Quote - > Quote - Their Apple-fied pseudo app has already had the chance to woo the Poser user. Didn't happen.

Not sure Apple fits the general thrust of your post. Apple's example has been to pick a technology (iPod, then iPhone, then iPad), develop it so that it takes the industry by storm, and watch other electronics manufacturers try to imitate it and cash in on the trend. Daz Studio is NOT on the Apple side of that equation. They were with Victoria, and they probably hope to be with Genesis, but there isn't anything "Applie-fied" about the program itself.

iOS is incredibly locked down.  The only reason that OSX isn't similarly locked down is that it it built on top of BSD Unix.

As a mac user, I would say that DAZ was attempting to build an Apple styled walled garden with Genesis.  What DAZ doesn't grasp is that for customers to go along with it, your product has to

1.  "just work"

2.  Manical attention to detail.  As I have stated to DAZ in the past, can ANYONE point to a single piece of software that DAZ makes that has attention to detail?  They release half-completed software & then whine (and delete posts) when people point out that it is half-completed.  The folks at DAZ need to get out of Utah more & see how products are delivered to market.

Daz has moved its Genesis starter bundles ($35 to $50) up to the top of its Newest Products list. I expect other not-free Genesis products will be recycled, too. They don't want the new owners of free DS4 to miss out!

I've ordered myself copies, but I'll wait until the DAZ servers stop getting hammered before I try to download.

Having said that...

It may be nice to try a new verson of DS, but I had the old 0.x betas and couldn't get the hang of them. I feel like I'm finally making headway with Poser's material room, and there's no way I'm abandoning PP2012 for DS. The main use will be testing out products if I ever start making content.

Bryce, I'm not that bothered by. I haven't upgraded my Vue Infinite since version 8, but it still does pretty much everything I need. I did have an earlier version of Bryce (4, I think), and my experience of that led me to seek out Vue.

Hexagon 2.5 I already have. I got the $1.99 version of Hexagon years ago, so the upgrade wasn't such a bad deal.

So for me, a little meh. But I still ordered them :D

However, I do know people who've expressed an interest in 3D but balked at the price of Poser. I've always urged them to try DS - the free versions always struck me as excellent value for money. I'll certainly be letting them know about this.

I think Daz may have just made a truely bizarre mistake when they annouced (last year was it?) they were no longer going to be giving the program away for free. Looks like they had no idea that a large part of their user base are hobbyists who just aren't going to pay out the comparatively large amount they were asking. Well, either that or they really have lost it somewhere....

I moved to Poser when 2012 came out as I was totally floored by all of the stuff being shown off by the testers. OTOH the stuff Daz were showing off with ver4 and Genesis didn't interest me at all.

As an early adopter of Poser 2012 it's hard to say how I'd feel if SM suddenly announced it was free for a month.... but I have a feeling I'd be quite happy to just grab the extra licence in case I ever need it. :) Poser's not perfect and there's more than a few things that drive me mental about it, but it suits me so much better than D|S ever did and if I get stuck I can look stuff up in the manual. Wow.

I did try the time limited demo of Bryce7 a while back as I used to use Bryce before I moved to Vue, but I seem to remember it wasn't too stable at the time.

Quote - I'm quite surprised to see several posts over at Daz saying that this will entice Poser users to D|S instead. Is that just because it's free? If so, wouldn't they already be using the free D|S version anyway? Or are all other Poser users that desperate to get Genesis?

No experienced user ever really wants a cut-down free version.  I bought D|S advanced and the Digimi tools hoping to use D|S as a way to get some older Poser figures into iClone/Unity.  D|S 4 came out and the Digimi tools were included in the Pro version only.  Then PoserPro2012 came out and had too many nice features for me to pass it up.  Now that I have D|S 4 Pro I likely will be looking into its setup tools, and try using it with Bryce (another program I never had) via the bridge.

