I like the layout. I like the search engine the most. I had no download issues other than it took a long time to do, acceptable given the traffic. I love Smith Micro tech support who actually seem to know what they are talking about unlike others. They are professional and were very thorough. Once this program is cleaned up it will be the best damn thing since sliced bread. however, I am not going to jump through hoops yet because I can't use mine. I am not really all that upset about it. What irritates me is that some are suggesting that I am an "art button" noob and my problem is not relevant and therefore is utter crap and shouldn't be posted.

I don't disagree with that statement at all. But your failing to see that some of the problems that are arising aren't being posted by beginners who want to "press the art button". by saying that you marginalize them to the masses that DO rip Poser over silly issues.

TtfnJohn, I am not a person who rips poser for fun like a lot of others. My issue is real and is serious. You said it yourself that you haven't been messing with it much. I have in an attempt to solve this FFRender issue. Meaning I have encountered the problem, reported the problem and now am having to wait for it to be fixed. How is that a rip of Poser, by ripping I would assume you mean unfairly ripping Poser.

*"OTOH, I've bought enough software to know that it's utter crap to tell other people not to buy because you've had a bad experience."

*My Pinto just exploded in to flames and I was wondering if anyone should be told about this so it might not happen to them?

My version of Poser 8 doesn't function properly. Smith Micro has look at my setting and hardware info and has stated that there are no problems with my computer setting that they could determine. They also said that they are aware of the issue that is causing the FFRender to fail which means a problem already exists with the sofware. This guy wants to know whether he should be buying this program. I CAN'T USE MINE which, according to Smith Micro is of no fault of mine.

I am not some Novice who knows nothing about CG. I too have been buying software for a long time now. When I buy something that doesn't work for me and somebody aks me what I think I tell them so they have a good sense of what they are possibly going to buy. And you think that it is utter crap to do this? My problem isn't a light set glitch or some geometry bug in Vicky 4, my problem is that it won't work!!! I think this guy, the OP deserves to now about it before he shells out his money. But you think it's utter crap?

Well, eventually people get used to working with new apps and find a way to get what they want. Ten they upload a tutorial and then everyone gets a better understanding of how to use the program. I just wish this thing was more stable, that's all I want. The rest is just a matter of study.

Animation crashes, doesn't finish. FFRender fails to complete the tasks, shuts down and so on and so on and... WAIT for it to be improved. The amount of problem related posts should make the decision clear. And after reading the posts both here and, well, about everywhere else. I find it VERY hard to believe that anyone has had absolutely no problems with Poser 8. I mean... really? No problems at all?

Just kidding Phil, the beard looks cool. When I try to grow mine out, it grows "out" instead of down. Yours is probably the best long beard I have seen in ages.

It doesn't matter which rout I take, FFRender fails to work, regardless. Besides, it shouldn't matter. The program should work either way. And assembling 300 separate images is time consuming and I don't have the time. Poser 7 completed the movie flawlessly. Poser 8 failed every time an attempt was made. And even the times I got to see what little it did, the quality was not very good et all. However, Poser 7 rendered beautifully.

BTW, and not to be argumentative but I have NEVER had issues with using a renderer to make a movie. I know a lot of people here swear by the process but I have done both over the years and I see NO difference between the two. When I used to leave the key frames as they were there were slight differences but now, when I am done and ready to save I first set all key frames to every frame and no longer are there any differences; and I've been doing this for in excess of eleven years now.

Thank you though for responding, It's nice to have had somebody answer. BTW, I like your Avatar :)

Who are you addressing ? If me then all I can say is I have no idea who you are and you have never told me anything once or twice.

Yes. It is very fast. A 300 frame animation took half as long in Poser 8 than Poser 7. Fast! However, I should note that Poser 8 never really finished the animation because of the FFRender stopped working. Also in non separate process rendering the memory usage accumulation steadily climbed to 80% until the app just locked up. Nothing about the animation should have caused this increases. At first the usage was no higher than 42% but within 70 frames it was eating my resources like chocolate fudge. I am using an AMD Quad core 9650 w/8gigs of Ram. This occurs in both Windows Vista and Windows 7 Beta. And that isn't the least of the glitches.

A lot of the other glitches I can live with but, aside from the above mentioned issue, it seems the old artifact issue has reemerged. When rendering an animation some items behind the camera were superimposed on to the camera view leaving artifacts in the completed render. Fast, sure it's fast but I would rather have a Pontiac that gets me where I'm going then a Lamborghini that only gets me 20 miles. I'm getting a refund and I'll wait until they fix this beast. besides, $130 is not pocket change when something doesn't work as advertised. Poser 7 is much slower but a least it's been reliable and I can still export to Carrara.

geoegress: Isn't there an issue with multiple users on one machine? For instance, a member here buys a product from the marketplace, lets say a V4 corset (wow, we have those here). now he is sitting at home with his son and the son makes a picture using this model and lets say the son is sixteen because, hey... there's a corset involved ;)

Now the kid uploads his new picture to here or at commune. Isn't that a violation of the EULA? If I remember right there is an exclusivity clause in the R'osity EULA prohibiting others from using said product. I don't remember there being any exclusion to that dialog either. If this is the case in a home environment wouldn't that be more problematic in a company environment?

As a professional Cat Herder, I resent that statement  tee, hee.

I have had some issues with this but I changed the preview setting to SreeD and those problem go away. just my experience, though.

Well, I wouldn't want to load my scene down with a ton of Michael 2's for background crowd movement when dork looks, at a distance, just fine. I have very large background crowds in my animations and so, the dork IS still very useful. Why would anyone want to use high poly background characters when you can barely make out the faces, anyway? That would be crazy. I recreated the Blob theater scene (the old version). Everything in that scene was an old, tired figure but you couldn't tell. The scene looked great.

I also attempted to recreate a scene from the "old" Rollerball movie. I didn't finish it because I got work (YAY). I will someday do so but the crowds looked fantastic. Guess what they are made of? P3 and P4 people. If you're a professional, and for some strange reason you're using Poser instead of a high end app to make your money then why would you throw away any tools. In our field, you never know what might end up being useful down the road. DP, I wouldn't put that football player up front but In the backfield or running after a high poly character... yes, with out a doubt. Or... as some have suggested... go ahead and use all high end characters and watch as your deadline gets pushed back a couple of weeks or you lose the job because you can't finish on time due to long render times.

Back them up, archive them but never throw away any of your tools... ever. One day, you might regret it.

Happy Birthday my friend. Many more to come, I'm sure :)

Yes, Amazon for all books. I know it's a bit OT but I found "the Boys from Brazil" dvd at Amazon and if you can find a dvd that rare there, you can find anything there. Sorry, didn't really mean to rhyme. My Cinematography library is comprised completely of special order books. Not one was available at the book stores here; and Borders is getting worse with stocking anything, it seems.