The poser/vue combination via the importer utility is supposed to be an excellent solution. I know several people who use Poser only to pose figures and import them to vue. They are more than happy with it even with the occassional glitch (like that never happens in any other software huh?) The Studio/Bryce combo had - shall we say - some teething problems. I personally think it was a mistake to tie the two apps so closely together, especially as one is still beta and changing. A mistake that has been graphically illustrated a couple times with Studio trashing Bryce quite happily. From my personal experience Studio/Bryce works extremely well indeed. I do however know one or two people who have had a nightmare getting the two to co-operate. I haven't tried Studio to Bryce 5 either directly through obj import or through the utility Daz released. The combination with Bryce 5.5 - for me anyway - works seamlessly. As I don't have Vue I can't be fair in any comment on the integration with Poser, I only know what I have been told, and most of that is good.

Sorry svdl. I see these claims but they're wrong. Studio has raytracing, reflection, refraction, displacement , and they are properly implemented. It doesn't have animated materials. It can render reflected displacement. Try that in Poser 6. Advanced lighting options. Raytraced shadows it has, shadow mapping it has, IBL (not HDRI) and AO it has. As far as I know Poser 6 uses IBL not HDRI - similar but different. As far as IBL in Studio is concerned, it's a hack at the moment and has to be manually adjusted via the light scripts. No doubt it will be implemented properly at some point So, please. When saying Studio can't do things. Please do make sure you're talking about the current version and not one that is somewhere in the past or something based on "what so and so said. Thanks. On that note. Poser 6 offers some facilities that Studio doesn't (yet), the best of which is by far the materials room. Immensely powerful if you have the time and patience to learn it. There are other toys, like dynamic cloth and hair, face room, morph putty, setup room. Development and creation tools. All of which do not have their equivalent in Studio yet. Point being. Studio is studio and (currently) free. It is not Poser. It is not intended to be Poser. Poser is Poser and will cost around 189 dollars, it is not intended to be Studio. Poser is around a decade old, had more development time and has more in it and, as mentioned above. You pay for that. Studio is beta, around two years old in development and has less in it, but more is coming - eventually, some of which will have to be paid for.

Thank you very much Phil, I was hoping you'd do this one. Ta muchly

Very nice Phil. How about one of Tony Blair and Jacque Chirac? Can't be having Mr Bush without his bestest buddy and nemesis.

***So we can investigate THIER history in the forums to see what stand they took on the CHILD NUDITY issue compared to the merchant they are slamming. or what political party they supported in the last elections compared to the merchant they are slamming. so merchants can have an equal chance to "Name & shame" their critics *** Oh yes, and their skin colour and their sexual orientation and their religious beliefs and whether they've ever posted an image to the galleries because that's SO Friggin important isn't it? Oh, how about whether they've had sex, or what food they eat? Damn, are they a carnivore? Do they drive a car, that's contemptible, what about their stance on the environment, Oh wait. what about their weight and personal hygiene. How about their employment record too? Anything else? Jeez talk about rampant stupidity. And you accuse Pengy? Damn boy, you need an enema.

From the Daz Forum notes... ************* SKondris: []Version 0.9.12.10 for the MAC has just been released. This build contains several improvements to stability issues, further interface improvements, an animation timeline that supports playback of animations created in Poser, and basic keyframe animation creation. A new version of the 3Delight renderer is included as well. NOTE: Version 0.9.12.10 for the MAC REQUIRES OSX 10.3 or higher in order to use the 3Delight renderer. If you are using an older version of the MAC OSX operating system, you will only be able to use the OpenGL renderer. The 3Delight render will not be installed. ************ It depends whether you have 10.3 OSX in order for raytracing (3Delight) to function.

Sorry, my apologies, you're right. Magic Pink Pony it was. Sometimes, if it's more than two or three months old: it's moldy. It takes that long still? I've been out of touch, I thought it was just a couple weeks.

Heh. Just run a forum search here and in the Community Forum for "Pink Pony". If you have any sense of humour at all, you'll die laughing. In a nutshell though, legume took over the gallery and Hot20 with a horse, gaudishly painted bright fluorescent pink and created a shit storm as a result. not the first time he's done that either. :)

Oh, and I won't even begin to try to remember the row over ... faeries...

The fun is gone here at R. This is the end. Oh stop being so bloody melodramatic. The fun left this site years ago. I won't repeat my particular description of rosity as it appears to upset Spike considerably, so I'll save him the pain of blowing a fuse again. This hasn't been a "fun" site for ages. It's a commercial site, a commercial site entirely reliant upon commerce to survive. As such they can't afford "fun", it's business. That business must be protected at any cost and if that means a few freebies ripped from a movie or whatever have to go, then too bad. I recall a time, many moons ago when a massive row blistered these forums, a row over "the store"... some of that is still here, most was deleted with C&D. Everyone said then the fun was gone from the site. Hell, there was a time when people said all the fun was gone from the site when it split from PFO... Then there was the Pink Pony event, or was that several events? I forget, legume was always far too busy to manage things in one go. The fun is gone, woe is me.... Should I shed a tear now?

No fun at all, ynsaen. Don't worry though, my competition isn't anything to worry about. I don't do "stores". :) Quite honestly first thing I did when I decided I wanted to make models was to approach the companies I was pinching ideas from. That started with the obvious gun companies and also interested in what I was doing. They were extremely helpful and very friendly people. That moved on to a couple games companies - who, while guarded were likewise okay about it, and a few others since then. I've got full permission from one medieval clothing manufacturer to make 3D representations of their clothing (if I ever manage to get my head around it). Heck I was even making a Lara landrover to go with Ironbear's Project Lara as an add-on and LandRover bent over backwards to help, sending me production photos of the vehicle they took while building it. Unfortunately that's proved to be a massive challenge and currently beyond my ability - though it's slowly progressing. This started about 4 years ago. When a very similar argument to this one erupted. Funny how things repeat all the time isn't it? At that moment I thought, well, if there's a risk. Ask, it can't hurt to ask, and if they say no, I know never to go near it. I find it quite inconceivable that most people just go off and do things without ever thinking about doing the decent thing and asking. Quite inconceivable. However, I don't make money doing this, so perhaps there's the difference. I don't have to care whether anyone will think my stuff is cool and spend bucks on it, so there's no risk if I'm told "no, you can't do that." shrug Strikes me that while people are extremely, rabidly defensive of their own things and that of friends, they hold so much else in utter contempt. That's not an attitude I can fully understand. But then, I'm weirder than you are. :)

Best offer? Offer? What? I was supposed to have offered them money? Wow.. And to think all I did was "ask"... geesh, if I'd known I could have paid for the privilege I would never have just asked, not when there's a cheque book to hand. I wonder why out of 42 companies I approached 38 said "yeah, fine but not the logo" and the rest (four) even allowed me use of their logo provided they got a copy of the model. Who would have thought that simply "asking" could achieve anything? And I don't even know HOW to approach companies, I just wrote to their legal department and marketing. I knew I was doing something wrong.

Yep, that's about what was said last time too, and the time before that, and... Ahhh, whatever.