Genesis is probably the least appealing part of the deal for me.  I have a few older figures I am content with, but I am more concerned now with trying to rig original figures.  Having another means to autofit clothing is nice, and texture atlas may become handy if I need figures for a game or similar project.

And I was hoping for the Super Bowl commercial, oh well. I find the relatively muted reaction (as opposed to howls of disgust) as interesting as the announcement itself.

Industry Shaking – perhaps a little, but only in Dozerville.

Game Changing – Only for them and how much remains to be seen.

If they read the Randall thread, they know that hardcore Poser users won’t switch under threat of death. They may get some less zealous Poser folks, but it probably appeals mainly to new users who can get everything they need for free. Yes, you can get Blender, Terragen or whatever but those who want to go that route probably already have. DS4Pro plusCarrarawould have been more appealing to me, but maybe they’re actually making money onCarrara.

DS4Pro A- Nothing not to like to me except the HW specs.

Bryce B- I doubt I’ll use it over Vue but I’m interested, not having seen it since 5.

Hexagon C- Yet another opportunity to see why I’m not a modeler.

Content Creation Tools A+ I’ve heard some good things about them even from a few Poseristas.

What they need now, (besides more documentation) is a nice video training series showing the creation of a short film and maybe a comic using this stuff.

Quote - Hexagon is basically the same program it was six years ago.  That's an awful long time between versions in this day and age.

I wish they'd included Carrara Pro.  That, I might get excited about.

 

I have been doing CG for 20 years now (yikes!).  Six years isn't all that long when you consider the advancements that had long ago been made by then. Now we are largely reaping the rewards of ever faster computers and better integration among programs using established methods.  No, it's no zBrush and doesn't have its own "unlimited clay"  tech that Sculptris, zBrush, 3DCoat, and (soon blender) have, but that is a fairly recent innovation that has yet to become ubiquitous among all modern programs (even those in widespread use).

I do not think it would take that much work to get it back into the realm of useful software.  Improved UVMapping, retopology/remeshing and maybe rigging tools could make it a very useful program.  As is, I see it as a nice way to generate meshes to sculpt in other programs, or as a quick way to paint details on existing models.

Quote - When your realize you've made a bad decision it's best to admit it and just walk away from it. Unfortunately, in the corporate world, that seldom happens.

I remember a billion years ago when Poser (Curious Labs) made the software and Daz made the content and it seemed from my outside perspective to be symbiotic. Then Daz, in an attempt to capture all the market, cut the cord and came out with DS3, which they gave away for free. Problem is, they didn't capture the market and now they were stuck with software they had to develop and support that generated no income and Poser ended up as a stepchild product in a much bigger company. Now, again, DAZ is reprising that role on an even bigger scale.

Worse, this infighting and tactics to undermine one another (Geniesis not compatible with Poser) only created frustration for the customers and summoned into the fray a lot of very intelligent people capable of working around DAZ's marketing ploys (weight-mapped V4) and giving it away for free!

If only the honchos at DAZ could admit they made a mistake and decide to work with Poser instead of against it, it would be good for all parties involved.

The new DAZ management team wasn't there when the previous change of no more big reductions was announced last year. New management can almost always feel free to change what they want.

DAZ started DAZ Studio back in the day because it looked at the time like Poser was going to go away. Not because they wanted to go their own way and capture the market. It was survival pure and simple. Poser has changed hands several times, including a few times since. Reportedly relations are much better between DAZ and Smith Micro compared to e-frontier, the previous owner of Poser, who allegedly tried screwing DAZ over at every opportunity (for example, one story was  e-frontier wouldn't license the SDK DAZ needed to update the Poser import for Carrara unless they paid really big bucks. So no more dynamic hair or clothing easily from Poser to Carrara! One of the big reasons I first bought Carrara was because it could import and render Poser dynamic hair and clothing and that would've been great to have in later versions that had been fixed from when eovia owned Carrara and Hexagon. Carrara has a faster render engine and has had network rendering for a long time).

