There is no secrecy about the release date. God, this is one of the most impatient groups of people on the planet (me included). There most likely is no firm date yet. We can guess that the product has gone gold, or will this week based on the estimated release date. Anthony has pretty much implied that the manual is done or almost done. That leaves printing, duplication, and packaging to go. This can be any vairable amount of time, up to two or three weeks, depending on print speed, duplication speed, whether any "larger" duplication or printing projects are ahead of CL, which has to wait, and whether they are just trying to meet preorders first, with general orders later. Just be patient. At most you have three weeks to wait. If you are concerned about the UPS guy, leave him a note. I am sure it will make his day. As an alternative, why don't you have it delivered to your work. That way you will get it ASAP. I am sure you can contact CL and have then change the "deliver to" address. I am sure they will announce when formal shipping begins when they have an accurate estimate.

Well, just FYI. In another post, Kupa specifically mentioned that this release will not have any form of hardware acceleration.

They most likely have not overlooked this. They have just chosen not to implement it at this time. This could be for many reasons: 1. Limited development staff 2. Unfamiliarity with OpenGL/DirectX 3. Limited time for development 4. Too much re-development needed that would not allow them to piggy-back off of existing code 5. Upcoming (unannounced 3rd party products) that would also require substantial redesign for any changes to the basic Poser app. For whatever reason, it is not in there. It is not something that can be fixed with a patch at a later date. It would require complete redesign of their software, such as would be in Poser 6. At this point, the best thing is just to suck it up, accept it, and move on. Just an observation.

As many others here have mentioned, gains in rendering speed for Poser can be made by tweaking or improving your processor, memory and harddrive. Additionally, for PC users, somewhat significant gains can be earned by switching to Windows XP. WinXP has a vastly improved memory manager that helps processing through the pipeline. Specifically, if you have at least 512MB of memory, you should see some fantastic gains in regular PC use. At present all consumer-level video cards provide no assistance to the actual rendering of images, only the pre-viz. Consumer video cards provide no specific benefits to non OpenGL or DirectX apps (which includes Poser). However, this is about to change. Both ATI and nVidia's next generation of cards (and to some degree this generation) will actually be able to offload the rendering from the CPU and perform it in the on-card graphics processing unit (GPU). Then, we should see some significant improvements in rendering time. However, my guess is that this will provide no benefit whatsoever through Poser v5. So the short answer is, looking at your specs, upgrade to WinXP, and upgrade your processor to a 1.4 Athlon (it should fit in your motherboard), saving you from having to go out and buy a new motherboard/processor combo. The 1.4MB are actually pretty cheap these days, and can be had for less than $100 US. - Ray Yamka

No, you are an asshole, X2000. Pure and simple. No smiley, nothing else. Just an asshole. That crap is pointless and really not funny. Go back to playing with your dolls.

NW316, You are picking the wrong fight here. New Line Cinema was up front about what they were releasing and when from the get go. That was to let people know what was going to be available and when. They have provided full details of all three editions. Just FYI... The two hours of "extras" on this version WILL NOT BE included on the other two version that will be released later in the year.

Since it is the answer to everything... Poser 5 will be out.... 42. Thank you. (apologies to D. Adams) - Ray Yamka, jr.

Just to point out, Kupa is not exactly answering all questions at this time, if you will look at his responses in other comments. He may have glanvced over it for now. Other people, including myself, spoke to the Curious people at Siggraph, and they used the words "6-8 weeks" and "late summer" to us. Since it was at the same time, our conversations are just as valid. All I am trying to do is just keep people's expectations in line. It will be done when it is done. As the "beaned-one" said above, do you want it NOW or do you want it RIGHT? Well, I want it now, but I am willing to wait as long as necessary. I am just concerned that people are going around quoting August, and when the web site goes live next week and if it does not mention a specific day, we are going to get endless threads from people complaining that the program is late come the end of the month. Problems and issues come up in testing and final review of products. Sometimes these are SEVERE and crippling, and they only turn up on the very last days. These can cause the product to be delayed days, weeks, even months. I hope not, but it happens, all too frequently. Case in point - check out any of the major game-related sites where the developers actively participate. Whenever a date for even a freaking demo is missed people get all pissy. It is not like the company owes them the demo. They are trying desperately to get the game out the door, and all they get for their efforts are people whining, moaning and sulking in their forums. I would rather any company work to finish the ultimate product right, and not worry about extraneous stuff until the final product is done. And if it takes as long as necessary, then fine. We will all be better off for the extra time. - Ray Yamka

