TrekkieGirl,

First question is did you have UAC off when you installed Poser 8?

If yes then I would wager it's because you are using an older version of Vista (SP1).  I know Poser 8 uses the built in Windows Search 4  as it's search engine.  So the Poser people say to make sure you have Windows Search 4 installed.  (For the record here is another example of really really crappy quality control and very sloppy  development with the installer for Poser 8.  It's a very easy thing to have your installer check the users system to see if they have the necessary installed components and if not, link to them over the internet and install them.  It's been done for years with Direct X tec. etc.)  Anyway.....I think Windows Search 4 is built into SP2 in Vista.  

In order to install the latest updates to your Vista system you should be able to click on your Windows button in the lower left of your screen,  click all programs, and Windows Update should be an option as you scroll down through the menu choices.  Click that and that should scan your system and download the latest Vista updates.

You may actually have to reinstall Poser 8 after you do the Vista update...I'm not sure.  You may be able to check it first and if it's doesn't do the search feature....uninstall Poser 8, turn off UAC and reinstall.

I have to admit the Poser 8 install is the sloppiest piece of development I've seen in a long time.  Love the application but the install is crap.

Allan

lmckenzie,

Thank you.  For a second I thought I was the only sane person here.

It's always fascinated me how in some instances people choose to blame the platform developer instead of the application developer when problems occur with their favorite application.  In the gaming side of the industry, you rarely see people blaming MS when their favorite game crashes, doesn't install correctly etc. on their PC or XBox 360.  And yes all of those PC games have to deal with UAC just like everything thing else you install.  People instead rationally blame the developer of the game because the game wasn't in testing long enough.  It's funny how people react when it's their favorite application.

This has all of the signs of a developer who farmed out the install routines to their distributor/publisher.  I could certainly be wrong because I do know who actually develops Poser vs. who publishes it.  But it's very clear based upon the # of install complaints that the install routines were not tested appropriately on the platforms they were targeting for distibution. 

What I don't really understand is why the install hasn't been changed in the first two hotfixes.  That one baffles me.

Allan

bagginsbill,

Well my Poser 8 is tied up right now on rendering an animation sequence but as far as I can tell the render to black setting takes care of the halos.  It's still kind of wierd because I have both Poser 7 and 8 set to Render Over current BG Shader.  That was the default option.  I made a point of keeping my render settings identical because I'm about 3/4 finished with my game and the last thing I wanted to do was go back and render everything over again in order to keep a consistant look.

Do you know why Poser 8 has the halos but Poser 7 does not with the Render Over current BG Shader.  Is it simply a change in light calculations between versions?

Allan 

It looks much much better.  This may work but I'll have to render an entire animation sequence and put it into my game.

I'll let you know if it works.

Thanks a ton for the tip.

Allan

Here is the same image with exact same render settings with the 10199 hotfix.
All I am doing is adding a black layer underneath the Poser png image in order to show the defined edges/halo.

This looks really bad in game.

Allan

Here is the Poser 7 image with no halo.

This is a real problem.  Note the severe halo around the figure in Poser 8.
(My game character is running with a flare in his hand.  This just happens to be a behind shot)

If anyone can help, let me know.

I'm glad I found this thread.

I'm working on a video game and have been doing tons of character animation in Poser 7.  I render my images to png files of the Poser animations.  Import them to layers in Photoshop and run a script to put them into spritesheets.

I have very noticable halos around my Poser 8 png images.  I did not get these halos in Poser 7.  I can run the same animation with the exact same render settings and I get no halos in Poser 7 and very severe halos in Poser 8. 

It is especially exacerbated because I reduce my images in size for my game. 

Unless someone has a good fix for this in Poser, I'm going to have to go back to Poser 7.

I did just download the hotfix from today so I'll let you know if it fixes the problem.

I'll try to do another post with images.

Allan

Garee,

UAC is important for security purposes.  But to say MS completely reworked UAC is preposterous.  It's still there in Windows 7 because it's needed.  But I'm going to argue about that point because it's off subject.

Please show me in the install documentation or anywhere in any documentation for Poser 8 where the developer advises you to turn off UAC before you install.  They don't.  As a matter of fact, they state just the opposite.  They have numerous install options several of which mention that if you are a Vista user with UAC on, this is the best option....and that is the default install option.  However there are several other options for installation which they clearly did not test and they give the user no instructions regarding UAC at all.

This isn't about your problems with Microsoft.  This is about poor quality testing of a very nice, welcome update to Poser.   

Wow.

I'm not sure you read the article you linked to.  Here is a quote....

"Fortunately, UAC can be easily disabled, though you should be aware that doing so strips Vista of a considerable extra layer of security against viruses and malware

. Effectively, disabling UAC brings us back to XP territory in terms of security, but it makes Vista so much easier to use."

The reason why MS kept UAC in Windows 7 is because it's needed.  They provided an additional option for more advanced users who don't want to see so many prompts but it will still be on and by default it will be on.

