Come on over to the Mojoworld forum -- Ill answer questions there... Best regards, Lynn Fredricks Pandromeda

Hello all, I may be in a unique position when it comes to talking about Mojoworld as I handled North American and Japan operations for e-on software for several years (makers of Vue), and now manage the worldwide sales and marketing for Pandromeda, makers of Mojoworld. Mojoworld takes a different tactic than both Vue and Bryce. I see Vue and Bryce as "scene creation" tools whereas Mojoworld is a "world creation" tool. With Mojoworld, you generate the entire planet in one swoop, then you populate individual scenes. With Vue and Bryce, you are more likely to start with the scene and then fill in with more props if you need to turn your camera. You dont have the camera turning problem with Mojoworld, because there is world in every direction -- its a true planet! Their core technologies are also different -- Mojoworld is entirely procedural/fractal, but you can bring in Vue/Bryce style heightmaps and stick them right into the planet's skin in Mojoworld. You can also export big patches of land from Mojoworld into these products. I know Vue 5 now supports some procedurals but not on a planetary basis. Im planning on writing an article for mojoworld.org on using Vue and Mojoworld together. Right now, Mojoworld can support imports of most major formats. What you will see though is Mojoworld supporting native .pz3 imports, first frames in the base product. Animation will appear in a separate plugin. If you have more questions about Mojoworld, come on over to the Mojoworld forum. I dont want to stink up the Poser forum too much with non-Poser answers :-) Best regards, Lynn Fredricks Pandromeda

Erlik, Those are awfully broad generalities. Dilbert is funny because there are plenty of situations like that, but not every manager is pointy-haired. Engineers share the profit in their salaries. In general, they are extremely well paid, which is why offshoring is so interesting. Just check out the last issue of Game Developer magazine that ran a salary survey and you'll see. US gov cannot do much without a slap from the WTO and sanctions from the EU. It wont happen. Best regards, Lynn

Straying over from my normal domain, but I have to comment on this as someone with 15+years of management and executive experience in the software industry (and my company also markets products for the largest value games company in the US). When a product gets planned, release estimates are made and engineering plays a significant role in creating those estimates. The writer seems to be laying all of this on "producers". Im not buying that "producers" make decisions in a vacuum, any more than executives do at Microsoft. Given the complexity of the products, software estimates are shots in the dark. These EA engineers are having a hard time, and Im completely sympathetic. Ive seen happy marriages turn into divorces over mangled schedules. But engineers are craftsman of a very complex and very expensive craft. Just because a product is late, doesnt mean EA isnt obligated to pay up for all of their pre-sales marketing preparations that are utterly time based (like Christmas sales). EA's risk is huge. Engineers share in this risk by nature of their craft and having to cope with extremely tough conditions if a product is late. There's a movement in some segments of the tech industry to unionize, and this problem with EA would seem to be a call for that. I predict, however, if engineers have to be paid overtime and unionization ruminations continue, it will simply drive more and more engineering overseas. Many game companies are already doing it -- its not hard to find great talent overseas if you know what you are doing. Software engineers in California are extremely well paid compared to the rest of the country -- that pay takes into account the risks involved. So I say to you, disgruntled spouse, are you prepared for your husband to lose his job to talented Russian, Indian and Chinese engineers when EA re-evaluates the costs of complying with what you are suggesting? Best regards, Lynn Fredricks President Proactive International, LLC http://www.proactive-intl.com

I think there is a big value jump between LE and Standard, definitely worth twice the price. I happen to think TextEffector is about the fastest and easiest to use tool for generating 3D letters. Also, Standard supports plugins and scripts. Once people here start playing with it, you are going to want to be able to load these up. I dont have the English manuals, but the Japanese manuals are beautiful and an excellent reference (unfortunately Im forgetting my kanjis with age!). I think they are very helpful for getting the Shade way of handling sub-objects. Best regards, Lynn

