for her (and her male counterpart). A lot of the content made for her initially was built using a Poser 6 workflow that vendors were using with V4 (Stugeon's Law also applied) - they were not going to take the time to learn the features of Poser 9 to get the most out of her.

I cannot disagree, but I think you left out something: Rendo isn't Hivewire. I'm betting there was more than a little behind-the-scenes going on to keep Dawn tamped-down a bit. Nothing blatant, but competition is competition. I assign no judgement either way, but I'm not going to ignore market realities, either.

In 2019, end users have a choices of which figure they use - They can use a V3 or V4 (stock, or weight mapped, subdivided, & chipped), or Dawn, Or Anastasia, or Antonia, or, well, you get the idea. As an enduser, I can use any of those figures - vendor support (outside of shoes) is not as important as they think it is.

Yes, No, and Maybe.

Let's unpack the one-figure thingy first: No, One Figure will not rule them all. BUT (you know this was coming, right?)...

Something has to be default. Something has to come with the application to get folks started. Some one figure type (that is, one adult female, one adult male, one kid mesh that can be boy or girl) has to be the one which comes out of the box.

I know about the past - in the earliest days, Poser had megatons of support for Posette. Then Vicky showed up, and all the support started shifting towards it. Eventually, the default figures has zero support, Vicky 3 began to domainte, and then Vicky 4 sucked all the oxygen out of the room (sure, there were figures that were up-and-comers, and niche figures which did okay in their own right, but let's be honest here - the vast, vast majority of stuff was made for one figure, and one figure alone... Victoria.)

So, with Rendo, the 2nd-biggest Poser marketplace, buying Poser...? Pretty sure they want one figure to rule them all similarly, they probably want a basic version of it to come with the application, and they don't want it to be a figure made/supported by Someone Else (hence the prediction that Dawn ain't gonna be it unless Hivewire gets bought out by Rendo.)

Proof of this is surprisingly still easy to dredge up: https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/renda-base-figure-pack/37876

Sure, there will always be other figures. There will always be competing figurines, and it may even be a healthy competition. BUT... only one figure will get front-and-center promotion, attention, and the majority of vendor support. Trying to deny that is like trying to deny the most obvious fact (and complaint) in the last two decades of Poserdom.

The single figure concept for everyone is dead. We use whatever figure we want to use, based on our interests, budget, and skill level with Poser - the more familiar we are with the tools and add-ons, the more choices we have.

I never said otherwise

Now, vendor support...

It is and is not important - depending on skill level, time, and creativity (or lack thereof.) The Prosumer crowd (/me waves at Wolf) won't care - they'll make what they need, and do what they want. The Newbie crowd? They're the ones doing all the buying (and downloading if it's a freebie). They're the ones whose first contact is with the stuff that came in-the-box. Everyone in-between? If the default figure is awesome and well-supported, and is exclusive (esp. in features) to Poser, then guess what application the user is going to stick with?

Vendor support for a figure is frickin' HUGE. Sure, there's WW/XD, there's all kinds of other conversion tools out there... but unless you're a crusty old fart who has used Poser ever since it came on floppies (and when everyone complained about titties+temples over NNTP in alt.binaries.poser), you're not going have those extra tools, or a workflow to make efficient use of them.

I get the accessory and clothing diversity angles, but we'll table that. I believe a basic set of clothing and tools for merchies to make other clothing, with other incentives to get them started on that, should be sufficient. It's the flexibility that counts.

I won't table it - It is directly related to vendor financial health. A LOT of people here conflate Poser health with that of vendors - they are 2 completely separate issues. No one has ever bought a new version of Poser for the figures - we buy for the tools. In 2019, if vendors want to halt declining sales, they need to up their game and understand the marketplace as it is, not how they wish it was. Which brings us to....

No one has ever bought Poser for the figures (ever since Vicky 1 came out), because DAZ, Curious Labs, EGISys, and Smith Micro all semi-conspired to force that issue a very long time ago.

This kind of needs to change. I'm pretty sure it will, too - Rendo is a marketplace. It now owns Poser. Why would they not want to establish and maintain a symbiotic relationship between the marketplace and the application? They can keep the marketplace open for competition (because only a fool turns down moar monay from continuing to sell Genesis stuff on the side), but I strongly suspect that their main focus is going to be on Poser, and stuff for Poser, and a stronger symbiosis between the two.

LF is the latest figure out - why should I use it? She isn't any better supported than Pauline - and no one has demonstrated why she is better than say, Sasha-16.

Why should I pay for a figure for LF that looks EXACTLY like the character that the vendor made for: Alyson 2 (Anastasia), Victoria 4 (GND 4.3), Victoria 3 (GND2), Stephanie Petite 3 (Irina). Hi Blackhearted!

This is the situation for most character vendors.

shrug Time marches on. Use what you use. Rendo/Poser's focus is likely to be to find a way to stop this endless cycle from happening... with one set of figures. Figures that have a roadmap, that have tools for vendors to build against, that have all the advantages that flavor-of-the-month does not have. But, they gotta start somewhere, and that means either building something completely from scratch, adapting the (because historically) craptastic default figures they have now, or buy something kickass and go with that as a base for future growth.

No matter which way they go, they gotta start somewhere.

One other bit... they're not going to be doing all of this for you. Or, to be honest, they're not going to do this for me either. They need to do it for all the newbies who have yet to buy Poser.

Seriously, their priority should not be you or me - to hell with us in this case.

Their future depends on new users. On growth. On capturing users form the competition.

If they focus on all the whiny crap spewing from the keyboards of us old farts, they'll end up dead roughly a month before the last of us dies. Dude - I first slid into this world just barely after turning 30. I turned 50 this week... Fifty. Yeah, I have way more disposable income than a 30-year-old, and I already know the basics more than enough to be fully proficient w/ Poser.latest in less than a dedicated weekend, but Rendo does not want to make crusty old loudmouths like us their target demographic.

There are literally thousands of hookerware outfits. Why should I buy another one @ $15 - especially when it isn't any better made than content that was made a decade ago (and can be picked up for between $1.99 to $3.50).

So go use a converter?

The idea behind one favored set of supported figures is that you don't have to buy the same stuff over and over (and over...)

Okay, I promised I wasn't going to do this comparison stuff, but... the Genesis figures allow me to use stuff made for Genesis versions 1-8, and (with an add-on script) Vicky 4 as well. It takes literally one-to-three clicks in a popup window to fit old well-made crap onto the latest-and-greatest figure, no matter the morphs, with no poke-through, and it scales perfectly in 99% of clothing and hair. Part of this is projection-mapping/collision-detection, but a big part of is is that the target figure is a lineage of one very well-maintained mesh/topo combo.

Cool part is, Poser can have that too! Well, they can have it if they go to a curated set of default figures that Rendo in turn puts focus on...

What is your plan to get end users to move to a new figure en mass? That is a requirement for vendor support.

Default is default. Make a solid default, and it will grow fairly decently. Supply enough stuff (morphs, basic clothing, hair, etc) to get them started.

Oh, and one big item: make an in-app converter that gets all (or at least most) of the Genesis and Vicky stuff to fit onto the new figure with a minimum of effort. And yes, this can be done.

What is your plan to get vendors to support that figure? Most vendors here didn't make 1 product for any post-V4 figure. That question has never been answered.

Chicken-and-egg - I get it. But...

1. General incentive: Rendo can do a 80-20 split (80% in the merchie's favor) for all items which support $newFigure. Do that until it grows sufficiently to stand on its own.

2. Specific incentives. Pay for a few select top-notch vendors to make a basic variety of stuff for your new figure. Poser has done this before, with varying degrees of success, but note that this will only work if the figure doesn't suck.

3. Get vendors in on the new figure early. Let them beta-test while they make stuff for it.

There's lots of ideas and methods they can employ to get their figure out there...

The rest is a list of stuff I perfectly agree with. :)

ssgbryan posted at 12:31PM Fri, 19 July 2019 - #4357421

What is your plan to get end users to move to a new figure en mass? That is a requirement for vendor support. What is your plan to get vendors to support that figure? Most vendors here didn't make 1 product for any post-V4 figure. That question has never been answered.

I suspect Renderosity's plan for this is to make LaFemme and her male counterpart the stock Poser figures, included free with Poser.

Admittedly, that's never worked before, but as has been discussed previously in this thread, the stock Poser figures have been pretty flawed before, and not fixed. And we all knew they would throw them out in favor of new, equally flawed figures with the next version of Poser.

I'm hoping that Rosity, as a content seller, does it differently. Start with good stock figures, and commit to improving them, rather than starting over with every version of Poser. I would love to be able to use La Femme in the Face Room.

I like Dawn, too, and use her, but I suspect Hivewire's commitment to supporting both DS and Poser has slowed down her development and support. We need a true Poser-only figure, IMO.

Penguinisto posted at 12:19PM Fri, 19 July 2019 - #4357492

So one segment has what you need, the other does not. Figure out why, and you've solved a lot of issues.

Vendors have told us why - they are expensive, and they don't feel the ROI will pay for it.

Morphs without skin textures is pointless.

This however, crosses a line between the casual end-user and the prosumer (full pros would have most of their stuff and mods homemade anyways unless there's a time crunch).

In the Poser 4/5 era, that required prosumer skills - but not in 2019. Buy a copy of Texture Transformer (for the price of a character) and click a couple of boxes - done. Need that skin texture converted for use with Superfly? Download EZ-Skin (free), install, click 2 boxes - done.

First: Forget DS here - I'm not trying to sell you on that app and our opinions will always differ.

DAZ can't sell me on the app and its free. It is very poorly coded (everything the user interacts with is on the same thread), and is designed for 1 hardware/software type (Windows boxen w/Nvidia graphics) It runs poorly on Windows and worse on a 12 core/24 thread MacPro w/96 GB of ram.

Let's talk Poser. If something is missing...

Low level scripters have stepped up in the past and delivered (PhilC, Netherworks, Dimension3D, etc), If you can script in Python, you can develop add-ons. You don't need to hire a 6 figure programmer - hire a Python code monkey and HAVE A CLEAR SCOPE OF WORK. Because at some point, you have to shoot the coder and get the product into production.

So yeah - stuff that you want (and that I want!) won't be present - be it features, functionality, or assets. Note that none of this solves the question of what makes a good figure. Let's table it for a moment though.

But it does allow me a wider choice of potential figures - one mesh means I am limited to what that small group of vendors decided to sell - I prefer choice, especially when 95% Caucasians isn't working for me.

So, if Dawn were indeed the V4-Killer, why isn't it the defacto-default, and why is it not the most dominant Poser-exclusive supported item in the Marketplace? Why is world+dog chasing the new-shiny with LaFemme right now? Finally, (and most importantly) which one will Rendo/Poser pick to put in as default w/ the app?

You weren't here when Dawn was released - I was (and bought over 95% of the content that was released for it here). She wasn't well supported for the following reasons:

1. She was released with only a starter set of morphs - At the time, most Poser character vendors were dial-spinners - they don't sculpt out figures in Zbrush (they lacked the skills and the software). So, they didn't have much to work with.

2. Chris decided that making that stupid horse was more important than building out a full set of head, body, and expression morphs. That was a major (if not the) major factor. The Hivewire figures now have a very robust set of morphs, but the damage is already done (here - there is a fairly robust ecosystem over at hivewire).

3. Vendors get a better split if they sell their content over at Hivewire. See above.

4. Most of the stuff made for Dawn here wasn't very good - (Sturgeon's Law - 90% of everything is crap ). Content here was mostly built for Poser 6, and didn't use any features in Poser 9. Many vendors were adamant that they were not going to change their workflow and prepare for a brave new Vickyless world. Content sold at Hivewire was built with Poser 9 in mind - it was better.

5. 'Rosity forum mods at the time allowed Genesis vendors to run wild spreading F.U.D. At the same time, Poser vendors were whining that they didn't like her shoulders (aesthetically, not over a technical issue). They also expected V4 levels of sales from day 1 - which was delusional, since there wasn't enough content released to get that level of sales. Every post-V4 figure release devolves into a Waiting for Godot situation - Customers won't invest in a figure if there is no content, and vendors won't build content until a large portion of the customer base has bought the base figure. Nowadays, we buy the new figure, if the vendors choose not to support it, we use the tools in Poser (and add-ons) to use that figure, and future vendor sales are lost.

6. 'Rosity didn't exactly encourage vendors to leave V4 behind. 'Rosity nailed their colors to V4 - smart short term - dumb long term.

When I finally get off my butt and buy Poser, it's prolly the first figure I'll reach for because I know, trust, and respect the hell out of Chris and his work.

Now I understand why you have no understanding of Poser and it's tool set. It isn't Poser 4.

That said, I don;t think it's the Vicky-killer. Given Rendo's recent purchase, coupled with their need to direct the masses to their marketplace (and not Chris' enterprise over at Hivewire), I suspect that Dawn will get the cold(er) shoulder pretty soon. LaFemme will be an easier purchase for Rendo (or PE? Who knows? The tea leaves say LaFemme, though.) I'm betting that's what ends up being the Next Default in Poser.

Nice strawman. Poser doesn't need a V4-killer (because no one will ever agree to what those killer features are, much less what makes a good figure). What we really need is an easy way to move shoes between figures. That is the last frontier.

Whatever figure is chosen - V4 (and content made for her) isn't going away. This belief that a new figure will suddenly expand the Poserverse isn't based in reality. That belief comes from 2nd tier vendors desire to recreate Oct 2007 - and that ain't happening. Poser users are no longer totally at the mercy of vendor whims and "creativity" Poser users simply embrace and extend any figure to any level they choose - vendors are no longer the gatekeepers and they really resent that.

I'm betting there was more than a little behind-the-scenes going on to keep Dawn tamped-down a bit. Nothing blatant, but competition is competition. I assign no judgement either way, but I'm not going to ignore market realities, either.

I didn't address it for a reason - that can of worms doesn't need opening (here - it is addressed over there. In any event, water over the bridge.)

LF has the same support as Pauline (and mostly by the same vendors that have gotten behind other post-V4 figures). if it wasn't for Karanta, it would already be DOA as far as clothing, for example - the vendors are not embracing her.

Something has to be default. Something has to come with the application to get folks started. Some one figure type (that is, one adult female, one adult male, one kid mesh that can be boy or girl) has to be the one which comes out of the box.

Vendors and customers aren't dumping everything for a better mousetrap, because no one can agree what is a better mousetrap. We have over a decade of empirical evidence of this.

I know about the past - in the earliest days, Poser had megatons of support for Posette. Then Vicky showed up, and all the support started shifting towards it. Eventually, the default figures has zero support, Vicky 3 began to domainte, and then Vicky 4 sucked all the oxygen out of the room (sure, there were figures that were up-and-comers, and niche figures which did okay in their own right, but let's be honest here - the vast, vast majority of stuff was made for one figure, and one figure alone... Victoria.)

And in 2019 it doesn't matter who content was made for originally. V4 and G content is easily switched between the G figures in DS and all content is easily switched between all figures in Poser - but notice - both products have robust (although differing) methods of moving content between figures. That is because neither flagship program storefront can survive with what has been made for just 1 figure.

V4 was a significant upgrade in capabilities compared to V3 and Sydney. But that wasn't what sold V4 to the masses. What sold V4 to the masses was every storefront was flooded with content. Most of it sold at a loss. Most of the content sold the 1st couple of months was less than $5 (I got receipts). None of the post-V4 figures came with a semi-useful set of clothing on launch - nor was any of it sold as a loss-leader.

Sure, there will always be other figures. There will always be competing figurines, and it may even be a healthy competition. BUT... only one figure will get front-and-center promotion, attention, and the majority of vendor support. Trying to deny that is like trying to deny the most obvious fact (and complaint) in the last two decades of Poserdom.

If we were still using Poser 4 that would be a valid argument - but we aren't. People using post-V4 figures tend to embrace new features. Nobody buying or selling at hivewire are worrying too much about any other post-V4 figure. The majority of Poser vendors here are still supporting V4 as their main breadwinner. Any demands to change that falls on deaf ears.

Now, vendor support... It is and is not important - depending on skill level, time, and creativity (or lack thereof.) The Prosumer crowd (/me waves at Wolf) won't care - they'll make what they need, and do what they want. The Newbie crowd? They're the ones doing all the buying (and downloading if it's a freebie). They're the ones whose first contact is with the stuff that came in-the-box. Everyone in-between? If the default figure is awesome and well-supported, and is exclusive (esp. in features) to Poser, then guess what application the user is going to stick with?

But that isn't what has been happening here for the past decade. In 2004, when I bought Poser 5, there was a very, very wide variety of content available for it. That is no longer the case. I was sold on Poser because I could make any scene in my head - in 2019, we can make pin up art, with early 20's Caucasians - because that is the only thing being made now.

Pushing on with that thought..... If I am NOT a Caucasian, why would I buy Poser or DS? There is very little that would fit me. Nothing but white girls, as far as the eye can see. All wearing trashy outfits.

Vendor support for a figure is frickin' HUGE. Sure, there's WW/XD, there's all kinds of other conversion tools out there... but unless you're a crusty old fart who has used Poser ever since it came on floppies (and when everyone complained about titties+temples over NNTP in alt.binaries.poser), you're not going have those extra tools, or a workflow to make efficient use of them.

This is like someone telling a soldier today that they should do things the way the Army of the Potomac did it in the American Civil War. The workflow you remember is gone. Tools are either built in (fitting room or WW), the price of an outfit (Creator's Toybox, Batch Material Converter, Hair Control System, etc, etc, etc), or are free (Ez-Skin).

The fitting room is literally just a few (4) clicks (this applies to everything - it is just a couple of clicks). Most legacy figures are already available weight mapped, download a file, install, and go. Upping the subdivision is simply clicking a check box and entering the level of division you want (and your system memory can support). Adding control chips is a few clicks. The knowledge level necessary to this is just the desire to do it - no Poser-Fu required. Everything is literally a couple of clicks away (which is yet another reason that getting everyone to buy into a new figure is so hard). It is SO easy to decouple content from figures.

I get the accessory and clothing diversity angles,

The way you dismiss it, you clearly don't. If I want to make anything outside of pin up art - my choices are:

1. Convert legacy content to a new figure.
2. Continue to use legacy figures.
3. Import/convert content from DS.

My choice is Yes. I do all three, based on what I need. Genesis 1 still has the best non-humans, and the G figures provide kids, and skins to harvest (and doesn't that sound creepy?) The USS Enterprise has 460 positions on it - can't live by 6 foot tall white folks only.

No one has ever bought Poser for the figures (ever since Vicky 1 came out), because DAZ, Curious Labs, EGISys, and Smith Micro all semi-conspired to force that issue a very long time ago.

Nice strawman. Zygote (now DAZ) was set up for the sole purpose of making content for Poser. The Poser team focused on Poser, Daz made content. Poser figures were designed to show the capabilities of the program - which is why we see new Poser figures with every new version and Daz figures in 3d Porn. Daz developed DS because of concerns about the viability of Poser's various parent companies over the years. Which is amusing when you consider that the folks that made the Poser/DS ecosystem great (and Steve Kondris) are all gone, and DAZ has been sold a couple of times too.

They can keep the marketplace open for competition (because only a fool turns down moar monay from continuing to sell Genesis stuff on the side), but I strongly suspect that their main focus is going to be on Poser, and stuff for Poser, and a stronger symbiosis between the two.

