Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&Form.ShowMessage=880418

C'mon.......... You're blaming P5 on not being able to post messages here! The site is having problems for everyone. It's a well known fact. There's just too may people here and the servers can't handle it. But NOW I understand what's REALLY going on. P5 is actually to be blamed for all of this and more!: Alien abductions Higher property taxes My neighbor's new car breaking down My T.V. cable going out for an hour last night My dog licking his balls wayyyy more than normal. Damn you Poser5!!!! And Damn you CL!!!! :-) ScottA

GoldenOdyssey, If that really is caused by Poser, then you are right that they've done some no-no. But why do you jump to the conclusion that their INTENT is to be controlling? It could be some bizarre programming bug. Hmmm. So it happens even after UNinstall? Then it would have to be something left behind... Ah, because it wasn't EXPECTED to still be there, it was only there temporarily during the registration process. I'll bet if I had access to their source code [I don't], and knew where to look, I could fix it promptly. Did you send in a bug report? I am puzzled by one thing: what does the address bar say when you try to get to a Renderosity page? I mean, does it start with "http://www.renderosity.com", or are you talking about some link embedded in a frame at Curious Labs' web site? -- ToolmakerSteve

Ironman - You Da Man: "Uh yeah... but this is VERSION 5. Says so on the box." I like that way of "framing" the situation. No excuse for version 5 to be so bad. I worry that CL has just shot themselves... somewhere worse than "in the foot". "5" looks like a feature-set that would really broaden their market, IF they can make a working version. Much as I personally hope CL pulls through this, I pray NEW customers don't buy this release until CL comes out with one heck of a patch! They would likely get bogged down in all the fancy, barely working features, and give up on the whole scene :( So, I reiterate as I have elsewhere "rant away". But why act like storm troopers have come into your house and done bad things to people you love? And why show NO RESPECT to what appear to be decent, hard-working people, who I believe are doing the best they know how?

No probs, William. I think that was demolitionman, but you can blame me for it with no hard feelings. ;] Btw - heya DM. Long time no see. waves shrug sshaw, I have problems with the idea that even on 1st release software consumers should accept a state of affairs where "It's the first release so it has to be buggy", or "it's only a [insert $ amount here] so it's bound to be buggy". That's an insult to the customer, and it leads to a situation of dwindling quality in coding standards. Taken to an extreme in the "release now, patch maybe", you get situations like those that have killed a number of gaming companies, and caused PC games to start talking a backseat to console industries. It's not true either - I've seen games that took 3 - 4 years [that being about how long it takes to code a game engine or app from scratch] that worked with minimal patches needed. I've also seen "only $49.99 programs" like Thief II and System Shock II that worked out of the box, with the only patches needed ones to add functionality for new video etc hardware specs, and plug minimal coding errors. If you don't think that a major game engine is as complex as a graphics app, suggest you write John Carmack and ask him. Different criteria perhaps, but equally complex to code and debug.

Actually, it's even tougher. Game engines, especially in online multiplayer games, have to do realtime motion physics reactions whilst juggling unpredictable player actions, all of which has to be done and current by the next outbound TCP/IP packet. Animations proggies have the luxury of time by comparison, which is why typical animation proggies can deal with 20,000-200,000 poly humaniod models, while the practical limit for the upcoming Unreal2 engine is 3,500 polys per player character model, and that's being pushy about it. Currently, 1100 polys per player model is just about the breaking point for Quake3 or Unreal Tournament if you want to play online with a decent frame rate (and an 1100 poly model in UT will reeeeally bog down a server :( ). (heh... guess who used to get into coding mods real big? :p ) Now - IB's right, in that as many bugs as humanly possible should be stomped out of existence before shipment. OTOH, from a practical IT point of view, expecting a coder to catch 'em all is impossible - the best you can hope for is that the bugs are tiny, inconsequential things that won't get in your way before the inevitable patch comes out. As much as I would love to see a perfect software release, I believe that only the program "Hello World" came out 100% bug-free, and even then I'm not so sure. Incidentally, a LOT of game engines usually patch frequently, becuase cheaters find (sig it with me now) bugs. While these bugs are normally inconsequential and un-noticed by the majority, they can be exploited to make a shitty player into a gaming gawd, all with the minimum of effort (Counterstrike's Wall-hack, Quake3's "button6" debacle, Diablo/Everquest's dupe bugs, UT's continued need for CHSP, WinAce, Ratbots, purefuck.exe, etc etc etc...) BTW, IB, I've seen games that take 3-4 years too... and well - can you say "Daikatana" or "Anachronox"? I have yet to play with P5, so I don't honestly know what the deal is yet. I'm not coddling CL here, but I think that there has been more than the usual griping going on in this case... /P

