Thanks, Eric, yes I already did such things. Nothing helped. I'm first going tp try re-installing Vue Mover, but according to my experience with e-onsoftware's installing procedures I am expecting the worst. Initially, they even sent me a wrong serial number when I bought it online, and it took us all quite some time to figure out why the software could not be installed, i.e. had the anti-piracy security lock activated. Sigh. Never ever touch a running system. Never ever buy software upgrades, may they be tempting or not... :-I

Another sad story: it happened to me, when I tried to locate my re-installed Poser 4 EXE file from within Vue4 that I rather selected the Poser 5 executable. Since then, Vue4 denies ANY access to any Poser obj file import claiming that the serial number IS incorrect. I wonder how to correct this error. I've tried to rename any non-vital Vue program file but could not find out which one is in charge for inhibiting further Poser access after an erroneous selection. I'm afraid that I am (again) forced to re-install all my Vue configuration from the scratch, including the tedious process of naming dozens of serial numbers for any additionally purchased vegetation file. Not quite customer friendly, but well, it was me who did the wrong selection in first place. Any assistance would be very much welcome. Thanks in advance!

Thanks for your assistance. So I will get my old Poser 4 installation partially back from my backup harddisk and try this solution. Hopefully, it is only the exe-file of ye olde poser 4.03 which is needed. Kind regards, Marco

Kelderek (and any other who knows the answer),

Does this mean that I have to leave ALL files installed within Poser 4 (including about 3 GB of library files) on my hard disk as well as the new Poser 5 stuff (including all the files once again)? This would be really disappointing since I upgraded Vue 4 with Mover just recently and have then also upgraded to Poser 5.

Thanks for bringing any light into this software darkness.

Kind regards,
Marco

They better stop messing with their e-store first, because it is nothing but troubles trying to place an order for quite some time by now. Promises after promises to enhance things, but still bugs and unability to place correct orders, orders at all or getting correct software. Has anybody tried to order over this week-end by the way? Try and be amazed (or should I better say disappointed).

Business as usual: rumors and a faint support for customers overseas not wanting to wait until localized versions are out. I switched to e-on software's Vue d'Esprit 3 (and now 4) and am no longer missing my buggy Bryces (which I had since version 2.xxx up to early 4 for Windows). Nevertheless I shall try what Corel has added some day when prices are falling. marcomeyer

Same with me: on my Dell Inspiron 8000 nothing but crashes. I cannot get it run. "An unexpected error occurred" and then R.I.P. and Windows restart. I wonder what the patch is really for?

On first thought it seems disappointing for us that the Vue makers won't let the cat out of the bag, yet. On the other hand one must say that Vue d'Esprit 3.1 is a pretty good and quite bug-less product compared to the competitors on the market. But I'd also wish to develop my own plants. Alas, I have to use older and clumsier stuff like Zenstar's Tree Druide standalone or perhaps in future (and after a hefty bank credit) Onyx Computing's Tree 5. The trouble is: when having such a smooth and fast software like Vue one gets easily impatient and wants more and more...

Thanks, Scott, Your help is very valuable. Since I am in the IT business for more than 11 years (including home computers more than 18 years) I of course have already thought of using a backup of the fonts folder, first. This, alas, did not help. As a matter of fact I do have backup tapes with over 20GB of data, but I do not backup regularly enough to make sure that all changed entries are really on the tape and I do a lot of changes. The registry thing would be more helpful, I guess, but since I am such freaky online shopper (no spam ad-mails, please, I like looking for my merchandise alone :-) ) who always tries latest software I could easily mix up a registry entrance or two. Using specialized software like Ontrack's Fix-It might help a bit but I am afraid the damage such programs do to your registry is bigger than what you can profit from them. Thus I am very cautious using such programs. What puzzles me was the fact that even the replacement of the possibly rotten registry dat files with "virgin" ones did absolutely not help either. This is what drives me crazy about Poser. It is like a box of pandora: you never know what you're getting. Comes to it that by using a "Germanized" version together with US installing routines especially when it comes to Zygote models or CuriousLabs Updates is quite nasty: you sometimes have to adapt the paths and folder all by yourself. Usually this works, BUT... Anyway, it seems that my issue was not as singular as I first thought. Maybe the whole discussion helped others, too. Thanks to you all! Kind regards from Switzerland, Marco

