Ron... Here's some background on the Unisys GIF patent, and why people might want to stop using GIFs: http://burnallgifs.org/ And here's some background on the PNG format: http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/ Poser 4 uses RSR format for the thumbnails. It is almost the same as the MAC PICT format, with an extra header and trailer. The RSR Converter program, which is available in the free stuff area, converts back and forth between RSR and PICT. I don't know why Pro Pack changed from RSR files to PNG files for the thumbnails, but I always assumed it was because they wanted to go to a more mainstream file format. (Nothing I know of, other than P3DO and RSR converter, knows how to deal with RSR files.) Each time you open a directory in Pro Pack (for example, you select "Figures/DAZ People"), Pro Pack creates a PNG thumbnail for each RSR thumbnail in the directory that doesn't already have a PNG counterpart. After that, it never looks at the RSR file again. So you don't need the RSR after that. And if you install an updated version of the product with an updated RSR file, Pro Pack won't look at it until you delete the PNG file, and access the directory again. (That's why we ship both PNG and RSR thumbnails with our products.) By the way, there is another form of RSR files that contain geometry. Poser 4 (but not Pro Pack) converts OBJ files to RSR files the first time you access them. There are two ways to tell them apart: - Thumbnail RSR files are small (around 10K); Geometry RSR files are much larger. - Thumbnail RSR files live in directories under the Runtime/libraries subdirectories, while geometry RSR files live under the Geometries subdirectories. Hope this helps.... Lynn Grant Castle Development Group

That happens when the file was created with Poser Pro Pack, and you are opening it in Poser 4. So far, I have never seen Poser 4 fail in its attempt to read it (but it's possible, if the file used Pro Pack-only features). Lynn Grant Castle Development Group

One reason we distribute both PNGs and RSRs for the thumbnails is that sometimes Pro Pack screws up when it is trying to convert the RSR to a PNG. This seems to happen in thumbnails where most of the middle of the image is empty. (Imagine, for example, a close-up of a door frame, where you have something like an upside-down, squared-off letter U, with the middle part empty.) By creating an RSR, then letting Pro Pack convert it to a PNG, we know that we have a good PNG. (I suppose we could let Pro Pack convert it to a PNG, then throw the PNG away and just ship the RSR, confident that it is convertable, but I am a little more comfortable shipping my own PNG, and not depending on the user's copy of Pro Pack, at an unknown [to me] service level, converting it properly.) Lynn Grant Castle Development Group

I also appears that Poser 4 converts geometry OBJ files to geometry RSR files (not to be confused with thumbnail RSRs) the first time you use them. If you later update the OBJ file, the change doesn't take effect, because Poser 4 already has the geometry RSR file. Pro Pack works directly from the OBJ file, and doesn't create a geometry RSR file. (This is rather counterintuitive, since the two programs take opposite approaches: P4 converts OBJs to geometry RSRs, then ignores the OBJs, while PP converts thumbnail RSRs to PNGs, then ignores the thumbnail RSR.) What this means to vendors is that if you develop in Pro Pack and ship the OBJ files, then later you update the product and ship a new set of OBJ files, Poser 4 users won't get the change unless they manually delete the geometry RSR files that Poser 4 generated from the original OBJs. Since we develop in Pro Pack, and since we have heard that only something like 10 percent of the Poser users have Pro Pack, we have started taking our opening our products in Poser 4, taking the geometry RSR files that Poser 4 generates, and shipping them in the product, along with our OBJ files. It makes the product somewhat larger (but not too bad--most of the size in the product is texture maps), but it keeps the users from having to manually delete things in the Poser directories when the install upgrades. Lynn Grant Castle Development Group

colgate_girl: I'm not sure I can give any advice about implementing this project within the constraints (especially time) that you have. But I have some suggestions should you decide to revisit the project in the future. - Poser 4 with the Pro Pack supports Python scripting. I seems like there might be potential for controlling Poser from an external program using Python scripts with C++ extensions. (I haven't tried it, though.) But Pro Pack is the only version of Poser that supports Python. - If you do decide to do your own DirectX coding, you might check out the game institute, at http://www.gameinstitute.com . They have six-week, online, courses in all aspects of game programming, including OpenGL, DirectX, and that sort of thing. The classes cost about $100 each. I'm taking a C++ class there now, and am very happy with the course. Lynn Grant Castle Development Group

Staale...thank for bringing up the whole discussion. I never knew either option existed. And aleks...thanks for pointing out the easier way. Lynn Grant Castle Development Group

Beautiful work. I love book textures, and this is one of the nicest I've seen. (And the majority of the book textures I've seen are for books of evil spells and such. It's nice to have a more uplifting book.) Lynn Grant Castle Development Group

I think you can do this, but the only way I know is somewhat ugly and brute-force. If you really want to do an animation this way, it should do the job. It's a bit too ugly to release in a product, though. What you would do is make a geometry-switching CR2 for your sphere, with a knob that selected between say, 25 geometries, say, sphere0.obj through sphere24.obj. The obj files would be identical, except for the material name, which would match the file name (sphere0 through sphere24). You set up 25 materials in your file, identical except for the transparency setting, with the transparency setting gradually increasing or decreasing. Then you animate the knob. I have done the geometry switching part (in order to make models with selectable textures). I haven't tried animating the knob, but since geometry-switching knobs are defined pretty much like all the other knobs, I think this should work. You may have to vary the number of obj files and materials in order to get smooth steps between the transparency settings...25 is just a guess. Besides being ugly, this has the disadvantage that you have to manually edit the CR2 file, which some people find distasteful. But I believe it will do the job. Lynn Grant Castle Development Group

Regarding the OT PS: I believe I have seen these things in the States. I know I have seen a smaller version, called a Scoot Crete (http://www.millerspreader.com/scootcrete.html). It is like a powered wheelbarrow, and they use them for shuttling small batch of concrete from the concrete truck to where it is needed at a construction site. BTW...I was looking up the term "skip loader" on the web, and it appears to have two different meanings. In the States, it seems to be a synonym for a front-end loader, a tractor with a scoop on the front. Everywhere else, it seems to be a truck with a hoist in back for loading trash bins onto the truck. (I'm not sure what the generic term for the latter is the States, but our most popular brand is the Dempster Dumpmaster, and the trash bins are called Dempster Dumpsters.)

In the Poser 4 User Guide (page 311), it says, "If each body part were stored in a separate file, rather than all body parts being groups in a single file, you would specify the full path name for the file at the end of each line. The path is relative to the Poser 4 folder." It does not say you can specify the main file, then pick and choose which body parts to point to different files. I know something like this works in CR2 and PZ3 files, but PHI files are different enough that it may not be safe to extrapolate from CR2s and PZ3s. My guess is that when Poser sees the file reference for "skip", if assumes you are specifying a file for each body part. When it doesn't see one for the other parts, it doesn't put in any geometry reference for them. Whether this is a bug, is hard to say. Curious Labs could argue that you are not using Poser as documented, so the results are unpredictable. On the other hand, most of what we as merchants do, bashing CR2 and PP2 files and such, is undocmented. It would be an interesting test to change your PHI file to specify a file on every line and see if that works better.

BTW, UVMapper Pro is really helpful for flipping polygons, triangulating polygons with too many sides, and double sided things. I use it all the time for fixing models exported from various modeling programs, and have found it to be invaluable. lynn