With all of the announcements about the "secrets" in Poser 6 and the new lighting system, I wonder if CL will be fixing any of the little "nit-picky" things that have been around since P4 (or earlier). Or are they just trying to focus on the new features instead of fixing existing bugs. It's kind of like their announcement of the all-new volumetric lighting system... announced in the middle of a week of users complaining that their brand-new P5 was full of bugs. A lot of people (myself included) wondered why they were announcing new features when they should have been announcing bug fixes. Anyway, here are some things about P5 that make it a pain for me to use: -Speed. Why does P5 feel so SLOW??? From the switching of libraries (from Poses to Figures) to the Firefly renderer, the whole program just seems slow. By comparison, I can create a scene and render an image in P4 in about 1/3 the time. And I won't even go into the slowness of the Material Room versus P4's Material Editor. (As I've said before, if I want a complicated material editor, I'll bring the objects into Lightwave and use a real renderer.) Besides, I have a 2.8Ghz Pentium IV processor, so it shouldn't be my computer. -I actually have dual processors with hyper-threading technology... which is something else that Poser 6 should take advantage of. -Keyboard shortcuts that don't work when you're on the floating parameters-dial palette. I know I've mentioned this numerous times, but it's still a pain in the *** for me. I adjust a dial, hit Ctrl-M to to switch to the main camera and nothing happens. I then click on Poser's title bar to give it "focus" and then Ctrl-M works fine. I even complained about this when P5 first came out... CL fixed the keyboard shortcuts for Undo (Ctrl-Z), Save (Ctrl-S) and Render (Ctrl-R), but that was about it. -Reverting a document hides the parameter dials even though you don't want them hidden. This is a new one that I just found last night while trying to work on an image. -Poser needs to use standard Windows dialog boxes for "OK/ Cancel" and to give the program some consistency. Why is the OK button sometimes on the left of some dialog boxes, but on the right on others? -Focus issues with dialog boxes: when I close a document (and get the "Do you want to save?" message), I hit "D" (for "Don't Save"), and then the screen then splits into 4 views? Why? Because the dialog box doesn't have "focus"? Why doesn't the dialog box have focus? Because P1 used it's own dialog box system when it was ported from the Macintosh and has been carried through to P3 to P4 rto P5 and probably to P6. And what kind of dialog box is that anyway? A button for "Don't Save"? Again, see above: the standard dialog box should be "You have made changes to [document name]. Do you want to save? Yes/ No/ Cancel". There should be none of this "Do you not want to save your changed document" nonsense. But at least we're getting shadow catching and depth-of-field rendering... --John

I'd still like to seem some kind of updates to the rig and animation systems. The Rigging system in particular though.

I like the complex material editor, some of us do nto have access to a highend renderer :) The dialogs definatly need an over haul though, if not for the standard windows|Mac look then at least for consistancy between the boxes, some are the brown some are grey, some have the focus on the input box some you have to click in the box to start typing, but I can't wait :) I have a feeling that we will all be pleased.

I think a lot of the basic things will not be fixed ( a micosft type "upgrade").

or maybe indicative of companies named e-anything?

"There should be none of this 'Do you not want to save your changed document' nonsense." But CANCEL is such a harsh negative word which offends some users.

LOL!

Also need fixing:

Multiplying magnets.
Pose camera jumps from one figure to another when multiple figures in a scene.
File Open dialog boxes that go crazy.
Poser doesn't always remember the last directory you used.
Conforming items that fly off when you move a camera.
Can't change the interface colors.
Extremely slow file opening and saving.

That's all I can think of right now.

Message edited on: 02/25/2005 14:22

Message edited on: 02/25/2005 14:23

I can see why the Pose Camera would jump; it's in the same class of camera as the Hand and Head cameras. And Poser does generate some enormous save-files, My personal record is just over 100MB, and I was very relieved when it rendered without falling over. But, what I've seen reported so far, I don't expect any of this stuff to get sorted.

'when I close a document (and get the "Do you want to save?" message), I hit "D" (for "Don't Save"), and then the screen then splits into 4 views?' Oh boy, that drives me bats**t! And it's probably my most used shortcut. Here's another one. You click to add a material to the library, the dialog opens, and doesn't have focus. I have to TAB like an idiot to get it in focus. And the best one of all (common to all versions of poser). You clck ctrl-n for a new document, and the library closes??? I mean, come on! When you make a new doc, the ONE thing you usually need is the library. Who thought that one up? I'm not holding my breath for any of these changes though. mac

Lighting and shadowing is an issue for me. I am out for realism. Infinite is like the sun, but lighting doesn't go around the object(s). So, you have to add another infinite to the other side. One light shadow on, other light(s) shadow off. I do not like the 999 frames for animations, but in another window can have up to 16000 (I do not know the number, but it is confusing) and feels like a road block, and have to turn to the other for more. Multiple objects in scene. More than two or three characters for a comedy scene (Without props), system starts to have memory leakage. No matter how powerfull your system is. Their is a limit in Poser(5). Size of scene. I like to have large terrain prop, that I can have a cam dolly move around on with a character or character(s). And not worry about putting up a background to make up for it.

