Glitterati3D
Dances with Bees
I think it's a hornet's nest that we really don't need to poke.
You know, we're all talking doom and gloom, but it could be the best thing that happens to Poser and we see a whole new life to the product.
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Did I miss a memo or something?
- Thread starter eclark1894
- Start date
I think it's a hornet's nest that we really don't need to poke.
You know, we're all talking doom and gloom, but it could be the best thing that happens to Poser and we see a whole new life to the product.
eclark1894
Visionary
You should learn Blender anyway, then. Many people make game assets for Unreal using Blender.
Willowisp
Adventurous
Yea, looks that way, Unreal can only read triangles, so all meshes must be converted before exported as FBX (or let the FBX convert it for you which can be hit or miss)
Looks like it will be more work than I first thought, but hey, I've worked with poser for so long, I've learned to be patient
Agreed. Poser is just a tool, among thousands of tools out there, but it is a GOOD tool that can act as a starting point for many different workflows.
Interesting... most of you may not like MY opinion...but I really feel SM shot themselves in the foot with poser 11- creating a whole NEW poser, when 2014 is SO GOOD, it renders gorgeously, and FAST, while P11 takes so LONG to get a really high quality render.... let alone the incredibly dumb all NEW material room that is NOT user friendly to long time poser users.... and lastly- THUS creating twice the work for merchants/creators to provide 'version compatibly'!!! I am so totally happy with my PP2014, how it does not 'hog my computer time'.... runs in 64 bit mode, and it's so TOTALLY backward compatible... I had so many wishes for an updated poser, but all those 'sensible' needs for users were totally ignored...
Thanks for letting me express my OWN OPINION here... I LOVE poser, and have used it ever since it came to Windows! My brain simply will not function in a way to understand DS... (I WAS going to TRY it again, but after reading a few posts, talking to one close friend on how it works, well.... just to get at LAMH, it's not worth the headache of trying to force my neurons to follow difficult paths) - SO I'm VERY thankful for the merchants HERE that continue to give me products FOR poser 10 and 2014 (really the same animal)!
Thanks for letting me express my OWN OPINION here... I LOVE poser, and have used it ever since it came to Windows! My brain simply will not function in a way to understand DS... (I WAS going to TRY it again, but after reading a few posts, talking to one close friend on how it works, well.... just to get at LAMH, it's not worth the headache of trying to force my neurons to follow difficult paths) - SO I'm VERY thankful for the merchants HERE that continue to give me products FOR poser 10 and 2014 (really the same animal)!
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Glitterati3D
Dances with Bees
Lyne, I do respect your opinion, but I have to disagree about P11. First, my Superfly renders take no more time than a PP14 render with SSS and good lighting.
Sure, there was a LOT of kludging at first to learn the new material room, but I can do Superfly materials faster and with less nodes than previous material setups. Frankly, I find the P11 material room EASIER to use that all that fudging to get something that looked realistic.
Just my opinion. I love P11 and never use PP14 or PP12 anymore unless testing to make sure something works in those versions.
Sure, there was a LOT of kludging at first to learn the new material room, but I can do Superfly materials faster and with less nodes than previous material setups. Frankly, I find the P11 material room EASIER to use that all that fudging to get something that looked realistic.
Just my opinion. I love P11 and never use PP14 or PP12 anymore unless testing to make sure something works in those versions.
Hornet3d
Wise
I understand your opinion, but even if I did not I don't see anything to get upset about. I am happy with Poser 2014, which is why I did not upgrade but I did understand that others wanted a better render engine and as DS had gone that way it it was not surprising that SM went down that route. There was of course Pauline (and Paul), and again there was a wish expressed by many to have yet another figure, for me I had Dawn so again, no need for me to upgrade. So there was little in Poser 11 for me but I am still glad it was made and I would like to see it continue. It is human nature I think, to some degree, to look on the black side but this could turn out to be good news for Poser but that is in the future. I feel sorry for those that lost their jobs but otherwise I can't get too excited over this for two main reasons, firstly nothing I will do will change Poser's future. Secondly, as I cannot predict the future, when Poser's fate is known I could be in a very different place than where I am now.
