Here is a chance for the community to contribute to the Poser FAQ page.  Even if you know the answer, (In fact provide both question and answer if you like). We would like user input.

Take a look at our Poser FAQ page.  See if you find errors or perhaps a better answer let us know in this thread.

Also new questions to expand the FAQ page.  We want you all involved in this process.  Let's keep this positive and constructive.  We have another thread for forum issues.  This is strictly for the FAQ updates.  Let's have fun with this. :)

Boni

OMG what a task. It's so full of errors as to be pretty ludicrous. Example:

How do I make Morph Targets?

**A:**Poser uses "Magnets" to do this.

Hahah

Q: Why do some of my body parts come apart after I make it poseable using the Setup room?

**A:**There seems to be a bug with the weld function for the ProPack

Start over. Use the 800-page Poser manual, and reduce each chapter to an intro. Fill in stuff that the manual doesn't cover as tips.

Seems most of this stuff is from Poser 4.

Q: Why is it so hard to pose the figures?

**A:**If you use your mouse to make precise poses. You'll quickly end up getting frustraed . Try using the dials to do your posing. It will be more accurate and easier to control. Check out Schlabbers excellent guide to posing, available in pdf format from the Curious Labs website.

Does this even still happen? I haven't had an out of memory warning in centuries!

Q: Why do I get an "Out of memory" error when opening something from the library pallet?

**A:**This has nothing to do with your computer memory. It means that Poser cannot find the item on your computer.

In most cases this is caused by downloading a new item from the internet. Then installing the .obj file in the wrong folder.

Another cause for this occurs when the large .rsr file, located in the same Geometries folder as the .obj file, gets corrupted. The fix is to simply delete that .rsr file. Which will result in Poser making a new one when you open the figure again.

No - and Poser doesn't even load .rsr files anymore. Like I said - just start over. 

Oh - wait - we forgot to tell Boni. We did this a while ago. Back before the site changes, we had a wiki. Many of us wrote stuff in it for hours and hours.

Then, the site software was "upgraded". The wiki was - ready - wait for it - wait for it ... DELETED.

That's right - a big FUCK YOU from renderosity for all the work the community did to make a Poser information resource.

I'm not going to work on this f.a.q. I might continue to make fun of it though - it's oddly pleasing.

Sorry, Boni, I know you're trying to help, but RO had an excellent wiki involving lots of work by knowledgeable people.  Renderosity just arbitrarily decided to delete it and dump all their work.

I suspect you won't get a lot of takers on this project after that.

Ach my dear Boni, we applaud each and every initative to improve Poser for everybody but this time?

 BB's answer says it all. => DELETED, forgotten to transfer, links messed up, you name it, Rendero managed to break or loose it.

*Sorry, but this time, it's time for Rendero to show they deserve our precious hobby time.

Sorry to say, but it will take some time for Rendero to recover from the current situation.

*As for the old FAQ? All is obsolete. That's a chapter they "can" close. *

is better for users to ask questions here, even though repetitious.  

once BWS perfects search, it will serve as FAQ for those who don't wanna ask us.

I've already tried this Boni. It's like poking a bee's nest. 

I've already tried this Boni. It's like poking a bee's nest. 

Well, when folks put in a lot of effort and it just gets arbitrarily deleted, that's gets the bees buzzing. It was before my time, but I sure wouldn't touch it with a 10 ft. pole after the experience of others.

Since the contributions appear to have no value to Renderosity, I'm not even sure why they keep asking for it.

Q: Help, the forum isn't working properly!
A: You're kinda new around here, aren't you?

Well this does appear daunting and I'm sure there will be a compromise, but I'm going to do my best with all you have said so far.  I will go over this and try to see about retrieving information from other sources as well.  It seems foolish to re-iterate what is written in the manual.  Hopefully, even with some issues we can create something good for the community.

To be honest, maybe they should also take down the one you have as it's obsolete anyway.

Boni, with all due respect and gratitude to you, the whole point of the thread i started earlier was an attempt by us to point out to Renderosity what we wanted from them. They showed they're contempt by not even bothering to acknowledge that they even read the thread. We STILL don't know if they did read it, even though you said you sent them links. Read my first optimistic response to Gliterrati. The Admins helped kill that optimism in me.

