I was thinking of getting P6, I have P5 now and I have never had any real problems with it. Is getting P6 worth it? Aside from the content what makes it better? I keep reading in the forum about the problems with P6 and I remember the problems when P5 came out. I guess what I am asking is worth, shelling the money out of my very very tight budget to get P6. Thanks Butch

P6 is way better than P5. I uninstalled P5 altogether. But of course, it depends what you want to do. I'd say that P6's strong points are the Open GL preview, the new lighting options and an improved interface. mac

If your P5 works for you and your happy it may not be worth it if your on a very very tight budget. P6 new lighting is nice, OpenGL helps, Jessi and James P6 figures are probably the best yet included with Poser, but addons have to be purchased else where. I couldn't work with P5, it just didn't like my system or something, I was using Poser 4 Propack and bought P6 just because the upgrade pricing was too good to pass up. I'm glad I did. P6 really has been great for me. The P6 manual is disapointing in that it's basically the old Poser 5 manual with like 20 pages, doesn't get indepth with new P6 features. So there is nothing worth the investment just to get the new manual. There is now a P6 demo, you can try new features etc. I would highly recommend playing with the demo and see if anything really jumps out at you and is worth your investment. Forget the horror stories of Poser 5 release. Poser 6 is pretty rock solid, there are a few glitches here and there but to be expected with new features in a new release. Hope that somehow helps.

Butch, if the price of P6 is going to keep you from paying your rent or having enough to eat, then please don't even consider it! :-) I will say, however, that there are some real upgrades to the app compared to P5. In a nutshell, the lighting has probably seen the most dramatic additions; with a new diffuse IBL source light, and a much-awaited point (or omni) light. Raytraced shadows can now have softened edges, and you can dial lights to negative values (which actually allows you to cast "shadow" instead of light from the source). You can also define light properties for affecting only the specular or only the diffuse properties of materials independantly, and render a shadows-only pass for compositing in post. Some new material options were added, like: fastscatter (which allows for a sort-of backlit SSS effect), and a gather material (which allows you to turn an object into a radiosity-like light source). The raytrace materials have some new parameters, and there's also the ambient occlusion node, which I'm sure you have heard about by now. There's also been some rendering and interface enhancements (at least i consider them enhancements). As MachineClaw suggests, there's a demo for it now, so why not download and try it out?

I think P6 is great and a much needed improvement on P5 (which I was very happy with). As MachineClaw mentioned, there are several new features which make for greater realism - but at a time cost. The two new types of lights are a boon, plus the Gather Node, which allows you to fake other types of lighting with Ambient Color, Area Render, which is a hell of a help. All this and much improved render options from P5. I also agree with MachineClaw that P6 is much more "finished" than P5 was at first; however, the included models are (IMO, of course) fucking terrible. I can only think that whoever modelled Jessi has never seen a real human being, let alone a woman. Wildly inaccurate anatomy, no useful morphs and comedy texture mapping, but hey, she has boobs and a not too ugly face. ;) Dearie me, they really screwed the pooch on that one. That said, you'll most likely be rendering whatever good third party models you have, so I guess the included content ain't so much an issue. I honestly believe P6 is worth the step up. I've used P5 without problems for 18 months but now I have P6 I don't see me going back. I just hope that P7 gets rid of some (or all) of the silly library restrictions.

Thanks, I will get the demo. I have some money coming from a computer job that I did for some friends and I had planned to use part of it for P6 and Bryce 5. I am really interested in the lighting options, because right now poser lights suck big time. It might be my computer, but I can render the same scene 4 times and get four different looks, and the only thing that i might be moving are maybe the hands or something. Thanks for the input Butch

I can't add much to what is said, but you might want to check out Vue instead of Bryce. I have both and ended up useing Vue more. Less hassle to import Poser than Bryce. With Bryce it is setup to use Daz Studio, so you go from Poser to DS to Bryce, if you stick out your tounge the right way, chant the proper montra(sp?), it might kind of work.

Yes, I agree with beryld, dump Bryce and buy Vue. Much easier to import Poser content and much easier to use. Costs more, but you get what you pay for.

Ditto on Vue. I used to use Bryce ages ago and now have Vue 4 and Vue 5 been happy with both.

Definitely consider Vue. In fact, if money is an issue, get Vue and pass on both Poser 6 and Bryce.

I love Poser 6, and rarely ever use P5 anymore, but buying Vue will give you more bang for the buck.

If money isn't an issue, get Poser 6 and Vue Infinite. :-)

I went from PPP to P6, so I can't compare to P5. But I will say that P6 is just wonderful I love it! And so far I've had no problems at all. :)

I have to add my name to the list of people who utterly loathed P5 but love P6. To be honest I was so upset after the whole P5 fiasco that I'd even toyed with the idea of quitting Poser and switching to Daz Studio. (mind you, a few days of playing with D|S soon cured me of that particular folly!) So I let myself be tempted by P6, and while it still has a few problems, I love it to bits. I don't think I've been so excited by Poser since I first discovered P3 years and years ago. In addition to some cool new features, it makes some of the more complex P5 features a lot easier to use, even for a dunce like me. But if you're a power-user, you can still get 'under the hood' and get your hands dirty.