In light of recent events, meaning the joining forces of DAZ and RDNA (no prizes for seeing that one coming), Reallusion are in an even better position than they were before the announcement.

What this means is that Poser users will be looking for an alternative, and as iClone is already the biggest threat to Poser due to it's current and upcoming features, it's important to consider something about those Poser users.  Poser users are generally stills users.  You currently have them covered with a better way for generating characters than Poser has, and when the PBR and render improvements arrive, you have a way to instantly render them (that will really pull-in the Poser users).  What you want to avoid doing, though, is alienating them by throwing them into an environment that isn't really considered for stills work at the moment.

iClone is missing a seemingly innocent but very important feature, one that Poser users clearly make a lot of use of.  The feature is called "Auto-Balance".  If you've ever drag-posed a figure in Poser with "Auto-Balance" switched-on, you'll understand what a simple but beautiful way it is to create natural looking poses.  A lot of Poser users would feel stripped of something for not having that feature.  One pull of a limb with Auto-Balance can create a pose that would take hundreds of tweaks in iClone to get right, because it effects all the necessary body parts.  It's a powerful thing to have, and would be even more powerful in iClone when you consider a scenario like this :

- Pose the figure using Auto-Balance
- Move along the timeline and create another pose using Auto-Balance
- Play the animation between the two Auto-Balanced poses

So what's the big deal?  The big deal is that both poses were created using Auto-Balance, so when iClone interpolates between the two keyframes, the animation looks incredibly natural because it's tweening from one perfectly balanced pose to the other.  Imagine making two keyframes, ones with the hip rotated in opposite directions for each keyframe, this will give you a perfectly balanced hip-dance!

You get the idea :
- Powerful
- Natural
- Missing from iClone and needed

Why would Daz3D and Runtime DNA joining forces put Poser users in search of an alternative? 

I'm not going into detail as to why, but even Poser users who don't think they'll end up here, will indeed do so.

You're going to see a lot of Ex-Poser users appearing on here over the next year or so, mark my words, so best to make them feel comfortable if you want to hang onto them once they get here.  Combining Character Creator with the convenience of a Realtime PBR Renderer is quite something, but there's currently nothing in iClone that caters for the stills users - so a lot of that conveniece would be wasted on them.  The Auto-Balance feature is the single most important feature in Poser as a stills tool when dealing with Posing figures (something that matters to stills artists).

Having it in iClone would not only benefit everyone who uses it for animation, but it would help Reallusion hang-on to Poser users who get curious about iClone.  It's important to realise that when you're used to a figure having all the limbs auto-balance for you, it will come as quite a shock that they'll suddenly have to do hundreds of tweaks to get what they used to get with just one pull.

Have you used the HumanIK (inverse kinematic implementation) in iClone? It is pretty good. 

If I recall, the Poser weight balance just aligns center-of-mass over the feet/foot on the ground.

Also, Poser is getting a little developer love again. They managed to pull in an important 3D developer who wants to spiff it up a bit. That's why they have Cycles in the new release. Runtime DNA has always made models for Poser.

Sure, IK in iClone is great, but that's only part of it, the naturalness in Poser's Auto-Balance comes from the combination of IK and, like you said, the 'Centre of Mass' calculations.  In technical terms I suppose they would need to add-in the Centre of Mass part and link it up to their powerful IK system, it makes all the difference to posing, both in use and how natural it looks.

Regards Poser, I'm not holding my breath on that one.  I don't think it's the coders that are the problem, I reckon it's those in charge.
I'll say it for a third time, whatever the decision-makers are getting paid, I think it's far too much - SM shoud have aquired RDNA long ago

Anyway, don't want to get into discussion about that, I basically just want to see the runners come running to iClone rather than DAZ

If I were a poser user and was going to jump ship to Iclone I would have done it already, but say you are right the first thing I would be asking from RL would be higher res meshes.

I personally think the future for Iclone must include multi resolution meshes and quad meshes even if they are not directly used inside Iclone.




I Make My Mates Do The CanCan For The Amusement Of Killer Robots

But didn't they do that already in iClone6?
I thought Character Creator characters (or anything really) had dynamic subdivision ability, so they stay smooth no matter what distance from the camera.

From what I've read, it's only the DX9 users that don't have the dynamic smoothing ability.

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Render DAZ Genesis 3 in Poser

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sjonesdc

STILL LEARNING!!!

Edited
8 Years Ago by sjonesdc

I think before they start desperate attempts to attract people back to Renderosity, it might help if the site worked properly

Yes but you can not edit the higher res mesh, its all done inside Iclone.
Poser and DAz users are able to push the mesh so much further than Iclone can as it stands now.




I Make My Mates Do The CanCan For The Amusement Of Killer Robots