Poser 6 (Mac)

If you've not used a program like this before it's best to imagine it as a kind of virtual photography/film studio. Unlike other 3d software, you're not expected to create models yourself, there is a large set that come with the package and there are many, many more that can be purchased on-line. Like the photographer, you choose your set, arange your props, pose your models (choosing their wardrobe and hairstyle), set up the lighting, position your camera, set the focal length, and then render the picture. Snap! These images may stand as they are or provide the base material to take into a paint program for further work. It is an excellent tool for illustrators and artists on a budget - nothing this powerful in 3d comes close to this price. You can also produce animations which can be output in avi format or FLASH.

All the old features are here from Poser 5, with dynamic hair much improved upon. The Cloth is about the same but good nontheless. The best new tricks are in the rendering. New point lights make lighting much easier, Image Based Lighting creates photoreal environments, ambient occlusion adds all those little shadows to lift the image into true 3d feel. Sub surface scattering is now available, making skin ever more real.

All the old models are here, some gathering dust since Poser 3. There is, of course, a new set of human figures that are the best Poser defaults to date. They are not without faults but they have plenty of strengths, particularly with regards to their faces - the P5 people were just plain ugly.

Another inclusion from Poser 5 is the Content Paradise. This is a portal to an on-line store to purchase new content. When launched with P5, there was a lot of annoyance about it, this time nobody seems to mind - they've actually done a rather nice job of it and there's a free model every week just to keep folk happy. One of the content produces most central to the Poser community has been missed out from the CP line up, that is DAZ: you can find them here: www.daz3d.com

The reason for their ommision is probably because they are developing a rival program called DAZ Studio that they are offering free. However, if you are serious about using this kind of software, DAZ Studio doesn't cut it. It lacks a lot of functionality and rendering tricks that you will have to pay for latter.

The manual is rather well written this time but if you have trouble with it, there is a wealth of on line support from communities where people fall over themselves to help if they can!

All in all, I would say that this is an excellent buy and at this price, you can't go wrong.

However, it is VERY memory intensive - I have 512mb DDR RAM and it can easily take the lions share of that - slowing the system down. Solution - have a machine with a lot of memory - I'd say 1-2gb would be for the best with this program.

The program is quick to load and is fun to use. I wish all the poserer's out there god speed in getting Poser 6.