IMHO, Poser will continue to live as long as enough people continue to support it with content, we all continue to help each other learn and grow as artists and creators and we keep having fun using it.

I think the biggest issue is not having flagship figure that builds upon the types of things that made the Victoria line of figures compelling for creators and users. It should also build on Poser's feature set and strengths. Attractive or even neutrally attractive, decent bending, good topology, symmetrical, clean internals without a lot of extraneous things, maps without burnt in things like shadows that have FF and SF material presets. There are a lot of fine details we could go over but it might be pages long. Yes, we can still use Victoria but really Poser should not be dependent on a 3rd party figure. It's not about DAZ, it's about a dependency where you don't control the pricing, marketing or outcome. Do I hate Pauline/Paul? No. Do I think it's optimal enough to be embraced by creators and users? Honestly, no. This isn't against 3rd party figures at all but they should be squarely auxillary - this obvioulsy isn't how things have gone but really it's the direction where things need to be going. Furthermore, any flagship figure for Poser requires the continued support of the originator in terms of addition, even if that means purchasable content. But you've got to get the figure optimal first.

I still think Poser will continue on without a lead figure that folks are drawn to, but it's going to have a much, much harder road. Frankly, it's been on that road for several versions now.

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