>> more attention should have been paid to their base shape rather than shifting the onus onto the customer to correct these issues.

Okay, rather to continue reading page after page on this, my 0.02, for whatever it's worth...

As Phil pointed out, these are blank canvases, nothing more. If you want "pretty" right out of the box, there's a ton and a half of resources already available.

But if, like me, you enjoy playing with these meshes and seeing what's possible, both by morphing and texturing, the new lo-poly figures are a delight, something so very different from the pre-packaged, cookie-cutter figures we've had before. Their original intent? Who cares? They'll teach me how to use facets of poser I never really looked at before, information I can then apply to other character meshes.

I dont want everything given to me on a silver spoon, guys. Sometimes I want to work it up myself. The new figures give me the opportunity to do so. No, no pretty pictures from them, but that's not what they're for. And yeah, they're too poly heavy for game work. But for a blank slate I can learn from... hey, not bad. It's not about "correcting"; it's about learning -- and about time we got something that could actually be used for that.

So see them as just another door. If you want to work straight out of the box, there's other things available. But if you want something so simple that you can have some fun for a change...

:peeks in, looks around: :rolleyes:

This old chestnut again? Maybe the mods would be just as well off to create a sticky post for those who wish to discuss (argue) whether or not one is a true "artist" or "professional" if they use Poser. Chances are it would go hundreds of pages long (if that's possible, don't know a lot about forum software limitations) and keep the debaters happy for a very long time.

Quote - Poser users are not taking this seriously, right? If not a good laugh, what else was I supposed to get out of this thread?

A good snooze? I swear, I kicked the side of my old 586 AMD when I first heard this one.  

I'd rather be topnotch than professional if I had to choose. Not that you can't be both.

Where's the cats?

Ah, yes -- it's good to see that these types of threads always go through their natural evolutionary process.  First: the OP which kicks off the dispute: which leads to a lengthy debate (replete with personal recriminations -- questioning the characteristics of the opponent's ancestors, their maturity, their motives for saying what they've said, etc.) : which is then followed by laments over the worthlessness of the entire exercise -- which said 'entire exercise' is totally beneath the notice of the triangulated 'above-the-fray' lament-makers......so: of course it follows that it has to be commented on.

Here's the lesson:  no one should ever participate in a forum thread -- controversial (on any side of a given issue -- right or wrong) -- or even non-controversial.  Because if you do participate in a thread: then you always run the risk of being lamented over for having spoken up and expressed an opinion on a given subject.

Non-participation makes one superior to the participants......and that's always a neat trick.  It's a trick which is commonly used by politicians who wish to appear to be better than their 'bickering' opponents.  Sometimes it even works. 

:m_sleep:

XENOPHONZ, is that not the proper formula for all forum threads?

Quote - XENOPHONZ, is that not the proper formula for all forum threads?

Pretty much -- except for a few purely technical threads.  And even those types of "serious" discussions can end up turning into threads which closely follow the same pattern - as soon as one of the participants says something that another participant doesn't like, or is convinced is wrong.

But perhaps arguing bitterly over lighting or texturing issues occurs on a much higher moral plain than does arguing over Art, or over the meaning of professionalism, or whatever.  Take your pick. 

Quote - Here's the lesson:  no one should ever participate in a forum thread -- controversial (on any side of a given issue -- right or wrong) -- or even non-controversial.  Because if you do participate in a thread: then you always run the risk of being lamented over for having spoken up and expressed an opinion on a given subject.

Hah ! Seriously though, these threads are at least good for one thing (and i suspect it's the reason the mods let them go on for so long) ie they work as lightning rods and attract all the negative energy of the forum and confine it to this huge chain of posts and counter-posts till it all gets grounded by a thread lock. Keeps all the other threads clean and coherant.

Like now that this thread is approaching 'ground' after 14 pages, i bet we wont get any more static in the forum about PP again. Well till SM releases SP1 or something anyway :P

Quote - But perhaps arguing bitterly over lighting or texturing issues occurs on a much higher moral plain than does arguing over Art, or over the meaning of professionalism, or whatever.  Take your pick

Same plain, different dimension :)

Quote - Keeps all the other threads clean and coherant.

