I was wondering if anyone could share what they think is the best 3D prog to go with Poser (for creating textures, props, backgrounds, ground tiles, and allows for a top-down 30 degree view of ground/tiles/buildings? The last is needed for the Coldstone engine.) I'm looking for something that can be both imported to poser and exported from poser to the 3d prog. As far as platforms, I can buy a prog for any of the following platforms: XP 1.6 GHz Pentium M laptop, OSX 10.2.8 G4 766, or G4 466 with dual booting OS (OSX and 9.2.2) We also have a Sun Sparc5 workstation... I think its running solais 5. Lastly there is an old WindoZe98 Gateway Frakenbox, I think its a P3/4 500ish. I don't use it, so I am not sure what's on it. Ease of use is important.. or at least a shorter learning curve. (This would be used by impatient high school students and an equally impatient moi.)

Hi Penny, There are many good ones so I am hesitant to recommend just one. I use (or have used) RayDream Studio (RDS) which is no longer available but was replaced by Carrara Studio which I have 1.1, 2.0, and just (about 30 min. ago) 3.0. It works very well with Poser but I would recommend that you stay with using Wavefront Object (.obj) files for importing and exporting. The Scale factor can be very annoying but once you know the "magic," it's no problem. If you need any help with the "scale" factor, please feel free to ask. The Doc is always glad to help. ;=] Or ... if you want FREE ... Anim8or ... it's used by a number of Renderosarians. ;=] There, you got the Doc's $.02 ... now let's hear from someone else. cheers, dr geep ;=]

something like Cinema 4D is brilliant, and the learning curve isn't THAT great. there are some great tutorials in the C4D forum (and on the net). cost isn't too much either - you can get version 6 on magazine coverdisks, and that would be plenty good enough for your prop creation. and you could always upgrade when skills/cash allowed. see Dr.Geeps comment above about exporting and scale factor.. although you can set C4D to automatically scale up/scale down OBJ files, so its not that much of a problem. other than that, Rhino seems to be the tool of choice by lots of prop/clothes creators. Then there are the big boys like Lightwave, 3DStudio... point is, if the 3D prog is capable of exporting/importing OBJ files (most of them do), then they can be used for Poser.

vue pro

I'm not familiar with MAC's at all but for Winbloze look at Lightwave. It's got the best rendering engine going, you can put as many cameras in a scene as you want; light view (you can look at your scene through any light and adjust accordingly). It's a little pricey but not as bad as it used to be. It's really something.

Wings3D isn't bad as far as a free modeling program is concerned. The workflow and interface is faster than Anim8or when it comes to modeling. It runs under Erlang, and is available in Win-whatever, OS-X, and even Linux. Check the Wings3D forum to learn more.

If you're an educator, you can't get any of the pro 3D apps at a large discount. Take a look at 3dsmax, lightwave, maya, or cinema4d.

I was goimg to recomend Amapi 7 but I just learned that its object output does not handle Poser morph targets correctly. Too bad it seems like an great 3D app for the price.

Yeah, take a look at Cinema4D - get 8.1 if you can afford it. Or get the free version of 6.something. The learning curve is very friendly for such an incredible powerful program. I do my renders in Cinema if I really want them to look good and not crash while I'm working on getting the light right. Stable, powerful, beautiful renders. Export in .obj. Good luck.

3DS Max 6. It is a great tool, handles Poser stuff extremely well once you add Body Studio and the renderer is now about the best around thanks to the inclusion of Mental Ray in the package.

TrueSpace 4.3 sells for $79 at the moment - www.caligari.com. Pros : strong modeling, highly interactive UI, great renderer Cons : needs a plug-in for OBJ im-/export called luuv, which is, however, available for free.

I'm with Dr Geep Carrara 3 similar weird interface as poser super program though

Wings is free, great block modeler. You can even link Pov-Ray for the render engine. Import scale is 20.0 and export is 0.05 for poser objects. Very easy to work with. Gimp is like Photo Shop and PSP. Uses layers and so on, also free. UVMapper for texture templates, free again. Or you can do the UV in wings. Thought I would throw this at you. You can find out if everyone likes it or not, without the cost.

Lightwave here, great bang for the buck, probably the best modeller out there with a great render engine. A huge number of tutorials on the web, and great user forums.

I would vote for Vue 4 unless you want to do modeling, and then maybe C4D would be a better choice. Not only does Vue do a great job in importing Poser figures, but has many wonderful features of it's own. I think they have a demo still at www.e-onsoftware.com.

If you'll be working primarily with a 3D game engine, I'd recommend MilkShape 3D (PC platform) as a low-poly modeling program. No renderer, but it's only $25, supports dozens of file formats, and has a relatively low learning curve. It imports and exports Poser meshes easily with no need for scaling.

have to support the home team..Wings 3d, it's free..;) hundreds of little Wings-bots floating through the forums, surrupticiously endorsing the program..;)