Some of you may have seen the February 20th Last Chance offer for the Introduction to Poser DVD. Regularly priced at $39.99 (USD), It is on sale for $19.99 until February 28, 2007, at e-Frontier.

So? Is it worth it?

To answer that question in a word…absoflaminglutely!

For those of you who missed the e-mail, here is a screen shot:

 

 

So, lets start with dessert before we get to the main course. What is Koji and Swamp Creature Collection, and what goodies do we get there? Hehehehee, I had no idea they were even on the DVD. They are not listed on the cover of the DVD, but you'll find this free bonus content in folders if you look at the file directory of the DVD, so have at it!

Koji is a very formidable new character with a few conforming clothing items. Swamp Creature Collection contains a black widow spider with a half dozen webs and an alligator.

 

 

Ok, now on to the 9-course meal.

Arena Reed certainly knows her way around Poser, and that is evident on the DVD. She has been on the Poser development team since version 2. Arena also has a background in Painter, Expression, Flash, Fireworks and Dreamweaver.

 

 

 

 

I have to say, I am one of the worst for using Pose Dots. Oh, yeah, they’re nice to use in case you get too far ahead of yourself and decide to go back, but many users setting up stills don’t really have this problem. Arena pointed out that if you want an animation of a jumping person, just set a Pose Dot at the beginning, move to the middle of the animation time line, and position your figure at the top of the jump. Then at the end of the timeline, use the Pose Dot to rest the figure to the exact same starting pose. Presto! A great loop of a jumping person.

Arena’s treatment of the Walk Designer is thorough and useful. Perhaps animation instruction with Poser’s features is one of the strongest sections of this DVD. Yet at the same time, there really is no section that comes up short. Well, ok...there is. I would have liked to have seen something on the Cloth Room, a bit more on the Setup Room, and some deeper treatment of the Materials Wacros.

 

 

So what’s an animation without some facial expressions? Well, go see what Arena does in the Face Room. Oh yeah, she just can’t leave it alone. Gotta use that Face Room to make your animation smile, blink, and all kinds of contortions.

 

 

The Hair Room is just a blast. If I could set up a New Hair Growth Group on top of my head the way Arena grew hair on a simple ball, well…

 

 

This DVD also comes with a few PDF manuals written for both PC and Mac, such as the Poser 6 Manual (384 pages) and the Poser 6 Tutorial Manual (360 pages), plus a PoserPython Methods manual (125 pages). Look in the Mac sub-sub-subdirectory for the python file.

Oh, and for you Poser 7 users, don’t be bothered that this is a Poser 6 DVD. It all applies, and the great new features of Poser 7 are intuitive enough to grasp once you have mastered this Poser 6 DVD.

Yeah baby, absoflaminglutely! Get thee to e-frontier and use the payment method of your choice!