This newsletter from CuriousLabs came in with a bunch of news. I'm only going to post a couple of items, since I expect official messages from them. Oh, frabjous day! Carolly ************************************ Poser 5 Macintosh Update ************************************ *** Curious Labs currently has a Mac OSX version of Poser 5 up and running. To fully support the entirely new engineering standards from Apple, and to ensure the stability of the Mac OSX version, Curious Labs has decided to extend the time spent on development and quality assurance. Details on availability will follow. In addition, Curious Labs is currently developing a new process and partnership to allow better delivery of Macintosh products in the future. In the interim Curious Labs has reintroduced the Macintosh offerings of Poser 4 and Pro Pack for Poser 4 at the request of many customers.

Good news, and will be a great excuse for a new G4 with the 23" Cinema display... (right, says my wife...) :)

I dunno, I havn't really seen alot from the PC side to make me stand up and take notice of Poser 5. Also DAZ has their mystery program comig out. We'll see...

I didn't go back to MacWorld today because I would have spent serious money... droolworthy items like the new wide-screen laptop?!? and those cinema displays?!? :whimper: I did get more memory... and a good thing, too, but maybe I should have picked up another hard drive. This means that I can install OSX since Poser was my last application to convert. Carolly

Although I've paid attention to what's gone on, I figure that since we're on a different platform, we'll have different issues. The plus side is that Macs tend to be more uniform - I'd like to think that this fact makes it easier to beta test. It definately makes it easier when I'm developing CD ROMs.

In my experience, Poser 4 is much more stable on Classic running under Mac OS X rather than running on Mac OS 9, which tended to crash and bring down the entire system with it.

(Maybe we shouldnt light a match, not with all this vapour) To hell with the development and quality thingie we want the fer now. I agree with Bobasaur, let it be public betad on Macs. We KNOW its got problems, just let US sort them out.

Partnership with who?

I dont mind waiting, as I would rather get a solid stable program, than one that crashes and does weird things at random.....Of course, even after they ship P5 for mac, i will still keep my poser-4pro going on OS9 until I make sure that 5 will work good...I've upgraded software before only to have to reinstall the older version due to bugs in the new one.

As a PC user, believe me, I would have loved that "to ensure the stability of the PC version, Curious Labs had decided to extend the time spent on development and quality assurance". This would have saved us all a good amount of time...

I'm trying to be positive here, but this just sounds like spin and fluff to me. >Curious Labs currently has a Mac OSX version of Poser 5 up >and running. To fully support the entirely new engineering >standards from Apple, and to ensure the stability of the >Mac OSX version, Curious Labs has decided to extend the >time spent on development and quality assurance. Details on >availability will follow. TRANSLATION: "We have an early alpha version of a port from buggy and incomplete windows code running on OSX, but it is unstable and slow and incomplete, and we dont have any experience with OSX so we still have a lot ot work on and we have no idea when we can get this thing to work." Really, there is nothing new in this announcement. >In addition, Curious Labs is currently developing a new >process and partnership to allow better delivery of >Macintosh products in the future. TRANSLATION: "Even if we did have a Mac version finished we dont have a distribution deal to get it to you." Personally, I will believe it when I see it ship, and even then I'm still not enticed by the new features, and I would be REALLY skeptical that the program would run well at all. I mean really, we know what the windows version looked like...they have no experience with OSX and are admitting it themselves. Do you think the Mac product is going to be stable and fast? You be the judge?

"I'm trying to be positive here," Quoll... really? "Personally, I will believe it when I see it ship, and even then I'm still not enticed by the new features, and I would be REALLY skeptical that the program would run well at all." If that is you at your positive best, I feel sorry for you. If dynamic cloth, atmospheric effects, and wonderful texture tricks such as displacement mapping don't attract you, then surely the library management system ought to be worth a nod. As for a lack of experience with OSX, you ought to remember that Poser was originally a Mac product. I don't think Poser 1 ever came out for the PC. These guys were Mac programmers first. The Unix kernel would be different, but the Mac way of doing things would be familiar. A lot of people have been posting regularly, complaining that there has been no word about the Mac version. Now there is some word. I posted this clipping for those people who have been waiting to hear something. I'm sure that there are readers for whom this IS positive news. Really. Carolly

we call it blowing smoke up the old ass. but Quoll put it nicer.

