As Jeff pointed out, they are still up on our site so you can still get them for free if you hurry. For the record however, just because something was free does not mean that it isn't illegal to distribute it to others. It is. In fact, it is always illegal to distribute Zygote products to others, even while they are free. The point of our weekly freebies is to get people to our site and store on a regular basis. When these products are distributed by anyone other than Zygote, this system is bypassed. Also, these weekly freebies are sold after their time as a free model. Some of our best selling products started out as freebies. Note to everyone: Please don't circumvent the benefit to Zygote of posting our weekly freebies. We've been doing this for years now, and it involves a very real cost to our company. Thanks for your cooperation and understanding. -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

Checked with Johanna, and it turns out that the notice on our site is because the shipping prices are fixed and the process is automatic only within the US and Canada. However, she also told me that Zygote has already shipped half a dozen boxes to other countries as well with no problem. If any of you are interested in international ordering, you will need to contact Johanna by email or phone, and then she'll price it out and get back to you with the cost. (She has to call on any international orders for pricing and to make individual arrangements with Fed-Ex to ship.) -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group PS- Thanks, Steve! :)

I think that the reason Zygote has that statement on the site is not because we actually can't ship to England. (We ship to the UK all the time, and recently sent a copy of Poser4 to Sweden.) Rather, I'm guessing that it's because: A) We only sell the English version -- which would obviously work just fine for most people in the UK. :) B) Shipping prices are harder to quote the farther the distance, and our secretary doesn't have a ready-made list of shipping prices on hand. C) We only have a limited number of copies of Poser4, and figured that enough people relatively close by will speak for those before too long. Kind of strange reasons to note that we will only ship within the US, I suppose, though I didn't know about this until now and am just guessing. I'll ask tomorrow when everyone's back at work. We've certainly shipped a few to Canada in any case, and I think that it mostly boils down to keeping it simple, since we don't have enough product to turn this operation global anyway. I apologise for the confusion; we certainly don't want to discriminate. If you'd like, feel free to get in touch with our secretary. You can email johanna@zygote.com and tell her that Chad told you to ask about getting a copy sent to you in the UK. Good luck! -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

Yep. Since morph targets are a linear function, and the deformation caused by the joint parameters is eliptical, any one morph target won't solve the problem. The same is true of magnets, but I understand that many users have found them to be fairly quick and easy for solving things like this. (for still images, not animations.) -Chad

This is a cool thread! Thanks for taking on a project like this, Liz. At Zygote we're always happy to see people concerned about these types of issues, of course. I keep realizing more and more how ill-informed most Poser users are concerning the legalities of data and binary copyright. If I can, I'd like to add a little, too. Feel free to quote me anywhere else this subject is being discussed. Like Scott said, copyright infringment of software code (including 3D models) is not measured in percentage of change, as it is for traditional media or binary images (not to mention music, stories, etc.) Even a small amount of usage of someone else's programing code is illegal. For example, if I wanted to write a program that had the exact same features as Adobe Photoshop I could, of course, do that. However, if I took even a few lines of code directly from Photoshop and put them into my new code it would be illegal. (Much less starting from Photoshop's actual program code and then going through it to make modifications here and there until I felt I had hit the 51% different mark.) That having been said, you will probably see why it is still perfectly legal to make, sell, and/or give away a "plug-in" program for Photoshop (authorized by Adobe or not). Users will still need to buy Photoshop itself for any add-ons to be useful. As I said, copyright infringment of 3D computer model data is determined the same way as software code. Someone can change models to the point that they think they will be unrecognizable the makers, but they are still stealing from whomever created the model. As far as the "plug-in" analogy goes, if someone modifies one of the models included in Poser, for example, (ie: creates a morph target for that model) then they are working within the Poser license agreement. It is also OK if they want to sell or give away their work (morph targets) to others who have purchased Poser (since they also own a license to the same models). This is, in fact, benefical to all parties involved and makes Poser a more desireable product. They are essentially paying the person for their changes to the model and not for the original model. Problems arise when people modify models (to create morph targets, new models, or whatever) and then pass those changed models along to users who have not purchased the original models. (For example, as a free downloadable model rather than in a format which requires posession of the original model, such as .cr2, .pcf, etc.) Obviously, there is no way that any company or individual can make sure that everyone is following the terms of their license agreement. Zygote appreciates all the efforts you people in the Poser community have made to prevent violations of model license agreements (Zygote's and otherwise). Thanks. -- Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