Co-here-rant.  Now that's a great term: especially under the circumstances. 

Quote - Like now that this thread is approaching 'ground' after 14 pages, i bet we wont get any more static in the forum about PP again. Well till SM releases SP1 or something anyway :P

I......wouldn't be so sure about that.  Although it's possible.  Hey -- in the forums -- anything is possible.  But you could be guessing right: so I won't argue with you about it.  :biggrin:

Quote - Same plain, different dimension :)

Yes:

You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop...........

LOL - I think this thread is great.

We have a participatory community. That's so much cooler than a dull non-participatory community.

It was with good reason that I started the thread with a link to the announcement, and "That is all. Begin." I knew I didn't have to take any position at all, and like the tiny primordial seed, from that would come the cosmos.

The release of a new version of Poser (Pro or not) is very exciting and is bound to generate some strong opinions. Each of us has our favorite thing we want implemented next, and those that find it are very happy and those that don't are disappointed. Having divided into two camps, the opinion of one camp is that the other camp are a bunch of idiots. Either way. :)

I think what electrified many in this case is the "Pro" moniker. That word clearly means nothing to the cynical, but sets a serious expectation for the rest.

The four dumplings generated a lot of heat and I think it was for good reason. It seems clear to me that some people find these interesting and useful, and that's great. I think they're ugly as hell, but I'm not a Pro and I can't/don't model, so I'm unable to appreciate the earth shattering leg up on character development that  these "base figures" represent to a professional. However, I will give you all at least a way to make their skin look human. :) I am surprised, however, that there was SOOO much discussion about them.

I expected to hear (from those hoping to see such a thing) some griping that we still don't have global illumination. Of course, if you're a Pro, you render with something else than Poser, so all you care about is that you have a fast export to your real renderer. Which I guess is there now? Did anybody actually perform one of these purported easy export workflows into something else? I don't recall any discussion of those features. For me, I'm looking forward to Firefly getting replaced with something better.

I think the gamma correction is a huge feature, and I expect we'll all have to un-learn all the stupid lighting and material hacks we've been doing to compensate for its absence.

If you've got production work to do and have a render farm, 64-bit networked rendering has got to be a big win. If you're just a head-shot hobbyist with a 32-bit OS, I guess it ain't no thang.

There's no doubt in my mind that PPro starts faster, loads faster, and renders faster. I like that a lot.

I'm disappointed that the Python interface is not much different if at all. I'm struggling like mad to shoehorn UI features for plugins into the very limited peephole Poser provides for user interface. I refuse to use TK. I want Poser-style dialogs, but I get to define them. I want background processing. I want more function calls in the API so I can do more to automate workflow.

I also want a shader SDK, so I can make new nodes and finally put an actual, real sub-surface scattering capability into the material room, along with other things like layered materials.

All in all, if you have Poser 7 and a tight budget, you probably don't need to switch. If you're on Poser 6, you should switch. AO that actually works, HDRI IBL, faster raytraced shadows, better memory and texture management, gamma correction - these will make your renders better and faster.  It's a definite win over Poser 6.

Quote - For me, I'm looking forward to Firefly getting replaced with something better.

Here, here! 

And I can't find anything else in your post to argue with........because I agree with at least 98% of it.  :biggrin:

[The other 2% we'll just overlook. :sneaky:]

*"I also want a shader SDK, so I can make new nodes and finally put an actual, real sub-surface scattering capability into the material room, along with other things like layered materials."

That would be intersting and make for some good threads.

*"All in all, if you have Poser 7 and a tight budget, you probably don't need to switch. If you're on Poser 6, you should switch. AO that actually works, HDRI IBL, faster raytraced shadows, better memory and texture management, gamma correction - these will make your renders better and faster.  It's a definite win over Poser 6."

That is what I said in my first post.  I'm also a P7 owner who is very happy with PP over P7.

Quote - I expected to hear (from those hoping to see such a thing) some griping that we still don't have global illumination.

I did not expect it, so not much to gripe about.  It sucks, but it's old news suck.  It seemed pretty clear from the spec sheet that it wasn't going to be there, so I'm not really disappointed - I'm disappointed it wasn't spec'd in the first place, sure.

