Hi All,

First off, we wish to thank Steve Cooper, and the other members of staff that were laid off, for all their endless work and commitment to Poser. Thank you.

We would also like to follow up on yesterday's announcement on the changes at Curious Labs. We've seen many of the questions and comments raised, and we've posted some further information below.

1. The company is financialy stable, and has no plans to sell either Poser nor the business. The lay offs did help the company to remain financially stable, but these were also part of an overall strategy.

2. Steve Cooper and Larry Weinberg, while laid off, remain integral parts of Curious Labs. Steve now acts in an executive consultant role on a dialy basis to Curious Labs. Larry is focused 100% on a project for Curious Labs.

3. There is an international team remaining, most of whom have been with Curious Labs since it inception, and some from even the MetaCreations days.

4. The main focus of the team and the business, both at Curious Labs and Egisys, is now on Poser. We'll be focused on taking Poser forward, including improving Poser 5 Windows (yes, an SR3), Poser 5 Mac OSX, and Plug-ins for Poser 5.

5. As part of the restructuring we are implementing a new business model to improve the Curious Labs product development process. This model will include partnership companies, all focused on the Poser product line. We cannot say more on this at the moment due to the confidential nature of our agreements. We will provide more information when we can.

Regards,
The Curious Labs Team

Thanks for the update, mysterious "Curious Labs Team". Since I doubt that several team members hammered this out with alternating keystrokes, why don't you introduce yourself? We don't bite. Well...only virutally. :-) BTW, I'm Pablo but most folks just call me Paul.

Thanks for the update. Best wishes to you, I hope you can pull it off.

Hi, and thanks for keep us updated. Please feel free to introduce the team to us, either here on CL's web site... just kinda nice to see faces.

For some reason, I feel like I'm in the twilight zone.. Nevertheless - thanks for the update.

"There is a sixth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the sunlight of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area that might be called the CL Zone."

Hi Marc ;-)

Please. No names Anthony. From now on you may only refer to me as Inspector #12.

...and you may call me "occupant"

Scott, You mean YOU'RE the wrinkled old bag who's been making sure my Hanes say Hanes all this time? Wow... So everywhere I go, I take a piece of you with me?

I must admit, it's been good seeing Nosfiratu's name around here lately. It feels like the return of an old friend.

Before they made me they broke the mold!
http://home.roadrunner.com/~kflach/

Yeah that's me Anthony. If you have any problems. You can reach me at: Inspector12@hanes.skidmark.com ;-)

Scotts' Motto: Check the Hanes on that Hiney!

Before they made me they broke the mold!
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Hi All, some clarifications: 1) We're posting under Curious_Labs as these posts are on behalf of the whole team here. There is a lot that goes into a product release: engineering, QA, UI design, product design, documentation, content, service, just to name a few. We want to better represent the effort that everybody puts in, hence "The Curious Labs Team" 2) Curious Labs and Poser is under direct control of Marc Keohane. Marc is primarily based at Curious Labs headquarters in Santa Cruz. Marc worked at Apple and MetaCreations. He was also the Director of Products for Curious Labs, working primarily with Larry and Steve, and is now Director of Curious Labs. 3) We're trying to roll as many of the staff that were laid off as possible into the partnerships. These partnerships will strengthen all of the development efforts on the Poser products, including engineering and quality efforts. 4) Not all Poser customers are on Renderosity, so we sent out the newsletter to try and ensure we reached everyone. 5) We've received many comments, and good advice, through both EMail and Renderosity on how we communicate with customers. The newsletter is just one part of a new process to improve our customer communications. As the next step we'll be bringing live a new web page, which will focus 100% on Curious Labs news and product updates. More on this, and other topics will follow - on a regular basis! The Curious Labs Team

Who is now incharge now that Steve is not at the helm? Can any time frames or the "new" goal milestones be shared, shuch as when a projected SR3 is going to be attempted for? When plugins should be done, etc. 2nd Qtr? 3rd Qtr? As a costumer it would be nice to have a bit more of an idea since the restructuring blow, and Steve's layoff. Thanks for the posted update, but all this news has left me feeling very ill.

missed it by that much! okay question 1 answered.

Wasn't that the exact same message they left before in their first post!!! I think I saw this part in "The Matrix"....with the cat. "deja vu". It means that someone has changed something.......!! Holy crap!!

Hehehe, dunno why but when a company post a message like this "we are financial stable" it is the contrary, just check the last examples from big companies like EMRON or WORLD COM, I have become very sceptical about any kind of great anounces likes this ones, and goes further when an anounce was made from a "Team" of a company that don't use names? real names, at least as a consumer I would like to congratulate or blame a specific individual than just a team don't you think? Go ahead CL, keep doing your brightest efforts to keep the market. Good luck!

