Hi,
        I've just gotten poser 8 as a gift, and have no prior knowledge in this area of graphics design. Does anyone have some tips as far as:
What free downloads I should get first? Essentials, as such.
How did you learn most? Just by experimenting? Any essential tutorials?
Will I need any other programs to use in conjunction with poser, as far as eventually creating my own clothing etc.?

Thank you for answering and I hope I'm asking in the correct place.

Quote - Hi,
        I've just gotten poser 8 as a gift, and have no prior knowledge in this area of graphics design. Does anyone have some tips as far as:
What free downloads I should get first? Essentials, as such.
How did you learn most? Just by experimenting? Any essential tutorials?
Will I need any other programs to use in conjunction with poser, as far as eventually creating my own clothing etc.?

Thank you for answering and I hope I'm asking in the correct place.

You dont need any freebies yet,everthing you need for now is there
Just get your  boots wet and jump right in,youll need a paint program one could be Adobe but there are loads out there.You should with out doubt read the manual.Tutorials are all around you on the web,just type into Google "Poser tutorials" and youve got a wealth of information at your finger tips.
Dont forget the forum here everyone will try ot help you out so dont be afraid to ask even the most basic question.Have a look at the poser forum rules so you wont slip up as  I did once

And most of all enjoy!

Thank you for your reply :) I am fairly comfortable usng GIMP so I'd imagine that would do :) I shall have a search around for tutorials and such, and will definitely have a look at the forum rules.

As far as creating your own clothing and stuff, a good place to start would be either Blender or Wings3D. Both are modeling programs and both are free :o). If you've never modeled before, Wings3D would probably be the one to start with.

Dr. Geep's site would probably be the very best place to start if you've never used Poser before :o).

Laurie

Thank you for the link, and I've downloaded wings3d :)

Another newbie here, thought I might as well drop in and wave while I'm waiting for poser to download.With my connection I can see a lot of coffee being quaffed but I'm sure it'll be worth the wait.Hello all, hello other newbie pk!

Erm I have a very very technical first question, might as well ask it here........where are the Poser forum rules,I can't see 'em?
(Prays that rule number one isn't " Never ever ever ask where the Poser forum rules are")

You just broke the first rule. 

Actually, if you look at the forum listings, at the very top there is a sticky post which Acadia has very generously put together outlining important tutorials and methods.  This is a growing list and some threads will comprise of pages and pages of information for both novice and expert.  Before getting too involved with Poser, visit that thread and start learning correctly from the beginning.  Welcome aboard.

Quote - You just broke the first rule. 

Doh!

Cheers.Good to be here.Thank you,sound advice, I shall now head stickypostward and absorb.Actually,download has finished so maybe I'll install Poser first and then dive into the sticky before I get stuck.

never talk about Fight Club...that one I know...;)

There's a boatload of freebies here in, well...freebies...;)

Surprised no one's mentioned Daz 3d for Freebies. They have a whole stable of free charaters, starting with the Ubiquitous Vickie (V1-V4), Aiko, Michael (1-4), just search under free stuff (or got to models, and search 'lowest price first'...thankx for the tip). There's also a lot of spendy stuff, as well as the Marketplace here.

ShareCG is another good place; a lot of the add-ons you'll need (hair, textures, props, clothes, shoes, etc) can be found here. Evil Innocence is good for freebie clothes for many of the charcacters, Most Digital has some too...heck, I've mentioned about .003% of the sites so far, apologies to anyone I didn't mention...

That's a good start. Don't be surprised if your Runtime swells into double-digit Gigabytes in time...

Oh, Rule #2 - there are no stupid questions....

 All the major sites host freebies of one type or another.  RuntimeDNA has their own section and so does Content Paradise.  A unique feature @ DAZ3D, every Tuesay they offer one or two freebies before they go on sale the following week.  They are often very well made and from prominent vendors.

At the risk of starting a flame war...

Go to Daz3d and download Victoria 4 and Michael 4 first thing. They are the two most widely supported characters (the native Poser characters being somewhat under-supported, but that's another story.) The figures are FREE. The morph++ packs are not. HOWEVER, join Daz's Platinum club, and they are quite cheap. The reason I say this is, the base figures are just short of useless... all of the character sets you see at Daz and here at Rendo require them.

