Quote -
and was really hopeing that we could just press the first letter of the name of one of the folders in the library and it would just go to it like in dazstudio,have always found this very usefull.

just thought i should edit something i said since i just figured out thats this is actually possible in poser 8 lol
its just a bit weird,sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt,just like pressing the space bar and the up and down arrows.lol

Quote - The keyboard in the tree view is another problem that would not go away. I'm not sure where the problem lies. It won't stay that way, though, I promise.

If I have to, I will write a new tree control from SCRATCH!

As long as I know it's being worked on I can wait, thanks :)

BB so how can people use now your VSS skin shader with tone mapping? they set GC to 1 right? will the fake SSS be the same or will they need to tweak the shader?
because i think in your GI renders with the VSS skin shader the skin looked to red.

Quote - BB so how can people use now your VSS skin shader with tone mapping? they set GC to 1 right? will the fake SSS be the same or will they need to tweak the shader?
because i think in your GI renders with the VSS skin shader the skin looked to red.

An interesting one, ice-boy. I would also be interested in bb's view on this.

My inclination would be to carry on using VSS with GC, as in Poser 7, and not attempt to use P8 tone mapping as a complete replacement for GC, which it is not. (When it comes, Poser Pro 2010 will have Pro GC, in addition to tone mapping). But I would have to try some test renders with tone mapping first.

Bug I reported at 10:16pm  Pacfic Time Zone last night
Load the Raleigh Tavern Complete in the supplied content. Select the figure and delete. In the preview window I see a chair left behind that is not listed as a prop. I render and it is not there. It just shows up in the preview pane. I have attached a screen grab to show it. file name is poser8bug.jpg

repsonse back at 11:16pm from John Csaky (burning the mid-night oil it would appear.  Extremely quick response in exactly 1 hour's time in the middle of the night. Unbelievable!!!)

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. That is actually an issue with the Content. (If you Zoom out after Loading the Tavern, you will see the Chair extending below the front step. I have forwarded this to the Creator.

John Csaky | Customer/Tech Support

Anyone else here gets a crash when trying the close morph on the Mini Convertible (missing obj Top2.obj). Even if you click cancel it keeps you asking for the file.

Also, are you able to move parts on the M1 Abrams?

Quote - > Quote -

Thanks for your words and work. When u think we will be able to get the update or download to fix the thumbnails? Thanks

Well that depends on lots of factors, of course. I don't have any data about when there will be a service release, but I know there will be one. I still haven't figured out how to make it work.

If I find a way much earlier than the first SR, I'll ask SM if I can distribute the updated GUI module. It is a separate file from the rest of the GUI so is field replaceable. No promises, though. It's a very difficult problem.

Of course, we could do away with the tree altogether, and go back to the simple list, showing only the contents of one folder, but that's no fun, right? Heheh.

Could you include it as an option, at least?  Right now, the new library is a bit confusing. Like trying to find all your classes on the first day of school.

While downloading, what's about the material room ? New nodes ? SSS ? True Fresnel ?

Well this isn't going as well as I expected.
I am also getting the "Texture could not be loaded" error on any texture poses that I try to load from the external runtimes. Textures from the Poser Pro runtime, which I also added, load ok.

My external runtimes work fine in Poser Pro, no problems with loading textures there.
I am running on Vista 64bit and I have tried installing the Poser 8 content in the standard location and also in the same location as my external runtimes just to see if that would help but it didn't.

I am really struggling with the small icons in the library too. I guess the people who designed this are all blessed with good eyesight! It's a shame they didn't give a bit of thought to the 'more mature' users who's eyes ain't what they used to be.

I hate to say this Bagginsbill but I absolutely hate the library! I've been using only Poser for 11 years and this is the first time I'm thinking of returning it! On my Mac the arrow keys don't do anything - either does my scroll wheel. I see now you're calling runtimes libraries as well as the libraries in the runtimes. It's all very confusing now.

So I added about 15 runtimes/libraries into figures to start (I have a lot more). I did not select any runtime then changed to the hair tab. Lo and behold all 15 runtimes show up in the hair tab 90% with zero contents! So I check all the other tabs and they are in there as well. And to top it all off there is no folder with a minus sign anywhere in sight after selecting one of my folders. The manual shows that it is supposed to be there. I even floated the library and opened it more but the folder is not there. I'm 60 and I'm getting too old for all this stress. This is supposed to be a relaxing hobby for me to take my mind off my physical problems.

