Hi. I'm thinking about purchasing some 3d libraries from Cacheforce.com. Anyone ever have any dealings with this company? The model collections seem really good from what i can tell. I was planning on purchasing MBProPlus collection for 499. which I guess includes their entire cd collections including Planet Posers. Is this a good deal as far as model collections go? Do they give you what they say? Please any info about this before I make a purchase. Thanks

I bought some .3ds models from them. I had a problems with the normals but he is willing to correct them. Not a scam artist and he/she kept in close contact with me regarding the problem. I am waiting for an update to the problem. Check out www.deespona.com if you use 3dsMAX. This is the best deal I've seen for $495. Includes 9 cd's of kickass models for MAX. He used to work for REM Infoographica.

Excellent 3DS, CR2 and PP2 format props. Best overall collection around. Poser figures are not up to P4, barely P3 quality. A new upgrade is due out, according to rumor central, later this month, early next.

bbascuba: Oh, man! $495 and I need 3dsMax, too? There must be a way...

Imacken: yeah... you buy it! It sucks to pay for but when all the payments are gone... all that is left is upgrading. After you pay $3,000 for 3d Studio Max the upgrades don't feel so bad. When I first bouht it I asked whether or not it came with Vaseline....

I purchased the Poser Planet series when it first came out and I must say I was disappointed. The Cacheforce people are very nice and I will say they do seem to try hard, but the quality of the Poser figures was such that I have essentially never used them. On the same screen with a P4 figure (or even a P3) they look cartoonish. The are also exceptionally limited in facial morphs....essentially you have a dial that lets them grin like an idiot, but that's about it. Some of the props are OK, but not better than I have found on the web for free. Scarab

bbascuba: Ouch again. What I notice in the www.deespona.com collection are the VW's. I think I'll take a bandsaw to a plastic model and scan in a series of sections. My modeling application is Meshwork, a $30 shareware app. Sorry for dragging this off topic.

Deespona's models are by admission also belonging to viewpoint. The models are the same. Big diff in price. Who's the pirate? Or is this privateering? They're also only 3DSmax..

So does viewpoint sell individual models? I searched for them in Popular Links and didn't find them.

Yes, Viwepoint does sell individual models. And when you see the prices you will see why they are not in the popular links. Zygote has prices for people who are buying for themselves. Viewpoint models are priced for people who buy for a movie studio. http://www.viewpoint.com/java/DataShop?style=premier

Thanks. I guess it's back to plan B. I'm getting a flatbed scanning soon, and I'm hoping I can do better than that Yellow Bug that's been around forever.

One more opinion about this... scarab seems to be a bit single-minded, whatever the reason :) I didnt find the Cacheforce collection "cartoon-like", with the exception of those figures resembling cartoon heroes ("Witchblade" character etc.) - Some of them (3 Roman soldiers) are pretty realistic and anyway what about the seventy figure - 200 prop - 170 bucks deal ? There isnt an "idiotic grin", either and their joints sometimes bend better than Zygotes... they dont have speech morphs yet, true (to be updated online soon they say) and then Cacheforce doesn`t seem to spend much time on the textures - well me, I like to paint my own anyway, so much for that. Max/Deesponas : beware, he is supposed to be highly illegal. Grapevine says they (Viewpoint) are trying to get his ass since a year or so, what keeps them is just spanish legislation or whatever - anyway, the models look swell, but they are really ment for Max - if you convert them you wil find them hard to handle in other apps because they are a bit overtextured textures can be pretty Max-specific. Still, I would have bought the collection if it wasnt for that legal issue. Viewpoint really DID buy the stuff from REM, that I know for sure.

The Planet Poser has some good models, but I agree the characters suck. they've been stalling on releasing their next batch of poser compatible stuff on thier xxx site. probably because of some legal niceties on changeover from Metacrap and the new owners of poser.

I'll admit I haven't used any of the Cacheforce characters yet (but, then again, I have yet to unzip/install most of my Zygote and Free Stuff collection either), so I can't comment on their quality (but I have used some Cacheforce props). However, I well say that a kindhearted and more communicative person can't be found than a guy named Chris (who headsup Cachforce?) who helped me out in the beginning when I was trying to figure out how to populate my very first Bryce scenes. In fact, if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have even been encouraged to try Poser at all. The company (at least as represented by Chris) is a shining example of quality support for its products and personal attention to its customers. I, for one, am anxiously awaiting their pending model upgrades.

Huolong - wouldnt know what exactly you mean by "suck" - at that xxx-site I guess :) Aha, so it has some good models. So they have good models and even sucking xxx-stuff! Let us be honest, all Poser characters, P3, P4, are (didnt I read exactly that at this forum a coupla months ago?) maybe up to somewhere between cartoon and "mannequin" level - Zy God or not. Poser aint no Lightwave and no Character Studio either - but it is a nice-and-easy app, which is why we like it - so lets not get religious (mormon?) about little details man. Ill try and check with C-Force what will happen to that xxx-stuff (maybe they just want to get rid of it) but I know they have some very nice new structures with several more body parts (better bending)- ironically, they call them "Poser 5 figures". Compatible ? Hard to say - poor Poser 4.03... They made for mass in the past, they want to make for class in the future, words - but sounds good to me. Well I think this is all a partial misunderstanding anyway - Cacheforce model for at least 3 or 4 apps, one of them (maybe the least important) being Poser - now that is of course bound to get complicated. Aiming to have characters available for all sorts of animation work etc. - look at their www.3-d-models.com, pretty fresh one. Why talk these guys into the ground? They are a welcome addition - well the 170 didnt hurt me for sure... certainly worth the price, but then I also had a mountainous update this summer. Now please, enough of that Cacheforce vs. Zygote nonsense - cant you see that they are just 2 different sides of the medal, not opposed at all ? Over. More important: what IS behind all the changes from Meta to err... ah yes, Curious Labs and Egyisys (I keep confusing the names)? Does anybody know who REALLY owns Poser now? Got the impression it is owned by 3 different parties, correct me if Im wrong, and one of them may well be situated in Utah - if you catch my drift, there. Will they fare better than Metacreations did ? Oh how often I have advised collegues to buy Poser instead of CStudio etc. as an addon for Max or Lightwave... now I read Zygote have the MC version for sale, limited number, what, 250 bucks ? Good price ! Not that I paid any more a year ago... But they dontt sell a whole lot it seems and to me that is a pity. Poser (all-over) needs to become more attractive to the professional crowd. But I am running adrift - anybody who knows more about the inside/ownership stuff, come out into the open - I would just love to hear... I do love Poser, its among the most wonderful 3d apps ! Trying to keep a sense of perspective, Pete

Poser ownership: as far as I know a German 3d graphics company (egi.sys AG) provided the core metacreations poser team the funds to purchase the rights to Poser. The Poser team is in the US and is Curious Lab. www.curiouslabs.com/egisys.html explains it in more detail. Cacheforce: I own their poser libraries, but don't use them much. I think they were worth the money (a lot of figures for my $150?) but they are not as nice as the Zygote figures. But they are not bad. Just don't expect to get a CD full of Vicky's.

Which was my point....If you use all cacheforce in a render, it might look alright, but you really cannot combine zygote and Cforce....the differences are too distinct. It would look like mixing impressionism with romantic period... However, I will agree with Matlock on one thing...the Cforce people, as I said, were very nice to work with... Scarab <-cubist period

Perhaps you can use the low res models in background? Useful for crowd scenes, as they do look different.