They should re-label that button: "Check Here If You Want Poser To Render Faster And Crash Less. Leave Unchecked If You Like Interminable Renders And Occasional Lockups."

Quote - Anastasia reminds me of Xena.  She needs her lil buddy Gabrielle. And a horse.  and a Nemesis.  a Miss Amphipolus sash.  Joxer.  ..., Ryan could be Joxer.

Ahh you just like that show because the men are buffoons who can't fight worth a damn and Xena and Gabby are the toughest guys around. Who happen to be wearing fantasy skimpwear like one can buy right here. :laugh:

Quote - Anastasia luv seems to flickering

Just waiting on some things to get more use out of her... Gabe's expression set, more pose sets, some clothing other than free dynamic dresses made by cloth-room afficionados. Not dissing that stuff at all, but most of us do use conforming clothes and we'll pay for it.

Oh, and I think Ana is all set (for now) for leather underwear, micro-bikinis, and other stuff for when she feels like slutting it up. Time for some nice jeans, tops, dresses, shoes, everyday undies (conforming).

Quote - tkInter on Macs only worked for P7, which was when the Python people got it working in the MacOS build.

No, tKinter-based python scripts worked in the Mac versions of Poser 8 and Poser Pro 2010, too. I still use those versions for scripts I can't do without and whose authors are so far not motivated to rewrite them for wxPython. 

Kudos to Netherworks and Shaderworks for bypassing all the tKinter silliness and rewriting their scripts for wxPython.

Well, we can take the "do it yourself" argument to great lengths. Such as, instead of using V4 as a starting point, be a REAL artist and make your own figure from scratch. And the clothing, too.  And all the props. And textures. :laugh:

 As people have said here, pose sets are good for eliminating 75% of the drudge work. The tweaks make it a little different from what anybody else may be doing. And if it's not for public consumption, who cares anyway? Frankly, I don't mind trading off some original creativity in the interest of time. I don't have an hour or two to start from the scarecrow position and precisely rotate and translate every joint from zero, just so I can tell myself the pose is mine all mine.

Well, Vicky is 6'2" in Poser measure, and she has legs that go on forever. It's hard to pose her naturally, because she's got about 8 extra inches of legs and torso. Put her in heels and she's tall enough for the NBA! (Now there's an image, Vicky in heels and stockings driving down the court for a slam dunk.)

I'm glad to hear that V 4 poses don't need to be converted for V4-WM. I wa worried there for a minute, based on what has been said here.

V4 poses don't work on V4-WM? Uh-oh. That's gonna slow my conversion to the Church of Weight Map.

It's interesting how many people say they downlioaded it not because they want it, but because they'd like upgrade pricing in case Daz Studio 5 turns out to be the best thing since indoor plumbing. (And since they're giving away DS4, it is not unreasonable to speculate they are planning some signifcant improvements they want people to pay for.)

In other words, Daz may not be getting the short-term boost in Genesis product sales as they mght expect from the sheer number of free downloads. Analogy: My wife cannot resist a item marked FREE on somebody's lawn. She'll bring it home, just in case, and it sits in the garage for years. I wonder how many free DS4 downloads are "just in case."

You'll have to scroll back a few pages to see the details, but essentially Daz 3D is giving away software to try to generate interest in Genesis and Genesis content. For 30 days, supposedly, but I suspect it may be extended indefinitely or changed permanently to a very cheap price compared to the old price.

Or was that a sarcastic question? :laugh:

So much melodrama and angst over something that should be just a light diversion from our everyday lives.

Back on topic, I hope the influx of free DS4 owners will, in the long run, result in a product that is more intuitive and user-friendly. And some instructions on how to use the damn thing. This would make sense, because I assume Daz is not looking to pull more people into the hobby only to see them migrate to Poser.

Having both Poser and Daz Studio as viable platforms is a healthy thing for our hobby. I wish they were a little more compatible with each other, but I wouldn't want to see alternatives to Poser go away. Competition is good for us. The folks at SM need to be kept on their toes. 

Quote - *The manual is the last one written by Eovia before they sold the software to Daz. Not only is it full of broken links, it's outdated ;). *

Kinda OT, but speaking of manuals (or the lack thereof)...

I went into the Staples online print center to see what it would cost to print one bound copy of Poser's 800+ page PDF manual, as close as possible to the way SM would do it, if they did, which they don't.

More than $400.

I like to do as much reading as possible away from a computer screen, but not THAT bad.

Quote - It is obvious that DAZ bought a reality distortion field generator at Steve Job's estate sale.

DAZ (or any company for that matter) SHOULD have attended Steve Job's estate sale, in hopes of coming away with some inkling how to turn out innovative products that are stunningly succesful even among the Apple-bashing camp, despite the fact said products usually cost more. That's a business model to emulate.

Is anybody really surprised that SM has put Poser 9 / 2012 on sale a few days after Daz made DS4 Pro free? Daz will doubtless point to that as an example of how its giveaway is changing the industry. SM, of course, was planning this sale all along and it has nothing to do with the DS4 Pro giveaway. (cough)

I've seen it posted that V5 out of the box has no gen detail. You have to buy an expensive Pro bundle to get that. But I can't speak from personal knowledge.

Quote - Probably the idea behind the whole operation was ... to find a batch of new customers having already planned to lose some of old ones. 

I'm not sure they were thinking this, exactly. But they probably did think that their existing customers already have runtimes bloated with content, a lot of it redundant (speaking for my own runtime). It gets harder and harder to sell to that crowd.

So a more profitable target for Daz is the people just starting in 3D, who will spend lots of $$ on content. If it's Daz Studio 4 and Genesis they're starting out on, they'll start off their content purchases with Daz vendors and stuff related to Genesis.

It's a logical strategy. Most of the $$ has already been squeezed out of the old crowd; they're just not buying as much any more. New blood, new revenue is needed. Everybody does it. Smith Micro employs it to a different extent with Poser Debut and its own store, Content Paradise.

Reducing the flagship software from $429 to free overnight seems a bit extreme. I'm sure the Daz honchos thought so as well, thus to them it felt like shaking up the industry and changing the game.

I can't even imagine how I would feel if, a few months after PP2012 came out at $499 ($249 upgrade), SM decided to give it away for a month and then priced the full version at $49 or $79 (which is what will happen with DS4 Pro, I am utterly certain). I wouldn't be shrugging my shoulders, I suspect.