They still have to figure out how to:

1. Get vendors on board with a post-V4 figure (so far, no joy).

2. Get customers to abandon low priced content for (relatively) expensive content - all while not showing why it is a good idea (No one has ever shown how the newer figures "bend better". LF doesn't bend any better than Sasha-16.

There are a LOT of fools in the DS/Poserverse. - DAZ was adamant that the G figures would never get Poser support. A short while later a DSON importer arrived. Shortly thereafter, they quietly added Poser Companion Files to nearly every Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 product sold at DAZ. The didn't do that out of the goodness of their black hearts - they did it because there aren't enough folks buying DS content to keep the lights on in Utah. Likewise Poser fans have yammered for years about getting the golum into Poser - a free script will do that, no muss, no fuss - a few clicks in DS, followed by a few clicks in Poser - G3 and G8 content is now Poser native - now go make tacky pin-up art.

Rendo/Poser's focus is likely to be to find a way to stop this endless cycle from happening... with one set of figures. Figures that have a roadmap, that have tools for vendors to build against, that have all the advantages that flavor-of-the-month does not have. But, they gotta start somewhere, and that means either building something completely from scratch, adapting the (because historically) craptastic default figures they have now, or buy something kickass and go with that as a base for future growth.

Later figures weren't bad - they simply weren't supported - don't confuse Don and Judy with Paul and Pauline.

Their future depends on new users. On growth. On capturing users form the competition.

That model isn't working for DAZ - if it was, they wouldn't be putting most of their content on sale at 70% off at the drop of a hat. If they were a stock, I'd short them - they are showing classic signs of a company with cash flow problems.

I first slid into this world just barely after turning 30. I turned 50 this week... Fifty. Yeah, I have way more disposable income than a 30-year-old, and I already know the basics more than enough to be fully proficient w/ Poser.latest in less than a dedicated weekend, but Rendo does not want to make crusty old loudmouths like us their target demographic.

Young pup - much like Jon Snow, you know nothing. You have no understanding of the lighting system, the materials system, or the fitting room. Your prior knowledge extends to the rooms that haven't been updated since Poser 5. (Cloth room, Hair room) None of the tricks and shortcuts from the Poser 4/5 era are valid with Poser 11.

You have an entirely new workflow to learn - that will take more than a dedicated weekend (you'll need that just to learn the interface that was redone for Poser 8) - hell, it will take you weeks just to pick up the lighting system (The P4 lighting system was culled a few years ago - the code is gone). Materials - same thing (Do not fear the compound node - it is good). The good news is that converting your content to use either firefly or superfly is just 2 clicks away via (free) EZ-Skin - the hard work is already done.

'Rosity should focus on folks that spend money - newbies or grognards. That 30 year old will treat any Poser/DS digital asset like they treat any other digital asset (they will steal it via file sharing).

Most of the users and vendors are of our demographic - they aren't making anything for the kids. Poser/DS also requires a real computer, not a laptop (ask me how I know), which will also eliminate a lot of folks, because they are too cheap to spend a couple hundred dollars on a dedicated machine. The more you try to do, the more horsepower you need. It is real easy to talk yourself into building a render farm for your home (cheaper than a new video card - ask me how I know) while using a workstation as your main machine - (96Gb of ram is a wonderful thing).

You may have been around a couple more years than me (I do remember you from back in the day) - but you certainly haven't been keeping any of the lights on in either Utah or Tennessee. I stopped tracking expenditures when I crossed the $10,000 barrier a few years back. 'Rosity (and DAZ) are very interested in what I want to buy.

Okay, I promised I wasn't going to do this comparison stuff, but... the Genesis figures allow me to use stuff made for Genesis versions 1-8, and (with an add-on script) Vicky 4 as well. It takes literally one-to-three clicks in a popup window to fit old well-made crap onto the latest-and-greatest figure, no matter the morphs, with no poke-through, and it scales perfectly in 99% of clothing and hair. Part of this is projection-mapping/collision-detection, but a big part of is is that the target figure is a lineage of one very well-maintained mesh/topo combo.

There is nothing wrong with comparing DS figures with Poser figures, perfectly valid. If you are in 3d hobbyist art, it is pretty much your only choices.

I have those scripts - they will cost you about $500 for all of them (ask me how I know). They are rarely discounted. And most of the time, they even work. The G figure is fine - right up until you do a TCO analysis - then you take them out of your cart (unless they are at least 60% off).

Cool part is, Poser can have that too! Well, they can have it if they go to a curated set of default figures that Rendo in turn puts focus on...

What is even cooler is that Poser ALREADY has those tools - which you would know if you had a current copy of Poser - and they work will ANY figure, not just one. Most are free, some are the cost of an outfit, and some are built into the program.

Default is default. Make a solid default, and it will grow fairly decently. Supply enough stuff (morphs, basic clothing, hair, etc) to get them started.

You have been away. That has been done multiple times already - vendors will ALWAYS find a reason NOT to support a new figure - and that reason will NEVER be applied to the figure they do support. It is what it is. Good news is that I can use any figure I like, and dress it in any clothing I like - my choice, not the vendor's choice.

Oh, and one big item: make an in-app converter that gets all (or at least most) of the Genesis and Vicky stuff to fit onto the new figure with a minimum of effort. And yes, this can be done.

Yes, it can be done - There is 1 (free) script to convert DS native content to Poser native content, then off to the fitting room. Vendors will tell you it isn't good enough to make content for sale, but for an end-user, it is more than good enough.

1. General incentive: Rendo can do a 80-20 split (80% in the merchie's favor) for all items which support $newFigure. Do that until it grows sufficiently to stand on its own.

2. Specific incentives. Pay for a few select top-notch vendors to make a basic variety of stuff for your new figure. Poser has done this before, with varying degrees of success, but note that this will only work if the figure doesn't suck.

3. Get vendors in on the new figure early. Let them beta-test while they make stuff for it.

There's lots of ideas and methods they can employ to get their figure out there...

The rest is a list of stuff I perfectly agree with. :)

1. Won't keep the lights on - because that isn't going to get people to give up the figures they like - especially when the vendors insist on making the exact same products for a new figure.

2. They do that (usually by buying the content).

3. That has also been done.

I have always recommended going with a Kickstarter type funding mechanism, but much like anything new, vendors here aren't interested in it.

ssgbryan posted at 8:56AM Sat, 20 July 2019 - #4357518

The majority of Poser vendors here are still supporting V4 as their main breadwinner. Any demands to change that falls on deaf ears.

This whole post is nothing more than your typical screed against vendors, but this line especially is so old and so tired and so not true, I have to respond.

Here's a clue for you: I made more sales in 2.5 WEEKS on Renderosity with La Femme, than I made in ** 2 YEARS** at Hivewire on Dawn, Dusk and Luna content.

So, stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

Glitterati3D posted at 9:54AM Sat, 20 July 2019 - #4357539

ssgbryan posted at 8:56AM Sat, 20 July 2019 - #4357518

The majority of Poser vendors here are still supporting V4 as their main breadwinner. Any demands to change that falls on deaf ears.

This whole post is nothing more than your typical screed against vendors, but this line especially is so old and so tired and so not true, I have to respond.

Here's a clue for you: I made more sales in 2.5 WEEKS on Renderosity with La Femme, than I made in ** 2 YEARS** at Hivewire on Dawn, Dusk and Luna content.

So, stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

I have to say this is true for me as well.

I loved Dawn - and more importantly, it was wonderful to work with the HW3d people, so much so that I actually teared up a little when I told them I was gonna be a Renderosity-exclusive vendor when LF came around - but honestly? Renderosity is offering me the same delight in working with them, so I can't justify keeping to the lower sales with Dawn. She is technically great, but she can't really offer me the exposure that a Renderosity-pushed figure can.

And I'm going full sincere here: being angry that a vendor wants sales is like being angry that Disney is forking out a bunch of movies for the money. As an angry anarchist-like not-so-youth-anymore, I hate capitalism as much as the next punk guy, but I still live in it. I gotta pay those bills. Sometimes I'll make something just for the passion of it, but that's when I have enough drive to keep making in my free time the same kind of thing I'm making in my work time. What I CAN do is try to mix my passion with what sells - I'll bring out that fantasy and mix it into the everyday-sexy-stuff that seems to sell better.

Wanting someone to make elderly auntie characters for Poser is all fun and good, but when a vendor spends a month of work making that and only sees like five people actually purchase it, you don't have to think that "vendors aren't creative". You have to think that "vendors aren't willing to work 8h/day for a month for a total of US$30".

And I get that you don't want your passionate hobby to turn into a business. I really do. Still, money is what keeps things running in our society, as sad as that may be - and if we don't keep that money going around, the program will be abandoned. So yeah, you need your beta testers that have an outside look to it and will check the technical things, but you ALSO need your vendor beta testers that will take a look at a thing and think "that's way too complicated for casual users, that's not gonna sell" and similar things.

That's why it's beta testerS, not beta tester singular form. And this strike against vendors isn't gonna get anyone anywhere, it only benefits Poser that we have different types of users for it.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

@Peng & ssgbryan: you both are making really good points and providing a very interesting Dialogue to read IMHO

On the matter of growth, In general true growth only comes from gaining NEW users/buyers into your ecosystem.

This is an economic fact of capitalism.

A good strategic plan to, achieve this, involves learning ,the specific consumer/cultural/economic mindset of the Target demographic you are trying to capture.

I can name three companies that have been failing ,quite spectacularly, in this endeavour IMHO:

Daz Inc.

Reallusion

Lets lump every owner of Poser since the P5 days as one group .

That model isn't working for DAZ - if it was, they wouldn't be putting

most of their content on sale at 70% off at the drop of a hat. If they

were a stock, I'd short them - they are showing classic signs of a

company with cash flow problems.

I actually agree with this assessment ....to a point It is not that the model of capturing users from the competition or from outside of this market space entirely ..is flawed

It is the methods ,used by these three companies, to entice these much needed newcomers thus far, that have laid bare a complete ignorance of the consumer/cultural/economic mindset of those prospective new users/buyers.

Take Daz's Attempt to capitalize on the Multi-billion dollar Gaming industry.

https://venturebeat.com/2018/04/30/newzoo-global-games-expected-to-hit-180-1-billion-in-revenues-2021/

First "Morph 3D": Daz's attempt to capture the Unity Game dev Demographic.

They took the genesis 2 figures and content and crunch down the vertex count a bit call it the 'MCS "and use the EXACT same marketing methods of still renders of tall Pretty Northern European people (mostly girls),that you used in the main Daz store to sell& resell to the
Digital content hoarding ,OOhhh ,Me too!!, make a picture, crowd.

Not one single promo VIDEO of their content in action in a game build. (See Blizzards "Overwatch")

No stylized ,over the top, villain Characters in motion with cool weapons etc (See Blizzards "Overwatch")

Just the same Daz store promo style images of Pretty white people standing there looking like..pretty white people.

As though Unity gamers have never seen sexy white women in a game before.

Then they re-brand the site to "Morph ID" and claim to have a custom online tool to make & dress avatars for "The OASIS" as in the movie "Ready Player One" ....fail.

Now they have become something called "Tafi" again promoting some scheme to sell "monetized" Avatars on the "VIVE" headgear platform and other "Mobile devices."

One afternoon spent in any major gaming forum would have spared them this ongoing Debacle

Next: the DaztoMaya plugin the Genesis 8 to Maya plugin and the DSON based DEX plugin coming this fall.

All plugins providing various levels of native genesis functionality inside Autodesk Maya. The DSON based DEX being the most complete from what they have shown publicly.and what has been shown is a Demo video of someone loading a Gen 8 female ,(big surprise) and clicking and loading clothing/poses/Character morphs directly from their installed daz content libraries inside Autodesk Maya.

Now they may get some new store content sales from those solo user ,tinkerers taking advantage the extremely liberal Student license policy of Autodesk.

However NONE of the major Animation & VFX companies will use a system that cannot have the assets on a shared server for large teams of Character TD's & VFX artist to access at the same time via a complex linux based file referencing system.

Daz studio requires separate purchased copies of content to be installed on every machine .

Reallusion decides to improve their native Avatar quality in an attempyt to become more than just a Middlware solution for pre vis and character motion retargeting & export to other programs.

They create the $200USD Character creator 3, and for some Bizarre reason, include the DUMB unidirectional brute force path tracer from NVIDIA..IRay

Utterly useless to the current user base, spoiled by realtime viewport motionbuilding in iclone, or any newcomer seeking the realtime motionbuilding tools of Iclone.

No Daz user will switch to iclone for stills/pinups as they already have IRay in Daz studio without paying $200 USD

Their Character creator 3 promo videos targeting the game dev community, are very well done.

However they dont really let on that you are going to really need to buy the full pipeline version of iclone $700+ USD to have any the required export capabilities to your game engine.

$700 USD can buy ALOT of cool goodies &plugins in the Unity& UE4 markets.

Now reallusion has a Live link plugin for UNREAL 4 to have your Iclone Avatar in UE4 excellent realtime renderer, being controlled live remotely from iclone

$1000 USD on top of the cost of buying Iclone 7 For a demographic that paid Zero dollars for their main game engine.

Now to be fair we have not seen any hint of Bondware's strategic plan to bring in NEW poser users or even where any new users are going to come from.

It remains to be seen if they will break from the FAILED approach of selling poo-ware ornamental program updates to the die hard loyalists,practiced by their many predecessors.

They better have a really REALLY good plan before targeting any demographic NOT currently use Poser or Daz studio, as this market has many alternative options for people looking to play/create with 3D/CG Virtual humans.

My website

YouTube Channel

That model isn't working for DAZ - if it was, they wouldn't be putting most of their content on sale at 70% off at the drop of a hat. If they were a stock, I'd short them - they are showing classic signs of a company with cash flow problems.

Not sure I buy that one. People have been predicting the imminent demise of DAZ since they released DS, if not longer. But they're still here. I don't shop there much any more, because I don't use DS or Genesis, but clearly, others do.

Those huge sales have always been part of the DAZ marketing plan, and I don't think it means anything about their cash flow. It just means that if you buy at full price at DAZ, you've overpaid.

randym77 posted at 11:19AM Sat, 20 July 2019 - #4357557

Not sure I buy that one. People have been predicting the imminent demise of DAZ since they released DS, if not longer. But they're still here. I don't shop there much any more, because I don't use DS or Genesis, but clearly, others do.

Those huge sales have always been part of the DAZ marketing plan, and I don't think it means anything about their cash flow. It just means that if you buy at full price at DAZ, you've overpaid.

Most of those people were predicting that because of there emotional involvement with Poser and DAZ. DAZ has made multiple attempts to wean their user base off sales - all have failed. My personal favorite was the It's not fair! thread a couple forum reboots ago.

I would not have predicted DAZ failing during G1, G2, or G3, or even the early part of the G8 era.

Some of the things that I think are significant at the store (but don't tie in with what Wolf is talking about - he is operating out of a different space (animation) than I am and is providing more data points:

1. A lot of vendors didn't make the jump from G3 to G8. The "cool kids" are still cranking out stuff, but a lot of folks that don't have access to the secret sauce tools appear to be bowing out. A lot of the DS vendors I liked are no longer making content at DAZ (ironman13 in particular)

2. They are also running out of ideas. They have redone Aiko 3 and the teenager 3 times already - neither the 2nd or the 3rd iteration have any significant differences. How many upscale hotel rooms can you reasonably sell - How many living rooms with only 1 door can you sell? (Crap like that would have never made it past QA in the V4/M4 era). QA is another issue - a bikini with 1Gb of textures. Seriously? A 3 piece suit that can only be worn standing up (and doesn't button to boot?!)

3. A lot of G8 content is recycled G3 content (like we don't notice that Riversoft's conversion scripts exist.)

4. The frequency sales, and what is being sold at 70% off, along with what is being given away (They no longer give away new content - they have a collection of about 100 items and they just recycle them through the freebie's page - and nothing for G8).

5. Gift Card sales are becoming more frequent - that has gone from being a rare thing, to a thing that is done at the end of a fiscal quarter, to a fairly regular occurrence. People buy those and then use them with.....

6. 70% off sales - those have gone from a few items to literally thousands of items. And DAZ isn't even doing it intelligently. It is one thing to put legacy figures on sale for 58 - 72% off. It is a whole 'nuther ball of wax to also do that with sets and props - those can be used with any figure. When they started putting Stonemason's stuff on heavy discount - cash flow problems....

7. The real thing that has me thinking this is the stealth additions of PCFs for Genesis 1 & 2 content. If you were around during the schism , you know how insistent they were that they would never do anything to make using G figures in Poser easy.

I am not talking about things that were released with PCFs, I am talking about all of my G1 & G2 content (purchased a number of years ago) that suddenly sprouted PCFs sometime in the past year or so - they certainly didn't send me a notice about it.

DAZ may talk about us - but they don't appear to be able to live without us.....

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 12:51PM Sat, 20 July 2019 - #4357545

I have to say this is true for me as well.

Wanting someone to make elderly auntie characters for Poser is all fun and good, but when a vendor spends a month of work making that and only sees like five people actually purchase it, you don't have to think that "vendors aren't creative". You have to think that "vendors aren't willing to work 8h/day for a month for a total of US$30".

And I get that you don't want your passionate hobby to turn into a business. I really do. Still, money is what keeps things running in our society, as sad as that may be - and if we don't keep that money going around, the program will be abandoned. So yeah, you need your beta testers that have an outside look to it and will check the technical things, but you ALSO need your vendor beta testers that will take a look at a thing and think "that's way too complicated for casual users, that's not gonna sell" and similar things.

That's why it's beta testerS, not beta tester singular form. And this strike against vendors isn't gonna get anyone anywhere, it only benefits Poser that we have different types of users for it.

Poser isn't getting different types of users if only one type of content is available.

Coming back to what makes a "good" figure.

From a buyer's point of view - it is a figure that has the widest variety of content - a wider artistic vision is possible. Much like communism, Better Bending is a red herring.

In 2019, this means V4. I don't like that any more than anyone else here does but that doesn't change the fact that the end user doesn't buy into a new figure if it bends better - they buy into it because it allows them to execute their artistic vision; better bending only matters if they are nekkid (as they say in Tennessee).

Currently, every post-V4 figure is a young white girl with better bending and vendors by and large only make buy me drinkie outfits to go with it. None of them have gained any ground against a 12 year old mesh. Every couple of years, we get yet another pretty white girl, and and a few trashy outfits to go with her. Rinse, Lather, Repeat. They all bend better, they all look more or less alike, and all have more or less the same limited selection of outfits. Only a small portion of the user base has adopted them.

And we have more white girls inbound....

So far, this hasn't been a recipe for success.

For a few years now, I have been recommending going with a kickstarter style mechanism to get away from buy me drinkie girls. Vendors do this elsewhere and it seem to be working for them. 'Rosity would be a great place to host something like that. We have to grow the ability of vendors to make a living, because what we have right now doesn't appear to be working. The reality is that end-users that stick around (and more importantly, buy stuff) grow in their art. Making 3rd rate pin up art is fun for the 1st six months or so but then it becomes well, boring. In 2019, expanding your artistic vision means:

1. Using figures like V4,
2. Harvesting legacy content for newer figures,
3. Importing G figures into Poser,
4. Abandoning Poser for DS, or
5. Abandoning 3d art entirely.

