I closed the door as a Poser freebie provider. It’s an event been approaching visibly for quite some time now. Bit by bit, I’ve cut ties with sites, because I found myself unable to focus on the good there because of the problems that face the community. They just haven’t been enough to inspire me to go through all the trouble of importing goods for use in Poser while my primary focus is modo.
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I go back well into the 90’s with 3D. I go back just about as far as one can go using a computer that could fit on a desktop. I was adept at writing key command code on the fly for POV-Ray. I have a copy of Poser 1.0. I have a copy of RayDream. I watched the 3D community crawl out of the mainframes and inhabit the home processors and come to a focus in the mid to late 90’s.
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I watched Metacreations form and fall. I watched Daz split from Zygote. I watched Renderosity emerge from the forum mire. I saw 3D Commune split off from Renderosity. I watched Poser Pros form and experience its heyday. I watched PoserWorld (on which I’d posted freebies back when it was free) turn commercial.
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I’ve watched nubies rise from the ranks of unskilled to merchants, a trickle at first, but accelerating to a horde as the fever of making a living as an artist caught so many with it’s myopic dream. I watched the political games the stores played, the shifting away from freebies, toward store focus. I watched the sprouting small stores created by dissatisfied merchants think that they could get away with what the big stores did. I’ve watched greed and ambition trample what little was left of the old community and its honest sense of sharing. I’ve watched the fire go out, watching products become technically adept, but losing in the work the soul of the artist turned factory as products became cookie cutter designs. Innovation became lost in the numbing string of boring formularized packages.
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Add to it the rise of Daz Studio as a disruptive element. Being essentially parasitic, capable of giving nothing substancial back to Poser, but capable of using a great deal of Poser made content, some D|S users seem to forget the Poser contributors were their source. The Poser-haters that arose from this schism have done considerable harm to the base of the community. And those who support the products, which Daz acquired from the trash heap of companies that dropped the failing software for pennies on the dollar, treat them as if there is none better at any price. I can’t say that I trust the opinion of anyone who thinks that Daz software is the best there is. (I don’t have any software by Daz installed on my drives.)
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I think one of the worse insults that occurred in “Early September” was the act of belittling those who provide freebies strictly out of a sense of sharing. As with any insult, it’s usually given by those without insight into or involvement with the process. I’m tired of those who love pronouncing their rightful involvement of anything mentioned in the forums, even if they have no involvement in it. Denunciation of the pursuit of others is a common right in the forums these days. I’m past being tired of it.
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By the way, “Early September” is the name because the turmoil that traditionally occurs at Renderosity in September of each year took place a few weeks early this year.
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For all intents and purposes, I am retired from Poser as a contributor. I follow in the footsteps of other freebie providers who didn’t last as long as I did. I’ve watched many of the generous reach the point to where they’d taken enough abuse and threw in the towel. Now it’s my turn to give a farewell bow and become scarce.
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I don’t claim that I was the greatest anything. I was just a member who never backed down from a learning curve, who helped people reach their aspirations, offered free items that didn’t exist elsewhere, and watched a community grow from infancy to maturity and then choke on itself.
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Frankly, converting items for use in Poser, and then struggling with the limitations of the low tier software, is a big pain in the rear. I render occasionally in Poser, but never for a final presentation. I use Poser renderings for comics, working previews, testing poses for export to another studio, but not final results. It just lacks too much that I have in other studios like Lightwave, C4D, and modo. It’s no longer a natural process for me to Poserize stuff for my own use.
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For me to go to this much trouble, and to be faced with insult and derision for my efforts, just doesn’t do much to inspire me to create more freebies for Poser. It’s been quite some time that I’ve been interested in Poser as a primary tool, using it mostly as a resource engine because of the available content. I appreciate it, but it just isn’t the community that I once admired so. The sentimentality that kept me lingering on has finally grown too thin in the face of what the community has become.
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The Poser community is choking on itself. Sales are dropping, and while some blame the recession, much of the loss lies in what the stores have become. The stores have dropped quality control, allowed anyone to become a merchant, and consequently, the stores are becoming boring, and the good items are becoming harder to find. The flea market mentality that pervades the community is something the stores created in order to make more money, only it’s turned around and alienated their customer base. And everyone seems to have someone to blame for it.
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I have found that I can’t hang around and watch this trend deepen. It’s just too painful. Enough is enough. The prolonged farewell has ended. I’m gone.
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I come away with a lot of fond memories. I met many wonderful and talented people, people who enriched my life immensely. I’ll miss them a great deal. It was a great involvement. A shame it has to end, but like all things…….. turn the page.
