Well, we need to see what Poser12 is like before we can throw too much mud at Poser/Bondware, but it would be good if we had at least an inkling that Poser12 was in avid development and new things would be coming soon in addition to bug-fixes.

Heck, why not have a system similar to that which Unity has for users to report issues and vote for feature requests. Why not a public roadmap? Or a declaration of intent for the focus of the future of Poser? I've kind of almost stopped using Poser as I personally do not believe Bondware will make a Mac version of Poser12, especially an Apple Silicon / ARM version.

Poser has unfortunately always been full of bugs. I spent many months using Poser in the 1990s creating many animations and compositing them in After Effects. Some of the bugs present then are still present!

Daz3D has the "adult" renderers on board down with the best "adult" content and those users I suspect will account for a lot of content purchases. My personal main area of interest is primarily horror (zombies etc) and I have to admit the genesis content available in those types of genres is far better than Poser content.

There's a lot of nice content for Daz3D and most people would rather not pay for a program. It's the world we live in. Especially given that Poser comes with so much ancient low-quality content. Software is all free or subscription-based, just look at mobile gaming, games are free but you have to buy in-game content: this is the scenario that Daz saw coming and took advantage of.

I find Daz3D a horrible program to use, so have barely touched it given Poser is so intuitive. I'm the sort of person who would rather pay for a better program but I feel rather alone with that preference.

Maybe Bondware should pay someone to create a duf plugin if they can't do it themselves. It's either chase genesis compatibility (which I can't see happening) or carve out their own niche, but what is that niche without content? As it stands Poser needs to leap-frog DAZ somehow to survive. I suspect Bondware doesn't have pockets deep enough to fund enough content-creators to create content for the newer Poser figures to sustain Poser long term.

Instead of Genesis/Duf support, one thing that could make a massive difference for Poser would be the ability to re-use V4 content on LF (skin textures and clothes/props). However, this would need to work in conjunction with a system that auto fits skins, clothes and props to the underlying figure with no poke-through ever. ever.

Poser has a history of implementing half decent features that get neglected and unused as they are not as easy to use as the original base Poser program. e.g. the Hair room, why did this not ship with a host of templates hairstyles set to go? the animation features; has anyone tried to make their own walk or crawl cycle themselves manually in Poser? Or a fight sequence?

Now if Poser12 had a new system where a figure had actual bones, cartilage, muscles, and skin on top etc. so muscles could flex and ripple, skin could be layered and tear, lips could tremble, tears could fill eyes, and blood could flow from wounds all with the hyper-realism and the ease of use Poser has always had then we might be in business, but thinking a slightly better version of the technology that has been out for decades will see Poser keep kind-of working for an ever-dwindling audience in amateur circles.

The newsletters that get sent out "showcase" what can only be termed as work that wouldn't have impressed in the 1990s.

Poser is capable of lovely renders, I particularly used to like using the Reality plugin as it had such good results with minimal fuss or learning curve. Bondware should show-case good work in their newsletters, but I guess it's too few and far between.