I would love to use more cycles materials in P11 but the white-out in the preview screen has put me off. Anyone any idea if the Preview in P12 deals with Cycles materials any better?

We're all asleep in the same dream, ypvs.

Actually I'm not sure what image with white-out you are referring to. The article that I saw today doesn't have any redacted images.

I think he means Poser's preview window. Some materials don't display until you render.

It's the way Superfly is. Preview is white. I've gotten used to it.

Can use the raytrace preview window to get a mini preview.

Never liked that feature. I just use lower render settings and a smaller render size for my previews.

https://www.posersoftware.com/article/488/poser-12-update-how-the-new-superfly-improves-art-render-time

Are those renders really suppose to make people buy Poser 12? There is a serious problem with the promotion crew.

Ooh, we have a solid date. Nov. 2!

Apparently there is a new physically-based path-tracing render engine called Superfly, that can render far better than the old one (firefly ?), and much faster, as long as you spend several thousand dollars on a new computer. In other news, there is a revolutionary new car that has been developed that has the added benefit of a device called 'wheels'. These have been placed at each corner for added stability. This device when fitted greatly improves forward motion, and enables the user greater control of the vehicle by means of a process the manufacturer calls 'steering'.

Qaz, you appear to be years and years and years behind everyone else - SuperFly was way back in Poser 11. :-)

As for renders seen on a couple of trailer pages at Renderosity, when I saw those I just assumed they didn't want to give DAZ any visual hint about Poser 12's capabilities.

Rand, thanks for the tip on the exact release-date for the Windows Early Access Poser 12. I guess we wait and see if Poser 12's OpenGL Preview can display Cycles materials more accurately.

If you google "background transparency cycles" you find it was introduced in 2014 and is already included in Poser 11. Are they adding it again ?

As for renders seen on a couple of trailer pages at Renderosity, when I saw those >I just assumed they didn't want to give DAZ any visual hint about >Poser 12's >capabilities.

Interesting theory considering that those new poser 12 renders are woefully inferior to what can be accomplished in the current Blender 2.9 cycles

(or EEVEE if we are being honest) .

And even if poser 12 could render as well as the real Blender cycles, or EEVEE, Daz has an entire forum dedicated to discussing rendering Daz store content in Blender Cycles via their free Daz studio to Blender exporter plugin as well as the free "Diffeomorphic" ,Daz to Blender plugin , by Thomas Larson.

And of course no comparision to Iray

I seriously doubt Daz cares about poser 12's rendering capability

I am still on Renderosity emailing list most the Poser/LF/LH promo images, they send out, look like renders from a 2002 video game.?

Marketing ...is ....everything.

wolf359 posted at 4:37PM Thu, 29 October 2020 - #4402441

As for renders seen on a couple of trailer pages at Renderosity, when I saw those >I just assumed they didn't want to give DAZ any visual hint about >Poser 12's >capabilities.

Interesting theory considering that those new poser 12 renders are woefully inferior to what can be accomplished in the current Blender 2.9 cycles

(or EEVEE if we are being honest) .

And even if poser 12 could render as well as the real Blender cycles, or EEVEE, Daz has an entire forum dedicated to discussing rendering Daz store content in Blender Cycles via their free Daz studio to Blender exporter plugin as well as the free "Diffeomorphic" ,Daz to Blender plugin , by Thomas Larson.

And of course no comparision to Iray

I seriously doubt Daz cares about poser 12's rendering capability

I am still on Renderosity emailing list most the Poser/LF/LH promo images, they send out, look like renders from a 2002 video game.?

Marketing ...is ....everything.

yeah, it is interesting. The latest info states that Poser's Superfly is based on Cycles 1.12.That is superold. My own renders from Poser 11 look 100 times better than the promos they have included so far. I guess they don't ask me to do promos or let me into the "inner circle" because I don't use Lafeme or Lahome?

I must confess while I am glad to see a new version coming out, the promos I consistently see for the flagship figures and for new poser in general are not exactly what I was hoping for. I am on the record for supporting Poser while not being happy with the marketing I see so far. Simple promos for an average DAZ clothing item here look 100% better than any recent LF or LH promo render, excepting a very few. And I don't understand why, when you can do amazing stuff with Poser either in FF or SF with very little effort (the below are 2 Superfly draft setting renders, not denoised, with la Femme and L'Homme .

