Quote - I will say it was put in as a Feature Request, but I do not know if it will happen. (not sure of all the technical reasons that may be encountered)

It'll be nice if it'll make it into an update. There's still thousands of Poser content files still readily available, both commercial and free, that won't show up properly in the latest versions of Poser, but will display fine in a competitive product, DAZ Studio. Five or ten years from now, when those products are removed from stores and dropped from community sites, it'll be harder to ask for that compatibility. Right now, it's premature to not have it.

The company must get tech support questions about thumbnails not showing--similar to this post:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2818055

While this one got solved in this forum, others must go straight to SmithMicro and that costs money.

Who would ever have imagined that an innocuous topic such as this could nearly turn into a flamewar? I had somebody else email that this is becoming a fairly common occurrence in these forums. That will be a shame if it's true.

Quote - The way it would be done, would be to have Poser convert the RSR thumbs to PNG when required (just as it did since PP), the new library bit wouldn't need (or want) to deal with anything but PNGs.

You'd think it would be that easy.

Take the code from P7 that converted RSRs, compile it, and insert a conditional statement in P8, between the library mouse click and the routine opening the library, that runs the new compiled code to convert all the RSRs if there aren't any PNGs. Two lines of new code and the P8 library will open all Poser content.

I'm saying that off two decades old programming experience, but Flash, or whatever language was used to code the library, ought to be as robust as the ancient programming languages I was working with. Those with more current programming experience can correct me on this because I fully recognize I'm no expert on that.

Quote - 4 years is considered a looooong time in computerland.

I'd agree with that long ago, but changes with computers seem to be more incremental now. Back in the old days with 8086, 286, etc. processors, there were huge jumps in processor power and speed with each new chip. Speed with processors seems to have leveled out for a while and now it's more a matter of having multiple core processors, 64 bit processing, and focusing on operating systems and software to take advantage of what the processors can do. I don't see the dramatic changes that used to occur. Four years in computerland ain't what it used to be.

The Millennium 3 figures came out around 2003 with the Millennium 4 figures around 2006 and the new figures haven't exactly been a quantum leap in capabilities. None of the new Poser 5-8 figures have set the world on fire. Poser and DAZ Studio have added features that put them a bit more in line with higher end 3D applications, but not enough to challenge the big boy programs on anything but price. I can't recall any massive jumps in capabilities between Poser 5 and each increment--certainly not to the degree that occurred between Poser 4 and 5. That's not to say that IBL and other features aren't good to have. The addition of the new materials and cloth room were bigger jumps.

The last four years in Poserdom's little corner of computerland have been interesting but not startling (though I will admit to being surprised that V4 has been around for four years). Poser and DAZ Studio are still based on fairly ancient figure processes that haven't changed much in a decade.

In all honesty, not having RSR thumb support in Poser 8 isn't the greatest calamity the world has ever seen. With the vitriol I've seen in this thread, one would think I spit on everybody's holiest icon. How dare I question why SM won't restore that functionality. The Poser gods shall smite Renderosity for such blasphemy. Kill the heretic! I'm grateful there is a workaround. I'm also grateful that the Spanish Inquisition isn't around. The only reason there is a workaround is because the product isn't doing what it should to begin with--and did do before it was recoded. Workarounds aren't needed for programs that are programmed correctly. I won't be carrying picket signs outside the hidden secret lair of SmithMicro demanding that RSR functionality be restored. It doesn't seem that great a sin to want the software to be a little more efficient than it is right now.

Based on the response here, SM ought not fix the problem because so many customers will be pissed that they can't run their favorite workarounds. Don't worry if SM decides to restore RSR thumbs. You can still run workarounds. You just won't have to. I'll be danged if I know why you want to, but will defend your right to waste however much time you want to waste.

I really think that the lack of RSR support was more an oversight than a deliberate effort to do it. SM probably doesn't pay a lot of attention to the various Poser marketplaces and probably didn't know that RSR-only thumb Poser content lasted as long as it did and that there's still a large amount of available content that won't show thumbs in their latest version of Poser. Software developers don't typically abandon something that is still commonly around. The format may be obsolete, but its usage isn't.

Since I've gotten more involved in other hobby forums, I've got to admit that I don't see the kind of obsessive behavior that I sometimes see in Poser forums. There are the typical arguments everywhere with people that vehemently disagree with each other. I don't see the type comments where people come back time after time to complain that they hate a thread and want it to stop. People stop visiting the thread and let it die out when they see that it's going nowhere. Threads die on their own when people stop commenting on them.

...And I still think the StreetTrigger arguments are a good analogy because people are arguing against improving something. The improvement will either help the people arguing against it or have no affect on them and certainly will not hurt them. The size of the improvement doesn't matter.

Bagginsbill programmed the new interface and routinely visits this forum and would know what effort would be needed to add RSR support. If it's trivial, it might be implemented. If not, it'll just be on my wishlist and not ever happen. The working arrangement with SM might prevent any discussions about what may or may not be done with the library interface.

Quote - so now you want everyone to go back and redo their zips and reupload them instead of using freely available converters to do the job.

