Two things that seem to happen a lot in Poser (p4 + pro pack) that are getting in the way: 1. The curosr will switch to the 'color' tool for no reason, even if I have switched to the rotate or translate tool before. 2. The current figure will change for no reason, so I end up applying a pose or working on the wrong figure by accident. Sometimes you can undo it, sometimes you can't. Add to that my recent discovery than animated poses aren't saved if the hip doesn't move (even when other IK parts are manipulated) and I am questioning whether it is time to move up the CG foodchain and learn how to rig bones etc in a more sophisticated program (C4D, Maya etc). Ease of use has been Poser's strongest asset but I'm running up against some real limitations the further I get in.

Suppose this is a stupid question but are all of your updates installed including any OS updates? Never had this happen in Pro Pack. Marque

I should have said but yes, all patches, plenty of cpu and ram, disk space, XP with service packs etc. I've noticed the cursor change for a long time actually, maybe even before I had the pro pack. I'm already using C4D for rendering, now I wonder if it's worth biting the bullet and learning how to rig the bones and animate in there as well.

I've had some Poser wierdness on my new system lately too, I think it may have to do with my processors overheating (~160 deg. F) What happens is, when I make a single change in the material editor on one particular texture group of an object or figure (color/tex/bump/trans/refl)...the change applies to all parts of the figure or object. I have found this extremely annoying, but I've found that if I let my computer cool down a bit then try again, it works like its supposed to. So maybe yours is temperature related too. Evo

"I wonder if it's worth biting the bullet and learning how to rig the bones and animate in there as well." its worth trying so you can see how easy poser is to use ;o) boning in any app i've tryed is a nightmare LOL....Steve

Just a suggestion, ignore it if it's too obvious: make sure the 'texture changes apply to entire figure' box is unchecked when you go into the material editor.

It used to happen to me on Pro Pack too-- I think it depends on how sensitive your mouse is set. I kept getting color can when I wasn't using any tools. Whole set went pepto bismol pink once-- that was disgusting. It doesn't happen to me in Poser 5-- maybe slowness in reacting is a benefit here.:))) I still get the changes of model often so I always check before applying. Emily

I get that curser change thing after I have opened another app while poser is running Widows Explorer for example, when you return to poser the curser is always the eyedropper.

I have found that this also happens when your tool bar is located under a window or overlay - poser reads the mouse clicks onto your workspace even though you are clicking in a different layer or another application which just happens to be over (covering) your Poser tools.

The colour tool is activated by pressing the windows key, for example WIN + E for explorer etc.