Has anyone else tried the incredible MK Scripts package available from DAZ yet? Talk about adding to the power of Poser! WOW! My favorite: Camera shake directly in the render. No more post rendering of simulated camera shake in After Effects ... whoo-hoo! Now you can do it with the camera!! -Tim

I got the package, but the only script I've installed so far is the material maker, and that's quite handy. It beats sitting down and editing by hand the file. Just click and let it create it. It's a great time saver.

Yeah, yeah, rub it in. lol! I saw the info for the package and was drooling all over my keyboard, only to find out I can't use it... argh!!!! :-( I guess if I had an idea what the things do more exactly, I might be able to make some AppleScripts...?? Dunno if that's possible at all though - never tried it... Oh hum...

Caroline (laetia)

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I wanted thatm, but you have to have ppp for it. I double checked to be sure and they told me it required ppp. All I really wanted was the mat file maker...

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I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
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The MK scripts require the purchase of PPP. No sale on the scripts, and from there, no sale on PPP...

I have developed several multimedia titles and didn't blink and eye at ignoring the Mac community. It's simple math from a sales perspective. I'm amazed anybody makes anything for the Mac to be quite honest. I suspect the Mac user ratio is a little higher in the Poser commmunity than most others (namely because PC users have such a plethora of 3D apps and utilities to choose from whereas Mac users do not.) Companies/people who don't make cool apps like this for the Mac (and there are MANY) couldn't care less about lost Mac sales. It's not worth the time or expense to develop the software for a dying platform which makes up (based on Internet statistics) less than 5% of the personal computer market.

timoteo Actually it is a higher percentage of the market than that. It isn't dying by any stretch of the imagination and while 10 million Mac users might seem like a small amount in percentage about 80-90 percent of them are graphic oriented. A much smaller of the larger PC market is.

Ghost: Sorry, I'm just basing it on web activity, and the percentage of Mac platforms is clearly at 5% or less. It's debatable whether or not it is dying ... to me it certainly is ... it's just a slow, slow painful death. One that would have come sooner had Gates not bailed Jobs out. I really didn't start this thread to begin a PC vs. Mac war ... I REALLY DO feel sorry for people stuck with Macs, and have felt sorry for them for a long time. (The list of software AND hardware unavailable for the Mac is long and crushing.) But mainly I wanted to get other people's reactions to another cool add-on to Poser -- which just happens to join a growing list of PC-only apps.

Size of market is important, I'll grant you that. But don't underestimate the importance of good programming tools and ease of programming. People develop lots of cool stuff for Windows machines because there's so many of them out there, and there are many good compilers, from expensive professional ones to inexpensive ones like Borland, to free stuff like gnu MingW and CygWin (and the free Borland one, too). "Tinkerers" are more likely to be PC owners than Mac owners. People develop lots of cool stuff for the UNIX workstation market (which is even smaller than the Mac market). UNIX workstations (including Linux boxes) are easy to program, and have tons of tools, including good free compilers for just about every computer language known to man. And they're often availiable in colleges for graduate and doctorial research. There's a "trickle down" effect. People port UNIX programs to Windows to get a bigger market. They usually don't port from UNIX to Mac, because porting to Windows is much less work and gets you into a much larger market. The Mac is (in general) living hell to program. Tools are expensive and scares. The debugging enviroment is horrible. There's only one serious, professional quality Mac compiler, and Motorola bought the company that wrote it (supposedly because they were going to shift to the Windows market) to keep the PowerPC from being a development tool orphan. I'm working in wxWindows lately, which gives me Windows and Linux from the same sourcecode, and Mac too, if I can get at a machine with a compiler. If I can produce a Mac version nearly free, it would be worth doing.

And I really want to express my feeling sorry for those people that use PC .. I REALLY DO feel sorry for them. And I don't think it will ever die fully. I for one refuse to use a PC ... They are horrible for me. But it is a shame that people ignore the over 10 million users. Even if that is just a small percentage it is a huge market and most of them are graphic oriented. As for the programming I am not sure of that to be honest. With OX being basically a Unix based operation it might be easier to program for them. And I don't wanna be in a war. Just expressing some frustration at people saying that Mac is dead and no one uses it when a whole lot af people do. And a whole lot of graphic people.

Good point. PC's have always been for "power users" IMHO. Speed and stability (with Win2K at least), easy to modify, and inexpensive. It's a case of "anything you (Mac) can do I (PC) can do better" ... and cheaper! My clients realize this when I send them the invoice ... I'm doing everything (and more) than so-call graphics-superior Mac-based business are doing for a lot less. (I realize other factors contribute to differences in company pricing, but computer cost is a major factor ... especially in low-overhead environment.) Ghost: Amiga users felt the same way. There are some die-hards still out there I suppose, but it is dead. I've used both Macs and PCs extensively and I don't hate Macs ... I just hate it when people assume that Macs are somehow superior to PCs. Is it just because they cost more?? Or do Mac users still think Windows is still in version 3.1? I don't know, but I'll drop it right here because this is an argument no one will ever win.

Nope .. I just try to stick up since I HATE PC's ... And I know about Amiga and knew only one person that felt that way but that was about it. I don't ever bash PC's or assume that Mac's are better. For me Mac's are better. I do hate PC's and won't use them because I end up talking like a sailor and screaming at the screen for some of the things it does but I am not saying that Mac is the end all be all of computers. Just don't like people saying they are dead is all.

And you are right .. it is an arguement no one will win so I will drop it too. Just had to do my defense. It would be llike trying to convince a die hard Ford person to buy a Honda.

One stupid question. If the scripts are written for the Pro Pack and are in Python, why aren't they useable for the Mac? The Python scripts and any Tkinter GUI's should be portable from PC to Mac UNLESS they are pulling in customized PC compiled lib's or dll's or they don't want to handle the differences in the file directory handling. From the description of the scripts I didn't see anything that would prevent these from being implemented on a Mac. That was part of the point of using Python, it's cross platform.

& all those ill-informed developers at NewTek & Alias/Wavefront spent all that time & effort to develope MAC OSX software!