PJ - that's what I meant. I didn't expect GI because I already knew it wasn't there. I expected to hear griping from those who believe it should have been there.

Despite best efforts from certain people active in this thread who tried to foster hope that GI might "sneak in", I think most people were sensible enough to read the spec sheet and see it wasn't coming.

Quote - Did anybody actually perform one of these purported easy export workflows into something else? I don't recall any discussion of those features.

I think a lot of the people who would have use for them needed 64 bit versions. SM kinda shot themselves in the foot by only releasing 32 bit ones.

Quote - I also want a shader SDK, so I can make new nodes and finally put an actual, real sub-surface scattering capability into the material room, along with other things like layered materials.

Screw that, i want support for SL, like every other REYES renderer has. If we get that then we don't need anything else as there is tons of shader code out there that we could just drop into firefly. Heck you could even use something like Shaderman which let's you build complex node trees and writes out SL code for them that you can just compile into a shader with it's own UI and params.

re: content export, I think at least a few of us realized this was going to be Reiss BodyStudio re-branded anyway (which seems to be the case), so nothing to get excited about there either.

Quote - Despite best efforts from certain people active in this thread who tried to foster hope that GI might "sneak in", I think most people were sensible enough to read the spec sheet and see it wasn't coming.

Yes.....certain people who never brought up the subject of GI being in the mix, sneaky or otherwise.  But who did point out that sometimes pre-release spec sheets "lie".  And who also pointed out that inversely: sometimes pre-release spec sheets are correct.  But as for the specific topic of "GI sneaking in" -- I only recall one party mentioning that topic as a matter for discussion, or even bringing it up as a remote possibility for consideration.  I certainly don't recall anyone "fostering the hope" that such a thing would happen.

But it's true that this is old territory.........

Perhaps we can "foster the hope" that they'll sneak it in with the first SR.........  (for emphasis: joking)

So, are you surprised that the spec sheet was accurate after all?  You shouldn't be :)

Quote - So, are you surprised that the spec sheet was accurate after all?  You shouldn't be :)

Just as surprised as I would have been otherwise.  Every new software release comes as a surprise -- at least in my observation.

If software developers always did exactly what they said that they were going to do in advance: then things would just get too boring. 

BTW - as in my last post, I'm ALL FOR the idea of sneaking in GI as part of an upcoming SR.  There's always hope.............

I keep getting this error message

 The message describes an error in "nvoglnt.dll" which sounds a lot like "NVidia OpenGL for NT". Does changing the preview settings (texture size, disabling hardware shading) or switching to SreeD help?

**From another thread;
** "The NVOGLNT.DLL file is one of the driver files used by nVidia for OpenGL support, switching to that may resolve the problem."

And another more involved response to a similar error;
"Sounds like you do not have the required OpenGL drivers, or an older one for your video card (ie - overwrote by the update to DX9 package). Make sure you are not using the Nvidia driver v169.04 (it's a beta = no good). Use the certified driver v163.71. (this may give you a BLACK SCREEN issue, as reported by Bioware. If so, revert to this driver instead: VISTA | XP )

Are you running Vista? If so, this will also cause the issue. You'll want to change the compatibly on the nwtoolset.exe to windows 98.

If that doesn't fix it, are you using DUAL CORE? If so, that's a no-no. You'll have to set the processor affinity for the nwtoolset.exe process to one CPU.

Still no luck?

You can try this before you download the most recent OpenGL drivers for the Nvidia card you have.

Start -> Run

Type:

dxdiag

Go to the DISPLAY TAB.

Disable AGP Texture Acceleration.

Try NWN.

If it doesn't work, go back and enable it again.

Still nothing?!?

Download the latest Nvidia driver for OpenGL."

I think the real point is in the near future Poser Pro won't be needed at all for quick model poses and animations.  Other software will do it better and faster.   Goodbye Poser.  I hope I am wrong but I feel Poser is not really evolving in a way that suits my 3d needs.  Time will tell with the release of Poser Pro 2 by whatever new company owns it then.  Hopefully, it will be e-on. or the like.

