Oof. 

That's gonna suck. 

No hope for a Linux version either, I presume. :(

"If you mean Poser, there's no technical investment in Poser to support V4. It's just a figure, it works like other figures."

Well gee, I'm soooo glad to be informed of that! I mean, I was only there, at DAZ, as one of their employees, when Victoria 4 was developed and released. How I never knew this info you just now supplied is astounding! I mean, wow - maybe they should put you in charge!
(/facepalm)

Okay, snark aside, since you probably didn't know, let me elaborate a bit on what I was suggesting, since a lot wasn't picked up in translation... I forget that most of the heavy nuts-n-bolt users who would've understood what I shot off offhand have left long ago (or literally died.) I'll try to be a bit more descriptive and to break it down more next time - that's on me.

So, that said:

Vicky 4.1 is the most widely used figure in Poser, even today. I defy anyone to prove otherwise. Given this, the fine folks at Poser can potentially license it, re-vamp it so that it bends better (and morphs better) but wears the same stupendous quantity of clothing, materials and accessories out there, maybe toss in a script to update the materials automatically (DAZ does this in DS to update all default materials to Iray w/ some decent default Iray-specific settings to fill in the gaps, for instance).

The alternative? Ignore it entirely, but this time invest more than just some outside commission work into the in-house figures (or, see next response below...)

"That's LH and LF. But to create a sufficient volume of content, they need 3rd party creators to be making some of it, and so far that's limited."

Yeah, that ain't working. At all. Bondware is gonna have to bite the bullet and hire a couple of full-time content-makers, full-stop. You only attract talent when talent is present. Nobody wants to take risk and put in that kind of work unless they can see a reward for it - especially freelancers.

You see, here's the dilly -  DAZ makes (and buys/commissions!) a lot of their own content. Tons of it. For them, DS began as an afterthought, so they already had (and have) a content ecosystem that seeds the 3rd-party content flow very nicely.

Bondware needs to do the same - ASAP.

"There's a plug-in in the market for that. So you can use Poser that way if you want."

Well, sorta. There's a disturbing lack of a published official SDK. No scripting documentation that I can see. No Poser Dev forum. A handful of scripts (mostly Python lash-ups) in the Marketplace. Most of the addons and plugins are for DAZ Studio. What you mention may well exist, but not in any obvious way to invite devs or scripters. (Meanwhile at DAZ, I can d/l the SDK for free, and contact a dedicated dev or C/S agent there who can help me work through the uglier bits if I get stuck - as long as I have something workable, natch. Hell, there's even a couple of githubs out there with a zillion samples.)

Dude, I promise, I'm not trying to bust your chops (too much) here - but if Poser is to survive, some things should happen that I'm not seeing.

I don't claim to have the answers, but I do know what works. Been in this biz for just over 3 decades now... but it's not my show to run, and I'll be retired soon enough. 

Dude, my avatar is still a Michael 2 figure. I use SubD and Iray to keep the textures updated and fresh. :D

Just some Devil's Advocate bits...

1. V4 was released in 2005. Either license it and use it as a basis for something new, or just let it die.

2. The only realistic way to get Genesis figures (and ALL of their goodies including Geografts) working on Poser w/o some massive and complex hit-or-miss process? Either license it from DAZ, or build a bridge script/app to export it from DAZ (because DAZ can't do a consistent FBX export to save its arse. Sorry, but them's the facts.) Given this, it's IMHO best to focus on improving what you got (and this is coming from a guy who has almost 2TB of DS-specific stuff.)

3. Yes, there have been attempts to make new Poser-compatible characters since V4. IMO, an effort by Bondware to make more morphs, variable characters, and accessories (and let's be honest here - naughty bits) for their flagship figures would boost things by a lot.

4. Dunno if the render engines in Poser utilize the GPUs, but if not, they should at least include one that does. Cuts render times down to mere minutes, often seconds.

5. In spite of everything I've said in the past, I want to give one last bit of advice that points to where the puck will be - Bondware should use Poser as a front-end for something like a Stable Diffusion and/or a Sora - basically the user creates and sets up the character, clothing, etc - with each element of the scene converted into a LoRA, and the poses in it being a guide that AI in turn uses to help make the final image. Something like that anyway... I say this because in spite of all the disdain for "AI Slop", AI can be a useful part of the workflow w/o being the entire workflow... incorporating Poser (or DS) with it (or vice-versa with homebrew LLMs, etc) would reduce the 'slop' factor at least.

Dude... you were one of the Real Ones. 

It's sad to see you hanging it up, but 'All Good Things' is the way of the universe. 

Thank you for doing what you've done - quietly, continually, for all this time.

As for vendors? Back in the old days if we wanted something but couldn't find or afford it, we cracked open a mesh-jacking app suite and built it ourselves. We screwed up a lot, and most of it came out looking fugly... but we learned, and occasionally we made some cool stuff that looked pretty when we tossed it in a scene or on a character. If we weren't too embarrassed by it (or simply had no shame), we parked it on Free Stuff so that other people can download it, play with it, expand it, improve it, etc.

Maybe foster that kind of community again, and you won't rely so much on vendors?

Nota Bene: Daz Studio was first developed in 2001-2002, and DS v1.0 was initially released in October of 2005 - long before Poser 7 came out. The reason DAZ did it had more to do with survival in an uncertain time** than it did with being evil or whatever. Along the way, they found lots and lots of neat features and UI enhancements to pack into it.

