aleks, Windows NT, 2000, and XP Pro DO support multiprocessor hardware. Discreet's 3DSMax knows this and utilizes them. Why can't Poser? Kuroyume

sshaw: I will have access to another machine in a couple days. Just waiting on the processor to arrive. It runs fine before problems occur except with Hires Don, it happens rather quickly. Kuroyume

First, yes, Monty!! The scripting language Python was named after Monty Python (etc). Second, I agree with smhaus. O'Reilly publishes great computer books and that one would be an excellent place to start. (Note to self: buy O'Reilly's 'Learning Python' ;) Third, good luck!!! Kuroyume

Most have been enumerated by others, but, as you note, in Win98 and ME. Mouse and keyboard should be okay. Will check the mouse settings to see if the sampling rate is too high or low. No problems in other applications. Fast tracking increases performance, but not errors or slow dial settings. The only background applications that I have running are my wireless network card config and Norton Antivirus. Everything else is standard W2K services. Norton may not like it, but I'll see if there is any improvement after unloading its services. As I stated in the previous message, all drivers are up to date. The video driver update was released 9/12 and was installed on 9/13. Since my machine is dual processing, there should be plenty of processing time slices to go around. Anyway, these problems only occur within P5 and not other apps, including P4. I'll fiddle with some settings and also wait for the P5 patch soon to be released. Kuroyume

Ah, but the morphs move "groups" of vertices around, not individual ones. Even the new P5 feature, morph putty, when moving a particular nostril vertex, moves the entire nostril and surrounding face. This is good if you need to put a special smile or scowl on a figure, bad if you want to reshape the lips. Those applications sound promising and will check them out. You are being a great source of research in this endeavor! Thanks, Kuroyume

This is very good to know! Thank you for your maniacal experimentation. :) I have a good sized collection of V2 and M2 textures. Now they can be put to use in P5. Kuroyume

I want miracles, MIRACLES, I tell ya!! ;) Actually, one of my goals, during the process of transfering my artistic talents from paper and canvas, learning the intricacies of 3D computer graphics, and mastering Poser, is to create nice still artwork in my style (at some stage) as well as do some human animation (which is why my main interest in Poser, believe it or not). Poser 5 is daunting and difficult because of the powerful new features and quirks. It is daunting in the fact that there are now two rendering engines, animatable cloth, animatable and growable hair, and a materials room ten times more complex than in P4. It is difficult due to its slowness, bugginess (for now), and incompatibilities with some P4 additions and support apps. It may be a couple months or more before you start seeing some incredible work showing up in the galleries. There is a steeper learning curve and great renders in P4 cannot be automagically morphed into stupendously awesome renders in P5. Some of the differences will require rework and new methodologies. So the delay of these awaited spectacles stems from both some lack of mastery and some problems with P5. I can tell you this: you will not see "Breasty Vicki in the Temple" on my galleries (when I have something to present). My interests lie in Shogunate Japan and I want to create images and animations towards that interest. Yes, I will use freebie and purchased goodies, but will create whatever fulfills the ends when necessary. Kuroyume

No problem Ya see, those other programs use the system hardware and OS more than Poser. Poser's interface is almost totally Poser's, so there is very little OS-native acceleration for the GUI. Poser doesn't use any 3D acceleration (neither Direct3D, OpenGL, nor video hardware), so it's all in software (optimized to hell, by the looks of it). Still, they need to either decide on heavily tweaking their interface and 3D functionality (better/more assembly or some heavy streamlining) or start using the optimizations available in the systems. I hope that they opt for the latter :) Kuroyume

We need more speed, cap'tain! And a twee bit more of the fine stuff. In English: You need more than one PIII 500MHz. Yes, I said one. What? You think P5 uses both of them? Nah... At 1GHz (on a Dual 1GHz machine), it's barely tolerable. You need more memory. P5 is a memory hog. I have 1.3GB and it's barely tolerable. And it should be PC133 or DDR. PC100 might as well be using your hard drive as RAM. Sorry about being blunt, but P5 appears to require a powerful system. The more memory and processor power, the better! Kuroyume

