I seem to have accidentally ended up trying to teach a new user how to use Poser.  The frustrations of this process have got me thinking about when I first started using Poser, back in 1999.

I was excited, I was optimistic.  I had no idea how complicated, involved, or time-consuming all of it would be.  It was an uphill struggle for a long time, trying to master the fundaments of Poser file installation, texture application, and character creation, much less using Poser itself for posing figures, arranging scenes, and rendering images.  I was baffled for weeks, before something clicked.  I practically slept with the user manual under my pillow.  When I wasn't using Poser, my free time (including lunch hours) was dedicated to reading  and trying to understand that manual, or to downloading Poser content.

We didn't have the affordable or free tools available, back then, that we have now.  Some things were difficult.  My first modelling programs were Amorphium and Nendo.  Amorphium was... let's call it 'imprecise'.  :lol:  I tried Ray Dream Studio.  The clerk at the shop mocked me for spending so much on 3D software, tried to give me a bootleg copy of 3D Studio Max instead.  I declined.  I also found RDS next to useless.

I used Poser for over a year before I bought a 2D graphics program that would support layers.  Making textures was a struggle, in those early days, for me.  I didn't have a reliable Poser file editor until over a year in to using Poser.  I spent a lot of time editing files in raw text form, scrolling and counting brackets.

Poser was hard to learn.  I'm amazed I stayed at it, really.  Remembering that it was so challenging at first may help me a bit, as I try to help this new user.  Lesson one is installing content.  I begin to wonder whether the person I'm assisting is mentally deficient, or whether I am simply the worst instructor ever.  :lol:

I wonder if it was as hard for others as it was for me.  What was your experience of learning Poser?  Was it easy for you, or difficult?  How long was it before you felt you were finally a capable Poser user?  What is your story of beginning Poser? 

Took me a good solid year until I felt I knew what I was doing in Poser 4. Ya ain't alone ;).

Laurie

I'm still learning Poser!

If I knew how difficult it was, I probably never would have started!

Hmm...  Poser 4 was a LOT easier, fairly basic as compared to Poser10.

I got Poser 4 when 5 was out and people were starting to chime up about version 6.

It was the Dr Geep tutorials that got me up to speed, especially when I purchased Poser 6. This took me a couple of Months to actually try everything.

I got Poser 8 from a Purplus Software sale but never really tried it as I was really busy with work, but fortunately gave me a good break on my upgrade to Poser10.

So, learning Poser 10 is rather easy, with the Poser 6 background. Still learning new stuff in it, but I have the basics, and some conforming modeling under my belt from the p6 days hasn't changed much.

Poser 4 WAS a lot easier, but at the time I was relatively new to 3D...had only been using Vue 2 for about a year...and other than a brief dabble with a friend's machine and Bryce, my experience with 3D was extremely limited ;). I came from a 2D graphic arts background. I hadn't even been using a Windows machine for all that long. LOL

Laurie

For me it was like chess. The basics are quite simple and straighforward. The really neat stuff takes longer. And with continual upgrades, it remains a challenge. I like a challenge.

Attached Link: Newadventure Old Art Gallery

Part of what makes my rendering practice so time consuming is that I'm either trying to do something new, or I notice a little detail that needs fixing. I spend a fair amount of time getting my poses "just right" and then the balance of my investment goes into lighting and textures.

So how long did it take me to learn?  I'd say I was fairly comfortable with the UI within a few weeks and could get a decent render in a few months. But whenever I look at old renders I cringe a bit. You can see some examples in the link. Mind you, I also had a LOT of help from artists whose skill far surpassed mine. Denizens of AB3DP on Usenet offered excellent advice and pushed me beyond what I might have done on my own.

Re-working old images shows how far I've come. The one I'm attaching to this message is a case in point. There's a black and white version in the upper-right hand corner of the Main Gallery page on my web site. Comparing this recent image to earlier ones shows more natural posing, better lighting and handling of textures. It's really a process. Given how long I've been using Poser, we also have to account for how much more capable the program is now than it was back in the P3 days . . .

I'm still trying to learn Poser 2014. I did think Daz3 was alot easier to learn but wanted to try Poser to get the fantastic renders I see...Still chugging along and think it will be a long and slow. learning process..

