i'm considering purchase of a high powered intergraph station for my 3d work... we all know rendering in poser is not the best quality, so i'd like to ask about experiences with other rendering programs which is the most easy to export poser work to ? considering transparency masks etc ? what about animations? does bryce do the trick ? I'm thinking about getting MAX R3 as our standard highend 3d modeller, or did someone try working with poser creations using MAYA or Softimage ? I'd like to hear about all opinions. Maybe we can gather some kind of an allmighty export/import guide/tutorial or comparison chart about poser and the latest highend 3d software -Ede

Bryce is good, and deals with Poser textures and transparencies very well. However, you will not be able to animate you poser figures in Bryce without a hell of a lot of work. I'm certain that Poser figures will work in MAYA or Softimage, but I have no idea if they can be animated, or how easy that is. MAX can import Poser figures easily (if you use the HABware plugins from the free stuff pages) and handles texture maps easily. Transparency maps are a little harder, but not too difficult to grasp once you've done a couple. And Konan's MaximumPoser plugin makes animation of Poser figures withinj MAX simple, quick, and easy. Paul

well that sounds like max would be a pretty good deal good to hear, ... i'll have a look at the plugs thanks -Ede

Also there is a program called Vue3, check out the vue gallery and see what it can do. Vue also allows you to import obj files that are exported from poser and the textures will come in automatically, even for figures. Vue will do "fly thru" animations as well. Davo

i've been working with vue, it's great, but instable, even with the updates. I use it for backgrounds, landscapes and glass-figures or liquids. how about using a poser figure with character studio !? did anyone try this? -Ede

I've studied the 3DS&Character Studio white papers... do you know if it's possible to have an existing transmap with an object in poser look exactly the same? If it's a lot of remapping it won't do... i want to import a poser char into character studio and use the real skin and bones features etc. -Ede

btw, what about all the morphs ? if i transfer the char to max, how will i do lip animation etc.?

It's not a lot of extra work to create transparency channels in MAX and, as I said, once you've done 1 or 2 it is really easy and intuitive. I'm not sure about using bones (I assume you're going for something like BonesPro?) as I've never rejigged a figure in MAX. MaximumPoser handles all of the morphing information. You just create your animations as usual inside Poser and then import them into MAX using Konan's Max/Poser plugin. The whole point of the plugin is that you can use the "simpler" Poser interface and tools to create your animation, and then use the power of MAX to create the actual end animation. Character Studio was (IMHO) a major disappointment. The figures are very low-res, although I suppose you could use Poser figures in their place (again, not something I've tried). Paul

well i have learned something about nurbs now, and high quality human modeling in e.g. softimageXSI etc. all sounds very cool but i guess hard to learn just externally render the stuff in max seems the easiest way for me, at the moment maybe i'll do a new character in Maya or Softimage later...

hey ede its funny, but i had the same exact question about 3 months ago. we were growing out of poser/rayt dream/bryce, and needed a higher end package for animation. we decided to go with max, and have been totally satisfied. a great combo is max and Konan's Maximum Pose. the rendering in max is unbelieveable. also if you can afford it, get character studio, its not that hard to learn and really great for character animation. if you have any questions e mail me eli

hi eli, thanks for encouraging thats what i would prefer to do, gettin MAX&CS do you know if it's possible to convert an existing poser char into a fully functional character studio figure with IK, skin, etc... ? i need at least the face to look exactly the same btw, does max work with nurbs ? -Ede

for the best rendering i think Lightwave is top dog the radiosity is fantastic.......max is cool but I've never tryed the bones or CS on a figure....but if you want great renders and easy character animation then go with Maya bones are dead easy in it compared to others i've tryed and the render is real nice but it takes more setting up.....you can get a demo of maya here http://www.aliaswavefront.com/entertainment/offers/tasteofmaya/index.html and read reviews of it LW max and SI here http://interneteye3d.com/

steve, thanks i have not yet thought about maya do you know how easy/hard it is to import existing poser material ? should be easy i guess -> "wavefron obj" tells it all hope i'm not wrong especially about the transparency does one know about hair plugs for maya and max ? -Ede

I've had a figure textured and used trans too but it was a while ago so I'm not sure how I did it.....if you get the full Maya with the paint effects it comes with hair and all sorts, in fact its awesome you can just paint grass and trees and flowers like it was 2d but then move the camera and they are in 3d you can get a figure to walk through and interact with the painted stuff :o) haven't done it myself though LOL.......be warned though its some huge app with a very steep learning curve, comes with 22 manuals for crying out load LOL.have a look at there site I'm sure they have some pics there done with the paint part......Steve

i'm already studying the site but i whish they'd tell more new maya sounds interesting (used to work with very old version once) i hope there're a load of manuals, cause i'm willing to learn ;-) do you know the price of maya (complete/unlimited) i can't find any sales info 3dsmax+Cs is about $5000,- here and softimage about $7000-$11000,- what about maya? -Ede

theres a load more info here http://interneteye3d.com/Reviews2000/Prev/Maya_2.5_unlimited/default.asp we reviewed 2.5 and that was $16000 for unlimited .......Steve

oh yes, i've already red it and i'm in love with Maya!!!! :) but unlimited is a little more expensive than the complete version i don't need the additional features except cloth and fur/hair can you buy maya cloth seperately? -Ede

Ede what am i saying!!!! can you wait till the poser pro pack comes out coz its going to have a LW and max plugin...in which case get LW for the rendering the radiosity is just fantastic and even without it its a great renderer ...i have a radiosity sample pic in the review here http://interneteye3d.com/Reviews2000/Sept/LW6/default.asp oh and the viper thats great too LOL ...Steve

well yeah, first of all i need a cool rendering for my poser char but i'm looking into the future i'm sure i want to redo my character in a high end modeler some time and there comes a time in every mans life where you have to descide for the program you want to go for.... for me it'd be Maya :) YAP! -Ede

it has to be a good choice ...hollywood likes it :o) but make sure you try the demo before you blow that huge wad :o)....Steve

well, first of all i have to get a good hardware what graphiccard would you propose !? i'm interested in the wildcat series they come with dell or intergraph workstations what cards does maya support ?! -Ede

i'm running a 3dlabs gvx1 and a viper to run the second monitor...i'm not to up on hardware but if you look at the internet eye site again but go to the main one (not 3d) they tested a load there..Steve

thanks :-) its 10pm here, but i think i'm going to the kitchen and burn cook something,... i'm hungry talking about all that stuff :) and after that i'll have some sleed (had little the last few days) thanks for your help cu tomorrow -Ede

I thought I would help out a bit. I use Max almost every day and we have Maya at our company. I don't use Maya but I know a bit about it as I have gone to the Alias|Wavefront users group meeting for quite a few years. "Hollywood" likes Maya because it serves as an architecture that you can extend, i.e. add physical simulation code. Character studio is great for setting up a default walk quickly, it has footstep generated walks. You can add any kind of character. You can buy Zygote characters (like the ones in Poser) already to go in CS. Max doesn't do radiosity, but there is a plug in (Luma Object) that gives sort of the same effect without the rendering time. As far as transparency and materials, you can do a lot of very interesting things in Max, for example simulating iridescent materials.

Mark, the question is, can i import an existing poser model (with hair transmapped&conforming clothes) into CS and make it work like a real CS model (with muscles etc...) ?? next step would be to make it real cloth and hair with the CS clothing and shag hair (heard about it) will that work? -Ede