As for the free releases this month, the DAZ servers are getting slammed so you know a ton of people are taking advantage of the offer. Just wait until the word really gets out there. There are tons of people who are interested in 3D/CG who have never ever heard of Poser or DAZ Studio. Those folks will be quite happy to check it out. There are people who couldn't afford to upgrade to DAZ Advanced or to go the Pro route because of the economy. Now they have the Pro version for free. All that expands the customer base of DAZ further.

As for docs, they have made good progress with their new online documentation. There's more info in some sections compared to the previous released manual. My preferred choice is still video training and they have plenty of YouTube videos that help me just fine.

As for Bryce and Hexagon development being suspended... they already said that's only for now because they have everyone on the development team working on fixing bugs in DAZ Studio, finishing Carrara 8.5 (and they have been working on 9) and getting the documentation done. They usually work on one piece of software at a time. They started work on Carrara when they had wrapped up most of their work on DS 4. They started most of their work on DS4 after they had wrapped up most of their work on Bryce 7. This stuff is all public knowledge.

With the economy as bad as it is, and even worse in Europe, I'm sure they felt they had to do something that would help stir up interest and from there make more content sales (I know one 3D website was going to close because their sales had dried up and they said the majority of their customers were from Europe. A last minute plea to their customers has kept them around a little longer). DAZ makes most of their money from content sales. Software is a small part of their business. I would bet that software sales had slowed to a crawl since the release for DS 4 and Pro is the version that has all the bells and whistles people want except for aniMate 2 (you have to buy that separate since GoFigure owns it). Making DAZ Studio 4 Pro a loss leader for a month really isn't a bad idea for DAZ. It will get more users to check out their store and maybe even purchase stuff they wouldn't have known even existed.

I'm only guessing DS 4.1 might be a paid increase because of the big jump in render speed. Maybe they got a more recent version of 3Delight and they might have to pay for it and thus pass along the cost. Usually, the version of 3Delight they use in Studio is a version behind so it costs less for the license. For the render speed jump, it sounds to me like they got the new 3Delight version 10 which has a much, much  faster  raytracing speed. Or they got some extra help on their licensed version from the 3Delight team. I bet it cost more money for that. That's probably why it's not in a current release yet.

Carrara 8.5 will be coming out of beta soon and it will be a paid upgrade. That was announced months ago. That's probably why it's not part of the free blitz. Also another reason I could see them charging for a point upgrade. It has been done before.

Kevin

Quote - Carrara 8.5 will be coming out of beta soon and it will be a paid upgrade

After this -- how many people will spring for it?

I've added DS4Pro / Bryce / Hexagon (already own it) to my cart and hit confirm.
I never pass up freebies, never know when you need/want them. :)

But yeah, something tells me they are trying to increase the user base for DS, only I already had Standard (was free when it first came out) and never even downloaded it. That's how interested I was.

I'm sure many people add and download it.

Install and use? That's a whole different ballgame.

Convert? They didn't convince me to switch before, why would I switch now? Just because it's free? To me that devalues the entire software line.

