The team at SM don't seem to know much at all about their PREMIER grahpics program..

Whatever happened to extended Beta testing..?

Apple  OS 10.6.1  and the Prog is unusable STILL..!!

oh stop trolling Noelcan.

ok you have issues but that does not give you the right to go from thread to thread ranting.

Quote - lkendall**:**

This problem seems to occure for several reasons. I believe in most cases, the material nodes get loaded, but without the textures.

In the Advanced Material Room, click on the name of a texture, and in the dialogue box, click on the texture name with the down arrow on its left. A menu of pathway names to textures should open up. Scroll down to the pathway with a blue check mark beside it. Check to see if any of the directory names in the pathway are corrupted. Generally the first letter of the directory name is missing.

In my case this happens when the directory before the "...runtime..." directory contains a number (except at the end of the directory name). A directory name such as "...Poser7..." is okay to use, but not "...V4Cloths...". I have been able to manually load the textures, and Poser could then find them and render, so, your problem is a little different than mine.

lmk

ok I looked and you are indeed correct. Poser seems to get confused as to directory naming!!

my base External runtime is called POSER RUNTIMES. It includes several directories within it such as MEN, WOMEN, ENVIRONMENT etc etc.

now when i look at the dropdown menu in the materials room, the path is recorded as
**POSER/RUNTIMES/**MEN/Textures/etcetc which is obviously incorrect.
it should be POSER RUNTIMES/MEN/textures
it basically adds a stroke where it shouldn't. Possibly because the directory i installed Poser 8 in is called POSER and not Poser 8....

just to add: Poser 7 didn't have a problem with this directory name

SophiD -

Excellent snooping! What is the complete path you use? I'll make an identical one and test it with SR1!

@aeilkema - You make some good points. Issues should not close when they're "looking into it" and you're waiting for a response. Bogus.

Kalbach

Please forgive My ranting but I am looking for answers. save critical comment for the galleries..

I have Poser 8 installed in a directory called "Poser", since i uninstalled Poser 7 and thought there'd be no need to have a Poser 8 directory. This is located in
H:/Poser
the external runtimes directory is
H:/ POSER RUNTIMES
and has several subdirectories which house individual runtimes (see attachment) I have added the "fake" poser.exe file to each of these runtimes.

so, basically, Poser 8 doesn't like gaps in runtime names and doesn't like  the word "Poser" in any directory other than its own.
you will notice that it invariably changes the texture directory to either "POSER/RUNTIMES" or "Poser/Runtime"

OK - I just made a C:POSER RUNTIMESMEN and moved my entire Apollo Maximus folder into MEN. It works fine.

Next I'll re-install the original Poser and see if it is broken.

I'm not sure if the H: versus C: would matter. I think not. I'll let you know. This may take a few minutes. I have to eat something.

Oh wait - I just remembered a bug that got fixed. You have a folder called H:POSER and another folder called H:POSER RUNTIMES. One is a prefix of the other!

The confusion is not from the H:POSER RUNTIMES alone, but rather that both folders begin with the same eight letters. That was a nasty bug, and I know it was fixed.

It isn't about gaps in names, it's about two names where one is a subset of the other name.

I'll have to set up a very different test to verify this. Very unfortunate that your Poser installation is called H:POSER. Otherwise, we could easily just rename that to see if it fixes your problem.

I seeeeeee!! Yes i understand!!  :biggrin:
Shall i just reinstall Poser and make the directory name Poser8 then? (of course ideally that's a workaround)

CONFIRMED!!!!!

I created two runtimes, one with miscellaneous stuff in H:POSERRUNTIME. This is still an external runtime, not Poser's own, but it doesn't matter.

After installing build 10199 (the hotfix version you all have) it was BROKEN!!!!!

It gave me a bunch of texture not found errors.

So that's the problem, you have a workaround, and it is fixed in SR1.

Not bad for a few hours snooping.

Did you tell SM that you had the main runtime in H:POSER and external runtimes in H:POSER RUNTIMES? Because that is the key.

One runtime cannot have any part of its path be a prefix of another, until SR1 fixes this problem.

Quote - I seeeeeee!! Yes i understand!!  :biggrin:
Shall i just reinstall Poser and make the directory name Poser8 then? (of course ideally that's a workaround)

Yes - try that. It should fix it.

