Poser Blog

Online Poser 8 Training Videos from VTC

Our friends at VTC have posted some great video training resources, and many of them are, wait for it... Free! Served up as either QuickTime or Flash movies, the free offerings include a number of Introductory features, Interface orientation, and a couple of informational 3D primers. They have a collection of more advanced video tutorials which comprise a full blown Poser 8 Online Training Course. It's well worth your time checking out the VTC site to see these videos first hand.

Free Poser stuff from Bagginsbill

Not everyone that uses Poser spends their days combing through online forums to glean useful tidbits and tips. Those that do know the work of "Bagginsbill". Those that don't should.

Ted "Bagginsbill" Czotter has invested a lot of time developing the high art of Poser shaders, rendering techniques, python scripts and various cool props; and best of all, he's posted much of the fruit of that work online, for free. I'd encourage every Poser user that hasn't yet gone to the Bagginsbill website to head over there pronto and download his various Poser aids.

To make it easy, click here and head over to Bagginsbill's website.

Poser Feedback Request

Care to share your thoughts with us about Poser, about how we're doing, or pass along any suggestions or comments? We have an anonymous form that you can use, and so far the suggestions and comments have been great. Please add yours to the list before we close this out on January 4, 2010.

Poser Open Feedback Form

Poser Pro 2010 Beta Program

We are pleased to announce that the Poser Pro 2010 beta program is now open! You'll find a link to the beta program home page below the Important Notes section.

This blog article will be your best source for basic information about the program, containing important beta-related links and will act as a compendium for known issues as they are reported by participants in the beta program. This article will be updated as needed.

Poser Pro 2010 beta overview

Poser Pro 2010 beta is based on a core of Poser 8 functionality which includes indirect lighting, physically correct lights, the new Poser 8 rigging system, dependent parameters, wxPython support, the new library and Poser 8 UI, with the new Poser 8 hardware enhancements throughout. In addition to the Poser 8 core feature set, Poser Pro 2010 beta includes the Pro application's background rendering, network rendering, and 32 bit/64 bit rendering. The full list of Poser Pro 2010 features and upgrade pricing will be announced in early 2010, prior to its release.

Here are the benefits of becoming a Poser Pro 2010 beta user

Work with Poser 8's new features today and use the updated core application features found in the Poser Pro 2010 beta.

Help improve the product by reporting bugs to our engineering team. A webreport form will be available to report any new problems.

Deduct the $129.99 upgrade price of Poser 8 from your purchase of Poser Pro 2010.

Important notes about the Poser Pro 2010 beta

Participation requires both a valid Poser 8 serial number and a valid Poser Pro serial number (Both base and full versions of Poser Pro qualify for participation in the beta)

As this is an optional beta program, no Tech Support or other Customer Support will be provided. Standard SMSI support for Poser 8 or Poser Pro is still in effect, only Poser Pro 2010 beta is without support.

Poser Pro 2010 beta bugs can be reported using our beta web form. A list of known issues will be compiled and listed in this article.

No Poser Pro plug-ins are included with the Poser Pro 2010 beta application, these will only be available in the final shipping version.

Minimal content only is provided with the installer. Add your current Poser runtimes for additional content access.

The installers will create a new Poser Pro 2010 beta application in a unique directory, and will not overwrite any other installations of Poser that may be on your system.

The beta version will expire following the final release of Poser Pro 2010 in spring 2010.

Interested the beta program? Click here:
Yes, I want to participate in the Poser Pro 2010 beta program

Poser Pro 2010 beta known issues

To be listed...

New Poser Tutorial Video

Gabe Sabloff, the talented cinematographer/animator behind "The Drop" video, created a solid 9 minute Poser video tutorial covering conforming clothing, using props, hair props, injection morphs, textures, posing, lighting and rendering.

I'd forgotten about this video when he first published it earlier this year and stumbled upon it again after checking out Gabe's Facebook page today. If you're not familiar with how Poser works or simply want to see a quick tour through basic scene set-up, check out the video.

