@ssgbryan, I don't think you are quite aware of just how small both the Hivewire3D and Smith Micro Poser forum communities really are. And how little unique traffic is actually reaching those sites in comparison to other sites in this sphere. Encouraging people to abandon Renderosity, as I have seen you do on numerous occasions here, will do nothing but further damage the Poser community and honestly helps no-one. And if Renderosity is so irrelevant why are you here may I ask? From what I can see Hivewire3D releases products at a slow trickle at best, looking at their front page around 12 in the last month with predominantly products for the 'Daz golem' V4, as you put it.. And to be honest in their forums it can be a bit of a challenge to actually find peeps that are talking about 3D graphics or software, discussing the weather seems quite popular there for some reason, or threads bashing their competitors are also quite popular running into the hundreds of pages long. And I know you're saying most Poser users have abandoned pre-made content in favour of becoming their own one stop independent content developers, which means stores are now irrelevant to the Poser community. At least that is what we are told by some very vocal advocates of the tinker anti click and render groups. In my own experience the lack of widely supported content is one of the biggest factors contracting the Poser community and is a huge challenge for new adopters of the software alongside those long term users who have established workflows that do not allow hours just to get a dynamic clothing item to sit right on a figure. For myself and many other content creators this idea being pushed by some, that content development is no longer needed, is a huge red flag and shows not just a slowing in Poser platform development itself but a contraction in the amount of Poser users in general. A thriving community of any kind generally will show broad diversity and it's a very worrying sign if the only peeps left in the Poser community are those that just like to tinker with nuts and bolts of the app.

Tbh I am still not sure how it serves the broader Poser community to write off Renderosity or discourage use of it's Poser forums. Renderosity has one of the largest offerings of Poser FreeStuff available anywhere on the web and one of the largest legacy and modern Poser paid content offerings of any the Poser content stores. Renderosity also sends targeted marketing emails with offers on Poser software frequently to a database of tens of thousands of potential Poser customers. If you take a look, for example, at the Poser 11 product page here it has close to 5000 views with the Smith Micro store page at Renderosity close to 70,000 views. Renderosity does nothing but complement Smith Micro and the broader Poser community in many aspects. Also take a look at today's what's new product page their are many new products for Poser including props and stand alone figures, which I would think many Poser users would love to add to their library or are you just saying those vendors are wasting their time creating that kind of content these days? For those advocating that Renderosity is no longer relevant to the Poser community, I would really like to be able to understand how they think that is helping SM or the Poser community into a brighter future? Or are they just pushing their own grudges and gripes onto a segment of the community that has supported Poser and the Poser community for 20+ years, well before Victoria 4 was released.

I honestly cannot see where either Hivewire3D, CGbytes or the official Smith Micro forums are growing the Poser user base. Figure wise Project E has been somewhat of a flop from what I can tell, with maybe one or two active threads regarding Project E across the entire sphere and just 14 ratings on the figure base itself. The amount of people developing or actively using Project E is at at best in the double digits which is very worrying sign considering the hype before it's release. But Evo has always stated that Project E wasn't designed for the mass market but for what he wanted in a figure for his use in comics and erotic art, so maybe it can be considered a success when judged against it's creators idea of what it should be. Paul and Pauline are barely worth mentioning. It's also no coincidence that the top thread on the SM forums is "Are we being left behind?" And it's no surprise to see once again someone being told after raising their own issues that they have with Poser, that their concerns are not valid and that they are the problem not Poser itself. I just wish peeps would stop pushing Poser into a niche that is based around what they think Poser is or should be, it's like some member of the Poser community are clutching at it so tightly in an effort to protect it, that they are in fact just suffocating it. Which is pretty sad to see tbh... Please just let Poser and the Poser community breath a bit, and maybe it might start showing some signs of returning to good health.