In other words, proprietary.

Cars have built in obsolescence, Computers,TVs, toasters, refrigerators, ipads, ipods, iphones, etc.  No one wants to build anything nowadays that will continue to work with the old stuff. 

We used to have AGP slots for video cards, then we went to the old PCI with a change in the pinouts, then to PCI=E, then PCI-Express 1.0, then PCI-2.0, etc.  Each new requirement in the video card plugin slot means people must buy new motherboards, new processors, new video cards, etc.   

So.. apparition you don't have a chance.  It is the built in obsolescene we all deal with on a daily basis.  Worst part of it is, you can't fix it, repair it or tweak it.  It must be replaced completely.

I suspect there is one thing you can count upon the animation developers are going to push their applications in the future to updated content items, which they sell.  They have found a mutual fit for their applications.  If you as a content developer don't get with the program... you won't be in the program.  You will not be able to post content for sale and have it work within the applications as in the past. Everything is going to be driven to newer and newer things, regardless of the need.

I would suggest you bite your tongue and find a way to facilitate your content to those application developers.  Your uniqueness has been an outstanding feature of your content, but you must always strive to be a good fit with the animation applications for whom you produce content.

This is my opinion only.  I appreciate all your outstanding work and will continue to use apparition content.  When I was a soccer coach I always told the boys,  there is nothing fair, you make your own breaks, and always have to do your best, even when the other team has a 12th man on the field (referee).

If products become inoperable within a major release cycle going from 5.0 to 5.x, something is seriously wrong. That is not progress, just bad development. The approach to make products just non-functional to solve problems in the software is not the way to go.

Many innovations have been brought forth by third-party developers, so it is in nobody's interest to obstruct their work. We wouldn't want them to stop pushing the limits.

This is not first time I have seen and experienced first hand this kind of thing.

The core developer always has the upper hand, especially if you are dependent up on the core developer's work.

It doesn't seem right, but it is the way it is. :sick:

As long as it is a little buggy.. we can expect things to change that may not be popular.

I'm a fan of Apparition, so don't read anything negative into my posting.  I have compassion and I am concerned.  The problem is... I can't do a darn thing about it. :w00t:

If enough people complain, then we might get somewhere.

Mike has a point, it is quite frustrating to introduce innovative products to find out afterwards that they no longer work with iClone. I had this very same issue just recently with my Genie and its wiggling tail for the Pinhead Movie. I have since provided a fix to a few users who encountered the same issue but I would have preferred that iClone kept the compatibility as in my case, it was not armfull since it was impossible for the user to do anything that would cause iClone to crash...

Generally speaking, being able to add extra bones controller objects skinned to a standard character is a powerful thing. Perhaps the Reallusion solutions would have been simply to disallow detaching of controllers and the saving of separate body parts when such condtion is encountered. :cool: 

It is not too late :)

However, the real solution is to allow for saving the skeleton and skin information with all body parts regardless of the skeleton structure !!! :cool:

Cheers :)