"the state of the art human figures that are their core business." snort (sorry, but it was too rich an opening*)

Thanks for your replies and for explaining your points of view. I don't quite understand why DAZ figures would fail at "Default Poses" and "Figure Height" though, but we're all pretty divided when it comes to judging DAZ's figures. It's a shame that we're apparently divided when it comes to these two programs as well. They both create the same sort of art and use the same content. SnowS

Well, I think what a lot of people are worried about is that D|S won't use the same content. It already can't (P5/6 cloth, hair, and material room settings are unusable in it, which also affects translation to bryce) to some extent, and on others -- notably content from a lot of folks who don't brkoer through DAZ -- it doesn't import them correctly. For the most part, yeah, they are, right now, capable of using much of the same content. But people hate change. Hell, there's still a bunch of people who haven't switched to 6 because it means having to learn so much more than before. Additionally, only about half of the people who use poser even ever come here, and of them, less than half ever touch the forums. ANd the Galleries are filled with static images. FOr that purpose, D|S is great. It does what most folks who use the program will want it to do. And, free, it increases the potential market size (a critical thing that everyone should be supportive of, really). It does remove that barrier of entry, and, in so doing, might actually mitigate to some degree the loss to piracy. Of interest: Poser Artist is still available. As Poser 4. Not as Poser 5. This is indicative of a potential shift to two separate formats on the part of EFA -- still to be seen, but I'm willing to wager its on the boards. I might niggle about stuff, and I might have a serisou issue with the lack of willingness to be truly innovative when their reputation is built on it, but hell, D|S is a decent proggy. Now if only they'll get that SDK out for free...

Um, actually, that is Ford's postion. Has been since 1924, when they sued for infringement of patents on several carmakers. Yes, and how far did that get him? As for the IC engine, I was meaning used in a viable car - the engine was not his idea and his cars were not the first vehicles that they were used in so technically you're right, but the vehicles that used an IC engine before him were not reall cars as such - at least they were clearly different from what he made. And, lastly, it assumes that they aren't simply waiting for it to go gold. Since Only EFA can pursue it, and the choice of when to do is strictly theirs, it is not unreasonable to think that they are letting them dig a grave. I think you may be stretching it a bit here - is this possible? Yes, it's also possible that EFA has hired a hit-man to eliminate the DAZ staff but I think we would all agree that's unlikely. While it is possible that they are waiting, it would be a very unusual action for a company to wait so long and given the public statements they have made, it would be likely that a court would rule against them now whereas it would have been much more likely to rule for them at the start. You see, if there is evidence that you have 'agreed' to something [not a legal contract - that's only one way to agree - to have knowledge of something and to not take action but to actually continue to deal with the person and make public statements that indicate you are on friendly terms may well be viewed by a judge to be implisite acceptance even though there is no explisite staement] So yes, your theoretical version could be the case, but my suggestion is far more likely to be correct. The only ones who know for sure of course are the people running EFA and their lawyers. Please don't put words in my mouth. I'm sorry, which words did I put in your mouth? I know which ones found themself stuffed into my mouth but I honestly don't recall putting any into your mouth unless you mean the fact that I pointed out the "ripped off" is another way to say "stole" in which case I wasn't putting any words anywhere - I didn't create the definition, I merely pointed it out.

"While it is possible that they are waiting, it would be a very unusual action for a company to wait so long and given the public statements they have made, it would be likely that a court would rule against them now whereas it would have been much more likely to rule for them at the start. You see, if there is evidence that you have 'agreed' to something [not a legal contract - that's only one way to agree - to have knowledge of something and to not take action but to actually continue to deal with the person and make public statements that indicate you are on friendly terms may well be viewed by a judge to be implisite acceptance even though there is no explisite staement]" Not in copyright and patent law. "Yes, and how far did that get him? As for the IC engine, I was meaning used in a viable car - the engine was not his idea and his cars were not the first vehicles that they were used in so technically you're right, but the vehicles that used an IC engine before him were not reall cars as such - at least they were clearly different from what he made" Quite far, actually, He managed to shut down 32 companies entirely, recieved royalty paymetns for years from most ot eh others. And the IC engine was used in a viable car before him. Decades before. Ford, in fact, was a late entry in the car making business. Nor did his vehicles appeal to the folks who had been buying them already. They were sorta common, simple things -- not high end at all. (not gonna get there ;))

