Clean out your main Poser 8 Runtime and set up external runtimes.

Poser has never liked having too much stuff in its belly.

-- Jeff

Dan -- your renders are always the most realistic that I see. Great job on sussing out IDL.

I just got P8 and am tinkering with IDL, the envsphere and other new things. Thanks, Bill, for all of the info and settings. What I've seen of IDL, I love, even though the precalculations do take a bit of time, but the actual renders scream past (as compared to previous Poser versions).

I'm nearing completion of my first "serious" or semi-serious IDL render. Just need to try one more thing.

-- Jeff

I finally was able to bite the bullet and picked up Poser 8.

So new things to learn.

The manual and tutorials... suck when it comes to IDL, but was happy to see a few entries for the new light options.

Perhaps Bagginsbill or the PTB here in this forum will sticky all of the IDL and P8 lighting threads. I haven't had any problems with the library or anything so far.

More things to explore.

-- Jeff

I started with Poser 6, and now have only Poser 7. And, yes, the Poser manual is... junk. It has a few tips a newbie can decipher, but otherwise, only use it if you get stuck with finding a solution. Otherwise, it just gives one a headache.

And, yes, Poser is more difficult than load, point, render. It takes time. The time I've invested in Poser has ruined me for other programs. I own Carrara 6, and would love to use it, but the gui is foreign to this Poser user, and the language/glossary is also weird. I've managed to learn much of Poser Materials, so trying to figure out C6's shader room is daunting, and I loathe their slide tools and posing tools.

As far as the Material Room -- here's what this non-mathmatically inclined person does -- try it out, plug it in and see if it work :)  I've taken away a ton of info from threads here and at RDNA from Bagginsbill and the like, but when the math comes in, my brain goes dark. BUT, I've managed to pick up basic functions, and the rest is trial and error. And most times, it works to my advantage, or I discover something cool and new.

It never hurts to just play around an experiment, and once you learn what to do and what not to do, it's easier. Learn at your own level, basically.

So I'm sticking with Poser, and still enjoy using it and creating images. Yes, there are tools that are mandatory for Poser usage (many of which Smith Micro was smart enough to buy out and include in Poser 8). I love using anything by PhilC or Bagginsbill or Dimension3D and Semideau. There's also ShaderSpider over at DAZ that moves things along in the Material room (and, I think, Dimension3D has a similiar program available).

I'm still no expert after nearly 3 or 4 years, but I can at least fake it :)

-- Jeff

trekkiegirrl has a free one at her site.

-- Jeff

So did this fix work with Poser 7 as well?

S'funny you should bring this up. Vista just finished eating my system. It came with my box, so I suffered with it. But something in the OS got mangled and screwed up. I thought it was a hardware failure, or the GPU failing. But everything checked out, until he checked the OS and hundreds of problems showed up.

He had an extra copy of XP, so loaded me up with XP Pro. Everything is up and running and running faster than ever. Vista was a hog, and seems to have withered on the vine after Win 7 came out. But I'm happy reverting back to XP. This just occured and I have some tweaking to do yet, but everything is running smoothly so far.

Once I can afford Win 7, I'll probably upgrade, though.

-- Jeff

Hello.

First up -- most M3 clothing fits M4... pretty good and mostly doable with mnor adjustments for pokethrough (except for things like shoes and socks).

As far as either Wardrobe Wizard or Crossdresser -- they both have M4 plugins that you have to buy seperately. With WW2 -- you have to have both licenses (m3 and M4), while in XD, you only need the one converting to (M4). If you buy Poser 8, it comes with Wardrobe Wizard, but I don't know which licenses/plugins it comes with.

I hope that helps.

-- Jeff

Quote -  I'm going to show my ignorance of a lot of things, but here goes...

I have a hosting account at hostgator that runs me $7.95/mo. This gives me the ability to host about a terrabyte in storage and many times that in transfer. I've got a paypal account and know how to create a paypal cart for my customers.

Since paypal takes their cut off the top, their charges are of no concern. The cost of hosting is close enough to minimal to be considered nothing.

