Hi dr geep :-) Okay, For much of this proof I will be using a program called GMAX, which some of you may know is written by Discreet (the people who sell 3DMAX, and who devised the .3DS file format). GMAX is a stripped down version of 3DMAX, which can only export in the proprietary .gmax format. The main difference between GMAX and 3DMAX for my purposes, is that 3DMAX is very expensive, and GMAX is free. I can't afford 3DMAX to try my proof using it, but I would welcome comment from anyone who has that program, and tries what I am about to describe. If you want to verify my results, you could download GMAX, but I hope you will trust my word that I am describing here exactly the results I see. Now having read some books from my local library, on 3Dstudio and MAX, and having looked at GMAX, they all use a default world unit of one inch. The user can change the world unit, but the books warn that if you alter the world unit, you will have no way to ensure that models you load will have their correct dimensions, without asking the person who created them what world unit he/she was using, and setting your own world unit to the same value. I need you to take a leap of faith now, and accept the premise that the world unit of the program which created the models for Poser 2 (and possibly version 1) was one inch, and was possibly a member of the 3Dstudio/MAX line. I have no way to prove that, and if you can't believe it then the rest of this proof is shaky (though there is supporting evidence for this figure later on). Enough of this waffle, let's see something interesting... Right, Open Poser, any version (I've tried version 2, version 4, and version 5, can't find my CD for version 3 just yet). Delete any figures in the scene, and bring in a cube from the props library. I hope it is generally accepted that this cube is one tenth of a Poser unit. Scale the cube up to 1000% so that it is 1 Poser unit high, and export it from Poser in 3DS format. Now run up GMAX, verify that it's world unit is set to the factory default of one inch, set the units setup (not the same as world unit, this just controls what graduations are on our ruler) to decimal feet, import the .3DS cube, and look at object properties. Note that GMAX describes this object as having X,Y and Z dimensions of 8.602 feet. You can also try that in decimal inches if you wish, and GMAX will report the cube as having X,Y and Z dimensions of 103.226 inches (which is the same as 8.602 feet). Remember this number, we will make great use of it later. So, Somehow GMAX has decided that the cube is 8.602 feet (103.226 inches) per side. A figure which, coincidentally was the size of the Poser unit in the first release of Poser 5. pause for thought...

Oops, Looking more closely I guess you want people with version 6. If that is a requiremnt (ver 6 only) then I can't help since I went straight from version 5 to version 7. Cheers Ian

Hi, I would be interested in helping to test this for you. I have PSP version 7. Cheers Ian

Hmm. It looks like Dr Geep has deleted his posts in this thread, which I would have liked to have looked at again. I can see Ron has made a very forceful argument in favour of 1 Poser unit equals eight feet, backed up by a proof. In the interests of healthy debate I feel bound to follow this up, especially since I might make another measuring device. With all due respect to Ronstuff I am not convinced that the proof of 1 poser unit equals 8 feet is as incontrovertible as has been claimed. I do not have MAX, so I cannot replicate the process described here, however... As I understand it Ron, you create a cube in MAX which is eight feet per side, and then scale this down to one ninety sixth of its original size. This makes it now one inch per side. When this cube is imported into Poser it comes in at one Poser unit high. Does this not mean that 1 Poser unit is actually 1 inch in MAX? Since the Poser figures are all less than 1 Poser unit high this gives us a problem, because we expect them to represent humans. Since the P4 man is 0.75 Poser units high (therefore three quarters on an inch high in MAX, if no scaling factor is used), then applying a scaling factor of 96 times will make him six feet tall. However, we could for instance have chosen to apply a scaling factor of 144, and this would make him nine feet tall. I believe using the same proof above, you could make a cube in MAX, 12 feet per side, scale it down by 144 and then import this into Poser. It will come in at 1 Poser unit high, therefore following the proof 1 Poser unit could be argued to be 12 feet, and since the P4 man is 0.75 Poser units he would then appear to be 9 feet high. My point is that a scaling factor of ninety six times between MAX and Poser is convenient, in that it makes the P4 man six feet tall,and makes a Poser unit eight feet, but it is an assumption, which I think stems from a belief that he is six feet tall and cannot be proven to be correct in this way. I believe that CL or MetaC may have made a statement in the past, that the P4 guy is supposed to be 6 feet tall. I agree that a scaling factor of 96 times will make that figure six feet tall in MAX. But I don't think it can be proven mathematically, without standing on the foundation of 'The P4 man is six feet tall, therefore....' Having said the above I must also say that having the P4 man work out at six feet tall, and a Poser unit of eight feet suits me fine. It may be that I am missing something here, so please correct me if I have made a mistake. Constructively Ian

