I wrote this review before the Service Release 1 was
available, but I decided to wait to publish it until SR1 was
released. I will discuss how this relates to Poser 6 toward the end
of the review.
Poser 5 revolutionized Poser, and Poser 6 follows with some new
features. But first, what is Poser? Poser is a 3D figure designing
program. While the majority of people use the models in Poser, or
use those from 3rd party sources, in the Setup Room one can
construct new or structurally remodel figures or other props. Poser
6 has six other rooms. When the program opens, it defaults to the
main interface which is the Pose Room. This room is self
explanatory. Here one changes the poses of the figures, creates the
scenes, adds backdrops, other props and other figures, and
constructs the lighting, and arranges the camera settings. It is
also where one can change the face of a model. This differs from
what can be done in the Face Room. The Pose Room
could be called the heart of Poser because everything
winds up in that room. The Face Room is where one can
construct a photo-realistic face from photographs as well as shape
faces from random faces and change them with the Face Shaping tool.
In the Hair Room, one can create dynamic hair from a
skullcap or a follicle surface also called follicle set. This hair
can be animated and is able to "blow" in the wind. All of the
textures, including the lights, end up in the Material Room
where their properties are changed by the use of nodes. This area
is more technical than wysiwyg [what you see is what you get] and
also is very very powerful. The Cloth Room is used to create
dynamic cloth which reacts in a similar manner to dynamic hair. It
is sensitive to physical moving forces including collisions,
gravity, etc. The Content Room brings you to Content
Paradise where you can setup an account and purchase 3rd party
products from various vendors. What is new or improved in Poser 6?
There are new lights. The Image Based Lights (IBL), especially, can
add realism to a scene. Depending on the type of light source image
(light probe) you use, even the same arrangement of lights will
cause the object to light differently. In conjunction with IBL, one
can set up a scene making use of Ambient Occlusion. The term
describes to what degree the target object is blocked from the
light source by intermediary objects. For this to work, rendering
needs to be done using Raytracing.
Along the lines of lighting and rendering are two more new
additions to Poser 6. One is the new Shadow Catcher, which allows a
shadow to be moved regardless of where it actually falls. It
becomes independent of the object. The last to be mentioned in this
category is a new node called the FastScatter node. Its purpose is
to add subsurface scatterings of light to translucent materials to
add a richness. OpenGL is a new improvement to Poser 6. If your
video card cannot handle it, it will defer to SreeD software
contained within Poser 6. With OpenGL, the figures have color and
thus, transmit more information. The OpenGL affects the preview
rendering. It even works well with my laptop video card, which is
an NVIDIA GeForce 2 Go. One does not have to render a whole scene
to see how it will look. One can render an area through Area
Rendering. Also, one can compare recent renders through RenderWipe.
You also can choose another two new options: keep textures loaded
and reuse shadow map options. Below are two examples of rendering.
On the right, only the head was rendered using the Area Render
command. Outside of the red marquee the area is in preview mode.
Of course, Poser 6 comes with new figures, two adults and two
children, and other goodies which I will discuss as I take a figure
and move her through the different rooms. These are pictures of the
original generic Jessi as she comes with Poser 6. I will review
Poser 6 by moving her through most of the main rooms.
The first place Jessi went was to get a new hair style. This room
has had some minor improvements; for example, one can select hair
strands in all poses and the selections will show. Poser 6 has some
new additions to the Hair Room. There are both skullcaps (for James
and Jessi only) and follicle sets for all four characters. I only
used both for Jessi. With the follicle surfaces, I found that there
were not enough guide hairs on the crown of the head for styling
the hair and, no matter how much I populated the hair, the scalp
showed through at the crown. Below is an examples of a basic hair
style I created using the skull cap and the material room color
setting.
Although not used in the above example, another new addition is
Opaque_in_Shadow which adds a feeling of fullness at the root of
the hair and can lower the number of hair strands necessary. It is
accessed in the Material Room. Notice the check box above. Jessi
does not have to keep the same expression. There are a number of
ways that her facial expressions can be changed. It can be done
using the morphing parameters for the head in the Pose Room.
Or one could go into the Face Room and utilize the controls. The
face there is the basic face so one is not bringing the specific
"file" face in. In other words, one would not be working with
Jessi's face per se. You could also choose any number of random
faces. In addition, one can bring in actual photographs and compile
a face of someone you know. You can even make a caricature of the
face.