Thanks for your message on this, Diane. Sorry I didn't respond to it sooner. "The dress has been an issue with me and I'm presuming the skirt too, but didn't try this with it." We tried both, and this same thing does happen with Vicki's skirt. It also happens with all of the skirts and dresses that come standard in Poser4. I admit I was surprised to realize that this issue was unexpected for you, since it is basically due to the way Poser deals with joint parameters, and not to Vicki's clothing items in particular. In the way of background, Zygote experimented with skirts/dresses and discussed possible solutions to this problem with Larry Weinberg, while we were working on the P4 clothing. Eventually, we all came to the conclusion that dresses in Poser can either "walk" or "sit", but that no single .cr2/.obj combination will be able to work for both purposes effectively. Additionally, "sitting" skirts would not be able to conform (except to mermaids). "I know you addressed the exploding shoulders in the dress and catsuit with certain poses, but I haven't seen this brought up--altho' a number of people are having problems with the front of the skirt I know." The exploding shoulders is another issue (which neither Zygote nor Larry fully understands). We have discovered a work-around for this problem, however, and it will be fixed in the update. "I had corrected mine in earlier image posts by moving the thighs." I think that most users have come up with similar work-arounds or use post-render touch-up to correct this problem. Or, I'm sure some have simply picked poses that are less problematic because of this. (Because everyone using the standard Poser dresses/skirts has run into this obvious problem.) "...the innerskirt shows through (since I know nada about modeling, I couldn't determine if the innerskirt was another layer perhaps, and it may be the conflict itself-if I made it transparent in the standing pic, the dress looked pretty normal)." We applied a seperate material to the innerskirt to help with this problem. Unlike the standard Poser dresses, Vicki's can have the inner material transparency set at 100% which hopefully alleviate some of the more obvious problems inherent with all skirts in Poser. "In the sitting pose, the lower hip area flies straight up. Hope this is helpful for corrections." I feel bad that I'm not offering any good news on fixes for this problem. Zygote did know about this upon release of the product. Check out the standard Poser dresses; they act identically. "...but what I find interesting is Steve Shank's Vicky dress doesn't fly up when you seat her, EVEN after I made Steve's Vicky dress comforming it still works beautifully.. Vicky can sit down without flashing everyone.. hehe =).. I wish the Zygote dress worked as well.... =" After reading this comment of yours, Cindy, we immediately looked for and downloaded Steve's dress, and put it in the same seated Victoria pose as shown above. Having the utmost respect for Steve's work, I figured that if anyone had come up with a solution for this problem that perhaps he had. It does seem to me, though, that even with his dress there's still an issue of concessions. Although this dress doesn't "fly up" when seated, it does "fly down" (which I admit seems a little less obvious a problem than deforming upwards). However, in this pose I also noticed that the top of the dress was not without problems either (legs poking through, etc). In short, I didn't see anything that Zygote could use from this clothing item to improve Victoria's Clothing Pak from Zygote. Just to make sure that I'm looking at the same thing you are looking at, Cindy, I downloaded the "Millie/Victoria Dress" from http://www.poserworld.com/clothes19.htm and then put it in the pose shown above (that comes with the Victoria product). So, to sum up, I'm sorry not to have any encouraging news regarding this problem. Zygote definitely views it as a problem, but we're unaware of any way to "fix" these files so that the dresses can sit and walk. Perhaps someone out there who has been dealing with this since the release of Poser4 has some input/suggestions/work-arounds? -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

Glad to help, Melanie. Where is your self-portrait posted? -Chad

Hope I'm not too late to add some info here. I also hope that you can let me know whether there are any issues with Vicki's body protruding through her clothing that I am not aware of, and which need to be fixed. There are few issues that Zygote is aware of that can cause Vicki's body parts to poke through her clothing: - Not using the final Vicki update .cr2 file. This is a free download from Zygote's site; follow the link from the front page. This latest update (check it's entitled "Vicki" and not "Victoria") alters the collar joint parameters slightly. If you put the clothing on the original Victoria .cr2 files then body parts (particularly the shoulders, forearms and wrists) can poke through the clothing. - Having the "Soften Hips" morph targets set to different values. The Vicki figure reads in and restores with a full body morph target called "Soften Hips" set to one. Corresponding "Soften Hips" morphs come on all of Vicki's clothing as the natural state. These morphs can be altered, of course, but you must be careful that the clothing and Vicki's settings correspond. If not, Vicki's hips will poke through her clothing. - Using extreme poses with skin-tight clothing items. While skin protruding is simply an inherent problem with tight-fitting conforming clothing in Poser, Zygote has tested and optimized Vicki's clothing pack so that these issues can be worked around as well as possible. (Much better than with the standard clothing items in Poser4, I might add.) Still, we know that there are many areas where a little skin will poke through the clothing in extreme poses. The most unfortunate area for this issue is typically the buttocks, which are usually best turned invisible. Also in areas like the knees or elbows, a tiny bit of skin will show through tight clothing when the joint is extreme. For these types of areas, scaling is usually sufficient. - Custom morph and scale settings. As has been pointed out above, once you've customized your Victoria model, you'll have to customize her clothing as well. - Intentional protrusions. Zygote has modeled some clothing items such that they have to be used with certain body parts invisible, even for mild poses. The boots, for example, need Vicki's foot and toe groups made invisible. These cases should be obvious. Zygote is currently working on a free update for Victoria's Clothing Pak, but the planned fixes do not currently include anything to alter protruding body parts. If there are any issues with this that are not explained or prevented by one of the above reasons, please describe them to me in detail at chad@zygote.com so that we can get them fixed in the update. Thanks for your observations and input. -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

