Ok, for this one, I don't actually have anything to post... yet.  What I want to know is what kinds of problems people are having with Poser, mostly 6 and 7 since they are most recent.  I've started a "tips & tricks" for Poser and I'm already 2 pages in... and that's just how to make Poser stop crashing.

I have other things planned for it, but I want to find out from people what you would like to see covered in it.

I am doing this for one reason, when I first started using Poser, it would have been nice to have one place with answers for everything and not have to search for it across 5 different forums.

I would like to cover the crashing issues (already noted), textures (only simple node work, complicated textures get to be a bit difficult to explain and keep short), plus a few tricks that some may not know about with the program that will either make life easier or work faster... or both.
So, if you feel you want some input in this, just reply to this thread and I will see what I can do and get the necessary research done on the topic if needed.

I loaded Poser Pro's Fusion plugin for Cinema 4D (Mac), but even though I can see it in C4D's plugins folder, it's not showing up in C4D's interface. I emailed Smith Micro, but has anybody else seen this problem?

One of the problems I'm having now has to do with the new Gamma correction feature.
When you set the Gamma Correction in the render settings, PoserPro corrects all the texture maps, not only the color maps, but also the shine, the bump, the transparancy, and the displacement maps. And for some reason it also changes the colormathnodes that are connected to it. There is a feature that you can correct the gamma settings by texture map in the material room, with the texturemanager. But those settings aren't saved when you save the scene, or save the figure to the library. Some days ago Bagginsbill asked me to test this with a simple setting,  and at first sight it looked like the settings were saved, but perhaps Posespro can only save one texturenode setting, because when  I later save a more complex model with more then 5 displacement maps, the gamma settings weren't saved at all. So everytime I load this file and want to render it with gamma correction I have to set all the gamma settings of texturemaps in the materialroom, which is very tedious and annoying.
Is this bad, one could ask? Yes, if displacementmaps are corrected, the displacement is much smaller then it was supposed to be. And with transparancymaps it is even worse. Some perfect looking hair objects are changing in an very unhealthy appearance.
So I really hope  someone of the SmithMicro poser team is reading this, because unless this isn't fixed, the gamma correction feature is useless.

Best regards,

Bopperthijs.

-How can you improve things when you don't make mistakes?

I am using Poser7 since one year now, but I only found out today, that I could increase in the prefrences under render the numbers of threads from 1=default to 2, because I have a "dual-core-cpu" and know Poser renders on both cpus!!!

Number 2: But when I check the option "separate process" right under the threads, then Poser7  renders even faster, but I can't see anything in "render window". Just plain white... So what is wrong there?

Number 3: Then if read at different forums here: " Set your windows swap file minimum and maximum sizes to the same recommended 1.5 x your RAM size on a different drive to the default."
I've done it, (because I've got 4GB RAM), but Poser 7 still brings his ERROR message, not enough MEMORY!!!!

Number 4: Is it really true, that Poser 7 can't work on Win-XP64bit-version or does it help?

These are my important questions about Poser7 right now.

Hope that helps a bit.

ooo, those three are good ones, the multithread one is one I will certainly look into :D

There's a problem with the symetry feature. Essentially random dials get set on your figure if you swap left and right. This happened with my clothed figures. All of a sudden body  morph dials or body part dials get random values.

BTW if python gives you an error in poserpros, you can copy the msvcr71.dll file from your poser 6 or 7 setup into the windows/system32 directory or the poserpros directory so poser pros can find it. That fixed my python crashes. for some reason they didn't include the dll with their version.

Crosstalk is hit or miss in all Poser versions I have (5,6,7, Pro). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
I think that the .cr2 definition should be extended with the keywords "thisFigure" to slave dials to master channels on the figure itself WITHOUT incurring unwanted crosstalk, and "conformingTargetFigure" to slave dials to the conforming target figure to insure you get the desired kind of crosstalk.

