Content Paradise is shutting down

[Hornet3d]

I don't believe Poser 10/Poser Pro 2014 or earlier versions allowed for external Library setups, but that's what I'm using with my PP11, where I view my Library in my Firefox browser, and needless to say, you would be able to view your PP2014 Library as well. Unfortunately, that's not available from within PP2014 itself.

I know when I could no longer get my internal Library for my Poser9, I was lucky I had grabbed ShaderWorks Library Manager 2 before RDNA closed down, so I use that now, if for some reason I want to render something in P9.

I used ShaderWorks Library Manager 2 in PP2014 and I was under the impression I would lose that when I moved to Poser 11 Pro. Thankfully it still works in P11 as the Poser library has a nasty habit of just going to a blank white screen during building a scene. I have no such problem with the Shaderworks library.

 

[Miss B]

Ohhh, I didn't think ShaderWorks had updated it for PP11. That's interesting, though I really like my external Library view in my browser. It gives me so much more room to view more thumbnails in a row than the internal Library does. That's a huge plus for Library folders with a lot of options in it. You don't have to scroll forever to find what you're looking for.

 

[Ken1171]

Flash IS incompatible, as my latest version of Firefox refuses to accept it. It won't even let me update it, and even when I was still able to update it, Firefox wouldn't allow me to activate it.

Here again, Flash works perfectly fine with Firefox, but Mozilla decided to boycott it, so they forbid Flash from running in their browsers, just like Apple did in their mobile devices. It is not incompatible - it's just being blocked. Don't know if you remember, but Mozilla's president made inflammatory claims against Flash because it's not open source. In 2012 they released a limited open source imitation of FlashPlayer called Shurnway, based in HTML5 and JavaScript. As with almost everything HTML5, they couldn't make it work and it was discontinued. Google did a similar thing with their homemade Pepper Player, which was created to replace Adobe's FlashPlayer, and at the same time forbid its installation. For years, Google Chrome users complained about Flash contents crashing, which Google promptly blamed on Adobe, accusing FlashPlayer when in reality it was their own hidden Pepper Player that was crashing. When Adobe finally published the Pepper Player scheme, claiming not to endorse or support it, Google strategically removed Pepper Player from Chrome to clean up their mess. The problem is that Google "forgot" to let people know it was their own fault that Flash was crashing in their browser. That has worked to their advantage, but it was still a lie.

It's important that people know that Flash is NOT incompatible with browsers, but instead it is being deliberately blocked and sabotaged. Mozilla and Google have benefited from making Flash contents crash in their browsers for YEARS by using homemade versions of FlashPlayer, without people knowing or acknowledging it. They used these to convince people that Flash was evil, when in reality they were the ones causing the crashes by replacing Adobe FlashPlayer with their own players.

Apple's best shot is to claim that Flash is "obsolete" because it's "old". Well, then Photoshop is even more obsolete because it's older than Flash, and we should all ask Adobe to remove it from the market. Not only it's very old, but it's definitely NOT open source. Then Apple claims that Flash is big and slow. Well, so it's Photoshop. Then Apple claims Flash is a "security risk", while they are yet to present a single case where that was true in over 30 years of Flash existence. Like it is with Java, Flash runs in a secured sandbox using a virtual machine, which makes it impossible for people to use it to cause harm. The so-called "security risk" Apple was referring to was the fact that some people use Flash to make annoying blinking animated banners, which can also be done with plain animated GIFs, so it's not Flash's fault. It may be annoying, but it's definitely not a "security risk", and we don't need Flash to make annoying banners. Then Apple accused Flash of being able to go to full screen mode, now claiming that to be a "security risk". That is also not true, because Flash can only switch to full screen mode if - and only if - the HTML code on the website allows it. Flash cannot force it on its own.

These allegations are simply not true. The truth is that Flash has dominated the web apps market for decades, making 75% of all interactive contents in the world. Is that a coincidence that Flash only became evil after Apple decided to start an app store? Is it coincidence that Google only started to demonize Flash after they decided to start an app store? If you can't compete, you either buy it or kill it. Is it that hard to connect the dots?

