» Poser 8
By Smith Micro Software Inc.
Buy new : $199.99
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- Poser 8 is an affordable, powerful, yet easy to use 3D character animation solution
- Includes 3D character tools and over 2.5GB of ready to use scene content and figures; no need to model 3D characters from scratch
- Includes 8 brand new, ready-to-pose, fully textured human figures with over 400 morphs and body controls to fully customize each character
- Renders photorealistic or stylized images and videos for print, web or animation projects
- With included Wardrobe Wizard, fit your Poser clothing assets to the new Poser 8 figures
- Product Description
Easily Create 3D Character Art and Animation. - Amazon.com Product Description
Poser 8 is the world's most complete solution for creating art and animation with 3D characters. With Poser, it's easy to make 3D art. Poser includes over 2.5 gigabytes of ready-to-pose human and animal figures, textures, props and 3D scene elements. Generate new characters from your facial photographs. Add hair and clothing. Dress Poser's virtual stage with props, lights and cameras to build 3D scenes. Animate and render your scene into photorealistic images and video for web, print, and film projects. Export 3D figures to add characters to other 3D applications. Artists, hobbyists, illustrators and animators--get creative with Poser!
Poser 8's easy to use interface makes it easy to create 3D character images and animation. Click to enlarge.
Easily Create 3D Character Art and Animation
Poser 8 is better than ever
Along with 8 brand new 3D humans, Poser 8 includes an improved user interface to maximize your workspace while providing better workflow, a new search-enabled library so you can find, organize and use your content easier, a dependant parameter tool that lets you teach objects in the scene to interact with each other, cross body morph brushes to smoothly sculpt a figure across every body part, new photorealistic rendering features that more accurately reproduce light and shadows, and improved character rigging for even better character bending. To save time, Poser 8 has been performance optimized so you can pose your characters and render them faster on today's multiple processor systems.Poser 8 includes:
All Poser's included figures and 3D content are fully textured using our powerful node-based shader system. Click to enlarge.
Turn your 3D scene into an artistic sketch using Poser 8's sketch designer. Click to enlarge.
Automatically generate animated figures that can walk or run through your 3D scene. Click to enlarge.
Poser 8's powerful cloth engine lets you transform any object or clothing prop into dynamic cloth that stretches, drapes and flows naturally, even over an animated figure. Click to enlarge.
With Poser you can produce photorealistic images and animations, or render in styles including cartoon tones, sketch renderings, silhouettes, wireframes and even Flash. Click to enlarge.
Import a spoken word sound file, and with the included Talk Designer, your Poser 8 figures will speak in sync with the sound. Click to enlarge.
8 new figures
The new set of eight 3D humans included with Poser 8 are the most advanced figures ever included with the application, and are a showcase for new Poser 8 features. Built from scratch, the figures are performance optimized for the polygon count and have custom photorealistic textures. Rigged using Poser 8's new multiple sphere and capsule fall off zone technology, problematic joints such as hips and shoulders now bend with more realism than any figure on the market. By using the new Dependent Parameter tool to link deformers to specific joint positions, areas such as knees, elbows, chest and collar joints have smoother folds, less stretching and more realism. The new Poser 8 figures are offered in four pairs of male/female couples with European features, African features, Asian features and Hispanic features. The Poser 8 new figures are fully compliant with the Face Room, the Walk Designer and Talk Designer, and via the use of Wardrobe Wizard, much of the included legacy clothing content has been converted to work directly on the figures.~1.5GB of new Poser 8 Content
In addition to the new set of figures, Poser 8 includes an array of new content supplied by third party partners as well content created by the Smith Micro team of 3D artists. A new art-school inspired default manikin opens each new scene, and will serve as a remarkable reference figure for artists. Fully articulated human skeletons that match the male and female figures body topology are included. Various new poses, animations, light sets, props, and accessories to help new users get started are included in the Poser 8 content installer. Poser 8 also includes an additional 1.5GB of legacy Poser 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 content.New User Interface
Poser 8 offers a new evolved user interface, preserving the elements that Poser users are accustomed to, while presenting them in a more concise layout that takes better advantage of various screen resolutions. The new layout produces a cleaner work environment so artists can focus on the project. All controls are presented in floating palettes that can be docked for consistency, session to session, or floated to free up space.Dependent Parameters
Poser 8 unlocks an advanced user secret with the new Dependent Parameter palette. Poser 8 lets the artist create new Master Parameters or turn any existing Parameter into a Master Parameter that can drive any other editable parameters in the scene. Complex interactions can be created such as Full Body Morphs, Partial Body Morphs, Advanced Body Controls, Joint Controlled Morph Targets, Joint Controlled Deformers and Parameter Controlled Scene Assets.Indirect Lighting
By bouncing light and color from object to adjacent object in a scene, Poser 8's Global Illumination system can render images that appear so realistic they can fool the untrained eye into thinking the images are photos rather than 3D renderings.OpenGL Preview Improvements
Preview now displays up to 8 lights and their accumulated values, sorted by intensity. The light properties controller allows you to select each light you wish to illuminate in the scene preview.Content Management System / Library
The new library presents content by category, but with a tighter list view with expanding previews and additional data for each content item. Content items can be loaded into the scene using the traditional Poser UI controls or can now be dragged directly from the Library into the scene. The Poser 8 Library also supports keyword search. Type in a keyword to find exactly what you looking for. Add any selected items to your favorites.Cross Body Part Morph Creation
With Poser 8 comes a significant improvement to the current Morphing Tool. Now you can dial in a Morph Brush and paint morphs across body parts. Easily create effects such as muscle bulges, scales, bumps, horns, veins or wounds; it's only limited by your imagination.
Improved Rigging System
Poser 8 has improved upon the existing joint Falloff Zone rigging system by adding any number of new zones to a joint, while adding a new capsule shape to the existing sphere, and allowing the rigger to either multiply or add the Falloff Zone values. This system will permit figure creators to rig challenging areas such as hips and shoulders with more precision, yielding better bending figures.Tone Mapping and Exposure
Tone Mapping helps control very bright and dark areas in an image to produce better, less blown out final renderings with deeper contrast. The feature is very useful, helping to bring the brightest areas back into a reproducible range. Two modes of Tone Mapping are available for differing effects: Exponential Tone Mapping and HSV Tone Mapping. Exposure values are editable when either Exponential or HSV Tone Mapping is selected.Physically Correct Light Falloff
For Spot and Point lights, Poser 8 lets users attenuate (control) falloff to more closely reproduce real-world light behaviors. Constant falloff replicates the previous Poser behavior, and Inverse Linear and Inverse Square add two new methods for getting light to appear more realistic.Normal Mapping
Normal Mapping is a resource-efficient technique to add the appearance of complexity and surface detail to 3D objects. It can transform object surfaces, making them appear more intricate than they actually are, without the added overhead of polygonal detail. This saves designers valuable time and offers increased creative flexibility by allowing faster and more light-weight computation of rendered results.Performance Optimizations
- Figure/Actor pre-lighting and picking
- Bending on multi-core/multi-processor hardware
- Improved multi-processor support for better scalability when rendering
- Cloth simulation multithreaded/optimized
- Increased performance for opening/handling complex scenes
Poser 8 Uses:
- Professional 3D graphics professionals
- 3D Hobby/Enthusiast Market
- Comic book / graphic novel creators
- General Purpose 3D Users
- Upgrade Poser Users
- Art Students
- Traditional Artists/Sculptors
Poser provides a number of professional users with a fast, easy to access resource for 3D humans, animals, and other scene assets. Professional users include: Architectural illustrators, industrial designers, medical illustrators, graphic designers, editorial illustrators, book illustrators, informational graphics, advertising illustration, web illustration, interactive content, story boarding, lighting and theatrical set designers, film/video production
3D hobbyists and enthusiasts who dabble in 3D for personal satisfaction, experiment with Poser to gain 3D experience, and may use Poser to expand into new careers, or create a graphic novel, sci-fi art, fantasy art, or develop a screen play.
Comic book creators and graphic novelists use Poser render images and animations to create their own titles. Single images, multiple page comics and graphic novels delivered via print and digital media are a great use of Poser.
If you work with other 3D applications such as Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, Modo, Lightwave, Truespace, Bruce, or Vue; Poser is a perfect way to include 3D character content you're your projects.
Art students looking to gain practical 3D animation experience hone their skills working with Poser characters as part of course work, in art school classes or for extra-curricular experience.
- Don't bother!

