I don't normally say much in threads like this, but there are a multitude of reasons why so many users still rely on P4/PP. Some of them have been mentioned, some have not. For myself, I reluctantly use P5 now. The primary reason for use is the nested folders and separate runtimes. It's much less hassle for me than the old ProPack/PBooost combo. Yes, I still hate the fact that I have to change my screen resolution to use it. As for P6 - well, I own it, and it seems to work fine BUT every single time I use it I wind up with corrupted files on drives where P6 is NOT located, in folders that have no reason to be accessed by P6 (in one instance it was my web browser that was corrupted, in another instance it was the entire contents of my d:/ drive.) I can't PROVE that P6 is the cause of the file corruption, but since it ONLY happens when I've opened P6 (Yes, just OPENING the program causes the corruption) and I've gone so far as to remove and re-install the program just to be sure it isn't some other application doing the damage, I'm fairly certain that P6 is the culprit. So, as long as things like that continue to occur to those odd few of us out here, we won't be "upgrading" or "moving on" to the latest and greatest versions. Kate (who always gets the weird and totally undocumentable glitches, errors and general foul ups for some reason. Darn that Karma thing anyway!)

Calendars, note cards, greeting cards, story illustrations and other such things.

you CAN change and rearrange the textures folders to suit yourself. You just need to run correct reference on it afterwards. I don't leave anything in the original order because they just don't make sense to me. My textures are arranged by model category (characters, animals, props,clothes,hair, etc.)/model (vicky, mike, mildog,Hooded cloak,Gel hair, etc)/package name (Brandy, Boris, etc) and THEN merchant name if an extra folder is needed. And I never EVER install directly to my runtime. I always install to a dummy runtime first, arrange things the way I want them and run correct reference. That way I know if there are missing files and such BEFORE I wind up cluttering my runtime with something that's going to give me headaches when I load it. You wouldn't believe how many incorrect paths and file references there are in the products out there - and missing texture files is a LOT more prevalent that people think it is.

D. None of the above. I've had to buy a few things since getting wardrobe wizard, but it has nothing to do with having that particular program. Rather, my purchases have been the result of necessity - I didn't have the particular style of clothing in my arsenal and they were needed for a project I was working on. Having said that, Wardrobe Wizard came in very handy for this particular project since at one point I needed to get one of the maid outfits to fit on either Mike 3 or the Vicky 3 Male. (I opted for the V3 male as it was easier to get the stockings and shoes to fit by not morphing the feet and legs, whereas with M3 it was a pain in the patootie to get him into a pair of pumps.) Kate

Well, considering that my latest images are viewed outside the poser community, I don't post credits. Primarily because my audience wouldn't know what the heck I was talking about anyway. ("Huh? Hair model by XXX? What's that about??") Kate

What I would dearly love to see is a simple, ordinary businessman's cut for the guys. We've got long fantasy hair, we've got boy band hair, we've got buzz cut/flat tops, we've got afro's, we've even got combovers, but dagnabit, there's not one business man's hair style out there. So far the closest I've seen to what I'm talking about is Agent hair. Argh!! Kate

People, you can put your texture files anywhere you want in the textures folder as long as you run it through Correct Reference. That's what I do. All my V3 textures go in "textures:Characters:Vicky 3:(character name:textname.jpg" and so on - makes it so much easier to find things, especially when it comes to stuff like hair textures and some of the older Vicky and clothes textures (you know - from back before everyone was making MAT files). If I had to leave textures where the stupid merchants put them (and yes, I meant that "stupid" comment since so many seem to think that "black.jpg" is a perfectly good texture name. Never occurs to them that I have a horse texture named "black.jpg" and a bear texture named "black.jpg" and umpteen gazillion clothing textures named "black.jpg" not to mention all the hair textures with that name) all my images would be a complete mess since I'd wind up with horse textures on the clothes and hair textures on the horse and weird stuff like that. Believe me, it's happened. Thank the gawds for Correct Reference!!

Kate (who is glad she has flash renamer, too, so she can get rid of all those idiotic !!! and +++++ names in one fell swoop)

Message edited on: 09/01/2005 19:35

I will say that I much prefer P6 to P5. Especially for the expandable library pallette and the dual option material room. That being said, I had to uninstall P6 from my computer. I was getting really weird problems at bootup when I used it. Weird enough that it was necessary to re-install my operating system every 2-3 days as my computer wouldn't boot at all. Haven't had that problem at all since I got rid of P6. So, be aware that there might be compatibility problems with something on your computer that could possibly cause similar problems. (No, I didn't send any bug reports to EF on this since the only way I could get my computer to boot up was to wipe the hard drive and start over from scratch which means no logs to send. I still don't know what was causing the problem for me, but getting rid of P6 fixed whatever it was. Darnit.) Kate

Re: #4 I had a similar experience. Poser 6 crashed once. Computer rebooted fine, but after that it wouldn't boot up again after useing P6. This happened for a period of about two weeks. I finally removed P6 from my computer, because I was fed up with re-formatting and re-installing my OS every two or 3 days. Haven't had a problem since. Everyone kept telling me it was probably some hardware failure going on and suggested everything from my new (less than a month old) HD to the motherboard. It was frustrating, and with needing to do a clean install of the OS just to get the computer to boot, there were no logs I could send EF so they could figure it out from their end. Sooooo... P6 is history and I'm stuck with P5 until it's fixed.

And don't forget to switch off the pbm thing too. Otherwise your P6 figures won't have any morphs available.

Almost everything I do these days is for commercial use. Currently I'm working on a series of images for an adult website and a calendar related to said website. Sooo... anything I use HAS to be available for commercial use. Can't use it otherwise in any of my renders. Kate

::: Cues spooky music ::: It's haints! Haints I tells ya! Ya gotta sprinkle yer monitor with holy water, ayup. Either that or the model is just tired of standing around waiting for you to get with the rendering already. I mean, really, YOU try just standin' there in one position while someone else decides what your hair is gonna look like or what clothes you're gonna wear. You'd get fidgity too. :P Kate the Ever So Silly

Kayt-thuh-shroo (ok, I'm silly) and my RL last name is an occupation.

Kate

OBZ is a compressed version of the OBJ file. There is a python script included with Poser 6 that will decompress the files for you when you run it. It's in the runtimepythonPoser scripts section under "utilities" I used it as soon as I got P6 installed since I send most of my stuff to another program for final lighting and rendering. Kate

There are many ways you can do away with Poser 4 main characters. Strangling, shooting, stabbing and drowning are only a few. My favorite method is tying them to the railroad tracks and waiting for the afternoon express to run them over. Barring that, tying them to a log and turning on the buzzsaw is always good in a pinch. And the best part is, you won't get arrested or tried for murder. Kate the Ever Helpful