Hornet3d
Wise
Horses for courses, Poser 11 gave users the choice to buy or upgrade to the latest and greatest and others, like me, to stay at 2014 or whatever version they were using. Nothing wrong with choice and I hope it continues for a while yet.
Hornet3d
Wise
Like it........I am a very placid hornet and it takes a lot to stir me
. Seriously though we all have our own opinion but no one really knows what is happening or if they do they can't say. I am sure we will all have plenty to say as time goes on and more is known.
Glitterati3D
Dances with Bees
Well Willow, you happen to be in luck because, even though I've been using Blender for years, I decided to take a course to learn how to do some things better/easier, and learn some new things I've never tried in Blender.
As it turns out, someone turned me on to Udemy, which has thousands of courses, and Blender, Unity and Unreal classes are very closely connected. Most of the courses are expensive full priced, but they're always running sales, and of the 5 (or 6) classes I signed up for, the most expensive was only $15, and it's life-time access, so you can take your sweet time completing any of the courses. If you're interested, PM me, and I'll give you some links to look at.
I respect your opinion as well Lyne. I still have Poser 9 installed, and sometimes use it. The only reason I've been rendering in PP11 more often lately, is I'm trying to learn how to use the SuperFly render engine, mostly because it's based on Blender's Cycles render engine, which I have used.
As far as PP11 being "new" as opposed to PP2014, every new version has something new. PP11 just happens to have a second render engine, just as they did years ago when they had the very old P4 render engine, as well as the then new FireFly render engine. Would you have preferred it if they had deleted the old render engine so you "had" to use the new render engine? I certainly wouldn't have. FireFly is still there, and is still good.
The Material Room to me is easier than my older P9 Material Room, but both are a huge improvement to the old P5 Material Room. For that matter, the reason I switched from P5 to DS 2 was because I really, really hated that old UI, and the fact we absolutely HAD to put everything where Poser wanted it. The newer versions are much more lenient, and I can manually install items where I want them, not where Poser insists we put them.
Why they decided to change the naming convention they've been using for years with respect to the Pro versions, my guess would be as good as yours, but I don't see that many major changes, other than offering us a second render engine. Everything else I've found are little things to make using the software easier, which is usually what most software upgrades are for. Why SM didn't include other things we'd like to see, I don't know, and some things aren't as easily implemented as others. I really hope this isn't the last version of Poser, but only time will tell. Usually it's every other year, but maybe we'll have to wait until next year, instead of seeing it the end of this year. I'll wait patiently, but only time will tell for sure.
As far as PP11 being "new" as opposed to PP2014, every new version has something new. PP11 just happens to have a second render engine, just as they did years ago when they had the very old P4 render engine, as well as the then new FireFly render engine. Would you have preferred it if they had deleted the old render engine so you "had" to use the new render engine? I certainly wouldn't have. FireFly is still there, and is still good.
The Material Room to me is easier than my older P9 Material Room, but both are a huge improvement to the old P5 Material Room. For that matter, the reason I switched from P5 to DS 2 was because I really, really hated that old UI, and the fact we absolutely HAD to put everything where Poser wanted it. The newer versions are much more lenient, and I can manually install items where I want them, not where Poser insists we put them.
Why they decided to change the naming convention they've been using for years with respect to the Pro versions, my guess would be as good as yours, but I don't see that many major changes, other than offering us a second render engine. Everything else I've found are little things to make using the software easier, which is usually what most software upgrades are for. Why SM didn't include other things we'd like to see, I don't know, and some things aren't as easily implemented as others. I really hope this isn't the last version of Poser, but only time will tell. Usually it's every other year, but maybe we'll have to wait until next year, instead of seeing it the end of this year. I'll wait patiently, but only time will tell for sure.
Actually Willow, I'm the same way, but these aren't long tutorials, each project might have 5 or 6, or even more. I think the longest ones were in the first section, where you are familiarized with the UI, and I think the longest was about 30 minutes. The instructor's English, but his accent is not a problem, and he stops and lets you try your hand at things, and then continues the lesson by showing you how he would do it, so the pace is not very strident.