What's this about being stuck with a Mac? :-S I'm the proud owner of a brand new G4. I'm not stuck with it, I was dying to have it! ;-) I don't regret it one bit. It's my 3rd Apple computer (well, 4th if you count the Apple IIe I had in the 80's) -- I've never owned an IBM compatible of any kind. I am also a computer programmer. And I spend all my days working on a PC at the office. I'm not stuck with that computer either, I love working with it. :o) It is possible to use and like both. My Mac is not better than the PC I've got at work, and the PC is not better than the Mac, they're different, that's all. And I must say I'm happy to get to work with the other when I'm tired of one, lol! Both sides (Mac users vs. PC users) can be closed minded and generally are. But either way, I think the important thing is that the computer you use suits your needs. oh... and respect for others likes & beliefs is also important. That goes for both sides, lol! ;-)

Caroline (laetia)

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Dunno about the scripts, might have to do with the way they're installed or perhaps something with embedded paths... I guess we'd have to see one to know. ;-)

Caroline (laetia)

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I'm not stuck with windows ME, I'm stuck in windows 98. I'm the type who refuses to upgrade until I'm forced into it. And as I have yet to run into a program that requires the use of ME nor have I seen that ME is in anyway superior to 98 I won't. "If it's not broken, don't fix it!"

About 98/ME ... I recently took the plunge because I was sick and tired of Windows 98 resources issue. I got a new 1.8GHZ system with a GIG of RAM and WINDOWS 2000 as the OS. Forget about ME and go with the rock-solid performance (and a plethera of advantages) that the NT-based Windows 2000 offers. Let me just say ... there is NO GOING BACK. Ask any 98 user who went to 2000. There is simply no comparison ... it's depressing thinking I wasted so much time using Win98 when I could have been using 2000 all along. It has yet to crash after over a month of continuous use (i.e. the power switch has not been touched since final configuration of various components) and I have thrown everything at it including a VERY FINICKY DC30 Video-editing board. The OS is simply amazing. I honestly can not say enough about this OS ... MS has outdone themselves. If XP is even better I'll probably have jimini-fit of joy and croak ... 2K is THAT good. Did I mention I really like Windows 2000?

PS> The GIG o' RAM certainly doesn't hurt things, but feed 98 or ME the same memory and you still have to deal with resources getting low. Resources are non-existent in 2000.

I have a gig of ram , and I never have resource problems. Just for fun once I went nuts and opened PSP, Poser, CorelDraw, POV, Moray, Terragen, and Blender all at once, then did a raytracing- I could'nt even get resources down to half. Your configuration settings have a lot to do with it, too.

From the Buwler-Lytton (You know, the "dark and stormy night" guy whose appallingly bad writing has inspired an annual contest for the worst opening line in a possible fiction piece) results for 2001, the winner for best opening statement in a science fiction story: Winner: Science Fiction Kirk's mind raced as he quickly assessed his situation: the shields were down, the warp drive and impulse engines were dead, life support was failing fast, and the Enterprise was plummeting out of control toward the surface of Epsilon VI and, as Scotty and Spock searched frantically through the manuals trying to find a way to save them all, Kirk vowed, as he stared at the solid blue image filling the main view screen, that never again would he allow a Microsoft operating system to control his ship.

You must have a real inferiority complex, how could you start such an useless thread ?

Ah, grasshopper... there are no useless threads, only useless bobbins.....

It's always interesting to listen to other people prejudices, you learn a lot about your own ones... :-) While I'm tired to death to enter the zillionth my-computer-is-longer-than-your-one-when-erected debate, I'd just like to add one little note from a Mac developer's perspective - I just can't subscribe to the claim that coding for the Mac is such a pain. As a matter of fact, I'm coding it for years with great pleasure, and I even decided to write all of my tools using direct Mac API calls without the slightest assistance of any sort of framework. I did look at frameworks (both Mac and PC) and I found the straight API clearer, easier (and simply more fun to deal with) than anything else. If you feel better if you bash Macs - just do it, call it any name you like, but please don't keep telling it is too difficult to code as a universal law. This might be true for your own point of view, but not necessarily for everybody else. :-) Moving slightly back towards the topic: I spend the last few days trying to get the MKScripts to work on Mac, and I can assure you that the PC-only sticker has nothing to do with money, platform-phobia, percentages or ignorance. The writer of it is very interested to share them with the Mac community if only it would be possible. The reason why it isn't is simply because Poser ProPack for Mac completely and utterly sucks - virtually nothing works as it should, and even the things that do work initially soon start to get unstable after several runs. To be more precice: Many (very) basic Python features simply don't work at all (by throwing tons of internal error messages) or even let Poser crash. Some Poser Python commands don't accept the same kind of input as the PC version, and some commands are simply ignored by Poser. This reduces the (working) features of MKScripts to hardly anything worth bothering, and therefore it will probably stay PC-only for (at least) some time. Rumour has that there will be a SR3 patch - I'll give it another try if anything should be improved by then. Speaking about the scripts - there is nothing in it which should cause any problems on Mac, granted that Poser starts to do what has been written on the cover of the package - so please don't blame the creator of MKScripts for it, it is not his fault. And don't blame a whole computer platform just because one specific program (version) really sucks - there are many PC programs which don't even start up... To end in a slightly lighter and humorous mood, I'd like to quote an olde saying: - Macs are for those who don't want to know why their computer works - Linux is for those who want to know why their computer works - DOS is for those who want to know why their computer doesn't work - Windows is for those who don't want to know why their computer doesn't work

As usual, Martin, you have answered my questions - about MK and PPP. Thanks for sharing your research. I bought the scripts on sale to use in VirtualPC on my Mac, along with CR2Edit and other PC-only utilities, which are easier to run on my Mac than my #$@%!! PC. I couldn't work without PCs, but mostly use them for testing and final delivery. When I really feel sorry for PC owners is when I plug my DV camera into my Mac's Firewire port and wip the video into FinalCutPro for speedly, painless video production. What a joy after digitizing and processing on a PC and Premier. And my brother's $2500 G4 produced a perfect DVD right out of the box - leaving him and his colleagues speechless. And my mom's "cute" iMac is the envy of her retirement community. So none of the gloom and doom talk worries me.

