So I was on target in the first place. Thanks Noel.

Happy New Year to both of you!

UGH! I just saw the FLATLINED you were talking about. Blast my eyes for scanning too quickly!

If you already saw what I wrote, just ignore it. I'm an idiot.

I honestly can't help with the conversation. I have never even attempted to put together a model before, but I wanted to bookmark this thread since it is very interesting watching it all come together. Very nice work so far!

Thanks to both of you! Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and a safe and wonderful New Year to you as well Acadia!

And the same to all of you out there as well!

Wow, you got the eyes to look human again! This is worth it if just for that! Thanks!

I love e-F, but I hate Sydney. Sorry, but I want a generic female, that I can adjust the look of myself. Sydney has one face, and that's the end of it. (I tried using the Face Room on her, but I am getting the "unsupported figure" message. Is everyone getting that message, and just working around it? Or just not getting the message at all?)

From what I have seen of V4 so far, she has far more potential in the long run. I have yet to pick her up, but I will after the holidays.

I understand that some people cannot abide certain mesh problems with creasing. I don't worry about that personally. I clothe my figures all the time, so using the Cloth Room covers up any problems that might occur. 

I didn't buy Miki, or Kojii, or Terai Yuki (excuse me if any are mispelled, I'm not a fan of them so I don't pay attention.) I didn't expect to have a figure so ethnically limited in the canned content. I'd like my ethnicity in my base figures as generic as possible. (I lean more toward caucasian personas anyway, so figures like V.x, Jessi, Judy work best for me.)

I don't like the FBMs on Sydney either. You can make her fat or skinny. Not much else. Her abs get zero definition no matter what you turn the dials to. Her breasts seem like they are well done, but I haven't played enough with them to know for sure.

The hair that comes with her with her was a big disappointment too. I like my women to generally have at least shoulder length hair. I've manged to manipulate the hair for Sydney to get it to the shoulders, but it doesn't look great. Kozaburo's Jessi hair blew away the Sydney offerings.

Overall, without having used V4 yet, here is how I would rank my Poser women right now:
V4
V3
Judy
Jessi
Sydney

That may sound harsh, but it's just how I feel at this point. The only one who is subject to debate for me right now is V4, and only because I have yet to see her in action. In that order is how I figure the amount of manipulation to get differing "looks" is possible. I figure I'm not too far off though, at least in terms of potential. The Daz renders of V4 are significantly different, so it tells me that the potential is there, if one is patient enough to do it.

Sorry e-F. I have nothing but love for you and your products, but Sydney was a bit of a letdown. Not enough to ruin the incredible product that is Poser 7 though!

P.S. The new morph tool is AMAZING. You can do some serious manipulation with. Unfortunately, it makes Sydney turn ugly IMO. Her base look is fairly attractive, so that's a big disappointment to me. I had hoped that at least that tool would make a difference in changing her look, but as hard as I tried, it kept making her eyes bug out when I manipulated her cheeks, and when you play with her jaw, OMG! It's like Night of the Living dead.

That's awesome. Thanks!

Quote - Ghostwolf,

A P4 @ 3.0 is roughly 1/2 slower than an X2 @ 2.4-2.6 theres abouts. (I tested a northwood 3.2 and it got like 298 pts on cinebench).

I would look at a C2D system for an upgrade is performance is getting you down.

With a dual core my render time is roughly 1.86 times faster.

Also, it seems that even if you have dual core set your renderer to 4 threads even if you don't have 4 cores.  Anyone else have similiar findings?  2-4 threads that is.

EDIT: Anyone have a python script to report render times?  That would be super helpful.

Actually, yes I do. I wrote it in P6, but it should still work in 7.

I tried to attach it to this message but it won't work. Send me a private message with your e-mail address and I will send it to you.

Why spam eF? Whether it be by petition, or by e-mail. I personally like the Face Room. I have also spent the better part of a couple of years working with it.

Is it perfect? No. Should it be? No, not if you like getting Poser at non-3DMax prices.

I have seen people complain about the Cloth Room, the Mat Room, the Face Room, etc. Well I don't know what to tell people. If Poser is such a bad product, then purchase Max or Maya or Rhino, or whatever. There are even great free tools like Blender if you want to go cheap.

People seem to forget what Poser is. It is not a modeller. It was originally created just to simulate a model for traditional art. However, each company that has owned it has added new features to it to make it more useful.

Is there room for improvement? Of course. Nothing is ever perfect. However, I think people are getting a bit overbearing demanding that every single feature be worthy of a package 10 times the price. Go price out FaceGen. Price out that Mac app that the shaders came from. Price out the app that Poser Fashion came from. All these tools are brought to you by eF in a cheap package compared to each individual piece.