I bought DS3A. I even got suckered into buying plugins and that Dreamlight sub, thinking I might actually use them and get something out of that subscription as I had no idea how to to use the darn thing. (I actually have a lifetime sub, which I've barely used.)
It was an epic fail.
I struggled from the initial installation onwards. There was no documentation (and there still isn't) so I asked simple questions, like "Where do I install the plugins?"
I got 15 different answers, ranging from "In your Programs folder--" "Uh-uh. Let me stop you right there. NOTHING lives in "My Programs". Period." to "I am wondering about that too." None of the answers made any sense.  (What's so hard about having a "Plugins" folder? I seem to recall there is one, but apparently that's not where they are actually installed to. Or something. I still don't know.)
After failing to grasp where the heck the plugins go, we get to content. Well hey, guess what? No one could give me a straight answer of what goes where and how in the heck I can install content to Poser without having to put the DS stuff into my Poser runtime as well. (Not.Gonna.Happen.Thanks.) I'm not about to install it twice, just to keep DS happy.
Then they went from having DS only and Poser only installers, to combining them. ARGH. Then they did it for some, but not for others. I just made no sense.
So why in the name of all that's holy would I want to go through all that AGAIN?
First and foremost, I want documentation that tells me stuff like that. Call me old fashioned, but I like a big fat manual. (Poser Pro 2012 is what? 900 pages long? Plus a 200+ page Python manual?)
How can you claim you're setting new industry standards if you can't even produce a manual to go with this "Professional" software?
I don't know about anyone else, but I don't have a single piece of software on my system - bought or free - that didn't come with some kind of "This is how you use it" document.
Daz just pointed me to an out of date, for the most part user maintained, wiki. A WIKI. You think I want to go online every time I get stuck, and then find the solution I find is for a version that's been outdated for the past 8 months and has since had a significant rewrite?
A Pro version isn't an eternal beta version. And that's why I won't use it. Not even for free. As far as I'm concerned, DS is a beta. Always has been.
(And I resent the fact that I ended up redownloading and reinstalling DS3A every few months, and it got worse on my machine with every incremental "fix", until it stopped working altogether.)

I've tried and I failed. Not going to try again, even for free.

The Wiki is by DAZ staff, not users. They are updating it all the time. You'll get 5 different answers at the DAZ forum like you get 5 different answers here. So many users are idiots, here and there, but there are often a couple ways of doing things.

Well all I can say is if DAZ Studio wasn't free I would never have gotten to learn or use Poser and I think it's great that it's free....maybe not earth shattering, but still very nice that people have a chance to get the "big" version for free.  And if you are new to 3D free IS very good and to get the top product version whatever you want to call it is also very nice.  I've had better luck with DS4 than I did with 3 as far as render times.  However, I've pretty much switched to PP2012 b/c now I prefer it and the SSS option and I have all this V4 stuff LOL.  But that doesn't stop me from going back to DAZ and getting free stuffs when I can...genesis or V4.  And one day I will use studio again...whenever this upgrade downloads :) 

But this year I definately won't be renewing my platinum membership and won't be scurrying to buy stuff during those sales.  I have found that the changes to their club aren't that great and I prefer the PRIME membership this year.  But I hold no grudges because if it were not for that company and website I wouldn't have half the stuff I do.  I started doing 3D right when they started giving away V4 and all those models for free.  I remember getting a refund on Aiko b/c she was free the next week.  If it wasn't for their site I probably would have never clicked over here.  I made the mistake on clicking on a free link for ironman13's actual webpage in a forume and down the rabbit hole I went.  Daz was a great place to learn and get stuff for next to nothing/free.  It's great for anyone that wants to try out stuff too...or at least it was when they gave a bunch of stuff away for free. 

However, I've grown in my abilities to do 3D renders and have upgraded here and there....     

You can't blame falling sales entirely on the economy. Sales for V4 have gone down because the market got saturated. How many dresses, bikinis, character sets and pose sets do you need?

DS4 basic is free and that did not turn things around - why would DS4Pro do this? It has more functionality and it has the autofit tool. But the added functionality is something which new users hardly need or miss. The autofit tool is nice, but it only serves to reuse existing clothing to genesis - so that won't bring much genesis sales either.

Kevin - your account of what was going on between DAZ en the Poser developers is pure speculation and not based on facts. You always need to hear two sides of the story and then you can make your own conclusion. I have heard different things and do not agree with your version of it

Quote -
First and foremost, I want documentation that tells me stuff like that. Call me old fashioned, but I like a big fat manual. (Poser Pro 2012 is what? 900 pages long? Plus a 200+ page Python manual?)

