i've been reading some of the comments on Poser 5. and i do see more complaints than prasie. Mainly on installation, or trying to find a certain section that isn't there like it was on your Poser 4. i know i've heard alot of screaming in the chat room about how CL released it too soon and you got a lot of bugs with the program. Seems to me that CL did release it a bit early, ( maybe because of public demand). CL should have tested it a bit more before releasing it. i mean even Brokers Have to have the products FULLY tested before they release there product.. CL is trying there best i'm sure. ( just wonder how many "patches" will have to be made to correct the mistakes. i agree with one of the members when they said CL left Macs out in the dark on this one. according to One of the big wigs, he said "its a APPLE thing, and they have there heads up there butts, but we are working on it. So as some Mac users have to wait, some are asking themselfs "should i get Poser 5 or not?". answer is quite simple, do as you wish with your money, but before i would buy, i would write CL and find out what kind of "bugs" are instored for the OSX? then again when you do write CL about a problem chances are 75/25 they won't answer you. ( or has been my experience and others too). i'm not complaining about CL. yet it seems to me they ought to follow there fellow compaines, ( like adobe, corel, Vue, ect..) make sure when you release the product that it is fully functional and working. no one likes buying a broke Mule to work with. or buying a car without the tires,( it runs, but won't go no where.)

I'm still not convinced poser5 is any good at all, the hair looks like wire, just applying a texture is a royal pain, then there's the registration controversy and Judy and Don are nothing to brag about either(just going from what i have seen and read). It might be a good idea to wait for poser 6 or until about 1000 patches and plug ins show up.

I tell you this. I like the new poser5, But, I have been tinkering and tweaking and reading and experimenting, and writing CL on what I see. And it's getting to the point where I'm about to re-re-order my libraries back to the poser4 format and reinstall P4 with propack. I'm just so tired of the fight with this thing. Getting it to do the easy things takes seemingly 5 clicks and 3 rooms to get done, where P4 three clicks and I'm in the ball park to adjust to spec. I realize that P5 is morew advanced and I shoudl be more pateint and try harder. but sadly, all it's doing is just making want to go do something else and not do art. In a word, It's no fun anymore.

Lalverson, really sorry to hear about your troubles, I have bryce and say you want a reflection, you just move the knob over and you have a reflection, why did they have to make P5 so over the top, complicated and time consuming (more of a question than a comment) P4 has it's ups and downs but all in all it's pretty Dammed cool, think i'll stick with that and bryce

I guess I am in the minority, but I like Poser 5, there are some things that I am sure will become easier, it is also nice that there were some nice P4 "add-ons" and plug ins that extended its use but to tell you the truth my poser 4 was bogged down because I could not get to any of the libraries...I had to move things and even with the pboost it was so slow and sluggish that it made things hard. Now with P5 it is working fast and furious and I can access even my p4 libraries with ease. Yes I have a lot of stuff, yes I have a machine that I had built specifically to do renders in 3d and 2d programs; I tried Poser 5 on my other faster but less memory machine and it bogged down....but on the 1.5 G memory machine it clicks right along....the parameters panel could roll up and maybe it does and I just don't know how; I have no problem with the rooms, I like the hair stuff and I am tinkering with cloth...I never used the other set up room yet and I am just now at a point that I would try... I see the complaints and think that part of it is hardware, this program takes a lot of memory, a good video board and a good processing speed (mine is 1.2ghz)... I would like to find a way to apply the texture maps and might try the python scripts for that to see if they work on P5 (someone yell if they have tried that)...but the results with the texture material room exceed Poser4 even in poser4 render mode....but it takes more work to build the textures.... But then in truespace you have to get used to doing a lot of things...maybe that is the thing, you have to get used to change... We all wanted poser5 right now and we got it; CL is going to be interested in getting things moving on from this level....all I can say is wow this program is powerful and I am glad i don't have to keep slugging away with truespace if Poser will do things easier....

