1.Install painless, runtimes add on fast and painless.

2.Ugh, none of my Pythons work. This was expected, but major messing up of my workflow. Not even sure I will use 12 until at least some of them are updated.

1. This follows that EZSkin and EZDome are unusable too. Major ugh.
2. Superfly materials, again following previous iteration setups not working, are now useless the way they were in 11, and need reworking from bottom up. Any skin mats I tried from pre-Superfly days that I could either just use EZSkin on or were OK out of the box are now having that washed out look we all learned to hate.
3. Firefly works fine and as expected.
4. Post-render effects and denoise are nice and useful for first-run-through sand off the rough edges type refinements.
5. Did not see any bugs yet, but what I saw so far are basically rendering (heh) Poser 12 largely useless for me unless I use absolutely new materials that came with THIS iteration, I learn Cycles materials from scratch, or stick with Firefly for the time being.

Did I mention it is a major issue with Python scripts not working? Anyone who relied on older mats fixed with EZSkin or using EZDome for realistic lighting is now SOL, unless they use nothing but the latest stuff that came out for LF and LH. And that, for me at least, is insufficient.

So for now, I will put this back in the box and wait, and be happy with 11.

There will be a new version of EZSkin on the horizons perhaps with a new EZDome bundled in.

How about Bondware's team tries to fix what's broke before screwing up more and more stuff. This is how you ended up killing Poser with version 11, Bondware! Take a hint and get a new development team - if you can still afford one after this iteration. I seriously don't understand what we're paying $130 for? Improvements to the already broken render system that was supposed to be the end-all-do-all? I'm not paying for improvements. Improvements indicate poor quality to start with, does it not? So you sold us all sub-par Superfly and now you finally fix some of the issues and we're supposed to pay you again? What happened to brand new stuff? I was hoping for at least a handful of new capabilities but no...we fix things a little bit...give us more money. No thank you. Try again when you have something new. Improvements and fixes are for free updates and Service Packs...not whole new software versions. I can't believe you----no, that's a lie...I really can believe your company is determined to end Poser completely. Your track record thus far leaves me with no other conclusion.

I don't feel this negativity is warranted. It was known the Python update was coming. Life goes on. For those who are just starting out Poser 12 will be really excellent, or even if they started with Poser 11. For those who have years of accumulated content and workflows using a lot of 3rd party scripts to fix what was not working, this is not a step forward. If those scripts or at least the EZ family will be updated in the near future, this will be great.

I'm an early adopter, and this is my feedback.

You know JAG, your criticisms should be leveled at Smith Micro, not Bondware. Aside from a couple clean-up patches when they bought Poser from SM, this is their first foray into Poser development. The "track record" you speak of doesn't exist.

@Cabled

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poser#History

In my opinion, Smith Micro did a lot for Poser.

That's going to be up to personal opinion. While there was certainly some progress under SM, I also feel there were many missteps, but that's not what JAG's post or my reply is about. My point was that Bondware's "history" of poser that JAG speaks about simply doesn't exist beyond a recent few months.

I expected the Python issues. But having existing Superfly shaders not work anymore is a surprise, and a big issue. I have shaders I spent time on, I have Superfly shaders I purchased from Renderosity. Are they all junk now? That's a lot more work and expense than I signed up for.

It is faster. Still not sure I care for Superfly.

I like the green dots. Very useful.

I don't like the Purchases tab. If you maintain multiple runtimes, having to download and install the included content through the Purchases tab means you can't put things where you want them. You have to download and install each item separately, move it where you want it, then download the next item, move it, etc. Very tedious. And unlike using a browser, there's no indication of how long it will take to finish and install each download.

The items get installed into a runtime called Included, that's inside the Poser 12 content runtime. There's no Purchases runtime any more.

I'm getting an error message on startup: An errror occurred importing addon PropSwap : ERROR: bad magic number in 'PropSwap': b'x03xf3rn'

No idea what it means.

I was surprised that the shaders don't work as expected. To be honest, that's not a small thing, every old scene I have, every figure will need new shaders, That being said, I really like the Principled Shader in Blender, this one is included and I will use it. I do have a nearly working skin shader with it, I will post the shader and some images when I'm satisfied.

I like the Post-render effects a lot. Denoising and changing exposure in Poser is great.

The break of the old scripts was expected, I really hope that the Dimension 3d scripts will be updated soon. I don''t want to work without XA, XL and XO. I feel handycaped without them.

All in all I am satisfied with this release. I knew that most of my scripts weren't ready, the improvements to Superfly are worth the money for me. But I will update my second licence only whan and if my scipts work again.

randym77 posted at 12:49AM Tue, 03 November 2020 - #4402966 ...

I'm getting an error message on startup: An errror occurred importing addon PropSwap : ERROR: bad magic number in 'PropSwap': b'x03xf3rn'

No idea what it means.

You have some kind of auto-start Python script in one of your runtimes. The "bad magic number" means that it does not work with the actual Python version.

bantha posted at 5:54AM Tue, 03 November 2020 - #4402970

randym77 posted at 12:49AM Tue, 03 November 2020 - #4402966 ...

I'm getting an error message on startup: An errror occurred importing addon PropSwap : ERROR: bad magic number in 'PropSwap': b'x03xf3rn'

No idea what it means.

You have some kind of auto-start Python script in one of your runtimes. The "bad magic number" means that it does not work with the actual Python version.

Thanks. Probably the Poser 11 runtime. I guess I'll just have to put up with it, because I plan to share runtimes between Poser 11 and Poser 12, at least for now.

I think a thread about getting Snarly excited about updating his scripts needs to happen. Bring the desire to his attention.

I think he is quite aware of the need to update his scripts and has been working on them for a while. He will definitely need beta testers and some individuals to write the users manual. You just need to be patient.