lol -- yes, it is a joke, and yes there is some seriousness in it, and I'm going to dwell a teeny bit on that.

The first Poser survey done recently (there have been two) by CL included, specifically, a section relating directly to several of the applications mentioned above.

now, having written surveys like that, and having analzed surveys like that, and since I'm going to be doing one myself like that as well, I can say that it most Definitely wasn't in there just for the fun of putting it there.

lol

Tailor and clothes convertor, wings, the image editor, the video editor, the 10K support people (paid 10 cents an hour and properly outsourced to southern makemerichistan) -- well, not likely.

Poser already has extremely customized UVMapping capability built in, but it's a pain to use, and it's not very transferable (it stays in the poser format file). UV Mapping is essential (an I do prefer UV Mapper Pro to ultimate unwrap -- I just wish it had UU's import/export and relax feature. Then I'd drop DeepUV).

But does it really need to be in the end use program, which is where I think Poser is starting to head (it's how it's used, at any rate)? No -- it belongs more properly to the creation end. Something that combined the capabilities of UVMapper Pro with Wings would be pretty damned handy on the creation end -- an excellent developers tool.

And something that Shade is capable of already. It's just not free ;)

P3DO is wonderful. It's sorta tied to IE, though. including those generic cpabilities would include development of a new browser underlayer, and, well, browsers aren't really the most stable of things. But it is definitely somethign they need to do long term. Absolutely. Poser 6? A stability release from a new team that wants to get it right for the first time in three versions? mmm, maybe.

P5 already has some aspects of correct reference in it, as I discovered quite by accident while testing some products. It's very stubborn about what file it uses -- even when you use a "new" cr2 that points to a different obj in a different runtime -- if they share the same name, it sticks witht eh first one you introduced it to. At least they did fix that damnable bug.

On this one, though, I'm going to say make sure the bugfix stays put. Getting into fixing content developer's mistakes isn't really what they should be looking at. Perhaps an awareness of file locations when a file is moved would be good, though. in other words, don't fix it -- but once it's in, if it gets moved, make sure where it's moved to is recorded. Kinda hard without using a sorta of relational db, but not impossible. I mean, hey, the Registry does it...

CR2 edit I am definitely into. Or at least some sort of internal editing process available to the end user.Perhaps a tab on the properties panel revealed using some sort of "advanced menus" command. nothing fancy, mind you -- simply raw access to the exposed text with the ability to recieve standard cut paste commands and such. 7 could expand on functionality.

All of them would make life easier for content creators, but they may do so at the cost of usability to new users, creating a barrier of entry in the form of a steeper learning curve. Since it appears we'll have three levels of Poser, that's not too bad, bud let's run with the general idea of a single one for now.

All could be worked into the program overall -- but which ones are "new features" and which ones are "improvements"?

Message edited on: 06/25/2004 03:10

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)