Customer Reviews

Practical Poser 6 (Graphics)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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 !

You can't find a movie these days that doesn't have at least one animated character in it and with each new movie these characters become more and more realistic. Have you ever wanted to try your hand at creating your own 3D characters? Well, now you can with this book and the Poser 6 software from e frontier, Inc.

Poser is a robust program but in this book Denise Tyler and Audre Vysniauskas have you creating your own 3D human and nonhuman characters in no time. Based on user input from the Poser community, this book answers the most common questions and the tutorials will show you the secrets of 3D character design.

The authors cover each feature of the Poser program starting with the easy techniques and working up to more advanced techniques. You will learn all about the Poser interface, rooms and libraries and you will quickly be building scenes and controlling cameras and lighting. You will learn how to work with the face morphing features in the Poser Face Room and with dynamic hair in the Hair Room. Of course, you aren't limited to human hair. You can create your own version of a human, animal or combination. Assuming your character is not distend for an X-rated future, you will want to add some Poser clothing. In fact, creating Poser clothing is one of the most requested help topics and the authors cover various aspects such as how to design a garment that responds realistically when your character moves. Speaking of realism, the authors show you their secrets to achieving photo realism with texture and lighting. By the time you reach to last few chapters, you are ready for advanced techniques such as UV mapping, preparing and importing your own objects into the Poser libraries, the FireFly rendering system and post production enhancements. The accompanying CD has all the demos and files needed to complete the tutorials and there is a Q & A section for those quick answers.

Audre Vysniauskas has contributed to many digital imaging books, conferences and magazine articles. Denise Tyler has written several books on computer graphics and web development.

This book is listed as a beginning to intermediate level book. I think it's actually a little higher than that. It presumes that you have at least reviewed the Reference Manual, and hopefully worked through the Tutorial Manual. This is a tutorial style book. It takes you through a series of steps that will teach you more about the design of a person than you imagined.

After going through this book, I'm not going to say that the people making the next Harry Potter movie will jump at the chance to hire you, but I will say that you'll know a hell of a lot more about the computer creation of characters than you did when you started.

The key is to make characters look real. And here the authors point out little things like what do the fingers do in the hand that isn't reaching for something. And how do you make the torso bend with the body so that it looks real.

All in all, quite an exceptional book that I highly recommend. These people know what they are doing and know how to write about it.

I bought this book about 5-6 months ago mostly because I needed some help with texturing, material, and making my own UV maps specifically for Poser 6. After I read all the reviews on this book I was convinced that this could be THE book that shows you how you can make your own maps. I mean what else can you teach in a book written for "intermediate to advanced users" anyway, right? Well, not really. The first couple of chapters are awesome. Although I knew a lot about those basic functions, I still learned couple of neat tricks from the book. However, chapters on Material, Textures, and UV maps are just short overview of these topics. She keeps referring you to the reference manual, which is...you know how it is...My suggestion is that don't buy this book if you're looking for a source on Materials and UV maps...There are other books out there such as Summer's Texturing: Concepts and Techniques that explain the subject in detail.
I gave the book 3 starts because the first couple of chapters were very helpful and nicely written.

I found Practical Poser 6 a valuable training tutorial into the world of 3D graphics. Not only did it explain the functions and usages of Poser 6 in understandable terms, it illustrated examples in easy to follow, step-by-step instructions. This book is a recommended must-have for individuals who are thinking about entering the realm of 3D graphics or serious artists who want to refine their technique and squeeze a little more 'mileage' from their programs. A first-rate, well written book in it's field.

Denise Tyler and Audre Vysniauskas' PRACTICAL POSER 6 comes from an avid Poser user and author of several other books on the subject, and provides advanced Poser users with the latest set of options for the program. An introductory overview and review opens chapters which quickly move to more advanced features of working with interfaces and building scenes with the Poser library. Black and white screen shots offer plenty of applied examples while a centerfold of color polishes results.

I avoid buying software books because many of my past purchases were a complete waste of money. The authors rehash the software's free manuals and provide explanations and tutorials so basic that it seems their target reader is somebody who bought their first PC just last week.

Based on strong reviews, I took a chance and bought Practical Poser 6. I'm not going to cover the content, which is already described very thoroughly in other reviews here. I'll just say that if you have tried to use Poser without any tutorial or learning aids, this book is for you. I had a copy of Poser 5 and had just bought Poser 6 a few weeks before getting this book. My measure of a good instructional book is how much it taught me that I didn't know already. I estimate 50-60% of this book contains info that I'd only have learned by painful trial-and-error, and was really useful to me. And this is not to say that it's for experienced users only -- whether you're just starting out with Poser or already have a few years of experience, there's some explanations, tips and general good reading in this book for you. Highly recommended!

I've been the art business at a professional level for a long time . I am however new to 3D appplications and I have assembled quiet a library to educate myself in this area. Practical Poser 6 has made learning this wonderfull program a joy. It doesn't overcomplicate but in clear logical terms explains just exactly how to apply the many processes the program has available right down to where to find up to date plugins and also helps narrow the large array of content providers by listing many of them, what they do a nd how long they have been doing it. A must have for any poser 6 user.