Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Here is the bottom line in my opinion. You are all looking at Gen and V5. You need to think 3 to 5 years out. Up until now Poser could use the latest greatest and most popular characters V3-V4.Now it can't (yet) with Gen Characters and probably will be lacking feature sets that limit it's use in Poser. I liken it to clinging to Beta Max or cassette tapes etc. It is easy to say for a lot of reasons who cares about V5. But think 2-3-5 years from now when V6-V7 is released. Poser will make advancements in Poser 10 and Poser Pro 201x, etc. But if there is no popular content being created that works in the Poser eco-sysytem or the fact that a newbie has to jump thru hoops to make the Daz Characters work or has to buy-get-install a competing software package that is the bigger issue at hand that SM must consider. I got this really great software package and no leading-popular content to use easily in it is not the business model that looks enticing long term to me.

If V5 does not work in Poser, Poser users will start to use figures which do work in Poser. And content will be developed for those because there is a market for those figures. Those figures (new and old) will evolve with features like weightmapping, dependent parameters and a good shader system. After a year of none-DAZ figures most Poser users will have forgotten about DAZ and its figures.

Most of which I get from DAZ nowadays is props and if those disappear I will go somewhere else.

Well put. Exactly my thought. Anytime there is a void in a market, there is an opportunity. And right this very minute, those opportunities are being seized - the development of Poser-friendly figures is happening as we speak. The sooner we Poser Community artists shake ourselves from this dependency on one content maker for a figure, the quicker the vendor support will happen and, as wimvdb so eloquently put it: most Poser users will have forgotten about DAZ and its figures after a period of time.

 

SM would be relying on 3rd parties to fill the void to insure their software user count does not migrate to studio long term. In the mean time the forum post from a newbee goes like this. "I am new to Poser verX and want to know how to get V5-6-7 into poser to use?" Reply:" Ahh you have to get Daz Studio and their export tool and load into Studio and pose and fit clothes and then export to render in Poser." Their reply: "What? I have to buy another app to use these figures in Poser? Guess I bought the wrong app to start with!"

 

Older users have the patiences to wait for the void to be filled. I will be plenty satisfied if a V4 and M4 weight mapped product is devised in the not to distant future. My point being that newbees will be confused and SM is hanging their business model on 3rd parties that can come and go and are not employeed by them. Where as the software and the base figure from Utah, comes from under the same roof so to speak. If you were an investor, which business model is more sound?

Gary

"Those who lose themselves in a passion lose less than those who lose their passion"