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Poser 9
About this item
- Get Started Fast - Drag and drop characters and props right onto Poser’s virtual stage to create 3D scenes, add lights and cameras, then render away!
- Customize Characters - Start with one of the many included ready-to-pose 3D characters and customize them using your photos or hundreds of face shaping morphs to produce unique characters in minutes.
- Rendering Styles - Poser’s powerful rendering engine will transform any 3D scene you’ve created into photorealistic, cartoon or sketch style images and animations.
- Animate Easily - Poser’s key-frame animation tools make it easy to transition between poses, or make a character walk or talk, throw a ball or even dance.
- 3D Characters for Any Project - Create art or animation for graphic design, web, fine art and illustration projects. From comic books and animated shorts to architectural and industrial design, Poser adds character.
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Product information
Software requirement minimum physical memory | 3 GB |
---|---|
Publication Date | September 20, 2011 |
UPC | 717103903212 |
Global Trade Identification Number | 00717103903212 |
ASIN | B005LXIJ7M |
Release date | September 20, 2011 |
Customer Reviews |
3.1 out of 5 stars |
Best Sellers Rank |
|
Package Dimensions | 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches; 6.4 ounces |
Type of item | DVD-ROM |
Language | English |
Item model number | PSR9HDVD |
Is Discontinued By Manufacturer | No |
Item Weight | 6.4 ounces |
Manufacturer | Smith Micro Software Inc. |
Date First Available | September 13, 2011 |
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Product Description
Product Description
Poser 9 is the world’s easiest way to create amazing art and animation with 3D characters. Poser’s simple to learn tools and included characters let you focus on making art. Poser comes with over 3 gigabyte of ready-to-pose humans and animals, textures, props and 3D scene elements. In the Face Room, customize Poser characters from facial photographs. Add dynamic hair and clothing. Dress Poser’s virtual stage with props, lights and cameras to build 3D scenes. Animate and render scenes into photorealistic images and video for web, print, and film projects. Graphic artists, illustrators and animators all get creative with Poser!
Amazon.com
Easily Create 3D Character Art and Animation
Poser 9 is the world's easiest way to create amazing art and animation with 3D characters. Poser's simple to learn tools and included characters let you focus on making art. Poser comes with over 3 gigabyte of ready-to-pose humans and animals, textures, props and 3D scene elements. In the Face Room, customize Poser characters from facial photographs. Add dynamic hair and clothing. Dress Poser's virtual stage with props, lights and cameras to build 3D scenes. Animate and render scenes into photorealistic images and video for web, print, and film projects. Graphic artists, illustrators and animators all get creative with Poser!
Poser includes fully rigged, posable and textured 3D figures that can be infinitely customized with imported facial photographs, built in morph targets and ethnic texture sets. Image by Daniel Gabriel Scott Murray. View larger.
Poser figures are anatomically accurate, and can be clothed with a full collection of hair styles applied to them. View larger.
The Poser FireFly engine is perfect for rendering your scenes into images, and with our improved blurred reflections in version 9, realism has never been better. View larger.
Poser is perfect for creating fantastic worlds that are only limited by your imagination. Image by Christel Dall. View larger.
Add new characters to Poser to create cartoons, comics, sci-fi and fantasy images and animation. Image by Eric VanDycke. View larger.
For amazing science fiction images with characters like robots, there's no better way to create than Poser. Image by Brian Romero. View larger.
Need to recreate historic scenes? Poser is the right choice. Image by Brian Romero. View larger.
Poser is used by numerous artists to create fantasy images for graphic novels and story illustration. Image by Paul Francis. View larger.
For medical and scientific illustration, Poser includes accurate human skeletons and fully detailed human figures. Image by Stefan Werner. View larger.
Poser 9 includes more features than ever before:
Real-time OpenGL Scene Preview
With Poser 9's OpenGL improvements, you'll see accurate, real-time previews of Spot, Point, Infinite and IBL (Image Based Lights) Lights, Shadows, with Screen Space Ambient Occlusion, Normal Maps and Back Facing Polygons. The Light Properties control allows the user to toggle specific lights to preview in the scene, with accumulated brightness for each selected light. MIP Map support improves performance when previewing large textures. Our OpenGL hardware improvements preview textures more efficiently, with reliable onscreen display of lights, shadows, and color, for smarter, quicker interactive scene creation.
