I have Poser 4 which took awhile for me to acquire. I now find there is a Poser Pro Pack that is over $100. I'm very new mind you so I have been looking through all the free stuff. Only to find that I need Vicki and some guy named Michael in order to use a lot of the clothes etc.. I finally located Ms. Vicki and Mr. Mike only to find they cost around $120.00 for them both. I still need to purchase a copy of Bryce (for scenery) which I loved when I downloaded the trial version and I recently checked out the price of Adobe Photoshop...well, just say I about fell out of my chair! How do you all do it? How do you all keep up? I have been really interested in the type of art you all do and just recently decided that this was something I had to learn. I'm a mother of 2 and we are a 1 income family and I just don't see how I can keep up. Half the clothes I can't use because I need certain models, other downloads I can't use with out the Pro pack for Poser....Well I have whined enough but can anyone give me some tips on what a girl is to do??? I have all these models in Poser 4 but dam if I can take them out anywhere! They look like they came out of Lego Land! Can one work with what is in Poser 4 and make them look realistic and have hair that looks like hair and clothes that look like clothes? I do have Paint Shop 7 but that is all. Is it a matter of just learning how to use textures ect. or do I need to purchase other software? If so what do you all suggest that are the MUST HAVES of the render world? That will not make me choose between food on the kid's table or Mom's new hobby... :) Everyone's art here at Renderosity is awesome and it really makes me want to learn to do what you all do. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Work with what you have :) The stalk poser4 models can be worked with. There are many tutorials and freestuff. I recommend you do a search in freestuff, look for SnowSultan he has a nice texture for p4female called vickibuster. There are several there you just have to dig for a while. I love paint shop pro , you dont have to spend that massive amount of money on photoshop if you do there is also a lite version. It is overwhelming to begin with, but youll learn fast, theres plenty of resources here to help out. The webring in the sidebar should be a good start for you. Digital babes has the best realistic free hair that I know of. This can be an expensive hobby and in time you might want to invest in some of the more complex models, but dont be fooled into believing you have to have them right away .

Attached Link: http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/iishadowcatii/website/index.htm

I fully understand what you are facing (also a mom in a 1 income family, 1 kid and 1 on the way) First of do not worry about pro pack, as the name implies it's for pros. If you were to go to curious labs and read up on pro pack you'll see that most of it's features are unusable for the beginner. Vicky & Mike would be an excellent purchase, but get vicky 2 and wait for mike 2, that way you can use the P4 clothing and will save money in the long run. The standard figures that come with poser are just fine with a little work, number 1 is get good textures. I've included a link to my web page which has tutorials designed for beginners and there is also a guide for downloads as well as a dowload area of my own (get the P4 textures there, they are very good to start with) As for Bryce, that is also a good purchase, but don't rush it, I hear that Vue is also very good. Also don't run out to get another paint program that is designed for the professional, personally I use Adobe photo deluxe that I got for free with my printer (I also got a copy with my scanner for free) All in all, work with what you have for now, you might end up not needing alot of the items you think you do.

There are still enough good things in free stuff for the standard p4 people (Go to "Digital Babes" ,its on the right menue bar "webring top 15)you get the best hair for free. And look in the artgalleries for some older pics to see what great artwork was done when there was no viccy.

I know the feeling as well. I did break down and got Vicky and Michael... but ya know I tend to use the stock P4 fem a lot... even the dork. What you have now will keep you busy a long time. Get good with that then ask for a model on a birthday or something. ~s~ http://www.vowel.or.jp/~kozaburo/ Digital babes - Great hair http://store.yahoo.com/happyworldland/ Some of the best P4 fem textures. Go to the uncut ones there and enjoy. I use those constantly for my P4fem. http://poserunderground.virtualave.net/poser/posds.html This is a huge list of urls available. You will find anything you need there and free stuff here. BTW I only use PSP 6... course I'm not a pro but I'm very happy with my results. Others must be to, since I do covers for ebooks for a living. ~s~ Dont always have to have ALL the bells and whistles... they are nice but like you, my pocket book isn't that deep.

