Help!

I fired up P8 this morning and after loading a figure, I touched the camera controls and lost any info on the screen.  Tried another camera where the character was still visible and touching the camera controls did the same thing!

Shut down P8 and restarted, loaded a recent scene and did a render - no problem.  But, as soon as I touched a camera control in preview - no image again! (Also lost all lights and couldn't reload any from lights library.)

Tried removing program using CP Add/Remove programs and then reinstalled replacing legacy info with new.  Installed latest SR3 update

Fired up P8 and had exactly the same problem!!!

What do I do to get a useable P8 again!

PS:  Running XP32 with 4MB Ram and ATI HD4670 vieo card with latest updates

Any help much appreciated!!

If any Microsoft updates got installed recently (i.e. yesterday) I'd try reinstalling the latest graphics drivers just to be sure that they haven't been disturbed.

Quote - If any Microsoft updates got installed recently (i.e. yesterday) I'd try reinstalling the latest graphics drivers just to be sure that they haven't been disturbed.

No Windows updates have been installed since I last ran P8 successfully a couple of days ago (I always manually download Win updates after being advised automatically by M'soft that one is there)

Also, I have no graphics problems at all with my other 3D programs (Vue and tSpace)

This is definitely a Poser program problem (- unless anyone can say otherwise ;-))

If you have a graphics program such as Gimp, Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro I would suggest posting a screen capture of your Poser 8 screen showing what it looks like when this problem occurs. This could help in narrowing down the cause.

?

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2800448

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2793095

Quote - If you have a graphics program such as Gimp, Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro I would suggest posting a screen capture of your Poser 8 screen showing what it looks like when this problem occurs. This could help in narrowing down the cause.

I could do this but it wouldn't show any meaningful information.  Nothing is visible on the preview screen (except the ususal background colour) yet the character/object/whatever is shown as installed.

Thanks for your input.

I've now raised this with Smith Micro support  - awaiting reply.  If I get a solution, I'll report back

Weird things can happen if you have not cleaned out cache, temp files etc on your hard drive and not defragging it.  Try that.  Yes, I know, its not logical but sometimes a computer isn't either (from a human standpoint that is).  Jan 

Try pressing the "space" bar BEFORE you move the camera.

Thanks to BagginsBill and Gimp!

Yes, pressing the Spacebar does solve it!  (I'd be interestedto know why - it's just SO illogical!)

BTW, having done a reinstallation and then pressed the spacebar to get P8 working properly, in the process of establishing my preferred settings I kept getting a Poser program shutdown for no apparent reason.  This appears to be happening with increasing frequency and when it occurs the shutdown screen appears for between two and four times until the program eventually does shutdown.  I expect M'Soft are getting quite p....d off with Poser users reporting this so often!

Although I like P8 (and have got used to it's quirks like the one above) I can't help feeling that there is still something seriously wrong with it's programming for incidents like this to occur all the time

Quote - Although I like P8 (and have got used to it's quirks like the one above) I can't help feeling that there is still something seriously wrong with it's programming for incidents like this to occur all the time

Sure is - the solution, unfortunately, is to charge $800 instead of $130 and hire enough developers to really build such a complicated application with conviction. But then it wouldn't be Poser anymore.

I've seen books on CG that cost more.

Who is Gimp?:blink:

For interesting background material on the financial numbers involved in software development, have a look here:

http://www.smithmicro.com/about/news-press-detail.aspx?newsid=414

That's the press release from when SM bought Poser, Anime Studio, and Manga Studio from e-Frontier.

Now let me speculate some interesting numbers. (Please please be completely aware that I don't know any of this. While I am friends with the Poser folk, they don't tell me this stuff. I'm making this up based on my general experience of working in software development for my whole career.) So...

Total purchase price was $6 million. That's a public fact.

E-Frontier's total annual revenue (including other non-Poser stuff that they did not sell to SM) was $7 million. Also a public fact.

Speculation: Which means the Poser+AS+MS revenue was far less than that. I don't know how much, but probably in the neighborhood of $3 to $4 million. Most functioning software companies are purchased for around 2x annual revenue. If they're having trouble, it is somewhat less. Certain bad deals are made at 1X revenue but that's unusual.  Great software companies are purchased at 10x to 20x revenue.

Speculation: I'm guessing that the group of people necessary to develop, market, sell, and support those apps is roughly around 40 people.

Speculation: The cost of a group this size is around $6 million per year.

So - a group that generated somewhere around $4 million in revenue costs the company $6 million a year to keep working. That's a $2 million annual loss unless growth is achieved.

You think they're allowed to hire more developers? NOT

They need to get the revenues up over $6 before that will happen.

If the community thinks Poser is unique and should grow faster/better, then the community should come up with some more revenue. There are three ways to do it:

1. Get more people to buy (sell more copies). (One way is go cheaper)

2. Get the existing people to buy more stuff (content, or upgrade more often)

3. Get everybody to pay more. (Usually buy more awesomeness in the software)

SM have pursued and successfully performed some of all three. Expect to see more new approaches to all three as well.

Hopefully that will accelerate the funding of new development.

Oh - I forgot - there is tactic #4:

1. Hire Bagginsbill

Yep - okee.

Quote - Who is Gimp?:blink:

Sincere apologies Geep, I meant you!  (I wrote my response perhaps too hastily in order to get it posted speedily and didn't check exactly)

Sorreee!!! (to quote a well-used Canuck word!)

Quote - Oh - I forgot - there is tactic #4:

1. Hire Bagginsbill

Yep - okee.

Hey Bill, I thought you were on the Smith Micro development team (your 'real' name is set out on Poser's opening flash screen)!

Incidentally, I did get a response from SM suggesting all sorts of workarounds except the simple 'spacebar' solution.  I responded saying that (through this forum) I'd solved it (using Spacebar) and suggested they post this as an answer to the problem on their FAQ's.  Apparently their engineer's are looking into why this happens and will report back further.

I'll keep you posted

I only occasionally consult for SM, and from 3,000 miles away. If I were actually hired that would be a different thing. Anyway - it was only a joke. I'm not moving to California and not interested in going back to being an employee, no matter how much fun it would be to work at SM.

Quote - > Quote - Who is Gimp?:blink:

Sincere apologies Geep, I meant you!  (I wrote my response perhaps too hastily in order to get it posted speedily and didn't check exactly)

Sorreee!!! (to quote a well-used Canuck word!)

No prob .... I wuz just funnin' ya.

cheers,

dr geep

;=]

re: the spacebar thingie

From my personal experience ... if I have been viewiing any video and then try to change a camera in Poser ..... ZOOM ... the "flyaway" condition occurs.  I believe that hitting the spacebar yanks Poser back to reality so the "flyaway" problem does not occur.   And here, after years of shutting down Poser and then retarting it ... the solution was just a spacebar away ... Who woulda thunk it.  Why does it fix the problem? ... Who knows, but, then again, who cares ... If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

cheers,(again)

dr (bob) geep

;=]

Vicky be jealous a dem broads in da video.

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