What programs would you suggest to crete new items for poser? Im an avid fantasy/sci-fi fan and Im fairly certain that between myself and a friend ( who is proficient in 3DSMax and is learning Maya ) we can produce some good things for the community. Second question is...once an item is created in the above programs how would you transfer it to make it an item for poser? Ive read stuff about UVMapping. Im going to guess that this is how you make your item automatically have textures???? Thanks for any help. ^___^

You export the item as an Wavefront OBJ file and than import that file into Poser. But you should read some of the tutorial on 3ds Max they will help.

Stay with the programs you have. Brycetech made some armor in Amapi, and others have used Carrara and Trusepace and Lightwave. Max is fine enough if you have it and are proficient with it. Poser Pro and the new Poser 5 when it comes out will let you bone your models (I don't know all the capabilities of Max). As for texturing, you can do that in UVMapper, or you can invest in something like Cinema's Deep Paint. One of the best procedural texturers is Symbiot's DarkTree. Go play with the demos. There are pleanty of tuts out there about the differences between making models with parts vs single units that Poser can bone. Its worth some google searches to find and read them.

Attached Link: http://www.annsartgallery.com/freeprop.html

Oh, I just noticed, you said your friend is a maxer. Ok, for you, go try all the demos and find what you like. For modelers, the popular ones are: Universe 4 Amorphium Amapi Lightwave Max Maya TrueSpace Rhino A good Cad program like TurboCad or AutoCad Metasequoia Blender sPatch HammaPatch Nendo Milkshake Carrara (which came from the same company as the original Poser) SoftImage Cinema They range from freeware non commercial to $5000 + apps. Go get demos and see what you like best. Occasionally someone dumps one on Ebay (at your own risk). I posted a tut on how to make and texture models for Poser (and you can bone them with the pro pack)using only freeware (most apps are for non commercial only). There's a link to a host of shareware and freeware modelers in the POV arena that work well.

just figured out that Metasequioa(freeware version) won't let you extract to obj files... and the full version can only be registered in japan right now. so not much use.. just about to retry Milkshape 3d (I used it a long time ago for a while before I got a hold of poserL)

OK, I'm totally confused. What the heck does it mean to "bone" a figure in Poser Pro Pack? Can't people make figures in other programs and just bring them into Poser?

perhaps you can bone a static object (table leg for example (?)) and make it move accodring to the bones within?. .. I don't know.. just a guess on that one :?/