Poser sold to Rendo

[Ken1171]

Ahh OK. My first Poser version was 5, but I didn't use it too long because it kept freezing up on me, but I think it was the Win98SE desktop I had back then, and not P5 itself. Curious Labs did own it back then. I never thought of getting a Pro version back then, so wasn't aware there was one.

My first version was the original 1.0, but that was more a prototype than usable. I actually got it for free from a magazine cover CD-ROM, which was also announcing a brand new 3D rendering program called e-on Vue, which today has become much bigger than Poser. I have never seen version 2, so I suppose Poser 3 was my first version.

I think Poser 3 and 5 were the versions I have used the most until eFrontier came up with the awesome version 7. Versions 4 and 6 were ultimately unusable crashy messes. I've got 6 for free when I pre-ordered 7, and I just couldn't do anything before it crashed. It was a similar thing with 4. From all these versions, I think 3 and 7 were the most stable, and the ones I have used the most. Nowadays I wouldn't change PP11 for anything.

 

[skylab]

Ken1171, thanks so much for your comments in post 340. It serves to clarify issues, from technical differences, to current features, and pricing. I have always felt that Poser and Studio were both hobbyists tools, and have been very thankful for them. But at no time over the past decade did I ever think that either program was up to movie industry standards. And, we need to remember that, if either software ever were to meet that demanding standard, we'd have to be prepared to pay the enormous price for it. My observation has been, there are very few Poser or Studio users who are animators. If someone is truly serious about professional animation, then sooner or later they will have to learn something like Maya. It's the same thing as Microsoft Office and Adobe products being the standard in the business world....and they have the price to go along with it.

I don't consider the limitations of either Poser or Studio to mean I have to be limited in what I'm able to learn...and I think this is why folks tend to take things so personally. Younger hobbyists dream of someday working for Pixar, or making it big in the CG movie or gaming industry (and yes, software companies have taken advantage of that unrealistic "dream" in marketing)...but "dreamers" have often never faced creating even a simple animation, and only use preset poses rather than face studying what the models will and won't do. Content creators know all these things from the long hours that they spend working with the models...but users who make unrealistic requests are full of anxiety, thinking that if they are not using the "best" software, with the "best" models, with a UI that "looks like" professional software, and with a "Pro" name, then that will somehow limit them, or reflect negatively on their abilities. If Poser or Studio were ever to reach that level of perfection, one thing for certain....neither would be free, and more importantly, if users are afraid to use advanced features now in their current software, imagine the shock of facing something like Maya. It amounts to kids arguing over who has the fastest car, or the biggest engine...but you'd have to ask yourself, what on earth would you do with that big engine if you had it? Would you have mature, disciplined control over that much power, or would you be running totally out of control, mowing down others in the process....and leave a mess for LisaB to have to clean up? By the way, thank you LisaB, for having patience, and, at the same time, boldness when necessary, and never sacrificing one for the other. You've helped make the Hive a safe place where people can be free to learn....thank you

 

[Ken1171]

Ken1171, thanks so much for your comments in post 340. It serves to clarify issues, from technical differences, to current features, and pricing.

I have to admit there was a time when even I was asking for Genesis support in Poser, mostly because I was too eager and wasn't thinking clearly. All I needed was to read SMS's official answer, where they have explained that it would be impossible both technically and legally. They have also called attention to how odd it would be for SMS to have to replicate every single thing DAZ ever did to their software. We don't think much of it, but DAZ has a disclaimer where they are free to change anything at any time without notice. Many times I have found myself unable to locate a feature from the DS interface because it has been changed, removed, renamed, or moved to another part of the interface. And consider all these changes on DS are not even documented. Imagine if SMS would have to update Poser every time this happened to maintain compatibility with the Genesis platform? Can you imagine Poser devs running after DAZ to know what has changed that is breaking Poser compatibility with Genesis? That would be crazy, and yet, that's what people were (and still are) expecting Poser devs to do.

But the craziness doesn't end there - different versions of Genesis only work in specific sub-versions of DS 4. Each of these different Genesis versions depends on specific DS 4 versions to work, and are incompatible with all previous versions and sub-versions. Nonetheless, people expect ANY of them to work in Poser, even if this doesn't happen in DS where they are at home. There is so much people are taking for granted. I don't recall this exactly, but I think [from the back of my head] that Genesis 3 requires at least DS 4.5, and Genesis 8 will not work in any version of DS lower than 4.10. And how was Poser supposed to seamlessly handle all that when all of the Genesis platform is closed, undocumented, and proprietary?

I didn't realize any of this when I first started asking for Genesis support in Poser. I was just thinking of it as a "figure", not realizing that it's a platform. And most of all, it's also intellectual property of DAZ, who I assume wouldn't be just giving it away, even less to their competitor (?!), just from the goodness of their hearts. That wouldn't even make sense. They are rival companies. Why would DAZ ever do that? I can't imagine how this would ever work out. There is so much people are taking for granted when simply asking Genesis to be supported in Poser. The amount of reasons why this can't happen is so vast that it's just crazy.

