Quote - I know, I know.......it's always more fun to get the pitchforks, torches, hangin' nooses, and boiling tar & feathers prepared in advance.......in gleeful anticipation of the joyous party to come.  Call it a pre-necktie party.  I have to admit that it's a great tradition among many other strange traditions which are infused into the culture of the primitive, perpetually war-painted and war-whooping Poser tribe.  And who'd want to go against such a well-established tradition?  To take a contrary point of view is to become taboo...........

sigh  I suppose that in order to fit into the tradition properly I'll need to go smear on some greasy war paint & start the urn with the tar going on the bonfire.  *Sic 'em, boys...........! * :woot:

Ahh crap..  now I've got a pitchfork and a torch all ready and no reason to use it.  I hate it when that happens.. lol..

Seriously, I'd love to see 64 bit functionality for Poser, but I think Smith Micro might be pricing themselves right out of the market already, unless the new Poser is something really spectacular and just blows the older versions out of the water.

For that kinda coin a nominal upgrade or simple 64 bit functionality won't do... there now heading into the price range of some fully functional, fully featured professional aps that have capabilites that Poser 7 simply doesn't have - so unless they turn Poser 7 into something more like Carrara with all the modeling features and such, I just don't see them keeping much of a market share at that price level.

Too many other 3d apps already at that pricing level that have a lot more features and functionality than poser.  I think Smith Micro would be much, much better off dropping back a peg or two and keeping Poser more of a introductory or hobbist type application, which is where poser's market has always been.

If they want to take poser and add enough features to it to make it worth $500, then maybe they should split the development into a more traditional style poser app at something much closer to it's original price range, and a "professional" version that has all the extra modeling capabilities and can really compete with programs like Carrara or Modo on an even footing.

As it is trying to wring $500 out of people if what they have now is just relatively minor upgrades will go over like a lead balloon, and make it much, much more difficult for them to do business in the future even after they realize that nobody is going to pay $500 for a program that doesn't do as much as all of the other competitors in it's price range.

Don't get me wrong folks, I'm a big poser fan and it works great for what I use it for, but If I'm going to plunk down that kinda caah for a 3d app it won't be the new version of Poser unless the new version of Poser can give 3ds Max a real run for it's money, something I highly doubt.

So yes, I am willing to wait until Smith Micro actually releases some code before I make any final judgements, but honestly I have a hard time beleiving they could have improved poser so much that it would be worth over an almost 200% increase in price over the previous version. 

I think Smith Micro should seriously reconsider there marketing strategy - They are not going to get loyal poser users to stick with Poser if they bump up pricing that hard, and they are not going to get folks who are new to the wonderful world of 3d apps either, not with so many competitors at that price range that have so many more capabilities than poser does. 

If they don't then odds are good applications like Daz Studio will eventually consume what is currently the Poser Market, and I doubt that your going to get a lot of people who already use other apps like Modo or Carrara or the like to switch over to Poser at this point.  Nope, I think Smith Micro is making a monster mistake here - one that will likely cost them a lot of money in lost revenue and unless the reverse field relatively quickly, maybe kill the poser market all together.

Ok.. rant over.. and pitchfork is put away.. for now.. lol..

Stepdad

My guess is your hitting a firewall issue.

Your email client probably requires an open tcp connection on port 25, your ftp site requires an open tcp connection on port 21.

First I'd check your firewall and make certain both of these ports are open in your "exceptions" - if they are, then odds are good your router is for whatever reason routing these ports somewhere else-  Check your router and make sure you either have rules routing these ports to your pc or your pc is setup in the "DMZ" so that everything gets routed to it.

Both the FTP client and the mail client will require a clear path both in and out on those two ports.  Anything that interrupts that path will cause the problems you've described.

If you reinstalled Windows XP odds are good that the Windows firewall has both of those ports closed down - so you'll almost certainly need to go and add both port 21 and port 25 to your exceptions list.  You can find more detail instructions on how to add a port to your exceptions list for the windows xp firewall here:

http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Customizing-Windows-Firewall.html

The example they give is for opening a port for a web server (port 80), however in your case you'll want to substitute 21 for your FTP client and another entry on 25 for your mail client.. you can name them anything you want, the name isn't important, only that the port is added to the exception list.  Both of these ports should be specified as TCP.