I meant that they use the same basic content: figures, poses, props, textures, etc. Of course program-specific features aren't going to work. "And, free, it increases the potential market size (a critical thing that everyone should be supportive of, really)" Agreed, that's why content creators shouldn't ignore Studio users. Only Maclean and a few others have even attempted to cater to the D|S crowd, and most of the top merchants here don't even know how their product works in DAZ Studio. SnowS

FireMonkey, I wish you would relax. Although I can except that you may well think I'm sitting foaming at the mouth [or other such activities] I assure you I am not. I am quite relaxed actually - sorry if it seems otherwise. I did however find you suggest that I was putting words in your mouth to be a bit odd after you had tried to suggest I had said that D|S was created because they felt limited by Poser - given that I have never said anything that even came close to that. However, I'm not interested in an arguement either - but that doesn't mean I won't express my opinion or point to what I feel are flaws in what others say and it also doesn't mean that when the meaning of a statement gets bent into some unrecognisable state that I will just let it go [well, sometimes I will - it depends] I've never believed in the idea of disagreeing in silence since if no one stands up on a point then it looks like everyone agrees. Sorry if this seems up-tight or hostle or whatever. I think you'll find that at worse I may be somewhat anal about such things but nothing more than that. Perhaps it's a result of many years of debate - I have a habit of keeping track of what is said and going back to it when I feel something is getting obscured or that something I said is being taking out of context. ynsaen: Since I'm not a lawyer it is possible that I may be wrong about implied acceptance - I have some knowledge on the topic but it is at best spotty [and that isn't even talking about the differences between law in different countries - I get the feeling you are in the US whereas I'm in Canada and there is a significant difference in the laws between the 2] As for Ford putting some companies out of business and all - fair enough, but in the end he was not able to have the exclusive right to build cars, which is after all the point I was trying to make. To be honest, I feel that men like Ford and the Wright Brothers did far more harm than good because of their attempts to have exclusivity over a concept. But, as I say, I'm not a lawyer and my knowledge of such things is historical and technical rather than legal and besides that is another topic and one which would take far longer to hash through and has no real relevance here so I leave it not as a challenge of anyone's views but as a clearification of mine. SnowSultan: While I understand what you are saying, you have to realise that since a product made for Poser can, in general, be used in D|S but a produce made for D|S is not so likely to work in Poser [understand that I'm taking the word of others here - so if the information is wrong I apologise] then someone who is creating things as a business rather than a hobby has to ask themselves how much time can they devote to a limited market? It would be nice if they did some, but when you count on your work to pay the rent, you have to put your efforts where they are likely to give the best returns. Not much of a way around it.

"Agreed, that's why content creators shouldn't ignore Studio users. Only Maclean and a few others have even attempted to cater to the D|S crowd, and most of the top merchants here don't even know how their product works in DAZ Studio." I'm not entirely in that boat, myself, but I still don't make things specifically for them, nor will I alter a product which functions fine in poser for use in D|S at this time. This is primarily because the program is in beta. That means what I make might work well in this version, but be screwed up in the next. That's the way it goes with Beta systems. Furthermore, I'm also of a particular mind that I develop things to take specifc advantage of the programs features -- in short, I develop to the program. Doing that with D|S, for me, is problematic since it doesn't run on my system. Nvertheless, I do try, and I have some awesomely talented users helping me do so. Conversely, I'm one of those folks that never had a problem with P5 -- while many merchants were unable to even get it to load, let alone run. Awfully hard to work on something that's not functional, lol. "I meant that they use the same basic content: figures, poses, props, textures, etc. Of course program-specific features aren't going to work. " (giggles) Well why didn't you say that? (just teasing) "but in the end he was not able to have the exclusive right to build cars, which is after all the point I was trying to make." And is why I called your analogy into question. He never had that right. He was never trying to be the only manufacturer of cars. He was trying to avoid being ripped off -- in terms of the method of manufacture. The analogy is based on the fallacy of Ford's erroneous credit fro having built the first cars. My point was that ya chose a really really bad analogy to make a weak and untenable point. It's my nature. I look for stuff like that. That's what makes threads like this turn into nasty debacles instead of reasoned discussions amongst intelligent people. "I get the feeling you are in the US whereas I'm in Canada and there is a significant difference in the laws between the 2" Correct on my location (Southwestern US) -- not so correct on patent and copyright law. There's more in common than not, and the differences are very slight and deal with country specific issues (which, in all fairness, sorta pisses off a lot of canadians since the US sorta strong armed some changes into the treaties, accords, and agreements that govern such).

