Greetings!

Ye Olde poser user here(P5, 6, 7, pro2010, 9 & anti-postwork to boot), as was mentioned in another post, to my audible chuckling, we want more, we want to create our own stuff, when our idols start making really wtf stuff, we feel the universe nudge us to do more, kerplunk

So, I took the dive, I have had blender 2.60 64bit on win7 64bit. I got a box seamed, uv mapped, exported and imported into poser, yay!

and then i read about poser to blender, the whole thread about using the scripts, then about cycles and that 2.72 offers a lot more than I had even thought possible, cough cycles. and I'm a little like a deer in the headlights about how to go about this correctly. Pardon the seemingly infantile simplicity of the question, but it's like a simple yes/no tax question, the more you think about it, the more unsure you are...

Do I uninstall 2.60 completely then reinstall 2.72? I downloaded the 64bit version by the by, assuming it would perform better on my 64bit OS. My 64 bit P Pro2010 actually performs better then my 32bit p9 install or maybe I'm imagining that due to the $ difference, ha.

do you guys have modeling challenges? I'd love some light hearted competition, imaginary prizes, novice level stuff

anyway, like the community feel I have been reading, even the angry 'what's wrong with the world?!' guy, lol

ps- as original intents go, i wanted to use poser to make comics, eventually transition to modeling to make the comics more unique and maybe make a little money, but I'm probably a better writer than a storyboard artist, that and poser renders + comic balloons just look harshly bad unless you use a filter to make the render lose all it's 3d-ness, the irony... I have never let go of the secret desire to model(3d objects not strut), but it's time to light the fuse, dud or boom, I don't care, let's do this and finally answer the question.

Hello Gossamyr

One of the advantages of Blender is that you can have multiple versions of it on a system I have found that the easiest way to accomplish this is just downloading the zip files instead of the folders and running Blender from right inside its folder it does not have to actually be installed. I run Blender 2.49b, 2.65 and 2.72b mainly because when following some tutorials which are done in different version of Blender they are at times easier to follow if you have the version it was done in. Plus there is always rare occasion that you might come across a bug that cuases things to just not work right like happened recently with version 2.72 but most of those have been resolves in 2.72b. As to question about challenges that is something I will look into if I get feed back that our forum group wishes something like that to be started then I will look into what I need to do to get some challenges started. 

thanks, so it's like poser in that regard, good to know

easy potential challenges; the pirate chest, the elevator, southparkian Canadian, the pillow bomb(things with a simple moving part)

 pretty much what Lobo said, just grab the zip open and run!! only thing to watch for is addons!  windoze will add a folder to "users/etc" (Linux mac will do it diff) but addons will go in there UNLESS you change it [user preffs/files]

for making props~clothing there is NO need to use any sort of script (there handy if you make a scene and want to move it for rendering)

as for challenges I would be interested but my time is  both limited and mixed up at the mo' so will join in as an when I can

Awesomeness!

I'm not really sure i want to delve into addons yet, if it's anything like plugins for photoshop, as cool as they are, it's better to learn base functionality, eyecandy later, lol

I am going to spin thru the rosity tutorials thru the holidays, I think we'll all be ready for something seriously fun mid Jan? A lot of people are probably outta town right now anyway

I am sure you will find that learning Blender will be at times a challenge but well worth it in the long run I started with Hexagon long time ago and I think I have learned more about good modeling practices using Blender than I ever learned with Hexagon or Silo put together. The tools that are available in Blender will encourage you to learn the best way of doing things and I am very confident that our community here will do it's best to answer any potential questions you will have.