I have countless applications that do not have problems with UAC.  But in order for them to work, they have to be changed to trigger the UAC prompts that ask the user for their permission.  If they do not do this, the install will fail in strange ways.  This isn't about UAC.

If I understand correctly you are saying that in order to accomodate sloppy application developers, we should remain entrenched in 6 year old technology.  Look even Apple has an equivalent UAC feature in Mac OS.  This article also appears rather old but I'm not sure because I could not find a date.

I'll say it again.  Vista with UAC has been out for 3 years now.  There should be no good reason to disable it as long as the application developer makes the calls to the premade routines that ask your permission when you want to install something.  This is not difficult stuff.  It just has to be tested for before shipping the application.

Finally, if you take a look at the majority of complaints with Poser 8, most of them have to do with installation problems.....missing directories, file links etc.  I really like Poser, don't get me wrong.  But don't make excuses for crappy quality control.

Allan

I dont' think Zanzo was referring to Microsoft with the sloppy programmers comment.  I'm sure that was directed at Smith Micro or whoever they contracted with for developing their installation model. 

Look.. the bottomline is Vista and UAC have been on the market for over 3 years now.  I have dozens of applications on my system that have installed with no headaches with UAC on in Vista 64bit.  Install headaches that occur with a mature operating system are signs of very sloppy and lazy quality control at the tail end of development.  They clearly did not test the various install options that they make available to the user.  

Go ahead and try this on your Vista 64 bit system.  Turn on UAC, install Poser 8, choose the "Backwards Compatibility option" so your content is installed on the C drive in a Poser directory instead of the default install option of the User shared drive.  The search feature will be completely disabled.  If they make the option available for users, they should test it! 

The whole point of UAC is so the user doesn't have to worry about install headaches.  Things should just work while UAC is left on.  This is the job of the application developers not Microsoft.  The specs that spell out exactly what you need in your install routines have been published by MS for years.  There is no reasonable excuse for this. 

Ultimately I got it working by uninstalling, turning off UAC and reinstalling.  And that's just stupid.  You should never have to turn UAC off if the developer is doing their job.  The only difference UAC makes is to require your permission.  At some point during the install, Smith Micro forgot to put the request permission notification up.  So the aplpication's access to the C drive was blocked by UAC.  Again...very very sloppy.

My first install had UAC on and I chose to install it using the "for best backwords compatibility" option where it installs the runtime in a Poser directory on the c: drive vs. having the content installed on the shared User drive.  (The shared User drive was the default recommended option for users with Vista and UAC on.)  But if it doesn't work another way, don't provide the option to a user. 

The bottomline is Smith Micro should have been aware that the "backwords compatibility" install option will disable the search feature if you have UAC on in Vista when installing the application.

Now that Poser 8 is installed and the search feature does work as advertised, I turned UAC back on and everything seems to work ok.

Allan

Well I got it working by uninstalling, turning off UAC, reinstalling.

I hate to say it but that's just very poor quality control on their part.  UAC in Vista has been around for 3 years now.  This should not be a problem for application vendors.

For the record, my first install had UAC on and I chose to install it using the "for best backwords compatibility" option where it installs the runtime in a Poser directory on the c: drive vs. having the content installed on the shared User drive.  The shared User drive was the default recommended option for users with Vista and UAC on. 

The bottomline is Smith Micro should have been aware that the "backwords compatibility" install option will disable the search feature if you have UAC on in Vista when installing the application.

Now that Poser 8 is installed and the search feature does work as advertised, I turned UAC back on and everything seems to work ok.

Allan

Well I got it working by uninstalling, turning off UAC, reinstalling.

I hate to say it but that's just very poor quality control on their part.  UAC in Vista has been around for 3 years now.  This should not be a problem for application vendors.

For the record, my first install had UAC on and I chose to install it using the "for best backwords compatibility" option where it installs the runtime in a Poser directory on the c: drive vs. having the content installed on the shared User drive.  The shared User drive was the default recommended option for users with Vista and UAC on. 

The bottomline is Smith Micro should have been aware that the "backwords compatibility" install option will disable the search feature if you have UAC on in Vista when installing the application.

Now that Poser 8 is installed and the search feature does work as advertised, I turned UAC back on and everything seems to work ok.

Allan

Thanks for replying.

I have Vista 64bit SP2.

I went to the site link you provided but Windows Search 4.0 for Vista 64bit is only for people with SP1.  I downloaded it anyway but upon install it said "this is not for your version of windows."

I may try to reinstall Poser 8.  But the first time I installed it, I clicked continue when the Vista UAC prompt came up.  I followed the same procedure I do for all of the applications I've installed in Vista.......Are you sure?....Yes....Are you sure?.....Yes Continue.  And occasionally it asks me to unblock something and I always click Unblock.

Thanks for you help.

Allan 

I'm running Poser 8 in Vista 64bit.

I get no search results at all...nothing.  Is there a trick to using Vista 64 bit?

It doesn't make any difference whether I run as Administrator or not.  I do have UAC turned on.

Any help would be appreciated.  I saw one other post at RunTime DNA with the same problem.

Allan