 

[DanaTA]

I'd vote for Popcorn.

Meh. The kernel skins stick in my throat and on my tongue! I hate that. I do like that pink popcorn, though. Sweet tooth, you know?

Dana

 

[DanaTA]

Why? Before DAZ decided to give DS 4 away for free, there was always 2 or more versions. DS 3 had 2 versions, Standard and Advanced, and DS 4 initially had 3 versions, Standard, Advanced and Pro.

There are also other software, both 3D graphic and otherwise, that have more than one version. Not everyone can afford the Pro version, and often don't need it, so they don't feel they need that sort of expense. Yet they want to use the software, so there's always a scaled down version for less money. That's the nature of business.

Not always! That started with version 3. They

have ​

only Pro now because of complaints about how much they were charging, and I guess the confusion of what was included in each.

Dana

 

[DanaTA]

Oh it certainly did! PP2012, PP2014, "PP" stands for Poser Pro. PP2012 was the "Pro" version of Poser 9, PP2014 was the "Pro" version of Poser 10. Whether there was a PP2010 as a "Pro" version of Poser 8, I don't recall because I was absent from Poser from version 5 until version 9.

Yes, PoserPro 2010 is the Pro version of Poser 8. PP2010 is what I have. Sadly, it prevents me from doing anything with the newer, weight-mapped, figures because that started with Poser 9.

Dana

 

[DanaTA]

I like the LARGE bags of kettle popcorn they sell at fairs and flea markets. They make them with honey and salt on large iron cauldrons, which spreads an amazing aroma around the place. My wife and I come flying towards the source through the aroma trail.

That brought to mind that cartoon dog that would smell something and start floating, higher and higher with each inhale. Was that Precious? I can't remember the dog's name.

Dana

 

[Ken1171]

LOL

 

[skylab]

You mean Snuffles, Quickdraw McGraw's dog? Haha.

 

[Semicharm]

I have to admit there was a time when even I was asking for Genesis support in Poser, mostly because I was too eager and wasn't thinking clearly. All I needed was to read SMS's official answer, where they have explained that it would be impossible both technically and legally. They have also called attention to how odd it would be for SMS to have to replicate every single thing DAZ ever did to their software. We don't think much of it, but DAZ has a disclaimer where they are free to change anything at any time without notice. Many times I have found myself unable to locate a feature from the DS interface because it has been changed, removed, renamed, or moved to another part of the interface. And consider all these changes on DS are not even documented. Imagine if SMS would have to update Poser every time this happened to maintain compatibility with the Genesis platform? Can you imagine Poser devs running after DAZ to know what has changed that is breaking Poser compatibility with Genesis? That would be crazy, and yet, that's what people were (and still are) expecting Poser devs to do.

But the craziness doesn't end there - different versions of Genesis only work in specific sub-versions of DS 4. Each of these different Genesis versions depends on specific DS 4 versions to work, and are incompatible with all previous versions and sub-versions. Nonetheless, people expect ANY of them to work in Poser, even if this doesn't happen in DS where they are at home. There is so much people are taking for granted. I don't recall this exactly, but I think [from the back of my head] that Genesis 3 requires at least DS 4.5, and Genesis 8 will not work in any version of DS lower than 4.10. And how was Poser supposed to seamlessly handle all that when all of the Genesis platform is closed, undocumented, and proprietary?

I didn't realize any of this when I first started asking for Genesis support in Poser. I was just thinking of it as a "figure", not realizing that it's a platform. And most of all, it's also intellectual property of DAZ, who I assume wouldn't be just giving it away, even less to their competitor (?!), just from the goodness of their hearts. That wouldn't even make sense. They are rival companies. Why would DAZ ever do that? I can't imagine how this would ever work out. There is so much people are taking for granted when simply asking Genesis to be supported in Poser. The amount of reasons why this can't happen is so vast that it's just crazy.

Something that I blundered into by accident is that Daz apparently tried to do that with Poser's weight map system. Even though they already had Genesis, they made a go at continuing Poser support nonetheless. They manged to convert most weight maps into DS (except scaling), but other changes to Poser's rigging gave them problems and eventually gave up. Later changes to the weight map format then broke that implementation. I was able to confirm this via experimentation and digging through old change logs. It's not particularly useful, and wasn't really practical long term for the same reasons Ken stated. It's now an obscure footnote that wasn't ever noted.

The original was a Poser only, non-weight map figure that did not work in DS. I converted it to weight map and back ported it to the older Poser 9 format. Imported the converted figured in DS and rendered with iray.

