Ah ha, perhaps he meant "framework" in the software engineering/programming sense. The framework would dictate the way the windowing, etc. functioned and they indeed seem to have retained the P4 style interface from what I can gather. If they bolted new stuff onto that framework, I can begin to understand some of the problems. Again, cross-platform framework Mac/Windows easier to do but no OS specific features - bad choice.

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Was the horse a pink pony? ;] Hardware "standards" may be lax, but numerous other software manufacturers seem to surmount it. Rhino seems to work across a wide variety of workstations I build for clients, AutoCad, Lightscape, VIZ. Also across a variety of video cards, although the autodesk products prefer cards with autodesk certified drivers, they run on other cards. Even in the Maya example that was offered, it's probable that the video card requirements were stated upfront to the consumer. [And yes, I used to work with Intergraph systems and cards] Of course, they probably have larger development budgets and hire programmers... Admittedly, there's a world of difference in hardware specs for pro-end workstations as opposed to the wide variety of hardware a low-end app encounters in user systems. And it can also be that the hardware argument doesn't hold nearly as much water as it's proponents would like it to in regards to Poser 5. "because I wanted to see CL succeed with this (both personally and professionally)." Yup, Jack. Judging by some of the magazine reviews, a couple of the reviewers read like the really wanted to see the program work, but weren't quite able to reccomend it as a pro-app.

Or in one review, recommended that people wait up to a year before purchasing... That's gotta hurt.

Let's be honest ... Poser was never going to make it from hobbiest tool to pro level application in a single incarnation - it just wasn't going to happen. However, Poser5 is a BIG step in that direction. Let's recap where Poser is now: 1) Poser5 works well for a large number of people, there is active development in process to help resolve the issue for those with compatability problems. 2) The additional features and rendering options have brought Poser back into the pro-am category, giving them a shot at making the jump to the pro category if they play it right with development over the near to mid term future. Obviously there are some touchy compatability issues involved, and maybe that is because CL didn't have the resources to beta the product incredibly widely ... but the code clearly deos work well for a significant number of people.

Ok, I'm going to give you all a couple of examples of problems with both devices and software. My brother-in-law bought himself a new mouse for his computer but he couldn't get it to work at all. He followed all the installation instructions, tried everything he knew and then called hubby down to try all the things HE knew. Finally, after three hours on the phone with Tech Support they got the problem fixed. You know what it was? Logitech mouse drivers. Yup. It was that simple. They cleaned out all those old logitech drivers and the mouse (which was a MS product) started working the way it was supposed to. But wait, there's more. Not only did the new mouse work, but some of the applications he had been having trouble with started working correctly as well. Go figure, huh? On the other hand, I had an online game that I was part of the alpha testing and then it went to beta. Well, the alpha was running just fine for me, and so did the beta until they ran an update. Suddenly I was getting an error message every time I tried to connect to the server "Error 429: You do not have the proper license to use this functionality" We tried everything. Couldn't get rid of it. Couldn't figure out where it came from. The only thing that fixed it was a complete format c: and a reinstallation of the OS and all the programs. We STILL don't know what caused it or how to fix it. And, guess what, I was the ONLY ONE with this problem. Computers are really strange sometimes. Kate

Not quite Soulhuntre. You see, Poser is a development tool, not a stand alone pro-level app. Features expected at even entry level pro are not present. On top of this, Curious Labs missed the boat completely by excluding export filters TO pro level applications with which they could have marketed Poser to the pro users as a very valid and able plugin. But they didn't. They tried to add pro tools and keep it an amateur app - no doubt with a view to adding another Pro Pack style "extra" later. Losing that export compatibility offered by P4 Pro Pack is going to hurt more than the errors currently inherent in the program. To quote one reviewer. With the Pro Pack, Curious introduced plugins for 3DS Max, Lightwave, Cinema 4D and Maya. None of the plugins (nor Eons Mover 4) work with Poser 5, nor is there an alternative solution at the moment. This is by far and away the greatest impediment to anyone considering upgrading. If you depend on integration with those programs, your best bet is to stick with version four - or at least keep hold of your old copy when you upgrade. True enough, you can export scenes, complete with hair and cloth transformations but procedural textures are lost. There are more than enough fantastic new features to justify buying Poser 5, but it still feels like a work in progress. In six months to a year, when the bugs are ironed out and new plug ins written, it'll be a much better program. It's unfortunately that I can't post the whole review here because of copyright as it makes interesting reading. Summary of that review is Pros: Extensive new feature set, Better rendering - Greatly improved interface. Cons: Worse third party program interaction - Ultra slow rendering - Some features poorly or inadequately implemented. The reviewer tactfully didn't mention the registration process or whether their version was crash prone. Perhaps as an evaluation for review they didn't have to register it and the program wasn't as complete as the release version. I don't know. But essentially, no, Poser is not at the Pro level category or even really at Pro-Am category, it doesn't have the compatibility/export capability to exist at that level. Not even to touch on some of the other things such as OpenGL previewing etc which is much faster than even the Poser 4 render preview settings. and doesn't preclude you working on the figure while waiting for the render and hoping you remember which bit to fix once it's gone through. etc etc etc.... It's still very much an amateur application waiting for pro integration capabilities with some "poorly or inadequately implemented" pro level tools.