After the characters, it's what you like. You'll need hairs, clothing, et al. Some of this is available in the freebee's section. Check that out first, but be aware that while many freebee's are good pieces a great many ARE NOT. Don't condemn Poser because of shortcomings in the free materials you try out.

To disagree with a poster above. You DO NOT want to try and design your own clothes et all in the beginning. If you don't know the design softwares, they'll run you off from the hobby far faster than Poser will. Go with any of the incredible multitude of pieces the talented artists have created already. Lean one step at the time, Poser being the first step.

Lastly, DO render at "Final" quality with the "Use Displacement Maps" box checked under "Render options." DO NOT play with IDL lighting until you find your way around the system. This is an extremely powerful tool, but one that throws nebees into a tizzy of frustration if they begin the learning process for Poser trying to use it.

Finally, don't be afraid to ask for click by click help. There are plenty of us here more than willing to give it. (People like me, who are retired and don't have NEAR enough to do!) 

There's no reason not to learn to model and learn Poser at the same time if you'd like to do both. It's when you blend the two that you have to know your way around both. So, learn Poser and learn to model if that's what you want, but when it comes to putting your creations into Poser then that's where it takes a little more knowledge.

The easiest clothing to model is dynamic clothing (that's where I'm currently at). They are only basic props and don't have to be cut up and rigged like conforming clothing. Personally, I would start with just static props and work my way up from there. Just take your time and it'll all come eventually.

Laurie

 LaurieA,

You are obviously far more talented than am I. Wings almost made me give up on Poser as well! To me its' learning curve is far worse than Poser's.

...and for my money, dynamic props are far easier to get good result with rather than conforming ones... the process, simple as it is, just seems arcane to new Poser users. I really wish I'd seen PoserWorld's tutorial video on dynamic clothes back in the beginning of my Poser days. Dynamic clothes RULE!

Oh, I've fallen in love with dynamics myself ;) It's so easy too... You just can't get as natural looking results with anything that conforms...

And Wings? I couldn't model my way out of a paper bag, but I found Wings to be one of the simplest and easiest to understand modeling programs that I've tried. Blender just made me run screaming...lol.

Laurie

Sspeaking of Victoria 4 and Michael 4 and the anatomy muscle morph ++ packs and skeletons, I downloaded them a few weeks ago to use in Daz studio but now I'm wondering ,does anyone know if I can use those same installers to put them into my Poser directory, or are there versions of V4 and M4 and their morphs specific to each program?
I did have a quick look at the daz site but I'm none the wiser to be honest.

I mean obviously I can go get the Poser versions of the base models if indeed that is what is necessary as they are free but I'm hoping I won't have to shell out for the morphs again. Well I won't be,the penny jar is a little on the empty side for the moment.

 The same installers work for both programs. Just remember to intitalize them ande you'll have no problems.

Also, for the files that aren't compatible to both, Daz normally supplies both versions in your account downloads :o). If your downloads have dropped off your account, just look for the order in which you ordered them and request a download reset. It'll be up again in a half hour or less.

Laurie

Wow,speedy reply! Err 'initialize' them? Sorry if I sound a tad dumb but I nearly lost the plot installing them in daz studio trying to get everything in the right place and even knowing if I had all the right downloads.Managed it in the end but it wasn't as straight forward as I imagined.
So yes, 'initialize' them? Do you just mean send them to the right directory during the installation or something else?

*Edit -Problem solved (well maybe!The proof is in the pudding) think I've found the info I was looking for at daz. Just wasn't looking hard enough.
Thanks both for all advice though.

I apologize in advance for any broken links.  This is an old bit of information and I haven't visited the links in well.... years.

The following is a great deal of information to process, but it's only meant as a guide and not to be memorized.  I have it broken up into sections. My advice is to read it through once, print it out and keep the print out next to your computer for reference as needed.

Here is an essay of information that I have been compiling which is geared to the brand new user. **It has links for free characters, tips on clothing, file organization, newbie tutorials etc.
**
V3, M3  and Aiko are free.  3D Models Pack  Free from Daz at Download.com

You just need the morphs packages to change their shape. 

