The studio I worked for a couple years ago wouldn't touch Poser, even for PreViz. It was just a messy application that seemed very unstable and limited to work with. It was actually quicker for us to previz shots with a Biped skeleton from 3ds CharacterStudio, which was about all we used 3dsmax for at the time. All final shots were usually done with Maya or XSI. Oh, come to think of it, I believe we did use Max for certain FX comps and matte creation along the way too.

At any rate, I'd be interested to know what compositing options you have with Poser's hair system. Can you run it in a buffer mode, where the hair could be lit and comped into the frame seperately in post? If you render it as geometry, does Poser have the ability to run it as a seperate pass from the scene geometry?

Perhaps even more important than all this fuss over how fast it renders is how well it behaves with important effects, such as motion blur.

Message edited on: 02/15/2006 07:29