But I guess I'm not in the inner circle either.

Nevertrumper posted at 6:55PM Thu, 29 October 2020 - #4402407

https://www.posersoftware.com/article/488/poser-12-update-how-the-new-superfly-improves-art-render-time

Are those renders really suppose to make people buy Poser 12? There is a serious problem with the promotion crew.

To me it looks like a fake light setting to catch People you can achive the same shadow ballance with FireFly Poser 11 ant the way they are pretending it with there renders it would look like you could only render crap with Poser 11.3 .. and for sure such a render does not take 6h !

Actually not a very strategic way to promote a new release that will come up in 3 days ! I also do not believe that there is any big secret ( Daz the Spy LOL ) !

Concluding it is not the render engine that is going to make crap work any better it is the artist. you can have a super engine but if there is no good creators that can Provide good Material for it what will you use it for ? It is not just the Client (costumer) , they totally forgotten that they need good People who provide materials to use in Poser ! I believe that Creators have an issue with a Poser that control there Creations with a kill switch !

And if Updates are maintained the way they were like in Poser 11.2 up by reinstalling Poser every time then sure it will not be a Professional method .

The other big question will be , is there a early Trial to test before you buy ? Or is early Access buying the Cat in the Bag ?

@ghostship2

The Car render looks Awesome

@azath pass that doobie my brother because you are high. I have done every update since 11 came out and NEVER had to re-install the software from scratch. I never even changed my preffs.

Same here. All I did with the updates was to run the update install, chose to retain my prefs and everything was there. I did not even have to readd my runtimes. Easy peasy, it actually took less time than updating my CCleaner which if I may add, updates like every week or so.

I also have to say the Page " posersoftware.com " is a real joke ! No neat design no serious Home page to represent a great software ! if you go on a Page like iclone they throw it right in your Face Boom Woow , showing you the most amazing stuff you could do ! But Poser ?! nothing is done with passion or with Heart no Love for the Root Program of DAZ and Renderosity communities !

Are early adopters going to be paying beta testers ? From what I can see Optix acceleration and adaptive sampling look quite cool in Blender and are pretty recent additions, with the problem that they need the latest Nvidia cards to work well. So it pointless showing how fast renders are on the latest hardware, when the average Poser user doesn't have that. The news update seems to be selling Superfly as if it is brand new, not 5 years old. And then we have this "The original implementation of SuperFly didn't include shadow catching and background transparency". But we've had background transparency in renders for years. They are not really selling this are they ? Perhaps some of you early adopters can show us how good these changes are.

I'll be an early adopter, but I'm not deleting Poser 11. They warned us it will be buggy, and there's no reason to disbelieve that.

I'll be happy that we'll still have the option of Firefly. I'll be really happy if Superfly is faster. It's so slow and grainy in Poser 11 that I rarely use it.

well there actually was Reality " A really great Option far better then Superfly " Gone history short after the Overtake of Poser that smashed most Pytons in one hit on the first update, just because of the Poser version Number , and soon it will be just an other Memory of good Pyton addons Provided for Poser !

Azath posted at 7:00PM Thu, 29 October 2020 - #4402462

well there actually was Reality " A really great Option far better then Superfly " Gone history short after the Overtake of Poser that smashed most Pytons in one hit on the first update, just because of the Poser version Number , and soon it will be just an other Memory of good Pyton addons Provided for Poser !

To be fair they do say that they are working with Python coders to update their scripts to Python 3. It really is up to the vendors to update their own scripts and not Bodware's responsibility to make sure everything is backward compatible.

qaz posted at 7:52PM Thu, 29 October 2020 - #4402459

Are early adopters going to be paying beta testers ? From what I can see Optix acceleration and adaptive sampling look quite cool in Blender and are pretty recent additions, with the problem that they need the latest Nvidia cards to work well. So it pointless showing how fast renders are on the latest hardware, when the average Poser user doesn't have that. The news update seems to be selling Superfly as if it is brand new, not 5 years old. And then we have this "The original implementation of SuperFly didn't include shadow catching and background transparency". But we've had background transparency in renders for years. They are not really selling this are they ? Perhaps some of you early adopters can show us how good these changes are.

