Renderosity owns Poser?

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  • vonHobovonHobo Posts: 1,682

    I really hope Renderosity does more with Poser than some of the previous companies. 

    Poser was innovative software when it was first released in the 90's. We purchased it (and never used it) at the company I worked for. It was just too difficult for any of us to use at the time and we didn't have the training. Just a fun toy at the time.

    I'm just so glad DAZ Studio eventually came along. It's beyond awesome and the learning curve for me was negligible!

     

  • dragotxdragotx Posts: 1,138
    edited June 2019

    It definitely is waaaay too early, but I'm also concerned that Rendo will have too much of a competing interest in making Poser work as an acquisition.

    The "best" way for them to promote Poser would be to give a greater share of the pot to Poser content creators. Reward artists for making content for their stuff.
    They can also throw money around to make things exclusive (like PS4 versus Xbox).
    They could cut the share to Daz creators if they wanted to.

    They don't have to do any of that, but now that they own Poser, they'll have to figure out a way to make it sell.

    It's good that Poser has a non-terrible owner, but Rendo can do a fair bit of damage to the Daz audience if they want to take a hard line. Smith Micro took a hard line, but they had no content library to make it work.

    Can Daz set up a separate storefront for clothing that doesn't meet Daz family/community standards? 
    There isn't a lot of middle ground between Daz and 'rotica if Rendo takes a hard line on Daz Studio products.

     

    Honestly, I would love for Daz to open up to more risque items, at least as much as 'Rosity has. Not necessarily go so far as to compete with 'rotica (though I would be onboard with that too, but I understand not wanting to go that far given their current place in the market). I've gotten to the point that if something doesn't really jump out and grab me at the other stores I breeze right on past it because of the lack of smart content. I think Daz would greatly increase their overall sales number if they would loosen the restrictions a bit around here. Of course, I also think Rosity would increase their sales if they would start including smart content metadata in their products.

    As for Poser, I think their best bet would be to either upgrade it to use current Daz tech and find some kind of killer app that Studio doesn't do, or to upgrade their figures to be a better match technically for current Daz ones. More competition is a good thing, but I'm afraid revitalizing Poser as a direct, incompatible competitor on a technical level will wind up splitting the market too much and damaging it in the long run. I do absolutely think Poser finally getting in the hands of someone that will do something with it is great though.

    Post edited by dragotx on
  • HamfastHamfast Posts: 15

    Perhaps DAZ-3D should sell Hexagon 2, Bryce and Carrara. Those products are dead in the water and not going anywhere. Sell them to someone who cares.

  • Cris PalominoCris Palomino Posts: 11,372

    Merged threads.

  • Male-M3diaMale-M3dia Posts: 3,581
    edited June 2019
    Havos said:
    3drendero said:
    One forum post mentioned that the Poser dev team was gone before the sale, does anyone know what happened with them?

    I suspect that might be refering to the previous team, ie the US based developers that were let go well over a year ago. The new developers are in Portugal, and were responsible for all of the graphics software SM had, eg Moho and Motion Artists, as well as Poser. The new team was supposed to work on all of those, and if SM intends to keep this staff, then it will move the developers onto those other packages. That would mean Rendo would have to hire a whole new set of staff.

    I'm pretty sure the Poser team in Portugal is gone. They're hiring for mobile developers in that location now. There's been several job postings on LinkedIn since last week.

    Post edited by Male-M3dia on
  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,024
    So maybe the dev team moved with Poser? It was mentioned that they were working on Poser 12, a new team would need more time to start up...
  • SempieSempie Posts: 658
    edited June 2019

    First thing Renderosity did was to discontinue regular, non-pro Poser 11, along with Poser Debut.

    Poser 11 Pro is the only remaining Poser version.

    Seems they ditched entry level Poser.

    Post edited by Sempie on
  • macleanmaclean Posts: 2,438

    Wouldn't it be interesting if Rendo released a 'Poser Lite' - and made it free software?

    Heh!

  • SempieSempie Posts: 658
    maclean said:

    Wouldn't it be interesting if Rendo released a 'Poser Lite' - and made it free software?