Close ... 800 on the Pro 2012 manual, 375 on the Python manual. So getting close to 1200 pages of docs ... and getting longer with each release.

@ksanderson, the DS3 Wiki was updated by users when I bought it, not staff. It may have been started by staff, but everything I found was user updated.
"Making progress" on documentation some 8 months? after release of the software is a pretty poor show, imo.

Stuff like that should be done before the software is released, not after. Everyone else seems to manage to release docs at the same time just fine, except Daz.
Considering they had a pricetag of over $400 on this (alleged) professional 3D program, and they don't deliver a manual with it (because it doesn't exist), is one of the reasons why I will never consider DS in any shape or form professional software. (PS - a wiki is useless. Most companies block sites like that, even if they use the software.)

@Deecey - yeah, thought it was something like that, but couldn't remember exact numbers. I just remembered it was looooooooooooooong lol.

Maybe DAZ isn't trying to promote their own business concerns. Maybe they went Hippie****** on us.

I read a book called Hackers by Steven Levy about 10 years ago. It mentioned some of the early system programmers in California who thought software should be free, so all the people could have it and benefit from it. Then Jobs and Gates came along and proved what a bad idea that was. Or did they...

Quote - Stuff like that should be done before the software is released, not after. Everyone else seems to manage to release docs at the same time just fine, except Daz.
Considering they had a pricetag of over $400 on this (alleged) professional 3D program, and they don't deliver a manual with it (because it doesn't exist), is one of the reasons why I will never consider DS in any shape or form professional software. (PS - a wiki is useless. Most companies block sites like that, even if they use the software.)

And this is why I have no sympathy for anyone who was stupid enough to lay out $400 for software that should have been free and now is. I mean, WTF! Who spends that kind of money for software with no instructions?!?!?

Quote - @Deecey - yeah, thought it was something like that, but couldn't remember exact numbers. I just remembered it was looooooooooooooong lol.

Oh yeah ... I am well aware of how looooonnnnnnnggggg it is. It's getting to be quite the monster. ROFL

"WTF! Who spends that kind of money for software with no instructions?!?!?"

That is really easy to answer. Because as the situation is you have to know both programs. Or else you are not professional. To let feelings influence negatively on your work is bad business praxis.

Quote - I'm only guessing DS 4.1 might be a paid increase because of the big jump in render speed.

If that's the case then the bitching and moaning from the persons who actually PAID for DS4 Pro just mere months ago is gonna be nothing compared to what they'll hear if Daz charges for an incremental update...lol. Perhaps I should order the beer and popcorn now...

Laurie

Quote - That is really easy to answer. Because as the situation is you have to know both programs. Or else you are not professional....

Horsehockey.

If I was a plugin maker for 3D Studio Max it sure as shit wouldn't make me unprofessional for not making one for Cinema 4D, now would it?. Get real.

Laurie

I don't understand the hate towards wikis. A wiki can be a very professional way of documenting a project; for examples, see Blender wiki which goes from the program license to how to compile the program with everything in between.

The problem is not the medium (a book in PDF form, like Poser or Vue) or a wiki (like Blender) the problem is whether there is the documentation or not. A hint from a programmer with 25 years of experience: documentation has to be written every day a bit. The recipy I recommend is the last hour of work of the day, writing the user manual, the reference manual and the code documentation with tools like Doxygen. At the end of the project, you have tons of material. I remember the documentation that DEC provided for their computers (the VAX'es, "mine" was a 780, google for pictures to have an idea of what it was): imagine a bookcase, full of three ring binders books, as big as a big wardrobe. And that was only the documentation of the VMS, not the hardware documentation of the computer...

Another important tool is having an up to date FAQ compiled from users questions.

For this kind of programs, which are by definition very visual, lots of video tutorials are vital. For example, 80% I learned about Vue came from the huge library of video tutorials by Geek At Play. For Blender, the source that made me finally tame the beast was Gryllus.net Blender 3D Design Course.

