I am so happy that Smith Micro is continuing the development of Poser, the original 3D character modeling and animation system. Like the red-headed step child, Poser has been passed from company to company until recently. This buy/sell corporate environment left Poser in a neglected state of affairs for much too long, allowing competitors to take advantage of the stunted growth.
However, with version 8, Smith Micro demonstrates that Poser is not only here to stay but is also obviously being incrementally strengthened for future expansion.
Adding high res content to Poser like DAZ’s Elite series of characters and textures makes photorealism a very real capability with Poser. Shown here is DAZ’s Amy without any hair during initial IBL (Image Based Lighting) tests. The Poser Firefly renderer has been improved.
Simply put, Poser 8 is the most comprehensive pre-built 3D character modeling solution available. Not a character creation or modeling tool, Poser is a CG character manipulation toolset with lip-syncing, cloth/softbody dynamics, the ability to import motion capture and present realistic Image Based Lighting (IBL).
With this release, Smith Micro includes some long overdue enhancements plus new feature sets making its inclusion into a filmmakers toolset a reasonable proposition. However, it is important to understand where Poser 8 fits into your CG film world. Built to function as a stand-alone product, Poser 8 is not intended for integration with other 3D packages like its cousin, Poser Pro . So, if your work needs require significant animation of CG characters, Poser 8 does not allow distribution of rendering across multiple machines like Poser Pro; nor does it function as a plug-in to other programs. (If you’re interested in seeing a comparison to Poser 7, check out this review here.)
The Poser 8 Content Management System (CMS) has finally received a much needed overhaul. There are now cascading, dynamic menus. Other nice touches include being able to subscribe to multiple Runtime folders, and icons that intelligently expand when you select them revealing more information about your selection.