I was excited for Poser 8, but it's been NOTHING except a nightmare. I'm only giving it two stars because it does render things, albeit very slowly.
The program hogs system resources, dragging my MBP down to a crawl (4GB RAM, i7 -- though it did it on my 4GB MBP Core 2 Duo as well) and crashing 40% of the time. The interfaces don't work half the time, or they don't respond, or the program will decide that by selecting a body part, what you REALLY mean is "rotate [x body part] 87 degrees around and bend the abdomen over." There is no way to fix this, and it's not due to the program having Tablet Mode enabled, or not having Tablet Mode enabled and trying to use one--it does it with a regular mouse and a trackpad as well, and the only way to get it to work properly again is to quit and restart Poser 8.
Poser 8 is buggy and unstable, cumbersome, and has a tendency to delete morphs you've made--meaning that when you reload a saved character, all that hard work you put into him or her is GONE. Poof. Vanished. You have to rebuild it. The program also ignores a lot of input, such as moving the toes from side to side. The SR3 pack only made things WORSE, not better; for example it increased the frequency of the "LOL jerk your parts around" bug.
Going back to Poser 7, thanks. And not particularly excited for Poser 9, whenever it arrives, if this is what they consider an "upgrade!" Hey, Smith Micro! Why don't you wait and release the FINAL version of your products? This is obviously just a test copy that you all were passing back and forth for further development. God, I wish that were the case.
EDIT: Have Poser 7 running again with my Poser 8 runtime set as the default, and WOW! What a difference! It's rare that downgrading to an older version of software is beneficial to the user, but this is definitely one of those cases for me.
There are a few downsides, such as having to move multiple interface pieces to check photo refs, and the inability to refresh folders (one of the things I liked about Poser 8 save that they refreshed so slowly), but it's all worth it to be able to have an actual workflow again. I'm sure that Poser 8 has certain advantages that make it a worthwhile transition for some people, such as greater animation flexibility, better lighting systems, and so on, but for most it's probably going to cause more problems than it will solve.
If you have 7, stick with it! There's no content that comes with 8 that's really worth having, since Poser 7 handles all of the fourth generation DAZ figures just fine. - Poser is Turning 3d Animation into a Pretty Good Hobby for Me