LOL. Now that's funny. So that's the end of Poser because, "*Poser is not really evolving in a way that suits my 3d needs."

Man, I got to get out more. I didn't know that a softwares future relied on one persons needs.

Heres another conspiracy theory. Why are the majority of nay sayers and doom and gloom of posers demise, have shorter join dates than the rest of us?They all seem to have the knowing and inside track, even if it's the hard way instead of the easy way.

To his credit, there are a lot of other software packages out there that do what Poser and Studio do, within limits. They're cheaper and fulfill more immediate needs, while Poser and Studio are still tethered to a relatively small fan base (and yeah, we are a small fan base; otherwise, there'd be no real reason for this program to be sold off with such frequency).

I can easily dismiss Studio -- DAZ has been giving it away for years, and it's still pretty much jst a blip on the radar screen, and that says a lot right there, unfortunately. But Poser does sorta feel like it's in a bit of a quandry these days, with big-time features that most users never even look at, which would make me question whether or not to keep them in for the next version.

It's going to be interesting, that;s for sure, to see what happens with our little software friend.

I dunno about DAZ|Studio being a "blip" - over 500,000 downloads and that's not even counting people who get it direct from DAZ:
http://www.download.com/3120-20_4.html?qt=daz+studio&tag=srch&tg=dl-20

I think the userbase for D|S is likely at least as big as Poser's - I'm not a fan of D|S personally, I think it is missing way too many features and I was never too interested in buying all the plugins necessary to get it in the same ballpark as Poser, but I don't think it should be written off.

Quote - I can easily dismiss Studio -- DAZ has been giving it away for years, and it's still pretty much jst a blip on the radar screen, and that says a lot right there, unfortunately

If you want to talk about 'says a lot', then the fact that DAZ actively fix bugs and release new versions says a lot to me. There are plenty of 3D companies out there that could learn a thing or two from this, even a few high end ones (Autodesk, i'm looking at you)

Though i will give you that PP's COLLADA export actually seems to be better then that of D|S. It's let me export a few figures that would constantly crash D|S, so that is one point in it's favor for me. And now i don't have to keep switching apps just to get stuff out. If only they had paid as much attention to the rest of the features.

>> I dunno about DAZ|Studio being a "blip"

It's a blip in the sense that it doesnt have name recognition like Poser. After all this time, outside the immediate poserverse, it's just thought of as "oh yeah. that program like Poser". And I'd happily bet that if DAZ ever actually sold it, it wouldnt have that half-million downloads. People get it because it's free -- but tell me, do you actually use all the free stuff you download? I dont. Heck, I have DS in my archives. It was there, so I downloaded it. Have I used it? Nope. Opened it once, poked around a little, closed it, and never looked back. And when DAZ made it a necessity for you to have Studio installed before you could install Bryce 6.0. I wrote both of them off; when DAZ forces you to install something to use a pretty unrelated program, then IMHO they're really strong-arming the issue. It's really like saying, "Hey, I got a great jar of peanut butter over here, but before you can use it, you gotta use my loaf of bread!"

And sometimes Wonder Bread isnt the best brand out there. :-)

Just my 0.02.

Quote - I dunno about DAZ|Studio being a "blip" - over 500,000 downloads and that's not even counting people who get it direct from DAZ:
http://www.download.com/3120-20_4.html?qt=daz+studio&tag=srch&tg=dl-20

I think the userbase for D|S is likely at least as big as Poser's - I'm not a fan of D|S personally, I think it is missing way too many features and I was never too interested in buying all the plugins necessary to get it in the same ballpark as Poser, but I don't think it should be written off.

Fair cop both ways, really... D|S was built originally to be a fall-back if Poser bit the dust, but then became a neat way to introduce folks at large into the world of 3D.

By the by? You can't get it direct-from-DAZ anymore, so the figures above (not counting P2P/BitTorrent and the Mac numbers, which are IIRC counted separately), are accurate.

OTOH, free products have a different paradigm for counting an active userbase, since a large chunk of those who download never use the thing more than once (whereas if you laid out a couple of Benjamins for something like Poser, you're at least going to give it a good hard go).

