RELEASED SkinEdit Python Script for Poser 12

[Ken1171]

Well done Ken! This was one of my peeves in Poser about setting up materials. Shame it's only for Poser 12 as I only have Poser 11.

There isn't much I can do, since Python 2 has reached its official end-of-life deadline and was removed from the market. This deadline was set 10 years ago, which gave plenty of time for companies to upgrade, but I guess Poser has left it to the very last minute. Poser 12 was released like 30 days after the deadline, so now they had no choice but to upgrade. This might also be an extra incentive to upgrade to Poser 12, where things are finally moving forwards. Bondware claims there will be a unimesh Poser version still this year, while I didn't think I would see that still in my lifetime. LOL

 

[Pendraia]

I was pretty sure that was the case Ken. To upgrade to Poser 12 it will need to be finacially justifiable which at the moment it isn't.

 

[Ken1171]

I was pretty sure that was the case Ken. To upgrade to Poser 12 it will need to be finacially justifiable which at the moment it isn't.

That is understandable. Poser 12 is still unfinished, and is being released as "early access", but Rendo is doing many things SMS would never agree with because they didn't understand this market like Rendo does. It's heavily under construction, and I am already impressed with the huge rendering upgrades, supporting RTX even before the Autodesk giants did. After I upgraded my GPU to Ampere, I can no longer render in P11, so it's not even a choice anymore. But even without RTX, P12 was already miles faster in rendering speeds, thanks to the new Cycles 2 engine, and the even more amazing "adaptive sampling". I say amazing because it makes P11 rendering feel too slow and too noisy in comparison.

That is not to say everything is peachy. It is being updated every week, sometimes twice a week, quite a work in progress. But to tell you the truth, I haven't seen Poser getting this much development since 2016. That is quite something considering a while ago, Poser was left for dead for a few years. Rendo is not hiding the fact when they named the ads campaign the "Poser pulse is getting stronger". It was in pretty bad shape when they found it.

There is a lot to catch up to, and Poser 11 is no longer being developed. That alone was reason enough for me to switch. I was itching for new toys, and now I am getting them - in a regular basis. Some of my Python 3 scripts are using them under the hood - stuff that was never possible in P11. I guess I am one of these guys who need to see progress to keep going. And about that, Rendo is delivering. Makes me a happy camper.

 

[Hornet3d]

That is understandable. Poser 12 is still unfinished, and is being released as "early access", but Rendo is doing many things SMS would never agree with because they didn't understand this market like Rendo does. It's heavily under construction, and I am already impressed with the huge rendering upgrades, supporting RTX even before the Autodesk giants did. After I upgraded my GPU to Ampere, I can no longer render in P11, so it's not even a choice anymore. But even without RTX, P12 was already miles faster in rendering speeds, thanks to the new Cycles 2 engine, and the even more amazing "adaptive sampling". I say amazing because it makes P11 rendering feel too slow and too noisy in comparison.

That is not to say everything is peachy. It is being updated every week, sometimes twice a week, quite a work in progress. But to tell you the truth, I haven't seen Poser getting this much development since 2016. That is quite something considering a while ago, Poser was left for dead for a few years. Rendo is not hiding the fact when they named the ads campaign the "Poser pulse is getting stronger". It was in pretty bad shape when they found it.

There is a lot to catch up to, and Poser 11 is no longer being developed. That alone was reason enough for me to switch. I was itching for new toys, and now I am getting them - in a regular basis. Some of my Python 3 scripts are using them under the hood - stuff that was never possible in P11. I guess I am one of these guys who need to see progress to keep going. And about that, Rendo is delivering. Makes me a happy camper.

We all have to make a judgement on what we can justify purchasing and, with few exceptions, there will always be limitations on what we can afford. It was fairly easy for me to justify the purchase of Poser 12 as it allowed me to use a fairly expensive graphics card that had laid dormant as far as Poser was concerned as Poser 11 refused to work with it. Then there was the improvements in Superfly that I absolutely love but I accept it depends on what you use Poser for.

