HiveWire to support Poser Pro 11.2 and DAZ Studio 4.12 and above

[Alisa]

Hi, all -

HiveWire has reached a point where we feel we need to move to creating for and supporting Poser Pro 11.2 Pro+ and DAZ Studio 4.12+.

As newer DAZ Studio General Release versions come out, you'll see that version number change for new products in the store.

The combination of the purchase of Poser by Bondware (Renderosity's parent company), the current low upgrade price from earlier versions ($99.00 if you own any versions dating back to Poser Debut or Poser 6!), and the reality that products created in the latest versions of Poser and DAZ Studio may not work correctly in earlier ones, have led us to this decision.

If you own Poser 11 or Poser 2014 Game Dev, remember that you MUST download and install the FREE update to Poser 11.2 Pro (there are several threads in our forum talking about that).

I am going to quote what Chris said, when we made the decision to move to ending support for earlier versions of Poser than Poser 10/Pro 2014:

"Change is often a hard swallowed pill, but is necessary to move forward and stay up with ever changing software developments. We greatly appreciate everyone's support of HiveWire, and the efforts we've made to date to support content for both Poser and Studio. We've reached that point that was sure to come, with regards to what versions going forward that we're going to support. We will continue to support both Poser and Studio, and that's a good thing.

We hope you realize that HiveWire's decision to create content for both software packages comes with a large amount of effort to do it properly. And as we do so, we still try our best to keep our costs down and remain competitive in this market, which is no small feat."

SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ME?

IF YOU ARE A CUSTOMER:
Products that are put in the store now will be labeled as requiring Poser Pro 11.2+ and/or DAZ Studio 4.12+

Will they still work in earlier versions? Possibly - some will and some won't. HiveWire's Beta and QAV teams will not be testing in older versions, and we will not guarantee that any newly released content will work in earlier versions of the software.

IF YOU ARE A CONTENT CREATOR:
You can still create in earlier versions of the software programs, but HiveWire's QAV team will ONLY review in later versions (which should NOT be a problem as we find that most products are forward compatible). It is ok to keep the internal Poser version at 10 if you are creating in that version. If not, it should be listed as 11.

Both the ReadMes and Product Pages will note the current versions of the required program(s) are needed.

You can still choose whether to create for Poser or DAZ Studio or both.

You can still choose which Render Engine(s) to support. Please be sure to note that in Submissions and your ReadMe file.

****************************

On behalf of Chris & Lisa, as well as Paul & myself, I can't say it any better than Chris did in that earlier post:

"Again, the entire tiny HiveWire team is most appreciative of your ongoing support of our stated company goals, efforts and wishes. Thank you, thank you, we exist because of you."

 

[Hornet3d]

That makes sense for Poser 11.2, particularly, as noted, the cost of the upgrade for those who have to pay. I can't say for DS as I don't use but I guess the argument is almost the same.

 

[Alisa]

It's not as much of an issue for DS users as for Poser users - since the updates are free, I think most update as the releases come out (or before ).

 

[Hornet3d]

It's not as much of an issue for DS users as for Poser users - since the updates are free, I think most update as the releases come out (or before ).

That is good to know.

 

[Lyne]

Well, I won’t be buying Poser 11.... but then I do have a TON of Poser content I’ve bought over the years and I’m an old lady, so I guess I’m covered....
That is, it’s fine for me, but not HiveWire.... Though I also have been known to buy a Poser 11 model and it works in my 2014 .....

(And I STILL am going to scoop up Ken’s Peacocks as soon as I can.... when I solve my health problems... )

I love HiveWire sooo much and always spend my $$ here, over any other store! So I’m sending my best wishes to you guys... hmmmm this move could help get products through QAV faster, right? Oh and any animal Chris makes is a MUST too!

 

[pommerlis]

I have updated both but I think this will be the last time that I do that. I love creating poses but I also realize I won't be able to do that forever and I really would love to some time with poser & daz as I had intended when I first got started, to create Art.
Like Lyne, I have content to last me a lifetime, I love this place and I buy mostly for Dawn and her family.

 

[seachnasaigh]

A hard decision, but I think this is a good decision; with the shutdown of the SmithMicro licensing servers, the pool of pre-P11 users will be considerably smaller -and continually decreasing as time passes- and there will be little payoff for the extra work of making new content backward compatible.

