Hi all....... Have been using Poser 5 for almost 12 months and looking to take the next step and create some of my own stuff for Poser and have seen Shader advertised and wanted to know if it is good to use with Poser????? I a look to create props and outfits for poser and maybe try rendering in Shader also. Ifthere is anyone out there that has used Shader with Poser to create stuff please let me knowif it is worth it fr the beginner..... Or maybe ther is smething better????? Thanks Grant

The best thing to do is: Download the demo ;-) Shade's Poser import isn't really that great, it doesn't work on most of my scenes, but you can try on yours with the demo.

Try Wings 3D, its good, easy to learn and best of all its free, There is a link to download it at the top of the Wings forum. It doesnt do renders but its great for modelling.

When making stuff for Poser all modeling programs are about the same. They will all export to obj format. the "best" modeling program is which ever one you can operate the easiest. Its all about the user interface and the work flow. I bought Shade because i found it the easiest to use. others cant figure it out. Download and play with as many demos and free programs as you can. One user suggested that Shade is like technical drawing while most other modling programs are more like sculpting.

I agree with Tyger_purr. I would go further and not settle for a single program, but rather exploit the strength of several programs. Shade's main feature, and what sets it apart from other 3d apps, is it's curved surfaces. It is like nurbs, but better. But you have to "understand" it, as they behave like nothing else I have seen.

IMO, Shade is a great tool but not for creating morphs for Poser. Well, its pretty easy to change meshes but the ugly thing, when you save it and want to use it as a morph, you are lost. Even the smallest turn on a dial lets explode the figure. I reported this to e-frontier, weeks ago, I got a response that they are working on it but the last mail was about 2 weeks ago. For props its great, for morphs its great but doesn't work. So I'm back to wings and anim8or

Shade. Shade Shade Shade. Shade. (Sorry -- makes the third time this week I've seen it called "Shader.") :)

I haven't used Shade as much as I should have, but isn't it true that it includes an export option that will account for Poser's unique sense of scale? I believe it does. If so, this would be an advantage for many purposes.

It does. No need for objaction scaler, etc etc. Scaling nightmare is over with that option alone.

Cool, thank you for the verification manoloz. :-)

:WARNING: download the demo first! :WARNING:

Shade's UI is VERY non-standard, and could be a huge waste of money if it doesn't suit you. I would actually recommend Carrara 4 at the moment, since it has the best available Poser import, and Carrara 5 is on the horizon with even better Poser import (as in: Poser figures imported as BONED OBJECTS; no need to even have Poser). Its UI is much better than Shade's IMO.

I use Shade 8 with Wings3D. Agree with all the comments about trying demo first. Try the demo of all the modeling apps and try all the free apps as well before you buy. Don't spend money on someone elses thoughts on what they think is better. Buy what you think is better after trying them. There is too much money involved to just take someones word on something as personal as interface.

Very true on the non standard UI. Maybe that is why I like it, and why I preferred it over Carrara. But that is me.