I've been going through the threads tonight in this forum, and I want to let you all know where 85% of the "bugs" I have seen are coming from: Users. Rather, Inexperienced ones. Poser 5 is not Poser 4. The Materials editor requires time and patience to learn, and with firefly it is very important to check any textures from P4 models. The P4 renderer in P5 experiences no problems with these. Firefly does. Why? It's not a problem with the renderer, it's the material set up. Firefly will not handle textures the same way, naturally. It uses shader nodes allowing true reflection and refraction, caustic simulation ( not true caustics, mind you ) and many other raytrace specific functions. Poser 4 materials may have to have their settings tweaked to look the same under firefly. Please take the time to ask me or someone else who has been using the software for a short period of time before deciding that the software is in error. Yes, the software does have bugs, I'm sure. Mostly, however, the software is far more powerful than its predecessor, and much of its functionality must be learned. Even those people who beta tested it had many problems, and many threw their hands up and denounced it as crap. However, by far, the overwhelming concensus was that the software was not the problem, the problem was that we all think in terms of P4. I cannot stress enough that the results are there, we simply have to relearn, and grow. In other words, post your problems. Say, "Is this the software, or is it me? How do I fix this?" There are people in this community who can help to sort these issues out, but it may take time, and it will require patience. It sucks being a newbie all over again. But in 3 months, we'll all be laughing about our frustrations, and patting each other on the back for the spectacular renders we are capable of. Last time I checked, there is nothing out there to render the images in our mind by magic. We must all work, learn, and keep our heads if we want to be artists. You know, it took years for the art world to accept paints that weren't lead-based because they didn't work the same as the ones that were, and cubism was denounced as crap by a broad audience that didn't understand it well enough to see its brilliance? I bet all those people felt real damn stupid when they saw what the innovators could do eventually... Paul

Of course, this doesn't mean I'm gonna pass up the first patch CL releases... I think I'd give it a week... tops. ;)

Good post.

Thanks, Eric... Hopefully people will read it and think about it... I know everyone's excited to the point of posting pictures of the CD going into the tray, but I'd hope in there somewhere they will take the time to read the manual, ask for help, and keep themselves from leaping to disappointment. If someone is disappointed at this point, after 2 days ( at most ), then it's probably ( note: probably ) their own fault for being so hasty with conclusions. Paul

In response to your Notation, I believe your right about one thing, That most of the Poser crowd will overcome the problems through comminication. However your definition of "User Error" stinks, and Ill stipulate. This software is expensive for one. 2. The creators offer very little if not any USEFUL diagnostic tools to help. Which they should . They own the license, they cry about piracy, they should own up and cover all of their preps. Instead they leave it to Programmer 3D Junkies to figure it out and post the findings. So try not to get down on the frustrated. Thanks for your info though....The 3D Junky!

Well, not for me :) I am pretty clear on what is a bug, and what is just confusion. When the software hangs and crashes, it's a bug :) When I can't get hair to look right... that's confusion on my part :)

orion: I'm not going to argue here. I'm not saying there are no bugs, of course there are. I'm also not saying people aren't allowed to be disappointed. What I am saying is that you can either choose to be disappointed, or choose to learn about the software from those of us who have been using it, and maybe avoid some of the frustrations. I'm saying people shouldn't be too hasty to determine that "Poser 5 sucks." It reflects badly on the user, the software, and the community. Poser 5 exists to create better work. It cannot and will not be either perfect or easy. It's not like a video game that you can play right out of the box. Take some time to experiment and ask questions with an open mind, and you might find out that there is a simple reason for your frustration, and it might ease the tension you feel. It's everyone's choice how they approach the obstacles ahead when they first boot the program. People can be positive in their approach and say, "This is going to be hard, and there are going to be road bumps, but there's a whole community to help me" or they can be negative and say, "I expect perfection, and anything less is a pile of crap." I've seen too much of the latter and not enough of the former in the last two days to stay quiet. I will personally respond to any IM or e-mail with questions regarding the use of the software. I may not be the most qualified, since I've only had a small amount more time with it than you folks have ( and my copy was a Candidate version, not the release version ), but I will do my level best to answer any sincere requests for help. I would also encourage any other beta testers to make the same offer to help, assuming Curious Labs is willing to support you in letting others know that you were involved during the beta process. I had it to write a magazine article and review, and some other info, so I may be a special case since my involvement is public record. I'm sure that a quick note from testers to either Tori Porter, Steve Cooper, or Karen Cooper will let you know if its ok. Truly, Paul

