I am a novice trying to understand poser 5's capabilities. It is my impression that figures supplied in the poser 5 library that say "not a poser figure" when loaded (ie. robots), have been created using other 3d programs and then imported. How necessary to the creative process is it to have a 3d program in order to create something such as the Poser 5 robots, and can anyone recommend a quality 3d program which might be good for a novice who is becoming increasingly intrigued with the graphic/animation processes presented in Poser 5? Thanks. Anjing.

Its a slippery slope but yes you will need a 3D modeling application. You may find these links to these free or low priced 3D modeling programs helpful:-- Anim8or

• Blender
• MilkShape 3D
• Wings 3D
• 3D Canvas
• Rhino
• Amapi & Carrara

Curious Labs has teamed up with Shade which is worthy of a look at. Finally I model in Truespace which may be within your budget. You may like to visit my site to see what that program can produce.

some "modeling" can be done by putting together poser primitaves, but it has some limitations. most everything you find here is made outside of poser. as for a "good" modeling program your just going to have to find demos and free programs and try them out. all of them have a little diffrent approach but can all accomplish about the same things. Its really going to come down to what you can work with (and what is in your budget) for example I downloaded Wings (a free program) but i havent been able to make it work for me. I bought Shade (from curious labs) and was able to make stuff within hours.

My Homepage - Free stuff and Galleries

if all you care about is just the modelling side of a program then blender is very good for it, takes me very little time to make almost anything, has layers you can switch to, and most any model can be done in it by typing alone

If you want to start with freeware I'd throw in a vote for Anim8or to get started, then move on to Blender. Blender was the very first animation app I fooled with (Deluxe Paint Animation doesn't count :), but it's considerably more cryptic to a newbie. I really wish I had known about Anim8tor sooner. After learning the ropes in Anim8tor then Blender would have been much easier to digest. If you're only modeling and not animating then starting with Blender wouldn't be as difficult. For freeware modeling I can't really give an unbiased opinion cuz if Wings could talk I'd ask it to marry me )

Attached Link: http://homepage3.nifty.com/escargot/

MarbleCLAY is a great complement to Wings3D. I personally prefer modeling polygon by polygon at low resolution in MCL, then subdivide and tweak in W3D. Plus MCL now has Lightwave-style patch modeling.