I think the answer is quite simple, if you want or need all the new features and don't mind a bit of a learning curve to get them go for P5 (if you realy count the individuals who are posting major instability problems you'll find the number is not that large, it just seems so becouse the same people post regularly of their problems. thats not to say that there arent real hardware compatability issues with this program, just that it does'nt seem to affect most people, I for one have not yet had one crash or major usability issue.)if you don't need the new features and like the simplisity of P4 by all means stick with it it is a great program. and so many new features can slow a system down some. I compare it to the difference between photoshop and paint shop pro, photoshop is so much more versitile and complex. it loads slower and many of the features work slower but if you need those features you deal with it. for my use paint shop pro does the job, I use Photoshop at work but Ill never put it on my home computer.

Legume, You are, of course, correct in your estimation of human nature; however, P5 aggravates this negative tendency by possessing certain basic problems which are difficult for even those of us who, through loyalty and good will, wish to be magnanimous towards CL and the product. Chief among these basic problems is the edition's myriad problems of stability on even the most common system configurations. I have purchased a number of new and intricate 3d apps which did not crash my system half as much as P5 has. But so as not to fall to far into being a "nattering nabob of negativity" (1st person to identify the reference wins...well only my admiration,) I must admit to being impressed by the potential of some of the new additions to P5--esp. the face and material rooms. But just as with some elegant, novel sportscar, "What good is a Lamborghini's awesome speed if you can't steer it properly ?" Many of us love Poser and wish earnestly to remain loyal to CL, but feel very disappointed with certain basic problems about which CL should be embarrassed, and which should have caused CL to delay its presentation of P5. CL has been true to its customers up to this point (before P5.) I wait with hope that CL will work hard to regain the trust and good will it has so assiduously built up the past serveral years. Though dissappointed, I'm still pulling for them. my few pennies, --lb

Perhaps I was mis-understood. I DO like Poser5. If i hadn't I would have given up on it several days after getting it. I have not had very problems really, Or I should say I understand why the problems happened. I can even say I have had some good results with the firefly engine. Many of the rooms I have tried had had good result as well. My system I use poser on is a leading edge system with 1G processor and memory. Well above the required spec CL says. My major point is this, It seems to me only, that CL has added knobs and switches and sliders to a shovel. They are nice, and most work. But the simple is gone. And that is what made poser an application fun. Yes, Now I can "Compete" with other Ultimate 3D figure solutions, But what if I never wanted to do that? True Doc, complaints are easy, and I can say I have a few. i can also say as a consumer that I have reported Items I saw that appeared as fails to CL so they may better understand what is going on in the field, and decide what they need , or want to correct. As I said, I DO like Poser5 and there are many things that make it cool, and I understand that all the poser4 content needs to be made fully compatable (User settings and trans maps and bumps) All I really would ask, is that they better explain the material room and nodes and how they interrelate to the mesh and to the textures and to how poser4 did it. Explain to me why I now need three maps to reflect somthing, where I used need one? Assume for a moment I'm not a rocket scientist, and a simple explaination will do. CL is way smarter than me, they need not prove it by making the manual a math lesson.

LB Since I'm in the UK (and thus don't have it yet) I can't comment on P5. Being a slow day at work I decided to take up the challenge of identifying the "nattering nabobs" reference. I had seen the term used before on various forums, but never thought about it's origin. Well ... "In a speech in San Diego in 1970, then Vice President Spiro Agnew used the phrase "nattering nabobs of negativism" to describe supposed intellectuals who attacked American policy. "Natter" is defined as "to nag, to find fault peevishly," and a "nabob" is "a native provincial deputy or governor of the old Mogul empire in India; a native district ruler in India" or "European who has become rich in India" or "a very rich man" (Websters New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, Deluxe Second Edition). Agnew's speech writers undoubtedly put the terms together because of their alliterative value, but the phrase does paint an interesting although unpleasant word picture of a self-important person nagging and criticizing everyone else." And where did I find this info? Well Google led me a merry dance through several web sites till I ended up with a thought for the day page on the Alcoholics Anonymous in San Antonio Texas web site. Go figure. -- Mark

