Content Paradise is shutting down

[Hornet3d]

For the few years I worked in a mobile phone shop I tried to explain on many occasions that the reason some sites would not work on their new iPhone was because they used flash and it was blocked. Most seemed amazed that their all singing and all dancing new mobile could not run flash, every time I tried to explain that the iPhone could run flash but it was blocked from doing so. Sadly most did not see the distinction and reluctantly excepted and, to them, the end result was the same. I could see it from their point of view but I still felt I needed to try and explain the reason fairly.

I have indexing turned off system wide, I cannot remember why I turned it off, it is lost in the mists of time. Then again my system holds a number of SSDs so there is some reason in my choice. Despite the service being disabled I find the Poser 11 library works well, when it works at all, the Shaderworks library manager 2 seems not to complain. If I need to search the system for anything I use agent ransack that seems to be relatively fast so I can't say I have suffered from having it disabled.

 

[Miss B]

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.

On the contrary, because it was YouTube videos I had to download and convert to .WMV format in order to watch, or my laptop would crash, so the Flash Player is the culprit.

 

[DanaTA]

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.

I wouldn't say that some of those weren't better. It's more that Macromedia had a stronghold on the existing market and had better market presence, and marketing. Many refused, say Silverlight, because Flash was so embedded in so much of the web. Many refused simply to go against Microsoft. Marketing and market entrenchment made these newer alternatives less successful. Even though Flash is well know for being unsecure and a malware threat, at least in the development community, people stuck with it. Sometimes marketing beats quality, sometimes perception beats quality. Many just think that because it's everywhere it must be better. Saddly.

Dana

 

[DanaTA]

Perhaps Flash in itself is not unsecure, but the fact that it allows poor programming practices to let in viruses or malware, makes it, in effect, unsecure. It's sad that marketing beats quality in so many cases, not simply for Flash.

(This would have been an edit in my previous post, but the forum didn't allow me to edit because more than 10 minutes had passed since posting)

Dana

 

[carmen indorato]

If I remember this right, you are running Poser 10, right? The search is done by the Windows Indexing service, not by Flash. If you don't have indexing enabled in the drive where Poser is installed, the search will be really slow and may take forever. If you enable it, Windows will take some time indexing all the contents, which may affect the computer performance for a while, but it's well worth it in the long run. The Flash library will only take advantage of the speed gains after Windows finishes indexing your hard drive. In addition, the P10 library is made with Adobe AIR, not Flash. It's much faster because it is compiled code for the native platform, as opposed to Flash, which uses op-code to run on a virtual machine that is platform-independent. Just one detail - if you are using an SSD, do NOT enable indexing on it because it will significantly reduce its lifespan.

As much as I think that Poser 11 is the best version ever made, I still miss the old AIR library, since parts of the new HTML5 library is still broken and apparently cannot be fixed. The vertical separator appears at random places when I open the library, drag and drop is mostly broken, navigation only works partially, and the library often looses connection with Poser (unresponsive). It uses a 3rd party tool for Poser to communicate with the HTML5 library, and sometimes it gets stuck and CPU goes to 100% even on idle. All the problems Google has faced when trying to adopt HTML5 are showing with the new library in Poser 11, except that Google gave up on it, while we are still using the broken HTML5 library in Poser 11. Perhaps this is a good example of "don't fix if it's not broken", but it's too late for that now.

Hi Ken!
thanks for the reply.
I am on a Mac firstly which might complicate any help I might get from anyone. I am running Poser Pro 2014 most of the time though as i stated i do have Poser 11 just couldn't wrap my head around setting up the work space so I gave up. I might try going back to it sometime. I just went through the Poser 201 Preferences and did not find any options for Indexing. So it seems Flash it is!

 

[Terre]

I have a friend elsewhere who is on Mac. If I remember correctly she has pP2014. I'll see if perhaps she may be able to help you.

 

[deanna]

Hi Ken!
thanks for the reply.
I am on a Mac firstly which might complicate any help I might get from anyone. I am running Poser Pro 2014 most of the time though as i stated i do have Poser 11 just couldn't wrap my head around setting up the work space so I gave up. I might try going back to it sometime. I just went through the Poser 201 Preferences and did not find any options for Indexing. So it seems Flash it is!

Hello, Carmen Indorato. I think Terre grossly overestimates my ability to be helpful, but I'll give it a go. As I understand it, when you install Poser onto your Mac, Safari is what it is designed to use for browsing the library no matter what your preferred browser is. And, it insists on having Flash, despite everything else. So, basically, as long as your Safari and Poser agree, and Flash is updated *for Safari Mac*, you should be good. However, you CAN run the library without either. You just go into preferences and click library, then click launch behavior to "external". It will give you your runtimes, but it won't dock.

The other thing which can bugger up your Poser on Mac is your virus protection. I use 'webroot', and it prevents me from doing multiple selections and a few other minor things which are annoying but not critical.

