Yeah Movida, good point, but when can we expect P5? It's been in the works for a long time already and unless I'm behind times it's not really anymore than Feature Lists right now. Still, all this will be old news if P5 has the Dynamic Cloth features that we've all heard about. Very good point on that. Tom

I have to agree with ronknights. Having people rename file extentions and using Mover is begging for problems. Also, Mover has commerical restrictions. That will cause even more problems. The solution should not cause more problems than the original problem. It is a nice idea for advanced users. But, beginners are going to have problems and we will see an endless amount of forum post of people asking questions.

Unless I am missing something here, I am correct to assume that Mover does not have a Mac version? I was searching around for one but, found nada. I am just getting into modeling...this just seems like another hoop to jump through that shouldn't exist in the first place. Does this also mean that there's the chance if you don't own the character, you can't use the clothing? I don't have the Mil kids, but I have the kid's Costume Shoppe set, which I enlarge and quite happily use for Vicky/Steph. Am always using Mike's coats on the girls too. So, what, I'm gonna be up *$#@ creek with no paddle? Personally, part of the fun of using items is finding unusual ways to use them. So I don't own the character they were created for? So what! With some creative dial twirling, I can make something much more origional with them many a time.

Or, depakotez, they know Poser 5 is a daydream...???

Willdial: That's why there is a different app being made to try and cover it and make it a heck of a lot easier :) So that the renaming and such aren't needed. Fidget: I don't make the policy, I'm just a user like you who happened to find one solution that DAZ agreed with. I suggest taking frustration at the policy to them.. Sorry, I agree to a lot of wanting to fiddle and get things to work, that's loads of fun :) Movida: Wow, hadn't thought of that one... I sure hope it's not just a daydream.

Excuse me, but if I read correctly, "Mover Advocates" neglected to take an inventory of just which figures use which geometry files? "Victoria 2 Reduced Resolution is designed to wear Victoria's clothes. If clothing morphs are encrypted using a full-res Victoria mesh as the seed file, people who own Victoria 2 Reduced Resolution, but not Victoria 2, will not be able to decrypt them. You'd need two separate versions of the distributable files, one encrypted for Victoria 2 owners, the other for Victoria 2 Reduced Resolution owners." Besides, we can't forget the Mac users. Back to the drawing board guys. This time why not form a committee, and talk about all the possibilities, and test them before making an announcement.

Ron: There is a MAC mover type converter out there. Or was the last time I checked. This was tested, the mover solution. Enough shooting the messengers okay? Tom

Tom, this new app you and rcook are working on sounds great. If you can come up with something that will encrypt any text based file using one or more text based seed files and which allows commercial usage it will have all sorts of applications beyond this particular issue. You guys get my vote of confidence. It's a shame people that obviously don't have a clue what you're talking about feel the need to tell you it can't be done.

Ajax, Thanks , yeah it would be awesome beyond just poser. The idea of using something like PGP encryption keys has also been presented elsewhere to deal with the problems of things like the MilBoys. Though that would require DAZ setting up a key and making it standard, then emailing people etc etc etc. Whew, fun :) Tom

A text file is a text file, and if you guys tested it, I'll believe you that it works. End of story. But that doesn't change the reality of the situation: stupid policy. Finding some way to bow to their wishes instead of convincing them to change a ridiculous policy by calm, logical discussion, only further aggravates the situation and gives them more power beause we are relinquishing our position, whether their position is legal or otherwise. This thread has mostly been commented on by people with more technical knowledge than the hobbyists like myself. My thinking, as a hobbyist, is that I don't want to jump through hoops to do something, automated or not. It may not be as big a deal when installing, but suppose I want to sell something (unlikely) or offer a free item (possible), that means I now have to go through the extra steps of figuring out how to use mover properly, or some other new program if I want to give out something that has a morph in it. Frankly, I'm lazy, and I don't like unnecessary steps, especially those that are essentially caving in to pressure. I just can't be the only person that feels this way, and I know I'm not. Besides, WTB said it nicely, moving morphs from M2 to clothing to M1 looks like crap. Someone posted a picture in another thread of this sort of thing (well, with V2 and V1 anyhow) and it looked awful. Sure, it could be touched up in post work, but anything can. It'd be easier just to twist more dials instead.

