What do you think I should get - with a view to forming the best base for future expansion as my skills (hopefully) improve?

I currently use an iMac 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM. Graphics: ATYRadeon1600. VRAM: 128MB.

But I'm ready to upgrade to a Mac more suitable for rendering, if necessary.

I've been making a living as a graphics designer with CS3 for decades, but have now retired and am itching to try my hand at rendering and animation. I also do oil painting (see attached) and would like to use rendering as an aid for painting composition and figure reference - as well as for composing original digital images.  

All opinions gratefully received!

Cheers - alantun 

 Well, seeing as Poser originated as a tool for painters, I'd say you should just start with Poser. There's a lot of figures already included and they will last you a while. If you're really hooked then you can always buy more. But Poser in itself contains all you need for a start.

Good luck! and I love that painting. Surreal in the cool way! It's like pieces from a dream! ^_^

 Thanks, TrekkieGrrrl. There are so many options that I need guidance!

At the risk of being bodily ejected from the forum; start with some basics.(and free stuff)

Daz Studio - the minor contender to Poser. You can get the basic idea of how Poser works, and when you're ready, upgrade to the real deal...Poser...;)

Bryce 5.5 - is on the web, and free. Note - Bryce and Daz Studio talk to each other, so you can do landscapes with it, and put people in them.

Wings 3d, blender, anim8tor - modeling programs, if you go that way. There's a '3d point', where every Poser user comes here and asks 'how do I make my own clothes?"...;) Believe me, there's enough freebies here and other sites to fill up your Hard drive with gigabytes of stuff (believe me, I've done it...;)

Some of the Poser textures are done in Photoshop, I don't have Photoshop, but some of the skin and clothes textures are available that way (psd files?)

Thanks, pakled. I'd been wondering how Poser and Daz compare, and if Daz is simpler to use I might do well to start there.

I'm planning to attach a separate hard drive to store stuff – but do you think my current Mac has enough RAM to handle the rendering demand?   

 Some people think Daz Studio is easier, some prefer Poser. They can basically do the same thing, but the interface is vastly different.

I'm not sure how much content you get with Daz Studio though. I think there's a watered-down version of Victoria 3, but other than that I'm not sure (I vaguely remember a faery and some other things but I have't really used Daz Studio since it was version 1 or something. Never really clicked with it.

Poser, on the other hand, comes with a LOAD of content. Animals, people, apartments, landscapes - basically all you need to get started. BUT.. it's not free. Neither is Daz Studio though, the BASE is free but anything and everything for that is made as plugins that costs money. Imagine Photoshop without any filters or actions at all... that's DS. Poser is Photoshop with the filters and actions already installed ;) Both will open a picture and let you paint on it. But one is just more useable in the long run - without extra costs. *)

Yes I'm advocating Poser, but you DID ask in the POSER forum, so... :)

No matter if you plan to use Daz tudio or Poser, I would absolutely get a LOT more ram. Poser can run on 1 gb (in Windows, I've never tried a mac so they may handle ram differently) but it runs so slow it's annoying. 3-4 gb and Poser is a happy camper. Again that's on a PC. Mac savvy people will hopefully pop in here and tell you more :)

*) The extra costs thing: Regardless of which tyou decide, you will probably soon find yourself shopping for new content. This is quite normal and nothing to be concerned about. If it gets out of control, seek out Poserholics Anonymous ;)

Poser does run very well with 2Gb.  More is better though..  I have used DS with Bryce but never really got the hang of it..

Hmmm. Well reasoned, Trekkiegrrrl. It makes sense to start as you mean to go on, and as Poser comes with more basic kit, the extra price is negated. And if the Daz interface is different, there's not much point in learning it if you intend to graduate to Poser, is there?

I've also ticked off 4 gigs of RAM as a must have....thanks, NoelCan. 

The reason I've posted here is because I couldn't find an unassigned forum. But I do not exclude Vue and the other Poser alternatives - it's just that I don't know what they do!

Can anyone tell me? If I buy Vue, will I be limited to content designed for that program? And what about the other 'base' rendering programs?  

Lightwave, Shade, Z-brush? Can these add on to Poser?

 Does Bryce run on a Mac? Honestly I don't know. However I have had incredible suce$$ with Vue on a Mac and the ability in version 8 to re-pose /animate Collada based figures looks extremely promising.

Alantun, you might want to add another gig of RAM to be on the safe side; otherwise your system sounds fully capable for mid-weight scenes.

Quote -  Does Bryce run on a Mac? Honestly I don't know. However I have had incredible suce$$ with Vue on a Mac and the ability in version 8 to re-pose /animate Collada based figures looks extremely promising.

Alantun, you might want to add another gig of RAM to be on the safe side; otherwise your system sounds fully capable for mid-weight scenes.

Yes it does run on the Mac

Hi- Vue and Poser work very well together. Poser ofcourse is primarily a character package and Vue is a landscapeing package. With vue you can import poser scenes right into it. Vue does make much higher and realistic quality worlds then bryce IMO.
Vue is between bryce and terragen.

 Thanks, guys.

replicand: I've already earmarked 4 gigs of RAM. Are you saying I need 5?

