I was reading this just now and I was struck by rico's plight a few years back, as it's a common problem for those approaching
Posette for the first time, whether now or back in her heydays. I'll note right off I know nothing about modern versions of
Poser, the program's latest capabilities these days, or current techniques for its best use. However, for any backward curmudgeons like myself who still want to insist on using
Poser 4 decades after it was obsoleted, I'll say that most of what was written in this thread in the past strikes me as simply wrong, and as someone who's been using
Poser 4 for going on thirty years now
, I don't agree with much of it at all.
Poser 4 is capable of output which approaches photorealism,
if you're interested in doing that. Our dear old friend pangor set an unfortunate tone for this whole discussion right off, however, by assuming that everyone loves photorealism and wants maximal doses of it at all times. Even though I now know how to get near-photorealistic results from
Poser 4, I rarely undertake it-- because my own artistic and aesthetic goals rarely place much use or value on that result.
Setting that point aside, however, I'll add that if an artist still using
Poser 4 desires photorealistic output, then the main advice given by our other old friends-- use photographs for the construction of texture maps-- is far more likely to frustrate and disappoint than bear fruit. Not that it can't be done-- but it likely can't be done adequately
by a beginner just starting out with
Poser 4's texture map system.
The output render of
Poser 4 is a complex interaction between mesh models, texture maps, bump maps, and
the lighting utilized in the scene. A texture map itself is far less important than
how the texture map will interact with the lighting. Use of photographic texture maps on
Posette and
Dork is not likely to give satisfactory results until one advances to expert levels of scene design, light arrangement, and texture mapping.
The reason for this is that a texture map built from photographs will depict a texture which has
already been lit at the time the reference photograph was taken-- and that real-world lighting will almost certainly be quite different from whatever you're using in
your Poser 4 scene. A photographic texture will have highlights and shadows, as well as hidden seams and patterns, which are likely to become quite uncanny when applied to a
Poser person in some uniquely lit scene under construction in
Poser 4.
As bad or worse, the most common solution in which beginners are encouraged, in order to get around precisely this problem, is to apply ambient object lighting to their models, in order to even out texture distortions-- in other words, to deliberately wash out (obscure) the textures they've just worked so hard to make. It's a vicious circle that often leads to permanent dead ends and futility. I was in a rut for years with my
Poser art, until I abandoned these common advices and struck out in my own direction. Real objects in the real world (other than light bulbs and televisions) don't emit light-- therefore, a
Poser mesh object that emits light is automatically going to set back and detract from any desire to have a photorealistic output.
Sure, if you're an expert old hand with the program, you can build textures with photos, and make proper use of ambient object lighting, but neither of those are likely to be helpful to beginners.
As rico demonstrated, a common thing for beginners is to put faith in established tools like 'vickybuster' and P4NW/P4NMs modified to use higher resolution texture maps originally made for other models with higher polygon counts. However, these steps are unnecessary, and will actually hurt the beginner in the long run, by stunting development of the understanding and skills needed to obtain whatever output is desired from
Poser 4. In matters of texture, I still use the standard and default old P4NW and P4NM as the basis of all my models and artwork, modified only in minor ways by some grouping to add a bit of detail in spots that are obscured by the standard texture maps of those models, such as the feet and genitalia.
You can also use very large texture maps on
Posette and
Dork, if desired, to add minute specks of high resolution detail; the standard texture templates that come with
Poser 4 are misleading in that respect, with their meager 700px or 800px.
Poser 4 will let you know immediately (by freezing or disappearing objects) if you try to load too many hi-res textures (2000px or more) at once; otherwise and until then, don't worry about it.
I hand-paint all my
Posette and
Dork textures, never making use of photographic references, and I'm pretty happy with the results I manage to obtain from
Poser 4. I'll add that in speaking of texture maps, one should never ignore bump maps-- the two work together, and in my opinion bump maps are just as important as texture maps in controlling the output of
Poser 4 to obtain desired results. Learn how to make both.
As an experiment and example, I made a few simple renders in
Poser 4 to illustrate my points above.
On the left, we have a standard
Posette with a texture map made by myself (which I call 'Iris'), which is furthermore not a particularly high resolution map-- it's only 1200 pixels square. This texture was made by painting in layers in an image editor. How much of a cheapskate am I? Not only do I still use
Poser 4-- I still use JASC
PSP) is a bitmap graphics editor for computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system that was originally published by Minneapolis-based Jasc Software. In October 2004, Corel Corporation bought out Jasc software">paint shop pro 7, which went bust even before
Poser 4!
