Attached Link: http://www.e-frontier.com/go/STL

I've provided two EF links I found, one using lasers to carve out an image inside a crystal.

http://www.e-frontier.com/article/articleview/1819/1/414

Maybe we should request that EFrontier get rid of that check in the next version of Poser.  It is getting to be a pain, to see the version warning, when the bulk of Poser content is independent of the version being used.

The only other thing to do is to cancel it looking for additional textures (which usually has to be done twice).  Get the latest P5 update because it helped cut down the search time drastically, but it can still be five minutes or so before Poser asks you to find the file.

Attached Link: http://www.runtimedna.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=34

http://www.dorsetthouse.com/

It's full body armor that provides a little protection while not hampering the wearer's movements and is more for a fighter that wants to move quick and not be a lumbering armored human tank.

Quote - We created a replica of a Cola sign, years ago and emailed Coke in regards to giving it away for free.  They responded most respectfully NO, we could not, it would be in violation of their trademark   Sharen

That sadly is the new state of businesses run by lawyers. Long ago, a businsess might have said that it would be okay to do something like that. In today's more letigious and self-centric society, things like that are rarely allowed anymore. Coke has to worry about some idiot suing them if that 3D sign is used in an inappropriate fashion. Nobody wants to take the blame if somebody somehow uses that sign in a financially successful fashion and they didn't get a cut of those earnings. That latter philosophy runs rampant in Hollywood where they'd rather lose money than let somebody else make money. Any time a studio head changes, movies in early stages of development die because the last thing the new studio head needs is a successful project started by his predecessor. Johnny Carson long lamented that NBC destroyed a warehouse of old Tonight Show tapes instead of donating them to a university or selling them. Alan Ladd, Jr. got chewed out by stockholders for giving away merchandising rights to Star Wars in trade of pouring more money into the movie to finish it. Stockholders didn't care that the movie made them more money than they'd seen in a long time--there were pissed that somebody else made more money than they thought should get it even though there was no reason, at the time, to expect that giving away toy rights meant anything.

Today, most companies look at a bottom line for every action and allowing somebody to give away a 3D replica of their history doesn't benefit them tangibly, so they won't let it happen. This is the byproduct of using the legal system to enact social change. Society becomes risk adverse. When every action has to be analzyed by what is the worst that can happen, it becomes better to not allow anything to happen. A lot of communities will no longer develop or support free parks and playgrounds because the risk of being sued, by somebody getting hurt, is so great that it's not worth the benevolent act.

There are a few other books at Amazon:

Practical Poser 6 (Graphics Series) -- by Denise Tyler, Audre Vysniauskas; Paperback: $31.47 -- Used & new from: $31.39    - just bought, haven't opened it yet (supposed to include a stripped down Apollo Maximus on CD)
Poser 6 Revealed: The Official Guide : The Official Guide -- by Kelly L Murdock; Paperback : $15.74 -- Used & new from: $11.99    - wasn't well received because it was too basic and not much better than the manual
Secrets of Figure Creation with Poser 5 -- by B L Render; Paperback : $28.32 -- Used & new from: $28.57  - great book, but mostly geared to figure creators, so it's rather advanced.

Ah, yes...beancounters. I deal with them regularly and it's amazing how much time and money is wasted keeping beancounters happy. The last week in any month is typically unproductive because things that should be done, that would temporarily look bad to a beancounter, get postponed to the beginning of the next month. If money is expended at the end of the month, showing a temporary deficit that would be fine the following week, lengthy reporting procedures to explain the deficit have negative result of adopting a work practice of letting things slide till the beginning of the next month. Consequently, it is now a routine practice to let things slip at the end of the month because it's not worth the hassle to do the job the right way anymore.

Beancounting has become such a myopic practice that it truly represents insanity. Somewhere down the line, the quality of the beans got lost in keeping nice neat piles of beans. I can understand where you're coming from where it's easier if crap costs as much as better stuff because beancounters don't know the difference and it makes it easier to order what you know is good.

