I think (and hope) that it will spur competition from both companies. Poser would do well to have some flexible and modular features in version 7 if it does in fact get written from the ground up - nothing says they can't take cues from DAZ or elsewhere. Studio has some nice UI features and I like the way they are implemented, though still base, but other applications have had docking palettes, tabs and such before this. Still, nothing wrong with that. Studio's Power Pose beats simple IK hands down. It is wonderful to play with. If all the plugins that come out down the road feature the same ease and flexibility, it will surely be something to see and use. This is a free base and a pretty useful base at that - no not the full feature list of Poser 6 but there's no reason that it can't be there as things come out. And if they work well and stay in a low price range, so what? I'd rather drop $10 here or $20 there for a good, functional plugin that I can use with glee rather than some miscellaneous content that gets buried eventually on the harddrive. As far as the encrypted binary format goes, besides the (.daz) scene files, there is a choice to save as a unencrypted text file or an encrypted binary file for saving lights, cameras, material and so forth. Who's to say there won't be a choice there for saving other types of content in a future build. Correct me if I'm wrong but that seems to be an unknown at this time. I guess that my point of view a bit tamed by my position right now, post Katrina (I lived right outside of New Orleans). But I sure do appreciate things more than I used too. Right now, finding a place to live that I can call my own (along with my wife and two cats) would make me ecstatic ;) Things can only go up from here, right? And I still have a great fondness for Poser 6, so don't get me wrong. I'm just in the middle somewhere between these apps. They're both tools to me. Just like the community did great things with Poser 4 (and later) with innovations and cool utilities, it can be done again for those who'd like to use both tools together. Why not?

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