SAL9000 - Hello Dr. Chandra, Will I've dream?

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Vive Bene.  Spesso L'Amore.  Di Risata Molto.
Live Well.  Love Often.  Laugh Much.

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Deer With Horns Native American Indian Site

perhaps the statement "we are finacialy stable" was because of all the economic experts and buisness professionals that frequent this site were posting their oppinions that perhaps they were not. and, being, I guess the only one on this site that doesn't use the name given on my birth certificate, besides the person posting as Curious Labs, I guess I don't see anything wrong with that

isn't that backwards? shoudn't it be skidmark.hanes.com? ;-) A

I repeat .. make a version for only mac os X is not a good idea !! many old poser users on macintosh with mac OS9.x don't will purchase poser 5 because make a update to mac os X will be EXPENSIVE for all old apps !! this is a bad idea curious labs and with this you have lost many old mac Poser user Andygraph Andrea Mazzone Graphic Designer

Yeah, well what about the Timex Sinclair users? And the SunOS people? And let's not forget HPUX or AS/400! running for cover

will see ...

. - and thanks to CL for the info ;o)

Poser 5 for MacOs X and also Classic, S9. Bryce 5 run in the two Systems.

Ohh I forgot that we are dealing with a company full of experts which has been released the buggiest program I've ever heard (according with the 1000s of posts I've read over here) keep the good work Guys!

SAL9000 - Hello Dr. Chandra, Will I've dream?

Apple doesn't support OS 9 anymore. Apple said last autumn that beginning with 2003 the new Macs that are sold can't be booted into OS9. But - on the other hand - most OS9 apps run fine in Classic mode under OSX. That's how I run Poser.

"If you want to know your past life, look into your present condition;
if you want to know your future life, look at your present actions."

Take care of those words !

Isn't it Nosfiratu ;) ?

A'kin

That's a real hoot. I didn't think that technology would ever be mentioned here. Am I being sarcastic and slamming them? Far from it. They are my livelyhood! I am the lead (read: only) AS/400 legacy support systems technical engineer for our company. I have to maintain machines for more than twenty bakeries. Fate decided to tease me by having 3 systems suffer hard disk crashes within the last two weeks. Oy! Sincerely, Bill

Tempt the Hand of Fate and it'll give you the "finger"!

An OS 9 version would be ridicoulos - developper support has stopped for this operating system, and even ported programs should try to take advantage of Apples new technologies- simply ported programs are lame mares

"The company is financialy stable, and has no plans to sell either Poser nor the business." Pardon me, but I heard those words before, a year ago, when hundreds of employees at my former employer lost their jobs, the company went "Chapter 11," and sold out to another company. A year later, the news remains dismal as yet more employees lose their jobs and the "new" company continues their previous plan. By the way, you should not advertise an old service pack as if it were a new one.

Ok "Team" you're not getting it. I completely understand the team concept and it's just fine internally and sometimes among business associates, but definately not customers. Customers want to hear from and talk to a person. They want to know that there's someone who will seize the responsibility to take care of them. A team does not inspire that confidence. Suggestion: Read some articles or books by Tom Peters.

This forum is amazing. Dramatic, but also amazing.

As the world turns...such are the days of our lives. Great to see you back Anthony!

Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hazard
S Mallarmé

I did some research about egisys - and what I find is quite amazing. I think that they have pulled he break before CL went out of rudder. Ok - egisys is financed by Tuebingen Seed Gmbh which seems to belong in majority to two Southgerman cities. Seed has founded six life sciences companies mainly as university spin-offs and they expect about 10 years until making profit or products. Who actually gave the risk money besides the cities is unknown. I will try to find out more....

...

I agree Grammer !!!But unfortunately Some people think they will be able to run MAC OS 8.6-9.2 And /or win 95 for the rest of their lives :-/ and software developers should spend resources creating last century programs forever for those die hards who want to remain stuck in the past. Its not realistic.

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Mac OS 9? What about Windows 95. I'll never upgrade to that expensive OS (like Win 2000 or XP). Microsoft gets too much money already. I'd rather spend thousands of dollars on Poser stuff! If it won't run on Windows 95, it's no good.

Illusions, Are you thinking of HeathKit?

Windows 95 - This is exactly the problem that almost killed CL - developping for windows is developping for several operating systems not a single one, if they would be clever, they simply should restrict to one system and say that Poser does not support the others. This is how other companies do it. It is ridiculous (again) to assume that Poser will run on all windows versions without major changes. Look at the beta thread, no other company would have tried this. On our PCs with english Windows 2000 SR3 it was running without problems, but not on German SR 3 and English SR2 . This is hard, but this is life.

"If it won't run on Windows 95, it's no good." Tell that to all the Cg professionls running MAYA ON NT, win2K pro, and XP.