But your point does stand - it ain't exactly a blip.

/P

Quote - >> I dunno about DAZ|Studio being a "blip"

It's a blip in the sense that it doesnt have name recognition like Poser. After all this time, outside the immediate poserverse, it's just thought of as "oh yeah. that program like Poser".

Well, let's see...

Poser has been around since the early 1990's, and has had a lot of exposure in and around the graphics community. D|S 1.0 came out in 2004-2005, and has had most of its exposure outside of the graphics community. QED: The phrase "After all this time" isn't really equitable, nor is it any sort of good comparison.

/P

The phrase "after all this time" refers to the time since 2004. Four years, in case anyone's counting.

That's a long time for any 3d program, especially one supposedly so high-profile and one that has been hyped so much outside the Poserverse.

Poser didnt hit its real stride till version 4 came out, which was roughly 2001, not the early 90s.

Further, the initial versions of Poser were crude, almost to the extreme. The program was considered a toy by even its own user base. Version 4 changed all that by almost completely reworking the program's capabilities and giving it more of a "professional" panache, something Studio has insisted it has since the very first day of launch.

So yes, it is a good comparison.

OK ... four years for DAZ Studio's development so far.  It probably took the same four years for Poser to reach Poser 2 or 3. How much "name recognition" did Poser have BEFORE Poser 4 was released ?  And how much of that name recognition was due to the fact that it was pretty much the ONLY program of its kind for a long time coming?  That's why DAZ Studio (and now other similar posing software like Quidam) are compared to Poser ... Poser was the first.

So you're not comparing apples to apples.

Quote - The phrase "after all this time" refers to the time since 2004. Four years, in case anyone's counting.

That's a long time for any 3d program, especially one supposedly so high-profile and one that has been hyped so much outside the Poserverse.

Heh - it hasn't (IMHO) been hyped hardly at all outside... sure, it got some press in fits and starts, but seriously, if they really wanted to hype it? Here's how you do it:

1. build a Linux version and get it included as part of the Ubuntu and Mandriva Distributions. Literally millions of potential customers per quarter right there.

2. hold regional contests with major art societies, artistic and media-centric departments at major colleges, etc. Total cost is some copies of content and maybe a few high-end 3D/CG app licenses.

3. make a kid-friendly content package, and have Disney give it away on their website.

4 - 10^90) lots and lots of other means that DAZ (nor CL, nor EF, nor...) have tried.

Quote - Poser didnt hit its real stride till version 4 came out, which was roughly 2001, not the early 90s.

Doesn't matter - Fact is, even @ 2000-2001, Poser had roughly twice the lead-time. ;)

/P

Twice the lead time? Uh, right. 

In 2001, how many people were using the Internet on a regular basis?

Hmm... How about in 2004?

How about now?

How do people in 3D circles get their information about new software? From the NYTimes? Newsweek? BBC World News?

C'mon, bud, you're not that slow on the uptake. The Internet allows the really good stuff to be telegraphed all over the world in seconds. You dont need years to make a reputation, just some well-placed shills in the 3D fora.

And that still doesnt alter the inescapable fact that it's been around for four years, with little to show for itself aside from a lot of free downloads. Last I heard, it was just now getting animation capabilities. Dynamics are still a long way off.

Four years, Tom. Plenty of time. It's not like they're completely starting from scratch.

Dosen't that DS download number combine all the new versions and the re-downloads becuase other problems and bugs? They pimp them out on a regular bases.

The DS is FREE thing is getting real old. DS is so expensive now. The last 4 plugs advertised are over $100. Animation time line and some lighting. DS is costing hundreds of dollars now and still doesn't do what Poser can but Dazites are still chanting, "it's free," mantra. Don't forget the long waits to get plugs you have payed for to get updated to work with the latest and greatest version.

I think DS is a good thing for competition. With luck, push Poser owners to develop Poser farther. I don't use it, I have DL the latest to see what has been done but I don't use it, I don't even keep it on my machine. OK, so I don't even install it to my main machine, I don't want any of that on it. I use my smaller machine so It's no big deal to reformat and wipe it out of existence. LOL,

"OK ... four years for DAZ Studio's development so far.  It probably took the same four years for Poser to reach Poser 2 or 3."

