I am considering getting a year's subscription to Poserworld by Christmas. I've read some good things about Poserworld's subscription service/content. I have recently gone over the site, and found things quite confusing. The first source of confusion is "just who are you?!" The site clearly says Poserworld, but I've heard it called PWFW. The layout of the site is extremely confusing since so much of it is taken up with ads and navigational links... fully an entire screen wasted since I need to scroll down to see the substance of the pages. When we subscribe do we see these same pages, or perhaps a more refined site, minus that annoying Bryce banner, etc? What exactly do we get with our year's subscription? Is it all the Poserworld CD's that have been made, plus any new content that is created during that year? I assume we download everything we get. Are there any limitations on the downloads? Is there a limit of files per day, or MBs, or anything like that? I browsed the previews of some CD's. I don't care to pay for demo software. We can download that for free almost anywhere. Who is Internet Eye Magazine? They take up a screen or two at the top when I am trying to preview what's on the cD's... I have an idea that the subscription to Poserworld is money well spent. It's just a little hard getting the whole picture because of the way the site is laid out. Hopefully someone is working on improvements in that regard. One huge concern for me is Customer Service and Technical Support. I need the ability to contact someone quickly and efficiently if there is a problem. I like to support the Poser community, whenever possible. I did that recently, and frankly that experience was terrible. Luckily this person was in a broker partnership with DAZ, and DAZ seemed to care more for my business than the artist. So help me out here, tell me what you love about Poserworld and your subscription service. Don't be afraid to show me some of the goodies you got. Tell me about the wonderful Technical Support and Customer Service. Reassure me that you have no problems with downloads and installs.

I have a subscription to PoserWorld and it was money well spent. They are a great bunch and the customer service is excellent. I've had to call on them a few times (because of my screw-ups, not theirs) and they answered almost immediately. If you want to see some examples of their products go to my Poser gallery here. I'm not plugging my gallery, but I use something from them in alot of my images. I vote go for it!

Rockets, thanks for being so quick to respond. I checked out some of your gallery, and I am totally impressed with your work. It's all so very "realistic and photographic" in quality. I will be back to see more, count on that.

Poser World Fairy Woods (PWFW) is one of the best places to get Poser items on the NET They were at one time two different sites but has since joined forces and have pretty much taken over the Poser Galaxy with very detailed clothes and props and top of the line check out any post by Renapd or Steveshanks They often post updates to the site here in this forum to give you a preview of what they have to offer I don't think you will be disappointed with their product This was an unpaid solicited announcement

There are no banners or popups in the subscription area. All that is just for the front pages of the free areas and is used to help fund those areas so they can continue to provide free things from time to time.

Inside you have 3 cds of "new" content. This means basically that all the new things Steve and Rena made just for the cds is available on the site. The old Poserworld clothing and Faeriewoods characters/textures are NOT available inside the subscription area. This was explained in some detail by Rena but basically is because of the items from other authors that she used in her characters that cannot be redistributed in the commercial area of PWFW (Poserworld Fairiewoods)

There is a lot of new stuff that's been made since they went live with the subscription site. Something like 16 pages of clothing (4 items per page) props, hair, textures for everything, scenes and heaps of things.

All of them come in a flat file structure zip (no directoriers) this is mainly because people like me stuff things in strange places. Instructions for installing are included in the zip and there's a page describing what file goes where on the main site.

There is one scheduled update per month which consists of several clothing items, textures and props. It's been my experience over time that this is usually two updates a month on average with a couple where there was three.

Customer service is top rate. Allen Harkleroad (who hosts the service) is very quick to respond to problems and will usually get something sorted out very quickly - certainly within the day. Support for the files themselves is logical. If something is broken it gets fixed, if it's just a usage problem then either Steve, Rena or one of the other members will help with the problem.

There's a chat forum where you can natter to your hearts content about whatever you want, a request forum for those special items that you really have to have - though I'm not sure how often they actually get done - an announcements area where you get told of updates etc and some other toys to keep people amused.

In all, it was easily the best 50 bucks I ever spent. I have not been disappointed once, updates are regular enough to keep even an addict like me quiet, Steve, Rena and Allen are excellent people who respond quickly to questions and problems.

