Yeah, Apple is really only developing software in areas where no one else did, or the current offerings were sub par. IE had not been updated in a couple of years, Safari is modern, faster, tabbed, etc. Premier is prosumer, Avid is too expensive, so in come Final Cut Pro and Express. Nothing more than strengthening the offerings and keeping the brand alive going on here. I'm also not concerned with Bryce, etc being cancelled for Mac, because Alias produces Maya, Newtek produces Lightwave, and many other high end companies are committed to OSX development as well. And there are still lots of alternatives in the hobby and prosumer market.

I can't imagine that any right-thinking individual would >prejudge P5X based on P5Win user's experiences. Well, certain right-thinking individuals who understand software development and porting issues could very well pre-judge on exactly these reasons. Anyone, enough from me. Good luck all. ; )

can't just say that something sucks, and then not provide >points to prove it. yes, sb says to take into Sure you can. World governments, corporations and the nightly TV news do it all the time, and people accept that. ; ) And in the end, "facts" are not nearly as usefull to most decisions and feelings and outcomes. Seriously though, there are a lot of people around who are under contracts and other obligations not to share certain information. You shouldn't jump on anyone to quickly and assume they don't know what they claim, no matter what the delivery format or quality. > whole butt load of people over in the mac section are >yched about p5 and ready to whip out their wallets. i And there are also a "butt load" of Mac users who have moved on to other applications, and simply will never be coming back to Poser. They did loose a lot of customers for good.

Too little, too late.

That is a great book. There are several out there that are really good to have or at least read through once, and many of them are focused on drawing, which is really the best way to learn to apply the principles of animation. Other good books: The Animator's Workbook - Tony White Cartoon Animation - Preston Blair How to Draw Animation - Christopher Hart There are countless references on the web too, although they tend to be much shorter and less detailed than what you find in a book. Do a google search for "principles of animation". http://www.cgnetworks.com/story_custom.php?story_id=1429&page= http://www.gamasutra.com/gdc2003/features/20030308/kane_01.htm

Don't forget that Poser rounds the heck out of everything anyway, so if it would be a Poser object you could take the poly count down even a bit lower than you would for other programs.

couldn't you save a copy of the original, then swap them back for updates?

Hey, really nice job on the car model! It looks great. I would suggest lowering the polygon count though, or at least converting some triangles into quads. That mesh could choke some of your potential buyers computers. ; )

Yeah, Poser is a different beast than what that article talks about. As someone mentioned above, Poser is not a "real time" based application at all. Nor does it have the capacity to export geometry for real time use, such as triangulating, creating various level of detail (LOD) versions, export a real-time accessable animation rig, etc. Another reaon would be Poser's animation rig itself, which is not complex enough to convey many of the subtleties the companies in the article are working towards. Models and textures for real-time applications need to be custom built to conform to certain specifications that allow them to interact with specific hardware. I suppose Poser could theoretically be used to create animations for real-time applications, such as Unreal Tournament characters, but some custom software would need to be written, such as a plug in for exporting to the right format, an animation rig that matched the applications specifications, etc. All in all, it's more work than would be worthwhile considering programs like Lightwave, Maya and Max already possess these capabillities. And finally, Poser can't model characters. I am sure there would be some serious legal issue around exporting any of the Poser character geometries, especially third party stuff like Victoria and Michael. And really, after the second or third export everyone would be tired of seeing the same characters! ; )

It should be easy enough to whip up a little app that would allow users to edit an XML file via some "standard" functions, like adding and removing tabs, etc. XML is of course very flexible, it would be interesting to see how flexible Poser 5 is at rendering changes.

Maybe that sneak peak will just be P5 running under Virtual PC! LOL

There is an industry approved forula for calculating shipping dates of software. Shipping Date = Current Date + 2 Weeks. ; ) I agree. Take the time, do it right.

understand that people want information, or failing that, to make wild >guesses at what a software may or may not do, but it's pointless really. To me, the interesting thing about the hype around Studio is that the energy is not driven nearly so much by Studio features or what it can do, but instead by what Poser can not do. And I mean some really fundamental desires, like stability, value for the money, usabillity in a workflow, etc. Granted, none of these things are proven in an as of yet unavailable studio, but there is at least a possibillity of it (a probability, in fact), where there is not in Poser. All this speaks volumes.

functionality of Poser 5. It's not even going to have the >full functionality of Poser 4. The I don't think it is wise to compare Studio and Poser against each other as if the two programs will be racing towards becoming the best at one particular goal. From the information I have about Studio it is very clear that it will be a bit different kind of beast. For my personal and business needs as an artist, Poser offers absolutely nothing, but Studio will be a viable option for animation, rendering and some other key features. While there will be a lot of crossover in eventual functionality, Studio seems primed to evolve into something fundamentally different than Poser, however most current Poser users will find great benefit in using it for the lionshare of their work.

It would be great if it worked like it does in high-end programs, but I >suspect that's not what we'd get. And now you are getting to the thinly veiled sarcasm in my original post! ; )