Will rsr support be provided in future updates to Poser 8?  I've got DAZ content up to 2006 that only provided rsr files for thumbnails. It's a bit ridiculous to not make Poser 8 backwards compatible to all content made for the program.  I'd forgotten that P8 isn't fully backwards compatible to earlier versions when I ordered it last month. Otherwise, I'd have held off till all the problems are fixed.

I don't like having to run another program to convert rsr files to png files, every time I install content that's a few years old to my P8 runtime, just to see thumbnails that I had no problem seeing in every other version of Poser. I've got way too much older Poser content, going back to the early days of the Poser, and only install what I'm immediately going to use. There's no point in installing every single Poser file I've got and bloat up my runtime when I'm only using a fraction of the files. The program needs to be fully compatible with the content available for it since it relies wholly on that content to be usable.

Doubtful. I'm afraid you have no choice but to run another program to update your .rsr files. They removed .rsr support for a reason.

Laurie

It's just a logical step. No shop now supports P4 and starting with P5 the rsr-files are obsolete. No one expects Ford to support the T-Model until today, am I right?

Quote - Will rsr support be provided in future updates to Poser 8?  I've got DAZ content up to 2006 that only provided rsr files for thumbnails. It's a bit ridiculous to not make Poser 8 backwards compatible to all content made for the program.  I'd forgotten that P8 isn't fully backwards compatible to earlier versions when I ordered it last month. Otherwise, I'd have held off till all the problems are fixed.

I don't like having to run another program to convert rsr files to png files, every time I install content that's a few years old to my P8 runtime, just to see thumbnails that I had no problem seeing in every other version of Poser. I've got way too much older Poser content, going back to the early days of the Poser, and only install what I'm immediately going to use. There's no point in installing every single Poser file I've got and bloat up my runtime when I'm only using a fraction of the files. The program needs to be fully compatible with the content available for it since it relies wholly on that content to be usable.

 

I realize you do not wish to install any more programs into your system but in the freestuff is RSR Converter 1.0.0.2. It's a 224k zip stand alone. No system overhead or .dll files to be installed. I keep all my projects in seperate runtimes and only add the ones I need to P8 then remove them when finished. I too use a lot of older content and a simple run of this converter fixed anything thrown at it yet. It will run recursively through the directory tree you give it un-attended and will not mess with anything but RSRs. It's speedy. Takes only seconds to charge through the runtimes I give it and when I finish a project I can just zip up the runtime and remove it from P8 and stored for future use. The added bonus is that of course you will never have to run the converter again on those runtimes. Just an idea.

BTW I don't think you will be seeing RSR support in P8 any time soon. If that was going to happen I suspect it would have happened in one of the service packs by now. As for other problems with the software I suggest that you post the problems you are having and no doubt someone with more knowledge will be sure to help. The software is a little trying on my less than state of the art PC but running SR3 I have had no problems what so ever.

Very unlikely, considering they removed support for RSR thumbnails (along with other code cruft like the P4 renderer) when they developed P8.
I can't think of any reason why they might want to add it back in.

Quote - I can't think of any reason why they might want to add [RSR] back in.

The reason would be that I'd guess that close to half the content developed over the history of Poser's life doesn't have PNG thumbnails. DAZ originals before 2007 didn't routinely have PNGs and that's late V3/M3/A3 timeframes (V4 came out in late 2006). That's a lot of very usable content that most Poser users have and can still purchase.

I think the only reason more people haven't been annoyed about this is that they've been carrying forward their runtimes across the different versions of Poser and computer changes and any RSR thumbs were already converted in earlier versions.  Once they get a major hard drive crash, they're not going to be too thrilled with having to run another program after reinstalling all their content simply to be able to see the thumbnails.

Not being fully backwards compatible is a poor programming practice. It would be akin to Microsoft not making all documents produced prior to Office 2007 fully readable with all formatting in newer versions of Office. Microsoft has a history of making bad arrogant decisions about the usability of their software and they haven't been that dumb.

Quote - No one expects Ford to support the T-Model until today, am I right?

