Ah.

Another "If its not a modeler, it isn't real CG' thread...

My perspective is this: I animate. I write the script, do the scene blocking, the keyframing, the lighting, set and world construction or kit bashing, audio recording, foley, scoring, etc etc etc.I don't -have- to fondle every vertex; I have neither the time or resources to fumble my way through that one stage of the process. Mesh is a resource to me, not the be all and end all. Figures are potential actors. Poser is just a tool.....one that a lot of actual getting paid pros keep in their kit because it is a source of quick human figures when you either don't have the time to model it, or the client doesn't want to pay the price of custom figures. Most people here don't understand or use 60% of whats under Poser's hood. Guess what? Most of those same people don't know the lion's share of Office, Open Office, or any other program you might name. I certainly don't know or use all the tricks and goodies...just like I don't know all the tricks of Vue 2015. Or Messiah. Or Modo. Or iClone. Or the CS4 Adobe programs I use. Or Pro Tools 10. Or Final Draft. But I know enough to accomplish what I want, and learn a little more in the process. Modelers do amazing things...but that is only one thin step in a very complex dance. I had a Max snob doing the 'I'm so cool' bit with a scene he had crafted lovingly, vertex by vertex; it was a planetscape with the required hi tech structural thingamawhatsis. It was good, and he was being an immature little boy with nonsense about how if it isn't done that way, it isn't 'real computer art'. So I asked him a question. How long did it take him? 6 months, was the answer. At which point I informed him that at that rate, in another 15 years he would have exactly one second of footage in the can. If he plans on making stills to sell at cons, he's set for life. If he wanted to work in the industry, he would probably not get his foot in the door, as he simply took too much time for too little output.

There are a lot of folks who started here who moved on to bigger and better.....and a lot who are quite satisfied with NVIATWAS. I started with Poser just to be able to make images of scenes I'd written about to support my writing. Then the ease of animation caught me, and things grew from there. Now the tool has serious limits to what I want to do, so I adapt.