When you load a head or body skin texture, it only assigns those two materials for the figure. In order to texture lips, nipples, tongue, etc, you must assign the same texture map image that contains the texture as the head or body to the relevant materials, whichever applies. So, for instance, to assign lip textures, you must set the lip texture to the same image as your head texture. The reason for this is that some people will make separate textures for the head skin and lips (same location on different images) so that they can apply different lips to different head textures. But if you are using the same image, you must point each separate material item to the relevant texture map image. You can access the list of materials for each figure by clicking over the "Materials" drop-down list in the Materials window. Select the material (lips) and assign the skin Texture Map (and other maps where necessary). Kuroyume

I'm getting Stephen Ray's last error once in a while. Basically, when this happens, P5 has crashed and must be restarted. As I've stated several hundred times already, Hires Don crashes P5 also. And processing is generally slooooow, especially rendering. System Specs: Dual PIII 1GHz 1.3GHz PC133 RAM Windows 2000 Pro ATI Radeon 7500 Personally, I don't think P5 likes P3s (I've noticed many complaints from users with P3 processors). Help is on its way. I have considered and connived and have decided to upgrade my other system (Athlon XP 1700+) to a 533FSB mobo, 2.53GHz P4 (waiting for delivery), 1GB PC2100 DDR RAM, and 80GB 7200 WD 8MB-cache drive (thus keeping the dual processor for development and other menial tasks). If P5 doesn't ROCK on THAT system, I'm writing a formal letter to Curious Labs demanding that they add 3D acceleration support. You can't get much better than that without spending thousands of dollars (though, I spent a grand). Kuroyume

Very realistic render :) Congratulations!! This will give you an excuse to stay up late working on Poser!! ;) Kuroyume

ockham: I can do these in P4, but not P5. P5's general parameters are limited to facial expressions and that's all. And the Face Room, although offering many morphs, does not facilitate the face shape that I need. Asian Ethnicity morphs look particularly round-faced Chinese and the other morphs allow no control over certain features such as nostril roundness/location or ridge bump, tip roundness and shape, and so on. IOW, I have played extensively with the controls and cannot find the necessary face because the necessary controls are not available. P5 has severely restricted the morphs as compared to Daz's popular figures. I may load up Michael 2.0 and see what can be done but am worried about what sacrifices may be incurred by not using the new P5 figures (we shall see). lesbentley: Thanks. ZBrush is a little pricey, but I'll keep in mind as a future purchase (since it looks so cool!). Magnets scare me. I can't exactly relate to them with respect to applying subtle facial modifications. I will certainly check out that tutorial. ***************** The one problem that I noticed is that modifying the figure is at facet-vertex level, which is very coarse whereas the needed modifications are very fine. I hope that this makes sense. IOW, it looks like it will be difficult to move facets and vertices around and be able to see if the changes are heading in the right direction (without a good render after each slight modification). Yours truly bewildered, Kuroyume

Attached Link: http://66.80.59.106/P5Templates.html

Yes, this annoys me also. I don't play games on my PCs (that's what PS2 is for ;). Instead use 3D applications for which I bought nice video cards that have 3D acceleration (and DVI output for my 17" Studio FPD). So, what's the use of a high-end 3D application that doesn't take advantage of 3D acceleration? It's slow and rendering time is ridiculous. The only people satisfied with the rendering are using 2+GHz P4s or very high end AMDs with 1+GB DDR memory with 400+FSB's. Sorry, but I just spent $3000 on a Mac G4 (with added memory and other accessories), just upgraded the two CPU's in my dual processing system, upgraded the CPU in my other system, and upgraded their memory to 1.3GB and 1.0GB, respectively. Unless I sell both machines at higher than resale value - which drops quicker than I can buy the stuff - and live without WinTel PCs for a couple weeks, I cannot afford to upgrade to the latest and greatest to accomodate Poser's lack of 3D acceleration support. Kuroyume, with too much debt...