True, but nobody is going to routinely drive a T-Model today. The 3rd generation Millennium figures are still widely used and, unless DAZ has updated the files with PNGs, they don't have them. I haven't installed P8 yet, but I wouldn't be bothered if they dropped Detailer Texture import. I haven't found any Poser content that needed it in all the time I've used the program. There are thousands of Poser files that do not have any PNG thumbnails.

I don't mind the loss of a function that's not useful today. I am annoyed at the loss of one that now forces me to do additional manual effort to install content that's only a few years old. That's sloppy programming that isn't a good sign of a company that's standing by their users. As is, I'll have to cross my fingers that the new library interface will work cleanly with my antivirus programs without my having to contact their technical support.

I wonder if DAZ Studio processes RSR thumbnails inside the program. If they do a better job of being compatible with Poser than Poser is, P8 may be the last version I purchase.

There's a simple freeware program that generates the pngs, and there are 3rd-party libraries that can utilize .rsr files.  I don't know what the big deal is...

How far back do you realistically expect them to go? Back to Poser 4? 3? How far? Poser 4 is over 12 years old...

Sometimes I think we as Poser users really ask too much. If they keep certain things, then we suffer with dealing with certain things that we want but can't have because of old code. If they go ahead and remove some old code and update, but we lose some backwards compatibility, we whine. I beginning to think they can't win no matter what they do.

Laurie

I think it would have been a nice feature for RSR support to have been included, but I also think it would be too much of an effort to add it. So much of an effort, I think it's probably it's not worth the return at all.

Considering that there is a free RSR converter (which I used to update all my old files in one big run) I would rather have effort directed towards other areas of the product.

After using the converter, I haven't looked back since.

It might've been good customer relations from SM to have included a Python script to do the conversion. Maybe one to clear out the redundant RSRs as well

Detailer? wow, I had to throw that one away years ago...could never get that to install in xp let alone Vista! and I'm serious, how'd you do it?

http://www.senosoft.com/download.php

P3DO has a free library file viewer and you can get a plugin to convert RSR to PNG, on a folder by folder basis.

This runs for me under XP and Vista 64, but so did the freeware batch converter available here. I use the free P3DO library browser to look through my runtimes while Poser Pro 2010 is rendering. One day I will buy the pro version.

We have some of the best Python programmers (and sources of free Python utilities) on this forum. Maybe one of them can tell us if a Python script could convert RSR to PNG?

lmk

"I wonder if DAZ Studio processes RSR thumbnails inside the program."

Yes, as does Carrara. The rsr's are just Mac .pct images with a different header & some bytes at the end IIRC. Once you have a .pct, it should be simple to convert to .png using freeimage or another imaging library. Maybe one of the Python gurus could whip something up that you could use within Poser to convert the thumbs for the selected library folder?

"I wonder if DAZ Studio processes RSR thumbnails inside the program."

Yes, as does Carrara. The rsr's are just Mac .pct images with a different header & some bytes at the end IIRC. Once you have a .pct, it should be simple to convert to .png using freeimage or another imaging library. Maybe one of the Python gurus could whip something up that you could use within Poser to convert the thumbs for the selected library folder?

Quote - We have some of the best Python programmers (and sources of free Python utilities) on this forum. Maybe one of them can tell us if a Python script could convert RSR to PNG?

I've got a Python version of my RSR Converter, but as there's Windows and Mac Converters available, I don't see a need to publish it.

I would say that your concern with rsr shouldn't be the major issue.  You will get older content which are Material Room wired differently which can cause overall problems in the current iterations Poser.  Skin textures connected to ambient channels, diffuse_colors with tints of blue, diffuse_values set to 1, etc.  These are all becoming archaic methods which are now causing problems with present renders.

Quote - How far back do you realistically expect them to go? Back to Poser 4? 3? How far? Poser 4 is over 12 years old...

More to the point, Poser 5, which made the shift to png for thumbnails, was released 8 years ago.  Given that we had 4 versions and six years to convert rsr files before the format was finally made obsolete and support stopped, with some of those versions available for free for sometime now, and with multiple free conversion options available besides Poser...well, at what point do you say "deal with it"?

Quote - > Quote - How far back do you realistically expect them to go? Back to Poser 4? 3? How far? Poser 4 is over 12 years old...

