Hello all - I posted this on the Content Paradise forums, but thought I would probably get some good advice here as well. I've finally 'given in' and bought Poser 6 and I hope to use it along with Vue 5 and Modo. What are the recommendations that you think I should get (free or not) to begin my great journey ? Information on updates and bugfixes is most welcomed, and I have an eye on Wardrobe Wizard (although I hope to learn to make clothes in Modo soon). I'm mainly interested in still images, so no animation for the moment. Please offer your suggestions.

Attached Link: http://www.daz3d.com

Of course get all the updaters and service packs from e-frontier if you haven't already.

Some free utilities you will need right away:

P3DO Explorer
Objaction Mover

These are available here in free stuff. Just search on the names.

Morph Manager - http://www.morphography.uk.vu/dlutility.html

P3DOExplorer is a great tool that lets you peek into and organize your Poser Runtime folder and the thousands of zip files containing free stuff that will soon be clogging your hard drive. ;-)

Objaction Mover is used by many morph packs. It lets the creator distribute a morph for a copyrighted geometry without running afoul of the law.

Morph Manager is a simple utility that lets you move morphs from one figure to another. Not as sophisticated as high-end tools like The Tailor or Wardrobe Wizard, but useful in many situations, especially when dealing with morphed or hybrid figures.

Head over to www.RuntimeDNA.com and sign up there too! They have a bunch of cool freebies. Check out the Infinity Cove and CycloDrop, which are kind of like photographer's studio backdrops for Poser.

Also do a free stuff search on "SnowSultan". He has seam guides for all the popular figures. These guides are not only handy when creating your own texture maps (which you will want to do soon enough) but they also give you a nice little "behind the scenes" peek at how Poser figures are put together. - Jimdoria ~@>@

Message edited on: 02/02/2006 16:31

When you're ready to dive into the Cloth Room, check Renderosity Free Stuff (search using keyword "dynamic") for some great items to play and learn with.

A supersized harddrive. Wardrobe wizard is a must have if you have lots of characters and very little in your 3d clothes closet. You can make the clothing you do have stretch farther. The DAZ Platinum Club is a nice treat too.

I think the biggest must have is a supportive family! Poser can become addicting and some people may not like taking a backseat to a computer program, LMAO Another is self restraint. It's easy to want to buy up everything in sight, but $5.00 here and $10.00 there quickly adds up. So it's important to curb impulse buying and consider the practicality of what you buy and if it's a one time usage type thing of something you will use repeatedly.

Message edited on: 02/02/2006 16:59

I always strongly recommend the tailor from Daz. You use it to transfer morphs from figures to clothes. (sometimes when you apply a morph to a figure, the clothes don't fit as well anymore, so you use the tailor to fix the problem)

Also at Runtimedna don't forget to download the freebie materials for Poser5 and Poser6

My "can't live without it" Poser6 tool is Shader Spider. If you plan on doing anything in the material room this app is a huge help!

Attached Link: http://digitalbabes2.com/

Kitty valium and scads of beer.

Lots of patience, a healthy bank balance and a couple of years free time.

1gig ram but 2 is better

Ditto estherau, get more memory! And some reliable optical storage. Make a sign and put it over the monitor. It should read "BACKUP OFTEN!"

I just got a new pc with 2 gigs of ram and a 250 GB hard drive. I wonder if it will be enough...

Mike 2, and Vicky 3 are the most musclebound figures around! Ockham's python scripts, here in the free stuff are a huge help. I second Morph Manager as a must have(also free.) RSR Converter, another freebie!

UV Mapper. Any free model convertor you can get your hands on.

PoseMagic :)

I highly recommend you doing a search and getting the free PoserPorter software. I am new to poser too and soon realized I was spending more time placing files in the runtime than actually working in the software. With PP you just drag your zipped file onto the PP window and it unzips the file and places all the contents where they need to go in a second. Amazing!

i agree - posemagic!

I would take a look at DAZ for GloWorm and Particles 2 - also Shade Spider. These plug-ins can make a huge difference to your use of Poser. Then, here, take a look for face-off's real skin shaders.

Thank you all for the replies so far. I have plenty of HD space, and 2 gigs of RAM, so hopefully the hardware should be fine - I'll try to exercise restraint on the 'buy' button, but that one seems a bit sticky at times... I'll certainly check out all of the freebies mentioned first. My intention for images is to use the figures as props in landscapes and other renders, but I have a sneaky suspicion I might get somewhat addicted and the landscapes become props to the figures ! I think I have UV mapping and texturing covered soon (Modo 201 will rock for that) and file conversion isn't too bad (I do also have Cinema4D which handles a lot of formats). The Daz Platinum club is another one one my list (I have the content paradise passport) and I was also looking at the poserworld subscription deal, but I missed that one by a couple of days. Anyway, thanks for all the advice !

uh, what kind of images do you want to make? Realistic? Fantasy? SciFi? Comic Heroes? Surrealistic? Doug

Ahh, type of image. Umm. Probably have ago at everything, but I imagine realistic and Surrealistic to start with.

