I am considering purchasing Poser. The author at the following website http://www.spookybookstore.com/  uses Poser for her illustrations. Can you tell me how much drawing ability is needed(how much art skill) is needed to create these types of illustrations and how much is knowledge of the software capabilities? Any info you can give me would be most helpful. Thanks in advance.

You really don't need any drawing skill. 

You do need an aesthetic sense.  Just like a photographer needs to understand the rules of composition, etc.

You might try DAZ Studio instead, if you're really not sure how this stuff works.  It's a similar program that's free, at DAZ.

Dont expect to do too much with the free version of DS. It is a capable program, but you will have to spend money to get those capabilites.  For either Poser or DS, only experience will get you to the point that yo want to reach.

Bill

I suggest Daz Studio as well. It is free and should do what you need to start. You will also want a paint program to touch up problems in the picture and add to it. GIMP is a good paint program and is free.

It will take you some time to learn all you need to be doing illustrations and book covers.

I will disagree.

Poser is where you will want to end up because of the better tools it offers. If you begin by learning the Daz interface, it will only make the Poser interface more difficult to learn. I recommend Poser Debut. It is free for the first 30 days and $50 thereafter. I think you'll get a better idea of 3D this way than going with something that you'll need to abandon at some point.

My $.02

From a workflow standpoint (and learning curve) I tend to agree with Basicwiz. It's reasonably easy to get decent renders right out of the box with Poser Debut. No, the lights aren't great, but they are infinitely better than Daz default lights.

When you consider the fact that once you get used to a certain programme's way of doing things, the time invested in learning that programme needs to be taken into consideration.

Try both. See which one you find more intuitive. Go with that.

I vote for Poser as well (I'm biased...lol), but the free version of Daz Studio will definitely help you get your feet wet and you won't have spent any money to see if it's something you'll like or not :).

Laurie

First my vote goes to Poser.
But?

A great artist can make GREAT art with a paper and a Pensil.
An artist with no inspiration can do close to nothing with the best tools around.

So? Close your eyes. What is your Goal? And what is your budget?
Read, search the net.
Perhaps you will find that Anime studio is better for you? Or Poser, or DS4?

So the first question you have to ask yourself; What is my goal?
And what is then the best tool to achieve my Goal?

Poser is a fantastic tool, and some artist have been making unbelivable art with it.
But if you start from close to zero,
K N O W before you start, that even with the best idea's it is far from a one click solution

I don't have a lot of experience with DS so I always recommend Poser, personally.  And no drawing experience is necessary.  All you can do is give it a try and see if it works for you.  

I think you wouldn't find it too difficult in poser.

Love esther

I would vote for Poser as well, but be prepared; Poser isn't an easy to use by the numbers piece of software.

You will be able to produce something right away but to get results like the ones in your link will take a lot of work.

But if you want to be a 3D artist then this is a good place to start at a reasonable cost.

The DAZ interface is so different then the one in Poser that it would be difficult to make the transition later.

With Poser you will get years of material from the previous versions to you will have a lot to work with right from the start.

It took me many, many months to get a good grip on Poser. It's not the easiest software on the planet. I tell you that not to discourage you or scare you, but to be up front about what's ahead if you decide to get it...lol. You can't just open it and take off running. Same holds true for DS as well, it takes some time.

Laurie

I really have no drawing skill at all so you dont need that to use Poser/Daz, I had the same concerns before taking the plunge, In the end I had a very quick look at Daz 3 Free but didnt much like it, but it was enough to tell me I could make what I wanted without having to be able to draw, so I then took the plunge and invested in Poser Pro.

The learning curve is steep, It took me probably a couple of weeks before I got anything close to what I wanted out of it, but after understanding the basics it gets easier and theres normally helpful information to be found online if you get stuck on something.

I found my photography experience more useful initially than my artistic ability.

Thinking of the software as a photographers studio helps with setting up lights and cameras, framing, angles etc.

If you've found an image you like and know which software created it, its easiest in the short term to use the same software yourself. Thats the best chance of matching an image, like following a recipe just type in the same values the artist used.

Having said that, I don't see anything specific to Poser in those images. Does anyone else see something that is Poser specific?

There is plenty of compositing though, which is done in postwork. So bear in mind that some of what you like in the images was achieved in photoshop (or equivalent).

Attached Link: http://www.purplus.net/cad3d.html

I'd suggest trying both Daz Studio and Poser (you can download a free trial version of Poser) to see which one "fits" better. Often people just can't get their head around one or the other, and it's not fun at all if your trying to learn something that doesn't work well for the way you think. Plus it's best to ensure that the software you decide to use will actually run well on your system - some people seem to have problems running Poser or DS, others don't.

I use both, either one is pretty easy for me to use (except for the lights in Poser - they just don't like me). Some things are easier for me in Poser and some are easier in DS (I find Carrara the easiest to use - but most people don't share my view). If you you need Dynamic Hair and Dynamic Cloth, you will need to get Poser.

You can use dynamic cloth in DS with a plugin you can buy from DAZ (additional software), but you have to use the clothing from OptiTex, you can't make your own. With Poser you can make your own Dynamic Clothing. In my experience, dynamic clothing in DS works much better than Posers (don't have 9/2012 to test though, and it's supposed to be improved), but they can both do some interesting things when the cloth gets bunched or goes through the skin.

So, it really comes down to which one works best for you, and what you want to do. Trying both of them will give you a much better idea, and will help you to decide if the learning curve is worth the reward.

I agree with prixat completely,you will find most software in this field will benefit greatly from having learned some artistic principles,Think of poser as putting you in the directors/photographers position,you set up the lights and composition pose etc and off you go.

Have to say that poser is a bit annoying for me but as you can see from this site,loads of people use it :-) so it cant be all that bad.

If you have a definite look you want achieve it can be realised,the only thing that really limits you is if you start wanting multiple figures,but it can be done in postwork if your system cant handle it.

the best bit of advice i can give is to resist the temptation to jump in,take your time and read the manual carefully,as i found it easy to start scratching my head when things didnt go right,but then i didnt know about this site with lots of helpful people to put me straight :-)

Enjoy! and be sure to put your progress up on here :-)

I want to thank everyone for their very generous, useful and friendly advice! I think I will start with a trial of Poser Debut, as it will let me know if I like it. I didn't know that such great things were possible with the different 3D software packages. A whole new world awaits me, and I am thankful that I have this forum to post my questions. Again, thanks so much.

It depends on how much time you have to devote to it, and your computer power.

my 2 cents of advice is to pick up an older version of Poser, yet fully functional, Poser 7 is on sale at Tiger Direct right now linkie

i use poser for fantasy novels.  Honestly, i didn't achieve satisfactory results until i discovered Daz figures Vicki4 and Michael4.  and i took 2 weeks off from my day job to sit down and practice with poser.  it took years for me to learn how to make stuff, i had to buy every thing in the beginning.

To follow on from MistyLaraPrincess: Poser 7 is a solid version of Poser... one of the best. It is rock-stable. If you are using 6: i mean, $30 bucks! HUGE difference. It's a workhorse I still go back to and I have PP2012.

There is very little you can't do in P7 that is really meaningful. Thirty bucks is an incredible investment for what you get! Seriously.

if they would sell P7 in dvd size case,  what a great stocking stuffer gift idea