A product made using the .DAZ format is by definition not usable in any version of Poser. And the .DAZ format is proprietary. A product made using the standard P4/PP Poser formats is likely to work in DAZ|Studio. Maybe not perfectly, some glitches have already been mentioned, but at least the products load and can be rendered. This is why most merchants wll not create content in the .DAZ format. Unless they get paid really well to make the product DAZ|Studio specific, of course. Maybe we'll see some "hybrid" products that provide both the .DAZ format and the standard Poser formats. Not unlike existing products that provide separate MAT poses for P4 and PP.

AFAIK, the only app that can read the .DAZ format is D|S. Since it's a binary format, it's difficult to figure out what means what. It might be possible to write an importer for Poser, or a conversion utility that would convert .DAZ files to .cr2, .pz3 etcetera, but only after DAZ discloses the structure of the .DAZ format - which will be probably at the same time they release an SDK. ETA of the SDK: a couple of months after hell freezes over. Until then, importing .DAZ files into whatever other application will be as good as impossible. And I wouldn't be surprised at all if such an import would violate the D|S EULA - but I might be mistaken.

Poser and Studio.. They may do some of the same things but they are different programs. Somewhat like Paintshop Pro and Photoshop They do the same things use the same files, share filters, and such yet they aren't the same program. I have both. I use both. I like both. I can do things in photoshop that I can't do in Paintshop pro and vise versa same with Poser (all flavors) and Studio. galactron, the best advise is to try both programs and see which fits your needs. Because ultimately it's you using it your way. Not mine or joe blows ;)

Binary format is much more compact. Speeds up loading times. Take a look at .obj files. A text based format, each vertex is denoted as a triple of floating point values on a single line. Count the character positions, that's the amount of bytes that has to be read by the application (I'm not counting the line feed character(s) at the end of each line). In a binary format, the same triple of floats would occupy 18 bytes (6 bytes per float). No more. The application does not have to parse a text line, it directly extracts the floats, which is a lot faster. The text based formats have been designed as exchange formats, easily readable by humans but not optimized for applications.

I should have said that I hope merchants will add support for their items in DAZ Studio - meaning test them to make sure they work, include MAT poses that apply specularity maps properly, and if possible, try to make their product compatible for D|S users (Wardrobe Wizard, etc). I know that files created in D|S won't work in anything else at the moment; I would uninstall Poser 4 and get right to work on my next set of poses if that wasn't the case. I'm pretty confident that someone in the community will find a way to make it happen though, all of the best ideas have come from the users anyway. :) SnowS

Until DAZ discloses the file structure, I don't think anyone will make a file viewer. I guess we'll have to wait for the SDK. I don't have a clue as to when it will be released. So - no tweaking of .DAZ files like we can tweak Poser files. At least, not for now.

I should know better than to step into the middle of a fire storm like this, but when I see misinformation and rumors being started and proliferated I feel I should set the record straight. Last night when I saw this thread developing, I wanted to step in then and point out that it doesnt need to be a choice of Poser or Studio but I had other obligations that prevented me from doing that.

