Just wondering.
The last post I can find by anyone from CL on this site was over two weeks ago.
Getting that shivery feeling of "Thats all folks! You're on yer own. The Labs team have escaped."
I hope it's just a feeling.

If anyone has the answer please post. I will read it in the morning.
Night all.

Regards
STORM

The link to the P5 beta forum has gone awol too...

I think we have what we have and that when new people who buy it find that half the stuff listed in the ads in the magazines don't work they will bail on us completely. I'm just glad we don't have to worry about the key anymore, because I have a feeling we are on our own yet again with this product. No word on collision in the hair room and a number of other items that just don't work. Marque

If I scratch the lotto ticket, I'd buy Poser/Bryce/Carrara and integrate.

Attached Link: http://www.pcbos.nl

You know, I still haven't been able to decide whether or not I even LIKE Poser 5 that much... I only bought it because so many people asked me if I would write for it.

Yet, all in all, especially with that smooth-polygon thing, and the fact you can render really really HUUUUUGE, make it more of a professional tool than Poser 4. Marque is right, good we don't have to worry about the key (don't we though?); Oh yes, and I fired off many mails to the tech dept., during the past weeks, about a horrible failure in the way they compiled Python in Poser 4/5; still haven't had a reply from them yet...

I don't know what it all means. Let's say they are all so hard at work that they simply don't have the time to react- it can happen.
Let's trust them, why don't we - I certainly know of no reason why we shouldn't!

Cheers,

Paul Christiaan

I was thinking about some of this recently, since I've been trying to animate a 250 x 250 scene past 21 frames. I'm still experimenting with some solutions before I contact CL, but based on what pcbos just wrote, I'll probably try to call and get someone on the phone.

When CL first started up, they followed DAZ's lead by giving the communities a "personal" touch. The new management at CL so far has presented themselves to the communities as a company ( or single entity ).

I do hope CL is hard at work fixing the bugs that P5 inherited from P4 and fixing the new bugs, since there is one subject that has relevance DAZ Studio.

While CL currently owns and maintains Poser, they do not create content for the application. DAZ, the major commercial content provider for Poser, is currently creating an application to compete with Poser. IMHO, it is in CLs best interest to quickly fix the problems with Poser.

I also do know that problems can be difficult to fix. My company is currently working with IBM to solve an automation error in one of their applications. IMHO, CL tried to do too much too quickly with Firefly / Material room, Face Room, Hair room, and Cloth room, but hopefully they will continue to work with the communities to solve the problems with Poser.

They do keep in touch, actually. I posted a problem on the SR2 forum a couple of weeks ago and they contacted me. The ball is in my court now, so I'm rebuilding the problem scene to send. Of course, wouldn't you know it, I haven't had a crash in over a week. Would be nice for a status on SR3 though...

Hi I had a response from Tech support on the subject of ProPak Mac. I think they are just understaffed and overworked-I don't think anyone wants to offend the users (us). As monolithic as they may seem without the personal touch-they are still people working in the aftermath of a big axeing. Hey all I have to fret over is a quasifunctional propak- no worries about P5 cause there is no Mac version! :-) I did notice that Steve and Karen Cooper have not been posting for awhile-I hope all is well for them! Eric

...and I got a CL tech reply the other day too. It took 2 days.

Um, there is a post somewhere in there where they mention they would not be visiting the sites as much, because there are so many sites, and they cannot go to all of them. If there are isues, you can take them to them - to their site/forums. All the people that I know who have been sending in questions/issues have been getting responses in a relatively timely manner. And before anyone bitches and moans about this, I do not care. If you have a problem, go to the source. Very simple concept.

this is what is called, putting all your eggs in one basket.

Didn't you guys see all the press releases? The programmers are gone. Kupa's gone. All that's left is customer and tech support. Sorry, guys, but it sounds to me like their mother company is just killing time until they can sell Poser 5 off, and nothing's going to be happening until someone else picks it up. Unless someone else picks it up. I can see where a lot of companies wouldn't want the cleanup job that's left. To everyone who's stuck with a copy of Poser 5 that doesn't work well on their system, you have my sympathies. I'm sorry you got burned.