Subsurface Scattering
Skin, wax, and marble are just some of the materials that are translucent when struck by light. To recreate this subtle yet crucial effect when rendering these materials in Poser, we've incorporated a set of easy to configure Subsurface Scattering Material Nodes. New Nodes include Subsurface Skin, Custom Scatter, and basic Scatter. The Scatter Node includes a number of optimized pre-sets for Skin, Marble, Milk, Fruit and Vegetables. With Poser's new Subsurface Material nodes, you'll transform your scenes into rendered masterpieces with lifelike translucent surfaces.
Rendering Performance Improvements
Poser's FireFly Rendering Engine keeps getting better with numerous improvements in reflections, transparencies, depth of field and 3D motion blur quality, netting visibly smoother results without significantly impacting render times. We've invested time in Indirect Lighting (IDL) which now can be combined with Ambient Occlusion (AO), and is faster when rendering transparency. We've also enabled Light Emitting Objects which are invisible in final renderings yet contribute indirect illumination to the scene. In addition to our new Subsurface Scattering Nodes, we've included a new Custom Scatter Node to support effects such as bioluminescent skin.
Weight Map Rigging
High-end professional 3D applications like 3ds Max and Maya have set the standard for vertex Weight Map Rigging, and now both Poser provides the most open vertex Weight Mapping support available. Weight Map Rigging offers several benefits including smoother bending folds and bulges with vertex by vertex control over every bend or bulge. Weight Maps can be added to any joint bend, to twist and scaling channels and can be used to control bulges. Plus Poser takes the standard of Weight Map Rigging several steps further with support for Hybrid Joint Rigging (combining traditional Poser Sphere/Capsule Zones with Weight Maps), using either single mesh geometry or traditionally grouped geometry, and enables Weight Maps or zones to affect any number of body parts beyond the current joint. Poser's new Weight Map Rigging provides a platform that will support third party figures that use Weight Mapping, by expanding the open, well documented and easily editable Poser PZ3 file format, to encourage creativity and user driven enhancements to Poser figures.
Grouping Objects
Need a way to move, scale or hide a bunch of objects in a Poser scene, at the same time? Now you can simply add any number of scene elements, from figures and props to lights, into a Grouping Object. They can be moved, rotated, scaled and animated or even hidden and revealed. Create multiple Grouping Objects to hold different areas of a scene, or related props and figures. Adding selected scene elements into any Grouping Object is easy using our powerful new Context Menu controls. This significant new feature will change how you manage your scenes, providing you plenty of control over whole groups of objects in that scene.
Expanded Context Menus
Sometimes, it's the simple things that make the biggest difference. Poser's expanded Context Menus will vastly improve interaction and scene creation, and change the way you work with Poser forever. Six unique Context Menus have been developed for Figures, Actors, Objects, Lights, Cameras and Backgrounds to provide quick access to the most useful menu operations including selecting, toggling IK on/off, copying symmetry in poses, pointing lights, conforming clothing, setting parenting, changing light types, and even hiding/revealing all items in a Grouping Object. Once you start using Poser's new Context Menus, you'll enjoy working and playing with Poser all over again.
Full Scene Category in Library
In the past, if you wanted to re-use a Poser scene with that perfect environment settings, lights, cameras, props and dependencies and even render settings, you had to build it, save it, then find and import it. With the new Scene Category in the Library you simply add that full Poser scene with lights, cameras, all props and figures in place, and with all dependencies right into the Library. From there your new scenes can be dragged directly from the Library into the Poser workspace. For Poser content developers this new feature will enable you to deliver fully constructed scenes with dependencies and optimal render settings that require less user support and are far easier to use.
Multi-select Drag and Drop Library Support
When we introduced Drag and Drop support in Poser's Library, our users found it so much easier to apply materials, or conform clothing, or drop a pose right onto a figure. With the Library's new Multi-select feature, you'll be able to select several items of clothing and drag them right onto a figure and auto-conform them in one step. But it gets even better when working with multiple categories of items in your Favorites; Multi-select a hairstyle, several clothing items and a pose all at once, then click and drag them right onto your target figure. Poser will automatically apply the items. It doesn't get much easier. Within the Library, you'll be able to drag and drop items from folder to folder making it easy to reorganize your Content.
