Hello my fellow Poser users. I'm putting some thought into purchasing Poser Pro but first I would like to ask some questions from users who are already using the program. Note: I'm using Poser 6 at this time.

• How is the interface compared to earlier versions? Is it easier to find certain items instead of having to run through multiple runtime folder's to find what you're looking for?
• How is the rendering engine compared to previous versions? Faster, slower, more realistic results?
• And now to my biggest question. I've read on the manufacturer's web site that the characters can be pre-rigged when exporting to other programs such as Maya, 3-D Studio Max, and Lightwave is this true with all characters including ones purchased from Daz?

I guess the third question is my biggest concern because I've been working with Maya lately and it is quite a pain to rig your own characters once they're ready for animation. Any other information or input about Poser Pro would be appreciated.

Regards,
James

-render engine is the same.
-i think its faster
-ambient occlussion looks better
-interface looks the same

. Interface is identical

. Can be faster because it is 64 bits, but besides that it is the same engine.

. Characters, if exported using COLLADA, will import into Maya in the form of a set of Maya bones + mesh skinned to those bones. You can then work with this directly, add on whatever control rig you want, or use the bones as a starting point to re-rig the mesh to your specs. But conform clothes import as separate chars, JCMs as separate morphs, so you may have to set some things up manually. Dynamic hair and cloth dont transfer (IIRC) and nor do any shaders, though of course you have Maya for all that.

Also if pt. 3 is your main reason to buy ppro, then just keep in mind that you can do the exact same thing via the free version of D|Studio as well. You dont need to buy ppro just for this.

I've not used Collada so I can't really comment there but every other Poser -> Maya solution (I've tried them all) has issues, so the conversion is never easy or neat.

Rigging characters in Maya is really easy and fast - if your geometry is clean, well organized and lower polygon counts (usually controlling higher density meshes). Daz meshes are extremely dense, which makes the rigging unneccesarily difficult. If you don't believe me, rig one of the LOD meshes from DAZ Studio and you'll see what I mean.

You certainly don't want to use Poser Fusion (or the plug in former known as Body Studio) because you can't use Maya's animation controls on your mesh, which to me, sort of defeats the purpose of using Maya.

Finally you will find that a DAZ mesh imported into Maya will have 36 instances of materials but you only need five since that's how many maps a Mil 3 character has (for example you don't need a separate network for skinTorso and skinArm since they use the same map), which really saves processing power.

ice-boy & ghonma: Thanks for the input. No I didn't know that Daz Studio would allow you to export your characters pre-rigged. Very interesting, I may just have to try out that free program from Daz

replicand: Thanks for your input as well. What version of Maya are you using?

Just upgraded to 2009 (was waiting the the new Renderman) but I've been trying to rig DAZ characters in Maya for almost four years. I totally gave up a year ago and recently began modeling my own humanoids.

replicand: The thing that I dislike about Autodesk's 2009 programs is that you now have a 13 month contract for their programs. Meaning that at the end of that 13 months you either have to repay for another 13 months or upgrade to their newest version. That's why I bought the 2008 version of Maya before Autodesk implemented that policy, because I don't want them telling me when I have to upgrade or when my software isn't good anymore.