I have Poser 6. But i'm not rushing to get 7 or 8.

Why are you guys wanting to get 8 even though many of you just got Poser 7.

Didn't Poser 7 just come out last year?

I don't remember exactly when P7 came out but I know it's been more than a couple years.

underestimate the seductive power of the bleeding edge, you have...;)

 I can wait...  I just got Poser Pro no too long ago at a side-grade promotional price.

Because it's new and it's cheap.

Poser 7 came out in December of 2006.

Poser 6 to 7 was only a year and a half between and Poser 3 to 4 was about a year. :)

I didn't even know that 3D software (for the general public) existed until I happened upon an Amazon ad for Poser 6 about halfway through the P6 era.  Intrigued, I bought my first PC, bought P6, and so it began...

I'm not hardcore about having the latest version number;  I won't get a new version unless it offers something I want. 

P7's multi-thread rendering, material tiling and object duplication made it worthwhile for me.

P8's GI lighting, improved render engine, and far better exploitation of multiple cores are enough to sway me.  There also seems to be better memory management, according to some of the beta test postings.

I tend to wait awhile to buy until some of the bugs are worked out and there's at least one update...lol ;o).

Laurie

Laurie is smart. 

Guilty! I bought Poser's 4,5,6,7,Pro & 8! I rarely used 7 or Pro though and stuck to Poser 6 up til now. The new library though has me entralled!!!

 My own $.02 is that the differences in the way lighting is handled is a quantum leap. I also find the new render engine to be much faster than either the Poser 7 or Pro 64 versions. Amazing. Everything seems to operate more smoothly even with my extremely bloated set of runtimes. And at $129 it's a steal!

DR

I will be upgrading to 8 if I hear confirmation that the Setup bugs are finally squashed. The notion of capsule-shaped falloff zones is interesting. I want to check that out. A functional library (there really was no excuse for that lagging, clunky library system in version after version of Poser when every python programmer on the planet could come up with better performance) and parameter dials that don't lag are reasons to purchase. Also, although I could import Poser files into Carrara or Vue for GI, having that rendering capability in Poser would be useful in those instances when Carrara or Vue can't interpret the Poser content properly. Not that I use Poser much anymore, but it’s cheap, so…

I bought P7 as soon as it was released so it's been a while.   I got P8 because I liked the added feature of IDL and the fact that they fixed the renderer to fully utilize all cores really speeds up renders for me. 

The upgrade price is the same as P7's was a couple of years ago, so that was a positive for me as well.   It comes out to less than 100 euros - a week's shopping at the supermarket!  Plus I hardly bought any content for about a year and rewarded myself for it :)

 I always wait, but not this time, I like the GUI, and did not think P7 was  that much improved from P6.  The price was great and I thought, man time to upgrade and this time, I am going to get it first.....it was early in the am, I might not have been thinking straight....but as I sit here now, I say, I AM SO GLAD THIS TIME I GOT IT RIGHT AWAY.  Sharen

Quote -  My own $.02 is that the differences in the way lighting is handled is a quantum leap. I also find the new render engine to be much faster than either the Poser 7 or Pro 64 versions. Amazing. Everything seems to operate more smoothly even with my extremely bloated set of runtimes. And at $129 it's a steal!

DR

How much faster is much faster? Everyone's saying it but no seems to be able to give some more details or numbers. Is it 5% faster? 10% perhaps? 25% maybe? Can we even hope for 50%? When someone says much faster I do expect at least 40-50% shorter rendering time when comparing to the previous version.

1-10% isn't mentionable, imo. 10-25% is a bit faster, 25-40% is faster and over 40% is much faster.

Who will take this challenge and give me some real numbers...... I've got to get as many reasons as possible to justify buying P8. If I don't have facts, but only vague terms like faster and much faster and improved, I'm not going to convince anyone that spending $129 is justified. For some it may be peanuts to spent, for me it's a considerable amount and it needs some hard facts to back up to the purchase.

There won't necessarily be a linear constant between P7 renders and P8 renders.

I find that with simple to medium complexity scenes, my quad core 32bit is fast on P7, about equal to the quad core 64bit running Poser Pro.  But if the scene is complex, the 64bit will render in less than half the time the 32bit takes.  Once I get P8 installed, I already plan to do comparison renders and compare performance.

I always wait til there has been a service release pack or two and some good tutorials for the new version. Also I just got Poser 7 not too long ago (in June) so am in no rush to live life on the bleeding edge. Did that once, bleed profusely financially for years on end. Not this time.... :lol:

I would say that if you're not some sort of Graphics professional, you have no business getting P8 if you already bought P7 a few months ago. Unless you're  crazy and rich. 

hehehe : )

Quote - Unless you're  crazy and rich. 

Crazy is debatable, but I'm certainly not rich. However, those nice people over at MasterCard keep buying me things. Those guys are so cool...

:biggrin: :lol: :biggrin:

Quote - > Quote - Unless you're  crazy and rich. 

