Poser Pro 11 to Include HiveWire Figures

[Hornet3d]

That's good news, and what a coincidence - this is how people have been suggesting at the SMS forums for years!

Thew difference between just selling a piece of software and selling a piece of software into a market you understand maybe.

 

[TaishoBee]

You. guys. rock.

 

[eclark1894]

You know, Chris and Lisa, after re-reading this, I checked out the Community Bundles you're including with Poser and it left me a bit confused. Now, obviously, there is a DS version of the SE figure in the bundle, but will that also be in the bundle included with Poser or will that be a Poser-only version of the bundle? Because I can see where getting Dawn and Dusk for free might actually entice some former Poser/ now DS users to upgrade to 11.2 just to get a DS version of Dawn. And Chris, you KNOW, I'm no fan of DS, but even I might fire up the version on my machine just to take a crack at Dawn in DS.

 

[Miss B]

Hmmmm, I hadn't thought of that, but somehow I think the DS versions of the figures will not be included. I suspect that's why they pushed the upgrade to Poser 11.2 date back to the 19th, so they could get the HW Community bundles set up properly for inclusion with the update.

 

[sray10]

This is great news, since I have been a Poser user since version 3.

 

[Ken1171]

I imagine Poser would not ship with contents for DS, so it would make sense to include only the Poser version. That brings me to another question - would Rendo keep selling DS contents now that they own Poser? I suppose contents are spread more or less evenly between Poser and DS at Rendo, though some people think it's more for DS. The question is - DS contents are now a competitor to the software they sell. In the same way, HW has recently decided not to sell contents made for the competing figures, and DAZ doesn't allow contents made for HW figures to be sold there.

Having that said, would Rendo keep selling contents made for the competing software? Now, for the first time, they would have reasons not to, but they are also a content store, so the more contents, the more profitable. My guess is that they will keep selling DS contents - at least for now. There might be a chance they might have to decide later, like HW did here.

 

[Hornet3d]

I imagine Poser would not ship with contents for DS, so it would make sense to include only the Poser version. That brings me to another question - would Rendo keep selling DS contents now that they own Poser? I suppose contents are spread more or less evenly between Poser and DS at Rendo, though some people think it's more for DS. The question is - DS contents are now a competitor to the software they sell. In the same way, HW has recently decided not to sell contents made for the competing figures, and DAZ doesn't allow contents made for HW figures to be sold there.

Having that said, would Rendo keep selling contents made for the competing software? Now, for the first time, they would have reasons not to, but they are also a content store, so the more contents, the more profitable. My guess is that they will keep selling DS contents - at least for now. There might be a chance they might have to decide later, like HW did here.

The same thought went through my mind when I saw Rendo had purchased Poser and it is difficult to predict. Daz3D is a content store and sells for both for DS and Poser but then they give DS away. On the other hand they do not sell any content for Dawn and Dusk and the rest of the family because of the competition aspect. My guess is the same as yours in that they will not stop selling DS content any time soon as it is too much of a revenue stream but if they do breath new life into Poser then who can tell what will happen in the longer term. The decisions they have made so far like scrapping the Pro version and adding Hivewire figures suggest that Poser may well be far more successful than it was with SM. Personally I hope they continue to provide DS content as it would be a major loss to DS users and having experience something similar in Poser I would not wish that on them. At the end of the day it is a marketing decision for Rendo.

 

[Miss B]

I seriously don't think they'll stop selling DS content, as a good many very popular long time vendors at Renderosity sell products for both software apps. Unless they've already switched DS from Poser, which a number of vendors there have, I don't see them letting Renderosity pull all their DS products out of the store. That affects their profit margin, as well as Renderosity's profit margin. I really don't see that happening. Besides where would they go? Unless they already have a store at DAZ, which some do, they'll have no where to sell their products that have been in the Renderosity Marketplace for a long time.

HiveWire may have decided only to sell products for the HiveWire figures, but Renderosity only has La Femme in that position, and even though the male figure, L'Homme, is in the works, that's not enough products for Renderosity to do the same with the products they sell.

 

[Hornet3d]

I seriously don't think they'll stop selling DS content, as a good many very popular long time vendors at Renderosity sell products for both software apps. Unless they've already switched DS from Poser, which a number of vendors there have, I don't see them letting Renderosity pull all their DS products out of the store. That affects their profit margin, as well as Renderosity's profit margin. I really don't see that happening. Besides where would they go? Unless they already have a store at DAZ, which some do, they'll have no where to sell their products that have been in the Renderosity Marketplace for a long time.

