I was cleaning out some old tech in my home office and came across this...

My original Poser v.1 manual. I also had some receipts for other Fractal Design software, but didn't see the one for Poser. I'm certain that I bought Poser at Computer City in Tampa, Florida in or around 1995.

Such a fun find!

Lee

That ought to be in the poser muesum. WOW! and for the Mac too!

I thought Poser was created on the Mac. I do know that was one reason why I initially bought it. Not too many programs were created for Macintosh back then. I came on board with Poser 2 and was surprised there was a Windows version as well on the disk they sent me.

A little more digging around through my stuff and I found the three original 3.5" installer disks for Poser v.1.

I also unearthed installers for the Newton Toolkit SDK ( for Apple handheld pen tablets from the 1990s) and Connectix QuickCam. As a hobby, I used to write multimedia software for the Newton family of products and had been granted developer access to the Connectix QuickCam in the hope of using the QuickCam as a camera for the Newton. The device drew too much power for the Newton to handle, so I abandoned that project. LOL!

I recall creating some QuickTime VR apps for Newton that used Poser renders for some 360 degree viewing demos.

It's been great seeing these little treasures again after all those years!

Lee

I used to keep a lot of my stuff from the Early days of Poser. I still have my Poser 2 Manual. Unfortunately a few years ago, I had congested heart failure and my family threw out a lot of my stuff, including some books that I had that actually first introduced me to Poser.

1995.... God, I was 10.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 9:48AM Mon, 27 January 2020 - #4377877

1995.... God, I was 10.

I was 36

IIRC, they were either giving it away or offering it dirt cheap when it was first introduced, and I snagged it up. Installed it, opened it, and thought, "Oh. Okay. Whatever." I didnt look at the program again until v4.

Man, has it improved since then or what...

I can't remember if the first version I actually used was Poser 2 or Poser 3, but I do remember that I wanted it for the exact reason it was originally created - I wanted pose reference for traditional drawing :)

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 1:18PM Mon, 27 January 2020 - #4377915

I can't remember if the first version I actually used was Poser 2 or Poser 3, but I do remember that I wanted it for the exact reason it was originally created - I wanted pose reference for traditional drawing :)

The first version I used was Poser 4 Pro Pack, bought for me by the company I worked for. I was doing some R&D in creating an identikit system for faces to use with our soccer player meshes. It didn't come to anything but at least I got hold of Poser. Came here, saw a few tutorials by geep and I was hooked.

I believe I started on 4. I was looking for something for an Unreal Tournament mod called Weapons Factory (I was getting burned out with the Quake 2/3 versions of the mod, and wanted new code and gameplay modes to chomp on - the teleporter puck UT has looked a lot more exciting for gameplay than the offhand grapple - well anyway...). Got sidetracked looking for meshes, stumbled on Poser, got v4 w/ PP, and got stuck messing with this stuff ever since. :)

Gaming sort of petered off from there... I think the last LAN party I attended was in 2006 or so? (yep, 2006... a "Protocol 42" party at the University of Utah.)

Anybody use Poser while on dial up via AOL or Compuserve? Both of those are still around, btw.

I was 41 ... and I had worked for a small print-shop as a desktop publisher when I first saw Poser. Intrigued me ... but I didn't see it's potential until I was gifted with a second hand Mac a few years later with Bryce 4 on it and did research as I had just been put in charge of the Mac software isle at Fry's Electronics ... finally got Poser 3 ... and was hooked ever since.

Bryce 4. Didn't spend much time with it. Started with Bryce 2 and graduated to Bryce 3. I did this book Cover with Bryce 3. I created the characters and designed them using Poser 2 as a guide.

It would be awesome if any of you were to create and post renders from the original Poser version, but then I'm assuming you'd no longer have the computer systems it was compatible with then. I remember having Poser 3 or 4 on an ancient Power Mac running OS 9.x (Classic) long before Apple went to Intel and OS X. My, how things have changed!

Anim8dtoon posted at 9:58AM Sun, 09 February 2020 - #4379623

It would be awesome if any of you were to create and post renders from the original Poser version, but then I'm assuming you'd no longer have the computer systems it was compatible with then. I remember having Poser 3 or 4 on an ancient Power Mac running OS 9.x (Classic) long before Apple went to Intel and OS X. My, how things have changed!

I still have all my old renders on CD. This wasnt using the original version but it was one of my earliest renders in v4. Even then I was building custom textures for my meshes, because I really hated what was out there for them. This is the infamous Dork, incidently. He could clean up pretty nicely.

1996... I was laid up from surgery following an accident and a friend owned an ad agency. He had just landed a big account with a local dealership and the client wanted some TV Ads. He bought Poser and several other applications to try to create Storyboards for his presentation. With just two weeks before the full presentation he was struggling to get the look he wanted so he brought over Poser along with all the software and his files so far. We worked for about a week straight every day and evening, ended up using Poser to create the Storyboard images, bought me a new Inkjet Printer to try printing out these images we created... that failed (no decent quality prints) So we created a slide show... He presented two days later... they accepted and he hired a local production firm to do the commercial shoot. I was hooked and I started doing ad work for him as a freelance. Even got a few gigs from the Production Company to create Storyboards for other clients. Found a better printer (had to use special paper) and the rest is history....

No payment for that first job but I got to keep using Poser and all the software along with the Printer we did not use. One of the early HP Color Jet... so that first job ended up having better value than most of the jobs I took over the next 10 years! Oddly, I never used the ColorJet much and other than Rhino, I can not recall the other applications... Might be when I got my first copy of Paint Shop Pro.

The Book cover I posted earlier was a story that started out as a screenplay I had written at the time. I sent out the manuscript, but I think the editor misunderstood my proposal and wote back telling me to pitch the story at a meeting. From the way he worded the response, they thought I had a preliminary draft animation or live action film to present. I bought Poser 2 that weekend and tried and failed to put together a storyboard. I know better now, but at the time I was trying to find or buy all the props I need. Didn't make it. I decided to write the story as a novel.

I have Poser 2, but started with Poser 3. Everything I did with Poser 3 was pretty bad, so didn't do a whole lot with it. With Poser 4 Pro I started doing more, but I still didn't like the results that much. I got Cinema 4D then Carrara. Liked the results I got with Carrara the best, so I stuck with it (and Poser) for years. The Poser/DAZ "split" forced me to chose one or the other because I couldn't afford (justify) supporting content for two different applications Since DAZ owned Carrara, I went with DS/Carrara.

I still remember how fun it was to be able to pose what passed for realistic figures on my own computer back in the day (and make some really silly stuff the the kids)! Poser made it affordable, much less than the other options. The first figure I ever used other than the included figures was V3, I was a beta tester for Jim Burton's Glamorous Jessie. I still remember how much everyone disliked Jessie, but I actually liked her.

Anyway, thanks for the trip down memory lane.