Oh Goodness!

I just migrated...a startling abrupt migration I might add!....from Poser 4 to Poser 7 and I hate it!

The interface is....so....so...convoluted! It took me forreakingever to find the models and figures and the Material Room seems so complicated even in simple texturing mode.

I installed some new models I just got from DAZ and it took me forever to find them.

Soooo....is there a good safe EASY way to reconfigure the Runtime Folder and/or access to it to simplify things so I don't want to lay down moaning while pulling my eybrow hairs out with stress?

you'll get used to the sound of your own moans soon enough. ;-)

Poser 7 supports multiple runtimes, you should be able to add your old runtimes and not have to do any changes to the structure.

Yeah but I won't have ANY hair left by then and knowing me I would go back and continue working in Poser 4 on my ancient box until it drops off the grid of useability (which it is almost there!). I can't function in the profoundly troubling state of frustration without going ballistic. I no longer have the brain matter or patience to do so hoping that learning it sinks in.  :(

Quote - Poser 7 supports multiple runtimes, you should be able to add your old runtimes and not have to do any changes to the structure.

Yeah I heard that somewhere but Ihave absolutely no clue how to do it. I still have to deal with texturing and lighting and even finding all the other native Poser 7 offerings.

I guess I will need to get a book...oh God grant me patience!

....oh and a lot of online good folks willing to comfort me and help me on this difficult journey!  :)

The library isn't that much different as I recall from P4 to P7. It just folds up now to make more screen space. Just use it for a while and get used to it.

Just move your runtime from your old box to your new box, everything is in the runtime folder under poser.

I guess what bothers me are all the sub folders and how to access them. Can those folders be consolidated under one main Runtime folder with just a few subfolders say for:

HUMAN
ANIMAL
CLOTHES
POSEABLE PROPS & ACCESSORIES
SETS AND SCENICS
CONFORMING HAIR
ETC Instead of the mess of contributing sources it is now?

I recently went from Poser4 to Poser7 too!

At first I was overwhelmed by all the new options. But if you work with it, you'll find that really not a lot has changed. The Hair and Materials rooms can be daunting, Doc Geep has a great tut on the Hair Room. He makes it easy.

I spent several days trashing all the "contributors" folders and moving content around to where I wanted it. Poser7 does a pretty good job of finding it.

Don't panic, just play with it. ; )

P.S. I deleted almost all of the figures that came with it. ; )

Quote - P.S. I deleted almost all of the figures that came with it. ; )

Thanks for the encouragement folks....I desperately needed comforting assurance.Really a shame about the native figures. I have a lot of stuff for MIKI and TY as well as content/moprhs/textures for Jessy etc so I am going to wait to see how all the stuff makes the out of the box figures look. But anatomically they almost all suck. I remember seeing P5 Judy and was scared for days by the lingering memory of her face. But she had cute feet (LOL) so I tried getting as much stuff for her as I could find and now that I got Poser 7 running albeit slowly, I am going to load Judy and play with her for a while too.

But the thing I am getting frustrated about is not being able to easily migrate my old P4 Runtime folder over to my new Mac running P7. My LaCie network drive is on the blitz and does not mount on my desktop despite it being recognized by the OS itself.

I have been communicating with LaCie for several weeks without too much happiness. I pretty much either have to invest in recovery software to try and salvage the files already migrated to it or I have to just et go of hundreds of megs of Poser resources and years of my own renders (Pz3 Poser renders of my own) and ove on.

I dragged my old P4 Runtime onto the new Mac hard drive. Then opened it and dragged what I wanted into P7's main Runtime. I keep the old P4 Runtime separate in case I remember something I want from it. Eventually, I'll just delete the old P4 Runtime.

Wish I could help with the LaCie drive. How is it connected to the Mac? USB? Firewire?

The darn thing has a high MTBF rating and a five year warranty both of which have come nowhere near completing. It is connected via an Ethernet hub so I can DL via an iMac G4 desktop files from a networked old 8600 (P4 computer).

As usual as I was trying to migrate my P4 renders off one of my 5 drives on the 8600 I had another freaking brown out. I had a cheap Maxtor firewire drive hooked up to the iMc when it happened. The iMac went down. The 8600 went down and the LaCie went down. All the others recovered with seemingly no problem. The damn important LaCie ws the ony one that copped a freaking attitude! (I'm sorry...do I sound pissed?).

