Giana wrote:
but i realise my pref for not striving towards the more 'photo-realistic' types of renders is most likely one that's in a minority nowadays... 

Perhaps not in the minority. Just less vocal during the forum mud slinging contests since Poser already answers well to pursuits towards f.ex. illustrative work. I personally make illustrations only, but rarely any need arises to voice out that Poser works quite nicely to that end.

PoserWorld has many items, but for earlier figures so you will need to refit them to whatever figure you're using. 

Examples include: conforming turban, curly slippers, sari items (separate skirts, whole dress, separate top),...

Also check Renapd's store here in Renderosity: you'll find the Maharani and Maharajah sets. They're for M3 and V3 so again might need you to convert and fiddle.

I've used ShaderWork's Advanced Library Manager since it came out years and years ago to replace Poser's own library system. I'm using Poser on linux and haven't bothered to install those pesky Adobe add-ons since they are only needed by the library browser.

There's no need to use Flash/Air components if one chooses not to do so. Third party library alternatives have been around for quite some time. So I don't really see what's the issue in the first place.

1. Semidieu's Advanced Library Manager 2 (I don't use the Poser native library 'cause I run Poser on linux and don't want to jump the extra hoops required).

2. Semidieu's Advanced Shader Launcher (I make illustrative/conceptual drawing/comic style stills only. Not used every time, but almost.).

3. M4 (slightly more used than V4; M4 is the go-to figure in about 60% of my renders).

Quote - Note: My Poser Pro 2014 crashes CONSTANTLY. Like every five minutes. I have learned to save before EVERY RENDER.

Poser Pro 2012 was rock solid. 2014 is a thousand times more fragile.

And my Poser Pro 2014 doesn't. It's the most stable I've used so far. I do not use the built-in library (I'm running Poser on Ubuntu linux), but have a third-party replacement. This replacement on occasion kills Poser, but I know how to fix it. It's the only thing that has crashed my Poser. I'm actively using Poser for 20-30 hours per week (not including time spent on rendering).

Here's another oldie that I personally like how it turned out:

Perhaps 85% Poser, 15% Photoshop (including the background). Three Poser renders layered, blended and merged; then I drew some lines (like those in the dude's nails and horns) and strengthened other lines (like lines around the teeth).

Quote - "Here's an example from a few years down the road."

Thats looking really nice, did you just use the model from poser and then finishing it up in photoshop with colors, outline etc or how close to the final image do you get in poser?

Thank you. Poser model was M3.

 In this particular case I'd say 65% Poser, 35% Photoshop. I often use Olivier's toon shaders (with Semideau's Advanced Shader Launcher Python tools; both from RDNA) to get b/w renders and tritonal renders, then layer them up and merge in Photoshop to arrive at a crude starting point for the final image. Usually I draw directly on the outcome, sometimes more like painting clothing, hair, accessories etc. and sometimes only to strenghten lines or remove imperfections etc. I use a Wacom tablet - it's really essential in this sort of thing.

I've been making comic-stylish illustrations for over a decade with Poser. My workflow includes also Photoshop so Poser is only a part of the process. My interest is in role-playing game character illustrations. I've finished literally hundreds.

Here's an example from a few years down the road. 

@OP:

in current Poser versions you can put library files where you want to within the "Runtime:Libraries" folder. If you want to put MAT poses of a hair prop in a subfolder of the hair prop in "Runtime:Libraries:Hair" folder, go ahead and do it. Poser hasn't cared about file locations in a looong time now - the vendors and users are the ones who keep insisting on keeping MAT pose files in "Poses" -folder. 

But the emphasis is in the word YOU. YOU will have to arrange YOUR content as YOU see fit. Poser is now flexible enough to accept this. I've personally arranged everything I have in a neat and logical single Runtime - and I find anything I want quite easily.  Yes, it takes time and effort and determination. Poser is just like any other hobby ... it demands dedication to get results.

@bhoins: Aha! I have a very carefully structured single Runtime for all my Poser stuff and my Genesis -related stuff have always loaded between a blink of an eye and mere seconds. I've seen people reporting obscene loading times when loading Genesis items and been wondering why I haven't experienced any of that. That would explain it. 

@shante: don't give up. Install Mina and run the initializer you got with M4 in the first place. You can load morphs++ when using Mina if you so wish as well. Mina is an excellent addition to M4 - I use it all the time. In fact I'm rendering with it as I type this.

3dBim: before you do any installing, you should have a working back-up scheme. 

Personally I'm running Poser in Ubuntu and I have a scheduled task using rsync that hourly backs up my Poser stuff on a different internal drive. Then once in a while I backup to two separate external drives that are only ever connected to the computer when making the backups. So I have my stuff available on 4 different drives. Of course if my house burns, I would have to start over. Then again Poser would be the least of my worries if that happens.

Well ... I'll try.

There exists a bunch of shaders by Olivier called Art Materials 1. These are just a collection of Poser material files to be applied to any surface. Then there are Python based graphical user interfaces to make that process easier. If you only have Poser 7, you should be looking at the Semideau's Python UI for Art Materials I linked earlier on. If you are on Poser 9 or above, you will need this,  this and this. They essentially do the same thing, but look different. And in both cases Olivier's Art Materials 1 shader pack is needed.

Let's assume you purchase only the Art Materials 1 package. It containts about fifty shaders such as shaders for smooth, gradient, quadritonal, tritonal, duotonal and monotone for many different colors. You would then need to apply the selected shader manually to every material you have in your scene ... this is not only tedious, but also rather slow and controlling all the possible parameters of the shaders is hard.

If you also have the graphical user interface for either Poser 7 or Poser 9 and above, the interface allows you to select which shader to apply and to which figures/props in your scene with a few clicks and select lists. The Python packages also include a very good PDF document in which each and every button and input field is not only explained but also is provided a full setup to achieve some example effects. The shaders can be applied in many ways: you can rip out transparencies, bump channels or displacement channels via checkbuttons (all the above images of mine have displacement maps included in the shader - if I would have wanted, I could have just checked out the displacement and the rendered outcome would be "smoother" where displacement is in effect. 

All the shaders have a vast number of options with which to control many aspects of the rendering process. But luckily the presets for each shader are adequate ... quite good even so they are a good starting point. The interface allows easily to create interesting combinations as well: you could make your background props to be rendered as monotonal black&white and a center figure with quadtritonal colors derived from the figure's textures for example. Or perhaps even to let a figure render normally and make an item he/she is holding to be rendered as a tritonal toon shader with a bright yellow color.

All those above images are rendered with only a single infinite white light positioned near the camera. This makes rendering very fast since not a lot of calculation is needed. As said two of the above example images are tritonal, but without colors: it means the shaders use black and white and calculate grey values to where light shadows would fall. And the third one is rendered with only a black&white shader.

The shaders are easy to use, but the easiness comes only when using the Python UI sets. The Art Materials 1 package is still rather expensive at $50 USD and while it certainly can be used alone, it does have it's drawbacks - particularly when one wants to change the settings of the applied shaders after a test render has gone in an unwanted direction. 

There are also some caveats and tricks to know to get the best mileage out of them. For example the eyelashes of V4 can be real tricky - I usually just don't apply the shaders to eyelashes (you can just click the material zones you want the shaders to apply). Also the effects are really good on organic models only. For example getting a good black&white line render with an architectural prop will require you to get deeper into the settings. Luckily the included PDF gives good tips on how to circumvent oddities such as vast black areas, block-like artifacts on renders and such. 

Here are some examples of Olivier's Art Materials 1 shaders used with Semideau's Python UI (you don't need the UI; it's just a convenience tool for quicker work-flow). I bought them the instant they were available. I've used these in P6,P7,P8,P9 and now PPro2014. And even though the UI screen shots says "Poser 7 only", it actually means Poser 7 and above and the actual UI is also nowadays quite different from that in the screenshots.

I use these line renders ONLY as composite layers in Photoshop so I haven't bothered to tweak the settings much; I've just loaded a "good enough" setting I'm familiar with and rendered, but I think you'll get the idea. With a little bit of tweaking you can achieve pretty much anything. The cost of the shaders (+Python UI) is a bit steep, but personally I consider these best money spent in poserdom since my main interest is to do illustrative work with a hand-drawn impression. And just to be clear, these are straight renders with no postwork. The first two are tritonal and the third is black and white only.

You may have problems with your graphics card/driver handling Open GL. I run P2014 in linux without problems so I can't really say anything constructive about Windows, but you could try to set Poser to use SreeD instead of hardware based graphics acceleration (it's somewhere in the general preferences of P7 - maybe). And perhaps update your graphics card's driver to latest. 

Mind you, I've never ever experienced issues like you, just trying to guess here.