dancineyes Hi! Welcome to the Poser Community TJ's suggestions are sound - start with the basics. Little of what you mention would be considered essential for good art, and that little is different for each artist. My best recommendation is to dig into Poser out of the box, master it, or whatever portions exite your imagination the most. If you find yourself getting very skilled at some aspect, post some of your work,tips,or efforts here. You may become skilled enough to start selling textures, poses, characters, etc. With skill and talent, you may make enough to start buying the products you desire, or by then you may have better alternatives of your own. Be patient, take your time; to some users poser is all about making pretty pictures to express a thought, feeling, event. For this Poser out of the box has tools aplenty. Try playing with lighting, textures, camerawork. Everything you talk about to buy is the result of someone perceiving a need, applying themselves, developing a skill, & creating something that never existed prior. (this next is exerpted from a post I made to another newcomer recently who was looking for info) Look at the top of this page,there's a link called tutorials. Click that. Most of the tutorials you'll see have something to do with Poser. Scroll to the bottom-right corner of this page, you'll see a column of links headed "Poser Top 15". Click on any of them. Look for tutorials on each site. Look for links to other poser sites, look for tutorials on these. A lot of poser sites may not have Tutorials. Many, Many, many do. Look for Poser Arcana, Look for ShadowCat's site, Look for Morphworld, Etc., etc, etc . . . I could go on typing sites with tutorials all nite, but I can't give you any better suggestions than to just start here, then go clicking around the Poser Webbring. That's how I learned most of what I know. Same for many others you'll hear from here. There's a tremendous feast awaiting you, dig in! Happy Rendering! leather-guy

Attached Link: http://www.sams3d.com

hi, Yes, it can be very heavy on the wallet, before you know it you could have spent more than $500.00 and you really are not more a head then before. Try also downloading the free demo version of Vue d'Esprit, excellent program, I have both Vue and Bryce and use Vue more, love it, love it. But try the freebie demo first, you have 30 days to fool with it. Next, I have both Poser 4 and Pro Pack, I use Poser 4 all the time, hardly ever use Pro, I learned Poser 4 and Pro Pack just added some things to make posing easier, but I learned the Joint editor and don't really need the new features of Pro. I use Corel Photo Paint and Draw, was much cheaper then Adobe, but really like it. As others above who have told you the free smaller versions work just fine. And hair, well no one will say I am wrong but Kozaburo's hair, is the best, works great on Poser 4 female. I have Victoria 2, still don't have Michael. I saved my money and bought the kids instead of Michael. More versitile right now and great freebies for cloth here. The freebies here are all great, you can first mess with this and maybe venture on if you even need to. Mike and I have freebies too, if you are interested and we have more freebies coming. We have been set back awhile due to recent events but are back on schedule. We are going to offer another free model for only a week in a couple of weeks then it will go up for sale, watch for postings. Lots of people do this, the people here are fabulous and welcome to this great community. Just take your time and enjoy yourself, you will turn out great stuff I am sure. Sharen

Attached Link: http://www.e-onsoftware.com

PS: got to Vue Forum's gallery to see what Vue can do. And also their site.

Attached Link: http://www.horae.dti.ne.jp/%7Ekozaburo/

One more time, here is the site for hair...you will love it. It makes posette sit up and sing. Sharen

I got a full copy of Bryce 3D from a magazine CD and it only cost $7.95! Full, older versions of programs are frequently available with most every UK art magazine along with tutorials to get you started (I live in the US and so far I can only find such magazines at CompUSA). I would expect to see Bryce 4 show up on one of those CDs sooner or later.

Markdotcom, that is great, I have yet to find that. Congrats....I am sure you will see Bryce 4 soon. Sharen

Attached Link: http://www.futurenet.com/futureonline/magazine.asp

Most of the really good Brit Publications are by Future Publishing, this is a link to on of their magazine portals - I recommend Computer Arts & 3D world - they have a lot of content on their web sites, plus subscriptions & individual back issues are available to order - prices are in british pounds, so bear in mind, to multiply by a little over one-and-a-half-times for the conversion (usually about 1.67:1) check their sites monthly, & you can get an idea which issues to look for. A lot of the content on their cover CDs is demo-ware, but they also have a lot of freeware, & older versions of software. Not to mention a fair selection of software reviews and tutorials.

And if you're looking for an older (and as such cheaper) vers. of Photoshop, try e-Bay.