I guess you can tell I've been happy with the service? G

There have been one or two problems with downloads, only usually one file and that's fixed the very minute they get noticed or someone shouts about it. I have had no problems with installing stuff at all, and have found that the clothing conforms much better than many other clothing items available elsewhere. I have no idea why that should be. Rena's textures apply beautifully to the clothing and she makes every effort to make them well and they are, like all her work before, a treasure to own.

I'll shut up now because I'm beginning to sound like a paid advertisement. :)

In answer to another question that I missed. Internet Eye magazine is a newsletter, owned I think by Allen Harkleroad. I get regular emails from them containing all sorts of general ideas, tips, chat and nonsense. It's quite entertaining to be honest. Allen has taken a bit of a back seat on that and handed the newsletter over to Paolo Pace but basically it's Allen's baby and part of the company that hosts Poserworld/Fairywoods.

Wow, we're all getting some excellent information here. And it looks like Poserworld got at least one more new customer (Cookie. You likely know the best way to get good solid information is to talk to "Company" involved, and also to the customers involved. I really love hearing why you like Poserworld, about their customer service, tech support, etc. Now how about some details that will help as well. I have a few areas that I'm very interested in: 1.) Michael (He has hardly any clothes) 2.) Musclebound Michael (he has none) 3.) Vicki (a woman never has enough stuff) 4.) I love "scenes" (The more the merrier. Give me a great castle, house, various rooms, etc... and I'm happier) 5.) Poses (I have hundreds for the P4 characters, and not so many for Vicki, Mike, none for Musclebound Mike) 6.) Props... of all kinds 7.) "Super hero"-related stuff... capes, cloaks, boots, whatever. 8.)More that I've most likely forgotten! I remember one "scene" a few months back that Doug Sturk used in an illustration: The Rooftop Scene. I would have loved to have it when I was still in a super hero render frenzy. You get the idea here. I'm fast being sold on a year's Poserworld subscription. Now I'd also like to hear from some of the staff of Poserworld as well. Don't be shy.

There are some clothes for Michael, Vickie, Posette, Dork, Mil Kids and the NYW at Poserworld, they're holding off a bit on clothes for Mike because of the upcoming release of Michael 2. There is nothing for Muscle Mike, Supermodel Vickie or any of the other minority models though I dare say if Steve has one of those models and enough requests he'd make things for them, however they make no claim to support all the variations of characters out there. Same with Voluptuous Vickie and suchlike, there's nothing at Poserworld. Steven and Rena make things for the default Poser characters because that's what everybody has. Superhero stuff? Go to 3D Comic Collective, they have more there than you can wave a very very large stick at. Poses? Schlabbers Posing is An Art website, hundreds there. Purchase Schlabbers "In the Blink of An Eye" (3D Commune store) and you get 10,000 assorted poses and other things, for vickie, Mike and the default P4 crowd. You'll probably hear from the Poserworld staff at some point in this thread, but they're in Europe and probably won't log on 'till later. They'll be around, or at least Rena probably will, Allen does tend to come to places like this much, though Steve can be caught posting here occassionaly.

Look at it this way. For about twenty bucks, you can get one outfit, maybe two scenes of decent quality from either the DAZ or the R'sity store. For a little over twice that, you can get access to well over a hundred files of clothing, props, scenes, characters, just about anything you can imagine save mocap work, and all of it first-rate quality. Do the math.

Yes, well you have one problem to consider. I recently bought Mike, Vicki and Musclebound Mike with the idea of doing as much as possible with them as opposed to Posette and Dork. Now I need to get things to support them. If there are not enough clothes and things for them, then I need another source of materials...which brings me back to DAZ or Renderosity. I already downloaded everything 3DCC has to offer... but there are so many related things that are good to have... I was hoping someone had that stuff. I already downloaded everything this is from the old Posing is an Art web site... Schlabber doesn't have much, proportionally, for Mike & Vicki. That means yet another source for those poses. The whole idea is to find out just what I can get/use with my Poserworld subscription. It sounds like we have precious little for Michael, Vicky, Musclebound Mike.... So how are we doing for that other stuff? How are the scenes and props?

Ronknights, I don't have a subscription there either but I used to look forward to new stuff there all the time when it was free, I would give my right arm for enough doe to get back in, their stuff is FANTASTIC and the people where always great to communicate with. If it weren't for the holidays (and other financial issues) I'd be there right now! Stop yappin and start downloading!!! (you'll kick yourself if you don't -> I do everytime they post their updates!)

