P8 is being tested all right and support is actually great. But.... I seriously doubt the testers represent the community in anyway or even push P8 the way it should be pushed. Imagine how much money SM could save if they would get more (or better) testers. Half of the issues reported here are issues that should not have been overlooked when testing. Now support has to deal with them and that costs money.

I've been testing a good number of applications over the years. To mind comes Vue, TrueSpace and a number of game engines. Once problem I've noticed that many testers do not know how to test. They just play a little with the application and state it works. I really think testers should get a short course in how to test.

Even SM has seen the problem in testing. They're opening up the Poser Pro testing program to many more users, which is a good thing.

Quote - You know, I have Vue Infinite.  Great rendering program,  Decent animation.

I can't count the number of times it has crashed on me.  And yet, the number of people screaming about how simply awful it is seems minimal compared to the massive amount of pure, unbridled angst I keep seeing with Poser.

I returned Vue because of that, I was so fed up with it, that I stopped using it completely. E-on has a major problem.... they do not know how to fix the problems reported with Vue. When I still participated in their testing program, I was stunned to see how many of the reported issues were still there after the new version was released.

Quote - ll the whailing seemed strange to me, I got curious and installed P8 onto all three of my computers, all different setups, and P8 works fine on all of them. ( I know I cant keep it on all three just testing.) Had a couple of crashes on the gateway but no more than photoshop does on a regular basis.

That's the main reason people do not complan, their attitude is completely wrong, sorry to say so. Because photoshop crashes, Poser is allowed to do so? I've got more then enough applications (drawing related, 3d related and so on), that never crash at all. All kinds of application I won run very smoothly. I'm not going to settle for this mentality that bugs are normal. Imagine buying a tv that stops working every so often. What would I do? Return the thing and get a diiferent one that works fine. Yet with applications like Poser and Vue people put of with the sloppy programming work of the programmers. Because, according to them, it;s normal. NO..... it isn't! An application should work well and not crash every so often. But as long as people settle for sloppy applications, then nothing will change.

With Poser there is hope that it will be fine in the end. Allthough it's not guaranteed anymore. Poser 7 Pro still has bugs that aren't fixed. Vue never ever is bug free and bugs from the previous version get fixed in the next one. Poser seems to go that same route. Bugs from previous version get dealt with in P8. If that's the case then I will not upgrade anymore as I've stopped doing with Vue. I've returned Vue 6, it was a still very crash prone, even after numerous service releases. If that's the case with P8, then it's time to look elsewhere. I may do that anyway, if Poser goes the direction that is being portrayed here by some then I'm not really interested anymore. Combining the for me majority of useless features of P8 and it being unstable, is enough reason to start looking elsewhere or settle for the best release and stick to that for a long time.

Kind of like WinXP...... keep using it until MS releases something worthwhile, which may never happen.

Quote -
Sorry. I must admit I hadn't actually tried it myself. And yes, it annoys me, too that it's the rotate tool that is the default. But I'm pretty sure it was in Poser 7 as well and I managed to change it to the Translate tool there, so perhaps it's just something that isn't properly written into the .ini (then again.. apparently I have no Poser.ini at all.. at least I can't find it, but that has a thread of its own L)

That's one of those things that's been bugging me about Poser for years. I'd really prefer just a simple pointer that does nothing but selects. The only widget tool I ever use is rotate anyway, otherwise I use dials for everything else.

You were already answered where your Poser.ini is. In Vista and Windows 7 it would be in:
X:UsersUser NameAppDataRoamingPoserPoser.ini, where "X" is the name of the drive your OS is on. Probably that's C but of course it doesn't have to be.

In XP it would be in Documents and Settings, probably under
Documents and SettingsPoserPoser.ini.

Personally, I think SM should have handed out 30 day free trials to 500 people here in exchange for a report at the end of the month. This would give them free beta testers from people in the community who is a part of the consumer base. Test it by the people who "push" it. Someone who can't wait to try out the new figure, put all the clothes on it and say " Hey, why isn't this loading?" Render out a scene and say " Hey, why is my render taking 8 hours and at the end look like the edges were cut by a 2 year old"?