3D Artist delivers more Poser features and content

Issue 09 of 3D Artist magazine, available online and on shelves now, has some great Poser features including a tutorial about posing figures for a fantasy scene, another on use of the faceroom to create a custom head, along with some free Poser content and a few letters to the editor asking for more Poser features. From this writer's biased perspective, issue 9 is a great score for Poser fans. :-)

Cheers,

Steve Cooper
Poser Product Manager

Poser 8 SR2: Available now!

Yesterday, we released Poser 8's second service release SR2. SR2 includes all the improvements found in SR1 and our Hotfix, along with a number of other improvements that contribute to Poser 8's stability, handling of assets and enhance rendering quailty. As well, SR2 provides our formal support for Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. The full list of improvements and fixes included in SR2 is found in the readme.

Mac Poser 8 SR2 readme
Windows Poser 8 SR2 readme

We are continuing work on additonal improvements and bug fixes for future service releases in parallel with Poser Pro 2010 beta development. We look forward to sharing news about Poser Pro 2010 beta availability very shortly

In answer to a frequently asked question about update notification, we have a mix of tools we use to get the word out. Generally, the first word gets out on the forums, this blog also spreads the news and then feeds our Friends of Poser Facebook page. Then we publish a media alert that ends up getting carried by venues which cover news of digital graphics and 3D tools. After a few days of the update living well in the wild, we turn on automatic update notification. This lets Poser 8 receive word of any available updates, as long as notification is enabled in your app's prefs. Lastly, as we can schedule it, a mailing is distributed to those that opt-in to recieve information from SMSI.

To download the free Poser 8 SR2, I've included links to the Poser update pages below:
SR2 Mac
SR2 Windows

Steve Cooper
Poser Product Manager

Microfilmmaker Reviews Poser 8

If I were to insist that you read just one review of Poser 8, Mark Bremmer's 5 page online article for Microfilmmaker.com would be the one. No, not because we were awarded a fantastic score, although an 8.8 is a solid number. No, not because the review contains glowing statements; the review does, alongside some realistic observations about pushing Poser 8's outer boundaries.

The reason you owe it to yourself to read this review? Mark really gets it. He understands Poser 8. He knows the content you're likely to use with Poser 8. And explicitly details why Poser 8 is so much stronger than its predecessors. And he goes into depth. Not a cursory overview, he really digs in. I respect that.

Reviews this deep take time to craft. Mark Bremmer is a detail oriented creative professional with an experience base that uniquely qualifies him to write about illustration products like Poser 8. He uses Poser, and in that process formed his own very independent opinion about the features, and fashioned those observations into a thorough, easy to read, informative review of Poser 8.

I'm confident you'll enjoy this review as much as I did.

Happy Posing!

Steve Cooper
Poser Product Manager

Poser 8 Content Updater and Free Registration Content

We've just released two free content items for Poser 8 Mac and Windows users.

The first is an important Poser 8 Content Updater that provides a number of content fixes and enhancements, including optimizations to all the Poser 8 figures' Advanced, Shiny and Ultimate material sets. These changes will help reduce Indirect Light rendering times when using the new material sets. Another very important update to the content are the fixes to IK and Symmetry when Use Limits is selected. Expect better bending and posing with this change. There are also a few new items in this installer including a variety of hair props such as eyebrows, chest hair and arm pit hair and a cool new full body morph that transforms the Poser 8 dog ~no, not Alyson :-)~ into a mutt.

The second installer is a free content package for all registered Poser 8 users. This Registration Content pack includes 64 new clothing items for the Alyson figure set and 47 new clothing items for the Ryan figure set. These clothing items are G2 clothing sets that were converted to work with the new figures using PhilC's Wardrobe Wizard that's included with Poser 8. With this content pack, we've done all the work for you and tailored great legacy clothing items to work with the new figures. Additonal material sets are included so the clothings' appearance can be easily modified.

