Tide changes are always scary. Especially if you've never been to sea before. DAZ started out as the Poser content arm of Zygote. In the last 5 years, they have grown to a point where if they wish to continue to gorw larger, they need to look beyond Poser and to other markets -- in addition to Poser, not to the detriment of. D|S is not a replacement for poser, it is more a complimentary program to it. Once the plug-ins for it are written, it may have the ability to compete effectively, and possibly at a comparative cost. Long long ago, when Metacreations suddenly had Ray Dream, Infini-D, Bryce, and Poser, there was the thought (and promise) that all of them would be able to work togehter interchangeably. That was 4 years ago. Now that possibility is coming again, but there isn't just one path to it. There are several. D|S allows existing poser content to be translated. From there it can go to several applications (ok, so that's still coming). Bodystudio, Greenbriar's stuff, various odds and ends here and there. Mover for Vue. Shade's in-program system. All these things essentially are providing a means to take the stuff that we have and move it into another program. Poser itself has grown. This is an expansion period. Over the rest of this cycle, the user base for Poser will grow incredibly. Renderosity itself has grown incredibly huge -- so much so that those of us who were here ages ago are a tiny minority of voices. The folks who are coming in today have little idea of who Anton is and what he's done, they barely remember traveler, they've never heard of Legume beyond a welcome email from one site. Don't fret the change. It will happen anyway -- all things must. And in business, they rarely change the way we want them to. DAZ won't abandon Poser as long as it is worthwhile to them. Since their revenue is based primarily on Poser users, it's unlikely they'll do so anytime soon. This is a big change. It's bigger than the Commune and Pros splits, the former of which nearly killed the community early on it was so acrimonious. But this one isn't driven by politics, it's driven by ultiamtely trying to increase the number of people using Poser. WHich means the market's matured. It's reached critical mass. It's time to grow it. soon it won't be so weird to play with digital dolls...

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)