It is my impression that the agreement to be a beta tester often forbids ever mentioning you were a tester. That makes this sort of support difficult obviously. I am thrilled with P5, I use it as my primary Poser tool since I got my hands on it - but There are bugs, and I am hoping, like you, we can sort out those from education issues.

Good to see you back posting paul :) I've spent the last 2 days saying to people it's too early to be disappointed with Poser5 as everyone barring CL & the testers are newbies, but who really wants to listen to the truth or common sense? I know right away I'm going to be frustrated by Poser5, I'm not even close to being an expert with poser4, but it seems to me that some people are trying to perform miracles with Poser5 before they even try to learn the basic techniques. The way I see it Poser5 isn't just one step up from poser4, it's a whole staircase above it & people have to learn all over again. Rob

Exactly, soulhuntre... When I first picked up the program, to be honest, I called Steve Cooper and started to tell him what for... He calmly and politely said, "What build do you have?" I gave him the build number. He said, "Well, I agree those are all problems, and I doubt you'd be having them if you had the current build. I'll send you a Candidate to check out tomorrow." He did. He was right. I felt like an ass. I fekt like an ass because I hadn't expected a production tool, I'd expected P4 with perquisites. I hadn't expected bugs, but I was using an old beta version. I'd like to spare others from feeling like asses. There are bugs with everything. Smaller the company, better the product, more bugs. Pretty simple, really. The software is usable, and is powerful, and will be everything you want and more, I promise. What the software is not, is a "hobbyist's toy." No more so than 3ds max, IMO. Knowing the difference between a bug and inexperience is hard, especially when you have your hopes set high. I think if a person has a problem, they should take a minute, calm down ( I know you're upset, I am too, sometimes ) and post it in the forums. If you post that you think something is a bug and it is, CL will see and add it to the list for the first patch, or someone like me or Jeff will happen by and show you how to fix it. On the other hand, if you scream doom and horror and "die, Poser, die!" and you're WRONG, you're probably gonna look and feel a bit stupid if we happen by and tell you so. ;) Paul

"Good to see you back posting paul :) " Thanks, c1rcle, but I'm not back posting... I'm just letting folks no that I'm here to help. I don't plan on maintaining any presence in the forums, but I do plan to drop a note here and there when its needed to post a tutorial, answer a question, or give people a bit of perspective. I don't think this community needs a pundit, prophet, poet, or defender. The community can take care of itself from now on. I'm just here to lend individuals a hand if they need it. But I do appreciate the sentiment. =) Paul

The upgrade from P4 was way more reasonably priced than I expected.And the potential results look to be incredible(after the usual frustration period).And I'm really glad to have a room like this one to get a "heads up" from on a regular basis. (Old Mountain Man)"You've done well,Pilgram.Was it worth the trouble?" (Jeremiah Johnson)"Trouble? What trouble?"

All well and fine except that when I load the program it shuts down. When I try to register the program I am told the serial number they gave me is useless. I wish I could just load the thing once regardless of how it works, or doesn't work.

Okay,"Is this the software, or is it me? How do I fix this?" Horrible registration process-I finally now have a Response code to "1 of my 2" Challenge codes (same hard drive) but have NO registration window to insert it into. "Parsing (XML) Error : not well-formed at line 6" "ILLEGAL OPERATION Poser 5 Caused an Invalid Page Fault.......and will now shut down" What I am doing at the time of these errors: Clicking on poser.exe The 2 times that I actually did get it to open, it popped up all kinds of windows or locked up completely and required a restart. If there is a fix for this Please let me know before I uninstall this software (per CL Tech Support) for the FOURTH time! Sorry, but I am feeling very frustrated right now-I would really like to see the INSIDE of Poser 5.....