The Mac and Windows Content Updater can be found on the my.smithmicro.com website.
Mac content updater
Windows content updater

Content Paradise is hosting the free Registration Content here: Poser 8 Registration Content

Cheers from the Poser team!

Steve Cooper
Poser Product Manager

Status Update - Poser 8 Content: worth checking out

Here's the latest challenge I've taken on. Create a series of images that all use simply the content that's provided within Poser 8. The first of these pieces is part of a family of "real-world" snapshot images. The intention was to re-create normal day to day happenings in 3D, in Poser 8, interpreting with artistic license occurrences which are personally close to what's really going.

Titled "Status Update: Just finished Yoga, who wants to meet up for sushi?" this image uses the base Alyson figure, with liberal resculpting using her included Full Body Morphs and Facial Morphs, the Face Room Shaping Morphs and the Morph Brush for clean-up, with the stock Alyson_Advanced material applied.

The hair is an included prop by Kozaburo from the Legacy Fits in the Hair category of the Library. Other included props are the chairs from "biohazard" in the CP Partners folder of the Props, and the Laptop found in the Poser 8 Misc Props folder. I think it's a new BananaBook Pro. :-)

My favorite resource in the image, aside from Alyson, is the PICK scene. This gem from MindVision-GDS is an awesome room creation system. With Poser 8's units set to meters, each modular construction component loads in and is placed by dialing either X or Z translation in whole meter increments. It takes a few minutes to get accustomed to creating a room, but if you've done it once, you're set.

I created a virtual Yoga studio with PICK, varying wall colors and trim materials, adding windows and blinds, choosing flooring finishes, ultimately creating a wonderful blank 3D room for a starting point for my illustration. I intended to build a yoga studio, but you could just as easily use PICK to create a small office, a modern home or apartment, an art gallery or retail shop. Sadly, PICK is in flux right now, but the PICK resources included with Poser 8 are wonderful. To keep track of Marco you may want to drop by http://www.mindvision-gds.com/

To finish my illustration, I composed the props, posed Alyson, positioned a very bright Infinite Light (800%) outside the room to shine through the blinds, added two point lights with a brightness setting of 30%, set-up the camera, and then rendered the scene with Indirect Light quality set at 66% and Irradiance Caching set at a similar value. Tone Mapping was set for Exponential with a value of 1.6. Render time on my beefy 8 core Dell running Windows 7 was just under an hour.

I'm pleased with the final results. I'll keep adding new pieces as they wrap. And once we have our gallery submission system back online, please share your Poser 8 imagery with us.

In closing - if you're using Poser 8, dig around in the included content. There are some great resources.

Cheers,

Steve Cooper

It's Poser 8 Review Day!

It must be great Poser 8 review day today. Here is a Poser 8 review from acclaimed author Dan Ablan that has found its way onto Macworld.com awarding us 4/5 mice, with a pick-up of the same feature on iPhone-Front. Thanks Dan for the great in-depth report!

Steve Cooper
Poser Product Manager

3D Artist Magazine awards Poser 8 9/10

Imagine Publishing's 3D Artist Magazine, issue #07, just went to print with an in depth review of Poser 8. Awarding us a final score of 9/10, you could say we're a bit pleased. 3D Artist liked our new user interface, our Indirect Lighting system, inclusion of PhilC's Wardrobe Wizard, the new library, and the depth of the new Poser 8 figures.

Available at book stores and news stands across the US and Europe, this issue of 3D Artist also includes a feature showing integration of Poser figures into Carrara, and a story about using Poser and Photoshop to create illustrations; but best of all - the cover is a vivid Poser rendering by artist Dean Etheridge using our Miki character available on Content Paradise.

Steve Cooper
Poser Product Manager

Poser 8 SR1: Live!

We're finally ready to roll-out Poser 8's first service release. We've included a number of critical fixes for the Library, and numerous stability fixes, along with improvements to our new Indirect Lighting system and other areas of the product. SR1 is not the stopping point for Poser 8 updates. We are working on additonal improvements, bug fixes and enhancements in parallel with Poser Pro 2010 beta; these will be rolled out in future Service Releases.