Thanks to you all. It is good to know that I am not alone with the problem. Tech Support from CuriousLabs is silent, so I came to the reluctant decision to completely re-install my whole system. Up to now (after a few days of installing all my software one by one) all works fine, fonts again etc. I cannot see what's different from the new installation compared to the previous one, so it must be a deeper problem, some perhaps font file as -wal supposed, or some dll or so problem. All's fine now, but I am afraid it will happen again and what should I (we) do then? Besides: customers do not want to wait for my backups being re-installed every second time or so. Marco

Melanie is so right and so is Vethril. Indeed one must hold himself or herself back in order not to feel tempted to use the "mouse tools" like sizing or rotating on the fly. Rather using the dials in very (!) small increments does a tremendous job, but sometimes it takes an in-between rendering job to see the real fine results. Even better if one uses high resolution and anti-aliasing when rendering. Comes to it that you can do a lot with textures and bump maps. Many 3D-beginners (me included) are thrilled with what they can do with all-3D-objects. I for myself like creating landscapes with Vue d'Esprit (and also a bit of Bryce). Many convincing effects like e.g. vegetation are rather done with a clever texture than by creating all in 3D and zillions of polygons taking hours to render. I've bought quite a few of Catharina Przezak's fine textures for Zygote's/DAZ' Michael and came to the conclusion that she did a great job by just applying different facial and body textures to the very same Michael figure, no dials used. Poser is such a fine program to play God or Goddess with, but let's not overdo it! It really is not size that matters ;-) Marco/Switzerland

Thanks for your help. I just got an answer from CuriousLab's Tech support. It reads "In Char Map find out what font is causing the jumble and remove it and relaunch poser sometimes the system will substitute." I went through all my fonts in Character Map but I could not find a single one looking crippled or so. I guess the whole thing must have something to do with a registry entry, perhaps something like font substitution (unwanted!). BTW: Tech support did not tell me yet what font is used to display the values and entries I have problems with. Any more suggestions? Marco

After a restart removing both or any of the files no longer caused a crash, but it did not help either. I just now restored all my fonts from a backup tape but no hope. Poser poses problems. I also removed Adobe Type Manager, often responsible for strange font behavior in a Windows environment. I am now downsizing my font count to below hundred although I cannot imagine why this should help.

Thanks, Jeff, for your fast reply, but after removing the two files Poser crashes short after the start, displaying Windows user's most likeable crash box. Mmmh. It seems this was not the trick. So I am still hoping for a solution. BTW: I am also waiting for an answer from Tech Support at Curioslabs (asked them yesterday). Kind regards, Marco

Being a long-time now-and-then user of Bryce version 2 to 4 for PC I got more and more frustrated of the anything but logical Bryce material editor concept. I have just received Vue 3 two days ago and am competely happy, finally: never ever has the creation of really real looking artificial worlds been so easy and the vegetation is just simply looking gorgeous! The material editor is fantastic and quite easy to cope with as soon as you have discovered all hidden features by double-clicking frantically all over the place. The rendering speed and the quality achieved are quite unrivaled. BTW: I am also a user of Carrara, Ray Dream Studio 5, True Space 4, Poser 4 and VistaPro 4. My opinion about these: Carrara: fast object creation, nice rendering, user interface very Kai-like, but not too much. I wonder which company will support it, since Metacreations just seems to have deleted the last link to any update/patches on their website. I hate what has become of former HSC, then Metacreations... Ray Dream: replaced by Carrara but still very useful due to the objects list. True Space: out-of-date Caligari interface but nice features especially when in comes to nurbs. Long long update periods. Always announcing products years in advance but obviously never releasing them (iSpace???) Poser: nice to create awesome mannequins but not really human look-alikes. The hair is so artificial! VistaPro: my first terrain rendering program (started with earlier versions). Still nice, especially the use of sunlight over water, but much too technical (all parameters stuff) Vue is my favorite star, despite of some strange crashes when digging too deep in those sometimes obscurely hidden sub-menues of filters and fractal editing. This is the number one program to double-click on anything you see in dialog windows and menue boxes. The manual is not very useful when it comes to learn the functions. Bryce's manual is far better. If only days and nights were longer. If only I had not go for work. If only I could concentrate on VUE for weeks... From Switzerland (the tiny alpine country where it seems that you cannot get Vue in any shop but rather have to order it from Germany), Marco