I was back in the Setup Room, in Poser 7, trying to create bones for another figure. Things were going really well until I tried to save the delicate work on the foot bone. Poser 7 vanished and the work was lost. After redoing the work and watching this happened a second time, I switched to Poser 5’s Setup Room. It’s interesting to compare the differences between Poser 5 and Poser 7. Each has its advantages. Each is screwed up in its own unique way. For example, sometimes in Poser 5, you just aren’t allowed to name your bone. Type in any name you like and watch it revert back to a generic number. This is almost certainly a deliberate attempt to drive the user mad...right? After working in Poser 5 and saving several times without crashing, I tried to get past the name bug by bringing the file back into Poser 7. There was just one problem. Although I could see the model once the file opened, Poser 7 insisted there was no figure or prop. When I tried to open the file in Poser 5, I couldn’t even see the figure. All of my work was lost. Rigging would only be half as difficult if Poser's Setup Room was dependable. Maybe E-frontier and Daz have a special edition of Poser that actually functions while the masses are provided with a version intended to curtail competition? I don’t really believe that, of course. Any company that names the front view “front front” (as opposed to front back???) couldn’t possibly be that calculating.

Rigging would only be half as difficult if Poser's Setup Room was dependable. Maybe E-frontier and Daz have a special edition of Poser that actually functions while the masses are provided with a version intended to curtail competition? 

They make more money off people buying content, and havinng 3rd parites sell their content through them. Doing what you are suggesting would be like cutting one's nose off. 

But, it's very possible that 'the pros' have better ways of rigging, rather then the setup room.

Phi Builder and the Joint Editor.  Fugetta about the Setup room.  It's like rigging a figure with flint stone tools.

I laughed so hard at the title, it made my two year old laugh. :)

I feel ya brother!

I think each individual creator will have their own paths to use.

You see Kuroyume likes PhiBuilder to create, I like to use a donor cr2 or just build from scratch (bones). I just finished off some crazy boning for a LandMate I am creating, the boning was for all of the pistons that work. Each toe has 3 pistons, 3 toes per foot, plus the legs are animal like in that they have the backwards knee happening. Rigging is time consuming but it isn't rocket science.
All in all whatever way you choose will have it's own pitfalls.

As far as P7 lagging, shutting down...I don't have the amount of problems that I see posted here day after day...just goes to show that each rig will have it's own problems (let alone the software). Yes, Poser will decide to, "have nothing more to do with me" sometimes but that's about every 2-3 weeks, it will just turn off. Save, save, save whilst working.

I tried them all; donor rigging, Phi Builder (which probably works quite well for those folks not like me..;), didn't have Poser 5 at the time, but was considering using the setup room one of these days. Managed to make a robot with all the bones in the stomach...;)

The deepest circle of Hell, according to Dante, is a big lake, frozen with traitors submerged to various depths. The devil is in the center, with 3 mouths, chewin' on Brutus, Judas, and somone else...sorry, been a coupla decades since I read it..;)

I reminded more of Sisyphus ever rolling the big rock up a hill only to have it plunge back down just before reaaching the top.  Thus the continuous process of nearing completion of the rig and having Poser 7 plunge the work into the abyss.

Yes, everyone has their own sanctified approach.  I like Phi Builder because it gets you a rudimentary rig to start tweaking with the Joint Editor.  The same can be said of a 'donor' CR2 if one matches closely enough - my rigs have tended to be 'unmatched'. ;)  At least you can import the mesh and apply the Phi file and then save it before catastrophe hits (same with the donor method).  In the Setup room, you are completely at Poser's mercy until you have some level of basic rigging.

We all know the cliched definition of 'insanity' - doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.  If using the Setup room continously leads to the same problem - try a different thing.

Sometimes too Poser just like to have your computer restarted and then life is good...depends on how many baddies you have running around inside...maybe time for a cleaning/virus check (???).

Quote - The devil is in the center, with 3 mouths, chewin' on Brutus, Judas, and somone else...sorry, been a coupla decades since I read it..;)

Cassius

I do some very intricate rigging, and I only use the setup room. I just make sure to save often :)

In all fairness, and upon reflection, I should note that "Front Front" was merely the result of my defective eyesight and actually reads "From Front." I apologize to the good people at e-frontier. No doubt my Setup Room problems are a merely a misunderstanding of the perfection that is Poser. In any case, I’ve emerged from the hell of the Setup Room and can now proceed with the joint editing where the problems seem to be fewer.

When I used to teach, I used to tell my students religiously: SAVE YOUR WORK EVERY FIVE MINUTES.

SAVE YOUR WORK EVERY FIVE MINUTES. That's generally good advice, but for the Setup Room I would recommend saving every time you do anything as separate files.

Sure would like to see if Mac users are having the same problem with Poser as we who are PC users.

My VUE5  will do the same thing once in a while (simply close).  I believe its not Poser specific.  What I THINK and I repeat THINK is happening is that the 512KB reserved housekeeping portion of Ram fills up and the CPU has a "heart attack" (layman's term).  The folks that advise save, save, save, IMHO, are so correct.  One other thing to do is shutdown the computer periodically for at least 10 seconds to flush the garbage out of RAM and that 512KB reserved area.