Subzero- Charlie's right. Zygote would be happy to send you the lost file. Just get in touch with our Poser support team (email to either eallen@zygote.com or doug@zygote.com, or call us tollfree in US 1800.267.5170). They will verify your purchase and re-send you the data. Please don't ask any individual user to send you Zygote data, however. I realize that you have good intentions in your request, but you are asking for others to break the law. Both you and they would be guilty of data piracy if you engaged in such a transaction, even if you both had purchased the model from Zygote. Thanks for your concern and support. :) -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

Subzero- Zygote would be happy to send you the lost file. Just get in touch with our Poser support team (email to either eallen@zygote.com or doug@zygote.com, or call us tollfree in US 1800.267.5170). They will verify your purchase and re-send you the data. Please don't ask any individual user to send you Zygote data, however. I realize that you have good intentions in your request, but you are asking for others to break the law. Both you and they would be guilty of data piracy if you engaged in such a transaction, even if you both had purchased the model from Zygote. Thanks for your concern and support, everyone. :) -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

Melanie- Jaager's right. The Vicki upgrade includes 3 .cr2 files. One for each of the two textures and one for no texture. If you did not purchase the maps, then you can throw away the two map .cr2 files and keep the Vicki.cr2 file. And I agree with you, too, Melanie: It would be easier if all of the Victoria updates just installed the add-on features to the original Vicki character. The reason we didn't dare to do this is because many people had added custom morphs, etc. to their original Victoria characters and some would have inadvertently written over these custom settings and lost them when installing new Victoria updates. This way, if you do have any custom settings that you'd like to keep, you can transfer them from the "Victoria" or "Victoria Morphs" files to the final "Vicki" file, and then discard these earlier .cr2 files. You wrote: "I opened the "Vicki" character and got a basic Victoria character. I thought the description of the update said there were new head and body morphs, but I don't see anything that looks new." It sounds like you purchased the Victoria model after the first update (which added these new morph targets). The second update didn't add any new morph targets; the improvements that were added here related instead to the joint parameters, eye-point-at functionality, etc. Hope this helps! -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

Val, Virus and anyone else interested- Zygote only recently heard that the Poser4 patch only works on English copies. Before that we saw no reason for any Poser4 user not to install the patch, and no reason for Zygote to fix any "problems" in our product that were caused only when the patch is not installed. We have been corrected in our misunderstanding, and are currently working on a free update to Victoria's Clothing Pak. (Though I must say that we don't consider this problem an issue with Zygote's quality, and we are still experimenting with possible work-arounds to this problem.) For the record, Zygote only tested this product on patched, English versions of Poser4. It looks like from here out we'll have to create our Poser4 products on unpatched versions. I apologise for the misunderstanding and subsequent issues for which we are still trying to create work-arounds. We will let you know when the free update is available for download. -Thanks. Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I appreciate you all pointing out these problems, whether they be problems with Zygote's actual product or problems in the Poser software that become issues when using specific Zygote products. Regardless of who or what factors are to blame for Zygote's products not working well, whenever this is indeed the case Zygote has always considered it our responsibility to fix or create a work-around to solve these issues. We stand by our products, and although we like to release them perfectly the first time, we are always ready to fix any problems that we can for free and as soon as possible. The bottom line is that if you are truly not satisfied, you can get your money back. At the same time we understand the frustration that consumers can have when there are problems, especially if they're not familiar with Zygote's business practices. We also appreciate those of you who give us credit for what I consider to be an excellent track record of customer service and satisfaction. As some of you have noticed, creating quality products for Poser means working within very limiting constraints. I'd just like to make it clear that Zygote does not always know of all of the problems inherent in Poser until we create something that challenges the code. In these cases we feel obligated to experiment with ways we can work around the problem, since Zygote has absolutely no direct control over what Poser's capabilities and problems are. In this specific case (Vicki's Clothing Pak), we have already confirmed 2 problems found by members of the Poser community. One, the bikini top, had the UVs erased from the .obj file. This has already been fixed in the files currently for sale, and will be included in the Clothing Pak update which will be given for free to purchasers once we're sure that we've got all problems fixed. (So that we only have one update to adress all issues.) The second problem is a problem in the Poser code that we discovered while making this clothing pack. The dress and catsuit can "explode" in the shoulders when conformed and rotated at certain angles. Larry Weinberg doesn't know the reason for this problem yet, and we're not hopeful that Poser will be fixed in this regard soon. We did, however, find a strange work-around that we think will circumvent this problem, and so the .cr2 files for these two clothing items should also be working fine in the soon to come update. And finally, about the C exception errors and other potential problems when using an unpatched version of Poser4: We at Zygote were not aware that the Poser4 patch only worked on the English version, and we only beta-tested on patched English versions of Poser4. We were made aware of this just two days ago now, and are still experimenting with solutions to these problems. Understand, however, that this is a complicated issue of trial and error. We've already been discouraged repeatedly in our early attempts, and Larry Weinberg has also not been able to help with this problem. We appreciate your concerns and I'll inform you once we have a solution. In the meanwhile, know that a free update is in the works (most of which I don't consider due to Zygote's quality control in the first place). Also, please continue to keep us informed with any potential problems that you notice. (The more constructive, the better.) Know that we will work with you. Thanks -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