Not really fair statement. think about it. Poser was doing something new and had to figure out how to do it. Daz has had a template and the formula already there. Daz may be using more up to date coding but they didn't have to start from scratch like poser did.

"But Poser does sorta feel like it's in a bit of a quandry these days, with big-time features that most users never even look at, which would make me question whether or not to keep them in for the next version."

Thus the point of having the different versions of poser. One full of all the features, one normal and one basic. Developing on them in that way. Same as what Vue does. Or what Daz does with Carrara.

Quote - Dosen't that DS download number combine all the new versions and the re-downloads becuase other problems and bugs? They pimp them out on a regular bases.

I'm reasonably sure that count is specific to the one version, I don't think it's a running total.

Quote - re: content export, I think at least a few of us realized this was going to be Reiss BodyStudio re-branded anyway (which seems to be the case), so nothing to get excited about there either.

Yep yep!

I am downloading the drivers for XP so hopefully that helps.

Quote - Twice the lead time? Uh, right. 

In 2001, how many people were using the Internet on a regular basis?

Hmm... How about in 2004?

How about now?

In 2001, how new and fresh (read: exciting) was the whole concept of CG artwork?

In 2008, where almost any movie that wishes to make more than its production cost includes some form of CGI...?

All technical capability questions aside, it's like asking why the Microsoft Zune, a portable music player that's had two years now to get somewhere (and the biggest tech corp on the planet to push it) yet, somehow it can't see fit to break out of last place, let alone take on the iPod in marketshare. Portable music devices are passe' now; they're commodities. You can get one at any price range, with nearly any feature you can imagine. Not much different from 3D/CG apps nowadays, truth be told.

--

As for the rest? Too much straw in your arguments. The two apps were built for vastly different purposes (as a big ferinstance: one was built as a catch-all suite, the other as a lead-in to content and pricier packages).

Right, Tom. Whenever you cant answer any other way, it's a "strawman argument", your one size fits all response.

Face it, bud: DAZ has had plenty of time to get its act together on Studio. As you yourself point out, in the last four years, we've made amazing progress in the art and science of computer graphics, so to think that we can say Poser had a running leap ahead is incredibly specious at best. The very fact that the two programs share formats and a great deal of file organization should be your first clue that Studio no doubt reversed engineered Poser to get started.

So dont try to sell me that bill of goods, bud. It wont work, sorry. And insofar as Zune and iPod -- you might as well compare Vista to OSX. Zune didnt want iPod's technology; it wanted to be its own beast. Studio needed to be like Poser so it didnt have to let go of its entire standing inventory.

Or, as you would say, apples and oranges.

Now, to bring this whole thing to some kind of conclusion... does it matter? Nope. The folks who like Studio "because it's free!" are gonna keep to that mindset. The folks who like Poser are probably gonna stay with it until (1) the software dies or (2) DAZ finally decides not to support it anymore and force everyone to take its road (DAZ would be stupid to do so, but it wouldnt be the first time...). The rest, folks like me who have tried both and made their choice... well, unless you can get real persuasive, I'm staying with what works better for me. Until Studio can prove otherwise, I see no reason to change. And right now, it aint doin' such a hot job. And after my experience with what they did to Bryce, I doubt seriously I'd shell out for any plug-ins for Studio until they've been around for at least a few versions. I skipped P5 for that reason and will do it to P8 if it turns out to be as wonky.

And that, bud, is how it is.

Quote - Right, Tom. Whenever you cant answer any other way, it's a "strawman argument", your one size fits all response.

Just calling it as I see it. The two apps simply have nothing in common when it comes to purpose, scope, marketing targets, or rationale. The only thing they do have in common is that they both can composite and render, and that D|S can read and implement most Poser file formats.

Quote - The very fact that the two programs share formats and a great deal of file organization...

Err, no they don't. .daz is the native binary format, whereas .pz3 is Poser's native ASCII format. Yes, D|S can import Poser files, but it certainly doesn't use them natively... anymore than Poser uses, say,.3ds files natively.

