Hi there, This is complex and very difficult to put in words that accurately explain my decision. I am returning to Daz as a broker but have decided to put Maximus in storage. I was going to broker him there but it just isn't a good idea now. Due to some recent info/developments I have decided to stop work on Maximus and not open my own store. -My texturist friends got cold feet and ran the other way. nice huh? -Another mil male -Mil figures will eventually be able to do things in Studio Maximus won't There are other factors. Basically it would be a poor business decision for me to invest any more time on this. Other people can afford to do figures and sell them cheaper than i would. The level of success Maximus would be able to achieved is now capped, and not worth it anymore. I'm leaving figure making to those who have the power and control to do so. Thanks to everyone for all your support, email, compliments, feedback, etc. My plans are to do hair and only hair from now on. I'm done with figures ,clothes and texturists(certain ones anyway). -Anyway Thanks, Anton

I'm sorry to hear this Anton. I was really looking forward to an alternative male for rendering purposes. I will admit I am disappointed though. LOL! Maximus looked like he would have been a great male model that we all would have loved working with. Best of luck to you in your future endeavors! -Em

Another Mil Male great just what we need :) Texturing friends ran the other way...pressured by the man? Mil Figures doing things max can't, like? I for one am shocked at this development, I was totally looking forward to the release, and am sorry that you have to go back to Daz, and your plans being a solo merchant (you could have been great(er) ) are we will say ...put on hold for the time being. Your post above seems like this is not a choice you want to make but of a choice that you are having to make. Any chance of a change of mind to release Maximus? A petition perchance.

As long as you keep creating... :) Perhaps you'll learn even more and come back later with an even greater figure of your own.

the mil things doing what Maqx can't I read the above wrong, you said in STUDIO I am guessing that means Daz|Studio. I am sticking to poser for the time being ( well prob for all time ) so I guess that you could release him as a poser release huh, huh, you could release him as is even and I would buy him just cause he looks cool.

hair only?! back to Daz?! errrr wow. While I have and love your hair models that you have released in the past, you not doing clothing or props is a huge disapointment. Your clothing models and prop sets are some of my most valuable purchases. I will certainly miss your contributions in that area. What a wacky community this is. Much sucess with this er your new er, much sucess in your continuing endevors.

I am sorry to hear about this Anton, but it looks like the right move. The market is saturated with figures at the moment with more apparently on the way. There is obviously cause for concern over the Daz|Studio project and whether Daz will leverage their ownership of the code to give their own figures and content an competative advantage that it would be impossible for an outside merchant to match. They could easily set Studio up so that only "Daz Brokered" figures got the benefits of a better skin weighting algorithm for example. The other issues you mentioned also suck :(

Sad and great news all in one post. You da man Anton ;) Pity about Max, I was quite looking forward to working with him. But the idea of getting my greedy Poser item buying hands on some new Anton hair is just fabulous :) All in all, best wishes for your future plans.

I am deeply saddended to hear this. I truly wish you the best of luck with your future projects and hope that this situation whatever the details may be DO NOT discourage you in any way.

Sincerely,
L.

I am looking forward to purchasing your hair models.

Well, I'm really sorry to hear this about Maximus, but I hope that eventually you will be involved in the development of the new Daz Millennium male. Good luck Anton!

Please don't give up on Maximus yet. You are doing so well and the result is infinitely better than M3. Keep in mind that a lot of people were dissatisfied with morph injection and with the last mil man. Also, not everyone will be switching over to Studio so there is still a demand for P4 and P5 figures. Keep in mind that there are other content providers such as Cubed and that Curious Labs will eventually need P6 figures. You are really REALLY talented Anton. I would hate to see you limit yourself and be unhappy because you got bullied.

Sigh............ well as Xeno puts it, I'll be looking forward to your hair, mate. :] Fish

Well the best of luck to you and can't wait to see what kind of hair you come up with next. I love your hair :O)

Anton, whatever you do, you are the best :-) Your products always set the standard for innovation and quality, but I will also never forget all of the helpful tips and mini-tutorials you have gifted this community with over the years. You're just a caring, talented, generous artist. I wish you all the best, in every endeavour! Kimberly

Hey thanks. :)

Well, this is not the sort of news I wanted to hear. We need competition. We need outside developers. We need the creativity spurred by the people trying to make something better than a given standard. What we don't need is another bloated injected, ejected, reflected, imperfected heap of polygons. Investers are often told "don't fight the trend" but that isn't the way an artist works. If you are trying to be a business person as well as an artist, sometimes you just have to give in to market pressure. But then everybody loses. It sounds like you needed a texture artist with a bit more courage, and self-assurance, too. I am very sorry, Anton, so sorry to hear this. {hugs} Carolly

I hate to see this happen, but you know what is best for you. Hair? I can't wait for this!

do DIAMONDS FOR V3 and SP or at least something similar. They really need some jewelry.

This totally sucks!!! My hopes and many other were for a figure that would be more than what is already out there and you figure looked to do that. I'm so sorry that you aren't going to finish it now.

