**Greetings all :)

I was just given Poser 5 and I am sooooo lost.  This old dog may be a bit too old to learn this. 

I've been doing searches for tutorials, but really can't find anything for the beginner. Anyone know of a idiot proff tutorial for a beginner? 
****Thank you :) **

**
storm song**

Welcome to Poser :)  Here is a mini essay of information that I have collected over the years and have compiled to assist new users. There are tutorial links further towards the bottom.

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

Unfortunately the above link no longer works. Daz seems to have removed it. I have contacted them and have requested that they put it back, but I haven't heard back from them as yet.

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

Another tip is to never just unzip or install anything directly to your runtime. Always unzip or install to a separate folder. Then browse through the folder to have a look at the structure of where things are going and make sure that it's in "proper runtime structure" so that when you move it to the runtime, they get into the proper folders.

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

Dr. Geep Studios ( Basic to Advanced Tutorials. Periodically offers free classes for Poser)

If you don't have the Daz  V3 or the V4 figure, you should pick one or both. I'd personally suggest that you go with the V3 one as it's been around for years and there is a TON of freebies around for her, as well as a TON of stuff in the various Poser stores.  It will be a couple of years before V4 catches up with clothing content and stuff  and  V3 stuff won't work on V4 because they are different figures. There are work arounds to getting clothing from a figure to fit another figure. I've included information on that further down.  which is a popular figure, you should get it. 

Victoria 3

3D Models Pack (incl V3)  Free from Daz at Download.com

Victoria 4

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 V3 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.  Or morphs from packag A, texture from package C, eyes from package D, lips from package E.  the combinations are endless :)  If the packages have their head morphs seprate from the body ones, you can mix and match morphs too. IE: body morphs from package A with head morph from package D.  That allows for even more versatility.

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 4.0 needs hair and clothing and textures made for Victoria 4.0
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.

Thanks :) I'm going to check out the urls and see what happens.

Poser is very confusing.

Welcome to your new obsession [LOL] and you're never too old, most of us here are old gits!! 

Thank you  the fixer :) 

I have another question. When I now open poser, my figure is small and on the bottom of the screen. How do I move it back up to the larger view in the center of the screen?

I'm working on one of the tuts that you listed there, Acadia :)

Hmm, not with you on that one, any chance of posting a screen dump!!!

Okay, now I'm going to really sound stupid. What is a screen dump? and how do I do that?

Thank you for your input and patience Fixer :)

storm

Sorry for the late reply, been at work!!
Press and hold Ctrl and press "print screen" then release both.
This puts whatever's on your screen onto the clipboard for use later.

Then go into your 2D package [photoshop or whatever] and in a new file click on "edit, paste" and your screen capture [dump] that you did above will be there, save it and post it here!
Hope that's clear, if not let me know and I'll write up a quick "how to" for you!

**It's okay.  I get home at 630am from work, so that's why I'm able to post during the day. :O

I'm pressing ctrl but there is nothing to hit for print screen.  I tried several way to do this and none are working.  I know a few tricks on doing things like that, but it's not working.  I"ll mess around with it.  The funny thing is that when I opened it up, the screen was back to normal.  I do want to know how to change it back  if it acts up again. 

I'll still work on it so I can get the screen to dump and I will be able to post it here. 

Thank you so much for your help and patience :)

Sleepy Storm

**

If you are on a regular keyboard, your "Print Screen" should be at the top of the keyboard, usually next to the F12 key. Or in that general vicinity.

I can't remember where it is on a laptop though.

The key might be abbreviated to "prt scr" or something similar, look for a key that has what could look like two words on it!!
Oh! and you're welcome to any help I can give, which usually isn't much [LOL].

I have a tutorial called getting started in Poser 5, which you might find helpful, it is step by step. I did it for a friend a couple of years ago, but it still should be relevant.

Getting Started In Poser 5

Thank you  Anniebel, I saved the url and will start it as soon as I get off of Render ;)

Thank you Acaida, I found print screen :)

Fixer,
it's not working.  I've tried several ways and no go.  When I hold Control and hit print screen, an open dialog box appears.  Then, when I go to psp and try to paste, nothing shows up.  This is werid.  I've pasted from the clipboard tons of times, but I'm getting  a blank page.

Thank you for your patience and help

Storm

Anniebel,

is there a way to get victoria 3 for free? 

Hmm, that is weird!!  Try the "Alt" button instead of Ctrl, it works in a similar way with that, if it doesn't do it then I'm at a loss as to why it won't, It should!!