I'm being vague here because I have to be ... The issues are a LOT more complicated than they appear on the surface and no one is being ignored.  I can't say more, unfortunately.  Piece by piece we are doing things ... I'm working to retrieve lost data from many sources that could help in this thread and am keeping contact on the other one.  Honest guys, I'm doing my part.

Boni

I will be back tomorrow morning ... I need to fix dinner ... take heart guys.  It'll get better.

Boni

Sorry for the dumb question, but I keep reading about Baggins stuff being deleted, but then I read the other day, can't remember which thread it was, that apparently it hadn't, it was just inaccessible or something.  So what is the situation there, has his stuff been deleted or not?

Seriously, I really don't know, so it would be great if someone would clue me in on that.  But I will say this, if all that stuff he posted over the years has been deleted, it is absolutely inexcusable, and you can't blame the guy for having something to say about it.  I get pissed off if just one of my posts goes amiss, so can you even imagine what it must be like to lose the endless amount of stuff that he's given over the years.  I've seen people post a question and he's rewarded them with not one, but a whole stream of posts of free tutoring, and he does it all the time, and he's done so for how many years?

Do the math, that's a lot of work and I'm amazed the guy has kept his cool if it really has been deleted!

One other thing I would like to say is that really, I don't get how things like this can happen, I mean DAZ did the same thing, they released a half-baked forum, they made it live while it was in such a state I thought it must be below Alpha!  Why is it so hard to test these things on a seperate server before letting it go live, why do companies do this?  I just don't get it, cause all it does is piss-off customers and community members, and make the company look incredibly incompetent, it's just ridiculous!

It's the sort of thing to be expected from a noob who just set up their first forum, but not from a company like DAZ or Renderosity.

Sorry for the dumb question, but I keep reading about Baggins stuff being deleted, but then I read the other day, can't remember which thread it was, that apparently it hadn't, it was just inaccessible or something.  So what is the situation there, has his stuff been deleted or not?

It was discussed and defined in numerous posts.
The forum attachments have been re-named to useless files like attachment_124567890.txt, making them useless AND unsearchable.

Cheers, and can what was done be fixed, or was it an undoable action?

Cheers, and can what was done be fixed, or was it an undoable action?

We're still waiting for an answer to that question.  Been waiting for many months.

Sorry for the dumb question, but I keep reading about Baggins stuff being deleted, but then I read the other day, can't remember which thread it was, that apparently it hadn't, it was just inaccessible or something.  So what is the situation there, has his stuff been deleted or not?

Seriously, I really don't know, so it would be great if someone would clue me in on that.  But I will say this, if all that stuff he posted over the years has been deleted, it is absolutely inexcusable, and you can't blame the guy for having something to say about it.  I get pissed off if just one of my posts goes amiss, so can you even imagine what it must be like to lose the endless amount of stuff that he's given over the years.  I've seen people post a question and he's rewarded them with not one, but a whole stream of posts of free tutoring, and he does it all the time, and he's done so for how many years?

Do the math, that's a lot of work and I'm amazed the guy has kept his cool if it really has been deleted!

One other thing I would like to say is that really, I don't get how things like this can happen, I mean DAZ did the same thing, they released a half-baked forum, they made it live while it was in such a state I thought it must be below Alpha!  Why is it so hard to test these things on a seperate server before letting it go live, why do companies do this?  I just don't get it, cause all it does is piss-off customers and community members, and make the company look incredibly incompetent, it's just ridiculous!

It's the sort of thing to be expected from a noob who just set up their first forum, but not from a company like DAZ or Renderosity.

What is most inexcusable is doing a major site upgrade without a backup.  IF a backup existed, recovering the files would be fairly simple.

The old Wiki wasn't lost, it was deliberately discarded back in 2011...

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2831996 

There are bits left here and there on the WayBack machine. The main Wiki page isn't there, but the links to the approximately 15 existing relevant topics are here:

http://web.archive.org/web//http://www.renderosity.com/mod/rrwiki/index.php/

Here's BB and Acadia's Shader thread page, but all of the R'osity links are FUBAR, although the thread numbers are correct...

http://web.archive.org/web/20110808150232/http://www.renderosity.com/mod/rrwiki/index.php/Poser_Shader_Threads

Boagas had copied some of it to his Poser Content Wiki which has since vanished from the live Web, but much is preserved here...

http://web.archive.org/web/20121006011301/http://posercontent.wetpaint.com/

I missed the edit deadline; >:(

Many of the RDNA Forum links from the archived Wiki pages above don't work if you click them because the destination page isn't archived, but if one copies and pastes the address, and deletes the part before http://runtimedna..., the thread will load.

