Let me take a moment to clear up a few things on Paolo’s behalf (with the round the clock coding for Reality 3, he can’t be in every thread at once…though he manages to pop in all of them at some point LOL)
RCT-Spanky - 15 August 2012 11:48 AM
To wait until the Beta release moved into a final release is on one point okay.
On the other side it’s not good, that Paolo left the Daz-Users, who created the current status of Reality, in the rain. With the release of the latest version of Reality for DS we get in the beginning nearly every week an update to fix problems and I think, that this kind of support could also work with DS 4.5.
No one is being “left out in the rain” - Paolo has stated the following in numerous threads, here, on Rendo & RDNA:
Reality 2.5, with compatibility for Daz Studio 4.5 is complete, and awaiting the final Studio 4.5 public release.
We are currently on Release Candidate3 for D|S 4.5. To avoid needing to chase problems & quirks with every change, Reality 2.5 won’t see the light of day until D|S 4.5 is officially locked & out. I think this is the best strategy, especially since he is evolving the program to it’s next phase with Reality 3. Better to focus on that than chase RC issues with Studio.
larsmidnatt - 15 August 2012 02:00 PM
In the long term it would not be surprising if Daz users lost his attention though. If the poser plugin sells substantially better I don’t see us getting any love. As long as we get 2.5 for 4.5 when it is finalized I’ll probably be ok though. Would be nice if we got continued support though.
Paolo has given the following release schedule for Reality 3: The Poser version will be released at some point in November. Reality 3 for Daz Studio will be released at some point in January 2013, a couple months after the Poser release. He has been insistent that the Daz Community is the entire reason for the tremendous success of Reality, and many of the expansions to Luxrender itself. He has no plans to leave anyone behind, regardless of any business changes that have gone on between him & Daz. We, the user base are still at the forefront, and the reason Reality continues to evolve. The advances he has made in order to bring Reality to Poser are going to benefit all Reality users in the long term, and apparently open many new doors for where Reality can & will go in the future.
I just want to make sure the truth is out there & no one runs on any tangents or rumors based on whatever. I’m sure Paolo will pop here at some point to back up my statement, but you can search The Reality threads here, on Rendo, RDNA, or his own site at Pret-a-3d.com, to stay up to date with Reality 2.5 / 3 developments 