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

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. These files have the extension cr2 (uncompressed) and c2z (compressed)

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. These files have the extension pz2 (uncompressed) and p2z (compressed). 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. These files have the extension pp2 (uncompressed) and ppz (compressed)

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 (cr2) items like hair and clothing are "conformed". Figure items like wings are "parented"

Props are parented. Some props that are made for a specific figure will seem to go where they are supposed to and "stick" without you having to do anything. Those are called "smart props". You can use those on other figures, but you have to use the XYZ trans dials to place it where it belongs on the different figure. Then you need to parent the item to that new figure's body part.

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

http://www.drgeep.com/p5/run/run.htm

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. They are for Poser 5, but it is still the same in newer versions:

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)

http://www.anniescorner.net/posertuts/GettingStartedinPoser5.htm

Getting Started in Poser

Video Tutorials

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, especially FREE 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. 

Victoria 3

3D Models Pack  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

There is also "Michael 3".  He is available free at the link above at download.com.  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".  I have included information about this type of clothing further down.

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.

Using a clothing item on a figure that it is meant to be used on, after you have added morphs and adjusted the shape of the body,  can be problematic because the clothes are made for the default figure shape and not the new morphed up shape. So the clothing no longer fits and you get parts of the body showing through the clothing after you add morphs and change the shape of the body.

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.

Dynamic Clothing (more information):

A nice thing about dynamic clothing is that you can easily use clothing on various figures.Here are some tutorials on how to use dynamic clothing in the cloth room:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2665209

http://www.philc.net/CC_sampleVideo.htm

http://www.poserfashion.net/howvic3dress1.htm

http://drgeep.com/p5/cr/cr.htm

Here are some links to some great FREE dynamic clothing:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?username=mapps

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?username=svdl

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?username=Stegy

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?username=carib98

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?username=teyikung

It's also possible to make conforming clothing into dynamic clothing:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/tutorial/index.php?tutorial_id=868

And it's possible to take a conforming outfit and work with it in the cloth room so that parts of it act dynamic.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2517340&page=1

Organization in Poser is very important.  Libraries grow quickly and it soon gets to a point where you can't find anything.

So far as organization goes...

You have 2 options that can help you with organizing and being able to find things:

1.  Create sub folders inside the library folders.

This is the preferred method for many. It uses one single runtime with lots and lots of sub folders within the main library folders, in order to organize the content.  The learning curve is minimal. If you can right click and create a new folder and drag and drop, you can do this.  The learning curve is knowing what folders you can move files around in and what folders not to touch.

You can move around the files inside the library sub folders. 

Don't move, touch or rename files or folders  in the top level of the library folder that carry the name of the merchants, or the "Morph" or the !DAZ  folder because those are morphs and need to stay where they are.

Just work with the standard ones inside the Library folder such as camera, faces, hand, pose, props, hair, lighting, character. 

Leave the files inside the geometries and texture folders alone.

Right now you have a hodge podge of files for various figures in each folder plus props, poses, lights etc.

Open the character folder and create sub folders for each of your figures IE: V3, V4, M3, D3, Aiko, Apollo etc.  Do the same for each of the other library sub folders.  You can also create other folders too, such as "Poses" or "Props" or "Backgrounds" or "Hair" etc.

Then go through your files in each of the library subfolders and move them into the appropriate folder for the figure they belong.

Things like lights, and poses and hair and props are universal items really, and can be used across figure, so I like to have those separated instead of filed by "figure" because I often use V3 poses on Aiko and hair for Posette on V3 etc.

You will run into a problem for items that are for more than one figure. Like where do you file those?  For exxample an outfit that is for V3 and M3 and Aiko and SP3: where do you file them? If you put them in the V3 folder, then you forget that they can be used for M3 and Aiko and SP3 too. It was this complication that prompted me to move onto using external runtimes (described below).

I did it this way at one time and it worked well enough,well except for items that could be used on a few figures like I described above.   I decided I wanted even more organization, and I didn't like having one huge runtime because it was impossible to really burn it to a CD/DVD without having to break it into bits and pieces.  Plus it took Poser forever to load because the runtime was so big.  So I tried option 2 below.

**2. Multiple External Runtimes
**

This is my choice for organizing my installed content.  I did the first method first and it worked for awhile, but as my content grew, it became cumbersome, so I switched to multiple external runtimes, which works out great.