Is this software, or is this me? OPen the program. Choose the material room. Total freeze---CTRL+ALT+DEL will not work. Hard Reboot. OPen program. Wait for it to load. Ooo, there is Don. Choose FACE camera. Total Freeze.--- BSOD all the way back to BIOS. Open program. Wait for it to load. See Don. Open HAIR libraries, choose hair model. Total freeze. lather/rinse/repeat. Unintall program. Defrag. Reinstall Program. Reboot. Open program. Wait. Wait. Wait. Oh wait, the machine is locked. Oh yes, I can tell this is my inexperience.

OMG...P5 sounds like a nightmare. Wonder what lies ahead for me??

Wow! So far here I have had no problems what so ever. No crashes I should say and registration was a snap. Seems that the morphs on the final figures some how got messed up. Not a program issue but a quality control issue to me. So far I have only had one problem with rendering and I have tried just about every option and combination. One render had a little banding when I turned the background to black. I forgot what render combination I was using. That could be a user problem or a bug. It only happened once. Hair works great as do the cloth sims so far. The material room will take a bit of getting use to but is very much like other 3d progs I have so I should catch on. I was not a beta tester and have only been using it now since monday. I think it would be very nice for some of the beta testers to post tuts. This would be greatly appreciated I am sure. Ron

to all the people who say "it just crashed again, can't be my fault it must be a bug", how do you know it's a bug? have you been using poser5 so long that you can instinctively tell it's a bug & not your inexperience or even your system not being up to the task of running poser5? you can't, I've tried to find out if it's a processor or driver problem but as no-one seems to be listening to me for the last 2 days when I ask these questions I'll just give up till I get my copy. This version of Poser5 has been written to run on windows, any number of bugs in windows itself could be causing the problems you have experienced, instead of screaming that poser is crap it keeps crashing find out what machines it was written/tested on, what drivers are on those systems what speed/make processor did they use, it could be something as simple as your processor is crap that's causing the problems.

Installation was simple, registration was uneventful, the manual is much better than the one that came with 4. Hair works great, looks great, and is very easy to use. Granted it takes much longer to start up than 4, but so far it has been rock solid as far as stability goes. With such a large number of new features I don't understand how anyone could be disappointed. There is no software for any amount of money that can eliminate confusion for new users, it simply doesn't exist. In fact, the more you pay for 3D software the more difficult it becomes to master (as a general rule). But saying "Poser 5 sucks [because I don't know how to do what I want to do and I don't want to open the book" is ridiculous. CL has done an excellent job, I wish more 3D companies would put so many features in a major release!

Looks like the old policy of "don't be the first one to buy the new software/operating system/whatever" applies here.

I'll keep an eye on the forums for a while. Maybe I'll upgrade to P5 in a couple of weeks or so.

To the original poster...I skipped all the messages past your 3rd reply....because I couldn't take the thrust of your point... OK...I KNOW where my lack of expertise is in using the "software". I also KNOW..that freezing windows, multiple windows, random junk on the screen, frozen screens, windows from other rooms becoming active but are frozen and can't be closed are not my not knowing the software...this is just pure bugs in my mind. As far as using the software, I can't even use it at this point. No doubt P5 is 200% more complicated than P4....I need to read the manual...or read tips here...but interface and screen problems are a totally different issue... I'll be patient, to a point....and will try whatever to make this work...to a point...but I'm not going to sit here for weeks tweaking this thing to make it work, nor should anyone else have to do this....it isn't right. Believe me, I was one of the cheerleaders to grab P5 as soon as possible..ordered it on first day of pre-release...very high level of excitement...but there is something very wrong with this software..... now it may be as simple as corrupted files on bad CDs or something like that...or incompatibilities with certain processors, video cards, drivers, whatever....It is still a bit early to get too riled up...but these glaring interface problems must have been seen during beta....or if they were not present, perhaps the bad CD scenario may be possible.... Whatever...but a "fix" , whatever it may be,is needed...be it reinstall, new cd, different drivers, etc....but I have never had a problem like this with any software....and if you have any doubt about the amount of software I've installed in my day....software packages by the thousands. I've beta tested games, apps, graphics apps, Windows, AOL, and loaded nearly every demo/trial software ever....and NEVER have I had this level of problems, (maybe in very early testing), especially from RELEASED software.

