Now I like Poser too, I get a little tired of the nude lady thing but its cool nonetheless.  One the other hand what is it about Poser that just doesn't look real?  I used to think it was the eyes, but Poser 6 anyway seems to haveovercome that problem, so it must be something else.  In the picture generated by Eisbärchen , http://www.e-onsoftware.com/showcase/competition/, the wolf even though its little just doesn't look real, what is it? textures just don't render right? is there something majorly different with the proceedural terrains and its textures, trees and their textures and poser that don't make it look real, or is it something else.  Poser always seems to look like mannequins to me, very nice mannequins, but mannequins nonetheless.  The animals look like the plastic models that one sees for shooting arrow at, at the sporting good store. but not live animals.  I don't want to start a war here just wondering.

Thanks
Steve Cat

well, I can answer you this question personally ;).....I just imported the wolf into vue without adjusting its textures correctly.....you need to correct the highlights and the bump in vue manually...but because of to many vue-crashes and the deadline I decided to leave the wolf-model the way it was

hope I helped you a bit

Poser figures don't look real for several reasons imho:

• not enough polygons in the meshes, this is mainly for the animals, the wolf Eisbaerchen used has quite a square head.

• no real fur or feathers ( animals again), but this can only be found in high end apps like Cineam4D, Maya and the like.

• no real subsurface scattering in Poser, and none (yet?) at all in Vue. SSS makes for the most believable human figures.

• joints often too high in humans ( see where the shoulders and abdomen meet, it's very unrealistic)

• extreme poses that deform the mesh beyond human possibilities. This can be solved to some extent by using " use limits" in the menus, but the pose will suffer from it.

To me, Poser is an average program that non modellers like me have to use. If I could model, I wouldn't use it.

I recommend buying Dburdick's "SkinVue2" at C3D to get the most of your Poser models in Vue. the most realistic materials you can get for human figures in Vue.

Another reason why human Poser figures tend to look unrealistic is because invariably they have totally symmetrical faces - real humans don't.

Look in a mirror, there are subtle differences between one side of your face and the other.  Most are almost too small to recognise, but the subconcious sees them as part of the recognition process.  When they are missing it says "something wrong here".

Try making very subtle adjustments to the face in Poser; size of eye, degree of closure, size of cheek, one side of mouth smiling less than other, height of ears. The list goes on & on ... ... ...

Try it - I think that you will be pleased with the results.

Absolutely right, Bernie.