Thanks for the info on why the scripts don't work for Mac. Hopefully Curious Labs will fix that one. It's bad news for me because I wanted to do a bunch of utilities in Python with the idea that both Mac and PC users could use them. Is there a bug list anywhere for what Python stuff doesn't work on the Mac? I've had to code work arounds a few bugs that exist in the PC side (including one that will eat all the memory on any machine in a couple of seconds) so I was wondering if the Mac bugs are true showstoppers or could be worked around. For my two cents in the OS comments, go with Win2K over XP or 98. It's a real operating system and it lets you run dual CPU's. Nothing like having Poser or some other app crunch in the background while you can still have one full CPU to play with.

Funny, I can do the same thing easily with Mac OS X on my Quicksilver dual 800 Mhz processor G4.

True. Point is that OS X, Win2k and some of the Linux/Unix flavors are real OS's as opposed to XP and 98. And they support 2+ CPU's which is really nice.

Ok, Timoteo, so you say that Macintosh are just a 5% of the computer market... compared to what? Oh, yes, with computers with Windows... Mmmm. So, you are comparing the market percentage of one MANUFACTURER (Apple Computer), with the percentage of ALL the other manufacturers who use Windows... And thats the reason why Apple is dying... Interesting... but... why dont you compare the percentage of Apple with the percentage of another manufacturer (IBM, Compaq, HP)? I think this is the RIGHT coparison. One MANUFACTURER with another. So, which is the percentage of IBM in the computer market, and HP, and Compaq?? Youll be surprised. Hey, Timoteo, BTW, did you know which is the market percentage of car manufacturers like Mercedes or BMW? Yes, I was sure you knew it! 5% -only- 5%... I guess they are slowly painfully dying too... :P Arturo

Well, I've been trying to stay out of this as much as possible (guess I should have turned the email notification off) but a few comments just have amazed me, and now Arturo has taken the time to address me personally. BTW, AGAIN (!!) I did NOT start this thread to start a PC v. Mac war -- boy did I pick the wrong title! I started it to find out what other people thought of the MKScripts package. But it does show how extremely sensitive Mac users are to the mere notion that their beloved (and overpriced) systems may very well have quite a few shortcomings compared to a PC. Again, thi You're right their not dying, their DEAD. Their users just don't realize it yet. A lot of people use Yahoo as their main search engine too -- they just don't know any better. Arturo: Your comparison -- acutally both of them -- are completely irrelevant since the main thrust of this debate is how poorly Mac's are supported in the software arena. You need to either compare OS vs. OS or Intel (heck, leave AMD out of it if you want -- or substitute it) with the Mac chipset. Also, as I SAID BEFORE, I don't know what the exact percentage is, but I was basing the 5% on Internet users. Activity logs CLEARLY show Macs are nothing but a flyspeck in all the traffic of the web. This should be a fairly accurate indication of the percentage of Mac users. Now, I know with Macs being so overpriced, perhaps some of the users can't afford Internet acess, but I would imagine their numbers are few. Your Mercedes comparison is ludicrous ... the problem is Mercedes still use the same gasoline as a Ford, Nissan, etc. Manufactures of steel, fiberglass, plastics, etc. still want to sell these items to Mercedes because it doesn't cost them any more to sell them to Mercedes than it does Nissan. However, in the computer world, more and more software manufactures are realizing it's just not worth it to develop and manufacture software for the Mac platform. If I had a dollar for every complaint or wailing from Mac users who wanted to know "Why isn't game X coming out for the Mac??" I'd be a very rich man. I'm not trying to win a PC is better than Mac debate (because it's impossible -- either way -- since people have their own tastes and own habits, etc.) but it is a simple fact that there is a PLETHORA of software which is not available for the Mac and that LONG LIST is growing in leaps and bounds. The notion that Macs are somehow better at Graphics is a mute point now ... I think that only die-hard Mac users still live under this dillusion -- as is the "ease of use" dillusion. These two facts: A) Software is increasingly less likely to show up on the Mac Platform and B) There are no clear advantages to owning a Mac unless you already use Macs and are accustomed to them, spells out a very dismal forcast for Apple: ZERO GROWTH. Companies who do not grow in these economic times do not survive. It's amazing they've lasted this long and is a tribute to their management abilities. NOW, does ANYONE have any comments about MKSCRIPTS?!? DANG-IT!

I don't even really know what an MK Script is- I'd like to though. If you (as an apparently knowledgeable scripter) could bung up a real basic little tutorial for the site, many of us wanna-knows would be grateful!

Go to DAZ and check out their new releases. Then click on the MKScripts product (it a group of VERY powerful Python scripts for use in the Poser Pro Pack, and they are very easy to use BTW). There is a VERY detailed description of the package there. -Tim

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&Form.ShowMessage=395826

Tim, Please take a look at the post I started on problems with MK Scripts.

THANKS! -Tim

Tim, dont you realize that if I had a dollar too for every PC user who says "Apple is dead" Id have more money than Billy Gates...? :D Arturo

willf wrote "& all those ill-informed developers at NewTek & Alias/Wavefront spent all that time & effort to develope MAC OSX software!" Exactly the point, they're developing OS-X software. OS-X is UNIX, with a Mac shell on top. It's nothing like MacOS 9, 8, 7, 6, etc. OS-X provides real OS services: preemptive multitasking, protected memory, ad half way decent interprocess communication. OS-X makes it possible to write an enormous application like Maya, PhotoShop, or Naturally Speaking, without having to build an operating system into your program because the one on the computer isn't adaquate. OS-X is also 12 years late (as of last count). Yup, that's when I attended my first Apple presentation about it, 1989. It was supposed to be in beta in a few months. Not the next millenium.

