Quote -
Reading isn't the point, it's acting and listening. We all know by now that Smith Micro takes strange actions and doesn't really listen to their customers.

It seems you didn't read the other stuff I wrote recently. I don't know what makes you think they don't listen to their customers. Are you basing this on your own desires, and assuming the majority of other customers feel the same? Not saying your are, but just asking. It isn't logical to assume what you want is what the majority wants. Or are you basing this on your empirical observation of what other posters here say? Again - there's no validity in assuming the postings in this forum represent the majority opinion Those of use who are active forum posters are a minority and a peculiar group by far. SM get a lot of input via channels you have no visibility into. You cannot ascertain what the majority of SM customers are asking for by reading these forums. You can judge by looking in the gallery. Heheh. I assure you, SM is responding quite accurately to their installed base.

Quote - I've completely lost faith in them and expect Poser 8 to be everything I haven't asked for. After all that's what they showed to me in their latest move...... giving us something nobody wants and then telling us it's what we've asked for.

That's wild speculation and hyperbole as well. Are you seriously making the claim that the features they deliver were asked for by nobody - nobody at all?

Quote - That's great if you're after that, but not all of us want realistic stuff. The more Poser will be geared towards that, the less likely I will upgrade.

Huh? We've been talking about our sadness that SM appears to be not responding to requests for more realism and more power in the renderer and shaders. Why would you complain that you're not interested in an upgrade geared toward realism? All indications are that most people don't even turn shadows on, so why would they want better shadows? SM appears to be paying attention to these shadowless Poserites. (The unwashed. Boy did I get a lot of grief for that comment. Hehehe.)

Quote - Let's not forget there's a large portion of users who are very heavy into anime and toons and rather see things like the toon rendering and lighting site improved over realistic light and render achievements.

How come you don't use their Anime Studio then, instead of Poser? They have a whole product specifically designed to do what you want. Or do you think all SM products should be merged into one?

Quote - Besides, I do find all this talk about how much % realistic a render is or not, kind of unrealistic. Who determines the percentage anyway? who determines what's decent lighting anyway?

I determine it, when I'm talking about it. Measuring realism is not objectively quantitative, but I can say with some certainty that I can grade things on a continuum, and that I have no problem saying that on a scale of 100, where 100 is perfection - no deviation from reality, that I put most Poser users around 25, I'm around 70, most people at CGSociety are closer to 90, and Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean was a 98.

Let's put those numbers another way. If we look at the body of work in the entire CG community from noob hobbyist to Disney pro, we can rank everybody left to right. I say DPH moved from the 25th percentile to better than half of the community just by turning on gamma correction and doing some decent shaders.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)