Please forgive me for chirping in here... please understand this is done in an attempt to offer help through suggestion... not flaming... I can certainly appreciate what Russell and Mehndi are attempting to do with this. I think it is nice of them to step up to the plate and try to help both the Community and DAZ in solving this issue. But perhaps it might be better and more in DAZ's interest to create the program (for both PC/MAC) or pay someone to do this themselves. Here is my line of thinking on this... DAZ is rightfully concerned about protecting their products, their interests and intellectual property. The best way in which for them to do this would be creating the functions of the software that would promise deliverance of those goals. I am not saying that Russell isn't competent to create such a thing, only that DAZ should have more control and direct input in the creation of such product and make sure that it covers both Computer Style Systems. No offense, but as a Company I would be reluctant to rely on such an important program for protection to be created without any control on it's functions or features, not if the security of my companies products and livelihood is based upon the protection that that software will offer to my company. Third party software to help the Community to do things quicker and faster has already led to a problem that potentially threatens the security of DAZ created product. I would think that it would go much further if the Community could see a product to fix these errors and be sure to protect those interests come directly from DAZ... not another third party. This will install within the Community a comfort zone and piece of mind that DAZ is directly fixing this situation, that the functions of that software wont violate other software or areas, and rather than relying on some third party person who would own the rights to that work and code, it would actually be owned by DAZ and provide a much needed comfort zone that this Community so despretely needs right now regarding this issue. Just my thought on the subject. Jack

So the solution isn't perfect, but at least it is a step in the right direction. I didn't even think about changing the file extentions when I suggested encoding a .cr2 the same way we encode an .obj (previous thread, .....so is this hulabaloo my fault?) Recap of known problems with this: 1. there are 2 versions of vicky 2 (regular & lo-res) (daz would have to supply a seed file) 2. tedious to encode/decode (bummer dude) 3. mover is non-commerical (get permission) 4. not everyone agrees that Daz has the right to restrict morph approximation. (can't please everyone I guess) To be blunt this issue will mostly impact Mac users & people without tailor. If you have tailor than you can just make the clothing morphs yourself if you want them, it would probably be quicker than downloading a bloated .pcf on a dial-up.

Shadow acknowledging some of the problems. 0. A new app is in the works to resolve the renaming issue :) 1. Yeah.. so until something like that happens there would have to be two versions. 2. Same progress that had to be done for free models etc Mover. It would just show up a little more... Agree that it can be a little tedious at times. 3. See 0 :) New app based on encoder principle. 4. I never said I agree, just hoping that this might solve some of the issues that have arisen. Hopefully a MAC person will develope a version of a similar app for MACs, or a crosscompile version of the current app in the works. And, depends on the speed of the connection versus CPU. I know for me downloading a 2 meg file is a hecka lot faster than using tailor for me :) Not disagreeing with your points at all though... Tom

No idea how much faster/slower tailor is, I don't have it yet. After reading another thread I have come to the conclusion that DAZ should be given at least some understanding on this issue. Unfortunately I don't want to say why this is, because I don't want to give anyone any ideas. But I will say this: It can easily go beyond a few items of clothing, and frankly we do not want to discourage DAZ from creating all of those wonderful morphs for their products.

My question in post #23 is still not answered. Here we go again: Will the Bodysuit in the M2 Morphing Clothing Kit also require PCF decoding. Do we have this 'solution' for all M2/V2 clothing or only for items which are not distributed by DAZ.

MadYuri, You wouldn't be able to distribute the BodySuit from M2 morphing clothing pack anyway I don't believe. The situation as I understood/stand it is that DAZ doesn't want clothing that covers a Mike1 or Vick1 figure floating around with morphs from Mike2 or Vick2 on them. So they get the effect without owning M2 or V2. So.. any clothing item that would cover them to that point would have to be encoded if it will contain morphs that circumvent the ownership of M2 or V2. Hope that helps some, the issue is a little confusing for me as well honestly on some levels. Hope this helps some. But as for the BodySuit from Mike 2's morphing clothes wouldn't really be given away anyway, then the issue with that item isn't present :) Feel free to message me if I'm babbling too much from lack of sleep :) Tom

I'm not sure what you are saying depakotez. Do only free stuff items have to be encoded and for sale items not? Or is ist a question of the distribution channel. Everything from DAZ is ok, anybody else has to encode his stuff?

Anybody can buy the M2/V2 morphing clothes and get the effect without owning M2 or V2. For that matter they can stick Posette/Dork's head, hands and feet on it. Color me confussd.