So...  When is SR!..?

Yes I did! Got a reply right away from a techie called John Csaky asking exactly the same question as you did and included all the relevant information and screenshots there as well.

woohoo!!  :biggrin: :woot:

Quote - Yes I did! Got a reply right away from a techie called John Csaky asking exactly the same question as you did and included all the relevant information and screenshots there as well.

woohoo!!  :biggrin: :woot:

Well, see, there ya go. They don't have it logged as a bug because it isn't a bug anymore. It was fixed weeks ago. John (aka ratscloset here at Rendo) didn't bother filing a bug in the beta site database because it was already fixed. There are lots of bugs he knows about that I don't. 

Quote - So...  When is SR!..?

That's something I'm bound by NDA not to divulge. They have been burned before, trying to let people know when an update will be available, and found that they had to postpone to fix an important problem. Some people don't respect that and get really vocal and mad about being told a date and then the date isn't met. So they won't release dates anymore. I'm allowed to talk about progress and bug fixes, but not release dates.

But I can tell you - soon. Not October, for sure.

 I also reported the texture can't be found error really early on and I posted screenies of where I thought the problem was.  I'm on a mac.
Love esther

SophiD,

You maybe do not have to re-install.

Do you know where your LibraryPrefs.xml file is? If so, open it in an editor and change the H:POSER to H:POSER8 if there are any.

Then rename the folder and launch Poser - see if it works.

I sure hope it allows Me to access My runtime without crashing..

Is there a fix for Poser 8 hogging the CPU and/or internet..?

BB -- You probably have no say about this, but it might be worthwhile to have a separate bug database for FIXED bugs. So you (or anybody else) doesn't get the idea that nobody reported it when it's simply been deleted from the list. Instead of deleting all record of the bug, shift to a FIXED list.

They're not deleted - all bugs going back years are listed with a status and a resolution.

I searched for all Poser 8 bugs mentioning "texture". The only two I found were fixed, not open.

Quote - I sure hope it allows Me to access My runtime without crashing..

Is there a fix for Poser 8 hogging the CPU and/or internet..?

Can you clarify your question? Poser 8 doesn't use the Internet. I wrote about that so much and got so many stupid arguments from people who don't write software for a living that I ended up getting a warning from Rendo admins when I got sick of it.

Don't start unless you have facts. I'm happy to discuss facts, not unsubstantiated rumors.

bb, I already tried the LibraryPrefs.XML. renamed the paths as well as the main Poser directory name from Poser to Poser8. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to work as it no longer finds the main Poser directory libraries. I tried making the file read-only and that worked, but, since these files are continuously re-written by the application, Poser eventually crashed hehehe. I should've just deleted the preferences file altogether!! Instead i just went ahead and reinstalled into Poser8 directory and deleted all my preferences from previous installation.

That worked a treat! :D

Thank you for your invaluable help bagginsbill!

You're welcome, Sophi.

Quote - > Quote - I sure hope it allows Me to access My runtime without crashing..

Is there a fix for Poser 8 hogging the CPU and/or internet..?

Can you clarify your question? Poser 8 doesn't use the Internet. I wrote about that so much and got so many stupid arguments from people who don't write software for a living that I ended up getting a warning from Rendo admins when I got sick of it.

Since I have uninstalled Poser 8 My internet speed has come back to normal..  Where when it was installed both SAfari and Firefox were giving Me "Not Responding" messages ..

Quote - > Quote - Teaser time. More SR1 IDL goodness here. 23 minutes.

Beautifull, but ... wich configuration ? wich render settings ?

LOL. Denise Tyler asked the same - she was mystified how I did that render so clean and yet so fast. Here was my answer. You may find this info useful when you get SR1.

You'll laugh when you learn how easy this is.

Hide the ground.

Load the studio backdrop. Set the Diffuse_Value on it to .7, and Specular_Value = 0 and both parts of it (backdrop and floor). This makes a not-shiny mildly white area to bounce the light around. I moved it towards the camera a bit, so the figure was more in it than in front of it.

The only light needed is a spotlight pointing straight down on the figure. Color it white; Red, Green, and Blue all = 1 on the properties panel. Intensity=100%. Angle Start/End is 0/70.

