Is there anybody else out there that thinks anything after P4 is... crap?!
I've got one  buddy that bought P5 (after using P4) and hates it.
I've got another that went from 4 to 7...hated it.
He let me try it (tried to sell it to me), I hated it.
To me, P4 is kind of like classic rock. Everything after it sux.
I can't stand the interface.
Can't find anything. Gotta click all over the place to open anything up.
Hate it !!
It truly isn't worth the time to learn.
I realize you can do  things in P5,6 and 7 that you can't do in P4, but...bring back the old interface.
For me, they've got nuthin' worth spending all that time learning.
C'mon, there's got to be other people out there that have the same opinion as me.

p4 was the last app they wrote that anybody could use with ease. I warned them not to complicate things, but they were under so much pressure to add dozens of bells and whistles that they couldn't fight it. now the app is pretty much beyond the understanding of the average user, and most of those bells anbd whistles go unused. and the next version will be even more beyond the cognitive abilities of the target demographic, but that's why the forums at these poser-related sites (and books by deecey et al.) have become essential.

It's been so long since I've used Poser 4 that I can't remember its interface, except that it was pretty similar to every version of Poser. I seem to recall thinking that the renders in Poser 5 were a step up, though.

When I first got P4, within minutes, I had naked girls and guys (mostly girls) all over the place.
It absolutely amazed the crap out of me.
With P7, I just sat there and stared at it...doing nothing.
After I deleted P7 from my puter, I fired up P4 and giggled like an idiot at the ease of use.

You should have gone to the content browser in Poser 7 and clicked on "figures." I'm not sure how this differs from the procedure in Poser 4. Perhaps if you skipped the "sit and stare" part...?

I used Poser 4 and upgraded to Poser 6 then Poser 7.  Happy with going forward, to be honest.

After clicking all over the place and finding nothing familiar and trying to read the manual, sitting and staring was the only thing left to do.

One of the best things about Poser 4 is it gave you the option of using it with the Poser 2 GUI if you wanted...

Poser 2 had the last reasonable interface for Poser but I do enjoy the new features such as shaders and morph brush and morph putty in Poser 7 as well as the Face Room when used with the Poser 5, G2 and Apollo figures. The multiple view ports that came in with PoserProPack  can also be usefull though usually I just switch cameras with the hot keys in a single preview pane.

I think a lot of people would like a hack to replace the Poser 5-7 interface but most don't know that Poser 2 had a perfectly good interface design that would work just great extended to the features and tools of the later versions if that was possible. Sometimes I use the Loader.py by ockham as a substitute for the libraries but I sure wish the other interface ellements could be controled with a retro interface.

There was a single-tabbed-palette UI.py I used for a while with Poser 5 but I don't think it runs with Poser 7. A simple python based UI for Poser 7 that controlled the posing like the William_the_Bloody's Pose Magic and Universal Morph Magnets and used sliders for trans/rot and scale etc. would sure be cool... I just would not want to give up channel nesting for the morphs.

I can't imagine not having proper bump mapping, displacement mapping, AO, point lights, edge lights the material room and the like.

I look at how bad old "best" P4 renders look, compared with the "best" P7 renders, and P4 stuff just looks like so dated and unrealistic.

My old amiga and atari 800 artwork sufer the same fate.

This seems like a thread form like 5 years ago that never made it through the que, and finally resurfaced... kind of amusing more then anything else, actually.

Firefly would be good if it worked properly.

I have been using poser since version 1 and still prefer p4 with propack, it is much faster than the newer versions on my computer and the interface is not all messed up as was mentioned earlier.

New is not always good.

P4 was good and I used it for years, P5 was buggy, P6 was P5 with the bugs ironed out, and P7 was basically a Beta release, and remains so dispite all the patches.. Poser Pro better be good, or others like me, will start thinking that the extra bucks for Max or C4D could be worth the money.

With all the great things in P7 I would never, ever, go back to P4

Well, P5 is very buggy, it never worked on my computer. I have P4, ProPak, P6 and P7, but time after time when doing my artwork and creating content, I do it in ProPak.  I love it, what can I say?  I'll use P6 if I'm going to use shaders or create P6 above content (but will always include ProPak stuff too) etc....but I use them few and far between. 

I'm a Brycer from way back and honestly, if I'm going to have to wait hours for a render, I'll fire Bryce up and render in there :)  What can I say?  What I do find interesting is the morph tool in P7, but haven't had too much time to learn it. P7 is still way buggy too,  I like all versions but ProPak is my definate favorite....
I think it just depends on what you want from the software. 