Right?...I said that? It's much more sensible to expect thousands of content creators to redo all their work for me than to want SmithMicro to include the capability in their software to make that content fully usable. I provided the link because the term "obsolete" was being bandied about way too casually and that boat is an example that is anything but obsolete.

I'd also like everybody to get a big rope and pull my car to work so that I don't have to buy gas.

Seriously, I'm curious why people are so complacent about having to use workarounds to make their software work correctly. What's the downside of wanting software to be backwards compatible? Why should anybody want to use a workaround instead of wanting their software to work as well as it once did? What's the message that everybody wants to send to software companies--that backwards compatibility doesn't matter?--That we don't care if all the content we've bought and created doesn't work correctly with the new version of the software?

I can understand that some levels of backwards compatibility won't matter to people that never need it. Why bother weighing in to argue against it? Why would anybody prefer to have to use a free workaround instead of that capability being kept in the software that they paid hundreds of dollars for? I'd be interested in hearing how hard it was for the kind folks, that freely provided the RSR conversion programs to the community, to make the converters. It would be nice for SM to give them a few bucks to put it back into their software.

It's similar to arguing that there wasn't anything wrong with the StreetTrigger licensing agreement that gave them a nonexclusive ownership in every screenplay put on the site. It's one thing for budding screenwriters to be willing to risk that ownership to get their first screenplay produced. Why would those writers argue against having the licensing agreement being more fair to them?

Quote - Detailer? wow, I had to throw that one away years ago...could never get that to install in xp let alone Vista! and I'm serious, how'd you do it?

I don't think I've installed it since I haven't created any models.

It was one of the many Metacreations products that was ahead of its time. It think I paid $15 for a boxed copy at an online auction. I've saved old computers just in case I want to use some old products or read floppy disks. I'd imagine that there won't ever be much reason to want to use it.

Attached Link: http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/-/clyde-puffer?item=4398&_m=d

Long after Poser moved to PNG thumbnails, content providers either only provided RSRs, as DAZ often did until a few years ago, or provided both. This ensured compatibility with Poser 4. By only providing the RSR format, file sizes were kept down and thumbnails were compatible with all versions of Poser until Poser 8. Including both RSR and PNG would add to file sizes which would add costs to the sites providing the downloads--as well as making it harder to download them when dial-up internet service was still fairly common. The RSR format lasted a lot longer than it should have because there were compelling reasons to keep using it. There is little reason for content providers to include RSR files today because Poser 4 is essentially obsolete now. With the vast amount of content that only has RSR files, it's too soon to not  the thumbnails visible inside the program without having to resort to workarounds.

The reason I asked this question is that a different poster wanted to know why Poser 8 wasn't showing thumbnails for some installed content.

Quote - No offense ,really but Declaring that computer file format changes, that happen to inconvenience you personally, are somehow morally "Not Right"
and the people who have accepted the reality of such changes are "arguing for what is not right" is  both self serving and Naive.
Cheers

I'm not sure how losing thumbnail support for thousands of files, that are only a few years old, is my personal inconvenience. It affects all Poser users that have bought and dowloaded content for more than a couple years. As to why it doesn't bother others is another question. I can only guess that most Poser users only use the new files they buy rather than making use of older content. Otherwise, having to run another program to see the thumbnails ought to be seen as a bother. If that's an acceptable annoyance, so be it. People that aren't using that content won't be bothered when all that content isn't usable in future releases.

Poser designers picked a file format for thumbnails that, in retrospect, didn't stand the test of time. Enough content was created with that format that it shouldn't be wholly ignored.

Quote - get a refund then.

The purpose of the thread was to get SM to weigh in. The snarky comments can continue till then. I am getting an RMA number so that they have a better reason to consider adding support.

Quote - > Quote - How far back do you realistically expect them to go? Back to Poser 4? 3? How far? Poser 4 is over 12 years old...

More to the point, Poser 5, which made the shift to png for thumbnails, was released 8 years ago.  Given that we had 4 versions and six years to convert rsr files before the format was finally made obsolete and support stopped, with some of those versions available for free for sometime now, and with multiple free conversion options available besides Poser...well, at what point do you say "deal with it"?

DAZ, the biggest Poser content provider, only stopped releasing RSR-only files four years ago. It's not exactly ancient history. People have provided freeware converters, so it's not the most difficult programming in the world--and Poser already had it in the previous versions. With my having half a terabyte of Poser content, of which roughly half of that is in RSR formats, there's better things to do with one's time than to manually convert tens of thousands of files. I only install the content I need when I need it--which makes the batch RSR conversion programs impractical because I'll have to run the program every time I install content. The point of computers is to assume the manual tasks that are impractical to do.

This isn't an issue of supporting obsolete things, but maintaining support for things that aren't. I'd guess that there are somewhere between 5000-10,000 Poser items that have no PNG thumbnails. Much of the content for V3/M3/A3/S3/D3 figures has no PNGs. Those are not obsolete figures or content. This isn't asking support for 12-year old items, but for things that were only released 3 years before Poser 8 was released. I can understand people, who have little content beyond the Millenium 4 releases, but it's odd for longtime Poser users to be so accepting.