First of all, from the inception of DAZ|Studio, we have never positioned it as a Studio vs. Poser product. I tried to look for some of my original posts on the subject but I couldnt figure out how to do it. As I recall, our statements were essentially that Studio would be a Posing and Rendering application. It actually reached that level about 1.5 to 2 years ago. Our purpose for Studio was to provide a tool that would help to expand this community and the DAZ customer base. It is doing that. We have had thousands of new people enter this community by way of Studio. (I know that many of them have even gone on to purchase Poser after downloading Studio.) I hope that we have only scratched the surface in this regard. A larger community will bring larger scale development of products and technology and ultimately more choice for customers.

Why did DAZ develop DAZ|Studio? I think a few of the reasons have already been touched on, but I will hit the highlights (not in any particular order). The first is market expansion (as stated above). Second is the opportunity to innovate and have impact on software that our content can be used in. Third is the ability to offer an integrated solution option for customers (DAZ no longer needs to sell Poser in order to sell our content). Fourth is the ability for other developers to significantly contribute to technical functionality through high level scripting and a strong SDK environment. Not to mention, were enjoying the DAZ|Studio project.

I mentioned DAZ|Studios SDK. A key goal is that D|S be an open and friendly environment to other developers, extensible through scripts and plug-ins. Were particularly excited about this because weve seen what this community can produce even without such tools. Innovations such as ERC by Rbtwhiz and Nerd, Mat Pose files by DAZ, morph injection by Drax, full hand scaling by Michael Lane not to mention the consistent improvement of Poser products (in UVs, joints, materials, morphs, etc.) by DAZ and many, many others.

It is also been great to see how this community environment fosters and spreads such innovations, leading to further ideas and improvements. For example, Ajax helped popularize EasyPose (a form of ERC), Anton helped popularize BodyHandles (although I believe someone else created BodyHandles), DAZ helped popularize morph injection (created by Drax). Its easy to see that weve all come a lot further than any of us could have come alone, and DAZ is grateful to be a part of such an innovative and growing community. In fact, one of the major difficulties in this market is just that theres so much to be done. (This is ultimately a good thing.) DAZ Studio is designed from the ground up to open accessibility for enhancements from developers through an amazingly powerful script ability and detailed SDK.

As a result, version 1.0 has taken much longer than expected to develop. It is much more robust than was the original scope. We have ended up with significant feature creep along with underestimated timelines. We expect that a lot of the noticeable growth will come when the SDK is completed and accessible by outside developers. We also have a few unannounced features that will be in the version 1.0 release candidate.

Someone mentioned above To me Studio is to Poser, what Renda was to V3. Actually the two are very different. DAZ|Studio uses the Poser file formats (as well as other formats), and in doing so follows established legal precedent in the software industry. Renda contained actual code from V3 in her files. This topic could be a whole other discussion, but from all of our legal research on the subject DAZ has strong legal footing to be able to use the formats we are using. And as far as the other functionality of DAZ|Studio being an infringement, unless any of the functionality (posing, rendering, etc.) is covered under patent protection, then we are fine. And if we are in trouble for having this functionality then every other 3D application is in trouble as well.

Taylor Wilson left DAZ a few months ago. For about 8 months prior to his departure, his focus had been mostly on Bryce development and other programmers have been working on Studio. Taylor will be missed greatly but is still offering his help to DAZ for any high level concerns that we may have from time to time. Studio is still moving ahead as planned. I am sure that Posers development will also move along now that its original creator, Larry Weinberg has moved on to Adobe.

I hope that this post will be helpful in clearing up misinformation. I also hope that readers can see that a few people contributing to this topic obviously have ulterior motives in what they are saying. Their history of trolling and harassing DAZ is out there for people to read for themselves. Just look back at other posts where DAZ is mentioned and you will see their messages there, too.