I've got P5, and it's ok. I mainly use the P4 items I learned, and just barely playing with the materials room...;) The renders do look better, even if they're larger as file sizes (which makes the thumbnails even smaller, to get that 15k filesize....sigh..;)

 "dated", "unrealistic" and "amusing" ?
Gosh, even Republicans use Poser !

The Poser UI is a great example of how NOT to do things. I've had the P4 ProPack trial (uninstalled it ages ago), P5, P6 and now P7. In all versions the UI is horrible.

As for functionality, P7 works the best for me. I often use dynamic cloth, sometimes dynamic hair. P5 introduced them, P6 fixed them, and they also work fine in P7. I still miss some features though.
The render engine in P7 is a step up from P6, and P6 is a step up from P5. Firefly is a decent render engine, although it has its quirks. Anyway, most of my scenes refuse to render in the old P4 renderer, but do render in Firefly.

I would NEVER go back to P4. It misses far too many features that I use everyday.

still prefer p4 with propack, The later versions are not user intutitive.

lol, and I like the old Kai interface.

I don't deny that anything above P4 has more features.
It's just that P4 is so much more user friendly .

** *P4ever !!!

But, to perfectly honest, ....... I am rapidly falling in love with "6" also.

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

There you have it. Geep, one of the Poser Gods.
If Geep says so, then you can take it to the bank !

Seems strange that people would sacrifice the end result for an easier interface. I find Poser 7 quite easy to use. I started with Poser 6 & I was expecting it to take me an age to pick it up, but I think it's OK. I find that if I can move around & find what I need quickly then it'll do for me.

"It truly isn't worth the time to learn."

I guess if you don't need the extra features which are now on offer in the new versions then there's no need to move forward, but I wouldn't knock P5 -P7 just because you don't have the patience to learn it.

Patience is another name for wasting time.
Just kiddin'. You're right, I don't have the patience.
I want results...now!!! And that's what I got from P4 when I first bought it.
As for putting P7 down. What I'm saying is P4 is MUCH easier to learn and use.

Quote - Just kiddin'. You're right, I don't have the patience.
I want results...now!!!

I guess you'll be wanting to know where the 'MAKE ART' button is in the newer versions then, LOL!!
No seriously, I understand the need for an intuitive interface. People find they have problems with some modelling apps because just getting around the interface can be a task in itself.
I was pleased when I got Vue because I was dreading an interface that would take days to learn, thankfully it's pretty good. Poser 7 could be better, but I feel with a little time most people could get around it.

Hi gang, my two cents (probably not worth that even),. However in defense of Poser 5, I've never had any problems with it (that wasn't operator error).  With the figure of Judy, before condemning her looks, check out the freebie section, P5 only and look at the wonderful things several of those authors did.  I'm referring to ViktorinaP5f, LilianaP5f, FedosyaP5f, and SatomiP5f.  If VikorinaP5f, for example, the author added additional face morphs, teeth that you can move up/down, in/out and also some figure morphs.  From these I learn how to do magnets.  They are still there but buried.  One can really create some beautiful faces with them--I think I did and, if I can, think what you talented people here can do, it would be absolutely no problem for you folks--okay post work is necessary to eliminate creases and adjust eyes in the sockets.

I agree that there is a tremendous amount of stuff in the Materials room involving math functions nodes- a lot that I don't see the reason for.  However, when I get enough nerve up, I'm going to experiment and begin asking more stupid questions.

As for Poser 4, got some really nice freebies for the female poser character, AnaP4woman, Angeline and BE4Mahania--they are buried to so you are going to have to narrow the field to Poser 4 only

i'm a die-hard P4 user, though i just recently installed P7SE.  i find the P7 interface to be very awkward and circular in its workflow paths rather than straight-lined & linear the way that P4 is.  plus P4 is so wonderfully stable on my system too, where P7 seems to suddenly close on me for no reason at the most inconvenient times.  and the P7 manual isn't terribly helpful either, except perhaps in its descriptions regarding materials starting on pg 313, though i find it frustrating that while they do a great job describing math functions, colour math, blenders, etc. in technical terms, they leave what i think is crucial information out which is why should i choose say Blinn over Glossy or Phong and the pros/cons of those choices.  i'm curious about such things, but with the constant battle with P7 shutting down on me, i just don't have the time, patience nor inclination to play and discover the subtle nuances that P7 most likely has.

where i am willing to uninstall P7 on a moment's whim, i'm not willing to do so with P4.

if they could rework the interface and the program's stability, yea, P7 definitely gives fine results from my extremely limited experience and from a good number of nifty images i've seen, but for now, P4 will remain my main playpen.

