I am an amateur photographer about to make the switch to digital photography but I came across this Poser form of art and I was wondering. How do you do it? What programs do you recomend for someone just starting out and are there any good do it yourselves books? Is this offered in class forms at community colleges? Thanks. ~Talisia.

If I was you I'd snap up Poser 6 at its current very attractive sale price.

http://www.contentparadise.com/us/user/poser_6_special_offer_product_45324

$29.99 is an absolute bargain.

Then run over to http://www.caligari.com/ and pick up Truespace 7.6 for free.

I've hear practical poser is a good bookon how to use poser and there are tons of tutorials online check out http://www.drgeep.com/NPU/Lobby/LobbyCentral.htm or http://www.philc.net/tutorialsIndex.htm for someplace to start.

Get the base figures for free from HERE

They are not the most recent but theres lots of freestuff

grabs a pillow and screams into it

Oh my Goddess! You guys have just made my day! I've been feeling kinda blah and now... takes a deep breath You guys are awesome thank you.

Check out this essay:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2735068&page=1#message_3201624

Once you get Poser check out some of Dr Geep's tutorials. they give you everything you need to get started in Poser, plus when you get ready for more advanced stuff, he has tuts for that too.

Welcome to the world of Poser....you will not regret it.  When you start you will have a blast and then when you start to compose with combination of your already known photography....you will create wonders.  Sharen

Thank you so much! I'm so excited you guys.

oh...and kiss your future free time goodbye...;) j/k...;)

prepare to be poor!! seriously it is very addictive, but you will find lots of help on the forums.
people are very helpful.
enjoy your new passion( believe me, once you get the way of things, it will become a passion)!
 welcome to the poserverse!

What freetime? Currently all my free time goes to larps/text rps/karokee/reading and writing/football with the Marines. One of those is going to suffer... most likely the larps >.< lol. But hey... now I can make my own book covers? Woot!

May want to check out 3DWorld, Creative Arts etc magazines (found in Barnes and Noble and Books-a-Million type stores).  Chicago should be loaded with those type stores.  Frequency these type magazines have tutorials on doing some neat stuff.  Additionally, these magazines have an enclosed CD or DVD disk that frequently contain free software programs like Carrara 5 Pro, Truespace 7, Bryce, Poser stuff, Vue, 2D art software etc.--cost around $16.00US for the Mag, so check it out carefully.  Jan  

This site is good for getting answers , so if you have questions feel free to ask. If you dont know the answer then its NOT a dumb question.

PLEASE read the manual for Poser or Daz studio FIRST and try to get an overview of how it all goes together.  

Lighting makes a big difference to the quality of your final picture , so be prepared to spend some time with it. The Posing , texturing and layout are important but the lighting sets it all. 

You may also find you get conflicting advice, there are reasons why each person does things in a particular way and they can both be right.

Its very hard to do any permanent damage so if you dont know what happens , give it a try, but save your work often.

Again thank you so much everyone! Finally got the program and now i have three of my friends interested in it. One of which only lives a couple hours away so we might start working on projects together. First pic is up that I messed around with but I like it. hugs all Happy New Year!!! By the way.

I did a couple of "tutorials" you may find of use :)

Rather than the normal "How to's", one's about resources in general for digital art, the other's about digital art as therapy.
Also have a couple on site about scene creation and improvement in post work.

http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/tutorials/htm/26.html

http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/tutorials/htm/26.html

http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/tutorials/htm/34.html

http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/tutorials/htm/sb1.htm

I preffer "scene" creation to "pin up" art (used as broad terms).
If I'm going to make the proverbial "Naked Vicky In a Temple WIth A Sword" (NVIATWAS as you'll see it reffered to here, lol), I'd rather build the entire temple with other folks :biggrin:

Roleplayer? YAY! Sorry I'm old school geek: D&D all the way ;)
One reason I got into digital art was I always wanted to make my D&D scenes come alive, so that's what I've been doing.

A lot of folk, like myself, only use Poser to create the basic people/creatures/poses etc, and import into other apps, to build and render.
I use Vue currently, others use Bryce, Carrara, Lightwave, and more

This is a pic made with Mojoworld

This one was made with Vue 6 Infinite

Imagination, time to learn it all, and being able to buy the apps and a decent PC,which are less expensive than a lot of hobbies = many many hours of wonder creation :)