"All that said, if they ever get a better layout (less banners and no popups) I'll probably be getting a subscription myself :o)"

The design and the layout put me off as well - of course since I spend so much time with pro designers I have a kind of snobbish view of such things - and it certainly doesn't matter to the props and clothes.

Personally, I have always stopped short of buying a subscription for several reasons:

• I only use Mike and Vicki, and the vast majority of the stuff they do is for the standard figures
• I have very little use for the period clothing - and they seem to do a lot of costume type updates. I am sure they are fine, but they are of no use to me
• I am extremely picky about the clothing I use. That means that things need to fit just so and conform to an inch of it's life - including targets for the body morphs of the characters I use them on (v2 and M1). I am sure the clothing is good... but I see gaps and things on the preview images that just sort of throws me off. That might just be the preview's

Again, I am sure that it is worth the money to those who subscribe - I just haven't seen that I think it would help me much with what I need.

But I keep getting tempted :)

I'm also tempted to gt a PW subscription. There seems to be some great stuff there too. I'll agree about the adds and stuff. They are kinda overkill, but bandwidth is expensive. I've noticed anywhere, there are more female items than male items for poser. Oh well just ranting now... Maybe once I get some money I can subscribe...

I think most questions have been asked but i'll stick my oar in anyway LOL..... The first source of confusion is "just who are you?!" The site clearly says Poserworld, but I've heard it called PWFW. Ah well thats coz we did away with poserworld and fairywoods and made the a combination of both but thats too long winded so PWFW stuck :o) The layout of the site is extremely confusing The members area has none of that its very basic, six thumbs per page hit a thumb to get the dload page...i can send or post a screen shot if you like? *Is it all the Poserworld CD's * Yes and all the new stuff we make gets added in, the cds where put up at the start as we had little new content but now theres plenty of new stuff :o)..oh no demo stuff or anything that was for the tutorials and coz we had room on the cds *Who is Internet Eye Magazine? * Its Mama :o) the EYE was what got me started in 3d and was poserworlds first home its also where i write tutorials and reviews ;o) I assume we download everything we get. Yep grab the lot :o) no limits just don't use a dload accelerator :o) I have an idea that the subscription to Poserworld is money well spent. Um! I'm biased so i'll leave this one LOL One huge concern for me is Customer Service and Technical Support. I'll be honest and say it has been known for me to miss a question or be slow to answer but a "i asked you this 3 days ago" email always kicks me into action :o) now to mike V p4, vikki ect. we try to even the dloads out between them but i'll confess its tricky as we'll get "don't forget p4" emails after a run of vikki clothes so we'll always support both and try to even the score, we have been slow on mike lately waiting for V2 but we have a few bits like a suit casual clothes ect with a few in the pipeline ;o)......hope this helps :o), Steve

The best two purchases I've ever made for Poser are the BBay Club and the Poserworld subscription... just can't be the value!

Steve, Thanks for jumping in there.. I always like to speak "personally" with the people involved in my business. Here is a little nitpick for you though: The first source of confusion is "just who are you?!" The site clearly says Poserworld, but I've heard it called PWFW. Ah well thats coz we did away with poserworld and fairywoods and made the a combination of both but thats too long winded so PWFW stuck :o) The site still says just Poserworld. So if the name has changed, maybe the site should reflect that?! By the way I was one of the fortunate people who downloaded just about everything Poserworld offered for free before you went commercial. I don't use a download accelerator, but I do have a cable modem, and can download several items at a time. I have yet to really organize all that booty, and sometimes I end up downloading stuff only to find I've already saved it to CD. I have to confess I've looked at "scenes" alone, and could easily spend the $50 on a couple of those. Now add to that all the great stuff I had seen on the previews, and the updates threads here at Renderosity, and well what can I say: "DOH!" You can expect a new customer, most likely by Christmas. If I understand correctly, you can handle credit/debit cards (Visa)?! You mentioned something about checking IP addresses. Technically, our ISP uses Dynamic IP addresses, which means they could change from moment to moment. And then I operate behind a firewall and router. So the world never sees my IP address. I don't think we'll have a problem there, do you?!

OK, now tell me about BBay.. URL please.