    Heh!

    That would only work if they widen the devide even further.

    The DAZ-model - free software, expensive must-have content - relies on DAZ Studio-only content with DAZ as the main supplier.

    Renderosity currently only has La Femme as a Poser only asset. I doubt that that will be enough.  Most Poser-users seem to want the opposite anyway, with Genesis comaptabilty high on most wishlists. (I do hope they don't jump on the GeForce band wagon; can't afford these pricey power GPUs - one of the reasons I use Poser rather than DAZ Studio.)

  • Male-M3diaMale-M3dia Posts: 3,581
    3drendero said:
    So maybe the dev team moved with Poser? It was mentioned that they were working on Poser 12, a new team would need more time to start up...

    From Portugal? I would guess that team was laid off and development on poser was ending. I would think at best Rendo would get whatever code they were working on at the time, but a whole dev team to go with it? That would require a huge investment of money. From the way poser assets were being offloaded from SM, it seems Rendo **had** to buy to keep it from disappearing rather than buying it so build it up. There's not much to the press release, and it probably would be a good thing that they keep the announcement without much fanfare until they look at the code and see what they can do with it, rather than make big promises that they may not be able to keep.

  • Male-M3diaMale-M3dia Posts: 3,581
    edited June 2019
    Sempie said:

    (I do hope they don't jump on the GeForce band wagon; can't afford these pricey power GPUs - one of the reasons I use Poser rather than DAZ Studio.)

    Poser is already on the Nvidia bandwagon with Superfly, it has a Nvida mode as well as a CPU mode.. just like Iray. It just didn't take off like Iray did and hasn't been updated to support the newer GPUs.

    Post edited by Male-M3dia on
  • Panzer EmeraldPanzer Emerald Posts: 727
    edited June 2019
    Sempie said:
    maclean said:

    Wouldn't it be interesting if Rendo released a 'Poser Lite' - and made it free software?

    Heh!

    That would only work if they widen the devide even further.

    The DAZ-model - free software, expensive must-have content - relies on DAZ Studio-only content with DAZ as the main supplier.

    Renderosity currently only has La Femme as a Poser only asset. I doubt that that will be enough.  Most Poser-users seem to want the opposite anyway, with Genesis comaptabilty high on most wishlists. (I do hope they don't jump on the GeForce band wagon; can't afford these pricey power GPUs - one of the reasons I use Poser rather than DAZ Studio.)

    No, it certainly won't be enough. Not with the overall quality -or lack thereof- that's out there for La Femme currently. It'd be fair to presume that a large portion of former Poser users now have built up a huge library of Genesis content. I've got a large library of G3/G8 content, I sure as heck don't want to sink even more money into a figure that only has maybe 1/8th of the content output and capabilities that the Genesis line has right now. And with Genesis 8 being able to use items as far back as V4/M4 (thanks in large part to RiverSoft and SickleYield), why would I want to bother using a figure like La Femme?

    I'm no program loyalist -I have my fair share of issues and grievances with DS- and I consider myself open-minded enough to try new software if I feel it'll suit my needs, but I need to be seriously convinced that Poser would be worth my time, attention, and money at this point.

    Also, the fact they have no upgrade for those of us who have just Poser 11 is... not inspiring confidence. Upgrades for 6-10 and 2014, sure, but not for the original basic version 11? Not good optics there, Rendo.

    Post edited by Panzer Emerald on
  • Male-M3diaMale-M3dia Posts: 3,581
    Sempie said:

    First thing Renderosity did was to discontinue regular, non-pro Poser 11, along with Poser Debut.

    Poser 11 Pro is the only remaining Poser version.

    Seems they ditched entry level Poser.

    That's a good thing to not only keep one code base, but that's the only versions that needs to be sold to get more people creating content for poser. Hopefully they dropped the price as well.

  • SempieSempie Posts: 658
    edited June 2019
    Sempie said:

    (I do hope they don't jump on the GeForce band wagon; can't afford these pricey power GPUs - one of the reasons I use Poser rather than DAZ Studio.)

