If we look beneath the specific apps and tech stuff, I think all Poser users have two essential wishes : ease-of-use and realism. P5 increased the realism at the cost of ease-of-use, as a LOT of existing Poser stuff became less useful. A somewhat un-wise move, IMHO, much as I admire the Poser people. DAZ studio seems to be meant to rectify that situation, for obvious reasons. However, DAZ appears to have decided that this no-backwards-compatibility is nevertheless OK, as V3 seems to be less-than-compatible with much of the existing Poser stuff. Again, increased realism, at the cost of ease-of-use. It's none of my business to speculate on what I think CL and DAZ ought to have done, but I'd like to hear the opinion of all you Poser USERS out there. Both DAZ and CL have a fine track record of listening, so it's always worth one's while to express an opinion. So my general question is this : specific apps aside, what are your preferences? Would you like future Poser apps (DAZ, CL or any other) to be backwards-compatible first and foremost, even if it means that any new functionality must be built on top of the existing, sometimes problematic basic structure (such as only being able to pose dresses/cloaks/capes properly via extra handles and "ghost" bodyparts, and having to use much the same principle for trans-based, non-dynamic hair, etc.) ? Or would you prefer future Poser apps to incorporate totally new functionality, such as in P5, even if it means getting a whole new "fleet" of Poser figures and stuff to be able to use the new functionality ? As you've probably guessed, I'd prefer backward compatibility, even at the price of delayed new functionality. I think that existing Poser functionality could have been extended A LOT, as seen in the ground-breaking stuff made "within the envelope" by people like Anton, Hmann and others. New functionality would have to come at some point, but I'd have welcomed a focus on backwards-compatibility, and I'd like to push DAZ and CL towards that attitude as much as possible.

My preference is also backward compatibility. Content purchases represent a substantial investment....and many of us do this as a hobby.

I actually prefer a number of miner upgrades that make a leap or two forward to improve an already popular feature and then add one new feature that has been well thought out. Paint Shop Pro is an example of a software company who I think did things just right: 1)A number of free upgrades to quickly correct any "bugs". 2)A good beta testing effort involving users dedicated to improving the product...not just complaining about it and close contact with those testers by the company. 3)"Real" low priced upgrades for current users a year or so after release to improve good features and add a couple of new ones. Over time.....and not overnight, they have developed an excellent and reasonably price product that holds up well against some of its more expensive competitors. Timing also helped them.....they entered the market at the right time. I sometimes think this is as much about "personal committment" to the product and end result as anything. After all this time, you can still get customer support from JASC, but the product has gotten so good, you rarely need it.

But the major issue for me is compatibility with other software programs. Being able to use the programs together, through plug-ins, shared files, etc.

I don't think you can expect one piece of software to do it all. You have to decide who you are and focus on being the best at it if you want to keep and expand users....especially in todays soft market. It would be better to have an "excellent Poser" and then create an "excellent cloth creation program", "hair creation program", etc. that you could interface with Poser. You could offer these products at a very low price to current Poser users.

I like the DAZ idea of a base product for free and giving people the option to purchase the features they want. How successful that is will depend on what is included in the base and how useful it is without the add-in features.

I prefer the backward compatibility myself. The exception being Vicky3 whose advances and new 'look' to me are worth it. I don't want the same types of outfits for Vicky 3 and Vicky 2..I plan to use them in different ways...so am actually purchasing very little for V3 at this stage until I discover exactly how I want to use her. I think of her as a new model, rather than an upgrade. Dynamic clothing requires an entire new wardrobe especially for those who do not have a 3d modeler nor the skills to convert conforming clothing to dynamic. Most of us have way too much invested in current conforming clothing to even desire to take the plunge into dynamic. Any 'advances' I'd like to see in clothing would be a fairly easy way to recut and rejoint clothes for different figures, rather than going the dynamic route. I don't know, but that's what my current thinking is but I reserve the right to change my mind. We all have invested in the Poser community through our purchases so having our light sets, scene sets, props, and clothing continue to work is very important.

Backward compatibility is critical in a situation like this where content is everything. It doesn't matter so much for, say, a word processor which is mainly used for creating new and short-lived files. But there are always limits. If the application stretches itself backwards to accommodate things that nobody actually uses any more (.POZ and .PLB files, for example) then it's a wasted effort.