More to the point, Poser 5, which made the shift to png for thumbnails, was released 8 years ago.  Given that we had 4 versions and six years to convert rsr files before the format was finally made obsolete and support stopped, with some of those versions available for free for sometime now, and with multiple free conversion options available besides Poser...well, at what point do you say "deal with it"?

DAZ, the biggest Poser content provider, only stopped releasing RSR-only files four years ago. It's not exactly ancient history. People have provided freeware converters, so it's not the most difficult programming in the world--and Poser already had it in the previous versions. With my having half a terabyte of Poser content, of which roughly half of that is in RSR formats, there's better things to do with one's time than to manually convert tens of thousands of files. I only install the content I need when I need it--which makes the batch RSR conversion programs impractical because I'll have to run the program every time I install content. The point of computers is to assume the manual tasks that are impractical to do.

This isn't an issue of supporting obsolete things, but maintaining support for things that aren't. I'd guess that there are somewhere between 5000-10,000 Poser items that have no PNG thumbnails. Much of the content for V3/M3/A3/S3/D3 figures has no PNGs. Those are not obsolete figures or content. This isn't asking support for 12-year old items, but for things that were only released 3 years before Poser 8 was released. I can understand people, who have little content beyond the Millenium 4 releases, but it's odd for longtime Poser users to be so accepting.

As an aside, there is an interesting attitude I've seen nowadays--it's the willingness to accept things that aren't right. It's not just accepting them, but arguing to accept them. I remember questioning the terms of service at TriggerStreet.com a few years ago, a site that provides a forum to help discover budding screenwriters. The site has a common licensing arrangement that grants a nonexclusive license to the site to every screenplay put on the site--including the right to sell those works. I was rather amazed at the number of people that defended that licensing arrangement instead of wanting a better one that would protect both TriggerStreet and the writers using the site. Some of the posts were even insulting. I wasn't condemning the site, but just asking them to fix the licensing terms so that they weren't so ridiculously one-sided.

Quote - I would say that your concern with rsr shouldn't be the major issue.  You will get older content which are Material Room wired differently which can cause overall problems in the current iterations Poser.

Is that a problem with P8 not supporting P5-P7 MatRoom files well or older P4 and earlier content? If it's the latter, I'm not concerned because P4 textures were either associated with the OBJ file and other textures had to be manually installed. Content providers quickly switched to P5 compatible textures. They weren't so quick with dropping RSR thumbs because Poser automatically converted them whenever an item was opened. If it's the former issue of not being fully compatible with P5-P7, then I probably will not be buying any future versions of Poser and might return P8 for a refund.

get a refund then.

problem solved and then please don't complain about new content being useless to you.

 

there we go. coffee anyone?

Quote - get a refund then.

problem solved and then please don't complain about new content being useless to you.

Exactly.

Laurie

3DO Explorer works mostly for me under Windows 7 64 bit. It sometimes goes off using CPU and disk bandwidth for no obvious reason, but it comes back eventually.

 

But I have to agree. If the DAZ content doesnt't satisfy you, get a refund. If enought customers complain, eventually DAZ will correct the situation.

"As an aside, there is an interesting attitude I've seen nowadays--it's the willingness to accept things that aren't right. It's not just accepting them, but arguing to accept them."

 

As Kristofferson wrote, 'The law is for protection of the people.' :-)

""As an aside, there is an interesting attitude I've seen nowadays--it's the willingness to accept things that aren't right. It's not just accepting them, but arguing to accept them."

When the technology we use changes over time  we have to change with it  or learn live with whatever "workarounds" are available ,if any.
the people in this thread have kindly listed such "workarounds"
No offense ,really but Declaring that computer file format changes, that happen to inconvenience you personally, are somehow morally "Not Right"
and the people who have accepted the reality of such changes are "arguing for what is not right"
is  both self serving and Naive.

Cheers

Quote - No offense ,really but Declaring that computer file format changes, that happen to inconvenience you personally, are somehow morally "Not Right"
and the people who have accepted the reality of such changes are "arguing for what is not right" is  both self serving and Naive.
Cheers

I'm not sure how losing thumbnail support for thousands of files, that are only a few years old, is my personal inconvenience. It affects all Poser users that have bought and dowloaded content for more than a couple years. As to why it doesn't bother others is another question. I can only guess that most Poser users only use the new files they buy rather than making use of older content. Otherwise, having to run another program to see the thumbnails ought to be seen as a bother. If that's an acceptable annoyance, so be it. People that aren't using that content won't be bothered when all that content isn't usable in future releases.

