Sounds great, I'm all excited too! BUT Until it actually goes up for sale, the announcement is going to have other effects, too. For one thing, it is going to effect sales of people that sell Poser items, including Curious Labs, BTW. It is also going to effect what will become available in the marketpace (not just here, every place that sells Poser items). I was thinking about doing another hair, I'll probably hold off on that for now, as Poser 5 is going to have hair that may (or may not) supercede the use of current hair. I'm sure potential purchasers of hair are thinking the same thing, too. Now, a croud of joy is heard from the "everything should be free" crowd, who think we are a bunch of money grabbing bastards, but let me say the way I do hair isn't any fun for me, I wouldn't do it if it didn't sell. Some things are fun to make (like the cannon I have in Freestuff), some things are pure toil. The end result is going to be less choices for purchasers, until Poser 5 actually comes out. There is also going to be a large amount of "I'm saving my money for Poser 5", I'm hope Curious Labs knows it will probebly hurt them more than anybody else. So, I must confess I didn't read through all the threads, is there any talk of WHEN? If it is "soon" (a month or two) fine, if it is "unknown" or "Christmas" I think this announcement was a bad thing, it is going to cost people (including CL) sales, and slow down the whole Poser thing in general. Incidently, I'm not in anybodies pocket, this is from me. I'm a mod at PoserPros, I sell at DAZ, Bbay and here.

Jim, I thought the very same thing. But then I went and bought 2 products today. I guess because I waited so excited for Carrara to come out last year and I had been waiting almost a year for that. What a disappointment(at lest to me, that it still was so much like Raydream) and I couldn't do one damn thing in that program. I wanted it for it's so high call rendering. :O). It sure sounds like poser 5 is a long way off, so if I see something great, I'll buy it. I probaby won't be a ble to figure out the new poser for a long time. :O) Old and computer dumb!

Has anything been said about an upgrade price?

If i see something in the store that jumps into my eyes,i will buy it. And i dont know ,how long it will take till poser 5 is available in german after the us release. Or if one can upgrade from german poser 4 to english poser5.

Do we wait on new clothies too, with the avi of the girl. and all the good stuff in P5? I do agree with that a large part of the customers will say "I'm saving for Poser 5" because I am. I'm now umemployed and need to have my products sale for me to purchase anything. I've been a poser junkie for a couple of years spend $400.00 to $500.00 per month for that time (a very bad habit)! Now only on the sale of items do I buy. So if sales slow down on all items to buy P5, it will hurt. Incidently, I'm just a poor poser junkie! :)

Well, I understand your concerns, Jim, but it seems to me that the release of new software is an occupational hazard for 3rd party modellers. We all knew poser 5 wasn't far off. All Kupa has done is give us a peek under the bonnet with a few images. And please note, that he specifically mentioned a lot of these features, including hair, quite some time ago. Would you prefer to know nothing, go ahead and make hair, then have poser 5 released the next day with no warning whatsoever? That would REALLY suck! At least now you have an idea what to avoid. As far as a release date goes, the most intelligent guess I've heard (and it was only a guess), is sometime after fall and probably in time for Christmas. Despite what Kupa said about cheering up the poser community, I think the fact that Siggraph is coming up had a lot to do with his posting images. He ain't gonna show this stuff to us and not to Siggraph. One other point that comes to mind. There have been a few panic threads concerning the possibility of mass computer seizures due to huge processing requiments for poser 5 hair. Now I think people are jumping the gun, but it does bring up a point. If (IF), the requirements are so outrageous, doesn't it make sense that a lot of people will continue to use poser 4 hair? After all, the poser 2 models were left in poser 4 for that same purpose. mac

Trust me, Jim, until everyone has a gigabyte of RAM and a 5GHz processor under the hood, transmapped hair will still have its uses. Go ahead and make your hair. spurlock5, kupa mentioned in another thread that there would be upgrade options, although no specific price has been mentioned yet. He did say that owners of both Poser 4 and the Pro Pack would have the best deal.

