[tilokani]

I've been through the dilemma of whether Poser is a decent tool (FOR USE OF REFERENCE ONLY) to set up the figures as one does with an artist doll. Is that fair, using a digital doll or would it be considered sorta lame? For example, to set up an intricate pose that you'd normally have trouble with, to use as reference to get the right anatomry, perspective, etc. in place. I find it to be an excellent tool, for this sake only. I just don't know whether it's considered reasonable.
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[Mon]

I'd say it's ok if the result (your painting) benefits from it. But I have yet to see something good come out of that program, prove me wrong... =)

If it's lame or not is really unimportant.

mon
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[gekitsu]

i'm with mon... you can use it but i'm not convinced in any way...

those posered figures always look like they had a stick up their a$$.

lame or not isn't the question... useful or not is. in the industry, i think no one will question your tools as long as your output does its job and you are able to hit deadlines. "whatever does the job" is one of the most iimportant dictums i follow. at present state, poser does not do the job. the time to setup everything the way i would need it, including lights and slight figure manipulations and rendering is enough for at least 40 small sketches (if not more). with poser, you hadn't laid down one stroke at that time while sketching, i should have a quite firm grasp on angles, shapes and form.

[eyewoo]

Sure... why not... you're working with a digital medium and Poser seems to be a cool tool... a high tech version of that bland wooden posing doll.

If you just cut and paste poser figures into your artwork, then I'd cubby hole you into the "Director of Compositions" catagory rather than the "Sketch'n and Paint'n Artist." catagory, but I don't see one as being more or less than the other -- it's just a cubby hole...

There are no rules when it come to art... and there are tons of cubby holes to fill with new ones being discovered every day...
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[tilokani]

I was curious, and I completely have to agree that Poser is lame to the max. Yet, I thought it would be a good variation to a ordinary artist doll. No tracing, cuting and pasting or what not, just to put aside, or on another monitor to look at to use as a reference. I sorta lost my train of thought there, but basically what I'm saying is, using it as a more detailed artist doll.
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[tommyboy73]

Poser is a great tool for figure posing reference provided you use the upgraded figures by DAZ3D (Michael 2 & Victoria 3). It's also a great tool to do complete illustrations as there are so many elements and props that have been developed for it. I know some view Poser as "cheating", but in the real world you use whatever tools are at your disposal to get you the desired effect, otherwise you get used to living poor. If you want to see some awesome Poser work go to www.toxicangel.com. This guy is really amazing with Poser and Photoshop

[cheney]

[Hawktoey]

I am a little biased on this as Poser was my first digital area. One of the design elements\purpose of Poser was in fact to be used as a reference for artist starting in Digital Art.
Toxic Angel is one I know that is quite an excellent example of using Poser for the start. There are a few others but I am at work right now and don't have my links to them available here.
I know it's hard for some to accept this idea. There are plenty of conventional artist that still believe Painting on a computer isn't art. But when one gets right down to it. Art is art no matter what the medium, tools, or experience as long as the person doing it bellieves. What about cartoons? Welding a bunch of scrap pieces of metal you got from the junk yard together? Putting cars on end and submerging them half way into the ground? This is of course only my 2� and being a nub probably really won't matter.

[Zu]

[tilokani]

after starting this discussion a while back, i couldn't help but try to prove myself either right or wrong in my views. However poser would seem to increase productivity, especially in the sense of using such a setup as a double monitor view, it would definately be more easier, and more obtainable than finding a model or resource of similiar type. However, reading through the posts, I kept at it, and realized poser is just a learning 'lack' or something. A sort of weight put on your mind keeping your skill from improving. Firstly the anatomy of the predesigned models, which I found with movies and animations done with 3D also, is that several forms seems unreal. Too unreal, for example the hand. Modeled to be left open, when bent closed in Poser, the bends, folds, and wrinkles don't follow. You'd be better off drawing with trial and error, no ref. used.

http://poserworld.com/MembersGallery/images/046.jpg

This is one example, of something simple, and not done too great. No offense to the composer, or whoever made this. But you can easily distinguish the unrealistic bending of the joints, and the forming, wrinkling, bending and folding of the skin and form. Which of course results in the models not having bones and muscles, which form a foundation. And note, I purposely chose a poser image not done with perfection, which i doubt is possible, because the amount of work one puts into a render in poser to use for reference isn't gonna be a work of art anyway right? Don't know if that makes sense.

Simply, for a reference, one would try to get a quick idea down, which would result in something not as useful. As a result, poser is an iniffecient use of reference compared to anything. Simple reference could be used by looking at body parts in the mirror. And to buy poser, which alot of people "say they do", supposidly not knowing of such p2p programs, would cost just as much as a low-cost camera, which would easily create a better result than poser. Like...9...

