I think DAZ|Studio pulls the plug on Poser Artist. It's got comparable functionality (excluding magnets) and a better renderer, and it's perfect for newcomers who want to try their hand at 3D rendering. To be competitive with Poser 5, D|S would need: - magnets and wave deformers; - procedural materials; - dynamic cloth; - dynamic hair; - figure creation tools comparable with the Setup room; - Python support; - Animation; - and probably more. I think the cost of the plugins that provide this functionality - when they are developed, if ever - will be a lot more than the current P5 list price. And I'm not even talking about the advanced lighting options in P6 (mostly IBL and AO). ProPack is another matter. While it beats D|S in the creation department (setup room, scripts), D|S has the superior renderer. So it all depends on what the user wants. An easy to use posing/rendering tool? D|S. Animation, scripting? ProPack. Animation, scripting, and more advanced features? P5 or P6. I think it's strange that D|S does not support scripting out of the box. I ALWAYS write my apps to be scriptable, just by separating functionality from user interface and exposing the functionality through an object oriented API. A fairly common development style, and recommmended best practice by a lot of programming authorities (it's one of the few issues Sun and MS agree about...) I fervently hope eF will rewrite Poser from the ground up for version 7, and make everything scriptable. Oh, and while they're at it, I hope they will release 64bit versions too for both Windows and Mac. And Linux too, please!

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