The export function is a Bryce4 feature.

You should check with Newtek whether the cards you mention offer any benefit when running Lightwave6. Most of the excitement surrounding consumer video cards is with respect to playing games, and has little or nothing to offer someone solely into serious 3D work. For a high end production app like Lightwave6, I suspect that any serious video boost will only come with a 'workstation' type professional graphics accelerator offering something like OpenGL support whilst running on a 'workstation' operating system like WindowsNT. Once again, Newtek will be able to give you the best advice on the type of cards that will work the best.

I understand that this is version 3.0, the troublesome, too-soon 'retail - beta' release. You will need to update it to version 3.1 to have a secure, reliable program (some extra goodies in the patch, too). Apparently, the 3.1 patch works fine on this free version. Releasing earlier, fully functional versions of programs for free seems to be a consistent marketing strategy for some companies now, at least here in the UK. I can see why people might be upset by it, but on the whole I think it's a good thing. At the very least, it removes any 'justification' (read: excuse) for using a pirate copy of a program.

If you can afford Lightwave6, then you should jump at the chance to get hold of such a good 'high end' product. This is especially true if you want to develop your 3D skills into a future career. Lightwave is a widely used pro package, Truespace isn't. Truespace is looking quite good on paper nowadays, but, with respect to the Truespace fans, the reality of using it pales beside Lightwave. BTW, you said that Lightwave and Truespace use the same render engine. I don't think this is so. Truespace4 uses Lightworks' radiosity engine in that part of its renderer, but Lightworks isn't Lightwave.

Wow, that's really amazing. I've never bothered with the CDs, assuming they'd take ages to arrive. Your experience has changed that policy! Now I just need another Zygote promotional discount to happen toward the end of this month (after payday). :-)

Yup, apart from it missing out on some advanced features the more expensive (and/or specialised) programs have, you already have an excellent renderer in Bryce. The thing is, you have to make Bryce do what you want it to (and the program makes this so easy :-)). Not pushing the program away from its default settings is like buying a car and never getting out of first gear. 'Nice comfy seats, but it doesn't go very fast.' ;-) Have a look at the few offerings on my site (not updated in years). Most relevant here is the stuff in the 'Natural' and 'Weirdly Other' sections: http://www.pfulford.dircon.co.uk/ Even though a couple of these have been post edited, it was for errors, not for applying filters and changing the contrast, etc. The various lighting qualities and effects you see are from Bryce. I'm not offering these as high art, just as a basic illustration that the program can produce an array of effects without image processing. (Not that I've got anything against post editing, I just like the fun of doing it in 3D when I can.) All programs will use techniques and have limitations that put some kind of 'signature' on the renders they output, especially when used close to their default modes. But most of the time when you see people waffling on about the 'Lightwave look', the 'Max look', the 'Vue look', etc, it's basically their own lack of appreciation of the programs' full capabilites they are talking about. You only have to consider the range of quality you see produced by people using Poser. Poser has an archaic render engine by modern standards, but that doesn't stop some enthusiasts from creating absolutely stunning pictures with it. I don't think buying a program because you like the way it renders by default is a good idea, especially if the effect you like is an aspect of 'low quality', i.e. scanline rendering and shadow mapping. You could save yourself a lot of money and push your current program to give you the look you're after. I'd recommend exploring the potential of Poser and Bryce before spending lots of money on a program that will most likely deliver its own set of frustrations and headaches. Gosh, bringing attention to my ancient site prompts me to get off my duff and make something for an update! :-)

Works for me, too.

Nada. Morphs will only work on the object they were created from. If you've made the morphs yourself using magnets, and you've kept the magnets, you could try adapting them to the male.

The one in her hands is a Federation phaser, a Star Trek design. I think the one on her belt is a Klingon disruptor, also Trek, but I'm not 100% sure on that.

You will need to update that free Bryce package to 3.1, but apparently the update works fine, so no worries.

There's some wubbleyoowubbleyootoo stuff here: http://www.noxgeo.com/ww3d/index.html .

I thought making the Millennium woman a specific character instead of an alternative 'generic' figure was a mistake of major proportions. As such I always prefered the unofficial 'Millie' to 'Victoria'. It was the populist choice for what should have become a new default figure for the new 'age', in the same way that 'Posette' was adopted for the established Poser female. Victor will probably be it for the new guy, but I thought maybe Manson could be fun.

I don't think that level of realism can be achieved with morphs alone, Anthony. Image/texture mapping is very important for that task. Actually, it could just as well be yourself who comes up with P4 Ultramorph figures. You could collect all the morphs there are (P3 and P4 adult heads are the same, btw) and add them in the usual laborious way. The patched Poser is very stable with a large number of morphs loaded. Traveler's 'Morph World' is a good place to start your download adventures (link is in the bar to the right). If do make your own ultramorph figures, and wish to make them available to others, make sure you don't use any morphs with redistribution restrictions. If you're making figures for yourself, you can just go wild! LOL

You can also 'interactively' change the focal length / field of view by using the small button to the upper right of the main camera trackball. It is entitled 'Field of View'. It works in both 'Director' and 'Camera' views, but (logically enough) only changes made in camera view will be applied to the numerical setting in the attributes dialog for the camera.

For an objective and distinctly non religious view on hardware issues, visit http://www.tomshardware.com. There is comparison of AMD and Intel there in abundance. Bear in mind that the main concerns for 3D rendering are floating point performance (FPU) and stability. Also bear in mind that having the latest and fastest hardware will cost megabucks. The difference between the cost of a 1Ghz processor and a 600Mhz version is more than the cost of Poser, and will buy you a lot of models from Zygote, etc, etc. Since you intend to run 3DStudio Max, you should ideally be using WindowsNT (Win2000 not fully supported as yet). Using this OS enables you use two (or more) processors. You'll most likely find that running Max on a dual CPU system running at 600Mhz will be faster and more flexible than a single CPU system at 1Ghz. Poser will not benefit speedwise from two processors, other than being able to render safely in its own 'space' while you use the machine for other things. Win9x multitasking isn't nearly as good. Last waffle from me: for serious CGI work, 256mb of extra memory will be more than ten times as useful to you than 256Mhz of extra CPU speed.