During the too persistent corporate ownership shuffling, Poser’s interface remained unchanged which became a significant liability. Heralding from the free-thinking days of Metacreations, Poser boasted a user friendly interface that was both non-standard for 3D (actually, there has never been a standard) and non threatening. Eventually, this became one of Poser’s most significant liabilities due to the expansion of capability and quantity of content available.
Poser 8’s interface has now received a much needed update, bringing it in line with other major 3D software GUI presentations (Graphic User Interface). Even more important is that the Content Management System (CMS) actually helps users instead of hindering them and can now subscribe to multiple Runtime folders. Originally, there wasn’t a whole lot of content to manage. But over the years, this has dramatically changed. Couple that with the fact that with each release of Poser established new Runtime folder forcing users to manually move content from one to another because the program wouldn’t respect other RT folders. That's now fixed.
Note to new 3D users: Poser 8 makes the highly complex task of posing and animating 3D characters much easier. But ‘easy’ is a very relative term in 3D because nothing is particularly easy - especially working with human characters. Every last little thing in the CG world needs to be controlled by you - lighting, camera angles, moves and environments. I only bring this up because immediately integrating CG characters into your film work is not a realistic goal. That said, Poser makes the integration ability come sooner rather than later.
So what’s new in this release? In this article I’ll hit the highlights. For a detailed list, please visit the Smith Micro site. (http://my.smithmicro.com/mac/poser/index.html)
Most of the improvements, outside of the GUI are near invisible. This is not a bad thing because they are performance and usability improvements that significantly improve both the preview, materials/textures, final rendering and render time of your scenes and animations.
The most welcome, hands-on improvements beyond the CMS are the Dependent Parameters Tool and the Cross-Body Part Morph Tool.
The Dependent Parameter Tool provides users a significantly improved workflow for working items like hands with multiple fingers. There is now a tidy little interface that accelerates the positioning and animation of complex and interrelated forms. Uses for this include integration of specific full or partial morph targets. For example, when a hand contracts into a fist and then the arm is bent, the forearm and biceps can bulge appropriately.
The Cross-Body Part Morph Tool now lets users create real-world figures much more easily. Previously, users had to select individual body parts and apply or adjust morph values independently. Now, creating things like an overweight stomach can be done globally so individual hip, waist and chest selectors are in harmony after adjustments. Since CG characters are seemingly always created in ideal body proportions, being able to un-idealize them for practical work is important.
Since Poser is a content manipulation tool instead of a content creation tool, it’s not much good without content. Thankfully, Poser 8 ships with over 2.5GB of content both new and legacy. Additionally, there is much more content available through Content Paradise (web link in the program) and other providers like DAZ 3D, Renderosity and others. Finding props, ethnicities and figures, either real or fantasy, is not a problem. I was fortunate enough to experiment with the DAZ 3D Elite series of hyper realistic models and textures. Combined with Poser’s Firefly rendering capabilities and IBL ambient lighting system, photo realistic imagery is not an unrealistic expectation.
Because of the complex nature of animating people and animals, the program is divided into a tabbed format for controlling the necessities of this type of work:
