Hmm, if things go like for most actors that become politicians and the voters throws him out after one term, he can lean towards you and growl: "I'll be back!" :-)

Probably not. It's just a pretty good but pretty standard PS2 type mouse. Nothing fancy, but quite reliable and accurate.

1. Poser is only used to "pose" stock models? Well, yes, but with a BIG red flag. The stock models can be changed ad nauseum. You can take a stock model, tweak a dial or two and have an entirely different looking figure on your screen than what you started out with. With Poser 5 you have as much power to tweak or radically change the face as you do the body. You from a stock model make a gaunt sixty year old man, a strapping young lad of thirteen, or even a voluptuous woman in her mid twenties. So the term "stock model" is tenuous indeed. 2. If I wish to make skins, clothing, hair, and landscapes, I need other programs/expertise? You probably have to make the original meshes in other program. I.e. you must create an object in a dedicated mesh builder. However, once the object is made you can use it with ease in Poser. You can change it's appearence, it's fabric, it's characteristics. In Poser 5 you have full control of the material and the mesh. Hair can be eaily changed in Poser. What you need to create is the thing that the hair grows from in other programs. And there's no real need to, since it already exists in the original package and can be applied to all figures with ease, 3. Are there any animation elements to Poser? All versions of Poser is heavily animation-oriented.

Well, you can't do THAT much. Generally, you don't need a background since you just use poser figures in Illustrator, and whatever background is required is created there. Mostly it's just simle coloured panels and such. But I also do some work for some ad agencies, and they sometimes require animations. It's enough work to warrant spending the money on Maya Unlimited. I'm hoping to generate more business on this side. It's been a bit neglected, since I've concentrated on the 2d art. I'll probably just hire someone to handle animations and such.

Who said this is a "hobby"? I run an illustration business. I make illustrations for magazines, multimedia, printers, and so on. I've previously only used 3d Studio Max, Illustrator and such -- and most of the time I've just drawn my work by hand and then I've scanned it in. A couple of weeks ago I discovered Poser and saw the benefits of it in my illustration business. You use a lot of stock people in illustrations. I can easily pose and draw human character which I can import into my illustrations. And I've had in mind to upgrade my 3d Studio Max for ages now, but decided to migrate to Maya as it appears to be a better program. Except, someone could have mentioned the mouse thing. I could have bought that at the same time. Now I've got to go downtown again, and buy a mouse. LOL

But I want more control than that, and more flexibilty. Ugh, imagine building a roman street in Poser! :-) 3d Studio Max and Maya are fast and easy-to-use too, even with lots and lots of objects in a scene. P5 does not equal that. THere's a bit of fuzz with the textures in both Maya and 3d Studio Max, but that's a small price to pay. :-)

Ugh, yes. Sometimes I think one shouldn't make it easier to make images because people that shouldn't be making images in the first place get ideas in their heads. If the programs were harder, they'd stay away and spare the world their "art". I've seen some horrid looking poses. But that's just me meaking all artsy, arrogant and up there. :-))

I hope I didn't come across as disrespectful. Had no intention of being so. Of course I appreciate all genres, but it just struck me to be quite one-sided, this and other forums. There are very many voluptuous women with big breasts and sweat-beads in strategic places. Not so many wrinkled 70 year old women with chicken-pox marks all over the face. :-) But that's just an observation, not a judgement. I had no intention what so ever to pass judgement, otherwise I would have to go to the docket myself first of all. I just reacted a bit to insomniaworks assertion that realism was the key to quality, and that I -- respectfully! -- disagree with. There are examples of excellent works of art that's not a bit realistic. So realism isn't the key to quality. Mastery of the craft, and the tools, is -- and his images above are excellent!

I have to respectfully disagree about the quality aspect of realism. Some of the best images I've seen have nothing to do with realism, but rather about the mastery of the craft. So, I can be utterly blown away by an image made with layers of paintbrushes, warpers, distortions. I saw a couple of examples in this forums gallery of what I call high quality images -- the person who made the Giger inspired art. That's mastery of craft, that's quality. With poser, anyone can make real looking figures.

Poser is a tool in a tool-box, at least for me. I'm using a Maya, Poser and 3d Studio Max combination in my illustration business. Here's how I use it. I use Poser to make people, Maya to make environments and 3d Studio Max to make trinkets that are easily imported into Poser. Many illustrations in magazines and ads require drawing people. Previously I drew the people by hand, and then scanned it into a bitmap, and then used it in Illustrator. With Poser I can make the people directly in my computer, and then render it and import the image (after post-processing a bit in Paint Shop Pro) into Illustrator. Voila -- I've got a guy or girl object. It saves me time, and allows me to make more illustrations, and thus make more money :-) I've just bought Maya for the same purpose, except with Maya I want to draw the scenery shots that are sometimes required. So, that's why I use Poser.

I had tremendous problems with Maya and other heavy-duty programs using XP, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was going on. Whenever there was a tremendous load on the system Win XP shut down. It turned out that there was nothing wrong with either Win XP or the programs, but rather flaky RAM. RAM can apparently function even if it is broken, and since there was just "slight flakiness" in my 1 GB of RAM most of the time the system wouldn't use the bad portion. However, when I started Maya or something it would, and sent XP down.

Without nude women in art there would be no Venus de Milo. :-) Nudity has been along in art since the first guy or girl picked up a piece of charcoal from the fire and started to squibble on the cave wall. In fact, some of the most important cave paintings can only be classified in terms of wishful (or boastful) x-rated images. Sexuality, and sensuality, is an important aspect of art, and since art deals with people it would be strange if that side of us wasn't explored.

Thank you :-) Is there anything one can do to improve it? I mean as it stands now, and not as concerns building it into another scene? Always happy to learn more (and spend the nights waiting with baited breath for the renderer to finish) :-)

Thank you! I will have a look at it!