Okay, my two bits; do with 'em what you want. Yes, this has been posted at PoserPros as well. I've had P6 for about a week now. The original disk came in corrupted, but CL was great about getting me a new one, including a call from Julie to let me know it was en route via FedEx. On the plus side: -- James is a serious hottie. Right out of the box he has that whole 21st century trendy thing happening, and it doesnt take much to make him look even better. The musculature around the mouth is much better defined, and the shoulders DONT LOOK LIKE BOWLING BALLS. -- Since I never worked that much with P5, this is my first time seriously diving into the Hair and Cloth rooms, and I was happy to find both of them are pretty easy to learn, with remarkably good results. -- The render engine was a little slow, but I didnt see it crash on Firefly. I really liked the fact that I could separate the working window from the render window, although always having the last render in the render window was sometimes a little disconcerting. -- Overall, it's a neat little program. Even with a few bugs and errors, I'm impressed. But... I'm sticking with 4, for the moment, and while that seems terribly old fashioned and dinosaurish, I guess it comes down to the simple fact that, for the kind of image I create, most of the bells and whistles of 6 really dont help me much. Actually, there was a thread here about which version folks prefered, and one poster sarcastically wrote, "Hey, let's go back to plastic hair!" Well, y'know, I do use plastic hair, and it looks pretty good for the characters I work with. Follicle based stuff looks great on James and Jessi, but TTTT it looks remarkably stupid on Ichiro. Sure, P6 has some great lighting effects, but again, they wouldnt enhance much of what I can already do in 4, so they seem somewhat useless. The cloth room -- sure, it might be fun to create outfits with gravity and wind, but, for now anyway, they're not that useful in my still images. Maybe when I get the animations more sophisticated, but not right now. I guess, like everything else, it comes down to what you want out of these proggies. It's sorta like one's choice in cars, I suppose -- mine is pretty basic and straight forward, because I dont need Italian leather seat covers or a five CD changer or even cruise control. It gets me where I want it to go and back again, and if it's done that, I'm happy. Well, same with Poser. If vers 4 does what I need it to do right now, there's not much inclination to leave the plastic hair and limited lights behind in favour of fancier tools. That'll no doubt change some day, and I have the program, so I'm ready for the switch. But for now... I'm sticking with 4. BTW: if you have Maconverter, be aware that will now transform files into P6 ones. If you're using both P4 and P6 on the same machine, this can be a nightmare.

That's probably the most honest answer I've heard to why stick with p4. And the most realistic. Really why use/buy a program that you just want to dumb down to the original? I love your Littlest series...but beware twiddling with p6 that mat room might get you hooked LOL.

This is perfectly legitimate. It's an opinion based upon practical considerations, and not upon prejudices.

For me, other than one issue that's already been talked about a lot -- P6 is the way to go. At this point, I wouldn't even consider looking back.

While P6's content is good -- it's actually the other fancy aspects of the package (like lighting) that makes the final product such an overall winner.

One other thought --

I kill a bug when I see one crawling in a place where it shouldn't be.

"If vers 4 does what I need it to do right now, there's not much inclination to leave the plastic hair and limited lights behind in favour of fancier tools."

That's a very rational argument. So I'm not quite sure what inclined you to spend the money on Poser6. Curiosity?

That'll no doubt change some day, and I have the program, so I'm ready for the switch. But for now... I'm sticking with 4.

But since you have spent the money on P6, why not use it? It'll do plastic hair and limited lights just as well as P4, since it can host the same content and use the same render engine. In the meantime you'll get used to the expanded UI and can use new features incrementally as and when you might need them. Going from 4 to 6 isn't a "switch" like moving house; it's like having a big extension on your current house that also moves a couple of familiar walls.

If you already have P6, there can only be three sensible reasons for sticking with P4:

1/ Poser4 does something Poser6 cannot do.

2/ New Poser6 features seriously get in the way of your workflow (related to above).

3/ Poser6 is too buggy.

As for curiosity, Poser7 won't be that far off...

"...it's actually the other fancy aspects of the package (like lighting) that makes the final product such an overall winner."

I agree totally.

I didn't buy Poser5 for precisely the reason Sean mentions above - it didn't offer me anything I needed beyond Poser4. Some new bits were interesting (face room, dynamic cloth), but these (for me) could only be rendered within Poser5 - which still just couldn't render very well.

But Poser6 renders well enough (potentially) to the point that I won't need another render program except for backgrounds. So now all those interesting bits become very useful indeed.

I've not had much chance to play yet, but I have to say that I'm very impressed with Poser6.

Why can't you diehards at least accept someone's opinions about a new release without thrashing it in someway? Not everyone likes bells and whistles and not everyone wants to spend hours upon hours of learning a new program and not everyone is going to want the new version and not everyone is going to be able to afford it and not everyone is going to put up with the the bugs the new version has. People use Poser for different reasons. I still use PP and have no desire to ever upgrade. I use it as a hobby. I'm not out to impress anyone with what versions I have. That was the most 'thoughtout' review of P6 I've read on here so far. (just my humble opinion)

Like Sean, I'll be using P4 for most of my work just because it does what I need it to do. For some images I just can't spend hours on end trying to figure something out. On the other hand, I love the P6 lighting and hope to learn more on how to use it well. I also like the rendering engine and have only recently posted my first P6 render in my gallery, Hoshi, and I was quite happy with the finished result. I do have to say I absolutely love the way the libraries are set up in P6 and that I can link to the ones in P4. They actually work much quicker and I am so happy not to have to scroll down for five minutes until I reach the folder I need. The amount of folders is thanks to DAZ and their habit of having ten folders for each new Mil character. Ugh! But I hope that as time allows and the bugs get fixed I can delve more into P6. Right now work keeps me busy and I'm so dang tired I can't even think about opening either version Poser. LOL, such is life.