DAZ move was utterly ill conceived and clumsy. The hype preceeding it was completely misguided and overblown. An example of what I would have done: I would offered a 100$ coupon for old customers, a 200$ coupon for newcomers, a free 3 months Platinum club membership to non PC members and a 4 months extension to current members. Coupled with March Madness, new customers would have been able to to get on the Studio 4/Genesis wagon for free while old timers could have trimmed their wish lists. Everybody would have had new toys and early adopters wouldn't have felt cheated.

And last, the real bombs:
1 - the announcement of dropping of the CMS;
2 - the availabily of ZIPs for distribution of products (if it is good enough for Renderosity, Content Paradise, RuntimeDNA, Cornocopia3D, The3DStudio, TurboSquid etc. etc. etc. it can be good enough also for DAZ);
3 - ...reinstatement of posting rights to banned people (for reference, read books like Sun Tzu's Art of War or 36 Stratagems, especially the one named "In order to capture, one must let loose").

Bye.

Quote - Carrara 8.5 will be coming out of beta soon and it will be a paid upgrade. That was announced months ago. That's probably why it's not part of the free blitz.

I'm surprised Carrara wasn't included, if that's true.  A new (paid) upgrade being released soon is usually when software is deeply discounted.  Get people to try it, then hope they pay to upgrade.

There are a lot of 3D modeling programs it is impossible to know them all. There are only two(2) Poser programs. Compared to 3ds max with its 5000 plugins Daz is a breeze to learn. The content providers have always know both programs.

Complaining over that you got something for free, great god! In the future, if you don't know both Daz and Poser don't talk to me I have better things to do.

Quote - "WTF! Who spends that kind of money for software with no instructions?!?!?"

That is really easy to answer. Because as the situation is you have to know both programs. Or else you are not professional. To let feelings influence negatively on your work is bad business praxis.

Vintorix, I  worked for 44 years in the metalworking trade, I'm a retired toolmaker and certified gage techhnician.  In all those years, I never learned to run any CNC machines, so maybe in your eyes, that makes me unprofessional.  However, to have one of the people from a CNC machining house come in with a part, needing some helical milling, and say "We don't know how to do this".  Then I broke out the universal dividing head, designed by Brown and Sharpe, before 1900, and proceeded to do it, once they'd left. 

In 3d, I'm not, and probably over half of the people here are not professonals, so your opinion is about as relevant as the white stuff on chicken sh##.  Study hard and you might be able to find out what it is. *

*more chicken sh##

D.

Quote - In the future, if you don't know both Daz and Poser don't talk to me I have better things to do.

Excuse me, but I wasn't aware of your position as "The only one we're talking to here who matters when we post."

Quote - Complaining over that you got something for free, great god! In the future, if you don't know both Daz and Poser don't talk to me I have better things to do.

Don't go away mad, just quietly.

D.

I just bet nobody can read my mind right this moment. ;)

I'm out of here. I promise I never write a single word in the Poser forum anymore! Never heard such a bunch of whiners.

Bye.

Jesus H Christ.

Quote - I just bet nobody can read my mind right this moment. ;)

CENSORED!

D.

I love the effect I have on people when I'm bored....

Quote - > Quote - I just bet nobody can read my mind right this moment. ;)

CENSORED!

 

D.

Absolutely no comment.  :)

...

Laurie

I always wondered what the 'H' stood for...

Quote - I always wondered what the 'H' stood for...

Horace.

Well, it's about as real as the rest of his name.  Which, even if you believe He existed, he definitely wasn't called.  IIRC, the "Christ" bit means "Anointed" and if his first name was something similar to Jesus it's most likely it was whatever the ancient Hebrew equivalent of Joshua was at the time.

A moot point, since I'm Atheist.  :) 

Quote - I'm out of here. I promise I never write a single word in the Poser forum anymore! Never heard such a bunch of whiners.

Bye.

