Not to beat down on it, but it seems like there's 3, 4 times as many artists in the Poser community than in any other one (Bryce, Cinema4D, 3DsMax, etc.). It seems odd, in my mind, because I've never used Poser for anything more than a quick export for a Bryce scene, and I've certainly never rendered anything in it. I understand how people might be attracted to it, but it looks like half of the renders and creations, while somewhat tasteful, always seem to drop on the nudity thing. I've never played with Barbie when I grew up, I was wondering if any of you guys have ;) Drac

LOL...Well Poser can be used for many things other than playing with Barbie (Vicky), we use it alot for many of our mechanical models for posing and it really does a fine job in rendering too, depending on what lights and cameras you use. I use Vue and Bryce also so I do understand what you mean, but like I said it can be used for so much more than what others think it can be used for. Certain faces and using children in my scenes are very important and I couldn't accomplish this without Poser. Plus now with Mover by e-onsoftware you can import any animation of poser right into Vue and it keeps your animation correct while you construct the background. Sharen

IMHO, Bryce is harder to learn, but produces much better renders. (Don't have Poser 5, have 4, 5 is supposed to have a new improved rendering engine). I think one of the biggest reasons may be that Poser has DAZ. There is nothing comparable available to Bryce users. BTW, I'm not saying Bryce is a better program. I have Bryce 5, Poser 4, and Photoshop Elements 1. I consider these my digital art tools, and use them in different combinations, according to the piece I'm working on. I don't get into those my program rules, yours sucks, kind of arguments. It's like saying a fork is better than a spoon. It depend on whether you're eating a salad or soup. Sorry, drac, I just started ranting after the word "users". Previous to that was my answer to your post. And I spend most of my forum time here, just because I like Brycer talk better. (Brycers know what I mean.) I do go to the Poser Forum when I need help with using Poser, and they are very helpful, just like here. (Ranting again) :^)

First off, you should bear in mind that Renderosity was originally just a Poser forum (called 'Poser Forum Online'), and it shouldn't be surprising that's what has remained its main area of focus. But I think you'll find the overall Poser scene is unique in the online 3D graphics world in its level and type of following. I believe this is because the program deals mainly with human figures, and humans are evolved to have a great interest in 'people' (and yes, that includes a big sexual interest). A 'real world' analogy could be made in comparing the interest in astrology with that in astronomy. Astronomy is an intellectual interest dealing with hard facts about an aspect of the natural universe; astrology is an emotional interest in how the planets and stars (supposedly) effect people. If you go to a normal book store, you'll find the astrology section is at least ten times the size of the astronomy section. Bryce deals mainly with landscapes; Poser deals mainly with 'people'.

Well, for me, Poser is just a complement to Bryce! No offence to the many great Poser artists here, but when it comes to renderings, Bryce is many times better and more flexible! Poser is a superb app for creating characters, but thats about it! :)

I go read what folk have to say in the Poser forum but I've not found them as helpful and accomodating as the people in this forum. The above statement comes from a nu-be question I asked in Poser a while back and I nearly got my eyes scratched out, (excuse me for being stupid). That sort of thing puts you off going back. But you sometimes get an interesting read in the Poser forum 'cos they do seem to get quite emotional about lots of things. Catlin

Not to put it down but good people like Sharen do quite a lot of the hard poser work on the front end. When you buy a set from Sam's or a character from daz all the texture work and setup are already done. I think I counted 280 custom morphs in Victoria's face alone. Making a smile in bryce or a modeler like rhino or 3d max involves shaping meshes. You can do it in two seconds with the dial in poser. Imagine being able to buy Bryce with all the content of the challenges for the past year loaded on the CD. Any of these you rendered you could claim as your own unique work just by changing the views or a few positions. This is pretty much what's going on when you pose victoria. Poser also renders a bazillion times faster than Bryce. Every decent render I do in Bryce takes at least a day. I can kick out good looking 200 poser renders in that time.

Rochr, is the poser 5 renderer also less good than bryce's render? I've seen some great looking images in the galleries in terms of render quality. I usually find that the poser images are to much of the same. I scroll through the poser galleries sometimes, but after 3 pages I get bored (sorry poserfans, but I find the average poser image to much nudity and too little art). Personally I don't like using poser. I like to model all my models myself and with poser I feel like using presets.

