Thoughts about Poser and Daz Studio

A recent topic over at the Daz3D forums sparked me to reminisce about my interactions with Poser and Daz Studio. Like almost all 3D artists in this arena, I started out with Poser and then shifted over to Daz Studio when Poser was floundering (and it looked like the product might die). But for me, the shift was gradual.

I didn't care at all for Daz Studio until version 4 came along. I remember looking at DS2 and asking people, "What's so great about it that I should invest the time to learn it?" And I just kept getting the same answer: "It's free!" I remember that I finally snapped and said, "Look, I'm an adult with a JOB. I can afford to buy Poser. What the heck is in DS that would make it worth my while?" Finally, one guy said, "Nothing. If you have Poser just stick with it. DS2 isn't a mature program."

 And that was true, until Daz Studio 4. That was when it finally had the tools and power to make it worthwhile. And that's when I jumped ship and went over to Daz Studio. Things I really liked:

•  The Download Manager. One click and everything comes down and goes where it's supposed to. 
• Smart wardrobes: Again, click on the figure and the library filters the view to show you stuff that works with that figure. 
• Easier figure manipulation. 
• Iray (Poser's Superfly is a poor, VERY distant runner up to Iray). 

But... As much as I liked DS and the pretty Iray pictures I could make, it wasn't fulfilling my desires to create line art out of 3D. Workarounds like Toon shaders and geoshells were (not to be rude): rubbish. Yes, with a LOT of work you could make something that worked. But the look wasn't all that good. The same is true for using Filter Forge and other image manipulation tricks. Yeah, you could get something that looked okay... but it really wasn't anything that knocked my socks off.

Even in the hands of an expert it usually looks like someone did some Filter magic on a standard render. And then in January 2016 I attended a Webinar hosted by professional comic artist Brian Haberlin and he showed a feature I had never seen before: "The Live Comic Book Preview" (he added the word "Live" to its name).

Brian showed the tricks to setting up lights and adjusting the geometric edge settings, and suddenly I was off and running because I had actually won a free copy of Poser 11 and had it installed on my computer. For about a year I tried to duplicate his workflow (even bought Blacksmith 7 so I could work on my texture maps the way he did in Z-Brush), but soon tired of copying him and developed my own style.

Now I finally have a style and workflow that I like. BUT... even though I'm happy with the art I create, I'm a bit frustrated by exactly one thing that is still missing from Poser: a modern flagship figure that content creators supported. Yeah, that's still a problem.

I see lots of great content out there, but mostly I pass on it because I can't use it in Poser. I know Renderosity has high hopes for La Femme, but I just don't see the market support for her, yet. The new products are tickling out, and frankly they're not that interesting.

Yeah, I know "slut wear" sells, but not to me. I need clothes, characters and POSES. So far, there just isn't enough support for her to make me consider using her for any project. Which is too bad: I think she has potential.

Frankly, unless Poser gets support for the Genesis figures, and soon, I don't see a bright future for the software. Especially since I've hear rumors that Daz Studio is working on creating its own Comic Book Preview.