If we aren't comfortable with learning the Poser toolset, we stick with V4 and make art . If we become proficient with the Poser tool set - we end up harvesting legacy content and moving it onto newer figures (My option). Notice that either option doesn't provide much opportunity for new vendor sales.

Example: I have 2 sets of graphic novels I am working on (1 TOS Star Trek; 1 horror, set in rural 'Murika, about 50 miles from 'Rosity world headquarters).

Character demographics for the 1st are based on world population percentages, the second are based on population percentages of the actual location. Guess what! Tall, big boobed, early 20's white girls don't actually make up 90% of the population. In the 1st, they make up about 3 - 4%. In the second, they don't exist - 1. Woman are average sized, and vary between obese and morbidly obese - nor are there much in the way of the early - mid 20's demographic - most left as soon as they graduate from the local high school (no jobs, no future in rural 'Murika).

Penguinisto posted at 6:15PM Sat, 20 July 2019 - #4357492

No one has ever bought a new version of Poser for the figures - we buy for the tools. In 2019, if vendors want to halt declining sales, they need to up their game and understand the marketplace as it is, not how they wish it was. Which brings us to....

Yes, they do.

It's "the picture on the box." A NEW user is going to buy what they "see." They will pay attention to things they know, like "you can do animations" and "there's a nekkid figure" and "you can make do picture." Those customers will be buying Poser based on what they "see" and, largely, that's going to be a "figure."

An old Poser fart, like either of us and others, is going to buy Poser based on "what we see" and "what we know" too. Our knowledge is just a bit more in depth and esoteric than a new user's.

But, Poser development and marketing has largely focused on... who? People who already own a version of Poser. Sure, that's a good tactic, but you can not ignore trying to attract new customers. Old customers die. The biggest "new customer move" Poser has done are the "game dev" inclusions for import/export ease-of-use.

Okay, I promised I wasn't going to do this comparison stuff, but... the Genesis figures allow me to use stuff made for Genesis versions 1-8, and (with an add-on script) Vicky 4 as well. It takes literally one-to-three clicks in a popup window to fit old well-made crap onto the latest-and-greatest figure, no matter the morphs, with no poke-through, and it scales perfectly in 99% of clothing and hair. Part of this is projection-mapping/collision-detection, but a big part of is is that the target figure is a lineage of one very well-maintained mesh/topo combo.

^--- This.

Everyone wants "a new figure." Then, when they come out, it means everyone has to either take a second mortgage to buy products to get half the functionality out of the new figure that they currently get out of their old one or else end up buying what amounts to a figure that has much less usefulness to them in the long-run.

Then, there's the rush of substandard product releases for the new figure that make that new, wonderfully constructed, V4-Killer, had the best demigodlike figure modelers "in the business" creating it, look like a piece of crap... And, with absolutely no stewardship of any product lines because people are afraid to tell anyone that their "artistic talent" is not equitable to their "technical skill"... the figure gets a few morphs that are just variations on "surprised hobo" and some clothing items that have been rigged with copy/paste and little else.

Thus... the figure dies a grisly death. Why? _ "'Cause I've already fixed all the "surprised hobo" morphs for V4 I have and have already fine-tuned my existing library of badly rigged and horribly textured 100's of freebie and purchased crap. Why should I go through all that for yet another figure that, in the end, will not have much else produced for it that I would want to buy, anyway?"_

"Technical" stuffs matter to current users who know what's up... That is very important. But, it's not "everything." Focusing too much on "this figure is technically better" is an engineering issue, probably pushed by scripters and programmers who have delved deep into the guts of CR2s, but aren't primarily "artists." A truly good figure takes a marriage of both artist and technically skilled craftsperson.

But, to sell such a figure and to make it successful? That requires focused stewardship and knowledge of the true marketplace.

Someone above, dunno who, mentioned the disconnect between a vendor's potential imagination of what the marketplace is versus what the marketplace actually is. This is A Real Thing ™. This is why there are specialist occupations in the real world. This is why an artist aggressively pursues trying to get their work into a good gallery and why a good gallery will stay in business no matter how many artists starve.. because they don't know how to make their art "marketable."

If we want a good figure, it needs to do what you have suggested above. It needs to be "stable." It needs to avoid the chaos of "yet another vicky-killer being introduced." And, in doing that, it will gain the attention of vendors who have technical and artistic skill that will gradually help to improve it and the selection of products created for it... for free. They will do all of this for nothing... The original figure team, the marketplace that hosts the accompanying products, doesn't have to spend hours creating new and better products for it. But, what they do need to do is to move from creator/seller to "Steward" to ensure that surprised hobo morphs and ineptly designed crappy clothing/accessory items DO NOT act to insult and degrade their carefully crafted product.

That has yet to happen outside of one particular marketplace.

Until it does, there will be no Vicky-Killer for Poser. It ain't gonna happen. The best product in the world can not survive bad management. Renderosity now has a unique opportunity - They can assert management controls over a platform product as well ass the content available for it. If they do it well, they could be very successful and their recent acquisition could actually start earning them money. If they do not, it won't and it will get sold off as a last-ditch effort to make money off a purchase that was never effectively capitalized upon. Only one marketplace has ever effectively, if not in reality, had such professional controls and influence over Poser and been successful with it. It wasn't Smith Micro...

I don't think I agree that it's the picture on the box that matters. Maybe Winter Queen Jessie tempted a few buyers.

When I bought Poser, it was because I saw the art someone else made with it, and I wanted to do what she did. I bought Poser sight unseen from Amazon. (And ended up paying way too much. Little did I know, Poser 5 would debut in about a week, and the price of Poser Pro would plummet, like sheep that roost in trees.)

The image I saw that made me want Poser was of two Michael figures. So, yeah, my next stop was DAZ. Where I again spent way too much money, because I didn't realize that if I waited 10 minutes it would go on sale. ?

ssgbryan posted at 10:01PM Sat, 20 July 2019 - #4357573

Guess what! Tall, big boobed, early 20's white girls don't actually make up 90% of the population. In the 1st, they make up about 3 - 4%. In the second, they don't exist - 1. Woman are average sized, and vary between obese and morbidly obese - nor are there much in the way of the early - mid 20's demographic - most left as soon as they graduate from the local high school (no jobs, no future in rural 'Murika).

Before you try preaching to the minister, you might wanna check what the only character I have in my store (and, incidentally, in my user avatar) looks like.

And if you think everyone is STILL doing only the same hourglass blondes, you might wanna browse La Femme's store.

(and mind you, perhaps in the US most women are obese, but sooome of us aren't from the US - I'm Brazilian, for one.)

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 3:35AM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357585

ssgbryan posted at 10:01PM Sat, 20 July 2019 - #4357573

Guess what! Tall, big boobed, early 20's white girls don't actually make up 90% of the population. In the 1st, they make up about 3 - 4%. In the second, they don't exist - 1. Woman are average sized, and vary between obese and morbidly obese - nor are there much in the way of the early - mid 20's demographic - most left as soon as they graduate from the local high school (no jobs, no future in rural 'Murika).

Before you try preaching to the minister, you might wanna check what the only character I have in my store (and, incidentally, in my user avatar) looks like.

And if you think everyone is STILL doing only the same hourglass blondes, you might wanna browse La Femme's store.

(and mind you, perhaps in the US most women are obese, but sooome of us aren't from the US - I'm Brazilian, for one.)

Afrodite-Ohki, one thing you'll learn is that no matter how many facts you give these people they insist on repeating and repeating and repeating their same tired, old, tl;dr screeds. Facts just get in their way.

Afrodite-Ohki, one thing you'll learn is that no matter how many facts you give these people they insist on repeating and repeating and repeating their same tired, old, tl;dr screeds. Facts just get in their way.

Lol :)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Consider me insane if you wish, but is your reality any better?

Tall, big boobed, early 20's white girls don't actually make up 90% of the population. In the 1st, they make up about 3 - 4%. In the second, they don't exist - 1. Woman are average sized, and vary between obese and morbidly obese -

If you took a poll you would find that 90 percent of western, heterosexual males find Tall, big boobed, early 20's white girls Attractive,in the abstract, if they were to be honest.

Look at Advertising ,Fashion and Hollywood. The harsh reality is that such women Fairly or Unfairly have the highest Sexual Marketplace Value in the minds of the majority.

3D/CG character programs may have some"Educational" or technical value in certain use cases like medical or other industry training etc.

However ,in truth 3D/CG is a subset of the larger entertainment industry.

Most people use 3D/CG character programs for creating Fantasy or idealized imagery of people places and things

No logical person would expect what is popular in the $$Commercial$ world of Poser,Daz or the multi-billion dollar video game industry to be any different from what is popular in the rest of the entertainment industry.

To their credit Daz and their PA 's have at least given people the option to create " non Ideal BMI "females with an included "heavy,Pear shaped and global body size/ thickness morphs for the genesis base figures.

And their are the Commercial "BBG" morphs for the G2 figures and the "Big Girls', morphs for the G8 females.

Not sure how well those fat/obese Character morphs actually sold but they are there if people need them for body type "diversity"

If the poser only vendors are not providing the "Population variety"one needs then one needs to consider looking elsewhere.

As we all quite naturally do, when our other forms of disposable entertainment are no longer filling our needs (Cable ,netflix,HULU,spotify... whatever)

The simple fact is No one, willing to expand their horizons, is literally stuck with only the 20 something,uber thin chicky poo's for their comics or graphic novels etc.

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DAZ is kind of an interesting example. They are clearly courting the gaming industry, but their emphasis on pinup girls doesn't seem like a great fit for that. Sure, there's a place for them, but gaming characters seem to lean more toward buff males.

I know it's pointless, since some people have an opinion and won't change but lets try to consider facts. Every Poser figure that comes with Poser since P6Jessie has built in morphs which let you have fat, thin or muscle bound characters with the turn of a single dial, and every other figure I've bought either has the same or you can purchase morph sets to do it. So as most characters are dial spun bodies, it doesn't take much effort to change them yourself.

While some figures have attracted little support, those that have had any longevity also have a range of ethnic textures/characters available. I know someone will say only one or two, but if a figure only gets a dozen or so characters

Just go and look and at the character sets and morphs for LaFemme. We already have a range of ethnicities available, plus a mature texture and even a male texture, along with short and plump characters. Now a know this doesn't fit some peoples agenda, and most of this discussion seems to be between a non poser user and someone who has a chip on their shoulder because vendors are not meeting their particular desire, and everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I'll defend their right to express it, but really if you are going to make statements like LaFemme is no better supported that Pauline (when there is already nearly 3 times as much content for LF as Pauline) or that LF would have been dead on arrival if not supported by Karanta, (when there are 50 vendors/artists listed as having contributed to at least one LF product) please do your research first.

Nails60 posted at 4:22PM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357636

I know it's pointless, since some people have an opinion and won't change but lets try to consider facts. Every Poser figure that comes with Poser since P6Jessie has built in morphs which let you have fat, thin or muscle bound characters with the turn of a single dial, and every other figure I've bought either has the same or you can purchase morph sets to do it. So as most characters are dial spun bodies, it doesn't take much effort to change them yourself.

While some figures have attracted little support, those that have had any longevity also have a range of ethnic textures/characters available. I know someone will say only one or two, but if a figure only gets a dozen or so characters

Just go and look and at the character sets and morphs for LaFemme. We already have a range of ethnicities available, plus a mature texture and even a male texture, along with short and plump characters. Now a know this doesn't fit some peoples agenda, and most of this discussion seems to be between a non poser user and someone who has a chip on their shoulder because vendors are not meeting their particular desire, and everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I'll defend their right to express it, but really if you are going to make statements like LaFemme is no better supported that Pauline (when there is already nearly 3 times as much content for LF as Pauline) or that LF would have been dead on arrival if not supported by Karanta, (when there are 50 vendors/artists listed as having contributed to at least one LF product) please do your research first.

Maybe not 3 times as many but at least, as far as I've noted in my directory, twice as many. I counted, to be sure. Pauline has 31 vendors that make at least one product for her, and La Femme, so far, has about 61. Dawn has a little over 69 vendors showing support. Also Karanta has shown support for Dawn, La Femme, Pauline, and Project E.

EClark I was just referring to this site, I just went to 3dfigure assets and selected female figures, This show 264 items for LaFemme and 100 for Pauline. OK I exaggerated a bit, it's ony2.64 times as many, so I should have said 2 and a half times as many, but I couldn't be bothered with the extra typing

Nails60 posted at 4:55PM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357636

I know it's pointless, since some people have an opinion and won't change but lets try to consider facts. Every Poser figure that comes with Poser since P6Jessie has built in morphs which let you have fat, thin or muscle bound characters with the turn of a single dial, and every other figure I've bought either has the same or you can purchase morph sets to do it. So as most characters are dial spun bodies, it doesn't take much effort to change them yourself.

While some figures have attracted little support, those that have had any longevity also have a range of ethnic textures/characters available. I know someone will say only one or two, but if a figure only gets a dozen or so characters

Just go and look and at the character sets and morphs for LaFemme. We already have a range of ethnicities available, plus a mature texture and even a male texture, along with short and plump characters. Now a know this doesn't fit some peoples agenda, and most of this discussion seems to be between a non poser user and someone who has a chip on their shoulder because vendors are not meeting their particular desire, and everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I'll defend their right to express it, but really if you are going to make statements like LaFemme is no better supported that Pauline (when there is already nearly 3 times as much content for LF as Pauline) or that LF would have been dead on arrival if not supported by Karanta, (when there are 50 vendors/artists listed as having contributed to at least one LF product) please do your research first.

Did a quick render of less than half the Full Body Morphs for La Femme in the dc Body Kit. And this doesn't include those from Blackhearted.

randym77 posted at 2:10PM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357629

DAZ is kind of an interesting example. They are clearly courting the gaming industry, but their emphasis on pinup girls doesn't seem like a great fit for that.

...but we'll always have DOAX, dammit!

Far too many good posts that do a good enough job at it to bother with a direct rebuttal of earlier stuff on my part, but I did want to tidy up one bit or two:

Quoth ssgbryan: "Low level scripters have stepped up in the past and delivered (PhilC, Netherworks, Dimension3D, etc), If you can script in Python, you can develop add-ons. You don't need to hire a 6 figure programmer - hire a Python code monkey and HAVE A CLEAR SCOPE OF WORK. Because at some point, you have to shoot the coder and get the product into production."

Err, two developers on my team write primarily in Python these days, and one of them gets paid $110k/yr (and I promise you, he earns every penny of it.) Welcome to the West Coast, where mid/senior-level devs will cost you money in any language (and seriously, anything less than $175k/yr in Silly Valley is literal poverty wages.) We're not talking about slapping together something on a hobbyist level, or something that may have been cobbled together off of StackExchange here... we're talking about pro-grade stuff that is elegant, supported, resource-efficient, and (should be!) maintained. Also, Poser's API likely still isn't IMHO sufficiently open to everything that Python can do (Note to Rendo: I'm prepared to be pleasantly wrong on this note... please make me wrong here in case I end up buying the application.)

Now if a professional wants to write and give-away/sell something for less than his or her time is worth, that's on them... but most won't.

One other bit:

" Poser/DS also requires a real computer, not a laptop (ask me how I know), "

Let me share a few specs here...

• Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz, 2208 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s)
• Installed Physical Memory (RAM): 32.0 GB
• Graphics/GPU: nVidia GeForce GTX 1060, 6GB RAM

...so is that suddenly not sufficient to run Poser or DS, just because all that horsepower happens to be ensconced in an Acer Aspire 7 17" laptop? DS.latest (using iRay w/ all the bells and whistles) runs just perfectly fine on this thing, and I suspect Poser 11 Pro will as well, so, well, I'm going to ask you how you somehow know it wouldn't (as you've invited me to.) I mean, it ain't the latest/greatest, but it's way more than enough to clear the minimum spec hurdles, I trust?

I promise I'm not nagging/trolling here, but pointing to a demographic fact: Fewer and fewer people are going to have big ol' fire-breather desktops with big monitors perched on a table somewhere. More and more people are going to have laptops (w/ maybe a few external monitors.) Desktops are still around, but more often than not they're secondary devices these days. Now how are you going to lure new users in if the first thing out of your mouth is to tell them they need to go buy a whole new (pricey!) computer just to run this stuff? Game companies can get away with it - Poser/DS cannot. This shift to mobile affects Poser and DS in multiple ways - primarily, it means less real-estate for a 'desktop' view. Sure, I can Miracast my 17" laptop screen onto my titanic 4K LED television screen and have all the real-estate on the planet to play with, but I'm fairly sure my wife would object to my interrupting her favorite TV shows and movies by doing so ;)

So - with the typical user these days having a 15" laptop, that's pretty much what you have to shoot for. It's not a bad environment to work with (my previous laptop, a 15" 2012-era MacBook Pro, served just fine as a CG workstation), so your baseline specs are still going to be somewhat lower than usual, and, more importantly, your UI/UX is going to have to adapt to these realities as well.

EClark1894 posted at 2:55PM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357637

Maybe not 3 times as many but at least, as far as I've noted in my directory, twice as many. I counted, to be sure. Pauline has 31 vendors that make at least one product for her, and La Femme, so far, has about 61. Dawn has a little over 69 vendors showing support. Also Karanta has shown support for Dawn, La Femme, Pauline, and Project E.

...and this is encouraging for that figure.

Now, honest questions: Is this a bandwagon-jump, or is this long term? What do the items for sale look like? What are their average ratings?

I'm not asking this of you, but of Rendo, who can do a little BI and start figuring out what sells, what customer support issues are for various products, how they stack up if there are similar items for sale for the same figure, what could use a little culling due to QA issues... this is the perfect time to get strict about what's for sale and what stays for sale with the LaFemme figure. It looks like it's taking off, so it's up to the store to make sure it continues to grow, and more importantly, that its reputation grows.

Penguinisto, your comments about laptops are very valid, Poser has a very customisable and scalable ui, but the scaling does need some work as you can get some annoying clipping. It does have a minimum screen resolution requirement, can't remember exactly what it is but it's, is below hd, but above 720p, don't know how many laptops come with 720p screen these days.It also has some settings specifically to help it be used on lower power machines.

But you have to make sure you are not throwing out the baby out with the bathwater if it is going to be redesigned. I'm sure everyone remember the Windows 8 farce, where a ui designed with mobile/touchscreen in mind was foisted upon desktop users.

Penguinisto posted at 6:50PM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357644

EClark1894 posted at 2:55PM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357637

Maybe not 3 times as many but at least, as far as I've noted in my directory, twice as many. I counted, to be sure. Pauline has 31 vendors that make at least one product for her, and La Femme, so far, has about 61. Dawn has a little over 69 vendors showing support. Also Karanta has shown support for Dawn, La Femme, Pauline, and Project E.

...and this is encouraging for that figure.

Now, honest questions: Is this a bandwagon-jump, or is this long term? What do the items for sale look like? What are their average ratings?

I'm not asking this of you, but of Rendo, who can do a little BI and start figuring out what sells, what customer support issues are for various products, how they stack up if there are similar items for sale for the same figure, what could use a little culling due to QA issues... this is the perfect time to get strict about what's for sale and what stays for sale with the LaFemme figure. It looks like it's taking off, so it's up to the store to make sure it continues to grow, and more importantly, that its reputation grows.

You don't seriously expect Rendo to answer your questions, do you? I wouldn't, and honestly, I doubt you would either. If you're speaking rhetorically, then that's up to the individual buying whatever item they like or need.