Ok, hold it a second. Let me take a deep breath... NO SPECIFIC DATE FOR THE RELEASE OF POSER 5 HAS BEEN GIVEN!!!!! There. I had to say it, as this is like the third article with someone saying this, raising everyone's expectations that the product may be out this month. Curious Labs have released NO SPECIFIC dates for the release of Poser 5. The closest they have said is summer and/or 6 to 8 weeks (verbally at SIggraph). This was during the week of Siggraph. So using this date, it could be up til the end of September, or even later. Things can go wrong. Software is always getting delayed. It is a fact of life. I can see it now, come the end of the month and no Poser. People will be in here moaning and complaining that the product is late. It will be ready when it is ready. Oh yeah, farang, this was not directed at you. I am just trying to make sure people manage their expectations regarding the availability it. If it comes out earlier, I will be in line with everyone else. - Ray Yamka

PAGZone, I understand what you are saying, and as a long-time Poser user (yes, there is a copy of Poser 2 buried somewhere in the mountains of CDs on my shelves) I really do understand your sentiments. I started using Poser in college where they had it in a graphics lab I worked in. I thought it was the neatest thing, especially because as a college student I could not afford THE application at the time - 3D Studio (the old, ugly DOS versions). All I was pointing out was that CL has apparently made this decision to "upscale" their product, and I tried to provide a possible explanation of why. There WILL be people placed out of the opportunity to buy this upgrade, and the community as a whole will suffer from their inability to participate. But as I tried to say earlier, it is an economic decision. If CL feels that their product has a certain value, or if they have to recoup a specific amount of development costs and have determined that X users will upgrade or purchase at $X and $Y costs, then that is their decision. I am sure that they have performed some market analysis, and they believe they will be able to get a "fair value - from their perspective" with the price points they have set. They will live or die by that decision. If they meet their sales targets, then they survice to make Poser 6. If not enough people can afford to upgrade or purchase full copies, then they will either have to lower the price or will go out of business. And even if they lower the price later, they may generate ill feelings in the community and still not succeed. However, all of this aside, it does not hurt to voice your opinions. CL does listen to these forums, and they may better understand the impact that their pricing structure will have on ALL of their market, not just those who can readily justify the purchase/upgrade. - Ray Yamka

Since we are all giving opinions... Another thing you guys should take into account, P4 was developed with the support/funding of MetaCreations. I know I do not know the terms of the spinoff, but I am sure Metacreations retained the majority of the revenues, including the fee that CL paid to buy the application. Poser 5 has been developed completely and totally by Curious Labs on their own nickle, mostly what was probably paid on upgrades and the like. The application IS changing and evolving. It IS moving a bit up the scale, offering features that in other apps cost significantly more (hair, cloth, mega-improved rendering). It is becoming an app that can truly be used for professional digital imaging. Many in the community are "basic" hobby-ists (no insult intended), who do this for fun. The basic higher price will unfortunately weed some of us out. Hopefully the final upgrade prices are compatible for most of the community. Some will be unable to migrate, which is a shame, but it is also basic economics. Curious Labs must recoup its investment in developing the product while getting a fair value for the product. The truly sad thing, at least as far as the US economy is concerned, is that CL will be releasing P5 later in the summer/early fall. With the way the stock market is going, and the economy may start following, many more casual users who would have been able to upgrade will find they have to divert their "play" money to more important expenses.

(this was also posted in another thread below "Curios" about Siggraph): OK, just got back from the exhibition. Lots of cool things, but I know you guys are wanting to know about Poser. Well, compared to last year, Curious Lab's booth was a non-event. Last year they teamed up with Daz, had a large booth and lots of product demos. This year it was a VERY small booth with a VERY LARGE mock-up of the Poser 5 box (no pictures, sorry). They did not have any versions of Poser 5 that they were showing on the floor (although I hear they were showing it "behind closed doors". I did get the meet the very lovely and VERY GENEROUS Sydd Raven (THANKS!!!!!), and we chatted very briefly about P5. As you know she and her "team" - "Mr. Raven" have been involved in the development of P5 (textures, hair, figures). SHe stated that the rendering is beautiful, the cloth function works great, and that rendering times should not be too bad (however this is very subjective based on what all is being rendered and how it is being rendered). She mentioned the product should be out in "6-8 weeks", but I do not want to hold her to that, as I would rather the product be ready to go than released early, plus there are always delays in software delivery (plus CL has the final determination of when to let it go). I see most of you have seen the price for the new version. There WILL be a tiered price structure for people with P4 and/or P4 + Pro Pack. I was quoted a number for the upgrades by one of the individuals in the booth (not saying who), but I do not want to repeat as I do not know how "official" it is, although it was stated that those with the P4 + PP will have the cheapest price, one that I think is fair. In addition, there was a rep there from Reiss (I think I spelled that correctly) to talk about the upcoming plug-in for Maya. Now I know that most used of Poser most likely do not have a copy of Maya (at least legally) as they are (to date) targetted to different markets, but I find it nice that there is sincere interest from "the upper tier" products to link with the exceptional functionality that is in Poser. I wish them well. Sorry that there is not much else to say. You can ask questions, but I have already told you everything I know (except the numbers that I referred to above). On other matters, DAZ was nowhere to be seen, and I thought they were supposed to have a booth there. The Renderosity crew was there in full force, selling magazines, Tshirts, mugs, and a few other things. They had a great booth and it seemed to be busy all throughout the day. 3DCommune also had a booth, but the time I waled by there was noone there. There did have some handout regarding a "free subscription" to their magazine, so you guys may want to check it out. - Ray Yamka