I will posit that it isn't just Poser at risk these days, though.

Apps like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and even Grok on X(!) are rapidly becoming better at making visual art these days. Each passing month makes it less "AI Slop" and more 'art'. My Boomer in-laws use Midjourney and make pin money off of it these days, FFS. Put this way: The moment an AI app comes along that can make a character which doesn't have 38 fingers, has the exact same visual looks and environments through a series of comic panels, can be done under different artistic styles (photoreal, manga sketch, celshaded toon, etc), and most importantly, doesn't require writing a novel-length prompt to create? The moment that happens, Poser is doomed. DS is doomed. I daresay even Blender will be doomed.

But... today is not (yet) that day.

Also, any or all of them can adapt and incorporate AI to make something that lets you create a unique figure/object, then let AI fill in the animation, poses ("pose this figure like the dude in this picture, rotate 90 degrees on the X-axis..."), movement, etc. The first one that does it without exploding will make a killing.


** I say "survival" because Poser swapped hands from one shaky company to the next, demanded that DAZ pay insane license fees to use dynamics and face-room stuff in Poser 5 if you used V3/Aiko/Stephanie/Laura, etc. it was a fairly turbulent time. 

I remember the contests - I also remember not participating in any of them (not out of malice, mind - just that I'm lazy.) infinity10 called it, though - they did a site overhaul a long time back now; this wiped out old links, old/inactive accounts, and similar havoc. 

It happens, and the more years that pass, the greater the data loss. Unless you archive it on local disks, have local backups, and periodically checksum while you transfer the stuff to new media every couple of years? It'll disappear. As far as CG stuff, put it this way: I'd have an easier time finding old crap I posted on USENET back in the 1990s than I would finding old stuff I posted here (or DAZ, etc) but didn't have a local copy of.

Seriously - archive your stuff locally. If it wasn't for having local copies, everything I ever posted to PoserPros, 3D Commune, etc would've been lost to the ether at least a decade ago. Same with a lot of stuff that contentparasite used to sell, such as the NearMe figure.

Food for thought.

Try using Compatibility Mode to install it (English only, sorry): https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001894.htm 

You can go as far back as XP (or even further) if memory serves.

"Do you still use Poser? Where can I see your art? :)"

I tend to keep to myself these days art-wise, mostly sharing with family...

I stopped using Poser awhile back, and went exclusively DS awhile ago (disclosure for those who are newer: I was on the dev team that launched DS v1.0, and wrote the entire user manual for it. I still used Poser until around 2013 or so.) That said, I 100% do not hate Poser. Indeed, I'm hoping it makes a comeback, if only to keep DAZ on their toes - it needs it these days. I'll go one further - make a Linux-native version of Poser and a flexible-enough (morphs/topography, not joints) model or two for it, and I'll buy it immediately, in spite of having way over a TB of DS content. After all, I still do use NearMe, V4 (though not near as much these days), and lots of other figures that were made specifically for the old-school Poser. I also don;t really bother with Genesis 9 or with things like dForce, since they eat more time and computing power than I'm willing to spend. Update NearMe with a better-bending mesh atop that, and I'm all in (I know, I know - licensing issues, etc.)

I criticized the crap out of Poser throughout the years, sure - but I did it out of tough love. Well, that and watch the sub-IQ cultists lose it in response, but mostly because of the the love part.

Sorry about whining over folks that have died... just that I remember the long convos in DMs (and even phone calls and physical visits.) I miss the trailbusters - folks who would post outrageous stuff to the galleries, just because. Stuff that forced you to think. Out-of-the-ordinary stuff. Stuff that wasn't yet another NVIATWAS (if you know, you know. example: I once built a DS sample plugin that produced a NVIATWAS scene that was ready-to-render; it was done to show 3rd-party vendors how to use the C++/carbon DS API to build UI elements, but I wanted it to actually do something. Nobody had a sense of humor about the temple background being a pic of the LDS Temple in Salt Lake City, though - so that had to change...)

You know? I just hope Sean Martin is still alive - it'd be rather fun to torque him up at least one more time (evil grin.)

Midinick,

If you purchased the item from DAZ, it should still be sitting in your Product Library, just that it will have "(inactive)" next to the name. The DSON version -should- be part of it as well. 

(Seriously, I got stuff I purchased way back in the Paleozoic Era, and I can still download it anytime.)

It's the end of an era, really. 

I still have the Vue 4 install media and serial.

Yep - backups are your best friend. Almost 25 years' worth of stuff, and you bet your sweet {insert beast of burden here} that I have multiple backups, all of which run by Task Scheduler and/or cronjob - to external drives, and to external servers (I have an Intel NUC on my home network, rigged with a couple of very fat USB3 hard drives that pulls backups from critical network shared folders on our devices every night - the NUC and drives are in a ventilated box. In an emergency, I can grab the box and go, and have all my stuff. The time delay is in case someone's laptop gets compromised by malware, then I can disconnect the NUC and keep the data safe.)

Yep - after a couple of very close calls over the years, I'm kinda paranoid about that sort of thing.

I didn't know that a passing interest in what I thought was a tool to help make better sprites and levels for twitch games would become a near 25-year hobby. 

I say this with amazement, happiness, and a touch of sadness. The latter because I can see AI transcending the use of the tools that I can now use by muscle-memory, and a time where all these investments over the years become as so much dust...