The big question: Why are stores going broke? The cost of virtual real-estate is darn near nothing, and there is no inventory to house or ship. The only way I can see someone losing money is if they are taking the charges and not immediately paying the artists their cut. Put another way, this 8is as close to a no-overhead business as can be constructed.

If people are trying to make a living this way, that may be another story. In that case, you keep your day job until the store generates an income stream. My own suspicions is that VERY* few artists do this fulltime. I just don't see it being a living. For companies like Vanishing Point, who have a payroll to maintain, I see the problem. Perhaps this never has been something to do full time as the guys over at Poserworld have explained time and again.

I suspect a large portion of the problem is what people choose to offer in their stores. We've already had several posts about there being far too many faeries and other cutesie-poo cartoon characters in the mix. I'd actually pay $50 to see the sales figures for Near Me or Rosy Cheeks Lena for the last three months. Add in the knee-jerk reaction that when things get slow the temptation is to go with "sex sells" and a ton of slutwear gets rushed to market.

Now, at the risk of giving people far more info than they really want, I've never been a big fan of fetish wear of any kind. I think if you want a human being to be sexually alluring, you put them au natural, with a "come-hither' expression. At least that's what does it for me. The clothing are the props I need to get to that point... to flesh out the story. I'm talk that "real" clothing doesn't sell, but upon doing an inventory, that's what I've bought by and large. Yes, My girls have the full compliment of underwear, but I quit buying at three different styles of bras

What I can't get enough of is sets and scenery. I've spent a dollar on that stuff for every dime I've spent on clothing, and I've spent a young fortune on clothing.

So, back to the question... why would poser stores be closing in the bad economy. I would think this would be the kind of backroom business that you'd keep after, since it's all gravy. Have I missed something?

It's not just about money, but time as well.

This isn't one man selling his own stuff. This is brokering other vendors. There are contracts, financial forms and paperwork, taxes to be paid, lawyers to be paid for services, time spent taking care of servers and software, paying credit card services (since most places take more than paypal), testing products before they hit market, checking for legal problems with every new item offered, etc.

Vanishing Point, like many others, begin with making products and that is their true love. They've run a good business and had and nice storefront, but now it's time to get back into the creation business and leave that other stuff to others. I applaud them and hope this new situation is beneficial to all parties involved.

-- Jeff

they have sleeves
.

Looks like I'll be sticking with Poser 7 for a while longer.

I thought I'd be able to use their mystery Friday the 13th coupon with the upgrade to Poser 8, but the coupon isn't good on P8 or upgrade.

But they are having a $50 off full P8 for new users.

CP/SM just don't like former Poser users, it seems.

What little money I have, then, can and will be spent on content not at CP.

-- Jeff

http://market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=67883&vendor=6400

http://market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=68132&vendor=6400

Here are 2 from this site, and, they're both by Billy-t, too. Each comes with a nice T-shirt.

-- Jeff

Quote - point!

it's not a remake of the Prisoner.... it's actually a continuation. the Original Village and Series did happen in the shows past...

True. But all of the previous sequels, via novels and comic books, have failed to realize the programs' depth. I wasn't impressed with the behind the scenes and sneak-peeks over at AMC's website, even though I respect many of the actors involved.

Time will tell.

-- Jeff

I won't let ABC destroy my original feelings for the original "V" mini-series.

I fondly and vividly recall the original when it aired, back before cable was big; back before the internet. The advertisements for this new mini-series were sketchy, mysterious and not until near the actual start date did you even get a glimpse of the spaceships. This was big-budget for TV back then, and the special effects still look pretty outstanding on the dvd, and it blew away the huge audiences.

The only problem came when they decided to do a sequel mini-series, and then FIRED the creator, Kenneth Johnson (Incredible Hulk, Alien Nation) during production. In the second mini-series, you can see the wheels coming off the cart. By the time it became a regular series, it was nearly a joke.

Why remake films/television that do not need remaking? "Cash grab"

And in 2 weeks: the remake of The Prisoner. Argh!

And on the big screen, the remake of "A Nightmare on Elm Street."

Just turn away, people. Turn away.

-- Jeff

Still using P7, because I can't afford to upgrade right now. Just getting back on my feet from nearly a full year of unemployment.

I'm looking forward to eventually testing it out within the next year or so.

-- Jeff