Poser 8 requires Flash 10 to display the Libraries Palette, so if Flash 10 requires IE 7, then Poser 8 requires IE 7. ;)

I don't use IE either but I've never upgraded from version 6 and Poser 8 starts just fine. After installing Flash 10, the Libraries Palette also displays just fine. So, it's probably safe to assume that you don't actually need IE 7.

Quote - LOL. No they're not stupid. It's my fault. (I wrote the library GUI)

Well not exactly my fault, but Adobe's. See, this is written in Flex, and I'm using the Flex Tree widget. Just getting it to show custom thumbnails on a per-item basis was tricky. Getting it to support thumbnails at different sizes was even trickier, but I made it work.

Back to our story. Getting the control to display a child item count was tricky. Getting the tree control to cache the folder thumbnail was tricky. Getting it to open folders when you click the name, but not other parts was tricky. Lots of tricky.

First, I'd like to start by saying how much we appreciate the hard work bagginsbill has put into this. The new "flex" Library is a definite step in the right direction. And as a software designer myself, I can definitely appreciate the trickiness of some software problems: you fix one issue, only to have it cause other issues. ;)

But, the question I have is about usability: why was Poser 8 shipped with such tiny Library icons? Did Smith Micro have a "drop dead" ship date and they absolutely couldn't change the size of the icons? Was there really no way they could have at least increased the icons to 91x91, which everyone is used to, before shipping?
Or would this issue have taken weeks to fix and there was no way it could have been included in Poser to make it sell-able at Siggraph?

Okay, yes, this issue will probably be fixed in a service pack, but what happens in the meantime? Do people ask for refunds because they can't see the icons? Do people go back to using P6 or P7?
To me, issuing service packs is is the lazy way out, especially when Smith Micro never announced an official release date and didn't have to have P8 finished by that date. I've read too many stories about software that's shipped in a buggy state just to get it out for sale (Poser 5 anyone?) and then fixed with each additional service pack.

On a related note, it seems the keyboard shortcuts are broken yet again. I selected a pose, applied it to the figure, and hit Ctrl-R to render, but nothing happened. I hit "2" to select the figure's BODY, but the Library jumped to the first pose that started with "2".

3) And the major issue for me is that the document window doesn't display properly. This was fixed in an earlier build, but for some reason, it's not working for me in the "final" build with a "hotfix" applied. Whenever I open a new scene, the scene is displayed in the lower-right corner of the document window.
Now, granted, my video card is a Radeon 9200, which may be out dated, but P7 and Poser Pro both worked fine and this issue was fixed in an earlier build of P8, only to be "broken" in the final release.

However, this may be one of times when I'm the only person having this issue. So, this may or may not be an issue for other people. But, if you have an older computer, be aware that existing scene files may not display correctly.

I reported this to the Poser 8 techs, so they know about this issue.

The bad news is that there is no more P4 Renderer. If you still use the P4 Renderer for your artwork, I created a tutorial on my website about how to "tune" your material settings to work with the Firefly Renderer: P4 Style Render with the FireFly Renderer. And, yes, I knew about this issue way-back-when (which is why I created this tutorial), but I couldn't say anything because of the NDA. ;)

Here are some other answers:

1. Since Poser 8 uses Flash to display the Libraries Palette, you will need to install Flash Player 10. If you don't have Flash 10, the Libraries Palette will display a message saying "Please upgrade to the latest version".

You will also have to allow FFRender.exe through your firewall, even if you don't use network rendering. I don't know if FFRender.exe has to access the internet every time you use Poser or if it just needs to connect once to update the Flash Player.

If you don't allow FFRender through your firewall, or if you don't upgrade to Flash 10, the Libraries Palette won't display for you.

1. Once the Libraries Palette is working, it's very nice. Like other people have said, switching between Runtimes is almost instant. The folders display how many items are in each one, which is a cool feature.
   The icons in the new Library are tiny, but expand to the full 91x91 pixels when you click on them. See attached screen shot.
   I haven't come across a preference setting to enlarge the size of the icons.

That's great shot! Now, how do you do it? Where you in the first row of seats? :)

Whenever I go to events such as air shows, all of my shots have people's heads in the bottom of the frame. And worse, whenever I think I've got a great shot of an airplane, someone walks right front of me!

