Will start of by saying what I want to accomplish first, that will make more sense in the end. I have Poser 4 with pro pack and want to use the vicky models plus any others I happen to have downloaded etc.. to create some small short movie clips / animations no longer than 3-5 mins in length. Being fairly new to this, (dont groan, its not a how do I do this post), I find myself asking a number of questions regarding the software to be used to best effect. I am about to buy a 3D modelling program, either Lightwave 6.5, 3D Studio Max R4 or possibly even Alias Wavefronts Maya. However, what I want to know is what would be the best software for the task. I also realise its subjective to personal taste and I dont want to start a flame war. However, the real crux is that I really love the Poser 4 models and the freedom to pose and change their expressions but I really dont like the interface for the cameras and lighting. Is it possible to use Poser in combination with one of the higher end modelling packages ? Say for example you import the models into Lightwave dont you then loose Posers excellent ability to pose the character which it does best ? I dont see how you can integrate the two for animations. Does anybody else do this, if so what would you recommend ? Or am I basically stuffed and where Poser is concerned ? I am tending to lean towards Lightwave as the modelling package, any advice and comments welcome.

We just had the Lightwave VS. Max discussion in this Poser forum, about three pages back from this post, if you want to look it up. Seems like most people responding here are pro-Lightwave, though personally, I like Max. The Poser Pro Pack is SUPPOSED to allow you to import Poser animations into Ligthwave and Max. HOWEVER... Curious Labs STILL hasn't fixed their Pro Pack to work with Max4 yet, though (MUCH to my disappointment). So if that's a concern for you, be aware of that. However, the Character Studio module for Max is so good, I'm finding that the only reason I need poser is to interact with others modelers here and collect/convert, since Max's Character Studio does incredible skeletal and animation work that the PPP can't easily match. The Pro Packs' programmability is nice and offers potential, but is still much harder to bone and animate with and is much less flexible out-of-the-box than Character Studio is. (Obviously, it's much less expensive, too, so you'd expect that.) If you're serious about animating figures, moving up to Max/CS would help. --

Thanks for the reply, didnt want to spark a package debate between 3D Studio and Lightwave, more interested in how to go about the process of doing the animation. I am still a little confused on the process, by that I mean that I understand I can export my poser animations into Lightwave/3D Studio .. but .. and I think this is where I reach the catch 22 .. I dont want to do the animation in Poser, I want to do it in one of the modelling programs (lightwave or 3ds). However, at the same time I like the interface to pose and change the expressions on the faces of the poser models. Ahh .. hang on .. maybe thats the answer .. think a penny just dropped ... I take it you would have to import the props / sets into Poser with the 'actors', do the 'actor' animation. Then export that to Lightwave or 3DS then edit the animation sequence for lights, camera and any other needed effects. Or am I still missing something ?

Max can match Poser's facial morphing capabilities. It has a shape-based morphing system included as one of it's many animating tools. (I'm sure Lightwave does too.) If you like Poser's "dial-based" system, you can fairly easily script your own controls in Max to work the same way. In essence, it can do virtually ALL of what Poser can do, plus a lot more. What Poser is set up to well is be a very quick and easy interface to store and exchange multiple figures, and their props and poses (both facial and body). It also comes with a lot of stock figures to pose with. Max (or lightwave) has a more complex interface, and therefore has more of a learning curve, but can match and exceed all of this when used right. One of Poser's big advatages (other than lower cost) is communities like this one where you can find lots of easily interchangable morphs, figures, etc. to do great, quick artwork with. Finding morphs and figures for the bigger packages is doable, but harder because they're so customizable and specific to the individual scenes that you have to know a bit more technically about what you're doing to tweak and customize them for your own work. --

I saw a Maya demo a few days ago and was blown away by how fast they could do stuff. Of course, it was a demo god running it, but it was amazing. It started with already existing motion captures and boned up characters, but the ability to edit the mocaps and build stuff was very nice. But for $7,500 for the "lite" version it should be. But it includes all sorts of very powerful tools.