Morphing Tool Tablet Support
If you own a Wacom pressure sensitive tablet, Poser is going to make you a very happy camper. We've engineered Wacom tablet support into the Morph Tool so you can have much finer control when creating morphs. Vary brush strength with pressure for any brush size you've set. The Morph Tool is powerful, but with tablet support, it's gotten even better. The new 'Flatten' option for Morphing Tool Create mode moves points toward a "best fit" plane determined by the affected vertices.
Constraint Channels and Constraint Objects
For our animators that have been looking for a way to animate a ball being throw or caught, we've introduced Constraint Channels and Objects. Basically, the Constraint Object is an animatable handle for an object that will allow you to parent it to a figure's hand as it winds up for the throw, and then have the object leave the hand and fly through the air as if it's being thrown. Constraints are a simple to use feature that will permit all kinds of cool animation effects.
Light Emitting Objects
We changed the face of rendering in Poser when we introduced Indirect Lighting (IDL). Poser users quickly discovered that, with high ambient values to cast light that with a few tweaks, they could open up a huge array of lighting effects. Now you can create Light Emitters; toggle off visibility in rendering for objects, yet still enable them to cast light. Build light domes, environment domes and large area lights to cast ambient light without being rendered in the scene. Combined with our new Poser Scene Library category, this feature will be a great way to deliver a fully lit IDL environment.
Frame Selected Object
In complex scenes it can be a little challenging to keep your camera focused on an area that you're working on using Poser's original camera controls. To help out, we've introduced the Frame Selected Object Camera. With the click of a button, your current camera will zoom in on the selected object, allowing you take a closer look at exactly where you're working on. This makes it easier to navigate in and out of your deep scenes and saves you time when creating them.
Orbit Selected Object Mode
Poser also includes a new mode as a companion feature to the new Frame Selected Object Camera. Simply toggle on the Orbit Selected mode and your current camera will rotate around the center point of the currently selected object. This makes it easier to focus on a selected element, and view it from every direction by spinning Camera trackball controls.
Faster Dynamic Hair
Our engineers spent time under the hood to speed up Dynamic Hair. Now Poser's powerful Dynamic Hair calculates collisions faster and renders it faster as well.
Pre-render Texture Caching
We've heard your requests for faster pre-render texture handling and delivered two new methods that will save time the minute you press that Render Now button. Poser now preprocesses all scene textures in the background making use of your multicore processor, in prep for that first render, and can cache those textures session to session if you desire. Choose between traditional and the new Crisp' texture filtering options.
Python 2.7 Support
Poser keeps improving and so does Python. We now provide Python 2.7 support to take full advantage of improvements to the scripting language.
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Support
Poser 9 is now fully Cocoa based and supported on Apple's latest OS X 10.7 Lion.
Why use Poser 9?
Creating 3D illustrations that include people or digital characters is time-consuming and hard.
Designers and artists want to create art and animations with 3D characters, without having to create those 3D characters from scratch. We don't blame you! That's why Poser and Poser Pro come with everything you need to quickly add life to your project.
Poser lets you focus on the story you want to tell by freeing you from having to build the actors and props in your story. Quickly customize and pose your characters on the stage, set up the scene with props, backgrounds and architectural elements to support that story and then create your final 3D art and animations.
Getting the right lighting effects on figures and objects is difficult.
We changed the face of rendering in Poser when we introduced Indirect Lighting (IDL). And it became obvious when Poser users discovered that IDL enabled objects with high ambient values to cast light that with a few tweaks we could open up a huge array of lighting effects. Now you can create Light Emitters; toggle off visibility in rendering for objects, yet still enable them to cast light. Build light domes, environment domes and large area lights to cast ambient light without being rendered in the scene. Combined with our new Poser Scene Library category, this feature will be a great way to deliver a fully lit IDL environment.
Poser 9's improved Firefly render engine now supports Indirect Lighting with Irradiance Caching for Global Illumination effects and even supports rendering with Ambient Occlusion. New Shader nodes enable Subsurface Scattering for luminescent skin tones and Custom Scattering for bioluminescent effects. Poser's physically correct light fall-off produces more photo-real final renderings.
