So... Poser 2009, or possibly Poser Pro2012?  Both are on sale right now.

Just so you know I got into 3D via Daz, so I have a lot of 4th gen materials, and some Genesis.  (I'm not concerned about the Genesis stuff.)

Most of my Renders are currently Reality 2.0.  I'm running Windows 7, x64.

I can't tell whether I need P2009, or PP2012.  I want to get my feet wet and try the legendary easy interface of Poser.

I don't know if there will be performance issues. P2009 is 32 bit for the main engine, right? My PC is 64 bit.  Does anyone know if this is a concern?

I'm not sure if I need the latest features of PP2012.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Do you mean Poser 9 rather than 2009?

How much RAM has your computer?

http://poser.smithmicro.com/poser.html

Poser 9.  I have 16GB of nice fast RAM.

Attached Link: http://poser.smithmicro.com/comparison.html

There is a comparison between the two versions here:

http://poser.smithmicro.com/comparison.html

If you are a Daz user, the Poser interface will not seem "legendary easy" (imo)  cause it is different.  Changing from what you are used to is difficult.  I did the same.  It was a "grin and bear it" type of struggle.  Now I can't go back...I'd miss the material room, dynamics and animation too much.

I considered upgrading to P2012 from P9, but the main things were Gamma Correction, WM modelling stuff and 64 bit support.  To be honest, I have a beefy machine as well, and it goes plenty fast, so that cancelled the 64 bit support for me.  (people will yell at me for oversimplifying the version comparison, but it is just an opinion)  I wish I had GC, but I don't do ANY WM stuff really, so that is not a big deal for me.  The cost was not worth it at this time.  Still hoping for a nice sidegrade sale for P9 users, else I will probably just wait for P2012 in Amazon in 2 years for $50.

I recommend saving the money, get P9, and also get Shaderworks Library Manager 2 and Advaced figure manager at RDNA...they will make the Daz -> Poser transition easier! That's my opinion. 

Also, you can always trial either (P9 or P2012) and see what you think?

If you still want to use Reality, DS imports the PZ3's but you lose displacement and procedural textures (maybe more), but then again, you probably usually tweak texture in Reality anyway.  It's what I do.  :)

(I have not lost hope in a Reality for Poser, but I may be dreaming!)

Thanks guys.

I'm leaning to trying P9 and taking things from there.

Probably the main motivation would be to advantage of some of the advanced Poser shaders some models come with.

I'm not sure if I'll need Poser, so perhaps its not wise to spend the $300 right away.  The upgrade is only $250...

Just to clarify, "Upgrade" is from Poser 2010, "Sidegrade" is from Poser 9...in case you are looking at costs.

That being said, Poser 2010 at Amazon is another option, as well.  That comparison chart above includes it.  I think it's $50 or so.

Have to say my first experience of Poser was PP2012 and I had no real problems with the interface (even if I still haven't worked out what half the stuff does!). And if you do get problems there is that wonderful thing called a manual to help you out!

I previously used DS2 to pose figures for import to Vue and I have to say there were things about the old DS interface I preferred to Poser and I find Poser slower and clunkier for setting up figures and scenes*. BUT... the resulting renders and the wonders of the Poser material room more than make up for a few extra minutes shouting "Get on with it!!!" at the screen :biggrin:

I'd never go back to DS now I've used Poser.

*to be fair - I have an old and bad tempered PC which doesn't help!

I say go pro, for gc, and to use your 16GB rather than what 2? Toasty have your tried setting your sceens with out the textures on? I use the one below textures, so I still see the shading and makes things really fast, and I have a pretty good video card, but with huge scenes and giant textures it doesn't take long to become slow.

PoserPro is the only version that can use all your nice RAM.
Being 64 bit, it can use all of it, and it is way faster.

Poser9 is 32 bit and thus limited to 2GB RAM

Plus??
Creating Weightmapped rigs....
Gamma corection. I do not know what I would do without it.
Queue rendering and more and more. . . .

See the compare link above.

Quote - Thanks guys.

I'm leaning to trying P9 and taking things from there.

Probably the main motivation would be to advantage of some of the advanced Poser shaders some models come with.

 

I'm not sure if I'll need Poser, so perhaps its not wise to spend the $300 right away.  The upgrade is only $250...

FWIW, I am a poser user from ver 5 thru 2012 and now with reality and DS4 pro, I rarely use poser. I find the ease of use setting up shaders in reality a god send after trying to figure our all the nodes in poser. I have seen some amazing stuff done in poser and I have a few nice light sets and utilities, but I still find it more of a chore setting up poser scenes and faked lighting rather than using an unbiased renderer.

I have gotten some good results with IDL in poser 2012, but I hate the library palette interface.

Just wanted to point out my experience since I see your work in the reality threads

Quote - FWIW, I am a poser user from ver 5 thru 2012 and now with reality and DS4 pro, I rarely use poser. I find the ease of use setting up shaders in reality a god send after trying to figure our all the nodes in poser. I have seen some amazing stuff done in poser and I have a few nice light sets and utilities, but I still find it more of a chore setting up poser scenes and faked lighting rather than using an unbiased renderer.

I have gotten some good results with IDL in poser 2012, but I hate the library palette interface.

Just wanted to point out my experience since I see your work in the reality threads

Both have positivie's, but one of the cool things of using/having both, is getting the Dynamic Clothes benefit of Poser, and then importing over through Reality.  Here is a link to one I did, setup/dynamics in Poser then import through DS to Reality

http://fav.me/d52uv0e

For those who want to use Luxrender on Poser scenes, Pose2Lux is availible for free...

http://snarlygribbly.org/3d/forum/