just a random comment, for whoever wants to voice their opinion...

I started using Poser 4 like 3 years ago, if I'm not wrong... I learned all i could out of it, and around 8 months later Poser 5 came into town... a bunch of things were different, others stayed the same, but there were a bunch of goodies (like firefly) which made the upgrade worth it.

But Poser 6.. what happened?? As much as I read about it, the new lighting features and all, it didn't really seem the huge step that P5 had been to P4... and now that i was thinking about maybe start giving P6 a chance, poooom!! Poser 7 is here... like, I never needed to upgrade to P6 in the first place then...

should I wait for Poser 8 now, or is it really Poser 7 the next revolution/standard??

Stay tunned, bro... I'll answer you as soon as my download finishes and I install it ;)

P6 was an improvement over P5. More stable, and things ran better. Better shaders and better lighting.

I bought the box set so it will be a long time before I get my P7. Will be look for you response Casette. This will give me time to read what works and what doesn't and what work arounds have been discovered before I get to play.

Stuff I haven't even used yet in Poser 6:
Face Room
Windforce
Gravity
several of the utility pythons provided with Poser 6
the toon people content

thanks casette, and yups, there are things I also never used in P5, like the face room and the clothing room...

I guess my comment was mostly intended on how I survived with P5 without the need to migrate to P6, and now that need is even more needless, as P7 is already here/...

so, we'll see the new wonders of the new software and see if migrations is worth it

Face Room? WHATHISTHAT??? :lol:

Seriously, I never used Face Room under P5 neither P6 (and surely neither under P7). Cloth Room yes, I only hope the result of the new version will be more stable than the previous one (my dynamic clothes seemed like broken cookies too much times)

But... you know, Poser isn't a software, it's a RELIGION. And I'm a prayer. Or an addict :lol:

so how was Poser 7?? worth it?

Poser7? Crashes, and crashes, and crashes... I still work with P6, until a SR1 P7 is too much dangerous for my schedule

You want speed and stability buy Interposer Pro and Cinema4D and forget about Poser .

Rod

Now I use all the rooms in Poser except the Face room and the ContentPardise room. They could have left those out, If you don't take advantage of the other rooms then there is no point in buying it. Use DS or you can even spend the big bucks and go readblock's route, but I could buy a new duel core with all the ram and trimmings for the same or less.

I rendered this in P7 with my old machine, I even used AO/IBL lights to give it a better workout.

Wow Cinema4D don't seem like a viable option that's a $800 + application 
there were people not wanting to spend 129 for the upgrade to P7
I'm just a hobbiest 
I'll take P7 and crashes with the soon avail SR for 129 Alex

Quote -
You want speed and stability buy Interposer Pro and Cinema4D and forget about Poser .

Rod

Yes, but also I pay my software, and for me Interposer Pro + Cinema4D it's a perfect combination for my... ruin. My P7 upgrade was $129 and my P6 still works OK, so I can wait

I understand the original question.  Infact I can completely relate.  I used P5 right through the lifespan of P6.  I never would have bought P6, but I did get it when I purchased the upgrade to P7.

P6 had some nice improvements (namely IBL), but not enough for me to have been happy getting it over P5.  I still think I got nicer renders and had more control with P5.

Ah, but, P7 is a whole new animal.  Unlike my friend Casette, I have not yet run into any crashes or major problems that make me unhappy with the upgrade.  The few problems I have come across I know they will address in their first Service release.

The major advantage over the previous two versions is the stability of rendering.  I have not been able to get it to stop or lock up yet.  (Granted, the holidays kept me too busy to run my biggest tests, but so far I've managed to render things that P6 locked up with.)

Don't buy P7 for the extra content.  There are some really nice goodies (the Vanishing Point stuff is fabulous), but not enough things for the content hungry crowd.

Don't buy P7 if you do simple renders with tons of postwork.  If that is your style, then save your money for the next version of Photoshop or such.  (Especially since the one bug in P7 is that it doesn't render Alpha channels if you use a background image... ergh.)

Do buy P7 if you don't own Mimic but want to do animation.  The talk designer is a nice addition.

Do buy P7 if you like to do huge scenes with lots of different high res textures.  Once you learn how to configure your preferences, you'll be amazed at what you can pack into a scene.

I'm very happy with my purchase.  Unfortunately P7 won't fulfill my every need, but it is a vast improvement from P5.  It is a step up from P6, but really only for the rendering stability and new animation features.  Other then that, it looks the same.  Exactly the same.

This is my experience.  There are many who have had a lot more troubles then I have.

Yeah, we all wish Cinema 4D was availble for 129 bucks! lol.

you missed out not getting P6!! i've never had a problem with it (since Sr2), runs beautifully and the light options are so much better than what you got with P5!! i wouldn't even consider getting P7 until i know it is running as smoothly as P6, i luv P6!!!!!!!

I also luv the face room, if you have Miki then you will find that you can make a multitude of faces for her with the face room, it's not a final tool but it is a great starting tool, my ava is a miki character i made in the face room.

I second ThrommArcadia, plus the vast render speed improvement in P7 over P5 and P6.

I did some render speed tests of P7 vs P6, posted the results in another thread:

www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php

When rendering with Ambient Occlusion and Ray Tracing, P7's render speed is TWELVE times faster than P6's!

However, I like the P6 and P7 face room features a lot, that combined with the P6 James and Miki base characters make P6 (and now P7) a worthwhile upgrade from P5.

I found P6 James and Miki have the best capacities for realistic expressions.

A couple of examples (base on P6 James):

and 

30 minute work in the P6 Face Room, no postwork.

.

3DVim, that is fantastic work!!!

thanks for all the opinions... and yups, I used P5 throughout all the lifepan of P6 as well, and it does seem that P7 has some nice features... but it still doesn't feel like it left P5 obsolete...

I'm not old fashioned, but I'm definately sticking to P5 until I see a real real difference in poser... like, yeah, itfPoser 7 could totally  mimic everything done on Cinema 4D, I think I'd definately take the plunge...

thanks again for the comments

In this case, you'll stay with P5 forever, as the C4D features (render, lighting, shaders, etc) improve and update with much faster pace than Poser's.
The distance between them will only get bigger as time goes by (unless, if Poser is aquired by a fast-improving company like Maxon.)

Since you also see C4D as a standard for Poser to catch on, a better investment, if you have the money, is to go for Cinema4D + Interposer pro plugin, which lets you morph, pose, light, texture, model, animate and render Poser characters all inside C4D with far better render speed and results.

ahhh, now I'm definately going the C4D way then... better render speeds?? I'm sold and sold again!

thanls for the tip!! I'll be showing my results here sometime soon...

I'm still trying to get the hang of C4D, but in the meantime I'm just trying to squeeze P5 for all it is before I decide to take a plunge into an upgrade...

but, should I still be deciding going for Poser 7 and skipping Poser 6 altogether?? is it worth it?? I'll really appreciate the input, as I'm starting to like P6 more and more for what I've seen rendered, and I still read too many "Poser 7? don't bother" here and there...

thanks

Quote - Here is the alfa fix, discovered by raven over at CP.

Can you post a url for that?
thx

Attached Link: Alfa work around thread.