Skin, wax, and marble are just some of the materials that are translucent when struck by light. To recreate this subtle yet crucial effect when rendering these materials in Poser, we've incorporated a set of easy to configure Subsurface Scattering Material Nodes. New Nodes include Subsurface Skin, Custom Scatter, and basic Scatter. The Scatter Node includes a number of optimized pre-sets for Skin, Marble, Milk, Fruit and Vegetables. With Poser's new Subsurface Material nodes, you'll transform your scenes into rendered masterpieces with lifelike translucent surfaces.
Putting actual people into dangerous, inaccessible or imaginary places to serve as a model for digital image or video creation isn't possible or practical.
Take crime scene recreation for example: you need an imaginary 3D world where you can place all the suspects, victims, weapons, explosions, and more and play out their interactions without anyone getting hurt. In fact, Poser Pro is a critical tool used by the production crew for the television drama Bones. They use it weekly to pose and animate their re-enactments--check out this video straight from one of their episodes.
Industrial and architectural designers, medical illustrators, product engineers and graphic artists often need virtual humans to interact with a design, to convey a sense of scale or draw attention to a feature in a designed product. Poser lets you work with 3D actors in scenes that would be impossible to duplicate in the real world. Historic scenes, imaginary or fantasy scenes, sci-fi and superhero scenes are easy to create in Poser, so you can let your imagination run wild and build exactly the world you want, and populate that world with 3D characters.
At your fingers tips is a huge library of included ready-to-pose and easy-to-customize characters with clothing and props that will fit into almost any scene you can imagine. Customize those figures with poses, expressions and face room morphs and set-up cameras and lights to support any perspective, point of view or lighting condition.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find Poser 9 to be an exquisite piece of software that runs well and offers good value for the $60 price tag. They appreciate its realistic rendering capabilities and animation quality, with one customer noting it's a must for 3D computer graphics. The interface receives mixed feedback - while some find it easier to handle, others report a huge learning curve. The content quality and installation experience receive negative feedback from customers.
AI Generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find that the software runs fine and is an exquisite piece of software, with one customer noting it works well as a companion program to DAZ3D Pro.
"...Poser 9 does give you a good library of items, and characters to work with. And this is a good starting point for a beginner...." Read more
"...eight virtual cores with Win 7 Home Premium and I had no problem running or using Poser 9, 10 or Pro 2014, either during the creation of scenes or..." Read more
"...lighting itself (at least going from Poser 7 to Poser 9) provides a lot more possibilities, such as indirect lighting...." Read more
"...overwhelming at first but with a little time, it soon becomes a very workable and usable program...." Read more
Customers appreciate the realistic renders of the software, with one customer noting its high resolution textures.
"...If you do buy anything at first, a good lighting and rendering tutorial, as well as a how to use the software tools tutorial should do the trick to..." Read more
"...Using Poser 5 renderer you can get somewhat realistic renders, but the figures still look like glorified mannequins, but in Poser 9 the subsurface..." Read more
"...was worth the money for me, because it makes it possible to easily visualize the result without the need for a lot of intermediate renders...." Read more
"...It offers it's own library of models that have staggerring realism. A few flaws that cost this software 1 star in my review:..." Read more
Customers find the software worth the $60 price tag, with one mentioning it comes with a gigabyte worth of free content.
"...I am thrilled about it. That, in and of itself, was worth the money for me, because it makes it possible to easily visualize the result without..." Read more
"...for what i need poser for, its worth the $60 bucks or so that i paid..." Read more
"...-End 3D Software, like Disney uses, but at a much, much lower, more realistic price for us regular folk, and they manage it. -..." Read more
"...With over a gigabyte worth of free stuff, POSER9 is a treassure trove of resources from characters to clothing to props...." Read more
Customers appreciate the rendering capabilities of Poser 9, with one customer noting its suitability for 3D computer graphics and another mentioning its ability to import complete scenes.
"...with their high resolution textures mixed with the rendering capabilities of Poser 9, new morph target creation tools, weight mapping, and the like,..." Read more
"Excellent for animation and rendering creating clear picture...and its good for exporting models to blender...." Read more
"...A must for any 3D computer graphics or animation student ." Read more
"POSER9 is GREAT!!..." Read more
Customers appreciate the animation quality of the software, with one customer describing it as the best 3D software.
