Poser goes to Smith Micro Software.

[Couerl]

Well no one says they have to make it any better, they can just hand it over to the Chinese and remake the interface a little bit every year. If you look at applications like Paint Shop Pro, Fireworks, even Word and PDF, they are the same thing they always were with one or two new "features" every year and some new interface buttons. None of them have reinvented anything since their 4rth or 5th version. I do not beleive there is much if any difference between Poser-4 and Poser-7 except a couple of things and the Amapi team would have had those coded, tested and shipped in 2 weeks given their efficient developing skills.

Anyway, I don't give a crap about what happens to all those things, they're as good as dead and the small upstart companies will always have the cutting edge tools, like the Amapi/Hex Dev team because they are hungry. Luxology is much the same, but they haven't figured out what fast extrude and Alt-LMB do yet.

I'll give them a couple years I guess...

[transient]

Anyway, I don't give a crap about what happens to all those things, they're as good as dead and the small upstart companies will always have the cutting edge tools, like the Amapi/Hex Dev team because they are hungry

Aren't the hex/amapi team currently unemployed? I'm sure they're good at what they do (although hex 2 wasn't really a good example) but this whole upstart company = giant killer theory doesn't hold much water with me.

With the currently insatiable appetite of Autodesk, combined with the rise of Blender, I would argue there's never been a worse time for the independants.

I may be over-reading things a bit, but this current fire-sale at e frontier is a clear symbol to me of how tough things are getting out there in 3d land.

[achrystie]

500,000 users of Poser but only 7,000,000 in total revenues last year on a product that costs approximately $129 for the "upgrade", let alone the fact that their revenues include more packages than just poser "and" they sell content too. Doesn't sound like they were really pushing that many upgrades/new licenses out the door last year.

ABC

[tonytrout]

yep doesnt add up. Lots of users, not too many licenses, seems like the pirates are killing the smaller startups. I agree with transient, tough times for the small fish in 3Dland, also with Couerl, luxology need to learn about fast extrude (even though they have been told), whereas z brush needs standard navigation keys. Zbrush, modo and mudbox are all in the same pool and possibly only one will survive - my guess with autodesk bankrolling it will be mudbox, after all its taken ???? years to get to zb 3 how long to zb 4 and full 3d functionality

[bwtr]

3D Brush!

[Couerl]

Originally Posted by transient

(although hex 2 wasn't really a good example) but this whole upstart company = giant killer theory doesn't hold much water with me.

With the currently insatiable appetite of Autodesk, combined with the rise of Blender, I would argue there's never been a worse time for the independants.

I may be over-reading things a bit, but this current fire-sale at e frontier is a clear symbol to me of how tough things are getting out there in 3d land.

Actually, Hex-2 is an outstanding modeler if you don't make many modeling mistakes and Amapi-8 was even more solid in it's last version than Hex ever was. Those guys learned a lot between H2 and Amapi-8 and it showed. It's tragic to me to see what happened to them both in the face of the "more important" Pz3 import issues.

Well at least every-one's bras and panties work now and Carrara is doing well and slated to take a commanding lead in the mid/low end point and click market. I'd say Poster is toast and I agree things are tough out there for everyone.

It's not so much a question about being a "giant killer" as it is being an innovator and introducing fresh ideas to an idea saturated field.
ZBrush is really the last "big idea" in 3D (several years old already) and granted, it has taken some lengthy development time to get to version 3. People seem happy with it though and it didn't look hard to use when I saw it demoed at Sigraph.

It's these innovative tools that the "little guys" come up with that are really quite ingenious, like fast extrusion and ZBrush's jillion poly displacement that earn them a spot in the field while the "big guns" sit around and get stale and take more and more work to add features and debug and get released in a stable condition. Lightwave is just one example of a big gun that's gone downhill and lost a large portion of it's user-base because it really hasn't seemed to change much over the last few versions and neither did Poser so poof, away they go.. It's not hard to imagine the same kind of thing happening to others, maybe one of the big 3 will bite the dust in the next few years and make room for smaller apps to build new user bases like Modo is doing, hard to say which or when, but not hard to imagine it happening.

[tonytrout]

Bras and panties or not, Ill always have a softspot for poser, I can still remember the wonder of getting a rigged character leaping about the stage for the first time. Pure Magic. I thought I got to really get into CG, discovered amapi and its been great eversince, although it would be 3 yrs at least since I last had warrior jessi out swishing a sword and I wont be upgrading the licence.