Dont Feel sorry for me. Those MK scripts sound interesting but the proof is in the RENDER!!. Now you have automatic camershake where are you going to render them??? Now you can create awesome new materials with ease where are you going to render them??? Python skillfully executed, can give poser collision detection cloth simulation etc. for your poser animations where are you going to render them??? I find it amusing that highend features like Scripting are being made available in a program that has such a substandard render engine! Come on CL get with the times!!.

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In POSER 5 -- I HOPE!!! Bryce has a nice Render engine as we all know, but even with the two new apps (AGAIN, PC ONLY by the way!) that allow you to import poser animations into Bryce, it is still a pain. The simple answer is of course for Poser to get a better Render engine.

A new render engine should Be priority ONE!! at Curious Labs. No offense to Konan and other" Poser to Bryce"Cottage industrialist, but why should serious 3D artists and animators ( MAC or PC) support this program(Poser) if it will always require the purchase of 2 other Apps to get a animation or still render that is not laughable without major post work. and as far as i can tell "poser 5" does not even have a launch date. oh well ,i cant complain I am running Maxon CInema 4DXl 7.1, an ultra stable 3D full featured application with a radiosity render engine ON an ultra stable Modern operating system ( Mac OSX) there are so many talented Poser artists out there I hope curious comes through for you guys someday. until then you have my sympathies.

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Those with trouble with automation and this Applescript which Ive never used, have you tried QuicKeys? Its at CE Software, for all automation, stop there. Ask then if you need MK scripts. To timoteo, so it seems you now have a new convenience feature which makes life a bit easier and theres less fing around. Well... Good. Because dont feel sorry for Mac users, with this new trick you now know what its like to BE one, if only for five minutes. Multiply your output, fly round the desktop and through the system, worry more about what you DO with the computer than have it be and end in itself, all this with a portion of the available software since (as it turns out) you wouldnt need any of that other junk anyway. Well done, enjoy your new toy and welcome to the 21st century, where Apple is probably the only commercially solvent computer company. The happiest people I know are former ultra-conservative IBM Wintin-heads whove just converted to the Mac. (Actually it looked like Wintel were about to go under a few years ago. I follow these things, I know the signs) Naa... To hell with all this... IBM IS STUPID AN MACINTOSH ISNT.

MartinC, your development experiences and mine differ greatly. What sort of stuff do you write? There was a time (when I first got into Mac development) that the Mac looked like it would be the most lucerative market to develop speech recognition software for. The Mac had a better processor (for speech recognition, anyway). It had built in, high quality sound, when PC's had to screw around with installing things like SoundBlasters that were aimed more at gamers than at people who needed good audio quality. And it's market share was higher than it is today. But the OS just wouldn't support that kind of application complexity. That wasn't just my experience, it was also Apples, IBM's, and Dragon's. The Apple speech recognition development effort was incredible. Headed up by some of the hardest hitters in the business, cream-of-the-crop talent like Kai-Fu Lee and Steve Austin, skimmed from sites like CMU, MIT, BBN, IBM, AT&T. There should have been no limits to what that team could accomplish. But there was. First, they tried to move directly from UNIX to Mac. Then, they tried to use a "stepping stone", moving from NeXT to Mac. Then they gave up, and concluded it was impossible to do without Taligent, Pink, FutureOS, or any of the other names OS-X has had over the last 12 years. Remember, when you look at the size of target markets, "PC" usually means "PC with Windows 95/98/ME" and "Mac" means "Mac with MacOS 9". But the "PC" that made the Maya and 3DStudio folk see big $$$ was a much smaller market, the "PC with NT or Win2k" market. Far smaller than the installed Mac user base. Less graphics oriented. But that's what it took to run serious apps. Often, for smaller graphics houses, their first taste of NT came when it was time to install that brand new copy of Max. There were efforts to port those applications to MacOS 8 and 9. Costly, embarassing failures. Here's a thought for you. Poser itself was developed on the Mac, then ported for the PC. So, you'd expect Poser (and, the ProPack) to be more stable and better performing on the Mac than on the PC. So, why could it be possible that "Poser ProPack for Mac completely and utterly sucks"? What went wrong to cause this? If I were a betting man, I'd have money on programming difficulty as at least a partial cause.

xvcoffee, just think where Apple could be today if they had spent their money a few years ago on the engine (OS-X) instead of the paint (Cube) and been able to take over the 3D market from PC's and UNIX workstations years ago. And IBM is the best Mac programmers in the whole world. They made speech recognition work on the Mac when Apple themselves couldn't. So watch who you call stupid. (Oh god, I'm defending IBM. This day sucks).

Wow Wiz, thanks for the history lesson. Very interesting, thanks. Now, is it just me or was most of XV's comments addressed to me incomprehensible? My apologies in advance if this is simply a language barrier problem. -Tim

Okay, XV ... now I see what you're insinuating. Yea Macs, lead the way into the 21st century with ONE mouse button and 15" displays! I was a Mission Support Specialist from 1994-1998 at NASA (Goddard Space Flight Center) and my job was basically computer and network guru. I used both PCs and Macs EXTENSIVLEY. After that I did contract work as a computer consultant in which I ended up using Macs most of the time. I'm not saying all things are bad about Macs ... not at all ... but the notion that Macs somehow have better software and are just a better, more advanced user-friendly system is absolutely absurd. The functionaity of a Windows PC is lightyears ahead Mac. Let's talk about ease of use/productivity ... it's the main reason I choose PC over Mac. I can run circles around Mac users because of the downright STUPID implementations Apple has (LIKE A SINGLE MOUSE BUTTON ... what a joke!!) or lack of shortcuts ... like MINIZIME ALL WINDOWS as just ONE of DOZENS of examples. The overall ease of controlling windows/items in Windows in vastly superior to that of a Mac. After using a Windows based machine Mac's feel cumbersome and are incredibly frustrating to use. Quite the opposite of the misnomer proliferated by Mac commercials and Mac users. Also, "Think Different" ... should be "Think Bassakwards" Also, I'm not aware of ANY good software that is available for the Mac that isn't available for the PC. Now for the converse, I could present you with a LONG LIST. Can we say MIMIC? The list of games is equally, if not more, endless. Now that I have multimedia and video-post production company, I'm amazed at the incredulity of Mac users who just can't believe I only work with PCs. Like it must be impossible to use After Effects and do ANY kind of graphics on a PC. I just tell them, yeah ... I can do everything a Mac can ... and more. I can do it FASTER, and do it a LOT CHEAPER. Some of them do (thankfully) see the light when I present them with the bill and the excellent work.