Finally, Google is the biggest proponent of HTML5 in the world. They truly tried to make it work in their sites and services, but after spending millions, they quit a year later. They are definitely not badmouthing HTML5 - it simply didn't work for them, and they lost a lot of money trying. SMS also tried with the new Poser 11 library, but to this date they still couldn't make it fully work. Simple things like navigation and even drag and drop are still broken, and they gave up trying to fix it. In addition, Google have already clearly stated that HTML5 cannot replace Flash because of the low performance limitations. They just want Flash out of the way, but propose nothing to replace it. The same goes with Apple, who just want Flash out of the way, but offer nothing to replace it. As usual, they push HTML5, in contradiction to Google's official statement. This is about removing the competition - it has nothing to do with being old or obsolete. If it were, they would be offering a substitute, but nope. They offer nothing in return.

 

[Miss B]

Here again, Flash works perfectly fine with Firefox, but Mozilla decided to boycott it, so they forbid Flash from running in their browsers, just like Apple did in their mobile devices. It is not incompatible - it's just being blocked.

Interesting since the first 6-8 months I had this laptop, every time I tried to run Flash video, my computer froze and screeched until I unplugged it, popped the battery, and then put it all back together and rebooted.

You really think that's because Mozilla banned it from their Firefox browser? I had the same reaction when I downloaded the videos, and played them with the Windows Media Player. That's not just Mozilla boycotting it.

 

[Hornet3d]

Ohhh, I didn't think ShaderWorks had updated it for PP11. That's interesting, though I really like my external Library view in my browser. It gives me so much more room to view more thumbnails in a row than the internal Library does. That's a huge plus for Library folders with a lot of options in it. You don't have to scroll forever to find what you're looking for.

I was under the impression that the Shaderworks Library manager would not work in Poser 11. I know I read somewhere that is wouldn't so never tried, I can't remember where I read it and it would be a pointless waste of time to try and find out where. It was only when I posted here that I was having trouble with the Library in Poser 11 and missed My Shaderworks that someone said it worked for them with no problem. I installed it the same day and it has now run on on almost daily basis for over year with no problems. Much as I have fallen in love with Poser 11 I am lucky if I can go a week without the Poser library going AWOL.

 

[Ken1171]

Interesting since the first 6-8 months I had this laptop, every time I tried to run Flash video, my computer froze and screeched until I unplugged it, popped the battery, and then put it all back together and rebooted.

You really think that's because Mozilla banned it from their Firefox browser? I had the same reaction when I downloaded the videos, and played them with the Windows Media Player. That's not just Mozilla boycotting it.

I have worked professionally with ActionScript programming in a publishing company for years exclusively with Adobe Flash, creating educational online courses, and I assure you Flash is not capable to doing what you have described. What I can tell is that web browser makers are all boycotting/sabotaging Flash, and making everything in their power to undermine it, so you come to conclusions like this. Just think of it - YouTube made their name and established themselves in the web using Flash video. Do you think that would be possible if Flash could cause issues like you described? Flash would never become an industry standard for decades. Remember Flash runs on a secured sandbox like Java, so it is not capable of causing any damage to anyone. It also runs a virtual machine, so it cannot be affected by virus and malware. It's as secure as Java, which is what Google is using now after they gave up on HTML5.

Flash is just a plugin on a web browser, and it's possible to undermine it in many different ways, like proven by Google's PepperPlayer and Mozilla Firefox's Shurnway fake Flash players. They were tools of industrial sabotage, and you probably never knew they existed. The Flash plugin needs to work with the browser, and it instead gets sabotaged. The only ones who have an app store and is not fighting Flash is Microsoft. Years ago they tried to create a replacement called Silverlight, but it failed miserably. You probably never knew it existed, but it's still around. After this, Microsoft gave up fighting Flash since they couldn't do anything better. Instead, they embedded Adobe Flash into their new web Edge browser, so you don't have to install or update it. Is it a coincidence that Flash won't crash in Edge? It's not trying to undermine it.

This nothing personal, it's just business as usual. Only corporations trying to enter the web apps market decided to demonize Flash, simply because it was the industry standard, and they couldn't control it. The biggest evidence is when they want to remove something for allegedly being obsolete, but then don't offer anything to replace it. Google had officially said HTML5 cannot, and will not replace Flash. Just look at Construct 2, the game engine that generates HTML5 games. It's loosing market because HTML5 performance is not good enough for running games on a tablet or smartphone. That's exactly the reason why Google said it cannot replace Flash, but people are not listening. The slander became the "truth", because it was repeated enough times by powerful corporations. In the end, we are the ones pulling the short stick. There is nothing to replace it.

