Hi, I've been away for several months or so and the last I remember is that P5 had some annoying problems and was not a resounding "Buy Now" item. Has this changed?

IMO, yes. P5 - on my system, at least - is as stable as P4/PP and capable of much more. It's not too difficult to get to grips with, if you concentrate on one new feature at a time. The one downside that I can think of is that it needs a fairly hefty machine to run on. It's a little slower than P4 but then, it does a heck of a lot more. I've been using P5 for about 10 months and I honestly would not go back to P4 now.

In a word, yes.

Completely... Im on a Mac but if its stable on a PC the features are well worth it. Its running great for me on my dual 2gig g5

I'd go with SamTherapy, except for the caveat that I went from P3 direct to P5 ('cos I didn't have internet connection then so didn't know about P4).. :-) Maybe I got lucky, but I've been using P5 for some time now and am very happy with it. OK, it has its faults, but with the latest SRs installed it is (according to what I've read in this forum, and others): - At least as stable as P4/P4-Pro - A bit slower in some aspects than P4 (esp. rendering). - Has several major advantages over P4 (mainly: the cloth room, for dynamic clothing; the Firefly renderer for ray-tracing effects; the materials room for much more control over the appearrance that can be applied to an object or figure. Also there's Hair room (which I'm still trying to come to "hair-grips" with) and the face room (which I've left totally alone since I discovered that it only really worked with Don and Judy, and never to my satisfaction at that). Oh, and "Contents Paradise" which (IMHO) should be eliminated ASAP..:-)) All in all, I reckon it's a very worthwhile upgrade. It needs a bit of time to get to grips with its new features, but I really think it's worth the effort. Cheers, Diolma

... and the last I remember is that P5 had some annoying problems ....

The same could be said for P4, of course. :/

Yes, its feature rich, dynamic clothing, hair, and the firefly renderer...what more can you want? Jolly

If it wasn't for P5, I wouldn't be here.

I've had Poser 5 for a couple years, and find no need to go back to Poser 4. You can concentrate on using Poser stuff, right out of the box. With Poser 4, you need to convert your bump maps, etc. That can be a royal pain.

There are a few Poser 5 rooms many of us never use. But all the other features are great.

yes - like the file organzation - you can finally put in all those pose files and organize the characters, and props, which rapidly get out of control, never using the characters at the bottom of the display. Then the morph controls are much, much better, and easier to see which dials have been changed.

I'm not sure when Poser 6 is supposed to be released, but there's been enough talk about it and, now that Curious Labs has already released the English version of Shade, it's probably their primary project right now. My thought would be to hold off making the jump because CL, like most software companies, doesn't provide a large discount to customers who purchase their software. Upgrading from P5 to P6 will probably initially be a $150-$200 investment.

Hi Everyone, Thanks for the imput. I guess I have been away longer than I thought. Waiting for 6 might be a good plan.

It might just be a good idea to wait. It's been two years since Poser 5 came out, and it seems like most online stores or Poser merchants still don't properly support Poser 5's features. For instance, I'm hopping mad at all the work I need to fix bump maps in MAT Pose files. Curious Labs did say Poser 6 will really just be a fixed version of Poser 5. I refuse to pay for a bugfix!

Actually, what they said was that P6 was more for improving and enhancing what already exists, and that users shouldn't expect -too many- new features. Not that there will be =no= new features.

That's pretty much the same thing, just different words.