I was wondering if Poser 8 has any better import features than earlier versions?  Can it import Collada files?

Poser 8 has less import options than Poser 7 - the very important Poser 1.0 Library Import is gone!

Collada import seems to be reserved for the Pro version as with Poser 7.

we're at poser 8. who's still importing poser 1 files??

Does P8 import newer versions of Lightwave?

Can it handle larger 3ds files more reliably and not blow up the import or crash if a file is larger than 1 Mb (earlier versions could sometimes import larger files, but freezing was a fairly frequent occurrence).

Does P8 import any file types that earlier versions don't?

The simple answer is no. I still uses the same outdated import versions it has used for years. A lot of features that have been in need of an update for ages are again untouched. We're still stuck with outdated import (and partly export).

About 50% of the import files (format or size doesn't matter) make P8 crash to desktop. Those same files load in P7 without any problem. I hope it's one of the SR1 fixes.

Quote -
Does P8 import newer versions of Lightwave?

See this thread:
www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php

Towards the end I go into detail in several posts regarding Poser and the Lightwave object file format.
Steve Cooper made a reply in that thread saying that SR 1 will fix those things, but said the crashing will be addressed in P8 SR1, and didn't mention if the actual import/export will be any better or more accurate, just that it won't cause crashes.

He remained conspicuously silent regarding my comments on how their supposed LWO2 format is in fact not LWO2...

Well, it shows once again how bad the beta testing program of poser is. By now we're getting quite a list of very obvious and easily reproducable problems that should have been dealt with before P8 was released.

Imagine how much work tech support could have been saved, not even the mentioning the money that could have been saved, if SM would have a better testing team or better directions/training for testers, or even both.

Quote - Well, it shows once again how bad the beta testing program of poser is. By now we're getting quite a list of very obvious and easily reproducable problems that should have been dealt with before P8 was released.

Imagine how much work tech support could have been saved, not even the mentioning the money that could have been saved, if SM would have a better testing team or better directions/training for testers, or even both.

Well I don't know about that.
In the specific case of the LWO format, it's been like that for quite a while. It was in Poser 6 that they introduced LWO2, and obviously they screwed that up and either never tested it or did and simply didn't care to take the time to fix it.

I don't think they really care though, and probably long ago forgot about LWO import/export, so I wouldn't blame the current beta team for that at least.

Now if there's a general consistent crashing in Poser 8 for all 3D file formats, yeah, that's something they should have caught, especially since importing and exporting are such basic and necessary functions.

Quote - > Quote -

Does P8 import newer versions of Lightwave?

See this thread:
www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php

Towards the end I go into detail in several posts regarding Poser and the Lightwave object file format.
Steve Cooper made a reply in that thread saying that SR 1 will fix those things, but said the crashing will be addressed in P8 SR1, and didn't mention if the actual import/export will be any better or more accurate, just that it won't cause crashes.

He remained conspicuously silent regarding my comments on how their supposed LWO2 format is in fact not LWO2...

No ill-intentions regarding the silence. Just too little time...

We have not changed the import or export, other than removing an introduced instability that was only hitting some systems. The instability was discovered by engineering when reviewing another area of code.

Cooper,

one thing I'd suggest, now that Collada's moving into the main stream (check out Google Sketchup's 7.1 release today - the free edition had Collada import / export!) it may be time to put Collada in/out into all versions of Poser instead of just Pro.

Couldn't agree more! Collada is a standard these these and it makes no sense to have it in Poser Pro only.

Collada is going to probably be the next big thing, but it has no standard.
It's probably going to end up with all kinds of wild variations that won't work everywhere. I'm sure Autodesk, for one, will have their own version which will conveniently only work well with Autodesk products.
The only way to make Collada really viable in Poser is if SM releases a new version of it for every popular app that uses its own variation, and updates frequently. Probably not going to happen.

Wait and watch... you'll see how Collada develops severe multiple personality disorder over the next few years.. ;-)

Attached Link: http://www.khronos.org/collada/

It has standards, but it's also open source, meaning there will be many variations, eventually, not all of which will work the same everywhere.
I didn't mean to say it has no standard in the literal sense, which should have been evident within the context of the rest that I wrote.

if it had been evident I would'nt have commented.

Well, fine, sorry about that.