I almost forgot ... Then there is the whole proprietary nature of Macs ... uggghhh. Anyone who is a true power user knows what I'm talking about. I like tweaking two things ... my 86' Grand National (11.42 1/4 mile -- which, BTW, is tweaked by two awesome pieces of software on my laptop, which OF COURSE will NOT run on a Mac -- go figure) and my PCs. Macs are quite the enemy of anyone seriously interested in freedom of choice and the ability to seriously tweak a system. Again, I don't hate Macs ... I just hate it when people assume that Macs are somehow superior to PCs in most or every way. -Tim

timoteo1 wrote: "Also, I'm not aware of ANY good software that is available for the Mac that isn't available for the PC. Now for the converse, I could present you with a LONG LIST. Can we say MIMIC?" Mimic is a speech recognition application. Not the Mac's forte. I think we already covered that ;) "The list of games is equally, if not more, endless." That may improve soon. Apple adopted OpenGL last year, even in OS 9, so games software development is more practical on the Mac than it was before. And there are Mac versions of the nVidia and ATI 3D accelerators... Yeah, once Apple stopped "thinking differently" and adopted the PC's bus, the PC's cards, and a UNIX kernel operating system, the future of the Mac started looking much brighter. Ciao! Joe

Attached Link: http://wired.com/news/business/0,1367,46530,00.html

timoteo1 wrote "Again, I don't hate Macs ... I just hate it when people assume that Macs are somehow superior to PCs in most or every way." And I hate people who pretend to be platform agnostic while snidefully saying they feel sorry for the other guy just because a particular piece of software isn't written or optimized for their favorite platform. Check out this article from Wired. Apple may have the last laugh after all.

Tim, I think that language barrier problem might be called Forward Incompatibility, (but I make joke). All problems with mac refer to Jobs@apple.com (I THINK that email address exists), he knows the people who do the tweaking since the rest of us worry about what we do with a computer and as for that mighty Cube, its exactly the sort of thing that got them into trouble in the first place, unnecessary junk. I couldnt believe it, upgradable processors, PCI expansion slots, no wonder it was white all it needed was a trunk to sweep from to too fro and some big ears. You get the computer that does the best job, just like you take care what part of a reply to take seriously. All computer manufacturers are in their business to make money, Mac included, which is probably why they didnt spend much money on Copeland, or Gershwin, or Rhapsody. Ive just found about ten more things that Quickeys does and would now double recommend the stuff. www.cesoft.com (I think I can figure what Tim's tweaking software does, but Ill try to do better) Cheers xvcoffee Ps Mi Mi

Oh cool! I know that the Mac isn't dead (I'll bet the Poser comuunity is 25% - 30% Mac). But I thought that the religious flame wars between PC and Mac were dead-- but we've now proven they are alive and kicking A! - JimX

The flame wars persist only when misguided people bring them up in the first place, like the first post on this thread.

jrisal-- Right you are! Nonetheless-- kudos to the first artist who can interpret this thread in Render Wars! - JimX

JRizal: Gee, and I could have sworn the first post was mine since I created the topic. Let me scroll up and see ... yup, it's mine and no where in the body of the message is one slanderous thing said about any platform. In fact, the message has nothing to do with platform wars. I already apologized for the title, or said I wish I hadn't called it that (but I really did feel sorry for Mac users, as much as I did when I found out Mimic is not available for the Mac either, and hundreds of other worthy titles.) Look in the mirror for the misguided ... Mac users are the ones that turned a topic specifically about MKScripts into a flame war, not me. Talk about insecurity ... WOW!! Just about anything that COULD be percieved a negative Mac comment incites a near riot as Mac users pour into a topic area that really has absolutely nothing to do with them to strike down the "evil PC user" who dares even utter the Macintosh name in the same sentence as "sorry." How dare me!

XV: It's not MY tweaking sorry. Wish it was, but it belongs to Morphing Kinematics, thus the MK. They are more than just tweaks. MK has done a lot of very cool stuff (including the Rhino Mech) and are a very talented group of people/person.

The right amount of software is available for both platforms, as reported by timoteo1 there is now an automation thingie for the Windows platform as well. As with all UNAVAILABLE software it is usual to find there has been the same facility handy all along, ie Quickeys, which is also available for Windows. Minor exceptions being this MIMIC thing and Virtual Stonehenge (remember that?) but these will catch up. This thread was originally a Mac v Windows thread as proclaimed by the heading but became a serious dialogue about automation. No... Lets have some fun... WINTELS ARE STUPID!!!!!! WINTELS ARE STUPID!!!!!! ...

"The right amount of software is available for both platforms" Suuurrre, if you want to live the fantasy, go right ahead. Ignorance is bliss. "reported by timoteo1 there is now an automation thingie for the Windows platform as well.: Uhhhh, did you even bother to read what MKScripts is about??? It is NOT an "automation thingie" as you put it. Granted, QuickKeys seems pretty neat (even though there have been programs around like this for ages, even ones with voice command (back in the Windows 3.11 days) but QK's is not going to be able to do most (if not all) of what MKScripts does. Do you even have a clue about Python Scripting. It's not just a tool for automating procedures and key presses, although it can do this too. "As with all UNAVAILABLE software it is usual to find there has been the same facility handy all along, ie Quickeys ..." Ummmmm ... hello?? WRONG on BOTH counts ... utterlly, laughably, proposterously (fill in other adjectives for outrageous) WRONG. As I just explained Quickeys is no more a substitute for MKScripts then motor oil is for drinking water. And since you mentioned it, I'm not aware of anything remotely simliar to Mimic for the Mac. Mimic is the holy grail of lip-synching for animators. What once took days or weeks now takes a few seconds (or perhaps an hour if you need to tweak it and are very nitpicky.) Then of course there is Illusion -- one of the greatest particle generators to come around ... well, EVER. Guess which OS it's not written for and NEVER going to be written for? The list of apps and games is long and devastating. I'm sure with SOME of the apps their might be a counterparts for the Mac, but most are probably taking two steps backward to move one step forward. Glad we could have this serious talk about automation.

