Hi How many people are included when you buy Poser 5? Men? Women? Kids? Thanks

1 male - Don 1 female - Judy 1 girl - Penny 1 boy - Will Each of the figures has some clothing, though you may have to get the figure updates and clothing updates from Curious Labs - www.curiouslabs.com. There are some animals and a few other figures as well. The figures have the ability to morph - to have their features changed somewhat - so you can have multiple of the same figure in the scene and it won't necessarily look like a clone convention. Cheers!

Thanks Crescent. I understand that I can buy "people" at Daz, like Michael and Victoria 3 but they don't work very well with Poser 5. Daz recommand Poser 4 ....! What do you think?

Who says they don't work well with Poser 5? They work perfectly well. Exactly the same as with Poser 4, in fact. DAZ recommend Poser 4 only because they never officially sorted out the terms of Curious Labs' EULA.

huh?? I have neither the Mil-3 figures or P5 yet, so, anyone willing to elaborate on that last comment?

cross-posted with Sam

Just to qualify my above statement, I have: Victoria 2 Victoria 3 Michael 2 Michael 3 Stephanie Stephanie 3 Petite Freak She Freak Millennium Kids Millennium Cat Millennium Dog House Mouse Gorilla Various other stuff from DAZ, including animals, numerous props, vehicles, weapons, clothes, hair, accessories, scenes, buildings and heaven only knows what else, and they all work fine in Poser 5.

There you go, Nance. :)

Due to the way Poser 5 handles materials, you may need to tweak a few things (bump maps being the big one), but I use Poser 5 most of the time and almost never have any difficulties with DAZ products working in Poser 5. On the other hand, DAZ products won't take advantage of some Poser 5 features such as dynamic cloth. On the other other hand, purely Poser 5 features aren't that popular in comparison to Poser 4/Poser Pro Pack compatible items any way. (Dynamic cloth items and Poser 5 hair are few and far between, both as freebies and as commercial products.) DAZ doesn't officially support Poser 5 for a few reasons, but they do the best they can. And you can ask in their forums, and you can ask here and other forums like Runtime DNA if you get stumped on something that is Poser 5 related. Cheers!

Just to expand: Poser 5 comes with the Poser 5 character models Jude, Don, Will and Penny. Don and Judy will take Daz Vicki 2 and Mike maps and there are a lot out there for free. Poser 5 also comes with ALL the versions of character models of the previous versions of Poser so you have Posette and Dork which are the main Poser 4 models. There is a TON of free stuff out there for these models, less out there for Poser 5 Don and Judy, but some. There are also some cartoon character models, couple of robots the 'wooden man', a skeleton, and some others.

I have Poser 5 and all I use is Mayadoll and Daz stuff. Sometimes I use the original stuff too, but rearly.

You get plenty of characters. You get the 4 new people who all work in the face room. You get all the Poser 4 people, including some dressed people, skeletons, etc., and all the prior people. There are bunches of freebies for Poser 4 and below. So you can learn all the basics of dressing, posing, lighting, etc., without spending more money. THEN when you know your way around the program and know what sorts of scenes you want to make, you can make informed purchases of the right additional characters. For example, suppose that you want to do anime or illustrate children's books... why buy Mike and Vicky when you really need AnimeDoll or Koshini? If you want to do pin-ups, you'll need idealized figures with oodles of underwear, and for historical recreations, you will want realism and the ability to get a lot of different looks for crowd scenes. Carolly

Thank you all. So would I be better of with Poser 5 or 4 regarding the choice, the number of characters? I need mainly 8 to 12 years old Characters for my children's book. I have been using other packages and I've already built 2 but, it's far too long as you know to start modeling, rigging from scratch. Cheers

Attached Link: http://home.att.ne.jp/yellow/RUBI/Rubio's_room.html

Poser 5 gives you two more children, Will and Penny. They don't have as much outside support, yet, but they started with far more clothing than any of the other kids. You *also* get the basic Poser 4 kids this way, which have had some support along the way, mostly for the girl. The link is to Rubio's Room which shows a darling Japanese character and dress made for the P4 girl... (just a sample of what is out there). DAZ has made children out of the Vicky mesh, but they look like Vicky on a smaller scale, even the boys (maybe even especially the boys). :( There is a lot of support for the Millgirls (as they are called) but mostly in the way of fairies. If this is the end you are going towards, you can check out FaerieWylde. There are lots of girls clothes and textures, but, you will have a hard time getting different characters. They will work in either version of Poser, but will cost extra money. With Poser 5 and the face room and some of the morphpacks you can get a greater selection of different characters, including your own family's faces, should that be a goal for you. Example, if you have a school yard with 5-6 kids playing hopscotch, you don't want them all to have the same face! By "support" above, I mean products (either free or commercial) from 3rd party vendors, to supplement what is in the software box. This is a large community and we get a bit spoiled by having so much available. Hmm... this thread on finding stuff and the earlier thread on organizing it, might be useful to you: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1689928 HTH, Carolly

Thanks Carolly On the February Computer Arts I've read a review of Poser 5. They mentionned over 70 models...! That's a lot, is it true..? Thanks fot the thread and link. In the meantime, I should finish my second character and think seriously about Poser 5. I'm also trying Daz/Studio. Again thanks Cheers

One thing to be careful of - some items have restrictions on them. If your children's book is going to be sold, you can't use things from Rubio's Room for example. The terms of usage say, "Non-commercial use only." (If that has changed, please let me know. I've been drooling over the dress Carolly is talking about.) You will find this restriction on some of the free stuff around. As far as I know, anything you buy can be used for commmercial renders. (I know that's the case at Rendie, DAZ, and Poser Pros.) Many freebies can be used for commercial renders, but you have to read the readmes, site terms of usage, etc. Cheers!

Good point! Koz hair can't be used commercially, either, but many modelers will give permission if asked nicely. The key is asking in advance.

Yes Crescent I do understand about using staff commercially. It's why in the first place I've decided to build my own characters from scratch, but what a job...! I do think also that I can use everything packed within Poser package commercially. Same if I buy from Daz or others.. To be honest, I don't really like to use free models commercially, but for my own use ...YES. There are very good free models too. Cheers