I did an upgrade to Poser 11.2 and am installing the new content files.

However: I see that there are a lot of ZIPs marked "Legacy Files." Since I already had a working Poser Pro 11.1 Runtime, should I bother to reinstall the Legacy files again?

There is nothing new in those files. If you absolutely need old content than install them. Otherwise, just keep them until a need arises. Just remember, much of the legacy content will have erroneous material sets that may no longer look right in Poser 11.2.

hborre posted at 12:27PM Tue, 01 October 2019 - #4365180

There is nothing new in those files. If you absolutely need old content than install them. Otherwise, just keep them until a need arises. Just remember, much of the legacy content will have erroneous material sets that may no longer look right in Poser 11.2.

Thanks, and I apologize for not being clearer. I already have that material from when I previously installed Poser Pro 11. I was asking if I should bother installing it again because I thought I read somewhere that they had restructured the directories and removed redundant files.

I haven't noticed any difference.

How far back do the legacy files go? To what older version of Poser I mean. I had a BIG investment in P5 (Judy) and animals and P4 (animals) as well as all the animals and creatures in newer versions up to Poser Pro 2014 figures as well as older DAZ Mil4 figures I still use ALL the time (when background needs to be filled with lower res characters especially).

DAZ figures would not be included, they are not legacy as far as Poser is concerned. IIRC, content should go back to P4 including all current figures to Content Paradise generation 2 figures. Miki, Miki 3, Miki 4, Tyler, and some others are excluded. Whether SM will make them available through Renderosity is another story.

shante posted at 2:36PM Tue, 01 October 2019 - #4365192

How far back do the legacy files go? To what older version of Poser I mean. I had a BIG investment in P5 (Judy) and animals and P4 (animals) as well as all the animals and creatures in newer versions up to Poser Pro 2014 figures as well as older DAZ Mil4 figures I still use ALL the time (when background needs to be filled with lower res characters especially).

Well, now I'm curious. I guess I'll install the stuff and see what's included. And as hborre pointed out, all the various Michael and Victoria figures will NOT be included: Those are still Daz3D products – however, they both still work great with Poser 11.2 (I was using V4 yesterday).

List of content files is available as a sticky on the other Poser Official forum:

Content File Listing

There is no problem with V4, M4, V3, M3, and other iterations of DAZ models with the exception of Michael, M2, and maybe David. The current Poser build has Height and Genitalia removed from the taskbar menu. Structure has written a script that will reactivate those features and it can be found in the Free Stuff section. So, don't be surprised when you load those ancient figures and can't hide/unhide their privates. Someone thought that feature was useless.

The features are deprecated, We are at a stage in posers life where we must stop worrying about supporting 20 year old ( or close enough ) technologies and figures and look to the future, part of the reason that poser has struggled in recent years is because there has been a reluctance to move forward so that the community can retain their old content.

while I can see that you might want to keep your old content working, it is not good for any company to be held back by old tech.( floppy drives, ISA AGP slots anyone? ) - how much better could Superfly have been if instead of making it compatible with old materials, a complete iteration of the cycles render engine or Iray or even Luxrender had been implemented?

In order to keep old content working, keep an old version of poser, but let us now embrace a push towards the future, new technologies, and a better poser!

@Structure hope that means you are finally going to be able to fix a lot of the problems with Poser such as the failure of the layers in the animation system not being to move parts in the same way across all the layers. Each layer behaves differently depending on where it is in the layers and it mode.

Keeping a working old version is a good idea and I would suggest giving an older version along with Purchase of the New version so that anyone wanting to use older figures could, but try to add in a converter where possible to update content to the newer version.

Why give an older version away? Those people who have older poser content will have an older version of poser. all the old stuff works up to 11.2, including the deprecated functions. Save this version as your old version, and if newer versions come out and your content no longer works, you will still be able to use it in your old version.

as for what may or may not be fixed, I can't tell you, I am not one of the coding devs. I am sure though, that everything which needs to be addressed will be addressed.

structure posted at 10:01PM Thu, 03 October 2019 - #4365524

In order to keep old content working, keep an old version of poser, but let us now embrace a push towards the future, new technologies, and a better poser!

