Visit Curious Labs' website, and you'll come away with the impression that this is one of the most wonderful programs ever written.However, visit one of the many forums where poser users exchange view, and you'll get a rather different impression. Before the release of the patches, you could have been forgiven for thinking the program had more bugs than working features. Even in its current heavily patched state, it leaves a lot to be desired.
I wanted to like this program. I've been using Poser since version 3. The product *is* usable for most people (once you download the 48 or so Megs of patches from the CL website). And it does some amazing things. But it should never EVER have been released in such an unfinished state.
And now, to confuse things even more, there are all kinds of rumours and speculations about the future of CL - and their announcements that all is well leave many unconvinced, especially as so many of their best people have been 'let go'.
And then there's the major falling-out between CL and DAZ3D, who create and sell so many Poser figures - they've announced that they're working on a program of their own - a Poser substitute, if you will. It's odd that their latest flagship Poser Model (Victoria 3) seems to be the first not to be fully Poser compatable, and can give some major problems in P5 - hopefully this is just due to insufficent testing by DAZ, rather than to a little bit of Microsoft-style tactics.
For the price (and with the downloaded patches), you're still getting a product that is value for money. You won't get any thing that does so much for a similar price.
Or you might want to wait until the DAZ application appears, and compare the two as regards features and price.
I'm very sad to be writing such a lukewarm review. I've had a passionate love affair with this product, until version 5 arrived. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that CL hang in there, and write a few more patches.
