It is becoming painfully aware to me that I misunderstanding what "Realistic" poses are compared to "Everyday" poses. For me realistic poses are things people would do realistically in everyday life. I am not beating anyone up here but a lot of the realistic pose sets to me are not what I'd call what real people would be doing. Maybe I am just not getting the differences.

I guess it's more about limbs being twisted in a natural looking way opposite to some artistic gesture sets out there. And I own everyday poses that make me think they are pinup poses so it depends a bit on a persons p.o.v.

Somwhere around a small decade ago, I stopped buying poses or lights.

Poses only work (most of the time) on the figure they where made for. Ha-ha-, do not even try on another figure.
And lights are only good in the Poser version they are made for.
Please do not try to use older light sets in newer Poser versions....

that is what Poser IS build for;  To Pose.

Do you say, "I am going to make us a meal", and then drive Off to Mc Donalds?

To learn how to Pose, your best friend is a mirror.

Quote - To learn how to Pose, your best friend is a mirror. 

Or someone who doesn't mind getting their kit off and standing/sitting around in silly positions.

And for that sort of thing, there's 3d.sk's sister site, female anatomy for the artist.  Can't remember the URL but you'll find it at 3d.sk.  Oh, and remember, there are nekkid people there so watch it.  :) 

Quote - Do you say, "I am going to make us a meal", and then drive Off to Mc Donalds?

Every day!

I use premade poses as a rough outline.  A quick way to get the parts near where I'd want them.  Then I move them a bit this way and that to get what I actually want.  Poses can be good to start with but unless you're using the default figure you'll likely want to make some adjustments.  Even with the default figure you still might unless you and the original pose maker had the exact same scene in mind.

I use a lot of reference photo's for making my poses. Because I like making pin-ups I don't really need "everyday" poses. If you look at fashion and glamour magazines you will notice that the way women and men are posed isn't very natural.

Most of poses sold at rendo and daz are in this genre, although there are exceptions: Daz sells a lot of everyday pose that you can use in particular scene: swimming pool poses, kitchen poses, dining room poses and I think they are rather good.

You have to compair it with making photo's: there are actually two options, one is the natural and spontaneous reallife picture and on the other hand the set where you pose your models. Actually you can have a third option : a set that looks natural and spontaneous, which is the most difficult. That's often the reason why everyday pose don't look very natural or just plain boring.

Bopper.

To me, 'everyday' means driving, eating, reading, using a computer etc. You could extend it out to things like using common hand tools, bus or subway riding, a l;ot of things outside of slaying dragons, fashion modeling, superhero etc. One problem is that the poses often require interaction with props like utensils, tools seating etc. You can end up doing a lot of tweaking to use different props. I'm always pleased when a prop maker includes poses or a pose maker either includes props or links to (hopefully free) props that were used to create the poses.

As for 'realistic,' I'd consider that to be ensuring that,for instance, a fireman entering a burning building pose is accurate to real life. Who knows how much effort it would require to thrust a sword through a dragon though?

I did a webinar a few months ago on creating poses from photographs, it's not a short watch but might be useful.

http://my.smithmicro.com/webinars/poser/posing-techniques-3d-human-figure/

Cooper

You don't mention a particular figure but Ironman13 has a pack for V4.2 called Utility Poses: Variety Pack that covers a lot of every day poses such as typing, carrying a tray, driving and watering the garden along with many others.  I use this pack a great deal and it is on sale here at the moment.

My favourite poses are when you buy a poser car or some other set like the greenpotts sets or the dreamhome that have premade poses to match the item.  those things are soooo useful to me.

Love esther

To me, the word "realistic" in regards to poses means the pose looks like something a human being could do, taking into account things like gravity and joint bending.  Whether or not it's the kind of pose you'd see in a porn movie or not doesn't really have much to do with its realism per se.

Most poses look stiff and fake.  The shoulders are usually wrong or the neck.  Or someone is balancing on a single toe.  I guess "realistic" poses try to address these issues.

well anyone can balance on one toe for a second as they are running along, so maybe the pose only represents one little instant in time in your poser story.

I love my premade poses.  Even more now since I got semidieu's Advanced Library manager which can just use an arm or some section of the body pose with a single click. ie the script makes partial poses out of whole pose without having to save any extra poses.

Love esther

i watched a wonderful youtube video on making an animated pose using a background video as a guide, moving frame by frame and then using the editing tools to theak the limbs to follow the frame by frame animation, looked really easy, until i finished up with a corkscrewed legged, treble hipped v4 after i'd finished.......