Elfwine, if I win an iPod you can have it for brightening up my day with the "Whirling Implement of Pummeling".

Good to hear that CL is thinking about P6. They are not gone. I filled out the survey. Don't think so much about content. You should make the program stable and straighten the workflow. A good modular concept with easy to implement plugin modules would be great. Think of all the 'features' like injection morphs, bodyhandles, JMC and so on the community found during the years. If this could be brought in as regular feature, it would be great. Don't think too much about backward compatibility, but provide a new system with external converters or plugins. Programs that run around with their history are always heavy and slow. Just my 2cents. Thanks for the update - Walter

Well, I don't use WMA, either. I was, alas, an "early adopter" when it came to MP3 players. (Paid $300 for a Diamond Rio with 64 Mb RAM. Groan!) But I spent a lot of time converting my entire CD collection to MP3, and I'm not switching to another format now. Especially since my video editing program doesn't accept ACC.

Hello Katherine , I wish to talk about the hair room. I like the base...but the results we obtain in poser 5 are really not that good. I wish a more kind of Sasquatch approach to it.(plugin for lw)WAYyyyyyyy faster, and much more belivable results, and the dynamic in LW is just great! So my wish for the next poser edition are these, MORE DYNAMICS!! everywhere...Soft material, clothes, hair...and why not a real physique engine? If you can pull this off it will be just WOW! Thanks to take the time to read this post. Neftis

I filled out the survey, but it erased all my answers and wanted me to fill it out again, so I gave up.

..Just watching and waiting to find out what SR4 is going to fix..or not fix...or do....or doesn't do.

"A well-designed survey, but clearly pays no attention at all to the needs and wants of animators. Choices relating to animation are not even available...." HUH????? I guess some of you didn't read the survey questions. Options from the first page questions... 3) Animations in motion picture films inspire me and want to create them, too: 4) Movies/animations: Export animations/figures into other programs: 5) Moviemaking: Previsualization/Storyboard: Options from the second page include: 5c) Improved Figure Bending: 5d) Improved Walk Designer: 5f) Layered Animation: Just because it wasn't the primary focus of the survey doesn't mean that it was forgotten or our needs overlooked. The survey has to balance out the entire user community, not just a select few. Carolly

Dang Machineclaw.. I forgot to bitch about Lightwave support! I think it's what overdue for Poser 5 now by a year and a half?? And why should other companies have to write utilities to get poser to play nice with other programs? Some of the utilities out there should also be aquired, and bundled with Poser 6.. UVmapper pro, Morph Nanager, P3DO explorer, quickconform, to name a few.

How about something like removal of files...let's say you didn't want something in the library any longer or weren't going to use it...if you delete that item, it would also give you the option to delete poses, textures, lights, obj files, etc. for that item instead of leaving all that stuff behind. Would make cleaning up the Poser library easier. Oh, I did post that on the survey.

Umm... poser 5 as one of the prizes? I think you should actually promise the winners a copy of P6... They may well be the only people to use it :P

...Do you want to continue looking for texture map.... no... no,... uh no ... NO...No! ... *%#! NO!!!

I'd like to see stronger libary management systems in place, as well as easier content import (I know, unzip to your base director or just buy DAZ and let them do it, but you know what I mean). On the other hand, I think it is a great sign that they are in a development cycle and asking for input. Any clues on what SR 4 will include?

randym77, You can play mp3s. The AAC compression is only on the ones you download from iTunes.

I can't do the survey. I finished the first part, pushed ok to move to the second and it jumped back to the begining. (Is this another beta test?)

My survey was accepted after I disabled Norton's firewall (thanks to Dale B for the tip).

"You can play mp3s." Good. As long as I don't have to install any Apple software to get the MP3s onto the iPod (which I assume I wouldn't, if it's just a Firewire harddrive), it sounds like it would be very cool. (I agree with whoever said Quicktime is the spawn of Satan. You can't get rid of it once you install it. Then you end up getting weird "qttask.exe" errors ever after. Based on that, I'm avoiding Apple software like the plague.)

