I just re-read the latest CL news release. First off, Pixels 3D is a MAC only app...so all us Windows users are out in the cold on this one....guess you MAC guys can use some tweaking from CL anyway...you've been patiently waiting... Reiss studios does plugins for high end graphics programs..Maya, Max, etc....this leave another whole bunch of Windows and perhaps Mac users out in the cold as well..as we perhaps can't afford or don't want that level of program. So, where is CL heading in regards to its core user base..which I think is mainly to this point more in line with the hobbyist arena, or folks using lower end 3D graphics programs such as Vue, Bryce, Carrara , and so forth??? Are these apps being abandoned by CL?

Hate to say it but it does sound like it, if it is then I'm not happy at all.

If that's the case, DAZ are stepping in at the right time with DAZ Studio. At least, as far as Poser users are concerned.

reiss-studios already has a Poser-Maya plug-in available. I'd assume that it's for P4, and he's making one for P5. I think the announcement is just to push sales his way. (I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing.) This also gives CL the appearance of being active in developing more stuff for Poser. (Hey, look at the plug-ins available!) I don't know anything about the Pixels3D software. The plug-in is probably being made by the Pixels3D company. The announcement may be seen as a way to tempt MAC users to get P5 since the PC version has not exactly been well received in many quarters. There had been rumors of a Vue4/P5 plug-in, but I haven't heard anything in a while. Then again, I haven't hung around the Vue forum in a while. (Too many apps, too many forums, too little time.) As for Bryce, Corel seems to have dropped it into a black hole, so who knows if there's anything in the works. I think this is a case of CL announcing the plug-ins that it has found that are being made by outside programmers, rather than CL deliberately abandoning some software. I suspect that CL isn't making (and may not have the resources to make) plug-ins at all so they're just announcing any that they are aware of. Cheers!

'So, where is Curious Labs headed ???' I'm tempted to say "Skid Row", but I won't. Ooops, I just did! Seriously, the one thing I did note was that the 'announcements', both here and at 3d commune, were made by concerned members, NOT by 'The Curious Labs Team', or whatever their AKA is these days. I'd feel more reassured about where they're heading if I saw them coming right out and telling us, instead of getting the news second-hand from other people. Are YOU interested enough to check their site for news every day? I'm not... so maybe they could let us know. mac

Crescent: PiXELS 3D is the source of Poser 5's shader tree technolog and render engine.

Well they did drop in for a few words and gave a few links but i see it more like this like a copier manufacturer they don't make profit on the sale of the copier that's just a one time sale of 40 or 50k where they make the money is on the sale of service and parts that's where the revenue come in so with Poser CL make just the one time sale whereas Daz if/when DS come out they are going to make money from the sale of the modules and the items in the store (which i know is floating their boat)what would be an idea for CL is to start selling products or brokering items so they can make $$ on aftermarket and not just rely on the one time sale of POSER this could bring in the revenue to pay the fixes and R&D and maintain your customer base With Daz at first being the only manufacturer of Poser items thats almost in line with IBM giving Microsoft the PC for free they get the revenue for service parts you get squat this is just my un-educated opinion I now step off my soap box

Just wanted to step in for the Curious Labs Team. My name is Katherine, a former Fractal -> Meta employee and on board here at Curious as of October last year. The recent press release is not the final word on plug-in support work being planned and organized at Curious. The details of this release were the firm facts that we can tell our communities about. There are definitely other support plug-ins being organized with key partners such as e-ons' product Vue. We definitely want to keep customers and communities more informed than we have in the past few months but it is important that we announce details that are certain and finalized plans. Many other plans are being organized that we are certain we will be working on, but it would do no good offer updates of our plans without being able to answer the specific's that would be the most beneficial to the Poser communities. I know many would just like to know some of the ideas but the majority of the people are further frustrated by hearing only ideas and not the factual finalized details. Dates are definitely important to know and we hope to be able to give concrete details from this point on - that will come within at least 10 days pre or post our projections. If we can not be certain of this due to development work or possibly partnership work, then I hope that our choice to not present anything but the facts could be understood as our choice to be completely truthful with our communities. We are 100% behind Poser and Curious Labs. It's my first post, and I realize a bit sappy so I hope not to have too much negative response.

Thank you Katherine and welcome :)

They are only negative before they get to know you, then they're harmless ;-} glad to see you come by

Thanks you, katherine, I wouldn't expect you to be in the forum here day in, day out, but if there's some news on the CL website, a post from you, or someone at CL telling us, would be nice. That way, we wouldn't have to rely on members randomly passing by CL to find out and possibly telling people here. Anyway, thanks for the introduction. Don't y'all be a stranger now! mac

The kindness in response is appreciated. Thank you. We'll definitely be posting updates and information for our customers and communities as quickly as possible and when it is information we can stand behind. Posts to the communities, to our web site and also in email to our user base. (Some of you may be frustrated from being informed too many times if you see our communication from all three venues - sorry). Early next week we will be sending out an email with much of the same information on the press release to make sure customers who may not frequent the forums are also updated. As is the same with all of the CL staff now, wed love to have someone dedicated to forum talks but all of us are needed to get the work done. The work for Poser and for our customers (such as SR3) need to be the first priority in order for us to be able to start building back your faith. Hopefully the next few months will be more of a positive experience for all of you. Kind regards - Katherine

Hi Katherine, Welcome and thanks very much for the response. News of pending releases is dangerous if you fail to meet the specified dates, so in that case, silence is golden...however, contact with your customers is vitally important....so come around and chat a bit when you and others at CL can...it doesn't even have to be releasing any information of upcoming products, patches, or anything...just some nice conversation revolving around Poser and the Poser community...some informal chat... As you may or may not know, the Poser group historically has been very close with the developers, pretty much like one big happy family...it would be great to get that atmosphere back. Maybe it is not possible with the current staffing levels.