i can tell another story: i bought two same ibm hard disks - 40 gb each - and called a friend who is hardware expert and vendor (microsoft certifikate and stuff) to do it. after starting the pc with both disks on, my cd drive had no power! no electricity at all! we checked everything: cards, drivers, other drives software, hardware - nothing. it just wouldn't budge. houres later i pluged one ibm drive off and put in another drive from seagate (also 40 gb) and tadaaa: all is fine! so what does it all tell us? no idea. :o) but i never heard that someone said: "my 3ds max won't run on my system/won't render/gives me c-exceptions/bsod on me". g'night!

I am not sure that you and I disagree on much of this Questor, I certainly feel that the loss of exporting via the pro pack is a serious problem ... then again, it turns out that MaxPose from Konan works fairly well with Poser5 so I am not as stressed as I used to be about it :)

Obviously, I agree wholeheartedly that OpenGL or DirectX preview abilities are a critical feature as well. As for the "poor and inadequate" part, I am not sure what they are - it all works pretty well for me :)

Poser is not an entry level app - it is more powerful than that. And it IS used int he professional production path of several companies I know (including mine) so it is clearly not "just" an amateur app.

Pro-Am fits it well.

No I don't think we do disagree on much Soulhuntre, perhaps just in ways of expressing thoughts. :) I didn't say that the tool wasn't used in pro-level production. It has been used for positional realisation in Jet Li's "The One" and in a couple other movies for rapid display of actor and camera placements and what that appearance may be like. It's entirely possible that it's employed elsewhere in other production houses for similar tasks. The software itself isn't - in my opinion - above amateur level and it's lack of integration into pro-level apps is sad and a gross error. I didn't say it wasn't used be professionals though. :) To be honest I would class it as an entry level app. Simply because a complete newbie can open the package and do things with it without ever touching the manual or asking for help in a forum. Unlike certain other applications which almost demand the user reads the manual at length before they can use the tools provided. That has been a mark of Metacreations applications for some years - their simplicity and ease of use, aimed primarily it seems at the amateur and home user level. Poser is not trying - at least it appears to be trying with the integration of the new tools - to become more professional and certainly I'll agree with you that the tools now are not entry level as there's far more to them that precludes a newbie being able to just click and create. But the program still misses the pro level in many aspects. Again, not arguing with you because we patently do agree on many of these things, just adding a few more pennies from my thoughts. :) I will agree with Pro/Pro-Am "users" but I excuse me while I disagree that the program qualifies, it might soon though. :)

Just out of curiousity, why does a program have to be hard to use in order to be considered professional? I am not asking this because I think Poser is a professional application; it isn't yet.

I agree. The end result should be the determination as to whether it's a pro app or not. If I have to battle the app I'm not going to be able to use it to "create". ps. My boss is convinced that there is a "make video" button on my computer, but I have assured her that we need to upgrade to the system with the "get raise" key. She does not seem to appreciate my humor.

It's amazing how bad info spreads. It used to be you couldn't find a MAX message board without a few people complaining about crashes and video driver conflicts. Now all of a sudden Poser5 is the only software that crashes. The web should come with a sticker: Truth may vary from location to location. ;-) ScottA

It's not that a program has to be hard to use to be professional, but the depth of the tools make it hard to use. For instance, a software package I've been playing with recently. Messiah. The materials lab in that has basic colour usage at the surface level with multiple options for specularity, glow, diffusion, transparency etc etc etc. The next material level below that allows the application of textures as well as the top level colour controls. The textures can be multilayered and alpha channeled. There's another layer of controls beneath that. When you add in the multi level options of the lighting system, it creates even more possibilities, effects and results. It's not something that a new user could just open and "click and create" like they can with Poser. The definition of pro app is not in it's difficulty of use, but in the depth and power of it's controls. Messiah, Lightwave, Max, Maya and others have that level and depth of power to their control functions. Poser does not. Poser DOES allow a complete newbie to click and create without ever worrying about deeper level control functions for the creation of an image/animation. More powerful applications expect you to work at it, but as a result produce far more impressive end results. It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with battling an application but rather with the power and versatility that application offers to create the vision inside your head.

