Customer Reviews

Poser 7 Revealed: The efrontier Official Guide

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

My first reaction to this book was that it wouldn't be very helpful in learning Poser because it did not contain any project-based tutorials. However as this book found a permanent place on my reference shelf, I quickly realized that I was wrong. As I worked through several project-based Poser tutorials from the web, I found myself frequently referencing back to this Poser 7 Revealed book to better understand how to use a specific tool or technique needed for the tutorial. The basic concept behind the Revealed book series is to supply simple explanations for each feature of a software and also give supporting exercises to reinforce what you have just learned. Although you will not create a finished project from this book, Kelly L. Murdock has written the perfect handy reference for the Poser 7 software by e frontier, Inc.

Murdock begins with an overview of the Poser 7 interface and introduces each major set of tools found in the Poser Rooms. He covers the Poser Libraries and then moves on to the basics such as posing figures, working with props, cameras, lighting, materials and building a Poser scene. With that background covered, he then discusses more advanced topics such as adding dynamic hair and clothes to your figure and creating facial expressions.

Posing your figure is only part of what can be accomplished with the Poser software. Murdock covers morphing and rigging your Poser figures for animation and shows how lip syncing is made easy with the Poser Talk Designer Interface. Lastly, he discusses rendering Poser scenes, using Poser with other software and writing Python scripts.

Although the book does not contain a CD, you can download from the publisher's website the supporting Poser files needed for demonstrating the more complex Poser techniques. Throughout the book, Murdock has added helpful comments and tips.

Kelly L Murdock has worked in the area of computer graphics for many years and has authored several books including 3ds max Bible, Illustrator Bible, Adobe Creative Suite Bible, Maya 7 Revealed, LightWave 3D 8 Revealed and Poser 6 Revealed.

When I received my copy of the book the binding had come apart as someone else mentioned. I ignored this and pressed the glued edges back together. While looking the book over I discovered that Chapter 5 was in the book twice and there was no Chapter 6 to be found! I am not sure if there are other mistakes like this as I don't have time to check. I am shipping it back and getting a replacement. Hopefully all of the pages will be there.

I'm a programmer and industrial guy who enjoys writing fiction shorts in my spare time and thought it might be fun to start cobbling simple 'illustrations' together to help set the mood for the stories. Really 2D stuff but I figured a 3D tool like Poser 3D would help create a series of modified images for different chapters. I'm of average competence in tools like Corel and PaintShopPro, which I use to illustrate tech articles and web pages. Poser's interface and paradigm is pretty tough to grasp - in part because I already know "other things" I guess and thus have incorrect expectations of how to do it.

I bought this book hoping to get myself up to speed; it isn't doing that. I think the author tried to mix in too much advanced material. Each chapter starts with a horrible "intro" which doesn't summarize where we're going - just bowls a lot of jargon at the reader. While the books seems to have nice "we did this - you learned this" like any good educational book, they seem to be "we pulled down the menu" etc (what our mouse did - not what we as brains did).

I'm sure I'll get more use from it once I know the basics, but for now it's not helping. The author should have gotten feedback from some absolute beginner trying to use the book to make a simple Poser image.

The technical content of the book is quite worth the buy, but I am not giving a score greater than "average" since:
1- the pictures within the book are all greyscale
2- the resolution of the pictures is so low that whenever the text points to such pictures it seems to me more like a sadistic joke rather useful information

Perhaps I am expecting too much. They call this a "book," so I expected a series of pages bound together.

This has a paper cover that came off of the glue binding the first time I opened the fool thing. I am about to pack this for a transatlantic flight. By the time I arrive, this thing will be a mass of loose pages.

I have to say that I ordered Poser with high hopes, and when I ran it for the first time I thought my hopes might be dashed. Enter Poser 8 Revealed: The Official Guide. This book is an absolute godsend for the Poser beginner. 1 day after opening the book, I was posing models and creating world class web graphics with ease. By following the step by step examples throughout the book, I was able to learn the basics and I couldn't be happier. Highly recommended.

I would have paid more money for a guide that included color pictures and high res images. Like the other reviewer, I agree that this really diminished the value of this guide. Having said that, I found this to be very helpful, for example in creating hair and clothing on images. I'm not sure, however, that the online tutorials aren't just as good for the non-professional, casual (if one can be a casual) user.

I bought this book when I bought the Poser 7 program to have a reference and a guide while learning the program. I've been using the program for quite sometime now. I decided to put the book away since it is more confusing to follow its numerous typos and the lessons that you can download from the website lead you nowhere. I ended up with a bunch of loopholes and questions. I searched the internet for tutorials and found answers from http://my.smithmicro.com/tutorials or the reference that came with the program will also help. This book is a total disappointment.

This book has taught me a lot that I didn't know was possible with Poser. It went into pretty good depth and I can't seem to tear myself away from it - I'm always going back to the book to read up on the other possibilities with Poser, and every time I go back to the book for more information, it feels like christmas :D

I am really enyoing this book.


Warmest Regards,

Fredo D Murillo Jr

Kelly L. Murdock's POSER 8 REVEALED: THE OFFICIAL GUIDE packs in all the details on the features of Poser 8, the advanced program used to create and animate scenes. Step-by-step tutorials for each task or skill being taught show how to create and position figures, simulate three dimensions, blend in props, animate figures, and more. Very highly recommended: a 'must' if only one Poser guide were to be chosen.