Quote - Is there anybody else out there that thinks anything after P4 is... crap?!
I

And whom so ever chooses to remain in the crumbling caves of the past
shall  only produce primitive anachronistic artifacts from the past.

if you have "Simple Needs" as 3D Artist and are not concerned with ANY modern day standards of 3D rendering/illustration output
then by all means hold dearly to your rudimentary quaint little last century programs
and the substandard outdated hardware &OS systems to run them.
but to call the modern versions "Crap"  simply because of your lack of ability to learn what most others have
 is not really a mature statement.

I know some people for example that still cling to the Delusion the
Apple computer Should not have moved forward to the powerful
Unix based OSX system.
I know a person still running Mac OS 8.5 on a 166MHZ So called "powermac"
using poser4.
he cant run V3 certainly not V4!! no Daz studio no modern applications at all
and is always begging for venders to retrofit products for the older Mill2 figures
which they never do  of course.
 Ironicly  he owns an older imac G4 running OSX
and has poser5,poser6, poser7 sitting on  a shelf still in the original boxes
I have Virtually begged him to least install P5 or P6 on the Mac G4 to take a look just poke around try some test renders
but the mere thought of it seems to leave him PARALIZED with FEAR

Fear of change can be a very destructive force in a person life
particularly a person with "creative interests"
but to each there own

cheers

Giana, there are folks that can help you with this-the sudden, without warning closing to the background screen thing. -today, my Poser 5 did exactly the same thing when I tried to render one figure and three lights.  My problem was the hair, two bangs (either one) caused Poser to simply close leaving me with my opening screen.  I don't know the reason, but in my case sometimes a given .pz3 file and say a hair piece will do this, yet on another .pz3 file, everything worked fine.  Plutom 

could someone post a screenshot of P4 ? although i have it, it is no longer installed and hehe i cant remember its differences...

well, Plutom, i've tried everything i can think of to try to resolve the battle of the closing program but with me as the victor of said battle, and i'm at a loss... sigh...

i typically only render a nude figure and go from there, though at times, i might add a few lightweight in size props.  P7 closes on me under the most simplistic circumstances - ie, nude V4 under a spot & 2 omni lights without shaders being used on the V4 texture and without any nodes attached to lights, etc..  it also collapses on me if the texture does have shaders being used and a bit more complex lighting.  i'm not raytracing or anything either.  all my drivers are up to date and my prefs are set properly according to the manual and what's appropo for my system.

i've run countless searches here in forum to try to see if i can turn up anything to help, but so far nothing has worked.  and P7 closing on me is so inexplicably random, too, that i can't discern any kind of patterning in what might be prompting it to shut down on me.  for example, it might close during a render, but then i reopen the saved PZ3 file, and render things and everything works just fine.

it's a mystery... heh...

Giana, maybe not a mystery.   Why don't you make a thread on your problem?  The experts here love puzzles like yours.  Plutom

Quote - > Quote - Is there anybody else out there that thinks anything after P4 is... crap?!

I

And whom so ever chooses to remain in the crumbling caves of the past
shall  only produce primitive anachronistic artifacts from the past.

if you have "Simple Needs" as 3D Artist and are not concerned with ANY modern day standards of 3D rendering/illustration output
then by all means hold dearly to your rudimentary quaint little last century programs
and the substandard outdated hardware &OS systems to run them.
but to call the modern versions "Crap"  simply because of your lack of ability to learn what most others have
 is not really a mature statement.

I know some people for example that still cling to the Delusion the
Apple computer Should not have moved forward to the powerful
Unix based OSX system.
I know a person still running Mac OS 8.5 on a 166MHZ So called "powermac"
using poser4.
he cant run V3 certainly not V4!! no Daz studio no modern applications at all
and is always begging for venders to retrofit products for the older Mill2 figures
which they never do  of course.
 Ironicly  he owns an older imac G4 running OSX
and has poser5,poser6, poser7 sitting on  a shelf still in the original boxes
I have Virtually begged him to least install P5 or P6 on the Mac G4 to take a look just poke around try some test renders
but the mere thought of it seems to leave him PARALIZED with FEAR

Fear of change can be a very destructive force in a person life
particularly a person with "creative interests"
but to each there own

cheers

Yep, it only takes  one person to start the old whine of "if you're not using what I think is the best, then you're stuck in the past....."