"(heh... guess who used to get into coding mods real big? :p )" Heh heh - you too? We had a couple of "Gee, let's break the engine" go rounds when I was into that. ;] "and well - can you say "Daikatana" or "Anachronox"? " Add "Tresspasser", "Starlancer" and... oh well, we can go on. ;] Point wasn't that gaming code doesn't ship with buggy releases - it does, including massive debacles like Daikatana - but that the amount of time devoted here is what's generally required in creating a release from the ground up in an equivalently complex app. Not 3 - 4 years spent basically patching add-on modules into relatively untouched existing code... That and the observation that if it's not reasonable to let companies slide on the functionality on the basis of "Well, it's only a $49.99 game", letting them slide on a application costing almost 10x that is ludicrous. I'll bet that if this were a new MS operating system release we were discussing here, the same people pulling this rhetoric would be screaming for Bill Gate's head on a plate. And hey... an OEM copy of Windows 2000 Pro is "only" about $179 or so. So... you hold Curious Labs to looser standards than you do other application developers? Why? Because they have a niche app that there's no equivalent to - so take what they deliver? Because the company execs "buddy up" to people in the forums? Er... what's that got to do with it? Becuase they're site sponsors and partners here? Heh. Reread the "Mission Statement" - it says nothing in there about Renderosity's mission being serving the best interests of software developers. Let's just agree to differ on some points Peng. ;] You and I can agree that possibly there's been more than the usual griping. I can hold that based on this release, CL rates all the flak they're getting, and if it damages the company... well, too bad, they bit it off, they can chew it. And we don't have to agree on those. No makey. ;]

Btw... that "you hold " was generic, Peng, not aimed at you.

1. Brain freeze - I meant to say: IronBear, You da Bear! Or something like that :) 2. Re: "shrug sshaw, I have problems with the idea that even on 1st release software consumers should accept a state of affairs where "It's the first release so it has to be buggy"," Whoa there. I agree completely. No project I work on goes out the door with problems like Poser 5 has. I would never do that to a customer. Besides, its stupid from a strictly business sense. In the long run, "reputation" is everything. 3. [*** No longer talking to Ironbear ***] "You reap what you sow." Curious Labs has earned the ranting that goes on here. But the world is an imperfect place, and I'd prefer to work WITH them, warts and all, than see Poser vanish, or be swallowed up by some large company. I mean, some of the rants going down here at Renderosity, what do the ranters hope to accomplish?

Ah, no probs. Close enough for collision detection. ;]

GoldenOdyssey- Wow. I see why you are pissed. That's some damning evidence that the Poser 5 registration process is doing something scary to our computers. Unfortunately, it is beyond my knowledge what the significance of that is. (I try to stay away from the low-level Windows aspects. Ah, for the good old DOS days, when machines were dumb, but straightforward.) I must be aging. After hyperventilating against Microsoft for years, I hardly even care what Poser is doing during installation. I just want it to work, so I can get on with my life. -- Steve S.

"Wow. I see why you are pissed. That's some damning evidence that the Poser 5 registration process is doing something scary to our computers." Let me know when yu fidn some (evidence) because nothing posted here is anything liek evidence at all. Content paradise makes no alterations to your IE setup - and there is nothing involved in Poser5 that would prevent you from getting to Renderosity... Except paranoia... The poser had to re-install as part of rebuildign a machien with fairly massive problems... it seems to me much more likely that those are the cause of the issue ;)

