Sunday the 20th, I purchased the preorder via check. Got all the confirmation, now Digital River was only awaiting my mailed check within 20 days. But, after realizing that credit card orders ARE NOT CHARGED until the SHIPMENT of the order, I called Digital River's toll free number this evening to cancel the order so I can replace the order using a new credit card instead, and pay in full when I get my statement. Simple enough, eh?

Well, after that very simple, and quick procedure (hands together for the reps of Digital River, terrific service, I might add), I posted a reply to a topic here reguarding someone's purchase of the same item. Then, my mind kept twitching. Twitching something aweful.

I am REALLY wanting to take advantage of the SE release. Hell, $109 until tonight!? Why not?! Shade 7 LE, Poser 6 with some added shit, Poser integration, the whole kit-n-kaboodle... damn... this is too good to miss. I love Poser. And to get Shade at such a low cost!!? I really am wanting Shade; the endless possibilities of what I can do with these two programs side-by-side.

But.....................................

Too many questions. So many questions.

What will happen to the Mil people (V3, M3, etc)? Will they act all goofy like with Poser 5 (before all the tutes came out on how to counter-act with the weirdness)?

How about all the other characters, objects, and what-not that were designed and tested with P5? Can they be integrated?

What infamous bugs are going to occur? Not because it's a Poser product, but because it's a new program overall? A new program with so many add-ons that were developed for previous versions?

Will Bryce 5.5 handle the change when it comes to bringing in Poser 6 characters? Hell, how about Mover 5?

Without the "secrecy", tell us WHAT ARE THE CHANGES! Should I risk being a guinea pig? I need pieces put out, not assumptions and quick-thinking work-arounds.

I want Poser 6. I want Global Illumination. I want better work without worrying about post-work. But, I am in no mood for "huh?"'s.

So, take it or leave it, I can't do it. I'll wait till after 6 months before I come to a decision. I'll rely on you, the preorderers, to find the glitches and contact Curious Labs so they can get the SR's out.

Right now, this ol' boy is gonna sit back, smoke a cig, and shake his head for making such a decision on not taking advantage of such a great deal. But, my time is literally money.

Message edited on: 02/22/2005 20:18

So just buy it at the special price and wait to install P6 until a service release or two have been posted and tested out. Play with shade in the meantime. If initial release is largely "huh"-free, you'll kick yourself otherwise. ". . . Could Happen!" - - -Gilda Radner

Hmm. "What will happen to the Mil people (V3, M3, etc)? Will they act all goofy like with Poser 5 (before all the tutes came out on how to counter-act with the weirdness)?" They should still work. Poser 6 has some new additions, but CL never said toss out your old figures or that its so NEW everything has to be new. "How about all the other characters, objects, and what-not that were designed and tested with P5? Can they be integrated?" Again I dont see why not? "What infamous bugs are going to occur? Not because it's a Poser product, but because it's a new program overall? A new program with so many add-ons that were developed for previous versions?" I dont know any programmer who doesnt want to quash bugs. (M$oft is a hulking giant of a monolithic organization and hence does not count!:) ) If they knew, they'll go after them. "Will Bryce 5.5 handle the change when it comes to bringing in Poser 6 characters? Hell, how about Mover 5?" Depends on what Daz 3D and E-On plan to do. I'm pretty sure the E-on folks will be working with Curious Labs on any hurdles. "Without the "secrecy", tell us WHAT ARE THE CHANGES! Should I risk being a guinea pig? I need pieces put out, not assumptions and quick-thinking work-arounds." This is marketing. Just deal. All will be revealed. You could look at this way. The pendulum has swung the other way. Too open with Poser 5 and some folks expectations, (whatever-the horse is dead! so please we can search the forums for this, let the horse lie)) were not met, either in reality or by means of expectation and delivery. They are being a bit more "cautious" this time. I eagerly anticipate the next bit of revealed information.

I pre ordered P5, and after I installed it and ended up with a more or less unusable program, I told myself that I wouldnt buy another Poser product. Well here I am a couple of years down the road, P5 works, its still not quite what was promised, and Im a bit leary about P6, but I went and per ordered it. CL is owned by a different company now, I guess one with a good reputation. After P5 I think they will take care to release a program that works as promised. They are giving a big discount to people who pre ordered P5, so Im getting a special edition P6 with extra content, and Shade LE for about $75! Even if there are a couple of patches Ill live with. It surely cant be worse than P5.

"P5 works, it's still not quite what was promised" What promise was that?

Just buy it at the price. I got it at 89 bucks with the gift certificate last summer. For that price I'll check it out.

As for the environment stuff, I hope it is reflective of what is in the scene. Right not it can be faked in P5 with a bitmap attached to the environment node, but that requires additional rendering. If it just reflects like Bryce does I'll be delighted. Anyway, here's a P5 environment map image.

and another, but remember, it requires a bitmap to be mapped to the sphere so you have to render a camera shot of the room or whatever from the perspective of the location of the little marble and then turn your camera back on the marble and render it with the bitmap. P5 does not have actual environment reflection so I hope that with the comment about P6 having environment they mean something more than what we already have.

EricofSD, please tell me I am misunderstanding what you are saying. I am getting the impression that you don't think Poser 5 can reflect obects in the scene, and that you must first render and save an image file that is then fed to the environment map node. This is totally incorrect. You plug a raytrace node into the reflection color input and enable raytracing under render options. Viola, your sphere reflects whatever is in the scene.

Very interesting. I had not thought of plugging in a raytrace node on a fully reflective object, but now that I think about it, I did mess around with that on wet skin texture to get an environment to show. Thank you for correcting the brain fart. I will try that out a bit more.

Now, one for you, can you do fake subsurface scattering? I have that going with the translucency settings.

Here's an old test. No translucency on left, some on right. This is a year old test. I'll post some newer images later. The contrast gradient is too sharp on this. I've gotten them more subtle and more realistic lately.

Fake SSS? Yep, with fake GI as well, because I can't stand the look of standard raytracing :-) I'll try to post an example later, since I'm off to bed now.

Subsurface scattering? That's what the skin node is for, AFAIK. Haven't really played with it yet though.