Our engineering team, in conjunction with our diligent tech support staff, our dedicated beta testers and helpful users has produced a solid updater in SR1. My thanks and gratitude to all those involved for investing so much time to improve a product we are already very proud of. And to our users that have been so patient awaiting this SR1 updater, I think you'll find this to be worth the wait.

For further details on what SR1 includes, I've copied the text from the Poser 8 SR1 readme below.

Steve Cooper
Poser Product Manager
_____________________

POSER 8 SR1 README
---------------------------

Smith Micro Software, Inc. and the Poser team are pleased to announce that the Poser 8 Service Release 1 (SR1) is now available for both Macintosh and Windows. SR1 will update any previous version of Poser 8 English to the latest version 8.01.10434 SR1 offers several enhancements and addresses known issues present in the following areas:

General performance and stability updates and improvements.
Rendering and Lighting improvements
Content Library improvements
Includes updates found in the previous Poser 8 hotfix.

In order to download Poser 8 SR1 or receive technical support for the product, you must have registered your Poser 8 application serial number. If you have not yet done so, please register now.

With your registered your Poser 8 serial number, you can access and download SR1 for Windows or Macintosh.

Poser 8 SR1 enhancements and fixes, by category:

General
---------
- Face Room: Improved stability.
- Face Room: Locking shape variations does not require modifier key (Mac OS X).
- Animation: Improved stability when loading figure that was saved with animation layers applied.
- Talk Designer: Improved stability upon applying animation to base layer after switching from deleted to new figure.
- Material Room: Improved stability and speed performance.
- Improved scrolling in Hierarchy palettes.
- Updated Help window documentation.
- Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package installs properly.
- Fall-off zone side to side symmetry copying improved.
- Deformer zone symmetry display improved.
- Minimizing Poser 8 improved.
- Normal Maps are enabled.
- Wardrobe Wizard functionality improved.
- Walk Paths saved correctly.
- Texture path naming issues resolved.
- Poser.ini Temp Path writing issue resolved.
- Selecting materials with depth cue enable improved.
- Toon Shader node corruption addressed. Note: appearance may vary from Poser 7 results.
- Geometry Import/Export plug-in instabilities resolved.
- Set-up Room: Improved stability.
- Content path naming improved.
- Origin on props displayed correctly.
- Tab selectability improved.

Lighting
---------
- Improved raytrace shadow control.
- User definable Shadow Samples enabled in Light Properties

Rendering
---------
- Improved quality of indirect lighting renders.
- Improved IDL rendering speed.
- Improved rendering of transparent surfaces in IDL.
- Improved IDL results at lower quality settings.
- Fixed outer border artifact in rendered images.
- Indirect Light Quality setting now persistent when saving render settings.
- Artifacts in raytraced shadow improved.
- Adjusted sampling pattern to improve quality of raytraced shadows.
- Ambient Occlusion material node includes a checkbox to select if it should be active in IDL renders.

Content Library
---------
- Favorite thumbnail visibility now persistent between sessions.
- Improved robustness of FlashPlayerTrust handling. Poser app location now remains trusted even after moving installation folder.
- Improved drag and drop.
- Improved scrolling.
- Enabled support for upper case file extensions.
- More accurate category-specific filtering of search results.
- Improved display of large number of items in a folder.
- Added new controls for setting preview icon size, tool tip delay, path tool tip display, tree indentation, folder thumbnails and item/folder count.
- Search under Vista improved.
- Vanishing library issues resolved
- Texture location issues related to runtime naming resolved.
- Deletion of item from Favorites preserves item in Runtime.

Recommended workarounds for known issues:
- To improve rendering performance: Single-thread renders are less efficient than multiple threaded renderings. To reduce render times, enable multiple threaded rendering. Reduce bucket size to decrease render times.

Interview with Renderosity's Ricky Grove

The first day of the exhibiton at SIGGRAPH 2009, I had an hour to sit down with Renderosity's staff columnist Ricky Grove to show him Poser 8. Ricky took lots of photos, notes and captured audio from my demo. To check out Ricky's interview and hear our two part audio conversation, click here.