For me, upgrading to P-5 will mean upgrading my computer too (not an option for a while yet). Although I'm one of the biggest fans of freestuff -being dirt-poor as well as the World's Oldest College Freshman, I don't think you guys are all "money-grubbing bastards" (you guys turn out a lot of great stuff, most of which is worth what it costs) so I advise you guys to keep your p4 stuff up because not all of us are going to upgrade anytime soon and there's still going to be a market for that stuff.

Some will wait, some wont wait, some will buy more some will buy less. No ones knows has soon release is (I think it is quite a few months away tet to be honest), or how much it will be. Also not everyone will actually get the upgrade at all, and a percentage may not get it for x months after its released. The way everyone is going on thinking that everyone will suddenly upgrade the day it is released is ridiculous (granted a percent of users will, but no way near the lot will). Also no one knows the price of the upgrade, no one knows the requirements yet, no one no how useful or useless previous items will be (granted backwards compatibilty is tehre, but just cus it will does not mean people will use it over the fancy new whatever). Too be honest the announcement was nice, but left too many unanswered questions (prob the idea I guess) that will have an effect on everything poser related or another and that is not good for a community - Curiuos really need to make an announcement saying where it will be 3, 6, more than 6 months etc. As always everything gets hyped up and people argue about this, that and the other, bottom line is Poser 5 will be able to do so much more than Poser 4 but it is not out yet, so if people want to wait until the release before getting anything for Poser 4 that is there choice, however they could be in for a long wait ... or perhaps not, that is the annoying bit.

I don't think that your a money grabbing bastard Jim, because if you put hard work into models then give them all away free then your gonna starve, in my opinion people should be grateful to you for making them.

Well, if Poser 5 is half as good as it looks, it's likely to be expensive, both in terms of cash and PC resources. Kupa specifically said that items made for P4 will still work. My guess - after spending whatever it takes on Poser 5, I won't be buying any add-ons for a while...and the market is likely to be flooded with them. So, Jim, don't quit making hair! I have a feeling it will be needed as much as ever. (And anyhow, I love your Vicky hairs.)

I too want to be paid fairly for my work. I don't model, but I understand the concept.

I own Lightwave. I own After Effects. I use the hair and clothing I get from here (and Master Kozaburo of course). I could probably do the things shown already (Lightwave is a very capable software) but I simply don't - learning curve and stuff. I'm excited about the possibilites but I'm very practical; I expect to still use many of the same things I do now for quite some time.

I encourage people to continue doing as they have been until the rubber meets the road and P5 is actually out. Then we can assess what is really changed.

I may be able to quickly learn how to use the hair growing tools but I'm not a good hair stylist so I will probably always need the skills you offer in some form or other. I expect others will find the same thing out about themselves.

Also, despite all the talk, I bet if it takes more than a month for release, people will break down and buy stuff. Addictions are hard to break. ;-)

I think L.D. hit the nail on the head - again. And 'til we get to peek under the hood at P5, we don't know that transmapping and modeling will become passe. I've tried to do both myself with limited sucess but don't have the patience for more than a casual project while trying to learn everything. I think that transmapping has become an art form unto itself, and will probably last a while longer. I don't think that modeling will change much except to add dimensions such as gravity and collision stuff (I'd guess that the wavefront obj format will still be used. - it's very versitile. there's alot more to it than we use for poser.) Once we are looking at P5 first hand it probably won't be as mysterious or threatening as it seems today. - good modeling, bikermouse

Kupa has made mention a number of times about a very specific business model they are using. I don't think he gave a preview on a wim (or distraction). He obviously has to know what the effect a P5 announcement has on their P4 sales and from what I've heard they can't go long without income. So, my guess is it will be sooner rather than later. If not, it may turn out to be never. Jim, If it's good people will want it. The "old fashioned" way will be in vogue for quite some time.

Thanks guys! I glad at least some of you don't regard guys like me as MGB! However, I would think it would do Curious Labs well to announce in the near future that current Purchasers of Poser 4 and Proback will get at least the purchase price of that off on Poser 5, that is sort of standard procedure in Software land. Regual procedure is after a certain date the upgrade is free, but in this case I gather we are talking about a price increase, too. I'm not worried about hardware requirements for Poser 5 myself, for one thing it is tax deductable for me (!), and the other thing is computers are just getting faster and faster, and costing less and less, we will eventually reach the point when they are all-powerful and cost next to nothing!

