Poser 5

Rating:
Summary: The best intro to 3D animation you can find.
Review: I use Poser 5 in a professional context. We make education videos and sell them to public and private schools. In each project we do, there is about 1/2 to 1 full hour of animation. Basically, Poser 5 saved my a**. I was able to IMMEDIATLY do the character animations needed for our first project. This would have been impossible with any other program. Because our animation needs have become more complex and custom, I am now using Maya. Having used both the greatest 3D animation package on the planet (Maya Unlimited $7000) and Poser 5 ($185 currently), I have a few things to say.

Usefulness as an into to 3D animation -

Poser is the BEST! Hash comes close, but Poser is MUCH better for the novice who wants to focus on animations and not both animations AND modeling. With Poser you get much more access to usable content than HASH. Yes, any attainment of quality will still require work. But the average person will do more in thier first three days of using Poser than in their first three months of using Maya, 3D Max, or any other major 3D modeling/animation application. If you want to learn keyframe animation, you can jump right in and do all you want. In Maya I have to build my own characters, create the rigging (make it movable), and setup my own morph targets and custom animation controls. That is a LOT of WORK! All of this is done for you in Poser! For those of you who say its too difficult, and to many of you who mention specific problems and act like its a bug. Learn to use the program, its worth it! Yes, it takes more effort than using notepad! But its a heck of a lot faster and easier to use than the major 3D animation programs.

Program stability and efficiency -

I have licensed copies of poser on two machines, and have switched off with a total of 6 different computers (including one laptop). I find it to be very useable with regard to stability. I agree that dynamic hair and cloth are problematic to use on even a higher end machine. But I have to tell you, if I set up a scene in Maya with all kinds of cloth effects and volumetric effects, a 5 minute animation could render for days. Yes, Maya does it better and with more stability (it darn well should for $7000). Even without dynamic hair and cloth, POSER TOTALLY ROCKS as an intro to 3D keyframe animation, and with proper learning and practice, you can get professional results.

Some comments sounded like users were surprised that Poser does not work as well on a lower spec machine. No 3D animation app does. Keep in mind that to render a short 3 minute animation of the highest quality can take days. If you add any OS, hardware or application conflicts, you can have serious problems.

The best configuration for Poser is a dedicated machine (2.6 ghz or higher) and a gig of ram. It should be dedicated because rendering animations takes a long, long, long time (on any software) and you need to have a second computer to check your email or whatever. The other reason is that it should ideally not be connected to the internet. This will allow you to eliminate as many background tasks and system services as possible. It makes a difference to the stability of any resource hungry program. However, I have no problems producing a lot of animations, and I MEAN A LOT, (sans hair and dynamic cloth) with off the shelf computers of average specs, the stability is fine. If you have problems on a decent machine, check your OEM configuration, running background apps, etc.

Model content and expense -
for the price, Poser gives more value than any software I have ever used. Yes, you will want many more models than Poser gives. But 3D animation is an expensive prospect no matter what software you use. I bought a fully rigged Poser ghost model off DAZ for $4.95. A Maya rigged ghost was $200.00 (more than the cost of Poser). Poser user have access to tons of great content at the cheapest model prices on the planet. Unless you make your own models, it the least expensive platform to buy content for. Not to mention that MOST content for major 3D applications do not come rigged. That is a serious issue. ALL Poser specific content you find on the net that need to be rigged, comes rigged for animation. (Daz is the first place to look) You can also import any major format and rig it yourself if you want. Creating animation hierarchies in Poser is very twitchy compared to Maya. But you do get what you pay for. That Poser offers the ability to do it at all is a great deal for the money. I have rigged a number of static 3DS models in Poser and used them successfully. It does take some learning, but hey...this is 3D animation, it should take some learning.