[Couerl]

Sure, I understand, I have P5, but I maybe spent less than 10 hours altogether ever using it. Despite all of the huge userbase numbers, it must be worth mentioning that burnout happens fast too and there's only so much room on a hard drive for temples and swords and dresses and then well, what next? Many of those users simply got bored and the software is just sitting there and many others moved on to more challenging things. Maybe it's not just the software that faded, but the whole genre. Nothing is popular forever eh?

[tonytrout]

Maybe for populating virtual worlds online, I think the same crowd would go there.

[transient]

I'm not sure where the perception comes form that Poser's dead. They've still got their dev team and the company that bought it is listed on the nazdaq. It's also still got a massive user base. It's arguably in a better position now than it was before.

The fate of Shade and Amapi were a bit less certain, but apparently Shade's development hasn't been delayed too much, and a new US distributor has already been found for it.

Amapi is the big question mark now.

[tonytrout]

I think poser only doesnt have a modeller, last time I played with it it had quite advanced dynamic cloth and hair, reasonable renderer and keyed animation, node shader, run simulator etc, maybe not all the options but it still has potential with its huge user base to go another step, I guess it depends on the direction of the parent company. Virtual worlds anyone??

[Couerl]

Poserworld? Well,....... there goes the neighborhood.

[steama]

I bought up to Poser 6. Then I stopped upgrading. Poser 7 and the entire Poser EF thing never appealed to me. Also, no offence intended, a great deal of Poser content began appearing a bit slanted toward a particular ethnicity. Every ethnicity whether, African, Caucasion, or whatever seemed to be genetically related to Asian/Oriental people. I think that if you use pre-made content at all it is important that your African people look authentically African and not like a black Japanese or Caucasion character.

Also DAZ (like it or not) has made it very hard on EF in this sector for a whole host of reasons.

TOTALLY shocked that an application with a est. 500,000 user base (including some lesser apps.) sell for only 6mil. This made it very clear to me that I know absolutely nothing about the software 3d business. I am just a stupid consumer simply throwing my money around on some esoteric feature set.

I don't know anymore at all? Maybe go open source, stay small and simply adapt, adapt, adapt, advance to middleware applications and hope for their future, or go big with the expensive stuff. One thing for sure is that all this disruptive change so frequently is discouraging and does not help motivate my interest much. So for me I will stay a 3D hobbiest, just play around and use 3d in print graphics when I can. I really can't afford to keep up with all this change. So I guess it financially must stay a fun hobby.

I just want thing to work as advertised and stick around for a little while in one home.

[tonytrout]

It is true the big programmes have a vested interest in pushing very expensive upgrades so once hitched up to the cart you end up a donkey for the rest of your life. I agree the constant software shuffling is really pissing me off too.

Courl if Vicky moves in down the street ill let you know

[dlk30341]

http://www.e-frontier.com/go/news If you read down it says Shade is a part of this agreement - I wonder if this is a typo?

[transient]

I think the official situation with Shade isn't going to be clear for some time, and Amapi seems to have been banished to the phantom zone. Shade's still alive, though, which is still a result.

I think only time will tell whether Smith-Micro will improve on e frontier's sub-standard treatment of these programs.

Hopefully they won't be too fixated on Poser, although when you consider how quick they were to placate Poser users through the official blog, compared with the virtual blackout Shade and Amapi users are currently enduring, I'm going to guess it won't be much different.

[steama]

Originally Posted by dlk30341

http://www.e-frontier.com/go/news If you read down it says Shade is a part of this agreement - I wonder if this is a typo?

Yep, it very clearly says Shade. I doubt it is a typo. News of this magnitude is 'usually well proofed'.

Well maybe SM will spruce up Shade's UI a bit?

[Thomas]

FYI, Manga Studio isn't a software own by e frontier.. but Celsys, a japanese editor. e frontier was the international editor/reseller if I'm not wrong. Then, the new agreement should be about continuing the deal around this software. I think it's the same for Shade.
Smith should continue this business...

[transient]

EF Japan is staying it's own company.

EF America is being purchased by Smith Micro.

Shade is going to be staying with EF Japan, and more than likely will be distributed through Smith Micro.

EF Japan will continue the development of Shade Japanese, and American version.

After much nagging () this is the latest semi-official news re: Shade (from Shaders Cafe). Hopefully, this will see Shade back on track soon.

E Frontier have been selling versions of Shade 7 Pro ebay for as low as $89. This is a great deal if you're curious about it, but don't want to shell out too much cash.

The more I use this app, the more I like it.

[shannonhoppe]

Of course it would only be speculation, but wouldn't it seem like a good time for other companies to possibly buy the rights to the softwares? Would it be feasible to hope that the software might be purchased by Daz to at least bring the technologies under one roof for consolidated development? With Daz's content revenue, could it be all that hard to come up with a better than $6 milllion offer?

Just curious is all...