Barring bad things, we will never again see such a long time between Poser upgrades, so the market will probably never be as it has been for the last year. I did consider P5 and decided I didn't want to do clothing. On the other hand, I just like Posette and think she'll continue to be a useful figure to have around. So I'll probably do another product that's teasing my brain, not because it's likely to be much of a seller, but because I want to. If this work was paying the rent, I wouldn't. I agree that the transition is going to be gradual and on-going. The BIG bump P5 will deliver will be at the upper end, and hopefully attracting folks using other apps. The inhibiting force will be users' hardware. So the range of user skill levels is going to get much wider - and so will the secondary product needs. The "simplier" stuff is still going to be useful. Maybe the model merchants will adopt is the Basic Lite (P4) with Full Featured Upgrade (P5), that make immediate purchases an investment.

Jim, I very much doubt that P5's hair is going to supersede transmapped hair any time soon. That spiky business is going to be useful for - yes, spiky hairstyles. But long flowing stuff and so on, no. P5.5 or P6 maybe. Like your hairstyles - imagine the poly count and the processor load if done that way! Also, new goodies like that tend to take a while to settle into something really useful. So I intend to go on buying stuff I need/like for some time yet. I spent a bloody fortune at DAZ during the sale and am in the process of doing a buying round right now around the other sites - Rosity, BBay, Thrall, RDNA. And of course I have my PWFW subscription. And Vicki I have down to a fine art now, so it's going to take a LOT of convincing for me to believe that a default character (Posette5?) is going to be more usable until there are a zillion morphs and stuff for her. And Mike is light years ahead of any other male ever. And if the clothing vendors do indeed upgrade their existing stuff to P5 level at a really good price/even free for previous owners, well, there we go. We're deep in it now with some fine characters and stuff, so let's just keep on truckin'. What were you thinking of doing hairwise by the way? :] FishNose

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&Form.ShowMessage=773737

right up until it is released the users realize the calculation times
involved in multi-strand geometry based hair.
Then there will be the obligatory "wait for the patch period "
that will pass and people will finallly realize that high-end features come with a cost beyond just higher Dollars:-)

i started a thead that addresse the work flow culture shock that many are in for with these new high-end processor intensive features.

Well, I don't pretend to know much about all the technical discussions. And maybe not the business end of it, either. But generally, software manufacturers don't like to alienate 3rd party providers. There almost always is a 3rd party "hook" there to be used. In this case, I don't know what it might be, but as to the hair thingie...heck, people make poses and sell them. There is a market for it because some people are more artistic and talented than others...not to mention the ease of "grabbing" a pose and making a few adjustments. Now, maybe I'm completely wrong, but isn't it possible the hair thingie in P5 will be sort of like that? Meaning, yes, one can do it, but will they have the talent that all the renown hair makers will have at it? How long a process is it? Etc. If "P4" hair is still a useable item, perhaps it will be an equitable choice as to "growing" your own hair. Just posting ideas...but since I don't earn a living, I certainly can't look at it from the perspective of those who do. Couple more items: Jim, I don't think anyone would refer to you as a MGB. I certainly never felt it nor saw it mentioned. You sell stuff and give away stuff. That's a nice blend for any vendor to possess. Curious, pardon any pun, but, Jim, but how will this hurt Curious Labs so much. I guess I'm missing something. I would gather, just as other vendors here wonder about, that it would hurt DAZ the most if it was going to hurt 3rd party vendors. BTW, I've heard a rumor that DAZ and CL don't get along very well...and that some other company is making the P5 figures instead of DAZ...that DAZ wasn't even approached...but that's just a rumor I heard. IF, if Wolf359's fears are a real concern, then it may be that THIS will create the need for 3rd party hair. At any rate, in my best Clinton voice, "I feel your pain", Jim. As a "way out their" idea, ever think of just sending an email to CL, as a vendor, and see if they can/will tell you what impact it may have on people like you? Heck, all they can do is ignore you. But, I think they'd want to answer and not piss a bunch of vendors off by "bushwhacking" them upon release. Just a feeble thought.

