[Pet Shop Boys Ab Fab song playing] Nice work. I adore the black lace version especially, it's like sexy combination of evening dress and bodystocking--a definite runway hit. -Adam

Well, I guess both are important. I think my question got answered really when I went to zs3d.com, and saw stefy's "breath generation" series of textures. The sample renders of these are thusfar the most photorealistic poser work I've now seen. -Adam

It's true, Poser does not run as well on a mac. Poser 5.0 will catch us up though, so hang in there. Right now Poser on the mac is hurting the worst due to optimization issues, for example it does not use the G4's altivec FPU. Rendering on my G4/800 it's only about 20% faster than on my G3/500-upgraded 8500, but is should be more than 200% faster. -Adam

Poser renderings, both in preview mode and the final renders, are done via software rendering. Even if your video card is a 3D accelerated type, it's not being used for anything other than simple 2D screen drawing. The only time you can blame your video card for things not looking right in Poser is if the card's 2D image settings are funny, like for example the gamma setting. Of course, this knowledge cannot be extended to other 3D applications--most can or do take advantage of 3D video cards via OpenGL or DirectX, for their realtime previewing (never for final renders though). Poser is the exception, not the rule. -Adam

littlechris.. forgive my frankness, but what's your real deal. Just last week you were trolling here for "free" michael and victoria. This doesn't really start you off in a good position to ask for this particular kind of help.. it sort of gives the impression that you've 'found' copies of Mike and Vic in a format you can't use. maybe you can clarify. If you really did own a PC, and you really did purchase Mike and Vic legally, your simplest solution is to contact Daz for the mac ones. The .obj files are cross-platform compatible, but for all the other files you need the mac versions of (the .cr2, pz2, hr2, etc...) -Adam

Have you experimented with magnets on hair yet? Magnets can do amazing things with hair...

Looks great. My only suggestions would be: Some post-render work to smooth out the typical poser elbow creases. Also, the two women in the middle seem to have hair that's defying gravity, but too well styled to give the impression that there is wind blowing on them. That bit is really the only thing that looks unnatural to me. Nice work! -Adam

is it really a dent, or is it texture smear? it looks to me like the texture is getting drawn out by the geometry of the belly button. The no belly button morph flattens the geometry of the depression, but all the vertices are still there and UV mapped in the same way. -Adam

I personally find CGI kiddy porn as distasteful as the real thing, but there's a huge difference between making distasteful animations and perpetrating an actual sexual crime against minors. Making child pornography exploits and harms the children (the 'actors'). This is why it's bad. You can't sexually molest an .obj file. Computer renderings are just a form of art/animation. If you are going to allow your lawmakers to ban CGI porn, then illustrated porn is next. Pretty soon, it will be a federal crime to sketch two children having sex, or to write a story about it. then, you will truly have the 1984 vision realised. Good luck to any of you that take the initiative to fight against these laws and keep artistic freedom free. -Adam

Dude, you better unplug your modem now, didn't you know the country is on high poser alert!!!

I'm not saying these things didn't happen, I'm just not getting what any of this has to do with the level of credit card checking done at the Renderosity store... are you somehow trying to imply that terrorists are fraudulently buying poser props for subversive purposes? I just don't see the connection here. -Adam

Musicat, PayPal is different. PayPal is not an online store selling $10-$30 software models, it's a financial institution handing millions of dollars in bank transactions every day. I think for Paypal this level of security is appropriate. Appropriate is the key word here. For the Renderosity store it's way overkill... next they'll be asking me to send a DNA sample and photocopy of my passport just to buy a new vicky texture... I also don't see how 911 makes extra security while buying 3D models an "infamous necessity". Your reference to 9/11 and "better safer than sorry" just sounds cliché to me; not really addressing the issue here. -Adam

PAGzone, my experiece varies on a couple of points. On my G4/800 Poser renders scenes 4-6 times faster under 9.2.2 than in Classic. This is a not a subtle difference! I did a test figure render in 9.2.2 that took 2:30, but in Classic mode it was still chugging away after 10 minutes!! There is simply no way I can work productively in Poser 4.0.3 in Classic mode. I can't explain the speed discrepancy, but it's not unique to my system, others here have reported getting the same results on their G4 machines. I'm also not sold on Carrara 1.1 being bug free. It certainly fixed some bugs of 1.0, but it introduced a handful of new ones that are as bad or worse. I consistantly get "Render Failed" errors trying to render out series of pict or psd animations, and parts of the interface that worked in 1.0 are broken in 1.1--when I click on the little square that is supposed to toggle between the different views, my window always goes blank. My workaround is to use the camera view pull-down menu, which is slower to do. -Adam

I got a reply from Clint about this issue. He explained that for each first time buyer, the final confirmation step in the sale is processed by a HUMAN, during business hours. Of course this is not what you expect in an online store. I think they need to fix this process in two ways: 1. For first time buyers, send ONLY the "First Time Buyer" email, not the confirmation email that I got first. The confirmation email is useless because it goes to a page with no link to download. I tried all kinds of things to get this confirmation email to work, and just got frustrated with it, BEFORE receiving the first time buyer email. 2. The "First Time Buyer" email needs to explain that you're waiting for a human response. the entire sales process is automated by the server and ebot up to this point, and there's nothing explaining or even suggesting that there will be a delay in this last confirmation step. the email just says to send your credit card 800# to store@renderosity.com and your download will be activated... IMHO, the whole 800# verfication step should just be removed. I've never encountered such overkill security measures in an online store before. And I was spending $10!! -Adam

OK. I was just getting a bit frustrated, and this system "feature" was a point of misunderstanding on my part. The whole sale process was automated up to this point, but the last step seemed just not to work. There was nothing in either of my confirmation emails to indicate that the purchase was going to wait for human approval--it simply said to confirm the info, and the purchase would be activated (presumably immediately, as one would expect when dealing with email bots). I think in light of my frustration (which can't be unusual), the "First Time Buyer" email really needs rewording to clearly indicate that real people are processing the last step of the sale, not the server. -Adam