Attached Link: http://www.bbay.com/cfwebstore/

Yeah I noticed it was a little confusing too when I signed up, just click on subscriptions thee you should see 4 membership options,lifetime, a year, 6 months and 3 months use a credit card and wait 24 hours for your e mail, you will then get a password and member name.

As to the Poser vs. Millenium figure clothes - I usually use the P4Victoria figure when working with clothes, so the P4 clothes should work fine. Since we're expecting to get a P4 body figure with the soon-to-be-released Michael2, most of Poserworld's clothes should be usable on V & M. If so, a PW subscription will be on my list.

Now for my 2 cents. Fairy Woods was the first site I found when I started with poser. And naturally followed right to poserworld to get the clothes I was in love. So when they went sub, I went right along. And yes, it was definately well worth the money. Customer support is amazing. I had a slight problem. (Mine, I reformatted the computer and lost my login info.) I emailed Allen in the middle of the night on a weekend and he emailed me back with what I needed within a couple of hours. That boy must not sleep either. I would definately recommend the subscription to anyone. They might not have boatloads of stuff for mike yet since they are waiting, but even what you get for him there you would spend well over $50 somewhere else. And on the BBay deal. I definately recommend that as well. Traveler does incredible work as well. For $15 (I think it was) for a year, we have already gotten p4 clothes, vicki clothes, props out the wazoo, and some wonderful trolls and such. And he takes requests from club members for the downloads. If you have these two subscriptions, you can be sure to be getting excellent quality. Angela

I couldn't live without Steve and Rena's work. They have some of the best clothes for Poser figures around. The subscription site is definitely well worth the money. Go for it! Melanie

Oh, by the way, I've only noted one thing that confusing me, and that is that I can't seem to find a link to jump between the free site and the membership site. If it's there, I don't see it. The free site could have a link to jump to the subscription log-in page and vice versa. Maybe I'm just not seeing it. Melanie

melanie I think that is just part of the confusion of the site design. I love my membership... but I have to admit to not using it much. I too am a bit of a web design snob and while I love the stuff I hate the site layout, colours and text. I always feel "cluttered" there, weird really considering the recent redesign of my personal site. I simply prefer clean and precise navigation (as seen on most of my sites). I also abhor pop-ups and such. Frankly it took me months and months to order a subscription there because the site design made me wonder about the quality of what was being offered and I had downloaded from PWFW before they went subscription. I knew the work was quality, but the site just makes one wonder.... (sorry steve and renapd, I do love you though!) Although I do have a tendency to backup the files and never install them, I like files that allow me to unzip into the runtime or poser folder and automatically install themselves. On occasion I will find something that I absolutely must go to the trouble of installing. I have noticed that some files install when unzipped into runtime and others require manual installation.

I have a lifetime membership, though I have to admit that I miss some of the characters that were available at Fairywoods before they became subscription. I have some but not all of those characters. Some of the clothes are invaluable, however, as per my usual gripe, not enough male clothing. Most of the clothing does come with textures by Rena which are well worth it and there is a costume I have yet to design a scene around. Liz Pope Dreamspinner Inc.

I really have a problem with a site that has lousy site design and is hard to navigate. If I'm going to spend my time, and money, it had better make sense. I wonder about the choice that was made not to use folders for installation? Did they take a poll on this? Sometimes I just don't bother to install stuff that requires a long readme file to explain the installation. Of course, sometimes the "artists" really aren't good at writing documentation of any kind. Are the "readmes" at Poserworld pretty comprehensive? Do we easily understand the purpose of the item, and how to install it? Not every artist is a decent writer, and I'd hate to get so frustrated I don't bother with an item. Do we know where the item came from, months later when we use it, and want to provide credit? Are there any confusing requirments (licensing, copyright, etc) that make it impossible to actually use any particular items?

