Many of you may know me and for those of you who don't, let's just say I've been in the business of Poser art for over 10 years and have been one of the quiet sleeping dogs that generally prefers to remain under the porch and snoring when it comes to topic discussions regarding software and models...but after receiving my Poser 8 DVD this morning, my slumber has been disturbed enough to get on here and just let somebody have it.

I haven't even installed my new upgrade yet and I've already got several beefs with Smith Micro over Poser 8 and they are as follows:

1. Where the heck is my manual?  Okay, the reason I ordered and paid extra [shipping] for a copy of Poser is because before this every hard-copy version came with a big'ole fat manual that has been a bible for me for many years.  And now...I don't even get a proper box with my software much less a manual.  I inquire about this and learn that they just aren't printing them this go around.  Why?  To go "greener" they say, but yet I note that the price of my software hasn't gone lower, and indeed, I realize that those manuals are huge and expensive to print, so without them, SM is undoubtedly pocketing a lot more of their money than before.  And this is also the case with the DVD case rather than a box...again the "green" ain't for the environment, it's to line their bottom line with.  Enough said on that...but I am very, VERY disappointed in the lack of a printed manual.  I would even be willing to pay extra or buy it separate just to have it, but no...no manual on paper for us.

2. WHERE THE -BLEEP- is my P4 render engine???????  Am I nuts, or does the included paperwork in my DVD case show a distinct lack of the P4 engine tab on the rendering options?  Now don't get me wrong, I like Firefly and all...but there are times [in regards to speed mostly] that I want my P4 engine, especially when rendering animations that take forever in the first place.  No way am I waiting around for a Firefly rendered animation sequence.  Hair and transparencies give Firefly the drags big time.  So why did they remove a perfectly good engine from the package.  This totally blows and is just about enough to make me pack up the software before even installing it.

3. What were they doing with the new runtime directories?  From the images of the screenshots I'm looking at, it looks like they've tried to copy that silly DAZ studio layout to some degree a factor which has kept me from using DAZ studio all these years.  WHY?  For the love of potatos and gravy, why the heck can these people not leave what works alone and just improve it?  Why are they removing the things that worked and implementing new stuff that probably won't?  I liked the old runtime navigation layout...--sigh--...maybe I'm just lame.

Most of this is probably old hat for ya'll...and maybe I should wake up more during tech talk 101 around here...but I haven't.

Someone back me up here and tell SM to go take a lesson from Adobe corporation.  I recently made the jump from Photoshop 5.0 to CS4 with no learning curve at all.  They add to, and never subtract.  Photoshop is beautiful in terms of software improvement.   Maybe we'll get lucky and SM will sell off Poser before version 9 is released.  Maybe we'll get luckier and Adobe will buy it.

:0)

I admit maybe I'm just pre-judging this all, and if so I'll be back tomorrow to eat my crow and all, but for now...and tonight...I think I'll stick working with P7.

Sincerely,
One aggitated and disappointed Poser professional artist