Hi, I just wanted to add in a note about animation this survey. Please don't assume that the limited depth of questions on animation means that is the focus plans for Poser 6. This survey covers areas that we have very little input collected on. Again, a much greater volume of input has continuosly been collected from direct inquiries into CL and from forum posts. Animation is a significant part of development for Poser. With kind regards, Katherine

DAMN IT DAMN IT DAMN IT I also didn't read properly ( I am doing this a lot latly) and filled out the survay backwards...I am truly happy with 'most' of poser 5 but now my answers do not reflect that. MAy I take the survay again? You can forget my 1st one. Please let me know.

Regarding my earlier post about programs like UV Mapper, Correct Reference, etc. Any chance of a survey to find out which utilities and programs we actually use? Your survey asked about Body Paint (or one of those texturing programs), but how many of us use that, and how many of us use UV Mapper? And don't Curious Labs think that it is strange that I need a program like Correct Reference to make my Poser run smoothly? Couldn't something like that be built into the program, that checks for and corrects references.

Poser 6 needs at least three things: First, multiple levels of undo. Second, a plug-in that works like this, only more seemlessly: http://market.renderosity.com/softgood.ez?ViewSoftgood=25982 A pose/figure/etc. package so people can tell that the P6 figures are at least on par with V3/M3 (I suspect P5 is, but there is no where near the same support -- I'd buy textures and such for P5 male and female models like I buy other textures and character faces, but I don't see them for sale the same way).

"And don't Curious Labs think that it is strange that I need a program like Correct Reference to make my Poser run smoothly? Couldn't something like that be built into the program, that checks for and corrects references. " (numanoid) Oddly enough, Correct refreence is only needed for the products that Curious Labs supports (and is responsible for) when the end user moves things around from their default install locations after install. The rest of the time, it's use is for either fixing things you've moved, or fixing things that were pathed improperly by the creator (far more common). Having been guilty of poor pathing myself (and recieving a rather interesting set of emails regarding it), I think it seems a tad unfair to ask them to be responsible for the errors of others. but then, I am crazy....

What about the new Lightwave plugins that were promised?

"Second, a plug-in that works like this, only more seemlessly"(Ethesis) "I find it very odd that where it asks what other programs we use with Poser it omitts programs every Poser user actually uses all the time, such as UV Mapper, Correct Reference, Mimic, PBoost, etc, And also fails to ask anything about utilities such as The Tailer, Morph Manager, etc." (numanoid) UV Mapping would be nice. Oddly enough, it's already there in part, under the group editor (assign materials) in P4, PP, and P5. Unless you mean as it is used to create and map models for Poser, in which case you are talking about a tool to model, not one to use them. Poser is designed to use models that are already made. It is not a modelling tool. Mimic is an interesting tool, although I'm not sure it's fair to say that "everyone" uses it. I'd like to see features similar incorporated into Poser directly as well, but only so long as it doesn't increase the cost of the program (since they would either have to develop or license -- pay for -- an engine to do). Pboost is a content control system -- exactly what everyone has been asking for (and, oddly enough, something only needed now that the 3rd party creators have really kicked it up a notch. In a lot of ways, that dead time where nothing was done on developing Poser was a godsend to the community itself). The Tailor, Morph Manager, and Clothing Convertor are all awesome tools. The shifting of morphs from one figure to another, being able to adjust clothing more easily to fit, and so forth would all be wonderful. One of the benefits of dynamic cloth is that you can do exactly that, but dynamic cloth isn't the only type of clothing used. In fact, thus far, it's still the least used type. Although I'm not so sure the developers of those tools would be thrilled, lol. and still crazy...

One would assume the lightwave plugins are still in development -- there was no timetable actually given.

Ynsaen, I agree that it is not Curious Labs responsibility to fix the errors of others, but the fact that Poser crashes when not finding a texture IS the resposibility of Curious Labs, and correct reference is the one program that stops that crash happening. If something like that was incorporated into the program, then Poser would not crash as often. A similar thing that would check the references for *.obj files would also be handy.
Don't get me wrong, I love Poser and think it is amazing, and I would love to have an improved version, and yes, I will buy Poser 6. I just think that some utilities we use should actually be part of the program.
For instance, having to manually hack a python button file to make another python script a permanent addition to your python scripts should not be neccesary. There should be a way from inside poser to permanently add python scripts.
I just think the more suggestions we have, the more choice Curious Labs will have as to what to fix, what to include, and what to improve.