Not done learning here, but once I stopped tinkering and really sat down and put my mind to learning how to do things? It's only been a couple of years. That may or may not have something to do with the fact that I was trying to use Poser 6 on a tablet pc back when those were new. It was sooooo frustrating. 

Dr. Geep and BagginsBill have been huge sources of knowledge, along with a hefty handful of other really inspiring and instructional people here and on the RDNA forums, so it's not been as hard a journey as it could have been. 

still learning. been now...ten years? dear GOD ITS BEEN THAT LONG?

I forgot to mention when I started using Poser, Rendo didn't exist and took awhile until I found Poser Forum Online ;). It was then that I really started to pick things up from people more familiar who would answer my really stupid questions. LOL People at the now-defunct Big-i.com helped me a lot too.

Laurie

Oh, the PFO!  Yes, it was a few months in when I discovered the Poser Forum Online.  I visited there a few times before the confusion started, with Renderosity starting up... under the same name, IIRC?  Somehow I ended up once at the proto-Renderosity instead of the PFO I'd visited before, and couldn't figure out that it wasn't the same place.  Someone had hacked the 'Rosity Free Stuff, that night, and I contacted the PFO to tell them their site had been hacked.  Confusing, it was.  :lol:

I've got a weird one, with my trainee.  SOmehow he's producing renders with blocky, aliased edges.  I can't even make the renderer do that, in my tests, so I can't figure out how to tell him to get rid of it.  I recall having alaised edges in my own initial Poser renders, but that was with Poser 4.  Can Posers from 8 up even do that?   

I was on AOL at the time and created a website to help sell my book. I used Poser to try and make the figures look like the characters in my book.

I actually started with PoserPro late in 2008. I am still learning things and know that I have barely scratched the surface of what it can do. One look at Monty Oum's work (Rooster Teeth)is enough to tell me how little I actually do with this program compared to what others do, but it actually took me about 1 year before I did a render that I really liked, much longer before I could do anything but load models, add texture,spin dials, do some lighting stuff then pose and render and I still look at my stuff in relation to the work of others and think "man I wish I could do that". 

i have the same feelings as LauriA, started with Poser4, really started learning the functions and all the really amazing things in 9 & 10 can do this past year, sure have come a long way, and again the knowledge here that is so quickly given is the real blessing.

Sharen

Still learning here. Each time I think I've scratched the surface, they add more features and that sets me that much further behind. Though looking at the join dates of others replying to this theard I don't feel as bad. Seems like I'm still a noob in comparison. Had I known how indepth Poser was and how much content there was that I just have to have, I would have thought twice about getting started with it, though I probably would gotten into it anyhow.

Using Poser for almost 10 years and still learning.  In no way can I claim to know how to use every feature to the maximum capability.

posing figures, arranging scenes, and rendering images

*Been using Poser since... 2003 i think... and that is the only thing i have learned... yea i procrastinate a lot...

Quote - Still learning since Poser 2. I actually tried to use Poser to make a submarine model for a novel i was writing. Instead I ended up using Bryce 3D for both the sub and underwater city.

I was on AOL at the time and created a website to help sell my book. I used Poser to try and make the figures look like the characters in my book.

That was my intention, too! I can't say that creating art in support of my stories has been very successful from a promotional standpoint. I've even done animated videos to advertise books, but it's been a lot of work for very little return. The best book selling I've done has been face-to-face.

Hi

I think I started out with Poser 3 and I think it was made by a company called Metacreations.

It was pretty simple compared to Poser today but still had a lot of the basic operations.

Then I updated to Poser 4, 6, 8, 10 and now Poser Pro 2014.

I've always been more about the animation then rendering still images, but my first use of Poser commercially was to create people to stick in architectural illustrations that I did to save time.

I was thinking just recently that I would hate to be starting from scratch now.

I had the benefit of learning as the program grew, it would be tough to start now.

There is still a lot about the program that I don't really know how to use, I'm sure that I still do a lot of things the hard way.

Mike

The biggest challenge for me to overcome was navigating and manipulating in 3d space.

I almost walked away from it.  I'm glad I didn't.  and I still had.. and have a lot to learn, but that was a big hurdle initially

I tried to learn 3D Studio back in 1998... and got nowhere with it.

In 2011 I decided to give 3D CG another shot... started with Blender, but again, got nowhere fast. Then I got a copy of Poser, and everything came together much quicker.