It's really pretty easy.  The problem is that most people over think it.  

Just remember that an external runtime is exactly the same as the runtime in your Poser folder, only it's just sitting in a different location.  

It functions exactly the same way. 

And files are installed / added to them in exactly the same way. 

And they have the same folders in them as the main runtime does. Well almost the same folders.  Scripts for example have to be installed into the main Poser runtime and won't work from an external runtime.

Here is a sample of an external runtime.  Simply download it and unzip it. You will have a folder called "Runtime_Sample"

www.divshare.com/download/8531562-1f6

Find a place on your hard drive that you want to have your external runtimes living. For me it's on my partitioned drive D.

Make a folder called "Poser Runtimes"

s263.photobucket.com/albums/ii124/Acadia_ca/

Then simply copy that sample runtime you unzipped into that "Poser Runtimes" folder and make as many copies of it as you want to.  Change "Runtime_Sample" to whatever name you want.  Here is what I named some of mine:

s263.photobucket.com/albums/ii124/Acadia_ca/

Then all you do is simply install your content into whichever runtime you feel it fits best into.

Once you have finished installing your content look in the Runtimes where you have Daz characters such as V3 or V4 etc.  Go into the Library folder and look for the !DAZ folder.  Make a COPY of that folder and place the COPY in exactly the same place in the main Poser Runtime. 

Poser looks there first so by placing a copy of them in there, you are helping Poser out.  Don't delete the !DAZ folder from your other runtimes though. That defeats the purpose of having external runtimes, which is not only to allow Poser to work faster, organize your content better, but also to not lose your installed runtime content in the even of a crash because hopefully you have also saved your external runtimes to a couple other places for easy access in case of the need to reinstall.

Hope that helps.  If you have more questions, just ask.

Oh yeah, never install anything directly to your runtime. Always unzip / install to a folder on your desk top so you can see what is in side and what the folder structure is.

Wow,thanks for all the info Arcadia! Just a quick scan through tells me it's all going to be very useful/essential to know. I'm slowly working my way through the Poser tutorial guide pdf  learning program basics and interface and so far for the basics at least it's not the steep learning curve I thought it would be. Mind you, somewhere in the back of my mind I can't help thinking that perhaps I'm not even in the Poser foothills yet never mind caught a glimpse of the mountain!

But yes,without a good grasp of the filing system and some sensible organizing I can see confusion raining down on my head sooner or later. It took ages just work out where my V4/M4 morphs etc were.I just thought I'd made a botch of loading them until I found them under poses.

Hey Kaos! Sorry, I feel like I've hijacked your thread a bit,not my intention, just new here myself and hunting for good info and help. atb

At the risk of sounding somewhat purist in approach...as a newcomer to 3d it might be wise (if you haven't already), before tackling anything else, to take some time to grasp the the basic principles of what this medium is - what it's core elements are and how they interact with each other. These principles apply more or less to all the various 3d apps, high and low end.
I only mention this as understanding the fundamentals can save you a quite a few headaches later on as you're coming to terms with exactly what Poser is capable of and what it's idiosyncrasies are.
At the very least it might be an idea to keep a few of the following principles in mind whilst exploring Poser in these early stages.

I'm talking about things like:

• what a mesh object is (the difference between vertices and a polygons, how objects are UV mapped so that you can apply textures to them etc)
• cartesian coordinates and how they define where objects, lights and even some aspects of materials are in 3d space and how you 'translate' or move things around with confidence.
• what shaders and materials are and how they define the surface properties of objects like diffuse and specular (shine) reflectivity, bumpiness etc (very important).
• 3d lights (lights in general) and how they interact with (mesh) objects and shaders/materials  and cast shadows in renders in  order to reveal form.
• What a renderer is and the vital role it plays to interpret all of the above to give you a nice image at the end of it all.

You don't have to understand everything in all it's minute detail, but a good grasp will help I'm sure. It's easy to get sucked into playing with rigged figures and their wonderful morphs and clothes and forget the basics.

I'd suggest playing with some simple primitive objects like spheres and cubes to start, with a single infinite light with Raytraced shadows, and see how some of these basics apply in Poser.

Just a thought.

Quote - Just a thought.