Yeah, demos ALWAYS go fast. Those A/W people practice on that one setup until they can do it in their sleep, so that you'll be impressed with how easy it is. I'm not saying Maya's not great, I use it at work and it's fantastic... it's just not ever as simple as the demo looks. And I use Max at home, because Maya costs a mint. --

Oh, but it doesn't integrate into Poser at all. But once you buy poser or a figure you can use the models in another product, you just can't distribute the model. And it would be a lot easier to build a figure starting with a Zygote model that a blank screen. And poser models are vastly cheaper than other 3d models. And it looked much easier to bone up a figure in Maya than in other packages. (Not that I really have enough experiance with the other packages to really compare, however.)

OK starting to get the message on this one, use Poser 4 to gain access to props and models then import into the modelling program (lightwave, 3dsmax, maya .. whatever) to do all of the work. One question that comes to mind, when you export the characters to the modelling application do all of the links and joins stay with the model. Or would I have to redo all of the IK stuff etc.. Just got the demo of Maya 3 from 3D World magazine today, might take a look at that but I think its between Lightwave and Maya for me (maybe not even Maya depending on how the wife takes the cost) ;)

These days 3DMax + Character Studio and a slew of plugins or Lightwave 3D + Project: Messiah and a slew of plugins can be just as powerful as Maya. Poser Pro, teamed with Max or LW won't give you the same quality of character animation, but it can certainly speed up the process by having tons of ready to animate characters and props. For a one-person studio it's a great head start.

FLTrigger, you are exactly right. If you wanted to animate a Poser character running down the street, you would animate your character running in place in Poser and then move him/her down the street in LW/Max. Any props your character interacts with you would probably want to handle in Poser, but something non-poseable like a plane flying overhead you mine-as-well handle in the host app. Check out the pdf user's guide on Pro Pack at curiouslabs.com and that might give you a better understanding how the plug-ins work. Also keep in mind that CL is planning on releasing Pro Pack plug-ins for TrueSpace, Cinema 4D XL and Carrara ... incase you want to be a little easier on the pocketbook.

Educational discount, if you can manage it, would be the best bet. They all offer them, but exactly how you qualify varies. But you can save thousands of dollars. When you export out of poser you get just the figure and textures. You will have to bone up the figure. Exactly how hard that is is a question I don't have a good answer to, but I'm sure it varies between programs. And whether that really matters depends on just how many figures you need. You are going to rendering 9000 frames for a 5 minute movie, so total difference in project time whether it takes 5 minutes or an hour to set up each figure is going to be noise if you are only using 5 or 10 models. You are probably going to have to be reworking the models (hopefully mostly with subdivision surfaces) for closeups anyway, as the poser figures really doesn't have enough polys for tight work.

Must have been typing my reply when you submitted your last one, FLTrigger. If you want to fully animate your character in Lightwave/Max/Maya you would have to assigne it bones/skeligons, IK and weightmaps and basically re-setup each and every character. It's a lot of work, but atleast you can skip modelling the character from scratch.

I have seen people doing long animations in poser alone. So it is posible to do this. You have to accept certain limitations, but it is cheap. Chris D. has a list on egroups/yahoo called poseamation (IIRC) that is certainly worth a look. He is an ex disney animator and a real nice guy. Part of the key is doing a series of short animations and putting them togther in a composing package, not trying to do a single 9000 frame animation. Poser don't like that trick.

OK that has pretty much answered my questions, thanks JKeller, Kevin and all the others that responded. Not sure which of the main modelling packages I will choose just yet but it has clarified my fears .. I am in for a steep learning curve with the humanoids and critters where the boning comes into play. All good fun I guess !

Kevin, Yeah wasnt planning on a long straight 9000 sec animation, I have a big interest in DV (digital video) editing with Adobe Premiere .. the overall aim is to make some personal animated shorts, those will be broken down into many scenes just like real footage I guess.