thanks everyone. i imported the obj again and checked 'flip normals'. that did the trick.

Looks great. Could you post a pic of the shirt in wireframe mode so we can see the polygons?

This is what CL's tech Support page says about the problem Why does Poser 6 crash on launch, or when switching rooms? Several people who have purchased and installed P6 have encountered problems in which, if their hardware acceleration is set all the way to the maximum, Poser 6 will exit unexpectedly on launch, or upon trying to perform almost any operation in the Pose Room. The cure is actually quite simple- first, be sure that your video card drivers are updated to their latest version. Even if you updated as recently as a few months ago, it's worth checking back at the manufacturer's website; we've been working with several video card manufacturers to ensure that their drivers and our software work well together. If updating the drivers didn't work, you might need to reduce the amount of hardware acceleration you're using- after exiting Poser, right-click on the desktop and select Properties, then click the Settings tab in the resulting dialog box. Click the Advanced button, then the Troubleshoot tab, and adjust the Hardware Acceleration slider down one or two notches- enough to deactivate cursor acceleration and bitmap redrawing. That should allow Poser to launch and run properly while still giving good OpenGL acceleration in previews. When I did this - it did not solve the problem, yet

My confirmation email just showed up. I ordered 2/19. My tracking number does not show up in UPS yet. My new to-do list 1 - load Poser 6 2 - curse my computer when anti-virus software interferes 3 - disable antivirus 4 - load again 5 - repeat steps 2-4 for Shade 6 - stay up 72 hours straight playing with my new toys 7 - look for a job when my employer discovers I've missed three days

I am also new. I have learned a great deal from the tutorials available on the web. I highly recommend the tutorials here at Renderosity (see tab above), the tutorials at Curious Labs (sellers of Poser), the tutorials at Daz3d (makers of products compatible with Poser), and tutorials by Dr. Geep, PhilC, and at Poserfashion. Also, just plug away.

Thank you. This is a big help.

Thanks. Yes, C-3 has a way to add polygons. I'll give it a try.

I'm using Poser 4.03

Yes, I've had the 4.03 patch for some time and everything has been working fine. Just one day, it up and went crazy on me. I've rebooted. After quite a bit of fussing, I've successfully reinstalled. Still, it won't use the check to change figures and when I exit I get asi32_12.dll error. I sent an email to tech support and attached a copy of the asi32_12.dll file and will await their verdict. Its kind of a reach but I was hoping someone here would say - "oh, that happens to us all when we do x,y,z and there is a patch to fix it." Guess not. Thanks for checking in.

i tried reinstalling poser 4. I get an error that stops the middle of the reinstall move data process: -115 file group: executable files file: program files......ASIFONT.FON aargh

Select the figure within Poser. You can get to the materials menu two ways. Hit the Ctrl key plus the U key simultaneously. Alternatively, click the "render" option on the top menu then click "materials." A menu pops up that identifies the figure in the top left and a group within the figure in the top right. Make sure you select the appropriate group/groups from on the top right menu. For example, the jeans figure has separet groups for the belt and the pants. In the case of using transparency maps to change the jeans into shorts, you generally want to select the [ants, not the belt. The menu has four mapping options. The transparency map is applied using the bottom right option. Click "load" and browse to the location of your transparency file - which basicly just uses black to eliminate portions of the figure and white to retain portions - shades of grey yield a sheer effect. You are not done yet. There are scales just under the top colors options for highlight size, transparency min/max and transparency falloff. To completely eliminate a portion of a figure, set transparency max to 100% and the black portions of the tranparency map will eliminate corresponding portions of the figure - changing long pants to shorts. When you return to the main window, your figure will be all gone - but replaced with fuzzy flecks. When you render the image, you will see the actual result. When all else fails, check the manual - pg 252. Play around with transparency mapping - its a great way to expand your Poser wardrobe on a tight budget.