EClark1894 posted at 4:18PM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357650

You don't seriously expect Rendo to answer your questions, do you?

Obviously not to me - but they should answer them internally, if only for their own knowledge. It speaks to refining their market, and towards making a decision as to which figure they would want to make primary.

Nails60 posted at 4:20PM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357649

Penguinisto, your comments about laptops are very valid, Poser has a very customisable and scalable ui, but the scaling does need some work as you can get some annoying clipping. It does have a minimum screen resolution requirement, can't remember exactly what it is but it's, is below hd, but above 720p, don't know how many laptops come with 720p screen these days.It also has some settings specifically to help it be used on lower power machines.

Most come with 1080p screen rez as standard (mine is set to 1080p)... Apple's Retina is insanely higher still, and 4K screens are fairly common on the upper half of the laptop spectrum nowadays.

But you have to make sure you are not throwing out the baby out with the bathwater if it is going to be redesigned. I'm sure everyone remember the Windows 8 farce, where a ui designed with mobile/touchscreen in mind was foisted upon desktop users.

Not sure if they'll do that right away or not. Kai Krause is too much like Jason in all those horror flicks - his creations refuse to die, after all ;)

DAZ is kind of an interesting example. They are clearly courting the gaming industry, but their emphasis on pinup girls doesn't seem like a great fit for that.

See my earlier post where I detail how badly Daz/genesis is failing to gain traction in the gaming industry. in short they do not seem to understand the game dev/gaming culture.

https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/money/2018/12/13/top-25-best-selling-video-games-2018/2303697002/

Daz should do just a wee bit of research and ask themselves why that demographic of users are not impressed with their current Genesis content .

Desktops are still around, but more often than not they're secondary devices these days. Now how are you going to lure new users in if the first thing out of your mouth is to tell them they need to go buy a whole new (pricey!) computer just to run this stuff? Game companies can get away with it - Poser/DS cannot.

I get it... GPU rendering is the undeniable future.

Still,.. Forcing people to buy hardware from one manufacturer (NVIDIA) because they have committed to a Brute force path tracer ( IRay), and allowing PA's to sell products with several dozen 4K textures on the BOTTOM's of vehicle models, is the reason why people now think it is not possible to use a laptop for Daz studio.

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wolf359 posted at 5:08PM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357656

I get it... GPU rendering is the undeniable future.

Still,.. Forcing people to buy hardware from one manufacturer (NVIDIA) because they have committed to a Brute force path tracer ( IRay), and allowing PA's to sell products with several dozen 4K textures on the BOTTOM's of vehicle models, is the reason why people now think it is not possible to use a laptop for Daz studio.

I do agree - one of the reasons why I'm typing this on an Acer and not a shiny new MacBook Pro is because Apple doesn't do nVidia GPUs. I think it's dumb to have to base one's hardware purchases on software/hardware exclusivity. I get why they went to iRay - it's a fairly decent engine that doesn't cost a whole lot to license.

OTOH, DS still has 3Delight which works just fine - it's not an either-or situation. I trust that Poser is similar, in that they have a higher-end and a middle-range (or lower-range?) render engine selection, yes?

Also, the hyper-rez texture set has been a thing for, like, forever now - not confined to DAZ, Poser, Rendo...

But, it takes no time at all to gank-down the rez by half or more if you need to. I do that as part of basic prep for items that tend to stay towards the background. There's even products that will do that in-app if you're that lazy (on the DS front - not sure about Poser, but it would be fairly easy to 'gin up). This subject is where you and I disagree a bit, since I'd much rather have high-rez that I can make lo-rez, than to try to upsize a lo-rez texture for close-ups (99% of the attempts wind up looking like utter crap, yanno?) Again, this doesn't matter what app or render engine we're talking about... this is general principle.

Back on-topic, figures need to mind this, perhaps - a great default figure feature would be to provide two texture options for the base figure - lo/hi rez? It's cheap to do, and doesn;t bloat things by too much. Only the newbies would really appreciate it, I know, but it'd be a nice gesture.

randym77 posted at 7:21PM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357584

I don't think I agree that it's the picture on the box that matters. Maybe Winter Queen Jessie tempted a few buyers.

When I bought Poser, it was because I saw the art someone else made with it, and I wanted to do what she did. I bought Poser sight unseen from Amazon. (And ended up paying way too much. Little did I know, Poser 5 would debut in about a week, and the price of Poser Pro would plummet, like sheep that roost in trees.)

The image I saw that made me want Poser was of two Michael figures. So, yeah, my next stop was DAZ. Where I again spent way too much money, because I didn't realize that if I waited 10 minutes it would go on sale. ?

The point is that it was what you "saw" and "knew" at the time that made you want to buy Poser. You "saw" a render that really appealed to you in some way, likely of a human, since that's something that many people can immediately identify. (If you were more of a landscapes kind of person wanting to duplicate Bob Ross paintings in 3D, maybe it would have been Vue instead?)

What you "knew" was that someone did some computer stuff, sitting at a desk, and pressed a button and did the "Do Art" thing and produced the render you liked. (Probably)

You likely had little knowledge of even what a simple "Pose" was, much less what node-based materials systems did or exactly what a "render engine" was, right? And, rigging and geometry and weightmaps vs deformers, etc... Well, that's not something a novice user can easily grasp without pushing and pulling rigged figures in a 3D app, right?

A box of cereal is sold more often by what the potential consumer knows about the ingredients pictured on the box. Some few enterprising consumers turn the box around to read the ingredients list, but they're much less likely to do that if there's also a blurb printed on the front of the box that says the product is "Healthy".... :) If it taste's great, it gets bought again and again.

A good product appeals both to those with little or no experience with its type and professionals, where applicable, who want specific professional-greade features.

Penguinisto posted at 7:36PM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357643....

So - with the typical user these days having a 15" laptop, that's pretty much what you have to shoot for. It's not a bad environment to work with (my previous laptop, a 15" 2012-era MacBook Pro, served just fine as a CG workstation), so your baseline specs are still going to be somewhat lower than usual, and, more importantly, your UI/UX is going to have to adapt to these realities as well.

I just wanted to point out a danger, here:

I, too, have run Poser on a high-grade laptop. But, I also output to a large secondary monitor.

The thing is, the general "do computer stuffs" market is moving to smaller, more convenient, mobile'ish platforms. Except for the people that really love visuals... And, that's the market Poser is peddled to. So, while some Poser users might make-do with a 15" screen, they're either wanting something more or they're financially or job-tasked-limited to what they're using. Because the output of this software and the purpose for which it is intended is "visual" its market is also oriented on that. And, that means nobody is going to buy Poser to "use" on their smartphone or iPad. But, they may make Poser output to be used for further engineering targeting those devices... And, if Renderosity/Bondware wanted to target that market of developers, then they'd incorporate features that catered to them. But, it wouldn't likely be targeted to running Poser on those devices.

Yes, making Poser more friendly to smaller-screen presentations would be nice for those users. But, most of them want more and heavy users are going to certainly want features that target their own needs and desires, which likely center around more robust machines and capabilities.

ie: The "danger" is overgeneralizing the habits of certain common industry markets to the habits of more specialized markets, which have decidedly different needs/wants.

Ps - Apologies for multi-posts, but I can't figure out how to multi-quote. So... :)

Glitterati3D posted at 7:47PM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357539...

Here's a clue for you: I made more sales in 2.5 WEEKS on Renderosity with La Femme, than I made in ** 2 YEARS** at Hivewire on Dawn, Dusk and Luna content.

Apologies for multi-posting. (Can anyone tell me wth button I'm not clicking to allow multi-quoting... or is that not a feature here?)

And, have you examined whether or not that was because of Hivewire's more limited marketplace, more limited "gang-on" support from other vendors, and the fact that Renderosity is a much larger marketplace with all that entails? Hivewire is a "smaller-pond" marketplace. (It's possibly an example, IMO, of moving from being a big fish in a small pond to being a small fish in a big pond.")

Marketplace Support is A Big Deal ™. Every marketplace in this industry has a captive audience. The larger that captive audience (Those who very much prefer buying from it) the larger the potential for baseline sales for any product. Units moved. Transactions complete. Every "potential" is much larger, even with competing products on the very same page. Smaller markets with less participation may allow for larger penetration, but will likely move less units overall if there is a larger marketplace.

IOW - The comparison is fairly meaningless without knowing much, much, more. I suspect you've just experienced the differences between releasing a new figure in a small market versus releasing one in a larger market. And, with more vendors in this market comes the prospect of complimentary products pushing sales of the original product as well.

Morkonan posted at 10:27PM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357667

Glitterati3D posted at 7:47PM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357539...

Here's a clue for you: I made more sales in 2.5 WEEKS on Renderosity with La Femme, than I made in ** 2 YEARS** at Hivewire on Dawn, Dusk and Luna content.

Apologies for multi-posting. (Can anyone tell me wth button I'm not clicking to allow multi-quoting... or is that not a feature here?)

And, have you examined whether or not that was because of Hivewire's more limited marketplace, more limited "gang-on" support from other vendors, and the fact that Renderosity is a much larger marketplace with all that entails? Hivewire is a "smaller-pond" marketplace. (It's possibly an example, IMO, of moving from being a big fish in a small pond to being a small fish in a big pond.")

Marketplace Support is A Big Deal ™. Every marketplace in this industry has a captive audience. The larger that captive audience (Those who very much prefer buying from it) the larger the potential for baseline sales for any product. Units moved. Transactions complete. Every "potential" is much larger, even with competing products on the very same page. Smaller markets with less participation may allow for larger penetration, but will likely move less units overall if there is a larger marketplace.

IOW - The comparison is fairly meaningless without knowing much, much, more. I suspect you've just experienced the differences between releasing a new figure in a small market versus releasing one in a larger market. And, with more vendors in this market comes the prospect of complimentary products pushing sales of the original product as well.

I think you probably forgot Dawn is on Renderosity as well.

You really do not know what you are talking about. Sure, you can overpower the conversation with constant droning on and on with posts that are simply too long and by sheer virtue of volume, but you still are babbling incoherently when it comes to product sales.

There's only one thing I agree with SSGBryan on - it's not 2007 anymore. It's a very different marketplace.

Get back to me when you put product on the line and in the marketplace and can speak with some authority.

Glitterati3D posted at 11:54PM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357676

I think you probably forgot Dawn is on Renderosity as well.

There's probably a reason for that.

You really do not know what you are talking about. Sure, you can overpower the conversation with constant droning on and on with posts that are simply too long and by sheer virtue of volume, but you still are babbling incoherently when it comes to product sales.

Why the hostility?

Get back to me when you put product on the line and in the marketplace and can speak with some authority.

I asked a question specifically about your own marketplace knowledge and involving what could be your own analysis and comparisons of your returns. I assume you may have done some kind of observations regarding comparing marketplaces. I see that assumption was undeserved.

Morkonan posted at 3:54AM Mon, 22 July 2019 - #4357682

Glitterati3D posted at 11:54PM Sun, 21 July 2019 - #4357676

I think you probably forgot Dawn is on Renderosity as well.

There's probably a reason for that.

You really do not know what you are talking about. Sure, you can overpower the conversation with constant droning on and on with posts that are simply too long and by sheer virtue of volume, but you still are babbling incoherently when it comes to product sales.

Why the hostility?

Get back to me when you put product on the line and in the marketplace and can speak with some authority.

I asked a question specifically about your own marketplace knowledge and involving what could be your own analysis and comparisons of your returns. I assume you may have done some kind of observations regarding comparing marketplaces. I see that assumption was undeserved.

If you had any real knowledge of the marketplace, as you so pompously announce in every long, drawn out post you would know that the information you want posted on a public message board is protected by NDA.

In case you hadn't noticed, this entire thread now consists of 3 of you, with absolutely no first hand knowledge of the marketplace, bloviating about what this market needs. None of which have any skin in the game with products in the store and first hand experience.

This whole thread has become an exercise in the long winded professors lecturing the classroom, while the classroom slowly empties out as the "students" who have managed to stay awake are slowly slipping out the back door unnoticed.

What makes a good figure for this market?

Evidently just marketing.

Because if there's one thing DAZ does well, it's marketing. They don't have a superior figure in technical terms. They just told you they did, and you seemed to fall in line like they were reeling you in.

It's funny, because Poser vendors refused to "learn a whole new rigging system" when Poser went to weight mapping. So what did they do? Why, they ran to DAZ where they had to guess what? Learn a whole new rigging system! I'll be damned - hook, line and sinker.

Test time - how many RDNA vendors who were sold to DAZ are still at DAZ? (Not the products, the VENDORS)

Glitterati3D posted at 6:06AM Mon, 22 July 2019 - #4357686

In case you hadn't noticed, this entire thread now consists of 3 of you, with absolutely no first hand knowledge of the marketplace, bloviating about what this market needs. None of which have any skin in the game with products in the store and first hand experience.

Just dropping opinions, nothing more. I base it not only from my work inside of various marketplaces here (including one which was and still is far larger than Rendo), but based on my more recent experience in leading a product which currently generates $80m/yr... so yes dear, I know what skin actually is, and the playground I work in these days is far larger and more complex than you are aware of.

I'm sure that others may have their own unique perspectives as well, based on their real-world experience, and in fields where their very careers depend on success in said fields. Just because we don't make a couple thousand bucks off of a consignment or two in a digital store, does not mean that we now nothing of software development, marketing, mesh, or strategic direction.

Note that the intended audience is not you - you are exactly one vendor, who makes consignment items for money. No, the audience is, if the site owners are smart, someone with actual influence who can (and likely does) read the thread for ideas. If others want to put in their two cents, cool - the more the merrier. If they ignore it, cool, whatevs. However, my own experience in this forum has shown that yes, these posts do get read by people who have way more influence, as long as said posts remain free from the petty bickering (or at least has gems in and among the dross).

Note that I've studiously avoided getting drawn into the insults and the bullshit... and until now, I've avoided taking your bait, but perhaps it's time to set you straight - everyone is allowed to speak their minds here, because it will give the PTB a viewpoint or two far larger than your limited POV. The fact that you make and sell digital barbie doll stuff does not give you the right to presume any sort of superiority over everyone else up in here, because there are others whom I am very certain have far more experience in multiple fields than you or I have, and I appreciate their viewpoints as well, even if (okay, especially if) they're contrary. Just because it makes you uncomfortable doesn't make them invalid... if you don't like it, leave - capiche?

Now with that out of the way, let's address the few actual bits of substance, shall we?

It's not "just marketing", as you say. The figure has to actually hold up to the hype. If the Genesis line sucked as bad as you intimate, DAZ would have dissolved a very long time ago, or would have abandoned DS and shifted to supporting Poser at all costs. Instead, it's quite the opposite, so obviously the figures hold up more than sufficiently.

Consider - there is a massive digital graveyard of figures that got way more hype, way more advertising all around, and way more shouting from the rooftops. But due to deficiencies in topology, rigging, distortion, etc? They wound up just as dead as Jessie... Simple and sweet? If the mesh ain't competent, it won't make it very long.

So, about other vendors jumping ship en masse? Stop emoting and projecting - instead, honestly look into the motivations and reasons as to why they left, and more importantly, why many of them never came back. If it were that big of a big hassle for them to adapt to DS' rigging, they would have returned. If it were such a let-down and a sub-standard figure platform as you claim, they would have returned. If Poser were oh-so-superior, they would have come crawling back. BUT, a huge number of them didn't.

It's up to Renderosity to find out why, and more importantly for them, to figure out what it will take to either attract them back, or to mentor and encourage new vendors of sufficient quality. They have to encourage that growth anyway.

This isn't a question of bragging rights or snobbery - it's a question of long-term survival. It all comes down to one of two choices: continue thinking everything is awesome as the income curve slowly continues its arc towards the dirt... or sit down and seriously reconsider WTF it's going to take to spark some growth up in this piece.

Morkonan posted at 9:21AM Mon, 22 July 2019 - #4357663

The point is that it was what you "saw" and "knew" at the time that made you want to buy Poser. You "saw" a render that really appealed to you in some way, likely of a human, since that's something that many people can immediately identify. (If you were more of a landscapes kind of person wanting to duplicate Bob Ross paintings in 3D, maybe it would have been Vue instead?)

Tacogirl? I ended up buying Vue as well. (Though it may be the end for me, now that they've gone subscription. Love Vue, but don't use it enough to justify paying what they're charging for a subscription.)

What you "knew" was that someone did some computer stuff, sitting at a desk, and pressed a button and did the "Do Art" thing and produced the render you liked. (Probably)

Oh, I knew it was more complicated than that. That was a big part of the appeal. I wanted to be able to customize the figures. To make them look like individual people, and dress them accordingly. That's what Poser was offering (via the text description of the product, not the "picture on the box," which was not very appealing).

You likely had little knowledge of even what a simple "Pose" was, much less what node-based materials systems did or exactly what a "render engine" was, right? And, rigging and geometry and weightmaps vs deformers, etc... Well, that's not something a novice user can easily grasp without pushing and pulling rigged figures in a 3D app, right?

I did understand what Poser did, as far as posing and rendering. I played video games, so had a basic understanding of rendering and texturing. (And I think that's where a lot of new users will come from, if any. Gaming. A lot of people are using The Sims to do the things Poser does.)

A good product appeals both to those with little or no experience with its type and professionals, where applicable, who want specific professional-greade features.

Eh, that depends on what market you're aiming for. And Rosity probably needs to make some decisions.

I suspect Poser has a more "professional" base than DS. When I've seen Poser in the wild, it's for things like professional training videos, or teaching people how to use the automated checkout, or in forensic reconstructions. Ordinary people dressed in ordinary clothes, where diversity is very important.

Will that continue? I don't know. Clearly, that kind of thing isn't what sells at Rosity. I suspect you don't need to buy much content to make those types of images and videos anyway. Nobody cares if Jessie has the same hair and clothes when she's sexually harassing her new employee in the workplace training video and when she's being murdered by her jealous husband in the forensic reconstruction.

Those Poser-type apps, and the comments about the decline of desktops...it does make me think that Poser will probably have to move more toward professional users. At my office (where almost everyone is an engineer, so fairly tech-savvy), the young people don't use computers at home. They do use desktops at work, but at home, they do everything on their phones or tablets.

I suspect aiming at new/inexperienced users might be a bad plan. These people are going to be using apps on their phones, not a big-ass program like Poser.

randym77 posted at 8:19AM Mon, 22 July 2019 - #4357706

Those Poser-type apps, and the comments about the decline of desktops...it does make me think that Poser will probably have to move more toward professional users. At my office (where almost everyone is an engineer, so fairly tech-savvy), the young people don't use computers at home. They do use desktops at work, but at home, they do everything on their phones or tablets.

I suspect aiming at new/inexperienced users might be a bad plan. These people are going to be using apps on their phones, not a big-ass program like Poser.

Dunno - I'm on the fence about it mostly. Poser has traditionally been the 'down-low' Plan B of sorts for pros on a time crunch who want to get a little project done and out the door - it offered (and still offers, I trust) a basic set of stuff and a usable workflow to lash-up something good enough to pass muster on a small budget. Most houses I'd been in in the past always kept a couple copies of Poser and some assets for it around just in case (this included part of Intel's Graphics R&D folks back in 2007-2008, though none of 'em would admit it in open daylight.) DS sort of owns the majority of the hobbyist-only market anyway, so...

