With all the moaning going on I thought it might be nice for people to hear from someone who is happy with P8.

So, me first.  I down loaded Poser 8 was a bit slow doing that :)  Installed it had a message to install flash player, installed that, and I had Poser 8.

Been playing in it ever since and have had no problems. I just adore the new morph brush, and the DP makes it so a CR2 illiterate like myself can pretty easily hook up ERC type stuff. Still exploring the content. But all in all I'd say I definitely got my moneys worth.

Oh and it also renders way faster than P7.

 It's far faster than Poser Pro, which I own and have stopped using!!!!!

Yes, there are minor glitches, but I think I got more than my money's worth! And having an inside track to Pro 2010... hey. I'm a happy camper.

Mines fine so far, a few glitches here and there but nothing to annoy me too much. 

I'm completely enjoying P8!!!!!  Nice and fast (I love my Poser Pro but for "In Poser" use P8 wins for me!) and haven't had a single crash or weird anything at all yet!!  Loving how fast the Cloth Room simulations are now!!!  I'm looking forward to Pro 2010 too as I usually render in MAX but am liking what P8 is doing so far!!

I've been too busy with various projects to test it in depth, but no serious complaints so far.

Rendering performance has definitely improved for multi-core processors, even on a lowly system like my own.  I'd set up a couple of animations in P7 and had intended to render them in that version, but decided to let P8 give them a try instead, and it handled both readily.

I'm thinking I may upgrade to pro when it comes out too. I have a XP X 64 and a fast system so I think I could use it.

I'm really liking this morph brush, I used to have to rely on purchased morphs and hope I could get the results I wanted, but with this puppy I can morph across the seams  and make what I want. I'm not so good yet but I will be. I think P8 has opened up many more avenues for me to explore in 3D than I ever had before.I dont own any apps like Zbrush or Maya, and probably dont have the time to learn them. With P8 though I can do alot more than I could in P7.

Quote - I'm thinking I may upgrade to pro when it comes out too. I have a XP X 64 and a fast system so I think I could use it.

I'm really liking this morph brush, I used to have to rely on purchased morphs and hope I could get the results I wanted, but with this puppy I can morph across the seams  and make what I want. I'm not so good yet but I will be. I think P8 has opened up many more avenues for me to explore in 3D than I ever had before.I dont own any apps like Zbrush or Maya, and probably dont have the time to learn them. With P8 though I can do alot more than I could in P7.

Really?? You can go across seams???!! I must have missed that one. I love the morph brush ;o).

Laurie

After giving Poser the permission to use 127.1.x.x in my firewall, the library works. I have some minor complaints e. g. that the rotate tool is active by default but thats no big problem, so, I'm happy with P8 and it's render speed.

Another happy customer here. Apart from the odd crash (which happens in things like Photoshop too) no operational problems.

Once they release SR1 to fix all the rendering artifacts I'll be even happier.

Apart from the very odd crash - some of which is my fault, I'm pleased with Poser 8. I dumped Poser Pro in favour of it! :)

Quote - Really?? You can go across seams???!! I must have missed that one. I love the morph brush ;o).

Yeah this is one of the nicest new features.  It's now possible to make joint-controlled morphs strictly within Poser, along with the Dependent Parameters feature.  I do wish the morph brush had an "along surface" option but it's still a big improvement.

"I do wish the morph brush had an "along surface" option but it's still a big improvement."

I want it too, even though I don't know what it is. What would an "along surface" option do for us?

LMK

Right now, the Morph Brush's area of influence is a sphere centered around the mouse pointer.  This means that, for example if you're trying to smooth out the inner elbow when the arm is bent, it's VERY hard - you can create custom groups with group editor and restrict the tool to just that group, but it's a pain and you have the problem of what will happen when the tool goes to the edge of the group (basically that's how Poser 7's morph brush behaved).

With an "along surface" option, the influence of the tool would be just a radius of points that are connected to each other on a continuous surface.  In the example of trying to smooth the inner arm, you could work with those polys even though they might be right up against, or even intersecting with, the neighboring joint's polys.

 OK .. I'll bite ..

Poser 8 has rekindled my love of Poser again, big time. First of all, after working with the new interface for a while, it's very hard to go back to the old one. I also love the indirect lighting (though it's taking me a bit to learn what works and what doesn't in any given situation - transparency, AO, HDRI, etc etc etc). I am TOTALLY in love with the dependent parameters palette, and like that the morph brush can work across body parts. 

I'll confess that my initial reaction of the figures was "not what I'd hoped for."  But for those of us that have been around these parts since the "golden days", there are many of us that roll up our sleeves and play with a model to see what we can get out of it. I LOVE to tinker with characters ... and I honestly have to say that Alyson seems much more versatile than any Poser figure from P5 on. After playing with Alyson a bit I'm realizing how flexible she really can be, and I'm getting some pretty decent renders out of her!  I think with some community love she may surpass Posette in popularity, because she's far more versatile than Posette!

Overall, I really think Poser 8 is a winner. I'm happy with it, anyway!

