It sounds like you all figured this one out OK. Zygote wasn't aware of any potential problem with C exceptions, but after getting some feedback about this (THANKS) we've also been able to replicate it. Apparently since this clothing pack was created on Poser4 with the latest/final patch installed, it needs to be used in a patched P4 as well. I should think that there won't be any problem here, as the last patch is very stable, not to mention valuable in fixing other problems as well. Please continue to let us know at Zygote if you do run into any problems or potential problems with our products. We appreciate it! -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

I have to admit, in a way I almost feel like I'm eavesdropping on a conversation that I shouldn't be able to contribute to. (Having such an obvious bias in Zygote's favor and in favor of commercial computer art in general; it's my living after all.) I just thought that I might be able to add some info about Zygote and our Poser products: Don't worry, Zygote has indeed received criticism for our pricing. Both public and private, both destructive and constructive. Both from our Poser users, the non-Poser users that buy our Poser products to use in other packages, and from our competitors and friends in the 3D business. (Most of whom think that we're crazy and are doing others in the business a major disservice by pricing so low.) We realize, however, that Poser-users are a unique demographic and need to be marketed to differently. Poser users have been good to Zygote, and we appreciate your business and feedback. Zygote has altered and experimented with our pricing structure a few times since we began creating Poser products. Those of you who have been around for the last two+ years probably know that. In retrospect, we feel that we were sometimes too high, and sometimes too low. We know that some people would not buy our models even at $10 a piece, we also know that many people would buy our products for 10 times what we sell them for. We do feel that a lower introductory price for most products has proven a good method for rewarding our regular and price-conscious customers (ie: those who have signed up on our mailing list), while allowing the infrequent customers to buy at full price. (Essentially this subsidizes the products for the rest of you.) As jval suggested above, we are a business and are familiar with economics and marketing strategies. We realize that there is some "magic price" for any given product that will make us more money than if set at any other price. We're happier the lower that price is, because that also means that Zygote gets more exposure and a wider clientelle. At the same time, however, we ultimately do need to make as much money per hour on Poser as we do modeling for our custom clients. (Or why do Poser at all?) Because of this fact, combined with how much support Poser requires, and how we often need to wait a significant amount of time to make back our money on a product, Zygote has twice seriously considered not developing for Poser anymore. You should know that we've always planned to continue selling and supporting the store we currently have. I don't want to sound too negative, however. You should also know that I think we're well past this stage in market evaluation. We appreciate the regularity of the Poser market, which doesn't fluctuate as much as the "bust and boom" 3D industry at large. We love selling Poser products; as small as this part of our business is, it has gotten us through a few otherwise dry-spells in one piece. Not to mention that it's just a fun product to develop for. Judging by what sells well, we at Zygote seem to share the interests of many Poser users. (This definitely can't always be said for Zygote's custom clients.) And while on the subject I must admit, this is a fun, diverse community as well. We at Zygote enjoy dealing with you people. As Bast mentioned, there are few 3D business that sell stock (or custom for that matter) models for prices as low as Zygote does. And just for the record, Acuris (the other less expensive company she mentioned) markets 18 Perfect People, a Zygote made product, along with a few other Zygote products. (That's why the figures look so similar; we made the Poser figures from the 18PP figures.) And finally, about individuals selling stuff for Poser... While it's not my business in a lot of ways, I certainly think that creators deserve to be reimbused for their work when they create a valuable product. While I don't dispute the advantages of free stuff, I have to agree with those that think that people will continue to create for free as well. Hope that this provided some insight on Zygote's marketing. Feel free to ask any further questions that I missed. Thanks for your support! -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

LOL - I liked the pic! The expression and pose (read "neck-swinging) definitely say "Ray". -Chad