It's a personal choice, depending on what the person wants to use the software for.  Up until your statment this was actually quite an enlightening and very civil conversation for a change.

So very sorry some of us don't live up to your expectations of what we as artists should use to produce our own artwork.  I'm happy that you are happy with what works for you, you should be the same for me.  If not, then why comment at all other then to insult or ridicule people? Can you tell I'm really tired of others telling me what is best in my creative life?

Merry Christmas :)

I hope your holidays are blessed and your new year is creative and good to you.

Ladyelf

thanks for the refresher Giana ^ ^ the thing that has always bothered me about the Poser interface are the clunky parameter dials, i always have trouble grabbing them with the mouse (although i do like the P7 numeric fields right next to the dials) and the DAZ Studio sliders seem much more elegant.

Apart from the newer interface, firefly is not very good.  It can`t render double sided polygons or objects with reversed normals almost every other 3d renderer can render these ok.

Some of the other newer things are not so good, pmd files are a nuisance and I have noticed that they are being used much more now, even with things that don`t need them.

For figures and objects that don`t have a lot of (or any) morphs a pmd file is a waste of time.

These are not the only bad things about the newer versions, but they are the only ones I can think of at the moment.

P5 is total arse.  P6, however, is the dog's bollocks.  Don't have P7 so I can't say.

And that's the view from here in SamTherapy land.

Quote - P6, however, is the dog's bollocks.

I would love to see that wrote on the Poser 6 box cover. It'd be a great selling point!

Quote - "P6, however, is the dog's bollocks. "

Um, is that a good thing? I know I yelled words like that when my renders kept crashing on me. At least I do not have that problem with Poser 7.

I still use a LOT Poser Pro Pack in my creations. It´s really fast and easy !!!
And I use Poser 7 to give the final toutch in my creations.

Quote - Quote - "P6, however, is the dog's bollocks. "

Um, is that a good thing?

Yes it is -> http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/dog's%20bollocks.html

Yeah, the dog's bollocks is a term used alot here in little old England. It means something is really good!

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Is there anybody else out there that thinks anything after P4 is... crap?!

I

but to call the modern versions "Crap"  simply because of your lack of ability to learn what most others have
 is not really a mature statement.

Fear of change can be a very destructive force in a person life
particularly a person with "creative interests"
but to each there own

cheers

Yep, it only takes  one person to start the old whine of "if you're not using what I think is the best, then you're stuck in the past....."

It's a personal choice, depending on what the person wants to use the software for. 
 Can you tell I'm really tired of others telling me what is best in my creative life?

Ladyelf

@ Ladyelf
It Always helps to READ a post before responding to it

For the record  I dont  own or need poser7 &technically do not even "use" Poser6
And I dont find where I have stated what version of poser you "should" using

I use Cinema4D with the interposer pro plugin that Gives me full access to my poser runtime assets as well as Most of poser functionality WITHIN CINEMA.

So why do you  create phony Dishonest statements and attribute them to me
when I did not say them.???

I would suggest that You and The Thread Starter show
just Little intellectual honesty.and compare features
if ,for the strict purposes of posing animation and rendering figure&props,
Poser 6-7 is 'Crap"
then what does that make poser4??

the thread starter admitted to trying the later versions but was at least
HONEST enough to admit he LACKED the patience to learn the new Tools
features etc.
I disagree that his LACK of patience or ability to LEARN of itself makes  every version of poser after poser4 "Crap"

BTW I believe that for my rendering purposes most of poser 6-7 is "less than sufficient"
with some notable exceptions (poser physics,mimic animation).
Hence im using Cinema4d and vue to render poser formatted content.

But I still do not consider poser 6-7 to be "Crap"
like the one who started the thread.

Quote - Yeah, the dog's bollocks is a term used alot here in little old England. It means something is really good!

Here in France (with the correct translation my fingers wouldn't dare to type) it would mean a lot of things but something good Oo
You english people have so funny expressions and terms LOL (the old battle french/english) LOL

Hey Vince, some of the terms the youngsters here use today even have me baffled!

It is weird but I don't see a lot of difference between the P4 and the P7 interface. Certainly nothing that would cause me to be lost.

But I do agree P5 was a dog, P6 was more stable, and P7 works as long as you have the machine to make it work. P4 is still quicker but you sacrifice a lot of what you can do.

