EClark1894 posted at 7:14PM Wed, 17 July 2019 - #4357269

You're forgetting that Poser has been around for more than 20 years. In fact, Poser created the marketplace for content that you're talking about. Both Renderosity and DAZ were created in answer to that need. And while Studio might be free, it is not open source.

No, I'm not forgetting that, but it's also irrelevant to the conversation at hand. Poser has been on life support for a long time now, barely limping along from version to version and bleeding users every step of the way. Everyone who has acquired the IP has mismanaged it in one way or another, and it's Smith Micro's good fortune that they managed to find someone willing to pay to take it off their hands rather than see it simply rot away in their inventory, much like DAZ has done with Carrara or Bryce.

And while it's true that this hobby and the marketplaces that support it started out because of Poser, Poser has unfortunately lived long enough to see itself become pretty much irrelevant. DAZ is the one driving this market now, and Poser is at best a distant second and falling further behind every day.

A little history: I started out in 3D with Poser 6 & 7. I switched to DS3A after Poser 8 came out because I simply HATED Poser 8, but I've bought every version of Poser since then -- 1) because I've been hoping that Poser would eventually become something I could grow to love again (which it hasn't, unfortunately), and 2) because I was hedging my bet and trying to protect my content investment, wanting a fall-back option in the case of something going POOF with DAZ and DS. I AM invested in Poser and I WANT it to succeed, but the history there ain't good, and everyone knows that. If I was Renderosity right now, I might be feeling like I just got hired to be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor at Hogwarts.

I'm seriously surprised at this resistance to the idea of a FOSS-based Poser. It never occurred to me the community would take the suggestion so negatively.