TechRadar Awards Poser 8 4.5 out of 5 Stars!

techData_Review

Richard Hill at TechRadar awards Poser 4.5 out of 5 stars in this solid review. A big fan of the new user interface and improvements to the Poser content management system in the Library, he understands our vision. In future blogs, I'll talk with a bit more depth about our plans to include metadata for content, and support full user editability to further enhance locating and using content in Poser 8. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this great review.

Steve Cooper
Poser Product Manager

Comparing Indirect Lighting

Poser 8 developer and community member, Bagginsbill, renowned for his shader and rendering expertise, created a series of sample images to contrast the differences between Poser 8 Indirect Light (IDL) renderings and standard Poser raytraced renderings. Each image in the series uses a single light source, with no other changes to the scene file other than enabling Indirect Lighting in Poser 8's Render Settings dialog.

In this first sample image note how much deeper the shadows are, both under the tank and under the shade structure. The shadows also pick up ambient color value fom the floor as does the front plate of tank.

In this fully lit image, the strong shadows are much richer and more realistic, with full gradation from dark to very dark on the tread under the tank's left flank. The tank's body picks up natural looking ambient color from the floor plane.

The scene below shows deep natural shadows under the tunnel, slightly tinged with ambient color from the tanks and floor plane, with only the closest portion of the first tank appearing, and the second tank reduced to its silhouette. The fully lit tank, again, gains ambient color from the surroundings.

A dramatic example illustrating the advantages of rendering with IDL is shown below. Light energy is conserved in this scene, bouncing off the back wall and revealing the hidden sphere. The use of IDL lets Poser 8 artists illuminate their scenes with simpler lighting, that more closely resembles real world settings. In this case, rather than needing to add a fill light to expose dark areas or add ambient color, IDL lets a single light source accomplish both.

Steve Cooper
Poser Product Manager

Indirect Lighting in Fantasy Art

The range of images Poser users create is diverse, and the fantasy category is well represented. With the release of Poser 8's Indirect Lighting (IDL) feature, the quality of images has improved remarkably. On deviantART, we stumbled across a very impressive new image from fantasy artist AerySoul titled "the Yin and Yang of Battle".

What stands out technically in the image is the interplay between ambient colors from the lights and the background onto the two main characters' skin and their clothing. This is a classic benefit of rendering with the global illumination effects from IDL; lush images in which the whole scene is bathed in color and light from the surroundings.

To bring forward other great examples of Poser 8 art, we're populating a new gallery. If you've created an image using Poser 8's IDL and content, and are interested in sharing it on our gallery, here's the link to upload your art: http://my.smithmicro.com/gallery/ The gallery isn't live yet, but will be soon.

Steve Cooper
Poser Product Manager

Indirect Lighting tutorial from Vince Bagna

Word to the wise. Poser 8 is the strongest upgrade since versions 3 or 4. Case in point? Our new Indirect Lighting (IDL) feature for Global Illumination renderings. Talented RuntimeDNA vendor Vince Bagna has posted a tutorial showing how to create a photo-real Global Illumination scene using Bagginsbill's free Environment Sphere, and Stonemason's off the shelf UrbanFuture2 cityscape.

If you have any doubts about the differences in rendering quality between Poser 8 and all previous versions of Poser, compare the two images below - the only difference between these two images is that the second version uses Poser 8's IDL. If you want to learn how to create images like these, be sure to check out Vince's excellent tutorial.

Steve Cooper
Poser Product Manager

Without Indirect Lighting

With Poser 8's Indirect Lighting

Lengthening Alyson's arms and legs with Dependent Parameters

Here's yet another great Poser 8 training video. Semidieu, a successful RuntimeDNA vendor, Poser python script creator and Poser 8 content creator has posted a very practical click by click video guide for creating two new dial driven Master Parameters that increase the length of Alyson's arms and legs.