  > Quote - Zune didnt want iPod's technology; it wanted to be its own beast. Studio needed to be like Poser so it didnt have to let go of its entire standing inventory.

...and the fact that both play music and video files means nothing, right? ;)

/P

Right, it means nothing. You might as well compare Amazon's new wireless reader to an iPod for all the good it will do you.

Sure. .daz is the "native binary format', but when it acts like a Poser file and it's organized like a Poser file, chances are, at some point in time, it was a Poser file. We're not talking about two wildly different programs, like Poser and 3DS Max (there's that apples and oranges thing again, huh). We're talking about two programs that use the same meshes, the same rigging, the same textures, all in pretty much the same way, with only slightly different labelling. You gonna seriously tell me that Studio didnt get its start by taking a little look under the hood at P4? I really, really doubt you can.

But whatever, dude. It doesnt matter. You're continuing this just so you can score a couple of points, nothing more. I really do not care, Tom, whether you think an iPod and a Zune are one and the same -- it's immaterial. My thoughts about Studio and Poser and everything else are very much my own -- if you dont like them, big whoop. Deal with it.

I'm outa this, since the only reason for it to exist now is so Tom can juggle some more apples and oranges and call all of them tomatoes, for all I can tell. Sorry, I have better things to do, folks.

OT (but this discussion has become OT) - for what it's worth, CNET rates the 80G Zune as one of the top five .mp3 players.  The best Apple offering, according to CNET, is the 32G iTouch  --

http://reviews.cnet.com/best-mp3-players/?tag=dir

Seriously, discussing the potential of Poser vs. DAZ Studio is just beating a dead horse.  Currently both programs are lacking the kind of "Final Fantasy" magic that 3D users have been hoping for. 

Quote - Seriously, discussing the potential of Poser vs. DAZ Studio is just beating a dead horse.

Pretty much, yeah... now if they had comparable featuresets and comprable prices, it'd be a different story. OTOH, We may as well be comparing MakeHuman to Poser, or Blender to 3DSMax  for all the good it'd do. (which was my point in the first place :) ).

Quote -   Currently both programs are lacking the kind of "Final Fantasy" magic that 3D users have been hoping for. 

Well, at least of the instant variety.

/P

Moving on from dead horses: Has anyone had issues in PP7 and the Mill horse + hair + displacement maps? I want to render out a beautyshot for something I'm doing for 3DW. Here's the setup: * 2xterrains I generated in Max * 2x 2048x2048 textures, jpg, mine * displacement using a single fbm node * Dark Anvil Fence * RDNA Park tree -or one of my own Onyx-generated oaks, it doesn't really matter, goes BOOM anyway * some slight displacement on the fence * Gamma correction set to ab 2 * Preview set to OpenGL/HW * 4-5 lights in scene - havent finished working w them * AO off for now. - Adding the mill nag sr1 to this scene sends it into conniptions, and it will autoclose at once - Loading the horse on it's own works fine - Loading the P4 one works fine - Bloodsongs HH works ok too - reducing terrain density and texturemap size has no effect - removing displacement and hair, ditto Current system is the one I got on Friday - XP, SP2 (not going near sp3 for a while) 4GB RAM (Yes, I know, but I don't like Vista, and have a dual boot to Ubuntu) and a 1 Gb XFX GeForce 9800GX2. P7 on a smaller system manages to crunch out the scene after a long wait, but PP7 has some serious issues here. Anyone experience similar issues? Anyone also notice that if you change light in a scene, the render will take longer, and not only because Poser reloads all the texture maps again? -also - anyone else find it annoying the poserfusion for max thing rotates the scene? ~s //changing pic in a sec - I think it got resized somewhere down the line

hello everybody,

i installed poser pro on my xp 64 bit, everything works EXCEPT:

everytime i want to select a body part with the cursor it needs very long to select it. on my dual core it was much faster O_o

does anyone have the same problem?? i installed the graphic board driver as usual. but this doen't fix the problem... i have 8 gig ram so that can't be the problem...

please help :(

thank you!

Here's the scene layout that crashes when I load the horse in PP7 ~s