I have a 24" monitor and the thumbnails are smaller than postage stamps. I know you said that you will 'try' to fix them but in the meantime I can't see them at all even with my glasses. And....I really, really do not need to know how many items are in the folder or when, where, who, why or how they were installed.

As you can tell I'm so frustrated right now I feel like pulling out the rest of my hair. I'm sorry for dumping on you but you did design the library.

24" Intel Core 2 Duo iMac, 2.16 GHz, 2 GB ram, 667 MHz, NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT, OS 10.4.11

First impressions

1. enjoying new darker look
2. enjoying docking windows
3. enjoying faster render times
4. Not enjoying trying to DL content for third time
5. Not enjoying lack of thumbs for content i have installed
6. Not enjoying lack of mouse navigation in view window

just my 2p's worth after 30 mins playing

 Dave.

Ok, I guess I'm a freak, but I love the new library window :) If you do make changes, please offer the choice to keep it as is :)  The new interface is great as well and looks much more professional. Nice work BB :) 

Quote - ...
As you can tell I'm so frustrated right now I feel like pulling out the rest of my hair. I'm sorry for dumping on you but you did design the library.

You're complaints are valid, and we hope to address them to your satisfaction ASAP. However, I have to differ with the last part. I did not design the library. I built it, according to a design document handed to me by SM's UI designer team. Just a little nitpick to keep the record straight, not really important. I remember even asking if we could do without the item counts, not for usability reasons, but because it was hard to implement. Hehehe.

Note: You observed that adding a Library is not done per content category but across all content types. That is by design. Once you add a Library, all the categories in that library are available. This is identical behavior to all previous versions of Poser that support multiple runtime libraries. Once you add a library, all the categories of contents are available. I don't think people would be very happy if they had to add a library nine times (there are nine categories) just to get at all the hair, props, poses, materials, cameras, etc. in a particular library that goes with a particular set of figures.

Do you ever press the mouse on these and while holding the button down, move the mouse around? If not, give it a try.

Also, hold Alt down, press the mouse in the viewport, and move it. What happens?

Upps. Looks like nobody likes the thumbnail navigation. I have many runtimes and over 35gigs of content which seen tiny thumbs are so hard. But guys, "bagginsbill" is working on the situation. I'm afraid I'll keep using my P7 until this issue has been solved.

Quote - Upps. Looks like nobody likes the thumbnail navigation.

Sorry, but I thinks thats a little unfair. If you take all the posts in the various threads with reference to the Poser 8 Library features... people are of mixed opinions. Some love it... some dislike it... its a pretty even match.

Quote - LOL. No they're not stupid. It's my fault. (I wrote the library GUI)

Well not exactly my fault, but Adobe's. See, this is written in Flex, and I'm using the Flex Tree widget. Just getting it to show custom thumbnails on a per-item basis was tricky. Getting it to support thumbnails at different sizes was even trickier, but I made it work.

Back to our story. Getting the control to display a child item count was tricky. Getting the tree control to cache the folder thumbnail was tricky. Getting it to open folders when you click the name, but not other parts was tricky. Lots of tricky.

First, I'd like to start by saying how much we appreciate the hard work bagginsbill has put into this. The new "flex" Library is a definite step in the right direction. And as a software designer myself, I can definitely appreciate the trickiness of some software problems: you fix one issue, only to have it cause other issues. ;)

But, the question I have is about usability: why was Poser 8 shipped with such tiny Library icons? Did Smith Micro have a "drop dead" ship date and they absolutely couldn't change the size of the icons? Was there really no way they could have at least increased the icons to 91x91, which everyone is used to, before shipping?
Or would this issue have taken weeks to fix and there was no way it could have been included in Poser to make it sell-able at Siggraph?

Okay, yes, this issue will probably be fixed in a service pack, but what happens in the meantime? Do people ask for refunds because they can't see the icons? Do people go back to using P6 or P7?
To me, issuing service packs is is the lazy way out, especially when Smith Micro never announced an official release date and didn't have to have P8 finished by that date. I've read too many stories about software that's shipped in a buggy state just to get it out for sale (Poser 5 anyone?) and then fixed with each additional service pack.

On a related note, it seems the keyboard shortcuts are broken yet again. I selected a pose, applied it to the figure, and hit Ctrl-R to render, but nothing happened. I hit "2" to select the figure's BODY, but the Library jumped to the first pose that started with "2".

Seeing all the distress this has caused, I just tried an alternative. I turned off the ability to make the selected one big, so that all we have are small and medium, not small + medium + one large. It works!