Is Poser worth it? -

If you love animation and cant afford the top programs, you will not regret getting Poser. I have created complex scenes in Poser with oceans that have animated waves with great looking monster characters, animated clouds in the sky, have also done all kinds of character animation in scenes, including the use of body motion capture data for more realism. You can do anime (more and more content available for that), and any other style (both cartoon and realistic) supported by available content.

Is Maya better? Oh Heck yeah!!!
But if you want to learn keyframe 3D animation, or need an inexpensive 3D animation solution for video or multimedia, this is an awesome program. I love it and will still use it for some animation work, even though we use Maya (You see, we can easily afford multiple copies of Poser, but cannot afford multiple copies of Maya). So once the Maya network if rendering, we will still dig out Poser to get our animation jobs done.

What Poser needs the most?
1. Network and batch rendering built in.
2. More stability for dynamic hair and cloth.

Rating:
Summary: No serial number
Review: Bought Poser 5, got it, no serial number inside. The area in the CD packet where the serial is suppose to be, is blank. The person responsible for putting in the serial numbers on the assembly line must have been asleep. Sent an email to Curious Labs, no reply yet. Can't even look at the program without providing a serial number. Can't return the item either as the CD packet is open now because that's where the Serial Number is suppose to be at. Money down the drain so far and not very happy at the moment.

Rating:
Summary: Poor Customer Help from CuriousLabs
Review: The product was shipped without a serial number, something apparently that happened with an unknown number of Poser 5 programs. After 3 days of sending emails and making phone calls, still no help from Curious Labs. Incidents like this usually signal even more problems to come due to no one taking care of details within the manufacturer.

Rating:
Summary: What the.....!
Review: I just purchased this program and I must say that this has got to be the coolest thing I have ever seen. I mean there isn't anything that you can't do with Poser 5. It does take a little getting used to, and I mean very little. I have never used a 3D rendering program before and already I am able to do some pretty amazing things after only four or five days. Any one wanting to get into 3D art or animation should definetly try Poser 5, you won't be disappointed. :-)

Rating:
Summary: surprised by the good reviews
Review: I'm very surprised by the relatively good reviews here. Poser 5 is the buggiest and most unstable software I own or have owned in recent years. Add to that a fairly complete lack of user support on the part of Creative Labs. Okay, 5 is fairly capable, I admit, but unless you're one of the lucky ones with just the right system (based on user comments on renderosity, some do, but nobody seems to be able to figure out what just the right system is), it will take the patience of Job to do very much with this. Most experienced users of Poser tell me version 4 is better for most purposes, and far more stable. I couldn't count the number of times I've heard those who own both 4 and 5 say they hardly ever use 5 at all.

Rating:
Summary: Good Program, But...
Review: POSER 5 is the first version produced by Curious Labs following their purchase of the POSER line from Metacreations. The program shows both great promise and great problems.
The problems start with the system requirements. Throw out what they are telling you. A minimum system to do anything serious in a reasonable time is a 2 GHz P4 and 1 GB RDRAM - in short a high end system. You can use a lesser system if you are willing to compromise, but be aware you need as much memory as possible or the system will be crashing frequently. WIN XP also seems to help a lot.
The Hair, Face and Fabric rooms hold great promise, but are quirky as heck. Setting gravity equal to -1 in the hair room stretches a pony tail like it is entering a black hole. On the other hand, turn a head or bend a body and the hair follows through just like RL once you get the settings right.
Posing remains essentially the same as POSER 4. Runtime libraries are expanded, so you can categorize your POSER objects, characters, etc., much better. Given the thousands of free files available, this is a major plus.
Stability with XP and a high end system are good, but many people report problems with crashes and installation issues.
Overall I would buy this version and patch it immediately if you are new to POSER but wait if you have POSER 4 and are happy.

Rating:
Summary: Whoa - is this Poser?
Review: I played around with Poser 3 for about a year before I bought Poser 5. And I gotta tell ya, when I installed it (and the required patches at the time - February 2003) I couldn't believe that this was the same program. What a change! This is not your fathers Poser. Metacreations has firmly moved this product into the ring with the big boys of 3D. I have read that some serious 3D artists consider Poser to be a toy - tell 'em to look at this version!

