I don't understand why beginners jump to trying to deal with clothes and hair.

If you get a black render and don't know why, you are moving too fast.

You should be comfortable with your tools, the way soldiers know how to take apart and reassemble a rifle while blindfolded.

In Poser, this means that you should be able to load a sphere and a box, and be able to light these objects from front, side, and behind, with shadows of various types, without reading a manual. Until you can do that, you have little chance of getting a figure to behave. You should know how an infinite light works, spot light, point light, and IBL. You should be able to look at a render done with only one light and tell me what kind of light it was.

Then render a naked figure in lots of different light. Save the images. Look at them again after a week and realize how you were messing things up.

Etc.

I think Poser is easy, but I wasn't very good with it for the first year. I have used it for about 5000 hours now and I know what I'm doing. I thought I knew what I was doing after only about 1000 hours, but I was wrong.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)