I bought the Reiss Body Studio plugin for 3D Studio Max this morning... it looks great, but man, these pain-in-the@# authorization schemes... sigh.

First I tried the internet option, but the registration process just hung on "waiting for response from server." Then I tried the "manual registration" option, and never received tne needed .ilf file in my email. Now I've emailed Reiss Studio and I have to just sit back and wait for an answer (this being the weekend, I'm not too hopeful I'll hear anything before Monday.)

To be fair, this only happened about an hour ago, so it's not like Reiss is being slow in responding. It's just annoying when you've bought something cool and new and you're dying to try it out, and then suddenly you find out that you just spent nearly $200 US on something you can't use yet. :( I really, really hate these labyrinthine software-protection schemes, but I know why businesses need to use them. Because of @$)(@U$@ warez kiddies.

And people wonder why some R'osity regulars are so hard on people who post warez requests here -- it's because this kind of frustration is all thanks to the warezers. fumes

The sad thing is those authorization things don't work, either. They just put legitimate users through hell, and the warez kiddies find a work-around. Then there's other copy protection schemes as well- CD-verification (which is also easily defeated, and is incompatable with some types of CD-roms), the dongle (a generic term for a piece of hardware which must be physically connected to your PC for the program to function- extremely expensive, and the input can be faked with clever coding), and who can forget the good old code wheel (which, unless you get fancy with blue on red text and red cellophane windows, can be defeated by a xerox and a pair of scissors). Sadly, the major problem with all copy protection is that it makes things tough for legal users, but doesn't perform the purpose for which it's intended- stopping illegal distribution and use of software.

Well, this story has a happy ending... :) Josh from Reiss-Studio works weekends, and he got me my authorization ASAP. The Body Studio plugin for Max works great! I can heartily recommend it to anyone considering purchasing it. EsnRedshirt, I know just what you mean. I hate Cdilla with the fire of ten thousand suns, dude, I'm telling you. :(

I've worked at companies here and there where they actually installed cracked copies because the damn authorisation scheme was too much of a pain for the IT department to maintain, with all their other myriad duties. all had bought licenses... so wasn't warez. It really sucks when its more difficult for the legal customer to use the software than it is for the thieves.

Hi Fauve!
Thanks for the recommendation! :)
is it ok, if we let them know what happened?

Anyway, yeah, I feel the same way about copy protection. I wish we didn't have to use it, and if the whole community was like renderosity, we wouldn't have to!
Can you believe we actually had one customer say that he gave it a shot trying to find our software as warez, but figured since he couldn't do that he would just buy it!

Well at least he's honest! :)

heh, I know... funny huh? It was hilarious, I was sitting on the phone trying to figure out how to take it :)

As a quick addendum to the above, I did figure out why I didn't receive my license file through the email registration. Looks like the registration process picks up the email address from the registration of your copy of Poser, and puts it as the default address when you register Body Studio. In my case, my email address had changed since I bought my copy of Poser 5. So, if you have changed your email address since you registered your Poser, just be sure to change it in the online registration field for Body Studio, too. And sure, you can pass on my recommendation to anyone you like! I think Body Studio is great; the Poser figures I've tried it on have imported perfectly, materials and transparencies and everything intact, and I've even messed around with the cloth dynamics thing a little. It's a terrific piece of software and definitely worth the asking price.

Ah, I was going to say I didn't have any problems registering, but it looks like you have figured out what the problem was afterall, fauve. Hey Josh, if you check this thread again, just an FYI that the .pdf file still has the text for Maya, rather than 3DS Max, on the Scale Options page.