Latest updates: After living through the scare when P7 and P8 stopped working on my hot compie and hearing from SmithMicro that Win 7 was to blame - too many updates, they said - so the OS no longer looked anything like the first edition and didn't support 'old' software like P7 and P8 anymore, I now have taken steps to cure all problems.
First I ran the Recovery software and was happy to have a compie that was now as perfect as it was when I unpacked it from its delivery package. More surprises when I realised I wasn't quick enough to turn off automatic updates from MS and before my horrified eyes I read the fatal message: Do not switch off your computer . . . Downloading 196 updates !
This took an amazing seven hours but worse was to come. Do not turn off your computer, configuring 196 updates ! ! !. Another four hours later I decided to run recovery again and be quick off the mark once the recovery was finished. To be really quick I pulled my www cable out of the router and that did the trick. Previously and for many years I had a computer that booted to the desktop in one and a half minutes but the drive activity light used to run for a further 6 minutes while Windows loaded and stuffed all that crap that sits in the background doing nothing and nothing would respond to a click until the light went out. Today my compie boots in 30 seconds and the drive light goes out 10 seconds after that. It shuts down in 15 seconds. Blissful. Heavenly. I wish I had done this long ago. My visits to Rendo are done via my laptop and/or a somewhat ancient Vista machine that refuses to lie down. That brings us up to date. I doubt if I'll need to update this page again - everything in the garden is beautiful and life without updates is truly wonderful.

After so many years I guess it's time for an update.
I tend to compose my stuff in Poser 7, which in my opinion was the best UI and I can at least read the contents of my libraries without using a magnifying glass as I have to in Poser 8.  I render in Poser 8 while it is faster.
Unless I am doing something with one single light (one spot and lots of fiddling and rotation with the spot parented to my main camera) I use IBL, meaning Latex Luv's freebie IBL set.
I have a nice big 16:9 format HD monitor and a calibration gizmo to keep it under control.  I mostly render at 1920x1080 and 300 dpi or 1440x1080x300 for 4:3 format stuff.  This might be the reason I can't see my library content in P8 (or my ancient eyes LOL.)
You might be thinking it's time I was using P10 or higher, but I tend to wait until all the bugs are gone from new software.  Either that or a lack of nickels and dimes in my Piggy bank.
And that's all for now.  Next update: when I get P10. 
Back to the historical stuff . . .
. . . Where to start ?  Royal Air Force 1960 thru '65.  A sort of Oilman since 1987, specialising in OCTG (oil country tubular goods.)
An ex-Rocker (I was twanging ma Thang before The Beatles went to the hair-dresser)
Used to make music with Cakewalk, and fly the best flight sim there ever was (Sturmovic) but neither of those runs under W7.  When I got me Poser 3 (free on the front page CD of a now defunct CG magazine) and learned halfway decent animation, but could never stop laughing at the hair in P3.  Looked like something my Grandma could have knitted.
The next giant step for mankind was discovering Victoria 4.  Now there's a chick !
My newest Compie has six cores, a couple of crossfire graphics cards, a bucketfull of RAM and I haven't created anything yet that renders longer than a few minutes.  (Have to edit this today coz there was one render whereby it slowed down and stopped completely and I never found out why.)
I can remember when you started a 120-frame animation render and went on vacation to Hawaii for a week or so.  Time to go, said Zebedee.
Methods used in my creations: I have removed from the Work Window all of the symbols for pushing, pulling, twisting etc. and also the lighting symbols. I work exclusively with Parameter Dials - so precise.