Here's a thought for you. Poser itself was developed on the Mac, then ported for the PC. So, you'd expect Poser (and, the ProPack) to be more stable and better performing on the Mac than on the PC. So, why could it be possible that "Poser ProPack for Mac completely and utterly sucks"? What went wrong to cause this? If I were a betting man, I'd have money on programming difficulty as at least a partial cause.< Im am running the Poser Propac On My OS9.1 Drive. and it dosent "Suck " any more than it does for PC users. I think the propack dilemma is because poser users were not prepared for the tedious work of bone rig building and weight mapping a mesh to a bone rig in the set up room. most had no experience with this because poser has protected them from having to deal with this area in the past. The claim "create new Characters in minutes" fooled alot of poser users into thinking it was a Push button process like the rest of poser. as far as the hosting in other programs Ask the 3Ds MAX users about their "Success" I dont care about this silly platform war. My Seat of Cinema and Lightwave 6.5 is proof that my future looks bright as a 3d junkie on the new MAC OS And MAYA is on the way!!!

My website

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xvcoffee wrote: IBM IS STUPID AN MACINTOSH ISNT ... but IBM designed the processor in the Mac... xvcoffee wrote: WINTELS ARE STUPID!!!!!! ... but Intel designed the PCI bus in the Mac... xvcoffee needs to go xvdecaff. Ciao! Joe

Wiz is taking a Mac v Win thread seriously.

when timoteo buys a mac I give him a working five button mouse for free !!!!!

Thanks Grammer! Will you also give me several thousand dollars for when I need to buy ANOTHER Mac in a year or two because Apple's upgrade path is so pathetically limited? Or how about just 1 or 2 thousand so I can buy the components necessary to get it to come close to the power and usability of my current system?

You should get well informed before talking, timoteo. Someone earlier in this thread said: ignorance is bliss... Arturo

Arturo: After your stunningly inept and inappropriate analogy from an earlier post, I'll take that as a compliment. Again, does anyone have anything constructive or interesting to say about the MKScripts? Which is why I posted this in the first place -- AGAIN! For a topic that Mac users shouldn't be worrying themselves about, a whole viper's nest of them sure has sprung up. An what venom!

I dont take this thread serious, because I have heard this discussion for many many times - it does not depend on what system you are working, every system has its pros and cons , it depends from what you are doing with it. I am working with any system as long as it gives me the results I need, and I tell you I have worked an a few starting from a PDP 11 (this is the one you programmed with switches in the front) to almost any system on the market - so lets close the thread it does not lead to anything than bad feelings.

Yes, wed like to talk about MKScripts, in a thread named MK Scripts ROCKS!!! with no mention of anything the author wants kept off-topic. Most of Macs software obstacles stem not from design short comings but from paranoia spread buy a few people un-named.

Obviously inept and inappropriate from your personal point of view. Post 63. Second line. Arturo

Is this the longest thread in the forum yet? ;) Arturo

ImagineThat: I couldn't agree more! Cheers! Why is it that most Mac users adopt this behaviour?? -Timoteo

Oh wait, boy am I red-faced ... you're talking about ME! Wow ... you see I assumed you actually took the time to read the posts here before "spounting off YOUR virtual mouth," but I see I was completely wrong. You see, if you had bothered to read MY posts you would see that I am quite informed about both platforms and multiple OS's. I've used both Macs and PCs extensively and there simply is no comparison ... for me. FYI, a LOT of the programs (again if you read the posts) are NOT and NEVER will be for the Mac. Here are some facts for you: G4, configured to match my system (although it is still slower) costs over $1000 more and still does not measure up. And here's the laughable part, and I quote directly from Apple: "Massive expansion ... AGP 4X graphics slot, four 64-bit PCI slots, up to three hard disks ..." WOW, a whole FOUR PCI slots! THREE hard disks?!? Holy-crap! Massive expansion ... oh yeah. On the plus side, I DO like Apple's web site ... very cool. And the G4 look pretty nice on the outside, I'll give them that. -Timoteo PS> As I noted earlier ... I did NOT start the flame war, my post is about how cool MKScripts is, and so far Mac users have flooded the thread with torches at the ready.

xvcoffee wrote "Wiz is taking a Mac v Win thread seriously." I'm one of the most serious Mac people you'll find, despite not currently owning one. I've frequented Mac developers conferences like MacHack (and have even spoken at them). I know the Mac innards, and I know the Apple history. So when people make blindingly inaccurate statements about what kinds of software are availiable for the Mac, or why certain pieces of software are not availiable for the Mac, it really rubs me the wrong way. And when people make statements about how great the Mac really is, and then quote mythology, instead of the real reasons why the Mac is a dang good platform, and a very admirable piece of engineering, it's especially painful. Sort of like "with friends like these, who needs enemies?" Statements like "IBM IS STUPID AN MACINTOSH ISNT" just don't cut it, if you can't back it up. I've been part of development efforts on a scale that most people can't even imagine, and I know that there are limits in the current MacOS that simply cannot be overcome without replacing the OS. Even Apple acknowledges that, which is why they've been working to scrap the current MacOS for longer than 12 years. You should attend a major Mac developers conference (you're welcome to come on down to Detroit for MacHack) and talk to some of the people who WRITE your favorite programs (not the schmaltzy folks who SELL them, like you meet at COMDEX) and you'll realize why so much more major software is written for the PC than the Mac. There are real reasons, and they have nothing to do with shadowy Microsoft-Intel conspiracies, press bashing of the Mac, etc. Myself, I'm a cross-platform advocate, foaming at the mouth. Renderosity members have heard me go on and on about my beloved cross platform frameworks and class libraries like wxWindows, cross platform 3D Graphics in OpenGL, and other cross platform tools like OpenSoundSystem, VoiceXML, NIFF, UNICODE (OK, that's cross cultural). And yes, I can point out so many wonderful and brilliant things Apple has done over the last 20 years that it would make you swoon about what a technological mecca they are. I can do the same about IBM. I could even play Devil's advocate and show you some genuinely brilliant stuff going on at Microsoft (Huges Hoppe and Kai-Fu Lee ended up there, after all). There's greatness and schlock in every corporation. So what. Do they make the tools you need to get the job done? That's the question. Ciao! Joe