Sorry for your lack of sleep, I did just get up an hour ago and I'm full of energy. ;P

A nice solution, but the real issue, as others have said, is the simple fact that DAZ's stance on this issue is ultimately insupportable. I wish there was a reasonable alternative to Victoria and Michael out there. Frankly I'm seriously considering boycotting DAZ over this - not that I expect them to care. I will never conceed that it is right for them to place restrictions on the distribution of clothing morphs THEY HAVE NOT CREATED THEMSELVES. Their own, copyrighted products - that's one thing. Original morphs created to fit V2 and M2 - no. DAZ has no rights over that. So for me, ingenious as it is, using objaction mover is a non-issue.

MadYuri, Relevant items NOT distributed by DAZ would have to be encoded. What happens with DAZ distributed items is really up to them, so you're asking in the wrong place. However, I very much doubt DAZ would require encoding for anything they distribute themselves.

Would it be wrong of me to suggest we all want to support Codetwister and Tailor?...if we do then why not see if he can implement a save function. like File/Save As Tailor File......you then distribute that and when a 2nd party opens the file it looks for the cr2s that have been used and if they are not there it says you can't use it.....DAZ is protected then and Codetwister gets the support he deserves...just a though of the top of my head ;o)...Steve

Duh. Steve that is a great idea. But we need a Mac version of Tailor too.

Steve, Up getting a drink and thought I'd check in on this thing.. Great idea, but the major problem with it that I can forsee is say someone uses a modified version of a CR2 to base the morphs from? Or the person getting it doesn't have an original version of the CR2? Too many variables there, the idea of encoding off a unique obj related to the product gives a less chance of failure or varience between distributor and the customer. (This applies even if it is a freebie those terms :) ) See what I mean though? So, in future versions of Tailor if they have unique OBJ checking built in that would probably work fine. But for now just trying to get something that will work for the time being is the objective, since I don't really seeing DAZ changing their position on this any time real soon. Tom

I think there may be yet another fly in the ointment. The seed file would have to be exactly the same for encoding and decoding correct? What happens if it's not?

I don't know what other people have done but my cr2 for Vic 2 has been changed numerous times. Also I think there may be some patches out there so there could also be slightly different versions that are totally legit but would not work.

So I guess the lucky consumer would have to check file size and date to make sure he has the exact right cr2 before he could decode his purchase. He might even have to reinstall Vic2 just to get the correct seed file.

On second thought no it is not a good idea. The whole issure is about free distribution of tailored clothes. If the other user has to have Tailor too the whole thing is useless. Sorry that is not the way. :(

Roy, caught me on my way away :) As has been pointed out, it's encoding a CR2 (Or other text file) using a valid OBJ as the seed. Tom Night for real this time :)

Wow, same thought, one minute apart :)

This is giving me a headache. Dina might have been a disaster but the idea was good. I'm begging someone else to take a shot at coming out with new characters that could compete with Daz head on. Make them understand that if they alienate the Poser community, they are easily replaceable. Maybe an "open source" figure freely available for anyone to morph or produce clothing for. NW316

Yeh sorry MadYuri didn't think of that....but isn't vikki 1 and 2 the same obj anywy....i'm rushing here so i may be missing something :o) maybe DAZ can mail everyone with vikki and mike 2 a small file that can be used in the decoding with the new app russels looking at...then everyone has the same file then....Steve

Wouldn't that require all of my customers then to have Tailor to use my products? Thanks, steve, but, no. I'm not going to let DAZ set up a bs policy with no legal backing, then demand that my cunstomers go buy a program from their store to use my product. Paul

Btw: Whopper Girl will be available as soon as possible. Please be patient as I am one guy using the mediocre tools of 3ds max 4.2. Whopper Girl, of course, will be free. Paul

This sounds like a workable solution. May I suggest that the application automatically look in the geometries folder for the required obj file by default. This would save a step in searching for it. Having a standard directory for pcf files under runtime would be nice also if everyone (most folks) could be persuaded to have their pcf's unzip there then the application could default to that location as well, saving another few mouse clicks. I see two categories of objections here: 1. People who are simply angry at DAZ and don't want to accept the inevitable. The decision's been made folks, for better or worse. You can hope that it will lead to DAZ' ultimate downfall and try to do your part by boycotting them, but continuing to boil over this will accomplish nothing but raising your blood pressure. 2. A few individuals who see this solution as then end of a divisive controversy they so enjoyed promoting. Relax, I'm sure you can find another tempest to brew in your teapots. Whether DAZ was right or legal in what they did is a topic which can be (and has been) debated endlessly. At this point, anyone who is so seriously outraged that they can't accept the status quo should pursue the matter in court or continue to lobby DAZ directly. By all means, let us examine this pcf solution, point out potential flaws and try to make it work. This group has a history of accomplishing some pretty great things. Hopefully, that will continue, minus some of the viciousness that took place over this past weekend. Hopefully, most people have learned something about not adding to the tinder when someone tries to start a fire.