Amen to that, hon. And that file search thing is I think top of a lot of wishlists! And yeah -- a python script drop down would be great! (although if they fix the lights, that'll knock out a few of my scripts I use a lot, lol) I know you love poser. Hell, everyone who has posted here does. They might be mighty pissed at it, but they do love it. And, like I said, More or the morphing tools would be mighty nice. Right now though, my top priorities are file search, memory, lights, and content management. Get those working, make it nice and neat and working smooth. Then go to town for P7. I see a lot of cool stuff being wished for. And I still remember the P4 wishlist stuff that was tossed at metacreations. A lot of the P4 wishlist appeared in P5. Folks forget that. Takes time to do this stuff when you aren't the size of IBM or don't have the money of a Time Warner or Microsoft. Point lights! Point Lights! (lol, yeah, I'm crazy, hee hee)

Hi Odeathoflife -- go ahead and take the survey over. Numanoid, maybe a new forum thread on these topics would be a solution. We will definitely capture the answers from the input. Kind regards, Katherine

And since CL is reading here I'll mention it. The fact that not all Poser 5's work with Vue. Someone at Eon insinuated that the pre-ordered P5's have somethng that will not allow Vue to import pz3's.

I completed the first page of the survey.....got an ok and then it was suppose to take me to a second page. Got the same damned page.....completed it again thinking maybe I had missed something. Hit ok....got the same page again!!!!!!!!! No second page where I could provide my comments. Just 29 questions that I answered twice! I don't know if it took or not. Probably not. So.....since I didn't get a second page, I guess that means I spent my time answering all your marketing questions, but don't qualify for the prizes or get to give you my opinion!! Sounds like a typical CL move! I don't get it.....it seems like you guys can't even get a survey right. BTW: notice your prizes are all Mac's.....is Poser 6 only going to work on a Mac? I still haven't installed the 3rd patch.....too afraid to. Do I have to install the 3rd one to get the 4th one to work? Kendra: Not all P5's work with Vue???? If you find out which patch creates that anomily, please let me know. That's about the only reason I'm still using P5! Mine now works fine with Vue after doing the last Vue update. Guess I'll quit updating everything!! Geez! Oh please lord let DAZ Studio be ready soon!! If you can figure out a way that I can complete the survey without disabling my Norton Security stuff, I'll take it again....if not....well you figure out what you can do with your survey and prizes. Sorry if I sound a bit out of sorts, but my time is valuable and I've wasted too much of it trying to complete a survey form that apparently is set up without any regard to the growing need people have for protecting their computers from invasion and their sanity from those stupid popup ads. I also have a very low tolerance for incompetance

um, giggle... incompetence. bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha (PS -- install sr3 -- it does good stuff)

ROFL! Fortunately for you guys my "incompetent" spelling doesn't have a big price tag attached to it or take up hours of your time :) It's amazing I didn't spell something else wrong as ticked as I was! As for SR3, I looked at the "read me" on their site ynsaen and I didn't see anything (other than a bit faster load time) that would seem to be of much benefit given I only use it for hobby work. I really am afraid to update any of this stuff, for fear something will stop working. Right now I can use it....I know all of it's little nuances and how to deal with them and I can import the .pz3 files into Vue. The more important improvements were made with SR2, which I added (along with the first patch) when I first got P5 :) When they come up with a fix that will tell it to comply when you say "No...do not continue to look for textures!", then I'll consider updating it :)

I think it would be very smart of CL to design a sort of Room Plugin structure that would allow 3rd parties to create things like PBoost, UVMapper, The Tailor, etc... but write them in a way that they can be installed in their own "Rooms" inside Poser6. This would greatly expand Poser's power while letting CL define a structure that those utilities conform to so they can share a similar user interface and so people don't have to run all sorts of outside programs. Since they would be plugins, people could pick and choose which ones they want to add to their installation. Some of the types of cryptic python scripts people make now could actually be written at a higher level (in C or C++), with better user interfaces and still link directly into the scene being edited. Programmers could, for example, create a gravity room, a particle room, they could even write a modeler room or paint room. And CL doesn't have to write all of that. Just the core structure that lets those programmers plug utilities in.

Service releases always fix a lot of small things that they don't list in the readme. SR3 is quite stable and well worth installing.