Who's saying that?

Promise?

Quote - > Quote - I'm out of here. I promise I never write a single word in the Poser forum anymore! Never heard such a bunch of whiners.

Bye.

Who's saying that?

Promise?

Laurie

Quote - > Quote - I always wondered what the 'H' stood for...

Horace.

My grandmother always said it was "Hallelujah". Ya learn something new every day ;).

Laurie

Quote - My grandmother always said it was "Hallelujah". Ya learn something new every day ;).

When I was a kid, the girl next door told me it was "Hell."

Quote - > Quote - I'm out of here. I promise I never write a single word in the Poser forum anymore! Never heard such a bunch of whiners.

Bye.

Who's saying that?

Promise?

Please be still, O my fluttering heart. :) 

Ok, back to the subject, and not getting personal please. 

Quote - > Quote - Who's saying that?

Promise?

Please be still, O my fluttering heart. :) 

Back some 25 years ago, I used to get promises.

Do you know how boring a promise is?

D.

Quote - It's time for cat pictures I think.....

Awwww, what a beautiful kitty!

DAZ Studio, Bryce, Hexagon...

Squeeeeeeee!  It's a kitten! :)

Who is whining about it being free? blink

Just saying without documentation (in any form) I wouldn't pay $400 for it, and I didn't. Wouldn't even consider $50. Learned my lesson last time, with DS3A. (And I paid a lot more that $1.99 for it.)

Free or not, I don't think making it free (regardless) was a good move. Especially not for a whole month. A day might not have upset the apple cart too much, but a month definitely will.
Sure, a lot of people will go and download it, but I don't think there will be many converts.
Those who really want to use DS4 probably already do. Those who really don't want to use DS4 will already use something else. (Poser, Carrara, Cinema 4d etc etc)
I doubt many go beyond the initial install, if that. Some will upgrade the version they already have. Some will really like the software and continue using it.
My guess is, most won't.
But it'll snag a lot of newbies.

It always makes me shake my head when I see "The most popular 3D program" (based on downloads on CNet) If you stuck a free cutdown version of 3DS Max on CNet, which didn't have watermarks on renders and such things... give you three guesses what would be the most downloaded 3D App on there.
If it were the "Most popular" by units sold -- then I'm impressed. Free downloads? When you have to redownload every version completely for any incremental updates? Well hey...no brainer in the numbers game, right there. It's bound to artificially inflate the numbers.

I'm sorry those who bought it not even 6 months ago got stung. Badly. I'd be very annoyed.
And I'm happy that those who really wanted the "higher version" could get it for free.
Most of us, who can't be bothered about whether DS lives or dies...well, we're just not bothered either way, whether it's free, or costs $1000. :)

If they priced the software at $1.99 instead of giving it away for free, I think this could be seen as a fire sale.

These crazy unpredictable business moves I can't make sense ouf is one of the big reasons I closed my store at DAZ. Trying to keep up and adjust was dizzying.

*Quote -*I'm out of here. I promise I never write a single word in the Poser forum anymore! Never heard such a bunch of whiners.

Bye.

could you put yout hand on this stack of bibles and add the words "I swear on my mothers life/grave" to this statement?*

*delete as needed

I did download all three free programs, but I haven't installed them and I'm not planning to.  I wouldn't have bought any of them for even $1.99.  But hey, if it's free, might as well grab them...just in case.

I doubt anyone's "whining" about the offer of free software.  (Well, except the ones who paid big bucks for it.)  The negative reaction is more because they raised people's expectations, but didn't deliver. "The single most important, game-changing, and industry-shaking announcement of the last several years"? 

The mountain has given birth to a mouse. 

Quote - I did download all three free programs, but I haven't installed them and I'm not planning to.  I wouldn't have bought any of them for even $1.99.  But hey, if it's free, might as well grab them...just in case.

Just as I did. Now I have serials and install packages. Dunno if I ever install them though.