Going Pro wouldn't be too bad of a direction to take, but they'd have to make a lot of concessions to(and build a lot of tools for) the pros, then curate the hell out of the Marketplace to boost their appeal - perhaps expand and build on their conversion tools (in and out)... wouldn't take too much. Only question is, would there be a big enough market among the pros to sustain them? They only have so much time and money left to spend, and it''s a pretty big gamble. OTOH, they have most of the infrastructure and connections...

Penguinisto posted at 11:25AM Mon, 22 July 2019 - #4357712

Going Pro wouldn't be too bad of a direction to take, but they'd have to make a lot of concessions to(and build a lot of tools for) the pros, then curate the hell out of the Marketplace to boost their appeal - perhaps expand and build on their conversion tools (in and out)... wouldn't take too much. Only question is, would there be a big enough market among the pros to sustain them? They only have so much time and money left to spend, and it''s a pretty big gamble. OTOH, they have most of the infrastructure and connections...

And on the other hand...emphasizing ease of use for newbs would put them more directly in conflict with games like The Sims, and with DS. I'm not sure that's a competition they can win.

randym77 posted at 10:44AM Mon, 22 July 2019 - #4357719

And on the other hand...emphasizing ease of use for newbs would put them more directly in conflict with games like The Sims, and with DS. I'm not sure that's a competition they can win.

Precisely. It'd be a very tough row to hoe, since they'd be competing against playtime (Sims, SecondLife), and $0.00 low-cost/low-barrier CG art kit (DS)..

I do have a question, asked out of ignorance, though - has Poser changed its rigging between Poser 7 (the last version I have) and 11, or is it the same as it's always been? I ask because if we're talking about going pro, it might help to either change how rigging is dealt with, or to beef up the import/export tooling to translate, so as to ease the workflow a little. Also, I don;t know what Poser's animation capabilities are these days, but that might need a bit of buffing-up and a few tools besides (unless already present and more-than-capable from the pro side of things... again, more of a question asked in ignorance until I get get my grubby little paws on Poser 11).

Lots of factors, but I don't think they should be real obstacles - more gruntwork than anything given the library sets that practically anyone can download and license these days. One big start would be to bump the Python interpreter up to something modern (I read somewhere it's still at like 2.6?), and expose a lot more of Poser's internals to API use... that would give it a big advantage over DS almost immediately (DS is very open API-wise, but everyone hates learning a new language, ECMA-compliance and Java-scented syntax be damned. Tying to Python would be frickin' huge if they could do it, and would allow the market to help them out as well.)

In case you hadn't noticed, this entire thread now consists of 3 of you,

SSGbryan,Morkonan,Penguinisto ,randym77,wolf359

I count five active participants, excluding the eternally angry, former resident Snark Queen of the DEFUNCT tribalist's fever swamp ,that was the Smith micro poser forum.

@Penguinisto , well stated my friend!!

I would only add the general observation/example that anyone who has seen the history of sony's many failed Closed format devices can have an opinion on why those business models failed without having had personally produced and sold a music player themselves.

In fact the need for that sort of detached analysis ,by external observers ,is exactly the type of thing Tony Vilters has correctly called for in beta testing would be new primary figures

For the record I was a poser vendor in the RMP for 12 years selling motion file products for M2- M4/V4.

I currently sell Genesis animation products over at another non daz outlet.

As long as the forum rules are observed ,anyone is free to post in, or LEAVE any thread at anytime.

My website

YouTube Channel

Also, I don;t know what Poser's animation capabilities are these days, but that might need a bit of buffing-up and a few tools besides (unless already present and more-than-capable from the pro side of things...

In a word... abysmal. Lets be fair and exclude Pro level solutions ,I actually own, like Iclone pro pipeline, and Lightwave3D 2015 and make the obvious comparison in this little market space.

Poser VS Daz studio for Character animation: although I did so for years with poser 4-6,I personally could never go back to poser for animation creation and most certainly not for editing imported animation data

I opened up poser pro 2014 recently and tried to edit a basic walk cycle generated by the "walkdesigner"............ARRRGHHH!!

Poser forces you into a completely linear workflow with extremely ,limited options to go back and make global changes Even its "layer system" forces you to make your secondary motion decisions in a carefully planned linear fashion on Rigid fixed tracks with no option to reorder. retime ,reverse or trim the layers.

This is all easily accomplished with the aniMate2 nonlinear motion clip system in Daz studio now bundled FREE in the new DS 4.12

Posers graph editor has NO Cubic interpolation to prevent that before and after stretching of the spline graph when you grab a key on the spline graph and move its value. You have to literally select sections of the graph and set "anchoring" frames to avoid over shoot it also cannot display more than one spline graph channel at a time

Daz studio Graphmate's default interpolation is Cubic. NO overshoot.. and can display multiple spline graph channels at a time.

Neither program has spline tangent handles but at least DS graphMate, now bundled FREE in the new DS 4.12, has Tension continuity and Bias controls for fine tuning the graph between individual frames. as in Lightwave3D

The poser animation pallet (Dope sheet) is truly a vestigial relic from the 1990's The DS Dope sheet( Keymate)now bundled FREE in the new DS 4.12,
is far superior by every measure.

But enough Nerdy McNerd technobabble!!

What about talking Characters?? Here is My video review of 3 of the 4 options for talking Characters Daz studio from old Mike 2 up to the G8 figures. ( the fourth option "anilip" is $90 USD so... umm.. no)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xOSyocgvpRfrYw821IxxdYVLuQI5rALm/view

The poser talk designer is actually decent except that ( As of poser pro 2014) it only works with the poser SM natives in their DEFAULT Morph shapes and will override any custom morph during the lip synch with default native face morph.,,any fix in poser 11??

P6 Jessie speaks:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sQ9H7D6LvSMcV0np-Fm4piRr8_cjWA1r/view

My website

YouTube Channel

Penguinisto posted at 3:10PM Mon, 22 July 2019 - #4357725

I do have a question, asked out of ignorance, though - has Poser changed its rigging between Poser 7 (the last version I have) and 11, or is it the same as it's always been?

Poser has added weight mapping since Poser 7. That's why Dawn is Poser 9 or above, IIRC. There have also been some changes since then, which is why La Femme is Poser 11 only.

There have been some improvements to animation, but I don't use animation all that often so I don't know how major they are. You can animate along 3D paths now, and there's keyframe grouping, but I haven't actually used it.

Eh, that depends on what market you're aiming for. And Rosity >probably needs to make some decisions.

Indeed the The Daz users both native, and Migrated from poser, are a lost demographic.

The new young generation (Like my two kids in their early twenties) Are the mobile device generation as you said.

The tech savvy Character oriented prosumers have free Game engines with amazing render engines Like unity & UE4 .

Then there is Iclone Character creator3 that creates perfect genesis dopplegangers.at $200 USD and has IRay https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?forum_id=12547

Not counting in the sims Virtuamate and that adobe Fuse character app.

Bondware had better have a really good strategic plan for growth that goes beyond deciding what will be the new base figures for Poser.

My website

YouTube Channel

wolf359 posted at 6:19PM Mon, 22 July 2019 - #4357761

Indeed the The Daz users both native, and Migrated from poser, are a lost demographic.

Thinking that way myself now that I sit down and mull it over - especially with the mobile generation (and it ain't just the kids - my dear missus has been using iPads exclusively since 2013, in spite of having a plethora of fairly high horsepower laptops to pick from. I just got rid of my last desktop when it died, and it was just a glorified file/backup/media box. It'll get replaced with a Raspberry Pi (the latest version 4, w/ 4GB) when that finally shows up in a couple of weeks. Ever since I started working where I do (with a lot of travel), and since the (step)kids moved out as adults, we settled into a small cabin roughly 50 miles outside of Portland, OR... and a desktop, even in my home office? Not happening. Don't got or want to make the space for one. So, a fire-breather laptop it is (that way I can take it with me whilst traveling on business.)

The shift away from desktops, coupled with the near-full capture DAZ has on the hobbyists, well, it is kind of a pity... and as much as I can;t argue against the analysis, it'd still be nice to be wrong about that.

The tech savvy Character oriented prosumers have free Game engines with amazing render engines Like unity & UE4 .

They've had this in one form or another since 2005 - ever since I saw one of my last students farting around with it on a lab desktop.

Not counting in the sims Virtuamate and that adobe Fuse character app.

Yeah, but Adobe... barf. (I know, I know...)

Here's something odd, though - OSX/MacOS has had CG preview of known CG assets for years now, and I discovered a couple months ago, so does Windows 10.

So how long before Microsoft and/or Apple (or both?) come out with rudimentary-but-usable CG manipulation/creation apps? Oh, nevermind... Windows 10 has Paint3D, right frickin' there. It's slow/boggy on initially loading large pre-made meshes (especially .obj files - holy crap Wings3D is like 10000x faster!), but holy crap it's all right there.

Bondware had better have a really good strategic plan for growth that goes beyond deciding what will be the new base figures for Poser.

Yup - been trying to keep things tied to the topic (figures), but damn it's hard to do that, considering...

wolf359 posted at 9:52PM Mon, 22 July 2019 - #4357761

Eh, that depends on what market you're aiming for. And Rosity >probably needs to make some decisions.

Indeed the The Daz users both native, and Migrated from poser, are a lost demographic.

Then why is it that still so many of those daz users are begging for Genesis in Poser? Can't go a week without hearing about how great G is but they hate the DS interface and miss Poser.

Provide a quality set of figures with good content and update some of the content creation tools (which would not take a whole lot, contrary to popular belief) and you might be surprised just how much of that 'lost demographic' find their way back. LaFemme has already been pulling some of them, maybe not permanently or in large droves but they're taking notice.

Show me a laptop that can run a 32-core threadripper without melting down and I'll believe desktops are dying. Until then it's just a bunch of bs. Enjoy your underpowered paperweight that doesn't offend the wifey's safe space, I'll stick with an actual PC with real power.

AmbientShade posted at 8:04PM Mon, 22 July 2019 - #4357780

Then why is it that still so many of those daz users are begging for Genesis in Poser? Can't go a week without hearing about how great G is but they hate the DS interface and miss Poser.

Where are you seeing these threads? How many are there? How many folks who use DS exclusively are saying it? Give me solid estimates, not assertion or anecdotes, please - seriously. Oh, and most importantly, how many are new users who got Poser, then decided they preferred it but are bound by the Genesis figure?

Forget the comparisons or which app reigns supreme - the reply to those questions, if they're backed with solid data, are important answers that the Rendo/Poser team will need - and they need solid data so they can make an intelligent decision or three from it. Do you have that data? I'm honestly interested if you do, but I bet Rendo would be even more interested.

Provide a quality set of figures with good content and update some of the content creation tools (which would not take a whole lot, contrary to popular belief) and you might be surprised just how much of that 'lost demographic' find their way back. LaFemme has already been pulling some of them, maybe not permanently or in large droves but they're taking notice.

Maybe. I honestly do not know these days, but a quick look at Alexa just today tells a pretty grim tale if you're simply trying to chase newbies/hobbyists, or if you think they should be trying to recapture any serious chunk of users who have left...how long ago?

Renderosity might be able to pull it off, but they have to think it through, and come up with a solid set of strategies to attract and keep these users.

Are you willing to stake your future income and career on your particular assertions? Renderosity will have to stake their futures on whatever they decide - one way or the other. I don;t expect them to take advice from me either -at least not without researching the facts - a lot.

Show me a laptop that can run a 32-core threadripper without melting down and I'll believe desktops are dying. Until then it's just a bunch of bs. Enjoy your underpowered paperweight that doesn't offend the wifey's safe space, I'll stick with an actual PC with real power.

I honestly don't care. Sure, your computer has a bigger wang or whatever and it makes you an uber-he-man - cool! Now square that with the computing usage patterns of the world at large, and more importantly, where the world at large is trending... and then try to tell us all how your big, bad machinery is going to sell more copies of Poser.

The point: You can wave your 1,500W multi-CPU water-cooled ePeen all day long, but that won't sell copies of Poser to a world going mobile, now will it? Seriously - we're not dong-measuring here, but looking at the market at large. There are laptops that are sufficient to run Poser 11 and/or DS all day long, and they're not even top-end. The point wasn't to bruise your feelings about whatever form factor is more powerful, but to point out that not even a majority of your potential market is going to have a desktop these days, and definitely won't in 5-10 years. Hell, the majority of the human population doesn't even have much more than a phone, but tailoring to that extreme market is silly, and for obvious reasons. However, accommodating the laptop-owning market is obviously not, and is already more than possible today, as long as they keep that in mind.

Penguinisto posted at 5:48AM Tue, 23 July 2019 - #4357789

AmbientShade posted at 8:04PM Mon, 22 July 2019 - #4357780

Then why is it that still so many of those daz users are begging for Genesis in Poser? Can't go a week without hearing about how great G is but they hate the DS interface and miss Poser.

Where are you seeing these threads?

Seriously?? Where the hell have you been the last few years? You really have no friggin clue what's going on in this community, do you? Just check out the announcement threads, that alone will give you examples aplenty.

There are laptops that are sufficient to run Poser 11 and/or DS all day long, and they're not even top-end.

Sure, but put them through prolonged high-end rendering, and they'll fry. Running a program and heavy use of a program are two different things.

DreaminGirl posted at 9:13PM Mon, 22 July 2019 - #4357791

Seriously?? Where the hell have you been the last few years? You really have no friggin clue what's going on in this community, do you? Just check out the announcement threads, that alone will give you examples aplenty.

I asked him that question to make a point: Hard data overrides emotional appeals and anecdotes based on what appear to be highly limited experience, lack of awareness of the situation, and a lack of awareness as to the scale of the problem Rendo is facing. Even if 1,000 posters specifically asked for it in this forum over the past 12 months, that's 1,000 potential copies of Poser sold, with perhaps (being way generous here) 1,000 more for shadow effect.. Rendo is going to need to sell more than 2,000 additional copies a year, every year, just to get usable growth - given the last income figures from Smith Micro's entire graphics division ($900k/yr or so if memory serves, for all of SM's graphics products combined), Rendo is gonna need to sell a lot more than 2k units a year just to keep things even-to-growing, and not half-starved like Smith Micro was doing.

I hope they pull it off.

Sure, but put them through prolonged high-end rendering, and they'll fry. Running a program and heavy use of a program are two different things.

Meh - the MacBook Pro I bought in 2013 and just got rid of grunted through almost six years of near-daily rendering abuse, and it still runs like a champ (albeit slower than my latest toy, which is nearly a year old now, and it shows no signs of deterioration in spite of the hammering it gets.) Most laptops on the mid-to-high-end are made to put up with similarly heavy loads generated by gaming these days. Besides, nobody is seriously rendering-out feature-length films in 1080p off of a laptop, FFS... For general hobbyist use w/ maybe 20-45 minute render runtimes at a go, it should do just fine.

Not much more to say, really. Let's give others a bite at the apple for a bit with their suggestions. This went well past being a debate, and maybe y'all should cool off a bit?

I'll check in tomorrow night-ish, if time permits. Have a good evening, y'all.

I find it interesting that people think that the increase in phone sales and the decrease in PC sale means that people are going to go mobile. Yes there are a lot of articles that state that, but most of the articles are missing some key points.

Just as an example, most of us have upgraded to a new phone at some point, possibly many times. So with that in mind, how many of your old phones do you still use? Well, I guess you could use them for paper weights, etc. They are not much good without a sim card and a phone plan..... They are basically disposable... Phones went from analog to digital, we all got new phones. There is a new standard coming out again, and we will all have to get new phones, again. That has not happened with PC's.... Phones are also status symbols, PC's, not so much.... How many people have shown you their new (insert whatever phone)??? See what I mean?

It isn't real hard to see where this is going. The PC market has matured, and many people don't upgrade PC's now because older ones still work fine. No, they may not be fast, but that isn't the point. They still work.... That is not the case with Mobile stuff. You would be hard pressed to find many apps that will run on a first gen Razor phone. The screen is too small, outdated versions of android, etc.

This has not had basically any impact on PC's. Windows 10 will run on a Pentium, so will XP, etc..... You can still surf the web on a small monitor, etc. People will stick with what works. Not everyone needs a powerhouse pc either. This will change with the new driver models coming out, so don;t think the pc market hasn't caught on to that....

On top of all of this, every time there is an increase in PC sales, suddenly there is a shortage of cpu's, memory, the prices go up, etc... Is that by design (production, etc), or very smart marketing.... I am going to go with the latter, because even with the shortages some companies still crank out millions of PC's. How many people have publicly said "I ordered a PC and they can't get the parts to build it." Yep, basically nobody.....

Food for thought......

---

Some things are easy to explain, other things are not........ <- Store ->   <-Freebies->

Sure, but put them through prolonged high-end rendering, and they'll fry. Running a program and heavy use of a program are two different things.

I have to agree with Penguinitso based on my own experience. Properly made laptops work just fine for 3D and rendering without frying, I've been using them for years (almost all the images in my gallery were done on a laptop). True, they are not as fast as a high end desktops, but they are so much more convenient, which for many can be the most important factor. Try taking a desktop to a meeting to do a presentation or a live demo. Try taking a desktop to a lunch meeting, not very practical. I've had my laptop render for over 72 hours straight with no ill effects at all (the GPU never got over 60c), it's about 3 years old now and hasn't fried yet!

Want to render a lot of animated videos? Easy, just use a real professional 3D software, set up everything on your laptop, then send it to a render farm and get it rendered in less than a day. There are many freelance Blender artist that do this. They can take their work with them where ever they go. IMHO ignoring the mobile user will highly limit potential new customers (I know very few people under 28 that have a desktop computer, and most that do have a "real" computer (not just a phone or a tablet), it's a laptop).

As for what makes a good figure, that's a bit of a loaded question. IMHO, at a very basic level, what makes a good figure is one that is easy to use, easy to customize, easy to cloth, has great third party support, has outstanding shaders, is usable in a platform (software) that has a render engine that produces professional quality renders, and has a user base that is producing outstanding art. I'm also not going to invest in a figure/software platform where the majority of the renders posted are ..... well lets say .... don't look as good a what I produced 15 years ago. IMHO you really can't say a figure has to have certain set technical features, without also addressing figure usability and render quality. Unless your going for the professional market, it doesn't matter how technically "awesome" a figure is, if the average user (or even the content providers) can't easily produce inspiring renders. It's the renders posted here, and in other galleries, that inspire people to buy.

__________________________________________________________

My Rendo Gallery ........ My DAZ3D Gallery ........... My DA Gallery ......

Then why is it that still so many of those daz users are begging for

Genesis in Poser? Can't go a week without hearing about how great G

is but they hate the DS interface and miss Poser. you might be surprised just how much of that 'lost demographic' find >their way back.

There is not going to be a fully functional Genesis in Poser,we all know this, and now that Daz has added a new IK system there is yet another Genesis native function that would have to be re-created in poser.

Genesis in poser = Dead subject.

So the people and Daz PA's who never used Poser at all are the "natives" to whom I was referring.

They do not "miss" the poser interface because there never used it in the past and have no reason to leave DS & Genesis.

The "Migrants" to whom I was referring are the"old timers" who started with poser 3-4 before Daz studio existed, but "migrated" to DS for the Genesis figures and content and the seemingly endless 70 % off sales

Or in My case. for the nonlinear motion clip system and more modern*Graph editor and dope sheet

(*no longer a paid add on in DS4.12 but now included FREE )

Niether of these demographics are likely to be a factor in the future Zero sum growth of the poser user base.

