I didn't bother counting the color pages to see what it would cost. I just specified the whole thing in B&W. Yes, you can choose double-sided or 1 page per sheet. The latter would result in a manual thicker and heavier than a ream of paper!

Quote - In the US, you can find printing companies that will let you upload the PDF and get it printed and shipped to you for $13. I bet a similar service can be found in the UK.

http://www.mimeo.com/products/manual-printing.php

Because I sometimes like to read someplace other than at my computer desk (can you imagine such a thing?) I gave this printing service a try. I'm still in the process because the Poser 8 PDF manual has some imbedded font problems, according to this service.

I ordered it printed with cheap 20 lb. paper, no color, double-sided pages (277) with spiral binding. The price is $25 and change, but for new customers they cut it half to about $12.50. I am not sure yet if there is S&H added to that because I'm still stuck in the pre-payment stage while they work on the fonts.

You can get better paper for more $$, or drop the binding for less $$. I didn't want hundreds of loose sheets, so I sprung for the binding. Since I could not do double-sided pages on my printer, and a ream of paper would have cost $5, plus ink, plus saving 500+pages on the life of my printer's photoconductor, I look at it that this printing costs about $5 plus shipping, if any. Worth it to me. Thanks for the tip, BB.

But I agree with those who say that, for $250, SM could have included a printed manual. Or for downloaders, made it available for the cost of shipping.

If you're a PC member at DAZ you can buy the whole scuba outfit for $1.99.

I'm searching for a life jacket. The only one I can find, in the Free Section here at Rendo, is too primitive and doesn't fit or conform to V4.

edit: OOPS -- you said respirator, not rebreather. Sorry!

Someone will publish "The Missing Poser 8 Manual" or something similar, and of course it will cost $49.95 because those who don't want to read everything on a computer screen will be a captive audience and will have to pony up.

I really prefer a printed manual because Poser (7 or 8) sometimes crashes when switching out to anoither app (like a PDF reader).  Even if it didn't crash, going back and forth between apps while following instructions is not an optimal way to learn.

Yes, I know I could print out the 554-page PDF, but that's not very practical.

BB -- You probably have no say about this, but it might be worthwhile to have a separate bug database for FIXED bugs. So you (or anybody else) doesn't get the idea that nobody reported it when it's simply been deleted from the list. Instead of deleting all record of the bug, shift to a FIXED list.

I could be wrong, but I'm guessing in SR1 they are trying to fix everything that has been reported and confirmed as a bug, and the reports keep coming. Or maybe some of the bugs are proving to be very stubborn.

One thing I fear won't be fixed (because it's a design issue rather than a bug) is the fact that the GUI elements and text are too tiny for anyone who doesn't work on a laptop. Not just the library content icons, but scrollbars, buttons, parameter text, etc. Since 3D people tend to work on large monitors, this is a fairly significant issue. I also wish there was a way to change the dark grey interface. Too gloomy.  

Dr. Geep has his style. He could answer the question (minus the sorta unnecessary "How to Change A Shape With A Magnet" stuff) in one fairly brief post, but he prefers to illustrate comic-book style. Some like it, others don't and go elsewhere for tutorials. His web site is even more intensely "cute" than this.

For what it's worth, Setup is not crashing on my copy of P8 Mac. Maybe a PC-only issue.

General comment, inspired by some render posts on this and other forums: A complex scene with lighting,shadows,  etc., make the figure seem out of place if he/she is stiffly posed and has flat skin tones. Natural-looking poses and nice skin shaders go a long way to the quality of the render, IMO.

Some Poser artists at the beginning overlook the basics and concentrate on the big picture, that is the overall scene. Some are even reluctant to do any close-ups because they aren't happy with the way the figure looks without a grand setting surrounding her. I'm certainly talking from experience here.

