It's been a few weeks since Poser 7 made it out the door... and I'm curious about anyone's opinion about it.  I know some of you out there have it by now -- what do you think of it?

My curiousity isn't all that random - there's a disk sitting on my desk marked 'Poser 7" that my insane family gave me for Christmas.

(They actually went out, set up an acount at eFrontier and bought it for me -- all without my knowledge.  If I sound non-plussed, it's because my family by and large are as computer literate as an 18th century milk maid... so for them this was a major effort.)

My system is a little flakey right now, and I've decided to wait until I upgrade my machine in a couple of months until I install Poser 7... and because based on past Poser upgrades, there's always been at least one service release required to make the latest version actually functional! (The whole Poser 5 debacle really soured me on this... even though I have the fully patched release of that now, I've stuck to Poser 4 Pro for practically all my renders. That and the fact I usually render in 3D Studio MAX anyway, so haven't had need of the Firefly engine yet.)

So what are the pros and cons of Poser 7.  Anybody?

GrouchoC.

Hi Groucho, I bought it thanks of a combination of "Poser 5 for free and upgrade to Poser 7" "discount coupon" "low change rate dollar-euro" and christmas extra wages

I've seen no big differences with Poser 6, I was expecting a faster render but it doesn worth the upgrade for this IMHO.
However it was a valuable package, there are tons of characters and props, all the default characters are well made and full of polygons and because they come "for free" with the program exactly like Posette   the are welcome here   . Unlike other programs Poser add some new tecnologies in the new releases, nice things like enanched materials, dynamic hairs and dynamic dresses, smooth plygons and features that added a lot of possibilities to bring new life to the "old" characters. All my recent pictures with Posy   took advantage from this new technologies.

Oh I get it.  Very interesting. How many do you have?

Don't worry sweetie, nobody is better than you      

I have heard that Poser 7 has alot of extras in it. I don't have it but would like to get it someday. One thing I had heard about it was something new in the software. The animation part. It lets you move animation independantly  from each other without a problem with others such as movement with the head while the character is talking. Sometimes when this happens the head or neck twists around in an unwanted state. It seems to have taken care of this problem. But as I have said, it is what I have heard about it but will be looking forward to the day I can get my mittens on it. You are lucky. Take it out and enjoy!

I've noticed some significant improvements, especially in render speed, new features that include the ability to morph with direct access to the mesh. But there is a long list of known and documented bugs. A lot of users have to disable "use binary morph targets" just to get the program to have any functionality. My impression is generally favorable, but I have only casually played around with it. I will give it a serious try after the first SR comes out.

The first service release target is suppose to be in January, but who knows whether this will happen.

Thanks for all the comments.  I've decided to wait until the first SR before I install it.  In the meantime, I might dig out my Poser 5 installs and give that a whirl...  see if I can't get up to speed with the Firefly engine after all.

GrouchoC.