1. People who are simply angry at DAZ and don't want to accept the inevitable. I'm not simply mad at DAZ. My big issue is that I work on a Mac. So DAZ is willing to alienate an entire segment of the consumer segment? Or until they come out with that relevant software for us Mac users? And how long would that take? And as it has been said before, why should we have to pay even more money? It's a very legit arguement against this idea. I personally like DAZ very much, but what they are suggesting has us catering to them, not the other way around, which is the way business should work, right? We, after all, pay their bills. It has nothing to do with raising a tempest for the vast majority of us. We have very legit concerns, whatever angle we are coming from. And It's almost becoming a case of not being able to see the trees for the forest, you know? :)

Entropic yeh i agree is not a great solution, i was more thinking out loud than anything.....lmckenzie, it all goes further than just the tailor though, for example we have a few dresses at PWFW that fit the morphed vikki 2, muscle, young and Large, so using those and a bit of tweaking on vikki1 they could be used with her, so do we pull these from the site and tell every member to delete them?...this thing goes much further than the use of tailor. Steve

OK, when the Mover solution was proposed, some folks said there was a problem because they have Macs. I guessed that meant there is no Mac version of Mover. I could be wrong, since I don't have a Mac. This is all about the supposed ability of Mike 1 to somehow borrow Mike 2 morphs to look like Mike 2. The most direct method would be to simply wear Mike 2's bodysuit, and hope we don't notice his slender neck etc. This problem would exist using either "Tailored," and "free distribution" clothes, or clothes sold through DAZ. So if the Mover is to be the "ultimate solution," that would involve everyone, including DAZ, converting all the morphing clothes by this method. If DAZ doesn't change their clothes this way, then any DAZ clothes can violate DAZ's copyright rules.

And clothes just built around a morphed version of vikki2 Ron, wether tailor is used or not....Steve

I'm sure this thread has already died, (darn my need for sleep) :) but where does this leave characters like Stephanie? Currently she can wear some of Vicki's clothing relatively easily...will this create a need for specifically Stephy clothing or more variations on Vicki cloting obj files? Hope I make sense, need more coffee. :)

"In Greed We Trust" Hypotheticaly Speaking: If I to make my own characters from scratch not based on Mike, Vickie, etc, and that cut into DAZ' profits and they tried to find a way to profit from that, I think that might be considered restraint of trade, or infringement on my copyright or something like that. Most people don't buy DAZ products just because they look good but because they see some potential either for artistic or commercial purposes. The clothing issue is a similar one. If I make clothes not already on the market place for sale it is likewise unreasonable to expect interference from DAZ unless the model of the character can be extracted from my product. Derivitive works issues asside, if I cannot make and sell (or make freebe) clothing for DAZ characters, taking reasonable precautions of course, DAZ characters are useless to me except for educational purposes and what I buy from them will reflect that. What I see as the biggist problem here is Poser characters are considered like "Ken and Barbie" rather than as professional graphic arts tools. This opinion has to change before anything else will. -bikermouse