Realistic, I'd start checking out some tutorials on lighting, especially IBL lights. Then I'd look around at all of the free stuff for inspiration. If I was dying to spend some cash and wanted to do city scenes... I'd check out Stonemason's stuff at Daz3d. Doug

Thanks again Doug. I'll probably do scenes in Vue or another package rather than Poser, so I'd only look for scene stuff if it was exportable/multi-format.

I made this site list ages ago for my students .. should be helpful http://www.cyclopsstudio.com/links.htm aside from that .. I'd recomend Wardrobe Wizard over tailor since it both fits and converts clothes and IMHO to better effect Also a word of caution .. I predict you will start downloading and buying poser stuff. SORT IT NOW and keep track of what you've got. I recomend sorting by type and figure (ie Clothing then by figure, Props then say 'architecture' etc) Go find Crsecents site (ebonshire now right?) and read all of Dr. Geep's tutorials. And lastly , check out RuntimeDNA for many excellent plants to add a bit of life to your scenes Good luck! Lyrra

PoserWorld subscription. Period.

Hi Lyrra. Great links page - I have it bookmarked now. I've started reading up on organising, and I think I can structure as I like under 'downloads' so long as I put the characters themselves in the main runtime... correct ? I certainly intend to keep things sorted from the start, and I also want to seperate out items that aren't allowed for commercial renders, just in case. I also found the link somebody posted which has the Dr. Geep tutorials in PDF format, so I'll grab them over time. I'm using Vue for solidgrowth plants, but I do have a RuntimeDNA account as well. The PoserWorld subscription does seem very tempting, even at the normal price, considering the amount of content, but I'm wondering how much of the content will be of use to me...

PW yearly sub is only $35 at the moment... they extended the offer to March 1st. Total size of zipped content packages counted on gigabytes nowadays. You do the math ;I

Do yourself a big favor and from the very start!!!!! begin with a good organisation of your stuff. -run then daz exe files to their own folder. You can, if you want, run them again to place everything in your runtime untilll you are more experienced. But it'll save you a lot of time later on to know what's inside of each. -do the same with all other items (mostly zips). -place every exe or zip into ist own folder and include the webpage(s) and/or the images the vendor or free stuffer have added. If there are tutorials, like for As Shanim items, include these also. And include seamguides and or UVmaps also. -give these foders an easily recognisable name, and keep a list (perhaps in exell or so if you have that app). An example for the name would be: Re 032 vendor X4 Z name-item Re stands for Renderosity the vendor's name is handy to remember X4 can be for example V3 (vicky 3) the character for which it is meant Z can be, for example, A(rchitecture), C(haracter), F(ashion)... name item tells what's it's all about. This may save you days of work later.

I've searched in the free stuff area, and I can't find this Pose Porter. What's the deal with PoserWorld? I've been there, and they have precious little content. Do you mean to tell me they won't even let you see all of their content unless you subscribe? If that's their business model, I want no part of it.

Attached Link: http://www.poserworld.com/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=2&tabid=8

@ Bandolin: Poserworld definitely had an enormous amount of content. the total value of it is way more than the subscription price.

Lots of spare cash!! Buckets of patience

Well I would say dont load everythin in at once .. swap out stuff as you need it for various images, just keep 'core' content loaded. Sort and save your downloads and purchases, so you can find that thingummy you bought a month ago but need Right Now. I would have mentioned PoserWorld as well but er .. I work there so it would be wrong of me :) I think :) Bandolin Please go to our site and download the 100+ page PDF file with thumbnails of every single item in the subscription section. I think that should give you an idea of our content ... if the images are too low resolution in that file email me and I'll send the 150 meg print quality one.... there are larger by update previews on the site as well if you look a bit further As for 'precious little content' I'd guess you were in our individual item store which doesnt have a great deal in it .. we've been a bit busy with other stuff. The subscription stuff has something over 8 CD's worth of content ... enough to keep most people busy for a bit. Lyrra

Since no one has mentioned these yet, some nice free figures if you want something different from the Unimesh figures at Daz. (not saying they're bad, but I like having a wider variety of figures to choose from) http://www.project-human.com/ --Free figures from Sixus1 http://www.poserfreebies.com --You'll find clothing and other goodies for the figures at Project Human http://www.3digitalcrafts.net/studiomaya/ --Home of MayaDoll, free figure with links to free clothing and other goodies (and if you look under my freebies here you'll find a few things for MD too...shamless self promo)

There is something I'm not understanding about PoserWorld. Am I to understand that once you subscribe, the content is free or is like DAZ's Platinum Club? I d/l the catalogue and there is a wealth of content. What I don't understand is why is it not available for browsing on the web w/o subscription. I guess I'm just used to places like RDNA, DAZ and the Marketplace, where you can just look for something you want and then just buy it.

once you join Poserworld, you then have access to download everything without having to pay anything other than the membership cost.