Bryce.... there is a thread n the Bryce forum here on Renderosity with a message from the former Bryce project manager that states Corel has pretty much left Bryce dead in the water.. There is also a message from Doc Mojo on his attempt to purchase Bryce from Corel....

There will be a positive response from me when I see some updates that fix the program that I bought. Marque

Welcome Katherine :) You have a name and you talk like a real human and I appreciate the information you were able to provide. I do hope you're serious about the Vue plug-in. I've had Vue for some time and am very anxious to be able to interface with Poser for creating the environments and rendering the final product. I've never had Poser 4. P5 is my first Poser product. Frankly I prefer silence if I know there is action going on somewhere :) Being sure about what you are going to do before broadcasting it, is always a good idea. Just drop in once in awhile and let us know CL has not abandoned us and I think most of us will be quite happy.

Hello Katherine. As there is already a marketing relationship between CuriousLabs and Caligari corp, can we expect a poser to Truespace plugin?

Welcome to the Forum Katherine :) Over the last few years we've been a bit spoilt with all the personal contact we had with kupa & co so it's going to take a while for most of us to get used to having less contact with the guys & girls who feed our addiction. Feed us a juicy little tidbit every now & then when you have something & we'll stay happy, it's just the total silence that makes us all edgy. Anyway once again welcome to the forum Katherine :)

Heya, I just wanted to chime in and say thanks for treating katherine nice, she's a sweetheart! :) just wanted to let people know, they are working to get vue (and the other apps people want to see) up to speed with p5, it just wasn't the focus of this press release. As mentioned, we have entered into an active relationship with CL to deliver the high end solutions, this is more than just the previous developement efforts on the maya solution. there will be more information about the vue (and all the other plugins) in a later announcement, it just wasn't the focus of this announcement. Nothing's getting abandoned, especially not the plugins that have been used the most (like Vue). cheers! -Josh

Nice to have a name to go with Cl. Welcome Katherine. I hope to hear from you and CL from time to time. I understand you can only communicate on reliable dates and facts, but we also need to have some hints on where Poser 5 is going. We'll have to make a choice when Daz Studio is going out... Compiler

Cheers Katherine - my, they have been kind to you in this thread! Nothing else to say here really that isn't a "me too" - like "please can we have a projected date for SR3?". I don't want a "it WILL be released at 11:43 and 26 seconds on the 15th March 2003" kind of deadline, but a rough "days now", "weeks now", "still months to go", "Don't start reading a thick book while you wait, start WRITING a thick book while you wait" and so on. Also of distinct aide would be what is hoped of with SR-3... what Curious Labs hope will be fixed/improved/whatever. It's very hard to look forward to a service pack with no idea of timescale OR what the service pack will actually do for us. Hope we carry on being nice to you :) Cheers, Cliff Bowman

P5 users may have given CL a lot of crap in the past, but it is well justified. They were sold a product that had little or no beta testing before it hit the market. Two service releases later and the features which made it so desirable still don't function correctly. Just about every statement made in the advertising was a blatent lie. Support was non-existant to many new users forcing them here to find the answers. Now we learn that all this time, instead of focusing on the problems, CL is only interested in making more money. CL deserves the bad press, they brought it upon themselves. These recent threads, though much appreciated, are too little too late. Mark

Hi Katherine, Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to post a message to the Poser Forum. Your encouraging words are ver appreciated. Please feel free to pop in anytime, you are always welcome :) ladynimue

Well, I hate to state the obvious, but they're not in business for the good of thier health.. If they don't make money, then Poser, like Bryce, is dead in the water. Corel have also dropped thier Linux distro too. Now none of this excuses the shoddy product we were sold on promises of milk and honey, but this is software and it is ever thus. Neverwinter Nights is up to patch 28, and that comes with caveats that modules made after patch 28, will not work with patch 27, etc. Welcome to life on th wild frontier. To the new girl I can only say "welcome" but if you're of a nervous disposition I'd keep your head down, we can be a fairly fractious crowd at the best of times, ask Kupa :) later jb

As for updates and patches, I lost count on the number of update file sI'd downloaded for DAZ's Victoria3 product when all my fingers weren't enough to do the job.

"instead of focusing on the problems, CL is only interested in making more money." Iamonk, that doesn't make sense. If they were truly interested in making money, they would have done a better job of matching product to promise. There's no mystery in that aspect of business; it's been the same forever. In recent years, too many companies have been interested in raising share prices (by creating lots of publicity and expectations) instead of making money by selling products. I don't know if this applies to CL or Egi.sys, but that's what it looks like. The real question now is whether they can readjust from this "bubble" mentality to a more sober business attitude.

Welcome Katherine. I'm happy enough with the PC Poser 5 - but impatient to get it on my Mac. Please pass some encouraging words to your programmers for all us Mac folks - Elisa/gryffnn

Hello, Katherine, and welcome to the Forum! Word that the program is still being improved and updated is always appreciated... and folks here miss the human touch of a name and personality. It's too easy to forget that real people make these products for us. Carolly

Whatever CL do, it is going to be really difficult to replace the heart that Kupa brought to Poser and to CL. Kupa and Larry were CL, now we must await something new. Knowing some of the people still there, I would say there is real hope, but everything will be different. Look at what Kupa brought from Maetacreations, and look what happend to Bryce when it went to Canada. Change happens, and Mark K has some really big shoes to fill. Lets all hope that they make it great again.