The hair is also from Dark Whisper...we're not supposed to plug stuff available in the Marketplace, so I won't;-)

Also, though I've never tried it myself, P4 and P5 supposedly can export RIB files, which is the format used by PRMan and the open source BMRT. In fact, you might want to search the forum and the free stuff, as I seem to remember someone working on a utility dealing with this.

Since Nosfiratu does not appear to be online today to defend his work, I would note that while it is frustrating when the manual does not answer your question (I have felt that way myself), look at how thick it is, then imagine how thick it would have to be to provide a truly in-depth examination of all of the complex new additions to P5. I also think that by and large, the P5 manual is eminently more readable than the P4 manual or, for that matter, most software documentation. That being said, I tend to agree that perhaps some (but certainly not all) of the problems people are having are not bugs, but the learning curve imposed by P5... For example, I've certainly seen threads where people are complaining about the firefly renderer without realizing that you cannot simply use your P4 settings for maps, etc., and expect a good result. This is not to say that the firefly renderer is beyond criticism, e.g., those who take issue with the implementation of the reyes-type algorithm while leaving out support for features that improve the look of this method, and so on. I'm merely pointing out that while some of the problems with P5 are open and obvious (the missing waterfall jpeg, missing morphs, cr2's etc.), and some may result from either reuse of P4 code or P4 programmers, the introduction of an app as complex as P5 to a user base that by and large does not work with the more complex and expensive 3D apps (yes, I'm generalizing here, but I suspect I am essentailly correct, based on the relative paucity of posts in the forums for other apps here)was almost certain to generate a certain amount of frustration, even if it had shipped nearly bug-free. A more detailed manual might have eased some of that frustration, but it also might have surfaced that frustration sooner... Imagine what the reaction would have been if the the pre-release downloadable manual had been 5 times as long...

You state that you are not calling kupa a con man, then say statements that CL staff was not getting paid "could be part of the con." In legal circles this is called libel... just thought you would like to know.

At least I recognized the tex;-)

Sneaking in a V3, yes?

is claimed by Safire, but pusillanimous pussyfooters is claimed by Pat Buchanan, and I would not be surprised if Buchanan influenced Safire. No definitive word on vicars of vacillation, or the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.

It may not be much of a consolation, but if you search this forum, you will see complaints about the US shipping also. That being said, while CL is having problems with P5, the shipping problems appear to lie with the shipping company, not CL.

Also, in a pinch, you could try importing the original sound file.

I'm way past tired of these threads, but since it is obvious that many people read or post to them without having read the prior threads, I would note the following: If you search this forum, you will discover that CLers, including kupa, weren't taking paychecks. Perhaps it's wild speculation on my part, but I think that maybe CL was under some pressure to get the product out the door. A search would also reveal that CL admits that it was aware of non-critical bugs on shipment, not the usability nightmares that some have experienced. And my sympathies go out to people with those problems, not the people who are constantly trolling to complain about a feature that was not implemented in P5, or who persist, despite any real knowledge of CL's position, in believing that they had better business plans that the people who were saving the company in the real world. I have even less good to say about the people who are using the announcement of the updater as another occasion to lob a written jab in this forum...attacking people who are trying to clean up problems they may not have seen. As for the bug vs. system question, it is not simply one of intel vs. AMD. A PC system (macs being a different story as noted above) is not simply the processor; there are different motherboards, videocards, drivers, iterations of operating systems, other apps (particularly graphics apps) that may reside on a hard drive, bits of orphan code in registries, etc. BTW, I'm not of the school that it's all the fault of the user or system, either. Again a search of these types of threads suggests that there are some problems common to diverse systems. I would hope that these are problems that can be rectified with the updater, along with the no-brainers (missing morphs cr2's etc.)

I think the message was that Americans make Vaporware, whereas the Brits make Vapourware.

Someone once suggested to John Lennon that the Rolling Stones' "Miss You" sounded very much like an uptempo version of his "Scared," and wondered if Lennon was thinking about suing. Lennon replied, "There are only 13 notes." (which is certainly arguable, but you get the point).

In the abstract, the question of whether poses and lighting can be copyrighted is a bit knotty, more so for poses than lighting. The "light sets" vs. "light settings" issue aside, the P5 EULA may resolve much of the problem by stating that they are not copyrightable. Users operating under the EULA may be bound not to attempt registration or enforcement of any copyright that might exist in those items.

I guess you won't be hearing it...now;-)

I am sorely disappointed. Not as much in P5 as in the misleading title of timoteo1's thread. He concedes that it's a childish title, but given his behavior since he got P5, I expected childish. And I'm not talking about the complaints themselves, some of which seem entirely valid. I'm talking about the fact that he is lodging them in a (sorry if you didn't realize it before this thread) grating, whiny tone, on such a frequent basis that it seems entirely possible that he is spending more time complaining about P5 than using it.

And to anticipate the likely response, I recognize that some people are having so much trouble with P5 that this would not be difficult to do. However, the absence of features like a multiple undo (hell, a true single undo), which I would also appreciate, or the use of a non-standard API, simply do not require the cyber-equivalent of Munch's "The Scream."

No, my complaint is that the possible alleged problem with the Walk Designer is apparently not the last straw for timoteo1...so I will waste more time having to page past his constant complaining to get to threads I actually want to read. I only read this one because I thought I could get the champagne out to celebrate.

Would Poser would be less buggy in the hands of a more financially stable company like Adobe? Maybe, although the fact that Adobe worked with CL in developing Atosphere suggests that they don't currently have the type of staff they would need to do Poser. In all probability, they would end up hiring the current CL staff that produced the code you don't like. It might have allowed them to delay the release of P5 for more extensive beta testing, or allowed them to recall before shipment to address late-discovered non-critical bugs, but it wasn't so long ago when the number 1 complaint here was the long delay in releasing P5. Then again, there's always some who aren't happy unless they're unhappy.

But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Adobe was able to do Poser better technically. What is the price for full version of Photoshop? And the upgrades would be more frequent, more incremental, and all of them would cost at least as much as what you paid for the P5 upgrade. There are some who would not be bothered by a higher cost, but based on the rampant doomsaying on this issue before CL announced the upgrade price, I would suggest that you would lose so much of the user base that Adobe would end up discontinuing or reselling Poser after they bought it. But at least we could be treated to a lot of complaints about the cost until they did.