And a good thought too. There's no harm in diving into a program and running around like a kid in a toy shop grabbing at stuff to see what it does,after all that's how I learned a whole chunk of Photoshop in the beginning, but sooner or later you have to go back and learn the whys wherefores and therefores or you tend to end up with bad habits, frustration and a limited grasp, and the longer you leave it the harder it is to go back to basics.As with any new skill  It's about striking a balance, a bit of playfulness and creativity mixed with perseverance, practice and study.

Actually that probably only applies to creative software.Flying jet planes, paragliding and scuba diving,definitely read the manual first...

Unfortunately you can't take the Poser reference manual as gospel for quite a lot of things. This software has changed a great deal over the past few years and there are many features that were never fully explained in the first place and that are now virtually obsolete. I know it's been a difficult job to update given the nature of the app and the position in the marketplace it occupies, but it's often a cause of confusion for the new user with certain aspects.
On the flip side, these forums can offer the means to fill in those gaps and innacuracies presented by the manual. I've learned by far the most about Poser right here with the good help and examples of the generous folk that reside here. Be wary though that there are often approaches that harken back to previous versions of the software that may or may not be of useful relevance to the version you are using right now - I find this a lot when using the forum search feature and find myself reading threads from 4 or 5 years ago. It's an ever developing beast.

Hi all,

Welcome peaceful_kaos & Bailliere, thanks for starting this thread, I've already learned a few things!  I'm also a new user, as new as new can be in fact, :-)  I'm still waiting for PoserPro2010 to arrive in the mail ! (any day now)  I'm a music composer/musician and write/record music for film and animation here in my home studio. Been trying to learn 3D modeling and animation for just under a year now, and a tough one at that, not as easy as I thought it would be! :-)  Our animation team has a website, will read the forum rules and see if I can post it here sometime soon.  Seems like a helpful community here, I like the atmosphere so far, nice. 

I was reading this thread and had a couple of questions. I've downloaded V4.2 and M4 but not sure what the other files were for. For M4 there was M4 Base, DS Materials, M4 Presets, and (power loader, but said only for Daz Studio so I didn't download that one).  For V4.2 there was V4.2 Base, V4.2 Poses, V4.2 Power Loader.  Since I don't have my Pro2010 package installed yet I have only a basic idea what these files are for and what to do with them. Right now they're just sitting in folders on hold until I install PP2010.  Can anyone briefly explain?

Also, what is the Morph++Packs mentioned above, and what is their purpose/function?

Thanks, much appreciated!

Musikman

Hello Musikman and welcome aboard! I've only had Poser for a few days,I took the plunge while it was going cheap (well cheaper anyway) and I can't leave it alone. Burning the midnight oil with it tonight.
Someone else here will no doubt give you a far better explanation than me but of the downloads you have ready and waiting,M4 base is actually MIchael 4 basic model himself (same goes for V4.2 that's the Victoria base model)
Morphs are an add on extra that you have to buy,(maybe some are built in to the base model ,to be honest I've lost track now as to what was free and what I had to buy because I originally started off using them in DAZ3D a few weeks ago but just didn't take to the interface) they allow you to manipulate body parts to create different characteristics, thinner ,fatter more or less muscle,different facial expressions etc (see Arcadia's post further up the page about morphs with links for where to find them) Poses I think is a set of pre created instant poses you can use as a starting point rather than start entirely from scratch I suppose ,though just from my own brief  experience you'll learn more from posing a figure from scratch.

Anyway,like I say someone far beyond my feeble understanding will probably fill you in.My only advice would be to read through  the reference manual and the tutorial manual but don't stress about it,one step at a time and easy as she goes,and as you've already discovered,this forum is an Aladdin's cave of friendly advice and info!

In a nutshell, Morph++ packs for both V4 and M4 are injectable poses which gives the ability to change the overall morphology of each character into something else uniquely different than the base model.  By spinning dials within their properties, you can add and subtract musculature to the mesh, and alter both body and facial features.  In essence, you can create an endless list of characters for your scenes and situations.