Hey soulhuntre.....you don't even want to hear this...! Actually I won't waste my time even talking to a dizz like yourself. One check your spelling it makes you look stupid. And Two You want evidence how about I spam your butt with my screen shots.......! Arrrrrrrrgh Can I reach into the computer now and choke some more dorks who can talk the talk but not walk the walk. Oh and yes you are correct we are really lying here and just trying to stir up trouble over a program that my finance loves...get a life! Now that I have your attention read down to my next thread. Waves to Ironbear...:) long time no see ole friend too bad it has to be under these circumstances lol. Well Steve I am sorry that I and some off us vented so much about the program. I really did intend on coming off a little bit more professional and in a different way. And I agree with you I just want it to work lol. But.... One as to your statement to Golden about the Poser 5 doing something scary to our computers. No it's not scary it's down right invasive and iritates me. I really don't like the security check on the CL website to register and get my newest version working. I never did like that kind of protect my software kinda of thinking. Because it usually ends up hurting the registered bonifide customers more than it hurts the Warez kiddies and hackers ok. It's an unnessary pain and doesn't protect anyone. (Ok my complaint)..To put this whole thing in a nutshell. I install the program.....I go to their site, I enter my code then I am asked to enter my Poser 4 code. I do this and I get their is a problem with you registration code please contact tech support. I double checked my entries and tried numerous times but the same thing. I then attempt to log into renderosity only to find out I can only access the Marketplace and Poser 5 stuff. (Yes Only Poser 5 Stuff) I have most of the links to the right of the site missing and no matter what I click on it just loads up the Marketplace front page and from their I can browse around, no where eles. And yes to those who have suggested using another browser it's all the same Mozzila etc. I have them installed and the same thing. I guess that rules out the browser being the problem eh. Screen shots can be provided using both IE and Mozzila upon request lol. The only cure for this problem seems to be a complete reinstall of my machine. Does anyone think that this is acceptable or funny? I don't just work with poser I also have been dabbling with some really nice modeling programs and I actually thought I might be able to use some of the stuff in Poser....:( But that's not the point I have some major programs and some low level ones that are really cool like Bryce and they haven't invaded my machine and banned me from my own galleries here or caused havoc with my code. That's right my code. I bought Windows 2000 full version and I don't like anyone messing with the system, it's mine and I feel like I have a right to have complete access to it's functions. And this is just the minor beef. I played with Poser 5 (still have the 7 days left before it becomes vapor)and didn't like what I saw. Extremely slow render process, almost pathetic excuse for rendering time actually...Ok it was real slow..........lol. And the interface with the ugly windows looking file icon's really turned me off lol. And the characters are not desirable at all. My system is not slow....dual Pentium Flip chips running clocked at 1 Gig-a-hertz with a pro 3d labs card, 80 gig Maxtor drive and 1 gig of ram. Ok that's it I done venting. All I can say Is this program is going back. I don't want it. The security part is really what bugs me the most. This is not Lightwave or 3D Studio Max. OK it's Poser and it's cheap and well was kinda cool to play with. I understand CL's need to want to protect their investment but this is not the way to do it. And it does appear a whole lot like renderosity and Curious Labs has joined code forces to enforce this farce. Anyone eles have something stupid to say about why this is happening on my machine and others? I love the program but hey, I still have version 4 and I am sure other major modeling programs can pick up the slack if this software fails. Also as much as I love Renderosity I had better not find out they are involved with this problem also and providing code or whatever to CL to cause this. I can find other community's to hang out in or create my own. I am sure that I am not the only one to feel this way. Yes I am only one person so who cares right. Probably the many others who may be silent feeling the same way or having the same problem. The scope of what is happening here and what I'm trying to say is way to complex to put into words but I'm sure eventually everyone is going to be bitten by this bug rest assured.

"But the world is an imperfect place, and I'd prefer to work WITH them, warts and all, than see Poser vanish, or be swallowed up by some large company. I mean, some of the rants going down here at Renderosity, what do the ranters hope to accomplish?" Exactly what you stated. :0) If some of the "ranters" did not care what happened to CL or Poser, do you seriously think that they would waste the time and energy to type and point out the flaws so that CL could fix them? It seems the general perception is that if you point out flaws that you are somehow adversarial to the software developers. In reality, though, telling them what they did right is, in effect, doing little to help other than to inflate the ego. Telling them what is wrong gives them the opportunity to examine the areas that need reworking.

Ok and to you the silly one above me called CyberStretch....and boy is this a cyberstretch. I don't give a Rat's......you know what about ego or ranting in general. The program didn't say anything about this registration garbage untill I opened the box and read that's right read the manual. And then it causes major havoc on my system when all was just reinstalled and running well. I took it off thinking things would go back to normal and nooooooooo. It's still messed my browser up. So kiss poser and shut up.....I am tired of all the people giving me crap over this when I think I have a right to vent. I don't mind pointing out flaws for fixing but this is not a flaw and I don't want this version period....! I just want my MTV. lol.....I want this system back the way it was is that too much to ask.