I sometimes wonder how many people use the current animation capabilities of Poser. I think that Curious Labs is absolutely right to add and improve features like animation, hair systems and collision detection. And I believe that those type improvements will figure into many folks buying logic - but I doubt any large percentage of Poser 5 purchasers are going to use it much. Nor are we going to toss out the gigabytes of Poser files we've accumulated through freestuff, purchases and our own hard work just because there are new models available. I still use P4 clothing with Michael/Victoria figures (usually the head on a P4 body) all the time.

Hummmm...interesting thread. I had to go out of town, and the Poser 5 threads were posted while i was gone. i didn't click on any of the links...as i furiously tried to catch up on all i had missed...but, i did notice one thing....the guy, that Kupa used as an example of what was comin' down the pipes in P5...well, he looked an awful lot like the dork, if you pardon the expression. I hate long render times...so, will stick with transmapped hair...just like i use vicki one for renders....transferring only the morphs i am using to make a figure in v2 to her, with morph master....sorry...i just don't use alot of the superheroine, fairy, and other morphs in v2...same with michael2...i use him to create a figure...transfer morphs to mike 1, and am good to go. i probably won't even spring for poser 5 until i see if it is really cool, or, like bryce five...just a bunch of stuff that makes render times longer. (yeah, i did get it, though.) i think there are always those who MUST HAVE something just because it is new. first, we don't know the when of it...second...we don't know the price of it....third...we don't know the system requirements of it....fourth...we haven't seen it in action...except in promos...and, i DO think that guy is the DORK!!! i am saving my money. i am saving my money for a new computer. i am saving my money for maya...yeah, right...but, it is a reason to save. poser 5 will come along. either it will impress me, or, it won't. i will end up getting it at some point...but, i am not standing in line to give it a test run. bryce 5 was a disappointment.

Steve cooper told me in a phone conversation
CL estimates we animators are 3% of the user base.
and the strategy will focus on poser animation an getting
high end users to see poser as a character animation solution
for their high end programs (lightwave cinema4d MAX) and now the venerable MAYA and VUE.
unfortunately trans mapped hair stands out like a sore thumb
in a volumetricly lit animation environment

and the Swimming hair of "Aki Ross" has created new holy grail
in the minds of many.

I definitely don't see you or any other folk that sell their items as MGB. There's a lot of hard work that goes into what you folk make. And if it hasn't been said lately, the free stuff that is provided..it's more appreciated than you can ever imagine. I'm not exactly rich, so whenever poser 5 comes out, it's a pretty sure bet that I won't be investing in it right away which means that I will still be needing hair and clothing, and..etc etc for poser 4. From what I understood from the one thread, P4 models will still be working in Poser 5. This means to me, that if I buy things now, they will still be useable with the newer version. Even if Poser 5 has hair items and such, we still like varity :)

wolf...many traditional high end 3d artists look down on poser, in the first place. i think that poser knows its clientele....and will create for them. me, i want maya....no new poser can fill those boots. period. cooper is smarter than to try and make a 2nd or third rate imitation to appeal to those of us who would love maya. he is more likely than not smart enough to realize that poser is used by an ever growing cottage industry, and, work from there.

I wonder if the P5 hair is going to be exportable? Or transferred via the plug-ins? If it can't (or the files are in the 10's of megabytes) I would think that would keep the current P4 hair real popular 'cause people will still want to use Poser with other apps... Dan

He is not looking for a "third rate imitation" of MAYA
he personally told me that in addtion to the poser base
which is 97% s still render makers

he said would like to see poser treated a a third party
charcter animation plugin for LW, Cinema MAYA etc
thats all it is to me with cinema4DXL,
a charcter animation plugin and a very GOOD ONE!!
thats why i have a full CG fim in production
with walking ,talking, running, karate kicking realistic Cg humans
while most of the "pros" in the C4D community are still trying make their first 2 step walk cycle with crude cartoonish rigs.

