Let's talk about Poser Pro. One of the new features in Poser Pro is the ability to export HDR or "High Dynamic Range" images. These are written out from Poser Pro as a .exr file and that file is a 32bit per channel image. I'll show you examples and hopefully this will demonstrate why this is so valuable and HDRI is such a buzz word these days. Better I just show you than go on with my usual long winded approach.

When rendering in Poser Pro you will now be able to make the choice to Render High Dynamic Range Images as opposed to a standard image format. This is particularly useful when integrating your 3D Renders into other projects. I've included two files for download at the bottom of the page. The first is a .exr file rendered from Poser Pro, and the second is a .png file also rendered from Poser Pro. You'll need image editing software to see the real difference but here are some screen shots made from those files:

 This first one demonstrates the range of an HDR image. This was opened in Photoshop CS3 and the Exposure slider was adjusted from about -4.0 on the left to around +4.0 on the right. You can see that there is a tremendous amount of information available.

 

The range is even more apparent in this example. The image on the left is a .png rendered from Poser Pro and the image on the right is the same .exr file as the example above. The exposure sliders are both set at +3.48. My lucky number of course. Actually I was too lazy to redo the first screen shot. If you look at the image on the left you can see the posterized figure in the background. This of course is partially due to the compression on this file. It's only 8bits per channel. In the image on the right you can of course see the additional information and how smooth the background figure looks.    

I've included both of these files for you to download and mess around with yourself. You'll need an image editor that eats .exr files such as Photoshop CS3. In that particular application you can choose Image>Adjustments>Exposure, from the top menu.  Sorry no Poser Pro UI screen shots just yet but I will post some soon. However aside from UI related to additional features it will be the same UI as Poser 7. I'm hearing the cheers and the boos already. 

HDRI_PoserPro.exr

 

NoHDRI_PoserPro.png

 

Thanks for reading! 

Here's how I see it. The planet swallowing behemoth that is Google has decided they'd like to swallow a chunk of the mobile sector. Not a Microsoft get out of the way or we'll buy you type swallow, but more like the Discovery channel, snake eating the toad swallow. Slow, painless, and with a definite precision that says "just relax honey I'll be done soon". For you cave dwellers I'm speaking of the Open Handset Alliance and more specifically the Android platform. Yes, those of you in the know are saying, "but it's an open platform, come on Steve how can you speak such rubbish about our beloved Googlesaurus?" Well, if you want to get through a locked door that you're not supposed to open, give someone else the key, convince them that there are cookies on the other side, and then quietly slip in while they're being handcuffed.

The original Smart Phone. Notice 99 has the touch pad version.  

Once cell networks are IP networks and have far surpassed the dismal performance of AT&T's EDGE and the expansion of those networks has increased exponentially, we'll have a tremendous need for mobile content. Content becomes immensely important and represents the next frontier in 2D, 3D, advertising, viral video, and the "you name it". iPhone type handsets, or should I now coin the acronym "ESC's" (Ear Side Computers), capable of receiving and displaying massive amounts of information while allowing you to escape reality and annoy others, will be commonplace. Hmmm you mean more like a small computer with VOIP than a phone? Why, yes I do!

Here's where Google comes in. Software.

The people that really understand software are already starting to influence cell phones. With an open and unified development and delivery platform, the sky's the limit. Google is getting there second, arguably third if you count Windows Mobile, and he who owns the platform owns the masses. Sorry Linux nerds, without the long ARM of the Googlesaurus it just ain't happenin' for ya. So in future Mobile space we might have the Mac OS, Android, and some butcher blend of Windows. Interesting to say the least. I don't know that Google will be successful, my guess is that they will, but no matter what happens, they will accelerate innovation, and that my compadres will bring a more enjoyable experience to the consumer. We're over the cameras in our phones, mp3 players, and crappy email clients. Make our ALWAYS CONNECTED devices small enough to put up to our ears, get us away from these 2 year contracts and grossly overpriced, bundled plans, and give us software and features that we take for granted everywhere else. That's all we ask.

