Poser help

I recently found out there's a good chance I'll be getting Poser for x-mas. Excitedly I immediately googled "poser tutorials" to begin learning what kinds of things I can do (and what I'll need) to jump in right away...

...and was quickly overwhelmed by the vast array of sites offering to tech me EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW... EVAR! for just a nominal subscription fee of course.

...and the "buy R 3d poser objs NOW!!!!' sites

So.. here's my question(s):

- Is there a reliable (and free (for now) site where I can learn the basics of Poser to get up and running?

- Does Poser come with any models and props to start? Or do I need to find some (hopefully free) ones to start messing around with?

The latest version of Poser is.. what.. 7? I think I am getting a slightly cheaper (and used) copy of 5 or 6, if that matters. I think it's 6.

I know we have a few poser artists out here, can they be kind enough to share their favorite links to a base newbie so I can start becoming a masterful 3d artist? (in just 24 hours!! *cough*)

PM DarkJedi and Skittle(?) (Dunno if he uses poser.)

well, if I haven't gotten any public help in the next 72 hours or so, I'll resort to PMing, I always preffer questions like this to be where anyone (who might have the same questions) can see them

I thought of DJ esspecially, and a few others. But you never know who's out there.. lurking.. with a folder full of helpful bookmarks!

There are tons of sites that have free stuff for Poser. The ones I like are Renderosity and Renderotica. Yes, they do have paid sections, but they also have really decent tutorials and sections of freebies available for download. Either of those sites will no doubt link you to dozens more decent sites.

Good luck and enjoy Poser!

I second the Renderosity recommendation. Pay special attention to the Poser forum on that site for information. Remember to run a forum search to see if a question has been asked before entering a new post there, though (some people on the site can be a bit touchy about that).

As for the question of whether Poser comes with some free models, the answer is yes. The models are limited, but they are free. Further, check out the daz3d website for the free Victoria 3 and Mike 3 figures as a starting base (assuming they still have the free offer available for them, you get only the base model for free, morphs, textures, clothing, etc are extra).

Thanks guys, both of those sites were/are awesome :-)

I'll take any other recomendations as well, building myself a nice bookmark list

Renderosity is a good site to gain some free stuff for poser. There are many many sites that off free objects, figures, props, and tutorials. Doing a search on "free poser downloads" will get you many of these. Also, keep in mind that older poser files may or may not work well or work at all in a current version of poser, most do, but some have to be imported. Try to learn how the program files work also, as for you will have to drop folders and files in there after you download from the web. Most tell you where to place them with an attached txt file, but some do not. Good luck and I hope so see some of your work. Rock on.

OK, lt me take a stab at this thread with an introduction to Poser...

First and foremost, Poser is a character rendering program; it's great for posing and rendering characters. It has a very straight-forward dial system that makes posing simple, as well as instant shaded feedback to let you see in real-time if your pose is headed in the right direction.

Poser completely LACKS any type of modelling capability, so every model that appears in Poser has to have been pre-constructed in another modeller. There are books dedicated to this very process, but I don't recommend anyone trying to build their own characters without several years of experience 3D modelling. This limitation means that 98% of the Poser community is slave to those gifted few who can actually craft characters. In my opinion, one of the key skills with Poser is being able to mix and match outfits with the various models... knowing which ones conform, which ones scale, which ones go on which figure, and so forth. Also, as Skittle mentioned, a lot of the older content is primitive and can lack good textures, have poor geometry, not fit well, or be made for older and less realistic figures.

So where does one start?

There are two websites I highly recommend (and dozens of smaller ones I hit weekly). First and foremost is RENDEROSITY. They're easily the largest home for Poser enthusiasts and have thousands of free models, forums, tutorials, a gallery with over a million pieces in it, links, and a vast marketplace. They have their own magazine, run spotlights on artists, and hold contests. My problem with Renderosity is that they don't seem to have a 'quality control' system on their products and the offerings can vary widely in quality. They're almost the 'Flea Market' of Poser, allowing anyone who wants to post and sell stuff. That's not necessarily bad, but be aware that some of their items aren't that great, but some are quite spectacular.

The other site I like is DAZ3D. They're a little more 'official' through various partnerships with Creative Labs and Metacreations throughout the years, and they have a rigorous quality assurance team that ensures every model they sell is tested for compatibility before they offer it. They only give out one free model a week.

So, what version? What do I get?

Poser is currently up to version 6, with version 7 on the horizon. 7 is close enough that it might make Christmas, but I'm not familiar enough with what it offers to be excited yet. Right now, anything 5 or greater will serve you well. 6 took me a while to get used to, but I'm glad I forced myself to upgrade (I used 5 for many years). 6 doesn't actually offer that much more than 5 did, but the interface is a little more powerful and there are models that seem to prefer 6... so that's my current favorite.