So far I'm been very pleased with Poser 8. Sure there are room for improvement and I've too have had some difficulties in certain aspects of the program, but overall I'm very happy. In my Linux system P8 is already more stable as P7SR3 ever was and improvements in many areas - including the UI - are very welcome. 

Pretty much the best $129 spent this year.

Other than my issue with long animation render memory leak crashes, I LOVE the new Poser 8!! I haven't had any issues in the material room crashing or the library not working or any of that. I'm one of those who like the new Library as it is showing more content with smaller icons that can be enlarged by clicking them. I hope that is retained for those of us who want to see more content in the library when they update to the new  SR with larger icons for those who can't standt the small icons.

Other than crashing when I use V4, so far I'm happy with my purchase.

Nolos.

 Well.. most of what I was going to say has already been said.

I love Poser 8. It's as stable as Poser 7, except for a few bugs and glitches. And then, Poser 7 wasnt' perfect when it was released either. All Poser versions back to Poser 4 has required a few SR's to run properly, so it's nothing new and nothing I'm concerned about.

I'm looking forward to the SR1 which I hope will fix the few problems I have with P8. Yes, the rotate tool is an annoying default, but mostly I'm annoyed that my comma doesn't work when entering numerical values. I'm doing it out of habit and only at render time where nothing has happened (because the thing resets itself to 1.00000 when it encounters this apparently alien comma...) will I remember it and check - and fix and re-render...

I like the new interface, even if it is moving more and more towards the DS interface (which I HATE because I can't figure it out!) And I LOVE the new library. Yes the icons are too small, but that is being fixed so until then, I can live with it. I love that I can use things from several runtimes at the same time without having to go up and up and up and in and in and in to find them.

And of course I love the fact that it renders a lot faster and that the clothroom is notably faster as well.

Oh and the Indirect light is NEAT - even if it occasionally gives you render times that will rival Bryce L

Yup I love my poser 8 too after a few crashes in the beginning I completely reinstalled it and reorganized my runtimes in the process I now no longer have any problems. And the render speed is really awesome!

Left Poser Pro in favour of P8. Love the indirect light. Too bad that for library management they took a half-hearted solution instead of going for a DBMS and full dependency checking.

Alyson is a nice lass but sure needs some adapting to. She responds to ABC's much better than to direct posing.

Wardrobe Wizard integration is a sure winner. Datafiles 'from-only' for the Victorias would have smashed.

Best recommendation I did receive from MS support: use rendering in separate process. It did solve the stability problems I had.

I absolutely love it.  Crashiness is a bit of a nuisance, but since I've been right-clicking on the material tab, not a single crash.  Love the renders I'm getting.  I just wish I had a purpose for this rather than just looking at it... aww it's pretty... next!

Indi.

 As stated above, a few clitches, but am loving it.  Sharen

I still hold true to my review of Poser even after testing it for more than 2 weeks.  I have had a few glitches and a few crashes at the beginning but over all it is working fairly well for me. I finally had the problem where the library doesn't load all the way leaving the question marks. I simply closed the program and opened it again and that fixed the library loading issue.  The amazing thing is that I haven't installed the hot fix yet. So the bugs that I'm having are without the hotfix.

I still think it's a great program and would recommend it to anyone that has enough RAM to run Poser 8.  I don't understand why the complaints about the program were so harsh. 

Frederick
Poser By Design

Tradition.

And I'm happy with what I've found so far in P8 as well. Haven't stressed it too hard yet, as I'm still in the install and configure phase of setting up the CG box, but so far, impressed....! 

No issues here.  Really enjoying it.  I share the same sentiment as Deecey - Poser 8 has re-kindled my love of Poser.

I'm also very happy with Poser 8, just a few crashes but I love the IDL, the better renderspeed, the new library, the clothroom works faster, I haven't tried the better morphtool but it sounds great. Dynamic hair renders better then ever before, even the blond hair. Of course there  are some bugs and buts, but because this is a "love" thread I won't mention them here, SP1 is coming very soon, I heard, so Poser  will be better then ever.

best regards,

Bopper.

Once I finally got my blank library problem solved, I have been using Poser 8 to re-render some older pz3 files. I am waiting for the new serial update because there are some pz3 files from P7 that I cannot render with GI in a reasonable time.

I can't complain P8 installed to my window vista 64 machine without a hitch and runs beautifully.
However, I can't wait until PoserPro 2010 comes out.

I'm on board with P8. Four core rendering is definitely faster than PPro. The floating dialogs allow for a better work flow.
I do miss the render in background though that PPro uses.  P8 now uses all the CPU resources to get the render done faster but the computer is almost useless to do anything else...
PPro8 I'm sure will have the background render capabilities.
Stable enough for a first release.
Nice work Smith Micro.

Stable and powerful for me. I agree with TrekkieGirl about the subtle interface morph into DS, which is a gawd awful UI, but other than issues with the library and importing external runtimes, which will be addressed in SR1, this release has been surprisingly satisfying.

I too have been using P8 more than my PPro. Renders faster. Looking forward to the SR1, hoping they have made the scroll bar abit wider for us people that cant seem to hit right all the time. LOL. Waiting for 2010.

