I've sent an email to Daz Tech, but since it's the weekend and I may not hear from Daz 'til Monday, I thought I would ask you guys on the forum for help in case there's an obvious solution to my woe. I'm having problems with several items, some of them are similar to the errors I had earlier this week with Elf_HairLE. The new errors are: 1) Michael 3 upgrade figures M3 Base, and M3 to M2 have rogue vertices (see picture)

Here's the M3 to M2 figure errors.

And here's another.... I also have problems with: 2) M3 Hi-Res Eye mats don't work, Poser behaves like texture maps are missing. 3) Clicking on Pose library, my computer freezes and crashes. 4) Texture converter program for Michael 3 is wrong when trying to convert the Michael 2 body texture to Michael 3 genitals. I use Poser 4 on a G3 Mac running OS 9.2. The Texture Converter program with Michael 2 and 3 plug-ins I used on a Windows machine. Thanks for any help you guys can offer. bB

The texture converter M3 plugin needs an update that is being worked on. Daz changed at the last minute so the converter for the genitals has to be updated. Probably soon as it is really not that much to do. I don't know about the other problems, sorry.

Are you aware of the 60 character limit problem with MAT files on Poser 4 for Mac? That could be causing the problem with the high-res eyes... in which case you'd have to shorten the filenames and edit the MATs in a text editor to update the pathnames, or wait for DAZ to update the files. Unfortunately, I'd be willing to bet that some of the other problems could be specific to the Mac versions of each product. (Not to say DAZ doesn't test their products, but as a Mac user I've run into the situation where PC users have no trouble, and the Mac version is corrupt... it happens.)

I don't have M3 yet myself, so I can't check the files on my Mac... I do hope you get them resolved though, usually they're pretty quick to offer a fix.

-Molly

In general, I'm a big fan of DAZ, but when it comes to the recent problems with the Mac versions of products, I get very frustrated. My V3Male pak file path name problems required many emails over many weeks before the product was fully useable. They cited an overwhelmed tech support as the cause of the long delay and gave me a nice voucher, but it just did not make sense to me that a corrected version should be so terribly difficult and time-consuming to produce....And my V3HiRes maps still have to be applied by hand due to small differences between the names Poser is searching for and the actual names on the files. And now with M3--surely they learned from V3 about file path name lengths?? I've decided to save myself some stress and not order M3 until just before the sale price ends, in hopes of getting a working Mac version, which is very frustrating for me as I see all the beautiful renders done with M3 on PCs :(

Not sure what the problem is because I am on a Mac and running the things fine. The Eye MAT's load fine. I havent touched the texture convertor yet (wish I could) and the pose library works fine. Maybe you got a bad download or a bad install? As for the V3 Maps I can tell you how to change them if you are still having trouble Patricia. It is really easy to do but may have to be localized on your computer since it reults in a slightly sloppier texture runtime. (That may be why they were loathe to do it, they like things neat and consistant). I am running M3 on a Mac with no problem at all though.

Ahhhh.... My mat woes are starting to make sense now. When trying to load ElfHairLE from the character library, Poser asked for a missing texture. It didn't display the full name, it dropped the "p" in "ElfHair_Tr01BackLengths.jpg" and replaced it with a blank square symbol.

I didn't know what the problem really was, I emailed Daz Tech twice. My first reply, they said to download the Update which I had not done to fix the Mat error. But after that, I still had a Mat problem and on top of that, I now had rogue vertices like the ones on M3 pictured above. I emailed them screen captures. One day later they said they understood what the problem was, and reworked the WoodElf for the Mac including the update. I just redownloaded it. They were pretty quick, so I'm happy camper. I bought WoodElf when DAZ was running the sell on M2 products, and since they were quick to fix the problem, it must have been that they really were overwhelmed when V3 come out Patricia. I imagine there were more shoppers for V3 than M2 sale items. Maybe it's going to take me a long, long time to get a M3 fix too, since M3 Mania is in full swing right now. sigh

Ghostofmacbeth, what OS are you using? I'm running 9.2. I understand OS X is supposed to allow more characters in file names, don't know if it applies to programs too. Can you share your sloppy method for fixing the character limit? =)

As far as I know, I'm the only person I've seen who is having "vertices on crack." And it's not just DAZ purchases that I had this problem with. It's happened once before. When I loaded the wonderful SAM3D's freebie Native American canoe, I had a polygon explosion in Poser. It was truly scary. I haven't emailed SAM3D about it because I figured it would be rude to say anything. 99.9% of his creations work just fine.

So it sounds like there are 2 separate problems I'm having:

1. the character limit on the Mac
2. and whatever it is that is causing vertices to go mad

I had no idea there was a 16 character limit. Thanks so much for sharing that info, Molly. I wonder if there's a way to add another feature to Poser Maconverter 1.1.6 that will auto fix the 16 character limit problem. There are programs like "SkinShrinker" and "Namer" that auto-convert objects for The Sims on the Mac. Surely such a program is possible for Poser too. As Mac users, we should ban together and create a lot a noise so a wonderful programer in shiny armor will come to our rescue. =)

That's a very generous offer--maybe you could do it here in the forum under a different thread name so that the other Mac people could learn to do it too :) It won't solve all the problems that BastBlack is having, but every little bit of knowledge helps with an app like Poser ;) I know that a number of folks have experienced the problem and I'll bet a lot of them are not knowledgeable enough about opening up files and changing things to risk screwing up and having to reinstall the product. I'd love to be able to use those MAT poses instead of hand-installing textures :D