Poser 8's new Dependent Parameter eidting system is very powerful, but as you can see by watching this video, it's really easy to use.

Steve Cooper
Poser Product Manager

Two Poser 8 morph brush tutorial videos

Renderosity member Fugazi1968 has uploaded two video tutorials showing the Poser 8 morph brush in action. In the first tutorial, he uses the brush to create an interaction between a figure and an object. In his second tutorial, he uses the morph brush to correct figure "poke-through" on a conformed clothing item.

Steve Cooper
Poser Product Manager

A few early Poser 8 reviews

Poser 8 has been picking up some great reviews, here are three early features that stand out.

About.com:Animation 4.5/5 stars, Adrien-Luc Sanders
"Poser 8 has come a long way from its stiff, plastic origins to provide even non-animators with a way to fully realize their imaginations and see their concepts come to life."

Deviant Art Ken "ken1171" Kawashima
"All in all, Poser 8 makes me feel like never using Poser 7 again because of all of the multi-treaded optimizations I can't go without."

Poser by Design
"We were able to get a pretty good feel for this software so for our readers who only want to know if it's worth your money then the short answer is Yes, any Poser owner would have to be out of their mind not to get Poser 8."

New Poser - Photoshop integration DVD

PhotoshopCAFE has just released a great tutorial DVD from author and artist Stephen Burns. "Photoshop and Poser Integration" covers a broad range of topics from basic posing and scene construction in Poser to texture creation and compositing techniques in Photoshop. The $49.99 DVD includes over 3.5 hours of training materials, and will be a valuable aid for both new and more experienced Poser users.

Nadia for Poser 8

Here's a perfect example of how adaptable our new Poser 8 figure Alyson is. Community member and Content Paradise artist Andolaurina has created a new custom Character Pack, Nadia, based on Alyson. Nadia is available on Content Paradise now. Check her out.

Designing the Poser 8 Figures

Creating figures to include with Poser is quite a balancing act. On one hand, there are a number of excellent third party figures that have established the benchmark for pretty, playful characters that fill a broad set of Poser user requirements, especially in the fantasy realm. On the other hand, there's a void when the project you're working on requires a more real-world looking figure, one that would be more likely to find their place in a scene recreating realistic environments.

To meet the needs of user of the those that want to work with less fantasy driven 3D characters, the Poser 8 figures were by-design intended to look normal in their facial features and stature, rather then idealistic or fashion model-like. We also wanted to be sure that the included figures could be easily morphed to meet the needs of the fantasy storyteller, we also wanted the meet the needs of graphic novelists, scientific illustrators, architects, medical illustrators, and industrial designers.

We consider the Poser 8 figures to be akin to a 64 color box of Crayola Crayons. You can color inside the lines or combine them to create unique new variants. They are designed to be very easily modified with the included morphs and controls, and as supplied in the box, they are primary starting points, ready for you to work with and tailor to your needs.

When sculpting the figures we used Freedom of Teach's excellent human models as a reference for proportion, bone protuberances, and musculature. Are they perfect? Considering that we created full collection in an incredibly tight time-frame, no. But they really work well, are very mutable and very closely follow real-world proportions. There are without a doubt some limitations in how the figures can pose, as is with most 3D figures. We are confident we've achieved a high point with the new Poser 8 figures.

Here are some stats about the included Poser 8 figures:

Alyson, Maria, Alysha and Izumi characters include:
- 305 head morphs
- 123 body morphs
- 31 advanced body controls
- 15 breast controls
- 7 hand controls
- 4 toe controls

Ryan, Marcus, Tomo and Diego characters include:
- 305 head morphs
- 109 body morphs
- 31 advanced body controls
- 7 hand controls
- 4 toe controls

At the body level each figure includes an array of Full Body Morphs broken into:
- Full Body
- Upper Torso
- Lower Torso
- Breast (female character only)
- Arm-Hand
- Glute-Hip
- Leg-Foot

