Curious Labs has just released BETA 4 for Service Release 2. Please visit http://www.curiouslabs.com and click the DOWNLOADS link to obtain this latest updater for Poser 5. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Curious Labs Poser 5(r) Service Release 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you for downloading Service Release 2 (SR-2) Beta 4 for Poser 5 by Curious Labs. This read me includes important information about this Service Release. Poser 5 Service Release 2 upgrades all retail versions of Poser 5 by addressing several known issues present in the originally released version. Installing Service Release 2 on top of your existing Poser 5 installation will enhance Poser 5's reliability. Curious Labs is committed to creating stable and functionally rich software tools. ------------------------------------------ CONTENTS ------------------------------------------ - Installing Poser 5 Service Release 2 - Application Issues Newly Addressed by Poser 5 SR-2 - Application Issues Previously Addressed by Poser 5 SR-1 - POSE Room - MATERIAL Room - FACE Room - HAIR Room - CLOTH Room - SETUP Room - Rendering/Miscellaneous - Content Fixes/Enhancements - Documentation Errata - Newly Added Poser Feature - Atmospheric Rendering - Newly added Poser Feature - Volumetric Lighting - Known Issues - Technical Support - Copyright ------------------------------------------ INSTALLING POSER 5 SERVICE RELEASE 2 ------------------------------------------ Installing Service Release 2 for Poser 5 is a very simple process that upgrades your existing Poser 5 application to the latest version. You must have a valid installation of Poser 5 already installed prior to installing Service Release 2. NOTE - If you modified any of the content that shipped with the retail version of Poser 5, the Service Release will not overwrite these modifications and your Poser 5 figures, etc. will not be upgraded. In this case, Curious Labs recommends backing up your modified content and reinstalling Poser 5 from your original CD. You do not need to install Service Release 1 prior to installing SR-2. If you have installed SR-1, you do not need to install the separate Poser 5 Figures updater. If you have not installed SR-1, you should download and install the Poser 5 Figures updater in addition to the SR2 application updater. To install Service Release 2, simply double-click the SETUP.EXE icon. The installer automatically locates your Poser 5 installation and patches the necessary files to the latest version. You can press cancel if you'd like to browse directly to your installation folder. This installer upgrades all versions of Poser 5 to the current version. ------------------------------------------ APPLICATION ISSUES NEWLY ADDRESSED BY POSER 5 SR-2 ------------------------------------------ - Deleting background and atmosphere objects no longer causes a crash. - Fixed a crash issue when pressing [ENTER] key starts playback from a modal dialog. - Fixed several divide by zero and null pointer crashes as reported by users. - The Poser 4 renderer willl no longer crash with magnets and other non-rendering props. - Shortened load times for files with missing textures. - Fixed an issue when adding a morph target with the same name as an already existing target. - Specified Library visibility in the Material room is now remembered in preferences. - The CLOTHIFY dialog and the RENDER OPTIONS window now accept pressing [ENTER] in addition to clicking OK. - The ADD TARGETS dialog now only displays the file name and the file name text control is no longer editable. - Enhanced Parameters palette logic when performing certain actions. - Limiting texture sizes now works with bump maps, saving memory. - The Poser 4 renderer no longer crashes when the shadow map has an odd width and objects cross the screen boundary. - Fixed a file read problem where the incorrect renderer could be set contrary to specified options. - Fixed a collision crash that occurred when swapping figures. - Improved atmosphere calculation to reduce blowing out with bright atmospheres. - Open parameter graphs now refresh as they did in Poser 4. - Dynamic cloth parameters now display correctly when loading cloth objects from the Props library. - Continued optimizing memory usage. - Smoothing polygons per actor now works correctly for both triangular and quad polygons. - The MOVE XZ and MOVE YZ Camera controls now function and are labeled correctly. - Rendering to a new window no longer obscures the Library palette. - The Transparency Falloff value no longer forces to 0.6 for the Poser 4 renderer when no shader trees are present. - Pasting copied material nodes no longer causes a crash. - Pressing [ALT] in the Parameters palette no longer freezes subsequent dial updates. - Added Face room UNDO and REDO functionality when moving