Right now I'm having an issue with the setup room. Did a ticket. Got the old run-a-round. Tried the setup room with P8 content only, still crashes. Maybe if 4 of the beta testers were 3d modelers and ran into the same issues, it would be fixed at the time of release.

They don't need to pay beta testers, they need to find enthusiastic testers who WANT to try every little facet of the program. You can't find bugs unless you look under the rock, not on top of it.

Quote -
You were already answered where your Poser.ini is. In Vista and Windows 7 it would be in:
X:UsersUser NameAppDataRoamingPoserPoser.ini, where "X" is the name of the drive your OS is on. Probably that's C but of course it doesn't have to be.

In XP it would be in Documents and Settings, probably under
Documents and SettingsPoserPoser.ini.

Please don't talk to me like I'm a retard. I have shown screenshots and everythng to tell that IT. IS. NOT. THERE.

Yes I know it should be, but fact is, it isn't.

A computer-wide SEARCH for it doesn't bring it forth.

If it was where it should be, I wouldn't spend more time looking for it, now would I?

And yes, it's completely illogical, but the fact remains. I have no Poser.ini related to Poser 8. On ANY drive.

There is a Poser 7 folder inside "Roaming" - but that contains my Poser 7 ini, last updated in MARCH this year. So no, it's not that Poser 8 is reading that either.

Quote -
Please don't talk to me like I'm a retard. I have shown screenshots and everythng to tell that IT. IS. NOT. THERE.

I wasn't talking to you like you're a retard, I was responding typically to a situation that makes no sense.

Have you tried deleting any "preferred state.pz3" file you might have and then opening Poser to see if it writes a new INI?

TG,
On a long shot, under usersadmin, do you have a shortcut directory named Application Data?
If so, is there a Poser8.0?
As an aside, Vista32 here, I just did a file search for poser.ini and the P8 ini didn't show up in the search. P6, P7, and Poser Pro ini's show up, but the P8 ini doesn't.

Quote - There is a Poser 7 folder inside "Roaming" - but that contains my Poser 7 ini, last updated in MARCH this year. So no, it's not that Poser 8 is reading that either.

For me, with Windows XP 64-bit, it's under:
C:Documents and SettingspjzApplication DataPoser8.0

Quote -
For me, with Windows XP 64-bit, it's under:
C:Documents and SettingspjzApplication DataPoser8.0

Yeah I forgot how the whole XP hierarchy folder structure went.

Might also try making a blank text file and saving it as Poser.ini and seeing if Poser fills it in for you when it starts up.

There's a DefaultPoser.ini in the Poser 8Runtimeprefs folder.

There's also a Poser.dta file and a PoserReg.dta file in my C:ProgramDataPoser8.0 folder if that's any help. This is on a Vista pc.

After running a search, I also have a Poser.ini in my C:UsersmynameAppDataRoamingPoser8.0 folder too. But I also have another folder in that Poser folder with a date as part of the folder name that also has a Poser.ini file in. My Poser is installed on an external drive. It's definately a weird one if you can't find your Poser.ini Trekkie.

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - BB, I am totally for GI, read the thread- all poser users have been waiting for GI, that is the biggest feature...

That doesn't make any sense, if you think the consumer app should take less resources to run (which you said earlier).  GI is an extremely compute-intensive feature.

Yeah, that's what prompted my comment. GI introduces more CPU use than any other Poser rendering feature.

Obviously GI takes more resources- all that I was saying is that I think a consumer app should not be more resource intensive than a pro app (GI/IDL included), if you think that it should then I guess poser exists in bizarro world.  That is it, you really can't argue with that if you take absolutes as your statements.  Yes, I am aware that absolutes are hard to come buy.

example- modus ponens (logic)

-If a consumer app is for consumers with less computing power, then it will be less resource intensive than a pro app which is for pros with more computing power.
   
-Poser is a consumer app.
   
-Therefore, Poser will run with less resources.

The thing is, you WANT rendering to use 100% of available CPU.  There is no philosophical argument that makes rendering slower preferable to rendering faster, to me.