It would be nice if there was more cross-platform compatibility with the things people create - I'd love to see a Mac equivalent of The Tailer built into P6.

In actuallity when Poser 5 was initially released it was stated that the ProPack plugins would be updated and that they were a priority. Reseestudios (spelling) put out a Max and a Maya and were working on Cinema 4d. Lightwave plugins from CuriousLabs or any of their partners has not come. In the survey Lightwave was mentioned 1 time in a list of applications, yet others were mentioned. I don't care about Poser animation, I have a $1200 animation package with lightwave that I was told, thought was coming and had to add to the comments section of the survey as it was not even mentioned in any questions. very sad.

Sorry sandoppe, lol, I just couldn't resist... ;) I don't blame you for not updating! I hate it when I get used to something and it stops doing what I expect. Probably why I've never gotten far in photoshop -- just no need to learn beyond what I've done so far. Daverj -- that plug-ins idea is an awesome one! That would really rock. Duh! And since D|S is extensible in the same way, the smart folks out there could (hopefully, lol) spend a bit less time adapting -- not that I'm expecting them to use the same structure, but it would be cool to keep things equal among both. And it would show a mighty strong support for the community -- if it ain't there now, someone can always build it! Mac users have needed a tailor and a few other tools for a long time. They are a small market that's important but ignored. MC - IIRC, CL never said they were doing the development in-house on the plug-ins. It likely is a priority, although it's probably been harder to find someone willing to program for it. But, in any case, all bets were off after the housecleaning there. Also, do note that the survey is ONLY for those things that CL doesn't already have info on. Katherine said it like twice above. I know for a fact they troll through the forums here, RDNA, at PPros, at DAZ now, and others. And they do pay attention. The fact that they don't ask much about it could be a good sign (and likely is) that they are trying. It's sorta like with D|S -- you KNOW they'll have an LW plugin, probably right off the bat on final release or very shortly thereafter. But will they have the obj export one? you know, this really is the best of times for Poser folk. There is just sooo much possibility now that there hasn't been in a few years...

"I don't care about Poser animation, I have a $1200 animation package with lightwave" Just curious but why dont you you rig your poser figures in Lightwave and animate them there?? I own Lightwave 3D 7.5(Mac OSX) and cinema4DXL 8.2 BUT I still keep an installation of the propack4 and an old eat of cinema4DXL7.3 on another internal hardrive for the purposes of importing my animated poser figures into properly lit Cinema scenes to render. if you Dont do any character animation you can import poser meshes into LW to render still images without a special plugin.

Need the plugin to host scenes in lightwave. Without a Lightwave plugin exporting OBJ files and importing into lightwave is a pain. Setting up all the material settings in lightwave based on an imported OBJ becomes a pain. one or 2 models exported as obj and imported into lightwave, yes not that much of a pain, but a scene with multiple props, textures, models becomes a nightmare to setup in lightwave manually. A plugin like the one with Poser 4 ProPack makes life MUCH easier even if the poser scene is not a animation but a still. so why don't I just use ProPack lightwave plugin and be done? Because I bought Poser 5 and do not have Poser4 and ProPack. When I purchased Poser 5 the box and web page said Poser 5 had the ProPack functionality, I assumed that ment plugins, I was wrong. When I asked I was told repeatedly that the Poser 5 ProPack plugins were a major priority for CL and that they would be comeing soon. year and a half later we have CL and RS Max and Maya 3rd party plugins for Poser 5, yet no Lightwave. Greenstudios lightwave set of plugins have come out however I have never heard if CL endorces them, if RStudios is working on Lightwave plugin with CL etc. no news at all. I own Poser 5, I own Lightwave and for over a year I've been waiting and waiting.

I have my box right here. Dinnae say it has plug-ins for Lightwave. Nowhere on the box or in the manual does it say that. And I have the initial info from pre-release, as well, in the same folder -- printed them out. They say specifically that P5 does not have the lightwave plug-ins. I'm confused. But, the good news is this is a natural state for me :) As for rigging characters in lightwave: primal scream Thank you for the mention but no. I fell into Lightwave after hearing all the great words about it, and I have no doubt that it can do wonderful things. And someday I'll have the year or so to learn how to use it. Right now, though, it sits there taunting me. Ease of use and short learning curve are not words associated with lightwave, lol. I ended up with Carrara 2, which is a little more my speed, lol. Ah well...