Zygote just got the new version of our online merchant software. (This is supposed to prevent problems with the occasional incomplete product downloads.) However, when we tried to upload Vicki's clothing pack on Friday night (actually early Saturday morning) we ran into some weirdness that we'd never encountered with the older version. And, to make a long story short, someone's working on it now and has promised us that we'll be able to put this product live tonight. If you purchased the Victoria model, look for Zygote's email. Thanks for your patience ...yet again! :) -Chad Smith Zygote Media

You're right, Scarab. Zygote definitely has to keep all of the creators here in the Poser community (meaning morphers, model-builders, map-makers, etc, etc) firmly in mind when creating our products. You all do such great work. (I was just looking at James' work on the Zygote pie freebie, which easily quadruples its usefulness.) I'm sorry if my post about you not noticing the extra crotch resolution sounded sarcastic, Scarab. (I didn't mean it to.) PS- Even if you don't have the software/experience to create morphs for Poser, I have to admit that I always enjoy reading your posts. You've got to have one of the most active imaginations and fun senses of humor in this entire community, and have made me laugh out loud more than once. Thanks for your input. -Chad Smith Zygote Media

Zygote did discuss including genetalia on the Victoria figure, despite never having included it on any other female Poser figures. (Some of our Poser males didn't have genetalia either, just for the record, though market feedback later showed that to be a bad decision.) As you know, however, we ultimately decided against including genetalia on Vicki. As you may or may not know, Zygote has many customers that are as paranoid about Poser's ability to create porn as many members of this community are concerned about the ability to create realistic genetalia and erotic poses within Poser. (For example, Poser and Zygote products are growing in popularity for use in educational fields, including high school couses.) If someone has to create these morphs themselves, or download them from somewhere else (as you probably know is possible), then Zygote products are still "approvable" for our more conservative clients. However, we did try to do what Scarab suggested above, although maybe it wasn't enough for him to notice. :) (Scarab wrote: "... to have configured the hip area with adequate polygons/vertices that the morphs would be easy to make and make correctly.") Zygote occasionally does custom characters, morphs, animation, etc. for Poser, and in the past we have needed to show Posette giving birth. Obviously we realized the inadequacies of the standard Poser figures for such a project. As a result, if you compare the geometry of Posette with Victoria, you will see that Zygote did, indeed, add extra vertices to Vicki's mons/vulva region, obviously cut specifically to allow for morphs in that area. I hope that this answers some questions. Thanks for the feedback. -Chad Smith Zygote Media

This latest (and final, I hope) update is .cr2 only, as was the first update; no .obj changes. These new .cr2 files are named differently (Vicki instead of Victoria) so that you can have both installed at once (for backup until you know the difference, for transfering any custom morphs, etc.) The readme file included with this update lists the fixes for both the Victoria updates, rather than just the updates to the first update. Just for the record, additional morphs were only added in that first update, none have been added since. However, some of the morph targets were overlapped in the first update, and these were fixed in this most recent update. Sorry if that's confusing. Hope this helps. -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

You guys are great! Thanks for keeping everyone informed of what's legal and what's not. -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

At Zygote we use Flesh (Arts n' Digits software) for unwrapping UV coordinates. This package costs a couple thousand dollars, and requires another program for projecting (we use Wavefront Power Animator for that part, but now often use UVMapper ourselves because it seems to do a better job). I have to admit, Steve is providing an incredible package for free, even if it doesn't unwrap ... yet. (Plus he is just such a cool guy.) :) -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

I couldn't remember if the standard naming convention for Poser morphs (which Vicki follows) was OpenLips or OpenMouth. However, after checking it turns out that it's OpenLips. (Zygote threw Yell in there, too, so that by using combinations of the two morphs her mouth would have a wider range than with the existing Poser figures' OpenLips.) The main reason that we're so worried about naming conventions is for compatibility with Lipsinc's Mimic program. The one issue that I can see a potential problem with here is that Vicki's OpenLips morph only opens her mouth about half as much as the OpenLips morphs on the standard Poser figures. While this is not a problem for manual usage, it could make Victoria appear to mumble (not open her mouth as wide) when used with Lipsinc's Mimic program. For anyone who finds this problematic, you can always rename Vicki's existing OpenLips morph as something else, and then spawn your own morph target (perhaps from .5 OpenLips and .3 Yell, for example) and call this OpenLips. Hope this helps. -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