"Excellent for animation and rendering creating clear picture...and its good for exporting models to blender...." Read more
"A unique and fun 3d application..." Read more
"Best 3D software on this remote forbidden planet..." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the software's ease of use, with some finding the interface easier to handle and appreciating it as a time saver, while others report a huge learning curve and find it not very intuitive.
"...enough, you can add into the Poser 9 libraries, the libraries from earlier Poser versions, including original figures and created characters that..." Read more
"...There is a HUGE learning curve to anyone not familiar with 3D software, and to fully take advantage of this program there are plenty of different..." Read more
"...Other convenient improvements are the interface (you can easily re-size and reposition the palettes and the preview window), the much more..." Read more
"...Rendering is not that great for me and modifying the figures is not as easy as they say...." Read more
Customers find the content quality of the software to be poor, with one customer noting that the library is weak.
"...The manual (as usual now in the software business) is brief and elemental...." Read more
"...to get update -Download throttled to 1992 speeds -Library is weak and disorganized and NOT user friendly." Read more
"...pretty basic with a big learning curve, not very intuitive and content is sparse. I guess you have to keep buying stuff?" Read more
Customers have mixed experiences with installing Poser 9, with one customer reporting issues with the setup process and another mentioning problems with compatibility on Windows.
"...about it, I probably could fix it easier, but for now it's an annoying process to fix and to look up detailed how to's and fixes does not exist, at..." Read more
"...product you had to create an account with them so it was a very bad setup experience since I had to fill out information to get the patch but..." Read more
"Did not install properly on Windows 7...." Read more
Reviews with images

A unique and fun 3d application
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2014Platform For Display: PC/Mac DiscVerified PurchaseLet me start off by saying that this is really good software for anyone wanting to mess around with 3D software. There is a HUGE learning curve to anyone not familiar with 3D software, and to fully take advantage of this program there are plenty of different sites to buy all the extras: Hair, Clothes, Poses, Characters, Accessories, Tutorials, Lighting effects/studios, Props, and so on and so on. Making this software a huge money pit.
I have owned this software (poser 9) for over a year, and have since upgrade to the poser 10 software, since I had already invested so much time, and money on this, and was getting the hang of working and manipulating the software.
Poser 9 does give you a good library of items, and characters to work with. And this is a good starting point for a beginner. There are plenty of basic tutorials out there, but anything worth watching is going to cost you money. And to me this just seems wrong. If a company wants you to invest in their software they really need to have good FREE tutorials that will actually show you all the tricks you need to know. Rendering and lighting are the most obvious things you need to learn to make anything look good in Poser. Once again it will cost you money to obtain any of the render settings, and lighting that work well. (renderocity has started coming out with some free tutorials that are not to bad)
If you do invest in Poser and decide that you are going to stick with it. There are plenty of web sites to check out for all the extras. Here are a few that I use. Renderocity, Hivewire, Runtimedna, Content Paradise, and even Daz3D has content for Poser. And there is even a xxx website for all you dirty minded artist out there called renderotica. I would suggest you visit these web sites to see what kind of content is available to you, and to see the pricing to get an idea of what you could be getting into. (with the money I have ended up spending, I could have bought the ZBrush software twice over)
Clothing and hair are very difficult to get the hang of. And get ready to be frustrated, upset, disgusted, and overjoyed once you get the hang of it. If you are a beginner there is a whole rollercoaster of emotions you will go through while using Poser.
My advise to anyone starting out with poser, or any 3D software is to: Don't give up, and just keep trying. Try not to spend too much money on extras in the beginning (although it is hard not to). Use the characters and materials supplied to you in the library. If you do buy anything at first, a good lighting and rendering tutorial, as well as a how to use the software tools tutorial should do the trick to get things started. I have been using poser for over a year now and have not even touched some of the animation portion of the software. Yes, you can make your characters move and dance or whatever you like once you understand how it works. There are a lot of possibilities with Poser software. Unfortunately a lot of it will cost money and time.
I am an artist who likes still photos and uses poser as such. With poser I can make my own Frazetta, or Olivia style scene. Render it and export it to paint shop to add any extra details I like. If you are more into developing your own characters, and have knowledge of weight mapping and developing bone structure for your characters I would suggest saving up and buying the ZBrush software. Although there are some tools you can use or buy for poser to develop your own characters, most of it is basic.
