Ok, I have to step up here (just in general, not to any specific person/post) Some have slapped Tim for his frustration. Where Tim may have appeared to many as childish or whatever, I have to say that I agree with him. Most people on the list are Still-Render people, some of us are animators - two different disciplines for sure.

Now let's look at what's going on. Tim is trying to create with a package he has loved in the past. The new version of this software is filled with promise. He spends his hard earned money on this new version. What is he met with? He sees glitches that should not be there. Aside from people's preferences for interfaces or whatever there is undeniably a trust violation. All who have hammered Tim for bitching are missing a key point. People have said "do it this way" or "here's a work around" or suggest that Tim write python or XML or animate every move from scratch or redesign the interface. None of this is relevant. This is not the enduser's resonsibility. The user should not in anyway have to "work around" anything. There is a difference between a "Trick" and a "Work around". Tricks are getting extra functionalty that a system was not specifically designed for. Work arounds are attempts to recover broken functionality. Tim was promised a rewrite from the ground up. In my little software development world, this is known as an SLA. Service Level Agreement. This sets user expectations for what is to be promised and delivered. Regardless of all the other bugs withnew functionality, CL has clearly NOT rewritten it.

Now I have to say that I think CL does care about the product and that the money issues are certainly a factor. I am sure there was pressure to deliver this software way before it was ready. This is the fault of the example set by Microsoft - that pushes garbage out and has people burning internet bandwith pulling down patches.

I have to say also that I too feel betrayed by CL. I am not at all happy with this release. There are plenty of great ideas here like the face room and such. But look at Tims example of the manual:

"Widget Temporal Analysis Toggle: Toggles the Widget's Temporal Analysis"

He's absolutely correct in this regard. There is so much that is good and yet so much that is bad with this release.

Here are examples:

Good: New Render Engine
Bad: Slash-your-wrists-slow

Good:Nodes and shaders etc.
Bad:The manual is lame in explaining use.

Good:Support the most popular model on the planet(VICTORIA)
Bad:Have to manually rework your bump maps which no matter what, you use will lose some quality. -Or- you are forced to use the old render engine.

(an interesting move don't you think? Inclusion of the old engine is self-evidence that CL knew it had problems. To thier credit, they were thoughtful enough to include it but I would have prefered a fast new render engine that supports the new stuff as well as natively worked with Victoria as is, without having to do any content conversion)

Good:New Models

Bad:They suck. Not having a V2 level model is kin to a war crime. No one can tell me that CL is ignorant of Victoria. It is Victoria and Michael that made Poser seriously usable. Anybody want to argue that?

Good:Face room.
Bad:At least for the love of god, let me use V2 head a the basis. The face room morphs are about as flexible as a cereal box.

Well I could keep going but I will work myself up into a frenzy....and that is the point.... it shouldn't be this way.

I am waiting for the patches... I need the patches.... I must have the patches.

I personally have gone back to P4 to work. I have P5 still installed to play and learn (plus I dare not uninstall it for that security big brother crap).

Bottom line:

I have P5. I can't wait until I can use it when it gets stable. If it wasn't for the people at CL I'd probably uninstall it and ask for a refund. I love the package (P4) but I am hugely disappointed by P5. I will extend my trust 1 more time. Should CL not step up for this I'll have to bail and save money for an alternative. I don't want to but....I may have to. I have seen a few posts from CL answering quick questions as of late but I am concearned that Steve has not stepped up to face the family on these issues. There are issues... you can not argue that point. There ARE issues. You may be more or less tolerant/patient than others but there are people like Tim/Me who are deeply passionate about what we try to do in our escape from Corporate America at the end of each day. If P5 was your living wouldn't you be even more concearned? The tool needs correction and it needs it now.

My Wish list:

Stability!!!!

Speed!!!

A better manual

Better Models or the ability to use V2 level heads in face room

I'd like a native way of dragging in V2 and other models and have the system do all the remapping for me... I shouldn't have to.

Better on screen or even hardware based posing.

Volumetrics

Particles

And Most of all some word from CL about what is going on.

TalleyJC - Animator X