Poser comes with a couple of free human characters, some animals, some cartoon characters, and a smattering of basic objects (cone, cube, sphere, etc.). The current norm for characters is MICHAEL 3 and VICTORIA 3. Those are the most widely accepted models at the moment, and they're both free downloads on DAZ3D... so there's no reason to *not* download them. Muscle packs, skin textures, face morphs, and other add-ons will cost extra, but give you a TON more power with the base figures.

Once you click on a figure and load it into the scene, you'll notice is nakkie. Clothes cost extra, and the really great outfits can sometimes run $10 - $20 or more. I rarely spend more than $10 on a model and look for sales all the time since a couple outfits can add up. Be smart about it and look for items that mght get you the most milage. I bought the "Ultra Bodysuit" for Victoria and Michael a while back, and I've used those suits in almost every superhero piece I've done; they have muscles, wrinkles, and texture templaes that allow me to construct a complete hero in just a couple of hours. So while I can't possibly afford to buy a lot of stuff (and have learned to model my own), a few well-planned purchases can get you miles of usage.

Whew... anything else?

To quote my favorite movie; "You've just taken your first step into a larger world."


P.S. - If any other questions come up, feel free to ask. I prefer questions be placed on the open forum to PMs. That way, everyone can benefit from the answer, and my PM box doesn't get filled up.

That was very help info, both of you thanks Very much.

A while back DJ< I noticed you gave a little demo on Rowr (which I have saved just for the photoshoped hair as a ref) I notice you did Rowrs skin texture in photoshop. Is that what you were talking about when you use the Ultra suit to make heroes? take an existing texture and color it to make your own? (I realize I just greatly simplified what you did)

I have Photoshop CS 2, and with what you just said, I assume I'm getting poser 5.

so mostly its a matter of wading through the free sections, building a 'closet' of outfits and models, then seeing what I need to aquire/build from there? (again, greatly simplifying the process, I know that.)

[ QUOTE ]
"... A while back DJ< I noticed you gave a little demo on Rowr (which I have saved just for the photoshoped hair as a ref) I notice you did Rowrs skin texture in photoshop. Is that what you were talking about when you use the Ultra suit to make heroes?..."

[/ QUOTE ]

Basically, yes.

Every 3D model is comprised of little points called 'vertices' that are defined by standard X, Y,and Z coordinates. These coordinates tell the program where to place all the points in 3D space, and which points connect to which other points. Every point has a SEPERATE set of coordinates that define where a texture is mapped onto to object. These were arbitrarily named U, V, and W (the 3 letters that come before X, Y, and Z). The UVW coordinates can be moved and adjusted without moving the physical location of the XYZ points since their only function is to define where the flat texture map lays.

A good example of how his works is to think of a wrapped present. The physical box is the XYZ parameters of the present itself, while the UVW is the wrapping paper that goes around it (giving it color).

So how does this apply to Poser? When I load my character into a scene, they're naked and colorless. I need to load the "Ultra Bodysuit" on top of the character to put them in a spandex outfit. This second model has physical space and moves wherever the base figure moves... like real clothing.

Next, I load Photoshop and open the Texture Template for the Ultra Bodysuit. The template is a square JPG about 2000 x 2000 pixels in size and has a flattened out version of the ulra bodysuit painted on it. I just draw the clothing texture into the template, load the newly created bodysuit texture into Poser and place it on the Ultra Bodysuit geometry. Viola!

By now, I have a pretty good library of COH textures that I've made, so mixing and matching is getting faster each time I make a new hero.

I also need to load a skin texture for the model, eye textures for the eyes, and sometimes a custom texture for the hair... but altogether, that only takes a few minutes (I use almost entirely pre-made skins (unless I want to add a tattoo or something ("Curse you, Juggertha!" ))).

[ QUOTE ]
So, what version? What do I get?

Poser is currently up to version 6, with version 7 on the horizon. 7 is close enough that it might make Christmas, but I'm not familiar enough with what it offers to be excited yet. Right now, anything 5 or greater will serve you well. 6 took me a while to get used to, but I'm glad I forced myself to upgrade (I used 5 for many years). 6 doesn't actually offer that much more than 5 did, but the interface is a little more powerful and there are models that seem to prefer 6... so that's my current favorite.


[/ QUOTE ]

I had Poser 7 on pre-order and received it this week. For anyone who did not preorder, it should be available in the next week or two.

Initial impressions after only two days of playing around with the Poser 7 update...

