Poser has come such a long way, and the Poser community has made great strides in improving the 'basic' Poser product by way of textures, morphs, props, and of course improved, transparency-mapped hair (3 cheers for Kozaburo!!). But, I'm sure you've all seen Worley Lab's Sasquatch hair plug-in...follow some of the links found there to see some INCREDIBLE renders that just blow away anything done using traditional Poser techniques. So...my question is, will a tool like this ever be incorporated into Poser -- it would take it to the next level and would go a long way in producing very believable renders of people. I'm just curious as to my fellow Poser-users opinions on this topic..and I wonder if Curious Labs has considered incorporation of an amazing tool such as Sasquatch into Poser. I know its not an easy thing to do, but man, would it ever be sweet!! I'm not sure, but I don't think the Pro Pack facilitates this type of plug-in that would interact with the rendering engine.

Particle based systems use volumetric rendering. This is something that the present render engine in Poser just can't do. According to Steve Cooper, the render engine in Poser 5 will be far better than the present one. Hopefully, it will have the features to make this type of function possible. -SMT

But I doubt they will give it away "free". I would expect to see 3rd-party plugins made available in Poser 5. Don't expect Curious Labs to add tons of cool features when they have enough trouble just trying to keep Poser 4 and pro-pack working without lots of bugs... Plugins would shift beta-test responsibities to other parties who would probably be better equipted to handle specific bug issues...

Where can i learn more about Poser 5? will it be out this year?

I agree that it should not be expected to offered without price increase and if indeed Poser 5 has plug-in capabilities that would allow for this...then I very much look forward to it. I've heard nothing, not even a rumor, that there is even a plan to release a Poser 5. But I hope its true!! :)

A couple of quotes from Steve Cooper (Curious Labs) made in open forum that indicate there WILL be a Poser 5: "...We tried and tired to get collision detection in this release but had some $#%^&$#! US visa issues with one of our star developers. We just got them ironed out, Shen is back, and all his earlier collision detection development work will be implemented, just not in time for Pro Pack..." Steve Cooper Curious Labs "...We'll have more news later about renderers. We've looked heavily at Lightworks renderer. We'd have to boost the price of any version significantly to include their licensed renderer. We have a better solution, that's way more affordable and just as good. more later..." Steve Cooper

Yes, there will be a Poser 5. But don't hold your breath waiting for it. At minimum- Fall 2001, but I doubt CL could make that deadline for P5...

I eagerly, and patiently, will await a Poser 5! Any improvements to an already great product will be welcome.

Hey Fox-Mulder, have you heard any more rumors about connections between Poser and Vue d'Esprit? -SMT

Attached Link: http://www.egisys.com/galery/dtour-galerie.html

There have been discussions between the two companies and I know that using Poser characters is popular with the European Vue user-base. Since CL is owned by a German company I am sure that French owned E-On probably has two different channels of discussion available, perhaps on a more strategic level with the German owners... I am especially CURIOUS about EGISYS's use of the TGS ZAP format as they are also licensed with Viewpoint. TGS is also an European 3D Software company (Amapi,Carrara, etc.) and it may be something to watch...

Where can I find this Sasquatch?

Go to http://www.worley.com/ Check out the amazing products there ! They are mostly plug-ins for Lightwave...if we could just integrate Sasquatch into Poser...ahh..would be sooo sweet!