A lot of new items will still work in earlier versions, and most new items could be adapted to an earlier version, if someone wants to do so.

 

[Ken1171]

As Poser 11 now goes through its 4th dev team (3 with SMS and 1 with Rendo), changes were made in the way that make new contents incompatible with previous versions. I can attest that products that use animatable origins created in P11 (like my body type series) misbehave in P10. They are just incompatible. I also had issues with morphs, rigging, and even materials becoming incompatible with previous versions, so it has become a widespread issue.

As a content creator, I had to go back to Poser 10 to recreate some parts of the product to make them backwards compatible, but there are also things with P10 that won't work in P9. The P10 rigging tools are broken, and SMS will never fix them, so creating contents in P10 is out of the question for me. I remember when I was making the "Superhero" outfit for Dawn, the rigging would explode when loaded in P9 and P10, and SMS had no explanation why. I have spent *months* trying to resolve that - time that I could had used to make more products instead.

I just wanted to call attention to these things so that people don't think this move from HW is just to speed up QAV. It's NOT. There are MANY other factors involved, were nowadays P11 can no longer create backwards compatible contents. Content creators like me have to go through loops and hoops to make things work in previous versions, and it is a lot of extra time and work.

My upcoming "Body Type-10" and "Body Type-11" for Dawn will still work in P10, P11 and DS 4.10, though. They are likely to become the last products I will be going through the extra work of making them backwards compatible with P10.

 

[Alisa]

Just to clarify, the decision was not made in order to speed up QAV (or beta testing) - it won't actually have that effect anyway, as we often had different people testing in Poser 10/Pro 2014 (a limited number even own one of these) than in Poser 11 - they now will test in Poser 11 instead. We HAVE run into numerous products that have been created in Poser 11 where CAs list them as Poser 10+ compatible, and they haven't had beta testers for Poser 10. When those products get to QAV, we often find issues.

It does not necessarily guarantee that things WON'T work in Poser 10 (just as, at DAZ, where they ONLY list things as compatible with the latest version, it doesn't necessarily mean that things won't work in lower versions).

CAs are welcome, in their product threads, to address the issue of whether things will work in Poser 10. It just won't be tested by QAV, or listed as compatible in the ReadMe or the Store, nor be guaranteed by HiveWire to work in those lower versions.

 

[Miss B]

Thanks for the Clarification Alisa.

 

[eclark1894]

Just a quick question; has Hivewire thought of offering older models at a discounted price ala the Platinum Club or Prime?

 

[Alisa]

Welcome

Actually, neither of those programs are programs intended to offer older models at discounted prices - both bring brand new items out all the time. We have our Sweet Deals which have both older AND new items at $4.95 and under, without any Membership requirement

Deals $4.95 and under. No membership needed. Sweet! HiveWire 3D Sweet Deals on 3D models and assets

 

[RobZhena]

This makes complete sense.

 

[Kerya]

Question:
First you wrote
"I am going to quote what Chris said, when we made the decision to move to ending support for earlier versions of Poser than Poser 10/Pro 2014"
Then you wrote
"Products that are put in the store now will be labeled as requiring Poser Pro 11.2+ "

Which one?
As somebody who "only" has Pro2014 and who is NOT going to upgrade I really would like to know.
It is not a question of money, only a bit, but the phoning home every 9 days or so is really not going to work for me ...

 

[Hornet3d]

Question:
First you wrote
"I am going to quote what Chris said, when we made the decision to move to ending support for earlier versions of Poser than Poser 10/Pro 2014"
Then you wrote
"Products that are put in the store now will be labeled as requiring Poser Pro 11.2+ "

Which one?
As somebody who "only" has Pro2014 and who is NOT going to upgrade I really would like to know.
It is not a question of money, only a bit, but the phoning home every 9 days or so is really not going to work for me ...

I hate the phone home procedure with a vengeance, have done from day one, but I have to say that I have been using Poser 11 for about three years now and it has never given me any issues. So far 11.2 has been the same though I accept it is early days. I do hope that Bondware will either scrap the whole procedure or make major improvements but if I have to accept it as the price to pay to continue to use Superfly and a more than prepared to do so.