Hundred...

Billion times better!!!

Anyway, thanks everyone to add to the discussion. Personally thanking Mon, gekitsu, eyewoo, cheney and zu and others for their full indepth 2 and one half cents.
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[V Shane]

Poser is an excellent source of perspective. And I'll leave it at that. Those who do draw from life would find this invaluable and aren't worried about "the poser look", they can fill in and draw the correct anatomy. Its a tool as any tool, that would be like mocking someone who uses a projecter to do his own art, why not draw it really big? What? you don't ahve 5' arms for that mural (speaking to traditionalists Much in the same way most don't ahve the resources $ or otherwise to consistantly hire models who can't hold poses longer than 10 minutes

A tool just like you wacom. Its digital jsut like that scanner to the sketcher.
Like gears in a watch, as long as you make everything on time and it looks sweet. I wouldn't use raw poser models though for sure.

[spline]

This topic made me browse thrue some of the poser art that is out there. But so far there is only one guy who I think have made anything nice with Poser...

His old work, some based on poser...

http://www.artsforge.com/martin/murphy.html

He now works on ILM...

http://members.allstream.net/~m.murphy/directory.html

But I do think that its okay to use it it only the result that matters, why should it be more lame to use poser than a real model? A real model is ofcourse better in most cases, but its not allways that you can have one...

But you need to know your stuff if you are going to create anything nice by using poser, because it does not give a comlete accurate result.

[Hawktoey]

Okay, like I said I am bias. If it wasn't for Poser I probably would have never gotten back into drawing and the like. There are plenty of people that do well with Poser, though I would say it could be classified maybe as a style...

Anyways there inmo are plenty of people that do use it is for base image and would like to give a few examples.

One is www.toxicangel.com

and plenty more can be found and Renderosity, an artist community that was started with the people using Poser and has expanded to all forms of art.

http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?Sectionid=1&filter_genre_id=0&BestRanking=Yes

The above link should go to Renderosity's Best Viewwd Poser work. Renderosity has a membership of over 100,000 plus.

I do agree that using it without any "post work" in photoshop is not going to give you any realistic renders do to the fact that they are mesh not flesh.

Another artist is Cath and lady that strives for that realism look using Poser her site is www.mec4d.com

As far as setting up and time consumption - every program takes time to learn. Not to many people can just pick up a brush and paint like the greats. There are plenty of files for Poser that could aid it quick setups posing, clothing, textures, and the like that would allow you to set up a scene with little effort. Every part of Poser is configurable. It even allows you to do line drawings/sketch renders.

[amichaels]

The figures in poser look exactly like my little wooden dummy. Neither exactly represents how the human figure actually bends and moves, but they are nice when you are trying to decide on perspective when you are initially putting a composition together. I think poser is a fair refference to use, just like the dummy sitting on my desk. Using actual characters rendered in poser in a finished piece of art is cheesy though.

[Rubber Duck]

Hawktoey: no offense, but all images but one in that renderosity best-of-poser-gallery suck badly.. thats the same problem with bryce.. it just doesn't fit to anythig else by itself.

[Hawktoey]

No offense taken Rubber Duck.
I believe like most here that Poser on it's own sucks, heck most people who use Poser will say it (and it's one of the reasons I am trying to get away from it, wanting to get back to drawing more life like). But to say it's not a decent tool for creating art is just wrong to me. I have seen other artist use it if not for anything else than to show how lighting would be in their image. I have also seen artist using the figures as a basis for their work. It's a digital studio IMHO. I can set the scene, lighting, a figure up in little time. Then I can do many different things to give me a workable output for reference or a starting point. There are numerous poses, figures, and clothing items available for free for this as add-ons. So I can't see where one could go wrong. Real models can run into the thousands of dollars per hour. At that rate Poser is a cheap alternative. One hour at that rate can get one well set for just about any type/style image one wants to create.

[Rubber Duck]

yes, I agree.

[CwStone]

I think poser's great for getting your first sketchs in for your pic. If i had it, i'd use it for composition, perspective, proportions, and maybe basic anatomy of my characters. But i wouldnt use it for an exact ref like a photo or model. If ya did that, your final pic would end up lookin in-human. Id get it sketched out, then draw in the anatomy, hands, and face myself w/o a ref, therefore getting rid of the in-human look. But using a poser model in ur final image is...stupid IMHO.
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[tilokani]

What CwStone stated, is what my idea was originally for using poser. And I've noticed some people insist that with different models, you can get a very life-like reference, just as the photo, or model. However, would you really go through THAT much work, setting it all up as best you can...just to look at it when doing the actual image
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