Practical Poser 6 (Graphics) [Paperback]

Denise Tyler (Author), Audre Vysniauskas (Author), Audre Vysniauskas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 18, 2006 | ISBN-10: 1584504439 | ISBN-13: 978-1584504436 | Edition: 1

Practical Poser 6 teaches Poser artists the tasks you want, and need, to learn so that you can get up to speed quickly and achieve your best results. Whether you're a hobbyist or professional, you'll learn how to create Poser scenes, how to add realism to your Poser characters, and even how to make your own Poser clothing. You'll learn practical, real-world tasks that will help you reach your goals and, most important, you'll have fun learning. In the first part of the book you'll get a quick overview and review of what you need to know in the Pose Room, starting with the Poser 6 interface and progressing, in a logical manner, to building scenes. You'll also learn how to use lights and cameras, and how to create and save your own light and camera sets to the Poser library. From there, you'll learn a plethora of practical skills including how to: * Work in the other Poser rooms * Prepare photographs in the Face Room and create and save custom faces * Use the Hair Room to add hair to Poser clothing or props, and how to pick up hair colors from underlying textures * Work with various types of Poser clothing, and learn the differences between conforming clothing and dynamic clothing * Decipher materials in the advanced Material Room view * Create and customize Poser clothing * Use magnets to create morphs in Poser * Export and import morphs to and from an external morphing program * Model a simple piece of clothing, create UV maps for common clothing articles (shirts, skirts, and pants), assign materials in clothing, and group them correctly * Save different types of Poser content into the Poser libraries so that they work properly * Enhance your Poser renders so that they look their best by learning how the render engine works

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Denise Tyler (East Hartford, CT) is a technical documentation specialist who emphasizes development of hardware and software documentation or technological instructional media. She has authored or co-authored thirteen books for Macmillan Computer Publishing and Pearson Education, with a focus on web-related, graphics, and computer maintenance. She has ten years in the publishing, software, and broadcast industries and 15 years experience in the engineering field. Additionally, as a graphic artist and animator, Tyler has worked for 12 years with graphics and multimedia-related software, including graphics for web, print, CD/DVD production and broadcast media.

Product Details

• Paperback: 520 pages
• Publisher: Charles River Media; 1 edition (January 18, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584504439
• ISBN-13: 978-1584504436
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,090,392 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

96 of 97 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, the Poser book we should have had all along!, February 4, 2006

By 

David "I read science fiction and fantasy, bu... (LAUREL, MD, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Practical Poser 6 (Graphics) (Paperback)

I own pretty much every Poser book yet published. I have to admit, despite referring to them, and the manuals, and online communities like Daz3d, Renderosity, and RDNA, I've never put enough time into my Poser work to become an expert. It's still just a hobby I dabble in. However, I have become good at picking out good tutorials and bad ones, and I also know a good technical book from one that's just repackaging the manual. "Practical Poser 6" is the first book I've seen that really can take you from beginner to expert. (Now if I can just spend the time to work my way through ALL the tutorials and learn everything it has to teach!)

This book is excellent, not just because it covers the latest version of Poser, but because it covers all aspects of using Poser in phenomenal detail. There are other Poser books that give you the basics (I've reviewed them too). But this book doesn't just list for you what each menu option does, what each dial in the Hair and Cloth rooms does, etc., and it doesn't just give you a few basic tutorials on posing Jessi (the default Poser woman that comes with Poser 6) and making some random hair styles. It takes you through each setting, *why* that setting exists, and when you might or might not want to use a particular option. The authors don't just tell you how to put Jessi in a standing pose, but they deliberate point out some trouble spots and how to correct them. OK, Jessi's stance isn't quite balanced, how do you fix it? She's wearing high heels, but her feet aren't positioned correctly -- how do you make her look natural? What do you do when you accidentally applied a pose to the wrong figure? Where can you get some free Python scripts to solve common problems?

Even in the first chapter, they described some options for customizing my workspace I hadn't even noticed yet. They give practical advice on organizing Runtimes. They list all the different kinds of files Poser reads or generates, and what each extension means! A newbie will be mystified by file extensions like cm2, cmz, pz2, ppz, etc. Sure, you can find out about them online or maybe by digging through the manual, but Practical Poser 6 is the first Poser book I've seen that gives you this basic information upfront -- what each filetype is, where you can find it, and where they sometimes get *misplaced*! The authors consistently show their awareness not just of the Poser application, but the third-party products and communities that most users will be dealing with, since they spend lots of time talking about common problems that result when you buy a model or prop and find it doesn't behave quite the way you expected.

