aleks I have to disagree with you in part, there's not one single piece of software I've bought in the 10 years I've had a pc that hasn't had bugs. You could say I've been beta testing software for 10 years & paying to do it so Poser is no different. What would make me happy is if Daz buys Poser & employs the CL staff then carry on with the development of Poser like nothing happened.

I suppose I shouldn't sit down at a keyboard near midnight after my 3rd 12 hour work day in a row and even think I could type something that would actually project what I mean or wouldn't cause an hard feelings among the genpop. Ah well, defecation occureth. Spit said - "The only ones who think badly of Corel and Bryce 5 are the ones not using Bryce 5. The rest of us are happily rendering." Wrong - I have Bryce 5, it runs great on my XP box. Love it. I don't like the way Corel is handling the product. I probably fire the program up more than they do. IB said - "I'll sleep just bloody fine, Pariah. But thank you for the concern, eh? ;]" Funny, I wasn't even thinking about ya, IB. :) Like I said, I wasn't in the best frame of mind to get my point across. I said - "I hope all of the naysayers and badmouthers can finally get a goodnight's sleep. Looks like they won." I guess I could have said, "I hope all of the doomsayers and badmouthers can get a goodnight's sleep." I couldn't even begin to count the number of posts here and elsewhere in which user touted P5 as "the beginning of the end" for CL. It was everywhere. "This is it." "It's all over." "CL is going down." Hell, I may have even said it myself. But honestly, can anyone say the the constant stream on bad publicity DIDN'T hurt at all? I saw more negative posts on CL and P5 here than anywhere else. Posts that resulted in bannings, hard feelings between former friends, and even reached the point where the CEO of CL publicly handed a few people their on asses on a paper-plate. If you were a newbie to the community and you witnessed this stream of vile communications, wouldn't you say, "F*$K IT!" and reserve your money? How many of the constant bad-mouthers actually owned a copy of the program? How many were just toadies hopping on yet another bandwagon? Now, because I am on a roll, a few comparisons... Bryce stays alive and will continue to do so from the support of its users. There hasn't been a major update from Corel since, um, don't remember...but do you see a community at war? No, you see a community supporting itself and it's members. They work together. As a vendor, I can assure you, Bryce stuff doesn't sell. Why? Well, because Bryce users would rather share freely with each other negating the need to visit a marketplace anywhere. While there are some very good high-end materials and such available in various marketplaces, one can find ones just as good in the free section all of the time. I served on the Beta testing team for Mojoworld2. I can tell you this, if American businesses ran their operations as smoothly and effectively as Pandromeda runs their Beta testing programs, the economy would be in a much better state. Doc and company listen to their testers. If you issue a bug report, it is treated just as equally as the other bug reports. Never once saw a "must be your local machine" response. Pandromeda listens to their testers, but more importantly, they listen to their customers, BEFORE, not afterwards. I guess I've ranted long enough now. I have more to say, but Im running out of words. :)

yes, c1rcle, i agree about new software without bugs. but poser wasn't a new software. with number 4 or 5 behind it's name it's should be considered as mature software without stability issues. but i was able to use it only after beta5 or 6, i forgot. almost 4 months later. and it's still behind the promises made at a realease date. and, you know, i perfectly understand when someone like hauksdottir, who has personal ties to employees is sad about it, but to me it's just another company that delivered a bad product and goes down the drain. if i don't satisfy my customers with my ideas and designs, the same is gonna happen to me also. such is life.

I believe some here are way off on most of us bitchers. We were simply customers like everyone else here. Customers who were unhappy with the product for any one or more of several reasons. But we saw P5 for what it was...a HUGE mistake; possibly the death knell for Poser. And the most disturbing where the cover-up excuses. You don't fix something by covering it up. I bitched because I love Poser and wanted to see it fixed so it wouldn't die, and i think many bitched for the same reason. IMO many mistakes were made at CL, and most at the top. If Poser is to survive, I think this was the best move. And if the same people buy it later, the same crap is gonna happen. Running a business isn't a party.