They told me it was the power brick. I have been sent three different Power bricks. The second one worked and got the drive up and running. I almost wet my pants with joy. But then my mouse cable touched the power cord from the brick to the back of the drive and being too loose a fit it fell out stopping the poor drive in its track. The third brick wire fits nice and snug now provides power to flash the little blue light but doesn't help me with my problem...again.

Since the problem I have tried connecting it to the iMac via the USB 2 cable as well with no results. System Preferences recognizes the drive on the port but it just refuses to mount on the desktops of neither the iMac or my newer MacBook.

LaCie said they can try to address the problem but strongly urged me to "BACK ALL THE STUFF OFF THE DRIVE" before I sent it in because it would be wiped during the repair. So I am a dunder head but I still do not understand how I am supposed to back-up a defective drive which doesn't mount on any desktop. So much for having a warranty and the supposed knowledgeable tech support I paid for.

I reminded them that because it is still under warranty and seems to be working otherwise they should run some software diagnostic or a DO NOT WRITE DRIVE repair option if I send it in. No good. Too much liability and they refuse to play nice about it.

I feel worse because I always thought the LaCie line was top of the line. It used to be but apparenbtly is no more if I can believe stories I am reading from friends in design and photography in New York who have had similiar problems with the LaCie products.

Reminds me of Iomega and the $#!+ they produced with their warmed over floppy based Bernouli technology in their ZIP AND JAZZ drives. Very unrelaible and very unpredictable (unless you consider predictably prone to fail as a good point). I never wanted to get another Iomega product since that experience.

Well... I certainly understand your being upset. Tons of files and work all just beyond your reach.

Lets try this:

Disconnect everything from the iMac (except keyboard & mouse).

Connect LaCie drive via USB cable.

Turn on drive. Turn on iMac when drive is up to speed.

When System Prefs "sees" the drive, fire up Disk Utilities.

Can Disk Utilities "see" the drive?

No.

Can you connect the LaCie drive via Firewire?

It works now, doesn't it?

Quote - It works now, doesn't it?

no...why do you think it works now?

Well, when you didn't come back after I suggested plugging it in using Firewire I thought, "Woo hoo!, maybe he's got it working now!" : )

Ah well. Sorry.

Oh! I was really tired...went to bed. I didn't realize it had gotten so late and it actually screwed up my early morning plans. No need to apologized friend I appreciate your helpful involvement and follow-up.

Actualy it was a gift from my nephew who knew I needed a network drive. It has several interface modes but unfortunately FireWire isn't one of them. But I gues if the findit file of the drive is corrupt it is no wonder it doesn't mount on the desktop irregardless of the hook-up interface method used. I am going to collect myself a bit...had so stressful a morning this morning looking for important family documents whose whereabouts I had forgotten my BP went through the roof and I was forced to take a little sedative. Now I am a bit sluggish albeit calmer. Gotta get some food in me and hopefully feel better. I need to be sharp if I am going to use the LaCie suggested tricks to try and rebirth this damn drive. I hope I can manage it. if not I am going to have to let go of the stuff and move on. I'll send the damn thing to LaCie and let them perform their magic on ita. Whatever!?  :)

Thanks again for your support and help. I will post the outcome here. Ciao!

Well, like I promised I wam posting the outcome of my trials and tribulations with this drive.

LaCie sent me some clever turn on and turn off sequences that were not I dre say, in the opertors manual. It seems to have done the trick. However a small thing changed and this was due to how the technique reset preferences to factory set forms. I can no longer access the drive via the network like I did in the past but by it's IP address. Not a problem...luckily when I first set it up I wrote down VERY CAREFULLY on index cards all the drive information including its IP Address so now I can at least ccess t.

Oh and BTW the additional access modes it advertised were bogus. A network drive is NOT set up in either Mac or Windows format but in UNIX SO data recovery software doesn't work because the drive will not mount (which was the case with mine) on either desktop. If a Drive doesn't mount on the desktop even though System Profiler sees it on the network it can't be fixed at home. You gotta send it in to get Professionally done...all this from AlSoft. I don't know if other manufacturers do the same thing but It ws enlightening. That was also why I could not mount the rive on my desktop via the other of the three modes:USB (though i have NOT been able to get LaCie to fess up to why I couldn't mount the drive via the USB interface...really pisses me off). Not being a Mac or Windows drive it would not mount. Turns out the USB interface is for maintenance or some dumb thing.

So ask questions before you buy Network Drives...and then don't bother. THat was my lesson and I am sticking with it!   :)

Thanks for the help.

Ciao

Glad to read that you've got it up and working!

cheers!  : D