Hello, I am new to the world of 3D graphics! From what I can see, the best images in the gallery are rendered primarily with programs other than poser. What program has the best rendering engine (bearing in mind that I can't afford 3D Studio Max)? Are the characters/scenes imported from Poser into another program such as Bryce or World Builder for rendering? If they are imported, do programs like World Builder have the ability to pose the characters? I seem to have some difficulty with posing/animating the characters, setting up the lighting, and getting what I would consider "photo-real" images. I have followed several tutorials and the renders look decent, just not as good as I was hoping for. At this point I really don't know if it's just me or if the Poser rendering engine is the problem. Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you, Brian Wheatley

the most low cost solution is bryce5
for stills
i use cinema 4DXl but if that is out of your price range
consider bryce.

The Poser render engine is one of the fastest around but also gives some of the poorest results. It is possible to get very good results out of poser with work and skill but there will always be a lot of lighting and material effects that you can only get in another application. Maya and 3d Studio Max both have very strong reputations for rendering but they're both very expensive. I've seen very good results done with Cinema 4D and older versions can often be had free on magazine promo CDs. Bryce is probably not as good but it's certainly heaps better than Poser. Poser 5 will apparently give Poser a much better Render engine, but nobody knows when that will happen. You can't do posing in Bryce (at least not in the same sense that you can in Poser). I don't know about world builder. In most applications, imported Poser figures would have to be extensively modified before you would be able to pose them properly. The usual procedure is to pose in Poser then move the whole scene to something else. I've heard of tools to move a Poser animation to 3D Studio Max but I've never heard of ways to move Poser animations into any other software.

From what I've seen, my favorite renders have come from Lightwave and Cinema 4D. I have also seen some very good renders from Maya. I don't like Bryce renders, personally, although a few were pretty good. One thing you can do is cruise for some nice light sets. Blackhearted has a light set in the Renderosity marketplace that works true wonders for rendering within Poser. There are also some good free light sets, for example the set by Anton in the free stuff section is very good.

What about Vue D'Esprit (spelling?). You can import a pz3 file directly into Vue and render. You can't get much simpler than that.

Vue D'Esprit is less expensive than Bryce, renders faster than Bryce, and imports full pz3 scene files for easy use without all the extra steps you need to go through to fix textures in Bryce. I like Vue's render quality very much, but it does look a little different from Bryce. The last 4 images in my gallery were rendered in Vue and use Poser figures if you'd like to take a look. Spend some time browsing the Vue galleries to get an idea of what can be done, then download both the Vue and Bryce demos to see which you like better before spending any money.

If you are mostly looking for something to render poser scenes and some landscapes, IMHO you are wasting your money getting something that includes a bunch of modeling capability you don't intend to use.

Cinema 4d or Vue IMHO .....they differ greatly in price so i guess that'll be the deciding factor but if not buy both and use cinema for indoors or tight outdoor scenes in vue for the big dramatic outdoor scenes....oh just an add on vue wil open a pz3 file but still only, cinema will do it via obj very easily but you need the pro pack to use a pz3 file and to do animaition in C4d......Steve

Like Cinema 4D, it's sister product is BodyPaint, good rendering there too. You don't get animation but you get everything else that Cinema has...Sharen

I would recommend Vue d'Esprit if you want a cost effective and easy way to enhance your Poser renders. The Vue rendering engine is considerably faster than Bryce. Vue is easy to learn and it will import the full pz3-file from Poser without any problems, textures and all. You won't find any other product that does it as easy as Vue. As for posing, you need to do that in Poser. You can of course put down a lot of work in making the imported figures posable if you go for a high end package such as 3D Studio Max or Maya. But if you just want to import the Poser scene in e.g. Vue for rendering, the posing must be done prior to the import. The imported scene will just be a bunch of stiff objects.

Thanks everyone for the input!! I'm not familiar with Cinema 4D but it does sound interesting. I've also been looking at Vue and World Builder as well for the terrain (both import Poser scenes). Brian Wheatley

Brian if your just wanting to start off by importing figures to render then Vue is most likely your best choice...cinema (or LW or MAX) would be over kill in this case.....but having vue THEN buying one of these apps wouldn't be a waste of the money you spent on Vue as it still does outdoor scenes better than the others...infact i reckon if you end up with Vue, a good 3d app like the ones mentioned, poser and uvmapper your set for any eventuality :o)........Steve

What about Carrara 2 ???? http://www.eovia.com Eovia has added much in the way of lighting....GI , Etc...plus the renderer has been much improved. Price is pretty nice. It now does bones which can be applied to the Poser figures. I would assume if you can add bones, this means the figure can be manipulated within Carrara....thus, you can change the pose within the app.

You said the best! Softimage full package that starts at $18,000...you ask for it...you got it... It the Big Boys toy who can't figure out what to do with their money. What's funny I almost got a transferable full licensed copy on ebay for $500.00... But until then...Lightwave my favorite

I have Ray Dream 5, so upgrading to Carrara 2 would not be too difficult. I e-mailed them a question regarding an available SDK which I haven't received an answer yet. The funny thing about Carrara is that it doesn't mention Poser anywhere, though Ray Dream 5.5 did have that built in. I am still looking into it. :) Brian

Attached Link: http://www.povray.org

Brian, That is strange as far as no mention of Carrara, plus no direct import into Carrara2 either. Makes the transparency deal a bit more difficult. There are a couple folks setting up some bones which can be used directly on the Poser characters, import the character, apply the bones file...viola. plus some tutorials on tranparency work which will make that part a bit easier. The textures import if you use obj files. I just sent a post to the Carrara list inquiring about Poser direct import. Hopefully someone can provide an explanation. Probably some licensing thing with Curious, although that feature is available as posted here with several apps.

BTW if you have apps like RDS or whatever ALWAYS ask if they have a cross grade price when buying the more expensive apps, sometimed they'd rather sell you it cheap and have you on the upgrade path than miss a sale.....Steve