Taking Ron's example for a moment because it's a perfectly valid one. If I can use a similar example of this kind of nonsense? TSR. They decided they didn't want hundreds of fan websites offering rules and all the other things that come with that so they tied up the legalese so nobody could produce a fan website for AD&D. Unfortunately, that also meant they couldn't do it. Daz are, if they continue with this, going to drive themselves into the same corner with the stupid stick as TSR did. I understand they're trying to protect themselves and protect future sales of their products and future products. Unfortunately this is not the way to do it. Also, forcing people to employ yet ANOTHER damn utility is a PITA. Already to protect copyrights distributers employ PCF and UVS encoding. Now we'll have yet another bloody file to decode before we can use something? Erm.... this is getting beyond a joke and into the realms of daft. What's next? A Mike and Vickie dongle? Can't use the files unless you surrender key parts of your system to a plug in POS that screws with the mouse and modem ports? How about dial back? That's a popular tool. You buy an item and it dials DAZ to ask for permission before it installs? Yeah, that's the answer. Sorry. Not doing it. I would rather make endless nekkid vic in a temple renders than screw around even more than I already have to just to get something to work and I've been using this software for a few years. New users? Oh gods can anyone see the eruption of questions as these poor people get completely bamboozled with all this junk? I have always respected Daz and have got on with them fine over email when I've spoken to them. They've bent over backwards when I've had a problem with their store or just recently over hosting some of my models. Great people every one of them, but it seems to me that these nice people took a running jump at a wall just recently and are dazed and confused. BIGGEST complaint of the year. NO clothes that fit the damn morphs for the Milllenium figures. Not for ANY of them. Mike and Vic 1 have been out for ages and NO clothes that morph. Slowly a few started to arrive that were built over a morph setting. Mike and Vic 2 arrived with loads of new morphs and STILL NO CLOTHING. OK, eventually someone said they were converting the clothing packs and that took months. Tailor arrived and people were happy because they could now morph the clothing that couldn't be used before. NOW, we can't use it, can't use the clothes, can't produce more, can't share the damn things. Well, sorry. Fuck that. This is one of the very few occassions when I honestly and firmly believe that Daz have seriously screwed the pooch. I am not going to bend over and get shafted because I've spent my money on their models and now I'm told I have to spend MORE just to be able to use things in the future that I PAID for in the past. Not going to happen. I'll happily break their request if they force this issue. Free utility from Russ to help people distribute files? Why? Why the hell should people have to jump through even more hoops and go through even more steps and trouble just to use a piece of bloody clothing? And how much of all this bullshit is going to be overruled anyway IF Poser 5 has cloth dynamics built in? Are Daz going to then tell us we can't use Poser 5 because Mike 1 might, maybe, perhaps, could sort of, look like Mike 2 in a body suit? Can anyone see how pathetic this "could" get? It's not often I side with RonKnights, he'll probably be the first to agree with that, but on this issue I think he's actually got some valid points. As for the request for a new model. Female? What about Eve/Azura? Isn't she good enough already? She has the advanced joint parameters of Vickie and it shouldn't be too hard for some of the generous people around to make morphs so she can stand proud against Vic2. We need a guy, not another female. A guy to compete with Mike. Girls we got. Eve/Azura, Dina, DinaV and another I saw mentioned somewhere that I hadn't heard of. So, make a male model, morph the hell out of it. Stick it into public domain if you want and then let's see how much it takes before people take their big words and run with it. I think again Ron said something in another thread that kind sounds more likely than a PD model. We've paid for Vic and Mike and ALL their clothes and add-on packs. A HUGE investment for many people and an expensive one for some who don't have the incomes that are bandied about by certain members. I don't honestly think that anyone will turn away from Vic and Mike and Daz damn well know it. That's what's sad about this whole affair. People are now scurrying around to find a way to pacify Daz and pacify the people who are complaining so we can all have a happy happy joy joy filled forum again. Excuse me if I decide this time I'm going to be a needle on the floor that stabs people in the foot every time they tread on it. I DO feel trodden upon and I will bite back. I don't care what utility is written to pacify the lairds of Poser files, I don't want to have to use it. HAVE to use it being the operative word. FORCED to use it would be more accurate. I would MUCH rather purchase Tailor and support Codetwister than fuck around with god knows how many files how many times just to keep the peace. Right now though I'm not inclined to support anyone. Poser isn't stable enough for me to WANT to spend that much of my time. and I sure as hell don't want to have to go through this whole damn rigmarole every time I have to reinstall poser or I upgrade my system. I back up key parts of my computer. Windows and system areas, system utilities and mail databases. That's all I should HAVE to backup. The possibilities of really screwing the community are present now. The thumb screws are being tightened. Today Mike's body suit, tomorrow a dress suit, the day after, his trousers.... what then? People have already mentioned about combined clothing having the same effect as the body suit. That could be the next stumbling block and I really don't see why any of us should have to waste even more time faffing around with protecting a company's assets when that very company SOLD those assets to us in the first place. If you jump off a cliff and half way down suddenly realise that impacting on the ground below is going to hurt. You can't suddenly change your mind and fly back to the top of the cliff. Daz jumped. Now they realised that the ground IS hard and they might get a tad bruised. Sorry peeps. Tough titty. ----------------------------- Depakotez: Thanks for this effort, it's appreciated, regardless of my words above. It's a shame that you feel it is necessary to do this and that Daz have now forced this situation upon the community. Things were fine before. There are other ways around this and one of them is Daz admitting they screwed up, and living with it. Making sure that next time they don't make the same mistake. In general I see people wanting Mike 2 BECAUSE of his morphs. I don't see people FAKING it by sticking Mike 1 in Mike 2 morphed clothing and pretending he's Mike 2. Mike doesn't have the vast array of head morphs that Mike 2 has and he's not able to make the same or close characters. This is farcical nonsense, and regardless of whether Daz can or cannot legally enforce beans on anyone is immaterial. This is unreasonable of them. They're not gods. They're people, damned nice people, but people all the same, and like people they make mistakes. This is one of those mistakes and there is an easier solution than running around like a headless chicken trying to stop people doing what people haven't been doing. On that. I'm outta here.