As an aside, there is an interesting attitude I've seen nowadays--it's the willingness to accept things that aren't right. It's not just accepting them, but arguing to accept them. I remember questioning the terms of service at TriggerStreet.com a few years ago, a site that provides a forum to help discover budding screenwriters. The site has a common licensing arrangement that grants a nonexclusive license to the site to every screenplay put on the site--including the right to sell those works. I was rather amazed at the number of people that defended that licensing arrangement instead of wanting a better one that would protect both TriggerStreet and the writers using the site. Some of the posts were even insulting. I wasn't condemning the site, but just asking them to fix the licensing terms so that they weren't so ridiculously one-sided.

Quote - I would say that your concern with rsr shouldn't be the major issue.  You will get older content which are Material Room wired differently which can cause overall problems in the current iterations Poser.

Is that a problem with P8 not supporting P5-P7 MatRoom files well or older P4 and earlier content? If it's the latter, I'm not concerned because P4 textures were either associated with the OBJ file and other textures had to be manually installed. Content providers quickly switched to P5 compatible textures. They weren't so quick with dropping RSR thumbs because Poser automatically converted them whenever an item was opened. If it's the former issue of not being fully compatible with P5-P7, then I probably will not be buying any future versions of Poser and might return P8 for a refund.

Quote - I can't think of any reason why they might want to add [RSR] back in.

The reason would be that I'd guess that close to half the content developed over the history of Poser's life doesn't have PNG thumbnails. DAZ originals before 2007 didn't routinely have PNGs and that's late V3/M3/A3 timeframes (V4 came out in late 2006). That's a lot of very usable content that most Poser users have and can still purchase.

I think the only reason more people haven't been annoyed about this is that they've been carrying forward their runtimes across the different versions of Poser and computer changes and any RSR thumbs were already converted in earlier versions.  Once they get a major hard drive crash, they're not going to be too thrilled with having to run another program after reinstalling all their content simply to be able to see the thumbnails.

Not being fully backwards compatible is a poor programming practice. It would be akin to Microsoft not making all documents produced prior to Office 2007 fully readable with all formatting in newer versions of Office. Microsoft has a history of making bad arrogant decisions about the usability of their software and they haven't been that dumb.

Quote - No one expects Ford to support the T-Model until today, am I right?

True, but nobody is going to routinely drive a T-Model today. The 3rd generation Millennium figures are still widely used and, unless DAZ has updated the files with PNGs, they don't have them. I haven't installed P8 yet, but I wouldn't be bothered if they dropped Detailer Texture import. I haven't found any Poser content that needed it in all the time I've used the program. There are thousands of Poser files that do not have any PNG thumbnails.

I don't mind the loss of a function that's not useful today. I am annoyed at the loss of one that now forces me to do additional manual effort to install content that's only a few years old. That's sloppy programming that isn't a good sign of a company that's standing by their users. As is, I'll have to cross my fingers that the new library interface will work cleanly with my antivirus programs without my having to contact their technical support.

I wonder if DAZ Studio processes RSR thumbnails inside the program. If they do a better job of being compatible with Poser than Poser is, P8 may be the last version I purchase.

Attached Link: http://sharecg.com/v/34624/gallery/Poser/Visual-Index-to-Poser-Animals-Part-1

Quote - Thanks for the feedback - I miss art school for the portfolio reviews. They were brutal sometimes, but useful.

Oh... geez. I'm sorry. This is why I don't leave critiques when I look at people's albums. I was figuring those images were by SM's staff. It's always hard, when looking at Poser images, whether a problem is with a model or the artist posing the model. The hard lesson I learned when I started seriously using Poser is that the figures aren't perfect. The jutting joints aren't your fault.

My main gripe with the figure is that Miki 3's face lacks the distinctive oriental look that the earlier figures had.

Attached Link: http://poser.smithmicro.com/miki.html

The illustrations, at the link, point out that the joints don't seem to be very much improved. The jumping image shows jutting knees and elbows with other images showing overexaggerated creases on the inner elbow. The fingers look unnatural in the patio image. The smile looks unnatural and awful.

More skilled artists should be able to produce better demo images, without retouching, than are shown on SM's official site.

Some of the facial expressions look good, but overall, the promotional images are unimpressive. Whatever advancements have been made with Miki 3 aren't on display.

They're back at Amazon's CyberMonday promotion with P8 still $80 and Pro now $170 with three hours to go as of now.

It's not as cheap as a sidegrade for PoserPro, but the difference is that a sidegrade does not allow giving away or selling the version being sidegraded. After doing a sidegrade or upgrade, a user still only owns one copy of the program--the one they used to get the newer/better version.

The Amazon offer is a full licensed version. Even at SM's 60% discount, Pro would cost $200 and P8 $100. An upgrade to P8 would cost $52. For $28 more, a person can have a second copy of Poser.

One minute left and only a quarter of each were bought. That might mean that they'll be back another day.

The weird thing is that a digital recorder sold out in minutes. Anybody with an MP3 player or a smartphone already has that capability and wouldn't want to carry around this other thing.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2643604&page=1