Well, aside from the fact his hotkeys would screw up my personal set up (lol -- no biggie, Carrara's does too), Phantast's comments in the CL Survey Follow Up post got me to thinking, and my reply sorta got outta hand. I'm not interested so much in bitching about what's wrong with Poser or comparing it to other things, but rather, in what could happen with it -- and all of us, in the process. I agree with his assessment of Poser's general design, and I think CL would as well (If I may be so bold, lol) that it started out as a Posing tool for export and has since shifted focus. I think that shift will continue a bit more, as well -- Poser was intended to provide a rapid and quick method of boning and animating figures for porting to other applications. Said so right in all the original release info (I've watched it a mighty long time, lol), that had, as a sort of side benefit, the ability to preview those set ups. The things I'd like to see most, right now (or in version 6), I keep thinking about. The Top Ten come down to pretty much this so far: - = Better previewing system (OpenGL & VidRAM use) - = The ability to add top level folders (so I can have MAT folders and MOR folders along side Pose, Figure, Face, etc.) Don't do it for me, let me do it. - = Point Lights (number one for me) - = Customizable Hot Keys - = Multiple selection - = Multiple Undo - = More accurate collisions - = Improved Memory Handling - = Copy, Cut, and Paste of objects - = The ability to browse my runtime more efficiently -- a larger panel, perhaps. During the downtime for it (from the collapse of Metacreations until about a year ago), the community that grew up around the program changed that. It had started before, but those very long years where there was no work on it sorta killed Poser's original place in the scheme of things -- all of the big apps developed their own systems, the new ones all came onto the scene with it built into them, and poser certainly wasn't going to change in the immediate future, so it sorta lost that segment of the market. When it came out, Poser was revolutionary -- truly so, as nothing had taken all the cool things out there at the time and enabled you to do what it did as fast. One of the biggest complaints I've seen is the plug-in need, lol. If nothing else, that shows just how easy Poser is to use compared to many of the built in versions of other applications. There may be some legs left there, but running is still a ways of for it. My approach to using Poser has come out of several years of reading these darn boards and using it to create training tools. Essentially, I look at Poser as a sort of theater, and I've set things up to enable me to use it as such. I have actors, a wardrobe department, a scenery department, a workshop, and, of course, a stage (that big ol screen). Now, having the ability to cut and paste would be absolutely wonderful from my director's chair. So would being able to select multiple figures and make adjustments. I also would like for there to be some sort of "stage design" mode, where I could load in the elements that enable me to create my scene rapidly -- drag and drop would be my choice, personally. Customizable hot keys would be the option I would suggest for hot-keying -- artists are notoriously stubborn about changing the way they work (hence the grumbling about the changes in P5), and they are very picky about the way they set up their tools. Changing cameras is something I rarely do, but I never have my hand leave the mouse to do so -- I can usually achieve any POV I need using the camera panel and the two drop downs for cameras -- and the addition of the camera controls above the document window was a nice touch. Small things like that are more useful to me, without dramatically changing the interface itself -- I like it, I'm familiar with it, and it is a lot easier to use than some of the other systems out there. The one thing I do not want Poser to start to resemble is a modelling application. Most emphatically I do not want that. They are cumbersome creatures, necessarily so, and totally geared towards the more engineering minded types. Maya and Mirai are two of the most annoying programs I've ever had the displeasure of glaring at, and Lightwave isn't too far behind -- those folks need to really be the ones to focus one ease of use for the typical user. This is NOT to say that Poser should not add some modelling capabilities in, only that in doing so, they should avoid following what most folks think of as standard conventions and go the route that got them started in the first place: make it easy for somene who knows nothing about computers (which is they prototypical user). Another ongoing concern I have is the constant calls to "rewrite the base code". Now, I agree, there are some really serious issues in the core code -- compatibility with current OS methods, chiefly -- that could use some revision, and there is little doubt that the code could be compressed some, but I do not think a wholesale rewrite is in the communities best interest at this time. The reason is that programmers (and those of you out there know this) hate wasting space and lines and effort. Be they good or bad programmers, it's a common thing. And much of the stuff that makes poser such a viable and adaptable tool is that it relies on ASCII file formats. These are things that NON-programmers can actually sorta play with and get to know -- they call that user friendly in some places. One of the first things mentioned often after the "rewrite it" is "get rid of ASCII". In doing so, they will cease to expose they very thing that has made much of what the community sells and thrives on possible. MAT files, MOR files, ERC, EasyPose, INJ/REM, and so forth, are all accessible to people without decompilers and lots of programming knowledge, and would not have been possible if it weren't for that accessibility. So that is not something that would be good. The other big reason is compatibility with current stuff. Core code changes mean big changes in the methods of operation. The obj format is a bloated warthog with bad gas. Get rid of it, though, and most of the products in the stores are sorta outta there. Pose files were never meant to have all those funky things in them, so lets strip them down to just the basics. Whoops, there goes the other half of the stores. Now yes, we would all expect them to build the features the community has discovered right into the new code base. But what about the ones we haven't discovered yet? What about the ones that will come out of figuring out the dynamics and material room stuff? Those changes are part of what makes the community a thriving, living, learning, growing thing. And a vital part to it, at that. I'm all for fine tuning. Let's not cut our own throats though. Right now, to me, is the most exciting time for folks who love Poser. Never before in the last 20 some odd years have I seen anything quite as remarkable as what's going on right now. This is a community of several websites and hundreds of thousands of users that has built up around a program that's essentially died and been reborn. It has developed into a sort of miniature version of the computer world in general, and this despite the fact hat the stuff it involves has been one of the background pushes for the constant development within the computer industry itself. Now there is competition not only at large, but in specific, there is a thriving marketplace of evolving content that is actually changing the very manner we use the program (anyone looked at Microcosm, lately? Really looked at what it can do? Or seen some of the huge and amazingly detailed texturing work being done out there? This stuff rivals what's being done at studios, and is art unto itself.) There is a new version coming, CL is financially sound and has backing from a more fitting partner. Shade, while still pretty much unheard of here, is an incredible package that is intentionally set up in several price points from the reasonably affordable to the competitive price arena. It has technology that if leveraged into use with Poser could really give it an amazing toolset. With the plugins developed by third parties, the rise of a strong player in the smae field, and a still growing customer base (legal or not, lol), there is a sense to me that we are about to sort of explode out there. Probably not going to happen overnight, but I think that in a few years -- say, three or so, we'll see a huge shift in the "3D" world online that reduces dramatically the division between us "poser weenies" and those "3D pros" who tend to sneer at us. This is what it's all about to me, ultimately -- bringing this amazing tool to folks who otherwise would never be able to express themselves for lack of training in the "RL Arts" or lack of a particular skill. It's not about wether you postwork or not (and yeah, I'm a no postworker, lol) nor is it about wether you think the next new proggie is going to take over or not. It's about what has been built up here, and what we do now, in our actions, and our words, and our wallets, to set up the direction for that future. We love what we do -- from Bushi's latest python wonder to UV Mapper 3 to Clothing Convertor, from DAZ to Rosity, Pros to RDNA -- this is a huge world of folks who all share a common love of being able to do something simply, quickly, and easily and still produce some of the most stunning works of art the world will ever see (though most of it still seems pretty ignorant of it). ok, enough of this. I've got kids to feed, medicine to buy, and shaders to play with. Thanks for reading this, and sorry for being so long winded.

thou and I, my friend, can, in the most flunkey world, make, each of us, one non-flunkey, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroes to begin with. (Carlyle)