Most of the talk in the Poser community has been about what will happen to Poser now and what Poser does or doesn't bring to Smith Micro. Why the e frontier product line does or doesn't dry well under the Smith Micro umbrella. I'd like you to approach this from the other direction and talk about what Smith Micro might bring to Poser. Innovation? Resources? Why does the core application have to do anything other than get better at what it does and do more things? Mobile is not hard to swallow once you understand the future. It's simply another medium. I for one hope that this is Poser's ticket to the big time. We all damn sure deserve it.

So I ask you, can Smith Micro afford now NOT to make a significant investment in a tool like Poser? I don't think so.

Here's what one analyst had to say about the deal:

http://www.newratings.com/analyst_news/article_1652461.html

Again I want to stress that these are my opinions and not fact. Nor are they based on any knowledge of future plans of e frontier, Google, Smith Micro or the FCC, or any knowledge at all actually. Speculate amongst yourselves.

I've received a lot of questions on the forums, on my voicemail, and through various emails. I'm going to try to address some of the concerns this evening as best I can.

First although Content Paradise was not mentioned in the press release, it will be part of the acquisition and remain along side Poser. It will continue to operate as CP and will continue to see improvements as it matures.  The product teams in general will be staying with the products and that includes Manga Studio and Anime Studio. Manga studio as you know is published by e frontier and developed in Japan. It will continue to be developed in Japan and we are awaiting a localized version of 4.0. I'm not sure about Shade, Motion Artist, and Amapi as those are e frontier Japan products. Whether or not Smith Micro will distribute and publish those, I do not know. Support will continue through the same channels as it does now and if there are changes to any of this I will let everyone know as soon as I can.

I believe (again this is my blog so this is my own opinion) the reason Aquazone was mentioned in the press release so heavily, was that Smith Micro has a long history of very successfully publishing and distributing the product in the U.S. Around 4 years. It's been part of their consumer division for that time and is important to them. However, I have not asked anyone at Smith yet. Poser and the other products are new to them, hence the reason that the product teams are essential. We have the know how to create the products and they have distribution channels that we could not have taken full advantage of as e frontier.

You can continue to access customer service and tech support through the same channels and pretty much everything will stay the same for now. The e frontier site will remain available until the transition is complete and by that time all product downloads and customer needs will be met from Smith Micro. There's no timeline on that yet.

Again I understand there's a lot of speculation and the press release was somewhat unclear. It was obviously not intented for the Poser community as it did not address your concerns.

 

Thanks

If you're new to blogging as I am, you can leave comments by clicking here. I really am interested in your thoughts.

Back in my Ray Dream days there was a 3D navigational device going around the office that ran something like a rediculous $1500. A faded memory (and most likely defunct venture). That was until recently. I was given two devices by a good friend at 3DConnexion a while back. As pictured below, the one on the left, is a Space Navigator. The one on the right, is a Space Traveler.

The Navigator is a great device that delivers as promised!

Maybe they'll come out with the Steve Miller Band signature "Space Cowboy" real soon. I must admit I quickly ditched the Traveler as I have very large hands (and feet) and eventually passed it on to a co-worker. Both are nice looking and extremely well made little gadgets. The Space Navigator weighs in at a beefy 40lbs with the cable..... It's actually only 16 and 3/4 oz. but still good for any office brawls. I didn't weigh the Traveler.

We'll stick to the Space Navigator for review purposes. When you pick up this little device, you instantly realize, it's quality. I remember in 4th grade science, picking up a small block of lead and an apple at the same time. This is like that small increadibly heavy block of lead. But alas those were different times, and no kid I ever saw wore a helmet. The first app I tried it with was Google Earth and that was fun. For about 10 minutes. (You Stoners might get a cool 6 hours.) That was before the Poser 7 drivers were finished. I recently revisited the device as I needed fodder for this blog and I really really like the feel of it.

