I'm curious if poser pro can render with quality similar to VUE or 3dsmax?  I'm currently using poser 7 and was hoping poser pro renders would look better.  Is there any enhanced lighting? 

1. What other reasons are there to upgrade from poser 7 to poser pro? 

2. Is the animation system in poser pro easier to use?

3. Is there any documentation on how to perform a complex animation?

4. Are there comparison screenshots of a poser 7 render vs poser pro render with its new features?

5. did they add global illumination?

Poser Pro is P7 with halfhearted support for some professional 3D-packages.
No extensions, no better render-engine or lightsystem. A gamma function - ok. But this isn't really worth to mention.

The render engines are identical I believe. The biggest advantage to using poser pro over poser 7, would be using it on a 64 bit os, and using it's faster 64 bit background render engine, so you can set the settings higher, and still render is a reasonable timeframe.

And no, you can't compare it's render engine to a $4000 Max suite.

It's animation system is already quite easy to use, and with poser pro, you can export poser animation to be used in quite a number of higher end applications.

There are also tons and tons of animation tips and tricks again tin the forums. The search function IS your freind.

There are many, MANY threads here already comparing Poser 7 to poser pro.. search them out for very length discussions of the pros and cons. Poser pro's biggest enhancements are the 64 bit rendering engine, and easier integration into higher end applications.

Quote - Poser Pro is P7 with halfhearted support for some professional 3D-packages.
No extensions, no better render-engine or lightsystem. A gamma function - ok. But this isn't really worth to mention.

Funny.. most of the people who actually bought poser pro really like it's improvements.

do you know how much faster 64 bit renders over 32 bit? is it roughly a 10-20% increase in speed?

I see about a 40% speed increase here, but it'll depend on how much ram you have, how fast it is, and how much is used in your scene.

Most people are reporting 20-40% speed increases, but again totally dependant on scenes and settings.

Quote - I see about a 40% speed increase here, but it'll depend on how much ram you have, how fast it is, and how much is used in your scene.

Most people are reporting 20-40% speed increases, but again totally dependant on scenes and settings.

Damn! That is really good. I'll upgrade on that reason alone.  I've got a quad core with 4gb of ram on vista ultimate.

1) What other reasons are there to upgrade from poser 7 to poser pro?
You can call yourself a pro when using it? Seriously, besides the ones mentioned at SmithMicro, there aren't any others worth mentioning http://my.smithmicro.com/win/poserpro/index.html except for that everything seems to work a bit more smooth then with Poser 7 and Poser Pro uses less memory. If you do have a 64bit system and 64bit cpu (I guess you can't have one without the other) Poser Pro can finally use all of your memory for rendering, so you can do much more larger renders and render more complex scenes. The limit is now gone.

*2) Is the animation system in poser pro easier to use?
*It's as easy or as hard as always.

*3) Is there any documentation on how to perform a complex animation?
*Not sure, check http://www.poserpro.net/  it may (or may not) offer some help.

*4) Are there comparison screenshots of a poser 7 render vs poser pro render with its new features?
*I've seen some in the forums here, but you will have to dig them up or you can go here and find a few: http://www.runtimedna.com/mod/forum/messages.php?forum_id=95&ShowMessage=386634

*5) did they add global illumination?
*No.

If none of the new features excite you then skip this version and hope & pray that version 8 will be more to liking, if it will ever be released. I've side-graded from Poser 6 and it was worth it, but if I would have been a Poser 7 owner, I'm not sure if I would have upgraded for the price asked.

Wish I would have bought poser pro over P7 I'm so frustrated with P7 I'm going home to Indiana early just to get my P4

Quote - *...*f you do have a 64bit system and 64bit cpu (I guess you can't have one without the other) ...

You're half right or just not clear enough :), you can't have 64bit OS on 32bit CPU, but you can have 32bit OS on 64bit CPU (at least with desktop CPUs, server CPUs can be compatible only with 64bit OS and apps). On 32bit CPU you can have only 32bit OS.

If computer is strong enough, I recommend some dual core CPU, or better, and 4GB of ram, I would suggest upgrading to Vista x64, even Poser 7 can benefit a little from it, If you have 64bit OS P7 can use up to 3GB of ram, on 32bit OS max is 2GB. Also, if you render animations. On XP poser was caching textures for every frame of the animation, on Vista only on first frame, so on XP I got about 3 minutes per frame, on Vista I got 3 minutes on first frame and 1,5 on following frames. Same computer, same Poser 7 installation (I have it on external HDD). I guess vista has better caching, that's why most complain vista uses too much memory, it caches a lot of stuff, if you need it again it's already loaded, if not it can be easily disposed off, what's the use of lots of memory if it doesn't get used :). Only problem I had with Vista was getting used to some stuff that's now done differently, and the only thing that still irks me is boot time of Vista x64. It takes about 4 minutes from the time I press power button, to the time Vista is fully loaded. Except for that (PITA) everything works fine.

You're half right or just not clear enough :), you can't have 64bit OS on 32bit CPU, but you can have 32bit OS on 64bit CPU (at least with desktop CPUs, server CPUs can be compatible only with 64bit OS and apps). On 32bit CPU you can have only 32bit OS.

Yep, you're right about that, I should have been a bit more clear on my statement.