Yes, I'll be getting it on Monday. Still need to keep P11 up so I can get work done in case 12 doesn't work straight away.I don't use shadow catching and I suspect that once people start using real room and background props instead of relying on a dome and stage floor then that feature will matter a lot less. There is an obsession that Poser users have that they feel they need to show the entire figure in every image they make even though you don't see this in movies.

[ghostship2]

I don't understand why they can't show something like this instead of those... renders of LH. As wolf mentioned, DAZ is most likely not concerned with Poser 12 so they shouldn't be holding back any serious promo art because it's really hurting the enthusiasm I have for it and judging by the comments so far, I'm not alone. I think it's a bit too late already but it couldn't hurt for Bondware to really step up the advertising and eye catching promo art. This is their first new release of Poser, it should be marketed with a bang and not a whimper.

"Early Adopters" suggests that they haven't finished it yet and so they don't expect many people to get it. Perhaps they are using the Tesla sales system which is to do no marketing and let the "early adopters" do it for them.

qaz posted at 6:05AM Fri, 30 October 2020 - #4402476

"Early Adopters" suggests that they haven't finished it yet and so they don't expect many people to get it. Perhaps they are using the Tesla sales system which is to do no marketing and let the "early adopters" do it for them.

This would be a clear marketing fail and indicating a skewed view on reality. The release of Poser 11 upset a lot of users. Poser took at least 4? years for a new Poser 12. Poser is in the need to win back its place as a market leader, for it not only fell behind DAZ studio, it also fell back to nr.3 behind iclone. Sorry, if they think, they can rely on earley adopters to do the marketing for them, they don‘t see a clear picture. Quite possible, that they will have a low amount of earley adopters.

Let's not start unfounded speculations that have no factual basis, least this thread be also locked down.

Fact - Poser 12 is not complete. They are expecting additions into the new year. Fact - There is only two days left before they release it. Next to no marketing material. Fact - If bondware are not going to show off its capabilities, then it will be down to the early adopters to do so. The only speculation here is whether this is deliberate. So what's the problem ? It works pretty well for Tesla. On Monday, members of this forum are going to be coming back with renders and appraisals.

@qaz thank you for holding the Poser team to account.

It's our job to deliver features in Poser 12 that naturally build momentum with customers because they satisfy a need. I think you'll see the team has taken a big step in that direction once the Poser 12 release drops on Monday. Some of the new features, like the lightening-fast renders, are game-changers and we're excited for customers that have waited five long years for this type of improvement.

It would be nice to see some better renders. I guess there might be issues using things like the car; might be trademarked. Besides, Poser is supposedly to be about rendering humans.

Maybe some of the early adopters will make some suitable renders.

Thanks Tim. Yes I've seen the cycles rendering in Blender and it looks impressive. Well it does with an RTX card. We wait with bated breath :)

@qaz - that's the funny thing - Cycles 2 features like "adaptive sampling" also speed-up CPU renders where efficient algorithms is even more important.

tim posted at 11:32AM Fri, 30 October 2020 - #4402512

@qaz - that's the funny thing - Cycles 2 features like "adaptive sampling" also speed-up CPU renders where efficient algorithms is even more important.

OK you got me on that alone, That's a big deal. Thank You Guy's

You may find this interesting. Car render using CPU - 2 minutes Apply adaptive sampling - 1 minute. Use RTX GPU and all knobs and whistles - 8 seconds. Slight noise version - 4 seconds. If you've got a decent card you can do nearly instant update to change angles, lighting etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY64d7CAfQQ

I wonder if there will be any screenshots released of the new Poser 12 surface for Publicity ( Even free Programs like PhotoScape offer them ) as far as I'v seen these are not even Provided anymore for Poser 11.3 . all just words without visual communications !

Sample: Simple way of Promoting !

http://www.photoscape.org/ps/main/screenshot.php

The next thing I am wondering if there is a Plan to update the manuals ( Reference Manual and Pyton Manual ) or if they will be removed from Poser 12

A very important part of Poser . Also a great help for all the new added features

I see no reason to exclude an updated manual from the software, not that many users read it anyway. But it does need a critical update and rewrite, it lacks clarity by example and thorough layman's descriptions.