Multiple levels of undo...pleeeze?

The pose camera will jump to the selected figure, that is (partly) what it is for. Poser should be able to use more memory by now, at least 2 gigabytes.

"The pose camera will jump to the selected figure, that is (partly) what it is for." Yes, I know. However, after I have several figures in a scene, if I click on one to select it, the Pose camera starts to jump from character to character by itself. And there's no way to stop it, I just have to wait til it stops on its own. And it usually doesn't stop on the character I tried to select in the first place. It happens in P4/PP, but I usually have to have about 15 characters in a scene before it starts. In P5 it only takes about five or six.

"I hit "D" (for "Don't Save"), and then the screen then splits into 4 views? Why?" Old, non-standard programming. Try CTRL-d, that should work.

Well, I wish Poser & D|S was compatible. Someone once said, it can't be because D|S has so much more. When I speak of compatibility, I speak of file types and directory structure. Why is it that a "texture-converter" such a big seller? Likewise, people may have the need to convert from one format to the other. And I'm sure, they'd rather NOT have to convert them and reconvert them again. Then, there's more fine tuning, as if pose-tuning isn't enough. When M$ word had to play from behind, it had to look up to WordPerfect and support all the file formats that were popular. Today, Word is so big that it supports no one - besides, who uses WordPerfect these days? Any file can be compatible, but you might not gain or have access to all features (it's just 1s and 0s). At any rate, Dz has been contacting me to update my files. As far as I'm concerned, I just have too many to manage. In fact, I still have files that are new - never been opened or used - ever. Likewise, I've also stopped purchasing - because I don't think I'm going to get around to using them anytime soon. With that said, having separate Poser and D|S only files - can only add to chaos. But Poser 6 does look interesting and I might just get it to tinker with.

I'm with madriver. How can an app that handles this slowly not give me a SINGLE working undo? If I accidentally hit a button, or have the wrong figure selected when I apply a pose or whatever, why do I have to START OVER? I mean, JESUS churist, ctrl+z people. And once we get one undo, well then, yes, please I'd like multiple levels while we're at it.

And why can't the app be made to take advantage faster bus/dual processing scenarios?...

I guess that and a render engine that could actually handle the things that the application is dishing out (grr....)

I use WordPerfect. By CHOICE. Word... grrrrrr! Bloatfest. Anyway, as mentioned, having the Pose camera shift when jumping between figures is disconcerting, but it IS supposed to work that way. I expect the Head camera to shift, so why not the Pose and Hand cameras. So we have a selection of cameras. If I am going to have multiple figures (my last project had 3), I don't use the Pose camera much. Unlike some of the others posting here, I hope that there are new features. If this is just repairs and patches and tweaks, it wouldn't be an upgrade: it would be another service release. Folks would scream to the skies. An upgrade that people pay for needs to have something special, neat, spiffy. Multiple undos would be new enough, but increasing the speed probably wouldn't be, even though both are desired features. And as for the complaint about being given volumetric lighting... FREE... duh? Larry figured out how to make it happen. What was he supposed to do, hug it like a miser's secret for 2 years? or slip it into the program for us to play with in the interval. Sometimes breakthroughs are like that... you wake up knowing how to solve a problem. As for keyboard shortcuts... isn't there a list on the folded card with the program? If a shortcut doesn't yield the intended result, why not look it up to verify it? I use several different programs on both Mac and PC and never expect consistency between them. If ctrl-c & ctrl-v work, there is a strong chance that others of that family will work, but it isn't an absolute. ctrl-alt-del does not work on a Mac. In some programs, the way to save is to hit "w" for write. I'm NOT kidding! Yes, saving writes a file, but that is a technical concept, and many users aren't programmers. IIRC, ctrl-c is from WordPerfect, then Adobe adopted it with PhotoShop... why do we then expect it to work with an animation program? Because it is the first thing we try? Something may become "industry standard", but if there were no variations from that standard, we'd all still be chipping rocks in front of our hovels because we hadn't dared to advance beyond those so-perfect clovis points. Carolly

"Anyway, as mentioned, having the Pose camera shift when jumping between figures is disconcerting, but it IS supposed to work that way." Please read my response in post 14. I know the pose camera is supposed to jump to the figure you select. But it isn't supposed to keep jumping from figure to figure by itself without stopping. And wether you use the pose camera or not, many people do. It's a bug and should be fixed. And the shortcut problem isn't a matter of consistency. Poser's own listed shortcuts do not work if a palette has the focus. This is a problem introduced in P5 and should be fixed. I'm all for new features in an upgrade. But damn! fix at least some of the bugs that have been there for years. I would hardly call adding new features but ignoring old problems advancing.

