Thanks for your time and attention. I've got CS2 but haven't been able to quite warm up to some of the changes. We'll see what happens as time passese. Thanks again, Mark

In that case, all I have to say to bloodsong is "thank you." :) Mark

I've only been modeling for a few years and started with trueSpace - a solid modeler. In the long run, I discovered that it didn't meet my needs for "organic" modeling and added AM - a spline modeler. If you want to do things with curves, you'll find a spline modeler (like AM or the free Anim8tor or the price-y Rhino) virtually irreplaceable. On the other hand, I've found that a solid with modeler with good boolean functions helped me get off the ground in the first place, and is a good place to start for most man-made straight-edged objects (like many props). But I found the single greatest problem to learning modeling, in general, was that all the software and manuals assumed the reader already knew what they were doing. Whatever modeler or modelers you settle on, find a user group, read the mail, read the tutorials, ask a lot of questions. Mark

B.L. Render, in her book on Poser 5 (includes 4) and character creation, warned readers to remember that "children control the parents" - reenforcing the ends-to-hip approach of joint editing. Forgot that, myself, and find I'm starting over on my first figure. Mark

I've never done an underwater picture before and, in fact, have been contemplating my first. I think this really impressive - not just for a first time out. Three comments: 1) the foreshortening on her right forearm and the color difference between it and the upper arm are a bit distracting, and a pose shift might help 2) the right collar-shoulder is a bit too twisted for my taste, again a shift in pose might help and 3) the bottom right-side edges of her top might be more interesting if they showed some effect from being in the water - a bit of floating up at the edges might be nice whether done in post or with a magnet. Along those lines, her ponytail might spread a bit too. Very nice, Mark

Somewhere between PS6 and CS2, the ability to hit [ctrl]+click on the layer to make a selection was lost. Have scoured the docs for CS2 but couldn't find a replacement ([ctrl]+click layer is now used for grouping). Did I miss something, or has that function completely disappeared? Many thanks, Mark

One other thing, I've seen some screens where it was apparent that the default font was altered. You might ask here about it and see if it's possible to change the font to one you're more comfortable with. - Mark

In general, international copyright hasn't tended to be enforced as strictly as in the United States - and has been a diplomatic sore point for some years. The explosion of international theft, duplication, and distribution of American software has taken the problem from sore to infected. Awhile back I saw an articlethat detailed the greatest number of software violations occuring in Asia - with the most in Communist China. Probably the best you could hope for would be to have the pic taken down - if no money's involved, even in the U.S., there's little that could/would be done to provide restitution where there are no economic damages.

I'm assuming a wienie roast is not appropriate - oops - no, that's Renderotica's July contest . . . :)

To answer your question, as asked 1) yes, you can use direct selection but as you've already discovered, it can be tricky. It may help to remember that you stand the best chance by pointing at the center of the body part. 2) yes, you may select by using the hierarchy editor but that wasn't your question, and 3) no, sometimes when there is more than one body part stacked in front of another, making a direct selection can be damned difficult and you just have to go through the body part selection list. The main reasons to NOT use direct selection are 1) selecting the wrong part by mistake and making a change to the wrong part by accident, 2) actually making a change just in the process of selecting, sometimes Poser will give the body part a twitch when you click on it. Best wishes, hope you find an adequate solution for your problem. - Mark

Does 5 megs zipped seem high to anyone for this item? - Mark

And I'd like to second the request for the facemap texture. It's quite marvelous. Great work, BTW - I thought of combining strands with other hairs a couple of days ago (I'm still getting used to P6) and just haven't had time to play with it. Would appreciate learning more from you quite effective experiment. - Mark

John: Thank you. The morphs were already loaded and the figure resaved with all of them in place. That is, the problem wasn't loading the morphs - it was in manipulating V3 with all the morphs loaded and in adding clothing figures (which also caused it to lock up. By lock up - I mean complete lock-up with hard reboots required). HOWEVER - I just installed the latest NVidia chipset drivers (replacing those that came with the GForce card) and the problem seems to have gone away. My guess is that it was a problem with the hardware rendering overloading the board - since it is primarily designed for gaming. Just a guess. My expertise in this area couldn't wet the bottom of shotglass. Also, sometimes card manufacturers don't invoke all the features of a particular chipset - at least this used to be a real problem five or six years ago. This guess is as valid (and maybe more so) than my first one. The nice thing about guessing is that you get to say it's a guess, smile, and do your best to hide the fact that you don't know squat about something. :) Ergo, you get to live to guess another day - depending on how much embarassment you can stand. - Mark

Something else - go back to the 1st picture and look at the reflections at floor level. The floor molding is reflecting back black - but isn't even a darker color on the apparrent mirror objects. I'm curious - are we being hoaxed here? :) (He said with good will and humor.)

One note on particle applications - effects which look good in animation may look stiff or unrealistic in a still pic where the eye has the chance to analyze what it's seeing. The quality of the particle software, and usually the expense, is pretty much everything.