All of us ,who already own an older copy of poser, but do not use it in our daily work/play can still be considered part of the current poser owners.

If we all decide buy poser 12 that does not actually count as growth in market share for Bondware/poser. they are just reselling a new version to a stagnant population.

Growth in total market share only comes from adding to your total number of users from new incoming buyers who were not using your product at all.

Technically even Daz studio's market share only really "grows" when a new user of their free loss leader app, actually buys something the store.

Bondware has to convince new users to buy poser first even before counting on any new RMP Sales

A tougher challenge.

My website

YouTube Channel

Penguinisto posted at 9:50AM Tue, 23 July 2019 - #4357798

I asked him that question to make a point

And in doing so, you proved that you are missing the point. And you can stop the tone-policing, that is very condescending.

DreaminGirl posted at 5:42AM Tue, 23 July 2019 - #4357807

Penguinisto posted at 9:50AM Tue, 23 July 2019 - #4357798

I asked him that question to make a point

And in doing so, you proved that you are missing the point. And you can stop the tone-policing, that is very condescending.

Keep in mind, DG, this is a user who hasn't moved past Poser 7.

Telling Renderosity how to market to "professionals."

Bwahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahaaha!

Phones and tablets are content consumption devices.

Applications like Poser& Daz studio are production software in that they create digital content (stills &animation) to be consumed by others.

I own two smartphones and a tablet, two laptops and a compaq tower.

Screen space aside, I have never found any "production" software on a mobile device, that even came close to matching the performance of their Windows or Mac os equivalents running on a real computer.

On the Full tower vs laptop debate obviously YMMV based on what you are producing.

That said, for various reason,s My feature length animated film was/is rendered on my Mac laptop where I have my very Old C4D,and Adobe After effects & Final cut pro.

( rendered on a laptop) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjokKZX1r6I

I routinely commit to 50+ hour renders while I set up new animation on my PC where I have Iclone pro Endorphin&Daz studio.

or pass the time watching youtube video tutorials,posting online at CG talk,the Reallsuion forums, or Daz and here obviously.

My website

YouTube Channel

I don't think anyone's anticipating that, say, Pixar is going to be punting desktops in favor of smartphones.

But hobbyists? I think the move to mobile is an issue that Rosity needs to at least consider. Maybe that means leaving the hobbyist market to DAZ. Maybe it means making Poser into something worth turning your computer on for (and making sure it can run on the average notebook). Heck, maybe it means a Poser app.

Phones are not only content consumption devices. In particular...the combination of cell phone cameras and social media means a lot of people are using their phones to edit images and video. Probably still just a gimmick for pros, but for hobbyists? There's a reason why Adobe has Photoshop apps now.

Folks, if you want to talk about laptops and smartphones, please go start another thread. This one is about figures.

Just look at the games market to see how wrong this idea of phones and tablets dominating is.

Yes, there are plenty of games for them, but they are different animals for the pc x-box etc games with different audiences. And even the pc gaming fraternity is split between those who treat it as a pastime, are likely to have bought a laptop of perhaps higher spec than needed to play games as well and the true hobbyists to whom a high end desktop, capable of the running the latest triple A titles with ultra settings in 4k at at least 60fps is a must. And NVidia and AMD graphics card divisions seem to do well enogh providing for there needs.

A quick way for a company to go bust, take their eye of the ball of their core market and spend time and money trying to break into markets for which their products are unsuitable and where consumers have no use for them.

Poser is a hobbyist product, Hobbyist are willing to spend time and money on their hobby, and persist with it How many apps have you downloaded and continued to use for significant time, a few utilities maybe , some multiplayer games where the community becomes the thing, but standalone hobby type apps? If Rendo abandons the core users (and potential users), hobbyist, then Poser will definitely die.

EClarke Sorry crossposted with you, but sometimes these wild ideas being posted just force out a response.

Glitterati3D posted at 5:37PM Tue, 23 July 2019 - #4357686

If you had any real knowledge of the marketplace, as you so pompously announce in every long, drawn out post you would know that the information you want posted on a public message board is protected by NDA.

In case you hadn't noticed, this entire thread now consists of 3 of you, with absolutely no first hand knowledge of the marketplace, bloviating about what this market needs. None of which have any skin in the game with products in the store and first hand experience.

I don't want to argue with you and don't know why you're so hostile. If you think I'm wrong, just point out what exactly you think I am wrong about without jumping up with sharpened sticks and trying to impale me with insults. Did I run over your cat in a prior lifetime or something?

I wanted to know what YOU thought about your sales experience and what YOU thought were the factors that made a meaningful difference. I have no concern about any argument you may have been having with anyone else, just the fact that you seem to have noticed some marked difference. I wasn't asking for numbers or specifics, just your opinion. If your opinion is covered by an NDA, I think such a document would be a bit too strongly worded for my tastes.

As for my experience, I've had plenty in other marketplaces. This is not a topic only for Renderosity vendors.

How many times has this thread topic come up over the years? And, the same general things keep on being stated, over and over, but there's no magical ultimate success? It's always the same list of "wants" and then the same claims of "this figure that just got released does all that, so what's your problem."

For the first time, Poser has direct marketing support through a "Major Distributor." You might know about selling your product to Poser users. That's fine. But, I also have knowledge as well and part of that includes how general business and marketing practices work. One reason that third-party figures have not been successful is because they didn't have any front-end support from a good high-profile marketplace with a large somewhat-captive audience. Figures that may be considered successful, and I would assume this would be some of the more eclectic, non-generic-human, sorts of comic/cute figures, would probably had a focused appeal and took advantage of a need that was going unfulfilled. (I am unsure what vendors consider "successful." That standard certainly changes from product to product, it seems.)

I only wrote another small paragraph, but decided to cut it. It's just not worth the effort it would take to get the point across. This thread, yet another "what do you want in a figure" thread, that never ends and resurrects itself every year, will continue on with all the same things in it. And, why? Because people think that doing the same thing over and over will eventually cause some sort of magical success.

There is only one thing that matters right now - Poser has the front-end support of a high-profile distributor. It has not had such support since the disastrous breakup of the marriage of Poser and DAZ. If you can't see how important that is, then I have to point out you haven't been paying attention to things that you should, as a vendor, have been paying attention to.

But, while I do like and wish all good things for Renderosity, they're not a 3D software developer (Bondware does web apps) and their own marketplace evidences a dire need for better and more professional management. While I am hopeful, I am not confident.

Hahahahahahaha, the topic of this thread hasn't been discussed since Page 3.

Not since all the "experts" invaded the space and took over the conversation with their sermons.

EClark1894 posted at 5:55PM Tue, 23 July 2019 - #4357823

Folks, if you want to talk about laptops and smartphones, please go start another thread. This one is about figures.

Good point. (no idea who got the idea that Poser should run on a smartphone... that's just nuts. Now if someone wants to make an ARM-compatible old-school... heh. I'll stop.)

Okay - figures. Second priority, but important nonetheless.

Here's how it boils down:

Figure out which figure sells, is competently built, has the greatest flexibility,and has the best long-term potential.

...then buy it. Incorporate it into Poser. Hire the best mesh-mongers you can buy. Support that figure. Keep it through multiple versions. Nurture it as time passes, and be sure to include backwards compatibility as you make changes.

You-know-who does this now. They're anywhere from 3 to 6x larger than Renderosity almost precisely because they do this (the wide range is due to guesstimating Alexa's curve, but be assured, they are far larger, healthier, and by all signs still growing at a decent, healthy rate). They don't scatter their attention while flitting from mesh to mesh with each new iteration of their flagship application, or hoping/praying that someone, somewhere out there will build a Vicky-killer!!!!!11!!OMG!!! (patent pending). They keep their eyes on the prize, and have done so ever since the Unimesh Vicky/Aiko/Stephanie/Michael/David/Yadda 3 came out.

Renderosity needs to do the same w/ Poser.

Does this mean reject all non-blessed/imprimatured figures? Of course not! Invite them to the party. Dare them to do better, and if one does, buy that, slowly working it in over the next X iterations (again, remember your backwards compatibility and include conversion workflow to the point of one-to-three-click adaptation.) Just be certain that if you do decide to replace, that the replacement is so badassed that you're willing to bet the company on it, since you'd be deviating from the long-term goal of curating one excellent and carefully-built figure.

...is that easy enough to grok, campers?

Morkonan posted at 6:12PM Tue, 23 July 2019 - #4357864

Because people think that doing the same thing over and over will eventually cause some sort of magical success.

...and others have a hate-on for certain businesses to the point of derangement; I trust I don't have to point to specific evidence. Me, I want a healthy competing marketplace. It's the best way to ensure the best stuff is available to me and my little hobby. Choice is a beautiful thing... especially to those of us who remember the days when choice was either nonexistent or hella expensive.

There is only one thing that matters right now - Poser has the front-end support of a high-profile distributor. It has not had such support since the disastrous breakup of the marriage of Poser and DAZ.

Dude, it had no such support since Curious Labs cratered. And yeah, it's hella important that this time things go right (I know, I know...)

Good news is, Rendo has 1) a separate and fairly healthy income stream outside of Poser, but 2) that income stream is actually related to Poser and DS, so Rendo (unlike SM, EGISys, etc) is fully incentivized to give Poser the needed care. This means figures, natch. It also means Marketplace standards that will help the figure(s) actually sell (so yes, it's related.)

Back to the original question what makes a good figure is Points, Faces and Suntan Rays.

Poser 5, 6, 7, 8, Poser Pro 9 (2012), 10 (2014), 11, 12, 13

Penguinisto posted at 3:06AM Wed, 24 July 2019 - #4357872

Keep it through multiple versions. Nurture it as time passes, and be sure to include backwards compatibility as you make changes.

This I agree with you on. And I (and others) have been saying this since at least Poser 9/2012. It can still be done and Poser has an entire family of legacy figures that could be incorporated into a new generation. But for whatever reason SM just didn't seem interested in it. Apparently they thought it was better to introduce a new figure with an entirely new mesh with each new version of Poser they released - the only exception being Alyson and Ryan were carried over from P8 to P9. Mesh design takes a massive chunk of time, and when that time is already limited by release deadlines, trying to design a new mesh instead of refining an already existing mesh is absolutely a waste of time that could have been spent on improving the rig, building new content for the figure, etc. But I guess they didn't see it that way. So we got Rex and Roxie, then Paul and Pauline... All characters that could have been new shapes for an existing mesh instead of individual meshes with their own rigs and UVs incompatible with each other.

Has nobody noticed that La Femme is the new official Poser figure?

RobZhena posted at 7:39AM Wed, 24 July 2019 - #4357896

Has nobody noticed that La Femme is the new official Poser figure?

I have. It's the reason I bought into La Femme, despite being burned on previous Rosity figures. I thought this time it would be different - because she would be the official Poser female (with L'Homme to follow).

But I'm wondering if that is still true. They haven't said much about it since La Femme's debut. I would think this would be a major factor in both La Femme's success, and Poser's.

randym77 posted at 8:50AM Wed, 24 July 2019 - #4357898

RobZhena posted at 7:39AM Wed, 24 July 2019 - #4357896

Has nobody noticed that La Femme is the new official Poser figure?

I have. It's the reason I bought into La Femme, despite being burned on previous Rosity figures. I thought this time it would be different - because she would be the official Poser female (with L'Homme to follow).

But I'm wondering if that is still true. They haven't said much about it since La Femme's debut. I would think this would be a major factor in both La Femme's success, and Poser's.

Much on L'Homme, you mean? I've seen the devs mention he's coming several times.

They might have their hands full. For all we know, he's probably in development.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 7:51AM Wed, 24 July 2019 - #4357899

Much on L'Homme, you mean? I've seen the devs mention he's coming several times.

They might have their hands full. For all we know, he's probably in development.

I meant much on La Femme being the new official Poser figure. It's not even mentioned on her product page, and IMO that's a big selling feature. (Though maybe they don't want to do that, now that she's not free. If she is the official Poser figure, I would expect her to be free for Poser 11 owners.)

RobZhena is right...people don't seem to realize La Femme is the new official Poser figure. There's talk about Venus or Project Evolution or some other yet to be developed figure being the new official Poser figure. If it's really La Femme, I'm surprised that's not being publicized more.

I don't think they've made anything official yet. I'd wait until they're able to at least get a service release made for Poser - they're trying for October it seems?

I believe that they can't rush with these decisions. A lot of strategy will be required, and they don't even have the new team set up yet. Give them time.

- - - - - - 

Feel free to call me Ohki!

Poser Pro 11, Poser 12 and Poser 13, Windows 10, Superfly junkie. My units are milimeters.

Persephone (the computer): AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, RTX 3070 GPU, 96gb ram.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 8:19AM Wed, 24 July 2019 - #4357903

I don't think they've made anything official yet. I'd wait until they're able to at least get a service release made for Poser - they're trying for October it seems?

I believe that they can't rush with these decisions. A lot of strategy will be required, and they don't even have the new team set up yet. Give them time.

That's why I wondered if it had changed. La Femme was supposed to be the new official Poser figure. The email I got about her was from Smith-Micro, not from Renderosity.

Now that Renderosity owns Poser, I would think that would solidify La Femme's position as the official Poser figure...but maybe not?

Now that Renderosity owns Poser, I would think that would solidify La Femme's position as the official Poser figure...but maybe not?

...Or they could shock everyone and have the new poser base figures designed by Reallusion the makers of Character creator 3 sold here in the RMP,...

My website

YouTube Channel

I have no clue what Character Creator does, and their web site isn't particularly elucidating.

Would it be possible for Character Creator to support La Femme, rather than having Reallusion create all new Poser figures?

I have no clue what Character Creator does, and their web site isn't particularly elucidating.

This youtube video gives a pretty good overview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hazb4e0V94

In short it is a stand alone application that has Customizable base Characters that you create,dress and export as Avatars for Iclone or other programs. They have a very accurate shape projection system that enables you to convert a CCs avatar into any Daz Figure you import via FBX from Millenuim 3 to all Genesis.8 Character morphs .

They also support the hivewire figures as you see in the YT vid

Would it be possible for Character Creator to support La >Femme, rather than having Reallusion create all new Poser figure

IMHO it would probably be easier for Reallusion to create new figures in native Cr2 format as they are already vendors at renderosity with a forum here for CC3 and an established company that could also help invigorate the animation side of things for poser.

As you stated, the Lafemme as the default poser figure, was a Smith Micro arrangement as they actually provided some funding for the project, according to Blackhearted.

The Bondware team has no obligation to adhere to such an arrangement as they have no investment in Lafemme but we shall see in the coming months.

My website

YouTube Channel

Genuine question, what would be the advantage of adopting a new cc figure?

To me, changing figures at this stage would seem very counter productive. LaFemme seems to be selling well, and the amount of support give hope that it can break out of the viscous circle of users not adopting a figure until there is sufficient vendor and vendors not supporting a figure until there are enough users buying products to make it worthwhile.

Also it's not clear about bondware not having a commitment to LaFemme, the figure and a number of the product for it are under the banner of Rpublishing, so it would appear there is financial support in one form or another for LaFemme. (And I recall Blackhearted saying he wasn't getting anything other than credit from the sales of LaFemme)

I also don't get this whole idea of an official figure for Poser. Until Poser 12 becomes a reality, surely the only "official" Poser figure are those included in Poser 11. If there are going to be "official" new figures in Poser 12, and I know some people would argue against this, the obvious would be a LaFemme 2, as it could help Poser sales by saying to customers, you've liked LaFemme, now get the even better LaFemme 2 included in Poser

Until bondware makes an official statement or releases a new version of poser with a new figures included we are all just speculating.

My website

YouTube Channel

Nails60 posted at 10:58AM Thu, 25 July 2019 - #4357981

Genuine question, what would be the advantage of adopting a new cc figure?

To me, changing figures at this stage would seem very counter productive. LaFemme seems to be selling well, and the amount of support give hope that it can break out of the viscous circle of users not adopting a figure until there is sufficient vendor and vendors not supporting a figure until there are enough users buying products to make it worthwhile.

Kinda depends... does the figure have a good topo that will hold up over the next 5-10 years? Is it clean (no nGons)? Is it flexible (no/little distortion, even in extremis)? Is it easy to morph out of its default facial shape (this bit is more important than you might realize - anybody can make a body morph that alters appearances, but can you make the face not look like the original figure at all, to the point where even folks who have LF have to ask "hey, what figure is that?") Lots of questions like that. I don't have the figure so I cannot tell you one way or the other if the potentials are there.

Now if it fails in some fashion, then it'll be easier to rip that bandaid off now (if a new figure out there is better and available), than to try and disrupt the hell out of the ecosystem 2 years later (or so) after Poser 12 comes out to great fanfare and someone discovers that one little thing wrong in the mesh that they thought nobody would care about.

I also don't get this whole idea of an official figure for Poser. Until Poser 12 becomes a reality, surely the only "official" Poser figure are those included in Poser 11. If there are going to be "official" new figures in Poser 12, and I know some people would argue against this, the obvious would be a LaFemme 2, as it could help Poser sales by saying to customers, you've liked LaFemme, now get the even better LaFemme 2 included in Poser

Absolutely correct, and that is the best way to go about it. The idea of a new official figure that stays and lasts would be launched and made official with the Bondware-approved/owned version. Anything else just invites confusion, or requires a subtle-but-doable means of getting everyone used to the idea beforehand.

wolf359 posted at 2:17PM Thu, 25 July 2019 - #4358012

Until bondware makes an official statement or releases a new version of poser with a new figures included we are all just speculating.

Well, duh. Did you read the first post?

Penguinisto posted at 11:01PM Fri, 26 July 2019 - #4357873 Me, I want a healthy competing marketplace. It's the best way to ensure the best stuff is available to me and my little hobby. Choice is a beautiful thing... especially to those of us who remember the days when choice was either nonexistent or hella expensive.

(Apologies if my formatting poofs up... )

The key is "competing."

The products aren't always similar in this market, but many of the functions of competing products that we're concerned about are similar. Most consumer buy them to fulfill the same need/want. If one is examining differences or seeking to maximize strengths for this particular product, at least in terms of "figure" then we have a way to go based on what choices normal consumers of such a thing value. For myself, there''s no other variable than "Poser" for this particular product. That's my determiner. But, we've seen others who are not so loyal to a particular platform. And, more importantly, in order to expand and survive, the platform has to have active marketing and appeal as well as full-on and rabid support (internal) for the mainline crack it wants to sell - An uber awesome super-duper visually appealing and technically excellent figure with a darn good looking render potential straight out of the box with one-click "Do Art" capability. :) (I think PE had such a possibility and still might. But, everyone wants to get their team together to make their own brand-new-next-thing Vicky-Killer...)

Dude, it had no such support since Curious Labs cratered. And yeah, it's hella important that this time things go right (I know, I know...)

DAZ was pretty strong support. It was high profile and professionally run with a very clear emphasis on stewarding its product lines and their presentation to the consumer. DAZ ran it like they wanted to be "professionals." They rolled out figures properly with big blockbuster teams from a steady stable of recognized performers. Nothing passed through those doors that didn't get someone's eyeball plastered all over it before it hit the shelf. And, it showed. Personally, I feel their diligence and restrictions placed some limitations on variety and artistic style. Plus, there wasn't a single DAZ product with geometry in it that I couldn't identify as uniquely DAZ just from looking at the topo and UV. DAZ loved them some "thick" geometry and if you an replace a detail with a texture instead of real verts, then you're a thumbz-up DAZ piece of clothing...