Poser designers picked a file format for thumbnails that, in retrospect, didn't stand the test of time. Enough content was created with that format that it shouldn't be wholly ignored.

Quote - get a refund then.

The purpose of the thread was to get SM to weigh in. The snarky comments can continue till then. I am getting an RMA number so that they have a better reason to consider adding support.

what you call Snarky was actually Practical.

 

the software does not do what you want.

you have been offered several solutions to the issue, that you've rejected.

you have the chance to get a refund.

 

ergo, get a refund. see, Practical.

 

 

now if you want snarky, pointing out your complaining in a public forum about a company not known for it's communication skills to a audience that think you, yourself, is being unreasonable and have tried to help you but been told you don't want the help, you want things to be the way YOU want.

now, that could be snarky. whatcha think?

"I'm not sure how losing thumbnail support for thousands of files, that are only a few years old, is my personal inconvenience."

I hate .rsr files and I agree with you on this.  However, when I changed softwares that no longer needed rsr's I converted my files a few at a time, as needed.  I wonder if you are trying to convert ALL your files at once, which I would find really frustrating.

P3DO (horrible name, in Leet speak is 'pedo'...:ohmy:) converts .RSRs into .PNGs.

The free version works one directory at a time, the commercial one should be able to work recursively so, it is nothing more than buying P3D0, launching it on the root directory, go get a very loooong coffee and then delete all (now useless) .RSRs.

Does not seem a terrible thing, does it?

***"I'm not sure how losing thumbnail support for thousands of files, that are only a few years old, is my personal inconvenience. It affects all Poser users that have bought and dowloaded content for more than a couple years. As to why it doesn't bother others is another question. I can only guess that most Poser users only use the new files they buy rather than making use of older content. Otherwise, having to run another program to see the thumbnails ought to be seen as a bother.............................*** ***Poser designers picked a file format for thumbnails that, in retrospect, didn't stand the test of time. Enough content was created with that format that it shouldn't be wholly ignored."*** Why ?? users of Autodesk products have to put up with relatively frequent changes  in the FBX Format and they pay ALOT more than poser hobbiests for their software also likely have Commercial Film/TVprojects affected by the changes Autodesk has Kindly given  away a **FREE FBX** converter for users of the older FBX files just as their are **FREE RSR** Converters for poser . Time Marches on Friend Frankly I am Not really sure if you are truly as upset at having to use an RSR converter or  More upset that more people have not rallied to your "Cause" with righteous indignation.

Cheers

It might be of interest to note that they did not "remove" rsr support.

They reprogrammed the core of poser and left that function out because it was more trouble than it was worth to redo.

Attached Link: http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/-/clyde-puffer?item=4398&_m=d

Here's an example of a 4-year old file that does not have any PNGs. I redownloaded it from DAZ to see if it has been repackaged with them and it hasn't. It probably won't be because it opens fine in DAZ Studio. It doesn't look obsolete to me. It's still being sold--as are hundreds, if not thousands, of other Poser products at DAZ that have no PNGs. I'd imagine that there are many products in the Renderosity Marketplace that only provid RSR thumbs. It's a bit shortsited to say that Poser shouldn't be fully supporting products that are still being marketed.

Long after Poser moved to PNG thumbnails, content providers either only provided RSRs, as DAZ often did until a few years ago, or provided both. This ensured compatibility with Poser 4. By only providing the RSR format, file sizes were kept down and thumbnails were compatible with all versions of Poser until Poser 8. Including both RSR and PNG would add to file sizes which would add costs to the sites providing the downloads--as well as making it harder to download them when dial-up internet service was still fairly common. The RSR format lasted a lot longer than it should have because there were compelling reasons to keep using it. There is little reason for content providers to include RSR files today because Poser 4 is essentially obsolete now. With the vast amount of content that only has RSR files, it's too soon to not  the thumbnails visible inside the program without having to resort to workarounds.

The reason I asked this question is that a different poster wanted to know why Poser 8 wasn't showing thumbnails for some installed content.

so now you want everyone to go back and redo their zips and reupload them instead of using freely available converters to do the job.

