Poser People :) I want to upgrade my PPP to P5. But to be honest I havent really seen astonishing firefly renders here ( I think P4 with Blackhearted's Proluma GI looks better).I havent seen many hair and cloth and other new stuffs in P5. And what really interesting is I read some of you guys complaining about crash, bugs, system errors those kind of thing. So should I upgrade now or just wait for a while? What would I miss? I mainly use Poser as hobby, right now I only selling out poses pack whenever I have done lots of them for my own renders. Oh yea if you got the time please show me some comparison renders especially showing that clth, hair,material, and new things in firefly. Thanks and have a cool wekkend :)

One more thing, does everything we got in our P4/PPP libraries work fine on P5? I saw someone posted a comparison on the gallery and the texture on vicky's clothes looks diffrent on P5's firefly render.

Im still waiting for my upgrade to arrive here in germany. And i think the upgrade is worth. what i have seen till now, it is more than a upgrade,it is a total new program and it will take some time to learn all the new, and to get the results that are possible. but i belive from that point the results will get better than in the old p4.

There have been a lot of problems and a lot of genuine causes for complaing wrt P5, but on the whole no show stoppers. Hopefully CL will be fairly quick in getting any important fixes in, but regardless (IMHO) there's no real reaon not to go for it now. Bill

I would upgrade without question. I have not experience a crash yet. The items in my P4 and PPP runtime folders work. Have not tested every single item. Texturing is a whold new ball game so those you will have to tweak. I have had no problems making hair or clothing an item. I have had a problem when making an animation with the background black. It seems to be an Alpha cannel banding problem but could be something I have done wrong.There does seem to be missing some files from the content CD and the morphs some how go screwed up on the new P5 figures. There is a lot to learn. Far more power then any prior release of Poser. Ron

Hmm, to upgrade or not to upgrade. That is the question. I've been watching the posts with sample renders here since P5 came out, and to tell the truth, I'm not at all impressed by what I've seen so far. I can't see any difference between the render quality of Firefly and P4 renders. The lighting looks relatively the same to me. The textures look the same. Pretty much everything looks the same. Of course, so far, all I've seen is a number of head shots from people who are just playing with it and no one has really done anything constructive with it yet. No compositions or images with a story, just sample renders of heads (but I haven't checked the gallery yet, so maybe I shoulnd't open my mouth on that yet). I think Judy and Don are just another set of dorks. They're pretty ugly, from what I've seen so far. Both of them seem to have sort of a flattened appearance to the faces, almost like they're squashed in. Human pug dogs, LOL. If I had P5, I wouldn't be using them, I'd just continue to use the Millennium people. One thing I have a real problem with is the dynamic hair. What I've seen so far looks completely fake, especially around the hairline, where the hair comes out of the scalp. It looks like a bad hair transplant job. Also, the hair looks dirty or oily, not soft and flowing. It looks like Modacrylic wig hair. I have to say that Kozaburo's hair in P4 still wins all the way around, hands down IMHO. No one has yet shown any samples of the cloth, so I have no idea what that even looks like, and therefore can't comment on it. Granted, the price for upgrade is fabulous, and much more reasonable than I expected, but at the moment, my real-life expenses are more important, so I'm not putting out the $129 for the upgrade at this time. As far as other issues, I'm still highly concerned about the so-called "security scheme" and the restrictions CL is placing on the use of the program. I've been a legitimate, paying (and registered) user of Poser since version 2 (I never had version 1), and I've always felt confident in using them, but the attitude of CL with P5 troubles me because of the implications that we honest users are all potential thieves, and I have real reservations of ever using it. I've also seen way too many posts of people having problems with it. This happened when Poser 4 first came out, too. I had a major issue back then, when MetaCreations rushed to get the product out to the customers (I remember it was a sneak attack, it came out practically before anyone even knew it was in the works), they released it way before it was ready and it was riddled with problems and needed patches to make it work properly. I really think it's solely up to each individual to decide whether he or she should upgrade, but if I have my druthers, at the time being, I wouldn't upgrade now. Wait and see what happens down the road. Maybe things will improve and it'll be a better product. In a nutshell, I'm not impressed enough by what I've seen so far to justify the cost of it (as cheap as it is) at the present time, and for what I use it for, P4 does just as well. Melanie

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=870367

Check this link and read it *carefully*, especially when she says things like: "*Almost every piece of clothing or prop I have tried requires tweaking in the material room to render with Firefly*" And "tweaking in the material room" is no walk in the park like it was in P4. Judging only from what I've read here, many people are having problems, some are very serious, most are not. I'm having problems and they are serious. And if you're "just a hobbiest," keep in mind, P5 has a *much* steeper learning curve--especially if you're going to use FF. And you should have a pretty muscular machine to run it well. Posing hasn't changed, except the dials are arranged better, IMO. What would you miss if you waited? If you wait long enough for the bugs to be fixed, you may just miss a ton of headaches. The new features are nice--when they work--but they aren't show-stoppers, either. And, except for the hair, they are difficult and time-consuming to learn.