We don't model any of our models in Poser, but when we do model our models, I have found that Poser can be a great tool to fix things or adjust them with good accuracy. I know how you feel about the constent nudity in the Poser gallery Rayraz, but there are so many different artist here and so many look at nudity so differently then each other. If I am in the Poser gallery and see the nudity flag up, and I am tired of that, I just pass it by. But to be honest some people can get tired of looking at landscapes too and pass them by also. I really like the diversity we have here in the galleries. We have some mighty fine artists and each one uses their tools to accent their talents. I do agree with electroglyph regarding the rendering speed, you really can't beat it. Now although Poser 5 renders are a little longer depending on how you set it up to render, it is still a very good and strong render engine. I love Vue and Bryce, (shhhhhh but I do prefer Vue over Bryce please don't take offense) and Poser well I feel can't be compared to either of those 2 softwares. It is just another really good software to utilize. Sharen

Rayraz, as far as i know, theres no premium render settings in Poser 5! And i still havent seen a P5 render that is very different from P4. Granted, Bryce has a slow renderer, but IMHO it gives better results. But thats only my opinion... :)

This is the Poser 5 version of my Assassin image in my gallery. (I did it for an article on poser 5.) It took a little less time to render than the corresponding image in Bryce, but it's also simpler, the hair notwithstanding. The Bryce one has reflections and transparencies and about double the number of lights. And Bryce has much better control over lights, the scene can be built and seen easier, the final render usually looks better, and so on. But with the hair, collision detect and cloth simulation, Poser 5 also gives something more than Bryce.

Ooops, forgot to say that Poser 5 does have prekium settings, but they are not as clearly labelled as in Bryce. And it has desplacement maps, which are an improvement over bump maps. Still, Bryce beats it hands down. :-)

Huh. I hate typos. Of course, it's "premium" and "displacement".

Erlik, I thought that the collision detect and cloth simulation were the parts of the program that a lot of Poserites were having most problems with. I was following the rant about it at the link below:- http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&Form.ShowMessage=1024330

Ok, i was wrong about its render features! Ill just go and hide somewhere... :) Well, heres a Bryce render! Default settings, 7 radial lights, about 15 minutes of rendering! No doubt about it, i use poser a lot and its a great app when it comes to characters, but i still wouldnt want to build a scene in it! :) Great image BTW Erlik!

For characters it's great, for scenes it's rubbish, but having both Bryce and Poser is the perfect world. Catlin

Sorry Sharen, I didn't imply that you modeled in poser. I dont see how anyone could. I have rarely used magnets to reshape obj files. There's nothing like them in Rhino. But theres no way to create objects that I know of. It's just that models and sets in poser are usually made in another app and manipulated in poser. Iv'e had 20 lights in poser and the render still takes 5 minutes. It's not a bad thing but its easy to be vibrant when you can repose and render ten versions of a scene, post, and discuss them in a single night.

LOL electroglyph, no I understand what you meant, but for example I wanted to create a scene, specific, so I had Mike make me a fairly simple model, I was able to manipulate his original model in Poser to exactly what I wanted, I did what he couldn't do and it worked out great, that is what I mean about using Poser for additional work that I want specific to a model. I could not have done this in Bryce or in Vue. That is what I mean by using Poser for some other things that can not be easily done in other applications. Hope I am clear on this I do not want to confuse anyone. I don't feel that Poser is a modeling software but it does have some great usage for additional work. Kind of like Zbrush. I can't really afford to get the full version of Zbrush right now, but I will someday, but for now I can use Poser for any additional work and making it pose is simple. Anyway, you use the software that accomidates your needs. Sharen

I thought we Brycers were pretty darned vibrant. :) I think PJF's observation about people being interested in other people is a valid one. Scenes with people (naked or not) definitely cause a different reaction in me than scenes without people. One isn't better than the other, just different. I've used Poser a bunch (though not very much for my own art) and I love the poseability of things in it, but I think I'd hang up my mouse if I had to use it excusively for creating objects or scenes. I don't hang out on the Poser forum, though I have looked for answers there occasionally. I guess I just got comfy here and am too lazy/happy to go anywhere else. I suspect something about a person's personality draws them to a particular type of software as well as to a certain style of conversation. Lin

Poser can manage a half decent render and, as electroglyph points out, it can do so quickly. This used a slight variation on Shademaster's hdri simulation light set, and took just a few minutes. Bryce can obviously do it better and sharper, but would probably take all day to do it.

All I can say is WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is almost photo-realistic!

