Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&FAQ=Y

Poser Forum FAQ is a good place to start. You can get to it either via the link in the masthead or just click on this link. Other newcomers have expressed similar confusions - In the hopes that it will help orient you, here's an extract from a reply I wrote to one a while back; "This is a pretty fundamental problem that causes a LOT of trouble for folks until they understand a bit of the history of Poser & it's characters. Poser 4 comes with a fair starter selection of characters, clothes, hair, poses, etc. The basic Nude female (nicknamed POSETTE) and the basic Nude Male (nicknamed DORK) are included in the starter selection. The company that designed basic figures that come with Poser 4 was Zygote. Their Poser division has been "split off" into a new company called DAZ. (you'll see their products referred by both names). DAZ sells a number of Add-In & extra characters, & accessory files for Poser. Over a year ago, DAZ developed and started selling a higher-detailed, more versatile character they called the "Millennium Woman" which was marketed as Victoria, an enhanced but mostly compatible update to Victoria is available as a separate product called Victoria 2, an an even more advanced mesh has been recently released as Victoria 3 (not fully compatible with Vic 1 or 2 for technical reasons). In the same vein they later developed a male character they call the Millennium Man, or Michael 1, or Millennium Mike {since updated to Michael 2). A specialized female variant of the Michael mesh has been developed as the Stephanie figure. Variations on the Victoria figure have been developed and marketed as "the millennium girls" and the "millennium boys" (PreSchool and preTeen child figures. A lot of other companies & individuals make & distribute variations, clothings, & add-ons for the millennium characters; some are free, some are sold. All of these require the previous purchase of one or another of the DAZ Millennium characters to work. There are also other completely original & separate characters available that don't require the DAZ characters (such as the even higher-Rez Dina, Natalie, Etc), or are based on the basic P4 figures or the newer basic Poser 5 characters nicknamed Judy and Don. When you look over the offerings in free stuff, or in the market, look for these terms in their names or descriptions to determine if you could use them. If you're uncertain what you need for a particular product, you can Instant Message or EMail the creator of the product for clarification. Although special variations have been made for the Millennium figures from DAZ that can use regular Posette & Dork clothing, generally each character can only use clothes specifically made for that figure (has to do with the part names and articulations), so Posette cannot use clothes for the Dork or Victoria or Michael, Dork cannot wear clothes made for Posette or Michael or Victoria, etc. There are exceptions, as I said, where people have chopped figures up & re-combined them in different ways, but this is the general rule. Another complication is where you morph the body of a figure to make it fatter, more voluptuous, more muscular, etc. You have to play with any clothing you put on them as well, or it no longer fits the new shape. Some clothes (Most of them, in fact) aren't capable of this shape modification without special re-shaping software outside of Poser." Confusing? Complicated? Until you catch on to these basics it can be. Hope this helps orient you. :-)) Render On! leather-guy