Once those ports are opened if it's still not working then check your router settings, assuming you have a router on your system, and make sure the ports are forwarded to that particular machine or that that machine is in the DMZ so that all ports get forwarded to it.

You can find instructions on how to do this based on which router you have, since it does vary somewhat from router to router, but a quick google search should do the trick if it turns out you need to play with your router settings.

Hope that helps!
Stepdad

Yup.. that's pretty off topic alright.  Lol.. ok, so I have to ask, what's a budgie?

Stepdad

Quote - What sells products, IMHO, is good and detailed promos. As a buyer and not a merchant, in Vicky characters for example, I look for: Realistic skin; realistic eyes; realistic eyelashes (many merchants fail here at the lashes which do not even look like mascara - just fake); an appealing to me morph which is subjective to the buyer. Daz's promos are so tiny I can't see the textures. Rendo's used to be bigger and more detailed. Still, they are far superior to Daz's promos. I like to see the character nude as I do pin-ups. I don't care about second skins because they never look real. Some people do like them. Also, if your product or scene is so detailed and hi-rez that it crashes my high-end PC, then I am going to be unhappy. Daz's Bar Italia is an example. On props, I like realistic wall, floor etc. textures. Real brick walls have discoloration from the weather etc. on them and are not perfect. I do not want to have to postwork the entire set. Vendors who create interior sets - please include lights! Not everyone is experienced in setting up lights in an interior that is completely enclosed with no "make invisible" option for the walls because the room is one welded piece. Argh! Also, vendors who make the same hair over and over with minor changes can't expect me to buy it. It's all subjective, really. Nobody is forcing us to buy anything we don't like.

My point exactly... if you prefer the higher quality characters then only buy the higher quality characters.  For me I don't buy much of anything, my own use for poser is much different than most and as such there is very little on the market that supports my application.  But I guess my thinking when it comes to a marketplace is that quality will win out over quantity every time, and that you should just allow that to happen of it's own accord rather than trying to institute some sort of artificial control over it.

Again, no problem if Rendo see's it differently, that's Rendo's choice.  But I think there is room in the market for both high quality, more expensive products and lower quality, less expensive products of a similar nature.  Just like there is room in the world for Mcdonald's and all of the 4 and 5 star resteraunts out there.  Just my  humble opinion of course, but I think in the final analysis if a there is a market for a product it will sell, and if not it won't.. and that should be the final determination on whether or not a product is successful.

Quote - Well, we're going to have to agree to disagree then.  Open markets cater to cheap mediocrity.  As evidenced by the fact that there are a lot more McDonald's than there are of all the high quality restaurants put together.  lol.

True, but have you ever stopped to consider what would happen if Mcdonalds were outlawed and the only resteraunts who could do business were of the expensive, high quality variety?  

Also, if no one liked Mcdonald's food and there was no need of it, don't you think that there wouldn't be a Mcdonalds on practically every corner, right next to a Walgreens?

Quote - :ohmy:

" Because it was needed?"

*Does'nt geometry tell us Where something would be; why remove, or seperate,  that detail?

At first I was thinking that removing the data would make the file smaller; but then I realized removing the geometry data would just incure a need for another form of...Geometry!?

I guess just would'nt called this a Stripper; as much as a Seperator, or Externalizer?  But then again I still do'nt understand what the benefits are, here, at all?

Well, curiously enough Poser uses less memory to load the prop if the props you've loaded have external OBJ files as opposed to having the geometry imbeded into the pp2 file, so having an external .obj file is always much better in this regard.

Now granted, one can load a prop in poser, export the geometry to an obj file, then go back and edit the pp2 removing all the geometry information and putting in a statement to reference the new .obj file you've created, but this can be a bit time consuming particularly if you have quite a few pp2 files with internal geometry, so i can see a lot of use for a program like this personally.

Quote - Dee, WOW! That's quite an investment!! Good for you, though! :-)  And I sincerely agree with you about V4's seams. LOL.  Argh!

