First, beautiful horse, Daio. Now I'm envious. :) And, Snowsultan, ahhhhhhhh... I cater to and serve three dogs, all Chow mixes. Who needs 'fur plugins'? I have plenty that can be glued to my monitor for 'fur simulation'. A cat is something that I wish could be added to the family. Living in the 'shticks' means field mice (and other varments). Some years ago I had a Siamese cat and black Labradore. No mice problems. She was also a computer user - used to always jump onto my desk and try her hand, er paw, at writing Shakespeare. :) BYS

No complaints about the actor for the eighth Doctor, just that the pilot sucked. Not only was it time-static, but basically a big chase scene. The thing that I love about Dr. Who is the mystery, the piecing together of the pieces, and the inevitable solution through reasoning (and happenstance). Not just chasing down the bad guy. Boooring... Typical Americanization - the US producers were pandering to the masses - mindnumbing fight and chase scenes with no substance. Hey, what else could you expect from Fox, the same group that eventually brought us Earth-shattering documentaries like the one claiming that we never went to the Moon? Back on topic, it'd be way too cool to see a set of Doctor characters that looked reasonably similar to the real actors. BYS

For texture maps and postworking, you should have a decent 2D graphics package ala Adobe Photoshop or PaintShop Pro. Whatever you use, make sure that it has layers! Good luck and don't forget to have fun while learning and creating. BYS

Wasn't the first episode aired in 1963? :) I was just a tad too young to have seen that originally (at 1 y/o), but my father (and I) used to watch the third Doctor religiously (Pertwee). I didn't start watching it again until Tom Baker. As for that horrid attempt at an eighth Doctor, well let's not mention it. ;0) BYS

Well, if it were the "Lock Figure", then it would be active the next time he loaded the scene. Heh? That is something that is save with the scene. Still, to vindicate you, it could be that the feature is becoming accidentally enabled (but not saved), disappearing when the scene is reloaded (and settings reset and set). That would be a bug if true. BYS

In my case, since I archive to DVD, the entire Runtime is backed up whenever there is enough data to fill one (my Runtime is only about 2.5GB). The reason that I make a full Runtime backup is that it's much easier than collating a bunch of partial backups - stuff you deleted will reappear, as well as problems you may have fixed (though this should be rare) and you have to rifle through a CD set chronologically to restore correctly. Must agree with onnetz. There have been several times that compressed files on CD-R or DVD-R have been corrupt for me (despite working while on hard drive). Don't know why this happens, but when it does, you are truly screwed. Either way, backing up is a good preventative measure for any unforeseeable disasters - hard drive crash, virus, accidental deletion, etc. Patricia, 27 CDs!! Nearly 18GBs! We need a PA (Posers Anonymous). :) goido, yes. Copy them from CD to the proper Poser folder and everything is restored. No need to do any reinstalls of data. DAZ installers just extract the files within and write them into the proper folders within their own folders, so even they'll be restored after a CD restoration. BYS

Private pool - beautiful babes only! ;0) Nice fence (but I'm looking at the foreground props)! :) BYS

Yes! Yes! Yes! :) You have the perfect combo - CD burner and Nero! Burn a CD (or so) at your earliest convenience to back up your Runtime directory. If you've read any of the horror stories in this forum about people who've lost everything because they don't back up, well, let that inspire you to do it. Since you're dealing with more than 1GB, you should 'divide and conquer' the Runtime. More than likely, the two largest folders within it are the Geometries and Textures folders, so see what size they are and how each can fit onto a CD of its own if necessary. If you have more than one physical drive, I'd suggest making a copy of the Runtime to the other drive first and dividing and backing up that. Although it takes a while to copy all of these small files, it will allow you to create folders representing each CD that you will create with just the right amount of data in each. Don't be cheap - use the largest CD's that you can find (700MB, I think). Make sure that you are creating a data CD and that 8.3 and DOS compatible are turned OFF. Good luck! :) BYS