HiveWire may have decided only to sell products for the HiveWire figures, but Renderosity only has La Femme in that position, and even though the male figure, L'Homme, is in the works, that's not enough products for Renderosity to do the same with the products they sell.

That makes a lot of sense and is what I hope will happen. When stores like RDNA disappear both DS and Poser users suffer and with the marketplaces we have lost in the last few years, as you say, where would the vendors ago. Despite the split that took place Poser and DS users have more in common with each other than we have differences. I hope something different will happen in that the DS vendors will stay and if Poser becomes more popular, which I certainly hope it does, the vendors that left Poser might see a way to support both once again.

 

[Janet]

I imagine Poser would not ship with contents for DS, so it would make sense to include only the Poser version. That brings me to another question - would Rendo keep selling DS contents now that they own Poser? I suppose contents are spread more or less evenly between Poser and DS at Rendo, though some people think it's more for DS. The question is - DS contents are now a competitor to the software they sell. In the same way, HW has recently decided not to sell contents made for the competing figures, and DAZ doesn't allow contents made for HW figures to be sold there.

Having that said, would Rendo keep selling contents made for the competing software? Now, for the first time, they would have reasons not to, but they are also a content store, so the more contents, the more profitable. My guess is that they will keep selling DS contents - at least for now. There might be a chance they might have to decide later, like HW did here.

Can't imagine they would but if they do? Wouldn't that be a shot in the arm for Poser! Level the playing field in one fell swoop! Still it would make the division even greater.

Another thing where would the non Daz vendors go? Would need another big store for them.

 

[Alisa]

In the same way, HW has recently decided not to sell contents made for the competing figures <snip>

.

HiveWire may have decided only to sell products for the HiveWire figures, <snip>

Just to clairfy - products need to be PRIMARILY for our figures rather than other figures. If there is a fit for a current DAZ or Poser figure INCLUDED in the product, that is not a problem.

 

[Willowisp]

Renderosity has explicitly stated that they will not stop selling DS content. Considering the vast amount of their income is from DS products, that would be suicide..

 

[Ken1171]

Renderosity has explicitly stated that they will not stop selling DS content. Considering the vast amount of their income is from DS products, that would be suicide..

Yes, that's what I meant when I said that Rendo is a content store, and the more contents, the more profitable. This is a contrast with SMS, who never made content, and wouldn't understand how important it was to Poser. I think it would hurt Rendo if they dropped DS contents. However, DAZ has dropped Poser support when that was representing over half of their customers. I remember commenting how that might have hurt DAZ financially back in the day, but they still did it anyway. Unexpected things like that do happen, so it wouldn't be a complete surprise if it would happen again. Rendo never had a reason to pick sides, but now they do. I am not saying that they will pick a side, but instead that things are different now that they own the Poser IP. In the same way, DAZ never had a reason to antagonize Rendo, but now they do. One way or another, they have become competitors. SMS used to publicly claim that DAZ was not their competitor, and look how it ended - not so well for Poser. Looking back on Rendo's history with Poser, I don't think they would repeat this kind of mistake.

Having that said, I believe Rendo will try to position Poser "properly" in this market, giving the proper importance to content, and dealing with the competition instead of ignoring it. The quotes on "properly" mean different from what SMS was doing until now, which ended up derailing Poser and Content Paradise and leading to their demise. Based on Rendo's decisions towards Poser until now, everything is indicating that they know what to do to put Poser back in the path where it belongs.

For all of you who have followed the SMS forums, what people were asking for years, and what SMS was doing kept diverging quite a lot. They just wouldn't listen, or perhaps they didn't understand what we wanted because they were software retailers. Some of the biggest requests were just what Rendo has already done just in this short while:

- Drop the 3GB of bundled obsolete models that nobody wants or uses,
- Quit making forgettable figures, and leave that for those who know how to do it.
- Drop the "professional" label and let us hobbyists use it for what it is.

Things I would love if Rendo could do differently from SMS would be:

- Quit adding new features and instead FIX the broken things that need to be fixed since Poser 3. Perhaps because SMS was a software retailer, shiny new features were more important to them than fixing the many old bugs that persisted from one version to the next.
- Quit forcing fixed date yearly releases. That was forcing SMS to released buggy, unfinished versions. When Poser 11 was released, the rigging on Pauline was still unfinished, and Paul didn't even have a rigging. At release date, Poser 11 was almost unusable, and needed SR-1, 2, 3 and 4 to become stable enough to do anything. The new HTML5 library still doesn't work properly to this date.

On this last one, Rendo has announced that they plan to keep releasing small, but frequent updates. That sounds great to me.