"I hope you do not take my questioning Zygote's pricing as an attack..." Don't worry, Storm. I noticed and appreciated that you specifically stated a couple of times that you weren't attacking Zygote, so I knew you didn't want anything to be taken in the wrong way. Thanks. Also, I appreciate your concerns. Like I said, others have also raised public and private criticism about our pricing many times. "You rightly point out that Poser users are "demographically unique" with the greatest proportion being non-commercial users. Price comparisons with other non-Poser model markets (which are aimed at mainly commercial and industry users) do not work because they are completely different markets." Now that you mention it, how many high-quality computer models are marketed toward a primarily non-commercial consumer-base? I'm not trying to be facetious here; the point is that at Zygote we aren't comparing our marketing to specifically anything else we know of. We are actually very excited to see "how low we can go" in this market without shooting ourselves in the foot. It is, of course, a gradual decent at this point. We have in the past - and still do - experiment with selling some models for less than others, and we have also had some products that never made back Zygote's investment in development. (And I mean real investment: what we pay employees to do the work, and not what we need to make to break even with what we would have made working for a different market.) "If any commercial producer were to charge 100s of dollars for single Poser Models they will earn very little from the vast majority of Poser users and consequently have a tiny market share percentage and penetration." I agree, and believe that this is why very few companies are concerned with making their products Poser-compatible. "This has implications for the market's awareness of the products of those companies and their influence on the market. It also usually entails higher marketing costs for products (Zygote currently enjoys a very high profile among Poser users which probably equals low marketing costs for their Poser products). And despite having to balance the internal production economies of Zygote there is more to business than sales and profit. There is also goodwill, market share maintenance and even dominance, all of which have a real dollar price tag when estimating the value of a company." You've made some excellent points here, Storm. I think you must have some good business experience, and I couldn't agree more. Zygote does value and consider these issues when deciding marketing strategies. On the other hand, these products do take a fixed amount of development and equipment which can only be subsidized so much by a company as small as Zygote. (In fact, our Poser products are considerably more development-intensive than are our custom projects. You'll notice that our regular models don't come with templates, morphs, materials or set up for animation in any package, despite costing 10 times as much as our Poser models.) "Looking at the Victoria downloads page here it is possible to get some idea of the number of Victoria units sold. The downloads vary but peak on some items at around 1,800. Taking into account factors such as failed downloads and curiosity, I would estimate you have sold around 1200 units to users of these forums with maximum sales of about 2000 in general, less than 10% of this 15,000-strong-market." Again, I'm quite impressed with the thought you've put into this. (I don't think most people would have factored in the failed downloads and Zygote Poser customers outside of the Poser online community. I would add a few illegally passed around copies as a factor, too.) I have to admit, I was a little surprised to see Vicki add-ons downloaded hundreds of times more than actual Victorias sold. "Perhaps if Vicky were around $50 and all her accessories in a pack costing $20 you might have had a significantly greater market percentage which would have given you equal profit but a much stronger leverage on future sales of Vicky developments and products. It would have also generated much greater goodwill (in the business sense of the word)." Again valid points, and ones which were considered at the time. As it was, our introductory price for Victoria was $10 higher than your suggested $50, and her clothing pack is only $.97 higher than your suggested $20 with the 40% off coupon Zygote gave to Vicki purchasers. Many people here at Zygote preferred to have Victoria's introductory special price as $99, regular $150. Dan and I (the ones more involved with the Poser community) pushed for lowering the price in order to make this figure the new "standard" for Poser, which obviously requires mass purchasing. Our compromise was to price in the middle, and to have the introductory pricing be 40% lower. I hope we did OK. The problem with marketing is that even in retrospect we'll never know how well this specific model would have done if marketed in another way. "In addition to all of this there is a large and growing skills pool among