I get your point and agree overall, but only if the old stuff is actually replaced with something comparable or better. As for keeping an old Poser going, my 'old' Poser was 11.1, and Bondware and Smith Micro together have made it impossible to keep it going. I think it would be a positive step if Bondware made it possible for those of us who purchased 11.1 or PoserPro 2014, to do exactly as you suggest, at least until Poser has really become a 'better Poser.'

structure posted at 1:52PM Fri, 04 October 2019 - #4365524

The features are deprecated, We are at a stage in posers life where we must stop worrying about supporting 20 year old ( or close enough ) technologies and figures and look to the future, part of the reason that poser has struggled in recent years is because there has been a reluctance to move forward so that the community can retain their old content.

while I can see that you might want to keep your old content working, it is not good for any company to be held back by old tech.( floppy drives, ISA AGP slots anyone? ) - how much better could Superfly have been if instead of making it compatible with old materials, a complete iteration of the cycles render engine or Iray or even Luxrender had been implemented?

In order to keep old content working, keep an old version of poser, but let us now embrace a push towards the future, new technologies, and a better poser!

As HHKan99 mentions, many were unable to keep an old copy of Poser as 2014GameDev, P11.1 and PPro11.1 were relinquished by the update/upgrade, and this was despite Uli Klump saying there was a contingency in place if Poser ever switched owners. Wouldn't this contingency plan have been a more sensible option so that Bondware could then concentrate instead on a new Poser that doesn't have ties to past versions instead of a bridge release.

In fact, now the bridge version has been released, maybe Bondware should just stop development on this version of Poser and start afresh at version 12 and make a kick-ass Poser that makes 11.2 obsolete. As you say, let's concentrate on 'the future, new technologies, and a better poser!'

I realise I may sound offish, but that's not my intention.

raven posted at 4:02AM Sat, 05 October 2019 - #4365821

structure posted at 1:52PM Fri, 04 October 2019 - #4365524

The features are deprecated, We are at a stage in posers life where we must stop worrying about supporting 20 year old ( or close enough ) technologies and figures and look to the future, part of the reason that poser has struggled in recent years is because there has been a reluctance to move forward so that the community can retain their old content.

while I can see that you might want to keep your old content working, it is not good for any company to be held back by old tech.( floppy drives, ISA AGP slots anyone? ) - how much better could Superfly have been if instead of making it compatible with old materials, a complete iteration of the cycles render engine or Iray or even Luxrender had been implemented?

In order to keep old content working, keep an old version of poser, but let us now embrace a push towards the future, new technologies, and a better poser!

As HHKan99 mentions, many were unable to keep an old copy of Poser as 2014GameDev, P11.1 and PPro11.1 were relinquished by the update/upgrade, and this was despite Uli Klump saying there was a contingency in place if Poser ever switched owners. Wouldn't this contingency plan have been a more sensible option so that Bondware could then concentrate instead on a new Poser that doesn't have ties to past versions instead of a bridge release.

In fact, now the bridge version has been released, maybe Bondware should just stop development on this version of Poser and start afresh at version 12 and make a kick-ass Poser that makes 11.2 obsolete. As you say, let's concentrate on 'the future, new technologies, and a better poser!'

I realise I may sound offish, but that's not my intention.

I agree with a lot of what you have said and I hated the 'phone home' licensing ever since it was sneakily with Game Dev. I did not believe the promises about plans for possible future ownership made by SM when they were found out either. My only point would be is that SM are the ones that should take the flack, not that they are bothered, then or now, not Bondware.

hornet3d, I agree in theory that maybe SM should get the flack but when I asked at the SM forums regarding GameDev's continuing working ( here ), they said Renderosity will handle it. So...

Still, at least I could downgrade it to 2014, so I still do have a working version. Now onwards and upwards :)

raven posted at 5:13PM Sat, 05 October 2019 - #4365999

hornet3d, I agree in theory that maybe SM should get the flack but when I asked at the SM forums regarding GameDev's continuing working ( here ), they said Renderosity will handle it. So...

