Man, sometimes I really think things are weirder than they look. Listen to this: I have been using poser 4 pro pack, and poser 4 before, with win "darn" 98 for over 2 years. Until recently it has sailed smoothly, so to speak, for what I am about to tell you defies all logic and all I know about poser... Had all the MATs installed, do this, do that, freezes on a huge map render, well your basic hassle. Then some time ago, pro pack upon loading a MAT, started asking me about a missing *.bum file. Well, so far this is news to me. It had untill then happily accepetd the classical *.jpg file with no problems whatsoever.And this along with the classical routine: "...do you want to look for other missing files?" > "no" > the darn wait...like hours...and then again the same pop up...man, at this time my brain is twisting in frustration. I look in the materials window...the *.jpg bump map file is loaded... I assign it to the *.obj and its ok...for a while. The old routine...defrag hard disk drives, the problem remains...this along with crashes, freeze ups, exiting poser and everything freezes all of a sudden...for instance, millenium dragon?...I cant even make it blink...my machine just stops cold... Ok unistall poser pro pack, reistall it again...LOL...pathetically, that is...everything remains the same...Pro pack doesnt even transform my *.jpg bump mats in *.bum files. Ok, install poser 4 in another directory, by itself, so I can at least change *.jpgs in *.bum files. Ok...its working...ask for a *.bum file...asign a *.jpg, "want to convert it to *.bum?" > "yess...(oh Pleeeeaaase...prety pleeeaaase)..." there you go...rough ride, but its working... ...When suddenlly.... Poser 4 asks for the *.bum file...I go to the materials window, assign the figure a *.jpg file, and instead of asking me as per routine if I want to convert it to a *.bum file (since as far as we know, poser 4 sans PP doesnt use *.jpgs as bump maps)...lo and behold it not only doesnt ask that, but uses the *.jpg file AS IT IS, as a bump map. It comes at 100% as in the default settings all exagerated...for it to work, weirdly but working at least, I have to reduce it to 20%, but it is somehow...how shall I put it...unsound. A *.bum file at 100% works just fine...that is until I exit the program...for upon closing, the computer goes into freeze mode where even the all classic CTrL/Alt/Del wont work having to reboot the machine. Now, go figure...as far as I know...blame it all somehow on the OS...(and please, mackers, dont tell me to buy a Mac...I dont know what it is...:P.) So my last stand...at this time is to install a: A- the same and only crap that is win 98se, or B- another crapy OS like win Xp or 2000, whatever... There you go...ranting zone 2...but I at least was party to a weird tale...Thanks for reading... Any opinions? BTW, my machine is a PIII, 800mhz with 524 mb of ram and 32mb of video board.

Is it possible that the character or pose files you're loading still reference .bum files for bump? It's pretty easy to check with Notepad or Wordpad. Use the "find" function in either...search for ".bum" and see if you find anything. If so, change the reference to ".jpg. I don't think your hardware is at fault here. There might be problems with P4/PP on Win98, especially as regards the crashes. In this case degragmentation wouldn't necessarily help. I'd worry more about corrupt Poser files. As you probably know, some models/textures come with .bum bump maps, but not .jpg, the opposite of how it usually works. If you didn't install the .bum files, the program will look for them, anyway. It sounds like you know that when you're asked for a .bum file but have the .jpg equivelant, you can simply "lie" to Poser by pointing it to the .jpg file. That should work. I couldn't fully understand everything you described, but in the case of the MilDragon, it's possible that your texture and bump maps need to be reduced, perhaps to 50%. The originals are very large, and you know how much Windows98 loves that. :-) You appear to be describing more than one problem. I'd suggest making note of precisely which .cr2 or .pz2 files are causing lockups or querying for .bum files, then checking the files in a text editor and correcting any "wrong" bump map references. I think there's a utility in Free Stuff which makes this easy, but I just use Notepad. Oh, and when Poser asks you if you want to find a .bum file, saying "no" will sometimes cause an unrecoverable crash. It's never happened to me, but I'm told that alt/CTRL/delete can corrupt Poser files, so you want to avoid crashes if you can. It's better to "lie" and assign the proper .jpg file, but not in the Materials editor. Just do it from the "do you want to find" dialog box. You have a better machine and more RAM than I, but I've been able to find solutions to very similar problems, so I hope you can, too.

if i was you I would run correct refference and see if it helps. Should solve most of your problums. Either that or sprinkle some holy water on your computer It may be possesed :) . I have been readying strange things about bum files channels becoming corupted and resaving it in photoshop seams to help. xoconostle advice was pretty good about the resizing thing consitering your computer is running a old OS and a fairly old cpu . More rams not really going to help you much till you switch to a better OS . it really cant see or use it in the right way.

I'm not sure I understood everything. lol. Sorry, I just woke up. But let me take a shot at this. If a Mat file specifies a jpg instead of a bum, and you use it in P4, it will add the jpg to the bump list without converting. If it was already loaded in the list, and then you tried to select it to convert it, it won't convert because it is already in the list. Make sense? From what I am getting of the PP issue, it sounds like the MAT file called for the bum. Poser will load what the MAT file calls for if it is available, regardless of whether it is the correct format, without asking for conversion. Unless it is calling for a format that isn't available, in which case it goes hog wild. I would definately run CR. But here is a word of advice first. Make sure all you Bumps are converted to .bum before running if you are going to use them as p4. Otherwise, CR will change all the bumps to .jpgs when it can't find the .bum files. Great if you are on propack, I guess. Sucks if you are on P4 and have to change them all back. :) Also take a look at the files you were trying to load and make sure the were calling for the right format themselves. Did I understand everyting? If you only wanted to use Propack, then you shouldn't need bum files at all. If it is calling for them for propack, you will need to edit the MATs to reference the .jpg state.