On the light Properties, use ray-traced shadows. Shadow Blur Radius = 10. Shadow Samples=40. Shadow Min Bias = .1 inch. (My Poser display units are in inches - check yours.) Falloff set to Constant.

If the shadows are too black for you, add a very weak plain white IBL, maybe around 15% intensity.

That's it for lighting and environment. Stupid easy, eh? Something like this should be the default lights, not those old Poser 4 colored lights.

Now, for render Quality, I had:

Cast shadows: On

Raytracing: On

Raytrace bounces: 3
Irradiance caching: 25

Indirect Light: On

Indirect Light Quality: 6

Pixel samples: 8

Min Shading rate: .5

Max bucket size: 32

For Render Options, I had:

None of the checkboxes.

Post filter size: 3

Post filter type: sinc

Tone Mapping: HSV Exponential

Exposure: 2.00

Now if that doesn't produce results like mine, then you probably need to accept the fact that my shaders are different from anything that comes with Poser. If you haven't tried VSS, you should. VSS skin shaders make a difference. There's a dozen tricks buried in it, and the VSS script will take care of everything.

Pardon my ignorance... what studio backdrop are you referring to, Bagginsbill?

Quote - Guys, let's not confuse memory use climbing while idle with cannot load texture. These are separate issues.

I know the texture failure dialog says it could be out of memory. That's not the problem for those who see it instantly. It's because there were some bugs in dealing with file I/O (a few actually) and they've been fixed. Let's see if SR1 fixes it.

As to the climbing memory, this is normal, although it perhaps scares you. However, you've noted that most if not all the memory is given back when you minimize. It is also given back periodically. This is memory being used to cache messages going between the library GUI and Poser. It is a normal consequence of using modern "managed code" where the programmer is not responsible for memory management - the system is. This is how Flash works. Every once in a while, a garbage collector runs and gives the memory back. I watched this very carefully for hours and hours. It is not a bug when it is working as it is supposed to.

That's not to say it is impossible to consume all of memory doing nothing. There are any number of components that could be buggy in this area. I've seen graphics drivers do it, I've seen out-of-date versions of Flash and IE do it, lots of things that are under your control, not P8's control. Not saying you've done something wrong.

Sigh - I have to go on and on trying to explain these technical things. I'm sure I'm becoming boring/insulting again to somebody.

Understood. Here are some more observations regarding memory usage and release.

When I start Poser8 up and load the SA Kitty Mass Production Figure from the content package into an empty scene, Poser has allocated 270MB of memory, after 10min doing nothing (and I mean nothing!!!), it has increased to 285MB, after another 10min it has reached 303MB, then a minute later there was a slight drop to 278MB and starts rising again.  When I minimize the app and maximize it, I get something <20MB (now it's reached 60MB while I was typing).

So my cars has a consumption of 21 mpg (thankfully not when in idle), and Poser has a consumption of 1.5 mbpm (Megabytes per Minute)

I updated the Flash component with the recommended version shortly after getting Poser8. My older Poser version works fine so I wouldn't blame the graphics driver (ForceWare 178.13).

Quote - Pardon my ignorance... what studio backdrop are you referring to, Bagginsbill?

The studio backdrop comes with Poser 8. Part of the new content.

Quote -
I updated the Flash component with the recommended version shortly after getting Poser8. My older Poser version works fine so I wouldn't blame the graphics driver (ForceWare 178.13).

That's not a very good assumption. The reason drivers get outdated is precisely because things change. (Not saying it's a problem; just saying that because your driver is fine with something older proves nothing.)

Quote - > Quote - Pardon my ignorance... what studio backdrop are you referring to, Bagginsbill?

The studio backdrop comes with Poser 8. Part of the new content.

Thanks, Bantha. I kinda assumed that, but I haven't been able to find it. What's the library path? Is it a prop?

B3D,

Use the Search tab in Poser 8! Search for backdrop, then when it shows up, select it and hit "Locate".

I have a pre-release copy of content, so telling you my path to the props may be wrong.

Heh. Thanks. I haven't thought to try the search function once yet. :-p

Quote - > Quote -

I updated the Flash component with the recommended version shortly after getting Poser8. My older Poser version works fine so I wouldn't blame the graphics driver (ForceWare 178.13).