I quit. you are not worth the heartburn....

Quote - Detailer? wow, I had to throw that one away years ago...could never get that to install in xp let alone Vista! and I'm serious, how'd you do it?

I don't think I've installed it since I haven't created any models.

It was one of the many Metacreations products that was ahead of its time. It think I paid $15 for a boxed copy at an online auction. I've saved old computers just in case I want to use some old products or read floppy disks. I'd imagine that there won't ever be much reason to want to use it.

Quote - so now you want everyone to go back and redo their zips and reupload them instead of using freely available converters to do the job.

Right?...I said that? It's much more sensible to expect thousands of content creators to redo all their work for me than to want SmithMicro to include the capability in their software to make that content fully usable. I provided the link because the term "obsolete" was being bandied about way too casually and that boat is an example that is anything but obsolete.

I'd also like everybody to get a big rope and pull my car to work so that I don't have to buy gas.

Seriously, I'm curious why people are so complacent about having to use workarounds to make their software work correctly. What's the downside of wanting software to be backwards compatible? Why should anybody want to use a workaround instead of wanting their software to work as well as it once did? What's the message that everybody wants to send to software companies--that backwards compatibility doesn't matter?--That we don't care if all the content we've bought and created doesn't work correctly with the new version of the software?

I can understand that some levels of backwards compatibility won't matter to people that never need it. Why bother weighing in to argue against it? Why would anybody prefer to have to use a free workaround instead of that capability being kept in the software that they paid hundreds of dollars for? I'd be interested in hearing how hard it was for the kind folks, that freely provided the RSR conversion programs to the community, to make the converters. It would be nice for SM to give them a few bucks to put it back into their software.

It's similar to arguing that there wasn't anything wrong with the StreetTrigger licensing agreement that gave them a nonexclusive ownership in every screenplay put on the site. It's one thing for budding screenwriters to be willing to risk that ownership to get their first screenplay produced. Why would those writers argue against having the licensing agreement being more fair to them?

I don't know why you are going on about this. The simple fact is that Poser had 3 versions with backward compatibilty until they dropped support all together. Most of us knew it was coming and when it did, there were converters available to change all of our RSR to PNG. Why you don't want to seem to avail yourself of these FREE converters is beyond me and frankly not SM's problem and not ours. Not one person responding to this thread seems to think this is a serious issue but you. If you don't like the software as it stands, you can always return it and use the last version you have that supports your rsr files. But now this is all getting tiresome.

And sorry, but your analogy of screenplays is like comparing apples and oranges. It doesn't fit nor does it make sense to your current "non-problem"

Laurie

In response to the OPs remark about some content being only 4 years old...

4 years is considered a looooong time in computerland.

I agree with all the posters who suggested workarounds.  Your gripe is invalid; the content still works properly; all you have is a minor inconvenience of having to convert rsr to png.  If the content itself no longer worked I may* concede you had a point.

*Actually, I wouldn't, since the content worked fine with the application current to the time and was in any case, third party content.

IMO, it's a matter of priorities. Daz continues to support what isn't even their own format, presumably because the feel it is of value to their customers. In defense of SM, Daz had the luxury of starting with a clean slate. SM has had to rip out old code.  AFAIK, rsr thumbs go back to the original PC version of Poser & were implemented to fake the functionality of the resource fork of Mac files, so it was probably very old code indeed and hooked into the guts of the program. Detailer import OTOH, like the other I/O stuff, again AFAIK, was implemented as a 'plugin', i.e. FFText.rsr (ironic isn't it).

I don't think it's a technical issue and I'll go out on a limb and suggest that given the code, they could implement it as a dll (ala P3DO) and restore access to it easily enough. So, I don't think it's a crazy thing to wish for though I doubt it would be done. It's just someone expressing a wish for something, happens all the time and no reason to dismiss that wish as wrong or invalid just because you don't agree with it.

I'm not dismissing it...lol. What I don't understand though, is why the OP is going on about it like it's some sort of crusade when there are solutions - they were suggested - but seems the OP doesn't like the answers. Rather than just send back the program when you're not satisfied with it, he's going on about it like complaining will change anything. It won't. Why doesn't the OP just email SM and complain to them about it? THAT at least would be more productive than complaining about it here, to ppl that don't see the problem nor can do anything about it. That make sense?