At the body level you'll also find Advanced Body Controls for controlling groups of actors, treating the figure like a marionette. These ABC are broken down into:
- Upper Body
- Arms
- Legs

For both the male and female set of characters the head morphs are broken down into:
- Ethnic morphs: to alter the basic character facial shapes
- Head Expressions which include:
* Face Expressions: 22 full facial expressions based on Gary Faigin's "Complete Guide to Facial Expression". These full face expression morphs are broken down by facial region in the categories below along with morphs for basic expression creation, such as lip corners up left and right, for instance.
* Eye Expressions
* Mouth Expressions
* Lip Expressions
* Lower Face Expressions
* Upper Face Expressions
* Nose Expressions
* Tongue
- Head Shapes which include:
* Face Shapes
* Ears
* Eyeball
* Eye Shapes
* Mouth Shapes
* Lip Shapes
* Nose Shapes
* Lower Face Shapes
* Upper Face Shapes
Also included with the head are:
- Phonemes to work with Poser 8's Talk Designer
- Partial Body Morphs to link into the Full Body Morphs

For the female characters there are:
- At the Body Actor level there are 17 Breast Morphs controlling size and nipple/areola details.
- At the Chest Actor, there are 15 Breast Controls to change both breasts or just left or right with side to side, up and down, flattening, squeezing, lifting body controls.
- The Hip actor includes both a Genital Crease and a Genital morph.

For the male characters, for each there is a separate super-conforming genitals figure with support for the male figure' Full Body Morphs and 18 morphs to control size, state, and position.

We're confident that if you are willing to invest some time experimenting with the included Poser 8 figures you'll find that the pose very well, that are easy to morph into unique new variants, and they are perfect for most any realistic scene you're looking to create, even a Frazzetta-like sword brandishing super-heroine in front of a stone temple. :-)

Cheers,

Steve Cooper
Poser Product Manager

Poser Pro and Poser 8

When developing Poser 8, we recognized early on that there would be challenges ahead, not just in terms of feature development, but also for our Poser Pro users. We spent a lot of time deliberating how best to improve Poser 8, and in doing so, we knew that we would also be building a better core for the next Poser Pro. But the big question remained "where does that leave today's Poser Pro users?"

We have an answer.

If you are a Poser Pro customer, and you buy a copy of Poser 8, you'll own two licenses and two unique serial numbers; one for Poser Pro and one for Poser 8. Any user with those two valid serial numbers will be extended an invitation to join our Poser Pro 2010 beta program as soon as it's publicly available. Plus, the price you paid for Poser 8 will be applied to your upgrade to the final version of Poser Pro 2010 once it is released.

Here are some points to consider:
Poser Pro 2010 will be based on a core of Poser 8 functionality which includes indirect lighting, physically correct lights, new Poser 8 rigging system, dependent parameters, wxPython support, the new library and Poser 8 UI, with the new Poser 8 hardware enhancements throughout.

In addition to the Poser 8 core feature set, Poser Pro 2010 beta version will also include the Pro application's background rendering, network rendering, and 32 bit/64 bit rendering. The final version of Poser Pro 2010 features will be announced in advance of its public availability.

Here are the benefits of becoming a Poser Pro 2010 beta user:
- Work with Poser 8's new features today and use the updated core application features of Poser Pro 2010 beta.
- Deduct your purchase price of Poser 8 from your upgrade to the final release version of Poser Pro 2010.

A few last details about this program:
- As a Poser Pro user you will qualify for any offered upgrade pricing to Poser 8.
- The Poser Pro 2010 beta will be open in fall 2009
- Poser Pro 2010 is tentatively slated release in the first quarter of 2010
- Pricing for Poser Pro 2010 is not yet determined, but with your Poser 8 serial number, you will qualify for a minimum discount of $129.99 (the Poser 8 upgrade list price) off your Poser Pro 2010 upgrade price.

In closing - we're pleased to be able to offer this incentive to upgrade to Poser 8, and in turn, invite you into the Poser Pro 2010 beta. We hope you will take us up on this offer.