heyas; okay, i know that SOMEBODY out there knows this. it's come up at least 3 times. just, i can't remember the details, and that's what i need. in non-english-language versions of poser, the sphere mat zones keep falling to the ground when editing jp's. the reason for that is some kind of discrepancy in the decimal use in poser. now, the question is.... what is the decimal discrepancy? is it you need to use .'s instead of ,'s or ,'s instead of .'s???

I don't know about sphere mat zones, but I know about the flash export in PPP and some other dialogs. The bug was once in Poser2, got fixed in Poser3 till (early) Poser4, and then someone put it back into PPP (and probably Poser 4.0.3 as well). It goes like this: As long as the dialog box is open, there is some custom filter (made by CL) which makes it impossible to close the box with "OK" as long as you use any other character than "." in floating point numbers. Unfortunately it uses the (localized) system routines to display the number on opening, and also after it has been closed. Let's say the number is "0.14" (internally) and you are running a German system. On opening, the number gets converted to "0,14" which is filled into a field. As a result you can't close it, because the CL filter doesn't like the ",". However, if you change it to "0.14" you can OK the box, but then Poser uses the (German) system conversion again and that turns "0.14" into "0" because the "." is a void character. The only solution is to set your system to the US number settings. Yes, this is a very stupid bug, especially since it already got fixed in better days long gone. And because they have been told two million times since then. And because the bug is caused by something written to cause the trouble, which simply needs to be removed in order to avoid it. And because removing this bloody dialog filter hardly takes 5 seconds. And because,... ahhh forget it.

Just stick to decimal point for all language zones and forget about comma. Germans etc already are used to seeing dot for decimal in web files etc.

It's a difference to see something or to type something. The format settings affect the entire system behavour, so if you set it to US you can't type numbers/prizes/etc. the way you are normally used to, and I can tell you that this is very annoying. It's a bit like - Hey! Why don't the English start to drive on the right street side - they are used to see this in most American blockbuster and European Art movies anyway? :-)

no kidding? so... okay, if you have the jp window open, and you type in ,14.... um... well, the jp window can close, because it doesn't have an ok button, is that right? but if you type in .14, then close it, it goes back to 0 and the spheres fall on the floor? i'm confused. (i also don't get how you can tell the difference between 1,066 and 1.066 if you use a comma for a decimal, but hey... that's not my problem ;) )

That's because US 1,066 is German 1'066.

Well,... no. :-) As far as I know, one million dollars and 14 cents should be this in the USA: 1,000,000.14 In Germany (and most other European countries) the official notation is this: 1.000.000,14 Most Scandinavian countries and France have: 1 000 000,14 And what stewer wrote is the Swiss version (all German, French and Italian): 1'000'000,14 As you see it is a very good idea to let the system do this job... There are two ways to convert "0.14" into a (German) computer number, if it uses the call for "full" business figures it would turn into "14", but Poser actually uses a faster system call which stops at the first "illegal" character, hence the "0" which makes things "drop to the floor". The difference between "1,066" and "1.066" indeed is a question of location and context. In a German context, "1,066" is between 1 and 2, but "1.066" is a bit more than a Thousand. If the figures are on an American fax then you better check with the sender if they already tried to "convert" it or if it is US style... PS: As a little extra sidenote (not a problem with computers, but with language). In German we have the words: - Million (1.000.000, US notation) - Milliarde (1.000.000.000) - Billion (1.000.000.000.000) In English, the "million" is the same, but "billion" means 1.000.000.000, which is the German "milliarde". So if a German and an English businessman (with limited language capabilities) talk about a "billion" they might differ 1000 times...!

Hello MartinC The Swiss versions for one million and 14/100 are 1'000'000.14 It's not important, of course. If you would want to pay me 1'000'000.14, I'd take it with comma or point : )

Ooops... silly typo... I should have known because I'm often in Switzerland. I can't say which I find more astonishing - that Switzerland uses the same number format for German, French and Italian, or that Austria uses the same format as Germany... well, probably the latter :-) Do you know by chance if the Romansh are using the format as well? Allegra, MartinC

oh. but that doesn't answer my question.... if you have a non-english version of poser, and your mat sphere zones fall on the floor, what do you do to fix it? there, now that's a concrete question you can answer, right? :) i don't recall the answer being 'change your os to use american decimals.' it was either 'use a . for a decimal' or 'use a ,'.

Well, I actually did answer this... :-) > The only solution is to set your system to the US number settings. That doesn't mean that you have to buy an American system. On Mac there is a control panel called "number formats" where you can select from a popup with about 20 popular countries, or even define your own codes. What you really need to do is to open this and set the popup to "US", and when you're done with Poser open it again and set it back to your local format again. On Windows (I've been told) there is a similar feature somewhere in the system settings. If you simply use the "." without changing the format setting, you must live with the fact that you can only use integers. This is fine with the flash export dialog box, because the only floating point value is line width. This is set to "4,000" and if you change it to "4.000" it becomes "4" when you "OK" the box (which is exactly what you want). If the values are more subtle (like this spare mat thingy) then "0,14" turned into "0.14" finally becomes "0" and... BANG, dropped on the floor.

MartinC, I don't know, but I think it's the same format (the official Rumantsch version of the Constitution contains this number format). Actually, many 'official' texts, e.g. German or French versions of federal laws, use 'unofficial' number formats. Allegra Viagra <--- wie geht's wie steht's bloodsong, My spherical falloff zones never fall, but they are sometimes boxes. Unfortunately, only the screen representation is a box, the falloff effect is always spherical.

boxes??? lol! only sometimes? ummmm... okay. :) you're sure they're not in fast tracking mode? that's a new one on me.

To be honest, the boxes only happen, when I replace Poser's ball geometry resource by a box geometry. Poser has 4 simple on board geometries (ball, ground, 2 light icons). 'ground' displays the ground plane, 'ball' is used for the spherical falloff zones (not for the magnet/wave zones, which use the ball prop geometry). The 'lightIcons' are the light arrows displayed in the document window. They are 'l' (line) elements, like the tree maker hair, so they are visible in the document window, but not rendered (fortunately, IMHO).

wait wait wait....! you FOUND the sphere zone geometry? and you can replace it?? HOW!? cuz we wanted to put traveller's targo magnet prop in there!