Ever had to deal with Autodesk (Maya)?  They make every other software company I've wver delt with a pleasure by comparison!  Even Adobe can be a pain in the behind.

I, too, bought the Poser Pro upgrade during the recent Thanksgiving sale.  But, I bought the delivered boxed version, figuring I could go ahead and download it and use it.  But, no.  There was no download option available - it was either/or.

That ticked me off - had to wait about 10 days (counting weekends) for delivery.

You can also change the conforming dress to a dynamic one and clotify it.  This is the most realistic-looking option, I think.  Just export the confoming skirt as a wavefront OBJ (select just the skirt and no handles) then import it back to the sceen, fit it and parent it to your zero-posed character then go to the cloth room and animate it to your desired pose.  Obviously it's a bit more trouble, but I find that trying to dial in morphs and working to get conforming clothes to fit and look right can often be even more time-consuming.

If you haven't used the cloth room it is worth the effort to learn.  Look here for more info.

Thanks to you both for the input.  I am going to see how much I and move to a runtime directory that isn't within the "Program Files" subfolders - just to see if it works.

Fixer, I think I located your recommended Vista site with a forum "search" (?computerperformance?) -- I'm not ever going to complain about a useful infomation source.  My permissions for Poser seem to be in order.  I still think this may be a UAC issue.  I had never previously disabled UAC, which is to say that from my initial installation of Vista (32 bit Business version) I installed all my applications (Poser included) with UAC active, and, at least in the case of Poser, I was not running "As Administrator".  Running "As Administrator" and having UAC enabled is also a PITA, requiring two extra clicks and interupting everything else I'm doing just to open the application.  Now that I've decided to leave UAC disabled I may reconsider that option.  Nonetheless, I think that installing and running Poser with UAC enabled and not "As Administrator" made Vista force my library additions into this alternate directory.  That directory must have also been where Poser stored the "key" with the serial number registration.  Anyway, that's my take on it...

Lesbentley, I have actually mostly enjoyed Vista - though obviously from the above discussion it has it's quirks.  User Account Controls have certainly been the most controversial of the major changes and this may be an example why.  From everything I have read, for personal home use by a reasonably computer-literate and careful user, turning off UAC's seems like an acceptable option.

Thanks again for your comments.

Well, actually, since the original post I have figured out some of what happened -- but not why, exactly.  This might be infomative for other Vista users, because I believe it is Vista, and specifically the UAC's that caused this mess!

UAC's limit access to "system" files, which includes "Program Files".  Since Poser stores all of it's "Runtimes" within the Program Files/e frontier/Poser 7 directory, Windows wont allow user access to modify these files (that is, if you are running User Account Contols)!

So, what happens, whenever I added or changed anything in my Runtime directories from within Poser, the files were stored in an alternate directory: (C:/Users//AppData/Local/VirtualStore/Program Files/e frontier/Poser 7).  Go figure!

And, since this "AppData" folder is considered a "system" folder, it is not "indexed" for searching - thus my search fo the missing PMD turned up nothing even though it was safely where I'd put it.  I finally located this folder by turning of the "indexing" for the search.

Since then I have moved the files back into the regular "Program Files" directory.  And I plan to leave UAC turned off, at least until this compatability issue between Poser and Windows Vista is somehow resolves.

Does anyone know of a way within Poser to set up an alternate location for Runtime folders?  I didn't see a way browsing the preferences...

Anyway - this may not turn out to be a totally unique problem, since it could pose a hazard to anyone using Poser in Vista with UACs enabled.  Hope the information saves someone the headaches it caused me!

BTW, PhilC - thanks for the response -- I hadn't tried a system restore yet - actually hadn't thought to try that so I dunno if it would have worked or not.  Apparently, when a Vista administrator (me) turns off the UAC's, any programs using this alternate directory no longer "sees" that hidden directory!  That is a serious flaw with Vista, IMO.

Paul

That's very useful, thanks!

Attached Link: Poser 7 Content Exporter

This exporter script seems to do fine exporting the OBJ file (although PhotoShop can open any OBJ file whether it is exported with this script or not).  What it does not do is properly attach the material files.  It did it right once, but I can't reproduce that result.

Thanks, again.

Don't want to be a pest, but 2 days with no response has dropped me to page 2 now.

So, I am wondering is this because no one knows why Poser and Photoshop are acting this way?  Or, did I fail to adequately describe the problem?

If no one has a suggestion, maybe someone could suggest a resource?

I won't post again without any reply - just wanted to give it one more shot.

Thanks.

Yes, yes - you have duly attributed the complation, and I missed that on my first read-through.  Whoever composed it, the information still deserves to be a "sticky"!  I do appreciate the appropriate attribution, nonetheless.

Paul

FrankT, excellent infomation.  To the extent that I am more experienced with Poser, I concur with most of your advice, and to the extent that I still have a lot to learn I see a lot of interesting information and links here!

I nominate your post for a "sticky"!

Paul

Thanks for all the useful response!

Right now, my plan is to tackle this wit a combo of lo res people from P1-4 and probably also do some layering if I can maintain a constant camera and lighting pose.  Might be a while before I have time to produce a viable result, but I'll try and post it when it's there.  Thanks again.

"Render the background with a few people and save as a TIFF or JPEG. Then add that render as your background picture. Then render again (over background picture) with the next closer set of people and repeat the process as needed. I don't know about Poser 7, but in Poser 6 it wants to always refit your background image so you have to make the U and V one (1) and zero the offset numbers so it matches your render output."

That sounds like a great solution - one I'm sure I will try. 

For the scene I have in mind, I will take a look at those low polly folks you mention, though!  I fear the scene is a little to complex to try the layers -- at least at my skill level...

 Thanks!  I appreciate the response!