I think that  MS wonderfully sets aside,  512K for housekeeping (regardless of what or how much RAM you have be it 128, 512, 1024, 2048 MB or a googleplex or RAM).  If it doesn't flush out, you get these neat little surprises.  On the other hand Mac uses as much of your total RAM as it needs, that why the opening question. 

Plutom 

I have Vue6 and poser 7 on a mac (intel). Vue disappears from time to time- but only a time or two was it completely unable to recover the scene (and that was frustrating, not because I lost work- but because it tried over and over...wasting about an hour before I gave up and said "no thanks" upon restart!)

I don't use many rooms in P7 other than the pose and material room (and occassionally the cloth and hair). I don't think Poser has ever just poofed, though.

I went through a phase of trying to make posable trees and just created my cr2 by hand before loading it up to tweak the joints, so I guess I was doing the phi builder thing. I never had any trouble....but, of course....I would end up with only a half dozen body parts most of the time.

I'd like to know why Poser does that sudden disappearing trick.  It is very annoying and makes me spit.  I had that happen to me about 1 week ago, and I had already done all the updates to Poser, and my computer was working fine otherwise.

I'm with Kuroyume: phi builder and joint editor.  The setup room is only good if you want a chance to practice up on your use of explitives, IMO.  :)  Boy, the times I've cursed Poser to the lowest rungs of the underworld.  Yeh, wow.  Yet I always come back to it.  Addictions are funny that way....

the trick to naming a bone in Poser 5 is to hit enter key after typing in the name each time. I tend to use the setup room as little as possible, the only times I use the setup room is if I want to create figures that contain the joints of one figure but have added joints, like if I am doing bodyhandles in clothing, for that the setup room is generally very useful, otherwise I avoid it. as for the joint editor I prefer the P5 joint editor to both the P6 and P7 ones, as they are both more buggy. unfortunately due to the slight changes in how joints work in poser starting with P6 I have been forced to move up.

I've found it more stable to use an existing cr2, strip the morphs and then move the bones around within your new figure mesh. I've never had problems with the face or setup rooms. Cloth is another story. :O)

***Curse Poser to the lowest circle of hell

*your far to late....

the trick to naming a bone in Poser 5 is to hit enter key after typing in the name each time. There are occasions when that trick doesn't work in Poser 5. Poser 7 is more reliable--at least with the naming. I like the red and green wire frame falloff zones in Poser 5. This makes it easier to keep track of which is the inner and the outer zone. In Poser 7 they decided to make both spheres gray. (Change is good, right?) Another "improvement" is that you can no longer see through the 'outline' mode, which makes placing the falloff zones more difficult, but hey, that's part of the fun. I’ve downloaded the phibuilder. It sounds like it might save a lot of time when I bone the reins.

I spent most of today fleshing out PHI builder for a new creature and once you get the hang of it it's very easy. Here's a pic of my sucess or failure...however you wish to view it.

For regular humanoid figures I'll still use a blank CR2...but for creatures with numerous limbs it was much easier than watching Poser lock up and die every 20 minutes in the setup room.

Makes me glad I still have P5 say what you want about it. I perfer it over any other version after the horror stories I have read about P7 I have stayed clear of it.

Here's a pic of my sucess or failure...however you wish to view it. Cool, like something from Terminator 4, Robots Gone Wild. I'm not ready to post any renders of my project at this point. The steed is done, but half the equipment needs to be boned, morphs haven't been loaded (or created) and I haven't loaded or tweaked the materials yet. Ideally, the steed and equipment will be sized (or morphed) to fit a variety of Poser figures, though it was initially conceived as a mount for my Nargron character found at the following link.

I always end up with the "you have polygons that are not grouped to a bone.  do you really want to leave setup?"  notice.  Sometimes it's near impossible to find them, though switching to wireframe has helped a few times.  Poser really needs the +/- grow /shrink selection tool like so many other programs have now.

The idea that eF or Daz have deliberately crippled or strategically omitted features (or critical aspects of format reading/writing) to make the creation process needlessly painful occurs to me nearly everytime I buy something.  I'm not sure it's to prevent us from making figures, or from modifying existing figures, but is there any excuse for the next-to-no improvements of the set-up room in 3 straight versions of the program (that I can tell?).  You didn't get it right guys.  Don't stop working on it yet.

It'll be interesting to see if any of the important features we are left requesting make it into the next version.  If Poser 8 doesn't have improved setup room, GLSL shaders or soft bodies, it's going to take one hell of a limited edition content pack to impress me.

So, did you report your problems to e-frontier?

Quote - Phi Builder and the Joint Editor.  Fugetta about the Setup room.  It's like rigging a figure with flint stone tools.

AMEN to that. PhiBuilder is the absolute easiest way to rig anything for Poser. It's a matter of minutes and you'll have a working rig to improve, enhance, perfect. But the basics are there and works.

The mere thought of rigging anything with fingers in the SetupRoom is enough to send me into a fit of hysteria...