Attached Link: http://www.egisys.de

"To everyone who's stuck with a copy of Poser 5 that doesn't work well on their system, you have my sympathies. I'm sorry you got burned" Yep....I am one and have gone to the "Source" The reply is upgrade your operateing system to WinXP...No problem...I just need to save the money,Just saveing 20$ a paycheck is going to take a long time... Personally I think the program came out to fast and without enough Beta-testing on many Platforms,And then to make matters worse the Company(CL)Axes everybody who could have helped save the Product from a certain DEATH...The only way is to redo the product from the ground up and re-code to use 3D acceleration and Make all of the "ROOMS" as extra Modules the user can install on command...I think they were going in the right direction but were gearing or at least trying to get the higher end user Maya,Lightwave,Imagine ect to use Poser figures more in their Projects and were saveing PPP for us other folks.... All I ask is for a working copy.......?

It may be just me, but I seem to recall horror stories about Kupa and the rest of the programming staff who worked on Poser 5 having to work without salaries for the last weeks of the project, because "the money had run out" -- whatever that means. (Presumably that contributed to the release of a product that was hardly "ready for prime time.") Now these same self-sacrificing, hard-working people have been shown the door. Personally, I would not feel comfortable supporting a company who treated staff this way. It's very ugly and very shabby in my book. I am very glad I did not buy Poser 5. Kimberly

Looks Like US MAC users really Dodged a Bullet this time LONG LIVE DAZ!!!

It's amazing what kind of faith people put in an application they haven't even seen yet (DAZ Studio). Must be tough for DAZ to work when the community is inflating the expectations to sthi magnitude. The grass is always greener on the other side. Somehow, I think that will be true even when DAZ Studio finally arrives...

Personally, I would not feel comfortable supporting a company who treated staff this way. It's very ugly and very shabby in my book.

There is more behind such decision than they tell the public I would assume and I am sure none of us knows the whole story. It's business and it's just what happens everywhere in other companies too: reconstruction, laying off employees.

Regarding DAZ Studio: I will wait and see. I guess it will happen the same as with P5 - some will be completely happy (like me now) and others won't because it just don't do what they've expected :-P.

I'm not supporting CL, OR knocking them. My P5 does what I want it to, most of the time, I'd like to see it improved but I can live with what I have. On the other hand, I have to comment on the ficklness of this "community"! People complained that P5 wasn't coming fast enough, so it was announced and it was touted as mana from heaven, but... When it arrived it was the spawn of satan, even as CL struggled to make it work for as many as possible. So now DAZ Studio (which looks... interesting from what little we've been told, but how much will the base program do, and how much will the add-on's cost?) is the new hero on a white horse. Isn't DAZ the same company that produced V3, which was (For several weeks anyway) on the "community's" most hated list because it wasn't "stand-alone" and required seperate modules to work, and, worst of all, required that new clothes be bought to fit. I wonder what will be said when DAZ studio finally is released... Blow hot! Blow cold.... just my $0.02 mike

Thanks for all your answers.
P5 largely works ok for me except for the hair collision stuff and some issues with the firefly renderer.
And while there are problems, it is superb when it works, particularly the material room which has opened up whole new dimensions for Poser scenes, effects and texturing.
What really gets to me is that P5 is within reaching distance of what many of us want and hoped for. It requires just a small bit of further effort to get it there and to have a fully functioning application.
Poser did the Lazarus act once after Metacreations, the question is can it do it again if CL goes down?
Sadly for Poser there are many people out there who would snap up P5 if it was stable, tweaked a bit for speed and able to run on all platforms and systems.
99% of the work has been done and it amazes me to think that the whole thing could die in the last few yards of the race. It is almost like a form of depression has descended on the community and CL itself.
What a waste, given that the political issues of the Eula and Interlock system have been resolved, at a great price to many involved, and that many of the program bugs have also been solved.
If CL are still in the business of trying to save this wonderful program they should at least give us a weekly update on progress and reassure us that they are still on the planet. It might keep the candle lighting a little while longer.

Regards
STORM

My monthly paycheck tells me Egisys hasn't folded ;) Stefan

You said it Trav as soon as D/S price something that people feel is too high the are going to go on a ripping spree. or if D/S do not have something they feel it should have they are going to go on a ripping spree. or if their OS cause some kind of adverse affect with D/S they are going to go on a ripping spree. It almost a lose, lose situation But I remember when CL put out the wish list the community wanted P5 to do everything but wake them up in the morning and cook breakfast, not thinking of teh alteration to the learning curve over P4 and now that P5 needs a little more attention and patience that people do not want to commit to they are going on a ripping spree so D/S be careful as Trav put it this is a very fickle community my $0.015

.

More like treacherous actually. Hehe when it was recently announced on another site that Daz studio will be modular, kinda like Vicki 3 (Only buy what you need) The bitching started instantly :p

What press releases??

