Poser 5, 6, 7

The route I have decided to go on to create my animations is via the in-world pose generator, Mannequin, then transfer the created bvh files via the Mannequin email facility to my hard-drive (as I think creating poses in Mannequin is way easier than in Qanimator), then turn the poses into animations.

I therefore need an external editor to interpolate between the poses. From what I have read, Poser can do this. So my next, and hopefully last step, is to acquire Poser, but which version?

I have read that Poser 6 and 7 are not compatible with SL, and a Python script is required to do this. Using a python script is not the end of the world, but are there any features in Poser 6 and 7 (just for animations) that are a 'must-have' over version 5?

Can anyone please confirm that Poser 5 can do interpolations between poses?

In the UK the price of Poser from www.amazon.co.uk currently is:

Poser 7: New UKP149.99
Poser 6: New UKP99.43
Poser 5: New UKP349.99; Other suppliers UKP79.98

Any advice on purchasing Poser also very welcome.

Regards

Rock

I'm not sure where you heard that Poser 6 and 7 aren't compatible, they should work fine. However, there really is no advantage to the later versions if all you are doing is SL animation; note that I am using Poser 4, and my work is pretty good if I do say so myself. That price is kinda high; it shouldn't be hard to find Poser 5 for like $50 US.

I use poser 5 myself and it's just fine, but the workflow you describe would work equally well with Qavimator or Daz Studio (both free). Certainly Qavimator is much easier for a beginner than Poser. I must say I'm VERY impressed by the new version of Daz Studio, especially its implementation of Inverse Kinematics (you can pin any bone or bones in a variety of ways, and even set the stiffness of individual joints), and the Powerpose and Puppeteer tools. Have you tried it yet Johan?

I've used Poser 4, 5, and 7. While there are vast improvements between 4 and 7, I can't think of any that make a great impact on animations that you'd do for Second Life. I'd agree that a cheap copy of an earlier version should work fine for your purposes.

Hi Johan,

I read these forums before making my post, and it has been stated many times that Poser 6 and 7 are not compatible with SL, and that a patch needs to be downloaded from the official site (just search this forum for the word 'patch').

Here is the Article from the Poser website:

http://www.e-frontier.com/article/articleview/1393/1/595/

Do you have any examples of sources for $50 Poser 5?

Rock

I use poser 6 all the time with no issues. And as user of Poser since Version 2, i can assure you that every version of Poser needs patches (they don't have a track record for stellar stability)

Thanks for that Darien. As a newbie to animations I got my info concerning the probs with Poser 6 and 7 from this QAvimator thread,

http://forum.qavimator.org/viewtopic.php?t=320

It seems that nobody in that thread had much good to say about Poser for SL work, but as it was the QAvimator forum that may not be so surprising.

The main reason that I have decided on Poser (and on Poser 5 for its cheapness, and the lack of any 'must haves' in versions 6 and 7 for SL animation work) as opposed to QAvimator, is that I could find NO info on QAvimator for interpolation between poses, whereas I found lots of info on interpolation in the Poser (Version 7 demo download) help files. Whatever the pros and cons of QAvimator v Poser for SL work, without good documentation so much valuable time is wasted, and I think on documentation Poser wins hands-down.

The QAvimator forum is poorly attended, and many posts asking for help have gone unanswered. The Poser forums by contrast are very well attended, with numerous replies and threads. So as time is my enemy, it is Poser for me.

Rock

I use Poser 7 to make animations, and it works just fine. No compatibility problems, it seems to export .bvh files just fine, and Second Life seems to read the .bvh files just fine.

Having now read the Poser support articles myself now. It appears that from Poser 6 onwards they changed the format of the bvh files and people then complained that the bvh files no longer worked correctly in SL. The company then issued a quick fix, via a python script, that took out the extra data in the bvh file that was causing the problem.

The fix is now installed permanently when Poser does its automatic updating, but I think that the incompatibility problem is still there if you use Poser 6 or 7 'out of the box' without any updates being loaded.

Rock