I think backward compatability could hold us back, and i think maybe thats why poser 5 has ended up in the situation it is in now, i think DAZ's approach is exactly right they created V3 which IMHO is leaps and bounds above V2 but made the V2 version so we'd have "some" backward compatabilty, in short we need a happy medium in using what we already have and advancing forward...Steve

I must agree with Steve :-) in that user need to ask them selves how much of their actua l" invesment" in older poser content consists of CDs full of unopened Zip files downloaded from free stuff. I think DAZ should focus on the future and start with a clean slate and users and content creators need to be will to accept change for the better. I dont think we need any further future compatbilty with posette and DORK But DAZ really needs to Give US free lower poly alternatives to ViC3( Mike3???) for animation and multi-character scenes. But let go of the past, because half measures that try to embrace the future while clinging to the past are often not worthwhile. Just My Opinion

It depends on how compelling the new technology is. Something like dynamic cloth answer an important need and represent an order of magnitude improvement over the previous technology. This comes at the cost of some requiring new clothing or perhaps difficult modifications to existing items to make the work with the new tools. The tradeoff however is worthwhile. Moving from DOS to Windows is a good example. To fully take advantage of the new OS required new applications and a learning curve, but again, it was a worthwhile transition. At some point, one has to move on. Yes, ideally, everything would be 100% backward compatible but as a programmer, I can tell you that it is much easier to start with a clean slate than to try to mesh new features with old code. I think this is much of the problem with Poser 5, trying to enhance an old application. As you point out, people have done some wonderful things to wring more out of Poser 4 but add-ons, workarounds and gimmicks seldom work as well as purpose built functionality. The fast pace of change means that we will inevitably "lose" investments in things like LP's, VHS tapes etc. At the same time, being able to view/listen to material with greater quality which won't degrade over time makes the change less painful. Sometimes there are bridge technologies but having a truntable that played LPs and CDs would have been an expensive, troublesome kludge that soon disappeared. The best solution is to have a good component architecture (like component stereo) that can be extended without gutting the core. It sounds like this is the approach that DAZ's new program is taking and Poser should have. Even then, at some point, there will be compelling new developments in 3D which will require a major new change. If someone develops a new 3D geometry format that makes posing human models truly fluid and anatomy book accurate, but only imports statically posed obj models, losing some of the investment in all those Poser obj figures would be painful but IMHO, more than worthwhile. The key is what are you getting in return for the sacrifice. If you find yourself using the old stuff less and less simply because the new is so much better/easier then backward compatibility is, at best, a temporary respite. Poser still supports the old Play-Do hair but would it be worth it if that support made using trans mapped hair difficult or bug prone? Given the choice, I'd rather have it the other way around. AFAIK, you can still use even Poser 1 content in Poser 5 so I think CL has overall done a pretty good job at protecting user's investment. DAZ and people like AprilYSH have done a lot by providing things like V2P4 and remapped figures etc. I know this is especially sensitive for people who have invested large sums in various generations of content but again, at some point, application developers and content providers have to break compatibility in order to make progress. People clamored for more realistic clothing that could drape and move and CL delivered. To expect that the entire library of old clothing would work magically with it is unrealistic. Fortunately, anyone who has a huge investment in "old" content also has an older version of Poser, so nothjing is really lost. Compatibility is great but progress happens. So, take good care of the 8 Track player cause it'll be hell finding parts if it breaks.

I agree with you lmckenzie on virtually every score. For me "compatibility importance" does not stretch back all that far. My definitiion of it, extends back to the previous generation.....no further. You have to have some for current users to want to get on board.

Also, the fast pace you speak of may have gotten too fast to really generate the kind of quality that I think people ultimately want. The slower, more methodical advancements seem to produce the best results in just about any market. New products like new industries who "want it all...now" seem to have difficulty creating rock solid, quality products.

You're right, sandpoppe, the pace is too fast in some cases. I think a lot of that is driven more by marketing/finance than technology. Of course, the slow move from Poser 4 to 5 didn't produce the best results according to many, so it's a crapshoot. At this point, I think perhaps the advances in 3D hardware and systems software like DirectX 9 have outstripped the applications. If Poser really used all the potential of something like the Nvidia Geforce chipset and DX9, it would probably be pretty amazing. I also think a lot could be done to improve the interface of 3D applications. The gamong industry has developed relatively inexpensive input tools like force feedback joysticks and hand controllers that could make using an application like Poser much easier. There is one modeling app I know of which uses a 3D "puck," but other than that, nothing, at least at the consumer/hobbyist level. If you could don a glove and "reach in" to pose Vicky 4, that would be worth losing compatibility with her older sisters.

