Customer Reviews

Poser 7 3D Figure Design and Animation [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've been working with Poser 6 for a while, I finally decided to make the leap to Poser 7.

Intalled it. Started the program. And CRASH! I don't mean an application "not responding" message. I mean a total system crash. My PC needed a hard reboot (cut the power reboot). I found the service pack 1 on the efrontiers website. Installed it. Opened the program again. CRASH.

After spending $180 for the program, I decided it was worth one more try. Started the program. This time I figured out the system seizure happened when I moved the mouse cursor over the document window. Reboot again. Avoiding the document, I ran my mouse cursor over the top menu, Deleted Figure. The default loaded Simon. Once Simon was gone, I was able to work for a little while.

Addendum 4/18/2007

Other disappointments with the program:

One of Poser's Features is the Face Room.
The kids' figures are not compatible with the face room, which is a total shame.

The Cloth room is very complicated to learn how to use. Using the program's documentation, plus buying two User Guides, I haven't been able to make cloth. But I could be exceptionally dense.

Head paramater dials don't include ears. Only Judy, carried forward from Poser 5, lets you shape elf ears.

Action poses and their back geometries. I loaded James into my project, and posed him with one of his action presets. Something really unnatural looking happens to his back.


Addendum May 25, 2007:
I worked for several hours without crashing. The new feature in Poser7 is the Undo option. By default, the software sets the Undo level to 100. After changing the Undo level preference to 3, so far so good!


Addendum June 26, 2007:
Service Pack 2 is now available for the program. I've been able to work without a PC crash, I'm feeling better about having spent the money for the software.

The community supporting this software is surprisingly friendly, and global. I've posted numerous questions on the Content Paradise Forum website, and almost always received an answer, if not a friendly bit of encouragement.

It's like playing with paperdolls. You can buy shoes, dress, lingerie, sets, and scenery, props, etc.

To achieve commercial grade results, you'll need to read the Poser Manual from cover to cover. Plus, Poser doesn't include a modeller or UV Mapper, you'll need extra software if you want to tailor results to your needs.

Cheers,
Lara

Poser 7 leapfrogs earlier versions of the product. If you are a seasoned
Poser user, you will appreciate great new features such as multiple undo (a
request that was begged for by the community, and e-Frontier delivered,)
multithreaded rendering support (for those with multiple core processors,)
the introduction of HDRI support for more realism, and the new Universal
Poses feature (which allows you to save and use poses designed for one
figure in a totally different figure!)

The Morphing Tool is perhaps the single best new feature. For all of Poser's
history, it has suffered from strange bending issues, and "poke through"
(where a figure's skin would pop out from underneath clothing.) This great
tool allows you to smooth out the bends, and pull clothing off of skin in
seconds.

For those users who know some programming, the increased functionality of
Python within the application is a boon.

Animators will love the new improvements for their work, such as lip
synching, and animation layers.

While all of these features are great for seasoned Poser pros, Poser 7 also
has some features to help new users, right out of the box. Loads of content
assure that you can get up and running (and creating art) in no time. The
many introductory resources, including tutorials, will make jumping right in
a cinch.

Of course, the feature set already available in previous versions is
available as well. The material room is fantastic for putting your own
special touches on your models. You can achieve photo realistic renders with
some tweaking in this room. The Face Room allows you to customize the facial
appearance of figures, leading to infinite possibilities. The Hair Room is
great for that perfect look on your character's head. The Cloth Room allows
you to make clothing act like true cloth would in the real world, for
extreme realism! The great integration with Content Paradise allows you to
expand your collection of figures and accessories when you are ready to move
"outside the box."

Overall, I give Poser 7 5 stars! A wonderful product, with its humble
beginnings being left in the dust, and a feature set quickly rivaling
packages many times the cost.

Well here we are with the next Poser version. I just can't help to think why didnt e-frontier just make a PRO version for 6? Poser 7 adds better memory handling and finally takes advantage of duel processors and hyperthreading, but at this stage, I'd think Poser 6 should have done that already. The new supplied characters are lackluster next to the Daz family of characters, but they do offer a great variance for any crowd images and background characters you want to render. I just still can't help but feel that Poser 6 should have had the new base features already in it, or that Poser 7 should be a bigger leap forward. - if you're a die hard poser user, then by all means take the step up, but if your satisfied with Poser 6, then step back and just watch. I personally have gotten a huge gain from the duel core usage, but if you're on a single processor, you would not see much if any gain from it.