My concerns over this issue are very personal. I finally released some humble Free Stuff characters for the first time, in over a year of fiddling with Poser. I figured it would be nice to include some Tailored clothes so the figures didn't need to go naked. Of course, the clothes, like the figure would be free. Now I am totally afraid to release any freebies at all. Why? Because DAZ is now engaging in Retroactive Policies. That means that DAZ can find a problem with something you or I have done, months or years after the fact. I've tried very hard to understand and abide by DAZ policies concerning figure creation and sharing. I never understood DAZ's instructions, and got blasted publicly for my ignorance. I released some figures, discovered the error of my ways, and fixed the problem on most. Then came the Tailor Situation. In March I posted a thread asking if there were any problems distributing Free Tailored versions of clothing. I was assured at that time it was ok. Now it's not. I've been struggling with the issues of how to prepare my new characters legally for close to a year, and I've gotten absolutely nowhere. It's not due to my lack of trying, it's due to the bewildering information and changing stances DAZ provides. I have removed all my freebies that would violate DAZ's Tailor Edict, and I may never create another freebie again. I just can't take the risk.

I predict that after July 25th, no one will be talking about this.

Again, it's easy to deny the most basic fact of this whole Tailor issue: DAZ will allow you to produce and distribute an article of clothing that circumvents the need to buy Michael 2. You just need to sign an exclusive brokering aqreement with DAZ. So why waste time developing utilities that will please DAZ?! The real solution is for all people who sell clothes to sign up with DAZ, and for bumbling newbies like myself to either stop giving away stuff, or to try out for the "big leagues."

Questor: I agree - especially the words after "Well, sorry." At some point it becomes a question for the lawyers. (Darn - knew I shoud have gone into law instead. According to a friend of mine who is a lawyer, even with a masters degree, that would take 4 years of law school as California won't just let you take the bar exam. I joked with him once about passing the bar by just not going in. He was not impressed - guess he'd heard it before.) We can only hope DAZ will reconsider.

Imckenzie: What's that?

Bikermouse, I think you'll find that lmckenzie is referring to the up and coming Siggraph show where some people believe that Poser5 will be aired. I'm inclined to think not, but CL "might" release some previews of the new version and the prediction is that everyone is going to be talking about Poser 5 and not the issue with Daz. He's probably right, except that some people will still be talking about it, just not as loudly or in threads that climb into 3 figures rapidly. :)

