I am at wits end with Poser 8, as much as I hate to say it. I had high expectations of the latest release and spent the upgrade price in hopes of achieving better renders but in the four days or so of having it and using it, there are way too many issues with it to continue. First off, the library explorer which is great in concept, fails miserably in usage. Everytime I start up Poser, it asks for permission through Windows to access the internet because of it's integration with Internet Explorer. After waiting about 5 minutes for it to gather what it needs and takes inventory of my runtimes (only two) THEN it's ready to be used. I DID have a big issue with it and my video drivers before (trying to delete the default model that appears would crash Poser) but now it's all about the advanced rendering features, like indirect lighting. I have a 2.8ghz intel with 4 gigs of ram running renders in a separate process with 4 threads...you would think that would be enough but obviously not. I had a sweet sweet scene today all made up and I could render it with no problem until I was at the point of finalizing a larger render and then it pooped out...it would hang when precalculating the indirect lighting and would not continue.

Anywho, long story short, I am through with any new version of Poser. I am sure there are lots of Poser users out there who would say I told you so and that's fine, I'll take my licks. I tried to use the refund form through Smith Micro, but for some reason my order number is not on file. I'll call them in the morning and tell them how I really feel about it all and make sure I get my money back.

Guess it's back to dealing with Poser 7 and if need be, time to learn 3DS Max where I hear the rendering is much better.