Crazy is debatable, but I'm certainly not rich. However, those nice people over at MasterCard keep buying me things. Those guys are so cool...

:biggrin: :lol: :biggrin:

LOL.

Well as for me, I just got P7 at the end of April this year. I've been so-so about it thus far. P8 seems to be an improvement, but I'm not rich and will wait until they fix the initial bugginess ;).

Laurie

 I got poser 6 and i will never upgrade. WHY? Cause all the new poser versions are made for newer computers.. mine is  Mac g5 and even with Poser 6 it's slow as hell.

I'm not upgrading my computer until year 2033. so no use in getting P8 when i know my comp can't even handle it

tebop, try running a python script in yer version of poser 6, then post a screen shot of the exception or error screen.

why do they buy poser 8? customer loyalty, cargo-cult mentality, cutting-edge technology - call it what ya want, as long as it puts money in SM's coffers so they can keep developing it.

I'm waiting at least until they put out one or two service releases to fix the worst of the bugs

To each his own. By the time you get it, those of use who've been playing two months longer already have some failures, but also some successes. You don't have either and nothing new to play with. ;-)

Quote - I would say that if you're not some sort of Graphics professional, you have no business getting P8 if you already bought P7 a few months ago. Unless you're  crazy and rich. 

hehehe : )

If you only just bought p7...you get p8 for free according to the website...so why not?  lol (it's like only a month though).

FREE UPGRADE INFO: If you purchased Poser 7 from a Smith Micro authorized reseller AFTER 7/3/2009*

Quote - > Quote - I would say that if you're not some sort of Graphics professional, you have no business getting P8 if you already bought P7 a few months ago. Unless you're  crazy and rich. 

hehehe : )

If you only just bought p7...you get p8 for free according to the website...so why not?  lol (it's like only a month though).

FREE UPGRADE INFO: If you purchased Poser 7 from a Smith Micro authorized reseller AFTER 7/3/2009*

Missed that by a few months ;o).

Laurie

I missed it by about a couple years :P

Hmmmmm it's so tempting!  But I've got Poser 7 and I've got Wardrobe Wizard 2.  I've also got Daz Studio 3 Advanced, Carrara Pro 7 and Vue 7 Pro Studio which all (IMHO) do better renders than Poser.

I've only learnt of the release of Poser 8 in the last couple of days (although adverts appeared in 3D mags in the UK some time ago - there was no other information so I assumed it was a re-badged Poser Pro).  So when the email came through from Smith Micro it was truly tempting but I'm really glad I consulted this forum.

Otherwise, I would never have known about the problems with slow downloads, the reliance on a 3rd party product (Flash) and the general bugginess.

No, on second thoughts, I'll stick with what I've already got!

The only reason why I would buy P8 right now is the new figures(I am a vendor at another store). Plus I like the fact that Mr Sparky has some nice items you can only (as for now) in P8. Plus I think with the new render engine it will render smoother and possible faster.

Maybe Smith Micro could set up a Cash for Clunkers program where they give you a
coupon worth $120 toward the purchase of Poser 8 if you can prove you have a licensed
previous version of Poser.

Quote - Maybe Smith Micro could set up a Cash for Clunkers program where they give you a
coupon worth $120 toward the purchase of Poser 8 if you can prove you have a licensed
previous version of Poser.

....and how would they make any money?

lets be serious here for a moment. poser is a paid for program. it's business survival relies on it being sold and new versions being developed for sale to carry on maintaining the cash flow.

so please. lets be realistic huh?

Quote - Maybe Smith Micro could set up a Cash for Clunkers program where they give you a
coupon worth $120 toward the purchase of Poser 8 if you can prove you have a licensed
previous version of Poser.

They do.
It's called the upgrade.
Normal price -    $249.00
Upgrade Price - $129.00
Savings-           $120.00

Unless you were just being facetious. ;-)

I don't think P6 was that big a jump on P5. Wasn't there something about a change of ownership in there? I'm pretty sure that I bought P5 in late '03  and the readme is dated August '02. P6 was March '05. So P7 came out fairly quickly, under two years.

Since P8 includes Wardrobe Wizard, and if you don't have a copy the normal price is half that of a P7 upgrade, it's not so expensive. But I want a better idea of how it'll run on this old machine. If it needs multi-core processors and metric s--tloads of RAM, my answer is NO!

I doubt the UI is any better in terms of colours and contrast, from what I've seen, but I've replaced my monitor recently, and that's helping a lot. Though a bit more control on font sizes would be a help too. Do P7 and P8 still used fonts defined by pixel maps?

And is there any truth in the rumour of a "Make Porn" button?
 

Yeah that's in the hotfix.

Quote - Maybe Smith Micro could set up a Cash for Clunkers program where they give you a
coupon worth $120 toward the purchase of Poser 8 if you can prove you have a licensed
previous version of Poser.

How about an optional price for software only.  Personally, I'm not really interested in the SM/PM content (such as Jessi, Alyson, etc) and this just inflates the download demand.

