/(I think I'm a Saran-wrap member, but I might upgrade to cardboard..;)/ ROTFLMAO That was real cute, :) - the rumors I have heard / read was that DS would be a free app, while the plugins would be a reasonably priced purchase. Of course one knows how rumors are. Obviously there is a hugh potential for DAZ to expand their market via this method, imagine in a few years that DS, as it matures, might well replace Poser and, the content would continue to come from DAZ. I have been playing with DS today, and it seems to have great potential, of course it is a bit buggy and many folks seem to be having some sort of problem, I don't believe that any of the problems appear to be major at this point so perhaps they will be quickly fixed and a release made available for the rest of the 'family'. BabaLouie

/* If that's the case, that needs to go! */ Sandoppe .. I agree completely, I would really hate to get locked in to set folders and directories. For me Poser had a limiting folder structure and I really did not care for it. I hope DAZ adds some flexibility in this area. I will keep a model and all parts related to it in its own folder. Makes it a lot easier when exporting to another app, however, DS appears to not handle this type of 'custom grouping' very well. BabaLouie

That sounds like an awful lot of CR2s one would have to >change doesn't it? Yeah, I know, it does not sound right and I do not think that is what DAZ wants to happen, but it does seem to fix the problem for me. I was looking at the log.txt file for DS and was watching what and where it fails. It seems that DS relies quite a bit on the 'content' and poser folders for pathing instructions when importing files. This seems a bit risky to me, but I suspect it will eventually make DS a bit more bullet proof for the majority of users. Since I use mostly custom folders and keep virtually all parts of a model in that folder, it causes a problem for me. I do not much care for being locked into preset folders and paths. :) Of course this is an Alpha, and I am using W2k pro that I geek pretty deeply, so I am looking into some of the esoterical things that I have done to Win2k. But I always get suspecious when I see 'string messages' using the / in the path name. Sometimes it can indicate a programming oversight elsewheres and then again it may just be the way the error message was coded to display. Overall I am impress with DS and certaintly DS will continue to improve as DAZ has dedicated themselves to this program, I am sure they will be successful. BabaLouie

Wallpaper came from >http://www.macdesktops.com/ Thanks, will stop by there later... BabaLouie

Here is part of a post I made under the 'lost here' thread, it may explain some of the loading problems I mentioned in item 18 of this thread ... /* Here is what I have found concerning .cr2 and .pz? files. If I have a .obj or texture file referenced with the path as such :runtime:geometries: ........ I am prompted to search for the needed file. If I put in the actual path of the object in the .cr2 file such as below ... h:poser4runtimegeometries ...... then the file is automatically found and loaded without any intervention from me. */ HTH BabaLouie

Ming, With all due respect you have little room to complain, you feel like the Plat club was a waste of money and DAZ stated early on that they would be early releasing DS to Plat club members. Personally, I have found the Plat Club to be a good deal, as have many others. It is very simple as to why Plat Club members are gettig the initial release, it is a benefit to being a member and asking someone to post it somewhere for others to try is unethical. BabaLouie

kayjay.. Here is what I have found concerning .cr2 and .pz? files. If I have a .obj or texture file referenced with the path as such :runtime:geometries: ........ I am prompted to search for the needed file. If I put in the actual path of the object in the .cr2 file such as below ... h:poser4runtimegeometries ...... then the file is automatically found and loaded without any intervention from me. If you will notice that when you are prompted for a file location the path will look something like this /runtime/geometries/ I consider that to be poor programming ( the " /" ) on the part of DAZ, sorry about that folks, I am a hugh fan of DAZ, but I also program in C and when I see something like that and I am experiencing file and directory parsing problems, I consider it poor programming. Parsing a path is basic to any file operation and there should never be a coding error in that respect. I suspect as I have stated in another thread, that when DAZ corrects what I believe to be file and directory parsing errors, then they will probably clean up a number of 'odd' bugs. BabaLouie

I hate to say this, especially as a hugh fan of DAZ, but there are far too many file and directory parsing errors for me to continue with this Alpha release. It seems like they have hard-coded some 'paths' into their importer and that is what is fouling up some but not all of the imports that I try to do. A lot of my stuff I have in custom dirs and this may be the problem. Me thinks, that when DAZ corrects what to me appears to be a hugh file/dir parsing error, they may well correct a slew of other problematic bugs. But then again I may be wrong, so if I am, somebody please let me know. :) BabaLouie

Small world, that is my home state, born there, lived in NLR, now live in Virginia. I have some friends from Maryland, that is a yankee state, I am still trying to convert them to eating grits with eggs, bacon, butter, salt and pepper all added together in a bowl. Not having much luck, though they do know how to spell properly now. :) BabaLouie

Well I don't know the answer to your question, but, being from the South, I am compelled to complain about the incorrect spelling of a word most sacred to us folks from the South, that word being " Y'all ". Now, I must confess that there are some folks that spell it " Ya'll ", but that too is incorrect, we tend to find that those folks are 'come heres' from the North, the North being a place that we folks from the South seldom have a need to visit, what with there backward ways and all. Now you have used it correctly in a sentence, that is fine and dandy, but please, please, spell it properly. :) Merry Christmas, BabaLouie

Too slick! That is just too slick. :) BTW, neat wallpaper, where did you get it from ? BabaLouie

I have the same issues as PheonixRising and I am using Win2K Pro on an Intel mb/proc with 512meg or rdram. It dies trying to load one of the egyptian jpg images. I seem to recall that the parenting issue is mentioned in one of the install files or the email from DAZ. Win2K Pro, 2.6 g proc, 512m Rdram, PNY Nvidia GeForce4 Ti 4600 graphic card and Poser 4. BabaLouie

Bill, On initial run DS prompts you for the drives to scan so it will know where the 'runtime' folder is. I put this on an Intel P4 mb/proc system and did not have any problems as far as startup running, but I only instructed DS to search the 'H' drive which is the only drive that I have the Poser 4 runtime folder in. Perhaps you have a backup of the runtime folder on another drive, a corrupted download, did you installed with an Av running or perhaps running Ds with an AV running. You could try uninstall/reinstall on DS and selecting the only drive to be scanned that has your 'working' Poser 4 runtime folder on it. HTH and Merry Christmas BabaLouie

Before you lay out the money for B4, tell us why you think B5 will not work on your system. There are plenty of us here who can offer you help. As Quest has pointed out, B5 is designed to work on your Win 98 system, in fact I have used it on 98 1st and 2nd editions as well as Win2k, all service packs. BabaLouie

Don't worry tjohn, I did not take it as a putdown. What you said about Bryce's modelling capabilites is more accurate than what I said. My statement needed to be corrected and after one look at the artists mentioned by you and orbital, there is no doubt that I spoke out of place. I seem to do that sometimes, that darn brain of mine just does not seem to pay much as much attention to me as it did when I was younger. :-) take care, BabaLouie