M3 and A3 are free at the moment, but not V3!
No doubt she will at some point, but who knows how DAZ works!!!

You shouldn't need to press either Control or Alt to grab the screen. Just pressing Print Scrn on my keyboard works fine.

Quote - Anniebel,

is there a way to get victoria 3 for free? 

Yes, she is available here - http://www.download.com/3000-20-10579249.html?part=undefined&subj=dl&tag=button

Thank you :)  Most of the tuts use her. 

Quote - Thank you  Anniebel, I saved the url and will start it as soon as I get off of Render ;)

Thank you Acaida, I found print screen :)

Fixer,
it's not working.  I've tried several ways and no go.  When I hold Control and hit print screen, an open dialog box appears.  Then, when I go to psp and try to paste, nothing shows up.  This is werid.  I've pasted from the clipboard tons of times, but I'm getting  a blank page.

Thank you for your patience and help

Storm

When you want to take a screenshot, just press the print screen button. No need to press CTRL at all. After you have pressed "Print Screen", go to PSP and click "EDIT" and "Paste New Image", it should show up.

Quote - M3 and A3 are free at the moment, but not V3!
No doubt she will at some point, but who knows how DAZ works!!!

I have a link to the free download for V3 in that long post above ;)

I'm sorry Acadia,  I thought I went through all the links you gave me.  I copied and printed it out  you post.  It helped out a lot getting things straightened out. 

*"When you want to take a screenshot, just press the print screen button. No need to press CTRL at all.*After you have pressed "Print Screen", go to PSP and click "EDIT" and "Paste New Image", it should show up."

I did that and it didn't work.  That's what is so strange.  It's not moving the screen from the clipboard to the new image.  I'll work with it. 

Thank you Acadia :) 

stormsong sometimes you have to hit print screen a couple of times.

@ Becco_UK: *You shouldn't need to press either Control or Alt to grab the screen. Just pressing Print Scrn on my keyboard works fine.
*Actually that's not strictly true!!

Print Screen will give you a screen dump of the screen as you see it, however:I work usually with 3 or 4 open windows either cascaded or tiled across my desktop and pressing "print screen" gives me a complete dump of the screen with all 4 open windows. 
If I press "ALT" and print screen that gives me a screen dump of "JUST" my active window and not the entire screen. Try it for yourself!

Admittedly if using Poser or Vue I only have one window open so it doesn't apply then!

Oh! and Stormsong, if you still haven't sorted your problem try and give a bit more detail of your Poser problem, I'm sure we'd all still like to help!

How do your resize your figure? or the window that your figure is in? 
 
Thank you all for your help :) 

Storm**

Well that's another way of doing it [LOL].

Ok, it looks to me like you've completely lost your window altogether, either you moved it below the bottom line or it's done a wobbly which isn't good!

Anyway, the solution is easy enough:
Go to Edit/Preferences and then tick "launch to factory state"  "set preffered state" and click ok, then go back out of Poser and then restart it and your window should be back.

The wording on Poser 5 might be a bit different, I don't have it any more! Should be easy enough to do anyway!

Let us know how you get on!

I**t did a wobbly.  It came up saying that the size I chose isn't right or something like that.  I was thinking, what the frag!  I didn't do anything except turn it on.  LOL :)  It does act weird at times when I start it. 

IT WORKED!!! WOOO HOOOO!!!!  Thank you Fixer :) I have a picture again and in the right place.  Now I know how to get it to normal again.

Now I can go back to just being confused on how to start. LOL! **

Good, glad to have helped, if you need anything else don't hesitate!

"either you moved it below the bottom line "

  **I still don't know how to move the window, but I'm working on it . LOL!   

I'm going through some tuts on how to get the clothes on the figure and all. 

Do you pose before you dress the figure or after?   It is a bit hard moving the clothes around to fit.** 

I'll worry about backgrounds later. I just need to get my person looking "normal" and at least a quarter looking as good as you all's figures.  It's just amazing how you do it .

Thank you  so much for your patience :)

To move the window, put your cursor at the top of it, hold your left mouse button down and just drag it around.
You can resize it a number of ways, drag from the corners as you would any window, or go into render options and set the render dimensions in there!

If I use conforming clothes, I'll dress first and pose second but sometimes you'll need to conform again after posing, it depends.
For dynamic clothing, you set your pose before the cloth but it's not as simple as that, best stick to conforming when you're new and move on to dynamic when you're more comfortable with the programme!

