I am wondering... Remember some time ago I was asking about why P5 keeps freezing and bombing out when I change lights? (ok some lights) Well I emailed CL about it back then, since I am not the only one who has this problem. I told them that Poser 5 reacts really badly to Null lights. i.e. if some lights are turned off, and you try to render, it bombs out, usually taking the scene with it. I had a reply last night, and apparently they cannot reproduce this (which I find hard to believe, it's not THAT random) If anyone has a specific way of actually MAKING this happen, please share it so I can see if this happens when I do it as well. If yes, I can give CL some concrete steps to reproduce it and maybe - just maybe - they'll look at this. Basically... they blamed "3rd party lights" for the trouble... I don't think it's just 3rd party lights. Besides, isn't any light we add and save a third party light since it wasn't created by CL??? I mean... sorry, but I think that's a stupid excuse. If Word crashed every other time when I open the spellchecker, I doubt anyone would say "Ah well, but if you use the default words in the dictionary it won't crash." I could probably sit there and try to recreate the lights from a lighting package and see if it crashes the system (and it doesn't do it every time either) but I really don't want to go that far lol So it would really help if you guys could share your experiences with crashing scenes and lights. Silke

Why not just delete the lights instead of turning them off?

I'd do it the simple way. Ask the provider of a light set that causes a crash for permission to send a copy of one of the light sets to CL. The idea that "third party" lights causes a crash and so it's not CL's problem is downright silly. A light set is built nativly in Poser, not like an object file. I wouldn't look for fix on lighting in SR4 now though. If they were working a light fix, you'd have gotten a different answer to your question. I've been wondering if CL would release the final SR before Daz Studio is released. Time is getting short.

How-how, "final SR". I hope they "ll continue to improve the programm. Don't ask for a P6, you might get it ( and pay for it), let them get get P5 up and running first. Tony

Amen to this. I'm not a down on P5 person by any stretch of the imagination. I've had very very few problems with it, and started with no expectations beyond doing what PPP did with a little more stability. It met them, for the most part. The lights, issue, however, is one that really sorta irks the crap outta me. If they did nothing else but fix that, I'd be the happiest gal... Of course, I would like more shader options, and a few more effects options, and caustics, and Well, I'm crazy -- what'd you expect?

marc, the pres at CL has stated there will be one more, final Service Release, then on to Poser 6. Marc promises that Poser 6 will be more stable than Poser 5. Of course, CL has also promised a number of other things and haven't come through. Don't hold your breath. And frankly, Poser 6 will never touch my machine. Fool me once...

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1296424

Ronstuff - that is precisely what I was looking for. And yes, I am in touch with CL. However, I will need to recreate the lights first and see if I can get them to lock up. Actually I am going to make a new set which uses light 1 3 and 5, then one that uses lights 2 4 and 6 and see if changing from one to the other will set 1 3 and 5 to null lights (instead of replacing them) and if it then crashes. I think it will.... Silke

Since we never determined exactly what the cause was, why don't you just use the two sets referenced in the test they are readily available at RDNA and we have their permission to share them if it helps solve this problem. We did a LOT of testing of the obvious such as what you are suggesting, but could not isolate a single factor in the light sets themselves other than it appears spotlight related. It seems to occur during the update (data refresh) process in P5. Lights themselves are not the only cause of the lock-up. Applying textures via MAT pose files (or even switching them in the material room) will cause a very similar lock-up under the right circumstances. Ultimately we suspect that it is a refresh process that is not purging old data after loading new data, causing source-call conflicts at render time. Most of these problems do NOT show up at the time the texture or lighting switch is made, but only on the first render after the conditions are met.

Anyone know if they plan on fixing the MASSIVE memory leak during render (particularly during renders using shadow-maps) in the final SR? -Tim

Maybe somebody should tell curious labs about the leaks and any other errors people have found. If they dont know about the problems then they cant fix them...

I have, and so have others. I've worked with tech support on this issue on more than one occasion. They are WELL AWARE of the issue. Whether they choose to fix it or not is entirely different matter ... as has been proven over the last few years.

So, is anyone starting a wish list for Poser 6? Does anyone know what "fixes" will be in P6? Is CL going to overhaul the user interface: make it less "cutesy" and more professional-looking, fix the memory leaks, fix the gobs of code that deal with refreshing rooms and such? And do we really need "Content Paradise" (yes, I can hear some of you asking "what's that?"). Will P6 (finally) take advantage of OpenGL or DirectX? Will it take advantage of video hardware? Basically: will Poser 6 be an update to the existing P5 code, which was an update to P4 code, which updated P3 code? Or will P6 be built from the ground up, completely from scratch? And most importantly, will CL release a finished version and not a late-beta to the public? Will fixes be issued as quickly as they were for P5 or will we get more of the "Sorry the program crashes when you click on the Face Room, but look at the new atmospheric lighting we included in this service pack!"?

I think that with version six they should take as long as they need to get it written properly. I would like the rendering to be speeded up and any small errors that p5 has to be fixed.