All in all poser is some really good software, once you understand all the ins and outs of it. Anything new to you is always difficult at first so give it a try and find out if you like it.
WARNING: Poser 9 is not compatible with windows 8 or 8.1 as far as I know, but later editions will work.
I hope this helps anyone interested in Poser or any 3D software
- Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2013Platform For Display: PC/Mac DiscVerified PurchaseI am a big fan of Poser. It is truly an amazing piece of software. I started with Poser 5, which I have reviewed in this forum and have grown with Poser and 3D modeling with software such as Carrara 3, Carrara 8, Amapi 5, TrueSpace 4, TrueSpace 7, Celestia, Sculptris, Poser 5, and now Poser 9.
If you wish a general overview of Poser, you can consult my review of Poser 5, and it will give a general overview of the product. Most of the features of Poser 9 are the same as in Poser 5, so people who are worried that Poser will be much different than what they are used to will find very little difference between Poser 9 and earlier versions of Poser as far as functionality and the interface.
The differences between Poser 5 and Poser 9 are the new figures with new special features such as weight mapping and rigging, and the rendering capabilities. The Firefly renderer in Poser 9 is much improved with ambient light capabilities, to give a more realistic image, and subsurface scattering capabilities. There is also the ability to make glowing objects in Poser 9 too.
The newer figures in Poser 9 are the most realistic figures. (These include Poser 8 figures, Alyson and Ryan and their variants, and Jessi, James, and child figures, Ben and Kate.) I was used to working with Poser 5 figures which though were kind of realistic, still rather looked like mannequins, but these figures with their high resolution textures mixed with the rendering capabilities of Poser 9, new morph target creation tools, weight mapping, and the like, it is possible to create characters and images that look absolutely lifelike. I was able with a little experimentation with lighting, textures, bump, subsurface scattering, and so on, able to create figures that looked very nearly like real people; it is absolutely amazing!
Poser 9 supports all the earlier versions of Poser including lighting sets, scenes, figures and characters created in earlier versions, textures, etc. So if you like a character that you created in an earlier version of Poser, you can import the character into P9 and work with it very easily. You can also import complete scenes into P9 and these scenes will benefit from the use of the new rendering capabilities.
The difference between the Firefly renderer in Poser 5 and that in Poser 9 are striking. Using Poser 5 renderer you can get somewhat realistic renders, but the figures still look like glorified mannequins, but in Poser 9 the subsurface scattering and ambient lighting really does make a difference in the renders. I experimented with both renderers and rendered Poser 5 figures in both and clearly saw the difference.
I tried working with Poser 5 figures in Poser 9 and I was able to get very realistic renders of Poser 5 figures using the Poser 9 renderer and even Poser 5 figures look very good and even they can approach looking like real persons. I made a series of renders of a character I created in Poser 5, based on Poser 5 meshes and textures, and by tweaking the material settings, and using bump maps, ambient lighting, and subsurface scattering settings, I was utterly stunned at how realistic my Poser 5 character looked. She looked very nearly like a real person -- even in close up renders. Even Poser 4 and older third party figures look very good using these same techniques.
Poser includes nearly all figures from earlier versions, including Poser 8, Poser 7, Poser 6, and Poser 5. Even some Poser 4 and 3 figures are included. And if that is not enough, you can add into the Poser 9 libraries, the libraries from earlier Poser versions, including original figures and created characters that are not included with the default Poser 9 set. There is a good set of props, and animals, many new, that are also included with Poser 9.