feature points. - Reduced memory requirements for rendering. - Implemented several rendering accelerations. - Canceling the render before shadows finish will no longer crash (bug introduced in SR1) - Opening previously closed Libraries palette now works correctly when exiting the Materials room. - Fixed pasting and applying nodes in the Materials room. - Fixed crosstalk between multiple figures when reading a pose file which had body parts not on the current figure - Reverting the scene now resets the Cloth room as well. - Fixed an ignore actor issue in the Cloth room. - Adjusted alpha map output. - Added Will & Penny morphs to the Face room. - By default, backface culling is no longer active. - Backface culling is less necessary now, and will not give good results when rendering transparent objects. - Fixed occasional changing of actor names in the Properties/Parameters palette (The Left Shin Camera bug). - Cannot delete root Atmosphere node anymore. - Gel maps and shadow map scaling now work correctly. - Disabled screensavers when rendering AVIs. - Fixed upside-down copying/pasting when using the FireFly renderer. - Fixed transparency falloff settings when importing Poser 4 (or earlier) content. - Fixed scale zones bug introduced in SR1. - Fixed a crash with the mouse wheel in Windows 98/ME. - Pressing [CTRL]+[SHIFT] while clicking now deselects selected parameter in the Parameters palette. - Fixed forced power of 2 texture scaling and improved other texture scaling functions for improved image quality when rendering. - Fixed an occasional redraw of the Document window immediately following a render. - Fixed several large memory allocations during rendering and when looking for missing textures. - Updated default Face room textures to better match the figure texture. - Ray traced shadows now properly appear in reflections. - Objects set to not cast shadows no longer cast shadows in ray tracing. - Activated Depth Cue and Atmospheric rendering capabilities as a new object selection in the material room. - Speeded up checking for possibility of transparency in ray traced shadows. - Further speed improvements when rendering. - 0 length hairs are no longer generated into the rendering engine, eliminating a crash. - Poser will no longer incorrectly detect an insufficient disk space situation. - Resizing the render window while rendering no longer causes application/window errors. - Fixed crashes with textures larger than 4K by automatically scaling them down to 4K. - Importing 3DS models with 0 length polygons no longer causes a crash. - Vertex groups now display correctly in orthogonal cameras. - Fixed possible divide by zero error (renderer) - Fixed crashes when reading empty shader trees in material libraries. - Fixed an XML problem in the Render Options dialog where the Render Now button wasn't the right size. - Fixed a crash that occurred when users reduced the number of frames in an animation using the Render Options dialog. - The Render To New Window option now appears at either its set size or slightly smaller than the user's screen space (whichever is smaller) instead of defaulting to the Document window size. - Fixed a render crash caused by improper data culling and added extra data checks. - Improved ear morphs in the Face room. - Improved zoom handling in the Face room (vertical mouse motion now supported). - Renderer default no longer culls back-facing polygons. - Clicking the CLOSE (X) button in the render window no longer causes a false crash report. - Deactivated menus while simulating cloth & hair. - Fixed Library window height problem. - Text visibility issue in the Hierarchy editor is fixed. ------------------------------------------ APPLICATION ISSUES PREVIOUSLY ADDRESSED BY POSER 5 SR-1 ------------------------------------------ This section lists the known issues addressed by installing Poser 5 SR-1. ------------------------ POSE Room ------------------------ - Parameter dials auto-scroll when dragging/rearranging parameter dials. - Added UNDO functionality when adjusting Parameter dials (either directly or by entering values). - Other minor UI enhancements to the Parameters palette. - The Parameters/Properties palette no longer appears when canceling FILE>OPEN or FILE>SAVE functions. - Fixed a problem where the Graph and Animation palette improperly switched focus when both windows are open. - Text in the Graph palette no longer appears truncated. - Previously, creating new props could create improper scale channels. This issue has been fixed. - The Hidden Line display mode no longer crashes when displaying polygons with more than 32 vertices. - The Hidden Line display mode no longer crashes when moving the camera. - The ground plane no longer turns off unexpectedly when moving cameras. - Moving a camera following a render now correctly redraws