DAZ has never hidden our motives. We are a business. We are trying to grow our business and keep it viable and successful. When we do a sale or promotion we want it to be successful. I believe that the majority of our customers actually like our sales. I sure like finding good deals when I go to stores like Costco, and I like knowing that theyre making enough money to provide more value to me in the future. At DAZ we have learned that our success is strictly based on how well we provide what our customers are looking for (good products and service). If we dont provide what they want, they will stop buying our products. DAZ will continue our efforts to provide the best products that we can, knowing that if we dont we will not remain in business. We love what we do. We love the support that we have found in this community. Hopefully DAZ and E-Frontier will both find success in our respective businesses and neither one will have to fail for the other to succeed.

Sincerely,

Dan Farr
President, DAZ Producitons

I'm mostly concerned about content. As long as the common denominator between D|S and Poser will be the Poser 4 format, many merchants will play safe and won't dabble in the new possibilities of either program. DAZ has been extremely slow in adopting content that uses the advanced features of Poser 5 and now 6. Much slower than other marketplaces. This content can't work in DAZ|Studio. Coincidence?

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So Daz has lost hmmmmm Larry (Poser originator), Taylor (The head programmer for D|S & working on Bryce), and Brian (head of marketing) all in a few months time. Nice. I have to get back under my bridge now, my point has been made.

FireMonkey, enough. hehe whatever. I don't care. Nothing personal. Debate with Ynsaen. lol He seems to enjoy your exchanges. Fair enough. ynsaen: I debated on responding to this point as I really am not trying to send things off on some wild tangent but in the end I felt that I should [maybe it's the fox terrier in me ... you know how they can never let go ... heh - no, or at least I try hard not to be like that] Anyway, here goes: Correct on my location (Southwestern US) -- not so correct on patent and copyright law. There's more in common than not, and the differences are very slight and deal with country specific issues Ah... I'm not so sure about that - it depends of course sinec there are international agreements which come to bear in some cases, but I look at the fact that the Canadian Supreme Court has maintained until just this last month that p2p trading of MP3s is not a violation of copyright at all unless there is monitary gain involved. It's the only example I personally know enough about to say anything but it seems to indicate a distinct differance to me. Oh, the court still says it does not violate copyright laws at all, however, as a result of a great deal of pressure from the US, they are now drafting a new law which, if passed, will make MP3 sharing a crime - but even then owning MP3s will still be legal even if you do not own the album they came from [which means that what you have you can keep - I have to wait for the final draft to know if you can borrow CDs and rip them at home for yourself or not - right now it's unclear if that loophole is being left or not] This is something I have followed both in the US when Napster was first taken to court and in Canada from the same point. I am aware of 14 separate attempts by the music industry to get the Canadian courts to chanmge their stand and in each of those the ruling remained the same. In simple terms [which admittedly are less precise than legal terms but I think enough for this purpose] the Canadian courts ruled that copyright was never intended to protect profit margins but rather it was intended to prevent a person for representing an item as their own and to prevent someone who had no legal claim to an item from profiting from it. It further stated that potential 'lost sales' were in fact not a lost by a company at all because there was no way to show that those sales would have occured and that a person gaining a song without needing to pay for it was not a profit within the scope of copyright definitions. Now maybe I'm wrong, but that certainly does not sound like a slight difference to me and although it is directly in regards to MP3s, it is a ruling with significance to all areas of intellectual property where there is no physical property involved [not to suggest that it is the same - only that in does cast a shadow of influence on other areas] I realise that the difference between Canadian law and American law is much less in the area of copyrights and patents than it is in criminal law [where the differences are sometimes quite large] but I really find it hard to believe that they can be called slight given the whole matter of MP3s and the rulings that have been made in that area. Not exactly on topic but since issues of copyright and patent have been a part of the issue, maybe it isn't totally off topic [just mostly] Dan Farr: Thanks for giving some info - I'll have to mull it over a bit but it is always nice to get things direct from the source. I believe I see some pieces to the puzzle in what you have said - details that help me better grasp the whole picture - that's kind of my nature, I hate it when the pieces I have don't seem to quite fit right and so I keep looking until the odd bits that don't seem to fit are put into better focus. Comes from being a monkey - we monkeys are natural puzzle solvers, just can't resist when we see one.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=970361

MachineClaw wrote:

"So Daz has lost hmmmmm Larry (Poser originator),"

Umm, no. Poser lost Larry Weinberg.

