Man, sometimes I really think things are weirder than they look. Listen to this: I have been using poser 4 pro pack, and poser 4 before, with win "darn" 98 for over 2 years. Until recently it has sailed smoothly, so to speak, for what I am about to tell you defies all logic and all I know about poser... Had all the MATs installed, do this, do that, freezes on a huge map render, well your basic hassle. Then some time ago, pro pack upon loading a MAT, started asking me about a missing *.bum file. Well, so far this is news to me. It had untill then happily accepetd the classical *.jpg file with no problems whatsoever.And this along with the classical routine: "...do you want to look for other missing files?" > "no" > the darn wait...like hours...and then again the same pop up...man, at this time my brain is twisting in frustration. I look in the materials window...the *.jpg bump map file is loaded... I assign it to the *.obj and its ok...for a while. The old routine...defrag hard disk drives, the problem remains...this along with crashes, freeze ups, exiting poser and everything freezes all of a sudden...for instance, millenium dragon?...I cant even make it blink...my machine just stops cold... Ok unistall poser pro pack, reistall it again...LOL...pathetically, that is...everything remains the same...Pro pack doesnt even transform my *.jpg bump mats in *.bum files. Ok, install poser 4 in another directory, by itself, so I can at least change *.jpgs in *.bum files. Ok...its working...ask for a *.bum file...asign a *.jpg, "want to convert it to *.bum?" > "yess...(oh Pleeeeaaase...prety pleeeaaase)..." there you go...rough ride, but its working... ...When suddenlly.... Poser 4 asks for the *.bum file...I go to the materials window, assign the figure a *.jpg file, and instead of asking me as per routine if I want to convert it to a *.bum file (since as far as we know, poser 4 sans PP doesnt use *.jpgs as bump maps)...lo and behold it not only doesnt ask that, but uses the *.jpg file AS IT IS, as a bump map. It comes at 100% as in the default settings all exagerated...for it to work, weirdly but working at least, I have to reduce it to 20%, but it is somehow...how shall I put it...unsound. A *.bum file at 100% works just fine...that is until I exit the program...for upon closing, the computer goes into freeze mode where even the all classic CTrL/Alt/Del wont work having to reboot the machine. Now, go figure...as far as I know...blame it all somehow on the OS...(and please, mackers, dont tell me to buy a Mac...I dont know what it is...:P.) So my last stand...at this time is to install a: A- the same and only crap that is win 98se, or B- another crapy OS like win Xp or 2000, whatever... There you go...ranting zone 2...but I at least was party to a weird tale...Thanks for reading... Any opinions? BTW, my machine is a PIII, 800mhz with 524 mb of ram and 32mb of video board.

Not weird at all... I have to go thru this routine every time I load in a "bump" map. If the file is for P4 or/either PP, it wants to know where it is or if I want to continue to look for it. What ticks me is, if it can not find the damn file or says the the file is missing, why dose it load it in anyway? Hu? Hu?

Youre right on the spot there B...Things we have to live with I guess...

Youre right on the spot there B...Things we have to live with I guess...

Actually all I can offer is that changing OS won't help. It's all poser's fault. I've got xp pro now and as a good a system as could reasonably be expected by the people who make these programs. Still have the same trouble. What Poser needs is the programming equiv. of a door stopper, so that it doesn't eat up all the memory every time it can't find something. That problem used to be even worse in poser 4 when a pz3 file couldn't find a map, it just froze every time. For me anyway...