the Document window. - The Library palette does not update its display when first launching Poser 5. This speeds up launch by several seconds. - Changes to Library folders are now detected, with Library palette pop-up menus refreshing "on the fly" as necessary. - Clicking a Library category palette no longer inadvertently selects an item "underneath" the category listing. - Some overlapping windows may not refresh correctly. This has been fixed. - Switching figures with the Properties palette open generated a message that the figure name was already being used and changed the figure name to BODY 1. This no longer occurs. - Clicking a slider groove in a scrollbar now performs a page up/page down function instead of jumping to a totally new location. - The Walk Designer now compensates more accurately for differences in figures' zero pose states. - The Walk Designer has been enhanced for faster launch when opened. - The Direct Manipulation tool displays correctly when using orthogonal Camera views (Left, Right, Top, Bottom, Front, Rear) - The Direct Manipulation tool axis display in the Document window has been enhanced for greater usability. - Collision Detection is now enabled when adjusting Parameter dials. - Poser's real world units have been re-scaled for greater accuracy by changing the scaling factor to 8 from 8.6. - The default figure when launching Poser 5 is now correctly designated as Figure 1. - Making a wind force field invisible now hides the lines showing its area of influence. - The FIND FILES dialog no long appears behind other UI elements. - BVH import no longer no longer causes issues with the feet. - Attempting to locate a texture no longer causes repeated identical dialog boxes to appear. ------------------------ MATERIAL Room ------------------------ - Addressed potential redrawing issues when connecting shader nodes. - Added UNDO functionality when entering node values. - Cutting and pasting shader nodes now functions correctly. ------------------------ FACE Room ------------------------ - Reduced memory footprint when working in the Face room. - When using the photo lineup feature to create custom heads, any errors in the lineup process will now appear as lines. - Selecting FILE>NEW resets the Face room. - Added UNDO functionality when adjusting Face room parameter dials or entering values directly. - Enhanced texture processing when changing a head from male to female. - Spawning a morph target now correctly includes the eyes. - Extended use of the Face Shaping tool no longer causes a partial switch to the Pose room and a crash. - Applying a head to a Poser 5 figure, saving, and re-entering the Face room no longer causes the figure type warning dialog to appear. - Moving the camera no longer expands collapsed MorphPutty morphs. ------------------------ HAIR Room ------------------------ - Resized dial backgrounds for greater usability. - Scaling a hair object's parent prop now functions correctly. - Dynamic hair animations now play correctly when the Document window is set to FAST tracking. - Fixed dynamic hair redraw errors that occurred after clearing dynamics. - Dynamic hair rendered as sequenced images correctly populates hair and shadows in the first frame. - Using parameter dials or moving body parts on a figure with dynamic hair in BOX and FAST tracking modes no longer causes the hair to fly off the figure. ------------------------ CLOTH Room ------------------------ - Resized dial backgrounds for greater usability. - The Clothify dialog has been enhanced for greater usability. - If an animation is longer than a cloth simulation, the cloth will remain in the position it was in at the last frame of the simulation. This corrects an issue where the cloth object snapped back to its pre-simulation state. - Clicking the CANCEL button no longer selects the item underneath the button. - Cloth self-collision now functions properly. ------------------------ SETUP Room ------------------------ - An error sometimes occurred where the Room tab did not update correctly when exiting the Setup room. This issue has been addressed. - Selecting the SETUP room tab with no figure or prop selected properly accesses the Setup room. - Fixed an issue where changing a body part's name to be the same as another part caused an infinitely looping dialog. ------------------------ CONTENT Room ------------------------ - Curious Labs continues to make progress on readying Content Paradise for launch as soon as possible. Please check the Content room regularly for updates! ------------------------ Rendering/Miscellaneous ------------------------ - The RENDER TO NEW WINDOW function now works correctly. The new render window now appears on top of other UI elements. - When doing multiple renders to new windows, the new windows no longer contain artifacts from previous