I was initially under the impression that you could create clothes in Poser, although I seem to have been mistaken on that.  Anyway, can someone help me out with what would be the best software (preferrably free) available for modeling clothes for Poser?  I have Blender but I was told something to the effect that clothes had to be modeled in separate sections to be posable on a figure, and a fully connected outfit wouldn't be posable.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.

Oh boy, you're asking quite an essay question here.

With help of a few utilities and scripts and some inventiveness, basic clothes can be modelled in Poser.  I think Phil C has the most info and ustilities to help with that. http://www.philc.net/

On the other hand, any modelling program, Maya, Max, Cinema, Cararra, Hexagon, Wings, Silo etc will allow you to make clothes too.
The tedious part of the proces usually comes after modelling, when you need to group, import and rig them for Poser. There's dozens of tutorials out there for this, and several different ways to do it.

Based on your question, I'm guessing you're rather new to this. In the modeling stages you don't really need to worry about making clothes separate pieces. That usually comes later, when you start plugging it in Poser.
My best suggestion at the moment would be to get familiar with the overall process, at least on the conceptual level, and then decide for yourself when and how you want to deal with grouping (the separate sections you're talking about). 

Personally, I use a lot of info from a book Practical Poser 6 and Poser manual. They both have pretty good overview of the process. Sorry, I don't have any good links available.

Actually, I remember a thread where the same question was asked:  http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2698784
If you do a bit of searching here in the forum (search function), you'll find many more with the same question being asked and answered.

You would be correct in your assumption that I am new at this, and I just got Poser yesterday so you know I'm totally new with that.  Didn't know I was asking an essay question.  I guess I'm lucky I have your fine folks to help me out. :biggrin:

So if I understand correctly, I can use Blender then to model clothes then get them to work with the figure in Poser later.  That was my main concern.  

Thanks for the information.

What you need from your modelling program is the ability to model an object that you want, and to export an OBJ.  It's been over a year since I touched blender, but as far as I remember it's quite capable of both.

UV mapping, texturing, grouping and rigging can be done in other utilities, and some in poser itself.

Quote - What you need from your modelling program is the ability to model an object that you want, and to export an OBJ.  It's been over a year since I touched blender, but as far as I remember it's quite capable of both.

UV mapping, texturing, grouping and rigging can be done in other utilities, and some in poser itself.

I have been doing some modeling and UV mapping in Blender lately.  Mostly just somewhat easy objects like furniture (desks, shelves, etc.).  Nothing like clothes before though.  I have heard the learning curve in Blender is somewhat steep, but I should be able to figure out how to model clothes in it.  

One of my ultimate goals (which will probably take me a million years to get good enough to do) is to create Boromir's costume from the Lord of the Rings movies.  I've already modeled his sword, although it could use some work.

Well, rigging the clothes can be done pretty easily in Poser 5 and above. You need to model the cloths to fit a particular character. (If you're using the Poser characters that is)

Export the figure you want to make clothes for to .obj in it's "Zero Pose" (Read up on the Joint Editor to do this) Bring the obj into your modeling app and build the clothes around it.

You can build the clothing in one piece, just make sure to group all the various body parts involved and name them the same as the internal names Poser gives them, like hip, abdomen, chest, rCollar, rShldr, etc. This is necessary so Poser will know which bones to apply to which group.

When you finish the model, export it (the clothing item without the original figure) to .obj and import that into Poser. Take it into the Setup room and load a figure just like you would in the Pose room. The bones of that figure will be applied to your model. Hit the grouping tool and it will automatically group the body parts to the appropriate bone (provided you have named the groups correctly.) 

Close the grouping window and exit the Setup room. The clothes shouls then conform to that figure.

There are other odds and ends to do like deleting any morph targets and such but like ConnieKat said, getting into all that would be like a 20 page essay (more or less). But this is the basic procedure..

Good luck with it.

Quote - Well, rigging the clothes can be done pretty easily in Poser 5 and above. You need to model the cloths to fit a particular character. (If you're using the Poser characters that is)

Export the figure you want to make clothes for to .obj in it's "Zero Pose" (Read up on the Joint Editor to do this) Bring the obj into your modeling app and build the clothes around it.

You can build the clothing in one piece, just make sure to group all the various body parts involved and name them the same as the internal names Poser gives them, like hip, abdomen, chest, rCollar, rShldr, etc. This is necessary so Poser will know which bones to apply to which group.

When you finish the model, export it (the clothing item without the original figure) to .obj and import that into Poser. Take it into the Setup room and load a figure just like you would in the Pose room. The bones of that figure will be applied to your model. Hit the grouping tool and it will automatically group the body parts to the appropriate bone (provided you have named the groups correctly.) 

Close the grouping window and exit the Setup room. The clothes shouls then conform to that figure.

There are other odds and ends to do like deleting any morph targets and such but like ConnieKat said, getting into all that would be like a 20 page essay (more or less). But this is the basic procedure..

Good luck with it.

Thanks a lot!  Your assistance is much appreciated.