Ah boy I wish I had read this thread more earlier. This is for ENTROPIC.....:) You my friend are a major .....ah how can I put this ahhh Bevis Butt Head...nahhhh working for Curious labs are we. I mean how eles could someone put out such mind boggling dribble, and making absolutly no sense what so ever and think to get away with it. Everything Timoteo1 said is factual and very well written. He is correct Poser 5 is nothing more than Poser 4 with some geez whiz gadgets thrown in. That was my initial impression. According to Entropic it's like lets say you go to the garage to get your car worked on and the mech say's I don't know what I'm doing so I'm going to charge you and fix your car but cause more problems than you had before you walked in because I'm learning and need the money and you say ok....geez go for it you pour soul. I mean come on get real is this individual for real or what. Picking on the guy for stating glaring problems within the program and calling it sour grapes or venting is just plain off the wall crazy........

Yeah Demoman, sucks to keep meeting like this, but it could be worse, eh? ;] ", what do the ranters hope to accomplish?" Complex question possibly, with as many answers as there are people involved. Soo... I'm going to shrug and just approach it from my POV. I don't have a major interest vested here. The company I work for isn't going to be involved with Content Paradise, so as long as CL doesn't try to enforce any restrictions of content distribution, that's a non-issue for me. CP doesn't affect me much either way. Renderosity's affliation with CP does potentialy affect me as a merchant here, as long as I'm a merchant here, but I'm willing to take a "wait and see" attitude on what those ramifications will be. The EULA provisions and ramifications they may have DO have an active, and possibly adverse effect on any merchnats involved in content distribution, and by extension, any brokerages involved in that. Those ramifications are being hotly debated at PoserPro's right now, so I won't rehash that 850+ post thread here. I will say that it is a concern to me, because of a number of implications... Main one being that having followed this business across numerous threas at multiple sites going back to before the CL "Amnesty" brouhaha, and the first announcements of their inline store, through the various DAZ3D EULA debates etc... the entire EULA controversy, the Face Room controversy/negotiations, Content Parasites, er... Paradise, et all looks to me like a knuckle duster between CuriousLabs and Daz3D over market share, and CL is using it's "we're your buddies, we're yer pals" connection with this particular online community to polarise supporters. I object to watching that. I object to seeing a site that I consider my online home - still, even though I no longer work here - used in what could effectively become a commercial concerns battle. I object to what I percieve as valid objections by customers of CL that just happen to not be glowing reviews of the latest release being discouraged by representatives of this site... probably because CL is a site affiliate and a major sponsor. I could be wrong on those perceptions, if so, no makey - it won't bruise my ego to be wrong, but I'll be damned if I won't call it as I see it based on what I see. On the actual program... I watched here, in this forum, as CL posted glowing previews of what the new software would incorporate, and all the improvements, over multiple threads, and basically used hype and hucksterism to whip up a frenzy for pre-orders - with the blessings of this site - when the odds [I think] were pretty damned good that they HAD to know weren't going to be delivered. And as they made claims over the course of three+ year to be delivering a redesigned program and new figures rather than what seems to be [based on user analysis] Poser 4 and Pro-Pack with modules leased from Size8 Software, SI FaceGen, and Pixels3D patched in. Not very well patched in, based on what a lot of these threads seem to be showing. Down here in Texas, we gots words for that. ;] Now, don't get me wrong, that's not a personal annoyance: I may have a need for P5 professionally - to test P5 content on if nothing else - and I can write the cost off as a business expense and not be out a fucking dime at the end of the year. What is a personal annoyance is watching people I consider friends get scammed into making pre-order purchases on something that's proving to be a dissapointment to them, and THEN watching them get told to "shut the fuck up about it". Again: I'm using the word "scammed" advidely based on my perceptions of the entire "California Dreaming" hype vs what these "rants" are showing. Anyone thinks that I should not get a bit annoyed over that... hey, your priveledge. Just don't get miffed when ya gets told to piss up a rope. So... Possibly these rants won't do a damned thing for what existing purchasers are experiencing. Wah - they're big boys and girls, as has been pointed out to me, I'm sure they'll live in the long run. They may not do a damned thing except create an awareness that new purchasers MAY just want to look real carefully at this before sending in their $179 or $349 to CuriousLabs, and make an informed decision on wether the so called "upgrade" is going to deliver their money's worth. And if they do that, and people make the "Buy/Not Buy" choice from informed decisions rather than pre-release hype and glowing reviews in the Rosity Rag, then the so called "rants" serve a useful purpose. This is what a comunity is supposed to do: act in the best interests of it's members, not in the best interests of it's software purveyors. If Renderosity takes it's mission statement seriously, then that' what I think they say they're supposed to be doing: promoting the best interests of their members, not supporting the best interest of their sponsors and affiliates. Heh - when you get in the position of affiliating with a company and a major software release, you get stuck between that rock and that hard place. And sometimes ground in it... ;] So... Curious Labs may not care to read less than glowing praise in their pet forums. Too damned bad. CL worshippers may not care for it. Ditto. But the people having the bad experiences have every damned bit as much right to discuss them here as the people having good experiences, without being made to feel pariahs or attacked for it. When you attack someone who feels they have a valid greivance, you may just be making an enemy out of someone who could have been your friend. The odds are pretty good also that somewheres in the middle between the bad experiences and the people having no problems is the reality of what the software can do. We won't see that reality if one side or the other is shouted down. Hope that somewheres in all that I touched on the question. grin