One particularly new feature in Poser 9 is the new morph target creation tool. ( I don't know what version this was first introduced in Poser, but it is indeed a powerful morph creation tool.) Now you can actually generate morph targets directly within Poser without having to go to another 3D modeling application such as Carrara, or using magnets or other deformers in Poser, which is how you created morph targets in earlier versions of Poser. Using sculpting tools, you can actually create the morph targets, modeling them on the figure itself directly, and then save them to the figure's parameter settings. And you don't have to worry about body part boundaries, you can sculpt morph targets over multiple body parts and save them all as parameter settings, or, I think, even as full body morphs. Of course, you can still use magnets and other deformers to morph or deform figures in Poser, and you can still export body parts to Carrara or another modeler that supports .obj format and morph target exporting, modify them and export the modifications as morph targets to Poser. The sculpting tools in Poser do have some limitations, so in some cases, it may be necessary to use this method to create some types of morph targets. (Update: 12/08/2013) I have been lately working with Project Human third party figures, included in Poser 9, and even Poser 4 figures and experimenting with textures, bump mapping, and morph target creation tool. The morph tool works very well for Poser 4 figures to smooth out joints in deep bending poses in the arms and knees.
There are a number of improvements in P9 too, including support for larger image files, more support for different file types, I haven't noticed too many bugs in P9.(**See my Update comment below on bugs.) Poser 9 also has a talk designer which now allows you so lip synch characters' speech without having to pose the mouth and lips manually. This is a great time saver and makes it easier to animate speech. Animating the characters' mouths manually to imported sound was a chore. I did it one time for a speaking character and it takes a great deal of work and time to animate the mouth and lips to sound manually. The hair works better too and looks more realistic than in P5. There are some slight adjustments and improvements in the interface, too, such as multiple undo levels in case you make a mistake. (Poser 5 had only one undo level.)
Another capability of Poser, especially later editions of Poser including Poser 9, is that you can integrate very well with Carrara. Even with Carrara 3 and Poser 5, there was some integrating capability. You could use Carrara to generate morph targets for Poser. Now there is much greater integration. Not satisfied with a Poser 9 render of your Poser scene? Not to worry. You can now import your Poser 9 scene into Carrara 8 and render the scene using Carrara's powerful render engine and include caustics, volumetrics, and lens flares, which the Poser 9 render engine does not support. You can even export individual Poser figures directly to Carrara to pose and then you can make models to add with your Poser figure in Carrara. With greater integratability of Poser with Carrara it opens whole new possibilities.
Of course, in this review forum, one commenter stated that Poser is very much "poseur". Well, Poser can sometimes leave you scratching your head as in a "poser." You have to read the manual and experiment to learn things in Poser. And perhaps it may be a bit of pretense on the advertiser's part that you can easily create characters in Poser, press a few buttons, and magically you will create instant lifelike human like characters -- hence "poseur." Not exactly. Poser still must be learned even version 9. It is not very intuitive, and you won't create characters instantly. I am still learning about Poser even though I have both Poser 5 and Poser 9. But if you are willing to take the time and work with it and experiment, you may be surprised at what you can do with it. I like to play around with the software and experiment. I play around with textures, lighting, the figures themselves and everything to see exactly what I can do with it. That is the only way you learn Poser. You can't be afraid to make mistakes. And of course, back up your work, and keep backups of your original Poser figures handy in case you accidentally modify one of the default figures irreparably. Make multiple copies of your projects saving a new version of the project each time you do something that you like, and then if the program crashes or if you get to a point where you can't fix a problem, you can go back to an earlier version without having to start all over again.
My hard copy of Poser 5 user's manual is worn out. And I frequently consult the digital manual for Poser 9. Yes, you do have to read and consult the manuals if you want to learn Poser! But this is true for any 3D modeler. I frequently consult all the manuals for all my modelers. But once you learn the software, it can be fun and you can then let the creativity flow!
Have fun!
Update: 12/08/2013 **********************
I still enjoy Poser, and I am about to upgrade to Poser 10 and will review in this forum.
As for bugs in the Poser 9. I notice that the FBM Hi Res version of James is a bit quirky. I have been having problems texturing it. It seems to mix up textures and eye textures appear on the body of the figure. And the genitalia don't work on the FBM Hi Res version of James.
A more perplexing bug is the disappearing library. This did not occur when I first got it, but happened only recently. When you open P9, the library (if you have it checked to appear) does not appear, instead leaving the blank white area, and a busy sign if you mouse over the area, where the library is supposed to be, or an empty grey area. And then if you try to go to the Content Room, Poser crashes. I did some research, and it seems that it is a fairly common problem. It occurs in Poser 8, Poser 9, Poser Pro 2012, and I think Poser 10 and Pro 2014. According to what I have read, there appears to be some degree of incompatibility with Poser and Internet Explorer (in particular Explorer 11). The reason for this is because Poser library uses some of the Internet Explorer functions. Some resolved the problem by rolling back to an earlier edition of Internet Explorer, such as Explorer 10. Some say, including Smith Micro, to also update your Flash player. I resolved it by updating Poser. I downloaded the SR3.2 upgrade and installed it, and the problem went away. Perhaps the update includes a patch for the IE 11 incompatibility problem.