Actually, I already went over the manual and pointed out to Jenn Blake several points where the manual was in error or needed to be changed. I did this back when Poser 11 from Bondware first came out. Aside from any new features or figures Bondware adds, mostly all the manual needs is to change or get rid of some links.

I believe there are very essential things in the Manual also that allot are using it, especially if they go a little deeper into matter ! Or plan to create there own assets. If not reading it you might never find out how to really use IKs or what the Chain Break Tool is used for How to group things or simply creating a Figure in the Hierarchy Editor. The manual contains an incredible amount of information on how to use Poser and can help an artist to have real fun with Poser .

Well if they do not change allot in Poser 12 compared to Poser 11 there will not be allot to update but if there really are new features and updates , things that have been removed , replaced , like the Pyton engine there sure would be the need for a good update else you just search for things in Poser that do not exist.

I'm amazed that they aren't using better promo images. I was considering upgrading to 11, so I could get a lower price on 12 if it seemed worth it. But seriously, those images they shared didn't inspire me the least little bit. Not only is the render quality poor (especially the car), but they picked a terrible location to highlight on the figure (LHomme ??). That bend really isn't good at all, and the skin shaders are a bit uninspiring too. If they think that will inspire people to upgrade, it brings up concerns about how well they understand the potential user base. Or, maybe, it's just that ..I.. don't understand their targeted user base. If so, then I'm definitely not a part of that target demographic

Oh well, will continue to watch to learn more about what Poser 12 brings to the table.

It is indeed strange as Renderosity asks allot of a vendor to Put there Products in the store ... Good Promos .... good detailed descriptions .... Read me must be complete .... Rules Rules Rules , but if it comes on there own Product all this does not seem to count anymore . Would a Vendor Place miss-leading Information of hes Products there would be a new crater on the Moon after Kicking him !

Sure there business but not really a way to make business at all .

DustRider posted at 1:41PM Sun, 01 November 2020 - #4402675

What car ? was it removed I dont see a car just people

The car they posted in the Poser 12 update here:

Hmm, that is bad. I KNOW Poser can do better renders than that. Hell, I've DONE them.

EClark1894 posted at 2:53PM Sun, 01 November 2020 - #4402687

Hmm, that is bad. I KNOW Poser can do better renders than that. Hell, I've DONE them.

Stop lying...lol , just kidding , but to be fair, ......I think.. I mean..they could have... hmm, I got nothing.

Their not artist ? (whom ever did the promo/s )

They need an actual Poser Render artist to do those Promos. (there's a huge difference )

Ask to help them or do it for them.

Yes, Superfly IS capable of much better renders.

They'll be ok though

I'm seriously baffled by the lack of quality promos for Poser 12.

DustRider posted at 4:22PM Sun, 01 November 2020 - #4402685

The car they posted in the Poser 12 update here:

Thank you

Jeez, that car render is awful.

They really can't afford to hire someone who can do better?

Even so, you'd think they'd be able to get people to make better promo renders. Offer them early access, or a RMP gift certificate or something.

ghostship2 posted at 10:28AM Mon, 02 November 2020 - #4402455

@azath pass that doobie my brother because you are high. I have done every update since 11 came out and NEVER had to re-install the software from scratch. I never even changed my preffs.

I move my content and prefs to the side (well, I duplicate the prefs and move the content). Because I've encountered a bug in the Mac installer, that uses bash script and when it installs the content folder into place it does a mv, no prompt which will clobber an old folder if it's there. This bug remained for many versions. Have lost (on 2 computers) my runtime (40GB, de-duped) more than once. I tailed the log file to confirm the clobber, and located the line in the install script that did it. Filed a bug. Got a "no, it doesn't do that" from support. Bug, the logfile says it did. The script does it. The result is that it did. Gave up on SM Support at after that happened the second time..

Lesson: I keep my runtimes in a different path. They are sync'd between my 2 dev machines. And a backup sync to a server.

The 11.3.818 update did, in fact, delete my !/Library/Application Support/Poser Pro/11 directory. i noticed this on one machine but retrieved it from the other. When I upgraded the other, I duplicated the directory. Sure enough, /11 was gone. I just renamed the duplicate back and all good.

Also, if you have something in the python startup (avfiz, for me), that's blown away as well. Again, retrieved from un-upgraded machine.

It's only paranoia if you're not right.