My daughter is homeschooled and she has a passion for art and wants to be a computer animator/artist and work for DreamWorks or Pixar some day. She is pretty fluent in Adobe photoshop, art dabbler, and other simple graphics packages. She thinks she really wants Poser because we tried a demo of it and she remembers thinking it was cool the way we could manipulate the characters and do animation (we did very little as the package was a demo). I am somewhat worried about the standard human models that come with the package... Are there nude models that are standard? I'm not sure I want her messing around with that stuff too much at her age (she's 10). Second question is: I have read some reviews about Poser and they say Poser tends to be "Buggy" and unreliable. I know you are all Poser fans but is it all it's cracked up to be? Last - would there be any other good options for my daughter if you think poser might be inappropriate? Thanks in advance for any assistance you might provide. Wes

Yes, several nude figures are included in Posers 4-5, along with a wide assortment of outfits with which one can play dress-up. If that truly concerns you, however, you can delete the nude figures from the libraries before handing the computer over to your daughter.

Every version of Poser has had its share of bugs, quirks, and limitations, but most of us have learned to live with them. The best advice I can give you is to install the latest patches or service releases, and then seek help here in the forums should any problems occur.

The default figures include several pre-dressed models that can't be undressed no matter how hard you try. (The clothing is intrinsic to the figure.) As L.D. says, you can delete the nudes and still have several default humans available. And there's a whole lot in the Poser world besides humans. Animals, cartoon figures, and plenty of furniture and scenery. As for bugginess, Poser is large enough to have plenty of oddities and bugs, but it's also relatively easy to start with. Especially if you stick with the pre-dressed figures; the trickiest part for most folks is making various clothes fit properly on the nude figures.

The -level- of 'nudity' is also quite variable. Most of the Poser figures are constructed so that you can turn any genital structure 'off' (the result is rather like a Barbie doll). And the detail in the default figures is minimal (The DAZ figures, for example; Victoria 3 has no genitals, not even an external crease for the labia, and Micheal 3's penis is a separate model that can be deleted) or non existant. And that is only the adult models. Any model that is less than fully adult has no genitalia from the word go. Part of the fun of Poser is finding ways to turn the bugs and glitches into benefits. This is a good program to begin learning figure work, lighting, and animation with In any event, Poser Artist (which is the renamed Poser 4) is geared for use in schools, so I strongly doubt there is any objectionable nudity details there to begin with.

Actually I doubt kids at 10 WANT to "mess around" with the naked models for long. Of course this is only based on seeing what my own kids (age 8 and 13) do when they play with Poser. The nude models have ZERO interest. Someone like Koshini who also loads without clothes gets dressed and then that's it. The nudity in Poser is no worse than what's on a Barbie Doll. OK "Ken" does have a winkie but it can be turned off and it seems my daughters prefer to do so. Be aware though that the Poser 5 woman, Judy, IS anatomically more correct, so it may be a good idea to either chose P4/Poser artist or delete any characters you don't want your kid to play with. But again, I don't think it's a problem. Kids are generally not really interested in genitalia, at least not after the initial giggle - he's got a winkie -Giggle-giggle But of course, being in Denmark, Scandinavia, I may look at things like nudity somewhat more relaxed than others might :o)

For now, you can just keep the clothed figures in your Poser Artist installation. Your daughter can take the included textures and templates into Photoshop to change colors and create different textures for clothing, hair, skin colors, etc. for more variety. She can learn a lot about animation by setting up two or more poses on the timeline and seeing how the different interpolation styles set up the "tween" frames. Acting out the poses as you set up an animation makes you aware of the details of real world motion, like anticipation and follow-through. And Poser comes with quite a few non-human figures - animals and robots - that she can have fun with, even create animations from props; wherever her imagination takes her. She can render in cartoon and sketch modes for a series of stills for a storybook, adding speech baloons in Photoshop, learn about lighting and camera angles, etc. HTH - Elisa/gryffnn

Everything they have all said is true, now for the but.. You'll also be extreamly limiting the function and possible output and definatly the quality of her work but useing ONLY the clothed figures. It won't be long (minutes, days, LOL) before she see's all the stuff for the Vickey and Mike based characters and will want them. Just like you, you don't get dressed by putting your shirt on over your coat, and neither do 3d characters or Barbie dolls. Even at Pixar they have to dress shrek et el from nudes. This is the life of the artist. She will adapt and so will you, relax. Like ernyoka1 said, the giggle factor will very very quickly pass or the program will be placed in the dust bin of unused software.

[picture of a kid-safe P4 figure/texturemap] I'd be inclined to recommend Poser Artist, the old Poser 4, as some of the additions to Poser 5 get complicated. You can find some safer figures. Anthony Appleyard did a Poser 4 Blankwoman -- think of somebody in a wet-suit -- which is compatible with a lot of clothes. I did a texture for that figure which, alas, I deleted from the freestuff a few days ago. The low resolution versions of Vicki 1 and Mike 1 are kid-safe too, and I think they're still free. Little_Dragon has also done a Poser 4 catwoman which could be fun, and not too explicit. Maybe. Seperate clothes were introduced with Poser 4, and there are still Poser 3 figures out there with other sorts of clothes that the boring businessman stuff. Texture maps for figures can be a lot of fun -- virtual face-painting. If you do want a copy of my texturemap for the blankwoamn figure, let me know. The thumbnail is up there...

Your daughter has probably been dressing and undressing dollies with no thoughts about genitalia... Barbie has boobs? shocker! Just get Poser Artist (the school-safe version) and when you set up the default characters make sure that genitalia is turned OFF. She will want to dress the models with clothes of her choice. One thing you might want to do is keep an eye on the texture maps. If the maps don't have pubic hair, that area is less obvious, although in a couple of years your daughter may be asking questions about changes in her own body. I'd also suggest not treating any part of our bodies as shameful or nasty or evil, but as simply part of how we are made. Skin, for example, is a really neat material no matter where it is. Questions can always be deflected until later. Carolly

"Well, here we have a parent taking responsibility. It's just not the time, IMHO, to preach that "Nudity is OK." Ratteler Thats not the way it is- "free speech" or parental responsibility is all fine and dandy, but... You can't change the software AS IT IS to 'fit' into there concerns. It is a take it or leave it situtation. It is in the very short term not possible to use Poser (any version) without dealing with nudity, period. That is all everybody is saying. It's like saying you don't like whats on cable Tv. It's not debatable. All you can do is change the channel, or not get it. It is what it is!