Boy, you leave a thread for a few days and all hell breaks loose. Okay, just my two cents... I work on both platforms. I use software on both platforms. Yes, PC has programs like Mimic that will probably never show up on a Mac, but Mimic makes files that can be ported to and read on a Mac, so what's the problem there? (And for the record, Mimic ain't that great, guys; I get far better results doing it myself, even at one frame at a time. Maybe they'll improve some of the lacking subtlety in the next version of Mimic, but for now, it's utilitarian at best, and not much more.) Yep, can't run some of the high-end 3D programs on a Mac, but I don't need high-end programs. My animation and still work isn't meant for a Famous Player Movie Theatre Near You: it's designed for smaller playing windows and lower resolution requirements... so what's the problem there? In case anyone's missed the point, these are just tools, not flags to denote one's patriotism to one platform or another. You use what you need on one and then take it over to another to finish the job. So big deal. A dxf file on a PC is the same as a dxf on a Mac. An .mov is a .mov. A jpeg is still very much a jpeg. There's room in my kitchen for both a convection oven and a regular oven, and my home entertainment centre has both VHS and DVD. So it's not a surprise that my office has both my Mac and my PC -- linked together, no less. Jeez, people... get a life, huh?

Well tried to leave it alone but I was the one that started the Mac rebuttal way back when when I saw this"It's not worth the time or expense to develop the software for a dying platform which makes up (based on Internet statistics) less than 5% of the personal computer market." but I don't think it is right to say that Wintel's suck. I say I hate them and they aren't for me but trying to convince someone that Mac's are good isn't going to happen by bashing PCs. It goes back to the whole arguement from schoolyards saying my daddy can beat up your daddy. Whatever. I hate PCs ... I have never seen any use for 2 button mice. I like Mac's. There is room for both and each does something the other can't and each has things that the other people don't like and can't use. Each has good points, each has bad. I still like Mac. I still won't use PC. Nuff said.

Thank you Wiz for the kind invitation to MacHack. Yes I would like to see you there, only one problem. Unless someone pays my airfare and a whole lot of other people make big holes their Schedules and/or cancel their bills it may have to be 2004, maybe 3.

ImagineThat: Thanks for making this personal with your uncalled-for personal attacks and showing everyone your sub-standard maturity level ... "I read your lame posts and I still say your an uneducated idiot." I won't even dignify that with a response, other than to say I don't need to defend my educational level or intellect from the likes of you. Although it does not surprise me one bit ... people who are faced with facts and can not win an argument on their own expertise (or lack there of) often resort to name calling and swearing. Glad you avoided the latter though. Anyway to address your other comments (notice I won't call you a moron, insecure spazz, misinformed numbskull, overzealous jackass, or any of the crude things like you have been attacking me with since your first post) ... 1) I NEVER said or assumed you were a Mac user, I simply refuted your false claims/accusations about me and my posts as I am doing now. 2) I only started explaining my opinions on some (of the many) reasons why I don't care to use Macs after Mac users started slandering PCs. 2b) My comments, such as the three you quoted, were simple fact. These weren't even my opinions ... it's a FACT that Apple has a miserably small share of the computing market. It's a FACT that MANY developers overlook the Mac (myself included) because we are in business, not running a charity, and therefore need to make profits. For a lot of companies it simply is not profitable to develop a product for such a small market. There are tons of Amiga users out there too ... but they make up an even smaller percentage. Do you want companies to start making software for them too? Just because Amiga-users know in their heart-of-hearts that they really are the best system on the planet? Not to mention what the rock-solid information WIZ has posted about the other important factors. I'm not sure what "proof" you want as I am basing this on my experience using both Macs and PCs extensively. I'm sorry it pisses you off that I and countless other developers don't want to waste their time and money developing for the Mac platform, I really am ... but that's honestly not what this post was about. The third person mentioned they would be losing sales, and I simply explained the cold hard truth that they (MK) could probably care less, which -- AGAIN -- I am basing as a software developer and what is happening in the market. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe THEY do care and will try to do something about it. Whether or not Apple is dying or not, will be argued until we're all blue in the face, and that is my one original comment that is highly subjective I realize. However, I am basing it on the facts: Such as Apple's limited expandability, exorbitant pricing, market share, dead end with software, AND the fact that as more and more people in the graphic community are realizing that the PC platforms (particularly those with an NT kernel) do graphics/video/etc. just as well, or in some cases, better than Macs they are going to loose even more market share. First the school systems bailed out Mac back in the 80's, and for a time anyone doing graphics was Mac-loyal. But the tables are turning and more and more graphics-oriented people are turning towards PCs because they are every bit as good, easy to use, and they are a LOT less expensive. This is what I'm basing my "dying" statements on. I hope this is quite clear to you now, and I hope that you actually read what I am saying. -Tim

Imagine wrote: "Please prove me and countless others here wrong and post the urls to the web sites you get you info from. Becuase you obviously know more than market researchers and computer software/hardware companies do. Put up or shut up!" Okay, if you're talking about the percentages I have posted, I would be more than happy to show you server logs of a number of web sites that do statisitical vistor tracking and post the screen captures on here. HOWEVER, I will only go to this trouble if after I do so ... "PUT UP" as you so elequently put it, that you will promise to SHUT the "HELL UP." Deal? But quite honestly, anyone who refutes the known fact that Macs make up an infitesimal percentage of the computer market are beyond delusional. Most die-hard Mac fans openly acknowledge this reality. -Tim

conditioned unit origin: Tycho Machinated Mercenary destin: conditioned wintel user Tim ref: Mutinous Macintosh Units stamp: envy Methinks you have way too much time on your hands. My what big arms you have... JUMP PAD ACTIVATION INITIATION START TRANSPORT WHEN READY

Guys, this isn't the place for a PC/Mac war. Take it elsewhere.