Hey, Thank you guys so much for your help! You are all so wonderful and so eager to help. I have gained a wealth of information and I can't wait to go try it all out. I'll let you know when I get my first good pic done in Poser. I did want to mention that the link Leather provided also had tons of tutorials for you all with PhotoShop and they have plug-In's for you all to download for free too. They have tutorials for Vue and True Space too. Oh I know... My copy of Poser is from Metacreations what is this download I saw that makes it 4.03 from Curious Labs ( I do know they took over Poser from MC right?)? Is that free? Do I need it? Thanks again guys for making me feel like I'm part of the Poser family! :)

Curious Labs bought out Poser from MC. The upgrade is free. Take a look at their site for what the upgrade does. I can't remember. It is free.

and go to morphworld, it on the bbay servers, www.bbay.com and find the link to morphworld 2.0, there you will find eve4.0, which is the standard poser female, with a new redone mesh, so she poses better, and she can wear all of posette's (the p4 woman) textures and with a little tweaking all her clothes. the good advice is given, get good free textures, learn to use the standard stuff to the best of your ability, and save for the programs you feel you need, once they are bought, treat yourself to the custom figures like vicki and mike and the custom clothing and props that need to be purchased.

one last thing that I forgot to mention, Daz3d sponsers contests every now and then. When you enter one of them you will get a $10 gift certificate (just for entering) good towards your purchase of vicky & mike (when the time comes) I think that you can even save them up and combine them for a bigger discount. the current contest they have going is a calender contest and all you need to do is use a daz product in the image. You already have several Daz products such as the lion, the curly comforming hair, the list goes on...

Go download free P4 textures at happyworld land, free P4 hair from Kozaburo, and free P4 clothing from Sergemark :) http://DigitalBabes2.com/ http://site.yahoo.com/happyworldland/ hrm... can't recall the url to Sergemark's site. Anyone know it?

poser fashions, but you can find all of serge's clothes in free stuff

Attached Link: http://members.fortunecity.com/poserfashion/

Serge's wonderous clothing 8 ) Dancin.. the update is important for multi character figures.. for example a figure with clothes saves to the library.. you'll need teh update plus there a few other neat additions to the update like bettre import export plugins, some improved geometries and textures, and a couple of other nifty things 8 ) welcome to the wonderful world of relatively easy 3D graphics 8 ) the important thing is to have fun, get familiar with the interface and the programme's capabilities and drawbacks.. heh heh heh.. then try to overcome the drawbacks 8 ) there's a wealth of information here and at other sites. and most will try to help you along when you run into something wierd. Cheers

You definitely want to install the free 4.03 update. It was really more of a patch than an update as it primarily fixed several pesky bugs in the initial MC P4 release. By far, the most free stuff available, and much of the best, is made for the P4 nude female figure (aka:"Posette"). Clothing figures are designed to "fit" a particular figure in its default (unscaled or unmorphed) configuration, but can generally be tweaked to fit any figure. And if you've rescaled or morphed the figure it was designed for, you have to do this anyway, so go ahead and grab the Vicky & Michael stuff you like. ...and did anyone above mention the free "Eve" figure? It has modified geometry, joint and mapping features that are similar to those that were later incorporated into Vicky. It is at Traveler's MorphWorld 3.0. http://morphs.bbay.com/ Though I have Vicky, I use the P4 figures much more often (cause I have collected the most stuff for them), but still use the P3 figures also (cause I have older figures that were based on them that are still some of my fav's). There is tons of free stuff available that you can use right now, so, as it seems you have discovered, no need to fall for the "grass is greener..." syndrome just yet.

To answer your initial question, "Is ther and end to it?", the asnwer is NO. ;-) So don't be lured by all the hype - Poser is all you need (along with many of the wonderful free downloadable P4 items) to learn a LOT and develop your skill. Over time you might add other 3D programs such as Amorphium, Bryce, Vue etc, but you definitely don't NEED them to make great images and have a lot of fun. They just add a little more capability to your modeling and rendering ability. And remember each time you acquire one of those additional apps, there is a steep learning curve and a LOT of frustration involved with mastering each one. Add them to your library one at a time, slowly, and look for discounted (and sometimes free) earlier versions to save money and evaluate before you spend money on something that may not do what you want anyway. Good luck and welcome to our family.

Attached Link: http://clik.to/dtoybox

To toot my own horn for a moment, visit The Head Shop on my site and check out the selection of alternate heads you can use with Posette -- all you have to do is know how to apply morph targets.

Except for a paint program, you don't have to spend another dime. There are free modelers, and landscape generators out there, and Paint Shop Pro is MUCH less expensive than Photoshop. There are free paint programs too, but I do strongly suggest Paint Shop Pro. Then go get Terragen for your landscapes (FREE) and Anim8or for modeling (FREE) and work with the Poser stock characters and you should be set. Oh yea, be sure to grab the weekly freebie from Daz3D. jon