Regarding file sizes, I ran some tests, and the results were surprising. For these tests I set "Use file compression" to ON in the Preferences. I loaded V4, and then INJ Morphs++ V4.pz2. When I saved that figure with "Use binary morph targets" OFF I got a single CRZ file of 10,481 KB. When I saved it with "Use binary morph targets" ON, I got a CRZ file of 495 KB and a PMD file of 16,746 KB or a total of 17,241. Much bigger!

So if you are using file compression you end up with LARGER files by going with PMDs. I know that PMDs aren't just compressed files, and I assume that they are optimized for Poser, so perhaps a CR2 or CRZ file has to be reformatted within Poser which would add to the load time and result in similar sizes of data inside of Poser.

Still, I remain puzzled as to the advantage of PMDs.

seachnasaigh posted at 8:38AM Wed, 06 July 2016 - #4274744

(ElZagna) "...and what's the benefit, anyway?"

Much smaller scene file size. OK, but how does that work? If you break your data into two files, you still have the same amount of data.

This probably has to do with the Windows KB3132372 update. See this thread: https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2897923

I wish the moderators would make this a sticky. I'll see if I can figure out how to ask that of them.

This problem is being discussed on the main Poser forum: https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2897847

It looks like the problem was caused by a Windows update which messed with Flash.

I think you're saying that all of the sudden Poser 10 no longer works on Windows 10. Same thing happened to me. Are you running 32-bit or 64-bit?

Argh!!! Of course it's a material and not a node! What was I thinking? Anyway, thanks for your answer. That's what I thought, even though I asked it all wrong.

Ah, I figured it out. It writes the fixed files to a new folder called FIX. There's nothing that tells you that it does that, but now I remember going through that process before.

Probably the regular Poser forum would be your best bet.

To answer your question, if you are trying to get a Vickie 4 skin onto, say, Alyson, then no. But if you have a bunch of models based on the V4 character, then, yes. Just load V4, then you can mix and match the body morphs, face morphs and skins (mats) for all of your V4 based models however you like. Is that what you're asking?

For the record, in the OP I implied that this problem was happening in P9 as well as P10. I've been unable to replicate it in P9, so I was probably just confuse about that.

You're absolutely right about using technical terms for advanced products. It's all about knowing who your audience is and speaking to their level of understanding.But even if your product is highly advanced, the basic principles are the same: talk about what PROBLEMS it will solve, not what it DOES.

So, did I guess correctly about how Morph Manager is typically used? Do you mostly use it to fix pokethrough by transferring morphs from a character to a conforming outfit?

Whew! Thank God. I have to confess that I had a small amount of genuine concern that I really was losing my mind. I've reached that age where these things start showing up, and I was afraid that the answer would be something like, "No, that's the way it's always worked."

So, BB - I may be pushing my luck with this "losing my mind" thing, but would this also explain my memory of the IBL lights that came with P8 as being way, way too bright? Maybe in trying to fix that, they broke something else.

Right. but that's not it. This is what I get with one IBL, white, intensity 100%, no raytracing. 

And this with the same IBL with raytracing on (one bounce).

Well, I'm surprised and delighted that my suggestion was even submitted. Thanks. You may have opened a can of worms since I have lots of other suggestions.

OK, so the short answer to my main question (What is the PURPOSE of the Joint Editor?) seems to be "If you are not creating your own character, it's rare that you would ever need this feature." Got it. That's what I thought. Since I don't make my own characters, I will probably never use it... EXCEPT... except for the "Zero Rotations" button.

My guess is that only a tiny percent of Poser users will ever create their own characters, so 99% of the time the Joint Editor window is opened is only to get to the "Zero Rotations" button. So why isn't there a "Zero Rotations" option on the menu? (My suggestion that there should be a "Zero Rotations" button in the Cloth Room was just and offhand remark not to be taken seriously.) The "Zero Rotations" button, the Figure>Zero Figure menu option, and the Edit>Restore>Figure menu option do NOT do the same thing. Neither do the "Zero Pose" poses that many vendors include with their pose packages.

At one point I ended up writing my own zero poses and in the process realized that it wasn't a trivial exercise. Should a zero pose just address the rotations? What about translations and scales? What about expressions? What about morphs? What about Morphforms?

Really, why is this basic stuff so difficult? Even with all the great precedent, a million examples of forums which work really well out there, why did Rendo have to ignore all that and start from scratch inventing one which fails on almost every level? Welcome to the new improved Rendo forums, really awkward to read and really hard to post in. Money well spent, I'd say.

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(Notice that I manually changed the font of the quote to italics and placed a horizontal line after it. I tried to reduce the font size, but there's no option for that.)

This puzzles me as well. Not only are there millions of examples of forums to use as guides, there are any number of third party bulletin boards that you can just drop in to your site. vBulletin is one that has been around for years.