"I dunno, it seems like the management between EF/Smith Micro and DAZ have shaken hands and agreed to go a bit closer together with Poser 8, SM finally got the damn conforming scale stuff working pretty well.  Maybe they decided to do that on their own but it was a huge favor to DAZ and will end up making a ton of money for both parties"

It was done through mutual collaboration.

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Ok, here's a paradox. Some people don't seem to be too fond of the DAZ figures. On the other hand, they don't appear to be crazy about the Poser figures either. So what exactly do they want? And before anyone answers, I can guarantee that if you ask 100 people that question, you'll get maybe 10 of them who actually agree on a similar figure type.

I'm all for 3rd-party development, but you also have to ask yourself why the DAZ figures get so much support. Obviously, it's partly because they're now an established 'brand', but even more so is the fact that they're FREE. That's the clincher. And yes, you can say it's an evil plot to sell morph packs or whatever. Doesn't matter a hoot. It works. IIRC, V4 was downloaded 10,000 times in the first couple of weeks. Of course vendors support her. Wouldn't you be looking to sell to 10,000 people?

Before any 3rd-party figure can compete, it would need to be free, heavily promoted and supported, and of course, better than anything else around. Given that figure modelling is now done by large teams of people, to say nothing of using expensive body scans for textures, I think the likelihood of any one person, or small group of people matching those resources is slim - not impossible, but slim.

I also have to agree with what DarrenUK said about the various approaches to 3d art and content. There's a certain vein of snobbery in a lot of people who make comments along the lines of  "Oh, that's just click and render art", etc. In fact, an often-expressed train of thought here in these forums is that the entire DAZ community are just a bunch of mindless morons who shell out good money for the same products over and over again.

What these people seem to forget is that this is a hobby - You know? Something that people do for fun? Many people have no interest in getting into the guts of software, editing and hacking the files, spending hours making complex node setups. They're quite happy to use pre-made content, apply the MATs that come with it, and get a nice render. What exactly is the problem with that? If they're happy doing it, that's ok. No need to refer to them as 'sheep' and other derogatory names. Let them get on with it, and you do whatever you want to do.

And for the record, I've been at this for over 12 years, and I'm quite happy to spend long hours editing files, if necessary. I just don't expect everyone to do the same.

mac