very talented Poser users who are pushing the models far beyond what Metacreations envisaged for Poser 4 and this has future consequences for the market." Zygote knows this, although probably not as well as you full-tiome members of this community, and we're very glad of it. We think this will push Poser to new heights. As is demonstrated in Victoria, we are trying to build more sophisticated and versatile products for an increasingly talented group of users. "When I look at Victoria I am reminded of the "eyes" developed by Bushi, Nerd and Bloodsong; by the changed body structure developed by Torino (Eve); and by the transparency mapped hair developed by Grey (I think he was the first) and further developed by Kozaburo and then Allerleirauh and many others. How much was Victoria and Zygote influenced by these developments?" Good question. As far as the eyes go, we have still never checked out any of the eyes you mention. However, we were told by our beta-testers how they worked theoretically, and this is what we based our work on. It's a good work-around for what I basically consider a Poser limitation. As for the modified grouping and geometry, we did have the Eve figure sent to us by one of our beta-testers. This was after we had roughly decided how to group, which we did over a year ago when we first discussed creating a "next-generation" Poser figure, but was still before we had finished grouping the model. So, yes, we were influenced by the Eve figure, which I think was very well done. At the same time, Torino and Zygote were both facing the same challenges and I don't think it surprising that we would come up with similar results independently. BTW, Zygote did create a Poser model with a hip, lHip and rHip grouping (just a difference in naming conventions; we decided to stay with Torino's conventions already in public use) to solve this problem also over a year ago (before Eve came out, I think). We had debated on adding knee, elbow, breast and buttock groups (as well as modifying the collar boundarys) at the time we planned the content for Poser4 with Metacreations. But the bottom line is that we did indeed experiment with and use elements from Eve that would have been slightly different in Victoria had we not heard of Eve. (Which I consider to be a high compliment to Torino's work.) And as far as transparency mapping hair (or anything else for that matter): Though this is a recent capability for Poser, Zygote has been trans-mapping all kinds of models since before we ever heard of Poser. I don't mean to belittle any of the work done here. I think it deserves almost as much credit as for discovering techniques like this for the first time, as those "re-discovering" these techniques for Poser were probably not aware of their existence in other areas earlier. Obviously (or perhaps not), as soon as Zygote was told that Poser4 would include transparency capability, we thought of the ramifications and the products we could now produce. We did feel "beaten to the punch" by the Poser users, and regretted that we were too busy to develop that for Poser at the time. Wow, this has been a long post. To end, thanks for your questions, Storm. I hope that my answers have been informative and interesting. In case I have said anything here that makes anyone feel like Poser and its users are not very important to Zygote, or that Zygote doesn't respect or takes you for granted, then I would like to make it clear that the opposite is true. Thanks for your support, concerns, and suggestions. -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

Diane- Not only do you need the P4 patch to fix some potential problems (like C exception errors), but you also need to make sure that you have the latest Victoria update. This is a free download .cr2 file from Zygote's site (follow link on front page). I'm guessing that the reason that you're having problems with the shoulders, forearms and wrists is because of this. (On the last update to Vicki we adjusted the xtran of her collars groups; the clothing fits this adjustment.) As far as the black groups on her wrists: the Poser4 patch should fix this I think (because I can't replicate the problem on a patched version). Just so you know, however, some of the clothing items have groups intended to be invisible (lHand, rFoot, abdomen, etc). Although they should all read in invisible, if you can see them (accidentally map them, etc.) you can turn visibility on that body part off, or you can select the "skin" material group for the clothing item and turn transparency min and max to 100%. Hope this helps. If any of you run into problems (or even potential problems and/or things that need clarification) please let Zygote know. BTW, great looking outfits! I'm excited to see what you all do with these clothes. In our meetings over this product I pushed for easy versatility - transparency and morphs, and promised the management that they would increase the value of the product enough to justify the development. Glad to see you using it! -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group