I have tons of tutorials listed in our Blender forum, though I don't recall if any of them discuss the UI, and how to find/use certain tools. A lot of them are specific to doing a specific project. There are also links to good Blender forums, so take a look and see if you find something helpful.
Yeah, I heard something about this around end of January through the vine. Not sure what is up, but I do know there were quite a few replacements and restructures through out so........... partly to do with marketing and sales.
Hmmmm.... I may still have the Email.
According to my Email the last rep that was in marketing quit suddenly and then the marketing manager left with her, and it seems nobody out of the department knows how to do things that they had taken over from the last rep...needless to say they have been through at least 6 reps in as many years.
That's all I've got on that info and that was from end of January so I guess they have done further realignments and restructures.
I'm not one to give into gossip and speculation, but........ knowing from experience that much of a turn over in a short amount of time is never a good thing, and I'd give my canine teeth if they can get my P11 executable operational in Win 10!
LOL been going back and forth with the tech support from SM for over a month now about it. They need a .dmp file ok so did that and then they need this yadda, yadda, yadda !
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eclark1894
Visionary
One thing to remember that even I know is that Poser's DEV team is really small. Still, that said, I think I understand why they prefer to implement new features over improving old ones. It' s much easier to hype a new feature over an old one even if it's been improved.
AllenArt
Eager
Don't discount CG Cookie. I've gotten courses from Udemy and Lynda.com and of the three, CG Cookie Blender and Unity tutorials are the most up to date and the most thorough. It's tutors are also exceptionally knowledgeable about the software which doesn't always seem to be the case for "some" of the tutorials I've purchased from Udemy and some of the Blender tutorials I've watched on Lynda.com. Well worth the 21 dollar a month subscription.
I use DS almost exclusively these days, but this news has me very upset. I'm hoping along with the rest of you that Poser will perhaps be sold to someone who has the resources and passion to really make it what we know it can be. Smith Micro - the company - no longer has the wherewithal to give Poser the care and attention it deserves. I hope they do the right thing and pass it on to another company that sees a vision for it.
Laurie
I use DS almost exclusively these days, but this news has me very upset. I'm hoping along with the rest of you that Poser will perhaps be sold to someone who has the resources and passion to really make it what we know it can be. Smith Micro - the company - no longer has the wherewithal to give Poser the care and attention it deserves. I hope they do the right thing and pass it on to another company that sees a vision for it.
Laurie
eclark1894
Visionary
We're just speculating, Laurie. I did do a little googling and found out that according to SM it was more of a move to restructure and become "leaner". I don't know what that means, but I'm not assuming the worst just yet.Don't discount CG Cookie. I've gotten courses from Udemy and Lynda.com and of the three, CG Cookie Blender and Unity tutorials are the most up to date and the most thorough. It's tutors are also exceptionally knowledgeable about the software which doesn't always seem to be the case for "some" of the tutorials I've purchased from Udemy and some of the Blender tutorials I've watched on Lynda.com. Well worth the 21 dollar a month subscription.
I use DS almost exclusively these days, but this news has me very upset. I'm hoping along with the rest of you that Poser will perhaps be sold to someone who has the resources and passion to really make it what we know it can be. Smith Micro - the company - no longer has the wherewithal to give Poser the care and attention it deserves. I hope they do the right thing and pass it on to another company that sees a vision for it.
Laurie
As someone who worked for a corporate attorney for over 20 years, that sounds to me like a "company restructure". Don't forget, Poser is NOT the only software package SM owns, so just because the company is tightening up their corporate structure, which hit part of the Poser team, doesn't mean any of the software packages are going to be dumped.
I just got Carrara when it was on sale. I'm hoping to figure out how to do 3D painting with it, among other things, but my brain isn't cooperating yet. Nice to know who to come to for help!I'll just keep rendering on with Carrara... it's only been about 4 years and counting since the last update for it