Renderotica

I received the same email. My first thought was 'what in the actual fuck is this?' 

I've never used La Femme. In fact, I haven't used Poser in five years, at all. There's nothing about La Femme that I find interesting. This is not an attempt to knock Blackhearted, he's made some incredible characters in the past that I loved, but Poser is just...so far behind. When did Daz introduce the geograft? Six years ago? Seven? I don't even know, but so far, still, there's nothing like that in Poser. That's the main reason that I switched platforms. I still don't regret it. 

Well, it doesn't help Poser has the most delusional publicity ever.

"Content is king"... uh, the last compatible content was Generation 4 a decade ago... we are at 8.1. DAZ says thanks BTW.

Or "Poser's pulse is getting stronger", like sure, remind everyone that Poser is dead sounds so inviting.

I use Poser for my work and it generates a lot of views when I post.  There's just a lot of inexpensive legacy props, scenes, characters, textures and clothing available for Poser.  It's good enough for my hobby/work.  Chasing the latest render engine or DAZ model in search of render Nirvana just doesn't appeal to me.  DAZ snobs kinda remind me of the SouthPark Prius episode.  <grin> 

I understand the commercial arms race between platforms.  But, I don't care to send get on the DAZ model update treadmill that spins whenever the folks in Utah need to make a boat payment.  And, I'm too lazy to invest time in the DAZ learning curve.

For that reason, and the lack of naughty bits by Poser vendors like erogenesis or PosidenTech, I've elected to stay away from the LaFemme line.  I wish that the erogenesis character platform for Poser had taken off, but that's not the world we live in.

 

LaFemme should have been called LaPotatoGirl.

Rendo would be smarter if they would just pony up for a really good and talented artist from Artstation and have them make the male and female base figure for them.

Le Homme/La Femme was a decent idea that was not executed as well as it should have been. The hands/fingers on both figures make me cringe.

But the issue I always see is that Poser users themselves never seem to want to move or lose access to stuff from 20 years ago (Poser 11 -> 12 upgrade), immediately shit on anything that isn't m4/v4, and disappear more and more by the week either by them leaving for Daz, quitting 3d because they don't like new Poser and won't move to Daz, or actually just die off because the median age of Poser users is pretty high up there.

Add in the barrier to entry of having to pay for Poser means that if you were a talented artist/rigger, you're not gonna spend money to see if it's worth your time to make content for la femme/le homme.

The eternal debate about Poser being still valid or not, as good or better as DS or not etc. will never end. I can't really contribute much in that regard, except by pointing out that indeed, Erogenesis and others have pushed the software way beyond its expected limits but we should keep in mind that in order to do so, they often have to create really mad scripts and add-ons. The out-of-the-box Poser can't do half of what these heroes pull off.

More on the topic of that "anime" girl", I think that what Bondware have done here is nothing better or worse than what Daz has pulled on us a few times already. Anime characters in Poser and DS, based on the generic figures, simply don't work. For starters, manga/anime style is by definition bi-dimensional and relies on bi-dimensional art tricks to look good. Transpose it to 3D and you get some ugly looking characters with too many sharp angles on their face. And if you try to soften that, you tread in Pixar country, which is NOT anime by far. All the anime-wannabe Daz and Poser figures I have seen so far look like people working in a Comicket and cosplaying with cardboard heads. There is also the matter of contextual design. Look closely at any anime: the decors are on par with the characters. They belong in the same world, so to speak. Try to make a 3D anime-intended character based on DS or Poser look good in any given decor bought in these two shops and it'll be like a cosplayer (again) went off the reserve and began doing their thing in the street, in the "real" world. It just doesn't work. The one time they got it almost right was with the Lupin The Third 3D movie and even then, they had to Pixarize the designs quite a lot.

I think they should just leave anime alone. Costumes, decors, props, based on anime themes? Why not. There are for example a few japanese classrooms and school uniforms floating around at Daz which look really good. There are oversized weapons, crazy hairstyles, etc as well. But they shouldn't try to import from anime the human morphology specifics that come with the genre. It does smell of attempted cash cow but when you look at those things they try to sell, you can see they're not even trying.

 

 

Generation 4 content can be used in DAZ Studio all the same, actually better because you can use it with current figures and technology. 

There is no reason to stick with Poser in 2021 unless you really don't want to let it go, which is fine. But new users won't pay hundreds of dollars for it, the upgrades, and 2006 figures when DAZ Studio, Iray and all Genesis figures are free.