Laurie

I originally replied back near the biginning of this thread with a suggestion that I thought would help out the OP. As per my norm I suscribed to the thread in case there was more help that could be offered or an explaination of my post was in order. As there is really no point in reading this foolishness in an ongoing manner I'm out of here.

To the OP. People graciously tried to help you out. Your continued refusal to see this does not bode well for your ongoing crusade. Good luck. You are going to need it.

"That make sense?"

I suppose, about as much as complaining about the complainer's complaints. The RSS feeds thing someone suggest was a great idea. All we really need is the topic and the list of responders. We pretty much know what everyone will say about anything & can fill in the details without reading them. That's why the 'Aliens coming to Jesus' threads are so interesting, at least you find out things about folks you didn't know already :-)

Well, I know how you love to play Devil's Advocate, if that's what you mean ;o).

Laurie

OnT: I guess it is not by chance, that RSR just happens to be obsolete with the same version of poser which has it's library implemented in flash. I am not familiar with flash, but since it is mainly used to realize blinking web-buttons, it is probably considerably easier to display png-images than any other old format. As far as i know there is no format description for RSR available, so even the third-party tools cannot easily support it. Not even ImageMagick, which otherwise supports any image format regardless how rare it was :-(

Quote - OnT: I guess it is not by chance, that RSR just happens to be obsolete with the same version of poser which has it's library implemented in flash. I am not familiar with flash, but since it is mainly used to realize blinking web-buttons, it is probably considerably easier to display png-images than any other old format.

That's an interesting logic, so you mean that Poser Pro Pack and later loaded and displayed the RSRs and converted them to PNG just for fun? And if the RSRs were deleted, they created RSRs from the PNGs internally to display those RSRs? ;-)

Btw: Poser still does all the important work, the Flash library just displays the results of that work...

Quote - As far as i know there is no format description for RSR available, so even the third-party tools cannot easily support it. Not even ImageMagick, which otherwise supports any image format regardless how rare it was :-(

RSR is no image format. It's a container format. It's so old that it's hard to find information about it, but I found what I needed on the web a few years ago...

Quote - > Quote - OnT: I guess it is not by chance, that RSR just happens to be obsolete with the same version of poser which has it's library implemented in flash. ...

That's an interesting logic, so you mean that Poser Pro Pack and later loaded and displayed the RSRs and converted them to PNG just for fun? And if the RSRs were deleted, they created RSRs from the PNGs internally to display those RSRs? ;-)

No - maybe a little. As long as they had a function in their Poser that could load an rsr-file and display the image, they could afford to be compatible. But when they decided to switch to Flash or Flex or Air or whatever, they had the problem of not being able to use that function anymore, since the librarymanager is more like a little separate application, than an integral part of poser, and would require some serious amount of work.

Quote - Btw: Poser still does all the important work, the Flash library just displays the results of that work...

That could be the case, but at least the GUI of poser (wxWidgets) has native support for displaying PNGs; you essentially say "Please display that image there" and it just works as long as the image is not an Rsr. I think something similar goes for Flash, but i am not really sure about it. But what interestingly works, too, is: Convert a PNG-Thumbnail to a Jpeg (but still name it 'thumb.png') and it will still be displayed by the library. Name it 'thumb.jpg' and it will not. Why would they put work into doing something like that, if they had no intention of displaying Jpegs anyway?

 

Quote - 4 years is considered a looooong time in computerland.

I'd agree with that long ago, but changes with computers seem to be more incremental now. Back in the old days with 8086, 286, etc. processors, there were huge jumps in processor power and speed with each new chip. Speed with processors seems to have leveled out for a while and now it's more a matter of having multiple core processors, 64 bit processing, and focusing on operating systems and software to take advantage of what the processors can do. I don't see the dramatic changes that used to occur. Four years in computerland ain't what it used to be.