Chapter 3, "Building Scenes," has you add conforming clothing, backgrounds, poses, and textures to Jessi incrementally and they show you a lifelike, animated pose that you can achieve yourself, not some stiff-armed mannequin with a plasticene expression. Their explanation of Inverse Kinematics is one of the best I've seen yet. This chapter alone will get a beginner enthused about working with Poser.

The chapters on cameras and lighting present information that until now you'd only get by skimming through multiple forums and reading a dozen tutorials.

The chapters on hair and clothing are another place where this book shines. Do you want to learn what every obsure dial in those rooms does? Read the manual. Do you want to learn the ins and outs of dynamic vs. conforming clothing, and how to create hair groups and how to make hair that looks like hair, or hair that looks like fur, or hair that looks like a feather? Read this book!

Morphs get complete treatment, and I might finally start making good use of magnets, since they provide such useful tutorials.

Next are chapters on texturing and modeling. Just enough to get your feet wet creating your own textures and models, but after absorbing these chapters, you'll be ready to start creating actual new products, and with enough practice, you may be able to sell them! There is a complete tutorial here that takes you through the creation of a new pair of pants for Jessi.

Next, a chapter on rendering. Want to really understand the difference between reflection maps and raytracing? Enlightenment at last! Learn about subsurface scattering, refraction, depth of field, aliasing, and other advanced topics, but you also get practical advice on how to select render options for the sort of image you want.

Finally, there is a chapter on something every Poser artist needs to learn but is rarely covered in Poser books -- postwork. Rarely will you get the perfect image you wanted after Poser is done rendering. You'll need to do "postwork" (doctoring the image further with Photoshop or other graphics applications) They cover this as well as some advanced tips and tricks for preparing your render to be postworked.

Appendix A describes the content of the included CD. The CD has a lot of free content -- a compact version of Apollo Maximus (a popular new third-party male figure), and a bunch of other free materials, characters, and poses from various third-party Poser content providers. This content alone probably makes this admittedly pricey book worth the cost.

Appendix B is a FAQ, which I also found educational, since these weren't dumb newbie questions, but annoying little bugs or advanced tricks. (How to create glowing objects, how to fix "bald spots" in a hair prop, how to customize your interface for working with dual monitors, what is a "gather node," etc.)

Maybe I wouldn't rave about "Practical Poser 6" quite so much if I hadn't already been through a bunch of other mediocre to disappointing Poser books, but this really is a book that will be useful for the serious beginner to intermediate-advanced Poser user. I give it an enthusiastic thumbs-up, and daresay that future Poser books now have a much higher standard to be compared against.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poser 6 DAZ 3D Studio, March 27, 2006

By 

George Melochick (Huntsville, AL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Practical Poser 6 (Graphics) (Paperback)

Okay. I'll admit it. I liked DAZ Studio a lot more than Poser 6 till this book came out. And I spent my cash on Poser 6 and DAZ Studio is free. But...With this book I'm now relatively happy that I have Poser 6. It's a great read. I don't know who did the editing but, GREAT job. AND I haven't even cracked open the CD yet! It's answering all those pesky new user "How do I fix this?" questions....The FAQs in the back are wonderful. For me, as a relatively novice user, this is the perfect addition to Poser 6.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Poser User MUST HAVE, March 17, 2006

By 

Tima C. Cooke "southernbooklady" (SC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Practical Poser 6 (Graphics) (Paperback)

Starting in Poser 4 and learning most things the hard way kind of scared me when I upgraded to Poser 6. I was lucky enough to stumble across this book and it is a MUST HAVE for ANY Poser owner. The information within this book isn't some mumble jumble so technically written that you need another book to understand whats being taught. I cherish my copy of Practical Poser and have gone on to do so many more things within Poser since my purchase. If you are new, or old to Poser and want to learn a few new tricks or polish some tricks you already know, then this book is for you. Forget the "manual" types of books that you have read in the past, as this one reads like a novel and leads you step by step into the awesome world of the hidden features and secrets to Poser 6. This reference should be on the desk or library shelf of ANY Poser user because it has invaluable information within it's pages. I couldn't be happier with it. As an added note, the items on the disk make buying the book well worth the price. If you don't already have it... get it - you won't regret your purchase !