The subs area is easy to navigate Ron for the users and to make html asy and fast for us..time spent doing html is wasted modelling time :o), heres a screen shot and to the left of the thumbs is the links to the varios sections and at the bottom of the thumbs is the navigation of the area you are in....top and bottom has links to search, forum and password changing...most we did have a poll on the readmes and found that most wanted simple instalation but at the same time to be able to choose where they put them eg. person A likes to have folders, dresses, pants, tops etc another likes p4 male, p4 fem, vikki etc so what we have done is ALL obj's go into a folder named PWFW the rest can go where you please, and the readme gives instructions where they go for new users, there is also a file guide page..no no wierd licensing stuff its basically the same as the stuff that comes with poser or you get from DAZ, A lot of the issues you've mentioned apply to personal taste for example if we put up auto installers i bet you we'd have complaints that they like the old way, same if we did to much vikki or mike (already had them :o) so what we try to do is average everything out to keep as many happy as possible, an impossible task LOL but i feel where pretty close :o) Steve

Melanie there is no link to the subs site simply to stop hackers just coming across it, or those bot things that rumble through sites slowing things down (don't know much about this kinda stuff ;o)......Steve

I appreciate the further explanation... I like what you did with that. Unfortunately the screenshots didn't come through. Could you try posting them again?

Attached Link: http://poserworld.com/subspreview.asp

My turn too I guess.. since steve was carried away to his usual typing way at his previous reply (hardly any punctuation)! VL grin Ronknight..the site will ALWAYS be called Poserworld as that's what it's all about! Fairywoods had always served as a friend or guest site there and the subscription area logo was changed only to identify the merging.. nothing more there and sure PWFW is shorter and easier for all of us to use or type when referring to the subscription site! :o) Neither of us is into fancy html layouts simply because we both hate html and prefer to spend our creativity in models and texturing & keeping things simple and less time wasting with fancy graphics! I am the responsible one for zipping up the files and since I am a poser user for quite a few years having installed more than 5Giga to my poser directory so far, despite the fact of being extra picky as to what does or doesn't get installed.. I found out eventually that you need to organize files the way they suit you personally, so you can easily locate your libraries & textures... that's why I prefer to allow users put the files where they please themselves. As for the geometries, since the obj always point to the very same directory (pwfw) I don't think it's too much of a hassle.. quite the contrary! Concerning the content of the site, new items created in the last 6 months of its existence can be all previewed in the provided link. Lots of scenes there, as it's steve's hobby when I don't keep him busy with clothing ideas of mine! VL grin More scenes are available in each one of the 3 CDs download area as well. As for old items from our original sites(including characters), slowly but steadily are getting reworked and improved and added up to the rest along with new content. Updates are at least once every other week..and always include at least 4-5 new items. If I am in an extra good mood..you get them more often! :o) Bottom line about PWFW is: we try to stand by what we promised! Since we can't run the sites any longer for free.. users will get at least the value of their money in so many models and textures that it won't cost them at the end more than a penny each or less.. does that make sense? :o) Finally..keep in mind that we're just a team of 2 people dealing with the files available. .just steve and myself! Taking under consideration the fact that we both are kept occupied by full time jobs as well as being located each too far away in Europe (UK and Greece).. I think we're doing far better than ever expected in what we have to offer on PWFW! :o) Rena

OH, yes, I do believe you have an excellent site and service. As for HTML: who needs to fiddle with HTML? In the past I've used Microsoft FrontPage and now I'm using Macromedia Dreamweaver. Both are WYSIWYG editors, which means you don't need to know any code at all. Just point and click and get what you want. FrontPage is probably the best when it comes to having great themes which take care of things like navigational buttons, etc. Dreamweaver doesn't seem to do all that for us, so I resorted to making my own "templates," which are basically a few different page layouts that I reuse for most of my pages. I like the fact that you've allowed for greater freedom of installation. I also like the fact that all the geometries go into the same folder. It seems geometries are the most critical in that regard.. If they are not placed right, you can have big problems. I take it the Subscription area has a layout that is more pleasing to the eye, and easier to navigate?! By the way, I appreciate the fact that Steve & Rena are willing to take time to answer questions, in addition to all the satisfied customers. You will get my business, as soon as I can bribe the wife for the money...We may have to wait till Christmas, darn.

Hey Steve, we must have been typing at the same time here!! Yes, I like the looks of the screenshot you sent. You and Rena deserve a lot of credit for what you've accomplished, and for answering all my questions.

We use both those apps Ron ;o) Rena on FP and me dreamweaver and both swear ours is best LOL...glad to be able to help Ron ;o)...Steve

That's easy - Dreamweaver :) ::ducks::

Attached Link: http://www.ronknights.com/

"Schlabber doesn't have much, proportionally, for Mike & Vicki." ... and I'm going to change that soon :o)

KOOL. We have something to anticipate.