"The King is dead. Long live the new King." A new king has to be "born" first before it can be hailed as the new ruler. Daz Studio isn't available yet. But such minor details seem to elude most P5 detractors. "Looks Like US MAC users really Dodged a Bullet this time LONG LIVE DAZ!!! " I find this statement ironic coming from one of the leading Poser animators in the community. Has anybody at Daz ever indicated that "Daz Studio" is going to support animation at all? And if so, then when? Please educate me. Perhaps I missed a key posting on this issue. -jjsemp

The last CL newsletter said that they were working on SR3, Mac Poser5 and ProPack 5 plugins. Takes time to do these things. Also was stated in a thread here that while staff was laid off that CL was also contracting some of these SAME people to work on these things. I only have Poser5, and yes I have some problems, like many others my poser 5 has good days and bad days. I have stated in other threads I wished that CL would do a weekly progress report, it kills rumors and eases tension of users, but as of yet CL has choosen not to do this. I really think it's a great idea, but I don't pay CL bills so, can only keep sugjesting it. Of all the users of Poser, Rendersoity while having a lot of members, isn't the ONLY users of poser. Lots of users don't frequent any of the Poser sites, or post messeges on forums. So with CL having a smaller staff, and working on Poser5 issues (we all hope they are working on them), I'm sure that sending out rumor kills, and hand holding of people that feel let down, ripped off, even abandoned would be a low priority. Small staff, international sales, multi language support, lot on thier plate. I certainly wouldn't feel obligated to post a message in a thread like this and have my head bitten off if I worked at CL. Maybe I should send CL some flowers to all the people that ARE there working their asses off.

"As for DAZ... there is good reason to expect a lot from them. THEY ARE MAKING A TOOL THEY WANT TO USE! They're not just making an app to pay some salaries and cash out of a market they don't really understand. Everyone at DAZ will be using DAZ|Studio everyday in their work. That can ONLY make an app that is going to superior to Poser." There are so many assumptions and huge leaps of logic that you've made in the above statement which are basically impossible to prove. But you have to be careful when you reduce everything to "good guy" vs "bad guy". Daz is just as motivated by profit as CL was. That doesn't make them bad or good. Just normal business people. And who says that the folks at CL just wanted to "pay some salaries" and didn't understand their market? Maybe they did what they could with a core technology that was essentially limited from the beginning. Poser wasn't ever really designed to be a full-fledged 3D application. Trying to turn it into one might have required a ground-up rewrite of code that would have been cost-prohibitive at their current price point (bye-bye Open GL support et al). And time is also a factor, too. CL certainly needed to get something out the door by a certain time limit in order to keep the product alive. In the end, they had to successfully juggle a lot of factors to keep everything afloat. Maybe they made some bad decisions. Maybe not. But you can't automatically assume that because YOU didn't get what YOU wanted the way YOU wanted it at a price that YOU could afford that they didn't try. And the vague hint that CL was pepetrating some kind of scam on the users so that they could then "cash out" is uncalled for. I think a lot of folks at CL were good folks who did their best. Hell, they were hailed as HEROES in the days leading up to P5's release. Just go back to the relevant threads and read the embarrassingly gushing messages of praise. Back then, they were the "good guys" (which was another huge leap of logic at the time). Perhaps they were doomed from the start by limited resources. But imagine what a stink there would have been if they'd simply closed their doors altogether and never even TRIED to create a Poser 5! As for this "Daz Studio," I hope it turns out to be the be-all and end-all that the P5-detractors seem to hope it would be. But with the short patience and unforgiving attitude of a vocal minority of users here, God help them if they fail to deliver. -jjsemp