:(

A few points. CL didn't get into it's current condition overnight, and it isn't P5 or "whiners" that caused it's present situation. CL's business plan and practices, as well as the overall economic climate, are what caused this. CL was in difficulty long before the P5 release. CL released P5 too soon, due to the economic needs of the company, hoping to increase cash flow. This points to problems that existed well before the P5 release. The complaints and "whining" here and at other sites weren't the problem with P5, premature release was and bad follow up were. The "whining" was a very legitimate response to the problems that existed (and still do) with P5. Don't blame the people who paid the money for a product that didn't meet the promises the company made. There wouldn't have been nearly as much whining if the product had worked better. Having said that, CL made every effort, with the resources they had available, to correct the problems and to reestablish a good reputation. Heroic efforts were made by the programming staff to stay ahead of the flood of bug reports, however, the sheer quantity made it impossible for such a small company to stay ahead. Especially one that has a corporate parent that demands a share of the profits off the top, further reducing resources. Kupa, Larry, and the rest probably were hurt more than anyone with the premature P5 release. The early release must have felt like sending your kid to kindergarten for the first time, knowing in advance he's going to be beat up before he gets to school. Poser is their baby, and they put their souls into it. CL was in a no-win situation. What could they have done? It all came down to resouces for programming and testing, and time. They needed more. They didn't have it. Only by selling the company before the release to someone with big pockets, or partnering with someone willing to invest a large amount of $$$ in the company did it have any chance. Usually a parent company will step in with cash in a situation like this, but I get the impression that EGISYS isn't in any better condition. What can they do now? Not a thing. They don't have the money to keep the programming staff. They've let their key people go, and the bean counters are in charge. Not ever a good move for a software publishing company (see Dilbert). Unless they rebuild the programming and testing staff, there is no hope at all for them. They have value as a company now only in their copyrights. No employee base, no other assets. That means the only way to get cash is to either sell or liscense their technology to other more profitable companies. CL is prime for the picking, if anyone wants them. What does this mean to us? Well, I've got thousands of dollars invested in this "hobby", and suddenly the base is gone. I can no longer recommend Poser and a tool for client's development since I can be unsure of support. 3rd party vendors will feel the hit. Daz's best move has been announcing that Daz Studio is in development. It gives them an independent method of 3D figure support. 3rd party vendors will be desperatly trying to get at the specs for Daz Studio, because from now on they'll make d*mn sure their stuff will work with it. It has suddenly become the great glowing hope. CL may come out of this, but I don't expect it to be with EGISYS. So don't blame the nay sayers, it isn't their fault. I feel sorry for all the good people who worked for CL, but to blame the people who paid the company money for P5 and complained that they didn't get what was advertised is rediculous. We didn't cause the problem, we're the ones who lost the most on this. It's even hard to blame CL management. They did the best they could with what they had.

Aye, much like a lot of corporate controlled software companies whom release a product before it has all of the boogers cleaned out of it. P5 was doomed from the start because of this and the original Eula compounded their problems. If they'd beta tested P5 more thoroughly and listened more closely to the end-user and didn't rush it's release they may have faired better. I don't think everyone is gonna throw out their copies of P4, Pro Pack or P5 just because CL is possibly going down. The market is there and will remain. Poser will be either be picked up by another company or replaced by an even more conventional application, but regardless of how it goes or where it goes, the content market will always be here. :)

"With any luck Kupa and Larry and some of the other development team will stay in touch and maybe start making the Poser App they wanted to in the first place." Depending upon agreements, this may not be a possibility. It is possible that EGI may have prohibited former employees from making a "Poser clone" or competitive product for X number of years. The penchant for NDAs for anyone/anything even remotely connected with Poser would suggest that such a restriction is a high probability. Given their internal knowledge of how Poser works, it would be likely that they would - either intentionally or not - use protected code and/or techniques that EGI seems to have ownership of. If that turned out to be the case, then EGI could be within their rights to force them to cease working on the project or turn over all profits, etc.

Well, it all depends on the terms of the agreement, if any. Many companies have "Non-Compete" clauses in both their hiring and severance packages. No doubt they could work in the same industry - after all, they have to make a living - but a "Poser Clone" from the previous CL employees is most likely not forthcoming any time soon.

Cyber has it right, I worked for a phone company & part of my contract was that if I left I could not go to work for the competition for at least 12 months.