I love this program, but I feel I have to mention that when they say you can "easily create 3D character art and animation," that that's a bit of a misnomer. For me there was a long learning curve, but it was worth it. The interface doesn't get in the way of your creation and that's good. The program doesn't hog up my computer and that's good, too.
I've had the program for a couple months now and worked with it for maybe a half hour on average every day and now I feel that I'm well on my way into being a novice. There is plenty of help for you online and I needed it. I'm pretty jealous of the people who said they were able to "get" the program after of week of messing around with it, because that certainly wasn't the case with me.
But I've had a lot of fun with Poser and I can see that if you're into 3D animation that this would be a good program for you. I'll never use this professionally and I never would have purchased it for myself, but I was lucky enough to get a review copy and I have to say it's turning into a pretty good hobby for me. - A step up, tho still your typical 'Poser'

I have experience with both Poser 4 and 7, so I know the typical ways Poser is treated and supported by it's creators. Rather than give a "It's great/ it sucks" review, I'll show you what I feel are the pros and cons compared to my experience in past versions.
The short version: Works just as well as past Poser programs. If you're new and willing to learn, buy a 'how to' book and you will love it. If you're an old pro, this iteration will treat you just as well as it's predecessors, plus new shiny things to play with.
Pros:
--Updated UI allows for better freedom with new functionality to windows by 'floating them'. Floated windows overlap so you can devote more real estate on screen to what you need.
--Newer content and along with the older 'freebies' that have come with Poser through the ages.
--Faster renders
--Handles ERC/Easypose enabled figures better than 7.
I will state right now that I have not come anywhere near using the full capabilities of Poser 8 yet, but the aforementioned Pros stand out the best to me. And now, the...
Cons:
--MASSIVE resource hog results in slower performance the longer the program runs/more the program renders. Cache clearing does not seem to do much to remedy this problem. Clearing the undo cache helps a bit and closing/restarting Poser helps a bit more. Restarting your PC works best.
--Simply dragging items/folders from my old library into the new seems to have corrupted several files. While Poser 8 continues to recognize and attempt to use them, I have had to reinstall several DAZ 3D products in order to get proper functionality. Most common corruption has been geometries responding strangely to morph injections... either auto-scaling during application or deactivating all other morphs on injection while keeping morph values active.
--UI does take some getting used to. Small personality quirks in the system can sometimes cause frustration (after zooming, attempting to pan the camera causes it to zoom. you actually need to double click the pan to get Poser 8 to recognize that you now want to pan instead of zoom.)
--They STILL cannot, for some reason, give a PROPER up-to-date help file! This is, what, the 3rd company to produce a version of Poser now and they are STILL just adding new features to the Poser 4 help file without updating the info on updated features. Get a 'How to' book if you're wanting to actually learn the program.
--STABILITY. You're doing it wrong. Even after updating to SR3, the program still crashes on me at least once or twice during a complex character build. And I'm not even using the higher functions like dynamic hair or cloth. Doesn't crash in the same spots as 7 did, but still crashes. Save and save often. - Hard to Learn, But it Looks Worth the Effort

Others have said it, but I'll repeat it, this program requires effort, but I think in the end it'll have been worth it. I know it took me forever to get friendly with Photoshop. I am nowhere near being friendly with Poser, but I don't think it's any harder to learn, though it looks like it might be a bit tedious creating animations. Tedious, but interesting. So far I've just done faces, no actual animations.
If you get this program there is a multitude of models and other content you can download from their site (Content Paradise), though sadly they all come with a price tag, usually between ten and fifteen dollars. And even sadder still, the tutorials on their website cost more, they are pricy. Fortunately there are a lot of free tutorials on You Tube. I've watched some of them, but so far they are beyond me.
All in all, I think this is probably a five star program, but I have a long, long way to go before I can truly evaluate it. I'll come back and update this review when Poser and I are a little more friendly. - Robust software which is not for the faint of heart

I've been in the IT profession for many, many years. I have not done professional video production, but I have edited many home and small business videos, and consider myself fairly tech savvy having used Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator with ease. I figured I would try my hand at some rudimentary video animation.
Not so fast.
I found this program EXTREMELY difficult to use and, judging from the other reviews, I am not alone in this opinion. If you have little to no previous experience with animation software, I would suggest you start with something else or take a class for this, if you can find one. For those of you more daring, good luck to you.
Considering the option sets I've seen, and parts of the tutorials I've read, it is a very versatile piece of software. Unfortunately, I could not give it all the credit it probably deserves. It's just too difficult to use.

