If I have Poser Pro 2012, am i able to purchase and use all the contents/products that are made for the previous versions of Poser (poser6,7,8,9) ? Since majority of the products are still being made for the previous versions and because the amount of people using those versions are still relatively large compare to Poser Pro 2012

i checked the vendor site here and at renderosity, but it doesn't seem like there's a sort function to show only the poser pro 2012 products.. so when purchasing items, how will i know if the product i purchase will not have any malfunctions (i hear sometimes using the older poser products in poser pro can have some problems in some areas)

also, I want to purchase some of the core content such as Victoria 4, Aiko 4, Mcihael 4, hiro 4... do i have to worry about them having these malfunctions? or are they made for poser pro?

In addition, i noticed a lot of products are also made for daz3d... like the above mentioned character contents. Will daz3d products work perfectly in Poser Pro? or do they have a Poser/Poser Pro version?

You should not have any problems with content for older versions of Poser working in Poser Pro2012.  In my experience it is the other way around, if you have an older version of Poser you may have problems with content made for Poser Pro 2012/Poser 9.

The DAZ figures all work in Poser, but some products you see that are for DAZ Studio only will not work with Poser.  The reality is that just about all content  from Rendo/DAZ will work in Poser Pro 2012 unless Poser is not mentioned in the product requirements.

The only DAZ figure that does not work natively with Poser is Genesis, so avoid buying content that is made for Genesis, unless you are using the Genesis figure speficilly in Poser.  You will know if you are as there is a Poser Genesis importer (which I cant remember the name of) that you will be using.

Hope that helps

John 

The only problems are in (compiled) Python scripts. Everythings else working in any version of Poser will work in any newer version of Poser (the other way doesn't always work, although most can be made to work in a way).

Anything specifically made for daz3d won't work in Poser (as there are differences in materials and some other things). Most things work in both applications but some things work better in one or the other. In general all paid for products clearly indicate what works and what won't. The free products might work (but that even applies to the application it is intended for).

Specifically all 1 to 4 Daz products work flawlessly in both applications. With Genesis (5) Daz introduced new features that didn't work initially but they seem to have overcome the problems (I'm personally not yet convinced). Daz has woken up to the fact that a large portion of their customers is using Poser and will continue to do so.

ah I had forgotten about python :) nice catch jfbeute

so as a general guideline,

for now, as a new user to poser, i should mostly just get character 4 like Victoria 4, Michael 4, Aiko 4 and avoid version 5 for now until everything is completely figured out and it's completely stable in Poser/Poser Pro.

And, for characters such as Victoria 4, etc... if there's a Weight-mapped version of it, then i should go for that as that will be specifically for Poser Pro and will make the posing process less of a pain due to better joints/bending mechanism that are supported by Poser Pro 2012. correct?

Wrong.

You will need to obtain the Victoria 4 figure anyway as the WM only adds to the base figure and doesn't replace it. Posing isn't easier it just looks better (in close ups and when clothing isn't used). For most things WM doesn't really make a big difference.

Version 5 is an attempt of Daz to include the WM features in their own product. Few consider it an improvement over version 4 when using Poser. Stick to Victoria 4 and Michael 4 for now and you'll be covered for most of needs.

Don't forget abouth the things already included in Poser. Any piece of clothing can be converted. Other things can be adapted to fit properly.

The V4WM (weight-mapped) option is free but, as already stated you do need V4 in the first place.  If you do decide to go down the V4WM route I suggest you also download Outfitter as this will allow you to adapt standard V4 clothing to the weight mapped version.

The products to have a little care with, other than Python, are figures, textures and lighting.  Most products will work but Poser 2012 and Poser 9 added Sub Surface Scattering (SSS) to improve skin textures and there were some major changes to the lights.  A lot of the newer figures for V4 come with textures for earlier Poser versions and SSS textures for use in Poser 9/2012.  Lighting for earlier versions of Poser will work in Poser 2102 to a degree but one route is to learn the basic of lighting and build your own sets.  Same can be said for textures/materials they will work in Poser 2012 but may need to be tweaked.  Skins textures for example often used tricks to fake SSS, not something you want in Poser 9/2012.

In short, if you stay away for Genesis, unless you are aware of how to make it work in Poser, almost anything will work but you need to do a little research to make sure you get the biggest bang for your buck.