Quote - The thing is, you WANT rendering to use 100% of available CPU.  There is no philosophical argument that makes rendering slower preferable to rendering faster, to me.

Of course you want rendering to use %100 of the cpu, I am not arguing that- what you do want though is your your program to use it efficiently without memory leaks or bugs. 

I never stated that I wanted a slower render, obviously we all want faster renders.

Anyway, I am done with this argument - we could go in circles forever.  I suppose my logic argument is a bit flawed- instead of less resource intensive, I should have said more efficient use of resources- whatever- great discussion though, but I will not change my mind on Poser being an inefficient resource hog.

Quote - Anyway, I am done with this argument - we could go in circles forever.  I suppose my logic argument is a bit flawed- instead of less resource intensive, I should have said more efficient use of resources- whatever- great discussion though, but I will not change my mind on Poser being an inefficient resource hog.

And so is D/S...... Vue is even worse..... Carrara...... Bryce...... TrueSpace..... All of the affordable 3D applications have this problem, Poser not being an exception. Compared to some of the apps out there, Poser doesn't even do that bad. Poser 8 has seen some good improvements in this area.

Any application that is so texture intensive as Poser is will eat resources as cake, that can't perhaps be avoided at all. But some are worse then others and Poser sure isn't the worse one.

I also start to get frustrated:

• Library crashes Poser almost every time I try to update within Poser.
• "Cant load texture. Bad file" - message after rendering (without a problem) causes a crash.

EDIT: I think these are errors are mentioned here quite often and this should definitely have occured during beta testing as well.

I think smith micro published a hot fix to fix the crashing problem, You most likly find it on thier website under the support section.

by the way truespace is awesome and even more awsome when used with zbrush lol.

It's great for getting the basic shape you need before you take it into zbrush and really start messing around with it.

Yeah I think poser 8 should be programmed to locate all runtimes and use them from the remote locations they were installed at without importing them by making new copies of existing runtimes in the documents directory in windows which eats up a ton of more drive space because the imported runtime is actually a copie of another runtime.

so for example be great if you could install it and have a central runtime that all versions of poser can access without having to re-install old content across several runtimes and eat up drive space.

And being browser driven alot people are not seeing thier runtimes load due to being blocked by the fire wall, seems you need to configure you're fire wall to allow poser 8 access rights or turn it off, or it wont load the runtimes.

Quote - Yeah I think poser 8 should be programmed to locate all runtimes and use them from the remote locations they were installed at without importing them by making new copies of existing runtimes in the documents directory in windows which eats up a ton of more drive space because the imported runtime is actually a copie of another runtime.

Err, that's exactly, what Poser 8 does, it allows you to have your runtimes everywhere you like, even the default runtimes... If you're making copies, you're doing something wrong.

I think everyone that has a crash in poser 8 is a LIAR! I can't beleive the audacity of all of you.  This software is a top notch, state of the art, masterpiece. How dare you say things like the beta testers didn't do their job, my program keeps crashing, they didnt run enough tests, I dont have anything on my screen, blah, blah, blah.

If you are having an issue with the software it must be YOUR machine and it's not SM's fault that your machine has A.D.D. and wants to leak memory. You need to potty train it not to leak.

Personally I love you SM, and never had any issues, runs like a brand new kia with 22" spinners!

Now for every person that has had p8 crashing on them do the following...........

make a list of every item in your runtime folder in a txt file. Please don't use word.
uninstall windows and reinstall, cause you know it's mircosofts fault.
Mac users.....go buy a pc, Pc users try it on a mac.
now update your graphics driver.... it doesn't matter if you just installed it, do it again cause it didn't work.
Where ever you installed P8 to on your harddrive when you were given 4 different options to do so, you made the wrong choice. Reinstall until you make the right one. If you don;t know the right one, we're not going to tell you.
If your UAC is on, turn it off. If it is off, turn it on. Cause again, it's windows fault.

If you do all of this you will be ok. If we don't hear back from you within 2 hours we will presume your issue has been fixed and close this ticket!

Love,
Mr Brown-nose
PhD in BS