These last four can take a while to get just right for a specific image, but make a huge difference in perceived realism, granting the ability to add things like curved reflections on characters’ eyes. The user has full control over lights (number of lights, color, brightness and position), camera position on 3 axes of movement (and even control of lens focal length), and more complex elements such as texture, transparency, reflection, and bump maps. Posing is at the core of the software, but there’s a lot more that can be done. Generally, much finer control can be achieved using the dials – too much direct manipulation of the figure may leave it unrecognizably twisted around. Then you can apply tweaks (large or small) using the dials, or just by clicking and dragging part of the figure. You can start by loading a predefined pose onto the figure (the software comes with a large library of those that match the included figure models). You just choose a figure you’d like to work with and load it up. The software comes with a wide array of models installed, but a lot more is available through online purchases, either at Smith Micro’s Content Paradise store or a number of other sellers around the web. Some are as simple as a cube, while many are far more complex, like human bodies with enough articulation to make them move convincingly and be posed with realistic facial expressions. Poser 10, from Smith Micro Software, is the most recent release, and if you’ve ever felt the urge to try your hand at 3D animation or art, it’s well worth checking out.Īt the heart of the Poser software is a library of objects.

But in the intervening years the software has evolved tremendously (and passed through the hands of a number of different companies), to become a tool that’s used today both by hobbyists and professionals. Version 1.0 was essentially a digital version of an artist’s posing figure, more suited as a reference for artists working in another medium, like drawing or painting, than as a tool for producing very clean 3D art. Poser has been around for almost two decades, and in that time it’s come a very long way. This is the case with audio and video production software, and with tools like Poser, it’s true of 3D character design and animation as well. One of the things that’s so cool about the rise in computing power over the last few years is the way it puts creative tools that were once reserved solely for professionals within reach of everyone.

Poser pro 2014 models