Wolf! Nice to read you too mate! I wrote that last post 200 miles from where I am now, so you can see life has been complicated of late.... One day, when I grow up, I'll have a little studio in the country with roses round the door, cable and semi-naked women at my beck and call.... Incidentally, have a look see at what Computer Arts just wrote about Poser 5. Latest issue just out here in UK and they've got Poser as top dog.... Like the box job, what next? Motorcycle display team! Thumb to kink of it, there's that fabulous out-take of the majorettes all tangling up in the middle with those twirly things they use all crashing down all over the place, I'd love to do the faces of the mums in the audience.... Hmmm, the thought process is a funny old thing.....

I'm of the same opinion as you Ockham. IK doesn't seem to be there either. It's all looking very promising though and I'm intrigued to know what animation tools we will get eventually...

Porridge (old BBC program) came up with new versions of old anglo saxon words, 'Naf off' comes to mind...

I got a really stroppy email from them about some freebies I put up there years ago, I'd forgotten all about them but I was informed that they were unofficial adverts and that they'd been removed but would I like to advertise with them. Weird people! I've left the site completely and wouldn't touch them with a ten foot barge pole....

The street performers at Covent Garden are worth a visit, you'll get comics, budding opera divas, string quartets, one man bands, oh all sorts... I'll second the Great Court at the British Museum. If it were Summer you could play Brief Encounters, (there's a steam train leaves for Canterbury every Wednesday from Waterloo!- you just need some forties clothes). Gofering's cheap! You just buy a rover ticket for the tube and pop-up out of the underground at any stop that takes your fancy... Actually, it's ages since I went to see my dear old friend Bunbery.. Think I might nip up to town soon too...

Grief! That's shocking. So you really could lose your job and then lose everything else soon after. Frightening...

Hi Ed! Good to hear from you. I confess to being ignorant about America but presumably you've got state benefits, income support and other safety-nets over there? Lets hope all's OK and that she gets it back together again...

Getting back to the subject, Sixus! your news on Willow sounds dreadful. I'm really sorry to hear that she's in such a bad way. Grey used to sound off from time to time I know, but that was just another facet of our community. We still owe a great deal to them. Very sad news.....

elygfu, play with your husband first!

It's a small world that doesn't include Wales...

OK, before someone gets in, the limit on the number of frames in Poser is 36,000. Try keyframing that lot, and at 60 fps that's an hour. Even you'd have to agree that would be a boring shot!

Ratteler, I appreciate what you say but what I'm referring to is purely the length of a scene/clip call it what you will. In most cases it's no more than a few seconds before a camera angle changes. Many people who use this program plonk a huge chunk of mocap into Poser (which incidentally doesn't have a restriction on the number of frames it can hold, just the number displayed) and wonder why the thing takes forever. Rendering just the scene and no more than you need makes good use of time and sense. The 3D equivalent of shooting loads of film and editing it afterwards doesn't make sense...

Just to redress the balance a little, I'm one of the 'Poser 5 works fine for me' brigade. Poser's animation tools are superb and the hair and cloth rooms work without major problems. It's true they can take a little while but there are workarounds and bringing in a little common sense to your animations helps a lot (such as allowing space for the cloth between body parts and not expecting Poser to work on ridiculously high frame numbers - 999 frames in one scene would a very boring animation make!) I'm with Joe on this, the changes to the library pallette, being able to edit the morph list and the materials room alone would have warranted Poser 5. The additional functions ought to have had Poser up to version 8 or 9 at least...

Attached Link: http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck - you're saying it is in fact a swan?! And before I complain about this swan that looks suspiciously duck-like I should wait until the guy who's selling it tells me what it is... Yeah, right...!