Unlike Mark, I had to actually listen to that jerk, Agnew, say the phrase. I liked Poser's accessibility, it is an 3d program I can actually work. Just about the only one, too. I like the new potentials, but I don't know how much I'm gonna use them-- I'll have to, I suppose. Can anyone tell me how well older Python scripts work in Poser, or has anyone gone that far? What I would really like is better control over the lighting situation-- and a script at Daz promises that-- part of me wishes I'd upgraded to Pro pack instead. Emily

Here's another wishy-washy middle position: I like some of the new features of P5 a lot, haven't had the worst experiences of some other people (i.e., lots of crashes). But it is slow, the Materials room seems fantastically complicated and the manual gives no examples or tutorials to help you through it, and a few things (e.g., the calibration of the "real-world" measurements) are just wrong. But I continue to learn it, because I know bugs will be corrected, Renderosity whizzes will write us the tutorials, and the whole thing will run a lot faster the next time I upgrade my hardware. Meanwhile, my P4 remains installed, and I still use it most of the time for speed, without feeling like a big sucker; I choose the best of both worlds.

Of course, if the face room front-and-side photograph thing actually worked, I'd have cheerfully bought P5 for that alone. But in my heart I knew that was too good to be true, and don't hold it against CL. Besides, now that they've made the commitment and have a start on an engine for it, they may make it come true in time.

P.S. to Mark: the guy who wrote that speech for Agnew was William Safire, who has often regretted getting carried away by the alliteration. Bill Adams

Hrm, if you wanted the same thing as P4...why didn't you stay with p4? New stuff always comes with a learning curve, you can't expect advanced features and have the same old thing all time. If you don't like the material room, then just use mat poses, or make all your textures into mat poses so you don't have ever go in there. Bill-Look around there have been some nice renders out of the face room...I haven't gotten that far into p5 yet as I'm still learning the material room(seems more like bryce, which is one thing that was asked for) but check some of the threads on it. Just cause it doen't work they way you want it too doesn't mean it is doesn't work.

"Nattering nabobs of negativity" sounds SO much like George Herriman that I wonder if Safire borrowed it.

I'm thoroughly enjoying the learning process in Poser 5 (especially the new renderer and Material Room, which I feel are the heart and core of P5), but I won't be using it as my primary application until some of the bugs, quirks, and stability issues are patched. Until then, I'll continue to use P4 for most of my work. Hopefully, by the time the major problems are fixed, I'll be comfortable with all the new features.

Although, let me make it clear, my position is the same as Little Dragon's -- there's plenty to like in Poser 5, and I expect most of its negative aspects to be cleared up over time; meanwhile, I use both Poser 4 and 5 -- but if you task me, Tirjasdyn, to make specific what I don't like about the Face Room, I'll do it, at the risk of sounding like one of those whining naysayers.

You say "Just cause it doen't work they way you want it too doesn't mean it is doesn't work." That would certainly apply if I went on and on about the complexity of the Materials room. It is harder to use than I would like, but that's because it's very powerful; it certainly works, and I expect to get more and more out of it the more I explore it.

But I don't think my expectations or my desired way of working is the problem with the Face Room. It's just not delivering. You say you've seen some good posts, but are they good likenesses? I've seen some good texture merges out of the Face Room, and if your target shape looks enough like Judy, a texture can go a long way to impersonating a shape likeness. But if somebody is getting great shape likenesses out of the Face Room, I'd like to hear from them and find out what I'm doing wrong.

What I'm seeing is this: You can move all the green control dots into the right places, but the red contour lines don't necessarily follow -- at all! And they are a good predictor of the shape you actually get. In other words, this feature doesn't work. And when you try to fix the shape problems with the Face Shaping Tool, you find out that all that stuff you heard about manipulating individual vertices is semi-fraudulent. Yes, you can move an individual vertex -- P5 will manipulate all necessary morph dials behind the scenes to get that vertex into the desired place. Trouble is, all the other vertices affected by those morph dials also move. The "pins" that are supposed to hold them in place will not do so, period. Maybe the pins exert some kind of measurable constraint in some sense of the word, but they are of no practical use. You cannot do something as simple as reduce the bump in a nose without shoving the whole nose into the face. And if you can't do that, then the pins don't work and the tool is just another way of applying blunt-instrument morph dials.

