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No, I'm not talking about running Genesis natively, not at all and I don't believe Poser sucks at all and to be honest, I did not say something like that. The only thing that imo sucks are the figures and I'm not the only one who believes that. It's very obvious people don't like them, they just aren't appealing. I don't want Genesis, I want good figures in Poser without being dependend upon DAZ. Poser simply needs good and competitive figures in order to be more appealing and perhaps even in order to survive in the long run. Appealing and good working figures that from the go have the support of a good number of vendors so these figures can be succesful and draw people to Poser..... not drive them away.

You can ignore the call for this in the community, just as SM is doing for years now, but it does have an effect on  Poser. Poser simply is content driven, so SM should make sure the content is appealing to the users and has the support of many vendors. That's why I mentioned Hivewire3D..... the seem to have pulled off what every other figure creator has failed to do, besides DAZ, broad support for the figure from the start. Thus making it appealing to the customer.

This has nothing to do with Genesis at all..... I don't want Genesis and DAZ doesn't want me to have it either, but SM needs to learn that the real power of Poser is in the content!

 

This is exactly the point I was getting at, while trying to word it carefully enough so as not to start yet another debate. 

Rex and Roxie are not competitive figures. 

Alyson and Ryan definitely are not competitive figures. 

Since Poser 6/7, the native figures have conistently been getting worse with each new release, not better. Actually, Jessi is a question mark, as its clear that her mesh was not built by the same artist(s). James and Miki however share nearly identical mesh design, a good 75% or more, so I'd wager they are by the same artist(s), or one copied the other and modified it as needed. But I don't know for sure so I can only guess on that. 

If it were possible to rewind about 8 years, James and Jessi (with Miki's mesh) should have become the faces of Poser. By now we should be seeing James/Jessi 5 or 6, with refined meshes and superior weightmapped rigging. But, nope. 

Content just seems to be an afterthought with SM, when everything about the software depends entirely on having quality content in order to make the software appealing to the majority of users. 

I can build my own figures and content, I don't need ready-made content to do what I need/want to do, with the exception of commission work. But most of my commssion work is not mass-marketable. It's very specific stuff, and I don't build to the guidelines/rules of the market places, I build to the individual client's request because that's whose paying me. 

But a big reason why I haven't started vending myself is because there's really no viable figures for me to build content for, asside from M4/V4, which is beginning to fade. It takes too long and as I see it, it would be a waste of time and energy to try supporting any of the native figures right now, because very few people use them. If I'm going to spend several weeks or more building a package then I want to make sure it's for a market that's going to buy it. I would build for Dawn, and have started a couple different projects for her, but she's just too damned ugly and awkward for me to stare at for extended periods. If it's a commission that's entirely different, but on my own, she's just not inspiring at all. And so far I've received zero commission requests for her. So at this point, my only logical avenue into vendor-hood is architecture/scenery, or seriously buckling down and learning DS so I can build for Genesis2, because that is where the money is right now.

I just don't see Poser's userbase expanding very much in the future without figures that are of equal or greater quality to what the competition offers, especially when the competition is free for anybody to use. When you're competing with free, you have to be better or you'll eventually sink. That's just the nature of any business. 

 

~Shane