That's given me a lot more insight and confidence to go back and try to get to grips with Blender... although mostly focused on ZBrush right now, when I'm not just having fun playing around in Poser... what I still spend thw majority of the time I have free, doing.

Not sure when I started using Poser, my first content purchase was Jan 2000 but I know I was using Daz at that point.  Started with Poser 5 and it was the current issue at the time so that must point to an approximate date.  After using Poser 5 I stopped using Daz and then upgreaded through Poser 6, 7, 8, 2010, 2012  and now 2014.  So the end result is that I have been trying for a number of years.  I have learnt something, I know that because I look at the renders I did then to what I do now and they are certainly much improved.  Trouble is I then compare them with what others are doing and realise there is so much more.

I am not at the point where I can create my own figures and textures but I have learnt enough to blend commercially available textures and dial spinning to create my own character.  Most of this is done by using layers in Paint Shop Pro so I am not sure that qualifies for learning Poser but at least I have the very basics of the material room to apply the blends.  I can also dabble in the cloth room which was a complete mystery to me for years.  Despite that most of Poser is what I regard as PFM - Pure Flipping Magic and at that point I am clueless. 

Quote - Somehow he's producing renders with blocky, aliased edges.  I can't even make the renderer do that, in my tests, so I can't figure out how to tell him to get rid of it.  I recall having alaised edges in my own initial Poser renders, but that was with Poser 4.  Can Posers from 8 up even do that? 

Like you, I'd struggle if I was forced to make blocky, aliased edges. I suppose it must be render related (he is actually rendering, right? Not just exporting the preview screen?)

You can save your favourite render settings and transfer the file to his set-up, to see if that helps.

To answer your original question: still working on it. ;-)

Ditto everything.  It appears that I started around the beginning of 2000.  It was easy at first, and I produced quite a bit of usable pix and animations for a real graphics project during that first year.  (Looking in those folders just now, I found some fairly sophisticated Python stuff that I don't have the tiniest memory of writing.  The comments are obviously my style, but none of it rings even a microbell.)

After that it got harder and stayed hard.  I suppose it's the old 80/20 rule extended over 14 years.

Started with P1, now at PP2014, still learning every day.

A year to learn the basics, to be able to load some figures into a scene, dress them, pose them, move stuff around and render. Then I got into creating stuff with Blender for Poser and my whole way of using Poser changed. Who knows what an expert Poser user I would be now if I hadn't got into creating models? I would probably be much better at lighting and posing and the material room.

Still so much to learn.

Quote - > Quote - Somehow he's producing renders with blocky, aliased edges.  I can't even make the renderer do that, in my tests, so I can't figure out how to tell him to get rid of it.  I recall having alaised edges in my own initial Poser renders, but that was with Poser 4.  Can Posers from 8 up even do that? 

Like you, I'd struggle if I was forced to make blocky, aliased edges. I suppose it must be render related (he is actually rendering, right? Not just exporting the preview screen?)

You can save your favourite render settings and transfer the file to his set-up, to see if that helps.

---

To answer your original question: still working on it. ;-)

I'm pretty sure he's showing me a full render.  The textures and displacement maps are fully displayed, there are full shadows.  Yet the figure edges, where they stand against the blank Poser background, are blocky and aliased.  Weird stuff, especially since he's working with a pzz I sent him, saved out of Pro 2012, and he's rendering in Pro 2014.  It's a puzzler.    This is why I say that Poser is always an adventure.  :lol:

I think we can all say we're still learning Poser, particularly when it keeps changing on us, with wonderful new features added alongside the odd new bug or shortcoming which requires new workarounds.  That aspect aside, it seems like a lot of users were able to get the basics down pretty quickly.  Possibly I was a slow learner.  Wouldn't surprise me.  :lol:  Not the brightest person in the lamp, me.

Hi,

oh yes, with interruptions, I'm using Poser for 7 years now, starting at 5, now at Pro2012, and I still experience the occasional "Hey, I didn't know that!". And this excludes even areas I have not looked at at all (or just a few minutes), like animation, memory dots, face room, toon shaders, plus things I don't even know about that they exist.

On top of the program itself, there are so many graphics fundamentals which are not specific to Poser (I don't have an artistic training to base on), some of them I'm catching up, and some I may miss forever.

