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Actually autofit was one of the features of genesis, not created afterward; and it was to smooth transition to the figure as it was a big departure. However, people still invested in the new content, which allowed content developers to continue to make stuff for it.

Additionally, when people select a new figure to use, the bottom line comes down to "can this figure do the same or more than what I have now?"

That's where a lot of the other figures fail. And I'm not speaking of "can it use stuff from my runtime already?" A figure has to stand on its own. No one happily trades in their BMW for a bicycle and have the company that made it think they should be happy with that choice because that's the only new solution. They'll stay with what they have; and that's basically what happened.

Dawn isn't butt ugly, however in it's current state, it can't be a replacement as it can't do everything V4 did, beyond bend better. I don't think just having something weightmapped is incentive for switching to a new figure; no one is just going to make renders with Dawn contorting in weird poses, they want her to vary in her appearance for use in renders. Unless you have a sculpting tool, that is hard to accomplish; so that's why the content using her morphs don't compare to what they have with the older figures.

Also fact that the figure uses a common set of base features in both programs doesn't help it innovate as well. It may be better that she become solely a poser figure since that's where most of her content is made for and Hivewire and SM work on their figure creation platform so that it's easier to create content that uses Poser features. Not much is happening on the DS side considering how V6 and her sister Olympia selling and new shapes are regularly entering the Genesis genepool such as the new guy, big ol' Gianni. ;) That's not to say DS users aren't using her but new PAs like Nikisatez aren't making it easy after her debut yesterday with all those sexy clothes and hair.

I have to agree. You do ask, "What does this figure do better than what I already have?" Absolutely. 

Also, having tried M6 and V6 in Poser -- fully clothed, the HD versions move like molasses, but they look amazing -- I can't see why a Daz user would be interested in third party figures.

Perhaps it's a matter of philosophy with Hivewire -- perhaps they want to continue the tradition of dual compatibility, even when it may not be the most perfectly efficient use of time and energy. 

I guess it's unfortunate that philosophy don't pay the bills. Naturally vendors will gravitate where they feel they can accomplish the most, whether that's sales, popularity, supporting the community, or simply feeling appreciated by their customers.

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PoserPro 2014, PS CS5.5 Ext, Nikon D300. Win 8, i7-4770 @ 3.4 GHz, AMD Radeon 8570, 12 GB RAM.