Yes. No. Did that help? LOL! Really, I'm not trying to be an idiot but nobody here is you. All I can suggest is that you read as many opinions and view as many images as you can before deciding. If you continue to have unanswered questions ask some specific to your concerns. On the other hand, the upgrade price appears very reasonable. The bugs will undoubtably be soon addressed. If the EULA and copy protection scheme do not bother you and you have a sufficiently capable computer then this upgrade is not an overly risky or large investment. - Jack

And an additional "human nature" observation. People are more likely to post with problems (looking for help) than to report that everything is going smoothly. There definately have been problems. And there definately have been some who haven't had problems. There's no objective way to measure the percentage of each. Sometimes I start to get concerned but then I remember this. It helps me keep a balanced perspective.

THANK YOU ALL GUYS for the replies. You seem all very honest & fair with it. About the render quality I much agree with Melanie. But what about the security scheme & EULA you guys talking about? Im a registered user what should I worry about security & EULA when I upgrade? And about compatibility I'm running XP on PIII 550 576RAM. I know the upgrade price is quite reasonable but if I find this isnt essential to upgrade Ill just save it to buy something bigger. So now I see it this way : if I dont intend to sell out P5 dynamic hair or clothes I dont have to get rush. Is that right? More opinions would be welcome. dave

Does the upgrade price go away after a certain time? If not why not wait till they have it fixed. I do have it but haven't try to much, because I was disappointed in not being able to understand why some things just don't work.

oh yeah you right Turtle :)

The content alone is worth the upgrade price, to me. I'm one of the ones with weird problems, and a few program crashes, and I'm still happy with Poser 5. I'm not happy with firefly at all, but there's several new tools that are very powerful (and are reported to work properly), and there's a lot of small things that make Poser much easier to work with. I nearly cried with joy when I started using the nested subfolders. Putting measurements in feet instead of Poser units was wonderful. The new parameters screen makes adjustments much easier to work with. (Though I wish you could minimize it, or move it and have it remain at it's new location.) I don't pretend that I don't have issues with the program, but overall it is doing what I want (and doing a few things better than I'd expected), and I'm hoping that the patch that will come out in a month or so will address most of the issues that I've had with the program. (And I know that at least a few things are probably due to the OS or are unique to my demon possessed computer.) I think it's a good value for the price, even though it's still rough around the edges.

My 2 pennies worth... The new Security Scheme is different. Learn how it works. It's not the same as P4. It's new. In addition to your serial number you now have to get a unlock code from curiouslabs. It changes for every hard drive. You get three installs then you've got to explain to CL why you need another one from what I understand so far. Otherwise if you never change hard drives and your Windows OS never has problems then it's a nonissue. Many of the stability issues should go away as soon as CL issues the up and comming patch. Then everything'll be smooth again. I wouldn't be surprised if the comming patch even improves an already amazing product some more. :) :) :)

Neurocyber, Please - what universe do you live in where Windows Never screws up. Am I the only person in this world who has to reinstall once every two weeks to four weeks? Maybe not everyone here does anything with their computer bar install main programs and never reinstall. But I do know a number here who reinstall their OS (especially Windows9x/ME OS) at least once every few weeks jsut because they have been "mucking" around. The new Security System will require reactivation everytime you format C drive. That means you can only format C drive three times before you must directly contact Curious Labs for premission to install Poser 5 again... As for buying or upgrading Poser 5 - the choice is yours. You can see through the threads the good and bad comments, and the choice is if you want to ignore the bad and just pay attention to the good, ignore the good and just pay attention to the bad, or make a educated guess. Personally - I would wait in a hope that Curious Labs will fix the problems with the program, and also alter their security scheme. But again - make your own conclusions (it is after all - you own hard earned money)... WiNC