Bill, I will see if I can make a new caliper, which measures in metres, in P5 scale as Dr geep says. I'm more used to working in feet and inches, since I used to do a lot of model railway building at 4mm to the foot. That's another example of NIH, since outside of the UK everyone else adopted 3.5 mm to the foot for similar sized models. That decision, of about 50 years ago, still plagues UK model railway enthusiasts, but I digress... If I can make another caliper I will post in freestuff. Cheers Ian

Bill, Sorry, I confused RnRWoman's question with your own. I guess it depends what size in Poser a model has to be, for your cnc machine to produce a figure of the size you want. There may be a scaling factor you need to apply in Lightwave/Rhino to get the size you want. Having said that, I guess it would be useful to you to adopt a consistent scale in Poser, so that each model would need to be scaled by the same amount when converting for your cnc. As you say, you could use the caliper, and read the gauge off assuming it is calibrated in inches. That would give you a consistent scale for your models. Hope that helps I like your Warlord figure, It looks like a good paint job too. It must be great having solid verions of the figures. Cheers Ian

Hi, I made the calipers way back, and at the time I did not know about the offical size of Poser units. I set it up so that the P4 guy is six feet tall. I'm not sure how close that is to the offical scale, but hopefully not far off. If you want to use the calipers, then one inch would be 0.08333333 on the gauge, therfore 5 feet seven inches would be 5.5833333. Cheers Ian

Fever Fashion PreTeen Clothing Universe Fever Fashion PreTeen Universe Good luck to all. Cheers Ian

Thanks for the comments all. Yes, I hope to make more models of the Victorian era. I want to create vehicles, and buildings, and some smaller items. I also intend to make some steam engines. But I need to work out how to make the wheels and connecting rods work in Poser. Thanks again Ian

I agree. I'm happy with P5, for what I paid for it. There have are some bugs which affect some people/systems more than others. I'm sure that CL are working hard to eliminate these problems as soon as possible, so that we can all enjoy using the program. I think we need to take a positive approach ourselves. Cheers Ian

Larry, Thanks for posting your message. I'm not suprised you were advised against it, it seems some of the community here claim they want CL to comment, only to pounce like hungry wolves, and try to tear any comment to bits. I'm happy with my purchase of P5, and I'm sure a lot of other P5 customers feel the same way. Zero bugs would have been nice, but at least you are all working hard to fix, which is all that can be expected now the product is out of the door. I think it's a shame that some content providers feel they cannot provide P5 content at present, I suspect they are already losing sales to people like myself, who have moved on from P5, and are looking for content which uses the new features. As more people move from P4 to P5 there will be less market for products which are limited to P4 (or similar) applications. I hope this can all get sorted out soon. Cheers Ian

As I recall, in the earlier days of Windows software, developers moved away from DOS towards writing Windows apps because there were so many different graphics cards, memory expansion systems, other code conflicts etc, that writing DOS code to run on all PC's became a major headache. One of the things Windows was supposed to do was hide all that from the application, so that programs should run on 'any' PC. Seems we've come full circle... P5 is certainy not unique in being a problem application on some systems these days. Cheers Ian

Dave, Now I can see these together.. I have CTFMON.exe running, which I understand handles handwriting/voice recognition, and can be stopped, so don't worry about that one. Your PSP is using a lot more memory. I am using ver 7.00 with just the screen grab primed. Looks like you have a tablet driver (tablet.exe) and internet explorer running (iexplore.exe). You have qttask.exe (is that perhaps quicktime?). And some others which I can't guess at. Also I see you have XP interface active whereas I have my system set with all XP features turned off. The interface may be what is making the difference in P5 reliability? Cheers Ian