Hey, fellow POSERS, thought you might have a few thought on this. Will POSER5 come with "respect"? I just read this in a 3d magazine and thought I would share it. It is a letter to the editor.

Quote....

NO MORE POSER!
"I mean, let's get real, problably 90%of your readers are dedicated to using mainstream programs like 3ds MAX, LightWave, Maya, ect. They don't want to get stuck creating fun images like "spy scene" in issue#25!
"To me POSER is only good for studing the human body: if I were going to create a characer from scratch, I'd use a more sophisticated program like Max. In my opion, by publishing such tutorials, you are encouraging 3D enthusiasts to steer away from modeling the slow rewarding way. Generic programs like POSER are just so uninspiring, like fast food. They just do not score with people like me who do not want to be reliant on fast-food software."

Getting close to lunch... Think I'll have Good Ole Cheeseburger and fries... later Niles :)

somebody shoot that guy quick, no not you Niles, I bet that guy is looking at poser4 & comparing it to Max, LW & Maya, the silly arse. Sit him in front of Poser5 for an hour with Steve, or better still let's just beat him to death with the manual ;) Rob

ps would he be saying things like that if he knew Poser4 was being used to make proper big budget films? Jet Li's The One, The Matix bet he's heard of those, next time you watch The Matrix watch the bit where Neo is being taught Kung Fu carefully and you'll see the poser figures on the screen, which magazine was it so I can avoid getting really peeved. Rob

That's one of the reasons I'm wishing I hadn't re-subscribed to 3D World Mag. It's leaning heavily towards the high end programs and not doing much for me at all.

Nah, leave him alone. Success is the best revenge, and I bet CL is doing better than any of the "main stream" programs.

The one who wrote that is jealous. .....O.K. Poser is fastfood but I like it. I have Lightwave but I still like to use poser. Because in Lightwave, to build a human figure like the one in poser, need to built model from scratch. In poser, just some clicks on the mouse. You got it! So, what's wrong with poser? I am 100% support POSER!!! I even have 2 copy of POSER 4.

Respect for Poser is a very big issue. I showed my poser work to an art grad student here at Marshall University and she was both disdainful and dismissive of it to say the least. I can see where someone would look down at Poser to some extent because poser artist are using the same figure geometries and poser art can have a look to it that you know what programs were used to create it. However, to say that poser users are simply "fast food" artists with a lack of real artistic conviction is asinine. Like many other poser users here, my artistic ventures began in pencil-drawings without formal artistic training. In my four years at Marshall I was asked several times why I had not opted to become an art major instead of chemistry. (Obviously someone thought that I had some talent and appreciated my work.) My answer was simply that art was a hobby which I did not want to be graded for. (I was recently accepted to the Forensic Science graduate program at Marshall University). The confines of poser 4, 5, or whatever are no where as limited as what some people pretend. I have reported several times in this forum where poser was used for crime scene analysis on Court TV. I have no doubt that it has used in movies as c1rcle suggests. Like many others, I have gravitated towards Poser because it is friendly, easy to use, and there is an excellent community of artists involved with it. There are certainly other excellent graphic arts programs out there, but like with drawing, every artist needs to start somewhere... and poser, i think at least, is the best place to start in this medium. Thanks, PapaBlueMarlin

To PopaBlueMartin, To the desmisivness of the art student, blow it off, I am a MFA, BSW, csci BS, Too many initials scary isnt it!! She is just too immature to understand that tool are tools and she is in no position to judge someones art, BTW have you seen any of hers?? Someone needs to remind her art is in the message more than anything else!!! and whatevery tech or style or crayon!!! that gets it out there right, is just that Right!!! I am sorry but that kind of ego really gets me!! Rant over

I say let jerks like that continue to believe that crap about the purity of 3d modeling software. while they're struggling for days to complete an illustration, I'll tell the art director I can do it in hours and be able to change anything in the piece on the fly including the pose. and I doubt his will look any better. I had an art teacher who used projectors to transfer his photos to canvas for his illustrations, many of his students were horrified "that's cheeting!" they would say, "when you're doing a book cover a week come talk to me about cheeting" he would reply "an art director doesn't care if you use toilet paper to do a project they just want results, It's your eye they're hiring" Who cares what tool you use to create your art just create!

I agree 100% with all the comments. We (profesionnals or hobbists) are artists. We use the art to express or concept of life and feelings. What media we use for that? The best that can accomplish the job. There is any program with the power and simplicity of Poser? No. All the other programs are great but in order to obtain good results the learning curve is so high that only graphic designers can use. PapaBlueMarlin is a scientist, I am a physician, others have differents professions and backgrounds but all of us can show our artistic gifts with the wonders of Poser. I am not a graphic designer or a computer genious. My hobby is computer drawing and Poser have been the best thing that happen in my life to archive that goal. The respect and honor of Poser is to provide the tools of art to the "normal" people. Poser did this right, simple and with excellent quality. That is the respect of Poser...

