Is the Pro-pack still out there? I'm just getting back into poser after a long time, a long story and a change of computers. Looking at the Curious Labs site, the new poser seems ok but without a working demo... Should I keep what I got or move on up?

There is a working but feature poor demo available for Poser 5. ProPack is also still aailable. I say yes, upgrade. But you will have a great deal more to learn and a host of new features to deal with. The most significant of the changes will be the materials system -- it's no longer simple, and there are no masters of it at this time.

I still have only Poser 4, and I get by ok with it! I may wait out for version 6!

Go for it, it has a lot of very good features and you can still keep and use your P4..........Steve

I still use my Poser 4 also, but I have 5, I would wait for 6 if you can and still use your 4. Sharen

I use 4 and 5 too, but I would say get poser 5 but don`t uninstall poser 4.

We don't really have a timetable for P6, so I'd go for 5. It integrates most of the Pro Pack features, and unless there is some sort of liscencing fiasco, then the material shaders, dynamic hair and cloth, and few other goodies are here to stay. And ynsaen is quite right; we are at that stage (finally) where the likes of Traveller, Yamato, Syyd, and quite a few other of the original Poser guru's made their mark on P4. Enough people are finally starting to use the new features that the basic tricks are being found out, and the work arounds that either speed up the process or squeeze something new out of what's there.

It all depends on what you want. If all you want is - python support - a smarter way to handle bump maps - integration with 3DS Max and/or Lightwave - a graphical way to create figures from props then Pro Pack will be the right choice. But, if you don't need 3DS Max/Lightwave integration, and instead you want - raytraced reflections and refractions - animated materials - displacement mapping - dynamic clothing - high quality images using low polygon meshes and medium resolution textures - the other features mentioned under Pro Pack - and lots more then Poser 5 is the way to go. You could wait for Poser 6, but no one knows when it will be released.

About material room masters: I'd call Ajax a master, and stewer also has a very nice bag of tricks.

I just upgraded after using 4 for several years, and am very happy with 5 - if for the filing & organization system if nothing else. My poser collection has outgrown 4's rather basic organization structure. The morph control is better, and the new version seems to run as well as 4 (knock on wood). Also the render engine, even using the Poser 4 engine at quick speed, is better to my eyes than the render in 4.

Poser 4 & Poser ProPak are old. I see no sense in buying Poser Pro Pack when so many of the features are found in Poser 5. One of the biggest advantages of Poser 5 is the use of jpg bump maps. Thank God I don't need to convert all those blasted bump maps to BUM any more!

"it's no longer simple, and there are no masters of it at this time." I dunno about that. Have you seen some of the Mats made by Ajax, and Stewer. I'd nominate Ronstuff as a "Master of the Renderer too." (Or at least an extremely helpful reference library:p) And in fact the mat room is simple to use once you grasp a few basics. It's IMO the best shader system I've used. Definately get it. But keep poser 4 installed to get around a couple of annoying bugs. and Patch it iup as soon as you get it to.

There is a demo for P5? I couldn't find one anyplace at all.

"One of the biggest advantages of Poser 5 is the use of jpg bump maps. Thank God I don't need to convert all those blasted bump maps to BUM any more" Poser Pro dosent use .bum maps either.

Poser Pro is still Poser 4, with extras. You don't get all the improvements and fixes you get in Poser 5.

Poser 5, still has Poser 4's renderer. You can use that until you get familiar with firefly. I would recommend installing P5 on a newer machine. I first installed P5 on a 500MHz Athlon machine running Win98. It ran okay but was very slow. Upgraded to a 2.8gig, Win XP machine with a gig of RAM and it runs like a racehorse. With latest updates, it is very reliable for me.

lol -- such a cool variety of opinions. Poser 6 will be out next year for certain. When next year is unknown. Although the folks mentioned above are gettin there, none of them are masters. Ya don't believe me? Ask 'em ;) Poser 5 is not perfect. No software is. Some are just closer to it than others, and Poser's right in the middle there, lol. Poser 5 is very different from poser 4, and Poser 6 won't be stepping backward that way. If finances right now are a bit tight, then definitely wait (assuming you can stand to), but if you have the money, then invest in the tool now. heck, I'm still using Photoshop 6. It's incredibly frustrating to see all these cool new things come out and not be able to use them. But that's the price I pay for not keeping up with the Joneses ;)

Heck I'm ready to dump PhotoShop in favor of Ulead PhotoImpact XL, mainly because PhotoShop doesn't have a fraction of the features available for easy use, that PhotoImpact offers.

Bobbie Boucher: "Poser Pro is still Poser 4, with extras. You don't get all the improvements and fixes you get in Poser 5." But on the good side, Poser 4 actually works on my current system, while poser 5 still remains a virtual boat anchor. Doug

sturkwurk is right about the need for a fast machine. The systems requirements as outlined by CL are way too low. 512 Mb of RAM, Windows 2000/XP and a processor faster than 1 Ghz are no luxury. (If you're using a Mac, a G4 with 512 Mb of RAM running OSX will be fine).

I'd vote for P5...IMHO..it's always best to keep up to date with the latest software upgrades :)

On the other hand, I have a 1GB Duron processor, and 512MB of RAM. (That's not very impressive.) Poser 5 has worked fine for me from the start.

