Quote - > Quote - And keeping the lights on is about DAZ's only expense. It's not like they have developers to pay.

Presumably, DAZ has contractors to pay. It makes little difference what the employment relationship is. What matters is the quality of the product.

Quote - Studio used to be great competition for Poser. I remember reading people running Poser down because of the way whom ever owned it at the time was running it. Bad releases, long waits on fixes, fixes that didn't. All those arguments are out the window now. DAZ is now worse then any company that ever owned Poser. Studio used to be superior to Poser, not now though. Studio's development has been stagnating for 3 years.

I get the impression you are a Carrara user and don't have much experience with DAZ Studio.  DAZ has made the following general (not beta) releases of DAZ Studio in a little over a year:

04 January 2013 - 4.5.1.56
15 May 2013 - 4.6.0.18
30 September 2013  - 4.6.1.17
11 November 2013 - 4.6.1.33
12 December 2013 - 4.6.1.39
10 February 2014 - 4.6.2.118

All of those releases contained bug fixes, and many containted UI enhancements and other new features.  This hardly looks like a product that has been "stagnating for 3 years".

The situation with Carrara is completely different. I have a friend that uses Carrara to make videos. He has told me the Genesis 1 finally works in Carrara 8.5 and clothing on Genese 1 in Carrara has far fewer issues with poke through than V4/M4.  He also says that Genesis 2 does not really work in Carrara 8.5.

Bryce and Hexagon are the DAZ tools that appear to be seriously neglected.

Quote - I'm not sure why people don't realize DAZ gives you studio to make you a customer. DAZ gives you the base figures to sell you the assesories for it. It's called a sales gimmick.

Why do you think people don't understand this? I completely understood it when I downloaded DAZ Studio.

Quote - > Quote - Lots of discussion here about Genesis and Genesis 2 M/F needing workarounds and fixes... Does that only apply to using older content, or does the new stuff that is specifically for these figs need workourounds too?

No, genesis is the figure with the most issues. G2F/M are basically the polished up version of Genesis. The boob tuck and poke through are issues that should be solved in autofit, but DAZ sells workarounds for them.

I do my own work around for poke through in carrara, displacement mapping in the textures, works like a charm most of the time and doesn't distort the figure. 

I think you need to keep this in perspective. From my experience in DAZ studio it is much easier to get clothes to fit on Genesis 1 than on V4/M4. With V4/M4 DAZ Studio does have morph transfer from the character to the clothes and you can add smoothing and push modifiers that help make it fit. Some V4/M4 clothes just never fits correctly on any figure than the one it is intended for.

Auto fit has been improved with Genesis 2. Now none of this means that Auto fit is perfect.  The boob sack effect is real. DAZ does sell products to help you deal with the effect.  I don't see anything evil in a PA selling products to fix this issue.

Genesis 2 is an enhancement on Genesis 1. It addressed some of criticisms of Genesis 1. Genesis 2 has slightly increased polygon counts in some regions like the face, to allow better expressions. By using separate male and female base characters, polygons could be added in the body where each sex needs more polygons. Most DAZ Studio users seem to see Genesis 2 as an improvement on Genesis 1, but some people are upset that there are now two base figures instead of one. In my opinion Gensesis 2 is a imcremental improvement on Genesis 1.

DAZ has also introduced HD morph technology. This apparently allows the subdivided polygons of the figure to be morphed. It is very useful for making monsters, but it can add detail in the hands and feet for characters like Victoria 6. I don't know if HD technology is suppose to work in tools other than DAZ Studio, but it seems pretty solid in DAZ Studio.

Sorry I completely missed your post

Thanks for pointing out the updates to Studio, I'll take back the unfixed/stagnate Studio statements. 

Yes, what matters is the qulity of the product. I'd like to see some in Studio and carrara. There is also the responcability of fixing bugs and issues, something DAZ has been sherking for a while; at least with carrara. You know carrara right, that app people have spent $550 on. As in not free by any measure.

I've been using studio since the set up tools were released in DS3. Didn't have any use for it before then. I used the set up tools a lot. All I have ever used studio for is a content prep app for carrara. But that is still 5 years plus of using it.

Carrara has always fitted clothes on the mil4 figures better then studio did With Xdresser I could put V4 clothes on Mat and Maddie if I was of a mind to. And with carrara I don't have to do anything really special or buy a workaround to fix poke through.  Smoothing is something I use to fix low poly clothes and hair to make it look much better rendered.

I don't find it evil that PAs make/sell work arounds for issues. But it is bad form for DAZ not to fix them in the first place. But then why should DAZ fix it when they are making a profit off selling the PAs work arounds? I mean if I was making a profit off not fixing something I certainly wouldn't fix it.

HD mesh tech; like weight mapping, is absolutly nothing new. New to Studio, but not new to CG apps. All DAZ is doing is bringing that tech in to premades/content. None the less I can still get a lot of detail on a figure using displacement mapping.