I appreciate everyone taking time to help with all this startup stuff. Seems the file system is important to learn, and things need to be installed in all the right places. Creating unique characters sounds like alot of fun once everything is finally in place. I've been learning a small bit of modeling using Truespace the past few months. I've not gotten around to attempting to model a character from scratch yet, but I've heard it is one of the more difficult things to model. 
I can pop out a music track pretty quickly, but learning 3D modeling is a whole different ball game! I'm hoping I'll be able to apply some of what I learned from the TS program over to Poser.  I know it's gonna be a slow learning process, but great to know there are experienced users here who are willing to help make it go smoother. Thanks again.

Quote - In a nutshell, Morph++ packs for both V4 and M4 are injectable poses which gives the ability to change the overall morphology of each character into something else uniquely different than the base model.  By spinning dials within their properties, you can add and subtract musculature to the mesh, and alter both body and facial features.  In essence, you can create an endless list of characters for your scenes and situations.

I told him that already! ; )

(Although to be fair, your explanation does have a certain edge in the clarity stakes....)

First day on the job here, just installed Poser Pro 2010, can anyone please lend a hand? 
Poser install seemed to go smoothly, but I have now loaded V3 and running into some confusion, have a few questions. Before I go ahead and load V4, M4, M3, etc...and the rest I want to make sure I know what to do.....  

1. When I’m in Poser in the pose room and in the Figures library, under !Daz People, why is there a V3 Blank SAE, Vicki 3 to Vicki2 SAE, and a Victoria 3 SAE??

(I thought I only loaded one, Victoria 3?)

I don’t know what is supposed to be included with V3 Base, so I’m not sure whether I installed everything ok….. 

1. From what I can see I have “All Morphs Inj”, “Expressions Inj”, “Full Body Inj”, and “Glute-Hip-Abs Inj” Seems I’m missing the Head Eyes, Ear-Nose, Chest-Breast, Muscularity, and quite a few others, according to Daz’s documentation. Did I read Acadia’s post correctly, that V3 Base does include a few morphs, but I have to purchase the full morph package from Daz to get the rest of them? 

1. Why are the “Expressions Inj” in the Pose folder instead of the Expressions folder, and since these are morphs, is it ok to move them or not?? (According to Acadia’s post above, I shouldn’t be moving morph files, but they don’t seem to function from where they are now)

1. In the Pose Library I have a folder !MAT V3, which has items like, Arm Gloves, Arm Gloves off, Stockings, Wet suit, etc…..obviously clothes, are they ok where they are, or should they be moved to another folder somewhere?  

5)There is nothing in the hair library for V3 at all, so I assume that is extra stuff that is not included?

Just installed the program today, so I’m only guessing here that maybe the Daz V3 installer dumped everything into the “Pose” library or folder and I have to figure out how to separate it all and move to the right folder??

Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

The Daz base figures are free. Any morphs you want to use for them you must purchase. Things like hair, clothing, shoes, etc. do not come with the model or the morphs and must also be purchased separately.

Poser be expensive as hell...lmao ;o).

Laurie

First, don't move anything! 

This will save you the heartbreak of having to reinstall everything. 

1. V3 base comes with all those figures you mentioned; V3 SAE is the actual base model, V3 blank SAE is the basic mannequin model, and Vicki 3 to Vicki 2 SAE is a model which accepts V2 skin textures.  The model to use is V3 SAE.

2. Yes, you absolutely need to purchase the head and body morph packs to change the physical appearance of V3.

3. Expressions Inj is an injectable morph pack which adds different types of facial expressions to V3.  It would make sense to place this into the Expressions folder, but because it populates V3's properties with spinning dials which controls the level and intensity of facial expression.  The poses in the Expression folder only applies just one expression per icon.

4. !MAT V3 folder only contains textures which are applied to the V3 base model.  They are referred to as second skin, they are not really actual clothing models.  They should remain where they are because they are called MAT Poses or material poses.

5. Hair is not part of the package; they are obtained either through purchase or free.

The installer does not arbitrarily dump content into Poser.  They are placed into those folders for a particular reason and many of them have absolute paths to additional content and geometries not visible in the library.  Until you become more familiar with how content is distributed within the runtime folder, I would suggest leaving them where you find them.  Since you are also starting with a very robust version of Poser (PoserPro 2010), you should pay very close attention to the information posted in this forum.  Much of it will be over your head, so be prepared to ask plenty of questions.

