so.... lesson of the day: use TIF or PSD instead, right? i think PSD renders work OK on my machine. i'll try TIF's for now. thanks all!

frustrating, yes, but i don't mind experimenting in the meantime. i was able to get some interesting results on saturday, but i don't think i'll be able to get the level of quality that i do from lightwave. unless we hear differently from curious labs or something... i think one of the keys is to apply the toon shader to both the diffuse and specular colors in the materials room. then remove the default colors for white and a shade of grey for the light and dark colors respectively. set the blend mode to zero and increase the line width to something like 5 or more. the results start getting better then. also, try using the diffuse color swatch to set the color for the object rather than using the toon shader node. i did this and got soem promising results. this even works for textured objects. i took one of the superhero textures, disconnected it from the diffuse and specular sections. created a new toon node as described above. connected the superhero textures to the light and dark colors for the toon node. then connected the diffuse and specular sections to the toon node. this gave a good toon look. let me know what anyone else thinks...

it's p5 (altho' i had similar problems in p4pro). just a figure and a floor prop. when i rendered it, it looked fine, so i saved it as a png. i then opened it in fireworks and it showed looking like the alpha channel -- black background and a transparent space where the figure and floor should be. opening it in photoshop gave the same results. the rgb channels in p-shop all showed the same transparent spot, so it's not like i was displaying it improperly. any ideas?

what? no takers? i must be blazing new territory...

cool! how do you set up the anistropic node? do you connect that to the reflection attributes?

Remember that the Millenium figures work in both packages, so they remain constant thru both (in case you're thiinking of making new clothes or props). Plus all the P4 stuff works in both packages.

I would agree that RAM might be more important. I have an Intel Celeron (not sure about the speed) with 256K RAM. P5's a little pokey, but OK if dealt with patiently. I had a couple of messages about Virtual Memory running low, so that's why I recommend RAM. (BTW, I'm an old-timer when it comes to 3D packages. Just think of those slow times as times you can reacquaint yourself with your cat...)

i posted a note last night which should help you to get your p4 runtime folder recognized in p5 without having to copy it into your p5 folder.

i just answered your question in the post above you. i even have step-by-step notes on how to set up your old runtime directory...

never mind! i just found it. p5 does allow you to link to other runtime libraries! for those of you who might need to figure this out: 1. open a library (any library will do) 2. scroll to the top of the library list 'til you see the folder with the "up arrow". double click on that. 3. keep double-clicking on the folders with the up arrows until you get to a list showing "Poser 5" and "Downloads". you''re now at the top of the heap as far as folders go. 4. click on the "Add runtime" button down at the bottom (disguised as a plus sign!). 5. find your old p4 runtime folder from the popup window! voila! easy as pie. (just think all you mac users and people in europe -- you have us american pc users to act as guinea pigs before you get down to business!)

Den Beauvais created the DAZ Water Elemental and Sea Serpent figures in A:M and they're pretty excellent figures. Plus Mr. Beauvais does some pretty cool work in A:M. His site is at http://www.denbeauvais.com/.

...but i'd keep checking it every twenty minutes to see how far it's gotten (just like i do now).

btw, has anyone bought morphos from daz? i'm trying to figure out how morphos works. will it work with p4 figures? it might be a great way to work with the tons of morphs traveller created at morph world.

i'd like to second the vote for a word from daz as to whether mimic will work with poser 5. that's a really nice price for mimic...

very nice! i agree -- Boris is an excellent tool for making faces which definitely don't "look like Mike".