renders. - Fixed an issue where exporting image files inserted an inverted alpha channel. - Fixed 2D motion blur when exporting image and movie files. - The in-room HTML Help window closes when the current Poser document (scene) is closed. - The range of motion limits on the Poser 5 figures' right shins caused problems when Inverse Kinematics (IK) was enabled. This no longer occurs. - The Library palette's last category/subcategory is now preserved when switching rooms. - Several issues with conforming (figure-based) clothing have been addressed. - Rendering using the Poser 4 renderer no longer causes a crash when a walk path is present. - Rendering using the Poser 4 renderer no longer crashes when multiple pane views are enabled. - Added numerous minor enhancements when exporting Viewpoint files to reduce file size. - Modal dialogs have been modified to be truly modal. - Poser 5 now supports mouse wheels when scrolling. - Poser 5 now ignores clicking in the Parameter palette and other locations while rendering. - Fixed a crash when the ground and/or figure was made invisible using the Hierarchy Editor prior to rendering. Fixed potential crashes when reactivating Poser from the background during a render. - The status bar updates more regularly when rendering using the Poser 4 renderer. - Content names with ampersands (&) no longer caused "Badly formed" XML errors. - Ray-traced shadows have been improved. - Ray-traced reflection and refraction have been improved. - There is a new option in both the RENDER TO NEW WINDOW and MOVIE settings: Constrain Aspect Ratio. When enabled, this function allows you to resize one value (height or width) and have Poser automatically calculate the other value. This option remains enabled when toggling between the Poser 4/FireFly rendering engines. - Make Movie settings are no longer tied to the Document window size. - The RENDER TO NEW WINDOW settings are no longer tied to the Document window. - Erroneous "Insufficient disk space to render current image" error messages fixed. - Fixed figure face morphs to have names that properly match DAZ Mimic output for greater compatibility with Mimic. - Fixed a shutter open/shutter close issue to make these values valid across all animation frames when using the FireFly renderer. - Motion Blur is now properly displayed in single-frame renderings. - The Sketch Designer Preset window appears in front of the Sketch Designer window, and the CANCEL and OK buttons are active. ------------------------------------------ CONTENT FIXES/ENHANCEMENTS ------------------------------------------ Poser 5 Service Release 2 contains the following content fixes and enhancements: - Full body morphs are now enabled on all iterations of the Poser 5 Nude Female (Judy) figure. - Added Left Collar morphs to enable full body morphs on all iterations of the Poser 5 Male (Don) figures. - Added a new "Ear Morph" parameter dial group with morph targets to all iterations of the Poser 5 Male (Don) figures. - Added X,Y, and Z Translate channels for eye geometry in the Poser 5 Nude Female (Judy) figures and in the Poser 5 Child (Will/Penny) figures. - The "Preview" material color is now white for all figures and attached hair props. - The Walk Designer now includes a set of updated files for improved performance. - Conforming clothing functions properly after a render. - The "Penny Casual" figure's inner elbows have been fixed. - When Inverse Kinematics (IK) is disabled, rotating the figure 180 degrees no longer "breaks" conformed clothing. - The ankle geometry on the Poser 5 figures no longer deforms when the USE LIMITS option is enabled. ------------------------------------------ DOCUMENTATION ERRATA ------------------------------------------ - The Poser 5 Reference Manual includes the following statement on page 182: "To save pose settings and have them accessible in any Poser scene, you need to add camera sets to the Library palette." The words "camera sets" should read, "pose sets". ------------------------------------------ KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS ------------------------------------------ Currently Poser 5 must be installed and used in an administrator account only. Future updaters will address this issue. The SR-2 patch may display a Caught C Exception dialog, followed by an alpha-numeric sequence. If you encounter a C exception, please forward off the alpha-numeric sequence or a screen shot to bugs@curiouslabs.com. Please include all systems specifications and steps to repeat the error. If you encounter this warning dialog, click OK to exit, save a copy of your file, and restart Poser. ------------------------------------------ NEWLY ADDED POSER FEATURE - ATMOSPHERIC RENDERING ------------------------------------------ Poser 5 now includes a new Atmosphere root node, which allows you