To get to the R'osity pages, copy out the thread number and append it to 'http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id='

Any DAZ forum links that don't load are lost, because they ditched their forum archive.

Many of the RDNA Forum links from the archived Wiki pages above don't work if you click them because the destination page isn't archived, but if one copies and pastes the address, and deletes the part before http://runtimedna..., the thread will load.

That's another thing that really pisses me off. I'm a professional developer of web-based applications. I know how URLs are parsed and mapped to content. There is absolutely no reason that the link format has ever needed to change. So long as threadId is presented, it can be mapped to whatever content structure you actually have. The fact that the original thread identifiers still work shows that this is purely a syntactical change that has only one function - to prevent existing links from working. I know the developers will say they needed to change the link URL format, but they have nothing behind the original format and it is simplicity itself (literally like 5 minutes work) to write a route and controller that reroutes old-style links to the new controllers.

So not only did all the wiki stuff get deleted, but every bookmark I ever had, and every curated link I saved is now unclickable. There was no justification for this - none. Don't even begin to argue with me - I get paid to build web apps far more complex than this one. Oh - did I mention mine work - yeah they work. What a shock.

So instead of complaining about what happened in the past, how about we use this thread more productively and contribute information to it that you think should be included in a Poser FAQ, as Boni's original post asks for. That's how things can be turned around here to make it a more positive experience, instead of constantly arguing and perpetuating the negativity over things that happened in the past and can't be changed.

We understand that people are frustrated with certain issues regarding the forums, and the complaints are being listened to and looked into. It can't be resolved over night, these things take time to research and work into development plans. Constantly rehashing the same gripes, complaints and arguments in every thread isn't going to resolve anything, it just creates more hostility and causes more people to not want to participate in anything. 

So instead of complaining about what happened in the past, how about we use this thread more productively and contribute information to it that you think should be included in a Poser FAQ, as Boni's original post asks for. That's how things can be turned around here to make it a more positive experience, instead of constantly arguing and perpetuating the negativity over things that happened in the past and can't be changed.

We understand that people are frustrated with certain issues regarding the forums, and the complaints are being listened to and looked into. It can't be resolved over night, these things take time to research and work into development plans. Constantly rehashing the same gripes, complaints and arguments in every thread isn't going to resolve anything, it just creates more hostility and causes more people to not want to participate in anything. 

Generally there is a process towards reconciliation, things like recognising the issues, being united in finding a solution to the issues, having an agreed on pathway to the solution involving all parties, putting in place bridges and barriers alongside of reassurances to stop the issues from recurring again in the future, people rarely move on just through being told to. Have a little look here, I contacted this moderator 2 years ago regarding updating a forum FAQ and this was how it went and in the end it went nowhere. I wasted hours writing the draft. The FAQ is still woefully incorrect on that forum to this day.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2875453

I have raised the issue in multiple forums only to be ignored...

If someone is willing to set one up at RuntimeDNA and link to it from here, that would be an even better idea.

Why are customers being asked to do the job that the company should be doing?  If this was free software I could see it, but when I pay for the product I expect the developers to cough up a comprehensive manual.  Sounds like another cheap and sleazy marketing strategy to save a few lousy bucks and pad the wallets of the senior executives.

How, how, how.
Poser comes with a 1000 page and very- very- complete manual.
But over the years, Poser end users and customers have found lots of tips and tricks to make better renders.
You can throw a lot of dirt, but certainly not at the manual.

And a FAQ page should be exactly that :  a FAQ page.
And most FAQ's have little to do with Poser anyway.

So instead of complaining about what happened in the past, how about we use this thread more productively and contribute information to it that you think should be included in a Poser FAQ, as Boni's original post asks for. That's how things can be turned around here to make it a more positive experience, instead of constantly arguing and perpetuating the negativity over things that happened in the past and can't be changed.

We understand that people are frustrated with certain issues regarding the forums, and the complaints are being listened to and looked into. It can't be resolved over night, these things take time to research and work into development plans. Constantly rehashing the same gripes, complaints and arguments in every thread isn't going to resolve anything, it just creates more hostility and causes more people to not want to participate in anything. 

I think that people who have done that in the past are frustrated that their work was tossed aside, and are understandably reluctant to invest more time with no assurance that it won't be all swept away in some future update...