Nicely said, Quest. Also, appreciated Depa. It's a cool use of a utility, and one that would be appreciated six months ago under different circumstances. OR for different purposes. But not for this - not to cover Daz as a sop to a non existant problem that they have no grounds on. And... here's something else: As much as I like Maz's utility, even for it's origional purpose of distributing obj's, it IS a sop. All it requires is an obj to decode. Someone with a pirate copy of Mike or Vicki or whatever can decode a .pcf encoded file just as simply as someone with a legit copy. Doan think so? Ask a warez kitty. As far as all this goes, well gee... I own Mike1. I also own Massive Mike and I have Predator2k's TheDarkness figure. And there's Virus's bodybuilder and there's also Boris. And I'm willing to bet you that if I email Wyrm or Pred2k or Capsces and ask them if they mind if I use Tailor to support THEIR products and help increase their sales/download popularity [in the case of freebies for Predator's morphs], at least a couple of them will go "Sure... why not? My character can use the support that Mike 2 ripped off from it. It can probably use the new sales." Heh. The tech genie has flown, boys and girls. Even if Daz yanks Tailor from the market tomorrow and supresses it, it is code and it proves it can be done. And does anyone in this forum want to bet me real money that an enterprising C++ programmer can't write another prog that does the precise same thing, now that it's proven it can be done? Code is code - it may not work precisely the same way, because a different programmer will approach the coding differently, but it can be done. Do not throw money away on that bet. Now personally, I'm bound by the EULA I agreed to at the time of purchase of Mike 1 etc and if that EULA doesn't inculde the language that's included in future EULA updates, the future EULA isn't binding. As far as I'm concerned, we can make conforming items for Mike1 and Vicki1 under the usuage terms present at the time of purchase, and if a buyer wishes to use their legally purchaed version of Tailor to make them fit Mike2 and Vicki2... well, that's up to them. I'll guarantee you I won't market anything I make at Daz exclusively. And I doubt I'll bother PCF encoding my own designs and modeling. This was called monopolization and trade protectionism and lots of other horrid things when MicroSoft tried their best to make sure that the market went awya for anything except Outlook and InternetExplorer, and it's called the same thing when Daz decides that only they can make things fit their characters and they have a inherent right to control your and my modeling.

I have been a DAZ advocate for years. I love them, I love their work and I love the quality they produce. However... if they try to claim ownership of morph approximated using tailor... I will not buy anything else from them. The Tailor utility does not create anything that infringes upon their copyrights. The APPEARANCE of Michael 2 is NOT THE SAME AS MICHAEL 2!!! Just as an AMD processor is not an Intel processor, and a Segatte hard drive is not a Maxtor hard drive. Sure... they look alike... they work alike... but they're NOT THE SAME!!! They have NO LEGAL footing to stand on and in fact, they policy reeks of an attempt to MONOPOLIZE. Sorry... I don't like Microsoft for employing these tactics... and I don't appreciate DAZ using them... I'm sure they don't mind loosing a single customer... even one that has spent literally thousands of dollars with them... but I wanted to at least put in my opinion. That said... I understand their concern... they don't want to loose business. But face it, their reasoning is completely off. The people like me who are going to buy the high quality morphs, will keep doing it because we want high quality morphs for commercial renders. The people who don't care about high quality morphs... guess what... they probably weren't going to buy it anything... Screw the projections of lost profits. Besides... now much money are they REALLY loosing? How many people only own V1 and not V2? Or M1 and not M2? They are going to piss off people like me who spend over $1000 a year with them so that they can get an extra $40 from someone who makes a single purchase. Hmmm... makes perfect sense. Ok... I'm done ranting now. I guess RuntimeDNA will become my new favorite PoserPlace... especially since Traveller is over there now. And since I own Tailor, V2, M2, Stephanie and Aiko... I'll just make my own DAMN morphs!

This whole discussion has reached a new point for me. At least one merchant has offered to give me something from his/her store in return for my silence on this matter. No, I don't intend to take bribes. But I will shut up till tomorrow at least. Chad from DAZ is getting some much-needed rest, so there's nothing new on the table anyway.

Agreed totally with Ironbear and some from Ookami. I know, we're digressing from the purpose of this thread. I apologise for that as I feel partly responsible for it. Simple fact is though. Anyone who bought Mike1 and Vickie1 loved them after playing around for a while. When Mike 2 and Vickie 2 hit the market people shot off to buy them. Those who had the models recommended them highly to other users. Any reference I see in this and other forums asking about Mike and Vickie carries several promotional comments suggesting the purchase of Vic2 and Mike2 instead of the first couple - just because of the extra morphs and partly because of the inclusion of backwards compatibility in the P4 versions. So sales on version 1 of the mill figures logically should have dropped through the floor by now making the point of the whole argument rather moot. I don't know that I'd stop buying from Daz, but it is guaranteed that I will very very carefully consider WHAT I buy from them. Having said that, I really don't spend enough money to bother anyone if I stop. :)

As I understand the offer Ron, it's not for your silence but an offer to stop you posting new threads. Take the offer and remain in the current threads and join a new one when it starts rather than starting one. That way you get all the store items and don't break a verbal contract the person that made the offer. Sounds like a win win situation to me. Then again, I do have mercenary tendencies. :)

Questor: Well met and well said.(but are we better off with Ron, or his inevitable replacement? As nature abhores a vacuum he will be replaced . . . besides he fulfills a need - an example of how not to be.)