I am fairly new to poser. I have used it just about enought to know that creating my own cloths would require alot of work in a seperate modeling program. so I would like to know where to get some good free cloths for poser. not under wear, cloths. like a plad shirt and maby some jeans. also I would like to know if all poser charictors I see for sale are derived from the base model or if they too are made in a seperate progam. thanks -sam

Look thru the freestuff section here and at other sites like 3dCommune, etc for free clothes.

Also, if you can afford it, get a subscription to Poserworld, which will give you unlimited downloading of about 4 gigs of Poser content.

As for the other figures, most of them are original models not based on the ones that come with Poser.

Go to Daz3d and in their store they have V3, M3 and Aiko available for free (some of the clothes at Poserworld are for them as well).

Here is my "Basics for Poser Newbies" essay :)

A picture to show you the file structure of a Poser Runtime can be found here:

http://www.daz3d.com/support/faq/index.php?id=94

Basically, what it boils down to in a nutshell:

If you are looking for a Character or a piece of clothing/shoes, in Poser you will find them in libraries/character

If you are looking for hair, you will find them in either library/character/hair OR library/hair

If you are looking for character texture addons, hair textures, clothing textures, you will find them in library/poses. Sometimes on the rare occasion, a merchant will package their textures so that they go into the "Camera" folder (.cm2 files). If that is the case then you can either apply them from there, or do what I do and change the file extension to .pz2

If you are looking for props, they are located in library/props

Sometimes you will find clothing and hair or shoes in library/props too, depending on whether the item is actually created and saved as a figure, or it was created and saved as a prop.

Figure items are "conformed" or "parented"

Props are parented.

If you are just starting, it's best to get started on the right foot. DO NOT just install files into the runtime! That will only lead to frustration because you won't be able to find anything, and not all files are packaged equally and land up all over the place.

Here is a link to a tutorial on using multiple runtimes.

http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=9060&start=0

Once you get your files installed, the next thing you want to do is to start making things :)

Here are some great newbie tutorials that will get you through the bare basics:

http://trekkiegrrrl.dk/tut1.htm

http://www.poserguide.nimprodaction.com/issues/issue2/cover.htm

http://www.poserguide.nimprodaction.com/issues/issue3/cover.htm

http://www.poserguide.nimprodaction.com/

http://www.canary3d.com/tutorial/3d-intro.htm

http://www.ebonshire.net/tut-posb/index.php

http://www.cooltuna.com/poser/poser-tutorials.html

If you don't have V3 figure, which is a popular figure, you should get it.  V3 Base is free at Daz3D right now

But if you want to change the look of her face and body, or use any of the available character addon packages, you need to buy the head and body morphs.

The head and body morphs are here:

http://www.daz3d.com/shop.php?op=itemdetails&item=3008

Also, Michael 3, is available free right now too at Daz3D. Again, like Vicky, you need the head and body morphs to change the shape of his head and body. Those can be found here:

http://www.daz3d.com/shop.php?op=itemdetails&item=3009

If you have both figures, you can get both of their head and body morphs in one package, here:

http://www.daz3d.com/shop.php?op=itemdetails&item=3010

NOTE:  You can use the textures from the character addon packages without having the head/body morphs. 

If you want to change the look of the head/body and have the head/body morphs, do the following:

Install the head and body morphs. 

Locate the morphs you want to use in the "Poses" folder.

Find the set of morphs you want to inject IE:  Full Body, Full Head.... or just certain parts. 

Left  click the picture

Click the Single Checkmark at the bottom of the page.

Go to your Parameter Dials and start turning dials.  (make sure that you have the part of the body you want to adjust as the active one IE:  Morphing the ears, make sure you have the had selected.

Also, you can find many, many free morphs and textures for Vicky, and Aiko, and some even for David and Michael.  So you don't have to turn any dials if you don't want to.  Here are a couple links to get you started.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?user_id=55140

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?user_id=178490

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?user_id=105158

Using ready made character addons is pretty easy.   You need to have the figure and it's head and body morph packages installed.

Load up the figure IE: Vicky

Go to the Poses folder, and instead of looking for your morphs from the packages, look for th character you want to use.  Left click the image that has INJ, click the SINGLE checkmark at the bottom and the morphs for that character's look is injected into your figure.  No dial turning necessary.  Of course if you want to tweak the settings you can, but that's not mandatory.

Next locate the textures (if the package has some). They will be usually in the same library menu as your INJ that you used.   Left click the image for the texture and use the SINGLE checkmark to apply it.  If you don't like that texture, apply another one overtop.  You can even use a texture from another package.  IE: Morphs from package A  and textures from package C.

There are lots of sites out there that has free V3 character addons, and some that have for Aiko, Michael and even David.

Hair, clothing and textures are all figure/item specific, which means:

Michael 3.0 needs hair and clothing and textures made for Michael 3.0
Victoria 3.0 needs hair and clothing and textures made for Victoria 3.0
Victoria 2.0 needs hair and clothing and textures made for Victoria 2.0
Aiko needs hair and clothing and textures made for her.

Like figures, a texture made for one hair style can only be used on that hair style.

Clothing is also specific when it comes to textures. A texture for a pair of pants, won't fit all pants... just the pants that it was made to fit. Same with all clothing items.

Sometimes you can manage to  clothing item to fit another figure by tweaking of dials and increasing or decreasing the scale percent, but that doesn't always work. Sometimes a clothing item for Victoria 2 will fit Victoria 3, but their joints are different so posing a figure wearing clothing not made for it specifically will be hard.

Some figures can share items more easily than others, here is a link that will help sort that out:
http://market.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=2682279

There are 3 types of clothing:

Dynamic:  This is clothing that you use inside the Cloth room. It takes longer to work with and there is a bit of a learning curve, but it's not too bad, but the results are more appealing in that the clothing actually looks more natural instead of "posed and stiff".

Confroming- Non Morphing:  This is clothing that you conform to a figure. The clothing is made to fit the base figure.  If you change the shape of the figure you will also have to refit the clothing, which isn't always easy if there aren't any corresponding body morphs in the clothing.  Plus posing a character in positions where they are not nearly upright is difficult.  But many prefer this type of clothing over dynamic.

Conforming-Morphing: This is the same as conforming-non morphing, only there are morph dials that you can turn that have corresponding body morphs for easier fitting.  This is the preferred type of conforming clothing because it's easier to fit.

There are programs that can help fit clothing from one figure to another, or even from the same figure to one that has been "morphed up" using their morph packages.

The Tailor, which can be bought here:
http://www.daz3d.com/shop.php?op=itemdetails&item=677

Wardrobe Wizard (I use this one and it's great). It can be purchased from PhilC's site here:
http://www.philc.net/WardrobeWizard.htm

Clothes Converter, which can be bought here:
http://www.daz3d.com/shop.php?op=itemdetails&item=3069&cat=131

Things like hair can be used across all figures just by tweaking the scaling and trans dials and then parenting the hair to the figure.

Poses are something else that can be used across most human-like figures with just a bit of tweaking to dig out a hand, or fix a shoulder.

These are all things I learned along the way and found to be valuable, so I try to pass them along because I know how frustrated I was when I first got Poser.  Hopefully you will find the information helpful.