So I had very good reason to upgrade but there was an additional factor that played a part in that decision and that is I feel there needs to be enough interest in Poser 12 to convince Renderosity that their financial commitments and efforts are worth making. The same factor is at work with your scripts, yes I love them and can make great use of them all but there is a part of me that also wants to make it a worthwhile proposition for you. It is also the reason that I try and increase the knowledge of the existence of CKV-01 for Dawn by placing renders of such over at Renderosity. I still buy from a few vendors at Daz that ensure compatibility of their products with Poser for all the same reasons.

Of course I am not saying that anyone should buy a product that they are not going to use or cannot justify the expense, more that there are occasions when the heart should also have a say with some buying decisions.

 

[Ken1171]

So I had very good reason to upgrade but there was an additional factor that played a part in that decision and that is I feel there needs to be enough interest in Poser 12 to convince Renderosity that their financial commitments and efforts are worth making.

I feel the same way about Poser. I was in the beta team with SMS when they silently dropped all development and left it for dead for the next couple of years. If Rendo didn't acquire it, Poser would be no more. They had no obligation to do so, and it was in bad shape after years of neglect. It was a big risk for them, considering the cost to bring it back to its former state and beyond, not to mention 95% of their customer base is from the other side of the fence, who most likely don't care for it. I still don't know how they plan to reconcile this.

Those were very strong reasons to support Rendo on this, because they are trying to save Poser from extinction and I want it to contribute somehow. From the very beginning, Rendo has acknowledged the fact that they owe their business existence to Poser and its community. One of the major factors against Poser 12 is the absence of Python scripts support, and I saw that as an opportunity to support both Poser and its community by creating new scripts for Python 3. All other Python devs had left the market for one reason or another, and I knew this could push people away from upgrading.

Both Python 2 and Poser 11 were discontinued, along with Flash support back in December 2020. I have no idea how many people use scripts in Poser, but I have hopes to turn this gap around and make it a reason for people to move on to Poser 12. If all the improvements Rendo is offering won't convince people, maybe my scripts would? The problem is that I am a newbie at Rendo, where nobody knows me. For those who want to support my efforts, you can help by leaving positive product reviews for my scripts at Rendo if you find them useful. That might help breaking the ice.

 

[Hornet3d]

Another M4 conversion this is the M4 character Vargan by Mortem Vetus which has a sickly blue tint rendered in Superfly, or at least it did but not after a click on the SkinEdit script.

 

[Willowisp]

Hey Ken, if you can make a full-fledged version for Poser 12 of Semidieus/Shaderworks Library Manager, I'll consider jumping on P12

It's the one script I CANNOT do without, and no joke

 

[Ken1171]

Hey Ken, if you can make a full-fledged version for Poser 12 of Semidieus/Shaderworks Library Manager, I'll consider jumping on P12
It's the one script I CANNOT do without, and no joke

I know what you mean. That was Shaderworks complete replacement for the Poser library. Dimension3D has also released his XL (eXtended Library) complete library replacement. For now, I am concentrating on trying to solve some of the more immediate Poser workflow deficiencies. For example, I am creating a new parameters panel that improves and boosts the workflow, by offering things Poser cannot do, like search dials by keyword, and dial 1 or multiple parameters at once. Dial searches can also be further filtered by type, and by value. A huge workflow boost! ^___^

 

[Ken1171]

Another M4 conversion this is the M4 character Vargan by Mortem Vetus which has a sickly blue tint rendered in Superfly, or at least it did but not after a click on the SkinEdit script.

By default, the blue tint is removed. But people who like the old school blue tint can still add it with SkinEdit if they want to. ^^

 

[Hornet3d]

By default, the blue tint is removed. But people who like the old school blue tint can still add it with SkinEdit if they want to. ^^

As you say it removed the blue tint as I expected it to but also the skin tone became more vibrant. I know all of this can be adjusted I am just blown away with how even the defaults make such a major difference and the fact that it happens to the whole figure. When I think of the hours I spent in the material room when I was working on my Dawn SE character this looks like it is a case of PFM - Pure-Flipping-Magic.