I hope it stays like this, the moment I think I don't have anything left to learn, I would look for a different hobby. ;-)

Best regards,

   Michael

I'm in from P1 as well. I have to keep learning as hard as I can to keep in pace with the speed I'm forgetting. That's why I write tutorials: after half a year into Vue or so, I need them myself to get back onto my Poser track. And vice versa.

cage, it's easy to get blocky-edged (aliased) figs in preview render, or in FFRender with pixel samples low and shading rate high.  naturally these would have been set correctly in pz3 file, but ask user to send shots of {preview, render, hardware} settings, prefs et al.  Happy thxgvng!

 p.s. takes years to learn poser, then they add stuff and we gotta start all over again

I'm still learning. I don't know much about the material room or the physics room or even the fitting room. Despite having used Poser since version 2, there are just some things I'm not mentally equipped to grasp as swiftly as other aspects of the program.  That said, I really hunkered down to learn the program with version 4 (up until then, I'd just been swapping textures and hitting render). Once Poser4 Pro Pack came out, it was a done deal for me. Took me less than a year to figure things out enough that I could get my own stuff rigged (much thanks to Phil C for guiding me along).

Started with Poser 4.  There are a lot of things I know how to do but there's always something I can learn and polish and when you think its polished enough, you polish it up some more.  I enjoy that I have specialities but I have so much more to learn.  Sure, sometimes it frustrating when you don't know something that well (maybe it's the cloth room or the hair room or whatever else is mystifying you) but I try to give myself time to dig in and take baby steps and do things over and over until it all clicks.  I think you have to build one stone at a time. :)

Gee, lots of us started with Metacreations P4, didn't we...?  :P

Anyone who says they know it all.....doesn't. It's a continuous process. If the application hasn't had new goodies added, a new figure comes out with something that requires thinking outside the box. Or a 3rd party renderer. Or python script. The day the merry go round gets boring is the day it starts dying.

And I can't remember the last time I heard PFO mentioned...  

Quote - cage, it's easy to get blocky-edged (aliased) figs in preview render, or in FFRender with pixel samples low and shading rate high.  naturally these would have been set correctly in pz3 file, but ask user to send shots of {preview, render, hardware} settings, prefs et al.  Happy thxgvng!

 p.s. takes years to learn poser, then they add stuff and we gotta start all over again

Yes, I was able to generate the aliased edges in a render by modifying the settings as you suggest, but doing that also reduces the resolution of the displacement maps and procedural textures.  The user has shown me full renders with displacement, procedural, and other textures at the resolution I set up in the example pz3, yet with aliased edges.  I don't see how there could be both at once in a full render, unless some kind of post-procdessing was done to composite two renders of differing resolutions for some reason.  The user reveals no sign of having such skills.  Color me puzzled.

I really like all the replies about how we're still learning Poser.  It wasn't my point at all, but it is something that's pretty cool about Poser and its community.  Both keep growing in new directions.  I like the way that Poser offers so many directions in which to grow that I can try and give up on a few, but still have plenty of new things to learn.  Maybe I'll never be able to light scenes like a pro or master the Hair Room design tools, but there's a bunch of other stuff I can do.  :laugh:

Start in 2002, Poser 4. Got 3 and 5 from magazine, have 8. Cannot say have learned anything, still not to do dynamic clothes...;)

I started with Metacreations Poser 4 then Pro Pack.And I have been bumbling my way through every version since! I am still coming to terms with the material,hair and fitting room.Have not attempted the bullet physics as I do not understand it! Gradually learning to use the morph tool. Cheers

The first time I used Poser was around the same time as the OP, 98'-99'... a client gave us Bryce, Poser and either Ray Dream or Infini-D... they cancelled the project after less than a month (they had NO idea what they wanted or what the software was for)... I was very interested in the software because I envisioned using it for storytelling or illustrating graphic novels...  I toyed with it in my spare time but never really picked any of them up... mainly because of a lack of available information... back then the internet was dial up for us and if you didn't find a book or someone who you could ask for help, forget it. Bryce was probably the only one I got any real results from because it was just easier to play with.

Poser... I'm still getting the hang of. I don't think I could ever really "learn it" because by the time I learn enough that I'm comfortable with, it has either added/changed features, or I've not used cetain feature long enough to become unfamiliar with them... that and I use a bunch of other software too, so I get confused easy...