Even if you don't use any of the fancy bells and whistles (I don't, yet) there are some little things P6 does that make it indispensable, even if you just work on a P4 level. To me, these LITTLE things are great workflow savers: 1. The fact that when you select a new figure, it automatically defults to "Body" instead of remaining on the last part you fiddled with on the previous figure. This saves tons of point-and-click time. 2. The improved library directory - first implemented in Poser 5. It was annoying in P4 slowly scrolling through a long list every time you wanted to find a pose or add a new figure. 3. The "Delete-All-Lights" integrated into the program, with it's own Python button and eveything. Neat! 3. Open GL (or even SRee 3D). 4. A frame counter that doesn't abandon you after frame 999. 5. A material room that lets you simply point at and choose the material you want to fiddle with. Much simpler than scrolling through yet another clumsy list as in P4. 6. A hierarchy editor that expands to a full window. My memory is that the one in P4 didn't. (I use it all the time to make body parts invisible quickly.) These are tiny things, but they make working with Poser much less aggravating, even if you simply stick with just the P4 rendering and such. -jjsemp

That's a very rational argument. So I'm not quite sure what inclined you to spend the money on Poser6. Curiosity? Well, that plus getting Shade, all for $149. Shade alone is probably worth that, from what I've gotten out of it thus far. It's a pretty nifty little modeller. I'm not sure what my expectations of P6 were. It's a definite enhancement, no question about it. I was certainly curious about the possibilities in the hair and cloth rooms (which seem enormous). No doubt once I've gotten the Toon thing out of my system, I'll be in there playing with a vengeance. And yeah, if P7 comes along, I'll probably get that as well. Hey, after a while, it's only money. :)

"Why can't you diehards at least accept someone's opinions about a new release without thrashing it in someway?"

Have some posts been deleted? I don't see any thrashing or lack of acceptance in this thread, any more than I see anyone trying to impress with version numbers.

I see constructive engagement.

The reason Sean gives for sticking with Poser4 is perfectly sensible advice that I agree with. Given that, I just can't see why he bought Poser6. He certainly doesn't have to justify himself for doing so, I just couldn't see why. And now that he does have 6, what's stopping him using it?

Not insults or challenges; merely questions and opinions.

Sean, in case you didn't already know, you can use procedural textures on the background (yes, on the background, as if it's a prop) in P5/P6 to create gradient and patterned backgrounds that remind me of the ones you've created for many of your "littlest" renders. :-) Just a thought that might make playing around in P6 worth some of your time. DL Ajax's procedurals from FreeStuff here ... they include some background gradients that illustrate what I mean. Otherwise, yeah, nice to read about someone's choice to continue using version 4 that isn't based on monetary resentments or P5-release resentments. Although I'm happily married to P6 now, I thought P4/PP rocked the entire time I used it.

I like the way P6 handles transparencies. And there's just something I like about the way P6 renders. A few bugs, yeah but over all, I like P6 much better. Haven't tried the cloth room yet and just a little play with the hair room so far.
Water looks better in P6, that works for me. :)

I have three version installed right now and I think I can safely say I'll dump,P5. I still use PP for a lot of experimenting. The output may not be the greatest but it's faster. Then, I may try to do a render in P6 using some of the more advanced features.

"Well, that plus getting Shade, all for $149." Bloody hell, I've been so busy I'd forgotten all about Shade - which, of course, is why I went for the SE package. Mind you, Shade LE is only $49 for Poser4 owners, so that makes curiosity pretty expensive. As you say, it's only money. ;-) The Poser4 style working I've done in P6 hasn't brought out the bugs so far, so I'm gradually transferring the interesting parts of my Runtime over for P6 organising. If the bug free P4-in-P6 operations continue, I'll be phasing P4 out to background pretty fast. I really like the 'take it or leave it' approach you can adopt with nearly all the new stuff. I was expecting to be forced onto the bottom of a learning curve, but the way they've done it means I can actually join the curve in different places at different times at my leisure.

Ok - I didn't read everything in the thread - but I love P6 - there's something about the render quality that I just like. And of course the most important part is that I agree with Sean Martins first point - James is a very fine looking man - the best looking poser male I've seen so far.

For me, multiple runtimes/nested folders alone are reason to upgrade from P4.

i like the new P6 icon

...& just to give the "can't we all just get along" crowd something to work with: Sean you intractable Luddite! -Nance (loves P6 toys, but also still spending most of his time in P4 for practical reasons. The fact that you can still run P4 may be my favorite feature of P6)

James is a very fine looking man - the best looking poser male I've seen so far

I really do agree here. It's my understanding that RDNA designed him, and they did one heckuva job. When I had P6 installed, I put him through some serious hoops, just to see where the mesh would break. It hasnt yet. That's pretty cool right there. But add into it that he's also pretty hot, and you have a character that really demands support.

Of course, if PhilCs coming clothing converter works with the P6 characters, it wont matter whether the merchants support him or not.

Sean you intractable Luddite!

Hey c'mon! We got electricity last week, and I promised the family we'd have indoor plumbing by summer. You cant push this stuff too fast, y'know.

Edited to correct some faulty HTML.

Message edited on: 04/20/2005 23:10 And some misspelling.

Message edited on: 04/20/2005 23:11

PhilC's making a clothing converter?

I like James' face, but I really find his proportions odd. Not quite as odd as Jessi's, but his upper arms are too short and his lower arms are too long. You really see it in poses where his hands are on his hips, or "David"-like poses where the hand is raised to the shoulder.