Hope that helps a little, but of course practise is the key!!  ;-))

When I use conforming, it doesn't conform to the model. When I go to edit (I think, this is off the top of my head), the conform button isn't highlighted.  I did download some clothes that are suspose to be conforming. Oh well.

Thank you for your help :)

If "conform to" is greyed out then you can't conform it, [it's in "figure" drop down menu by the way, not "edit"],  you will have to parent it instead!!

parent it?

"Figure" drop down menu; "Set figure parent"

What item of clothing are you trying to fit?  It might help if I know what item and to what figure!

Don't worry if I don't reply for a bit, I'm just off to watch "Hustle", it's a TV show here in the UK.
I'll be back after!!
:-))

Judy nude hi-res
the clothes are clothing-conforming-P5 female

What kind of show is Hustle? And also, don't worry if you don't get back right away.  I'll be getting off of the computer soon and hitting the bed in about an hour,  12am comes by fast. LOL!

OK, it should work like this: Load Judy, Load clothing. With clothing selected use "figure" drop down menu and "conform to" should be there, if it is, then click that and you'll get a dialogue box asking who or what to conform to! Select Judy and it should do it!!
If it doesn't then I don't know why and there's very little P5 stuff in 6 or 7, anyway let me know what ever happens and I'll try to help!!

Hustle is a drama series about a group of con-men, it's very tongue in cheek and quite funny in parts but has a serious side too!

Which part of the World are you in then??  Knowing me I've prolly asked you that already!! [LOL].

Quote - **Greetings all :)

I was just given Poser 5 and I am sooooo lost.  This old dog may be a bit too old to learn this. 

I've been doing searches for tutorials, but really can't find anything for the beginner. Anyone know of a idiot proff tutorial for a beginner? 
****Thank you :) **

**
storm song**

stormsong, I was 64 years old when I first touched Poser (5)..so one is never too old! lol

Fixer -

For most of the conforming clothes, "conform to" is greyed out. I did get one that allowed me to use the "conform to" selection.  It was hard to see where the clothes went to, but I'm still working on getting a figure posted on render :)  Thank you so much for your help and patience. 

Also, how do you get hair to work? Can I use the "conform to"? If not, then I'll mess around with it some more.  Sooner or later I will get a post up. LOL!  Oh, how do you do backgrounds? The tuts don't mention it. Some tell you how to conform a table cloth onto a table, but not how to use backgrounds. I have an ideal background I want to use, but not sure how to do it. Can I use a picutre? 

I'm in the US. I wonder if Hustle is on BBC America.  I'll check it out . I watch several shows (when I can and still awake) on BBC and love the shows. And, nope, you didn't ask me yet. LOL! :)

Ardiva,

WOW! Way to go!  

To me, Poser is so confusing.  I'm finally getting down the figures. Been playing around with them. Now I'm advancing to clothes and hair. LOL! 

OK, I don't want to sound condescending here but I have to ask; Are you certain that the clothing you're trying to use is conforming and not dynamic? Where are you getting the clothes from, is it from the Figure library or the Prop library??

there are 3 types of hair, Figures, props and Dynamic, stay away from the Dynamic for now. The Figure hair needs conforming the same as clothing, Prop hair is usually "smart propped" for the figure which means it sticks to the head without conforming!

I never use backgrounds in Poser because I prefer to add them alter in Photoshop so I can't help with that except I think you can either import it as a "background picture" there's a drop down menu for that or you can use a primitive square and load it onto that as a texture, but like I said I do mine differently!!

It's from the Prop Library.  I do have dynamic clothing and I know that the "conform to" is in the grey with those.  I have both kinds from here on Render and some freebes from Daz and  curious labs.

After playing around with the FIgure hair, I gave up on that. LOL.  I haven't done Prop hair yet. I'll try that out. Sounds a bit more simple to use.

How do you go from Poser to Photoshop? I think I have a trial version of Photoshop when I was given a Wacom tablet. 

Thank you :)

Ok, well I can't think of any other reasons right now as to why the conform isn't showing!! Strange!!
I'll think on it!!

When you save the finished image in Poser, save it out as a png or Tiff file. The reason is that these have what are called Alpha channels so in Photoshop the background appears transparent. All you need to do then is open your background image and your Poser image in Photoshop and put one on top of the other as a "layer", Obviously if your background appears in the front, you will need to move it to the back [LOL].
There is a disadvantage with this method in that you need to set up the correct light in Poser to match your background image!
Once done with any adjustments, flatten your layers and save as a jpg or whatever else you want!!