So,

Using poser 6, I'm trying to do some film-style, multi-angle animations that take place in a suburban setting.

I have a scene where a girl is walking along a street that borders a park on one side and a few houses on the
other... After searching high and low for a pre-built modern, small town set and coming up with nothing. I decided to build my own.

I've made some streets, a few buildings... a deformed plane with a tiling grass texture stands in for the grassy area of the park. And for a sky I've used a huge half-circle with a sky texture map on it. And I've boarded the whole thing with raised "mountain" objects on four sides. Trying to cover the fact that this "small town" really is very, very small (basically just the one long street.)

I was hoping someone here might have some tips for me -- to help sell the idea that this is taking place is a real space...

I need to add trees to the park (which will also help obscure the skyline a little,) but I'm worried about the huge number of polygons each one of those is going to take up. I might use a few in the front. Then switch to something less processor intensive to "pad out" the background. Any suggestions?

Same thing for houses. A few fully modeled ones in the foreground. Then maybe just 2d textures in the distance? Does that sound like a good idea?

Any suggestions, hints, whatever would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Anthony