Of course all that power comes with a price - relatively slow performance compared to earlier versions, and of course the initial bugs. I haven't had any bugs myself (Windows ME, P3, 256 RAM). If you do buy this, or even before then, check out the latest "bug updates" on the manufacturers website and download any required patches. Some of the early reviewers that b*tched so much admitted that they didn't download the patches! That's their problem! I don't think bugs are really that big a problem as they were right at the beginning. Although I must admit that the patches I downloaded in Februrary weighed in at like 60 megs. DSL required on that one!

Another cost is the increased complexity of the program. Tis daunting without a book. I've been waiting for the Visual Quick Start Poser 5 book from Peachpit Press to be published, as their books are always good, but it has been postponed so long that I broke down and bought the much-slammed Poser 5 book by Shamms Mortier. It's OK at best, but necessary - this is almost not even the same program as my beloved old Poser 3. Reminds me of the change ActionScript underwent when Flash went from 5 to MX. Different world, better world! But more complicated, higher learning curve.

If you want the "old, easy" Poser, I recently got an email from Metacreations stating that they are continuing the old style of Poser(4 I would guess) as Poser Artist. That might be an option if you don't want all the new features. As for me - I can't wait till I can really fly this puppy!

Rating:
Summary: would be great if it worked better
Review: I have had this program for a couple of months now and I have really enjoyed it, but in fact it was released before it was fully tested and has bugs in it that it shouldn't. At times it will inexplicably lose parameters off of parameter dials; it will show the parameter dial for a particular object with parameters for another object. Just now it was showing me the parameter dials for "main camera" with options such as "twist" which were obviously for another object, I think a neck). As I was trying to move a prop, it suddenly gave me an error message saying an object with that name already exists so the name has been changed; a review of the prop list shows it has added a copy of the prop and given it the name of another (third) prop with "-1" appended, which I didn't tell it to do, and which didn't have anything to do with what I was doing at the time (except that it copied the prop I was trying to move). It's really incomprehensible. This has happened several times and once a file is messed up this way it's ruined, although earlier saved copies are still ok.

As I say, I'm enjoying the program a lot when it works, but I can't honestly recommend it anymore. I kind of resent Curious Labs for releasing it in this condition--given the enormous amount of time one must often invest developing a 3D scene. I've downloaded the two patches on their website and they didn't help anything.

I'm running it in Windows XP with 640 Megabytes of RAM and a 1300 megaherts AMD Athlon processor.

Rating:
Summary: I love this program
Review: I'm pretty new to 3D graphics so I can't compare it to other programs and I haven't begun to use all its many features but I've found this program easy to learn and the results look great. Most of the negative reviews have been about the program being buggy, but on my machine (Windows XP, 1300 megahertz AMD Athlon processor and 640 megabytes of RAM)it isn't particularly. I have yet to see any graphics program that always did what it was supposed to without crashing. Occasionally a parameter dial will disappear but it comes back later. I've never had the program lock up, which is amazing really. I recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Even on a high end machine, WORTHLESS
Review: I went out, and got myself a 2.53 GHz machine with a gig of DDR memory, more than enough to handle Poser 5, and all its patches, right?

Think again, parameter dials go out when they feel like it, when trying to adjust body parts, and you will not be able to re-adjust your model even after saving your work. And nobody is lying when they say parts of the program don't work. The face room doesn't work, cloth I won't even try, and the hair room works only if you are using to apply gravity effects to pre existing hair.
I'm hoping whoever buys the Curious Labs will have the programming ability and integrity to fix the program, and to sack the people who mostly sold a bill of goods to the public. I think perhaps instead I should have invested in a more reliable program from a more reliable outfit.

If you already have the pro pack, you do not need to buy the only thing this program has brought me, aggravation.