Having cut my teeth on Poser 4 and then went straight to 5 shortly afterwards I was hesitant of version 6 when it arrived and had similar misgivings about version 7 as there were always quirks, bugs and things to work around every time. Well, the latest version after 3 months of testing and trying to break it is showing that it has a solid interface and does play well with others. Specifically the older content from 4 years ago.
The beauty of multiple runtimes is a godsend no more having one runtime and searching through in my case over 20 gig of content, now I have sorted my runtime into specific categories and not only does Poser load quicker but I can find what I want for a style of picture easily. The multiple undo feature works quite well and has saved a couple of pics, however be careful for if you apply a conforming pose to an item and then undo it, it returns the current character to its default position. And the other godsend is the duplicate feature, no more haviong to load mulitple items one at a time, granted it is still a one at a time process but I have noticed that it is much more rapid then loading from the runtime. The other new feature in the program is the addition of HDRI lights and can we say a whole new level of realism? Yes, you can and it does add so much more and all that with a click.
So am I happy with the latest version yes I am. Would I recommend it to other Yes I do.

Poser 7 is not that much different from Poser 6. It is true sometimes is too slow because of the new so claimed by the poser comunity undo feature. Poses sometimes slow to apply because of the new universal poses feature you can easily disable in the general prefferences. I am a Poser Content creator. Poser 7 does not crashes in the firefly renderer at full power like Poser 6 always did the "not enough memory to continue". It has a better render engine and the magnifficent new morphing tool. Renders look more sharper and better, and some runtime enviroments work very good. The new G2 Characters Sydney and Simon (jessi, james, koji, kelvin) are a new evolution of the fabric of Poser content. I have worked with them developing clothes and it has been a good experience.

I still think now that Poser Sr1 is released it can be better. I think Poser can be more improved.

Warning: Poser 7 does not work fully on Windows Vista. It crashes too much, sometimes it;s features stop working and it becomes a head ache. I hope soon a release to fix these issues on Vista.

Poser 7 is a more expanded and advanced way to manage my creations/animations and some features like morphing. I can do a lot more in my products than with the previous versions. But I still use Poser 6 for the working space (more faster) and using my creations in Poser 7, rendering, etc.

Yanelis3D

Since owning Poser since version 4; I had to sit on my hands not to order Poser 7 when it first came out. But it you're like me, you've made bad software purchases in the past; and it's best to wait awhile so there's a few patches, etc.

So now's the time to order Poser 7; as they have a new patch that smooths all the bugs and errors. But you have to run it on a XP computer; there's a major Vista problem with Poser 7. E-frontier is trying to get the problem solved; but to be honest it's not a problem with Poser, just Vista.

If you order Poser 7, use XP; it's a great 3d package for the money and using XP, it'll run like a dream!

I was really excited when I first received my copy of Poser 7.0 and after using it the past few weeks I'm slightly disappointed. It crashes and locks up a lot. Your question is probably my system, Duel Core 4Gigs of Ram, 1Gig Video card with latest drivers on XP. Another issue is VUE 5 does not work with it, without a headache of tweaks and file manipulations. If you have version 6, stay with it until 7 gets fixed.

I had a problem in that I needed to complete a presentation in flash with characters doing athletic movements within a few days. I had previously used Poser3 about 6 years ago and decided to pick up poser 7 (for a very good price from Amazon directly as it happened - about the same as some companies were selling the upgrade for!). Within a couple of days I had the software delivered and characters exported in flash, sitting, running and jumping in my presentation. I would go as far as to say this is (still) the most intuitive interface I have ever used. If you want something to happen you just know how to do it. I know Poser 7 is much more advanced than before with the ability to make characters lip synch and to create detailed faces; you can even skin your own face on to a character, but you can get excellent results with just the basics. It also has a massive library of preset poses and even objects now which was great. The final outcome, I had created a top notch presentation within days. My client was thrilled.
David Kenyon
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This is the best of all the poser products.It comes packed with so much content ,characters ,props ,setting . Excellent lighting system. I used to have poser 4 and 6 But this is the easiest to use. Comes with Firefly render option or poser 4 render options.(Firefly is a higher grade render above all you cant go wrong with this product.

I had Poser 5 for years but needed something a bit better. Poser 7 filled the bill more than I hoped. I love its new features, especially the render comparison feature. Even the new texture tab isn't that much more difficult than I imagined. I have had no trouble at all adjusting to the new interface. Sorry now that I didn't upgrade to P7 years ago