What a LONG,DRAWN(NO pun intended)OUT,INSULT filled post.Would ALL of you calm down?Stop the name calling,and insult ridden posts.Timoteo1 and anyone else has the right to talk about things they like and don't like(Though the WAY it is said is important).What everyone should do,is NICELY email CL and Steve with what bugs you found and ask for a fix.Make a post or list here then give CL a chance to correct said bugs.If Timoteo1 wrote CL about Poser4s WD problems then I'm sorry,they should have fixed it,plain and simple.If the same KNOWN(and I say Known and Real Bugs)that were in Poser4 are STILL in Poser5,then it IS wrong that they are STILL in Poser5,No excuse,unless it was Totally impossible to fix them.At least Timoteo1 opens his mouth,and he brings up POSSIBLE Problems that should be addressed(If they are legit bugs,of course),should he write CL and Steve first,then WAIT to see if said bugs are corrected,(Everyone should do that,not just Tim..),of course,should he post things here that may be bugs?Sure,we all should.BUT it should be done in a fair,calm,controled way.(not so easy for anyone;o).It is Totally normal to get pissed off and go off,and timoteo1 is no different than anyone else.He is mad and has the right to be,as those who are happy,have the right to be.The easiest way to handle this,is Post KNOWN/POSSIBLE bugs,but don't go off on each other or CL or Steve personally.Everyone wants the same thing.A working,stable,feature packed program that ALOT of people use and PAY FOR,so EVERYONE gets what they want.:o)SMILE

DemolitionMan - "Hey soulhuntre.....you don't even want to hear this...! Actually I won't waste my time even talking to a dizz like yourself. One check your spelling it makes you look stupid. And Two You want evidence how about I spam your butt with my screen shots.......! "

Spell check, got it. Thanks for mentioning it ... no one ever has :) Oh, it's "ditz" not "dizz".

Anyway, feel free to send screenshots if you want - but the reality is that without the active participation of Renderosity.com there is simply no way for Poser to limit your browser to only Poser5 content on that website. I suppose it is possible that Renderosity.com and CL have some sort of cookie thing set up that could do something like that - but I doubt seriously that such is the case.

But then, I doubt seriously that your browser IS limited to only Poser5 content.

I have no doubts your machine has problems... but I don't think your browser issues were caused by poser5, and I don't think that there is any code in poser5 that alters your browser set up one iota. Examination of how CP works seems to indicate that they simply load the IE COM control inside poser and point it at their own URL's... not effect your general IE setup.

Is Poser5 perfect? hell no. Far from it. But to imply that it makes some sort of massive firewall like limitation change to your ability to browse the net is simply without any basis at all. Your own experiences are not a definitive indication of any such thing even if I took them as being absolutely accurate.

:: shrugs :: You're certianly welcome to discuss your problems here or anywhere else, but I would think you might want to calm down and separate out your legitimate gripes with Poser5 from blaming it for everything bad that happens on earth.

I am not talking about a DAZ/Poser issue specifically. The folks at CL have to know that DAZ's models is what makes Poser usable. 90% of the products offered on this very site are Victoria related. People that use poser use Victoria. CL's new models should have had the same number of facial morphs when designed. If you read my post, (the line above the one you referenced) You will see that I refered to a V2 LEVEL model not V2 specifically. So I am sorry if you can't recognize or missed the relevance.