About the texture converter, I was truly impressed watching it go. I spend so much time on texture making. I'm very attached to the textures I made for M2. So for me, it's worth having Texture Converter even though I don't own a Windows machine. LOL. I wonder if it will work in Virtual PC? bB

I like MAT poses instead of hand-installing textures too. =) bB

I am on 9.2 or something like that so that isn't the problem. The Elf Hair was a problem but I just shortened stuff and it worked well. The character limit should be fine on the eye MAT but in case they changed the Path at the last moment here is the fix. It also works for other files that have too long a path. You need a program such as BBEdit or something that can handle a lot o stuff. I used BBEdit Lite and it works fine and is free. Look at the runtime and the textures library .. I am just going to use this as an example. it is made up but I have something similar "Runtime:Textures:Xurge:Future:RoadWarrior:Parts:Really_Cool_Leather_Texture.jpg" Each of the colons is another folder. I am not sure if that string of nothing is more than 60 characters but lets say that it is. It it is the texture would stop at "Leath" and then would put some random gibberish for the last few letters. To fix this you move the Textures into the "Xurge" folder instead of having it in the sub folders. It adds to clutter and makes one big mess of stuff that may have troubles with things like "Eyes_Blue.jpg" from three different characters but you can rename them. Back to BBEdit. You take the path that is "Runtime:Textures:Xurge:Future:RoadWarrior:Parts:Really_Cool_Leather_Texture.jpg" and change it to "Runtime:Textures:Xurge:Really_Cool_Leather_Texture.jpg" and it should work as long as you check and make sure the name matches the file. I just do a find and change and then save it. It makes it a lot easier. Hope that helps and makes sense. Glen

Or you can just change the path to ":Really_Cool_Leather_Texture.jpg" and put it where ever you like in the Textures folder. It will take your Mac longer to find and load the texture but it works and you don't have to both change the path AND move the textures.

I have seen those and saw they worked but was never sure if it would do it regularly and had noticed it took a while longer ... Thanks for the info

I've been using the UTC on Virtual PC for a while without any trouble, but I did figure out a little trick that is necessary to make it work. Copy your Poser app, and rename the copy poser.exe so that UTC can find it, otherwise it won't convert things. :) It is worth the extra trouble I have to say, the converter's great for using textures on multiple figures.

As for the character limit on MATs, it really is a pain... I've spent hours renaming texture files and editing MATs in Word just to get things working. The sad fact of the matter is that most of the time merchants aren't going to be terribly helpful if you bring the problem to their attention, especially if their product is listed as "PC only" (Which is almost never true, but I understand why they do it.) The only time I've been willing to go to all the trouble fixing it myself is with products from Deviant Designs/sinsister, because they're just too gorgeous. Its a shame that every one of them has filenames that are too long for us Mac users.

It is true that Poser 5 on OSX solves this character limit problem, which is such a godsend. I've had a huge improvement in rendering time, product compatibility, and general reliability since upgrading to P5. I'm a big advocate of OSX, so the P5 upgrade was really a necessity for me despite the problems I knew of with the PC version.

I've been considering for a while now putting together a "Mac Resource" site for Poser users (P4 and P5), nothing flashy, just something that would collect tidbits like this one somewhere that other Mac users could find them easily. I'd also like to compile a list of merchants working with Macs which would hopefully encourage others to purchase from them, knowing that they can get some real tech help if they need it. ;)

If anyone has anything else they'd like to see put together, feel free to drop me an IM.

-Molly

I would just love to see a site with Mac/Poser tips :D It would be great, too, if an example could be shown--like a screen of the opened file (in the one above) with the text changes hi-lited--but I realize that's getting into Tutorial Territory and will require more work...I'd be very happy just to have the tips collected in one place!

Thanks for the tips on fixing MATS for Mac. I have OSX, installed it. Freaked on the freaky interface and on how slow it made my computer, and quickly reinstalled OS 9.2.2. LOL. I decided to pass on Poser 5 until it came out in a box and I get a hard copy of the manuel. I wish I could just buy and external harddrive, install OSX on it, set it as the startup disk, and just run the programs I need OSX for on it, which is a trick I've done before for difference OSes, but OSX starts rewriting your system folder and tried to overwrite OS 9.2. That really pissed me off. Anyhoo, here's some more fun screen captures from my desktop of woe:

Here's a nice bizarre one. I have never seen this one before:

And then there's this....

More morph shooting stars

That's wild! Maybe your computer is haunted.... ;) BTW, many of my problems with Poser4 subsided when I upgraded the OSX that came with my iMac to Jaguar OSX. In fact, I think it was Molly who suggested that I use that version. I had no problems with it overwriting anything (that I could see) and Poser runs so much better :)))

I'm trying to get comfortable with OS X so I can use DazStudio when it's available. Running Poser 4 in classic has a problem with fonts. As an example, the Hierarchy file, the menus - really any list of text. When I run my curser over the text it goes kinda bold and crappy, and gets worse the more you move the curser over it. Then you can't read anything at all. I've tried changing fonts but that doesn't help.

That's odd....have you mentioned it in the Macintosh Forum? Someone there might have a fix for you.