Poser (software)

Poser
	File:Poser6ui.JPG User interface of Poser 6
Developer(s)	e frontier
Stable release	7 / Autumn 2006
Operating system	Mac OS X, Windows
Type	3D computer graphics
License	Proprietary
Website	http://www.e-frontier.com

Poser is a 3D rendering and animation software program optimized for models that depict the human figure in three-dimensional form.

Overview

"Dharma Juggler", by Gunther Berkus, 1997. Early Poser 1 / Bryce composite image. The original Poser wireframe image has been enhanced using Adobe Photoshop.

Poser is a 3D rendering software package for the posing, animating and rendering of 3D polymesh human and animal figures. Akin to a virtual photography studio, Poser allows the user to load actors, props, lighting and cameras for still and animated renderings. Natively using a subset of the Alias object (OBJ) file format and a text-based markup for content files, Poser comes with a basic library of human, animal, robotic, and cartoon figures. Poser also includes poses, hair pieces, props, textures, hand gestures and facial expressions. As Poser does not allow for original modeling of objects, a large community market of merchants and artists creating, selling and marketing third-party Poser content emerged.

Poser is available in English, Japanese, German and French for both Windows and Macintosh platforms.

The current version, 7.0, was released on December 11, 2006.^[1]

Features

Poser 6.0 comes with a host of features such as the inclusion of "Primitive" zygotes; spheres, cubes and other shapes at both low and high resolution. As with Poser 5.0, it is compatible with 3ds Max, LightWave and Maya, which enables Poser 6.0 to render more than simply people. Indeed, Poser has become almost limitless in the characters it can render. As a result of its huge 3rd Party Community, many models are available such as spaceships, aliens, weapons and other such instruments.

Community

Poser has a large and avid following at a high number of online sites, and due to the inability to perform 3D model creation inside the application, an ecostructure has grown up around the trade and sales of ready-made Poser content. As a subculture in its own right, the Poser market has spawned a number of individuals known by their high-resolution human figures, and photographic quality skin "texture's" that can be applied to the models within Poser. Also there is now a vast catalog of props and scenes, both historical and fantasy in nature, as well as various animals, dragons, and other creatures, along with many photrealistic buildings and other real world, and fantasy, objects..

Library

The Poser 7 package comes with many already-installed features that do not have to be purchased at an online store. These are stored in the "Library." The Library includes:

Figures, which contains human, animal, cartoon, dinosaur, insect, wildlife, and many other figures that have a multitude of animation tools to work with.
Poses. There are poses for almost every figure, and there are many human poses from sleeping to picking something up to fighting.
Expressions, which contains any expression imaginable, or close to it.
Hair, which has many types of hairstyles to place on the characters.
Props,which contains objects like clothes and chairs.
Lights, which contains many ways to light your scene.
Cameras, which contains many camera angles.

Program History

Poser was created by artist and programmer Larry Weinberg, as a software replacement for artist's mannequins. Versions 1.0 and 2.0 were published by Fractal Design; in 1997, Fractal Design was acquired by MetaCreations, and Poser's interface was redesigned by MetaCreations' Phil Clevenger for release as Poser 3 in 1998. This interface has remained as the basis for all subsequent versions. In 1999, MetaCreations sold Poser to egi.sys AG, who established the subsidiary Curious Labs, with Larry Weinberg as CEO, to handle Poser development and publication. Curious Labs, and Poser, were sold to the current publisher, e frontier, in 2003.

Version	Release date	Publisher	Improvements / Notes
1.0	1995	Fractal Design	Initial release
2.0	1996	Fractal Design	Ability to add props Animation High resolution models
3.0	1998	MetaCreations	New user interface Facial posing and animation Human figures with jointed fingers: Poser users often nicknamed these man and woman models "Dork" and "Posette" respectively.
4.0	1999	MetaCreations	Natural-media sketch renderer Figure sculpting via deformers Transparent mode for materials
4.0.3	September 1999	Curious Labs	Markup path names made to use relative paths Currently sold as entry level Poser Artist
Pro Pack	February 2000	Curious Labs	Add on pack for Poser 4 Implementation of Python scripting, Custom figure rigging Ability to host Poser scenes in 3ds max, Lightwave 3d, and Cinema 4D. No longer available
5.0	2003	Curious Labs	FireFly Reyes/ray tracing renderer Dynamic hair and cloth Collision detection
6.0	March 2005	Curious Labs / e frontier	OpenGL Hardware acceleration Image-based lighting, Ambient Occlusion Cartoon outline rendering effects Inclusion of "Primitives" Zygote Props
7.0	December 2006	e frontier	Simon and Sydney (new AdultG2 male and female figures) Wildlife including eagle and wolf Updates to Ben and Kate the Poser Child figures with new morphs, textures and rigging New motion capture data, light sets, poses, and materials Talk Designer for lip-sync animation Multiple Undo/Redo Multithreaded rendering High dynamic range imaging Brush morphing Animation Layers Universal Poses for bipedal figures, with automatic conversion of Poser 1-6 poses Streamlined access to Runtime libraries

References

^ Poser 7 press release

External links

e Frontier America Publisher/Developer of Poser
Content Paradise Source of Poser Content
Whatever3D Search engine for Poser Content
Rendosity Community for Poser enthusiasts

[1] Poser 7 press release

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