Hi all, I have used Poser from Poser 3 and have purchased all the versions to Poser 8.

In recent years, I have not had the time to devote to doing what I love to do (creating pics with poser) so I did not devote my time to finding out if buying Poser 9 would be worth the money. 

I still love Poser 6, it has been the one that really delivers for me, but with the advancement of the software, alot of things advailable now do not work with it.

I would like to Know what you would reccomend ?  Should I buy The latest version of Poser or try out something else?

All your replys will be greatly appreciated, as I plan to retire soon........so hopefully I can get into Poser again..........but I won't have the money to buy it. (:

The difference between Poser 8 and Poser 9 (IMHO) comes down to these issues:

1. Faster, faster, faster.

2. MUCH improved previews, incl actual cast shadows.

3. Sub-Surface Scattering for more realistic skin rendering

4. Better handling of IDL, many of the artificats have been squashed.

5. Availability of 64-bit version of both Poser and Firefly, which akllows Poser to use more than 2Gb of RAM.

6. Weight mapping. You have to see it to really appreciate the difference it makes in posing. A weightmapped version of V4 is out now for free.

7. If you go with Poser Pro 2012, MUCH improved Gamma Control support.

My $.02

Quote - The difference between Poser 8 and Poser 9 (IMHO) comes down to these issues:

1. Faster, faster, faster.

2. MUCH improved previews, incl actual cast shadows.

3. Sub-Surface Scattering for more realistic skin rendering

4. Better handling of IDL, many of the artificats have been squashed.

5. Availability of 64-bit version of both Poser and Firefly, which akllows Poser to use more than 2Gb of RAM.

6. Weight mapping. You have to see it to really appreciate the difference it makes in posing. A weighmapped version of V4 is out now for free.

7. If you go with Poser Pro 2012, MUCH improved Gamma Control support.

My $.02

Correct, but I think the 64bit rendering engine is only for Poser Pro, EDIT: I just checked, Poser 9 has no 64bit, only Pro. You have to keep in mind a few thinks. P9 being faster comes at a huge cost.... memory. To be faster P9 uses about 25% of your memory for chaching. If you don't have a lot of Ram, that will be noticed very soon. Secondly the preview improvement isn't noticable on older graphics cards. Mine isn't that old, but I couldn't see a difference at all. If you look at the short list the only thing you have to ask is will I even use these few improvements? No? Then don't do it, you're going to be disappointed. Yes? Fairly new system to run Poser on? Go for it. Older system? Be carefull.... I ran into out of memory with the first scene I opened. I cannot render any of my larger scenes with P9, I have to do so in P9, so gone are all the benefits. In the end I returned P9 and use my good old memory efficient P9.

Quote -  P9 being faster comes at a huge cost.... memory. To be faster P9 uses about 25% of your memory for chaching. If you don't have a lot of Ram, that will be noticed very soon.

Where is that cache? If you're referring to the persistent texture cache, that one is on the hard drive, not in RAM.

Does Sub-Surface Scattering require special textures or something? I tried it yesterday and my render looked exactly the same :S

Raytrace lighting and IDL.

Quote - Does Sub-Surface Scattering require special textures or something? I tried it yesterday and my render looked exactly the same :S

Did you turn it on in render settings?

Also, how did you set it in the material? I ask because, despite thousands of statements to the contrary by "hobbyists", SSS is diffuse reflection, and if you set SSS a certain way it will look exactly like traditional Poser diffuse reflection.

@Russ555

Also , the closer the object the better to see the difference.
It will hardly be noticable on a figure that is 2" high in the far dstance, but VERY noticable in a close up.

There are 3 ways to put SSS in a shader, and many settings to play with.
What way did you try?

SSS works on ANY texture, (but micht require some changes in the nodes to fine tune.)

Check all the postings, discussions, screengrabs, at RDNA on SSS on humans, and/or other objects.

I just loaded V4 applied a texture, enabled SSS and rendered.

I didn't have IDL enabled which would explain why it didin't work. I just tried it again with IDL enabled and the only difference I could see was much longer render times and a brighter image at the end.

You do not answer.

HOW did you apply SSS?

Did you just click the SSS in the render settings? That is only half the job telling the render engine to make the SSS render pass if anything is set for SSS in the mat room.
What did you do in the Mat room?
You have to set one of the SSS nodes in the Mat room too..

If lost? Read the manual, and/or;

Just click the SSS Wacro for a test (BB will kill me for this) :-)))
Shift click the SSS Wacro in the material room to set SSS on the whole figure.
Do a first test-render and then play with the settings of the WACRO.

READ in the RDNA forum; "SSS on humans please".
All info is there.

You would need SSS-type shaders in the skin (if you're talking a figure). Search for, download and install/apply EZSkin by SnarlyGribbly (BB's got a hand in that, I believe). You WiLL see a difference!

EZSkin: http://snarlygribbly.org/misc/ezskin/EZSkin.zip

Good to see we're in synch on this one, BasicWiz! :biggrin:

http://snarlygribbly.org/misc/ezskin/EZSkin.zip

I just enabled it in the render settings xD

I will go read now and thanks for the link wiz.