Hi Anton, I guess you have your reasons...but if you ever change your mind on finishing and releasing Maximus someday, I'll be right here! Cheers! ;-)

Oh I'm so sorry to hear that. I was really looking forward to Maximus and his clothing line as well. anyway, all the best for your new projects. Let us know if you change your mind about maximus. Love esther

Well, that's a bummer Anton. Even though I hear the reluctance in your decision in your post, I hope things work out for the best.

Nooo! I was so looking forward to Maximus, he has so much potential. There are more female Poser figures for sale than I could count, but the market is really lacking in the way of quality male figures. I'm really sorry to hear that the independant brokerage idea didn't work out for you, but I'm glad you're not leaving the Poser business altogether. I'm a big fan of your work! And I'll echo everyone's best wishes on your future endeavors, wherever they are.

~ Molly

You've given the community SO MUCH, and I'm sure that you have much more to give us!! That it wasn't via the route that looked promising just a bit ago, is the kinda twists and turns that life deals us, whether we want them or not.

WHATEVER you design, you'll have a ton of appreciative admirers and friends, who all appreciate your work. You truly are an artist.....

Ray

...damn... Max looked like he had a LOT of potential. I've come to admire the great Poser modelers, and Anton is at the top of the list. Everything he's ever done has been a major contribution to us, and I was expecting Max to be the same. I can only hope Max just needs a little longer gestation than expected. Note to people who do body textures: VOLUNTEER! If I could do a good texture, I would for Max. I will start a complete line of clothing for him the day Anton releases Max for outside development.

Just a question. There are at least 100 people interested in Maximus. If he was released at $60 x100 people minus a 30% brokerage fee (used PoserPro for example) to a store you would still net $4200. I'm sure there would be a few more sales of the base model than just a 100 people. Maximus seems so far much more than the other male figures. What or when does it justify developing a product? I have no clue in this area but seems to me that you could make a lot of money over a single year with a few clothing items couple of textures and base model and spend the rest of the year on other things. I'm really quite curious, if not I can understand not giving details.

I want to discuss this but can't. It gets me upset. I am sorry I cannot discuss this with you. I assure you I have tried many options and it wasn't meant to be. Not by me this year anyway. Thanks again, Anton

Fair enough I certainly don't mean to bring up bad feelings. I look forward to your new creations :)

It's ashame especially since it's looking more and more like Daz is removing themselves from the Poser community with D|S and starting up a distinctly seperate one. For the people that will be staying with Poser it would have been nice to have quality characters to use once Daz leaves.

Anton Its a shame to hear of your decision. I know you've worked hard on this project. Any chance of a limited release of Maximus? the work you've done on that figure should not be shuffled away to moulder on some harddrive. Good luck Lyrra

Can't do it... not this year? Can't talk about it... Hmmm...Some type of non-competitive contract you signed when you worked for DAZ? =( I do hope you start making clothes again. I had high hopes for Adventurers for M3/V3/S3/Fr/ShFr... =)

No nothing liek that. I wanted Maximus to be more than just a three month novelty. It is a Mil market by design. It is fine. I like doing hair anyway. No more clothes though.

Do you mean you could eventually finish this project once DAZ Studio is beta and you will be able to redesign Maximus feature in a way that they are not redundant with what Studio is gonna do by default? Anyway I don't know if it would have been just a 3 month novelty. I think people would have supported him. It looked far more advanced than M3 in his basic apparence and he was going to have all those features that M3 is missing. Remember, even the persons that like M3 were disappointed by the lack of all the face and ethnicity morphs... I just know I was ready to invest a lot of money in him since I'm one of those that are disappointed with M3. I hope that you'll change your mind. Again good luck and looking forward to your new project. Staby

Perhaps some day Maximus will rise again from the ashes like the proverbial phoen--- ...er, uh...never mind. -jjsemp

What a strange announcement. It sounds like there are many things building up behind the scenes. Many things that the basic people like me will discover very late, may be just after making a buying decision. Things that I'm sure we would all be very interested to hear about now. But I guess you cannot tell much more than you did... Anyway you go Anton, I wish you the best luck.

"The level of success Maximus would be able to achieved is now capped,..." Is there some kind of policy that limits your earnings/sales?

seems to me daz gave you an ultimatum, in order to come back you can't release your male figure, more poser politics, guess you have to do what you have to do, but I bet daz sales are down, and they got scared of outsiders making new and better figures.......Daz sure hasn't been impressive lately, we'll just have to wait and see what happens

"I want to discuss this but can't. It gets me upset. I am sorry I cannot discuss this with you. I assure you I have tried many options and it wasn't meant to be. Not by me this year anyway. Thanks again, Anton" Anton, you didn't say much here but you said alot about what's going on even if it's not actually realized. I was just thinking back to the M3 project and DAZ not letting you work on it, then your leaving DAZ, you work on the Maximus figure (which was looking to top M3) and now your going back to DAZ...somethings looking fishy.