Let's hope the issues raised by JHoagland are fixed! Reason is that many/most of these are directly related to the design choice (?) of a separate Windows' window for the Parameter Dials (not a bad choice on a Mac, but a disaster on Windows as it has all the overhead of switching to a 2nd application). So what? Well P6 appears to be using a separate window for the scene window(s) in addition to the Parameter Dial! BTW, removing Content Parasite reduces the impact of the problems referenced by JHoagland - presumably because the intertask communication between Poser 5 and Internet Explorer routines "butts in" during every intratask switch between Poser 5 and its Parameter Dial window. No fix for the focus issue though (which should never have cleared the Beta stage of Poser 5).

And as for the complaint about being given volumetric lighting... FREE... duh? What was he supposed to do, hug it like a miser's secret for 2 years? Well, yes. I would have preferred he held onto it and not announced a brand-new feature in the middle of releasing patches. While it's true that they may have had a "breakthrough" and discovered how to make it work, their timing was still really bad. It gave the impression that they were spending their time on new features rather than fixing bugs... while customers who bought the software complained that it didn't work. As for keyboard shortcuts... isn't there a list on the folded card with the program? If a shortcut doesn't yield the intended result, why not look it up to verify it? This may be good advice for new people, but I've been using Poser for years- I know the keyboard shortcuts. Ctrl-M has always been "Switch to Main Camera", both in P4 and P5 (and maybe P3). However, due to the focus issues of the floating parameter-dials palette in P5, the shortcut does not work. I have to click on Poser's title bar and THEN hit Ctrl-M for it to work. So, the keyboard shortcut IS there and will work... but not when "focus" in on the parameters dial. And as I stated before, I brought this to the attention of CL when P5 was first released. They were good enough to "activate" some of the keyboard shortcuts (Save, Render, etc) in a later service pack, but the shortcuts for the camera controls and document display types still don't work. As a side note, if you don't know about this glitch, you could spend all day staring at the reference card, hitting Ctrl-M, and seeing nothing happen. The card says the shortcut is there, the camera pop-up menu says it's there, and you know it's there, but until you get "focus" off the parameter dial palette, NOTHING will happen when you hit Ctrl-M. So, you eventually give up and use the mouse to select the camera and curse at CL for putting in a shortcut that doesn't work. I forgot to mention another issue: posing conforming clothing. Poser 6 should be smart enough to know that if you try to apply a pose to a conformed piece of clothing (such as a dress on Vicky), it knows to pose Vicky (the conformed-to figure) and not the dress. When clothing is conformed to a figure, do you ever need to apply a pose to it? Of course not- the whole idea behind conforming clothing is that it follows the pose of the conformed-to figure. --John

Not true. When applying a pose to a conformed-to article, you MIGHT maybe just possibly be applying a MAT pose. I believe that they are rather popular with users. Either that or a hell of a lot of merchants are filling the MarketPlace with bloated files of unwanted poses. Example: you decide to use the sleeveless version of the dress, and click, and the oh-so-smart computer decides to make Vicky's ARMS vanish. Is this what you are asking for? Or maybe you like women with paisley legs because the dress texture is now slapped on the model? The last thing I want is a program which tried to think for me. I'm not lazy. I'm even reasonably intelligent some days. If I can't apply a figure pose to a figure and a clothing pose to the clothes, I'd better go back to pounding rocks for pigment. And maybe you would horde a breakthrough... and then force people to pay for it. I'm glad that Larry is a more generous man. Carolly

The last time I looked, MAT pose don't change the position of a figure. The idea would be that Poser 6 would be smart enough to know a position pose from a MAT pose and know when to apply which pose to which figure. How many times have you applied a position pose to a clothing figure by accident, and then have to re-conform it and re-adjust all the morphs that you spent the last 10 minutes getting just-right? Wouldn't it be good to know that a position pose meant for Vicky won't change a dress? Or better yet, have a "expert"/ "lazy" switch that turns this feature off. If people are "not lazy" and will remember to select the human figure before selecting a pose, then they turn it off. Or if people prefer the safeguard of knowing they won't accidentally pose a dress, then they can. However, this is all a moot point- Poser 6 probably won't have this feature, so there's not much point arguing over how it should or shouldn't work. Carolly- Are you just in a pissy mood today? I am merely making a suggestion about what I would like to see in a future version of Poser. There's really no need to get snippy about my suggestions. --John

John, I've lived with a migraine for 4 years. The specialist in SF says that it will go away someday and that is the only hope that I cling to. I've got some medicine for the migraine now (which I'm only supposed to take 3 days a week), but nothing for the depression. So, yes, there are days when I'm less tolerant than others. I still try to be helpful or find a positive note. If I can act as a catalyst to help others be more productive, I've some something good for the day. People have accused me of pollyana-ness for protecting the makers of the programs, but as a developer, I know how hard it is to make something... and how impossible to please everybody. Will I be happy with Poser 6? I'm sure that there will be things that annoy me and things that I will miss... but also sure that there will be something really truly nifty and worthwhile and new at a price even a disabled artist can afford. Carolly