It appears from the info at DAZ, that DS still doesn't have any sort of animation. Is that for certain?

i've posted a few questions in the platinum club: re animation and d/s and if and when it would be available.... they've never responded... who knows... a year ago they had mentioned that animation would be supported soon after the Beta was released.. i'd love to use d/s with mimic..

There was a question and answer in DAZ's own forum, which stated pretty clearly that animation isn't present yet. I'm wondering if DAZ will ever get around to including animation features. Static renders clearly dominate the market, so it makes sense to stick with "art"... But it doesn't help us "dynamic" types who were hoping for something better than Poser. I might just have to invent it myself.

I remember it was mentioned as a addon once the final v1.0 version was out. Wouldn't suprise me to see mimic compatibility later on, and animation also as addons or plugins. I guess they just want the basics working 1st.

The plugin method could be really nice, if it's done properly; add more features without having to rewrite original source code.

It is probably one of the plugins they plan to sell after the release. I'll stick w/ Poser and Carrara (via Transposer) right now.

Since DAZ does animation on occasion, and they are creating software to use in-house, it would be pretty pointless if they never put animation capability in. What would be the point of developing your own software if you don't use it?

Well, they could certainly develop in-house stuff and choose not to sell it. Understandable from a marketing viewpoint; among Poser users, the VAST majority only make still renders. But for those of us who primarily do animation, it would be disappointing. A fresh tool, designed from scratch to account for "modern" preferences and capabilities, could be tremendously superior. Poser's animation engine hasn't changed at all for many years.

Since DAZ's main business is content and the software to drive that content, it would be a great move for them if they released their animation capabilities to the "12 animators" everyone talks about in Poser land. ;) Seriously, though, there has never been any indication that they aren't going to release animation capabilities, but if they didn't, someone else could build a plugin for it, right? One other point, Mimic would be a dead-end program if DAZ|Studio didn't support animation. I don't think they would spend money on animation software and render software separately and then just decide that they don't ever need to work together. It would make much more sense to make the two work together as well as or better than how Mimic and Poser work together today.

I'm pretty sure I remember Rob Whizant posting that the animation capabilities were actually in place, though the interface was not yet there. That doesn't of course say how they will be made available, but the intention is (or at least was) there.