The Millennium 3 figures came out around 2003 with the Millennium 4 figures around 2006 and the new figures haven't exactly been a quantum leap in capabilities. None of the new Poser 5-8 figures have set the world on fire. Poser and DAZ Studio have added features that put them a bit more in line with higher end 3D applications, but not enough to challenge the big boy programs on anything but price. I can't recall any massive jumps in capabilities between Poser 5 and each increment--certainly not to the degree that occurred between Poser 4 and 5. That's not to say that IBL and other features aren't good to have. The addition of the new materials and cloth room were bigger jumps.

The last four years in Poserdom's little corner of computerland have been interesting but not startling (though I will admit to being surprised that V4 has been around for four years). Poser and DAZ Studio are still based on fairly ancient figure processes that haven't changed much in a decade.

In all honesty, not having RSR thumb support in Poser 8 isn't the greatest calamity the world has ever seen. With the vitriol I've seen in this thread, one would think I spit on everybody's holiest icon. How dare I question why SM won't restore that functionality. The Poser gods shall smite Renderosity for such blasphemy. Kill the heretic! I'm grateful there is a workaround. I'm also grateful that the Spanish Inquisition isn't around. The only reason there is a workaround is because the product isn't doing what it should to begin with--and did do before it was recoded. Workarounds aren't needed for programs that are programmed correctly. I won't be carrying picket signs outside the hidden secret lair of SmithMicro demanding that RSR functionality be restored. It doesn't seem that great a sin to want the software to be a little more efficient than it is right now.

Based on the response here, SM ought not fix the problem because so many customers will be pissed that they can't run their favorite workarounds. Don't worry if SM decides to restore RSR thumbs. You can still run workarounds. You just won't have to. I'll be danged if I know why you want to, but will defend your right to waste however much time you want to waste.

I really think that the lack of RSR support was more an oversight than a deliberate effort to do it. SM probably doesn't pay a lot of attention to the various Poser marketplaces and probably didn't know that RSR-only thumb Poser content lasted as long as it did and that there's still a large amount of available content that won't show thumbs in their latest version of Poser. Software developers don't typically abandon something that is still commonly around. The format may be obsolete, but its usage isn't.

Since I've gotten more involved in other hobby forums, I've got to admit that I don't see the kind of obsessive behavior that I sometimes see in Poser forums. There are the typical arguments everywhere with people that vehemently disagree with each other. I don't see the type comments where people come back time after time to complain that they hate a thread and want it to stop. People stop visiting the thread and let it die out when they see that it's going nowhere. Threads die on their own when people stop commenting on them.

...And I still think the StreetTrigger arguments are a good analogy because people are arguing against improving something. The improvement will either help the people arguing against it or have no affect on them and certainly will not hurt them. The size of the improvement doesn't matter.

Bagginsbill programmed the new interface and routinely visits this forum and would know what effort would be needed to add RSR support. If it's trivial, it might be implemented. If not, it'll just be on my wishlist and not ever happen. The working arrangement with SM might prevent any discussions about what may or may not be done with the library interface.

Quote - Bagginsbill programmed the new interface and routinely visits this forum and would know what effort would be needed to add RSR support.

The way it would be done, would be to have Poser convert the RSR thumbs to PNG when required (just as it did since PP), the new library bit wouldn't need (or want) to deal with anything but PNGs.

"Well, I know how you love to play Devil's Advocate, if that's what you mean ;o)."

"If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons*."  - Winston Churchill*

If they remake It Happened One Night, I'll do Gable if you'll do Colbert (Claudette, not Stephen). OTOH, Burton and Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe might be more appropriate :-)

Quote - The way it would be done, would be to have Poser convert the RSR thumbs to PNG when required (just as it did since PP), the new library bit wouldn't need (or want) to deal with anything but PNGs.

You'd think it would be that easy.

Take the code from P7 that converted RSRs, compile it, and insert a conditional statement in P8, between the library mouse click and the routine opening the library, that runs the new compiled code to convert all the RSRs if there aren't any PNGs. Two lines of new code and the P8 library will open all Poser content.

I'm saying that off two decades old programming experience, but Flash, or whatever language was used to code the library, ought to be as robust as the ancient programming languages I was working with. Those with more current programming experience can correct me on this because I fully recognize I'm no expert on that.

Not an answer, or a solution, but if you had the content already installed in Poser 7 or earlier, just copy the Library to your new install and the PNGs should already be there...

