I told my husband that I want PSP 10 for Christmas. He came home yesterday and asked me if I had ever heard of POSER. I of course said, YES! What I want to know is this. . .I would be totally brand new to POSER, not knowing anything fo how to work it AT ALL. I would be a BABY with POSER where with PSP I am an old hat. Knowing this. . .I would like to know form YOU, the PROS and CONS of going to POSER form the price of the product and all the "STUFF" to the ease or difficulty of learning it. Because if it is going to give me any problem at all in learning. . .I would rather get PSP. I want to hear it all. . .PLEASE HELP!

Attached Link: http://downloads.e-frontier.com/us/user/home.php?cat=1349

There's also DAZ|Studio. Doesn't have all the bells and whistles that Poser has, but it might be a good place to start. It's free! Download it at DAZ3d.com.

It really depends would you like to work in Poser or not. Poser creates 3D art and animation, while PSP is limited to 2D. Go and see at the galleries what can be done with those apps separately or combined together. Since you consider yourself a PSP pro, that means you do have some older version at home. Maybe it's time to learn something new ? You'll use PSP in connection with Poser sooner or later anyway - for creating textures, adding special effects, making pics from layers... And even PSP7 will do for this. Go ask for Poser for Christmas :D I was in similar situation - I had PSP7 for a long time when I got my P4, I had to learn everything from the start. Now I'm happy, using both apps. See my gallery (or actually any other gallery) to see what can be done combining both.

The two are entirely different things. I use both. Poser is a 3d character creation and animation software. You use it to make 3d scenes, usually featuring people and/or animals, and then produce either renders or animations with them. Many people (myself included) take the rnders and open them in PSP or Photoshop or other 2d applications, and then tweak and postwork them into a finished image.

Hmmm . .big decision. I know I get flustred easily trying to learn new things. . .and actually I have PSP 9. . . Poser looks like it is VERRY difficult to figure out . .plus VERRRRY expensive with all the add ons and whatnot. Anything on this?

Not everything about poser is dificult. The basics are pretty easy. And as to cost, a lot of the add-ons are actually free. (take a look thru Poser free stuff here to get an idea). Daz3d sells a lot of content, but their "flagship" products, M3 and V3 are free. So it's actually possible to get quite far with Poser without spending any extra money on add-ons.

I jumped from psp7 to poser. Am pretty good at psp still figuring out poser but love it soooo much. I use both all the time and wouldn't want to be without either one lol. The possiblities are endless!

Poser is not VERRRRY expensive (unless you consider the time that you spend collecting freebies) since you only really need to buy Poser 6 itself. You get enough stuff with Poser 6 to start making interesting scenes and there are a HUGE number of freebies dotted all around the web (and of course in Rosity's large Free collection).
Also, DAZ3D recently made the Victoria 3 and Michael 3 base figures free (which the majority of Poser users probably use for their male and female adult figures), so the only add-ons that you might need would be the head and body morph packages. I would not recommend buying anything until you have had a play with Jessie and James, and all the other free stuff, and worked out what - if anything - you really want or need.
You will probably need your PSP 9 for a bit of Postwork to the renders (I personally didn't think the upgrade to PSP X was worth it for a slightly faster load-up).
Also, the quality of much of the free stuff is so good that you really do not feel like you are getting second best because it is free.
Using poser is quite easy when you get the hang of it, and there are sections of Poser that you might never need to visit (e.g. if you don't want to put your own photos on figure faces, if you don't want to dynamic hair - since the mesh based textured hair is great, if you don't want dynamic cloth, if you don't want to animate things) and you can grow into these techniques as and when you have the time.