These images were all made without that fancy new-fangled gamma correction doodad.

The dress should be exactly the same in both images since it doesn't use a texture map.
The comparison is in the color of the skin: the first image (on the left) is much more washed out than the skin-tones in the image on the left.

As some of the posters said, this style isn't meant to be super-realistic, but more of an animated/ stylish look.
For more realistic renders, I recommend using the full set of shader nodes, including sub-surface-scattering, translucency, ambient occulsion, and HDRI lights... and of course, a more realistic background than plain white.

Attached Link: Thunderbirds at Vanishing Point

And in case anyone wants to complete their collection, we have Thunderbirds 1, 2, and 3 at Vanishing Point.

Yep, another cool item by mrsparky!

And all three of these machines work together: when you add them to your scene, they'll be added in a straight line. This way, your elves can get right to work without having to move the machines around.

If I could join in on the rant. :)

Along with good promo images, I think merchants should have a good product descriptions as well. Like Acadia just mentioned, a potential customer shouldn't have to spend 30 minutes looking at the sales images to figure out what's in a product: the merchant should spell out exactly what's included in the product description.

A lot of merchants do an excellent job of this. Since we're already mentioning Aery Soul, I think his (or their?) products have excellent descriptions: they list exactly what models are included, what textures are included, and they even include what morphs are included on each clothing model! Now that's being thorough.

Yet there are some products with a basic description such as "This is a building". (Okay, maybe there aren't actual products with such a simple description, but you know what I mean.)
Why doesn't the merchant talk a little more about what's included: is it a prop or a figure? Are there any moving parts? What about the textures? Are there any poses, either to position figures in the building or MAT poses to change the color of the building?

And more importantly, is this product a texture for an existing set of clothing? I can't tell you how many products have confused me with their odd title and lack of explanation about whether it's conforming clothing or a texture set.
While I admire the creative-writing skills on some products, a long-winded fairy tale really doesn't help me figure out which figure the product is designed for... or if it's a stand-alone product.

Quote - (i.e., 'Victoria's_closet would show up in Poser, but victorias_closet wouldn't)

Try to make sure that your folder names don't have any funny characters in them. Underscore "_", exclamation "!" and dash "-" are okay and Windows won't allow a slash '" or "/", question mark "?", or colon ":".
However, try not to use the apostrophe ' `. Even though Windows may allow it in a folder or file name, Poser may not display it within its Library.

In your example, the first name has an apostrophe and the second one doesn't. This could be the issue. ;)

I use characters based on the V2 figure almost exclusively in my artwork. I've been fine with converting textures from V3 to V2.

If you remap V2 to be the same as V3, won't you lose the ability to use your existing V2 textures? So, to answer your question, no, I probably wouldn't pay $10 for a remapped version of V2.

That's great news! Congratulations!
Don't forget about all us "little people" when you become a famous novelist and travel around the world on book-signing tours.

Here's a link to the magazine: Albedo One News.
And more information about the Aeon Award (also on the Albedo One website).

Thanks for the suggestions.

I'll 'fess up- the question wasn't for "a friend", but was actually for Vanishing Point. I didn't want to scare anyone by asking about a new hosting company... but then EasyCGI broke the site when they moved it to a new server, which forced us to move to a new hosting company.

Vanishing Point is now being hosted with GoDaddy, who seems to have a very good reputation at all the review sites that I found. Plus, since they're the domain-name registrar company, they probably won't be going out of business or anything funny like that.

Here's a more detailed thread about the issue, in the Poser Forum.

The hosting company we use for Vanishing Point (or rather, the one we used to use) is called EasyCGI.
They said that they would be migrating all their sites to new servers between September and October. But, it's the middle of November and they're only now moving Vanishing Point. And, as a result, all kinds of errors are being created.

The most severe error is that the site pages can't connect to the database to display products or images or free stuff.
I've contacted them numerous times, but all they keep saying is "A tech has been assigned and we'll get back to you in 24-48 hours". In other words, they may not even get around to looking at the issue for 2 days.

So, we'll be moving to a new hosting company over the weekend. In the meantime, all of our products are still available for sale at the usual places. ;)

Hmm... 1and1hosting is looking good- they even give vouchers for sites like Google AdWords.

EnglishBob- thanks for the link. I'll make sure to say you recommended them so you get a kickback.