Sure this is supposed to be in that sr-2.1 forum, but that forum seems to be caught in a loop.

What's the bottom-line scoop on Poser 5?

I quit downloading poser 5 updates some time ago.
I use Poser 4 in my work - something semi-dependable, and since I use poser kind of like traditional artists of yesteryear used those little wooden mannikens to arrange pose and composition and then do my own thing in Painter and PhotoShop, I don't need the hassle of fiddling with quirky software.

To most of us, time is $$... so when (if ever) I get a notice that P5 is up and running as it is supposed to be, I'll use something that keeps me productive.

After installing SR-2.1 I've had no real problems at all... the only thing close to a problem I've had to far is not having enough RAM for some of the things I've tried to do, but that's more my trying to push my computer farther than it's supposed to go...

I have no major problems in with Poser 5.2.1 but I don't do animation or use the p5 hair room. Most of my stuff is exported renders to PSP, Painter, or models exported to Lightwave 7.5. There are still some that even with sr2.1 poser 5 doesnt work shrug

I've got 2.1, enough memory and a fast enough box, but I honestly can't be bothered with P5 or the learning curve that goes with it anymore. Global lighting in either isn't much different, and P4 is just so much faster. Perhaps once it's better understood... later jb

I use it, have a few minor problems, and it sort of stutters annoyingly at times, but the material application and being able to organize the files make it worth it for me at least.

Works for me. The stability issues on my system have almost completely vanished with the updates. Your mileage may vary, etc.

The Walk Designer is a bit flakier than P4's; I still can't turn off the Figure Circle permanently with General Preferences; and reflective surfaces don't reflect anything behind the camera ... but otherwise I have no complaints.

You should definitively try SR2.1, a lot of users are quite happy with it. If it doesn't work for you, feel free to send bug reports, they might get fixed in SR3 then.

I didn't try Poser 5 till SR2.1-- V3 came out and no way I could get all her 30 folders into my already crammed PropPack libraries. So I had to switch. It's been pretty good. I haven't tried a two person render yet. I've used the hair room-- to adjust ready made hair-- the materials room and I render in FireFly. That's it. I never did animations and I haven't seen the tutorial that worked for me in the clothroom. With only that, I like it better than Poser4-- it's marginally more stable. You cannot cancel if you are rendering to a larger window-- that's a known bug. It is slower but not that much slower and on the whole crashes less than Pro Pack which would crash once a day every day. Emily

You've already got the product. So the best thing I can advise is to download the last patch, apply it, and see how it works for you. If it works great, then use P5, but keep P4 intact (just in case). Its not like you can get your money back or any other form of satisfaction. I use P5 with SR2.1 and am relativly happy with it. Sure, there are still problems, but it is usable in a couple of major features which make it worthwhile to me, Materials and Setup. Both of these two features are getting used daily. The face room, hair room, and cloth room either have a bad interface that my eyes can't use (face), or are either too slow or buggy. I'm waiting on the SR3 patch to see if there are any improvements (if there is one). There are still problems with memory management, but that has improved a lot with SR2.1. As for the Beta Forum: Close it down. We get no news there anymore, most of the beta testers are discouraged, and while CL looks like its making a small bit of an attempt there, there's nothing new about testing or the new patch. I still check it once every couple of days, but its really dead on it's feet. I don't bother to report any bugs anymore since we have never gotten a complete bug list from CL, or a list of the things they're addressing in the new patch.

A close friend of mine who worked for years for LucasArts as a tester claims if you've been working without a complete bug list-- you've really not been testing at all. For that matter if there was no overall Test plan, there was never any hope of finding root causes and/or major fixes. I was so hoping that at least in the beta forum, you had a complete bug list. I thank all of you for the major discovery work on SR 2.1, because, without it, I'd be sol for Poser 5 and I couldn't take the library mess anymore on ProPack. And quirky though it is, I like FireFly. And I'm getting to adore the materials room. Like you the other ones are mostly locked and barred-- I curl hair occasionally but I never make it from scratch. Emily