Amazing how many people a) have P5 incompatible systems or b) don't even know how to start up a program, eh? IMHO, saying almost all of this is just the user's inexperience is just pure BS...

This version of Poser5 has been written to run on windows, any number of bugs in windows itself could be causing the problems you have experienced << That doesn't make sense. It's the job of the programmer to make the application work within the limitations of the operating system. If "bugs in Windows" are causing these problems, the blame rests on CL. (I just spent the last three months rewriting an application that was otherwise finished, because it wouldn't run under Windows XP; I didn't expect Bill Gates to redesign XP so it would run my program, nor did I expect my users to blame XP for their crashes!)

Yes I have Poser 5. Yes I am impressed. Yes a little disappointed due to my own expectations. I am an experienced user(but still learning) for Poser 4. Yes inexperienced for Poser 5, at some things. But not totally inexperienced with Poser in the general sense of the word. I can't speak for others but I can speak for myself, I knew this would be a learning curve, did not expect it to be that big of a jump though. I do know I too am a little frustrated, not only at some crashes that some of which I caused myself, but because I didn't want to have to take the time to relearn all this. I think USERS are never inexperienced though. Just like me, anxious, wish we knew what we thought we knew. I would also like to state I did post an issue this morning, that I probably shouldn't have without more testing on my part. I jumped the gun, but that is all....I think Poser 5 is an excellent program and has huge possibilities, maybe not all that I can use, but still a great software. I also wish I knew it better, but that is just time.....but inexperienced no I would have to disagree. Sharen

OK here is my quesiton: I have Don in my pose room, I go to the face room, there is the default lady face. I dial in Don's morphs and morph dials...the actions seem to do nothing; then I try to return to pose room with no luck. I decide to try to close poser, then cancel the close. Now I can move to the pose room but nothing I did in the face room is in the pose room....so I go back to the face room and there I am stuck...but it seems that if I click the red x to close then cancel I can move to the other rooms....I am still fiddling and I did re-boot which fixed all the odd stuff...I have even rendered successfully, made hair and am generally having a wonderful time with the new features (though I have a lot of things to learn). So my system is Pent 1.5 GHz;512 ram Windows XP pro

There is no doubt in my mind that Daves problem is a real problem. I experienced almost exactly what he is going through on more than one occasion with high end 3d apps. LightWave is one if anybody would like to know. I was pulling my hair out. On the phone with tech support everyday and they could not figure it out. Then somebody on one of the LW lists found the solution. It actually was simple. What I am trying to say is that if we work together we can help solve others problems whether it be tuts our discoveries, etc. This is a powerful program that actually rivals the best. I expected many bugs but have been very fortunate. Things are working well here. So lets try to help others that are having problems. Ron

Before the release of P5, I think everybody got themselves all excited about the upcoming new features and it never occurred to people that you don't get that kind of power without paying the price. Poser is no longer the low-end, simple program that it used to be. It's now much more complicated. It requires a cleaner, more powerful system. It's more expensive (although the upgrade price wasn't too bad). It takes much more time to learn. Worst of all, for some people, is that they can't take their already vast knowledge of the intricacies of the Poser 4 program and start being "brilliant" with Poser 5 right away. They have to go back to square one and relearn the software and its new quirks. The only thing that remains the same is that for the price, Poser still delivers more bang for the buck than any 3D software out there. In time, all the complainers will go away or pipe down, and the stalwarts will press on, and Curious Labs will fix the inevitable (few) bugs and life will continue. I am VERY happy with this upgrade. With it, I will be able to do things I couldn't do before and make better product than I could before. It is EXCELLENT value for the money. And, just as I did with Poser 4, I will happily work around its quirks. All this griping reminds me of when DAZ released the FREE Stephanie figure. Everybody hated it -- and now people just happily use it and you hardly hear a peep any more about how "horrible" it supposedly was. Search back through the threads to see who the complainers were. I'll bet many of them are the same ones bitching and moaning now. Some people just can't handle anything new. --jjsemp

