Ok, Veritas, let me point out why you get the sort of feedback you do. It's really simple, and really silly, but it is going to happen ad nauseaum 'cause it's just the nature of things. It's the way you present the information. Nobody's disagreeing with you that these are cool things. But you present it as an "alternative" and you say it is the "future" of Poser -- an application created for and marketed to an entirely different market than you are bringing up, and you are doing this in a forum dedicated to that same market. So of course you'll get folks looking at the stuff (and all of us reply because we are interested, btw -- if we thought it was bunk, we'd be moving on after a soft chuckle) and of course you're gonna get a sort of "you gotta be kidding me" response. Now, I'm gonna take your points one by one -- come and match me on them :) "An ALTERNATIVE Poser-Daz FUTURE---- The Sims?" Ok, this is a good one, since a LOT of poser folks have used Poser stuff to make mods and hacks for The Sims (1) and there's a pretty nice little niche market there for them. There was once even a segment of the store and a forum for it here, too (may still be). "Perhaps the most interesting new feature is the ability to take movies, to literally record video of a Sims'story, then edit and upload it to share with others. " I agree -- this is a VERY cool feature. I know some sims addict that are gonna love that. "I am certain that there is a sizable segment of the continuous Poser Newbie influx that is looking MORE for a SIMS-Like experience than a get-down-and-technical Poser slow-scene-render experience. Obviously there are people who like Poser and DAZ characters on the complex, highly realistic side, but I would still bet that a SIGNIFICANT growth market will be in the direction the SIMS are headed. I personally am not interested in getting the SIMS 2, but I can see that it will have very broad marketplace appeal." Without a doubt there are folks looking for something that lets them make pretty pictures with simple stuff. There are always people looking for that. And the ones that are serious about it will stick with the tools already extant, while the ones that are not will get the three or four pics they want and move on. Those people already exist, btw -- they are tubbers -- and again, there are merchants who use poser VERY well to cater to these needs. This is called clip art in the world of illustration. You say the direction the SIMS are headed in. And that direction is what? It certainly isn't a program designed to create and render original artistic images or to create orginal and compelling animations and it's definitely not the direction to which Renderosity as a community (not as a business) caters. As for a broad market appeal, yes, within it's segment of role players and gamers (and there is a great deal of cross-over there between people who like poser and people who like these things) it will enjoy a great deal of popularity. But note that Games, on a socioeconomic level, have much more in common with movies than they do movie cameras -- that is, the games are more like the final renders than Poser. Operating from a different perspective on the basis of "thinking outside the box" is fine, but you would have to re-invent the wheel to do so. Games -- including this one -- are Entertainment. While creating art with poser is entertaining, it is not entertainment -- that would be enjoying the fruits of the labor done with Poser (the gallery). "One alternative scenerio here would be if Poser-Daz and/or independent Poser character makers were to offer Sims 2 owners UPGRADABLE higher-rez characters that would make their Sim People more realistic, and early-on becoming part of an inevitable march towards and even MORE REALISTIC Sim 3 version witin another year or so." Now, here you are venturing into the territory of content creation. FOr these figures to be upgradeable, there would need to be a format conversion and understanding of the basic design needs -- and you can bet your sweet arse that thee are content creators who are already looking at this -- and seriously too. What gets everyones goat is the "shouting" (caps) that makes it resemble one of those late night informercials where everyone shouts about how awesome and stupendous everything is. "...after Poser characters reached a peak in the high realism of the V and M series from DAZ, the marketplace has now swung over to a new market influenced largely by toon animations and games." Two problems here. 1 -- the V3 and M3 models aren't even close to a peak of reality. They rely on hacks and an old, curmudgeonly boning system that has never been sriously looked at improving much beyond the basics originally created for P3. The Poser bones system has a lot of drawbacks, but it's full potential has yet to be properly explored in human figures let alone any others. And as far as mesh, still not quite at a Peak either. And to prove that point further, note that there will be a V4 and M4 still. 2 -- the influx of toon and game stuff has been around since Poser 3 at least, and if memory serves me properly, earlier. So you are assuming that the growth of the merchanting market and the greater segmentation of the galleries here is indicative of a shift -- that's bad sociology. Worse, that oversimplification on a grand scale. You then go one to note that the makers of some of these products work on games and so forth. Well, what do you think the creators of poser worked on -- and, in some cases, still work on? There are tons of folks out there using poser to create games right now -- it's often the first step beginning game designers go to. Why? Because all games these days require the content to be created and pre rendered first. In other words, the technical, slow-render part is done already so that the end user can see these "immediate" results. These people are regular vistors to the forum, as well -- in fact, one of my partners in crime right now is finsihing up some core imagery for a game she's been working on for 8 years. There was a post not too long ago that directed folks to a game with imagery created using products from right here in the marketplace. The people who do get your point are already doing it -- and the rest are going -- um, hey -- the stuff you are talking about will ONLY work if it is used with the specific engine it is built for. You cannot take stuff that works in one engine and use it in a different engine. Game engines are extremely complex items, and the competition is fierce to get them licensed by developers for use in other games. Which is moot, as that limits your ability to effectively create content easily. It's similar to the fact that you cannot take a poser figure and use it -- as is -- in 3ds max or Cinema 4 D without some sort of plug-in or other conversion utility. And if you are looking for those concersion utilities to be made, then you are posting in the most wrong spot possible. Your video link is a nice video -- but bear in mind thatall the stuff to make it was already created. The figures were boned for a specific format. "Her hair is comprised entirely of geometry and is only possible due to the high-performance vertex shaders of the GeForce FX 5900 GPUs" is not accurate as you present it -- the geometry is not created real time -- it already exists. All they are doing is rendering it -- and those particular features are possible in Poser, I should note -- without needing that particular card to get them. Your emphasis on "real time" is completely forgetting the amount of work that goes into creating all of the properties that make those renders as realistic as they do as quickly as they do -- and there are several "shortcuts" built into the shader language and Direct X that are used to "fool the eye" -- features which are all already possible in Poser 5, 3ds Max, Lightwave, Pixels3D, Cinema4D, and Carrara -- and have been for some time. Without these applications and their even bigger retheren, none of those super cool "real time" effects would be possible. Oh, and the figure is V2, and the hair was created using a hair plug-in for maya. Now, all of that said, I still enjoy your posts -- you find really cool stuff. Don't stop. Just don't freak when folks seem to be picking on your ideas.

thou and I, my friend, can, in the most flunkey world, make, each of us, one non-flunkey, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroes to begin with. (Carlyle)