"Hounds Hangers" is a slightly more PC version of Dogs Bollocks :)

I only ever use poser to set the scene up for rendering in Vue so I could probably get away with poser 1 :)

I wonder how many people use something other than poser to do their renders.  Might be an idea for a poll if such things exist

Quote - I wonder how many people use something other than poser to do their renders.  Might be an idea for a poll if such things exist

That'd be an interesting poll, could an official one be set up?

Quote - It is weird but I don't see a lot of difference between the P4 and the P7 interface. Certainly nothing that would cause me to be lost.

But I do agree P5 was a dog, P6 was more stable, and P7 works as long as you have the machine to make it work. P4 is still quicker but you sacrifice a lot of what you can do.

I agree

On the poll question will probably find quite  few people who render in other programs
many of whom were likely already using the other app as their primary App but use poser to get
content in ready to render

Quote "You english people have so funny expressions and terms LOL (the old battle french/english)"

I live in the United States, and more often than not I get confused with the words people use where I live! Thank you to all the people that cleared up the dog's bollocks thing.

Now to get back on topic, I never used Poser 4, so I truly cannot compare. I started with Poser 6, and liked it except for the fact that I had to render things in a bunch of passes with a tiny bucket size just to make this primitive beast I laughingly call my computer to allow the render to happen. Poser 7 seems a lot more stable in that regard. I still have quite a lot to learn, but I am finally having fun with this.

If you know how to avoid the boobytraps, P7 is a reasonable good upgrade, I agree that you need a upgrade for your computer as well, but that's where upgrades are for, to keep things going. I've never used P4 or propack (legally) I jumped from P3 to P5 and that was really an upgrade if you compare the features of P5 with P3, setuproom, dynamic hair and cloths, firefly rendering with real raytracing etc. etc. If you want  to use something really buggy, try Hexagon2.2 for a change, I've been wrestling to learn the program for some weeks now and it's not completely foolproof, so to say. But... when you get used to it and avoid the boobytraps and don't eat the yellow snow, it's a great program, just like Poser 7 (SR2  offcourse). One of the greatest things of P7 is the multiple UNDO, but I really, really, REALLY, hope they improve the interface of poser in the next upgrade, because that has been overdue for years now.

Merry Christmas.

Bopperthijs

hmm... given my PC specs, i'd have to assume it capable of being able to cope with P7 much better than it does, but p'raps my assumption has made me an arse and i'm quite wrong.

i have P6SE [the one that comes with the Winter Princess stuff], but i've not ever installed it because after searching through the forum here, i was left with the impression that P7 utilises resources better than P6.  and in comparing the manuals of both versions, apart from a few minor things [minor to me, i should say], i opted to install P7.

i spent about 4-5 hours cleaning up my P4 Runtime and then copying it over to P7 because i don't want to run multiple Runtimes, as well as trashing most of the content that came with P7SE since most of it held very little interest for me apart from some of the animals.

but maybe i should nix P7 [though saving the animals of course after editing the CR2s] and try a go at installing P6SE...

i'd like to explore shaders more, and lighting capabilities, etc., but know myself well enough to realise that if i am in constant struggle with P7 shutting down on me, the frustration will win out over the thrill of discovery.

jerr3d said:
"***the thing that has always bothered me about the Poser interface

are the clunky parameter dials,

i always have trouble grabbing them with the mouse***"

i know what you mean, but developed long ago using my mouse to double-click on the dial to bring up the dialogue box where i can change a number of different value inputs...  i'm not experienced enough in P7 to know if that is possible, but habits die hard and i'm sure without thinking about it, i was operating the same way...

Part of the problem here to me would seem to be the fact that people assume that software is shipped in a finished state and bug free when they purchase it.

As poser has become more complex and later versions had more bugs that showed a bit more dramatically.  Most people don't have a clue they should go to a web site to check for updates to a program, much less the ability to actually find and install the updates.

Honestly any version of poser runs relatively stable on my computer.  P7 does appear to use quite a bit more resources than P6, but that's what happens as a program gets more complex.  I didn't see enough of a difference between P6 and P7 to justify paying the price to upgrade, but that's my personal opinion.

As far as the interfaces go I haven't played with Poser 4 in a very long time, but the Poser 6 and 7 interfaces seem almost identical to Poser 4 to me.  The only major differences that stand out in my mind are the choice of render engines, the shader nodes in the material room, and the inclusion of the face room, materials, setup, and so on.

Those extra tabs aren't exactly hard to figure out.