Ethesis, The bits and pieces of that debacle were spread out among here, Poser Pros, and a couple other places in several threads. Some were deleted, a few locked, and the rest buried in the halls of the strange "archive". There are several alternatives: Truespace, Carrara, Lightwave, 3DSMax, Maya, and several more. Most cost considerably more than Poser does, are much, much harder to learn, and pretty much include modelling as well -- that's the primary focus of them, too. And Jackson -- Dang! This is starting to be a trend! Now, I'm sorta in the position of "defending" CL here, but I sorta should point out I'm not, ultimately. A lot of people who loved Poser 4 simply refuse to upgrade. The same holds true of old Mac users and those people who still swear up, down, left, and right that Windows 98 is better than Windows XP. With only a couple exceptions, Curious Labs (a company whose size is smaller than pretty much any major content provider) is NOT the same company it was when P5 was released. Aside from the "ownership" of the company changing, many of the people and the faces behind it have as well -- and, having talked with some of these people, I am convinced it's for the better overall. The current crop of folks involved have inherited all the P5 debacle. Which, now, isn't even close to as bad as it was when P4 came out (except now there are a LOT more folks invovled). Given my experiences over the last year, I'm going to be rather pointed and say that I'll take CL over other companies in this community pretty much any day of the week. And that has nothing to do with the softwre, but everything to do with the people themselves. As this thread yet again shows, the issues that people typically have with P5 pretty much fall into the categories of: 1 - They didn't change the interface/workflow. 2 - They didn't write all new code. 3 - They didn't add "x" feature that I wanted. 4 - It doesn't work with my computer. The above things are not bugs. Bugs are universal across the specific spectrum of applicable elements. In the case of number 4, it needs to be specifically reproducible on a system matching the specifics. 8 times out of 10, this will be due to some hardware issue, and that will commonly involve some of the newest graphics cards. Cards which don't always get along well with other applications in the first place. Now, part of the reason poser is so successful is the interface. You don't have to like it, but that's part of it's appeal. It is old, and it is clumsy. But, well, it works. If ya don't believe me, check out this place called renderosity and all the picutres it has made using it. That's an awful lot of times for it to work. For my part, if they change the interface as some folks have suggested they do, it would screw up my workflow. Now, I am crazy, but I'll bet that there are at least ten different general workflow systems in use among the users of poser. Some of these workflows were developed in other programs -- and are habits. And we all hate it when our routines are broken. Just as I would hate it if mine were broken by a new interface. (hey, can we go to an interface like wings now that I've spent two months figuring it out? That would help. I like that. Mostly because It's been a god awful pain in the ass to learn). The point here is that it's mostly a lot of experienced users who have used other programs and liked the way things worked there better who want changes to the interface. This would not lead to quicker use by new folks -- most of the tutorials presently extant show the old one, and changes would mean a lot of new tutorials. As for writing new code, I'm not against this. Not even in the slightest bit. I am against changes to the actual core files' format (pz2, cr2, etc.). I believe, at this point, that that's a bad idea. I have since the original discussions about P5 when ProPack came out. Writing new code to match the existing format (which is text based) might not be hard, either -- and, if that's the case, then I am for it. Otherwise, though, this is CL, which does not have a large budget and a gazillion programmers and like as not would simply say "ok, you want all new code, here ya go" and then we'd have to deal with how it doesn't work with existing (and non-hacked) products. If they did do a really massive rewrite, though, I'd hope that they would take some of the hacks that the community has developed and incorporate them into the program. ERC is one of the coolest things. But it's a total hack -- and if they go with a new boning system, oh, crap -- out the window it goes. Even DAZ (which has a programmer staff larger than CL as a company from what I've heard) hasn't managed to get that one working right. Well, except for their in house stuff. The lack of special features like "openGL" and "GI lighting" and "point lights" and all that fancy rigamarole. Well, personally, I don't want GI. If they add it, great. I've got IBL capability now, and I've takent he time to learn how to use it, and I'd like them to expose more of that function of the rendering agent to the program (and python) LONG before they add GI. My least favorite of the suggstions, though, is OpenGL. This may be because of lack of knowledge on my part: I simply don't understand what the benefit to me, as a user, is going to be from having OpenGL added. I just don't. I can see a lot of drawbacks, but I haven't seen anyone explain why it's such a good idea. I mean, we're talking about the real time display here, not the rendering engine (and OpenGL is a lousy engine), and I have yet to see open GL mimic the capabilites of Poser's current display. It might -- I don't know. But until someone does show me, I won't support this call. There are other complaints, as well -- and all of them are pretty much the same thing as my whine about point lights. Give me point lighting and I'll be able to duplicate GI in about 6 lights instead of the 9 it takes me now. With a quicker rendering time. But they are still "whines" based on nebulous "they said..." when no one ever actually said it -- it sort of built up as an expectation in the community that never happened. (and people around these parts HATE not having their expectations met.) Now, there are other complaints, too -- there was, once, by folks who are not with CL any longer, mention that all the critters would be remade. We didn't get them as part of the package. But they are coming out. Someday. And probably not from CL. That's the way it goes. A lot of folks bitch about the lack of convertors. And to that one: CL, even under the old folks, NEVER promised that They would make those convertors. They ALWAYS stated they would be from some one else. Go yell at the someone else. There are some valid concerns out there -- I'm not dissing them, nor am I saying that CL is a bunch of angels (though I am saying they are slightly more angelic than some), nor am I saying that P5 is perfect. I'm saying that a lot of these complaints are giving the wrong impression and are based on erroneous information or, worse, based on a desire of an advanced user who has completely different needs from a new user. CL does understand that last bit. And it would be nice if they moved forward with their current product lines (not unlike the flagship product of their new owners, I'll note winkingly) and had a beginner, advanced, and professional version of Poser. (gee, ya don't suppose a survey about just that sorta thing was done recently? Nah. Must just be my years writing them telling me that...) that's my quarter, said before and said again and now I'll save this long ole post so I can post it 'cause some site's software times out anytime you type a reply over 30 words (wink, wink, nudge nudge)...

thou and I, my friend, can, in the most flunkey world, make, each of us, one non-flunkey, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroes to begin with. (Carlyle)