Ok, thanks hborre, I haven't moved anything, so I guess everything is in the correct place then.  The Daz install instructions said if you have poserpro to choose the Daz target, then choose Poser install path (as follows below), so that's what I did:

If you are using Poser 7 Pro, you must choose 'DAZ Studio' as the target path and then manually indicate the installation path (c:/Program Files/SmithMicro/Poser 7 Pro).  Make sure the Poser 7 folder is the last part of the path.  If a different folder is used, like 'runtime' or 'downloads,' the installation will not work properly.

Now I did try installing Michael 4, but got an error message early on in the process so I aborted and left it alone for now.

As for the Expressions Inj, they didn't seem to change anything when I loaded them, but I'm early on in the process here so maybe I'm doing something wrong. So the difference in the poses in the Expression folder compared to the Exp Inj is because they are setup for  individual facial features as opposed to controlling the face expression overall?

Believe me, after much reading today I've had many questions, just didn't want to crash the forum's server! lol

I'm going to have to pick my battles and figure out which video tutorials to watch first to get familiar with things, I'm also reading the manual. Thanks very much for the info, I'll leave all the files where they are for now, I was just looking at Acadia's post about setting up and organizing files, but decided to hold off since I didn't quite understand the method completely.

The reason M4 Base flagged an error is it's installer is looking for Poser.exe which does not exist with either PoserPro or PoserPro 2010.  For the pro version, PoserPro.exe is used.  My suggestion: create a dummy Poser.exe using notepad.  Open notepad, save the document as Poser.txt.  No need to type anything.  Change the txt extension to exe.  The icon will change to a Poser icon.  Find your PoserPro folder and move the dummy Poser.exe within.  Don't worry about overwriting the original file, it is named differently. 

Now, when you install M4, the DAZ installer will find the dummy Poser.exe and will properly load the content into their rightful places.  There should be an automatic initialisation at the end of installation. 

The expression inj will not physically change anything on it's own.  You did nothing wrong.  It will create additional dials in the model's properties.  If you have a problem conceptializing the set up, let me know and I will screencap what to look for.

BTW, as a matter of proper version terminology, there is no such Poser version as Poser 7 Pro.  That has been a common mistake by many and it is not correct.  The current version names are Poser 7, PoserPro, Poser 8 and PoserPro 2010.  There will be less confusion when you reference to your particular version.  Now, be careful.  There is a Poser ProPack which was released after Poser 4 and bears no association with the current Pro series.

I would never have known about the M4 installer looking for poser.exe, thanks I'll give that a try and see if I can get it installed. So from what I understand, unlike V3, M4 and V4 don't come with any morphs at all included, and I have to purchase their respective morph packs, correct?

Quote - The expression inj will not physically change anything on it's own.  You did nothing wrong.  It will create additional dials in the model's properties.  If you have a problem conceptializing the set up, let me know and I will screencap what to look for.

That would be great, thanks, no hurry though, as I've got a boatload of info to weed through anyhow, but it would be nice to see how that setup all works. Much appreciate your taking the time to help out.

Ok musikman, today I will illustrate how to load V3 into your PoserPro 2010 scene and apply a morph inj from the Pose folder.  Of course, I am assuming that you haven't gotten to this stage yet or haven't figured out how to approach the workflow. 

In the screencap above, you follow 2 steps:

1. Click on the Figures folder, which is circled and labeled 1,  and navigate to the DAZ People folder.  Within you will find the V3 figure icons.  For your purpose, V3 SAE is the model you want to use. 

2. Double-click the icon to load Vicky into the scene.

Notice that Vicky's Hip is selected in the panel by default.  You can change that as illustrated below.

The image above shows the workflow for loading a Morph Inj file.  Select the Pose Folder in the Library, navigate to, in this example, !V3 All Morphs Inj folder (Labeled 1) and double-click on the icon (Labeled 2).  This will inject all morphs included in the V3 body morph package and, as you see, nothing has happened to Vicky.  She remains unchanged.  However, her Properties panel becomes populated with additional dials and morph descriptions.  That can be seen below.

Precaution, don't over do your dial values (i.e., > 1) or you will get rather unpleasant morph distortions.

Thanks hborre, extremely good of you to take the time to post all the pics, much appreciated!