Uh, Poser was written for the Apple (don't know which one) NOT the Mac. But yes, it was PC second.

it was written first for the Mac, I remember when the first version came out, I got it for free... lol. Them thar days it was Fractal Design Poser. I got it free because I had bought Painter. I was using a IIci then. Yes, that's a Macintosh. nowadays I use a pc, but I do still really like the Mac, still have an old one plugging along here.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=312146&Start=1&Sectionid=1&WhatsNew=Yes

Gallery image Do I get to beta test P5?

From BSOD to "Kernal Panic" fun!!! :-)

Nah - at least in *ix you can find the offending process and wax it. /P

If that is you at your positive best, I feel sorry for you. Don't ever feel sorry for me, but thanks anyway. ; ) >If dynamic cloth, atmospheric effects, and wonderful texture tricks >such as displacement mapping don't attract you, then surely the library Those features are exciting to me, but I already have them in Maya and Lightwave where they are more advanced, and currently available on OSX I might add. What I really loved about Poser was the abillity to quickly set up a character and then blow it out into another program to work with. Poser 5 offers me nothing in the way of workflow improvements, and CL will probably charge more for the "pro pack" when and if that ever arrives. And it;'s been said before but new "features" in the same crummy interface with the same crummy lighting system, the same wonky character set up process, no open GL previews, etc. is not "exciting" to me. So for me personally, Poser 5 looks like waiting a long time to spend a lot of money for something I really dont ever need, and then probably having it run poorly to boot. >As for a lack of experience with OSX, you ought to remember that >Poser was originally a Mac product. I don't think Poser 1 ever came out >for the PC. These guys were Mac programmers first. The Unix kernel > would be different, but the Mac way of doing things would be familiar. There isn't really a "Mac way" of doing things. Programming for OSX is very different than programming for OS9. Even if a programmer used the same language there are still a whole lot of new things to learn about how the system works. No one is at fault for not having experience with OSX because it is very new, but that learning curve should be kept in mind when considering product purchases. I also just dont take any company seriously who doesn't commit to a launch date and stick to it. "We are banging away at it..." is not indicitive of a company who is serious about getting a product to market. And they certainly can't exite me about thier product with behaviour like that. If they are stuggling to get the product out at all they cant be innovating, optimizing code, improving workflow or anything else so important to me in a graphics application. Project management? Resource allocation? This should be really basic stuff to a software company but CL exibits none of this. I'm not mad at them. I just dont take them seriously. ; )

Uh, Poser was written for the Apple (don't know which one) NOT the Mac. Sorry, but actually Poser was written for the "Mac". The "Macintosh" first appeared in 1984 and every Apple computer since then has been a "Mac". There were a few questionable naming variations along the way, like the "Performa" but overall every Apple computer since 1984 has been a "Mac". I still have the original 3 disk instal of Poser 1. It's a pretty funny thing to see! ; )

Attached Link: Reiss Studio, home of BodyStudio, the Maya Poser plugin. Now on Mac and Win!

Hi Christopher! (Quoll) You know that I like and respect you (in fact I sold you your copy of Maya) but I'd love to see you let people know that you have a financial relationship with DAZ before posting anti-Curious Labs opinions online! and also if you're going to promote features of DAZ's upcoming program over CL's current program. Carolly is right. The code for poser 5 contains more Mac libraries at its core, and was originally a port to windows, not the other way around. If not for Apple's switch to OS X, and curious's need to upgrade the internal apple libraries, we would have seen an OSX version much sooner. "I also just dont take any company seriously who doesn't commit to a launch date and stick to it." Neither CL or DAZ have a release date for their product announced, and I respect both of them! They also might have an internal release date which is not public. cheers! -Josh PS. For those interested in the Macintosh, we just released BodyStudio (the Maya Poser plugin... for Macintosh!)