I'll tell you, the thing I hate about having issues with Poser on a Mac is the amount of Help which explains carefully and in detail *why* the problem is happening rather than to say 'here's how to fix it, ya nit wit'. It took me days to figure out I'd hobbled Poser by trying to get rid of Flash!

Okay, sorry for the thread entropy. Uhmmm... boo CP gone, Hoping for something new and cool? :3

 

[Ken1171]

Even though Flash is well know for being unsecure and a malware threat, at least in the development community, people stuck with it.

I am from the development community with 38 years on the field, 12 just in Flash programming, and my experience seems to be the opposite of what you said. In fact, most professional programmers have debunked Apple's claims against Flash, but who will the people listen to - superstar Steve Jobs or mere programmers?

Please show me an example of when and where Flash was unsecure and a malware threat. To this day Apple has failed to present a single case, but maybe you can show me one?

Perhaps Flash in itself is not unsecure, but the fact that it allows poor programming practices to let in viruses or malware, makes it, in effect, unsecure. It's sad that marketing beats quality in so many cases, not simply for Flash.

Any programming language allow people to write bad programming. but Flash is still running from inside a virtual machine, so it cannot do anything to harm a computer or the OS. It is not running in your OS, so it cannot be infected by virus or malware, and cannot be used to work as a virus or malware because its virtual machine is inside a secured sandbox. I realize I am repeating myself on these things over and over, probably because non-programmers don't understand what these things actually mean.

* Virtual Machine = not running in your operating system, has no access to it, and cannot be affected by virus.
* Secured Sandbox = cannot harm your computer because it cannot actually see it.

Whether people write good or bad programs in Flash, whatever happens will happen inside the virtual machine, which is completely isolated from your computer. Viruses cannot infect Flash, and Flash cannot behave like a virus or malware because:

1. It's written in AS3 op-code that is not readable or executable by the host operating system. Only the VM can understand this byte code.
2. The VM is inside a secured sandbox, and has no way to access or see the host operating system. It's 100% isolated, and don't speak the same language.

Having that said, it is physically impossible for Flash to cause harm or be used as a virus/malware. In addition, there are WWW authorities that regulate this kind of security, and Flash complies with all the technical and legal requirements following international security standards. Enterprises would not had adopted Flash for decades otherwise, because that would put their businesses and reputation in danger. Enterprise security requires high standards, and would not settle for less. If Flash would be unsecure, it would had been dropped by the industry decades ago.

These have been the facts of industry for decades, and just because Apple decided to start an app store will not change reality. They can only change people's opinions based on propaganda to move their corporate agenda. The actual developer community knows what is true and what is not, but we are just geeks and nobody listens to us.

 

[DanaTA]

I am/was a programmer as well. I didn't work with Flash and can only say what I've heard or read in the past. I suppose anyone can "say" things. It seems odd that so many would start to block something that cannot do harm, but there are many odd things in this world...our politics being an excellent example.

Nothing personal was intended, for certain.

Dana

ps: Who knew that different developer communities would have opposing views of things like this?

 

[Ken1171]

I am/was a programmer as well. I didn't work with Flash and can only say what I've heard or read in the past. I suppose anyone can "say" things. It seems odd that so many would start to block something that cannot do harm, but there are many odd things in this world...our politics being an excellent example.
Nothing personal was intended, for certain.

Dana

ps: Who knew that different developer communities would have opposing views of things like this?

If you are from IT, there is no single community, since each of us is specialized on different tools and areas. But at least I can attest for Flash because I have worked with it in the industry for years. Most people think of it as the small games and silly animations we find on the web, but I have worked with enterprise-class client/server Flash applications, with thousands of customers connected to the secure services we offered. From all the web-friendly programming languages I have worked with, ActionScript 3 was the best because it was the only true multi-platform. We don't need special code to run in this or that OS like it is with Java, JS and C# - it just works.

To make it brief, Apple only started to demonize Flash when they wanted to start their app store, in a world where Flash was dominating 75% of the interactive web contents for decades. They couldn't compete or control it, so they decided to kill it. The same happened when Google decided to start an app store, they instantly joined Apple in the Flash-bashing campaign. In other words, Apple and Google loved Flash until app stores came into the game. Like they say, if you can't beat or buy it, kill it. It's really that simple. People believed anything Steve Jobs would say - it had nothing to do with it being true or not. It's easy to forget Jobs was running a corporation that has its own interests to defend. It's was nothing personal, just business as usual.

 

[Stezza]

wow

Content Paradise is shutting down...

 

[Ken1171]

Content Paradise is closing, but I am optimistic about HW's alliance with Reallusion, which will bring a new store to us, and a whole new market for vendors like me. For those who haven't seen what iClone can do, I have posted a couple of examples at Dawn in Reallusion CC3 thread.