I'm straying from the topic of the survey a bit here but... I do not understand CL partnering with other companies to sell 3d applications such as Carrara, Truespace as examples and sell and do special pricing when there are no plugins to get poser files into these applications. I feel for anybody that buys a bundle from CL of Poser 5 and Truespace 6 say, and then finds out that they do not talk together. My hope is that CL is seriously working on fixing that and offering more support for their partnered products.

BTW the Poser 5 box and literature said All the functionality of ProPack and I never did see plugins included or not included, it was only stated after Poser 5 came out that the plugins for Max and lightwave had to be updated and that they were a priority but that they would be released later on (no time or date stated). that's what I was illuding to when I mentioned waiting 1.5 year for lightwave plugin. BTW the people stating these things ain't at CL no more so there ya are.

personnaly I would NOT waste my time waiting for CL to produce ANY new LW, MAX or C4DXL plugins. they have left that to "Reiss studio" and others. and OH yeah..dont bother with the greenbriar plugins :-) after a thorough investigation [where i virtually had to threaten users with bodily harm :-) ] some of them reluctantly admitted that it is NOT a straight poser to lightwave,C4DXL solution but a promiising "half step" that still requires additional weightmapping in the high end application. so im still maintaining installations of my older version of C4DXl7.3 and poser propack for rendering my poser scenes in a real program. :-/

but, but, but, Poser is a "real Program".....

wolf - yep, very promising but at $125 for a set of tools that are a half step shrug I'm not waiting on CL for anything, just voicing my frustration. I'm still hunting ebay for used Poser 4 and Propack cheap for my plugin solution. I'm just still frustrated that a year and a half and I'm still ranting about the limitation where others have made out (Max, and Maya). I use Poser 5 don't get me wrong, just no where near as much as I would like to, hopefully SR4 will make a differnece and hopefully CL really will listen to users for Poser 6.

"but, but, but, Poser is a "real Program"..... " ---------------------------------------------------------------- In many unique ways but..... but for rendering in C4DXL I have true radiosity true caustics true volumetric lighting spot/region render,batch rendering, particle effects, liquid simulation,openGL inlimted undos, real copy an paste of any scene element,procedural shaders, render tags to include or exclude ANYscene element from the render. etc etc. But Poser offers incredibly easy to use /animate figures of all typewhich is why its my character animation plugin for Cinema4DXl :-) @ machineclaw: I feel your pain bro :-( I hope you can find a decent priced copy of the propack to get your content into LW with minimal hassle

*that should read: 'UNLIMITED UNDO'S" edit post feature........ please!!!!!!

MachineClaw, At MacWorld I watched as Poser figures walked around in Carrara3... including stairs. (I think it will be in the next upgrade... a few weeks?) I made a report in this Forum right after the show. Working with other companies does mean integration of tools, not simply packaging and promotions. You guys can rant and claw the air all you want... I'd rather talk with the programmers and see what they are really up to... and give them a spot of encouragement and praise. Carolly

I'm all for giving the programmers praise and hearing what they have to say. I just wish CL would send one of them here,instead of constantly bombading us with their marketing crap. I can actually afford to be a bit more fogiving......I never owned Poser 5 when it first came out and didn't have to go through the problems created by their ridiculous protection scheme, etc., etc. Damned good thing too or I suspect I would have been banned from here by now! :)

"At MacWorld I watched as Poser figures walked around in Carrara3... including stairs. (I think it will be in the next upgrade... a few weeks?) I made a report in this Forum right after the show. Working with other companies does mean integration of tools, not simply packaging and promotions." Some of us dont care to spend yet another $400 to buy and learn yet another entire program that claims to import poser scenes/animations. I suggest any lightwave/poser users watch "Riess studio' and DAZ closely.as they both have stated that that lightwave import plugins are their next priority :-)

Sandoppe, Their programmers used to come here... and got treated pretty damned shabbily. It was especially mortifying to see the crowd applaud and congratulate themselves everytime one of the people who actually made the program we rely upon got chased out. Marketing folks have thicker skins (or flak jackets). We were spoiled. Nobody from Adobe or Corel ever came in here, and people from Eon, etc.. basically drop by only to make an announcement and then scuttle back into obscurity. Carolly