 

[Ken1171]

As you say it removed the blue tint as I expected it to but also the skin tone became more vibrant. I know all of this can be adjusted I am just blown away with how even the defaults make such a major difference and the fact that it happens to the whole figure. When I think of the hours I spent in the material room when I was working on my Dawn SE character this looks like it is a case of PFM - Pure-Flipping-Magic.

That "Apply All" button does indeed rebuild ALL figure materials from scratch, from the nails to the skin, eyes, inner mouth, and even the eyelashes. It leaves no stone unturned. Firefly needs a ton of extra work to simulate render effects that have become obsolete in PBR rendering. Removing them not only makes SF renders look better, but also faster. People might notice that over time. But for now, doing all this with 1-click should make people happy. It saves tons of time - time that could be used for doing something more fun than fixing complex shaders across an entire figure. ^___^

 

[Sunfire]

Now if only you had something like this for materials. LOL

V4 Syrah texture. When the Skinedit is used it stops looking red in preview.

 

[Ken1171]

Now if only you had something like this for materials. LOL
V4 Syrah texture. When the Skinedit is used it stops looking red in preview.

I first started with Dawn materials, but it comes down I have many times more materials for V4 I could never render in SF. Just thinking on how much work it takes to fix them would already discourage me to even try. I have spent hours just 1-clicking many different V4 materials with SkinEdit just to see what they looked in SF after these many years. It breaths new life into older contents I just couldn't use anymore.

 

[Sunfire]

Between you and Afrodite-Ohki my promo making just got easier. LOL.

Though I do wish there was such an easy fix for the clothing materials. They get tricky though.

 

[Ken1171]

Between you and Afrodite-Ohki my promo making just got easier. LOL.

Though I do wish there was such an easy fix for the clothing materials. They get tricky though.

I could create a more generic materials editor, but Dimension3D already made one, and if Rendo will release it for P12, I have no reason to reinvent the wheel. Rendo will also re-release some of Netherworks scripts for P12, so I am steering clear of those for the time being, at least until I know what is going to happen in this regard. For now, I'd rather cover the ground they didn't.

 

[Sunfire]

I didn't know about Dimension3D's editor. most cases I edit by hand, well I have to or change them to SF friendly materials. I've also found that in many cases the older materials are fine in SF.

 

[Ken1171]

I didn't know about Dimension3D's editor. most cases I edit by hand, well I have to or change them to SF friendly materials. I've also found that in many cases the older materials are fine in SF.

There are indeed cases where FF materials just work in SF, but if I can just make sure they do with 1-click, it's not a big deal anymore if they don't. D3D was not the only one to make advances on material editing - Shaderworks has also created a complete Material Room replacement (Advanced Shader Manager). However, none of them have ever done anything close to SkinEdit, which I believe is easier to use off the shelf, while being dedicated to 1 thing in particular that most people could benefit from. I mean, we always have to edit figure materials, and it can be a pain. D3D and Shaderworks tools are more generic, but they are also large, complex, and do tons of things, and that comes with a learning curve. With SkinEdit, I wanted to go the opposite way. Don't get me wrong - SkinEdit is a complex tool under the hood, but not to the end user. I work out the complexities so they don't have to.

 

[Pendraia]

I'm really glad for you both Ken and Hornet.

For me my primary program is Daz Studio and I think it's unlikely I would ever convert only to Poser. I use Poser mainly to do products for Dawn and the Hivewire family. I have always struggled with the way it is set up. So to justify buying Poser 12 I would have to be making reasonable money from creating products. At the moment I don't even have Poser 11 installed which is one of the tasks on my to do list at the moment. Time I really need more time at the moment. You would think being retired I would have heaps.

 

[Rhia474]

For what it's worth, I still can't use this script at all. Jenn tried to reset my password again, I reset it again, still nothing. It's super frustrating that I can literally use anything else I got from that store, except this, especially seeing all the things you guys do with it. I uninstalled the script for now.

ETA: and just so that people know, now the previously purchased Scatter Tool P12 also asks for a password before I can run it. I am NOT happy.

 

[Rhia474]

And now it works, because apparently the login on the Purchases tab doesn't need the full email address like on the website. It only needs the before the @ part. I had no idea.