Today I will unfortunately out and away from my pc until tonight, so I'll give it a go then and let you know how things go. Seems relatively simple now that you've posted the steps. I did load V3 into the workspace already yesterday, and I saw some dials over on the right side but don't remember accessing/opening the Properties panel from the dropdown menu, as there were already some dials on the right, just  didn't see any of the extra dials. Gonna try your step by step and I'm sure I'll get it right. btw, do you use PoserPro2010 or a different version?

I was having problems with PoserPro2010 loading and running very slowly yesterday, even crashed a couple of times, but has not happened since. I'm exploring whether I need to update my video card's drivers, could possibly be the culprit, although my other programs seem fine, so I'm wondering if there are some settings in poser that might be draining video resources.

Definitely make certain all your drivers are current and programs updated.  Presently, I have P7, P8, PoserPro and PoserPro 2010 installed on my computer.  Whatever issues I had with P8 were corrected with the Service Releases.  I rarely experience creashes and when I do, they are largely my fault. 

As a word of advice, if you start experiencing unexpected problems down the road, always suspect an OS upgrade or application upgrade first.  Too often, users dismiss a simple security updates and find that Poser suddenly and unexplainably crashes.  Consider those problems when troubleshooting.

Tried the procedure, and all went well until I got to injecting the morphs. Strange....two things I noticed comparing what's on my screen to your screenshots.....Next to my file !V3 All Morphs Inj, I have a number (1), you have (14), therefore after I double-clicked to inject all morphs, my dials also don't look as yours do, I don't have Muscular 1, Muscular 2, etc....(see pic attached) .
 
One other thing is that I don't have the thumbnails in a window to the right of my files, the thumbnails come up right inside the file that I open, and instead of a picture it says "No Preview", it does that with all the folders, not just V3. I was wondering why it's like that.  (See posted screenshot below)

As far as my video driver, I've been checking to see if there's an update but all I could find was a hotfix, and I'm not even sure what version my vid driver is. I have an ATI Radeon Sapphire AGP 512MB, which comes with the Catalyst Control Center. When I look for the listing in the control center there are two version numbers, I believe one is for the Control Center itself, the other is the driver version, but it's a 50/50 shot which is which. Sapphire support is not helping matters, I get three word answers basically telling me to go to the website and find it myself, nice huh? Will work on getting that straightened out, maybe that will help. I know my windows is current, and I'm using IE 7, so should be all set there. I asked tech support if there was an update, or "fix" for PoserPro2010, but he said the only one has something to do with 3Ds max compatability, which I don't have anyway.  Do you know of any updates to PP2010?

In your Properties Palette, switch your current_actor from Hip to Body.  The shrugging man icon is the result of an rsr format used in previous versions to represent the library image.  That format is longer supported.  PNG is it's replacement.  Many older content still have only rsr, some current content will contain both for backward compatibility. 

The program P3DO explorer was developed for Poser in mind.  There are 2 flavors, a free unlimited version and for purchase which contains other perks.  This program contains an RSR to PNG converter, exactly what you need to change those images to the new standard.  Link below:

http://www.senosoft.com/

I understand that there is also a free converter in the free section here @ Rendo. You should find it here:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?section_id=34&

Your Poser interface appears to be PoserPro which I find strange if it is PoserPro 2010.  There is an icon at the bottom of your library which we refer to as a Klingon toothpick.  That opens your library view options. 

I have a 2 monitor system and most of my extra palettes are moved off to the second monitor.  It increases my Preview window real estate and makes my workflow easier. 

Let me know how you make out and if you have any problems.

I did change from Hip to Body (I think), and I seem to have more option dials now,  but still not showing the same dial option of "Muscular" as you do in your screenshot. Also still have only (1) next to my !V3 All Morphs Inj and you have (14).  Reading back on your post I think it's because I didin't purchased the additional full morph package from Daz for V3 and maybe those are only included in the full package and I don't have them? 

Quote - This will inject all morphs included in the V3 body morph package and, as you see, nothing has happened to Vicky.

I do get the basic idea though, and thank you for helping, I appreciate it.

This is the link for V3's head & body morphs:

http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/-/victoria-3-0?item=3008&spmeta=rl&_m=d

If you decide to purchase, keep in mind that you may need to convert all the rsr's to png format.