Poser lost one employee in the last few months
DAZ lost two employees in the last few months.
I lost two employees within a month last year. I hired two more. What IS your point? I seem to be missing it.

Coldrake

Factoids without context tend to mean whatever a person wants or expects them to mean. One employee, two employees, more - unless one knows why and how they were lost and what has been done to replace them, it's all just so many words and it means nothing whatsoever. Now perhaps if the reasons were known it might have meaning - but it might not.

byAnton: "So then it is okay to copy Vicki incase she nosedives right?" WHY would somebody want to copy Vicki if she was a nosediving failure? Seems like a waste of time. However, if you're suggesting that Studio is a copy of Poser, than what's the problem? Poser = Good, Studio = Poser, therefore Studio = Good. ;) p.s.- btw Anton, sincerely I love your ideas

Dan, since you're reading this thread...please, please, PLEASE start supporting Poser 5 and 6. Not just in a few products, but across the board. Require it of all new products submitted to DAZ. It's ridiculous that Poser 4 is supported but Poser 5 and 6 are not.

I'm not asking for dynamic clothing or fancy material room stuff. I mean basic support, like P5/P6 MAT files. It's incredibly tedious to fix all the bumps maps by hand, especially for something like the Fantasy Castle, where there are lot of pieces to fix, and it just doesn't look the same without the bumps.

This thread was more interesting when it was about software instead of people. It is interesting to see the length some will go to to try and silence others. Very sad. I am not a fan of censorship, especially by trying to discredit someone, trying to remove credit for their hard work, or by following their comments from forum to forum, thread to thread. And putting the weight of a company to quiet one individual. Best of luck to those who mage to create, contribute and can successfully defend their work and ideas in this climate. I've leaving this thread. I want no part of this circus. FireMonkey, this is why I didn't want you to put words in my mouth. Good job. wink You too Coldrake. Nice. Thumbs up Just remember. If this can happen to me, it can happen to you.

The best or most popular program will eventually win out. Oh, man, do I wish I could show you some bridge stock I'd like to unload. The only way one can defend the claim that "the best program will eventually win" is to define "best" as "the one that wins." And "best" and "most popular" are night and day. Witness the way the whole computer planet is harnessed to Windows, even though we all hate the bloody stuff, and Macs and UNIX offer better alternatives. And, for the matter, witness the VHS/Beta battle, in which "best" was destroyed by marketing.

The only way one can defend the claim that "the best program will eventually win" is to define "best" as "the one that wins."

I have to agree, and your example of windows is an excellent one although I think most people who complain about it are just venting general frustrations about computers and attaching "Windows" as a focus. I find few people who actually hate Windows, most think MicroSoft is the be-all and end-all ... most, but not all. I find that those of us who have used computers long enough to remember the pre-MicroSoft days are much more likely to say we dislike MicroSoft and actually mean it quite literally. But that just adds support to your comment - most people who use computers have used MicroSoft products from the beginning and have always assumed that if MicroSoft wasn't the really very good then they wouldn't have become so big and because they believe that they support MicroSoft which makes MicroSoft get bigger - totally circular and all based on PR and marketing skills rather than real quality of product.

I still remember when it was extremely unusual for a computer to crash and when it did it was a either a hardware problem or you were running a very poorly written program - and operating systems simply did not crash ever - so yes, winning has nothing to do with being the best, and the most popular also has nothing to do with being the best.

[btw, I've worked with computer for 33 years now, started on mini-mainframes and mainframes long before anyone even thought a home computer was anything other than science fiction so I actually was working with computers when MicroSoft came on the seen and experienced the world of computers before MicroSoft.]

Thank you, Dan for making that statement. As Dan Farr himself has come to clear a few things up that were being conjectured, I am locking this thread to prevent any more. Thank you all for your civility. MorriganShadow Poser Moderator