As a part of the Vue bug about 80% - 90% of all the hair that's available for figures is useless.  The programmers at e-on must like bald women. :(((  Is there a work around for this bug?
The hair isn't dymamic in the sense that cloth is.  Most of it has movement morphs so it isn't exactly the same problem but it does only happen to prop hair not hair that conforms to the figure.  Since the hair has movement morphs built in I don't normally need a dynamic symulation for it.  
     Since this is what I would classify as a serious bug in Vue why aren't they fixing it?  Let's face it the hair IS there in the saved scene all Vue has to do is read that part of the file and handle it the same way it handles other objects.
   Does this problem occur with all objects that are parented to a figure?
     It doesn't always fail to load either.  Some of it just gets loaded with wrong textures or really odd morphs.  Begins to sound to me as if it's trying to apply the figure textures to the hair for some odd reason.  Since their are no files amongst the figures specific files to define the hair that may be why it's not showing up.

Going off to do an experiment.  I'm going to use conforming hair but parent it rather than conforming it to see if my feeling about what's causing the bug is correct.  Willl post results when I have them. 

Not all that familliar with Photoshop but you should be able to render the Lost Realms scene seperately.  Export the render  as a PSD file, bring it into Photoshop, apply the clamshell, save the whole as a jpeg and import it into Poser as a background.  You should then be able to put the figure in possition with the clamshell.  I think you could also make the clamshell a second layer.  That would allow you to easilly move it if you find that it isn't in the right place.  
     The hard part will be making sure that the clamshell is an appropriate size and distance into the setting to allow you to pose the figure where you want it in the overall scene.

No, you aren't necessarilly doing anything wrong.  Poser sometimes does things like lock up Windows, reboot my machine or does something a bit odd with a pose.
Not sure why it isn't working for you.  I always save exactly as you did, often reopen files to continue work and never have a problem and I'm running, gulp, Vista, with an odd Poser setup.  It's installed on my D: drive instead of c:program files.  don't think this is much help but if either of us should be having problems it's me and I have no problems at all.  (Except for the odd glitch that is)
I have had some posing problems that were resolved when I saved off the pz3, exited and restarted and reloaded.  My best guess is something went seriously wrong with some portion of that work.
I used to do computer troubleshooting and repairs and it sounds very like you hit some glitch that not only affected your work in progress but the save file when you saved it.
How big and complex is the scene?  Did you have "Limits" set to on?  Is the Pose extreme?
Do you have a lot going on in background while you're working in Poser?

Those are all questions about things that might cause an odd glitch now and then.  If a scene is extemely complex Poser could be running out of memory.  If you don't have limits set to on you could be putting the figure into an anatomically impossible pose.  If the pose is extreme for some odd reason Poser sometimes modifys it slightly seamingly without reason.  If you have E-mail going, are serfing the web and trying to play an online game or such at the same time you may once again be running out of memory.
In your caseit sounds very like one of those nonrepeatable bugs that do crop up from time to time.  If the scene isn't too complex it may be easiest just to recreate it.

Don't know about an external drive but I'm running an Acer Aspire 7520 runnning Poser under Vista and with it installed on the D: drive.  Poser seems to run fine.  Don't try the same with DAZ though.  |It won't pick up ANY content installed after it's installed if you do.

I'm completely new to Vue.  Thanks for that and congrats.  That picture is more than just inspiring.

Thank you for your reply.  I still have no idea why it was doing that but it stopped without ever giving me an explanation.  It had been sending me off to register my copy and go to the store when in fact the cactus I wanted to add WAS and still is available.  
     I still have no idea why the e-on software registration page seems to think that my Esprite is registered but the program itself and the store don't.  Possibly some weirdness brought on by Vista.  There's a lot of that.

Thank you.  I'm giving Essentials a trial run but I did notice that option in the file menu.
So much to learn and so little tinme to learn it in. ;)

That's what I'm finding with Poser.   Started out doing exactly what I'd been doing in DAZ and have gradually been adding in more of the things that it can do that DAZ can't.  I'll have to check.  At this time I can't seem to get to the site to look at the info for the various Vue packages but if the price difference isn't huge it IS probably best in the long run to get the fullest package.

Have DAZ studio but for some odd reason on my Vista system it isn't picking up a lot of the content in the Poser 7/Downloads directory tree even though it's been given that as it's main directory.  Also there are a LOT of things that DAZ can't do, such as change materials.
     I actually like DAZ better as a Posing tool, although even that is changing as I get more used to Poser.  Besides I've already forked out the bucks for Poser.  I got started with DAZ and decided that I needed something that would do more after a few months..
On reading through the product descriptions for Vue I can already see that it does not just more than Bryce but a TOn more than Bryce does.

Looks like Esprit is about where I can start looking at buying.  I still need a photo editing tool.  Someone on one of the other boards suggested Photoshop Elements for the ability to use photoshop brushes without the mega price tag.  The two of those will take care of my software budget for a bit and probably give me a lot to learn.
      Do I read their information correctly?  It will render Poser figures and objects using the Poser render engine while using its own engine for Vue created objects and terrains in the same render?

Thank you that will save a LOT of agravation.  One of the objects in question was a shield that I wanted to move from the left arm to the back.  Unfortunately with a round object two fo the axes just turn it in circles. ;)  next time I'll know to  unparent it first.

In my case they're under Poser 7/Poses/DAZ Victoria 4/Morph injections.  should be simillar for other veersions of Poser since DAZ won't let V4 be installed into the Downloads directory.