This is roughly how easy it is to make a static scene in Poser:

1. In the "Pose" room, Use the library browser to select a "Character" figure (mesh) to load, e.g. "JamesCasual" from the "James" folder. I think the default is for this character to be loaded as soon as Poser starts.
2. Go to the "Material" room and use the materials browser to find the textures for your figure - this is like wrapping a photo of the surface around the mesh of the figure.
3. Go to the "Pose" room again and use the "Poses" section of the library which will probably have some poses for the figure to set it into a particular posture. Apply a suitable pose, e.g. James sitting at a meeting pose.
4. Go to the "Prop" section and add a prop for the figure to sit on, e.g. a cube primitive will do.
5. Select the charater figure hip using the pull down lists (or clicking on the hip) and move the hip-parameter dials for x, y, z so that the figure is sitting nicely on the cube. You might need to zoom out on the camera so that all of the box and the figure is visible.
6. Go to the "Material" room again and use the simple view to add a background image (e.g. a nice jpeg photo) to the "background" object.
7. ALWAYS, ALWAYS, Save your scene.
8. Go back to the "Pose" room and you can render the scene from the Render tab.
   There are also loads of tutorials available, e.g. from Dr Geep, who regularly posts here.
   Hope this helps.

OK, so I admit it, ... I am a POSERholic.

LOL . . .yeah! Ok . .I 'm asking for POSER for CHRISTMAS!

Welcome to the Poser club then - and say goodbye to a social life. Poser is extremely addictive!

Attached Link: http://www.morphography.uk.vu/links_page.php

Now the decision has been made, you can start collecting Poser freebies as soon as you like.

The attached link is to morphography's links page which lists loads of the major and minor Poser related sites that have freebies.

A couple of words of warning. 1) Some of the sites can have quite young or nekkid characters - be cautious if nudity offends. 2) Always check out the "requirements" notes for a freebie because some free stuff depends on having other free or purchased items. This is especially true of a lot of the character morphs / textures. 3) Almost everything you might download (or buy - except from DAZ) will be a zip file that you will need to unzip into your "Poser 6" or "Poser 6downloads" folder. Keeping your library of figures, props, poses, lights, materials and hair (etc) so that it is easily navigable is a bit of an art in itself.

Good luck.

Poser doesn't need to be expensive at all, as long as you can control your spending. Poser 6 comes with a lot of ready to use stuff already. Figures, scenes, clothes, hair it's all in it. You don't need M3/V3 at all, you can perfectly live without them. Also there's a great place called PoserWorld. It gives you a huge library of scenes, clothes, shoes, items and even some characters for a small subscription amount.

Here's an early welcome to the addiction....uh, I meant to say: 'welcome to the club'!

Have fun.

And I don't even have PSP.

(I do, however, use a minor program called Photoshop.)

BTW - You might want to consider keeping your husband away from Poser. Especially from something called V3. You'll learn about V3 soon enough, if you haven't already. Just visit the Poser gallery. V3 is hard to miss.

Quote - actually I have PSP 9

Easy choice. There isn't much difference between PSP 9 and PSP 10. The prime focus of PSP 10 was more towards photograph manipulation than anything else. You already have Paint Shop Pro ... but you don't have Poser. So get the program that you don't have. As for post work of the Poser renders...you'll be able to do that with no problem using PSP 9. I've never understood the need to upgrade programs every single year to the next newer version, especially a 2D graphic program. Rather than spending money on something you already have, spend the little extra and get something new and try something different. Besides...with Poser, you can buy all kinds of packages for each other for birthdays and other special occasions :)

I downloaded the FREE DAZ form the link provided and was playing around with it. . .but couldn;t figure anything out! Whenever I tried to open something it told me I had to open a scene first. . .even when I HAD opened a SCENE. . or at least thought I had. What awas I doing wrong? Can anyone help?

You might want to visit the DAZ|Studio (D|S) forum for any questions regarding that program. I'm not a Studio user, so I can't help you there. Just keep in mind that Studio isn't up to par with Poser....yet.

Personally, I think you might want to ask for Poser instead of Paint Shop Pro 10.

I tried Daz Studio before I got Poser6 and wasn't very impressed with Studio. Poser can do more things and can handle more of the freebies available than Daz Studio can. Then again, Daz Studio is a reasonable program and it is free, whereas Poser 6 is a bit of an investment.

I recommend using Studio for awhile to see if that method of artwork is to your liking. Studio can handle most freebies.

Message edited on: 11/30/2005 23:50