So instead of complaining about what happened in the past, how about we use this thread more productively and contribute information to it that you think should be included in a Poser FAQ, as Boni's original post asks for. That's how things can be turned around here to make it a more positive experience, instead of constantly arguing and perpetuating the negativity over things that happened in the past and can't be changed.

We understand that people are frustrated with certain issues regarding the forums, and the complaints are being listened to and looked into. It can't be resolved over night, these things take time to research and work into development plans. Constantly rehashing the same gripes, complaints and arguments in every thread isn't going to resolve anything, it just creates more hostility and causes more people to not want to participate in anything. 

Because it just happened again, Shane.  With THIS gawd awful forum "downgrade" years of your customer's/vendor's work has just been tossed aside.  Deleted.  Trashed.

And, you think they should do it again?

Dissatisfied customers don't keep repeating the same mistakes.

Continuously screaming quityerbitchin' isn't getting it done, now is it?

A FAQ page is pretty useless to most.
The same questions pop-up each week, or at least each month. FAQ page or no FAQ page.

The only thing worth investing time would have been a Wiki, or a Tips and tricks page. => We had a good Wiki, and it went down the pipe drain.

So Renderosity? Show some respect to your end users.

FIRST repair what has to be repaired. => And if you have no clue? => Restore the site to December 2010.
Prove stability.

Start a new initiative in a year or so. Anything sooner won't work any more.

Many of the RDNA Forum links from the archived Wiki pages above don't work if you click them because the destination page isn't archived, but if one copies and pastes the address, and deletes the part before http://runtimedna..., the thread will load.

That's another thing that really pisses me off. I'm a professional developer of web-based applications. I know how URLs are parsed and mapped to content. There is absolutely no reason that the link format has ever needed to change. So long as threadId is presented, it can be mapped to whatever content structure you actually have. The fact that the original thread identifiers still work shows that this is purely a syntactical change that has only one function - to prevent existing links from working. I know the developers will say they needed to change the link URL format, but they have nothing behind the original format and it is simplicity itself (literally like 5 minutes work) to write a route and controller that reroutes old-style links to the new controllers.

They changed how individual messages are accessed; they now are accessed as tag on the thread, instead of directly.  It likely would have been easy to deal with at the time, but the older posts are now full of dead links. Lest I be branded a malcontent, I've been fixing the links in the Shader page of the Wiki, but the links to individual R'osity posts are going to require manual searching to locate them, which I'm working on...

What would be ideal would be another button in the forums.  Heck, we've got a gazillion anyway, so what's one more?  Especially if it's useful!

Add a button allowing the entire forum thread to be added to a wiki/FAQ.

The only advantage a wiki/FAQ gives anyone is that one can post a link to that entry instead of repeating the same answer to the same question every time a forum user asks it.

Well, you see?
There is a tread now with a very valid question where a lot of end users would/cloud benefit from a complete workflow/tutorial.
It is not something for a FAQ.
But more for a Wiki, or for a Tips and Tricks section.

"How to build for opening/closing clothing."

So? What do I do?

I have 3 completely different workflows, and some variations of those, to do exactly that; Opening-closing, or  modifying/morphing clothes depending on the build, and the final result required.
But I am very-very hesitant to respond right now.

A full response is too valuable to put in a simple post. => In a week it will be on page ? ? ?
No Wiki any more
No Tips and Tricks section

And God only knows what or when the webmasters next step will be.

See what's happening?

So instead of complaining about what happened in the past, how about we use this thread more productively and contribute information to it that you think should be included in a Poser FAQ, as Boni's original post asks for. That's how things can be turned around here to make it a more positive experience, instead of constantly arguing and perpetuating the negativity over things that happened in the past and can't be changed.

We understand that people are frustrated with certain issues regarding the forums, and the complaints are being listened to and looked into. It can't be resolved over night, these things take time to research and work into development plans. Constantly rehashing the same gripes, complaints and arguments in every thread isn't going to resolve anything, it just creates more hostility and causes more people to not want to participate in anything.

So instead of listening to the concerns of the users, at least one moderator decides to ignore the people, and tell them "it can't be resolved overnight."  - well for a start, this has been going on way longer than "overnight" unless the days on earth have suddenly elongated and are now measured in months(at least) and what has been done to address the issues? So far, there has been little to no evidence of any improvement in the situation - is it any wonder that people feel they are being ignored?