Clean slate, let's move on.

Increased realism, such as with V3, is what I seek. :)

The "old" stuff is still usable, and I'm still getting my money's worth out of it. However, I would like to have the option to utilize newer technology and progress if I so choose.

For me, the only backward compatibility issue would be: "Do my existing purchases load into the application?" Anything else isn't really important, IMO.

I just want the programs to run on my machine without having to think about getting a new computer everytime they upgrade or change the programs. That is one of the main reasons that I haven't gotten P5 yet. I am sure that it will run on my Dell, but don't want to take a chance it will mess up the machine up. I am sure that I will buy sometime this year or so, but in the meantime I am waiting for the Daz thing to come available to check it out. V3 is great, but I have the choice of buying her or P5 this year....

I think that DAZ are creating a program to showcase thier content, as such you should expect it to support everything that DAZ have created, but not everything in the marketplace & freestuff, though that would be good from our point of view. I don't think of Studio as a replacement for poser, I think of it as an insurance policy. Both for me, as I want speed and simplicity, the base will probably do all I need, (though I'm not averse to buying anything I think might be usefull) and for DAZ, who need to get thier content out of the poser backwater and into the hands of people that user "real" 3D apps. The problem IMO is that DAZ make thier stuff in a largely unsupported format, native to poser and nothing else. You need a copy of poser just to do a simple test render. The fact that DAZ have chosen a different format for V3 so soon after the release of P5 I think marks a change of direction. I reckon that the failure to a large extent, of P5, has made this a zero sum game. There will be no great new influx of poser users, and what P5 sacrificed in usability in the hopes of greater industry penetration has both not worked and alienated parts of the hobby market. I'm not privy to the secrets of CL, but it's a fair bet that if the new version of poser was flying off the shelves they wouldn't have just terminated most of thier staff. This being the case, the audience for new poser content is only likely to diminish over time, so in order to grow, DAZ need to grow a new audience. They can rely on us to download and showcase Studio, but we already buy thier products. They aim to have 1 Million downloads this year, given that I've never seen more than 2000 people here at once, and the entire subscriber base is some 140,000 or so, I'd say they have a way to go, but should they make it they have a new audience of some 850,000+ users to pander to, Which is a fairly smart idea really. Right I may expand on this later, but Paxman is about to interview the PM, so I'm off :) later jb

I'm sure DAZ will get the downloads. It's free, so people will get it. How many will buy add-ons & figures is another matter. BTW, I wonder what figure(s) they will include. As for high-end penetration, they won't have any more credibility than CL starting out. The price snobs won't be impressed by the free angle. I'd think that unless they have at least the export capabilities of ProPack, it will be difficult to get traction with the Maya/LW/Max crowd.

I don't think so, I wouldn't have thought that snobs would mind, they need decent models just like anyone else, it's just poser they have an issue with. Certainly at the prices DAZ charge compared to more "normal" 3D content pricing. Besides if you can get more hobbyists into the market then that too will pay the bills. There is a whole range of people they could potentially sell too, if only they had a way of showing off the product. later jb

I'm all for backwards compatability, everything should be compatable with MS paint! ;)ducks OK j/k I think backwards compatiblity is fine as long as it doesn't become a millstone around the neck. often the old suff just isn't efficiant or of a high enough quality to merit using as a standard. if we slavishly stick to the (W)holy grail of backwards compatibilty, innovation gets lost in the specs. as was said before backwards compatability is probably a negitve factor in the design of P5. a total redesign would likely have made it a very popular product for new users though many of us who's current runtimes run into the hundreds and thousands of dollars would have shouted bloody murder (though this still happened anyway;)) the fact that DAZStudio will read Poser PZ3 files should be backwards compatible enough. and it seems from the press release that when it comes out of beta, it will be forward thinking enough for the rest of us who want to explore new limits to do so. JMHO Will

As I understand it, DAZ or Zygote sells some of the same Poser models in Lightwave format for a correspondingly higher price. I'm not sure what the psychology is. Some of it may be a matter of having invested a lot of time and money to develop skills in building figures from scratch. If there is a cheap easy alternative, those skills are suddenly not worth as much. Probably an ego thing as well. We see the same thing here with the "Is it really art if you just use pre-made models, clothes etc." At any rate, anything that helps to develop more good realistic models and applications that we can afford is great.