I think he may be on to somthing. That's an angle I had not even considered. But when the pieces fit...

ToolmakerSteve.... The people over at DAZ created models that really made poser something special. They used the wavefront objects with all the library structures that poser expected, textures, bumpmaps etc. CL knows victoria and must love what she's done for them. Take your Victoria and try to render her in firefly. What happens? Your bumpmaps are nowhere. You have to either render in the P4 engine or go about playing with converting your bumpmaps and go play in the materials room. Being that DAZ followed the poser conventions, why would CL not support a native import for any model using bumpmaps that were in the Runtime library structure? Knowing that bumpmaps are part of any good model - why on gods green earth would poser not provide a import for models (that use bumpmaps) that made them P5 ready. I didn't see anywhere that bumpmap support (as it was) was being dropped. I was taken by surprise. Its kind of silly don't you think? To provide a method of connecting to your p4 library but drop the ball on the bumpmaps? This would be the same as an upgrade to Microsoft Access that allowed you to read your tables but made you manually convert your existing queries or MS Word that provides new fonts but expects you to convert your old ones. Imagine having a word doc that you worked on for a client proposal that had 15 different fonts in it, scattered thoughout the document - you upgrade and then find out that the doc, when imported, is changed all to courier.

A few points to consideR: Alternately people could boycott P5 and CL (which almost certainly needs every sale it can get) can go bust And then what would happen if we needed to re-install P5? Would we be able to get a new activation code? Or would we be stuck with a pretty paperweight? Also, where are the CL people? You see Nosfiratu every so often, but where are kupa and the usual gang? A monhs ago, they were here every week posting a new P5 render and gushing about how great all the new fetaures were going to be. (How come my Don doesn't look anything like the guy in kupa's "California Dreaming" post? It must be the lights.) Where are they now and can we get them to start addressing some of these issues? Or, at the very least, can we get a public "We are working on a patch to address the issues and we will let you know when it's available. [And yes, you Mac users will get the patched version, we used the Windows people as our public beta-testers.]" --John

JHoagland, I've read a public "We are working on a patch to address the issues and we will let you know when it's available" from both Nosfiratu and Kupa. They know there are problems and I'd rather have them working on that than hanging out here. I also suspect that they know that for some people here - no one in particular - no amount of talk is going to fix things. The only way to make things riht is to get the patches out ASAP. There are just some things that you can't get into without ending up in ugliness. Nobody wins in those threads. We'll see what happens.

"So... you hold Curious Labs to looser standards than you do other application developers? Why? Because they have a niche app that there's no equivalent to - so take what they deliver? Because the company execs "buddy up" to people in the forums? Er... what's that got to do with it?" To be honest, I don't take looser standards for CL than with any other company (and yeah, I know it wasn't pointed at me :) ). It's just that you have a huge pile of folks who are quite used to Poser 4, and now they gotta unlearn some things, and they have to learn others. The problem may not be bugs per se, but I suspect that it's a bag of mistakes and screw-ups we all commit whilst still learning, but frustration + pride = 'we're calling it a bug!' I admit that some things, like the lack of undo levels and such contain out-of-the-way bugs (undo levels IMHO is pretty damned minor in the scheme of things; fugg sakes, UnrealEd was as stable as a cork in a hurricane and had only a rudimentary undo setup... that's why you saved successive builds.) Anyrate, these are indeed items that could've been addressed, and may be patched yet, who knows? But others, like the Walk Designer, turned out to be something that Tim is alone in experiencing, with numerous other animators flooding this very thread with helpful suggestions and reasons why it may have happened (turns out he left IK on, apparently.) The rest, and even you will have to admit this, is a big ol' gangbang of complaints + mob mentality, fostered by the frustration of having to learn how to use this new thing. Like I said earlier... I dunno what P5 is like yet, because mine hasn't showed up yet (should be here today or tomorrow.) I'll figure oit out for sure, but I'm not going to come stomping onto the fora shouting "Poser 5 SUCKS!" every time I come across a stumbling block. As per CL? Shit, man - I agree with you 100% there. If CL can't take a little criticism, fugg 'em, that's their problem. If Poser goes under, something else will certainly take their place. In the big scheme of things, machts nichts. It's just that things are getting to be like one gigantic pity party in here, and since everyone is still learning this critter, there's no counterbalance to it. That is what winds up hurts a lot more than CL's rep in the end. /P PS: I honestly don't care anymore what Bill Gates does with his OS... After XP and with the inclusion of the stealth EULAs that came with the latest Service Packs allowing MS control over what's on your machine (DRM ferinstance), I refuse to use anything newer than Win2k.