There is a tute at DAZ Arcana on how to use jpgs as Bums in P4! ;)

I have a 3.2 P4 with 1.5 gigs of ram (dell machine) P5 still runs like a dog, when it runs at all. Doug

I really wish I could figure out what Sturkwurk's issue is. :(

Maybe it's the Dell that's the dog?!

no, no -- cute and all but it's not going to the box, most likely. No it's environmental. but there's sadly no way to be able to look at a software environement without actually having the box right htere in front of you to poke and probe in. So it makes it pretty much impossible. And it irks me, 'cause I know he'd like to be able to sue it, and if he did, man, the hero stuff we'd get would rock like nuttin else!

I've taken the issues up with Curious Labs myself, long before most even had the program. At that time I was on an AMD 1.1 machine, and the program wouldnt even boot up on about it's third beta pass. You're right ynsaen, I'd love to be able to finally write that everything is fixed and the program runs great, even if it ran at 90%. Just a note for you... when I got my new machine P5 SR4 was the first program I installed... it still took over three minutes to launch and locked up in the first half hour of playing. Doug

oh and apologies to Trendy... my advise. Poser Pro works just fine (see my gallery) Poser 5 works great for most, as long as your not "some" Poser 6 will come out someday, maybe but Daz Studio is out now in beta... and it's FREE. Why not play with it for a while?

Well, as far as I know, DAZ Studio has about the same features as P4 (with the notable exception of point lights, something sorely missed in P4 and P5). No Python support (last time I looked), and it locks up on scenes less than half the size I can work with on P5. But it's free indeed. Never hurts to play with it.

I have a 1.1 gigaherz pc and only 128 megabytes ram and poser 5 works ok for me too, though it is slightly slower than poser 4.

I wouldn`t recommend daz studio, it is slow and awkward and the newest version is no faster than previous ones at least on my computer. The newest version actually crashed on my computer, the first time any version (of daz studio) has. .

xantor: Unless you're running Win98, I highly recommend adding more RAM, P5 will run MUCH faster! (Most other apps too).

I would like to get a gigabyte of ram but have no money at present.

I really need to replace this Duron 1GB CPU with a "real Athlon," and boost up from 640MB of RAM to at least a gig. Unfortunately, that won't happen unless I win the lottery. Ooops, I don't buy tickets.

Thanks for the input. I went ahead and installed 5, but I'm keeping 4. So far it hasn't changed much of how I use Poser, but it's nice to have the new stuff around.

Thanks for the input. I went ahead and installed 5, but I'm keeping 4. So far it hasn't changed much of how I use Poser, but it's nice to have the new stuff around.

If you install your poser 4 stuff into poser 4 you can use it with poser 4 and poser 5. If you install it to poser 5 then you can only use it there.

Personally, I don't recommend using Poser 4's Runtime within Poser 5. The biggest reason I can see is bump maps. Poser 4 uses BUM bump maps while Poser 4 uses jpgs. You can get some really undesired results using BUM bump maps in Poser 5. (Sooty-looking faces for one.) Besides, by the time I got Poser 5, my Poser 4 Runtime had grown tremendously and needed some "weeding." Again, one tremendous asset of Poser 5 is the ability to start over, and use separate Runtime folders for different categories. Poser 5 loads faster, and it's easier to backup your stuff.

Poser 5 also exhibits some flakiness when using ProPack and P4 runtimes extranally called becuase of the additional folders in there.

Trendy... one thing I'd like to point out... take a look at the galleries of the people who have been giving you advise, and see what they've done with P5, if they've posted here at Rosity. "Judge me not by my word, but by my renders" Still stewing after Boucher picked on my Dell ;)

Good idea, sturkwurk. I love the things in P5 that are not possible in P4, but I also want to mention the work of odditorium. Pure Poser 4.03, no postwork, often it's the lights, shadows, textures and transmaps that make the difference rather than the render engine. Then again, the best looking reflections, volumetrics and water I've seen around here are either P5 renders or Photoshop/PSP work.

Doug, I've always wanted a Dell. But I have to admit your computer problems give me cause for concern. As for the galleries, that isn't really a valid barometer. Are you saying my computer can't really handle Poser 5 just because I don't post in the gallery? I don't know how to install Poser, or optimize my user experience? I think you know better. Frankly I rarely bother to visit or post in the gallery for so many reasons. Besides, if I posted one image every day of the year, someone would only use another excuse to argue.

Bobbie, I've beta tested P5 on four different systems, and never had it run stable, and then have run the final versions on three other systems. (systems ranged from a P2 400 - to my current P4 3.2) What I'm trying to point out to Trendy is: It's not the software it's the artist. Poser 5 is great, so is Lightwave, 3d Studio max, Animation Master and so on, but it's really up the talent of the artist behind the mouse. Doug

Ok, Sturk. I see now. I'm sorry I misunderstood.

As for me, I've run Poser 5 just fine on two home-made systems, using Windows Millennium and Windows XP, at one time or another. I've also run Poser 5 on a "borrowed" Hewlett Packard computer and Windows ME. (The biggest problem there was having only 128MB of RAM, using Windows ME (ugh) and begging for time on someone else's computer.)

Message edited on: 10/06/2004 19:01

Well now that I've given P5 the test drive. The geometries are no doubt better, but I think the development behind P4 was more thorough. Bottom line I like what I can do with P5 but it was fun to work with P4. Because of the results gap, I probably won't spend much time with P4. I've been gutting it out (P4) and that seems to be okay, except when you get into textures and materials which never was my long suit.