 I'm not getting Poser 8 until I get a new computer. 1.8 Ghz with 1gig of RAM doesn't cut it anymore.

I want it, but I want to eat,too, and pay my bills.  Priority of life over hobbies is the way to go. :laugh:

Quote -  I'm not getting Poser 8 until I get a new computer. 1.8 Ghz with 1gig of RAM doesn't cut it anymore.

I want it, but I want to eat,too, and pay my bills.  Priority of life over hobbies is the way to go. :laugh:

Yes, eating kinda trumps everything else ;o).

Laurie

 More than 10% of the US population is on food stamps.  WIthout eating...life sort of sucks.  For a while then you starve to death.  

Which sucks more.  Rendering goes only so far. :lol:

The only reason I'm even considering is in the hopes that it will work on my Vista laptop.  P7 is damn near useless on it.  (and yes, I've followed every vista recommendation there is)

Quote - The only reason I'm even considering is in the hopes that it will work on my Vista laptop.  P7 is damn near useless on it.  (and yes, I've followed every vista recommendation there is)

Windows 7 better than Vista. you'll love it.

Does anyone know if there's an expiration date for the upgrade price to Poser 8?  There's no mention of one on CP's web site.

Thanks.

I only bought 7 in May I think, but it was a good deal at the time (I think $145), so the extra $129 to upgrade isn't really a killer. I really upgraded as I'm hoping 8 is a bit easier to use, that is the impression I got from all the reading here since 8 was announced.

Quote - The only reason I'm even considering is in the hopes that it will work on my Vista laptop.  P7 is damn near useless on it.  (and yes, I've followed every vista recommendation there is)

I've just had to move to Vista x64, and now Poser 7 crashes as soon as I try to move the camera around a figure...

I'm having a hard time finding Vista recommendations...  What have you tried?

I wonder if Windows 7 will help/fix it, but I need a solution before then...

Quote - The only reason I'm even considering is in the hopes that it will work on my Vista laptop.  P7 is damn near useless on it.  (and yes, I've followed every vista recommendation there is)

I've been using Poser 7 on a Vista laptop and it works fine.

Numerous problems running P7 on a newish OS without having to disable half of the security features to make it work.  That was enough for me to get P8.  The fact the P8 UI looks and feels amazing compared to the previous versions is an added bonus.

Oh, and I got my P7 for free during the recent giveaway, so I guess that helped too :)

Quote -
I've just had to move to Vista x64, and now Poser 7 crashes as soon as I try to move the camera around a figure...

I'm having a hard time finding Vista recommendations...  What have you tried?

I wonder if Windows 7 will help/fix it, but I need a solution before then...

Just a question...are you running Aero?

Before the flaming begins, let me preface my response by making clear that Aero interfered with Poser 7 on MY machine, ok people?...MY machine...lol. I turned Aero off and now Poser 7 runs fine. It seems that Vista is very picky with what it will cause problems with, because it seems to differ from machine to machine.

Now, this was nothing more than food for thought - something for you to try - not a recommendation.

Laurie

Personally I have P5 and would jump to have P8. I had Poser 4 for years before I got 5.  Every new version is better, in most cases.

If someone wants to have P8 more power to them in my mind. :)

Quote - Just a question...are you running Aero?

Before the flaming begins, let me preface my response by making clear that Aero interfered with Poser 7 on MY machine, ok people?...MY machine...lol. I turned Aero off and now Poser 7 runs fine. It seems that Vista is very picky with what it will cause problems with, because it seems to differ from machine to machine.

Now, this was nothing more than food for thought - something for you to try - not a recommendation.

Laurie

Thanks -- and I appreciate the question, delicate flamers get thee behind me!

No, I don't think I am...  I'm not even sure what aero is, but I searched for anything with that name on my rig and came up no match.

Although I will report a work-around that seems to be working.  If I move the camera on an empty workspace, before loading any figure, it seems to be able to continue...  Strange and dumb, but workable.

Quote - > Quote - Just a question...are you running Aero?

Before the flaming begins, let me preface my response by making clear that Aero interfered with Poser 7 on MY machine, ok people?...MY machine...lol. I turned Aero off and now Poser 7 runs fine. It seems that Vista is very picky with what it will cause problems with, because it seems to differ from machine to machine.

Now, this was nothing more than food for thought - something for you to try - not a recommendation.

Laurie

Thanks -- and I appreciate the question, delicate flamers get thee behind me!

No, I don't think I am...  I'm not even sure what aero is, but I searched for anything with that name on my rig and came up no match.

Although I will report a work-around that seems to be working.  If I move the camera on an empty workspace, before loading any figure, it seems to be able to continue...  Strange and dumb, but workable.

Aero is the theme Windows Vista uses with all the fancy gadgets, transparencies and what not. It's a system hog. I knocked mine back to a plain Windows XP looking theme and turned off everything associated with it ;o).

Laurie