That's great news about Poserworld, epecially with the promotion extension - now I just have to get it to accept the code :o/ Great ideas on the organisation of things as well. So much to learn !! Thanks guys.

bandolin you pay the subscription fee and you have complete access to everything in that catalog for as long as your subscription is. No more fees ... as much stuff as your poor harddrive can handle :) We update usually once a week, with between 2-6 new items. Sometimes more often .. sometimes less (especially in flu season ..ugh) Lyrra

Silly me, I had no idea that's the way it worked.

I know .. its too simple and straightforward lol seems to good to be true I've been told

I think people have lost the point of this thread....

The question was what are must haves for new poser owners. Many of the things listed in this thread are not must haves for brand new poser owners.

Things such as:

Subscription to Poser World
Subscription to PC at Daz
The free millennium figures at Daz. Links to sites for free poses and content...

Now those are must haves for a new poser user.

As a new user it's more than enough to figure out how to install content and get clothing on a figure. It will be a while before they are into Particles, and Python etc..probably some months down the road.

Message edited on: 02/03/2006 17:10

I will have to disagree with you on the free figures, at DAZ or anywhere else, as not being on the must have list. Especially considering a lot of the free content and free poses you find (etc) are more often than not made for V3 or M3, or their cousins... ;-) *** You can find the Sara figure for free on the DAZ freebie forums, and if you visit www.3dsaracreations.com, plenty of freebies to fill up a couple runtimes.

Realmling, I think you misread Acadia's little list, but I know I had to look twice. A lot of specific recommendations also depend on just what sorts of image you want to create. The 3D Starter Pack at DAZ is worth getting, I think. Reduced resolution versions of M3 and V3 can be easier to cope with than the full versions, and they don't use the INJ Pose system (OK, that's a mixed blessing). Since it costs the same as just one of the morph packs each base figure needs, and has a lot of other stuff, it makes a good deal. But I think the figures included with Poser tend to be under-rated. Take the time to get a feel for the program with those before you spend money elsewhere. You also can use the demo version of Wardrobe Wizard with them, and there's plenty of older freestuff. You can also get a lot from looking at how some freestuff works. Go and get the Materials sets that Mapps has made. Look at how texturemaps and transparency maps get used to change basic clothing. One excellent freebie that takes a bit of work to set up for Poser is the Jeep Xdyner. You have to import the 3DS file and re-scale it to suit Poser. That's intimidating, but the result is worth it. And the same process opens up a huge amount of other material, such as the vehicles at this Japanese Honda site. For god quality free buildings, there are some good sites. European buildings, mostly English.

I might have, was doing a quick drive by to see what was posted. Wasn't picking on anyone...honest. =)

I didn't feel picked on :) I'm dyslexic and my brain does a number on what I see sometimes, LOL

I'm dyscalculic (math-dyslexic). Not only do I get numbers mixed up and misplace decimal points, but sometimes I see a plus sign and read it as a minus sign, etc)

My dyslexia affects both words and numbers for me, but I do find that I have a harder time with numbers than I do with words. And if I'm tired or rushed, or there is too much stimulus around me while I'm trying to read or calculate I get "lost" and have a hard time processing what I'm seeing. Interestingly enough I wasn't diagnosed with dyslexia until my early 30's. In hindsight it explains a whole lot. I had such a hard time learning to read when I started school. The teacher I had was very nice and she used to come to the house every evening for a couple of hours and help me with my reading (my Dad was illiterate with poor health and between working and looking after a family of 4, my Mom didn't have time to sit and help me with my reading). I started life out as a lefy. When I started school the teachers told my parents that I would find it hard in life as a lefty and that they should correct it before it became "habit". So I was slapped at school and at home whenever I picked anything up with my left hand, and the item was promptly moved to the right hand. As a result I'm dominantly right handed for writing, but I do many things as a lefty. I need a left handed can opener, I play baseball as a lefty and I can write with both hands; the writing is faster with the right, but much neater with the left, etc. It's scientifically proven that the brain of a left handed person is wired differently than that of a right handed person. For example a stroke on the left side of the brain of a right handed person will affect the speach centre (which is on the left side of their brain), but if it occurs in the same spot on a left handed person, the speach centre isn't affected because the speach centre of a lefty is on the right side of the brain. I've talked to several people who are dyslexic and they have all told me that they too started life out as a lefty and were "converted" to being right handed when very young. So I often wonder if my dyslexia is a result of a "power struggle" between the 2 halves of my brain (wired as a lefty but trying to function as a righty). Martian_manhunter, were you by chance a lefty converted to a righty?

Attached Link: http://www.morphworld30.com/club.html