Now I'm sure people will flame me to no end for this post, but maybe those people should try taking a step back for a second. Like I said, if Poser is not "good enough" for you, price out packages that do what you want. Then decide if the learning curve for those packages is even remotely feasable to your time.

Some people see it as the owners of Poser not paying attention to their customers. Well, I for one feel like they are paying attention to me. They are giving me a low-cost solution to creating artwork for my own pleasure. They aren't trying to give me the next Max or Maya.

I just picked up Imagine FX #6 a couple weeks ago. Very nice magazine, but the CD only has project based stuff I think. The CD wasn't worth it to me, but the magazine itself is very nice.

I like 3D World. I have picked up a few issues of that here and there. I like when they include models. Free software is cool, but it's always either stripped down, or an old version. Getting models for free is worth it, on top of the magazine.

Hey people. Here's something to think about.

e-Frontier is what, the third different company to own Poser? If nothing else, that's a lot of hands in the cookie jar, cooks in the kitchen,

Look what Curious Labs/e-F has given you for such a low price. The shader engine is part of a hardcore Mac product, yet they make it work on PCs, a feat in itself. They have given us a subset of a strong face generation program. They have introduced a cloth engine, and now Poser Fashion.

Go check out the prices on these products individually, and see if e-F is giving you more bang for your buck or not.

I understand the frustration in the beginning of this thread. You feel slighted. You feel you are not getting everything you paid for, and I can understand why you feel that way. However, as someone pointed out, the G2 "release" is not a release at all. It is a reward they could realistically provide for having loyal Passport subscribers.

As for them heading to Siggraph, I hit conventions during the year for my own industry (Real Estate. You want to see BORING? Come to one of my conferences.) This is important work. Yes, they need to shmooze people. Networking is key in this global market. Given that they turn contacts into new features for the program we know and love, I would think people would be a little more understanding of the work they put in.

These guys and gals are working very hard to provide a feature-rich application, at a bargain basement price for us. We don't pay near what a product like 3D Max or Maya costs, so why not appreciate that?

I hope I don't sound like I am attacking anyone, since that is truly not my intention here. I just think everyone needs to take a deep breath and chill.

Here is something for those proponents of a total rebuild of the product to think about. If they did rewrite the code, it's a pretty strong guarantee that the vast majority of the products you already have purchased and fell in love with would discontinue to work. Would that make you happy? It would sure upset me quite a bit.

They continue to improve a product they never built in the first place. Give them a chance. I think in the what, just over a year that e-F has had the reigns, they have done a pretty damn good job. We have received three updates to the software in the last year and a half. Is that anything to scoff at?

Let's just be reasonable. I know for a fact that e-F cares what it's users think. They love their customers. You can believe that or not, as fits your fancy, but it doesn't make it any less true.

Hopefully, without saying too much, I can make clear that e-F does in fact do testing and bug tracking, and it's extensive. I can't say more than that, but it is the truth.

As for the Face Room, it is licensed technology provided by another company. They can't release the methods to the public. That's probably where some of the issues come from too. It's hard to integrate a piece of software, designed in a certain manner, with another application, designed for another purpose. I know, I have done it before. All in all though, it's a good choice on their part. Take a product, adjust it to work with Poser, and give the public a new tool, at the same low cost. Let's be honest, Poser has some very advanced features for it's price. The Mat Room shaders, the Cloth Room, the Face Room, the add on for Poser Fashion. All of that stuff is licensed tech from another company. If they did it in-house, we'd be paying two or three times the current price, if we were lucky.

I like the direction e-F is taking with figures. Yes, I know you feel slighted. I want everything to work perfectly too. I am sure this is all being worked on by e-F. They are not a fly-by-night operation. They are in Poser for the long haul, and are making the effort to improve the product every day.

You can't be mad at them for heading to Siggraph. They are out at these conventions to build the user base. That results in more revenue for the company, which allows them the resources to grow the product.

Sorry this is so long winded. I hope you understand the point.

My name is Lou, and I am hopelessly addicted to Poser.

P5 stuff works just fine in P6. I've never had a problem myself.

Ahh, okay. The full body one still had jaggies on the resize, but the closeup didn't.

I'm impressed with the quality of the texture. I haven't bought any textures for figures. I just work in the Mat room with free textures until I get what I am looking for in the render. I do use face_off's scripts quite often, but then I still tweak and tweak until I get what I want.

I'll try to lurk more often. I haven't been around a lot lately. Like I said, with all of my computer problems in the past few months, it's been a bit hectic. I like being around here to help people out when I can, and this is a great place to do that.

Lou