Snobs, of any stripe, make my teeth itch! Hate 'em, hate 'em, HATE 'EM!!! There, I feel much better now.

I have so many times come in contact with people that just can't understand what TOOL is and what CREATIVE PROCES is! It just doesn't matter what tool do you use... the end result is what counts!

Well I can understand this attitude... the "spy scene" tutorial in 3D world mag was miserable. It was only the "poser man" with the standard "tuxedo" ! no work on texture, light, morph, etc...

So yes this is totally "uninspiring", and we can call it "generic POSER fast-food". But the one to blame here is 3Dworld Mag not Curious Labs' POSER.

I think that the whole "POSER 5 versus Modeling Softwares" debate is absurd. POSER IS NOT A MODELING SOFTWARE !!!

:) Eric

not a modelling program yet.....

There is a lot of truth in this... and some not so true stuff. The basic reality is that for a lot of professional folks it simply isn't possible to use the Poer figures due to various licensing issues - they have to create the figures from scratch. So for a certain type of professional work Poser figures aren't really an answer ... and probably never will be. Combined with the genericness of a lot of Poser art and you really can see why many of them would have the feelings they do. It will change with time as the software gets better. As for the use of Poser in mainstream movies - let's not expect that to sway anyone. The poser usage in those cases was not crucial... it was just convenient and played no noticable part in high quality renderings. Poser is great stuff, and Poser 5 will give us a whole new set of weapons to fight with in the battle for respect... but we have to realize what it is... and what it isn't or we don't sound like we have much of a clue :)

Recently I saw a commercial on TV for some local tire store or other where they used an animated model as their spokesperson. My husband called my attention to it (I was reading a book at the time) by saying "My gawd, that's a crappy animation. You could do it much better, I've seen you." so I looked up, and he was right. I could have done a much better job in Poser than they did with whatever highend application they were using and I'm not an animator! Kate

Let's face it, a prog like Poser scares the hell out of high end people. Suddenly anyone can make it look good if they have any idea about lighting and composition. And they don't have to spend months building the model first, or otherwise pay someone else thousands of bucks to make one. It reminds me of the synthesiser vs. 'real instrument' debate some decades ago, and the electric instrument vs. acoustic instrument debate a few decades before that. What really intrigues me is - when will the true head-on competitors to Poser turn up? Nothing yet on the horizon.... :] FishNose

next time you watch The Matrix watch the bit where Neo is being taught Kung Fu carefully and you'll see the poser figures on the screen, ....even my kids picked up on that....and, rewound and rewound and rewound....making me watch over and over. lol. but, it is true, poser is not a modeller. and, i don't see any changes coming along in five that will make it so. however, a model that does nothing isn't worth much. poser is an affordable way to pose/animate models made in other programs. i think i have heard of one other app that "poses" models, and it was awesomely expensive. Pop...Pop...Poppi!!!

[[ Snobs, of any stripe, make my teeth itch! Hate 'em, hate 'em, HATE 'EM!!! There, I feel much better now.]] Actually, they're not TOO bad - when barbeque'd. ;o)

Most of these poser Bashers have never even seen the latest version of poser with millenuim figures I KNOW THIS FOR A FACT!!! When you render poser animation in other program Like I Do and post them in High end Cg Forums and say "i rendered this in cinema4DXL7" they often praise the "models" and animation until they find out its poser and then there is an embarrased silence!!! Look how for far we are ahead of other small/oneman operations when it comes to producing full walking talking Cg humans and short films. right now over at another forum for C4DXl someone posted a Beta animation created in cinema version8 of a detached dinoaurs tail wagging. and the guys are going crazy with excitement over this simple animation. yet people here like markdc are producing full fledged action SCi Fi shortfilms using poser and MAX. yet we are some how considered Losers. there seems to be an irrational fear of poser out there that i dont understand and its PATHETIC!! but i dont care any more let them sit around and get excited over 5 bones in an IK chain flopping about to hell with them !!!

Attached Link: tail wag :-/

he promises some "Biped walks" someday to a cheering crowd

pardon me..
but give me a FUCKING BREAK!! already ;-/

Attached Link: poser T- REX

but somehow my animation has no credibility to those guys even though i could get $$Paid$$ for 3 Dino animations before this "Legit "guy finishes wagging his tail.

if you want to maintain your good name on the CG social register
go pull an 5 bone IK chain for 8 hours and trash poser

meanwhile we have actual CG films in production.
so whos really the "Losers" here

could you just post a link to these animations?? my computer wants to download something. i don't let my computer download anything from the forums. thanks, poppi

I do what I do because I like it and it makes me happy. Everyone else can kiss my ass. If someone doesn't respect my art because they don't like what software was used in the creation of it, that doesn't affect me one whit. In fact, it encourages me to do MORE art because I know that somewhere some jerk-ass doesn't like it.

