Poser on borrowed time?

[RAMWolff]

I'll confess that I've been seriously considering adding DS compatibility to Maisie, but I have rarely touched DS in the last 8 years and have no idea where to start. It would mean redoing the weight maps all over again, and then trying to figure out how to add all the other DS only features, as well as learning the material setups. I open DS and feel overwhelmed LOL.

And that may be part of the reason why DS content creators aren't doing Poser conversions. Many have rarely or ever touched Poser. So the hesitation goes both ways, I'm afraid.

I teamed up with Paul to get the Training Gear for Dawn into Poser. There was an issue with one of the clothing items and had to redo it and managed to get it into Poser myself, also had to redo all the shaders and other material settings for Poser myself as the simple conversion didn't look that good to me so I learned allot in Poser but yea, making settings for FOUR rendering engines and being picky as I am.... I'm slow enough as it is with all this but I'd NEVER have a release if I kept at it and I wouldn't have much of a life either since I still work doing hair for a living. LOL SO I had to back off and just support DAZ Studio from here on out. With my developing Training Gear for Dusk on the side I'm torn if I can manage to get it all over to Poser, prolly not but it's a thought. So converting your cute figures over to DS would be great but if you don't I CERTAINLY understand! lol HUGS

 

[RAMWolff]

I was thinking the same thing. I don't think it would be advantageous to either side of that. The person doing the conversion would also have to have the model that is being converted ... and the fact that he or she couldn't sell it would mean that the work would be a "one-off" project. That will be costly.

I think that's why it's sometimes advantageous for someone from either side to team up. If say I were to create all the maps and made all the shaders and material settings for DAZ Studio for both 3DL and iRAY and then someone from the Poser side too my renders and used those as a template to match things as closely as possible to Poser's Fire and Superfly engines and do all the shaders to match mine the sales MIGHT be good enough to do perhaps a 60-40 split in sales since I created all the maps. Then when another project came up and that person did all the main leg work and I converted it to DAZ Studio then it would be 40-60 split, me getting a less of the sales bring in. There are just some things that folks are better at and I'm an expert (mostly, lol) in DAZ Studio, while they are an expert in Poser but want the same thing for the figure being developed for (Dusk, Dawn, Diva or little Luna) or Props or Hair or..............

 

[Satira Capriccio]

After more than four years of little to no new Poser content, I am not surprised DAZ vendors find it not profitable to make Poser content.

Oh my gosh RAM! I'm right up there with you on being picky ... and slow because of that pickiness. I'm dragging my feet on including Superfly support because I can't yet get the same results out of Superfly material setups that I do with Firefly. Doesn't help that I have a couple nodes reversed in my Firefly setup which causes issues with Superfly. I also have a node in there that Superfly absolutely hates. I just can't get around producing the same results without that node either.

I do want to support DS ... and I want to support Superfly. Then too, I'm still in the early stages of things like rigging and all that.

Collaboration could well be the way to go. But I'm not yet at the point where I'd feel comfortable doing so.

 

[RAMWolff]

Well collaboration needs to be two folks that want the same thing for what ever they are doing. Whether it be clothing, hair, skins, props... what ever. That's the tricky part. Or you collaborate on something one party wants and then that party needs to collaborate on what the other party wants the next time around. Can be tricky I'm sure but there have been some great team-ups in the past. Too bad that Hivewire didn't have an in-house person or persons that were paid a salary that would take items and convert them to the other platform. Might be something that could be looked into at a future date and if Hivewire has the spare income to bring another person in. That way Hivewire would truly be the one stop shopping place for both platforms. I guess if folks wanted their products converted over to the other platform their would be a percentage that would go to Hivewire, to help pay that salary. Paul just took 10% off my sales, which isn't bad at all. Poor guy probably made pennies on the dollar as I didn't sell much of that set.... good set too. Oh well... lol

 

[Ken Gilliland]

Agreed hon. I don't think many folks realize just how much more work it takes to convert or to even support both platforms. I still think it's a shame that DAZ hasn't learned it's lesson or SM about working TOGETHER to make sure ALL content performs well ... more sales for everyone and an INCENTIVE to published artists to do that extra work but NOPE, both sides have their reasons for moving in opposite directions with the onset of weight mapped figures, clothing and accessories. It's a shame but it is what it is.

One of the reasons SM hasn't moved toward DS support is the nature of their business. DAZ Studio is a free app that is in direct competition with Poser. SM sells software. DAZ sells content. Why would someone whose business comes almost entirely from selling software want to support a free competing program? The only reason I can think of for Poser to support DS formats is lack of Poser content (which may eventually happen).

The reason DS supports some Poser content is because Studio was created originally to run Poser formats. There was fear that Poser was "on borrowed time" when Curious Labs was going under, so DAZ created an application to run their content and ensure the livelihood of their business model.