To try it yourself you'll need to make sure Poser 7 is updated to at least 7.0.2. Poser has built in support and the set up is fairly easy. the only real problem I encountered was that if you don't have the device connected the control panel will not open. This was only tested on WinXP.  

Just after the 3Dconexxion install process you're asked to run through a learning tutorial. I highly recommend this for everyone. This is one of those devices that, once you get used to it, you're naked without it. But, it takes a little getting used to and the default settings are difficult to deal with. The tutorial walks you through step by step and it's literally "hands on" training with the device.

 

So once installed you can manipulate objects in Poser 7 with your left hand while working with your mouse on the right. (Or vice-versa if you're a south paw.) I typically use the device in camera mode and rotate the main camera in a single viewport to get a look at the object. By selecting an actor and toggling to actor mode however you can move that actor with the device. You can toggle between actor and camera mode by clicking a button. This is provided that you first assign either the left or right button as "Button 1" in the 3DXware control panel. Tutorial at http://www.e-frontier.com/go/3Dnavigator or through the Poser Help menu:

As I'm just getting good with this device now, I'm not manipulating actors so much. But I am finding this of more value as time goes by and as I get used to toggling. I have noticed though that if the camera is selected as the actor there's a slight jittering effect that happens when moving the camera. Kind of like a worn out VHS. Yes, I have many as I'm too cheap for DVD's. Regardless, I don't know why anyone would ever want to do this so it's not an issue. 

You can also invert camera and actor settings in the Poser 7 General Preferences so that the manipulated object behaves as it would with the Poser controls specific to Poser. I found this helpful for cameras as I tend to think backwards anyways and now that I'm used to Poser, everything working forwards just seems wrong. 

  

I've really only encountered one issue with this device in Poser 7. And that was that the sensitivity is just too high and I was constantly resetting the camera or undoing my last move. I figured out that in the 3DxWare control panel I can set the sensitivity of not only the entire device, but also of the individual motions. This changed everything for me so, first thing, turn it down a notch. The default to me was like "this one goes to eleven". this has nothing to do with Poser 7 by the way. This is how the device functions by default. I've even gone further now and cranked up some of teh individual settings and left some low, like the zoom.  

So after set up and a little practice the ability to use both hands really helps. The movement is smooth and the device doesn't seem to get in the way of productivity, but helps. All in all this is a great device and I would recommend it for anyone using Poser that has about $50 of disposable income. It has saved me some time and I can see where in the future it will save me more. I think I'll easily get $50 out of it, and it's just so well made that archeologists will be digging mine up long after I'm toast. 

We don't sell the devices through e frontier other than bundled with P7. Amazon is probably your best bet if you're interested. The PE or "Personal" edition is going for about $50 right now and the SE or Standard is about $90. The difference is the license, the device is the same. Personal means not for commercial use in any way so you kids play nice!

PE on Amazon 

Thanks for reading 

Many times the software development process starts with a simple idea. In the case of Poser Pro however it began with numerous feature requests (and complaints), a few drinks, and a lot of arguing. About 5 of us here tend to debate all things Poser sometimes endlessly. Most of us, myself included, are always right. 110% of the time. Put that many highly successful, good looking, power house software geeks in one room and there's bound to be a fight.
So when an alternate version of Poser was proposed the melee ensued. "Imagine cloning your child, and then adding attributes to make the clone better than the actual child...." was one argument I heard. "Why not just Poser 8?" 

 

Image by "hybel" DeviantArt.com
That's me on the floor..

Well, let's talk about Poser Pro first. The argument was, how do we fund development of features like network rendering and support for host apps, that will eventually exceed anything currently out there. And how do we do this when the product averages somewhere around $140 a pop? And how do we do this when a good portion of our current customers don't need these features, or at least don't need all of them, yet the future and reputation of the product may very well depend on them. Do you make customers pay for something they don't need? For most companies the answer is a resounding yes. Although I do use the camera in my Cell Phone daily. (Sarcasm Alert).
But not in this case. By separating the product line we can please those customers that need the features and who will realize the value in them. Not everyone in the Poser community will need them and we understand this. I know there will be those few very vocal members who, no matter what I say, will filet me like a fresh fish. And on top of this any co-workers reading are now sweating bullets. Although I do enjoy that.