    Poser is already on the Nvidia bandwagon with Superfly, it has a Nvida mode as well as a CPU mode.. just like Iray. It just didn't take off like Iray did and hasn't been updated to support the newer GPUs.

    I have the non-pro Poser 11 which does not support GPUs. I think one of the reasons SuperFly is not as popular as IRay is because of the utter lack of support. Colm Jackson did some marvelous lighting products for Firefly (Render Studio, IDL studio, etc) but jumped ship to iRay. Terradome 2 is useless in Superfly because of the complex terrain shaders, and Terradome 3 is iRay only. There's only a few shader preset sets for SuperFly, and, as far as I know, not a single commercial lighting set. We're left to figure it out ourselves. And I've never been any good with lights.

    One of the things that went wrong with Poser 11 was the fact that people like Colm Jackson, Snarlygribbly, Semidieu, Bagginsbill and others basically retreated from the Poser scene. Probably mostly because Poser 11 did not support the older python scrips and shaders and they would have needed to start from scratch again.

     

    Post edited by Sempie on
  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,024
    3drendero said:
    So maybe the dev team moved with Poser? It was mentioned that they were working on Poser 12, a new team would need more time to start up...

    From Portugal? I would guess that team was laid off and development on poser was ending. I would think at best Rendo would get whatever code they were working on at the time, but a whole dev team to go with it? That would require a huge investment of money. From the way poser assets were being offloaded from SM, it seems Rendo **had** to buy to keep it from disappearing rather than buying it so build it up. There's not much to the press release, and it probably would be a good thing that they keep the announcement without much fanfare until they look at the code and see what they can do with it, rather than make big promises that they may not be able to keep.

    Not physically moved from Europe to USA, just included in the deal. Even with the source code, 3D engine coding is hard and needs skilled coders that know something about 3D. Right now it looks like a new team needs to be hired and start from scratch, if there even will be any more updates.
  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,024
    Sempie said:

    (I do hope they don't jump on the GeForce band wagon; can't afford these pricey power GPUs - one of the reasons I use Poser rather than DAZ Studio.)

    Poser is already on the Nvidia bandwagon with Superfly, it has a Nvida mode as well as a CPU mode.. just like Iray. It just didn't take off like Iray did and hasn't been updated to support the newer GPUs.

    Superfly is based on Blender Cycles, which is opensource. Nvidia RTX 20x0 gfx card support was added to Cycles in 2018 December. Another reason why a Poser 11.2 or 12 update is needed very soon...
  • davesodaveso Posts: 7,008

    I have mixed feelings. I hadn't used Poser in years. I recently installed Poser 10 on my iMac. It didn't work properly. I didn't bother troubleshooting. I got an email about the topic, and wondered why. DAZ has been my only 3D Art community for many years. I won't bother speculating. I'd likely need to pay a hefty upgrade fee to move from Poser 10 to the latest version.

    $99 for Poser Pro 11

  • ragamuffin57ragamuffin57 Posts: 132
    edited June 2019

    https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190620005269/en/Smith-Micro-Announces-Sale-Poser®-3D-Rendering

    This is a turn of events I wonder how poser will now move forward  will they move forward with an in house team or will they go down the route of opening it up to a blender style 3rd party open source type of route to drive the software forward from now on ??

    Interesting as daz is slowly starting to sluggishly move forward to introduce new features in their software which have been around in other software for years ! While I applaud daz for implementing these new features new features are good whether you use them to the full dabble or keep them on the back boiler they are all good to have !! daz have still a long way to go to even match 5+ year old standard cgi software

    But will the new owners of poser  pull the stops out to try and gain the upper hand over Daz???