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"The main focus of the team and the business, both at Curious Labs and Egisys, is now on Poser. We'll be focused on taking Poser forward, including improving Poser 5 Windows (yes, an SR3), Poser 5 Mac OSX, and Plug-ins for Poser 5." A very sensible move.

There really is someone up there looking out for all us poser addicts, I am really happy to read this latest piece of news from "Team CL" :)

"The company is financialy stable, and has no plans to sell either Poser nor the business." Isn't that Enron's last words? Also is CL going to make all responses with numbered lists? 1. Yes. 2. Yes-Sir-ee 3. Yes and yes.

The interesting thing is that Tom Peters is on record as saying that he couldn't work for an "Excelent" company... :) And let's not forget the Tru64 people either :P later jb

Hey CL, glad you are going to be around, got a suggestion- why don't you offer a 4+ version, based on Poser 4, not 5, with some little fixes that would be easy to do, like allow more than 255 folders in Poses, etc, maybe throw in a Raytrace or Firefly optional renderer and sell it for half the price of Poser 5 to newbees- then let them update to 5 later for the other half of the price. Sound like an idea? We really need some new blood.

I like your idea Jim. :)

Glad to hear something from CL, however tongue in cheek in may seems. "financially stable". I'll try this one with my banker next time I'm broke. On the positive side, I think it would be time for Poser to allow plug ins to be developped by third parties. It could become modular and you'd buy separates add-ons that would suit your work (I never do any animations for instance, but I'd invest a bag of bucks to get a really user-friendly interface or a cloth room working with no frames...) Just ideas. Compiler

Well its not good news that people are being laid off- the same thing happened to me using the excuse of 9/11 while the company I worked for raked in record profits for 4 straight consecutive quarters. But I digress... Poser, almost single handedly brought 3D modeling to the masses. In the very early days of Poser 1 and 2, before it became a mainstream hit, before Renderosity and DAZ, even before Zygote was involved, thre were very few modeling art sites, even fewer places to buy quality models online, and when you found them you could expect to pay vast sums for them. In fact, the Zygote human models that later became our beloved Posette and Dork were priced as single skin meshes in the HUNDREDS of dollars. So we can thank Poser for bringing this hobby down to the level where many could afford it. No matter what happens in the future, Poser has definitely made its mark in the art world. I wish CL, and everyone, good luck in these difficult economic times. Jim's idea of an enhanced P4 sounds GREAT.

An enhanced Poser 4 would RULE!!! For Mac OS X too. ;) Forget the older MAC OS' and anything below Windows '98. :P Save that money and time and make a solid program update for fewer os'. People will upgrade when given no choice.

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Hear-Hear! on JB's idea.

And while I saw you just addressed this, just a suggestion -- although the "Team" thing may be appropriate for Press releases, in here it's a little standoffish. We've become accustomed to knowing who it is that's actually speaking to us.

Even if it's just signed by Sally the temp from the secretarial pool who says she was asked to post this by some disembodied committee, it's comforting to see a real person's sig on the post.

IMHO, it was one of the real PR charms of the former "team".

Good idea, Jim. That's definitely worth looking at.

heyas; my question is this: if egisys is now only focussing on poser and poser-related stuff.... um, what are they ditching? excuse me for being poser-centric! :) that's like avatar lab and such? or is avatar lab a poser spin-off?

oops, i have another one. how come i can't find 'the announcement' anywhere on the curious labs site? it's a press release, ainnit?? or you just telling us, not anybody else? i'm so confused.

An enhanced P4 would be quite nice. Instead of Firefly per se, why not take FlyerX's work and expand on it - a plugin to export a .pz3 to POV-Ray (a very nice and free renderer), or, perhaps a way to incorporate POV-Ray into PPP? /P

Attached Link: http://www.egisys.de/

bloodsong: You can read about Egisys' business besides Poser on http://www.egisys.de/

Yeah well what about my 80286 PC running Win286! I've got 4MB in it and even a 20MB harddisk. And then there's my Commodore Vic64, (with cassette player) and the Amiga is here somewhere I think, and my Sinclair! Oh, and I want full support for transferring Poser files between the platforms too of course. Otherwise I'm NEVER buying a CL product again!!!!!! So there :] Fish

I have yet to see a 'financially stable company' lay people off. The company I work for has 57 billion in debt, they call it an 'overall stategy' too when they lay us off. Good luck Coop.

After thinking about it, the Raytrace/Firefly renderer in Poser 4 Plus wouldn't be such a good idea, perhaps, the the improved export capability sure would be. There are alot of easly fixable stuff that could be done without adding yet more bugs, or taking years to code- for example, how about letting the user set the interface colors, that should be an hours work for somebody who knows the code. I also should have added, of course- and sell it to existing P4 users for $39.95 (or so). I'd buy it in a second!