It is also neat to see some of the content you installed, but never used (mostly poses and expressions) no PNGs in those when you view them in Poser 8 or Poser Pro 2010!

I will say it was put in as a Feature Request, but I do not know if it will happen. (not sure of all the technical reasons that may be encountered)  I recall also several users in the forums indicated that they were going to put together a script to do it in Poser when Poser 8 launched, but I think because of all the available Free Products, it was not high on anyones priority list. The nice thing about most of them, they will remove the RSR File and then you can Zip up the content and get rid of the annoying installers!

Quote - I will say it was put in as a Feature Request, but I do not know if it will happen. (not sure of all the technical reasons that may be encountered)

It'll be nice if it'll make it into an update. There's still thousands of Poser content files still readily available, both commercial and free, that won't show up properly in the latest versions of Poser, but will display fine in a competitive product, DAZ Studio. Five or ten years from now, when those products are removed from stores and dropped from community sites, it'll be harder to ask for that compatibility. Right now, it's premature to not have it.

The company must get tech support questions about thumbnails not showing--similar to this post:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2818055

While this one got solved in this forum, others must go straight to SmithMicro and that costs money.

Who would ever have imagined that an innocuous topic such as this could nearly turn into a flamewar? I had somebody else email that this is becoming a fairly common occurrence in these forums. That will be a shame if it's true.

 

Quote - Not an answer, or a solution, but if you had the content already installed in Poser 7 or earlier, just copy the Library to your new install and the PNGs should already be there...

It is also neat to see some of the content you installed, but never used (mostly poses and expressions) no PNGs in those when you view them in Poser 8 or Poser Pro 2010!

I will say it was put in as a Feature Request, but I do not know if it will happen. (not sure of all the technical reasons that may be encountered)  I recall also several users in the forums indicated that they were going to put together a script to do it in Poser when Poser 8 launched, but I think because of all the available Free Products, it was not high on anyones priority list. The nice thing about most of them, they will remove the RSR File and then you can Zip up the content and get rid of the annoying installers!

While this issue doesn't affect me personally because everything, or nearly everything, that I've ever installed is still installed in my rather large collection of runtimes beginning with my still intact Poser 4 runtime, I do understand the OP's point. "For people who don't maintain large runtimes and who only install content as needed, it takes even more valuable extra time generating these PNG's each and every time they install old content." Is it a major issue? Certainly not. Is it time they could better spend getting on with the processes that they use Poser for? Definitely. It certainly wouldn't hurt if it were as behind the scenes and unnoticable as the autogeneration feature in Poser's 5 through 7.

It's not worth all the animosity I've seen here to deny the OP's right to his opinion and call it a crusade when all he's done, that I can see, is look for like minded individuals to agree with him and maybe discuss it without the rancor that it has been discussed with up til now.

And John AKA RatCloset, maybe a reminder link to the Smith Micro Suggestion Box would be in order for this thread.

Peaceout.

Quote - It's not worth all the animosity I've seen here to deny the OP's right to his opinion and call it a crusade when all he's done, that I can see, is look for like minded individuals to agree with him and maybe discuss it without the rancor that it has been discussed with up til now.

There was no animosity.  There were several attempts to point out that there are ways to do this sort of thing quite easily.  Which proceeded to be ignored or denigrated  as solutions.

As for taking up time...well, as I'm typing this, I've got one of those solutions running converting rsr's from older files to png's.  And it's done.  To put it succinctly, in a fraction of the time spent complaining about having to do it, it could have been finished.

And just for a test, I took one of my older archives, the Victoria 3 base, and dumped it into a blank directory.  The base installer gives you 11 individual directories with rsr files.  Using P3dO (as one solution), and doing it intentionally the long way (start the program, select each directory in turn, run the converter on each) took less than a minute, total.  The time it took to do the actual conversion for a directory was essentially instantaneous.  You don't see it happen: you click on the command and the window pops up to tell you it's done immediately.

Other options (including P3dO) could have done it with a single click through going through an entire folder tree.  It would have taken less time to complete than it takes an average install of Poser to start. 

So the time issue is, quite honestly, bullpucky. Incidentally, there's a difference between denying someone a right to an opinion and pointing out that someone's opinion may be somewhat questionable in its logical or practical basis.