Hi! I've no experience whatsoever in using 3D software, with the exception of Bryce 4 and Adobe PhotoShop. I'm thinking of getting Poser 5 to try out new things, and my question is : 1) With a user my level, will Poser require a steep learning curve?(like 3D Studio Max, for example) Bryce is pretty easy to learn, so I wonder if Poser is as easy to learn as Bryce?(by learning, I mean getting comfortable with the software and can make at least some cool basic faces) 2) In Poser, is it possible just to create the heads with dimension size of up to 2400 * 3000 pixels?(just the heads) 3) Is it easy to create a basic face that looks like a human FROM SCRATCH?(don't have to be so extremely realistic or detailed.....just recognizable will do) Thanks! Xeon.

1. No. Just crank it up and play. Getting good results is harder, though. Experiment, read the manual and ask questions. I do. 2) Heads? If you mean textures, Poser will support texture sizes up to 4000 x 4000. Actually, it will render much larger textures, as in Poser Dreamers's Cinema Quality textures, but it's not too happy with anything above 4000. If it's the render size you mean, then yes. Piece of cake. 3) Nope, wrong application. Poser is not a modelling application. You can model stuff in there but you will be tearing your tresses out if you try anything much more complex than a barstool. For clarification: Poser is an application for posing, morphing and rendering existing models. If you wish to make something, get Max, Rhino, Wings, Lightwave, or somesuch.

I agree with whats said above, I got P5 last nigth and IM runnign the tutorials here as well as various other sites and Im already beginning to learn to walk (so to speak) if you want to get into 3d there is no better way that using poser in my opinion. hey are having a sale @ curious labs so that would also make it attractive.

Thanks guys! But then, is there no program for creating 3D-faces? Like the way Bryce 5.0 is used to create landscapes and such? Thanks! Xeon. :-)

P-5 has a face room that allows you to change and sculpt their models faces to look differently, the material room will allow you to put a skin on it and "instant new character face" Take that witha grain of salt from a P5 n00b who has experiemnted a little with it.

Aside from the ease, how much faster is P5 from Poser4 or PoserPro? I seem to recall there are two or more rendering methods (firefly or something?). Also, I assume there is swf (flash) support. How do all of these relate to Poser4 as to speed and quality. TIA manowar

I've found that P5 is a little harder to learn, only because it has a lot more options. I admit I've had P5 for a year, but I still pose and compose scenes with P4, get everything set the way I want, then save it and open it in 5 for the final render. If I had to mention my personal favorite difference, it's the focal distance in the render, so you can have the main model be in focus, but the background is slightly blurry, just like a real photo would look. The materials setting are the next best thing just because of, again, the vast amount of options you have. There's my two bits. :) ~ Rich Oh, and speed? The more detailed you want your image the slower it's going to be. Simple render, just a few minutes. Focal point, lighting, AA, etc, mine usually take an hour or two to render. (Compare that with Bryce! Longest render time THERE was 72 hours!)

If one were to use basically the same settings (AA, lighting, etc.) and scene for Poser4 and Poser5, which one would be faster and to what extent? I hoping to do some animations and anything over 3 or 4 minutes with AA, simple lighting, one figure and 640 x 480 NTSC product is going to be really painful. (It already is in PoserPro;) Thanks again. manowar

The main concern is, speed is decided by your system, how much ram and what OS. in my opinion, if you dont have XP with at least 512 in RAM, do P4. Its hard to judge speed due to the apples and oranges nature of the two, For example I find the material assignment to be more intuitive in P5 than the tedious dropdown in P4, so I save time there. render methods, P5 has the firefly render and for low end renders the p4 engine. Agasin, Im sure more versed people could offer a better review than I, but I was where you were a bit ago with trying to decide to get it. For me the library function practically puleld me over as p4 libraries just plain get to cumbersome with V3, M3, freak and whatnot.

Good, thanks again. I guess it's obvious that I 've been holding off for some time. manowar

Ive been on the fence since its release and the fun that happened then. The price cut for tax season and the new patches and lack of overwhelming "It doesnt work" rhetoric got me to finally go for it. I like it fine so far, if only for the libraries (grin)

You might want to try Poser Artist for a $99.00 you can create great looking scenes with less of a learning curve. It depends too, on how much you want the options that only P5 has. Dynamic cloth, hair, are mostly things you'd use for annimation, if you are mostly going to do still renders then they wouldn't effect you much. The Face room in P5 would mostly be useful if you want to do your own texturing. The P5 material room is overly complex and I don't see much of an advantage to having it. Poser 5 has been plagued by many bugs and already is into the 4th service release patch to correct them after a year and a half on the market. I started with Poser 4 (now called Poser Artist) and added Pro Pack, I purchased P5 as soon as it was released and have hardly used it. I found the documentation poor and difficult. The biggest innovation in P5 is the Firefly rendering engine, as far as I'm concerned and I've mostly built my scenes in P4 and opened them in P5 for rendering.

Right now I'm using PoserPro on a Mac. The biggest problems are its rendering speed versus other programs like C4d, a horrible bug that it has with a higher version of Quicktime (scene freezes after generating a movie), and its reliance on the old Mac System 9.x. The only good thing about it is the availability of a C4d plugin by CL that allows much quicker animation rendering in that program. Going to Poser5 gives me the option of staying on one operating system, MacOS X, and possibly, a better, faster renderer. I understand from the above that the firefly renderer is better as to quality and additional options, however, no one above has stated it is faster with equal scene, identical settings, and identical hardware. I'm trying to determine if a hundred dollars is worth the attempt to find out. What a mess to be caught between two operating systems, two Poser Programs, and with an update, now being unable to go to a third program for animation rendering speed. manowar

I'd say it is more difficult to learn than Bryce or Vue. I still don't use it at its fullest and I've owned it for over a year. Never owned P4. I wanted it mainly for the character posing ability. Vue and Bryce are way better for landscapes (although RDNA has done a terrific job of helping in this area with their Microcosm's). I really think the material room is one of P5's best features. Once you read through the tips and tutorials that are available at RDNA, Poser Pros and here, you can get some really amazing results with it. Check out RDNA, Sixus and Cubed products for examples of good use of the material room. The face room only works with the native P5 characters and involves more putzing around than I want to do :) I've never used the cloth room, but a lot of people do and really like it. The hair room is not for the faint of heart (or for anyone with less than 1 gig of ram!). The more ram you can afford.....the better. 1.5-2 ghz PIV or equivalent processor (or better). Windows XP or Windows 2000. I don't know if it supports swf files, since I don't do any animation or movies with it. If you get it and run into problems, search out posts by Ynsaen.....the local "P5 guru" :) Layingback (I think that's right) also has some good tips on getting rid of "Content Parasite" and other neat stuff. If you get it, update immediately to SR3 (there is a newer patch, but it seems to still have some "issues")

Thanks for your info. It appears that P5 is more complex but in those areas particular to my work, animation and rendering speed, may be very similar to P4. Were Curious Labs to update their plugin for C4d with P5, I would jump at purchasing both, but I believe this is not going to happen anytime soon:) manowar

Just read thru some of your posts Man O' War. I don't own P4, but I don't think I've ever read that the firefly renderer is faster. I have read that it is better. I have also read that some people find P5 way slower on the same machine they run P4 on. If you're only looking to speed up renders on an existing machine, a move to P5 may be a disappointment.