">Or transferred via the plug-ins? If it can't (or the files are in the 10's of megabytes) I would think that would keep the current P4 hair real popular 'cause people will still want to use Poser with other apps... Dan"< yes it will be transferrable via the hosting in other apps

My take on it is that system demands of the new hair technology will pretty much restrict it's use to perhaps one character in a scene if even that - the rest will have the older transmapped hair. ...By the way, does anyone else feel as excited as I do about the possibilities of combining transmapped hair with the new cloth technologies for realistic movement without tedious morphing? I don't know if existing meshes would be adaptable, but I think there's a tremendous potential for development there! ... just my 2 cents worth...

but, you said yourself...that only 3% of poser users do it for animations. cinema 4d, i have not even tried. i like making meshes. sometimes i enjoy making renders. i don't dream of animation...there is plenty to satisfy me.

I don't know if existing meshes would be adaptable, but I think there's a tremendous potential for development there! for the life of me, i cannot create a hair model ;*(. i am hair dyslexic. Me, I like that face making thing....that would be the selling point to me. for a while, i had a service that "bimboed" folks...in essence put their face on a poser model. the public response was so great that i folded...i could not keep up...sigh...another failure.

Attached Link: http://66.70.166.29/promo/brigade.mpg

poser is in a good positon to act as a character animation plugin for those frustrated users

BTW character animation growth is not just MY agenda its steve coopers and CL's according to Steve
hence the new animation effect tools.

They did not spend all this time creating a collision engine
to keep vicky from poking through her armour
while posing for a still render in a temple.

while posing for a still render in a temple. OH, YOU SO MADE YOUR POINT. but, do they have it set up so that the amazing pink pony, AND the armadillo...can like have sex without having their fur and armour collide? i must know this. tonight...not like daz...get back to ya as soon as i make up a reason why this is so. thanks, Pop...Pop...Poppi!!!

I must admit that after reading the California Dreaming thread, I was a bit crosseyed to read this entire thread, so I apologize if this has already been memtioned;)

If I remember correctly, CL announced the ProPack at Siggraph 2000, expecting a Q4 2000 release. Well, it actually didn't go on sale until January 2001, but the announcement at Siggraph did seem to answer alot of questions we had and not dissimilar from the ones we have now about Poser5 (upgrade price, system requirements, etc.)

I doubt that Kupa would've shown us as much as he did if he wasn't planning on making an official announcement at Siggraph 2002 anyway. Like he stated in his California Dreming thread ,"he has to save some good stuff for the press," or something to that effect. I know that we are all excited, but we just have to wait a couple of weeks for Siggraph.

It's quite possible that Kupa would've given us more to munch on, but maybe CL took a long weekend because of the Independence Day holiday here in the States, and he won't be lurking in here until Monday. (He's got alot of catching up to do;)

Sales of Poser4 goods probably will slow down at first, but I somehow doubt that if CL announces a Q4 release (like last time), people will be able to go up to 6 months without buying anymore Poser goods. At some point, the old ," Well, they DID say Poser4 stuff will work with Poser5" rationale will creep into our minds as we convince ourselves that it's ok to buy that item in the Marketplace a month from now. (You know we've all done something like this;)

In two weeks when CL announces a price structure and we all know we don't have to mortgage our home to afford Poser5, I'm sure we'll all budget accordingly to buy other stuff;)

Just my thoughts on the last few days...

Patrick

I see things simply at times. I've just spent about $100 on Poser stuff within the past week. I haven't even used it all. Add that to all the other Poser stuff I've gathered in the past year. I don't need any more "Poser stuff." I may as well keep saving my money till Poser 5 arrives, and hope I can afford the upgrade price. Jim, you have every right to do this for money. That's one of my dreams, if I ever get "good enough." I bet plenty others out there are either making some form of humble Poser-related income, or want to. I wish all of you the best of fortune. At the same time, I hope you understand when I say "I'm saving my money for Poser 5!"

I sometimes wonder how many people use the current animation capabilities of Poser. I think that Curious Labs is absolutely right to add and improve features like animation, hair systems and collision detection. And I believe that those type improvements will figure into many folks buying logic - but I doubt any large percentage of Poser 5 purchasers are going to use it much.

