DAZ Studio 4 has Updated 4.5

[jaf]

It definately works and is great for background characters but as soon as you get close enough to see them properly people are going to know it's Daz.

Much of what you say is true, but what are the alternatives?  Sure, you can model your own characters to make them look more realistic, but at what cost (time?) 

I remember this being argued on the Lightwave forum.  Cameras, pens, brushes can all generate porn.  I agree a big part of DAZ/Poser is on the porn side maybe MakeHuman will suffice, but it will probably wind up with a negative (porn) too if it becomes popular. 

[Andrew March]

There really isn't much of an alternative to background characters but if you want them up close you really need to model them yourself.

[otakar]

What I really want at this point is a tool where I can create an organic character (human, animal) and pose it. Then export for use in TG (not as a focus point but to fill a scene and help it come alive). I don't care if the hair looks realistic from a meter away. It has to be believable from maybe a hundred meters away. The resulting objects cannot be too high poly, as I will need lots of them (ideally) in a scene.

The whole process needs to be fast and repeatable. From what I've seen clothing and other character components can be obtained for free and Victoria 4 (for example) is free. I will have to dive into it to determine if it is worth the effort. Anybody with experience here other than Andrew?

[cyphyr]

The only issue with poser and daz models when used at a distance is since the rigging is built is the posing can be a little problematic. Getting a real, relaxed, natural pose can be a chore.

There was an app about  a while back, (Crowdgen?) that would export multiple (slightly differing in pose and texture) models to make distant crowd scenes. Don't know what happened to it.

Cheers

Richard