We have more news on Poser, giving a price and an approximate release date.
The date given is still a bit vague, at “Late Fall”. Which would put the release-window between Renderosity’s store discount cut-off of 24th September and the 31st October (which would be the last point that one could reasonably call “late Fall” or Autumn). You can understand that they don’t want to be more specific, since competitors could launch a big ‘must have’ 80% sale a week before and thus drain everyone’s PayPal at just the wrong moment. But it seems possible Poser 12 may be here quite soon now, perhaps even as early as the end of September. I assume there will be a generous free trial, like there is for Poser 11, which should allow for testing and thus allow for some facts to calm the forum hysterics.
So, on price there will be a $129 upgrade price from versions of Poser 11, which is quite reasonable seeing as this is for Pro with its additional features, not the old Standard. In the old days you’d have been happy to pay $129 just for Poser Standard. Also, you can currently get Poser 11 Pro for just $80 at Neowin Deals. ‘Five days to go’ on that, as of today. Given the possible release dates for Poser 12, it could be your last chance to get that deal.
But there won’t be any upgrade path from the old Smith Micro versions prior to Poser 11. That’s fair enough, as it’s something that greatly lessens the programming and help-desk load for Renderosity. People can hang on to antiques like Poser 6 and Poser 2014 forever, for some backwards compatibility, because these versions don’t “phone home” and thus should last as long as Windows. But there comes a point when users can’t expect their antiques, made by another company, to also be perpetual golden-tickets to a shiny new Poser 12.
Slightly worrying is the lack of a crossover period, and an apparent abrupt change…
“Poser 11 will no longer be available for purchase after the release of Poser 12”.
Worrying because that opens the door for some forum trolls to slyly suggest to newbies that their Poser 11 will stop running in a few weeks’ time. A forum clarification would have been useful in that respect, to the effect that Poser 11 will keep running and that 11 will continue to be supported at the help-desk.
In the meantime…
“The full version of Poser 11 is also discounted at 40% off” at the Renderosity Store.
Though note that the $80 Poser 11 Pro version still available via Neowin Deals for the next five days.
There’s also some misleading forum-mongering about a “replacement” render engine. This claim is not at all justified by the official announcement. The announcement says Blender’s Cycles (aka SuperFly) will have its version updated, not be junked and replaced. A Cycles upgrade for Poser 12 should be great news, as Cycles has come a long way since 2012 and it will likely mean rendering speed improvements for SuperFly.