That's not a very good assumption. The reason drivers get outdated is precisely because things change. (Not saying it's a problem; just saying that because your driver is fine with something older proves nothing.)

Yes, but I don't have a display problem. If my car is leaking oil, I do not start checking the headlights.

Just updated to nvidia forceware 190.62 and have the same memory issues, crashes while trying to refresh the library etc. These drivers are usually updated quite often because of some sophisticated functions used by some new games. I doubt that Poser uses these functions.

That's a bad analogy. You would check the headlights if oil went through them.

Everything that is software in your computer all uses memory. Every component that is shared by multiple applications uses memory on behalf of those appliciations.

Bad analogy, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with the video driver being the culprit or not. It probably isn't. But the words improbable and impossible are two completely different words.

You're right. I didn't mean to be rude....but the only effect was, that the textures in Battlefield 2142 had to be calculated again...

Just as a FYI: Poser 8 uses recent advances in Open GL, and graphics drivers updates are indeed relevant for Poser users.

Recent advances in OpenGL? As far as I understood, Poser 8 still uses OpenGL 2 and that sure isn't recent at all. I may be wrong, though, but I think we're still on OpenGL 2

Also Poser can't use the recent advances in OpenGL at all, they were released after Poser 8 was released. Poser still depends on an older version of OpenGL

Attached Link: http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=255002

http://www.opengl.org/documentation/current_version/

OpenGL 3.2 is the newest....... Poser could be using 3.1, but some reason I don't think they do. I know they made the switch from 1.5 to 2 in P7, it was announced then, but they didn't announce going to OpenGL 3, so I'm guessing we're still on OpenGL 2.

I don't think it's important to discuss what part of OpenGL Poser 8 uses or not. The important thing to remember is it uses more than Poser 7 did. It may be P8 only uses 3 year old OGL tech, whereas P7 uses 5 year old OGL tech.

Whatever was new OGL in 2005-2006 time frame, that is what is being used by P8 that was not used by P7. Whatever those features are, that is where we see P8 fall down. People with drivers from 2006 often see P8 stop crashing when they get drivers from 2007. I know this happened for me on my laptop. P8 was crashing, and now it isn't, because I upgraded my video.

Anyway, the memory issue is most unlikely to be a video driver issue. It is a possibility, and should be considered. It is not a likely candidate.

Did I say developments of September 2009 in Open GL? No, I said recent. The Poser 8 preview implements Open GL in an improved fashion over previous versions of Poser. All I'm saying is that just because your graphics driver works fine with Poser 7 or Poser Pro proves nothing about whether it's up to date enough to deal with Poser 8's more modern implementation.

And the service release is at the end of the piece of string?

@bagginsbill:

Quote - On the light Properties, use ray-traced shadows. Shadow Blur Radius = 10. Shadow Samples=40. Shadow Min Bias = .1 inch. (My Poser display units are in inches - check yours.) Falloff set to Constant.

I don't know where the "Shadow Samples" are on the light properties. It's not the 'AO Num Samples' I guess. Is that the 'Map Size' value or something else?

Shadow Samples is an SR1 addition to the GUI.

Thanks!  I was searching and searching and thought it was some hidden feature or I need Python for that... Good to know.

Quote - Shadow Samples is an SR1 addition to the GUI.

So SR1 will add some new features?  Excellent!!

See my phrasing? I was very precise. "addition to the GUI". The feature was already there, only accessible through Python.  There are posts about this somewhere from weeks ago, where I showed how the shadow samples could be set via Python and what that did to improve soft shadows.

But now its in the GUI, too. That's why I didn't post a plugin to expose this feature - no need.

Quote - It's just you and a few others feeling that way. According to some around here, most people do not need SR1 at all, since Poser 8 is working fine. It's only a few that need SR1 and only a handful of people experience problems with P8.

I'm eagerly awaiting SR1, hopefully it will be released soon.

Yes, only a few people are having issues. Oopps, gotta go, my monkey butler just brought me a flying pig that lays golden eggs!

Quote - Shadow Samples is an SR1 addition to the GUI.

bravo....................thank you all