I recommend XFrog and the likes (Onyx) for closeups. Yes, it's been said many times, well, here it is again :)

130 free high quality XFrog plants in different formats:

http://www.xfrog.com/2011/01/130-free-xfrogplants-now-available

This is also old news to some, of course :)

You can use a boolean operation as Rich_Potter suggests, but you can also dig with a brush, then clip from below, until the hole appears.

I do more or less the same as ShawnDriscoll.

At Conucopia3D you can get a "mesuring stick" object for free. I have a similar one I made myself (didn't know the free item). It's very handy when you import object that haven't been scaled properly. For instance, a house: If your in doubt about how tall etc. it should be, place the mesuring tool in a doorway and scale the house so the doorway is about 2 meters tall (give or take).
Of course you can scale things by comparing objects already present, but then you'll frequently have to make duplicates and depending on the nature of the objects, polygon count could skyrocket unnecessarily.
I could upload my version of the metric bars to the freestuff, if you'd be interested.

I got Carrara Pro 7.2 with 3D Artist magazine last spring, and I was exited in advance, I have the hope to get more serious about modeling. But I was quite disappointed, mainly because I find the interface/workflow awkward and un-intuitive. Also it seems like it can do a lot, but none of it particularly well (as mentioned elsewhere here). 
Version 7.2 is slow, opening and saving files, renders very slowly at high settings. But it's quite robust when it comes to handling complex meshes, in my limited experience.
One cool thing is the texture painter, that's something that should be in Vue (a little like the existing material painter in the terrain editor, which is already brilliant.)

I think many Vue users have the impression that Carrara is a powerful, Vue-contesting landscape application, but this is probably based on the works of brilliant artist "HowieFarkes". He should make a statement in his profile and elsewhere: "Don't try this at home, kids!" G

(I was looking forward to experimenting with the plant editor, but it's not good, compared to Xfrog and Onyxtree. I made a "larchtree" and exported it to OBJ for import to Vue. It was deliberately a detailed and complex model. In the process I thought Carrara had stalled, left the screen, came back 15 min. later to kill the program, but it was finished: The tree was exported to a file 985 mb size! That's what I call solid :) Needless/needles to say I didn't try to import it to Vue...)

I got the guru error when I tried to upload pictures, and it caused the upload to fail. Never have gotten anything when I download stuff.

That meditaiton guru-devil has haunted me a lot, in the past. Normally I use Firefox, but I tried Opera, and the error message has only popped up a few times with that. So, if I go to Cornucopia, I use Opera.

BTW. my Firefox updated itself a few days ago, and now a lot of webpages causes my connection to stall. This message is written from the Opera browser, runs smoothly.

• Just made a test, Cornucopia works for me (with Opera).

@ vintorix: Try making the photograpic texture not-anitaliased, see if that makes a difference. Often it has already been anitaliased once, in the editing proces.

The reason why nobody has responded could be that most of us don't know much about Frontier.

Just to see whats going on: Try exporting to Collada. Try importing to DAZ Studio if you have that, and then export to Collada from there.
If Frontier can import OBJ, try that too. Textures may need tweaking, but it's otherwise very predictable.
Try different settings in the Poser import dialogue.
Of course and ideally the import should work without problems, but odd things do happen in the world of computers.
Maybe contact E-on to learn if it's a "known issue" or should be one.

I haven't had this one. But Vue always (and automatically) shows a warning a little like the first screenshot, about checking for disk space.

In a case like yours I'd try some different things just to isolate the culprit: Try writing to another disk. Try a different file format (quicktime e.g., works well). Try writing a short test animation, low quality etc.

I don't understand "the fuzz" here properly, I think. I do a LOT of importing from different sources (Poser, Xfrog, Onyxtree etc.) and never think of scaling until I have the object inside Vue. Then I scale it manually to the wanted size (using the "lock XYZ" option, of course). I also have a selfmade "metric bars" object that I sometimes use for correct scaling of e.g. an imported house, a doorway should be about 2 m tall (give or take for the presumed age of the house). A similar object is available for free at C3D, "Measuring Stick" I think it's called.

Yep, use anisotropic highlights for hair!

It's all been said more or less, about Poser/Vue rendering. I've managed to get a great (IMHO) lighting setup for Poser 7, but it took really, really long to get it right. Positioning a light source in Poser is an inspration killer! I've seen some great examples with Poser 8 IDL, but Vue does this better still, and is probably much easier to set up.

Poser 7 render (nudity):
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2132466

• some of you have commented/seen it.

Thanks, didn't know that one. Off to check it out :)

The workaround I mentioned was in my first message, about making a default  startup scene.

The render settings in the screendunp look pretty standard, but we can't see the the transparency and reflection settings, nor the anitaliasing. They are "behind" the edit buttons.
If you wan't to find out what you can do with something in Vue, it's a good idea to click the "Edit" button to see what it reveals :)

Don't pay too much attention to the estimated render time at the beginning of a render, it'll be lowered once you let it run some more.  Unless your doing something really wrong in your settings, Vue should render faster than Bryce.

There are no "all-purpose" best settings, then everybody would use them. Depending of the type of scene you're rendering, some effects can have low quality. For a standard nature scene, you don't need high settings in the relections and transparency tracing. That's for scenery with glass and metals.
Check the atmosphere settings, and lower the quality of the haze etc. if you don't need to render a grain-free sky.
Lower the quality settings for GI and Radiosity light models, often -1 will provide good results for nature scenes, and be sure to use the "outdoor radiosity" model. You only need the full radiosity for indoor scenes.

Oh, just realized that it's ProStudio - then use the workaround for the default scene.