 

[eclark1894]

Yes, that's what I meant when I said that Rendo is a content store, and the more contents, the more profitable. This is a contrast with SMS, who never made content, and wouldn't understand how important it was to Poser. I think it would hurt Rendo if they dropped DS contents. However, DAZ has dropped Poser support when that was representing over half of their customers. I remember commenting how that might have hurt DAZ financially back in the day, but they still did it anyway. Unexpected things like that do happen, so it wouldn't be a complete surprise if it would happen again. Rendo never had a reason to pick sides, but now they do. I am not saying that they will pick a side, but instead that things are different now that they own the Poser IP. In the same way, DAZ never had a reason to antagonize Rendo, but now they do. One way or another, they have become competitors. SMS used to publicly claim that DAZ was not their competitor, and look how it ended - not so well for Poser. Looking back on Rendo's history with Poser, I don't think they would repeat this kind of mistake.

For all of you who have followed the SMS forums, what people were asking for years, and what SMS was doing kept diverging quite a lot. They just wouldn't listen, or perhaps they didn't understand what we wanted because they were software retailers. Some of the biggest requests were just what Rendo has already done just in this short while:

I can't lay Poser's current state solely at the feet of DAZ. Poser never saw DAZ as competition even though they had warnings, and honestly once Chris and Dan were gone, the writing should have been on the wall. No, I have to lay a lot of this at the feet of Poser/SM, whose short-sightedness and unwillingness to see what was clearly going on AND to do what it took to counteract it has led to where Poser is now.

 

[Miss B]

Just to clairfy - products need to be PRIMARILY for our figures rather than other figures. If there is a fit for a current DAZ or Poser figure INCLUDED in the product, that is not a problem.

Yes, I should've been more specific in my comments, as I've beta tested for a CA who does create for both.

 

[sapat]

Renderosity has explicitly stated that they will not stop selling DS content. Considering the vast amount of their income is from DS products, that would be suicide..

I don't visit forums here except once or twice, but I do feel I'm a minority in the camp because I'm DS only, stopped using Poser years ago, and don't support it. I'm not a vendor, so I don't have to choose. So if a product (character or clothing) is Posercentric for certain select figures, but there's also a fit for a current Daz figure (like G8 only, or maybe G3) then I'll take a pass. I won't buy a Poser product to get an included fit for a DS figure then have to delete all the Poser stuff. Also, I can see rendo/SM maybe pushing their custom created Poser only figure (don't know her name) that's been out for a while now. They have lots of content for her, and probably more coming.
Agreed. Rendo will never give up selling DS only content. Vendors that are DS only likely aren't going to split their time between selling DS products they know their customers want, and learning poser for the other camp.
I don't know. Seems it would be retail suicide to focus on Poser as their big plan. And as Willowisp stated, they're def not going to stop the flow of DS only since a big chunk of company income relies on it.
When I open the rendo store page, I go straight to the dropdown that says 'Marketplace New DS Content'. Don't think it's going away.
This is my opinion only now. I remember when we all started out with Poser. I just didn't stay.

 

[Hornet3d]

I don't visit forums here except once or twice, but I do feel I'm a minority in the camp because I'm DS only, stopped using Poser years ago, and don't support it. I'm not a vendor, so I don't have to choose. So if a product (character or clothing) is Posercentric for certain select figures, but there's also a fit for a current Daz figure (like G8 only, or maybe G3) then I'll take a pass. I won't buy a Poser product to get an included fit for a DS figure then have to delete all the Poser stuff. Also, I can see rendo/SM maybe pushing their custom created Poser only figure (don't know her name) that's been out for a while now. They have lots of content for her, and probably more coming.
Agreed. Rendo will never give up selling DS only content. Vendors that are DS only likely aren't going to split their time between selling DS products they know their customers want, and learning poser for the other camp.
I don't know. Seems it would be retail suicide to focus on Poser as their big plan. And as Willowisp stated, they're def not going to stop the flow of DS only since a big chunk of company income relies on it.
When I open the rendo store page, I go straight to the dropdown that says 'Marketplace New DS Content'. Don't think it's going away.
This is my opinion only now. I remember when we all started out with Poser. I just didn't stay.

I am not sure you are in the minority as there seems to be a lot of DS only users, admitted there are also a lot of Poser only users and then a group of talented people who use both. I understand your decision to shy away from content that is Posercentric, it is a decision all of us single software users have to face. For example I will buy content from Daz that is in dual format even if I do have to delete some Daz files, that said I will not buy anything that needs DSON to get it working in Poser, just a personal choice.