    But to be fair I would think they would need to introduce a fist full of  new features or hone the was they have got and introduce some half decent characters  So they have in my opinon a lot of ground to cover to catch daz ! But  does Daz now need to look over their shoulder and pick up their skirts to keep in hte game ?? Thoughts

    Post edited by ragamuffin57 on
  • davesodaveso Posts: 7,008

    DAZ is in the forefront as far as between it and Poser. 
    Others have mentioned it in the other thread, which this will probably be moved to, in the Poser section, but the best deal is the fact if Poser remains strong, a lot of the DAZ back catalog is still pertineent. Also , it would be good if DAZ and Rendo could work it out whewre the G generations could work in Poser. Keeps both ends happy. Maybe not all the way to G8, but at least through G3 for now. 

  • ragamuffin57ragamuffin57 Posts: 132

    Thanks folks for poinitng me to an existing thread suppose this thread is now defucnt :)

  • Dim ReaperDim Reaper Posts: 687

    Having used poser versions 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 2012, 2014 and 11 Pro I still feel a lot of affection for the program even though I hardly use it any more.  I really hope that Renderosity develop Poser in new ways.  After using Daz Studio for the past two years, it would take a lot to get me to buy a new version of Poser.  That said, if they eventually release a new version then I will definitely take a look.  Good luck to them.

  • AllenArtAllenArt Posts: 7,169
    Sempie said:

    First thing Renderosity did was to discontinue regular, non-pro Poser 11, along with Poser Debut.

    Poser 11 Pro is the only remaining Poser version.

    Seems they ditched entry level Poser.

    I actually think that was a smart move. One version, one version to support and for upkeep. Everyone has the same tools. Hopefully the price will be lower than when SM had it.

    Laurie

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,888

    Threads merged.

  • AllenArtAllenArt Posts: 7,169
    edited June 2019
    Sempie said:
    Sempie said:

    (I do hope they don't jump on the GeForce band wagon; can't afford these pricey power GPUs - one of the reasons I use Poser rather than DAZ Studio.)

    Poser is already on the Nvidia bandwagon with Superfly, it has a Nvida mode as well as a CPU mode.. just like Iray. It just didn't take off like Iray did and hasn't been updated to support the newer GPUs.

    I have the non-pro Poser 11 which does not support GPUs. I think one of the reasons SuperFly is not as popular as IRay is because of the utter lack of support. Colm Jackson did some marvelous lighting products for Firefly (Render Studio, IDL studio, etc) but jumped ship to iRay. Terradome 2 is useless in Superfly because of the complex terrain shaders, and Terradome 3 is iRay only. There's only a few shader preset sets for SuperFly, and, as far as I know, not a single commercial lighting set. We're left to figure it out ourselves. And I've never been any good with lights.

    One of the things that went wrong with Poser 11 was the fact that people like Colm Jackson, Snarlygribbly, Semidieu, Bagginsbill and others basically retreated from the Poser scene. Probably mostly because Poser 11 did not support the older python scrips and shaders and they would have needed to start from scratch again.

     

    Why should they stick around when even SM gave up on it?  Seems only natural to me. Even I - a Poser user for nearly 20 years - finally threw in the towel a few years back and came over to DS. I just felt that SM didn't give it the attention it deserved and was hoping they'd sell it to someone that cared. Now we'll wait and see if that's the case and what develops. This could be a real shot in the arm for Poser, or a complete disaster, but I'll keep my hopes up that it's the former. I think the main thing that went wrong with Poser 11 was Smith Micro ;).

    Laurie

    Post edited by AllenArt on
  • SempieSempie Posts: 658
    edited June 2019
    AllenArt said:
    Sempie said:

    First thing Renderosity did was to discontinue regular, non-pro Poser 11, along with Poser Debut.

    Poser 11 Pro is the only remaining Poser version.

    Seems they ditched entry level Poser.

    I actually think that was a smart move. One version, one version to support and for upkeep. Everyone has the same tools. Hopefully the price will be lower than when SM had it.

    Laurie

    That's my fear. I never bought any of the Pro versions. For the same reason I never invested in high end GeForce cards. Or the latest Genesis generations. Very tight budget. I mostly scavenge the big sales and rarely buy anything full price. If Poser goes Pro only without lowering the price I might be forced to abandon this hobby. Or at best stick to older technology. And I guess they will lose more customers than just me. (Just not the ones with the big budgets, and I guess they count.....)

