While I agree that 'one mesh fits all' approach is not necesarrily the right way to go.  I think a figure 'family' designed to a certain extent to 'cross fit' easily would be a good way to go.  I'm entirely sure what goes into making crossfitting easier or harder, but I imagine there are factors like the grouping and rigging that could be done very similar to make things smoother, and to allow auto refit tools to come up with better results.

 

Quote - > Quote - This question may be self explanatory...

What would Non-DAZ figure need to become poserdom mainstream?

Come with Poser?
Be heavily promotoed by SM?

What else comes to mind?

I have thought long and hard about this since reading all the pages early this morning and a new character for me is not that important as I have enough characters to last a lifetime.

However, for someone new to Poser I think the character would need to be:

1. Unrealistically symmetrically pretty out of the box. Most people seem to like to render attractive super model type of characters.

2. Lots of morphs that can then make this character more realistic or fantasy-like.

3. Plenty of high quality clothing in all sorts of styles from fantasy to futuristic, both commercial and free.

4. Lots of character textures which can also change the style of the character.

5. Lots of pose and expression sets to make posing easier for a newcomer.

6. Weight mapped to take advantage of Poser's more advanced features. Someone mentioned earlier that people with older versions of Poser probably do not spend that much on content anyway and I think this is probably true.

7. The character should ideally be very easy to make clothing for so good quality clothing can be produced quickly and easily at a good price.

8. A family of characters - the one mesh fits all does not seem to work. A well designed human mesh which fits one gender would get me more interested and may even make me add to my character collection.

9. I don't think this character would have to come with Poser but it would have to be very heavily hyped and marketed both before and after its release. The more people on board with the marketing the better. It could be SM, all of the big stores and the 3D magazines. Basically I think the whole world would have to know and not just happen to come across it on the SM website. The marketing would have to persist for a long time to keep up people's interest.

10. Withdrawing all other figures from the market would also guarantee success! hehehe Only kidding here because, of course, that would not be desirable. Freedom of choice is good so the character would have to be better than all of those already available whether that is in support or in design - preferably both.

11. I think the first human would have to be a female adult if a whole family cannot be released at the same time.

Just my opinion but all other opinions are equally valid.