General Discussions

Poser? – Torial

Torial

Member

Posts: 73
From: Cedar Rapids, Ia, USA
Registered: 07-23-2002
Anyone know anything about Poser? Thoughts? Pros and Cons? Any free or cheap alternatives?

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CobraA1

Member

Posts: 926
From: MN
Registered: 02-19-2001
I've heard of it. AFAIK, there's no cheap or free alternatives. I hear it's real good for creating human models, though.

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There are only 10 types of people - those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Angel

Member

Posts: 699
From: The Blissful State Of Me?
Registered: 05-21-2001
Well im a modeler and as far as I know pozer is only good for louding models into and pozing them. I havent heard anything else good about it at all. Brice is often considered the best for land scapes. In my own openion I think getting TS3 is your best shot if you just want to mess around. Heck its free. Still I could give better adivece if I knew what you wanted pozer to do or what you are looking for.

~Angel~

Torial

Member

Posts: 73
From: Cedar Rapids, Ia, USA
Registered: 07-23-2002
Thanks for the replies. I'm just at the early design stages and looking at various tools. Anyone knowanything about cal3d (at sourceforge), it seems to be similar to Poser except at early stages...

Thanks for the reference to TS3, I'll look for that thread on a free version..

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A must read: http://www.christiancoders.com/cgi-bin/articles/show_article.pl?f=christiancaleb01112002.html

graceworks
Member

Posts: 455
From: Corvallis, Oregon, USA
Registered: 03-03-2001
I have version 2 of poser. Only played with it some since I took Jarod to be a text adventure.

I think they are up to version 5 by now.

I'd be willing to loan it out if you want to try it.

Tim

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Called by God. The passioned plea of a father. The journey awaits at Jarod's Journey.

D-SIPL

Moderator

Posts: 1345
From: Maesteg, Wales
Registered: 07-21-2001
Have you tried Blender 3d. It's free, the website says
quote:
Blender is the first and only fully integrated 3D graphics creation suite allowing modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, realtime interactive 3D and game creation and playback with cross-platform compatibility - all in one tidy, easily and free downloadable package!

Looks impressive. Go to www.blender3d.org

--D-SIPL

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If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that suggests you tried

Graceworks Interactive

Angel

Member

Posts: 699
From: The Blissful State Of Me?
Registered: 05-21-2001
Yah, well the big mouth blender also only works with OpenGL. Thats like Lightwave only works with Linix systoms.

~Angel~

AmazingJas

Member

Posts: 437
From: Sydney, NSW, AUSTRALIA
Registered: 04-03-2003
I.m pretty proficient with Poser but only up to version 3. By default, it is designed just for using the supplied human (and limited animal) models, but it does this VERY well using a slider system for all the actions like lifting an arm, opening an eyelid, scrunching up the face etc.. You can import new 'characters' for it, but they are few and far between and normally quite expensive and then you're still stuck with what is a fairly generic model. I actually spent a couple of days learning how to make your own unique posable models for Poser, and made sure that I'd remember how to do it by writing what I think is a good tutorial but you do need some other software to do it, Poser has no modelling facilities. The tutorial is here

http://home.iprimus.com.au/j_brown/rbg/CreatingNewCharactersforPoser3.htm

I believe that version 4 allows you to have deformable clothes which would be nice. Another thing, I've noticed version 3 (full version) being given away on several magazine coverdisks over the last year or so, I remember Computer Arts, and also PC Format gave it away, so maybe if you find out which issue, you might be able to get a back issue for next to nothing. Cheers.

[This message has been edited by AmazingJas (edited May 04, 2003).]

BlazeQ

Member

Posts: 260
From: USA
Registered: 05-11-2002
I've used it from version 2 and am up to version 4. It's a nice program for hobbyists and is very simple to use (especially in the later versions), but it still has some quirks (bad deforming on some of the joints & the clothes don't always deform). While it can be used for visuals ( http://www.creationindigital.com/album_comment.php?pic_id=20 ) you can pretty much forget about using it for any real-time 3d stuff.

Like Jas said, there are limited default models ( http://www.daz3d.com can take care of that, but be prepared to spend a hunk of doe). With the Poser Pro Pack, you can easily import models from 3dsMax, Maya, and LightWave to use (and visa-versa), but that just adds to you bill as well.

Here are some documents on several different graphics programs: http://www.creationindigital.com/viewforum.php?f=9 . I've never heard of Cal3d. I'll have to add it to the list

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Neil Roy

Junior Member

Posts: 5
From: Kingston, ON, Canada
Registered: 06-08-2003
I own Poser 3, I managed to grab it for $5! It was being givin away in a British magazine for free (with purchase of magazine), I live in Canada so I had a friend in Britain buy the magazine for me and mail it to me, I in turn wrote him a CD filled with programming utilities (free and legal of course).

I have used it to create animated characters for a couple games I am working on and it is great! You could probably buy Poser 3 for pretty cheap, maybe $100, it is worth it in my opinion. I am really glad I got that magazine while it was out, as at the time Poser 3 was over $210! Now they are up to Poser 5. Anyhow, it allows you to create all sorts of lifelike characters, mostly human, but there are a few animals like snakes, dogs, cats, dinosaurs etc... thrown in there and you can buy seperate models from places like Daz3D that you add on to Poser.

Once you select a model, lets say a female model you can pose her quit easily by moving her arms, legs, fingers, head... you can open her mouth a certain amount, make her blink, wink, frown, adjust her eyebrows etc... etc... etc.. etc... then finally render the image. There is a very hand walk editor where you can decide how you want your character to walk, once the sample animation is walking the way you like, Poser will automatically create several frames of animation (you select how many of course) and it fills in the rest for you. You then can render all the frames together and save as a movie (MPEG, AVI whatever...) or as seperate frames (perfect for games). It makes something that used to be very complex and time consuming, very easy, and the results are really nice and really can enhance any game with lifelike characters. I highly recommend it. I don't think it is very expensive when you compare it to other 3D software. If you only want it for games, I suggest you don't bother with the newest version and see if you can grab Poser 3 or something cheap (maybe $100 or less now?). There is no importing characters, it comes with characters, although, like I said, you can buy or download free, characters people have made for it.

It's an amazing peice of software anyhow.

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Neil Roy

"O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!" - Deuteronomy 5:29