Some serious banding in the shading on her right arm and breast, but a big improvement over rendering in Poser 4. Is this the new, non-Daz-created P5 nude woman I've been reading about? Impressive model, anyway.

tjohn, this is rendering in Poser4! ;-) Yeah, the banding is bad - more lights are definitely needed. The only adjustment I made to the freebie light set was to reduce the blue which was a bit strong. I might have a go with added lights before I hit the sack tonight. The figure is Victoria3 by DAZ. It's sufficiently good to call 'she', and she is splendid.

I must admit, that looks great! With only a few minutes rendertime, it sure beats Bryce! :)

Nothin sexier than a crossed eyed bikini lady. lol

Catlin, cloth simulation works fine as you can see. It had some problems before, just with the same objects you see in the picture, but not anymore. The irregularities are due to the cover not having regularly spaced polygons, which I cannot get try what I might. (3 programs.) Yes, it's a limitation, but then, Bryce also has limitations. Hair also works pretty fine. Takes time to render, but try rendering a thousand of fine polygon meshes in Bryce... :-) BTW, the thread is a regular thing there in Poser forum. :-) And the funny thing about Poser 5 is that there were people who didn't have much problems from the beginning. That all said, I still think Bryce is better to work in and gives better results. I also use Poser just to create characters. And for *that*, Face Room is invaluable.

BlueArdor, there are plenty of things wrong in my test image, but the figure being cross-eyed is not one of them.

I used to use poser only for exporting to B5. However, with P5 I'm starting to stay in Poser and render there for a lot of things. Osity is a poser community by percentages, as you've noticed. Oddly enough, 3dcommune tends to be larger on brycers than posers. However, most of the folks there are here too.

The two are a great compliment to each other espesh for animators. you can render poser animations with bryce stills or movies as back grounds ( and nearly vice versa) and the results can be amazing- better than some of the shit you see on tv made in "industry strength apps". Bear in mind they began as sister apps so are a match~ shame there is still a lack of decent integration in animation terms. Most importantly even with the shortfalls both apps have they are great tools for making creaive projects that bit easier. Long live both!

Poser and Bryce didn't begin as sister apps, they wound up that way not long after version 2 of each, when Fractal Design and Metatools teamed up to become Metacreations. Metacreations were (allegedly) to make the two apps work closely together for versions 5, but they 'repositioned themselves in the market' instead. There has been not a glimmer of Curious Labs and Corel making similar efforts for the future. :-(

Yeah yeah ~ lets not split hairs now ;-} speaking of which P5 hair loks shockingly unconvincing of what I've seen... ;-D

PJF... dont get me wrong.. i think it's a fantastic picture. Very photorealistic. But I'll have to disagree with the eyes. For some reason they (and this may just be to me) they look a bit crosseyed.. maybe out of focus or something. I could very well be wrong but that's what I see. If you look there is a dark area (shadow?) between her left eye and nose. This may be misleading me into seeing the eye focused more inward than it really is? Blue

Myself: Poser4 to create and pose the figures, Bryce5 to build the world around them and take the virtual photo and PhotoPaint9 to do any darkroom-ish tweaks! (works for me). As to the nudity, the bare female form is one of the mainstays of classical art. I still love to work with it, having always found it a fascinating source of ideas. (I started with pencils based on early Playboy images and graduated to oils with my first painting (nude) at 14. I have been drawing, painting, photographing and now modelling ever since.) - so I can understand, which is what I wanted to say. I suspect that there are a lot of frustrated photographers/sculptors over there that just either do not have the opportunity or the skills/patience to work with the real human form and poser lets them at it.

I'm a woman and I love attending life drawing classes especially if the model is female. The female form is wonderful to draw IMO. The trouble with drawing the naked male is that they are too angular, in general, whereas the female form is curvy and smooth. Although I love playing with poser I still get more pleasure and satisfaction from drawing the real thing. Catlin Maybe I'll post some of my life drawings sometime for you to have a look at.

BlueArdor, no worries. I regret if she looks cross-eyed to you, and of course you are perfectly entitled to call things as you see them. The 'cross-eyed chick' syndrome is fairly common and a touchy subject in Poserdom. I go to great lengths to avoid it when posing, looking at the figure from several angles and with several cameras, and checking renders for anything strange. With that in mind, it's still my opinion that she isn't cross-eyed. I've flipped the image horizontally (a great way of getting a fresh look at an image if you've been staring at it for too long) and she doesn't look cross-eyed in that to me either. shrug As you say, we'll have to agree to differ. She certainly does have a gormless smile due to lack of time spent posing the rest of the face - maybe that's throwing it. :-)