I plan on getting P5 as soon as it is released, but I'm still buying anything that I need(or at least think I need) for POSER 4. And I will "BUY" all the MM boys clothes that anyone feels like making. He still only has t-shirt and jeans. I would like to see more clothes from all time periods for him. Products like the MM suit,Morphing Boots, Mikes Old West clothing with all the neat add-ons, are great products and I will continue to look for and purchase them.
This is just my thoughts.....Niles :)

I would like MM Girl clothing that actually looks like something a girl would wear THIS year. Outside of some of Marck's (?) excellent offerings, the Pre-teen outfits all look like something an eight year old would have worn ten years ago.

Everyone's jumping to conclusions lately about Poser 5 doing this or that (or not doing this or that), and we don't have all of the information. To say that it's going to kill sales of clothes or hair is ridiculous. Even going with ONLY what we know, there's still going to be need for 3rd party items. The built in tools, the hair and clothing tools specifically, don't do everything that current 3rd party items do. Can you see someone creating hair like Anton's Changing Ponytail or clothes like his Changing Fantasy Suit with those tools? Sure, we don't know a whole lot about them, but based on what we've seen, it'd be very difficult at the very least. Those tools, for now, look like they'll be very useful for stills, and perhaps moreso for animations than (that's not to say for still images they won't be useful, but look at the videos to see what they do for animation). As it stands, at least on this site, most people do stills. So, before anyone jumps to conclusions, we don't know everything yet. Even though we know a fair amount about it, there's still a lot to be revealed. And let's keep in mind one final thing: it's to CL's benefit to make 3rd party items useful and desirable, not to destroy the market.

I was trying to say, we will still need 3rd party modelers... that produce quality products. Also not everone one is going to need or want POSER5, just look at the newbies with POSER3, POSER4 will be an upgrade for them. :)

I can only assure you that Poser 5 will benefit this community in more ways than imagineable. I say this for two reasons, specifically: 1. Steve Cooper loves this community, and has assured me that P5 will benefit it, which is enough, but... 2. Poser 4 has begun to peak in it's use. Meaning, the technology it presents is now beginning to reach its limits. P5's technology, by it's very nature, will expand those limits vastly, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see new markets pop up over night in areas we can't even predict. Just my 2 lira. Paul

Ah, I understand now, Niles. Sorry about that. I just got off on a rant. After seeing so many assumptions lately about that, I had to respond. :)

If P5 is killing sales, I wish someone would convince my VISA card! It keeps wiggling out of my purse and buying stuff....hair, clothes, props, you name it. (And it was present at that party at hauksdottir's house, so it can't claim ignorance of P5's approach!)

I'm very much looking forward to seeing what Poser 5 can do (though I doubt my computer is up to spec). And yet, I haven't had my Millennium figures for so long as all that. I'm still exploring what they can do. Much-- most-- of Poser 4 is still a mystery to me-- why, it was only a couple of weeks ago that I discovered the Sketch Designer. Wheeeee! I won't be able to buy Poser 5 when it comes out, but I'm not really bothered. I will read with interest the comments of folk here and look at your images, and oh aye, I'll wish I could do that and that and that... but I'm still happy with P4, and still amazed at how far it has come since P2. And there's always Photoshop. :)

I keep hearing people saying they think our computers won't be powerful enough for P5. For a long time, I've also been reading threads of folks who have crashes and glitches with P4 on computers a lot more powerful than mine. I've been running P4 on a Pentium III, 128mb RAM and have never had problems, yet I hear people with computers way beyond mine who have problems all the time. I guess you just have to judge that individually when it comes out. I'll just install it and try it when it comes out, and see how it goes. Melanie

Well, I can run P4 without a problem. It's when I try to do complex things with the Millennium figures that I run into trouble. Too many polygons, too much shadowmap, and my poor wee engines, the matter- antimatter pods, they blow... sigh

As I was driving home this afternoon a Rod Stewart's song came on the radio. I found myself signing along: "The waiting is the hardest part". Seemed appropriate. Q