to create atmospheric effects such as fog, haze, clouds, smoke, etc. in your Poser 5 scenes. To select it, use the OBJECT pull-down menu in the same manner as if you were selecting the Background node. The Atmosphere node has the following attributes: - DepthCue_On: Checking the DEPTHCUE_ON checkbox enables depth cueing, which varies all surface material colors from their original lit colors to the specified depth cue color (see below). This gives an effect similar to enabling the Depth Cueing option in the Document window as described in your Poser 5 Reference Manual. - Volume_On: Checking the VOLUME_ON checkbox enables volumetric effects. You can enable depth cueing and/or volumetric effects individually. - DepthCue_Color: The color to use when applying the depth cueing. - DepthCue_StartDist: Distance from the current camera at which the depth cueing effect begins. This distance distances is not necessarily displayed in Poser distance units at this time. - DepthCue_EndDist: Distance from the current camera at which the depth cueing effect ends. This distance distances is not necessarily displayed in Poser distance units at this time. - Volume_Color: Color of the volumetric effect. - Volume_Density: Strength of the volumetric effect. - Volume_StepSize: Distance between rendering samples taken through the volume. Lowering this value increases render quality and increases render time. - Volume_Noise: Random factor added to the sample. This attribute can help balance out the effect of larger step sizes (see previous attribute). You can connect nodes to the color and density attributes for more complex effects. Note: Bright infinite lights can wash out volumetric effects unless you use a very low density. Volumetric effects are most successfully used with both spotlights and carefully controlled density numbers. Also, Volumetric lighting effects only appear over a rendered object. They do not appear over an empty background, even when a background shader is in place. You need at least one object in on screen in order for volumetric lighting effects to be visible. Note: This is a "bonus" feature that is not yet fully implemented or documented. As such, we are unable to offer technical support, although we always welcome bug reports. ------------------------------------------ NEWLY ADDED POSER FEATURE - VOLUMETRIC LIGHTING ------------------------------------------ Poser 5 now supports volumetric lighting via the new ATMOSPHERE STRENGTH lighting parameter, which is now available for all lights in a scene. Increasing this value increases the volumetric effect and vice-versa. The default value is 1.0. ------------------------------------------ KNOWN ISSUES ------------------------------------------ - Screensavers can cause C exception errors when rendering long animations. - Applying a Poser 5 expressions to a Poser 5 figure causes an error message. - When moving photos in the Face room, you cannot move the image down. Moving it too far up will block part of the outline. - The Don Nude figures have two "SerratusBuf" dials that work incorrectly. The first dial leans. The second one should dial buff, but does nothing. - Copying & pasting a texture detaches one of the pasted nodes. - Copying & pasting an image pastes upside-down in 3rd party 2D paint programs. - Enabling the FireFly CAST SHADOWS option decreases the size of a light gel by 1/2. - Document tools occasionally get hidden when opening .pz3 file. To access them, select WINDOW>DOCUMENT TOOLS. - The Face room may not correctly apply the face morph for the currently loaded figure. - Scaling up the single-polygon square beyond the scene edges may result in excessive clipping. - When applying a walk path to a non "Don" figure, the walk may appear stiff. ------------------------------------------ TECHNICAL SUPPORT ------------------------------------------ You must be registered to receive technical support. Installing Poser 5 automatically registers you. US & GLOBAL SUPPORT: Please visit our Web site for the latest information on registration and technical support. For up to date information on our technical support policies or for our online frequently asked questions go to: http://www.curiouslabs.com/support. For issues related specifically to Python support or enhancement requests, please email python@curiouslabs.com. Note: Curious Labs reserves the right to change its support policies at any time. EUROPEAN SUPPORT: Please visit www.egisys.com for updated support information. ---------------------------------------- COPYRIGHT ---------------------------------------- Poser 5 and Poser 5 Service Release 2 (SR-2) Copyright(c) 2002 Curious Labs, Inc and EGISYS AG. All rights reserved. Curious Labs Poser 5 and Poser 5 Service Release 2 are trademarks of Curious Labs and EGISYS AG. All other trademarks or registered

