Anton and Ockham: I'm curious about why you think buying from CL is any different than buying from some other authorized provider (e.g. Amazon.com). What's up with that? Why would someone spend $219.00 (boxed Win version) to buy the same package they can get for $189.99 USD at Amazon? Do you not get the same amount of support when buying from someone else? Just courious, Jack

Well I'm glad to hear you are back at it! Regards, Jack

On the surface of this, it seems like you have an actual bad data sector on your harddisk, and you may indeed have to run chkdsk to see if you actually do have any bad sectors on your harddisk. The flip side is the file may have just been corrupted during your second Poser installation - this file is apparently the one responsible for storing the serial number for your product. If poser can't read the file, it'll keep asking for your serial number. You MAY be able to delete this file, and once Poser starts again and asks for the serial, that might be the last time it asks, because it MAY just recreate the missing file automatically. To test this theory, try renaming or moving the bad file somewhere else, and then restart poser. If it asks for a serial number again, supply it. Then close poser again and restart it once more - if it starts without asking for the serial or giving you the error message then problem solved. Finally, if all this fails - well, you may have to reinstall poser 5 again - but make absolutely sure that all remnants of your old install are gone. The only other thing I can think of is to look on the install CD and see if you can just copy a new version of this .dta file over the old one. Hope this helps more than it confuses! Jack

You know, I've often seen in the ini files for programs a line that says "Disable Splash Screen at Startup" - sometimes it's even a selectable option inside the program - in the preferences. I think the idea there is you want to save time by not seeing the splash. Also, you can comb through your registry settings for those programs and look for the splash screen key, or even add a new DWORD, which you can then set to zero or one as the case may be. Another option would be to get the program available here: http://www.digitallis.co.uk/pc/SplashKiller/index.html It's called splashkiller, and it hides splash screens, without having to modify registries or hack the app. What I mean by hack the app is to modify the splash graphics kept inside certain .dll files for the application. This gets a little too technical for me, but if you want to know more there's quite a bit of info out there on web. Suffice it to say there's multiple ways of hiding this info from prying eyes, and I'm sorry to hear about your troubles. It reminds me of a time when I had my computer upgraded at a local shop. I came in on the day of delivery to pick it up, only to find one of the techs playing a hacked version of a game on my own computer, which he had apparently installed without my permission. Much yelling insued. Regards, Karl

I've seen other posts that say that V3 inj/rem pose files must be at the top level of the poses folder in the poser4 runtime directory, or they don't work anymore. So, you are stuck with how V3's inj/rem poses are installed, and moving them under new folders will break them. Hope this helps, Jack

Unz: Hmm..not so sure you should actually go for expediency here. If you are trying to make a really good comic, you should perhaps go ahead and spend the time on each and every frame until it's right - and don't use any shortcuts. However - are you on some kind of deadline? Is this for a class or client? My point here is that if you do sort of gloss over the panels you don't think you have the time for, and then spend more time on the ones you think require 'special attention', you are going to have a discontinuity of style that the reader may find jarring. So, I suggest that you develop a flow and apply that flow to each and every panel - perhaps set up some actions in photoshop that you can apply to every panel as you go, that unifies the look and feel of each; that way, even if you spend more time on one panel relative to another, you will still be keeping the overall look and feel consistent. But I think you have a great start - the flow between each scene/panel works well, and you don't need to apologize for the need to set up the character with some backstory. And I think your character expressions really convey a lot - that's really good work. I would agree with Sam about the lighting; more dramatic or distinct lighting would help. However, I don't understand why the two characters are outside; it look like a meeting with her boss, and that seems to be like it should be in an office or something. But I'm sure that will come clear later! just some thoughts, Jack

William, also the picture shows that the bottoms of the shoes are indeed flat, but have that little curved lip in the front that is just an extension of the sole. I could see how you interpreted this as to say the bottom of the shoes is curved, but I don't think that's really the case. Just some inpute! Jack

Robo2010, there's three available downloads if you do a search for the renderupgrade file - get the one titled "Poser 3,4,5 Renderupgrade" and it'll download. The other two do just what you described. Jack

I know that there is something in the freestuff called "Renderupgrade" that I've used to make great sunny day pics. As for cloudy - maybe you can get the renderupgrade and tone it down a little? Jack

I've seen on a few artist sites that they can disable the right click on jpgs - when you right click you get a message like "This artist's works are copyright". You don't get the regular right click menu that allows you to snag the pic. Why doesn't Renderosity use this? I think it would cut down on the number of pics just taken from the site on a whim. And if an artist WANTS their art as wallpaper on other's machines, they can release it in freestuff. This wouldn't be that hard, would it? Now I know there's a flip side to this - let me have it! Pardon me for the somewhat off-topic post. Jack

William, You asked why, when hardware capacity has risen, why wouldn't performance? Pakled pretty much nailed it - all of horsepower in the world, in terms of hardware, won't help run bad code - it just makes errors faster. Since you will be doing the obvious (ditching win98), which will help dramatically with Poser's performance, there's not much more you can do. Perhaps when Poser 6 comes out, Poser's speed will become a function of your hardware speed. Right now, it's not - Poser's current speed is a function of it's own (at times, bad) code. Certainly, some things will help, and you WILL notice a performance jump with your new machine - and an even greater one when you get WinXP - but you need to tailor your expectations somewhat. Jack

Another problem with acquiring P5 cheaply, particularly on sites like E-bay, is that curiouslabs does NOT allow the selling of it's products by unauthorized resellers - thus anybody who is just 'Joe Seller' on ebay will get shut down if they try to sell their copy. So, that shuts down the fact that you might be able to get a version cheaply on ebay. Just da facts, Jack

Hey, Compiler, where are you looking or how do you search to see if your art has been hijacked? Jack

Well, for me personally, the best has got to be, in no particular order, Schmoopy, Crasher, RogueElement, and ToxicAngel. I have a bunch more favorites, but for me these are the best. Jack

This is looking good! What will you do about adding more textured feel to the lips?