I am sitting here contemplating whether or not to go buy POser 5 after work from the local store. One of the biggest factors in determining whether or not i do is the hair feature. How realistic is the hair creator in Poser 5? Alos, how good does the facial (photo) molding work. Where you cna import a photo of a real person onto a model? Thanks in advance!

Short answer: NO, and NO. But that's just my opinion, and depends on your definition of "that good." Do a search for both topics and you'll get some varied repsonses with some in-depth discussion. You can see what I've had to say about the Face Room in other posts, as it is the one room I have spent 90% of my time in. The Hair Room is NOT bad, I must say. But it's a starting place. As a lot of others have mentioned, I think you'll start seeing a lot of standard hair/P5 Hair-Room hair hybrids in the near future, and THAT has a lot of potential. -Tim

I agree with timoteo1 %100. But, for me, it weas still a good buy. The materials room puts it over in my mind along with the multi sub-object render. What's the old adage though, "Never call yourself 2nd at anything". While there are new functions, I can't say I believe Poser 5 matches the execution of most of the other suites out there. But, then again, the price is incredibly low. Thinks to ponder.

Tim, I'm surprised at you! The hair, from an animator's perspective is superb. Maybe the still renderers might think differently but in motion - superb....

I for one like the hair room a lot. You do have a learning curve with it though. My first P5 hair looked like a helment, the second a haystack, the third a wire brush. By the time I hit 10, I was pretty good, and getting better. However, my favorite room is setup. For the first time I can take an obj file, and create a pretty workable character without any other software. And the materials room is amazing. Pretty darn good bang for the buck.

I'd say come back in a month or so and see what folks are doing with hair. Folks are still learning and will probably be able to stretch its capabilities. (Look what they did to P4!) If it's what you're looking for then, go for it.

Attached Link: Fried Hair

The hair is OK 'till you turn collision detection on. This is a bug in the hair room and it's not in this patch. Don't expect collision detection to work. It doesn't, so forget animating with it. You'll be key frame poseing 1000 individual strands... No thanks. I'll use the cloth room to make a transmapped hair prop move. At least the collision detection ususlly works in there.

Does Transmapped hair render properly in Firefly-- ?? I've been trying to get an answer to this since the first renders seemed to indicate that it reeeeeelly reeeelly didn't. Particualrly concerned about some of the hair that is double trans or even triple. Emily

Transmapped hair works- but for some odd reason Poser creates a falloff parmetr of .6 in the hair's material. This makes for poor renders not just in firefly but ion in Poser 4 renderer. Just reset transparency falloff to zero and transmapped hair renders perfectly.

Attached Link: Hair In P5 Fire Fly

Yes, This was rendered in firefly... It's my old "NerdCurls" TransMapped hair http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=256233