I'm with you on that one. I like Win 2000 Pro. It seems to work.

Wow, I can't believe this thread became this enormous! For some reason it stopped emailing me about the replies. (Just happened to come accross it searching for something.)

I'd love to address everything said here but it would take forever, and is just not worth it at this point. And thanks to those of you who understood what I was talking about back then ... I feel much vindicated now that pretty much everyone realizes what a stinker P5 really turned out to be.

20/20 hindsight ... choose a more mature title for a thread. Probably would have received a lot less (uncalled for) bashing. -Tim

Well, I can't resist addressing just a couple ...

Penguinisto said: But others, like the Walk Designer, turned out to be something that Tim is alone in experiencing, with numerous other animators flooding this very thread with helpful suggestions and reasons why it may have happened (turns out he left IK on, apparently.)

Uhhhh ... dead wrong. IK is not the issue at all. Plain and simple, the Walk Designer is still bug-infested like I correctly stated in my original post.

Are there workarounds? Sure, sort of. That was NOT the point of my original post ... which every blockhead on the ugly side of ignorance seemed to miss. I was (and still am) upset that Poser was supposed to be completely redesigned from the ground up. Bugs like this one, reported since the release of P4, were still there ... it was obvious to me and anyone else who ACTUALLY OWNED the program that it had not been created from new code.

Penguinisto also noted: "The problem may not be bugs per se, but I suspect that it's a bag of mistakes and screw-ups we all commit whilst still learning, but frustration + pride = 'we're calling it a bug!'"

What can I say, but WRONG AGAIN. It's patently (and painfully obvious) that P5 was (and still is to some extent) a bug-ridden piece of crap. I understood pretty much everything about the new features of P5. There was no pride, my friend, just a whole stinking pile of bugs.

At least Penguinisto was a little more constructive in his baseless attack then some of the others. ;)

-Tim

While I'm opening old wounds ...

Carolly's (typically) self-righteous comments deserve special attention:

"If you find that the Walk Designer is a crutch which slips in your grasp, why don't you throw the crutch away and rely instead upon your own talent and eye for movement?"

That's what I bought Poser for ... UH-DUH! Sorry we're not all blessed with being such a talented animator like you Carolly.

"As for the rest of your complaints? Some of us LIKE the interface. Most of us are tired of your bitching in any case."

Glad you speak for all of Renderosity. Especially love hearing those kind of comments from people who didn't even OWN the software. Nearly 100% of my observations were completely accurate, highlighting that Poser 5 was a rehash of Poser 4 with 3rd party apps untidily thrown on top. Which is now obvious to everyone, I'm sure even you.

Yet another laughable comment now that history has unfolded ... "The product has been out for 2 weeks. It may take a while to discover what shortcomings lie with the software and what lie with the users... just as it takes a while to discover the strengths of each."

The shortcomings fell entirely with the software.

Ahhhh, good ol' Time, the Great Vindicator.

-Tim

PS> I loved the King's Quest series!! However, King's Quest 4 (and 5, Absence) absolutely SUCKED. Dang, I slipped and said that word again. ;P

I know this is a old post but I have to reply.

Beings I have worked for a software company for the last 5 yrs, doing tech support, the one question that comes to mind. Have you reported your findings to the company, or are you just complaining?

Most companies do not know there is a bug in there software unless they are told about it. Even in beta and alpha test, they generally only test what has been reported.

Also, it is not like they break things on purpose, many times a fix in one area will affect how the code works in another area. It has nothing to do with competency or even paying attention to detail. This is something I have learn over the last 5 yrs. Before that I was a user of the program I know do tech support for, so I understand where your coming from, but know I also understand the other side of the coin.

Don't get me wrong, bitching and complaining isn't a bad thing, but if you want something done about it, you NEED to report it.