Jim, Along the same line, I would suggest that they charge something for the pro-pack external app plugins (max, lw, cinema4d). I know people won't like having to pay for them, but at least then they would have more of an incentive to keep the plugins up-to-date and working. Also, Poser should have a free third-party sdk so plugins can be developed for it( Most 3D apps do). -Mark

well, now that we're finally fixing Poser 4 after a couple of years...how about making the dial text readable...I hate using that XP magnifying app....that's all I want :) Where do I find your annual report, CL ??

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together.
All things connect......Chief Seattle, 1854

Guys, If you want a human representative, an individual, a "face" from the company in here... may I suggest that you NOT demand it, especially with your other demands for changes? How about asking nicely, along with the reasons why this is a good idea for the company? CuriousLabs has never been a large company. Most of the interaction on these forums has come from the personal time of the employees, because they cared enough to come in here on evenings and weekends to answer questions and help where possible. There are now fewer employees, and their time is even more critically needed to keep Poser going. If somebody from the company wants to come in here and provide the necessary presence, that person will have to get permission to speak for the company and will probably have to justify the time allotment. Time is valuable. A good employee is valuable. At this juncture, I think that persuasion and reason will be most influential. Carolly

Jim's idea is great - fix all those little niggling bugs in P4 like the side view cameras that don't pan properly and the non-nestable folder system. Leave the rendering exactly as it is on the basis that people who want good renders will export to another app (even P5!). I would buy it for sure.

Whenever I have problems with Windows, I just call Bill (or Fluff Butt as I call him in private) Gates and he fixes it right away. His private number is in the I386Private folder on your Winows CD along with the nude pics of the Windows development team. Great company If they won't let you see them naked, don't buy their product.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=928840

Poser 4+ could work, an maybe even sell (!) but has anyone considered THIS concept?

see link

Good to see Curious Labs posting here, even better to see what, on the face of it, is a positive statement. I agree wholeheartedly on the "human face" of an individuals Sig e.g.: Anne (CL EMployee) and have seen company after company change from the inhuman "team" approach to more individual, accountable signatures in cusytomer relations.. it "feels" odd - maybe even worrying - to see CL going in the other direction. At the same time, showing official presence (perhaps by "CL Employee" after the name, or similar) could help avoid confusing employees and users. Cheers, and somewhat cheered at the news of a SR3 (even without guestimate date), Cliff Bowman (user)

To the Curious Labs Team: No offense, but I personally don't care who you are, what your names are or what you look like. Please just do a good job with Poser. Thank you. PS: I never met anyone from Adobe either, but I'm very happy with their products and will continue to buy them.

Everyone I've spoken to from CL either publicly or privately has always been polite/friendly, heck they're a damn nice crowd of people & I really will miss the personal touch they brought to the poser experience.

I am sorry to learn of the layoffs at CL. I agree with Thorne's comments that Poser allowed the masses (myself very much included) to enjoy 3D graphics like no other app before it. For that I am greatful and I showed my support by upgrading to P5 asap. I think P5 is a great application. Sure, I moan about this and that, but overall, it's worth every buck. Just think how much we pay for a single "object" (model) and compare that with the price of P5. P5 is a good deal now that SR2.1 has been released. I am sorry to learn that CL is "financially stable" which if I'm not very much mistaken means "still broke". I hope things become more unstable in a positive way soon. I hope that an SR3 release will do that. What would be even better would be a new self installing version on CD (including SR3) That, I would be prepared to pay a few bucks for. Best wishes Team CL, I hope things improve soon.

I like Jim's idea. Poser 4+ would be.... er.... how can I put this?..... sort of like Poser FIXED! Or is that asking too much? If it does come out, I'll buy it and sell my shrink-wrapped, unopened, uninstalled Poser 5. (Assuming I can find a buyer) mac

This is going to be interesting.

Hmmmm, I tend to agree with Carolly (#67) - give it a bit of time, it'll probably come good all by itself (when not demanded)... Regarding the comments about 4.++++ - hell guys, I bought Poser 5 as a first-time user, and sure, I've experienced crashes and problems along the way, but there are a lot of VERY good features in it. It frustrated me a lot to set up a scene and then see the render crash (not to mention other problems like collision detection), but there are workarounds for some of the problems (like lights - if the scene is a little bit complex, then the lights should all be set for render, not displacement mapping. O.K. it shouldn't be necessary, but if I buy paints and brushes, and don't get the results that I want, then I work with the tools that I've got. And P5 can give good results, if one is willing to work with the tools and their limitations...) ok, just my 2 cents' worth

P.S. I'm a hair fan......