I hadn't realized that Discreet bought out Maya. That's a bit more earthshaking than DAZ buying Carrara because Max and Maya are top 3D applications. There's still Lightwave, Truespace, and SoftImage, so it's not like it's the end of the big 3D applications.

I can understand copyright law not letting somebody take another person's work and commercially using it and support that. Otherwise, every big company with strong distribution channels would be stealing every original work they can.

The laws get weirder when it comes to protecting commercial ventures. It's reasonable to protect trademarks to ensure that a ripoff company doesn't try to use the better company's name to sell an inferior knockoff product. When it comes to a 3D representation of a 60-year old vehicle, things begin to get hairier, but I suppose that the owning company deserves the right to make that call.

The strangest trademarks are those for buildings where a photo taken of a trademarked building cannot be published without the owner's permission. That one boggles my mind. I can imagine a day when chips will be in everybody's heads and everything a person looks at will ring up a bill.

Sketchup-free is for personal use only and the Warehouse will only support it's own native format. With all its disabled features, it's really no more exciting than the demo programs you can download for any 3D app.

$1.99 for Hexagon may not be free, but it's a third of what I paid for lunch today and that's pretty inexpensive for a full-fledged 3D modeling program without any restrictions.

With less restrictions, Sketchup might be worth a try because it sounds interesting, but there's only so much time in my life to learn how to use modeling programs that I don't want to put much time in one that won't let me export what I create and, even if there were a way around that restriction, won't let me use it commercially.

Maybe RDNA

Quote - So I get a membership for $30, a $100 voucher I will never use, and I will get Hexagon 2, maybe with the Golden Pack that I am supposed to get when I pre-ordered it, all this for only $298.

I hope this works out okay for you.

That's why I don't like preordering stuff. I hate giving somebody else my money without getting something in return right away. It could be worse--Eovia could have declared bankruptcy and you'd have nothing. At least now, you can get the software you were willing to buy for $298 and get a free $100 voucher that can fully pay for any DAZ originals. It still stinks that others can now get it for $2. If you ordered by credit card, you still have some options to get your money back (though I'm not sure if that Euro thing took that option away from you). In the end, you're not getting the best possible deal, but you're getting the product that you purchased.

The other tip would be to place the gun in the characters's hand when it's in the default position where it's much easier to line up than with a posed figure. The gun will probably load lined up to a posing axis such that rotations will be in increments of 90 degrees and placement is just a matter of adjusting X, Y, & Z translations to put it in a hand.

It's easiest with a prop. A new file can be loaded, move the gun to the figure's hand, parent it to the hand, and save the prop (and say "Yes" when it asks if it should be saved as a smart prop). When the original file is reopened, and the prop loaded, it will pop into the figure's hand even though the figure is posed.

Since the gun you're using is a figure, it can't be saved as a smart prop. However, your character's pose can be saved, the figure restored to the default position (from Edit/Restore), place the gun in the figure's hand, parent it with Set Figure Parent, from the Figure menu, and then apply the saved pose to the figure. One note of caution is that restoring the figure will have the unintended consequence of restoring any parented props or hairs to their original size and position. Save your scene before trying this. As a general note, save Poser work frequently because there are so many things that can be done that cannot be undone. Always save before doing a render because renders do occasionally lock up Poser and a whole day can be wasted when that happens.

I haven't always had good luck moving joint axes on props and figures. I'm not sure what I've done wrong, but sometimes it works like a charm and other times, moving a joint down one axis causes a movement on another axis or causes the other joint to move away from where I set it. A lot of the time, it's much quicker to move the prop to the figure's hand while the figure is in the default "T" pose.

Your slow weeks are better than my fast ones.

It's almost a carbon copy of MySpace. The difference between Artzone and the DAZ forums is that they're trying to start up a new community that isn't limited ot 3D art. It's basically another means of cross-promotion. At this point in time, I doubt I'll really get involved with it. Who's got time to get involved with another forum?