I wish it were otherwise; I'm not demanding my money back because I think it will get better. But I'm not simply complaining about something that doesn't work the way I wish it would; I'm complaining about something that doesn't work. Try it yourself and see if I'm so wrong.

P.S. On-target reference, Phantast. Safire definitely invented the phrase, but you're right, it harks back strongly to the Krazy Kat era. You could imagine W.C. Fields saying it, too.

Lee; I've found that having both P4 and P5 on the system has been a godsend. I keep my Vue export capabilities, I have segregated runtimes, so I don't get items mixed up, and if I run into a problem setting something up in P5, I just bop on over to P4 and do it; learning a lot about how the shader nodes work that way. They're still confusing, but not as bad as they could have been. Kinda like jumping between Photoshop and Paintshop Pro; similar function, much different in usage. Until someone comes up with a proper utility to fully export the P5 content, then P4 is going to keep on keeping on.

The really good one by celtic has the pic missing. Here's another: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=865025 Not too many have posted comparisons between photos and face room results, but the characters are more interesting all time.

I won't deny it -- lordbyron got an impressive likeness there. So under some circumstances, it can be done -- and he says he did it in an hour and a half. But I have to think he was fortunate in having a target that fell close to some morph norms or something. If the red contours won't snap, they won't snap -- plenty of others have posted the same results. Nor will I take back a word about the "pins." I've worked as much as five hours on a project and given up in disgust. But after seeing lordbyron's post -- which I thank you for, Tirjasdyn -- I will try a bunch of different targets, and see if I have just had the bad luck to pick hard ones up till now. (I've been searching the forum, though, and I don't see any other success stories like lordbyron's.) Bill And I urge you: try it yourself. See what you think.

Tomentose exhibitionists! Hmm, I think anyone who expected to twiddle a few dials and get an exact spitting image likeness from a picture was being way too hopeful, despite what CL may have said.

P5 is well worth the upgrade price. Even if its broken (and I doubt it will remain like that for long) it has useable features far beyond P4. Hair is not wired. Dirk, I posted on this before. Its a user image. Look at my gallery here and on commune. I see a major improvement and have not opened P4/pro since I installed P5 and don't see any reason to do so. It renders just as fast using the P4 engine and only slightly slower with the extra features of the firefly (which is to be expected). I'm a happy camper.

Oh, sargebear, while there are some legitimate issues with the program, the vast majority of complaints seem to be on the user learning curve.

It's funny reading everyone's threads lol. Buy the way can I sell some of you swamp land in Florida ehehhe. The only thing is though you won't actually own the land, you can say you have posession but you won't actually own it lol. I too liked alot in Poser 5 but I found it not too complicated but just a royal pain. The render is way to slow and don't tell me about your latest 5 thousand giz a hertz proc's my system runs duals which this awesome program can't even utilize and alot of ram and it's still slower than the breeze on a hot summer day. They took out important things so I could not use all the money I spent on Daz stuff and the like within the program. They concocted some stupid registration scheme that at least for me didn't work and if you read the elua you might find out that just maybe the art work you create in Poser 5 doesn't even belong to you but to Curious Labs lol. Yep that's right so keep on praising them for being so cool while they claim credit's to your work. If you want to read more about the elua go to poser pro's general discussions...:)

Wishin I could sell Ericofsd my broken version of poser 5 seeing as to how I'm stuck with it now and don't want it lol. And Wondering if Erico is afflicated with CL in anyway lol. Because every thread I read he or she is totally finding ways to back this broken product...:) Maybe I can sell some of these peeps a broken car because hey it's a car a broken car is better than no car at all right ehhehhe......

is claimed by Safire, but pusillanimous pussyfooters is claimed by Pat Buchanan, and I would not be surprised if Buchanan influenced Safire. No definitive word on vicars of vacillation, or the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.

funny thing demolition...but the eula doesn't say that, perhaps you should read it again. They are already selling p5 related items and a pactch will be out next week. Sorry you had problems, and your not the only one, but not everyone is having problems.