I'm more for the new features as I can use the old stuff with my old P4, so I'm fine with that. On the other hand I'm convinced that depending on latest 3D-hardware is a mixed blessing. Namely the games industry suffers lost business by "back-level" computers on the end user's side, because some of their latest funky games just won't play on hardware which is older than like, half a year. As many of you know, I suppose, gamers are constantly upgrading their rigs because of this one ultimate game not delivering on their current machine. To my own regret it's mostly the 3d-card, which gets a fit when loading said game. Maybe it's only shitty programming, maybe it's inferior drivers - but I for one wouldn't like to upgrade my machine every time DAZ or some other company hits the counters with a new plug-in for a - come on, confess - rather simple rendering program! Willy

Consider for a moment the role that stability of platform plays in this forward backward compatibiity arguement. How many people would be willing to accept the learning curve of Poser 5, which now that I'm in it seems steep but not impenetrable, if they weren't looking over their shoulder for the next freeze to come? Let me use V3 as another example. When she first came out with all the hoopla and the potential, few people were that upset about the lack of backward compatibility because of the transitional factors built in-- ways to wear V2's clothes and textures. When patches became necessary, this upped the stress and though it didn't topple V3-- because Daz got her patched pretty damn quick-- it tarninshed her for a bit. I think we could support a considerable forward moving technology that didn't make our last years purchases suddently worthless-- either because the tech supported that far backwards or had other workarounds. but we would only support it in a rock solidly stable item. If we hadn't had the history we've had this year, things might be different, but this is a badly burned community. Emily

I think it's important not to try and make one program that does everything. In my experience, combining several programs that each do one thing well is much better than having one program that does everything poorly. For me it was a waste of time in Poser 5 putting in the Firefly engine - Bryce and Vue are still better tools for enhanced rendering if that's what people want. The core functionality of Poser is figure posing. The emphasis should be on making it do that really well. Shipping P5 with still many of the bugs and "features" of P4 present was a scandal. If you are an engineer taking over responsibility for a building that has foundation problems, what do you make your first priority? Fixing the foundations or adding two more storeys?

Backward compatability for the content is utterly important for me. There is no reason why exsiting items can't work in a new enviroment. Maybe a import/conversion routine is needed, but that is OK. Truth to tell, I'm comfortable with my ProPack. I don't need a new application...

Backward compatibility is VITAL to me since I'm not an artist and I can't afford to just throw away all the money I've invested in things like morphs, characters, textures, clothing, hair, poses, etc. to use in my work (and we're talking thousands of dollars here). About the only real thing I would wish for, and the thing I've been complaining about since day 1 would be the library file structure. In fact, that's the only real advantage that P5 would have for me. Since all my work in poser is intended for export to other programs for lighting, rendering, etc, and since none of the "new" features of Poser 5 are compatible with the programs I export to, the only useful thing there is the new library file system. Now if they could just offer that as an upgrade to P4 and ProPack, I'd buy that alone in a heartbeat (if the price was reasonable) and never need to "upgrade" to another version, unless, of course, the new version had complete backward compatibility and the new features like dynamic cloth and hair would work OUTSIDE poser. When I first saw Poser 5 demonstrated, I was amazed. I thought "Wow! This is going to be AWESOME and will allow me to really improve my current work." I didn't know then that none of the improvements would work for what I had in mind, that they would all be basically useless for my purposes. P5 is a great program for artists, but for folks like me who pose and animate and then import into other applications for final production, it's a big let-down. I'm not sorry I bought it, but I haven't used it and most likely won't use it for anything more than my own entertainment for quite some time to come. Just another lesson learned - it's now delegated to the same shelf as all the other programs I bought without trying first and discovered after spending my money that I couldn't use them. (Anyone ever heard of Avatar Maker? Didn't think so.) Kate

It's really amazing and a shame that CL apparently had their heads buried so deep in their rectums when they designed P5! You can't please everyone, but it appears that they didn't please hardly anyone! There seems to be only a handful of people who really like this program compared to P4. I like it because I have nothing to compare to...never owned P4. Amazing! Guess that's why most of the people who worked on its design are gone.

Thanx to everyone for taking the time to share your views. As I read your comments (biased as my reading may be), Poser users are generally in favor of new and exciting stuff, but if at all possible, we'd like our existing investment in money and time to be respected. That was sort of the attitude I hoped to find VL mischievous grin Cheers, all.