 

[Janet]

Thanks Ken. I read somewhere they want to get rid of Flash by 2020. Now I see why.

 

[Pendraia]

I have never used CP much so this doesn't really affect me much but it is sad to see another icon of the 3D market closing.

"Some people felt betrayed, because converted outfits are never as good as the original. Not to mention vendors started to sell conversions as new products, and this has become common practice for years, to the detriment of the community. "

Doesn't this feel a bit of a contradiction to you? People were betrayed because the content they had bought years ago for an older figure lost some functionality when transferring it to a new figure(Sometimes across multiple generations). But vendors betrayed the community by releasing updated conversions, often with entirely new shader setups and textures for the updated Render engine and entirely new FBMs for the latest figure sets. What a betrayal... Honestly I don't think these items are as prevalent as made out and if they are not wanted in the community then they wouldn't sell, which would mean vendors would stop making them right? How exactly are these items a detriment to the community?

I love clones and the ability to move old clothing to new figures. Not all transfers work well but surprising enough it was the ones that didn't work well that got me working more in programs like ZBrush. These days I often prefer to use ZBrush to actually do the transfer manually as I get less distortion. I think we need to look at things like this as opportunities to develop new skill sets...*sorry that's probably the teacher in me showing. ; )

I think for people just starting, that autofitting old garments to new figures will often work well enough for their needs. I think being able to use old garments at all without going into a secondary program is fantastic.

Now it is, but I doubt it was back when the original Genesis came out. I doubt there were clones back then, so transferring V4 clothing to V5, or M4 clothing to the M5, was not all that easy. Autofit was never perfect.

Miss B, the original Genesis had the most clones available fairly early on. It had the Millenium 4 figures as part of the package and then the millenium 3 figures were released quite early on iirc.
Daz learnt their lesson though because with subsequent figures they had less clones initially and things that were part of the original genesis had to be paid for separately.
Please note: I'm not having a go at Daz here that actually makes good business sense for them as they would have lost sales from people using older content. There needs to be balance...; )

Personally I haven't bought into every figure generation at Daz. I loved the original Genesis and did feel betrayed when they went back to separate male and female figures. It took me a while to buy into the following generations. I only bought those items I really loved for Genesis 2 and 3. I have bought some of the Genesis 8 items but I also at times buy stuff for Dawn and the Hivewire family.

However I feel that I'm not the typical buyer of 3D content anymore as I do like trying to create things for myself and so have become more selective about what I buy in general.

 

[Ken1171]

Thanks Ken. I read somewhere they want to get rid of Flash by 2020. Now I see why.

Under enormous pressure from Apple, Google and Mozilla, Adobe was forced to set an end-of-life for Flash for 2020. I have read about the many threats and boycotts Adobe has suffered for years, and they ended up conceding to the mob. From the very beginning, it was all about eliminating the competition. In reality, it makes no sense at all that all these powerful corporations would all of the sudden start worrying about a simple web browser plugin, and spend so much money and effort to kill it completely. Just think about it - it's just a plugin - why do they care so much?

What about all these other plugins that are slow, buggy, and present real security risks to people? Why aren't they trying to bring them down as well? Well, Flash dominates 75% of the app market on the web, and most of all, most Flash contents are FREE - so there you have it.

But the biggest tragedy is that Flash is the ONLY artist-friendly tool for creating interactive web contents and games. Having nothing to replace it, it will be us, the artists who will have the most to loose in 2020. Artistic freedom will go down with applause. When people realize it, it will be too late.

I loved the original Genesis and did feel betrayed when they went back to separate male and female figures.

You might like to know that Reallusion CC3 will ship with a genderless figure, just like the original Genesis! Dawn, Dusk, Baby Luna and the HW gorilla will all sprout out of it with a dial spin. I will be porting my HW contents to CC3, and it will all work around this single figure.

 

[Janet]

When I first read about Flash going away I though but it works so great! Really too bad. Easy program to learn and use too.

 

[Ken1171]

When I first read about Flash going away I though but it works so great! Really too bad. Easy program to learn and use too.