Stepdad, here's the thing.  What I think, and what you think about flooding or not flooding the market is totally irrelevant.  It's Renderosity's store, so love it or hate it, it's their choice.  And this is their decision and their policy.  We have to accept it or go elsewhere.  They're certainly not going to change policy just because someone asks.  Trust me on that one.  I've been in the trenches with them.  LOL. 

And like Kym said, you can use resources to create completely original characters.  But you can't put out several of them a week.  There is just not physically enough time to do it.  It's not an insult or meant as an insult.  It's just that regardless of how fast a person works, or how fast their machine is, it's still going to take a certain amount of time to put those pieces together.  Does it matter?  That's up to the vendor to decide when creating, and the customer to decide when purchasing.  Do they get sold here? That's up to Renderosity.  There are plenty of perfectly legal, legitimate, and worthwhile things we are not allowed to sell here, but are free to sell somewhere else.

Like I said before, my older characters use resource kits, my newer ones don't.  I felt that I could only go so far with the resource kits.  Beyond that, I was altering them so much that I decided there was no point in using the kit in the first place.  So I don't use them any more.  I have no problem saying I have characters that are still for sale that use resource kits.  But I don't feel like I have anything to gain from using them in the future, so I won't.

Ok, I lost where I was going with this... ROFL!   I'm sure I had a point when I started, but I can't remember what it was. :-P  Oh, well.  I've got mesh wrangling to do, anyway. 

Never wished to imply that Renderosity shouldn't be able to say and do what they wish for there own store, just not really certain why some people seem to take such an affront to the use of resource kits in making characters.

Now, for the record, I don't buy a lot of characters, in fact I think I've only ever found 1 I felt I really wanted to purchase and that was quite some time ago.  Not that folks don't do some outstanding work here, but most of what i do with Poser at least "professionally" doesn't really require them so I don't buy a lot of them, and on the rare occasion that I need one I generally put something together myself.  

If any artist floods the market with characters that are not unique, wholly originally and well done guess what?  Yes, they might have some initial success, they might even get a small "following" who really like what they do, but odds are good they won't get a lot of repeat business after a while.

Artists that do much higher quality work will - this was my point entirely.  So I for one think that the market should be allowed to sort itself out.  If the good folks at Rendo happen to have a different take?  No problem.. there website, there company.. there decision.  But I think in the long run the best arbiter of what is and is not good as far as products is concerned is the marketplace itself.  Just my opinion, naturally.

Ok, this is going to sound really weird.. but your best bet? 

Go camping.

No.. I'm not joking.  When the weather gets nice enough, pack some stuff and get out of the house.  Leave your cell phone, laptop, and anything else that requires batteries or electricity other than maybe a flashlight behind.

Don't take any CD players, portable TV's, portable gaming systems or anything with you, and get outdoors for a while.  A couple of days is good, a week or so is better.  Get away from all the distractions and noise that fill your daily life and just kick back and relax.

Lay out at night and gaze at the stars.  Sleep as late as you want the next day, eat breakfast cooked over an open fire, and for goodness sake don't spend a single second thinking about your computer, rendering, artwork, poser, or anything else that you normally think or worry about.  Instead go lose yourself in nature for a short while.

You'll be amazed at the results.

Ok.. just to head off the inevitable guess that is always made by another poster on threads like these,

It's Alan Alda!

Lol..

I know for certain 7 does, in fact it's been more stable for me under Vista than it was under XP.  I can't imagine why 6 wouldn't, in fact I haven't had trouble with any of the apps I used to run under XP with Vista.

Now, a word of caution, not everyone has had such luck with Vista, it can be a bit finicky about the hardware your using and if you don't at meet or exceed it's minimum system requirements you might want to reconsider installing it.

Also as with any windows based operating system, your best bet is to wipe a partition and do a clean install, trying to install over a different version of windows all too often results in problems, particularly in the stability area.

So if you are going to give Vista a look you'll want to backup your files and do a clean install for best results.  Personally I'm very happy with it, but mileage does vary - a lot of other folks were not happy with it when they installed it.  

Hope that helps..