-Another mil male -Mil figures will eventually be able to do things in Studio Maximus won't Another mil male? M3 failed to live up to expectations, and with each new Mil release DAZ seems to offer less, not more. V3 got morph expansions and loads of support. M3 didn't even get a full set of morphs to begin with. As for Daz Sudio - I've tried it, and even allowing for it being an alpha release, I don't like it. Whatever advancements the mil figures might have for Studio, I won't be interested. I'll be sticking with Poser 5. Anton, I was watching your development of Maximus with great interest. It's always hard to tell what the end product will be like from development shots, but you have an understanding of the end-user's needs that DAZ, just lately, seems to lack entirely. You have a deserved reputation for creating top quality and innovative products. I had no doubt Maximus would be great. Opening your own store would be a risk, but there are more brokerages than just DAZ. It seems you've made up your mind, and I won't beg you to change it if you've made a business decision to cancel the project. But I will add my voice to those who have already said they are disappointed. I would have been a customer, for sure, and still will be, should you resurrect Maximus at a later date. Best of luck to you!

I'd buy him also, both because I want him and also to support independent 3rd party development of Poser products. It's the principle of the thing and I'm sure a lot of users support independent development. If DAZ succeeds at this, then we'll all be stuck using only DAZ figures. Not a good thing. Poser developed to the point it is at now stricly based on 3rd party development and innovation. I remember when they tried to clamp down on modellers by saying that "derived" (as in clothing) meshes belonged to them. This does surprise me though, I'd thought Utah was saints paradise. s

I don't like to make negative assumptions. I think people need to be careful about that or you end up with witchhunts. My idle speculations? Here's my fabric of dreams... The D|S base will be free, and be similar to the basic Poser 4. However Millenium and ALL figures will no longer need the injection system since Studio has a different way of managing morphs. Weight maps will give more realistic fall-off zones... The D|S format will be openable DIRECTLY in Lightwave 8.0. No plugins needed thanks, here's your S3 in Lightwave, no sweat. D|S will have plugins, but D|S itself can be a plugin to Lightwave- and Mimic will be even more integrated into both programs. Anton may create his new figures when D|S is out and the new morph system can be shared. ;)

Grads on going back to Daz. You have to look out for yourself, my friend. And it's your life and if Daz pays you so you can make a living at what you love. Then I say Bravo. and big hugs to you.

Anton, considering your previous exit from DAZ was cloaked in mystery and 'felt' as though it was rocky at best, aren't you leery that this go round could suddenly go South? Of course, it's not up to us to question motives or ruminate on situations we're not fully informed of but this is a curious development on an already curious story. Who knows, perhaps DAZ is actively fawning over you and promising a once-a-week hot oil rubdown from some hot slab... I HOPE SO! : ) In any event, while I was looking forward to an "All Anton, All The Time" site and store, I hope this will be a happy endeavor for you and I look forward to any future output. I'm a longtime fan of both your design sense and technical innovations. Dave

I'm bummed. But, good look to you, Anton.

Thanks again all. We wil see what will happen. Might be best to wait for Studio to be finished before looking at finishing Maximus. Too many variables. I would rather wait to see if it is worth waiting that doing him now only to found I should have waited. I am really hoping the community will help with utilities for things not directly available to the public. Thanks for the support. I my decision makes sense. -Anton

"Might be best to wait for Studio to be finished before looking at finishing Maximus." Why??? More people would probably use Maximus in Poser than Studio anyway.

Anton, If you going to stick to only doing hair..PLEASE do some good up-to-date short hair styles for Mike...that's M2 and M3..not just M3.

I anticipate your hair creations to be of the utmost quality and design, as are the rest of your projects. Someone mentioned it before, but modifying Diamonds for V3 and Stephanie Petite would make a huge impact. Good luck in the new/old/"rerun" endeavors.

As far as the "variables" go, might I point out that there will always be variables when future software products are involved. Now that there will be two "human posing" applications available to users, what you may see is that each subsequent release will try to top the previous of its competitor. And that's a good thing for us. So ... Maximus may still have a viable future. Who is to say you can't have a Maximus 2 and Maximus 3, and so on, to get better and more compatible with future software updates? 8-) Just being one who hates to see all that work put on a shelf. He has a LOT of promise!!

With Daz placing a lot on Daz Studio, their working with Newtek and a lot going on behind the scenes that users don't know about I can understand the wait and see thoughts. CL with Shade etc. Lot going on with two of the big players in the Poser community. I understand your need to pay rent, having a longer shelf life for your work. There are many people that support 3rd party brokers and poser content providers and are disapointed with the Daz machine. Disapointed but I understand. I think there is more of a market for Maximus than you think. With the Clothing converter now out existing clothing could be worked for Maximus as new things are developed. I understand, I wish ya the best, I look forward to seeing your creativity put into the poser community. Don't let Maximus get to dusty. MachineClaw ------------ The Revolution will not be televised, it will be sponsored by corporate America.