 

[Kerya]

As somebody who likes DazStudio and Poser (and Bryce, and Vue), I don't mind (much) about missing out on Superfly ...
Apart from probably not being able to use Superfly with my pretty new graphics card (RTX 2080) ...
But it is a hobby for me, so ... spending money on software where I really, really dislike a feature (like phoning home or stopping to work) is a no go.
And to tell the truth, I don't really believe in Bondware. Officially the software is phoning home every 28 days, but somebody in the forums had problems after 9 days of no internet connection. No, thank you very much.

So, the question still stands whether I am going to buy Poser products here in the future or not ...

 

[Hornet3d]

As somebody who likes DazStudio and Poser (and Bryce, and Vue), I don't mind (much) about missing out on Superfly ...
Apart from probably not being able to use Superfly with my pretty new graphics card (RTX 2080) ...
But it is a hobby for me, so ... spending money on software where I really, really dislike a feature (like phoning home or stopping to work) is a no go.
And to tell the truth, I don't really believe in Bondware. Officially the software is phoning home every 28 days, but somebody in the forums had problems after 9 days of no internet connection. No, thank you very much.

So, the question still stands whether I am going to buy Poser products here in the future or not ...

I understand your point of view, we all have different priorities. In my case I am predominately a Poser user moving into Vue when I want to an outdoor or landscape scene. I did use Bryce but left it some years ago when it was also abandoned. It is a hobby for me as well but a fairly important one as it helps keep my brain active in my increasing years. If I had any real choice to Poser I would likely change because I do not like the phoning home even though I have not been impacted by it.

 

[Alisa]

The quote from Chris was ONLY the part in quotes:

"Change is often a hard swallowed pill, but is necessary to move forward and stay up with ever changing software developments. We greatly appreciate everyone's support of HiveWire, and the efforts we've made to date to support content for both Poser and Studio. We've reached that point that was sure to come, with regards to what versions going forward that we're going to support. We will continue to support both Poser and Studio, and that's a good thing.

We hope you realize that HiveWire's decision to create content for both software packages comes with a large amount of effort to do it properly. And as we do so, we still try our best to keep our costs down and remain competitive in this market, which is no small feat."

As I said in the first post, some products may still work in Poser 10/Pro 2014, but we are no longer testing in that program, so we can't guarantee it will work. There are just too many issues with continuing to support older software. We can't expect people to keep creating in an older version of software and avoiding new things available in new versions, or expecting them to make separate items for Poser 10 and Poser 11 (as people have done in the past).

It's no different than DAZ Studio - DAZ doesn't support earlier versions than the latest one. Even though it's free, DAZ Studio often has things in new versions that some people don't like and they may miss out on things if they choose not to upgrade.

You can always ask the CA if THEY created/tested their product in Poser 10/Pro 2014 prior to purchase.

I understand not liking things in a new version of software. I personally won't upgrade to the newer versions of my Adobe or Quicken products because I don't like subscription versions of software. That comes with consequences to me, and I have to weigh the pros and cons.

By the way, there is supposed to be an option to have a permanent licencing so Poser won't have to phone home. You'd have to talk to Renderosity about that, though.

 

[eclark1894]

Question:
First you wrote
"I am going to quote what Chris said, when we made the decision to move to ending support for earlier versions of Poser than Poser 10/Pro 2014"
Then you wrote
"Products that are put in the store now will be labeled as requiring Poser Pro 11.2+ "

Which one?
As somebody who "only" has Pro2014 and who is NOT going to upgrade I really would like to know.
It is not a question of money, only a bit, but the phoning home every 9 days or so is really not going to work for me ...

I don't understand your confusion. The statements are consistent. If you have a version older than 2014 for Poser, Hivewire will not support it. If you have a version 2014 and later, i.e. Game Dev, Poser 11. Poser 11.2, they will support it.

 

[Rowan54]

Officially the software is phoning home every 28 days, but somebody in the forums had problems after 9 days of no internet connection.

I once had no internet for over a year (financial problems). I've had power outtages of more than a week (storms took the lines down). Something that calls home and then turns off the software, especially at that price!, is a no go for my use. Glad I found that out before scraping enough together to purchase this. I'll wait until it's an older piece of software that they're willing to give away for $25 or thereabouts. (Which is how I got Poser 9 and Poser 10...for about $25 each.)