Stepdad

Been reading through this thread and I thought i'd throw a few thoughts into the fray myself.  As to  the use or non-use of resource kits and or custom morphs in character creation.  I guess my thinking is, so what?  

I think the only way to judge such things is on the overall quality of the final product.  Let the market bear what it will bear.  If a vendor puts out a lot of items that are "lower quality" then they will get a reputation for doing so and have a much harder time selling future products.  If a vendor puts out a lot of items of very high quality then too that reputation will follow them.. I don't purchase a lot of vendor material myself (very little out there that suits my personal application, but that's a long story...lol)  but from looking through the marketplace occasionally it's pretty apparent which vendors put out consistent, quality products.  I say let the marketplace sort it out, let the marketplace be the final arbitor of what is and isn't a quality product. 

Honestly what difference does it make if someone puts up 10 characters a month or just 1?  If they use a resource kit or do everything from scratch?   If the final product is worthwhile and people like it, use it, and are willing to pay for it then I really don't think it makes any difference whatsoever.  Think of it in terms of cars.. Sure, Mercedes Benz builds a really high quality product, but not everybody drives a Mercedes.  They have a certain market for there product, and those of us who drive Toyota's and volvos and such just don't buy Mercedes much, nor would we if Toyota and Volvo were forbidden from making cars anymore. That is in essence what were discussing here.

I say let Toyota build as many cars as they want as often as they want.. if they flood the market so what?  Eventually people who are tired of toyota's will simply stop buying them, and when they do maybe they'll be ready to consider shopping for a Benz instead.  Either way I think the best judge of the quality of a product should be the people who purchase it.  If they are happy with there purchase then mission accomplished.  If not, we'll they'll let you know soon enough and that will have a big impact on future sales as well.

Just my 2 cents worth
Stepdad

Quote -  8) Use a head that closely matches the target reference.

Well, since I'm dong this specifically for poser figures like V3, V4 or M3 I'm not sure how I can "use a head that closely matches the target reference", since the heads I'm using are pretty much predefined.

There were some good tips there, particularly the info about setting up reference points first in photoshop.. but I think you might have missed my original point somewhat - a very tiny variation in those points, even as much as a pixel or two, can lead to a HUGE change in the results.  I was hoping perhaps this is something they can address in future versions, something that would limit the resultant morphs (if selected) so that it stays within certain proscribed limits, so that no matter how bad a job you did outlining the face you wouldn't end up with something that wasn't  even recognizable as a human head.

Also, with all of the saving, comparing, exporting, remorphing, and what not, it sounds to me as if it would be almost easier to export the head as an obj file, load it into my prefered 3d editor using my reference images as backgrounds and building my own custom morph that way.  I love the idea of something more "automatic" but in all honesty this program just doesn't quite fit the bill.  It's a great idea and with some further development might really be a worthwhile addition to my utilties collection, but honestly at this stage like I said it's simply too hard to use and the end results are far to variable with only miniscule changes in your outlining.  

Just my opinion of course, others results might vary, but when I can outline the same picture using pretty much the same reference points and get such varied results from multiple attempts, I personally think that the problem lies with the outlining process, not with the user.  Granted a certain amount of sensitivity is fine here.. but overall I think the program is far too sensitive to such things - and I think you'll find more than a few others that agree with me on this point.

So I'm hopeful the developer will take that into account and fix it in future versions, if so he'll probably be able to pickup a lot of loyal customers, myself included.  If not, well then I guess some folks will still buy it but odds are good that you'll have a fair amount of dissastisfied customers, who were looking for something a bit more "automated" than what this program can really provide.

When you watch the video tutorials it says nothing about all the exporitng, importing, material zone ho-ha -  It just makes it look like you click on the picture a few times, press a button and viola!  So really at this point the program just doesn't work as "advertised" by the tutorial, and this is a big problem IMHO.

So hopefully the developer will address these issues and if so I'll look at investing in a copy.  If not, well, sorry charlie, but no sale.

As always, just my 2 cents worth,
Stepdad

Quote - > Quote - Well, you can use pretty much any figure you want. So your not limited to the very few poser figures. So that kind of blows the poser face room out of the water. Besides not being limited to poser. In fact. you don't even have to open poser to use it.