Perhaps I can provide a little info on this. (Not on Uma Thurman or British teeth, though. Sorry.) The Victoria model was built by Chris Creek here at Zygote. In creating it he referenced photos taken at Zygote photo shoots with 5 local fashion models. In creating a composite figure from reference material of 5 different people, Chris obviously had to use quite a bit of artistic license in deciding what features, measurements, etc. he would take from which people. I can safely say (after having seen the Victoria model change from its early stages to its finish) that it's not like any other model in our database. Corie Lee Rino was not referenced for the Victoria model. Zygote created a model of Corie about three years ago. For her project we digitized plaster casts that were taken directly from her body, as well as using photo reference from a shoot with Corie. Maybe it would also be helpful to provide a little general background on how Zygote builds most of our models. The modelers among you will be familiar with what we call "frankensteining". When you have a large database of computer models it only occasionally makes sense to start from absolute "scratch" on a new model. (For example, even in Corie's case Zygote used the cast of someone else's hand and a 10 inch sculpture of an ear that we had digitized in 1995.) Hope this answered some questions ... or was at least interesting. -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

Zygote hasn't publically announced anything yet concerning this, but it seems like a good time to do so. First, let me collectively thank you as a community for your concern about this issue. (It's nice to see someone besides ourselves worried about data piracy.) Zygote has contacted this individual both anonomously, for proof that he was indeed willing to sell these meshes, and officially, to give him an ultimatum in both English and Spanish. We are giving him time to respond right now. Zygote did let him know that we'd be contacting him again anonomously, and this time we would attempt to purchase from him. If he takes the money, then we will have enough evidence to bring a suit against him. (Though, of course, we'd like to avoid this if possible.) We also told him that we figured other members of the Poser community would also be sending him bogus inquiries about purchasing, and that he would not be able to trust any potential customers again. If any of you do receive emails from him that indicate a willingness to sell specific pirated models, please forward your correspondence to us here at Zygote so that we can use it for evidence, should it become necessary. Thanks again. I'll post back later to let you know what happens. -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

Just an update on Vicki's clothing. I'm corresponding with Larry W. right now about an anomaly we've encountered with some of Vicki's clothing items and conforming. We had planned on releasing a Vicki clothing pak this weekend, but it looks like it will be pushed back a week. I think that once there are a few clothing items for her it might become easier to make additional clothing based on existing items. (It seems that not everyone is as ambitious as Steve Shanks when it comes to creating clothing from scratch.) As long as we're on the topic, Zygote is planning on including some options for diversity within individual clothing items (morphs, transparencies...) Thanks for the interest. -Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

I'm sorry; I gave you bad information in my last post. After trying to track down what the problem could be, it turns out that while we posted the second update to the Victoria files for sale, we did not update the first free download update .cr2 file. This will be remedied shortly. Actually, this may be a good time to mention that we have decided to do a third and FINAL (I certainly hope) update. This one will incorporate a slight joint parameter change for the shoulders which was first recommended by Paul Hafeli. We need to get this update out immediately anyway, so hang tight, and we'll just skip update #2 for some of you and go right on to #3. I will post again when the update is live. I apologise again for the confusion. -Chad Zygote Media Group

Victoria's eye's are definitely fixed in this latest update. (ie: the point-at functionality works now.) However, the latest update has files named exactly the same as their less functional predecessors, so if you downloaded the first update you will need to re-download and install the update that is currently on Zygote's site. (As you install these files make sure you choose "replace to all", so that you write over the earlier files.) That's all that I can think of that would explain your problem. If this still doesn't work let me know. (chad@zygote.com). Thanks. Chad Smith Zygote Media Group