I'm a Carrara user who will be upgrading to version 4 shortly which includes a program for importing Poser figures. I will be purchasing Poser 5 soon and want to get a good book to get me off and running. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

If you do a search (Link at bottom) using the search terms "Poser Book". You will find many threads on this topic. Also, most recommend that you see Dr. Geep's tutorials. A search for "Geep" will prove useful. There is also a tutorial VHS tape http://www.3-axis.com/default.asp available that has received favorable reviews.

Message edited on: 01/12/2005 09:30

Stay far, far away from the one by Shamms Mortier.

Depends what you want to do, for actually using P5 to make scenes the included manual is actually pretty good - playing while using the manual for reference is enough to figure most things out. Dr Geeps tutorials are about the most comprehensive source of information on the web and there are lots of other good ones here and at Daz. If you actually want to make custom props and figures and set them up for use in poser the best book is 'Secrets of Figure Creation With Poser 5' by B L Render (0240519299)

"for actually using P5 to make scenes the included manual is actually pretty good" Sorry, but I have to disagree with this statement. For someone who already has (eg) P4 and its manual, then the P5 manual is a semi-reasonable reference. But for 1st-time users the P5 manual does NOT explain enough of the basics to get anyone properly started (you only have to check the threads here to see that). Also, the P5 manual tends to lack detail. So many of the explanations are of the form "the widget dial controls the amount of the widget in effect" without explaining WHAT the widget actually does, nor when, where or why you should use it. All that being said, at least it comes with P5:-) I DO strongly agree with searching out Dr Geep's tutorials. They (and there over 100 of them; Sheesh! how does he do it??) cover (almost) everything, from basic principles to advanced stuff. Cheers, Diolma

I'll agree it lacks detail (particularly on more advanced features like the cloth room) but it is enough to get you going (if nothing else you can pickup on the terms you should be looking for tutorials on ;P). I had never set eyes on poser 7 months ago (or any other 3d app) and the manual was enough to get me going so I am speaking from experience :)

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. They are much appreciated. I basically want to design the character in Poser, possibly animate it with a walk cycle and import the character and animation into a Carrara 4 for final render. I probably won't be doing any props in Poser. Thanks again.

For basic stuff read Dr Geeps tutorials, for more advanced Poser work look for B L Renders "Secrets of Poser5 Figure Creation" and any book by Shamms Mortier should be BURNT as a waste of paper. Lyrra