Hi All, I'm new to 3D art and I'm trying to figure out which version of Poser to get. I read this in a previous thread debating P4 vs P5: "Personally, unless you REALLY, REALLY need the advanced features of P5, you should stick with P4/ Pro Pack. In fact, if you're a Lightwave or Vue user, stick with Pro Pack- there is NO similar import/export feature in P5 yet... CL said that this will be sold separately, later,,, possibly as "P5 Pro Pack"." What does this mean? Does this mean I can't export my figures from P5? What I wish to do is render my Poser figures in Vue. Will I not be able to do this if I'm using P5? Any clarity on this issue would be appreciate. Thanks, Josh

Of course you can export from poser 5 to vue or LW. But as far as i know its much easier with p4 and propack poser 4 does very well with vue, propack has a plugin for lw. if you want to render in other apps so why poser 5?

Yeah, that's what I thought thgeisel. So I'm not sure what the writer of that post was getting at, just that it's easier to export in P4? You asked why P5? Personally, I don't have eiter P4 or P5 yet. I'm trying to decide which one to buy. Right now you can get P5 pretty cheap at some places, but as has been stated in other posts it's a crapshoot whether it will work as advertised. But it does seem to have some cool features that P4 doesn't have. Anyone else have any thoughts on import/export issues in P5? Thanks, Josh

Vue has native support for Poser 4 scene files. It checks to see if you have a copy of the Poser 4 executable installed before it'll import a .PZ3. So, until e-on updates Vue to look for the P5 executable instead, you can't import Poser scene files unless you also have P4 (or Pro Pack) installed on the same machine. However, you can always export stuff from Poser 5 in industry-standard .obj or .3ds format and bring them into other applications this way. The dynamic hair is a proprietary feature of Poser 5 and doesn't export well, no matter what approach you take. Poser 5's advanced shader nodes and procedural textures are also proprietary features of P5 that will not export. Hopefully, the next version of Vue will include support for Poser 5's unique functions.

Thanks Dragon. It sounds like I would be better off going with P4 right now. I suppose you lose some information when you use an .obj file don't you? I think I read some threads about people importing Poser characters into Bryce as .obj and having to do a bunch of extra work to make it look right again. Anyway, thanks a bunch for the response. Josh

Yes; .obj files don't contain transparency information, for instance, which is cause for much consternation among Bryce users when their Victoria characters import with blank white eyeballs. They have to adjust the transparency of the eyeball material manually from within Bryce.