I have sent an email to Steve Cooper asking permission for me to distribute this version of the GUI. If I get the OK, I'll post it. They may not want to do that though, for legal or support reasons.

(Imagine the support calls. "My GUI doesn't work, the one Bagginsbill gave me." "What?!?")

But if Steve says it is OK, I'll publish it.

Keyboard shortcuts - crap. Nobody mentioned that in testing. Yes, Ctrl-R should render.

This happens if the Library GUI has the focus. Poser should not be giving the Ctrl-R to the GUI - it should process that itself. Can you file a bug report?

 The poser lib has been the same forever. People are used to it even if it is slow to change libs and or change from pose to figure, etc inside a given lib.

Granted the thumbs are an issue (it will be addressed I know)

But I will bet a dollar to a donut, if the P8 lib was the defacto standard for all prior releases and they changed it to the P7 style and prior for P8, you would also hear screaming.

It's very very different and I am willing to see if it grows on me or not.

I am also on a twin monitor Mac and used to spread the lib out across about 50 percent of my second monitor horizontally. Having the new vertical layout is very different for me. Whereas a person with a single monitor it probably is closer to what they are used to. The vertical layout.

I do think having the words loading when you double click on something is a very nice touch. With P7 etal if I double clicked to fast, sometimes things didn't load. If I wasn't sure, I would have to move my mouse elsewhere to see if it turned into a spinning beach ball or not to see if Poser was actually trying to load something.

Quote - I am also on a twin monitor Mac and used to spread the lib out across about 50 percent of my second monitor horizontally.

Me too! I want that, too!

There was so much new and so much trouble building it, that fell off the table for first ship.

I'll see what I can do.

If I had less trouble with the Mac support, I would have built the horizontal version with multiple columns, instead of spending 3 weeks on making the mouse wheel work on Macs. Now I hear it doesn't work for everybody. Sigh. It worked for all the Mac beta testers, so I thought I was done. Rats.
 

So ok can anyone say why Poser is using between 160 to 200 MBs of RAM just sitting idle ???
That is astonishing for a program sitting doing nothing.
Does the new docking interface or flex library really use 100MB.

Poser used to use about 70 megs while idle.

Also, Why is SmiithMicro dumping their user to user support at Renderosity, it's like throwing their dirty laundry here and expecting others to deal with it.

@Bagginsbill, a bit less F****** sarcasm will go a long way, yes i know the buttons at the top are there, i am talking about things like mouse wheel zooming etc,(Maya/RF etc) and yes i pressed alt and got a completely useless camera control.

I wasn't being sarcastic. Why are you so volatile? Anyway, sarcasm is when you say the OPPOSITE of what you mean. I meant exactly what I said.

I deal with beginners all the time, and they don't even know those things are there. Chill out.

You have 45 postings. I assume you don't participate in the forums much. I'm here to help.

Quote - Also, Why is SmiithMicro dumping their user to user support at Renderosity, it's like throwing their dirty laundry here and expecting others to deal with it.

they are?
I'm sure the link to their support site/email has been given a few times now

 Who rigged Alyson's arms? What's wrong with putting a bend at the elbow? That is what it's there for!

Quote - So ok can anyone say why Poser is using between 160 to 200 MBs of RAM just sitting idle ???
That is astonishing for a program sitting doing nothing.
Does the new docking interface or flex library really use 100MB.

Poser used to use about 70 megs while idle.

Also, Why is SmiithMicro dumping their user to user support at Renderosity, it's like throwing their dirty laundry here and expecting others to deal with it.

Yes, I can say. It is for the textures loaded into the OpenGL driver - it is much more aggressive about showing things in high resolution. If you minimize Poser, you'll see the memory go to 32 MBytes.

What do you mean about the support? My information is they were taking calls and fixing users problems in the middle of the night last night, as well as all day, yesterday and today.

Ratscloset is a frequent poster here and one of their tech support staff. You have a problem with him answering questions in the forums or what?

Or is it that you want me to stop answering questions, or Stefan? I don't get it.

I apolgise, it seemed to be on the sarcastic side, plus i am trying to DL the content for the third time and am getting a bit peeved with it all.

As for the mouse view control thing, it took me a while but i have got used to using the mouse to move/zoom about a scene with the other softs i use, and was hoping it would make it to poser at last.
and though alt mouse does something its not much use really as the camera just rolls all over the show/

 Einzy.

Quote - I apolgise, it seemed to be on the sarcastic side, plus i am trying to DL the content for the third time and am getting a bit peeved with it all.

