I'm playing around with poser 4 and 5 and some problems...

1. Any time I try to add a clothing item to a figure it erase the person figure and displays the cloth instead( I want both on so I can confirm(?) them).

2 some add items on like hair show only as transparancies/dots and only kick in after rendering. How can I make them show and how can I make a movie with the the full features enabled.

3 is there any good BASIC tutorial out there. I find the Poser help file somewhat lacking...

The manual has a good basic "how to" tutorial in it, have you tried that?

1. Click on the double checkmark at bottom of [library] menu to add 2. If you select the hair and then do Display - Element Style - Cartoon.... you can pose the transparent stuff 3. the book is a start and look for anything in this thread regarding Dr. Geep or go to http://www.fallencity.net/tut-posb/index.php for getting tutorials

Ooops, as an also, when you have added the character's clothes [with double checkmark at bottom of library menu], select the clothes figure from list of figures (on mine is set at bottom of left side of stage) do a Figure - Conform to... a dialog window will open with your character[s] that you can mold the figure to - select the figure (person) to conform the clothes to and press ok.

Awesome and so simple, thanks, shame on me for not figuring it out. and now for some follow up question...
It seems that when I cahnge the main figure pose to some other poses shift the cloths slightly shift out off allignment. any suggestions?

before applying a pose (full or partial) I always make sure I have the main character to which the clothes/props are attached and then to the right of that (bottom of screen) I always select body. This even works if you are using Mimic for talking. If your clothes get rip looks (ie: the flesh of character is showing through) - on properties of the main character - make the body part invisible. Sometimes you cant do this (like when the wrist is showing - you cant make the forearm invisible) so you must putter around with dials of original character (usually a twist for me or put the clothes for different version of a character on current character so need to run through The Tailor (software worth buying) to make the clothes fit this character). If the main character has morphs (young, old, thin, fat, etc.) then the clothes should also have these morphs to work properly when doing animation with conforming clothes. I almost never move/change the clothing dials - I always use the main character and make sure that the same morphing dials are available on the clothes.