Renegade572 said: Beings I have worked for a software company for the last 5 yrs, doing tech support, the one question that comes to mind. Have you reported your findings to the company, or are you just complaining? Most definitely, yes, people have reported these bugs, see the P5-SR2 forum. However, according to some accounts, since Poser 3 and throughout the development of P4, ProPack and P5 CL have accumulated a database of over 600 bugs that have never been fixed or addressed. Given this its easy to see why so many feel frustrated. After all what is the point of putting in the work to catagorise and report a bug when, in all likelihood the same bug has been reported many times over a period of several years and in all likelihood will never be addressed. Poser's past developers (its effectively in new hands now) have never seemed to commit to bug fixes beyond those necessary to get the program up and running at a "reasonble" level of functionality. The culmulative effect of this policy over a period of many years has resulted in the mess that code is currently in. Sadly, the overall impression with P5 was that CL was forced to address many of the major issues as a result of the widespraad criticism, in this thread and others, hurting sales, rather than in response to genuine diligent and constructive bug reporting. Bill

ROTFLMAO! Nice try Tim, but you and I can both read the same thread. Incidentally - William, CL may be run by a bunch of nice guys, but that doesn't shield them from the consequences of their actions.They have to learn to sort out what's important and what isn't... and most of all to make sure their product works reaonsably well before it ships. /P

Poser 5 just confirms a theory I have on the quality of computer software. I will not elaborate at this time, I call it the GENERAL theory. I also have what I call the SPECIAL theory, on their perpetrators. Often wondered what happened to whats-his-name

Oh, come on ... stopping teasing us. Lay out your "GENERAL theory" for us. I need a good laugh now and then Cofee. ;)

But seriously, I use many, many software apps that do "complex" tasks. I can count the ones that are unreliable, buggy, and an insult to consumers in general on one hand: Poser, Lifeforms, Scala ... and Vue & Premiere to some extent.

The rest are rock solid -- may not have every feature I want in some cases, but are rock solid: Bryce, After Effects, 3DS Max, Mimic2, DeepPaint, Illustrator, Photoshop, PP10, ParticleIllusion, Vegas ... and the list goes on and on.

-Tim

Hello Members First of all I would like to say thank you to all of you. You have saved me $500.00 dollars in cold hard cash.That's what i like about this forum.Yes we did read all the posts and the one item that made us take notice.Is the fact that CL is using old code.We down loaded the first Poser program during the Meta Creations owner ship.It did have the same issue with owner registration and other options. Yours,Minosa

Hey all, I know this thread is ancient, and all water under the bridge now, but since I sorta took on the task of defending CL in it, I wanted to clarify one important thing: I completely agree with the principle of ranting - of complaining when something is unacceptable. What I find questionable is: * insults, rudeness, total lack of respect for someone; * paranoia that someone is deliberately doing something bad (e.g. poorly supporting Victoria import). So when I ask "what do some of the ranters here hope to accomplish"? I'm talking about the TONE of some rants, not the concrete content of the complaints. Granted, Poser5 initial release was ASTONISHINGLY buggy. No wonder it brought out extreme reactions! -- ToolmakerSteve (aka ssshaw) [I had given up on this thread in disgust; just now stumbled across it, realized people had some important responses to my comments. Sorry if I left the impression I was ignoring the responses.]

And consider the following thoughts. If Poser brought in tons of money, there would be resources to make it work well. If this niche attracted lots of customers, there would be multiple vendors, and at least one would be stable, and we'd all be using it, the others would have died. Why do I mention this? To shed some light on why things are the way they are. Not to excuse the release of shit, but in hopes people will look deeper at situations. Try to grasp why things are the way they are. Writing complex software is unbelievably hard. Consider the argument about the complexity of games, and how they are mostly stable, so why shouldn't Poser be? Quite right; though early PC games (actually, Apple II, Commodore PET, and Tandy) were ridiculously simplistic by today's tandards. However, games make money. So more games were made, and we learned lots of techniques for making them, and developed tools to help deal with the complexity. Well-trained teams of people carry out every aspect of game development today. It is unrealistic to compare that to Poser. Again, I underscore that I say this not to "excuse" Poser. I just wish people would see that their expectations may be unrealistic. What surprises me, is that it isn't until now that someone is finally developing what looks to be an effective competitor to Poser [DAZ Studio]. Despite the wealth of characters & clothes available for Poser, and how handy it is to load these, apply textures, pose -- are there really so few people who will buy such a toy/tool, that no one else bothered to make a better one? I guess it is because most of those with use for such, use the high-end tools... BTW, I am tackling the programming tasks needed to make a character animation tool. Bit by bit. If CL fails to fix the bugs by Poser 6, well then I'll integrate my pieces into DAZ Studio, which should be stable sometime in 2004...