It's the kind of thing that became the industry standard exactly because it was easy to learn, secure, and powerful. Mozilla tried to make their own Shurnway Flash-killer using HTML5 and JS, and failed. Google, with all their money and power, tried to make their own Pepper Player, and it failed. Microsoft, with their multi-million dollar research lab, came up with Silverlight to replace Flash, and failed. Just think about it - all these most powerful corporations together could not make anything better than Flash, and they still are determined to kill it completely, leaving nothing to replace it.

When you want to replace something, it must be by something else. But in this case it's for nothing. They just want it dead and out of the way. They truly believe their app stores could not survive for as long as Flash existed, because people still use it and they cannot control it. Today's business is all about control.

 

[Janet]

Don't most of those little app games on Facebook use Flash?

 

[Ken1171]

Don't most of those little app games on Facebook use Flash?

You've got me there, I don't use FB, so I don't know. But I do know that Adobe Flash Pro has several tools to produce FB-friendly games, so it's possible. Another thing I have just remembered is that Reallusion uses Flash to showcase product animations. They will have to replace YEARS of product pages with whatever will come to replace Flash. So far, we've got nothing, and that's the part that worries me.

 

[Miss B]

Thanks for the heads-up Ken. Now I know not to try watching Reallusion's product showcases.

 

[Ken1171]

Thanks for the heads-up Ken. Now I know not to try watching Reallusion's product showcases.

Don't worry - most web browsers block Flash by default nowadays, and will show a frightening warning asking if you want to enable it. In most browsers, this setting cannot be changed. No matter if you allow it or not, it will ask you again next time, which is great tactics to scare people away.

 

[Miss B]

That warning wouldn't scare me. It's the freezing up of my laptop, and the screeching noise it makes until I unplug it and pop the batter pack, that scares me.

 

[Ken1171]

That warning wouldn't scare me. It's the freezing up of my laptop, and the screeching noise it makes until I unplug it and pop the batter pack, that scares me.

You understand Flash runs in a secured sandbox from inside a virtual machine, right? It cannot cause harm even if it wanted to. But of course, just like widgets written in Java or Python, there are bad programmers out there who create poorly made programs that can crash. But since Flash runs in it's own virtual machine (not in your operating system), it can only crash itself. It is physically impossible for Flash to crash your OS, because it has no access to it.

I know this is rather technical, but I am a computer scientist and this is my field. All of what I am saying here is no secret and can be checked online. The bottom line is that whatever runs on a virtual machine with a secure sandbox cannot harm your OS. If you run Windows in a virtual machine, like the free Virtual PC, if any program crashes inside the VM, it does nothing to your OS. Even if there is a virus in Windows inside the VM, it is completely isolated from your OS and can do no harm. It can only harm what's inside the VM. Hope this helps illustrate how Flash is incapable of freezing your laptop because it's completely isolated inside its virtual machine protected sandbox. In the worst possible scenario, if it crashes, all that can happen is FlashPlayer will show you an error message. I am saying this based on my hands-on 12 years professional experience with Flash programming in the industry.

If something has crashed your laptop OS, it wasn't Flash, and you can quote me on that. That is just not possible by design. If you had any experience with virtual machines, you know that cannot happen.

 

[Miss B]

Well, since it only happened when running Flash videos, what else could have caused it to happen? I never had a problem with my old laptop when I was using Flash to develop web sites, but that was my old laptop, which was running WinXP Pro, so it's possible it's something to do with Win7 Pro, because I don't have computer crashes since Firefox stopped letting me update and use the Flash Player. I never had a problem with the Flash software, but then I was using it while Macromedia still owned it. This only happened with this laptop after Adobe bought out Macromedia and all it's software apps, half of which haven't been updated since, because Adobe has their own version of those software apps.

 

[carmen indorato]

Here again, Flash works perfectly fine with Firefox, but Mozilla decided to boycott it, so they forbid Flash from running in their browsers, just like Apple did in their mobile devices. It is not incompatible - it's just being blocked. Don't know if you remember, but Mozilla's president made inflammatory claims against Flash because it's not open source. In 2012 they released a limited open source imitation of FlashPlayer called Shurnway, based in HTML5 and JavaScript. As with almost everything HTML5, they couldn't make it work and it was discontinued. Google did a similar thing with their homemade Pepper Player, which was created to replace Adobe's FlashPlayer, and at the same time forbid its installation. For years, Google Chrome users complained about Flash contents crashing, which Google promptly blamed on Adobe, accusing FlashPlayer when in reality it was their own hidden Pepper Player that was crashing. When Adobe finally published the Pepper Player scheme, claiming not to endorse or support it, Google strategically removed Pepper Player from Chrome to clean up their mess. The problem is that Google "forgot" to let people know it was their own fault that Flash was crashing in their browser. That has worked to their advantage, but it was still a lie.

