I have this problem in 5 on a Mac. Usually upon startup, the document window isn't visible. It's there, though, and if I grab the top of the window and scoot it over a millimetre or so, poof, it reappears. Maybe you could try that?

You can get some very nice things here: http://www.3digitalcrafts.net/studiomaya/

Thanks, LittleDragon. I did see those, and I drooled a bit, but there one goes... one can't have everything! I'll check 3Dcommune. Thanks!

Hope you get on well. Check back if you're having problems. I'm a new P5 user myself and very much still learning.

True and true, Khai. Another thing to bear in mind.

Guns, knives and steel... oh my. If I may quote Xenophonz: "When the predators know that they can do their thing with impunity, then they rule the world. Or, at least -- they rule your world." Well, when the predators have you so bloody paranoid that you're trapped behind your weapons in your own home, then they own not just your external world, but your internal world as well. Yes, there are horrible, horrible people out there, and they want to hurt other people. But these people really are extremely rare. The average burglar just wants stuff, and hey, stuff can be replaced. All the stuff I have is not worth my life or anybody else's: I'd rather let them have the stuff. If someone threatens someone I love, I'll get between them, and I can be a reckonable force if I have to be, but I will not keep a gun in the house, nor will I go for the cleavers (I do a lot of Chinese cooking, and keep two huge, wickedly sharp cleavers in the house, and I'm pretty good with them. Whack!). In my opinion, 'they' have won the minute they have you running scared. I won't be intimidated. You'd be amazed how well that works.

Yes-- I think it's an effect created by very srong lighting from the sides and that weird collar thing she has on casting a sharp shadow. But I agree, AntoniaTiger... she is rather inherently creepy.

Well, call me a pinko hippie liberal, but I'm not shooting anybody. I do keep a large dog in the house. Two of them, actually... though they kind of fall down on the 'mean' qualification. They do bark, though. It's a good deterrent. Other people don't necessarily know they're big petals.

Looks awful, doesn't it? And that's a photograph. Just goes to show: the virtues of good lighting cannot be overpraised.

Completely off-topic: LittleDragon: where did you get that lovely digigrade-leg figure?

The snowdrops are just up in my park, and yours are lovely. Thank you!

Now now. I used to live in one of the most dyed-in-the-wool blue states there are. I routinely left my house and car open, and never had a thing nicked. I also routinely opened other people's unlocked cars to turn their headlights off before their batteries ran down, and other people probably did the same for me. Crime is not a blue state/red state issue.

If you've used MetaCreations products before, such as Bryce, Poser is not hard to learn at all. Even if you haven't, if you follow the tutorials in the documentation, you will have a good enough introduction to the interface to explore the rest of the program-- and there are plenty of excellent tutorials available, many of them right here. Poser's interface is a little unusual, but once you come to know it, it's very intuitive and easy to use. So long as you have a little time to devote to reading and playing, you should be fine. I must admit that I have never learned to use any 3D modelling program to which I had access, but I love Poser.

PapaBlueMarlin's suggestion is very good. A friend of mine was burglarised not too long ago, and they caught the guy when my friend recognised most of his eclectic music collection in a popular second-hand music shop here. He got his music back, and because the music shop demands names and verifiable addresses from anyone from whom it buys music (because they don't, in principle, deal in stolen goods) the police tracked and arrested him. But damn, that sucks, horribly. At the end of the day it's not the stuff they took, but the fact that someone violated your private space, and that hurts. Don't lose faith in humanity, though-- for every criminal git there are a hundred decent people. It's just that the gits make their presence felt so much more strongly by their githood. I've been lucky, but acquaintances and neighbours have had some pretty bad experiences. I try to do my bit to help make other people just that little bit safer, and there are loads of other people doing the same thing. Maybe you could write out a short letter to put through your neighbors' doors, to let them know what happened. That way they can be extra vigilant against it happening to someone else... as well as maybe catching the person who broke into yours should they try it again. I'm truly sorry. The sad thing is that burglaries are not treated as serious crimes when they very much should be.

Oh good- you read my mind! I was going to put a mottley marbly texture on him. I've not really come to grips with the Materials room yet beyond creating a few monster spheres. Yeah, the cheekbones are sharp, but I wanted him to look like someone you'd think twice about giving a Glasgow kiss. ;)

The horns are from 3dMenagerie's Dragon Factory, which unfortunately seems to have been retired... that has to be one of the most fun things I've ever bought for Poser.