I know that I don't use the Poser animation abilities because animating in Poser 4 is (for what I see as work I would be happy with) simply not going to happen. Without collision based hair and clothing animation is an exercise in futility for me - and I have no interest in keyframing all the clothing motion.

Nor are we going to toss out the gigabytes of Poser files we've accumulated through freestuff, purchases and our own hard work just because there are new models available. I still use P4 clothing with Michael/Victoria figures (usually the head on a P4 body) all the time.

Well, speaking firmly as one of those who is in Curious Labs target market, I know we will be dropping most of the old stuff from our work almost as soon as anything remotely useful shows up in the new formats. The added realism is simply worth the processing cost.

Of course, in our business work we compete against Maya and Lightwave and 3DS Max all the time... and while it is great that we can use (and rely on) Poser 4 it crucial that Poser 5 gets closer to the current state of the art.

While I am sympathetic to those vendors for whom this will represent a sales problem I also think that it is important that we know what's coming so we can start making informed decisions. Hopefully as more details come out we will be able to make choices on what to buy and not to buy with confidence.

Right now, my policy is that I'll buy it right now for Poser 4 anything that I will actually USE right away. I won't buy it because I might use it sometime (like I did before) or if it is just "cool".

Has everyone forgotten there was just a huge storewide 30% off sale at DAZ? I even borrowed money so I could get some stuff I've had my eye on but couldn't afford at regular price. So I am totally reeling from my spending spree and won't be buying anything else from anyone anywhere for some time to come. Has nothing to do with Poser 5. Surely there are others in the same boat. So if sales slow down, remember this other factor I mentioned.

3%?? We few, we happy few, we band of brothers....

No matter how fantastic Poser 5 may turn out to be, I don't see it as any kind of threat. Remember not everybody is talented enough to make use of all the advantages, Poser 5 may have. That's why people are buying things now, from all the diferent vendors. Not everyone is a Poser maven. I don't think merely making the improvements available, is suddenly going to make everyone who has Poser5, capable of "Final Fantasy"-type characters, for instance, or becoming an e-Vera Wang or e-Armani.

P.S. I also don't see you and the rest of the Poser artists who sell their wares as MGB, I doubt if anyone does. You are definitely artisans and deserve compensation your products.

Everything that everyone else is so scared about is great to me. I like the idea of creating my own hair and clothing morphs right inside the program. I am a merchant too. I sell at 3DCommune and here. I don't care to sell at DAZ. I do mostly character morphs, clothing textures, and Bryce items. Doesn't look like I have to sweat anything, does it? =) But then again, I pull in quite the comfortable amount from job. I don't live under the illusion that my hobby will support my family. What I make from the stores is lunch money. Reality sucks, huh? Personally, I hope that the hair that you can create within Poser will not be permitted to be sold or exchanged, that it can be exported only for end-user purposes in other 3D programs. Much like the avatars created withing Avatar Labs. I know, I raled against that when the program first came out, but I'm over that now. Poser 5 sounds like the perfect DIY tool. Can't wait..can't wait! Like I said elsewhere, since I will be able to create these items instead of buying them, I might be able to afford taking up my other fave hobby again, cigarettes. :)

"Get YOur Flaming Arrows Ready"??
No flames from me .
you stated your honest assesment of the new features
in regdards to your personal objectives.
My only merchant item here are custom BVH animation files for poser
so all these new animation features may actually help my sales as more people may want to see vickies cloth animated skirt sway to and fro as she dances to one of my files.

I was about to release my own mutistrand hair system but i never got the poly count down to what i considerd reasonable.
But now i see that the poser5 hair shown by Kupa has the same ponderous poly counts as some of my test creations
so we shall see :-)

You don't keep in business by only trying to please 3% of
your customers..that animation could even wind up being a seperate release, and not the main program.

You Dont stay in business with a static customer Base either.
and if CL wants to expand into the higher end markets that means improved animation abilities( Cloth simulation etc,)

we animators may be 3% of POSERS user base but a much higher percentage of the MAX,LW Cinema4DXL user base arecharacter animators and frustrated ones at that.
I spend alot of time in other forums and i see the frustration of those who want realistic humans that are easy to animate.
CL is smart to go after that market with poser hosting in those programs.