Some of you are making an apples-to-oranges comparision of Shade and Vue. Im not sure about what is or is not included in all levels of Shade (I have Shade 7 Pro Japanese version, which I run also on an English system), but Shade's modelling is great! If the interface looks sparse that's because its had years of polishing to only put in front of your face what you need to get a task done (and leave a lot of real estate for you to work with control points and the "big picture"). Those years of polishing have also made it an incredibly stable product. The learning curve is quite gentle as well. If want to spend less time fighting with weird interfaces and just get down to making some models, I strongly recommend Shade. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks Proactive International http://www.proactive-intl.com

Ive asked Agiel to temporarily re-open this thread. Steve will also reply. We would like to resolve issues of a legal user of Vue 4 Professional, but to date TJ has not provided this information to identify himself as a legal user, or even his real name. TJ, if you would like to send me your real name (the one you have attached to our records), we can look up your purchase or registration data, and reopen your original support thread. The problems you've described sound like anti-piracy activation, though it could be something else. Without detailed information we have no basis to try to duplicate and resolve it. We will only do this for a registered user who uses our support system -- period. You've written a great number of negative posts here on Renderosity, and at the same time concealed your identity so that it isnt possible to even begin to try to solve your issues. Its time you stepped out from behind the curtain. If you are concerned about my identity, feel free to contact executive staff at Renderosity/Bondware for confirmation. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software

Im not sure why it hasnt been addressed yet, except that there have been other issues and requests that impact a much, much larger group of customers. It likely was just "prioritized" right out of the update queue by something else. You should follow up Tom's message with an update (anything new immediately becomes visible). Ill also check it out as well. Thanks, Lynn Fredricks e-on software

Tom listened to you since he said on April 19 that it would be fixed. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software

On Windows, we've supported .SHD geometry import for quite some time. I dont know of any other products from western countries that have any Shade support. Shade Professional supports exporting to 3DS format. The trick would be the textures and materials, and for that I dont have an answer for you as I dont know what the maps are on FeiFei. Shade has dominated the 3D market in Japan for 15 years. Its a very good product, especially for precise modeling. It is possible to use Shade under an English OS, by the way, by removing a language file. That will leave some weirdness in one menu, but the rest of the application then reverts to English the next time you start the program. Ive been a casual Shade user for some time. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software

If you want .daz support, you should make sure you send comments to Daz. Customer support is motivating ;-) Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software

There ya go!:-) Lynn

iloco and ShadowWind, its probably helpful to share experiences to see if you are both experiencing the same problems since that does help to narrow down the possibility of what might be causing a particular issue. However, it can also generate a false positive if you've overlooked something that may or may not be present on your systems. It could be something that can appear very minor, or, may not even be recognized by a particular vendor as a problem (for example, with system components that Vue Pro makes use of). The development team has put out a few updates since we shipped Vue 4 Pro, so issues are being addressed. But problems cannot be fixed if the development team cannot duplicate them -- which is why Ive been saying to provide them with as much information as possible. If they cannot duplicate it then, and noone bothers to follow up, they move on to another issue they can duplicate and fix. If I thought you were troublemakers, I would have just ignored your posts. Dont read into my posts anything more than I write in a literal sense. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software

The forum is for collective answers, but sending a message through the additional support button may prioritize a response. There is a risk that you've jumped to unsafe conclusions about your crashing problem. If you want to try to sort it all out here, go right ahead, but it may be faster to get help from support. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software

Please send all details to technical support through our online system. A couple of items to consider (what do I know, Im only a sales guy ;-)) -- -iloco, Ive heard that the nvidia GeForce2 MX was very problematic some time ago. It shipped with very flakey drivers, and, while I think Nvidia polished them somewhat Im not very confident with that card. -Is that spruce tree one of ours? You have 39 objects listed there on the screen and its a grouped item. -If a "crash screen" came up after that VC++ error message, you should include its contents in your support request. -What are those two items in your system tray? Sometimes in-resident utilities and, occassionally a bum driver that came with hardware can cause problems which seem unrelated. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software