There are lots of terms to a non-compeate agreement. Many of them aren't enforcable because of conflicting clauses. Usually, if a company no longer provides support for a product, the the non-compeate goes out the window since the company is no longer doing business in the same field. There are also terms as to what type of work someone can do in a compeating company. A programmer who worked for a company may not be able to work for a competitor as a programmer, but they can work in an other non-technical capacity. A competitor can also buy out a non-compeate from the company in order for the employee to begin work. All that said, if I were one of the CL employees, I'd collect my unemployment for a few weeks before I considered anything. These guys have been through a tough period, and need a break. Some of them are staying on as consultants or "partners" with a different footing with the company, so starting a new company isn't feasable. I'd also make sure my last check had all my back pay, vacation pay, comp time pay, and severence, and that the check cleared. Failure on any of those can nullify a non-compeate. Boy, these threads do grow and change. One announcement from CL, and we've already started to plan Kupa and Larry's lives for them. Maybe we should give them a few moments to get themselves together, after all, they're part of the herd now.

CL made promises that it couldn't keep, whether it was due to resources, to EGISys, or whatever. PPP didn't work properly for MAX pluggins. P5 was released a long time after PPP and was not re-written from the ground up as promised. Yes, the criticism of the program didn't help sales, but most of the criticism was (and is) valid. I feel bad that CL is in so much trouble financially and that most of the employees are gone, but I don't feel guilty for being honest about all the problems I've had with the program. I wish Steve, Larry, and all the rest the best of luck in finding new jobs and working on projects they can enjoy and be successful with.

Buggy software is better than none at all... It's not over, never really is unless we lose the evangelists, and the other loonies that such "cults" attract. I own an Amiga, "So the world may know.." :) They are now on version 4.0 of the OS, releasing new ROM's, and recently, even new hardware. This from a 16bit computer released in 1985, (the first version of the OS was so buggy it would only stay up for 5 mins at a time :) that has seen the passing of it's creators, both personal and corporate, and many of it's subsequent suitors. If that can survive, then so can Poser. Provided the faithfull continue to buy content, and places like this exist, then I reckon that Poser has a long and winding road open before it. later jb

I'm sorry to hear this news, but if I had seen a good product in Poser 5 when it was released I would have bought it. As it was, I did not see a good, stable product, kept Poser 4 and now await DAZ Studio. Will I ever buy Poser 5? I don't know, but with this news and the feeling I have, that Poser 5 did not deliver what it promised, I would hazard a guess at no :o( My very best wishes to you both for the future, Steve and Larry. I'm sure we will see you both rise up again, stronger than ever. Martin

Anton, I never said the "whiners" were SOLELY responsible for CL's problems. I don't give them that much credit or grant them that much power. All I said was that they didn't help. Everybody here knew to begin with that CL was a small company, with limited resources. Then P5 came out and had problems. So what? Instead of getting behind an effort to make it better, there was a steady stream of CL bashing that defied all logic. Regardless of whether we liked the P5 program as shipped or not, CL's health was necessary for anything getting fixed. So while the first week or two of grumbling and complaining was certainly understandable, the rampant bashing that went on after that was excessive and illogical. Why kill the goose because the golden eggs don't shine? So now we MIGHT be saddled with a Poser program that's no longer supported at all (I realize that hasn't actually happned yet). And I'm not secure in the fact that the CL-bashers have decided it's okay for Poser to die because there's this thing called "Daz Studio" coming down the pike that's supposed to pick up where P5 left off. I sincerely hope it does. But what do I do if it doesn't? I don't pose Vicky in temples or dress her up in skimpy bikinis. I use Poser for animation. Will "Daz Studio" do animation? No one has publicly said (yet) that it will. I'm not bashing Daz. I buy lots of their stuff and am a proud, card-carrying Platinum Club member. I just resent a perfectly useful program like Poser being destroyed PARTIALLY through immature behavior and irresponsible mob mentality. (I have a natural reflex to always defend the little guy against mobs). -jjsemp

"The future company focus will be on publishing of the Poser and pro-V Studio products, and growing the established consumer, professional, Windows and Macintosh product offerings and market base." Am I right to understand that they will focus on the high end user, the "professional" ? If Poser gets priced as Maya is, what will I use ? I don't feel responsible for what happens because I posted some negative comments on Poser 5. I said I thought it was bad at first and, since SR 2.1 that it was good to me. This is just my truth and all of the above pepole have explained this very well. Now, just a question. From the few teasers I have seen of DAZ studio, it seems to support full transparency preview mode, and atmospheric effects. Great. But what kind of a machine will it take to use this program ? I have a PC, not a Cray II... Will Daz aim their program at hobbyists, or just at pros ? And will it be a stand alone program or just a showcase for Daz's products ? (OK, that's not just one question) (lol) It is not that sure that the competition is over... One answer could be the opening of Poser's source. If plug-ins could be made by talented Poser supporter to improve its features, this program would live. I hope this can be done. Compiler