Okay, so my shopping list now lists a RAM upgrade; Poser 8 (?), and Vue.

What about that Lightwave, Shade, Z-brush stuff?

 Didn't see that you'd earmarked 4GB of RAM, which, for your generation of machine will be fine. Lightwave / Shade only if you plan to produce your own content. Personally, a big ZBrush fan for sculpting detail and painting textures here, though it's not initially as intuitive as most "normal" 3D programs.

Thanks, replicand. I've just discovered that my iMac takes 3 gigs RAM maximum  - and have ordered it from RamCity. So I'll have to chug along with that.  

Congratulation on taking the plunge to 3D alantun and good luck with Poser or any other app you choose.

 Thank you, Vestmann. 

I'm with pakled on this one. Don't shop anywhere yet, but try the free applications first, you can always buy later. Around here we tend to recommend expensive software quickly. First of all you need to decide what you're going to create. Going by the image you've shown, I don't see a need to spent money on Vue, or Lightwave at all. But you may have other ideas.

You really should start with D/S. It's free and it will give you a good idea what can be done with Poser related content. You may find yourself enjoying D/S so much and that it suits your needs finr that you don't need to spent any money on Poser. Use that money to buy other things instead. D/S has a small colletion of items for you to start with and you can find a lot of items for poser/ds for free to experiment with. Once you get the hang of it, you can take it from there and decide what else is needed.

It's true that Poser has a larger seletions of items (especially figures) to start out with then D/S has, but most of us do not use that at all of very little. It's just not as good as the figures that stores like DAZ offer.

Before buying Vue, you can try Bryce. It will give you an idea of what Vue is able to do, even though it's not as advanced as Vue. Again it's free, so you get an idea and can decide what you will do later on.

If you decide to go with D/S, I would recommend Carrara over Vue. D/S and Carrara work better together, while Vue and Poser work better as team.

Lightwave and Z-Brush are in a different catagory all together.

I really would recommend trying the free apps and content first, before spending tons of money.

Thanks for the input, aeilkema. I will try the freebies first.

It's worth pointing out that you can get Vue PLE (Personal Learning Edition) for FREE from the e-on software site. It imposes some restrictions and adds a logo to your renders, but is well worth downloading to play with.

As already stated, Vue plays nicely with Poser, and according to the press release for the soon to be released Vue 8, "rigged mesh objects can now be re-posed and animated directly inside Vue". If that feature really works, it will make Vue + Poser a compelling combination.

 Thanks, cspear. I'll go to e-on software now. 

Very nice composition values in your gallery, by the way. When you say, in Nightscene 2, "adding a figure added 90 (?) minutes to the render", does your RAM influence this? How much RAM have you? 

Quote - When you say, in Nightscene 2, "adding a figure added 90 (?) minutes to the render", does your RAM influence this? How much RAM have you? 

Well, Poser 8 (which I used for that scene) is a 32-bit app so the amount of RAM it can access is limited to 3Gb. A bit frustrating when I have 12Gb available! However, most of the increased render time is down to transparency maps being used, particularly on the figure's hair - before SR1 this was a real problem, but it's now been greatly improved.

 What's SR1? The max RAM I can load onto my iMac is 3 gigs - so that's a match, at least. I'm downloading Vue now.  

SR=Service Release. SR1 is the first service release for Poser 8. An update to fix the bugs and problems.

 Aha, so I've arrived at the right time for the latest debugged gear, have I? I'll put in the extra RAM first thing next week, and then give it a blast. Thanks for your help, mate. 

Quote -  What's SR1? The max RAM I can load onto my iMac is 3 gigs - so that's a match, at least. I'm downloading Vue now.  

Didn't realise you were Mac based; I'm not sure how the MacOS allocates RAM, but 3Gb should be adequate.

 Bah! I downloaded that training free version of Vue, but it wouldn't load. After some effort I found THIS buried away in the Vue FAQ section:

"Warning: all Intel-based GPUs on Mac OSX systems will** not work with Vue**."

So it looks like I'm unable to ever use Vue on my iMac 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

I'm now off to find out if Bryce does Mac

I should read before posting (Pakleds are not smart...;) Actually Bryce was originally a Mac product, when the 1st version came out. I'm not sure what programs will work with Macs; last one I owned was an LCII with a whopping 80 meg drive...;)

Wings....might do it, I know they've got a Linux version, so there's hope.

Ligthwave is a full-fledged modeling and rendering program (as far as I can tell, I couldn't afford it...;) Zbrush does good character creation; I've seen plenty of heads and bodies created.

Thought - browse through the galleries here, but set your filter first for Lightwave, then Zbrush; that  should give you an overall idea of what they're capable of. Then, we should have Zbrush and Lightwave forums here. I'm sure they'll be as impartial as we are....;) but then they should be fairly honest about what their packages do. Note- they're not cheap...but if you can afford a Mac...;)
j/k...;)

 Yeah, I've checked out Daz 3D Bryce 6.1 and they specifically state that it now includes Mac Intel compatibility - so I guess I'll play around with that and Daz Studio for a bit. Cheers.

 Okay. To close this thread I report that I bought Poser 8 and have produced my very first render - which is now in my gallery. Thanks for the advice, guys.