There is a freebie for long nails/claws on this site at http://www.renderosity.com/freestuff.ez.

I sympathize totally with you. Judging by this forum and the one over at Daz an awful lot of people are experiencing problems with the new version. I've had a couple of crashes and can't save to file - never had any problems with version 1.1. I can't understand why Daz bothered with this new version. They should have waited,tested it PROPERLY or added some new features that were worthwhile. Yeah, I suppose we musn't forget that it is free, but it's still gonna annoy alot of people who were very impressed and happy with the first version.

A Big thanks to everyone who took the time to view and vote:)

I've recently found these tutorials and they are really good - step by step instructions which are easy to follow. Ideal for Photoshop CS2. You can download free texturing brushes here too which are excellent. You should be able to save the textures as jpg.images and apply them in the Surface tab in D|S (Take a look at my second skin tutorial on this site to give you an idea of where to save to, how to apply etc). I did a test one yesterday and it didn't look too bad for a first attempt:), so it can be done:) http://www.digitalproducer.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=31082 Also, if you want to use V3 you can get V3 templates free on the Daz site.

Please could you post the link you found in Daz3d.com for the tutorial, I'd love to read it:)

No. The newest version is 1.01.0. There's no indication in any of the Daz forums that any new versions will be coming soon.

Lots of good suggestions posted - best thing I think is just get it and try it - it's free so you won't be losing anything if you don't like it.There is soooo much free stuff out there. I don't have a big budget so everything I use at the moment is free, and most of that is Poser stuff. There are many many sites out there and you can get all sorts of stuff from props and sets to skin textures to clothes and hair. Just take a look at the Poser Free stuff section on this site as a start, and Daz have a freebie section too.

When DS is opening up there's a initial credit screen which says Daza Studio et and there's a list of people who made it ect. On here it tells you which version of D|S you have. It should be Version 1.0.1.0.You can find the same info under 'Help' when you're in D|S - click on 'About Daz Studio' from the drop down list. If you haven't got this version go to the Daz site: http://www.daz3d.com/program/studio/1_0index.php On this page you'll see it on the left you can click to download it free.

Ooops! Didn't realize my previous post had come up so many times - must have been when I was experiencing problems and the message wasn't (apparantly) posting. Sorry about that everyone - I've deleted the excess now.

Have a look at this http://www.tuitzone.com/DazTut.html don't know if that's what you need but it might help.Let us know if it is (or isn't:)).

What I'd like to know is why is this just happening recently - is it the time of year or something, and why on earth does it happen middle of the night US time? It's terrible this morning (09.30 where I am, not US)- can't post comments or even see some pictures without a Session SQL error coming up - getting very frustrated now....

Glad you posted this - I thought maybe I was the only one experiencing this.I've been finding it quite slow on and off recently too.

I've just been having another look at Apo and I've solved my own problem - rather than using Export Flame like I used to to get a png image which I could open in my editing program, I used the Render option, but checked the 'Show transparency' box in 'General' under Options, then proceeded to render,saving as a png image. Thought I'd post this in case it's of use to anyone else any time. I'm a happy bunny now:)

Thanks very much - I've downloaded this version but for some reason I still can't export a flame as a png to my usual editor - it only shows up in my file list as a flame file,which therefore can't be opened in the editing program. I've updated the Export path in Options from hqi.exe to flam3 which is newer, as advised in a great tutorial I've found, so I'm not getting the error box anymore, but still no png image . Any suggestions anyone?

Thanks everyone for the replies so far. Still considering it all. I think maybe I'll stick to Daz at the moment since it's fairly easy to use/learn. I would really like to create my own clothes for characters though, so mabye one day I'll progress to Poser, unless Daz eventually has similar capabilities. Please don't stop the opinions coming - they're all very helpful.