It's important that people know that Flash is NOT incompatible with browsers, but instead it is being deliberately blocked and sabotaged. Mozilla and Google have benefited from making Flash contents crash in their browsers for YEARS by using homemade versions of FlashPlayer, without people knowing or acknowledging it. They used these to convince people that Flash was evil, when in reality they were the ones causing the crashes by replacing Adobe FlashPlayer with their own players.

Apple's best shot is to claim that Flash is "obsolete" because it's "old". Well, then Photoshop is even more obsolete because it's older than Flash, and we should all ask Adobe to remove it from the market. Not only it's very old, but it's definitely NOT open source. Then Apple claims that Flash is big and slow. Well, so it's Photoshop. Then Apple claims Flash is a "security risk", while they are yet to present a single case where that was true in over 30 years of Flash existence. Like it is with Java, Flash runs in a secured sandbox using a virtual machine, which makes it impossible for people to use it to cause harm. The so-called "security risk" Apple was referring to was the fact that some people use Flash to make annoying blinking animated banners, which can also be done with plain animated GIFs, so it's not Flash's fault. It may be annoying, but it's definitely not a "security risk", and we don't need Flash to make annoying banners. Then Apple accused Flash of being able to go to full screen mode, now claiming that to be a "security risk". That is also not true, because Flash can only switch to full screen mode if - and only if - the HTML code on the website allows it. Flash cannot force it on its own.

These allegations are simply not true. The truth is that Flash has dominated the web apps market for decades, making 75% of all interactive contents in the world. Is that a coincidence that Flash only became evil after Apple decided to start an app store? Is it coincidence that Google only started to demonize Flash after they decided to start an app store? If you can't compete, you either buy it or kill it. Is it that hard to connect the dots?

Finally, Google is the biggest proponent of HTML5 in the world. They truly tried to make it work in their sites and services, but after spending millions, they quit a year later. They are definitely not badmouthing HTML5 - it simply didn't work for them, and they lost a lot of money trying. SMS also tried with the new Poser 11 library, but to this date they still couldn't make it fully work. Simple things like navigation and even drag and drop are still broken, and they gave up trying to fix it. In addition, Google have already clearly stated that HTML5 cannot replace Flash because of the low performance limitations. They just want Flash out of the way, but propose nothing to replace it. The same goes with Apple, who just want Flash out of the way, but offer nothing to replace it. As usual, they push HTML5, in contradiction to Google's official statement. This is about removing the competition - it has nothing to do with being old or obsolete. If it were, they would be offering a substitute, but nope. They offer nothing in return.

Jeesh! Messy. Sounds like the poop dropping around in congress lately! Disgusting!
How does this kind of sheitz ever get cleaned up? Where is truth and honest business practices? I am long in the tooth and been around a long time bu I have never seen this kind of filthy practices in the world as I have been seeing these past 5 years or so and it seems to be getting worse.
So, what do I do about Flash running my Library search function in Poser? Just keep going as it has been and just upgrade Flash when it goes poopy?

 

[Ken1171]

Well, since it only happened when running Flash videos, what else could have caused it to happen?

Just think of it, YouTube made their living out of playing Flash video for the longest time, and nobody ever got their computer crashing because of it. I am just saying that Flash is incapable of crashing anything besides itself because it runs on a virtual machine, not in your operating system. If you know virtual machines, you know that nothing running in it can harm your computer, and even less cause it to crash. Even when the computer is idle, Windows alone is running in average at least 500 processes in the background. I cannot tell you what has crashed your laptop, but the only thing I am sure of is that things running in a VM cannot do anything to your OS. If you don't believe me, ask anybody who has used a VM and they will confirm this to you. Once you understand this concept, you will agree with me that Flash cannot possibly affect your OS, because it is not running in it. FlashPlayer is, but not anything running inside Flash.