The good:

1. Rendering can now be done in multiple threads, up to 4. So for those with dual or quad core systems, rendering time _can_ be significantly increased. I say can be, because the renderer splits the threads evenly between the upper and lower portions of the scene and doles each out to a given processor. If most of the render time happens to be in one half of the scene, the thread on the lighter half will complete and then that CPU will just sit idle, not adding any benefit to render times.

2. The Sydney and Simon models are, IMO, a huge improvement over Poser 5's Don and Judy and a good step forward from Poser 6's James and Jessi. As with Jessi, Sydney's hands are still way too large, but that's a minor detail (hands can be resized). Also, as with DAZ's recently released Victoria 4, a number of the Poser 7 figure morphs are magnet based, providing some more pleasant results.

3. Universal Poses. Finally a simpler way to use a common set of poses across multiple figures with decent results.

The bad:

1. Still a 32-bit application limited to 2 Gig memory useage. Large scenes may still need to be rendered in another application.

2. While multithreaded rendering is now available, network rendering is still not an option.

3. Universal Poses don't seem to work correctly on Sydney or Simon for some reason (odd that, considering those are the Poser 7 models). They seem to work fine on the DAZ models though, including Victoria 4.

These are just my initial impressions. With a dual core system, the multithreaded renderer is reason enough for me to upgrade from Poser 5 or 6 to 7, but mileage may differ and for those that render in external applications that will not be a factor. And if you only have a single CPU on your system, that feature will provide no benefit over Poser 5 or 6. I still tend to prefer rendering in Poser over exporting the scene to Bryce or 3DS Max, even if those do provider better render results and performance, simply because the export process is a pain in the neck (and the Max plugins that simplify this process such as Body Studio and GestureMax don't seem to have been updated for 3DS Max 9 as yet)

I've always been somewhat envious of people that can make poser work. I use a different program and my poser excursions bring the terms "disastrous & joke" to mind. A guy who used to post here, Sartori? I think his name was helped me out with using poser(and another program) to make textures but that's about the extent of my abilities with it. Shame too, I really like the work people create with it.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
"... A while back DJ< I noticed you gave a little demo on Rowr (which I have saved just for the photoshoped hair as a ref) I notice you did Rowrs skin texture in photoshop. Is that what you were talking about when you use the Ultra suit to make heroes?..."

[/ QUOTE ]

Basically, yes.

Every 3D model is comprised of little points called 'vertices' that are defined by standard X, Y,and Z coordinates. These coordinates tell the program where to place all the points in 3D space, and which points connect to which other points. Every point has a SEPERATE set of coordinates that define where a texture is mapped onto to object. These were arbitrarily named U, V, and W (the 3 letters that come before X, Y, and Z). The UVW coordinates can be moved and adjusted without moving the physical location of the XYZ points since their only function is to define where the flat texture map lays.

A good example of how his works is to think of a wrapped present. The physical box is the XYZ parameters of the present itself, while the UVW is the wrapping paper that goes around it (giving it color).

So how does this apply to Poser? When I load my character into a scene, they're naked and colorless. I need to load the "Ultra Bodysuit" on top of the character to put them in a spandex outfit. This second model has physical space and moves wherever the base figure moves... like real clothing.

Next, I load Photoshop and open the Texture Template for the Ultra Bodysuit. The template is a square JPG about 2000 x 2000 pixels in size and has a flattened out version of the ulra bodysuit painted on it. I just draw the clothing texture into the template, load the newly created bodysuit texture into Poser and place it on the Ultra Bodysuit geometry. Viola!

By now, I have a pretty good library of COH textures that I've made, so mixing and matching is getting faster each time I make a new hero.

I also need to load a skin texture for the model, eye textures for the eyes, and sometimes a custom texture for the hair... but altogether, that only takes a few minutes (I use almost entirely pre-made skins (unless I want to add a tattoo or something ("Curse you, Juggertha!" ))).

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok. so, I got Poser 6 (The present was mailed, and the person wasn't around to make sure I didn't open it early, muahaha!) and I got Michael 3 and Victoria 3 and a few body morphs and head morphs for each as part of the package.

I've read a few tutorials, and managed to get 'some' of the clothing to work, (ok. I managed to get pants on Michael to work, but that's about it) I assume, that the clothing that comes with poser 6 is for the models that come with it, and don't work for V3 or M3 (sigh).

Here's my stream of conciousness thoughts and questions, since organizing this post seems to elude me:

Camera controls seem really counter-intutive to me. My mouse scroll bar doesn't zoom in or out (and appears to do nothing really) I'm having a heck of a time navigating more than one camera around.

