hello......i have a question if anyone wants to help me out here.....im getting a new system next week and im pretty excited about it.....i also have set aside money for some much needed softwear upgrades....but my problem is this....im not sure wether to get poser pro pack upgrade or just go with the poser 5 upgrade....i noticed that there isnt much difference in price for the upgrades to both programs but i also want to get a couple of daz's 3d models....are stephanie and micheal 2 compatible with poser 5?....from the posts ive seen it looked like there were some problems....can some one give me some advice....PLEASE?.....i just want to make sure i budget my money properly...thanks nnuu

Poser Pro facilities is embedded in P5. P5 adds a lot more, spend you money on P5. I haven't found any incompatibilities on P4 figures so far... MaxxArcher

Yes, the DAZ figures are compatible. PPP offers Max and Lightwave plug-ins while P5 does not. My understanding is that CL will release a plug-in program later on for P5. P5 offers new ways to create materials, dynamic clothing, and some other neat, new features, but it is still a bit quirky. It really depends on what you want to do.

My suggestion is to read very carefuly through the posts in the last few weeks and base your decisions on your own findings. Let us know what you decide.

Here's a review that might be helpful. http://www.computerarts.co.uk/reviews/review.asp?id=998 Poser 4 is a fantastic program. The deeper you delve into it, the more you get from it, and the better you appreciate some of the subtleties of its design. However, it's not long before you discover the program's shortfalls, even if you're a novice. Now that the long-awaited version 5 is here, what lessons has Curious learned? Poser is unique among all of the 3D applications on the planet, for its the only one concerned with manipulating and posing 3D figures, rather than creating and texturing them. Version 5 brings a generous bundle of new features and design refinements, which will enthuse even the most jaded 3D user. First among them is its new rendering engine, Firefly, which is the sole survivor from Curious Labs' attempts to build a 3D modelling application. Firefly includes a ray tracing mode, which enables far greater subtlety from your models, and finally enables you to create genuine reflections; no more Photoshop post-work to create water and mirrored surfaces. Hand-in-hand with Firefly is the new Material room, where you create the textures for your models. This is massively improved, and includes the ability to create node-based textures. Each node is a texture of its own, and these nodes, which can be procedural, or static or animated bitmaps, can be combined or used as operators to create more complex textures. Sadly, the mapping engine seems incomplete, and you can't do things such as change mapping modes from UV to projection, or rotate the maps. This inadequacy is representative of all that's wrong about Poser 5. The program has many fantastic new features, but they've only been implemented in an introductory kind of way, and it's really easy to see how each feature could have been improved or made easier to use. Curious just failed to dot the 'i's and cross the 't's, and it's frustrating to think what could have been. By far the most exciting new modelling feature is the Cloth room, where you can turn any surface or model part into cloth. This cloth can be draped over other objects, it reacts to the new wind generator and is affected by collision detection. Whether you want to create a conforming bed sheet, a fluttering flag or a billowing dress, it will do it for you. Another new feature is strand-based hair. This enables you to grow and style wigs or fur, which can also be made to react to wind. This feature should really be considered more of an introduction to hair, rather than a direct replacement for Poser 4's hair system, which depends upon polygons and transparency maps to create volume and strands. In the Face room you can load in front and side photos of your own face. After aligning a few control points, the program supposedly creates a map and modified geometry that you can use with the default male and female figures. However, we never achieved satisfactory results. Poser 5 includes a whole new high-resolution family, each of whom comes pre-textured. They don't look as good as DAZ3D's family of characters, nor do they have as many body morph targets. However, they are infinitely better than the Poser 4 figures, and they have a greater range of facial morphs than either Michael or Victoria. In conjunction with the Face rooms morph putty feature, they enable you to create just about any face shape you can imagine. If you depend upon Pro Packs plug-ins for hosting within Maya, Max, Cinema 4D or Lightwave, then don't throw away Poser 4 just yet. For Easier to navigate and control Enables greater realism and variety of characters Against Pro Pack's third-party program integration not implemented Many bugs and design flaws Weak lighting modes Verdict Despite many minor, and not-so-minor niggles and shortfalls, Poser can still prove extremely handy for scene visualisation and quick character set-ups. However, it could have been improved much further and you don't have to dig too deeply to see where. On the whole, Poser is a great application, but the fact that the Pro Pack is incompatible with version 5 means professionals will be shy to upgrade immediately. Hope this helps

If you are getting a new system I don't think you'll have much problem with poser5, I myself and everyone I've talked to who have loaded it into brand new systems seem to have avoided many of the bugs that have been reported here. P5 does have all of the built in features of propack along with all the new stuff the only thing it lacks from Propack is the plug ins for exporting into some of the high end programs and CL says they are coming eventually.

Interesting article Lapis. I had too much trouble with Poser 5, I had to give it up. what should I try instead. They said my computer was not fast enough, [at 500Mhz?]. Or it could be the software!