Also, for me it seems that what I want to do with Poser seems to be less covered by tutorials and books (like 80% of users appear to only use it for portraits, or so it would seem).

Quote - Lesson one is installing content.  I begin to wonder whether the person I'm assisting is mentally deficient, or whether I am simply the worst instructor ever. 

Poser had a very steep learning curve for me, and a major obstacle was its content  management, aka library system. It is a terrible, awful, bad, very bad, very-very bad, horrible, terrible (did  I say that already), big stinkin' mess. It makes a certain amount of sense if you go back to the early days of Poser, but for someone just now getting into it, it makes no sense at all. Why is there no hair in the Hair directory? Why are the textures for an outfit completely separated from the outfit? What are all those things doing in the Pose directory that have nothing to do with poses?

I come from a hi-tech background and I've taught applications in the past. IMO, one mistake that a lot of trainers and user guides make is trying to justify every part of a system. Sometimes it's best to just say that while a certain app is, in general, a very fine app, some parts of it just suck. That helps to limit the self doubt that comes with learning complex systems like Poser. I wouldn't spend much time trying to explain Poser's content management to your student. It's just not worth it.

The good news is that, for the most part, you can organize your content any way you like, and that seems to be what most of us end up doing. There are lots of threads on this because it's such a frequently asked question. Maybe it should be a sticky.

Hi

The library system in Poser drove me up the wall when I first started using it.

It took me a while to realize that I could do it any way I wanted to.

Now to start with I don't install Poser or the Runtime in the default locations, the Poser Folder goes on my E: (Graphic Arts) drive and the Runtime go inside it.

Under the Poser folder I make folders for each character.

In that folder go the PZ3 files for all variations of the character I've created i.e. with different clothes fitted etc.

Below that I create a folder for the textures for the character, (I copy the texture folder from the Runtime to this location and then add my custom textures to it) so everything from finger nails to eyelashes is in the same place, I don't always load the things that load by defualt from the Runtime from here but I know where they are if I need them.

In another sub folder I put all the props and clothes I use with the character and the textures for them.

Below that, I make folders for each project that I use the character for.

In the project folder I have folders for the Poser Files (Pz3) for the job.

One for Backgrounds and Textures for anything that isn't the figure, or clothing.

One for Props.

And a folder for Video Files created in Poser, and one for voice files and sound effects.

The only downside for this is that I sometimes have duplicates of some files so that I can have them with each project, but it's just easier then having to go look for them every time.

The actual video project file is separate location, but all of the Poser stuff, sounds, backgrounds etc. come from these folders.

Since I have done it this way it's a lot easier, everything I need for a project is in one place.

I do save my basic characters to the Library but I usually load them from my Character Folders when I start a new project, the ones in the Library are just a backup.

It may take a little while to set it up, (it's the first thing I do when I'm starting a project, but after that it save a lot of time.

Anyway that's the way I've done it for a long time now, and it makes it so much easier to go back to something that I did a year ago it's worth it.

Mike

I started with Poser 4 at work and first bought Poser 4 Pro Pack for home.  I'm still learning.  I don't think I'll every figure out the animation tools.  It takes me forever anymore just to do a single still scene. 

For those enjoying today's libraries where you can put anything anywhere, you don't know how lucky you are.  I remember the days when all character file formats had to be in the Character folder, all prop formats in the Props format, all textures changes in the Pose file (and we needed special software to create those poses).  Lord help you if you put a punctuation mark (I think ? was the worst) in the file name.  The material room is a great, but confusing, asset and I still find myself going to the Pose folder first for textures after all these years. 

I'm currently up to PoserPro2014 and I still haven't figured out lighting.  I have a definite problem "seeing" in 3D and Bryce and Poser are the only 3D programs I've ever been able to use.  I'm hopeless in all the modeling programs I've tried.  Believe me, with all the free/really cheap modeling software from the creators of DAZ, Poser and Bryce (back before DAZ bought them), I've tried a lot of modeling programs. 

I've just grateful that somedays I can use Poser like playing with paper dolls (click to combine prefab characters, clothes, textures, lights, props, backgrounds, camera settings) and hit the render button to get a picture that still looks like something. I LOVE my Poser addiction :)