 

[Jeanne Harmon]

I didn't realize any of this when I first started asking for Genesis support in Poser. I was just thinking of it as a "figure", not realizing that it's a platform.

That in essence is the crux. The majority of people, especially ones new to 3D, think of Genesis as a "figure". They don't know/realize that it's a platform and therefore the question of "Genesis support in Poser" pops up every few weeks/months and will not vanish into Nirvana anytime soon.

 

[Ken Gilliland]

Technically the first "Pro" version was Poser 4 "Pro" Pack, which was more like a version 4.5 and added Python scripting, better rigging and exporting to Max, Lightwave and Cinema4d... Poser "Pro" then re-emerged with an enhanced version of 7 with the hi-end 3D program exports and network rendering. From there, the standard versions were simply numbered 8, 9 and 10 and the pro versions 2010, 2012 and 2014. Poser 11 brought the naming convention back to Poser and Poser Pro. There were other versions of Poser as well; 2014 "GD" (Game Developer) versions added polygon reduction tools to convert models for game engines and Poser Debut was a bare bones version of Poser 8.

 

[Hornet3d]

Technically the first "Pro" version was Poser 4 "Pro" Pack, which was more like a version 4.5 and added Python scripting, better rigging and exporting to Max, Lightwave and Cinema4d... Poser "Pro" then re-emerged with an enhanced version of 7 with the hi-end 3D program exports and network rendering. From there, the standard versions were simply numbered 8, 9 and 10 and the pro versions 2010, 2012 and 2014. Poser 11 brought the naming convention back to Poser and Poser Pro. There were other versions of Poser as well; 2014 "GD" (Game Developer) versions added polygon reduction tools to convert models for game engines and Poser Debut was a bare bones version of Poser 8.

I know when I started with Poser 5 a lot of the content I purchased at the time had two versions of the materials a standard version and a pro version, although I have no idea what the difference was.

 

[Alisa]

I know when I started with Poser 5 a lot of the content I purchased at the time had two versions of the materials a standard version and a pro version, although I have no idea what the difference was.

Yep. There were differences in material settings, etc, so folks often provided 3 separate folders labeled P4, PP (for the Poser 4 Pro Pack), and P5.

I originally got Poser 1 from Fractal Design - can't find my records for it and the disc won't even install in Windows 7 (I was curious ), but the upgrade to Poser 2 was a whopping $9.50 in 1997. Never really used either, and my next version was Poser 5, so I skipped 3, 4 and Pro Pack)

This could prove helpful or at least interesting
Poser - Wikipedia

 

[skylab]

Alisa...remember the $2.49 leap year sale on Poser 6 at Content Paradise? That was my cheapest upgrade

 

[Alisa]

Wow - that's impressive! I had already upgraded (direct from Curious Labs) for $129.31 - before e-frontier bought it, which was when Content Paradise came about.

 

[skylab]

If I remember correctly, Poser 7 had already been released, and they had been giving away Poser 5 for awhile, then leap year rolled around and they had the limited time sale. So I moved up from the free Poser 5, to the $2.49 Poser 6 That's okay...I paid my dues when I upgraded to the first Poser Pro, which was released along about the time of Poser 7. I did that to be eligible for future upgrades to Pro, and have upgraded each time ever since. So I've been, for over a decade, an incurable Poser fan....I think the PA greeting would be "hi, I'm sky, and I'm a Poser-holic"

 

[Miss B]

Yes, back then they practically gave away the older versions, because I picked up P7 from CP around $20 when P9 and PP2012 came out. Unfortunately, that laptop died a quick death, and I never got to use it. Then I got P9 from CP when P10 and PP2014 (or was it PP2014 Game Dev?) came out for even a couple/three bucks less, which shocked the heck out of me at the time. PP11 was the first time I acquired poser from/through SM, because I skipped P10 altogether.

Oh, and yes Alisa, I remember those separate materials folders, and always wondered why there were so many.

 

[Semicharm]

I started with Poser 8, got P9 on sale after P10 came out. Had a copy of Debut from a freebie giveaway, which was later bumped to Debut 10 because the old P8 version didn't work in Windows 10. Then I won PP11 in a render contest. I was rather proud of that one. So, technically, I haven't paid for a single version since P9 and even that was had for $25.

 

[Ken Gilliland]

I started with Poser 1, skipped 2 and came back with 3 and every version since then. I remember meeting Chad Smith (then with Zygote) who was on a MetaCreations Poser roadshow in Santa Monica (1998ish?). After his talk showing all the cool models Zygote was providing for Poser, he and I chatted about my first Poser project I was starting to make called "Dragonfly Adventure".

Years later, Chad introduced me to Chris and Dan, as "the 'bird' guy I've been telling you about" (lol), and they invited me to join their new company, DAZ. Both struck me as genuinely good people, so I became one of DAZ's first PAs and I've hung with Chris ever since.