Hiya Josh! Thanks for the pushback. ; ) While it is true that I had a financial relationship with DAZ it did not involve DAZ Studio in any way so there is no influence at all in my product preferences. My feelings about Poser and Poser 5 pre-existed my relationship with DAZ and in fact were a major factor in my decision to do the business I did with DAZ, so there is nothing new due to influence. In my postings on this thread about Poser 5 I have not once mentioned DAZ Studio, rather expressed my dissatisfaction with Poser as a product and CL's strategies. The primary reason behind my move to Maya was to access things that I'm positive neither Poser 5 nor DAZ Studio will make available to me so I really dont have a specific interest in seeing a victory by one over the other. And since we are on the topic, I should also be very clear that I really dont know anything more about Poser 5 or DAZ Studio as products than anyone else does. I have never seen the code for either, nor have I seen any screenshots or printed information that hasn't been publicly posted, and I have never worked with running alpha or beta software for either (no matter how hard I have tried to!). Most of my speculation around these products comes from my experience working in various roles in professional software development ventures, my experience as a 3D animator, and my own estimation about what the publicly offered information really means. Also to be fair, like many people here I am under NDA with both DAZ and CL, not to mention a couple of other entities, so I dont say a lot of things I know to a lot of people. That leaves me with not much other than emotional speculations to use when conversing about these topics. Since I really dont use Poser anymore and dont have any plans to I suppose I should stop any negative postings about the entire issue. Not because I owe anything to anyone but because it simply doesn't gain me anything and there is enough negativity in the world already. I also wish success and well being for both CL and DAZ (and the rest of you) and since you made an issue out of my relationships with both of them then it would be easy for someone else to do so as well, but worse it could be taken out of context as things so often are in this community and end up damaging someone who doesnt deserve it. If any of you have read any of my previous posts about Poser 5 you know how I feel about it, and nothing short of a rock solid super fast release of Poser for OSX and Windows with yet unannounced features and a new GUI will change my mind. Nuff said, and with that I will leave the issue alone from now on. So since we are at it, perhaps you have a financial relationship with DAZ also? ; ) >PS. For those interested in the Macintosh, we just released >BodyStudio (the Maya Poser plugin... for Macintosh!) Now that is good news! I'm on my way to check it out. Maybe there will be a use for Poser 4 again after all!

"So since we are at it, perhaps you have a financial relationship with DAZ also? ; )" Nah... he's got a financial relationship with CuriousLabs. ;] Howdy Quoll. ;)

Attached Link: Reiss Studio, home of the Maya Poser plugin. Now for Mac and Win!

"Now that is good news! I'm on my way to check it out. Maybe there will be a use for Poser 4 again after all!" Thanks Chris! hope you like it. we've gotten great feedback so far. I actually use this stuff, so hopefully it comes through in the product. "So since we are at it, perhaps you have a financial relationship with DAZ also? ; )" har, yeah Dan did send me that sale, huh? he's a nice guy. "Hiya Josh! Thanks for the pushback. ; )" Hehe, no prob! sometimes I hear things behind the scenes so I try to give the feedback that they can't always say officially (like the fact that it is mac compliant at the core...) "Nah... he's got a financial relationship with CuriousLabs. ;]" Exactly! I make no hides about the fact that we work with curious labs with the official SDK just like Vue, and WorldBuilder, and create the official maya plugin for poser. (it's pretty clear from the link to my site), and my company name is the name of this account. Besides I wouldn't want to give Ironbear yet another thing to grumble about. He's easily upset about so much already! :) cheers, -Josh