Editorial note: This is for example. Can't very well talk about the sorts of things that make good figures and good figure markets without... talking about them.

Good news is, Rendo has 1) a separate and fairly healthy income stream outside of Poser, but 2) that income stream is actually related to Poser and DS, so Rendo (unlike SM, EGISys, etc) is fully incentivized to give Poser the needed care. This means figures, natch. It also means Marketplace standards that will help the figure(s) actually sell (so yes, it's related.)

It is good news in some respects. The most prominent of all of them is that Renderosity is a "High Profile" distributor for Poser products. Of course, the stable of those is kind of limited. RIP RNDA et al. But, there have really only been two footprints in distributors for Poser and one of them is Renderosity. The others were always a tier down, not in quality, just in overall presence. (Loved RDNA, Content Paradise never really counted because it was continually focused on Poser 4..., PW had a license that was too eclectic and Hivewire suffers from a lack of inventory.)

But, we gots a problem... Renderosity isn't a developer. Bondware specializes in front-ends/infrastructure apps for websites, AFAIK. (To be fair, Smith Micro was always primarily a networking IT company.) And, in my opinion, while Renderosity has survived, it's only done it because it's adopted a sort of Wallmart approach, but with the lack of professionalism that Wallmart has. It's not a slight, it's just a sort of sad fact that Renderosity has to correct if they want to truly leverage their one big asset that they bring to the table - Their footprint.

See this? -> https://www.renderosity.com/assets/images/homepage/1x2.png

That's an Unreal Engine promotional image from Hellblade: Sunua's Sacrifice. https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/developer-interviews/exploring-the-mindset-behind-hellblade-senuas-sacrifice

Wow, I didn't know Renderosity was associated with Unreal development and Senua's sacrifice! Lemme click! ...

See this? https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/delorean-dmc-12/136576/

Sweet! A "Delorean" automobile! It looks very nicely done, too, and there are also a couple of companion products for it. Hey, there's a "Game Development License" so I can license a real Delorean car for my game! I am sure that the original IP owners who actually own the Delorean Trademark that is so prominently presented on the front grill of that product would be thrilled that someone else is selling their Trademarked IP for them... Searching to see where the seller obtained legal license to sell a third-party wholly owned Trademarked and probably conditionally copyrighted name did not bear any fruit. IF legal license has been obtained, then I apologize for the mistaken assumption. If not.. then Renderosity has invited a lawsuit into their office to sit down and talk about "punative damages" in front of a judge...

(Hint: https://www.delorean.com <--- These guys actually own "Delorean" and the DMC ™ Trademarked logo, which is a thing that true "artists" like to protect.)

But, considering the admittedly talented artist's portfolio includes a number of third-party IPs that do not appear to have the legal license to sell such products without very practically threatening a criminal injunction charge and the shut-down of the entire Renderosity website while its inventory of items are searched by prosecutors. This would be far from the first time that licensing for the sale of third-party protected IPs was not in evidence on Renderosity.

Just not professional-grade administration in evidence, despite my own measly efforts in the past reporting similar Intellectual Property violations several times. They did act on my reports, but do not apparently suffer from the work of doing Due Diligence to protect the integrity of the marketplace nor the very real survival of their business against what could eventually amount to criminal prosecution for Conspiracy to Defraud, depending upon how many infractions a prosecutor's computer forensics team could dredge up. Someone at Renderosity got paid for the work it took to put such products up in the marketplace and to receive and deposit the commission payments they got. They were paid. To list products like that, someone wrote a paycheck.

It's things like that which worry me. Everyone loves to say "shut up Mork blah blah" and just goes on and discounts what I say. But... The above sort of thing is no better than one of those "gfx" sites that rips off hard-working 3D artists every single hour. We all want to do something about those, right? And, if our new Captain of the Poser Industry doesn't want to clean up its own image? If these sorts of things continue, then what chance does a legitimate successor figure to usher in the "new age" of Poser actually have?

Speaking of "figures," who now owns the rights to the Terai Yuki? (E-Frontier, still?) It'd be a good idea for Renderosity to seek out that license-holder and secure distribution rights, possibly some form of Terai Yuki Lite for an inclusion in Poser. Why? Japan, that's why. There's no reason to leave out the Japanese market, especially since it appears to have a decent showing for Poser. IIRC, Renderosity has sold similarly focused products for that market. (Several figures focused towards and popular in that market. "Near Me" or something like that, maybe? Can't remember.)

I'll restate something - I like Renderosity. I really do. I like the sort of "free spirit" in the community. What I don't like is what I have stated many times over the years - A lack of focus on professionalism and inventory stewardship. That's it. For a new figure, the Poser community who pays for products here deserves a heightened sense of professional development and attention to professional practices.

Morkonan posted at 4:02AM Sat, 27 July 2019 - #4358115

Sweet! A "Delorean" automobile! It looks very nicely done, too, and there are also a couple of companion products for it. Hey, there's a "Game Development License" so I can license a real Delorean car for my game! I am sure that the original IP owners who actually own the Delorean Trademark that is so prominently presented on the front grill of that product would be thrilled that someone else is selling their Trademarked IP for them... Searching to see where the seller obtained legal license to sell a third-party wholly owned Trademarked and probably conditionally copyrighted name did not bear any fruit. IF legal license has been obtained, then I apologize for the mistaken assumption. If not.. then Renderosity has invited a lawsuit into their office to sit down and talk about "punative damages" in front of a judge...

I mean if you want to get technical about it I could link to a few products on Daz's site that are also blatant violations of IPs that I've noticed over the years - a couple of them by very well established content artists in the community. Thing is every 3D content market struggles with this sort of thing. It's impossible for any of them to know the licensing rights of every single model or product posted to their site, which is why most of them have a process in place for when you find questionable content.

Morkonan posted at 4:26AM Sat, 27 July 2019 - #4358115

I'll restate something - I like Renderosity. I really do.

ROFL, sure you do. (end sarcasm)

Morkonan posted at 10:55AM Sat, 27 July 2019 - #4358115

Penguinisto posted at 11:01PM Fri, 26 July 2019 - #4357873 Me, I want a healthy competing marketplace. It's the best way to ensure the best stuff is available to me and my little hobby. Choice is a beautiful thing... especially to those of us who remember the days when choice was either nonexistent or hella expensive.

(Apologies if my formatting poofs up... )

The key is "competing."

The products aren't always similar in this market, but many of the functions of competing products that we're concerned about are similar. Most consumer buy them to fulfill the same need/want. If one is examining differences or seeking to maximize strengths for this particular product, at least in terms of "figure" then we have a way to go based on what choices normal consumers of such a thing value. For myself, there''s no other variable than "Poser" for this particular product. That's my determiner. But, we've seen others who are not so loyal to a particular platform. And, more importantly, in order to expand and survive, the platform has to have active marketing and appeal as well as full-on and rabid support (internal) for the mainline crack it wants to sell - An uber awesome super-duper visually appealing and technically excellent figure with a darn good looking render potential straight out of the box with one-click "Do Art" capability. :) (I think PE had such a possibility and still might. But, everyone wants to get their team together to make their own brand-new-next-thing Vicky-Killer...)

I think Penguinisto summed it up pretty good. "Choice is a beautiful thing".

The key to competition isn't in product similarity... it's in choice. What do I spend my money on? What do I support? Truth is, and it's a truth that Renderosity needs to learn if they don't already know, is that the real competition in this marketplace isn't from a similar product, but from marketing for choice. I asked a question to start this thread off, and it still applies. What makes a good figure. Obviously, it's one that's well supported. Customers will support the figure that they view as best supported. That hasn't been a Poser figure since Posette.

AmbientShade posted at 9:06AM Sat, 27 July 2019 - #4358127

Morkonan posted at 4:02AM Sat, 27 July 2019 - #4358115

Sweet! A "Delorean" automobile! It looks very nicely done, too, and there are also a couple of companion products for it. Hey, there's a "Game Development License" so I can license a real Delorean car for my game! I am sure that the original IP owners who actually own the Delorean Trademark that is so prominently presented on the front grill of that product would be thrilled that someone else is selling their Trademarked IP for them... Searching to see where the seller obtained legal license to sell a third-party wholly owned Trademarked and probably conditionally copyrighted name did not bear any fruit. IF legal license has been obtained, then I apologize for the mistaken assumption. If not.. then Renderosity has invited a lawsuit into their office to sit down and talk about "punative damages" in front of a judge...

I mean if you want to get technical about it I could link to a few products on Daz's site that are also blatant violations of IPs that I've noticed over the years - a couple of them by very well established content artists in the community. Thing is every 3D content market struggles with this sort of thing. It's impossible for any of them to know the licensing rights of every single model or product posted to their site, which is why most of them have a process in place for when you find questionable content.

You're both correct. Both sites (and numerous others) have vendors who have blown off trademarks, design patents(!), and suchlike.

To DAZ' credit, they do have a stated policy against copyright and trademark infringement: https://www.daz3d.com/terms-of-service

They also receive and act on trademark infringement complaints with the same process as they would when handling DMCA complaints, but that comes with a big, fat caveat: The property owner has to make the formal complaint, and submit a statement (under penalty of perjury) that the infringing product is theirs. This process description is largely from memory, but it makes sense, since this process is typical for any large tech company that acts as an intermediary/platform for others' works.

Not sure if Rendo has a listed policy (it'll take awhile to find if it exists, methinks - they need to make their policy more prominent and easier to find), but I think they would handle it the same way? They put the onus on the vendor to secure those rights for a few good reasons, legal liability being chief among them. I bet if you upload a product for sale, you have to agree to that as well. ;)

This does bring up why whatever figure(s) become default need to be built from scratch. The reason that old Renda figure was quietly pulled from the marketplace not long after it was launched was because it grafted the feet (and hands?) from the original Poser 4 female figure (Posette). Problem with that was, the mesh was licensed from DAZ, and the rights were non-transferable, and the gent(s) who made Renda had no idea.

I remember writing a how-to/FAQ for copyright and IP protections a very long time ago. Got laughed at over it in PoserPros because it was too strict (it was pretty strict, but for good reasons). Then a few months later, the site owners got caught up in a copyright kerfuffle with one of their products, causing the site itself to crash (DAZ bought it to rescue the other products and audience/info.) I'll have to scour the old hard drives for it, to see if it still exists somewhere...

But, to tie it to the topic, yeah - the figures need to be clean in the intellectual property sense too.

ISTR a few years ago that several products here were pulled because of trademark infringement. Some of 'em made it back with altered names and logos, others, I dunno.

Any road up, anything I sell/give away here has all names changed to protect... well, me, basically. So, you won't see any "Daleks" or "Marshall Amps" or whatever. TBH, I think it's something the vendors and Rendo both should be taking care of. Vendors should know by now that outright copying of a product name is asking for trouble and Rendo should make it part of their own testing process.

Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.

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Is this what you are looking for concerning copyrights and trademarks?

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/wiki/?selling&upload

Bill

People that know everything by definition can not learn anything

willyb53 posted at 11:54PM Sat, 27 July 2019 - #4358183

Is this what you are looking for concerning copyrights and trademarks?

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/wiki/?selling&upload

Bill

Aye, that's the one but... there are several products in the MP that violate trademarks. I ain't naming any names because - as a vendor - it may seem like conflict of interest to do so. That said, the ones I'm talking about shouldn't have been allowed to be sold without some changes to their names. Granted, the vendor(s) should have not used trademarked names but failing that, Rendo should have rejected them until the changes were made.

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In the case of images/3d models it can be a little murky, unlike copyright law from wiki: A trademark is a word, phrase, or logo that identifies the source of goods or services.[1] Trademark law protects a business' commercial identity or brand by discouraging other businesses from adopting a name or logo that is "confusingly similar" to an existing trademark. The goal is to allow consumers to easily identify the producers of goods and services and avoid confusion.[2]

no consumer would confuse a Jeep with an image of a Jeep. The owners of the Jeep trademark would have to prove damages

Copyrights, on the otherhand, such as an image of MickyMouse" are easier and Disney is known for going after that type of violation

Bill

People that know everything by definition can not learn anything

And from Bitlaw: A mark is infringed under U.S. trademark law when another person uses a device (a mark) so as to cause confusion as to the source or sponsorship of the goods or services involved. Multiple parties may use the same mark only where the goods of the parties are not so similar as to cause confusion among consumers. Where a mark is protected only under common law trademark rights, the same marks can be used where there is no geographic overlap in the use of the marks. Federally registered marks have a nation-wide geographic scope, and hence are protected throughout the United States.

Bill

People that know everything by definition can not learn anything

SamTherapy posted at 5:49PM Sat, 27 July 2019 - #4358188

willyb53 posted at 11:54PM Sat, 27 July 2019 - #4358183

Is this what you are looking for concerning copyrights and trademarks?

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/wiki/?selling&upload

Bill

Aye, that's the one but... there are several products in the MP that violate trademarks. I ain't naming any names because - as a vendor - it may seem like conflict of interest to do so. That said, the ones I'm talking about shouldn't have been allowed to be sold without some changes to their names. Granted, the vendor(s) should have not used trademarked names but failing that, Rendo should have rejected them until the changes were made.

Both sites should reject such things outright, because the 'honor system' obviously ain't working. (...and seriously, it's drop-easy to tell when a trademark is being infringed on most times and can be weeded out in testing... it's the obscure/non-obvious stuff that you need to have the policy for.)

(PS: Thx for the link... I figured it was in there somewhere.)

willyb53 posted at 2:35AM Sun, 28 July 2019 - #4358191

And from Bitlaw: A mark is infringed under U.S. trademark law when another person uses a device (a mark) so as to cause confusion as to the source or sponsorship of the goods or services involved. Multiple parties may use the same mark only where the goods of the parties are not so similar as to cause confusion among consumers. Where a mark is protected only under common law trademark rights, the same marks can be used where there is no geographic overlap in the use of the marks. Federally registered marks have a nation-wide geographic scope, and hence are protected throughout the United States.

Bill

There are two companies that I know of - both in the same line of business - that would be hopping mad to find out their names are being used in products on sale in the MP. One of them has recently become very litigious, too. T'other one, maybe not so much recently but they did draw a line in the sand a few years ago. Far as I know, nobody selling similar items in the US has crossed that line since.

Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.

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Customers will support the figure that they view as best supported. That hasn't been a Poser figure since Posette.

What other poser females were available at the time of posette other than the uber primitive Poser 2 female/males.??? Her "success" was less a matter of choice and more a matter of lack of viable alternatives

while standards have become very high in this arena the technical skills of the average user have not advanced so much.

From a pure technical perspective, PE was a"good" figure. but it was not that compatible with any of poser native clothing creation tools except the dynamic cloth room and was initially not even available here in the RMP.

A "Good figure" is not enough in todays market

It needs a powerful core platform, that gives it its functionality and a content market controlled by the same people who own that platform and the figure itself. ( See apple/IOS/appstore ,See Google,Android,google play store)

Why even have a "face room" or a "Talk designer" or a "walk designer" or a fitting room and continue to adopt third party "saviour" figures that are not compatible with core program features that could make your software more competitive and attract much needed new users.??

There is a reason why all of the poser Character animators ,who needed walking, talking, people have moved on the other programs Like Iclone Maya and yes..... even Daz studio.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xOSyocgvpRfrYw821IxxdYVLuQI5rALm/view

You cant have a discussion about how a poser figure will succeed without discussing the current state of the poser software or even the state of the RMP compared to its obvious competition in this market segment.

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wolf359 posted at 5:19AM Sun, 28 July 2019 - #4358205

Customers will support the figure that they view as best supported. That hasn't been a Poser figure since Posette.

What other poser females were available at the time of posette other than the uber primitive Poser 2 female/males.??? Her "success" was less a matter of choice and more a matter of lack of viable alternatives

while standards have become very high in this arena the technical skills of the average user have not advanced so much.

From a pure technical perspective, PE was a"good" figure. but it was not that compatible with any of poser native clothing creation tools except the dynamic cloth room and was initially not even available here in the RMP.

A "Good figure" is not enough in todays market

It needs a powerful core platform, that gives it its functionality and a content market controlled by the same people who own that platform and the figure itself. ( See apple/IOS/appstore ,See Google,Android,google play store)

Why even have a "face room" or a "Talk designer" or a "walk designer" or a fitting room and continue to adopt third party "saviour" figures that are not compatible with core program features that could make your software more competitive and attract much needed new users.??

There is a reason why all of the poser Character animators ,who needed walking, talking, people have moved on the other programs Like Iclone Maya and yes..... even Daz studio.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xOSyocgvpRfrYw821IxxdYVLuQI5rALm/view

You cant have a discussion about how a poser figure will succeed without discussing the current state of the poser software or even the state of the RMP compared to its obvious competition in this market segment.

You're misreading the point of the thread again. The "a good figure" is a vague term, but I wanted opinions. Facts vary depending on what figure you're talking about and what program. We're talking about Poser. You consistently post about Realusion, Studio, and Iclone programs and figures and maybe those work for you. But not everyone else.

And you consistently make the same assessment. Poser has to beome a "clone" of all the other software in order to regain it's market.

A good figure is really very simple. It's a figure that caters to your customers. And, instead of all this techno babble, accompanied by legalese that no one reads, it's summed up in just a few bullet points:

For the load, pose, render crowd, give them a figure that doesn't re-invent the wheel. They want to load, pose, render, not learn Poser all over again. And they make up 90% of the customer base.

For vendors to make content for the load, pose, render crowd (again the bread and butter of this market) also don't re-invent the wheel with every new figure. Do what the La Femme developers have done and that's simple - make it EASY to create content, without reinvesting in every tool, every MR, every workflow they have in place.

Success is simple - give your customers what they want and need.

The rest is techno babble that goes right over their heads and clears out a forum conversation (just like this one) in seconds.

La Femme reading the books written in this forum:

SamTherapy posted at 5:06AM Sun, 28 July 2019 - #4358176

ISTR a few years ago that several products here were pulled because of trademark infringement. Some of 'em made it back with altered names and logos, others, I dunno.

Yeah, DarkSeal made an awesome Poser/DS figure very much like the Pathfinder Goblins that was just incredible. Think it lasted 3 days before it was purged from the internets. :(

The "a good figure" is a vague term, but I wanted opinions We're talking about Poser.

So to be clear, you only want opinions on what makes a "good figure"
for poser without any contextual references to posers feature set and how that feature set works in conjunction with the "good figure"..for poser??

And you have consistently posted that you have found your "good figures" in the Hivewire bases anyway so why do you even want peoples opinions at all??

And you consistently make the same assessment. Poser has to beome a "clone" of all the other software in order to regain it's market.

"Poser Pro 11 - Professional 3D Character Art and Animation Software"

This ,in various iterations, has been the official tag line since poser 4.

Having a modern set of NATIVE poser figures that can use ALL of posers advertised features like the talk designer,walk designer or face room is not becoming a "clone" of the Daz or Reallusion products,...its called competing for paying customers.

You concede that poser needs to "regains its market share"

How??..by remaining in a myopic little comfort bubble and catering only to the existing still render/web gallery /portrait/ pin up crowd?

while re-selling them more versions of a program that has listed features that would largely be unusable with your beloved Dawn or frankly any of the current aspirants to the mantle of: "the new poser base figures"

I get it... you and most poser users, dont seem care about any actual movement ,animated filmaking,speaking ability for Dawn & Dusty (or whatever).