As for the mouse view control thing, it took me a while but i have got used to using the mouse to move/zoom about a scene with the other softs i use, and was hoping it would make it to poser at last.
and though alt mouse does something its not much use really as the camera just rolls all over the show/

 Einzy.

I totally agree, the wheel should zoom. And other shift/ctrl options should allow panning and stuff. I'm not sure that the mouse button alone can/should move the camera, because then how do you grab items and drag them? I hate interfaces that make me change modes between grabbing items versus pan/zoom/rotate with the mouse in the pose window itself. I'm fine with pressing on those hotspots to pan/zoom/rotate - seems faster to me. But I haven't used too many other 3D apps, and other apps may have it all working cleanly.

It can't hurt to post a suggestion on the SM support page. It might be this is already on a list somewhere, just to far down below the other priorities. I have visibility into the enhancment request/bug database, and there are plenty of excellent suggestions. They will not get implemented unless enough people speak up, so they know what the market wants.

I can tell you that based on the overwhelming feedback from users, the theme of this release, if I had to pick one, was "Please make my bloated 1.5 terabyte content library instantly accessible."

Will do.
 thinking about it the thing with 3d apps as appose to poser is you spend a lot of time (or at least i do) in the middle of the view pulling points and polys about and pressing a key and moving the view about rather than mousing up to the top of the window then coming back down is easyer allround, i think (and i may be wrong) pretty much all the 3d softs out there use this method now.
1.5 tb? i thought my 29GB was unwieldy.....

Quote - SM wanted the selected one to be big, and the other items small or medium sized, as the user desires, and the folders always small. However, the Flex tree control goes berzerk with small, medium, and one large icon all at the same time.

Seeing all the distress this has caused, I just tried an alternative. I turned off the ability to make the selected one big, so that all we have are small and medium, not small + medium + one large. It works!

I have sent an email to Steve Cooper asking permission for me to distribute this version of the GUI. If I get the OK, I'll post it. They may not want to do that though, for legal or support reasons.

(Imagine the support calls. "My GUI doesn't work, the one Bagginsbill gave me." "What?!?")

But if Steve says it is OK, I'll publish it.

YESSS!!!!!!!!!!! Looks great!  I can't wait! Thanks a lot for your work! This is super kind of you!

 No, seriously. Who rigged Alyson's arms? They stink.

They don't bend at the elbows as they should, and if you twist them, the mesh breaks midway between the elbow and shoulder.

Quote -  No, seriously. Who rigged Alyson's arms? They stink.

They don't bend at the elbows as they should, and if you twist them, the mesh breaks midway between the elbow and shoulder.

Please tell SM, please. They didn't believe me when I said the same.

Oh wait. I have no comment. ;-)

ref: Poser 8 Library

One thing... among several others... that I particularly like about the new library interface is:

The fact that Poser 8 does not Capitalise the first letter of every word for the items within folders.

In previous versions of Poser... the first letter of each word was Capitalised regardless of how it was actually written within the content libraries... or how it was entered from the keyboard when adding items to the library.

Observations.
Clicking Render usually gives you a look at the last room you were in -- even if you're no longer in it -- until the textures have loaded.
I hate that.

I had to conform prop pants... raise brows

I added a pose to Ryan and then loaded the (prop) hair... and it doesn't land on his head. Nor can you move it into place. I had to put Ryan into default pose and then apply the hair, then pose him again.
Bad.

And good god.. he's sooo ugly lol.

These things are actually figures, not props. This is a bit of lore than must be unlearned.

See, it has always been confusing to beginners.

Beginner: I'm looking for the hair. Why can't I find it?

Expert Poser User 240 years experience: Look in Figures.

Beginner: What?

So they put a lot of figures in Props and Hair. They need to be conformed. They are not smart props.

That hair wouldn't let me conform it, BB.
But oh sure, NOW it lets me.

Grrr....

And I wish they didn't do that. Seriously.
I'm going to move that OUT of Hair and into Figures so I know when and what I have to conform.
I'm not unlearning that habit. :)

Someday (not sure when) when you drag that hair onto Ryan, it will auto-conform. So will the pants.

Anyone that needs help with anything or finds what they consider a bug, please contact Support with all the details.. (and do not get upset if we ask for more)

Everything reported needs to be duplicated to confirm and as much detail with regards to the steps needed to encounter the issue, help resolve the issue.

With regards to the downloads... Here are some tips when attempting a Download after a failed attempt...