    Post edited by Sempie on
  • GlenWebb said:
    Finlaena said:
    Toonces said:

    I think Rendo acknlowedges Daz Studio as the market leader (when compared to Poser). They probably don't want to do anything to alienate Daz customers, which I'm guessing comprise the majority of their sales.

    Therefore it makes sense to keep the Poser announcement low-key.

    I always got the impression Rendo barely tolerated the Daz-side of things simply because of the money sales from those items brought in, and if they were given a chance, they'd purge DS content from their store. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens later on down the line if they're truly serious about this purchase.

    Anyhow, I tried Poser and it's just... eughhhh. Not to mention I've got a ton of G8 content that can't be used in it. If they were able to make it so Genesis 3-8 content is usable in Poser, then I might be willing to give them a second chance. But as it is right now, DS has just about every feature that Poser used to hype up (dynamics, mostly), so... :T

    I honesty can't see the fine folks at Rendo throwing their Daz vendors to the curb. I mean, I suppose they could. It would be a win for Daz, but I just cannot see them refusing their vendors who specialize in Daz content. Almost all of my Rendo purchases from the last 3 or 4 years have been items that are Daz Studio specific. They have a crap-ton of vendors who are profitting from Daz related/specific items. They would lose vendors and lose customers by refusing Daz content in their store.

    It would not be a win for Daz. Many of the vendors over there (for whatever reasons) do not want to work with Daz. So if Rendo dropped Daz content (not gonna happen) then those vendors would move on to CGBYTES or or possibly Hive3D.  

  • SixDs said:

    According to my understanding, it is not a merger, where two companies become one. Poser is a product that was owned by Smith Micro (and previously by Fractal Design, then MetaCreations, then Curious Labs, and finally e-frontier before being picked up by SM). So the proper term would be an acquistion, not merger. Renderosity now owns the rights to Poser.

    That is correct. Renderosity has purchased the Poser software. That would include code, trademarks, existing customer information, (probably) internal development notes/material and (apparently) all of the material from Content Paradise.

  • Finlaena said:
    Toonces said:

    I think Rendo acknlowedges Daz Studio as the market leader (when compared to Poser). They probably don't want to do anything to alienate Daz customers, which I'm guessing comprise the majority of their sales.

    Therefore it makes sense to keep the Poser announcement low-key.

    I always got the impression Rendo barely tolerated the Daz-side of things simply because of the money sales from those items brought in, and if they were given a chance, they'd purge DS content from their store. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens later on down the line if they're truly serious about this purchase.

    Anyhow, I tried Poser and it's just... eughhhh. Not to mention I've got a ton of G8 content that can't be used in it. If they were able to make it so Genesis 3-8 content is usable in Poser, then I might be willing to give them a second chance. But as it is right now, DS has just about every feature that Poser used to hype up (dynamics, mostly), so... :T

    I don't know why you have that impression. I'm at Rendo OFTEN, including in the Forums and I don't get that vibe at all.

  • Mattymanx said:
    Quasar said:

    Well, I wouldn't have guessed this would happen. If they develop the software further, it will be interesting to see what changes they make. I know the previous owner fully objected to incorporating any technology from DAZ to support Genesis and similar features. Maybe that will change in the next version of Poser? It would definitely expand the content market for Poser users and likely increase sales there and at DAZ if the two companies can work together. 

    It would be VERY good for EVERYONE if they were to develope the software to fully support the Genesis tech.  A total win for all !!!

    I agree! Not only would it give the diehard poser users more options, it would also increase content buying here at DAZ,  which would mean more PAs and then more content for all around not to mention some more sales for existing PAs.

    Yup. Genesis support in Poser would be a game changer. As an artist whose primary tool is Poser, I can tell you without and qualification that there are NUMEROUS things I pass on here at Daz because the figs/props/characters are not supported in Poser. Honestly? I barely even glance at new figures and characters anymore because I can't use them in Poser. If I do pick them up, I wait for years until they are on sale at deep discounts and purchase them only on the off chance that, maybe, one day I'll get to use it.

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