 

[Miss B]

Content Paradise is closing, but I am optimistic about HW's alliance with Reallusion, which will bring a new store to us, and a whole new market for vendors like me. For those who haven't seen what iClone can do, I have posted a couple of examples at Dawn in Reallusion CC3 thread.

Is Reallusion only for creating characters for gaming, or can you create characters for use in say Poser, DS, Carrara, or whatever your software of choice happens to be?

 

[Ken1171]

Is Reallusion only for creating characters for gaming, or can you create characters for use in say Poser, DS, Carrara, or whatever your software of choice happens to be?

Character Creator is to create characters to use in iClone. It just happens to be possible to create characters to use in other platforms, but only if you have purchased the more expensive licenses to allow that to happen. Until iClone 7, you would also be required to purchase 3DXChange, which is the external tool used to make the content input/output conversions. In the new release of Character Creator, it appears that Reallusion is phasing out 3DXChange completely, to bring all that functionality straight to CC3. This also means I don't know how the conversion process works anymore, because CC3 is not only absorbing 3DXChange, but it is also bringing a whole new set of tools that can do much more than what was possible before. Based on the preview demos, the tools will be very powerful.

 

[Ken1171]

That's right, and I am more enthusiastic about the Reallusion market than Content Paradise, where I have been a vendor since 2005. Reallusion has been investing heavily on iClone and CC in the last 2 versions, bringing impressive features I wish I could have in Poser/DS. To level things up a bit, they are adding I-ray to the platform as an optional plugin, so it will be possible to make renders in the same PBR quality as in Poser and DS. I-ray has become the new industry standard in PBR nowadays, and I think Reallusion made the right choice. At the same time, this makes iClone more enticing to Poser/DS users, which was never quite the case in the past, since real-time contents and rendering is not for everyone. iClone already had offline rendering with Indigo render, but I-ray will bring it to the next level.

 

[Miss B]

So then, if I'm understanding correctly, iClone is another software folks can use "instead of" Poser, DS, etc. to create characters, and then ALSO render them in iClone?

I'm not really into animation, and I don't use Unity, Unreal or any other game creation software, so just wondering what it's all about. I've heard of iClone over the years, but never really knew anyone who used it, so totally a n00b where it's concerned.

 

[Ken1171]

Originally, iClone was used mostly for creating short movies with game engine visual quality. With version 6, they introduced conforming clothing and hair, bringing it closer to how we do things in Poser/DS. In versions 6 and 7 they kept pouring state-of-the-art new features that are quite impressive for a hobbyist tool. I made a list of some of them at the top of this thread. With the arrival of CC3 in a few weeks, we will now also be able to rig and conform our own contents straight from CC, bypassing 3DXChange completely. This now makes it even closer to how we do things in Poser/DS. Version 6 has introduced real-time PBR visualization, which has raised the bar for video productions. With CC3, we will also be able to render offline with I-ray. All these features are bringing iClone closer to Poser/DS, making it an attractive alternative. Even if you don;t want to animate, you can still benefit from real-time PBR previews and these other goodies I have listed at the top of this thread. The sum of the parts are bigger than iClone.

 

[Miss B]

It'll be interesting to see how things develope, that's for sure. It certainly will be nice to have another marketplace, especially for those who use various 3D software apps, rather than just one.

 

[Ken1171]

I guess that is where Iclone 7 would come in, but from what I can tell it has already been on the market for quite a while with compatibility with existing content and hasn't made much of dent in existing Poser/DS user base(Except maybe with animators). A lot of people who do use it, tend to use it alongside Poser or DS and the associated content available from their supporting marketplaces.

I have seen an interest from the DAZ community in iClone after Reallusion has created the 1-click Genesis conversion with their free DAZ profile. They only make these things when there is a lot of demand for it. For once, I am still waiting for 3D mice support for years, but Reallusion claims there isn't enough demand, so they won't make it. Except for facial rig, this same profile also works with Dawn, so I have been using it to bring her into iClone with relative ease.

So far it has been like you said, people using iClone side-by-side with Poser/DS, but it will be interesting to see how things will progress as these new features are bringing iClone closer to Poser/DS. Would people switch to iClone? Would vendors move to Reallusion or try to support all 3 programs? I think it will depend on how easy CC3 will make it for us to convert contents. One of the things that attracts me to iClone is how fast it has been modernized these days. Things like real-time PBR visualization and native support for dynamic Substance materials are just so awesome. Those are state-of-the-art technologies on a hobbyist tool. I am a techy nerd and I love it!

The Iray support is interesting, I wonder how easy it will be to translate material setups from DS Iray through to CC3 assets.

Yeah, we are all eager to see that, and also how the CC3 tools pipeline will be. The demo videos show some impressive stuff, but I need to try it myself to form my own opinion. I am optimistic because when it comes to promises, Reallusion has always delivered - no gimmicks.

 

[Miss B]

Well, it will be good for content creators to have more options, as the field has definitely narrowed in the last few years. I just hope they don't give up on the software apps they already create for in the process.