Poser v. DazStudio to animate

For someone learning animation, would Poser v5 give any advantage or disadvantage compared with DazStudio v2.3, or later when they become skilled. Recently I became interested in animations and found out that Poser and DazStudio are used to make them. I already have Poser v5, used it for a short while to render scenes a few years ago, so it's a little different than someone having to buy it for the first time. I'm considering either pulling Poser out of retirement or to download the latest version of DazStudio; but I never considered them before as an animation tool, and am unfamiliar with its strengths and weaknesses to animate. One other concern is that I've updated my equipment, I'm using Windows Vista home edition, I don't even know if I can still run Poser v5.

I have never used Daz Studio, but you can run Poser under Vista - however it is unsupported and you cannot get help if you have problems. The Poser installer does not work under Vista - to install you have to open the folders and run the executable manually. Hope this helps a bit.

I haven't used DAZ for long, but it's free and has tons of content free as well. It has a "fake" Poser directory in it's own directory tree. I installed Poser 3 in that directory, and now I use both programs without duplicating the content. It's amazing. I still need Poser for animated backgrounds, but DAZ is powerful. The tutorials on Youtube are quick and revealing. The animation tools in DAZ are outstanding.

hey!

i use DazStudio for my poses/animations and logo design.
daz has powerful animation tools build in and can import/export .bvh and .obj. - its worth to give it a try.

I heard mixed preferences when I have looked for animation software to focus on using. I Heard some one say they liked qavimator more than Poser for Sl, it was faster to get an animation out of for them. I have used DAZ and Qavimator. Each seem to not be able to read the others .bhv file and I suspect it is due to settings DAZ has on constraints or some such thing.

Which brings me to my next issue, and why I end up using Qavimator, is that DAZ has a lot of settings and is a much a larger and more complex program. The interface is ok, but it takes a while to load up. BUT, all that extra time brings some cool extra features and more than one way to help pose things. You may hate Qavimator, and also a paticular methodin DAZ. But you have a few options in DAZ. It has a cool 'ragdoll' posing feature (that is what I am calling it, I think that is a term commonly used for it though) which allows you to just click and hold on a limb part and then drag and the whole a limb will move with it and eventually the whole body. The advantage and speed of this are easy to see!

You also need to download the avatar files for Poser or DAZ from LL but Qavimator is SL specific and loads right up with a avatar right there. Both can have primitive props built in the animation environement, if you wish to use props. Qavimator's build tools are not the same as SL, use different measuring units but do make basic prims and allow to build props. I think I built one box in DAZ and then delted it, so I can't tell you much about primitive building in it.

BUT, with DAZ, you could export sculpties or primitive shape objects from Blender, as a obj or other regular 3D file, load the whole build into DAZ, re size and then pose around the actually object or a primitive size 'template' sort of thing. So if you work with sculpts DAZ could be a HUGE advantage. Blender will have some avatar features that may outdo DAZ, but that is a work in progress still.


DAZ =larger loading time but more features and more ways of doing things and some things and could be great for sculptie builders.

Qavimator = lower learning curve, if you read a bit first(you need to with DAZ to!) and will load fast and let you work. Simplified view lets you see everything and is easy to understand.

At the end of the day, you are moving limbs so the frames and it is not to complex of a thing. Most of the work will look like heck unless your best tool, your mind, is working well!