Thanks to everyone who has filled me in on Dawn.  I got the download.

Unfortunately, I missed the chance to get a lot of Dawn stuff at the March clearance sale.  I'll be watching for the next chance.

But it does seem expensive to start doing much with Dawn.  When just getting interested in 3D art, I was won over to DazStudio by the free offer.  I had looked at Poser offers first, but Pro Poser is $499.99.  I find this situation to be like the old rivalry between the low-priced VCR and the high-priced Beta tech.  In a bidding war between low-cost and expensive, the hobby user is going to go for what's low-priced.  I don't know Poser, and after buying many Daz3D products, it would be hard for this writer to go to Poser in the forseeable future. (And the learning curve for DS is bad enough; to do it all over again with Poser, no way).   Professionals may disagree, but for the hobbyists there has been no obvious technological reason to choose Poser over DS, until, possibly, the appearance of Dawn.  That said, I am afraid that Dawn is not going to make a large inroad into the DS-user market, not unless artists can use Dawn and her products to full effect in DazStudio, not just on Dawn herself, but on other Daz3D models as well.  

A person like me, coming new into 3D art, would want to see the newer Victoria clothing and accessaries to be fully compatable with Dawn.  Dawn product-makers have done a little in that direction, but much more needs to be done.  We need tech support especially.  I mean, a programming illiterate should not be exprected to write his own compatability add-on.  If Hivewire3D is holding back licensing, they should reconsider it.  The break-out popularity of Dawn depends on making Dawn and her content fully usable outside Poser.  (Naturally, one can forget that argument if the whole point of Dawn is to make Poser more popular.)  Unfortunately, while I'm new to 3D, I get the idea that there is a sort of rivalry going on between DS fans and Poser fans, one as intense as that between cat lovers and dog lovers. 

If Dawn is going to be a strict fan venture to support Poser, that is one thing; a small market base might be acceptable to attain the desired outcome.  But if DS fans, (fans with lots of content already purchased for Victoria and Genesis), are ever going to become a factor in the commercial success of Dawn (and presumably of the future models using the same technology) HiveWire3D needs to pay heed to these potential customers' needs and expectations. 

It would be super if many Victoria things worked with Dawn, and many Dawn things worked with Victoria.  Outside that ideal, the cost factor alone will force hobbyists (if not the professionals) to choose one model over the other.  I think the availablity of a free DazStudio with its Genesis and Genesis 2 models leaves Poser at a marked disadvantage.  So, in the present situation, at least, I can't see Dawn becoming a viable alternative to Victoria, not for people who have already gone deeply into Daz3D content.  Even if the $500 price on Poser were not a factor, the thousands of dollars that hobbyists have to date invested into DS content certainly has to be.

So, in summation, I like what I have read about Dawn, but I can't afford to leave behind my Daz3D content expenditures (which got surprisingly huge in just a short while) and start from scratch with a new model.  But if Dawn ever becomes DS content friendly, I could easily become a big fan of hers.