The reality is we are pressing forward with a version of Poser not targeted to the majority of the current user base. The rendering features are valuable to anyone doing more than casual work with Poser. For example if you're rendering single images at 72dpi for use on the web, why would you need network rendering or a render queue? If you are integrating your work into Photoshop or After Effects for print or video, you will find the export to HRD very helpful. COLLADA is becoming indispensable, and the ability to distribute animation frames on multiple machines is an amazing time saver. Again these might not be things the majority of the current user base will need. Likewise if you're using 3DS Max, Cinema 4D, or Maya, and YES LightWave, you probably don't need the rendering features but they're there if you do. You'll likely be more interested in content and animation features.

The bottom line is there will be an inexpensive side-grade available for Poser 7 owners, that will cover the render features including the ability to render in the background, which allows you to continue to work during the render. There will be a slightly more upity side-grade that covers the hosting plug-ins as there are many out there using Poser 7 with similar functionality through 3rd party apps already. In many cases struggling with incompatibilities with the host app and antiquated solutions. And of course the full actual everyday version of Poser Pro that has it all.

Now about Poser 8. We have big plans for Poser 8 but we're not convinced that everything under the sun needs to be available in Poser. Poser 7 hasn't even been out for a year, and the application is still hands down the best at what it does, and for the price it just can't be beat.  

Once again, thanks for reading....  

Something that's been on my mind a lot lately as we get very close to the Poser Pro release is the issue of locking the application. Don't worry, no plans at the moment to lock it or protect it. At least not this version. But the pressure to implement some sort of protection is becoming greater and greater. As Torrents and warez sites become more accessible with the massive penetration of broad band access, and the culture of a younger generation of users is increasingly leaning towards software piracy as not only acceptable, but cool, many companies are seeing sales suffer and support requirements go up.

The activation scheme used by Adobe and others is looking more and more appealing to publishers, and is quickly becoming comonplace. As far as the Poser team goes we have a steadfast philosophy that these types of protection schemes tend to only punish the legit users and don't do much to prevent piracy. From a corporate standpoint, not implementing this type of protection is simply lost revenue.

 

Typical results for a torrent search on the term "Poser". Many sites are also ripe with Poser content.

The Poser community has done a great job of policing copyrights and many times we're alerted of illegal warez sites or illegal copies on eBay by members of the community. Turbosquid for example has become notorious for allowing distribution of Poser content owned by e frontier and in almost every case a community member has alerted us. All of this pales in comparison to what's on Bit-torrent or Demonoid. We have a number of Content products available ONLY on Content Paradise that we have released free add-ons for. It's interesting to see the downloads for the free add-ons in some cases triple the number of sales. Search a torrent for any Poser related item, even from RDNA for example, and you'll most likely find it immediately.

So one can hopefully understand how our philosophy of trusting and rewarding the legitimate purchasers is in effect being negated by the corporate philosophy that any piracy is lost revenue. I hope that we don't have to go the route of say an activation scheme but from an insiders point of view, it's an inevitable reality for all software makers that wish to stay in business. Software developers do not come cheap. At least good ones. The costs of packaging, distribution, and infrastructure continue to climb. Taxes worsen and consolidation becomes more and more prevalent in the graphics sector. The behemoths that are Microsoft, Adobe, Autodesk, etc continue to buy up products and technology making it more and more difficult to compete. Exit strategies for start-ups today are much much different that they were even 10 years ago and the out of the gate idea of building a company and technology to be sold to one of several target acquirers has become the norm. It's almost impossible to compete with these companies. Piracy for a small company or a start-up not only adds to those woes, but can seal a companies fate very early on.

I will never advocate invasive and obtrusive protection schemes, but I'm worried that they are quickly becoming a necessary evil.