compiler said: "Now, just a question. From the few teasers I have seen of DAZ studio, it seems to support full transparency preview mode, and atmospheric effects. Great. But what kind of a machine will it take to use this program ? I have a PC, not a Cray II..." No you wont need a Cray, any computer with a half decent graphic card should be able to show it. Unlike Poser that seemed to use some code based from the Stone Age for a lot of it's graphic function, I believe DAZ Studio uses OpenGL ;O) jjsemp said: "Everybody here knew to begin with that CL was a small company, with limited resources. Then P5 came out and had problems. So what? Instead of getting behind an effort to make it better, there was a steady stream of CL bashing that defied all logic." Errrrmmmmmm, sorry but as a customer you owe the company nothing. If I pay my hard earned money for a product, I expect it to work as advertised. I could not give a shit if the company was small with limited resources, if they can't deliver the goods as promised then they can expect a rough ride. Sorry, but I work damn hard for my money... Cheers

I think people need to stop second guessing what a company is going to do or what they think they should do. And if you think about it, if CL had not released Poser 5 "prematurely" and they were still working on it now, many of you would still be using Poser 4 because of this latest corporate turmoil. So in that respect you should be counting your blessings. Adobe bought MetaCreations' old Canoma (a piece of crap that I bought shortly before MC dumped all their programs), and Adobe still haven't done anything with it. How many years has it been since then...2, 3?

"So in that respect you should be counting your blessings." Hrm, at ~$1 per bug, I guess that P5 was a bargain. Others charge a lot more for less bugs, bringing the price per bug way above that. ;0)

All the bitching and moaning (justified) didnt cause this but it definately helped drive it. I couldnt aford P5 when it was released and then after reading all the complaints even though I didnt know what some of what was being discussed pertained to.... This decided my purchase for me....I didnt

reading through all of this has got me thinking back to posts I have made previously. Back when we were all talking about the registration process I mentioned that when (not if) CL folds we could be caught. I never for a moment thought that we could see the possible beginnings of that so soon, but it got me thinking. CL stated that they would release a patch that would remove the copy protection if that ever came to pass. They did this in the final patch release. Should we have seen this coming or not? Did they release it for the reasons stated (due to a majority of users complaining about it)? Personally I like to think it was due to our complaints about it, but it is hard to say now. Even back then I didn't want to see this happen to the good people at CL, but as with all companies, there will be a time when they have to move on. I have only had pleasent corespondence with the people over at CL, namely Steve Cooper, and I regret hearing this most recent news.

Ah... don't sweat it, Kevin. It wasn't really specifically your typoing. Reflex snarl, you know how that goes. grin Chalk it up to late nights on both our parts: I saw the comment and figured the "let's lynch the CL/P5 bashers - get the ropes" parade was starting. Actually, I have seen you make a few non-CL fanboy type comments, which I'd have remembered given a bit more reflection. "How many of the constant bad-mouthers actually owned a copy of the program? " Quite a few Kev, Quite a few. ;] jjsemp? The "little guys" in this are the customers. That's who I get an urge to stand up for when it comes down to it - not the company reaching for their wallets. The people who've been complaining about Poser 5 not working and getting and app that's not useable on their machines - regardless of if it works on yours or anyone elses - are CuriousLabs customers. And Renderosity customers. If you don't think that they have a right to critique a company, and the owners of it, who charged them $149 to $349 of their hard earned bucks for the dubious privelege of beta testing a post release software package... then you live in a very sad little world that I'm happy to not be a part of. shrug I'm not going to kick Cooper and Weinberg while they're down. That would be churlish. It's enough that they're down... and that maybe, just maybe, the program might be headed to someone who'll actually turn it into an app worth buying. But CL got what it did to itself over the course of three years - we didn't do it to them. We'll see. I'm dubious, but it might happen. Or it might not. As the man said in Silverado: "Hide and watch".

"not the company reaching for their wallets" I think the flaw in your arguments is that you lump all companies under the same umbrella. Boards of directors reach for their wallets, the Steve Coopers and Larry Weinbergs don't. Looking out for the 'little guys' also means looking out for the 'little guys' of the corporate world.

perhaps corel will buy curious labs or at least the poser part of it, make it more import freindly with bryce? that would benefit both products, or the staff that has moved on could consider becoming a team to work at corel with a similar project- but this time with the backing of a solid company that has the resources to let them fully develop poser into thier original vision?