The texture that is generated need to be run through a paint program to get it cleaned up  a bit and the mirror morph is still lame. but over all, it works well.
 
If you practice with FS you get good at too. It's a tool and it does what it is designed to do.

Isn't there a demo to try and make up your own mind? It's like any software. Some some will hate it, some will gush over it and some like me think of it as another tool that gets you to where you want to go. So if there is a demo,try it and put more tha a couple of minutes into testing it before you decide if it is something you can use.

 

In DIRECT aswer to the previous poster, there's a fully functional 15-day FREE trial at http://www.abalonellc.com/15day-trial-softwa.html

(Note: I am the vendor and I have been threatened with banishement by Rendo moderators and VPs if I directly promote my software. This note, hopefully, is NOT a promotion as it pertains to an information that I am giving in response to a direct question by someone who is not affiliated with me in any shape or form. After all, providing info is the purpose of such forums - one hopes).
Laslo

I tried the free demo myself once, more out of curiosity than actual need, and I have to be honest with you, I found the program very very difficult to use.  I used just the default settings for V4 as I recall, and honestly I never did get any results I considered even slightly usable even without textures.  

I'm not certain if I just didn't have the knack for outlining things properly, but I just found the entire thing way, way too "touchy" - even very small variations in your outlining can result in huge changes to the resultant figure, and honestly if the outlining process is that finicky it really should be detailed better ih your tutorials how it should be done properly for good results.

Don't get me wrong, I apprecaite the time you obviously spent on the program and it is an acheivement considering the difficulties of trying to convert a 2 dimensional map ihto a 3 dimensional figure, however on the whole I'd have to say that I won't be purchasing anytime soon because the program itself was just too difficult to use,

Have you considered perhaps a switch that would set certain limits on how far certain thihgs get morphed on the 3d model?  Something the user could turn on and off, so those who are already expert on the program could use it as they always had, but for those of us who aren't so adept and puttihg those lines on exactly the right pixel won't end up with a morph that looks like someone took a baseball bat upside the head?

Just a thought - love the idea behind the program, but as I said the demo convinced me that it wouldn't do me much good if I did purchase it, just never could get the knack of getting those lines exactly right on the bitmap and my end results always turned out terrible.. not only did they not look anything like the pictures of the people I was using, they didn't even look human.

Just my 2 cents worth
Stepdad

Quote - 1/21/08

I have been trying to scale and texture a Poser 7 – Primitive – Cylinder to use as a dais. Can some one tell me why the ends separate from the tube when a displacement map is used? Can this be fixed?

I am beginning to think I need to get a freeware modeler to make my own primitives. Surely I could handle some simple primitives. Is "Wings" freeware? Can one distribute (even sell) work created with a freeware program?

LMK

Well, when you apply your displacment map my guess is your applying it to all sides of the the cylinder, which can cause some strange effects on occasion - to prevent this go into the group editor and setup 3 new groups, one for the rounded poriton of the cylinder and one for both the top and bottom of the cylinder.

Then use the group editor to create new material zones for each, and apply your displacement map to just the rounded portion of your cylinder.. that will probably get you much closer to the effect your looking for.

Hope that helps,
Stepdad

Quote - This isn't about which OS is superior.  It's about whether Vista is a truly usable OS.  For some, yes.  For too many others (and I spent last night reading hundreds of horror stories), a big definite no.

For instance, you mention the superior disk read/write.  I've read just the exact opposite - that something in Vista is making it slower for disk reads/writes compared to XP.  It could be drivers, but either way that doesn't help.  Tons of gamers are dropping it because games don't work (se above for validation).  There are problems with Outlook.  Vista is just as vulnerable as XP - but you do get that nice DRM and lock-down feature if you change your hardware too much.

Unfortunately, the entire planet isn't going to go out and upgrade their computer hardware just to use Vista.  If Vista requires 2005 or later hardware, M$ isn't going to sell many (and the real sales figures agree here - they aren't selling!).  Since Vista was released, I've actually seen Windows XP restocked on the shelves.  That must mean that Vista is that great - big sarcasm.

