Hello friends, I have been reading the manual that came with Poser 5 and I have no clue as to how to create some of the beautiful images you all create and put up in the gallery for us to view. I have heard that there are no books out yet for Poser 5 that will take me from the beginning to the end of a project. Are there any Poser 4 books that will help me go from beginning to end of a project? I have asked some nice people for their advice on creating a project, and from what I gather, they create the person in Poser, then move it PS 7 or similar and do other work there. But its at this point that I cant get grasp. So, I thought maybe I could purchase a book that could possibly help me get started on my first creation? Any advice would be most appreciated as I am anxious to start creating my first image. Thank you Thorrax

Actually there is a tape that you can get for $60 that helps with Poser5, don't have it but I hear it's good. There is a book for the Poser 4 Pro Pack that isn't bad, I have it and it has python and some of the other stuff that will help you out in P5. There is supposed to be a book coming out from peachpit press for Poser 5 but it's been coming out since may of last year, and they just told me the new tentitive date is in June of this year. Your best bet first would be to hit the tutorials here and at Daz and some of the other sites. Start with the ones that show how to pose and set up your scene, then move on to the ones that show how to do postwork. I don't do much postwork, mainly do everything in Poser 4 or 5. (Still learning postwork). There are also some tutorials you can buy here in the store. You just need to sift through and see what works for you. Also, get a picture in your head, or on paper, to start with, so you have some reference of what you want to create. Hope some of this helps. I'm sure other folks will jump in to help you out. Marque

Thank you Marque, Pictures in my head, hmm, I have so many pictures, just no way of creating them, Lol. In all seriousness, I have many ideas that I want to do, and that was one of the reasons I bought Poser. After viewing the gallery repeatedly on a daily bases, I see so much realism and originality from you all, that one cant help not want to get started in this fabulous world of Poser. The work that you all create is just breathtaking. I cant tell you how many times I see what you all do, sit down, open Poser and say, ok, now what do I do? I will work on finding the tutorials and try using them. I was just in search of something that would help me take a figure, pose it, add the clothes, hair, make-up, jewelery, and background. Thank you Thorrax

It would be better to describe what you'd like to do, describe what you've tried to achieve your image, and then ask for advice for what you haven't figured out. My general approach to creating an image is to visualize what I want, find some poses (look up "Schlabber Poser" in Google to find the "god" of posing) that are similar to what I want to use, search for props and backgrounds I want to use, and then laboriously tweak everything to get the image I visualized. What I've found with Poser is that there is a lot of experimentation involved, changing angles and lighting, etc. The hard part, for beginning users, is finding all the props and items they want to use. There's a ton of freebies here and elsewhere. The next problem is keeping track of all of them and there's no easy answer there. Poser is one of those programs that's not too hard to use, but takes a lot of trial and error to master.

Upcoming is Mick McAllister's Poser 5 Visual Quickstart Guide, which looks promising. Don't buy the Poser 5 book from R. Shamms Mortier.

That book has been upcoming for almost a year, every time I call to find out when I get another date. As of now it's not coming out until June 2004. Marque

I'd say, pick what you think would be your simplest idea and just jump in and try and reproduce it. I learn the most by 1) trial and error which leads to mistakes which are the most instructive things you'll ever encounter and give you a real sense of ownership and achievement when you solve them on your own and then 2)when you're really stumped come here and do a search, go through some tutorials, and if still stuck ask a question here.

Seriously most of the time if you're depending on others to solve your problems, you're never really going to be able to function on your own, and in the artistic world that means you aren't going to come up with much that's original or "you." So get your hands dirty, drop a character or two on the canvas and mess around, build things, break things, fix them and then shout for help when things are so broken you don't know how to fix them. Do that and you'll be the one giving answers instead of looking for them in short order.

Books and such are good for giving you the basics, sometimes for looking up obscure details that might give you trouble, but for the most part they aren't going to get you to the point where you're going to do anything breathtaking - only effort, persistence and inspiration will do that.

good luck!

Also - read ALL of Dr Geep's tutorials (here at 'rosity, in the tutorials section). Dr. Geep gives you serious insight into how to achieve the basic things in Poser in a light-hearted manner. Believe me, it's worth it. If you don't know the basics, then you'll struggle. (Poser is a wierd beast, in some ways!) :-) Also, yeah, go with all of the above; get the freebies (but beware, often what looks like a good freebie is a texture that needs some specific object to be used on - read the notes before downloading). Especially, check out (freebies): Kozaburo for hair. svdl for dynamic clothing (for DAZ's millenium characters). Studio Maya for the Maya Doll (and clothing to fit). Also - organise your runtime! Create sub-folders to allow yourself to isolate (for example) various types of props (such as furniture, architecure, clothing, jewellery etc.) Hmm. I suspect that's enough to be going on with:-)) Happy Posing!! Cheers, Diolma