A moderator showing such lack of compassion / empathy for the concerns of the community populace just enforces the belief that Renderosity is ignoring them, and to be honest shows a level of ignorance that should not be displayed by ANY member of the forum team.

I posted the revived Shader Thread Wiki Page, although the Forum struck again... :(

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro?thread_id=2889859

Normally, I would contribute to this type of thing. However, as I have contributed hours and hours of work, BB did, Snarly did, Rhionon did, among others - to the wiki, I wouldn't walk a foot to help Rendo to prepare another resource that would only turn around and be deleted. Nope.

Laurie

Normally, I would contribute to this type of thing. However, as I have contributed hours and hours of work, BB did, Snarly did, Rhionon did, among others - to the wiki, I wouldn't walk a foot to help Rendo to prepare another resource that would only turn around and be deleted. Nope.

Laurie

If there's any solace in it, Laurie, please know that a lot of us found the information in that wiki invaluable.  I know I did.

Boni,

this FAQ attempt was made  not that long ago, by a previous forum support BasicWiz. We had a team, Vilters was doing modeling related stuff, I was doing materials related stuff, SnarlyGribbly was involved and so on. After a few months, I've not seen any progress from the various members (for probably good personal reasons) while I finished my Materials section - after say three months hard work. After that, about no-one appeared willing to perform a decent detailed review before issuing the stuff. Then BasicWiz could not establish any space for it on the Rendo site (not his fault), and I decided to locate the stuff on my own site.

There it is, and if one feels for copying and pasting it to any other place on the net, please do. Plus a lot on dynamics (hair & cloth). Mainly thanks to a lot of debates with BB and others, some years ago.

In the meantime, it might be far more fruitful to issue just comments on the various pages on my site, and reference it in the Rendo replies on questions. That is hardly done as well. I'm happy to host info from other contributers, but it's never asked for. Various people are often asked "to write that book" about their Poser knowledge. The book is already there, just waiting to be filled. I'm happy to receive, edit and maintain, it does not have the disadvantages of a forum, and the site is called Missing Manuals for a good reason. No strings attached, except that my site is never going to be a wailing wall for any dissatisfaction on anything. One only has to DO something instead of talking about it.

I would enjoy to see the "hot shots" from the Rendo community acting as a really performing constructively collaborating group.  One day...

all the best,
aRtBee

Thanks for those links WandW.

For as much as I appreciate Boni's efforts - and I do - at least she's trying to do something, I have to say that a Poser FAQ is a very ungainly way for people to find any real good information. That's what the wiki was for and, well, we've seen what happened there. Rendo couldn't monetize it so it went bye-bye, and it was probably the best idea they've ever had. But in typical Rendo fashion, they've always been really good at shooting themselves in both damn feet. One time too many for me...

Laurie

Ot, but not really considering his contributions to Poser knowledge...

Anyone heard from LesBently?

Ot, but not really considering his contributions to Poser knowledge...

Anyone heard from LesBently?

I sent him a PM a couple of months ago, but it's still unread... :(

Hello all!

Here is the thing, we are doing what has been asked by many members. Although many of you do not need the FAQ... other do. In this request we have started to look at the FAQ and update it.

By acting this way many of you are just as bad as those you complain about that are making this forum bad. If you want this forum to be more friendly, I suggest looking at yourselves regarding this post. Instead of bashing the forum, you could have not posted at all or offered sites, knowledge, or simple answers to questions. But you chose to make this thread like all the others. So, if you do not have something you want to add to the FAQ please post on another thread from this post on.

Wow, unread. That has ominous implications.

Sorry Kimberly.

She's so pretty.

She is pretty, that's the only reason I've not had a go at her, plus, I value my membership :-P

Kim really? :(

I think the point was we HAVE contributed and it was deemed worthless by Renderosity, not by the forum members. We DID offer contributions...contributions that are now gone. How can we possibly not be bitter about all our work thrown out the window? I mean, look at all the stuff BB and Snarly alone have contributed to this place alone, but the PTB of this place act as tho they were entitled to it and entitled to throw it out. That may well be the case in the end, but then don't come at those of us who have done things for the site and say we're being mean or bitter because we've been bitten one too many times already. Of course we're mad and bitter. How many times should you take a slap to the face and keep coming back for more?

sigh

Laurie