Thanks Ron....I really would like to not bitch about this, especially without having tried to actually fix it yet...but I think with the extremely high expectations....it was just such a letdown to have this happen... I've been really excited, maybe too much so, waiting for this version of Poser..... There is no doubt, even with the problems I'm having, that this version of Poser has some spectacular features....and I haven't even reached the tip of the iceberg, let alone the main body :) I'll try to tone it down a bit....it probabably doesn't help the situation being so blatantly vocal and negative...which is probably somewhat the point Paul was trying to make.....so I'll formally apologize for being a bit too negative....but I'm just a tad frustrated at this point..... HOWEVER>>>>there is LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL....it appears by reinstalling, things are looking up...I may be speaking too soon...but I've tweaked the heck out of it so far, and have not had a crash or inadvertant windows.... Something I noticed when reinstalling...it took a longer time to install the second time than it did the first....in fact I'm writing this with poser rendering..with OE open as well...couldn't do that before.

Yes Dave! Hope it has clear up most of your problems. As far as being vocal that did not bother me. Ron

Ron what was the solution for the LW problem? In case it is the same thing.

I'm one of the newest and least competent Poser users in this forum. I have yet to experience a problem,with P5 since loading it yesterday.Could it be that experienced P4 users are having more problems because,internaly,they expect it to behave the same way P4 did? And perhaps the high expectations have created alot of negative feelings,when the expectations weren't met right off. And I have to believe,some brand computers and graphics cards etc.are are having more problems than others. PS. We are only about 3 days into this thing.

"Could it be that experienced P4 users are having more problems because,internaly,they expect it to behave the same way P4 did? And perhaps the high expectations have created alot of negative feelings,when the expectations weren't met right off." 'Zactly. I know a few beta testers, one of whom is a renowned P4 artist, who had trouble doing the most basic things with Poser 5. Our experience in P4 makes us resent starting over at square one, and that's understandable. For the record, Eowyn, inexperience means simply, lack of experience. I doubt anyone in this community, event he beta testers, could claim to be experienced users for P5. I doubt event the people who stared at the code for the last year would consider themselves "experienced." Also for the record, I've seen network engineers with 10 years experience who almost sent a server back because it wouldn't boot to monitor, who spent three days trying everything they could, reconfiguring the hardware many, many times, only to discover they hadn't ever turned the monitor on. So I'm not willing to buy that having worked with Poser and CGI and Windows for 500 years and having the shiniest piece of machinery on the block grants anyone a license to avoid mistakes and oversights. ;) Paul

to say that most problems come because users are inexperienced or whatever is arrogant to say the least. the software must work. if it needs special drivers or hardware then it's bad programming if it doesn't check for them previously, and state so without crashing. poser always wanted to be the most intuitive 3d software around (hence it's ridiculous interface), but from what i read here and in other forums, it's not living to expectations. granted, expectations were high, people immaturely expected p5 to the ultimate software with solutions from dynamic clothing to world peace. kupa, nosfiraty and co. from cl are not quite innocent in this whole affair telling people how brilliant and wonderfull this new poser will be. there are lot of people around who are extremely good at poser and 3d stuff, but i have yet to see one single good poser5 render. catherina's stuff i won't count in as p5 render, because it's mostly her wonderfull textures. there are no examples of mighty firefly possibilities, nothing. i saw what kupa posted as firefly renderings some weeks ago and i was very disappointed by them (and voiced myself so). and please don't tell me it's all yet to come, or we need a university degree or couple of months studying the manual to do simple renderings with firefly. when i got finalrender (an global illumination rendering plug-in for 3ds max) i could produce very convicting images with it within couple of hours. if people who are more talented then i am still couldn't do anything decent in p5, it makes me very suspicious. but maybe they just won't show it...