I totally agree with krimpr. I'm about 600 pages into "Inside LightWave 7" and am learning more than could be puzzle-pieced together from the manual. The manual is a great reference (obviously), but sucks for learning how to use and master LW. ILW7 fills that role perfectly, covering most of the 'scary' stuff in clearly manageable detail. Also, when I've come across some odd, unexpected behavior and emailed Dan, he actually responded with suggestions. Not only a superbly great book, but a superbly great author who knows the software! Can't recommend it enough!! BYS

So, as ernyoka1 stated, it is best to have the document window set to the same ASPECT RATIO as the final new window render aspect ratio. Otherwise, cropping will always occur in the direction with the smaller value. BYS

It's not the SIZE of the render, but the PROPORTION of the render when comparing document window to new window. If your document window is 100x100 and you render to a new window at 10000x10000, it will be exactly the same 'framing'. But, if you render to 1000x10000, the width will be 1/10 the proportional width of the document window size - literally, it'll crop it so that the height is still the same and width is adjusted down to fit. I've done extensive tests on this for importing scenes into Cinema 4D (and trying to keep the render settings as close to Poser's). This is how it works. BYS

No, nobody's render engine uses 'hardware acceleration'. :) What makes Poser 'different' is that it doesn't use hardware acceleration (ala OpenGL) for the work display (for speeding up mesh display, previewing textures, lights, etc.) like most other 3D CG apps. Poser uses only software-based viewing. I use GeForce cards because nVidia supports multi-monitors better and also directly supports stereoscopics. They are less expensive than professional cards (heck, I'm cheap), like the similar Quadros. Had no problems whatsoever installing SR3; no reinstall of Poser 5 required. Alternatively, some are experiencing problems. This is 'the Way' of software. BYS

Well, I guess that means you really don't want any of my experience, help, or algorithms. Oh, well. I mentioned Java because it's a good OOP language (despite what you keep bickering about). Perl's good, but it's not OOP - which is where everything is going (if Perl is OOP, I missed it somewhere in your code and my brief encounters with it). Reminds me too much of COBOL in some ways. Another good procedural language that I don't like (I don't fancy C as much any more either). How many people program in COBOL these days? Coming from C then C++, Java is a natural progression for me - though I still program C++ for targeted platform code. Don't tell me that you think C++ is for toasters too? Instead of noodly code, I can show a full screen shot of my working java app. But I guess full-blown working apps don't impress you either. That's the thing. After working (working really hard) to code in C and C++, Java was the fastest development that I've encountered (even wrt BASIC). Maybe Perl has it, but I haven't come across it as a programmer for, once again, 15 years (is it sinking in yet that I'm no weekend coder? I've programmed for large corporations, for robotics, for APIs, for AIs, as well as stand alone applications). I've seen app SDKs using C, C++, Python, but none using Perl. And none using Java (yet). Only reason that I'm not into that much programming now is that I'm trying to move into 3D CG animation - which is going very well now that I've mastered Poser, Cinema 4D, and am quickly gripping LightWave and Maya. My point - handling Poser parsing and "data storage" is easy in classes. C++ has classes, but, honestly, it can be mind-numbing trying to code in it - especially the esoteric stuff. I basically consider C++, C patched with classes. Java, on the other hand, was easy, easy, and easier. The only encountered frustrations with it were in dealing with a third-party api (JAI), which is about as esoteric as any api can get. The only two other languages that I'd look at are Python (which I have tried) and maybe C# (which I haven't). Have fun... BYS

That's the way he was doing it. I don't know why since I don't use Perl. BTW, Java can use C and C++ as well. Java was designed as a platform independent OOP programming language. It was touted for embedded systems because of this. Not just for coffeemakers and toasters. Stop insulting my 15 years experience, please... If I were to take on another language, it would Python, not Perl. Look, I use a tool because it works (Java does), its workflow, its structure, its support, and, in this case, its system independence. That's why I used LISP when doing AI programming, Assembler when working in DOS, and C/C++ when working on applications in Windows/Linux/Amiga. I happen to love OOP (as do most other application programmers) over the primitive and archaic procedural approach. Again, I've been programming for about 15 years. Sorry, Java already can parse Poser files. BYS

Errata: That shoulda been SR2.1. BYS