"Okay - next question: the Poser textures tend to be pretty flat and unrealistic with the light sets that I've got; people tend to look as if they've been painted, rather than having 'natural' skin.  I know that Poser 4 limits the range of what I can do here, but does anyone know if there's a package anywhere I can use to give skin that realistic 'look'?  I'm talking here about, say, the reflection of perspiration, or the glow that skin reflects if a blue light is shined upon it - that sort of thing.  I'm pretty much an amateur here, so if there's a way to get these effects without downloading a package, please tell me."

That's whay AO and subsurface scattering do.. the skin effects he's talking about here, and since DS is quite capable of those effects, learning DS with a state of the art rendering engine over working with a rendering engine that's now 8 or 9 years old, makes MUCH more sense.

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.