****** Update and additional information.
Minimum hardware requirements:
I have upgraded to Poser Pro 2014 (reviewed in this forum) on my main machine, took the older versions off and since have installed Poser 9 and Poser 10 (both reviewed here) on two older machines and I began to notice issues with the programs related to performance on older and smaller machines.
If you choose to get any version of Poser, Poser 9, Poser Pro 2012, Poser 10, or Poser Pro 2014, you should be aware that all these versions of Poser work best on powerful machines. Poser is a memory hog and its features use a lot of processing cycles. I was able to get Poser to work on older machines such as an HP Pavilion with 2 GB RAM, with ATI Raedon video card with 256 MB VRAM, and a 2.6 GHz duo core processor, and a refurbished Dell computer with 4 GB RAM, and Nvidia card with 512 MB VRAM, and about 3.0 quad core processor. Both computers running Win XP Pro. But readers should be aware that with the addition of strand based hair and other features and when building complex scenes in any version of Poser, can become a problem with any but powerful machines. Both real time performance and rendering can suffer when you have large scenes in Poser and you are using a small or older machine.
It is possible to run these versions of Poser on older and smaller machines, but you will have to economize in order to be able to use it and get as much out of it as you can. See my review on Poser Pro 2014 for tips as to how you can economize your machine and its memory and processing resources to be able to use any of these later editions of Poser. Also the Poser manual has tips for how to adjust settings for rendering images, if you are having trouble rendering images. If you have anything less than 2 GB of RAM, forget it.
When I first gave reviews of Poser 9 and 10, I was using a computer with no less than 16 GB of RAM, a Nvidia video card with 2 GB VRAM, and a 3.6 GHz quad core with two threads per core for a total of eight virtual cores with Win 7 Home Premium and I had no problem running or using Poser 9, 10 or Pro 2014, either during the creation of scenes or rendering. (And I have since upgraded memory on my machine to 32 GB RAM and my OS to Win 8.1. and am now running Poser Pro 2014.) But problems arose when I installed my older versions of Poser onto the older machines. I began to have issues with rendering.
Smith Micro gives minimum system requirements that are far less than what you really need to run Poser and also be able to use its advanced features to full advantage. The specs they give are only to get the program onto the machine and just run it with the bare minimum.
What would I recommend as minimum requirements to use Poser 9 or Poser 10? No less than 8 GB RAM, a decent video card with at least 1 GB VRAM, and although you can get away with a 2.6 duo core processor, faster processors give better real time performance when posing figures in complex scenes. I would recommend at least a quad core processor of no less than 2.5 GHz speed. Of course, the more cores and more GHz speed the better. Poser 9 and 10 are 32 bit, so you can use them on all 32 bit operating systems. I would recommend no less than Win 7 Home, Win 8. Win Vista should work. Win XP Pro works, but you really need to be able to use up to 16 GB RAM efficiently; I don't like XP's handling of RAM. Poser Pro editions are 64 bit, but they also support 32 bit platforms. With any of the Poser Pro editions, you probably need no less than 16 GB RAM.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2014Platform For Display: PC/Mac DiscVerified PurchaseI wish I would have listened to everone else. 7 was the last good version of Poser but I thought I'd go to 9 so I could import the latest Daz characters, because I hate Daz Studio, even thought it's free. Well that didn't work and neither did the cr2 editor. It corrupted the Poser 9 content window, which is now dynamic. Who's the idiot that thought going to a dynamic window was a great idea. It does save data space for the program...when it works. Unfortuniety it works when it feels like it. Maybe after some tweaking it will operate correctly or maybe Poser will build a DSON importer. Then again maybe DAZ will wise up and rebuild Studio to work like Poser, or go back to designing content for us ancient Poser users. Both companies are only hurting their sales by playing these stupid compatibility games. It's like MAC vs the PC all over again.