C64, Amiga, Sun, Apple, Windows PC, various Linux OSs.  I've done them all.  I program in about 10 languages and run my own web and ftp server.  I build my own PCs.  I'm not an IT person - nor would I want to be one. ;)

YMMV, but I can't risk hoping that upgrading my OS won't introduce problems.  Yeeks - when I tried to upgrade to Windows ME from Win95, I immediately decided that I could live with whatever limitations were present in WindowsNT and went that direction.  The OS was unbootable - and when it could (in Safe Mode), it was disaster after disaster.  Some people still swear by Windows ME.  But I think that you'll agree that history falls completely on the side of - it was crap!  And Vista is pretty much the same - not as bad, but close enough.  Maybe SP2 will rectify all of this - but I doubt it.

And, to be fair, this isn't just about Vista.  MacOS X Leopard isn't fairing extremely well either (and why I haven't upgraded to that either).  Both of these OSs need a truckload of TLC (i.e.: updates) before they work as advertised.  And it is better to be late to the party after Uncle Schtook has left than to be early and suffer the lampshade over the head.  Good Ole' Uncle Schtook hasn't left yet.

I agree with you that ME was not a good OS.. for a variety of reasons, however I think it is far to early in the game to make any such pronoucnements about Vista, the data just isn't all in yet.  Anecdotal evidence doesn't sway me much.. I heard a lot of the same complaints about XP when it first came out, and as it turns out a lot of it was user issues rather than OS issues.  People generally do not like upgrades on the whole because they prefer the "old" way of doing things, naturally, that's what there used to.

XP is a pretty good OS overall, but in my initial testing Vista has it beat in several categories, most notably in disk read and write.  Under XP when I'm moving or working with a large batch process that involes a lot of files I notice a very, very distinct slow down in my foreground tasks.  Not so with Vista.  I can setup a large batch process in background and still even render in foreground, something that would crash my older XP system in a heartbeat.

This of course are just personal observations, and I've only had Vista installed for a very short period of time so I'm not certain what else I might run into as far as "setteling in" issues, but so far so good.  It has recognized all of my hardware and used it admirably, and it has run all of my applications with no issues whatsoever, and none of my apps were coded specifically for "Vista", there the same apps I was running under XP.

As to problems that "gamers" have experienced that really doesn't surprise me much, game programs often take advantages of "holes" in the operating system to exploit certain areas or capabilities of the hardware to improve game performance and speed.  When you change OS's often those "holes" are plugged or rerouted for security reasons and what not, so it doesn't really surprise me much that there would be some issues there.  But I'm not a big gamer so I haven't had any such problems personally.

I guess my point here is that to proclaim Vista to be worthless is quite frankly premature at best.  While my own intiial reaction to Vista was that I had no intention of upgrading anytime soon, circumstances put me in a position where looking it over was actually an option, and when I did I was impressed enough to leave it installed on my machine.  That is all I was attempting to relay.

As to the rest, obviously many of the folks in this thread support there particular favorite OS with an almost religious like devotioin that I simply cannot fathom, I run 3 seperate OS's on various machines here in my network and take advantage of all of there strengths while using the other machines to compensate for there weaknesses.  I don't have a religious attachment to Vista or any other OS, I was simply pointing out that people might want to be a little less knee jerk about there reactions to Vista and a little more open to experimentation, that's all.

But for me that's enough, I've spoken my peace and have no wish to debate further with folks who've already made up there minds regardless of anything that I might post.  If you hafe Vista then by all means don't use it, your perogative.  Me I installed it and it works well for my application. I'd encourage others to give it a look and not to take all the badmouthing it gets at face value, but in the end that's there decision, not mine.

So you folks enjoy the rest of the "debate", or "holy war" which is really what this appears to be shaping up to be, me personally I'll just head off to enjoy doing a bit more rendring and getting the rest of my system setup while I'm doing so - oh, and FYI, the only reason I mentioned my background was because you stated that "experience" was important to you, so I relayed my own so that you could better judge where I'm coming from, that is all.  

Hope that clarifies my position.  Now I'll just get out of the way and let the crusades begin.. lol..

Stepdad