I aspire to do some animations like wolf359 and others with Poser, I am learning LW7 and Lifeforms. It is clear to me that I have to hope of completing any type of reasonable animation in my lifetime it would only be because of Poser. Poser 5 is going to make this incredible system to a level I never imagined would be available at an incrediblely fair price. All the nay sayers are going to turn around in about 5-6 months and find themselve forced to lower their high prices once again. I just wonder if the 3D software development has entered a new phase, similar to what we have seen in the last 10 years when the explosion of hardware improvements soon lead to a dramatic fall in prices...boy do I love competition with and expanding user base...GO FOR IT CURIOUS LABS...my wallet is open and ready.

its funny, but some of us might remember back in the early days of 3d when 3d studio max was the laughing stock of the modelling community, and its rendering engine is still years behind every other major package. yet now there are 3d max users who consider it a matter of pride that they model in 3ds studio max instead of the "low end" packages. But i know i am much more satisfied with poser 4 for use in character animation than that joke called character studio, and i know poser 5 should easily make up for the cost of all max 4's silly plugins. The same can apply to many other modelling packages. I have never expected poser to perform as a full animator and modeller, so why diss it because it isnt? Half of those high end modelling snobs can't even produce quality as good as experienced poser users, so when they can i might put more weight in their ideas. And those who can produce high quality work, i notice never bother to snub the tools of others... their too busy making money with what they have.

KateTheShrew - "I could have done a much better job in Poser than they did with whatever highend application they were using and I'm not an animator!"

So they had a bad animator :)

No one is claiming that a high end system makes for inherently better animations. I think the point is that there rapidly becomes a point of complexity where the high end systems keep on going and the lower end stuff does not.

FishNose - "Let's face it, a prog like Poser scares the hell out of high end people. Suddenly anyone can make it look good if they have any idea about lighting and composition.And they don't have to spend months building the model first, or otherwise pay someone else thousands of bucks to make one."

I suppose it could be - but none of those I know in high end shops are at all scared because in those situations where Poser is the better tool they are happy to use it if it gets the job done. They are also happy to pull in a Daz model if needed and bone it because doing something like that would take them an afternoon or so.

So I don't think they are scared at all, because they can't be "beaten" in any meaningful way - as professionals they will use whatever tool works.

wolf359 - "they often praise the "models" and animation until they find out its poser and then there is an embarrased silence!!!"

I have seen this as well - but the reasons are not embarrassment... it is simply that they no longer consider it a useful discussion. Most of the high end sites (and C4 doesn't really qualify) will praise a model because they are praising the amount of effort and skill that went into it - and when they find out someone simply purchased it they lose that admiration.

I'll do it myself - I have praised several models of humans that I know were built from scratch... but I certainly would praise someone for their Victoria model when I knwo they purchased it. Instead I'll discuss their lighting or whatever it is they did - maybe the composition or the whole scene idea.

wolf359 - "but somehow my animation has no credibility to those guys even though i could get $$Paid$$ for 3 Dino animations before this "Legit "guy finishes wagging his tail."

And in that forum why WOULD it have an credibility? You didn't model it, you didn't bone it. In a forum of people discussing modeling techniques this would be about as worthy of praise as discussing a prize cat at a dog show.

Seriously - look, if the forum is discussing end result animations then the tools used are not relevant - it's what can you get done. But if the forums is about modeling then you can't expect to be praised for something you didn't model.

darkphoenix - "and its rendering engine is still years behind every other major package"

The Max5 engine rocks :)

Soulhunter: first i do consider Cinema a high end CG program :-) it can do nurbs modeling ,cloth, hair, volumetric smoke,fire and flowing liquid simulation and collision physics and the forum i was speaking of IS a general Cinema4DXL forum I dont go into "Modeling" forums expecting praise for Mike2 or vicky. im an animator who does'nt give a hoot about modeling and my point is that the end results matter. and people in some forums tend to think the spending many long hours trudging through endless vertix weights and restriction tags is an end unto itself. as long as it was done the good old fashioned hard way in an "approved" program. despite the fact that the end result is a mediocre tail wag. the truth of the matter is most of the people who hang in forums and engage in software bashing are not working pros in the CG industry. but people seeking to be part of popular software Cliques!! There was a lightwave user here at renderosity that trashed poser and its users at EVERY OPPORTUNITY!! calling ALL of us "no talent Cloners" until it was discoverd that he was "closet "poser user with a gallery here full of vicky pictures. its as if getting Lightwave Obligated him to trash poser despite the fact that he was a poser /vicky owner after he was "outed" (by me after trashing my character animation work) He then spent several week desparatey trying to sell his copy of poser and bryce to somehow"restore" his perceived "status" in the lightwave community its a strange mentality.