Still, at least I could downgrade it to 2014, so I still do have a working version. Now onwards and upwards :)

I upgraded to Game Dev but reverted to Poser Pro 2014 as soon as I found out about the 'phone home' feature. I stayed with that for a long while after Poser 11 came out but then I had the opportunity to upgrade to Poser 11 Pro for something like £39 (about $50 at the time) which included a video tutorial in the price and so I finally upgraded. I still kept a version of Poser Pro 2014 but I really fell in love with the Superfly render engine so I do use Poser 11 and have now upgraded to Poser 11.2.

As to Renderosity handling it, well the Poser 11.2 update includes all the extra features of Game Dev and then some added to that there is a great deal of extra content. I have no way of knowing the official Renderosity view but perhaps they regard that as handling it.

I like Superfly too, that's the reason I got a 980ti a couple of years ago.

I'm just glad I have 2014 as a backup in case an update messes up 11.2 or stops scripts working, or I want to use Poserfusion in Lightwave. I also don't know if when GameDev is updated to 11.2 if you can still use WardrobeWizard, as that is no longer supported in 11.2, although maybe it's because I updated 11.1 to 11.2 I can still use it. I prefer it to the fitting room.

@Structure The reason for giving away a Prior copy with POSER 12 (if that is what it is going to be called) is that all the old content that is currently available will be usable by someone for whom POSER 12 maybe their first version. As we have already seen just changing the Version number scheme from 11.X.Y.Z to 11.X.Z has effected some Python scripts. For anyone upgrading from a prior version of Poser you are correct in that they won't need the Old version. However I really expect changes to the program that will start to make the old content not work and unless there is a simple converter supplied with the program then a lot of things for sale in the store will stop being bought which is a good and bad thing.

structure posted at 12:04PM Tue, 15 October 2019 - #4365524

The features are deprecated, We are at a stage in posers life where we must stop worrying about supporting 20 year old ( or close enough ) technologies and figures and look to the future, part of the reason that poser has struggled in recent years is because there has been a reluctance to move forward so that the community can retain their old content.

while I can see that you might want to keep your old content working, it is not good for any company to be held back by old tech.( floppy drives, ISA AGP slots anyone? ) - how much better could Superfly have been if instead of making it compatible with old materials, a complete iteration of the cycles render engine or Iray or even Luxrender had been implemented?

In order to keep old content working, keep an old version of poser, but let us now embrace a push towards the future, new technologies, and a better poser!

As someone who used to work in software development, I sympathize with the need to push forward and embrace better technologies. But your analogy with Floppy Drives, ISA and AGP slots falls flat.

Those technologies were replaced by things that were clearly better (heck, my latest laptop doesn't even have a DVD or Blu-Ray drive because USB-based storage is so much better). Right now, there are no native Poser figures that are clearly better than the old V4/M4 figures.

Sorry, but LaFemme is nice, but she's not all that attractive and there is only a tiny number of poses and expressions available for her. I considered using her as a figure in a comic I'm working on, but had to dump her because I would have to create almost every pose and expression from scratch (rather than using the vast library of old content to jump-start my scenes). Ditto for Dawn and Dusk. They are nice – and they do have deeper libraries than LaFemm (after all, they are older) – but are they that much better than the old figures? Not really.

So yeah, until there are new figures that are clearly superior to the old ones, I'm going to still use them.

Personally, I won't miss the on/off switch for the figure;'s "naughty bits" because I have props and other tools to add them. Same for the height – I typically use morphs. I still may get the script to turn those features on, but that's just on the off-chance I ever want to use them.

Hope I don't come off as a grouch clinging to the past. I am excited about Poser, and more so than I have been in years. And I'm looking forward to finding the next great figure or feature in Poser. But until that comes along, you guys need to keep the old stuff up and working.

The older figures are still useful for crowd scenes or secondary characters for storyteling. Besides, some of them have unique clothing sets. The main problem with the newer characters, like La Femme, or Project E, that there is only a small range of contemporary clothing available fr them.There's really not all that much that you can do with them.

Project E's creator released a very generous group of freebie contemporary clothing on this site's Free Stuff. Sadly, I agree on what's out there for LaFemme is much more the 'what was available for V4' vein (ie. skimpywear, to put it mildly). There are a few blouse-and-skirt things, mostly dynamic, that are qualifying as 'normal', but I regularly end up refitting things for her on the fly; even just jeans. Even just nonskimpy fantasy stuff--things that cover her legs, for instance.