Fortunately I have every reason to believe CL is well aware of the need to integrate with other applications and they are actively pursuing their options on making that happen. CL has no intention of trying to "go it alone" on all this and be an end to end pipeline for higher end users, I believe they are fully aware that they need to fit into the "pipeline" of a production house.

They are aware of it, otherwise the filters would not have been introduced with Pro Pack for P4, they did announce I think that they were working on this for a future release, a Poser 5 Pro Pack I suppose. It's unfortunate that if they're as desperate as intimated that they didn't consider this as a greater source of revenue and aim at pro-level as well rather than leave it to a "later date" when they might not even be around. Indication from Cooper's own comment is that they needed the money from this release to survive, that survival may have been greatly influenced by the current situation and the lack of hi-end support. Time will tell of course, but I personally think it was a serious error.

Personally? I would be just as happy if Poser itself was turned into a stand alone plug in that worked in Lightwave, Mya, 3DS Max and oh yeah, btw it comes with a free application it can plug into as well. Just rip the whole engine out and make a component, then build a nice front end of CL's own to stuff it back into. Obviosuly it would have been best if the plug ins were released with the system, and included in the base price. But I would rather th current release than still be without all the features. For now, MaxPose and TruePose get me by.

Yep, I think I can agree with that, though you missed the slightly lower end Cinema4D that's growing in popularity. But yes, that would have been a perfectly reasonable way to have dealt with it. Similar perhaps to certain other software that works in much the same way. Plugs into major applications yet offers a stand alone front end for seperate work if the user so desires. There's a couple like that and they're fairly successful. I know a lot of people have said they'd rather have poser 5 (with bugs) than no poser 5 at all. I'm not so sure about that. I would rather CL had made the decisions to show off and implement Poser 5 where it belongs - in all levels of market - than to release an application that is lacking somewhat and leave themselves in a situation where even more investment, time and energy will be required writing new parts to integrate the old. If they'd done that then they could spend more time refining what they'd released and working on even more nice new shiny toys to plug into Poser with perhaps a larger market share and more income - perhaps. It is a more modular program now, so that would have been feasible I think. But, having said that. I'm not a businessman, I don't have a company to run and my ideas and thoughts might be just so much bullshit. :) Whatever. It's happened now and hindsight won't fix anything. Here's to the future. :D

Agreed :)

Troll steps out from bridge...shrugs off mud on collar and pulls up his trusty nail encrusted hammer. Digs nose and flicks it at scott. Golly gee you boy's and girls seem to be having a fun time here tonight... Makes me feel like I'm back in pennsyltucky with my kin folk hunting wild boar. Why shucks when me and my partner in crime hollerd that the sky was falling nun of you'ns would believe us. Now who is the darn hillbilly. This thread has gave me more laughs than dat dare time when the hogs were a yellerying for more slop right before the ham truck arrived. Wheeeeoo April dat's some mighty fine naked hair renders you got dare. How long did dose baby's take to render like about 10 days or sooooooooo. Yep I had some renders like that myself. Not as nice as yours I may say but pretty fine if I do say so myself. Had my 12 year old hep me. Still trying to figure out how to use this dang machine. After many years who would have guessed I'd still be stompping away trying to figure this demon thing out. Can't be cause of my edumcation cause I did pass the 3rd grade. My momma is mighty proud of that if I may say so myself. Howdy Scott I was at your web thingy and man o man it is so cool you and me must get toghether and share our skills man you good boy. We must have been in school toghether in the 3rd grade because I did some of the same stuff myself.....:) And from one Troll to another you make me so proud. You troll like a pro and believe me when I tell you I'm a pro yup...... Iv'e beena noticing some peeps a moving faster than that dang rabbit I was after some time ago on thir attitudes on this whole thang. Dang kids you making my head spin. YOu's like it or not what is it. I told ya's the program don't like to register and it is slower than molassas whem my sis makes me cookies. It also has got's more critters than my lame dog. But I must thank all the beta testers for this here fine product. Now that my wallet is thinner I don't have to buy the ole lady that polka dot dress she was bugging me about hehehehe. Shoot what do I need money fer, I just live in a trailer park anyhow. As for yun's that say you don't have a stich of problems with the program........I ask you,do you kiss your mamma with that mouth. And I agree wit you'ns I have the programs and don't care if it'n works because I can't work the dang thing anyway I just want the box it's so pretty. I stare at it every night it's so dang pretty. looks good on my deckstop I tell ya! Bows down to the poser god and pray's for a working version hmmmmmmmmmm. or another pretty box called poser 6. Lord knows they aint no other programs out there at all for us poor simple folk running old 2mb systems with the first version of windozzzzzz. Well time to slop my hog's and slap my cat errrrrrr I mean my wife....ey Scott you want some of this here slop mighty fine eating boy......I mean mighty fine..