Where are these texture maps? I don't seem to have any, do they need to be converted anyway to load into photoshop so I can make any changes to them?

the tutorials I've read seem to assume that I have a basic understanding of poser jargon. For example: what is transmap hair? and why is it different or better than folical point hair? .. nevermind... all of the hair seems to suck and defy attempts to manipulate it.

is there any reason to use the poses as anything more than a starting point? I don't like any of the one's I;ve seen, and moving the figures into a pose I like isn't very difficult. am I missing some hidden benefit to paying $10 for a bunch of poses I can recreate just by looking at the picture?

I guess that's it for now.. making existing clothing work and makeing/editing texture maps for it is the main thing I am after.

Clothing items are model specific, by default. The clothing that comes with Poser 6 for Jessi will not work directly on Victoria 3. There are ways around this, but it depends on how much effort your willing to put into it and/or how much more your willing to pay for additional tools.

Not getting into too much detail here, as it can take up pages, but with Dynamic Clothing you can run a Cloth Room simulation that can fit a clothing item for one character model onto another. First start at frame 1 and position a dynamic clothing shirt approximately where it should be on a model it was not originally meant for. You can then scale your character model down in the X and Y axis and set a keyframe. Then move to frame 30 and reset the X and Y scale back to 100. You can then setup a simulation within the Cloth Room in Poser 6. Effectively this will refit the dynamic clothing item to the new model.

It can be a pain to do and an exercise in frustration when you're first learning to use it, but it does work. The results are not spectacular, however (IMO). A google search should allow you to locate some tutorials on performing this process in more detail. Also, this works only with Dynamic cloth, not with Conforming clothing.

For Conforming Clothing, there are tools out there such as Clothes Converter (daz3d.com) or Wardrobe Wizard (philc.net) that can refit Conforming clothing from one model to another. They each have their strengths and weaknesses.

Clothes Converter tends to have better results overall, I think, but it will only perform an automatic conversion between figures using the DAZ Unimesh (Victoria 3 and 4, David, Mike 3, Aiko, Freak, She Freak, etc). It will not autoconvert to other figures such as Victoria 1 or 2, Mike 2, or any of the default Poser figures. However, you can use the tool to manually adjust the clothing to fit the new figure, with the quality of the results depending upon your patience level.

Wardrobe Wizard, on the other hand, can automatically convert between a MASSIVE list of models. It is a python script that runs inside Poser 6 and uses magnets to perform the conversion. The results are generally good, but not perfect even when running the smooth option.

These tools are best for items on the torso and legs. Neither tool works with gloves. Both can sometimes convert shoes, but don't count on them looking good or working right when later conformed to the figure inside Poser. Both can also convert hair, but for some reason Cothes Converter resets the pivot center of a hair model so it doesn't fit the character when loaded in Poser.

Regarding textures, the free Victoria and Michael figures from DAZ do not come with any textures. Those you will need to obtain separately. There are some websites out there with free textures, but you generally get what you pay for. If you want good textures, you typically need to purchase them.

And as for using textures with various models, there is little give and take there. Some of the figures share similar enough UV mapping that they can share textures, but most do not. One way to save some money on textures, or to use a texture that you really like on another figure that it normally would not fit, would be to obtain the Universal Texture Editor from 3D Universe (available on the DAZ website). The name is slightly misleading, as it is not truly universal. The basic version will let you convert textures between Victoria 1, 2 and 3 and that's it. You can get additional plugins that support other figures, such as Michael and Stephanie, but they are all DAZ centric and don't work with any of the default figures provided with Poser.

In short, Poser starts you off with the basic tools and that's it. To expand from there, your options are generally to purchase additional items from various vendors, obtain 3rd party tools that will let you convert what you already own to another model, or make your own.

Wow, that was a very helpful post, thanks a ton. Really lets me see where my options are. Going to pick up a couple of the tools you mentioned and see where I can get with them. Thanks for the time you took to post all that!

Not a problem. Those tools are really only the tip of the iceberg. I'm more of a hobbyist than an artist, so I've spent a lot of time digging up tools that let me take care of tasks that talent will not. Heh!

There are also tools out there that will help in creation of new clothing items, Virtual Fashion from Reyes and Clothing Designer from PhilC being two of my favorite votes. As with Wardrobe Wizard, Clothing Designer supports more figures, but Virtual Fashion allows you to texture your new clothing items easily and directly inside the designer.

Virtual Fashion makes Dynamic Clothing only. Clothing Designer includes a tool that can convert an .obj or Dynamic Clothing item to Conforming cloth. Alternately, there are other tools when used in combination that can let you quickly and easily convert dynamic clothing to conforming clothing (namely AutoGroup Editor and QuickConform from the developer of Clothes Converter, which are both available on Renderosity and possibly from Daz - not sure about that last).

While all these tools can add up in initial cost, in the long run they can save you a lot of money by allowing you to reuse what you already have or easily create an item you may be missing.