I also agree that DS vendors are unlikely to learn Poser just to add a Poser variant to their content. Some vendors however do not need to learn Poser as they can already use it they have just made a commercial decision not to support it. If Poser does grow in popularity then some of them at least might look to support Poser once more. If they don't I can live with that but we can all dream.

Of course the other way to support both is to make a Poser version and a DS version and yet another way is to do a dual version and then sell an add on for iRay support but I suspect many DS users do not like this as they appear to be paying more than Poser users. It is a complicated world out there the best I think we can do is support out corner where possible without upsetting some who choose to use different software to achieve a similar result.

 

[Satira Capriccio]

I tend to skip through discussions about La Femme because I don't want to spend money for content for a figure I'd rarely use. Consequently, while there may have been mention whether Renderosity plans to include La Femme in Poser ... I have no idea. I rather expect La Femme to be included.

With the popularity of La Femme, I find it hard to find new Dawn content, hair especially, at Renderosity that isn't for La Femme. So, I hear you on deleting stuff you don't, can't, or won't use. I still find DS stuff in my runtimes because DAZ included DS files for years in pretty much everything they sold that could be used in Poser. For people who use both Poser and DS, including content for both applications is great. For those of us who don't use both, it's even better when separate zip files are provided for Poser and DS. That way I can chose to not download the zip files with the content I don't use. Keeps the clutter down on my hard drive, external drive, and backups.


In case it's been missed , I am thrilled to bits Dawn, Dusk, and Dawn will be included in Poser

 

[Ken1171]

I can't lay Poser's current state solely at the feet of DAZ.

Neither can I, and I am sorry if I wrote it in a way that could lead to that conclusion. I agree 100% with what you said - it was SMS short sighted vision for the future of Poser that led to the current state. Poser has a very peculiar market with a culture and a history behind it, and SMS decided to ignore it, treating it as an isolated, generic software living in the vacuum.

Of course the other way to support both is to make a Poser version and a DS version and yet another way is to do a dual version and then sell an add on for iRay support but I suspect many DS users do not like this as they appear to be paying more than Poser users.

This is how I have been doing since I have joined HW - creating 2 native versions in their respective formats. As opposed to what people may think, there is no "conversion" for commercial products. We have to create the product twice, but we cannot charge accordingly to the amount of hours we have put into it. This means we, the vendors who are willing to walk the extra mile, are not compensated for the extra work on sales. One of the versions is practically given away for free. As Poser and DS become increasingly more incompatible over time, I can't tell how many will be willing to keep doing this in the foreseeable future.

In addition, people started to blame Poser for DAZ3D's decision to depart from the Poser market, as if it were SmithMicro's fault for DS becoming incompatible with Poser. Even more bizarre was when people expected Poser to natively support the Genesis platform, which would mean rewriting Poser from scratch to literally become DAZ Studio. Even DS 2 and 3 cannot handle Genesis, but people seriously expected Poser to do it, and by the looks of it, some still do.

Perhaps SMS could had avoided all this by strategically positioning Poser in the market on its own merit, but based on the fact that they had zero communication with the Poser community, there is also a chance they didn't even know what was going on. It's NOT hard to make Poser shine on its own merit, but SMS just kept silent. They were really bad with advertisement. Just look at how DAZ made a big fuss about dynamic cloth, when Poser already had that for years, but fell flat on advertisement. It is now on Rendo's hands to deal with all that, and I believe Poser is now in more capable hands to show its true potential.

With the popularity of La Femme, I find it hard to find new Dawn content, hair especially, at Renderosity that isn't for La Femme.

Let's remember that Rendo has been actively advertising LaFemme as their official figure all over the site, which would obviously overshadow Dawn, and also attract more vendors to support LF. Maybe this could change a bit now that Rendo owns Poser and the HW figures will ship with it. But one thing is HW figures being bundled with Poser, and another is which figures they will be actively advertising at Rendo. I have just opened their front page a minute ago, and it was massively Genesis everywhere. If Rendo wants to push Poser sales, I see a potential conflict of interest there.

 

[Alisa]

So if a product (character or clothing) is Posercentric for certain select figures, but there's also a fit for a current Daz figure (like G8 only, or maybe G3) then I'll take a pass. I won't buy a Poser product to get an included fit for a DS figure then have to delete all the Poser stuff

I don't think vendors at any store are likely to create a product that is for a Poser-only figure (say Pauline 2) with a fit for a DAZ Studio-only figure (like Genesis 8 Female). That wouldn't make sense. They'd do 2 separate products if that was their intent.