I may be in a minority but I'm planning to buy P5 the day it's released, but that doesn't mean I'll be throwing all my old P4 stuff out, No if anything people should still make stuff for P3/4 even after P5 arrives. There are so many excellent clothing & hair items around that would be perfect for P5, with any luck there will be ways to make the existing clothes work with the new features, that even a newbie like me can get to grips with. Rob

You might want to take into consideration, that it was MONTHS after Pro Pack's release before it even worked right. Some people were unable to use it at all, before it was patched. This has pretty much been the history of the 'Poser' programs, as a whole, to the point that it's looking like a habit. CL's investors, in the past, have practically forced Cupa and his programming team to release their programs before they are really ready. All that the investor care about, is their EFF'IN money. This time around, I really hope they've all learned their lessons from the past. Otherwise, we are all going to be doing a lot of suffering, as paying 'beta testers' of Poser 5. I am THRILLED by what the new Poser will be able to do. I just don't want to be plagued by a massive amount of bugs, like I have in the past. Most likely, I won't be upgrading until after the Poser 5 patch has been released. From past experience, that means at least 6 months after Poser 5 comes out.

I've used Lightwave for several years but I didn't even attempt to model or animate humanoids. The thought of dealing with rigging was one more layer of technical issues that got between me and creativity. I've loved the way Poser made it so easy to pose humanoid figures since Poser 2. I finally got the ProPack so I could integrate Poser's strengths with Lightwave's strengths.

Now I'm creating a large animation project with 13 characters and using Poser and Lightwave to do it. I'm finding I bit off a real mouthful but I would never even have attempted that before. I assume that at least some of the high end modelers will turn their noses up because I used Poser but you know what, I DON'T CARE!

I care about what the regular viewers think. Is the story interesting? Are the characters cool looking (yes, to those outside Renderosity, Vicky nekkid in the temple is still cool)? Is the audio well done and appropriate. Have I entertained them and helped them escape from their miserable, wretched daily lives for a few minutes? Did I offer them something that they might find interesting to think about later?

Poser offers the ability to do this. Maybe it's like comparing the Blair Witch project with The Attack of the Clones but hey, that's not a bad thing. My stuff may be done at a lower level but if I use my brains I can minimize my limitations through style.

There are those who take pride in technical accomplishment, whether it be modeling, rigging, or texturing. That's good, I respect, enjoy and highly appreciate the craftsmen required to do what they do.

There are those who simply want to tell a story - whether it be through a still or through an animation.

If you're one of the former, Poser may never be your kind of program. However, for the latter, Poser offers things no other does at an excellent price point. The point is that the ease of use is a selling point, even to those with access to "more."

For those of us that use the Poser Pro Pack plugin to open poser files in 3ds MAX, the more animation that you can do in Poser, the better. That is, if there is some type of plugin for Poser 5. Right now, I am using several plugins in 3ds max for hair and clothes. Doing this in Poser is all the better. Discreet is already advertising an upgrade to MAX 5 of $795. Add this together with any upgrade to Poser 5 and I have to watch what I spend to get both. Probably, the vast majority (including me) of Poser users don't fully understand the features in Poser or Poser Pro Pack. We basically operate a far lower level than is possible. Poser 5 will have more features that most Poser users will not learn them. Still, we will buy it anyway because we hate to give up.

I've never been into animation before but the preview is very interesting. I've been thinking lately that P5 might just drag me into doing some, especially with the collision detection on the clothing there. Looked wonderful. :o)

I just got of the phone with Steve Cooper, incidently, and while I can't say anything about Poser 5, I can say I'm a lot happier than I was before the call!

Well, Jim, I TOLD you to just give a call....hehe. Glad you are happier now !!!

Some vendors are MGBs. Jim, you aren't one of them. Not everyone is going to upgrade to P5 right away. Anything you make right now will be useful for them. Just because hair creation is possible does not mean everyone will be able to use it. It's probably more resource intensive, and if there's hair out there that you like, and you're not doing animation, why not use the transmapped hair? Cheers!