But trust me 3D animated Characters are in demand in 2019 and any 3D Character program that hopes to gain the next generation of users while ignoring basic animation ability (walking and talking) does so at their own peril.

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wolf359 posted at 10:20AM Sun, 28 July 2019 - #4358228

But trust me 3D animated Characters are in demand in 2019 and any 3D Character program that hopes to gain the next generation of users while ignoring basic animation ability (walking and talking) does so at their own peril.

So declares the user who, by his own admission, doesn't use Poser, doesn't use DS, doesn't buy content because he "grows his own" telling Poser how to retain customers.

Really, how can you miss the lunacy of following such direction?

wolf359 posted at 11:32AM Sun, 28 July 2019 - #4358228

The "a good figure" is a vague term, but I wanted opinions We're talking about Poser.

So to be clear, you only want opinions on what makes a "good figure"
for poser without any contextual references to posers feature set and how that feature set works in conjunction with the "good figure"..for poser??

And you have consistently posted that you have found your "good figures" in the Hivewire bases anyway so why do you even want peoples opinions at all??

And you consistently make the same assessment. Poser has to beome a "clone" of all the other software in order to regain it's market.

You concede that poser needs to "regains its market share"

No, I believe I said, "And you consistently make the same assessment. Poser has to become a "clone" of all the other software in order to regain it's market.

In fact, I never said anything about Poser's market share. And by "clone", which I put in quotes, I meant that you think Poser has to do all the things other software does in order to compete in this market.

Oh, and while I do use Dawn and Dusk, primarily, they both work natively in Poser. I don't use other figures, frankly, because I don't render as much as I used to. But when I do, I usually use Poser.

I meant that you think Poser has to do all the things other software does in order to compete in this market.

Clarke is it not better to compete with program features and figures that utilize them ALL rather than depend Loyalty and nostalgia.

How did Loyalty and nostalgia work out for the once mighty, Nokia ,Blackberry or even Microsoft in the mobile device market??.

Competing with your direct competitors, in terms of features and abilities should be ,Bondwares primary strategic plan because the desperately needed ,NEW, incoming users to the entry level 3D Character market , will not be swayed by the tired, old tribalist,emotional hatreds that have kept many loyalists from leaving as matter of "principle"

I do use Dawn and Dusk, primarily, they both work natively in Poser. I don't use other figures,

But you started a thread asking for opinion about what makes a "good figure" in general ,not about why you have chosen Dawn and Dusk whom "works natively" in poser only for the purpose loading,Dressing and rendering still portraits/pinups etc.

Right now Dawn,Dusk ,the HW Gorilla, and the HW baby has more feature support in, (there I go again), Reallusion Character creator 3 and Iclone than in any version of poser.

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GhengisFarb posted at 7:30PM Mon, 29 July 2019 - #4358217

Yeah, DarkSeal made an awesome Poser/DS figure very much like the Pathfinder Goblins that was just incredible. Think it lasted 3 days before it was purged from the internets. :(

Dude, I still feel envious that I missed out on freebies by the dude who Poser-rigged the DOAX (Dead or Alive Extreme) babes... those things were (for the time) fantastically done (Even if they did literally suck out the .obj files from the XBox game...) :(

What V4 had, what Genesis has, what all DAZ products have, was and is excellent marketing and product design. While good product design can include "high quality," not all versions of high quality enhance product design.

The customer demand that started this market wasn't animation nor even 3D. It was illustration. Poser and Bryce were created to make illustrating with Painter easier. And since they were part of Zygote, DAZ has mostly put that use first. Even after adding game-based aesthetics and game-friendly features, they still primarily design and market their content and software as illustration tools.

I used to be able to spot Poser use in about 50% of top illustrators' works. DS is still used for professional and hobbyist illustration almost as much as photomanipulation. Poser? Not so much.

Well before the SM purchase, the Poser team began to treat content community illustrators as people they had to serve rather than wanted to. They designed and marketed to 3D professionals, totally ignored 2D professionals as a market while occasionally using them in marketing, and talked down to and tried to appease the content community. They repeatedly showed they didn't understand how a content ecosystem worked. For instance, making figures that shared body maps and morphs, but not head maps and morphs. As a result, they steadily lost customers to DAZ, and many customers regarded their innovation packed new releases as having "no new features," since almost all features were specifically designed for animators or content creators.

I'd say about 75% of features added since PPP are used by less than 10% of the Poser customer base. That points to a problem that has nothing to do with SM or budgeting.

If the Poser team had respected illustrators and content users from the start, they would have released the Cloth Room with a workflow that didn't require the timeline (but could use it). They would have normalized the controls and labeled them with real world terms like "Quality," "Elasticity," and "Stiffness". By now, we could have already had weight mapped dynamics with initial tension settings. The morph tool should have settings like "move" (or "grab," as Blender uses), "rotate" or "bend," "billow," "gather," "wrinkle," and "turbulence." Instead, neither cloth nor hair has become any easier to use. All Cloth and Hair Room improvements have been on the performance end, with absolutely no work done on its completely failed UI, despite usage numbers really clearly indicating that failure at their release.

When it comes to poorly designed features, the Poser team has always tried to either entice users with better performance or change users with tutorials instead of accepting that usage sets the standard, and changing the interface. Bondware needs a Poser team willing to respect how customers work and be willing to accommodate it.

Mind, I don't mean listening to us whine and argue in the forums, or catering to the "Make Art" complaints. I mean taking into account the most common workflow(s) in the community. Using labels that make sense to most users. Providing features that make it easier to make awesome stills, features that would benefit animators anyway.

The strategy of adding 3D professional features has mostly failed the Poser team from the start, and they did nothing but double and triple down on that failure. But we still don't have things like in-camera composition guides, a post-production bloom feature, a background that makes an environment sphere unnecessary, or a set of HDRI for fantasy renders (no modern structures or people), or a set of pure skies. Those simple, low-hanging fruit additions would make it so much easier to make illustrations, and would also benefit Poser animators.

Who will never number more than a handful. Professional 3D animators who make their own models don't need a separate posing tool. They've done just fine without one for the past two decades. Game content creators need Poser even less. Even if Poser worked perfectly and were free, adding Poser to a professional workflow would just complicate it. They have to model, UV map, texture, and do particle effects in the application of their choice, one which probably supports rigging and animation. If they switch to Poser as the final stop, they're giving up particle effects and advanced physics and most likely a much better renderer. If they're ending in a game engine, it's almost definitely easier to go from their chosen app directly to the game engine.

There's pretty much zero benefit to using Poser if all you do is make content for your own animations or for games. And I say that as a Blender user. There are other 3d studio apps that have stronger rigging and/or animation tools. Still, even I, who have never used Blender for animating or posing, know that you can do so much more in terms of animating in Blender than in Poser. Like making complex meshes follow a dynamic cloth base.

The best Poser figure is one designed for the content community. One that makes illustration using 3rd party content easier. That assumes its users will mostly use a different character and entirely different clothes and scenery with each illustration. That assumes the majority of its users will never make their own 3D content, and will focus entirely on the ability to make a new image every day or so.

That means designing a base figure with a flexible topology that can take definition. That means lots of morphs at release. That means doing everything, and I mean everything, to make vendor support easy.

For instance, a good Poser figure needs morphs that either can be burned into new morphs or exist outside the library where they can be referenced. The creator should make very clear that morph artists supporting the figure should put them outside of the library, so others in the community can build off them. The figure needs to support merchant resource texture and dial-spin morph characters. While people complain about the flood of similar characters for figures like V4 or Genesis, the fact is that you need that flood if you want at least hundreds of customers to each go through about 7 unique characters a week without it looking like they all used the same 7.

Content creators should be able to detail the figure easily in any 3D application. Poser content creators, especially the ones that remain, often use free or cheap tools. This is the main reason I love Dawn. Her topology makes her a dream to sculpt.

A good Poser figure needs to make it easy for vendors to publish both skimpwear and flowing fantasy dresses for her. And until Poser gets a much more usable and functionally improved cloth room, that means making it easy to build conformers for her. La Femme is absolutely great at this, and Deecey's video tutorials for this are amazingly clear and easy to follow.

Ideally, a figure and its basic morphs should be designed and built with the testing and feedback of at least one clothing creator, one morph artist, one dial-spin character creator, and two or more top illustrators who do not make 3D content. It should be designed first as a community tool, rather than a specific dream girl. A Poser figure is a canvas. Make it easy for content creators to provide the paints and brushes, and customers will come to paint.

As much as DAZ has focused more on illustration, there's still tons that neither DS nor Poser does to make illustration easier. If all Bondware did was change the Poser UI to either make general tools usable for illustrators or get rid of them (Face Room, I'm looking at you), and add features and content to make illustration easier, I think there are a lot of people out there who would take notice.

kobaltkween posted at 7:20AM Tue, 30 July 2019 - #4358330

The customer demand that started this market wasn't animation nor even 3D. It was illustration. Poser and Bryce were created to make illustrating with Painter easier. And since they were part of Zygote, DAZ has mostly put that use first. Even after adding game-based aesthetics and game-friendly features, they still primarily design and market their content and software as illustration tools.

(snipped out important stuff just to keep from adding more text)

One can hope that Renderosity/Bondware has, as it's objective, to return to the roots of Poser and move forward from there!

Trying to force a round peg into a square hole has always been an exercise in futility. Do what Renderosity does so well - cater to the customer base that uses Poser as it was intended and allow the techno nerds the ability to outsource those tools they want to use in Poser.

Honestly, what I see from DAZ at this point is them "techno nerding" this base right out of their software. The system requirements from them are quickly outpacing the hobbyist budget.

Poser and Renderosity will/should be here welcoming those customers back with open arms.

kobaltkween posted at 8:08AM Tue, 30 July 2019 - #4358330

For instance, a good Poser figure needs morphs that either can be burned into new morphs or exist outside the library where they can be referenced. The creator should make very clear that morph artists supporting the figure should put them outside of the library, so others in the community can build off them.

I don't understand what you mean by this, "exist outside the library" ?

As much as DAZ has focused more on illustration, there's

still tons that neither DS nor Poser does to make

illustration easier.

Daz recently bought the former third party graphMate and KeyMate Plugins and folded them into the free base program.

They also have an all new IK solver for switchable foot/floor contact in the DS 4.12 beta.

In september, they will be releasing a new DSON based plugin that loads FULLY functional Genesis figures into the worlds top Character animation program for Film& TV..Autodesk Maya

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9UGtguQoDQ

Even Daz realizes the limited growth potential of the still illustration/portrait /pinup market.

BTW, I honestly agree with most of your last post, except the assertion that "professional Character animators" always model and rig their figures themselves.

This is true for major film VFX and Game companies, however the Small shops and one man operations do use prefabbed animated Characters and will pay .

I do model my own clothing and make my own custom face morphs But I need quality pre rigged figures for use in C4D & lightwave3D Via FBXor Alembic & MDD.

This is why sites like Mixamo exists.

And why commercial plugins like this one exists for C4D.

https://www.rodenburg-verlag.de/shop/cinema-4d-plugins/people-in-motion-r2-0-cinema-4d-r17-winmac/

I have been asked by individual pro freelancers over on the CGsociety.org forums, about my own Iclone/Daz genesis to C4D pipeline I used to create my ,soon to be released, full length animated film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjokKZX1r6I

Again you are quite correct that such users will not be using Daz studio , poser or even iclone for final output renders. (and with good reason)

IMHO ,However it cant hurt to have animation&character export options to lure such users into your commercial market places.

My website

YouTube Channel

AmbientShade posted at 1:30PM Tue, 30 July 2019 - #4358341

I don't understand what you mean by this, "exist outside the library" ? The best place to put all referenced files is outside of the libraries folder. For example, Runtime > Geometries, or Runtime > Images. If this folder doesn't exist already, make it. It will install like any other folder.

In modern versions of Poser, morphs are in .PMD files. By default, Poser puts those .PMD files in the library with the .cr2, .pp2, or .pz2 files that reference them. Many people, Poser team included, leave them in the library with the presets that access them. Which is a bad idea for the same reason it's a bad idea to put meshes and images in the library with their presets.

Poser preset files link from the Runtime folder down. Let's say you bought a figure. If a preset file (.cr2), mesh (.obj or .obz), images (.jpg), and morphs (.pmd) files are all in a folder "My Fig" in the library, unless the creator edited the links by hand in the preset, all of the links to the resources will start like ":Runtime:libraries:character:My Fig:". But let's say you decide this one figure doesn't need it's own folder, and you want to group it with other figures. Or you find its folder is (or will be) packed full, and you want to put the base figure in MyFig > Base. So you move the figure and its files, but now all the links are broken.

This is why almost all brokerages long ago wouldn't accept any products that didn't have their meshes in Runtime:Geometries and their images in Runtime:Textures. In point of fact, most insist on a naming convention within those folders. As in they will not accept your product if its files aren't in the right place. They do not, however, have a similar standard for morphs. But its even more necessary than for those other types of files.

Poser will tell you that it can't find the obj file. It will tell you that it can't find images. It will say nothing when it can't find the .pmd file. The morphs just won't do anything. To the user, it just looks like the morphs are broken. The dials will be there, they just won't do anything. It fails silently, and unless you're fairly knowledgeable, you'll have no clue why. You'll just assume the creator and the product suck.

Imagine I want to make a dial-spin character. Legally and just plain politely, I will do this by referencing someone else's PMD file, not embedding the other person's morphs in my own new PMD. If I do the latter, my customers will get the other person's morphs without paying for them. At least the ones in the new PMD. If I do the former, it's just an add-on to their work, like most V4 dial spin characters needed you to buy Morphs++. But if that person packaged their morphs like Runtime > libraries > pose > My Name > My Morphs > INJ My Morphs. pz2, INJ My Morphs.pmd, then my product referencing their PMD file will break the moment someone decides to move it to libraries > pose > My Morphs, or libraries > pose > Fig Name > My Morphs, or libraries > pose > Fig Name. All of which are pretty logical alternative structures.

Many content users install into an empty Runtime so they can move files where they want them to go.

If the original artist instead treats their PMD morph file like a mesh, and puts it in Runtime > Morphs > MyName > MyFig, anyone can reference those morphs for dial spin characters and give away or sell dial-spin characters for those morphs. La Femme's base morphs, for instance, are in the Geometries folder, not in the Libraries folder. Making her easy to support. But part of why Dawn character support never took off might be because her morphs are in the library. That means that any characters made for her either have to risk breaking the moment a customer decides to reorganize their library to fit their comfort or use entirely custom morphs. I love sculpting and have a free tool for it, and it's still a PITA to have to create my own versions of utilitarian morphs just because I can't build off of any Dawn's morphs. By far most character creators, even best selling ones, do not create their own morphs or 3d paint. They need to be able to reference other people's injections as much as they need merchant resource textures.

One of the ways the Poser team consistently demonstrated how they don't understand their own user base by doing this with their own figures since zipped OBZs were introduced (again, pre-SM). I actually reported this to them, and was rebuffed and told I shouldn't reorganize my library. They thought it was fine to make stuff that breaks and requires hours of hand editing references each time you update (I've done it several times) if you just make your library work for you. Which tells me that they didn't really mean for their content to be used.

wolf359 posted at 5:59PM Tue, 30 July 2019 - #4358371

As much as DAZ has focused more on illustration, there's

still tons that neither DS nor Poser does to make

illustration easier.

Even Daz realizes the limited growth potential of the still illustration/portrait /pinup market.

Ironic, don't you think, considering that still illustration/ portrait/ pinup has given them the wherewithall to go after the animation market.

ironic, don't you think, considering that still illustration/ >portrait/ pinup has given them the wherewithall to go after the animation market.

Even former prostitutes have later become credible women's rights advocates .

The greater irony is that the software that has, for decades, called it self

"The figure Design and Animation Tool"

Has delivered "figure designs " for the last 6 full versions that were thoroughly rejected by the core faithful.

And its name cannot be found in any modern day online discussion forums about Character animation.

My website

YouTube Channel

Quoth KobaltKween:

"Poser preset files link from the Runtime folder down."

Damn I missed you!

But yeah - most folks in Poser aren't going to immediately grok the idea (I do like it though.)

But while we're monkeying around with that, it would be huge if Poser could break free of that 1990s legacy file structure. The ability to organize things practically any way you frickin' want is very liberating.

This (like the separate morph-ref bit) is a program, not a figure limitation though, IMHO. But, breaking free of it will take a fundamental change in how the figure file is constructed, how its assets are referenced, and most importantly, how those supporting assets are kept track of in the file and by the application if anything changes.

Can't argue at all against anything you've written, though.

Penguinisto posted at 11:03PM Tue, 30 July 2019 - #4358402

But while we're monkeying around with that, it would be huge if Poser could break free of that 1990s legacy file structure. The ability to organize things practically any way you frickin' want is very liberating.

This has been the default of Poser since the introduction of Poser 8. My runtimes have been set up MY way since then.

I like the way references are stored now. It is aimed at supporting a development workflow. Files that are generated with a .cr2 are for use with that .cr2 and located in that same folder the .cr2 is in and have the same base name as that .cr2. Had Poser been making image texture files, they would have gone there also. Within that folder the user can hammer, drill and weld at his heart's content. There is however one problem with the present implementation: the referenced files within the same folder as the .cr2 are still given as full path names where the reference better had been relative to the .cr2, so just by the basename.

Once the figure or prop development has lead to something worth consolidating and referred to from elsewhere, it can be moved to the production setup with geometry in Geometries, texture image files in Textures, morphs in Morphs and so on.

It would be convenient to have a tool that can re-organize content from development mode to production mode and vice versa.

kobaltkween posted at 2:40AM Wed, 31 July 2019 - #4358376

AmbientShade posted at 1:30PM Tue, 30 July 2019 - #4358341

I don't understand what you mean by this, "exist outside the library" ? The best place to put all referenced files is outside of the libraries folder. For example, Runtime > Geometries, or Runtime > Images. If this folder doesn't exist already, make it. It will install like any other folder.

Right, I got you. For me 'runtime' and 'library' are pretty much synonymous, I wasn't thinking specifically Geometries, even though I practice this myself, at least with objs. It just wasn't registering for some reason, especially at 6am. My actual thought was "well where the hell else would you put them?"

But I see your point, and it makes sense, at least to a point.

FVerbaas posted at 5:18AM Wed, 31 July 2019 - #4358410

I like the way references are stored now. It is aimed at supporting a development workflow. Files that are generated with a .cr2 are for use with that .cr2 and located in that same folder the .cr2 is in and have the same base name as that .cr2. Had Poser been making image texture files, they would have gone there also. Within that folder the user can hammer, drill and weld at his heart's content. There is however one problem with the present implementation: the referenced files within the same folder as the .cr2 are still given as full path names where the reference better had been relative to the .cr2, so just by the basename.

Once the figure or prop development has lead to something worth consolidating and referred to from elsewhere, it can be moved to the production setup with geometry in Geometries, texture image files in Textures, morphs in Morphs and so on.

It would be convenient to have a tool that can re-organize content from development mode to production mode and vice versa.

We do have a tool to do that - Netherworks Creator's Toybox.

As soon as I do my first save (CR2, PP2) I run Toybox to get a clean CR2 and re-point to the Geometries folder.