Hi all. I'm new here and have been fiddling with the Poser 4 demo. I'm looking for some advice on which version to get.

Mostly, I'm planning on using Poser as a substitute for live models for my 2d photoshop work. So, high quality 3d rendering isn't a requirement. However, having figures which pose realistically, and can be scaled through a wide variety of types (ie. skinny, muscular, etc) is important to me. I don't have the 3d experience (or software) to create external morphs, so 'out of the box' morphing is important.

It seems to me that Poser 5 adds a lot of 3d ability, so I'm leaning towards 4 (plus the price tag is more attractive for a hobbyist like me). But, will I regret not getting the latest version? With either version, will I need to get Michael and Victoria to get the variety in physiques, or do the standard Poser models accomodate that?

Also, if I go with 4 over 5, will I have trouble finding props and such? Is there a lot of items that need 5?

Thanks for any advice you can give!

The price difference between Poser 4/Artist and Poser 5 is only about $20, depending upon where you shop.

The majority of products on the market (and in Free Stuff) are for P4, and will usually work fine in P5 with minimal adjustment. Many P5 products will work in P4, also, the major exceptions being dynamic cloth and hair, and anything that depends exclusively upon P5's procedural materials.

Michael and Victoria are highly recommended; they have all manner of physique morphs built-in. The older figures bundled with Poser 4 (and the newer figures included in P5) are more limited in terms of morphs, and don't bend/pose as realistically.

Will you regret not getting the latest version? That depends upon your needs. P5's dynamic cloth feature can produce some very cool results that are almost impossible to achieve with P4's posable clothing alone. P5 can also create realistic reflective surfaces. It fixes the crosstalk bug that occurs when you have multiple figures in a scene, has better library management, more powerful material options, etc. It's also slower than P4, and many people have experienced stability problems.

--$20 diffenecne depending on where you shop. Wow! Do you have any links for this shop? Curious Labs store sells 5 for $249, and Artist for $119...significantly more than $20... Similiar question then about Michael and Victoria. Obviously, M3/V3 have much more realistic textures, but in terms of morphs and posability, are M2/V2 too limited? (Can you see I'm on a budget...heh) Thanks again1

amazon.com has p5 for something like $139. i was pricing it myself and had asked a similar question. haven't tried any other software vendor, but amazon seems pretty reasonable kt

Attached Link: DAZ Studio Nov 5 Post

Poser 5 (at Amazon.com) is only slightly more expensive than 4 (Poser Artist) and the same as the ProPack (Poser 4+, better price at Curious Labs) for $140. I'd lean to Poser 5 for somebody that's starting out. Poser 4 figures are okay, but Poser 5 figures are better, and DAZ Millennium figures are the best. There are a lot of old free downloads (custom figure morphs, hairs, clothes, etc.) for Poser 4 figures and a lot of newer ones for the Millennium figures and surprisingly very little for the Poser 5 figures. A probably even better option, or at least one to start with, is getting DAZ Sudio since it will be free in a Beta format in December. It won't come with any models, but the $140 you save for Poser can buy you a bunch of models. DAZ has a 50% off sale for their original products till Nov 10, meaning you can get Victoria1/Michael1 for $10 each or the latest incarnations V3/M3 for $20 apiece (but really $40 each by the time you buy the morph sets for the head and body and more money for textures). V2/M2 are $20 each and include a lot of head and body morphs native to the original purchase. Something else to keep in mind is that DAZ figures come bald, naked, and without textures. Both Poser 4 and 5 come with clothing, textures, and hair for models. You've got a balancing act between your budget and your wants. If you want to be very cost conscious, buy and download V1 and M1 while they're on sale (though they were on sale at $13 before the half off sale). That will give you better figures, with lots of free community support, than Poser 4 or 5. There are tons of clothing, hairs, and textures here and at other sites for those characters (V3/M3, being newer, don't have as much available, but come with versions that have the new character heads on the older bodies to maintain compatibility with earlier clothing). When DAZ Studio comes out, play around with that and see if you can achieve the results you want. It's easy to be lulled into a false feeling that spectacular drawings can be created with Poser at the drop of a hat. It doesn't take long to do something quick and dirty by using existing poses and going for a render. Getting a truly unique drawing out of Poser, with the figure posed exactly the way you want it, getting expressions exactly as you want them, getting the lighting just right; takes hours. I don't know about anybody else, but a fully realized drawing takes me a half dozen hours of work. You may well decide that the upfront investment in time to pose a model as being too frustrating to warrant the effort and decide to stick to 2D work. Going with Studio and a couple MIL models, you're risking minimal money. Even if you want to move to Poser and get the latest Millenium models, the older ones are still usable. The bulk of the Poser drawings on the net use those figures and there's nothing wrong with them. That may be all you need. You're better off pushing those models to their limits before investing in the more expensive ones. By the time you've exhausted what V1/M1 do, there will likely be V4/M4 that are geared more to what DAZ Studio can do with them.

Wow, thank you! That's exactly the kind of advice I was looking for.