Once the work in the Face Room is completed, it can be applied in
many ways to the figure. It was very easy to use this room and
change Jessi.
As I mentioned in new features, the Material Room has expanded its
capabilities with different nodes as well as other options. It is
there where one chooses images for the IBL's.
Poser 6 has some conforming clothes and accessories and a few
dynamic clothes. The Cloth Room is necessary if Jessi is
going to wear dynamic clothing to go with her dynamic hair. Thus,
the clothing has to be brought into the room to Clothify it
and make it fit. One does not have to do this with conforming
clothing. After selecting the conforming clothing and clicking once
to add it to the figure, one just goes to Figure>Conform
to>"name of character."
I also used the conforming clothing with an intricate pose from the
Pose collection in Poser 6. The Bikini top was the purple one in
the clothing collection that I changed to black.
Poser 6 comes with a variety of rendering capabilities. There is
Firefly Render with presets as well as User Determined settings and
Poser 4 Render. There are also a variety of specialized renders
available. Toon Render is one and is accessed initially from the
Material Room. Also, there are Sketching Renders with both presets
available and many modifications as well.
Notice above how the Preview Render with texture shading looks
almost as good as a regular render. OpenGL is a very nice addition
to Poser 6. The following are examples of the FireFly render set at
Auto and Final and the Poser 4 Render.
Poser figures can be animated. Both cloth and hair can be animated
if they are dynamic by choosing appropriate settings so that when
in motion both will react to the movement. They can be set on walk
paths and their hair and clothes will follow their movements. How
they interact with individual parts of the body can be set, also.
While I don't do many animations, I do them occasionally and I
certainly have never had trouble setting one up before, even in
earlier editions of Poser. I found the directions inadequate in
Poser 6, especially when I had a problem and tried to research it
through the tutorial manual or the reference manual. The reference
and tutorial manuals are unevenly written. Some parts are very
clear and make learning for a novice very easy. Other parts are
murky and not clear. Along with the printed manual is a quick
reference card. Also, there is a tutorial and reference manual in
pdf form on the CD. As I stated, I returned to the review after the
release of SR1 to see if any of the problems I personally had found
had been fixed. The review remained as it had been written. As I
browsed through different Poser forums, I found that some of the
problems people experienced had been fixed by SR1, which listed
over four typewritten pages of fixes, while, unfortunately, other
problems occurred. One such affects me and concerns the skullcap,
which now turns completely red regardless of how the polygons are
selected to create hair groups. When the choice came of whether to
upgrade from Poser (4) Pro Pack to Poser 5, I felt that there was
no choice. Poser 5 had so much more to offer than did Poser (4) Pro
Pack. This upgrade from version 5 to 6 is not as great a giant
step. The decisions should be made on what features one wants that
are new since there are quite a few and in different areas, how
version 6 will integrate with other programs, and how well it runs
in the areas that you consider important. To make this judgment, go
to the different forums and search for information in areas that
are important to you. The system requirements for Poser 6 are:
Windows
- Windows 2000 or XP
- 500 MHz Pentium class or compatible (700 MHz or faster
recommended)
- 256 MB system RAM (512 MB or more recommended)
- 500 MB free hard disk space (2 GB recommended)
- 24-bit color display, 1024 x 768 resolution
- OpenGL enabled graphics card or chipset recommended (recent
NVIDIA GeForce or ATI Radeon preferred)
- Internet connection required for Content Paradise
- CD-ROM drive Macintosh
- Mac OS X 10.2 or later
- 500 MHz G3 processor (700 MHz G4 or faster recommended)
- 256 MB system RAM (512 MB or more recommended)
- 500 MB free hard disk space (2 GB recommended)
- 24-bit color display, 1024 x 768 resolution
- OpenGL enabled graphics card or chipset recommended (recent
NVIDIA GeForce and ATI Radeon preferred)
- Internet connection required for Content Paradise
- CD-ROM Drive
- Poser 6 Full Version: $249 [USD]
- Upgrades vary, see Prices for complete listing.
- For additional information on their many products I invite you
to view the e
frontier's website
- As always I welcome readers to visit my website Perpetual
Visions
- The Paula Sander's Report Is a regular
Renderosity Front Page featured column, where Sr. Staff Writer,
Paula Sanders, investigates and comments on graphic software,
techniques, and other relevant material through her reviews,
tutorials, and general articles.
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