So where can Poser go from there? An anime morph for La Femme isn't the "evolution" they think it is.

As most people around here know I still use Poser.  If I want to open up P11 and play around with La Feme I can say she is useful for a nice background figure and she is being supported quite well by the vendors  I would not do anything with her as far as nudity as DAVO has noted  she has no V-JAY support  The "R"site IS promoting the hell out of her as new themes become available. 

With that said,  I work with Pro 2014 and prefer it over pro 11,  I will not longer upgrade as since I hardly even open pro 11 why would i spend money on P12 ..

I no longer knock anyone who jumped to DAZ Studio But I do ask that you remember that for some of us, Poser is something we are used to using and it should never be Branded as a bad thing.   I still see new art using the top of the line Victoria and I still see Body flaws that could  be corrected in Post work Not to mention the many calls for help in the forums because something made for genesis Vicky does not work or fit well...    

Be safe everyone  and as always  happy rendering

Shado

I started a thread in the poser 12 forum at rendo a month or so ago about the benefits of a free version of poser, there was some good comments. Why bondware hasn't embraces that concept yet is beyond me. Maybe they figure they sell enough 3rd party DS products to keep their store afloat. V4 was clunky out the gate but soon after v4.2 and then some amazing morph additions and characters came out. Not enough people support la femme and she could have some real potential if she did. But the master sculptors and morph makers have moved onto DS because that's where the money is. I'm gonna hedge my bets and figure the driving force behind people picking up DS is because first and foremost it's free. Second is because there are better human figures. There are only better human figures because that's where the best 3rd party vendors are making their money. This is my opinion, I got no data, other than the vast majority of my sales going to DS to back that up. I love poser, I have DS installed but goddam I hate it's interface and it's so bloated with commands and features I doubt I'll ever use. It's .duf for every file type throws me off (as a vendor) and there is never ending questions about "I just bought this, where is it questions. I'd like to make a switch some time, but I have my finger in so damn many pies that learning DS isn't feasible. From an artist POV, I prefer Poser, I love it's simple firefly engine. DS appears to require 2 sets of textures (maybe I'm wrong, but don't you need a different set for iray?) and that would drive me nuts. God this all used to be so simple.

I certainly don't look down on anyone that still uses Poser. I used it for years, and I thrashed and bitched at DAZ when they started making their figures Studio native. I was PISSED. I accused them of abandoning the community that they owed their existence to, and I know that I was right. They did. DAZ started out as a Poser content creator. For years, they were the go-to for high quality content. Rendo and 'rotica were both there to support that. Then it all changed, and I was mad as hell. 

It took me several years to see the writing on the wall. If I wanted to advance, if I wanted to use the latest tech, I had to switch platforms. I didn't want to! When did V4 come out? 2006? I can't even remember, but I was still using her in 2016 because DSON was a pain in the ass and most of the good stuff, i.e. geografts, wouldn't work in Poser no matter what you did. At that time, G3 was the newest DAZ figure, and there was so much available that it made me swoon. So...I downloaded the latest version of Studio, I think it was 4.5 at the time, and I set to work. It was an uphill battle. I knew the Poser interface like the back of my hand because I'd been using it for 16 years. Studio looked similar, but Christ on a poptart...it was not! It took me weeks to figure out lighting, rendering, and the materials tab was like an alien bible. I had no clue what I was doing. 

But...I pushed forward, and I learned it. I figured out how it worked. I don't regret my decision. I started spending a shit-ton of money on content again, because it was available. With Poser, new V4 stuff was getting scarce. With Studio, there was good stuff at all three stores nearly every day. 

For me, it was a decision based on need. I wanted to push forward, play with the newest stuff. With Poser, I couldn't. Studio can be weird. It still makes me go 'what the fuck?' all the time, but I figure it out. 

Bondware could do so much with Poser, but they're still years behind. There simply has to be a way to do something like geografts inside of Poser, but they've done nothing with that. I used to spend hours realigning a pussy or cock after I set a pose, making it look right. I just accepted this, because what else could I do? With Studio, it's just a fix slider, if anything. Bondware needs to see this, and get with the program.

For those that are afraid of losing all of your legacy content, once you link Studio to your Poser runtime folder, most if not all of the content ports over. Yes, you'll need to run the Iray Uber shader script on it to get it to look right, but that's one click. Again, I'm not bashing Poser users. If that's the platform that you prefer, keep at it. But for me, I had to change. I don't regret it.