Why not just lock the thread???

Or move it to C&D.

Sorry guys, not my forum, and I don't like stepping on toes unless I have to.

Hi Folks! It's true! There IS more software for the PC!! I saw all of it yesterday in the bargain bin at CompUSA!! This whole conversation is irrelevant. It's easy to brag about the bells and whistles on your box when you're just outputting your images as .jpgs or .gif files. I have fun with online images. I make a living in PRINT. Dying platform? Try saving one of your Poser images at 3500 dpi, take it to Kinko's or another commercial printer, tell them you want the colors to look exactly the way they look on the original CD, and tell them you want it tomorrow. Then ask them what platform they're going to use to do your job. tim has just done the best impression of a troll swearing he isn't a troll that I've seen here in a while--but nowhere nearly as good as the ones that show up regularly at MacAddict. Thanks to MartinC and others, anything of relevance that can be done with Poser on a PC can be done on my Mac. tim, your sympathy is neither appropriate nor desired. rcook is right. THIS IS A GRAPHICS FORUM, DAMMIT. We're all artists here, not platform evangelists. I just want to learn how to make the most from Poser, regardless of the machine I use. Let's leave the Mac/PC contention to other forums. And let's leave the puerile crotch-grabbing from folks like tim to their insecurities. Peter (Dr Zik)

Wow, yet another personal attack! What a shocker! No, not a personal attack from a Mac user, heavens no! (Although it never ceases to amaze me.) You're confusing insecurity with confidence, knowledge, and that warm-fuzzy feeling that comes from knowing you're doing everything and more than Mac users can for a lot less money, and your clients LOVE YOU for it. Talk about insecurity, the Mac-loyal are the ones screaming about the post, with a majority (including yourself) unable to admit to two FACTS: 1) the Mac market in TINY, and 2) There is a disproportionate amount of (QUALITY) software (and hardware) available for the PC market that is not available for the Mac. I do a LOT of print work, and thanks for revealing that you know almost next to nothing about professional printing. Oh, and anyone who does pro print work would never take a job to Kinko's for gods-sake. I like Kinko's, but I wouldn't use them for anything professional, as most professionals won't. "Anything of relevance that can be done with Poser on a PC can be done on my Mac." What the heck is your definition of relevance?? MKScripts and Mimic are pretty damn substantial tools, to name but two. Here is something I came across just today (and things like this are prevalent all the time!): "Introducing v2.0 of MovingPicture * Major Rendering Speed Increase! We have made a major breakthrough in increasing the rendering speed. Windows-based systems now render a blazing 50% to 300% faster than before! Unfortunately, the PowerPC processors used on Macintosh systems are not able use all the techniques available on the Intel and AMD processors, so the speed-up is only 10%" -Tim

This is a FEEDBACK thread in a graphics forum where cross-platform users like myself and Mac users can be seen and heard by the industry and by like minded. The hardware is there, the market is there (may need another push) now we want the software. I worry about a Mac version of Mimic, I havent looked in the bargain bin at compusa so I dont know for certain its there but it could be that Lipsync dont want us to find out, like a lot of IBM only products, what a dinky piece of shareware it really is.

XV: Once again, your lack of knowledge (and logic) stuns me. Yeah, that's why so many Mac people in the Poser community have been bugging the living hell out of Lipsync and been up in arms ever since they announced there would not be a Mac version. And I suppose that is why you have Mac users paying PC users (or getting them to do it for free) to creat pose files from Mimic for them, right? What a crock you're full of ... But, just so we can be difinitive about this ... here's a challenge for you: Let's take a mere 15 seconds WAV file (or AIFF, or whatever you want) of speech, and we'll both have exactly one hour to produce a realistic looking lip-synched animation. We'll get someone to contribute the wav file who is impartial and so we know we're starting at the exact same time. Then we'll post our animations on here and let everyone judge which one looks more realistic. You up to the challenge? And remember, no cheating ... no using a PC and Mimic. I'll just have to trust you. Otherwise, quit posting a bunch of trash-talk that you can not even remotely back up. You might not like what I have to say, but at least it's based in fact.

Hmmmmm... The constraints of this forum do not permit the posting of all my reasons for not taking up the challenge by Ti, who I actually had a lot of admiration for before this thread. I have some work to return to and will be a couple of hours, I suggest timoteo1 spend the time more carefully reading the entries in this thread. I do not think the good doctor sends any work at all to Kinkos who from what I recall are a hamburger chain, alright theyre not but no-one specified they use them for serious output, not here.

Apple, the dying brand: http://wired.com/news/business/0,1367,46530,00.html Arturo

Hi Folks! tim, I'm not going get into a pissing match with you about who has more experience in the print industry. Although I am surprised that you don't know that it's widely known even among graphics profesionals (PC. Mac, print video and otherwise), that color management is better on the Mac. That's why even copy shops like Kinko's use them for their important digital color output. I'd just like for you to address the central point in my post. If both of us are getting what we want or need for graphics work on our respective machines--and that's certainly the case--than there is nothing to be gained from coming here and bragging about what yours can do. Unless you DO have some sort of insecurities that make it necessary for you to come here and violate the harmony that PC and Mac users here enjoy. Again, we're all artists here. I frankly don't care what machine you use. But I do expect that serious professionals and fellow Poser users will respect my choice of the one that I use. You obviously do not. Please take your bias elsewhere--it's not welcome here. Peter (Dr Zik)

Guess what platform isn't supported by the new TAILOR software -- the greatest edition to Poser in A LONG TIME?? LMAO!