Thank you! I have to say, these patches have made a huge difference to Poser 5. I don't suppose you have any patches to correct my bugs??? ;)

GOOD GOD MAN, TAKE A BREATH* *note: the word man used in a neutral sense as there are both men and women working behind the scenes. (passes out the security blankets and triple espresso spiked hot chocolate cause they must be running out by now)

How nice of folks to pay for the stick that beats them.

thanks for the fixes! geez you guys are fast.

On behalf of the Animator's Guild, thanks for fixing the graph editor! Any chance the capinilty of adding markers to the graph will be implemented?

A few other "any chances" :

1. Mouse wheel support will be properly implemented?
2. FaceRoom texture size will be bigger, or (better yet) user selectable in the near future?
3. Option to turn OFF automatic playing of an aniamtion after rendering?

Thanks for reading,
Tim

[A Founding Member of "The 12 Animators"]

"FaceRoom texture size will be bigger, or (better yet) user selectable in the near future?" Ditto (max of up to 3000 would be great)

Attached Link: Curious Labs/Poser 5 Spotlight Q & A

"1.Larry, will CL be increasing resolution above 2500 in the face room?

The textures that we acquired for the facial variations were limited to 512k. Because of this, some of the internal functionality of the face room including the photo lineup was also written to work only at 512k. We probably will not be updating this until future versions of Poser. You can still generate textures in the face room and then export them and paint them at a higher resolution and use them in Poser. Then, the face room can still be used by updating shape only."

Holy crap- that's a lot of fixes. I'm glad they were able to catch so many 2 months AFTER the program was sold to the public! It sure would have been nice if these fixes were in the program itself, when I bought it. But, what can we expect from a company that is using the public as its testing department? For everyone who installs this patch- thank you for your unpaid testing services. Wait, let me rephrase that- thank you for paying CL for your continuing testing services. And, gee, I expect a program to actually work when I pay $329 for it and not come with a laundry list of issues, bugs, and glitches. Wiat, let me rephrase that- I meant to say "$350", since I was one of the pre-ordering people who didn't get the sale price.

upgrade price of 129.... and the list above includes all fixes since the first patch was release two weeks after poser 5 was. But then I'm one of lucky ones who haven't really had problems. Sorry ot those that have legitimate problems.

I can't believe it!!! I just read through the list of fixes and felt like dreaming... So many fixes needed for a program which you are supposed to pay over 300,- bucks?!? This must be a bad joke! Sometimes I'm really glad I work on a Mac. I would have gone crazy if I had bought Poser 5 in this stae of development. Sorry for being so rude, but this is definately ridiculous!

LOL@Petunia's post title: "Bugs-Are-Us" Heh heh ;]

But, wait, SR2 Beta 5 patch is just out! More bugs caught! More things fixed... well, until Beta 6 patch, that is. Who can complete this phrase: Poser 5- it has more bugs than a...

Overweight Venus Flytrap? ;]

... U.S. Embassy in Moscow. ... Democratic Party campaign manual. ... private office at the Watergate. ... Osprey. ... Yugo. Sorry. Got carried away. I love these "complete the saying" contests. Take care and be well. casamerica

Attached Link: Data Docktor'n