LOL, Well here I am. The forum has been eratic at best the last few days due to service to the server. So getting to the site has been a problem, but seems to be fine now. Also I was having problems with my own provider and my e-mail was non-existant for awhile, but it also seems to be fixed now. I hope. It's James Schoenberg just for anyone who cares ;-) Had to cut the name short because of limitations in the member sign up, and it would be a really long member name giggle Anywho, I got your e-mail merman2 and have responded via "quick/instant message" I need to know a little more, to even find out which picture you are asking for. Thanks Nance for pointing him/her to my address. James

All my energy is being channeled to a speedy recovery! I believe that he will be ok. James

I agree Antthony, but my belief is that the Pro Pack is just a really big add on (not cheap either), and that Curious Labs is working on P5 separatly. I hope. As for Bryce. Corel, is at least doing something. I know that haven't abandoned it ... yet. They came out with the "carbonized" beta demo for the Mac, so they have done something. (Nothing different than in B4, just runs on Mac OS X.) So we just sit and wait, as we always do. James

Looks good, but I had the same concern. The type is teeny. Possibly that I'm on a MAC and generaly type is smaller than on a PC while surfing the web. But this time I had to "Increase the Font Size" 5 times to get something readable in the side bars. James

This is not a flame! Just posting my own annoyances with PP. Once I got it to work on my MAC , I think it will be a great program. But I had some MAJOR problems in the installation! Thanks for the headache CL* >:( Why these things aren't tested on every concevible machine they can get their hands on I don't know. I think that this time arouns, the PC side got the least of the worries, at least on the installation end. I have heard that they are already planning patches. So again we will patiently wait and see. I do believe that PP will be an invaluable product, but I guess we must all suffer first, and then enjoy PP as it makes it to maturity. But so far other than installation, I have been able to run things very smoothly. I say "so far" because I haven't fully tried out everything I can yet. *Well I do have it for the MAC, and the first problem was it couldn't find a bunch of MSL xxx.DLL files (strangly enough these are PC files converted to the MAC --bad move I'd say). then it proceeded to crash my computer BIG TIME. Well after the headache of completely reconfiguring my system, I got it to work, though I can not open Poser without the same anoying. James

Cool. If only I could afford LightWave sigh I don't see this in the near future, though I did order the Pro Pack. Maybe I'll win the Lottery? Or get lots of new clients to pay for it. James

If you're talking about the streaks on the face (like the one on the chin and above the eyebrow) I don't have a clue why those are there. But yes when you select a light go to the map dial in the side bar and play around with the size settings. Max is 1024 which clears up a lot of the artifacting in the shadows. Most noticable with shadows that are cast by thin lines/objects. But sometimes a lower setting seems to work better. Go figure. So play around with this setting. Remember that Poser is creating shadows with a shadow map, which is not raytracing. But that's another story. Hope this helps. James

Well OS X is "Beta" also, so I'm not sure. It's interesting that it's all UNIX based (funny thing). But I'm glad that the Top names are "Carbonizing" their software. But I do have tons of other software that will have to be run in the "Classic" mode. It does seem that programs written for the OS X will indeed run a bit faster. But I'll more than likely cave in and move to OS X. James

Yes Mike, the Cube is running at 450 MHz where the G4 is only 400 MHz. The extra 50 seems to make all the difference in the world, or maybe it's just the newer architecture of the Cube. But the speed in Bryce is about 1/3 faster. Poser has no difference that I can see. But Poser is far less intensive for the machine anyway. Oh, I also downloaded the Bryce Beta for OS X. Not worth it in my opinion. But it's nice to know it's been carbonized. I gave a brief review in the Bryce Forum here on it. Yes now let's see Curious labs carbonize Poser, that would be nice, but I'd rather have them put all their efforts on Poser 5. James

Since the changes in 9.0.4 and 9.1 don't really affect what I need to do, I've decided to wait until March to just go to OSX. The download for 9.1 is just to big for my tiny 56k modem, and I'm not spending $19.95 plus $5.00 shipping to get the CD via snail mail when it's going to cost around $150.00 to upgrade to OSX anyway. Just my 2 cents. And 9.0.4 works just fine for me. I'm on a G4 and a G4 Cube both with 320 megs. The Cube really does improve the render time. James

Remember that Poser is NOT I repeat, NOT a raytracer. So things like reflections, refraction, and volumetrics can not be done in Poser. bryce IS a raytracer, so it does all of these and more, but (there's always a but), there are no "soft" shadows in Bryce. This to me is a major drawback. And it is true that Bryce may take longer to render, but it's because it has so many more calculations because it IS a true raytracer. Hope this helps. James

One major thing to remember to do. Place ALL I mean all texture maps and objs (Vickie) in the same folder. This will help things along greatly, because Bryce likes to look for everything in the same place. When you import into Bryce you'll find that when things are in the same folder you'll never have to go searching for textures that didn't load. But transparency maps do NOT load in no matter what, you'll have to load them in separatly. Once you get the hang of it, it really is quite simple. I render alot of things in Bryce, and have no problems. James

Oops sorry, eonsoft is Vue. As for Bryce I did e-mail Corel, and as I said , got a non-commital answer. But they have released a version that runs on MAC OS X beta, that is suposed to have some of the new features in the 5 release. So it looks like they are going forward. As for Curious Labs, they have seemed to have put all their effort in the Pro Pak. So until that is final, I don't see them going forward with the release of 5 in the near future :( James

AA, I can't tell you about Poser 5, but I did write to ask about Bryce 5. Again a non-commital answer. They seem to actually have plans for it, but they're not telling any just poor palooka like me what those plans are. Maybe if enough people pester them. eonsoft.com I believe. James