IF it is true that Poser 5 will REQUIRE Win2000 or XP... I will be going without it.. I just upgraded my hardware and am running an AMD Duron 1000 with 512 MB ram... apparently P5 will NEED a 'dynamic session' so that it won't overload like it now does in P4 with even two mil figures all dressed with all those "clothing figures"... Why not just continue taking a fully posed, dressed mil figure OUT of Poser 4 and into Bryce, Vue or where ever? The hair thing looks fascinating..but I have bought a LOT of high quality hair (here) and will continue to happily use my P4 and get my $$'s worth! :) My win98se is rock solid with "normal use" of Poser, Bryce and Vue as well as my modeling programs which may not like win2K or XP.. in fact I HATE XP home version, having seen it on my hubby's laptop.. can't afford the "fixed XP" Pro version.. sheesh! It's too bad that the mil figures got so 'heavy' or this would not even be an issue.... I have all of them, and enjoy them.. but wish they could be made 'lighter'!! Lyne

With Poser 4 the resources required are more memory than processor. A 3000x3000 head map for Vicky is 27 megs in memory. And you need the body map and bump too! It adds up very quickly. Having lo res versions of Vicky and Vicky 2 helps but not as much as reducing the size/number of texture maps used. When I was using my old PII 450 I had 256 megs and Win98 and Poser worked fine. I didn't use hires texture maps which made the biggest difference. I think with Poser 5 you're going to need a decent video card and lots of memory more than anything. I currently have 512 megs of ram and am using XP (which I absolutely love!!) with a nice video card and can do full tracking even for animations. But even with the 2gz processor Poser 4 is painfully slow cancelling out of a texture load...so I think there's a wee buggie in there somewhere. I just can't wait for Poser 5 and to discover what the marketers figure out to do!! Expensive times ahead I believe...LOL

I must be rare: I am using an AMD 900 and XP with 256 meg and don't have any real problems outside of random fragging of my hard drive. I can use two vickie characters fully dressed and nothing bad happens when rendering. Now animating (Which is the real reason I still play around with poser) takes approx. forever if I have textures on. But I think that's because of the hi-res Steffy texture that I absolutely must have in every render because it's so buetiful

I animate with Poser on a AMD 700,win 98 machine and whether version 5 works or not it just too good an excuse to upgrade to resist.... and anyway we always manage to find a solution, have some faith....

Hi Spit... P'tooy :) I feel your pain on the texture map issue. They are serious memory hogs. That isn't Posers fault. Large maps are large maps in any program. I do us a work around that I can share with you though. 1. I back up the large texture maps. 2. I reduce the size of the texture maps that Poser will be using while I work and test render. 3. After the scene is complete and I am ready for the final render I replace the smaller texture maps with the larger ones that I backed up earlier. 4. Render the scene with the larger texture maps and... baboom... Tah Dah! Enjoy...

A lot of the memory problems with P4 are due to poor memory handling in the program.

If CL can fix these problems and provide a more stable product, there is no reason why P5 couldn't run on lower spec machines (although with a performance hit).

One thing that may be necessary (or advisable) is an OS upgrade for Windows users to XP as some earlier versions have there own memory problems which compound problems in the app. Theoretically, in most recent versions of Windows all programs have access to 2-3 GB of memory, and disk swapping is used to supplement real memory. The only effect of having low memory, or running several programs at the same time is in performance.

When P4 first came out we weren't using such big meshes and high res textures. As the years have gone by, things have become more detailed and demanded more from the program which is why we need P5. P4 was perfectly adequate for how things were then and P5 will be perfect for how things are now but, how things are now includes higher specification computers. P4 used to be a struggle to work with on the lower spec computers that were common when it first came out. There was a really sweet time when the app and the bog standard computer were in sync...

LawnDart: Thanks for the tip! I usually do the resizing smaller but hadn't tried using the large ones on the final. Doh. Saxon: Right on! And Poser 4's interface wasn't built for all the Millenium dials and Library folders either! LOL

Alright, I don't want to hear anyone complaining... they're probably running all sorts of background programs... I run an AMD K6II 366mhz with 160 MB RAM, and routinely render images with 2-3 Mil Figs and clothing. Slow renders, but it chugs along with no problems at all. And did I mention i'm running Win98 FIRST edition? heheheh, seriously, I think P5 will work just fine.

Saxon: "app and the bog standard computer were in sync" Ah the sweet spot! Those were the days. LOL Spit: My pleasure! :) nu-be: I'm assuming that I will be able to use my current hardware for all the stuff that was in there before and most of the new stuff that cooper mentioned in his thread. It will be an upgrade not a new app forcing you to replace all your hardware. It may take longer to do some of the hair and cloth simulation stuff but geeze... That's some pretty beefy math. Cheers, LawnDart