Anyway, some good pose packages and skin textures/shaders should come before the sprawling sets, IMO. Tweaking a figure for an extended period to try to make her look she's in a natural position is not my idea of creativity, so I am not ashamed to use professional poses and tweak those only slightly to fit the need. I love the GND4 skin/shaders, but there are many other solutions to dull-looking skin. 

edit: I meant the skin / shaders that come with the GND4 figure and can be used on other V4 figures. Blackheart doesn't sell that texture and shader set separately, as far as I know.

Personally I'm not trying to get a render that's indistinguishable from a photograph, not with a $250 program, that I actually paid a lot less for with promotional discounts. And even if Poser is able to get 95% of the way to photo-realism, I'm not willing to dedicate my computer to a single render for multiple days to accomplish it.

I don't WANT to have a photograph, honestly. I actually prefer that the image be recognizable as a constructed fantasy that evolved out of my head. Not a mannequin-like Posette with no shaders or shadows, but a high-quality (to me) image that renders in 10-20 minutes at full size. That I can do with Poser and some inexpensive models, textures and lighting.

What a trained 3D artist with a $1K rendering program and $20K computer station might think of it, I could give a flying (f-word that BB is allowed to use here)

Updating to the latest version of Flash does NOT fix the incomplete P8 library problem, and BB has said Flash has nothing to do with items failing to appear in the library. It is a coding error that is much worse under Snow Leopard, though some have found the problem to a lesser degree under Leopard while using p8,

I politely differ with the person above who said the library problem does not stop you from using P8. It does if the figures, props, poses or lights you need just refuse to show up in the library. Click Refresh enough times and you might eventually see what you need among the truncated list, but you also might very well crash before that happens.

For now I am composing scenes in P7 and switching to P8 for the fast render.

BB -- I can't keep up with all your posts on on many different threads. Your last reply to a post of mine was that you had nothing to do with this aspect of the library, and to report it to SM. When I did, I learned that they were aware the Library was not listing full contents under Snow Leopard, though they didn't mention a bug in the C++ code. I was also told that Flash might be involved in the crashing, though not the faulty listing of items, if the version of Flash was an older version. I would have been glad to get the answer from you the first time, but you seem exasperated by the question (as you still do) and sent me to SM.

I understand the frustration with the same questions over and over again. So many different threads. Those who paid for their P8 are frustrated too. Undiscovered bugs upon release are to be expected. I still suggest a Sticky thread with answers to the repeated questions, where answers exist.

Smith Micro has acknowledged this P8 library issue with Snow Leopard 10.6 and is reportedly working on it. The problem goes away if you use P8 in Leopard 10.5.It has something to do with Flash, which drives the P8 library.

Trekkie, I followed their, uh, "tutorial" and got the displacing problem I described. I really did use the textures from the DD material folders. Maybe there was something sort of implied in the instructions I failed to do... I'll keep playing.

Another possibility is that it wasn't tested for Mac, which is what I use. Some Poser developers on PCs forget that part, and forget to say that they forgot!

Quote - For the displacement problem you can try adding a subtraction math node to the displacement. This will make the displacement go down instead of up. 

ChrisCox -- The would probably work, but I don't want to turn the whole Zone 1 ground plane into a bowl with ruts instead of bumps, just to get the figure walking ON the earth instead of THROUGH it.

Quote - > Quote - Or we could just use the DD set of materials that was supplied with the set. THAT actually solved my problem.

As I said in my post, the problem exists WITH the supplied DD materials. I haven't even tried to see how high the ground would rise into Vicky using the non-DD materials. Up to her hips?

The issue can be alleviated by flattening out the rough terrain, as someone above did. But that still requires several test renders to get Vicky's feet planted on the ground... and defeats the purpose of having rough terrain to begin with.

Why wouldn't the roughness of the terrain be totally generated by morphing the plane (the effects of which could be seen in preview) instead of being created through displacement (which can't be seen until render)? I would have thought displacement would be used to give a 3D effect to grass and rocks, etc, not to lift the ground entirely.