I think that I'm going to buy Poser this Friday. From what I've seen, I think that it's the better 3D character creator. Any comments?

Personally, I would always chose a more developed software package before a brand new one. Poser 5 may or may not have a few bugs, but I have never seen a first-release software package that did not have TONS of bugs - like the early releases of Poser 5!

Also, if you post a newbie Poser question here on Renderosity, you can count on about a million very insightful replies...it will take a while for DAZ to reach that point.

It's funny, actually; I had never heard any bad input on Poser untill today. I thought that it was a more developed program.

It's definitely better now. At least for me. I only had one major problem and that was after installing the first service release. Works fine now with SR3.

Before you even launch the program go get SR3. That way you will start with a solid program. Some people rag on P5 for instability. For me it is very stable sometimes running for weeks in a single session. Keep in mind that a high end 3D app like Poser needs a high end computer to perform well. It can only be as solid as the system it's running on. No other character animation tool out there is as easy to use as Poser and Poser has the support of a HUGE following with tons of freebies and dirt cheap ad-on products. Happy Rendering! Nerd

Now what would I want to buy? I was looking at my favorite electronics store when I bought the new Dungeon Siege, and I saw Poser some number or another for about $180. What all would I want to do and get?

One thing makes an alarm bell go off in my head though. Poser (any version) is not a character CREATOR. It's a program that lets you pose premade characters. For character creation you'd need a modeling program like Anim8or, WinGS, Amapi, TrueSpace, Rhino, Lightwave or Max.

With SR3 and a reasonably powerful computer, Poser 5 is stable enough from my experience. As ernyoka1 says, it's not a character creation software, but a posing software for figures originally made in other applications. Once in Poser, you can morph these into your liking and in a way create unique characters, but they are still based on a mesh created elsewhere. If that is what you need, there is no real competitor on the market right now (DAZ has something cooking which we know very litte about, despite numerous speculations).

Um if you are looking for something to model in - Poser is not really it. Since you said Character creator - I presume you want to make your own? If that's the case, then Poser is definitely the wrong program for that.

Is it really that wrong? Bloodsong's book on character creation in Poser 5 should help. Rigging is certainly faster than in any of the other programs. I'd probably recommend getting a helper application for moving mesh around (despite Dr Geep's tutorials on making things with primitives, most characters are a bit more organic)... so Wings or Truspace or Cararra or whatever should be looked at, as well as UVMapper. Carolly

Well, in THEORY you can build your model in Poser alone. My Birdy is 95% pure Poser, I had him into UVMapper and some of his head morphs are made in other programs too but he's built in Poser Pro Pack with that blob-metaball-python-thingie. (forgot the name right now). Didn't use the Setup Room either, PhiBuilder is FAR more easy to work with! But to buy Poser and expect to get a character CREATION program is wrong imo. Btw Bloodsongs book is GREAT!

Attached Link: http://www.weirdjuice3d.com/products/drops.htm

Drops was the name. Windows only, for the time being. Bill

Poser can be used for character creation in conjunction with a modeling program. You can e.g. use the poly modeling features of Wings3D and the character animation tools of Poser. I'd agree with Carolly and say rigging in Poser is in my experience very easy compared to other 3d animation programs.

Oh yes, Drops! Sorry :o} Does it help if I say something nice about it? I love that program/add-on/Pythonscript! It's so much fun!!