"I find this statement ironic coming from one of the leading Poser animators in the community. Has anybody at Daz ever indicated that "Daz Studio" is going to support animation at all? And if so, then when? Please educate me. Perhaps I missed a key posting on this issue. -jjsemp" Hi jjsemp, You cant believe everthing you read on the web but for what its worth I Copied and pasted this directly from the DAZ website, BOLD emphasis Mine "The following is a description of our commitment to help expand the community in which we all exist through the release of DAZ|Studio. The Base (free indefinitely) It is crucial that DAZ|Studio be built upon a completely solid foundation before focusing on additional functionality and features. DAZ|Studio is modular in nature, therefore advanced functionality will be offered as modules that allow the end-user to customize the software according to his or her own need and budget. Prior to the release of version 1.0, the base version of DAZ|Studio will be publicly available as a free beta for an undetermined period of time until it is solid. People familiar with Rhinoceros (Rhino 3D) may recognize this strategy. This plan will allow customers to test the software on their systems, report bugs, suggest necessary features, and watch the software as it develops. The first iteration of the DAZ|Studio base will be designed to render scenes from Poser 4 .PZ3 files. It will also have the ability to modify those scenes to some extent once the files are imported into Studio. Posing, animation, model import and other features will follow soon after the first beta release. Anticipated Stages of program completion:: Limited alpha Public beta, Mimic 2.0 available for sale 2nd beta release, Lightwave 3D and 3ds max Plug-ins available DAZ|Studio Basic 1.0 Gradual addition of Studio plug-ins with advanced features [Schedule subject to change] Advanced-feature modules will be sold separately. These will consist of advanced animation tools, Mimic 2.0, translation tools for porting to and from other software applications, and dynamic-cloth authoring. DAZ|Studio is designed to be a platform that will encourage the development of additional content and plug-ins by outside developers." BTW Im in the fortunate postion of being able to render my poserpro animations in a fully hardware accelerated program with true volumetrics,particle sytem cloth and fur Batch rendering(Cinema4DXl) SO im in no hurry for a simple Pose and still render preveiw app from DAZ. But it will be nice for poser users who cant afford rendering alternative Like C4DXl/LW etc.

Point One: I think it is a gross misstatement to say that Vicki 3 was on the "community's most hated list" when she was released. There were several people who didn't understand the reasons for the separate pieces, and who didn't bother to do any kind of cost analysis relative to the initial release of V2, but I don't think I ever read a post -- and I read most all of them -- that anyone hated her. Point Two: I agree with the idea that it is really silly to be heaping praise on the DAZ software before you have it in your hands. I disagree with the fact that it is a leap of logic to assume that it will perform as promised. Why? Curious' product was Poser 5. Once they sold a ton of buggy copies, they could take the money and just walk away. They would also continue to sell copies to people that don't frequent the Poser communities, and thus would have no idea of all the problems that some people have had with it. DAZ|Studio, on the other hand, is essentially a freeware base; any money they make on it will be from the plugins. It is entirely logical given those facts to assume that the base will do everything they claim for it, since to release a terrible base would completely wipe out any profits from future plugin sales.

"BTW Im in the fortunate postion of being able to render my poserpro animations in a fully hardware accelerated program with true volumetrics,particle sytem cloth and fur Batch rendering(Cinema4DXl) SO im in no hurry for a simple Pose and still render preveiw app from DAZ. But it will be nice for poser users who cant afford rendering alternative Like C4DXl/LW etc.." Wow what am I missing here?I guess I should have waited and saved my money until I could afford Lightwave(Had 800 saved up)but things happen.... I will be saveing up for Lightwave....And I still will be waiting for Daz's Program good or bad it still has got to be better then my P5 right now(And yes it does work on a machine running WinXP ,just not mine running Win98SE) And I totally agree...After the BS with CL I cant see DAZ following in the footsteps of CL...Lets wait and see maybe CL is trying to work on a better Patch for P5.....Right even tho I cant seems to get to this forum unless somebody responds????.....WHY?....They went Fishing...

This is an interesting thread. My spin on this is that DAZ really did over extend and got squeezed to produce product. I do believe that a reduced feature set and fixing the flaws/shortcomings of P4 was the way to proceed with the product. I always assumed the base P5 program would have all or near all of the P4 issues resolved. Daz Studio is taking almost the exact opposite approach and starting with very limited features. They aren't even going to have the posing capability in the first beta. The interface looks clean and the software seems like it will be able to better use the hardware that is out there right now. Also, I go believe this community does blow hot and cold on products. It seems like every major DAZ product gets crucifed but gradually wins acceptance. I seem to remember posts about how lousy Vicky was . . . In closing, I have high hopes for the final version of DAZ studio -- it seems that DAZ has good business management as well as some very talented people working for them. I still hope for the best for Curious Labs/Poser -- but I'm guessing the future will be more DAZ oriented.

all i have to say is this Imageon if Daz3D Bought the rights to poser 5 Drool...

DAZ would still have to completely rewrite the core code of poser to make hardware accelerated. Its the lack of of hardware acceleration that causes poser5 to have HIGHER system requirements than MAYA Lightwave 3D Why Bother?? when they just written and compiled their own program to protect their content market.