Make sure you are not Scanning on Download
Do not use a Download Accelerator (these can be in ISP Software, Toolbars, etc...)
Clear your Download Cache before attempting the download again
Try renaming the File when prompted to Save (this sometimes bypasses a incomplete download that the system or a download manager may have. These can cause issues for the new attempt.)

Depending on where you live, time is also a consideration when there is a lot of demand...East Coast after 4 AM but before 7 AM is the lowest Web Activity in the US. That should help others.

 BB the xml lib prefs file is very different then past versions. At work at this minute so I don't have the file names etc. But is there any reason you can not hand edit the xml file to add libs and or change their index-sort order?

Quote -  BB the xml lib prefs file is very different then past versions. At work at this minute so I don't have the file names etc. But is there any reason you can not hand edit the xml file to add libs and or change their index-sort order?

No reason not to. Just copy and paste on of the lib lines, and edit the path.

During testing, each time I installed, I let the installer wipe those files because of other changes. Then I pasted my libs back in before launching.

If you need to re-install for any reason, save the list of libraries first.

Also, there is one for the Library GUI state. I forget the name. You can edit the list of "open folders". These are automatically opened and scanned on startup.

Closing them (deleting entries) saves time on startup. You could even build up a set of these for specific projects, save them, and then bring the entire library GUI back to that state by replacing that file. A script could do this easily.

Make sure the main runtime is first though - don't move that one!!! Very important.

First impressions?  - I'm impressed!

Yes, at last Poser is as it always should had been. Fast, efficient, it manages several CPU cores like any 21th century app, and it can handle memory. (Well, I had that strange crash, but it's a young Poser after all,  I guess SR 2 will be just perfect).

Someone please - I have two questions.

1. Sorry I didn't read through the 40+ pages of discussions about P8, but is there a way to have those library icons a little bigger (or make them big on MouseOver, not OnClick)? I don't see a thing, and clicking on 40 files to find the good one is a little tedious...   :-(

1. A strange thing happened when I added the P7 runtime; P8 crashed and since, while displaying it all right and working just fine, the P7 runtime lacks the "remove" button. P8 apparently considers that the added P7 runtime is part of the base configuration. How do I fix that? Where does P8 write the library configuration (I can edit system file, I'm a techie).

Ah, just noticed part of the answer is just above... starts reading

Quote - 1. Sorry I didn't read through the 40+ pages of discussions about P8, but is there a way to have those library icons a little bigger (or make them big on MouseOver, not OnClick)? I don't see a thing, and clicking on 40 files to find the good one is a little tedious...   :-(

If you go back to page 4 of this thread you will find some information about the Library and its features posted by bagginsbill and several more posts in page 5 onwards.

Bagginsbill explains the obstacles he had to overcome whilst desiging the Library features and what he hopes to do about it in the future.

To remove a library, select it, next to "Show Library". A remove button will appear.

Quote - > Quote - So ok can anyone say why Poser is using between 160 to 200 MBs of RAM just sitting idle ???

Yes, I can say. It is for the textures loaded into the OpenGL driver - it is much more aggressive about showing things in high resolution. If you minimize Poser, you'll see the memory go to 32 MBytes.

Which textures (speaking about an empty scene here)? How can you get rid of them?

Quote - SM wanted the selected one to be big, and the other items small or medium sized, as the user desires, and the folders always small. However, the Flex tree control goes berzerk with small, medium, and one large icon all at the same time.

Seeing all the distress this has caused, I just tried an alternative. I turned off the ability to make the selected one big, so that all we have are small and medium, not small + medium + one large. It works!

I have sent an email to Steve Cooper asking permission for me to distribute this version of the GUI. If I get the OK, I'll post it. They may not want to do that though, for legal or support reasons.

Thanks, but I'm not sure I understand. What is "small", what is "medium" and what is "big" for you? I have tiny (windows icon sized) icons in the library, unless I single-click on one, in which case is gets somewhat bigger. If I click on another, it goes back to tiny. What would be nice is to have the icons get big on MouseOver, so you can easily sift through a large list (think DAZ Morphs ++...)

Quote - To remove a library, select it, next to "Show Library". A remove button will appear.

Yes, that's what I expected (I'm of those 1% who RTFM!) - but it doesn't show. No folder - button, just the folder + one...

Quote - Someday (not sure when) when you drag that hair onto Ryan, it will auto-conform. So will the pants.

I was expecting this feature inthis version. DS3 have it and is a time saver.I think is one of the best features they have. DS have great things, the only reason I don't use it is the rendering results, lighting is not good for me.