As far as creating for both programs, I find my marketplace to be about 50/50, so creating for both makes financial sense... but yes, it doubles the work.

 

[Glitterati3D]

Well collaboration needs to be two folks that want the same thing for what ever they are doing. Whether it be clothing, hair, skins, props... what ever. That's the tricky part. Or you collaborate on something one party wants and then that party needs to collaborate on what the other party wants the next time around. Can be tricky I'm sure but there have been some great team-ups in the past. Too bad that Hivewire didn't have an in-house person or persons that were paid a salary that would take items and convert them to the other platform. Might be something that could be looked into at a future date and if Hivewire has the spare income to bring another person in. That way Hivewire would truly be the one stop shopping place for both platforms. I guess if folks wanted their products converted over to the other platform their would be a percentage that would go to Hivewire, to help pay that salary. Paul just took 10% off my sales, which isn't bad at all. Poor guy probably made pennies on the dollar as I didn't sell much of that set.... good set too. Oh well... lol

I go the opposite direction- a collaborator doing a DS conversion gets all the DS sales of the product. I get the Poser sales.

I just have a moral objection to profiting from the work of others. If I had ANYthing to contribute to the work to convert, I wouldn't have a problem splitting conversions. But, when I can't even offer so much as a promo render, I'm not comfortable taking a piece of the sales.

It's just my personal feelings is all.

 

[Deecey]

I teamed up with Paul to get the Training Gear for Dawn into Poser. There was an issue with one of the clothing items and had to redo it and managed to get it into Poser myself, also had to redo all the shaders and other material settings for Poser myself as the simple conversion didn't look that good to me so I learned allot in Poser but yea, making settings for FOUR rendering engines and being picky as I am.... I'm slow enough as it is with all this but I'd NEVER have a release if I kept at it and I wouldn't have much of a life either since I still work doing hair for a living. LOL SO I had to back off and just support DAZ Studio from here on out. With my developing Training Gear for Dusk on the side I'm torn if I can manage to get it all over to Poser, prolly not but it's a thought. So converting your cute figures over to DS would be great but if you don't I CERTAINLY understand! lol HUGS

It's a tough decision. On one hand I'd hope it would open her up to more people. Even if I knew how to rig in DS I could foresee it taking at least a month to work out all the conversion kinks; but not knowing DS it would take even longer to get up to speed enough to know what I'm doing. As someone else said, DS already has a plethora of toon figures, so I'm not sure if it would be worth investing all that time. It would be a huge gamble, and the time might be better spent making more Poser addons for her, especially when right now content creation is being used to supplement my retirement income which is a LOT less than what I was making when employed.

(sigh)

 

[Lissa_xyz]

@Deecey If you want her in DS, there's always the option of creating her as a morph for G8 with an autofit clone and separate uv set? That way you won't have to worry about completely rerigging her and such.

 

[Deecey]

Hmmm .....

 

[Lissa_xyz]

You could also do it for Dawn

 

[Deecey]

The hard part in doing it for Dawn would be that Maisie has all the face control chips which are a huge part of what makes her so expressive. G3/8 also has face control chips so that conversion makes sense. I have to give this some more thought.

 

[Jayne Wilson]

I've spent enough at DAZ in the past month to keep them afloat, I think

 

[RobZhena]

Which all gets back to do it yourself after learning a few relatively uncomplicated procedures, and you can have it all (almost) in Poser.

 

[eclark1894]

DAZ always has the option to stop giving Studio away and start selling it again if they run into a significant money crunch.

 

[Lissa_xyz]

Doubt they'll be running into money crunches any time soon.

 

[Janet]

My biggest complaint with Poser so far: I got those dreaded Poser won't open error messages a few times recently. Tried to find an answer online but no luck. So I reinstalled Windows and it worked. Had to do that again today. When I went to reinstall Poser it said that the grace period of my downloaded product was expired! Do I want to buy again? I emailed Smith Mirco and also ordered a physical copy of it. Will be here in 5 to 7 days.

 

[eclark1894]

My biggest complaint with Poser so far: I got those dreaded Poser won't open error messages a few times recently. Tried to find an answer online but no luck. So I reinstalled Windows and it worked. Had to do that again today. When I went to reinstall Poser it said that the grace period of my downloaded product was expired! Do I want to buy again? I emailed Smith Mirco and also ordered a physical copy of it. Will be here in 5 to 7 days.

A grace period on Poser? Since when? You sure it wasn't Poser Debut?

 

[Janet]

Poser 11

 

[Glitterati3D]

Poser 11

You have a grace period to REGISTER Poser 11. You do not have to purchase it twice......just register it properly. It should have prompted you to register when you installed it.

Smith Micro Product Registration

 

[Janet]

I put in the serial number and get a box saying "Maximum number of activations for this license has been exceeded." Below it are buttons that say Quit Buy now or Enter serial number.