 

 

This video was sent to me by a graduate Student named Francis Yim. I think he did some interesting work here. I get a lot of still imagery sent to me but very few vids. If you have one feel free to link it in a comment and I'll take a look. I hope to get a user story from Francis in the near future. Unfortunately it's only available on his site so you have to click through.

 

 

 

Ok More Poser Pro Info:

I'd like to see Poser Pro used more for animating and I'm hoping that some of the Render features will help. I'll try to address the questions in previous comments. What I can say right now is that background rendering is cool as you can work with the app as you are rendering. That's the first thing. What will happen when you are on multiple machines is that each machine, regardless of the number of processors can render a frame with all of those processors. That's considered a single node. When finished with that frame it will then move on to the next available frame in the queue until all frames are rendered.

 Cheers

 

Well, my first post. Yesterday was an extremely long day. I was up until midnight finishing setting this blog up and catching up on some of the odds and ends needed to launch.
I wasn't ready to start posting quite yet as the product is not quite ready for prime time, but unfortunately I came across the Newtek forums and did some reading. As with almost any forum you need to weed through quite a bit of B.S. and personal agendas to get to the meat of the discussion. And it's a good one. You can say whatever you want about the Poser product, but it invokes passion and heated discussion almost always. It seems there are several questions at hand:

1. Does Poser add any value to Lightwave?
2. Is Poser Art actually Art?
3. Why is Lightwave seemingly on the backburner with no official announcement, and other application support such as Max and Maya at the forefront? I.e. was Lightwave an afterthought?

I'll start with addressing number 3 and keep in mind that these are my opinions here, yadda yadda....
What it comes down to is that the code we are working with on the LW plug-in is not in the same state as the other plug-ins. For a number of reasons that I can’t go into. We made the decision to hold off on announcing LW support with the Poser Pro release because we felt that it was too risky to assume we would make the deadline and offer a good solid product that would live up to expectations of features and quality. So we figured we would release is as an update to the Data exchange portion of Poser Pro ASAP after the initial release. It will just be rolled into the build with and updater. SO we didn't announce but word got out and the forums exploded with opinions and discussion. Love it or hate it, Poser has that effect on people.

Okay on question number 2, how can I possibly answer that? Is a Soup Can art? I went to a museum of "Modern Art" in Europe once and saw an installation that was a pile of TV's. Looping on each screen was video of the artist urinating on a photograph of Marylyn Monroe. Someone thought that was art. I didn't. Aldous Huxley was quoted as saying "If not for the intellectual snobs who pay, the arts would perish with their starving practitioners". The Sistine Chapel was a commissioned job and Huxley arguably one of the great thinkers of our time. The question of what is art is in my mind therefore much greater than Poser or 3D so this will be the last time I address it on my blog.

And now for the big one. Does Poser add value to LW? I think so. First of all it supports the product. LW is a great product but lets face it, it's up against some goliath competition. Bottom line is the good people at Newtek need to sell product to stay in business so they can continue to improve the product. Any good plug-in that offers some decent functionality should be welcomed. Poser's ability to eat a tremendously vast library of content and the ability to quickly animate adds to the LW product. The argument should then be is LW art really art.

---------------------------

OK Now onto the good stuff. The following video has been floating around from late Poser 5 days. Why would I post this you might ask? Well it's really funny. At least I think so. And as anyone that's been in the Poser community knows, the Poser 5 release left a little to be desired and left a lot of deep wounds. But if you haven't managed to at least get to the point where you can laugh about it after 4 or 5 years, seek medical treatment. Before watching I want you to realize that Joe Grover (the presenter) was running on days and days of no sleep, was frustrated with the Beta version of the software, and was probably hungry. Both Joe and Poser have come a long long way since the creation of Poser 5 Demystified.

 

Poser5-DMS_Unbelievable.mpg -Warning! Contains strong language!

We've all been there with some piece of software at one time or another! Thanks to Joe for providing this!

 

Here's the latest Poser Pro info:

MSRP $499, as soon as any other pricing is released I'll post it.

FAQ

Features 

Thanks for reading!