OK, just got back from the exhibition. Lots of cool things, but I know you guys are wanting to know about Poser. Well, compared to last year, Curious Lab's booth was a non-event. Last year they teamed up with Daz, had a large booth and lots of product demos. This year it was a VERY small booth with a VERY LARGE mock-up of the Poser 5 box (no pictures, sorry). They did not have any versions of Poser 5 that they were showing on the floor (although I hear they were showing it "behind closed doors". I did get the meet the very lovely and VERY GENEROUS Sydd Raven (THANKS!!!!!), and we chatted very briefly about P5. As you know she and her "team" - "Mr. Raven" have been involved in the development of P5 (textures, hair, figures). SHe stated that the rendering is beautiful, the cloth function works great, and that rendering times should not be too bad (however this is very subjective based on what all is being rendered and how it is being rendered). She mentioned the product should be out in "6-8 weeks", but I do not want to hold her to that, as I would rather the product be ready to go than released early, plus there are always delays in software delivery (plus CL has the final determination of when to let it go). I see most of you have seen the price for the new version. There WILL be a tiered price structure for people with P4 and/or P4 + Pro Pack. I was quoted a number for the upgrades by one of the individuals in the booth (not saying who), but I do not want to repeat as I do not know how "official" it is, although it was stated that those with the P4 + PP will have the cheapest price, one that I think is fair. In addition, there was a rep there from Reiss (I think I spelled that correctly) to talk about the upcoming plug-in for Maya. Now I know that most used of Poser most likely do not have a copy of Maya (at least legally) as they are (to date) targetted to different markets, but I find it nice that there is sincere interest from "the upper tier" products to link with the exceptional functionality that is in Poser. I wish them well. Sorry that there is not much else to say. You can ask questions, but I have already told you everything I know (except the numbers that I referred to above). On other matters, DAZ was nowhere to be seen, and I thought they were supposed to have a booth there. The Renderosity crew was there in full force, selling magazines, Tshirts, mugs, and a few other things. They had a great booth and it seemed to be busy all throughout the day. 3DCommune also had a booth, but the time I waled by there was noone there. There did have some handout regarding a "free subscription" to their magazine, so you guys may want to check it out. - Ray Yamka

Well, I for one will try to give any updates as soon as I can. However, for those of you who keep expecting some "miracle" from Siggraph, my recommendation is don't have any high expectations for immediate gratification. As I posted recently, the best we can likely expect is that Curious Labs will officially annouce and demonstrate Poser 5, but that the actual release is still several months away. If you look at all of the other big players, they have already made their annocements prior to Siggraph, and they will be demonstaring their wares there (3DS Max 5, Maya 4.5...) Curious Labs has not released any official PR regarding Poser 5, and no advertising has yet shown up in the trade or consumer publications. I fully believe they will have the program on display, but we still have a few months for the actual release. Noone releases a product without any prior advertising/notice. Just an FYI.

As has been kind of mentioned already, the key things for increased speed in Poser are: 1. Processor - a faster processor is the #1 thing to increase speed 2. Memory - the more memory the better. For graphic apps, 256 min, 512 is better. Depending on your operating system - try WinXP (if you are an IBM person). It has fantastic memory management (for a Microsoft product). Downlevel MS operating systems (WinMe, Win98...) have limitations to what they can do with memory above certain amounts. 3. Operating system (see above). 4. Hard drive - if you have met all the above criteria, you can honestly do without SCSI. Rendering is done in memory by the processor. You only really go to the harddrive when reading textures/files and saving images. It will not produce any real noticable speed increases.