In all, it has been pretty stable right out of the box / download.

I'm pretty happy with P8. I'd be even happier if the crashes were fixed (but I am on an older system for now, so maybe that has something to do with all the crashes I do get). I love the faster render times which is why I keep using it in spite of the crashes.

I am pretty happy with it, A few problems to start with but fairly stable now.  I'll tell you one thing I wont go back to P7, even if nothing gets fixed. So ya, I'm happy with my purchase.

I'm trying hard to be optimistic towards P8. It has crashed a few times (material room) and I could live with that if it would render faster than PPro.  in fact,  render times are similar in PPro and P8 for me (sometimes even slower in P8). So I´ve been going back to PPro because of the Render in Background option which I really miss in P8.

But I think the new UI is fantastic, the library is also great and I am REALLY looking forward to using IDL, Cloth and Hair once I've sorted out the render speed.

Does anyone have any idea about what could be causing slow render speeds?

I'd probably be relatively happy if I didn't keep adding content, as I crash pretty much every time I do a library refresh. Or use the morph brush, for that matter. I've kinda taken up the workflow of scene setup in Poser Pro and rendering in P8 until SR1 is released.

Quote - I'd probably be relatively happy if I didn't keep adding content, as I crash pretty much every time I do a library refresh. Or use the morph brush, for that matter. I've kinda taken up the workflow of scene setup in Poser Pro and rendering in P8 until SR1 is released.

Yep, every time I refresh the library, Poser crashes. I've learned to just install content with Poser closed, then I don't have to worry about refreshing.

I don't find that works. I install content with Poser closed, and I still need to refresh.

Well no crashing here, I am well pleased with P8. The best Poser edition I have. So as to the OP's original intent, Hey! I'm one happy P8 user.

P8's rendering speed is dramatically faster than Poser Pro, so far I am happy with this edition.

The only crash problem occurs, which I can confirm again and again, is when I put more than two figures (V4 or others) into one rendering scene, an "out of memory" message appears and the program crashes. Afterwards when I restarts Poser 8 and tries to enter "general preferences" setting it crashes again, at the end I have to uninstall Poser 8, remove all previous settings and reinstall again. Back when I was still using Poser Pro I can put in up to 4 Vicky 4 figure into a render scene without crashing, so I think there may be a problem with Poser 8's memory management.

Quote -
...so I think there may be a problem with Poser 8's memory management.

LOL!!!  That made me smile and think of every single version of Poser I've had since Poser 4!!  (Have them all since P4)

Gerard

Quote -
...when I put more than two figures (V4 or others) into one rendering scene, an "out of memory" message appears and the program crashes. ...

Rendering in a separate process did solve this problem for me.

This thread is at least uplifting, glad to see many of you all are enjoying P8 as much as I. I am thankful for what I have, and if it gets better, then great 

Meanwhile I will get much entertainment value from exploring all the new features.

Happy owner too, i miss the network rendering of PPro but P8 is faster so i don't look back. Some problems with the library but i have found a workaround until SR1.

well... wish it had a Zrush interface a Zbrush like built in platform is long past due from Poser.

You can take a poser figure into Zbrush and pop out a totally new model from just altering it, POSER is way overdue for this feature.

I've sorted out the problems I had in the beginning with P8 and it works great!  I miss the render in background option a little but I can't think of going back PPro. P8 is only gonna get better from here on out!

P8 works great here.  no problems so far....

Quote - P8's rendering speed is dramatically faster than Poser Pro, so far I am happy with this edition.

The only crash problem occurs, which I can confirm again and again, is when I put more than two figures (V4 or others) into one rendering scene, an "out of memory" message appears and the program crashes. Afterwards when I restarts Poser 8 and tries to enter "general preferences" setting it crashes again, at the end I have to uninstall Poser 8, remove all previous settings and reinstall again. 

Have you by any chance altered the default TEMP path in Poser? The only time I had to reinstall mine was after I stupidly messed around with my temp folder and made Poser unable to find it. Then it crashed whenever I tried to open the preferences, like you describe.

I'm doing a fairly large scene right now 4000X4000 at the highest auto settings with IL at 20.  It's a complex scene with  a city, 8 figures, grass, trees etc and a sand storm in teradome. It took 8.5 hours for the IL precalculations, but the rendering seems to be going much faster. Anyway, no crash problems yet and the cpu stays in the steady 90's.  IL seems slow but it works and I have not crashed. Knock on wood. I do hope they speed up the IL in sr1.

Quote - I'm doing a fairly large scene right now 4000X4000 at the highest auto settings with IL at 20.  It's a complex scene with  a city, 8 figures, grass, trees etc and a sand storm in teradome. It took 8.5 hours for the IL precalculations, but the rendering seems to be going much faster. Anyway, no crash problems yet and the cpu stays in the steady 90's.  IL seems slow but it works and I have not crashed. Knock on wood. I do hope they speed up the IL in sr1.

What I hear SR1 will do for IL is that you'll be able to get much more quality at lower settings. Bagginsbill has posted a render somewhere that had one figure, reflections, transparency and complex shadows, rendered with very low IL settings and it only took a few minutes.