I'm trying to get this craptaceous little computer loaded up. I downloaded the upgrade patch and installed it last night. Now, my edit tools are hidden behind the preview window. I have tried and tried to get them "viewable" again. I really don't want to take out the upgrade...Can't export as separate groups without it. Can someone please help? Is there some sort of more advanced way to edit my display window...Say, have the edit tools running down one side of the preview window, or something? I'm getting cranky. Pop...Pop...Poppi!!!

Have you tried to reset to factory state? Edit~General Preferences-Doc Pref-Interface Pref-Set to Launch to factory state,then click prefered state and reboot poser. Your planets seem to be out of alignment this month! Go get some sleep and try again. I know your frustration!!!

I got so tired of that happening I finally used the dots on the right hand side, find the UI dots and when you get everything the way you want it push a dot...then when this happens again push the dot and everything goes back to where you like it....:-)

Yeah, thank you, thank you. Now, give me a few hours, and, I'll be back with another annoying question. Pop...Pop...Poppi

It's great to be able to customize the interface. You can move everything around, plus set lots of other stuff like your default camera, display and render settings, then use Edit|Preferences to set Poser to launch to your preferred state. Then you don't have to waste time changing things every session. I like all the controls over on the right, with no figure loaded (unless I'm working with a specific one for a project) - speeds up my work. If you turn off the display of one or two of the tools you're not using frequently, you'll have room to move the dial stack to the top of your screen and drag the tab down at the bottom so more dials show and you don't have to drag so much. Ron, I notice your face camera focal length is set at 58mm, which gives that fish-eye lens look. Various professional photographers over the years have advised us to use at least 100mm to get a more natural look.

To get the tool bar going up and down instead of side to side "Alt" click it. Works on the document display bar too. The other neat thing... you know the poser girl on the trapeze wire frame little watermark image in your desk stop... "Alt" click her too... grin

gryffnn: Thanks for the tip on the face camera. I had it at 58 because I thought someone had recommended that. Should it be at 100 for both face and main cameras then?!

Wow...this is all very cool. I have learned quite alot, this morning. Thank you. Poppi ;*)

ronknights I set both face and main cameras at 120mm after reading some photography tutorials awhile back. It sure makes a difference.

Now if there was some way to make the dials wider so I could actually read the one's with long names sigh Here's one I've yet to figure out... What the heck is "hither" and is there ever a reason to use it?

PabloS: Thanks very much for the tip. I like the fact that I can use ONE focal point for both cameras!!!!

scifiguy, you and me both! I'd also like more contrast and the ability to make the fonts bigger too! ronknights, You're welcome. I get A LOT of tips from photography sources. In addition to lighting info, there's a wealth of info on composition too.

I think hither has to do with depth of field. I've found it useful when I've working close to a figure selecting polygons that are partly covered. By entering different values for the hither dial you can move the cut-away zone you get, revealing more of the part you need - does that make sense? I keep the main camera focal point set lower, since you usually want more of a wide-angle view than you do in close-ups. For dial names that run over the setting value: double-click the dial to bring up the dialog box and shorten the name. Makes the dials more legible, but it doesn't change the internal name in the .cr2 file that pose files, etc. use, so they still work. There's always something more to learn, or something you'd learned once but forgotten - thanks Cin, I'm off to alt-click things on the interface!

This is maddening... pages and pictures get lost. I wanted to thank PabloS for his wonderful tips and art.. I keep getting weird error messages. Thanks again, my friend, and thanks to everyone else..

You're welcome Ron! This forum is fantastic for learning new stuff, huh. Too bad we all can't be in the same room, looking over each other's shoulders or yelling out, "Hey watch this!" :-)

PablosS, We can get pretty close. The other day I was communicating with a friend in another state using MSN Messenger. I talked him through the proper way to apply one of the Adventurers MAT textures. I actually have a web camera and mike. I've been itching to find someone who wanted to use such a setup to talk online, and maybe even learn something too.

Maybe one of these days I'll upgrade my computer and be able to do more than load poser and brush my teeth at the same time (slight exaggeration). I know it could be done if everyone has the right set-up. At work, we played with a colloborative planning system. Once during a test, had about 1000 folks hooked up. And to really put it to the test, they took all the phones out! As I recall, they used NetMeeting as the backbone (with a bunch of code laid on top of it).