The pen is mightier than the sword. But if you literally want to have some impact, use a typewriter

My gallery   My freestuff

I'm just getting into Poser 6 after many years of version 4 and I'm having a strange problem trying to make some props for it.

When I import an obj to an empty scene, I find it just renders completely black- totally black, no highlights nor nuthin', like a silhouette. If I edit the materials, it still renders the same no matter what I change the colours and settings and maps to.

Now here's the weird bit- if I add another object to the scene- any object at all; figure, prop, even the same obj I just imported- then the materials I changed on the first obj suddenly start to work fine! But then, if I delete the second object I added, they just break again and the first obj goes back to being a pure black shape.

The only material attribute that will work at all in this state is the ambient colour- nothing else affects it at all.

Am I missing something or is this as much of a puzzle to you as it is to me? It's stopping me getting on and making my props, I know that much.

actually, I can asnwer that one real quick, but I'll make sure to include it in my list.  Now, this may not work, but it might, so here goes.  When in Poser's mat lab, click on the advanced tab, you'll see the nodes displayed for the texture you're working with, there is a check box near the bottom of the "poser surface" node (is the only one on the screen when no textures are applied), it says "normals forward", click that and see if that helps :D

Nope, that's not it; thanks for the suggestion though.

I ought to point out that these props I'm doing work fine under P4 and DAZ|Studio, just as they always have done. It's just that I want to use the more advanced materials in P6 and yet when I apply them I just can't render them until I put some other object into the scene.

I don't even know if the props I'm making work in other people's versions of P6, maybe they do. I made a pair of glasses for V4 which I gave away here: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/planetvoodoo/RetroSpecsFree.zip 
and they appeared to work to me at first because I just left the frames untextured black anyway, however later when I tried altering them I came across this problem. They work with V4 okay, but they don't seem happy on their own, which is a worry. No-one's given me any feedback on the freebie, so I sort of assumed they must work for other folks but I just don't know. If not, I'd like to know about it and what I have to do to fix it because I'm planning on selling a pack of higher-quality glasses models soon and obviously, they need to work correctly.

well, I downloaded the glasses (thank you btw) and it seems that you may have  a problem with poser itself.  I played with the textures and they seemed to work fine.  what kind of textures are you applying?

Thanks for checking it out; I appreciate any help.

I think it IS a problem with my install of P6; no-one else has complained so far.
From my end, it isn't just about textures- if I load the glasses on their own into an empty scene, they just render solid black. If I change the diffuse colour of, say, the frame or one of the arms to yellow, it stil renders solid black. It's only when I put something else- anything- into the scene that the changes have an effect.

To recreate my problem, load the glasses into an empty scene, and change the diffuse colour of the arms or frame to something other than black. If it renders okay, then it's just me. If not, it's a problem with the model.

If you're not having any problems, I assume that no-one else is either- or I'm sure I'd have had some comments by now- so it must be down to my install. I think I'll try a re-install to see if that fixes it, since I recently did a video-driver update that played havoc with P6 and some other 3D programs too. I did revert to my old video-driver which seemed to fix everything, but maybe it didn't fix P6- you never know, I suppose.

(By the way, I do know that the freebie glasses has a slight polygon-glitch just above the lenses which doesn't really show up if you're rendering them in a dark colour, but that's why I gave them away as a freebie- my new ones are much, much better, which is why I'd like to sell them, since I've put in over 24 hours on one pair!) 

I made a thread for it, but there are few chances it gets noticed in the huge flow... so I'll ask here instead ^^ 
How do I remove (in poser pro) the ugly white seaming which shows on characters skin, where the materials meet ? I am a bit at loss there.

Quote - I made a thread for it, but there are few chances it gets noticed in the huge flow... so I'll ask here instead ^^ 
How do I remove (in poser pro) the ugly white seaming which shows on characters skin, where the materials meet ? I am a bit at loss there.

Try lowering the minimum shading rate.

Thanks icprncss, worked like a charm :)