There is also a fairly aggressive bump map applied to the
Posette model, but we needn't consider that here. Apart from Victoria on the end, the first three images are exactly the same
Posette in every respect, standing in the same spot and lit by the same lights, with only the exception of her texture map.
To the right of Iris is
Posette with the once-famous 'Vickybuster' texture applied. With all due respect to our old friends Staale and SnowSultan, I think we can clearly see here-- Vickybuster just doesn't look very good.
Recommending it to a beginner, and telling them 'this here is how
Posette should look,' is simply bad artistic advice.
However and in fairness, I think those fellows would quickly reply that
Posette looks bad here because she's not emitting any light from her body-- she's not ambiently lit. Probably they would say something like 'Well, you just have to use ambient object lighting, that's just what everyone does.' Except that I did not do that for the Iris render-- that first
Posette is entirely illuminated by the lighting in the scene, and doesn't herself emit any ambient light at all. I think she looks pretty good for an otherwise unmodified
Posette with a 1200px texture map.
To the right of those, the third
Posette thus represents that conventional response. In #3 I've set
Posette to emit ambient light. I think the results are again clear-- sure, the skin tone livened up a bit in general saturation, but at what cost? She has taken on the uncanny look of a cartoon figure. That's fine if you as an artist intend to make a cartoon style render, but let's recall the 'conventional wisdom' said we should take this approach precisely for the opposite reasons, namely to increase 'realism.' Whatever we mean by realism, clearly result #3 isn't that.
As a final comparison, on the far right we have Victoria 3, a high-polygon model contemporaneous with
Posette herself. Sadly many people leapt into using V3 for many reasons that we should now admit, all these years later, were really just lack of technical knowledge and skill in making the best depictions and uses of
Posette. I think we can see that at least in matters of texturing, V3 looks about the same as the Iris P4NW; if there's some advantage in that regard, it's certainly not any large or glaring advantage.
In fairness, I'll add that the texture applied to V3 in the render is something I made myself, by modifiying (in saturation and hue) a rather nice (but unfortunately nameless/unknown) old texture for V3 by Fryespirit-- which was a freebie texture, and therefore however nice, was probably not the apex of V3 texturing in Vicky 3's own commercial heyday. Also in fairness to Vicky, we should add that these are renders from a distance. On a close-up of the face, for example, Vicky's extra polygons do offer obvious and immediate benefits even to a beginner. For example, her eyes have an extra transparency layer (called her lacrimal), that automatically bestow her with a realism of the eyes that can really only ever be achieved for
Posette by post-image editing, rather than in the raw output renders of
Poser 4.
A good
Poser 4 artist is not necessarily one who outputs 'photorealistic' renders-- unless that artist's explicit objective is to make a photorealistic render.
Poser 4 is capable of output catering to all sorts of aesthetic sensibilities, of which 'photorealism' is but one sort. The output of
Poser 4 is a bundle of complex interplay between model, texture map, and bump map
as affected by the lighting used in the scene. These are the key points for the
Poser 4 beginner to keep in mind at all times; first understanding and then mastering each of these four elements, as well as the interaction of each element with all the others, should be the primary goal of any beginner coming to
Poser 4 and
Posette.
We know our trusty ole
Posette is indeed a good model, so that part is somewhat taken care of straight out of the box, but one must still learn how to pose her well, and surround her with good props and scenery. Texture and bump mapping, in my opinion, is probably the last thing a
Poser 4 beginner should worry about;
Posette (though
Dork, not so much
) actually came with a fairly decent texture map
if she's put into a scene that is properly lit. Thus I would say that in truth, learning how to use the
Poser 4 lighting system is actually the second most important thing to learn, after figuring out how to pose the model. Certainly, textures are important, but even the greatest and most expert texture will look crummy if it's not properly lit in the scene.
All this is not meant as any slight to our many old friends
who offered their best advice at the time in this discussion. After all, hindsight is 20/20. I just think that if someone new is going to start using P4 and
Posette at this late date, they ought to get off to a good start and on the right foot by clearly understanding what they should be working on to level up their skills.
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I've been thinking that P4 figures need good textures, similar to M3/V3's.
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! Thank's ahjah 
! Awesome, I've always wanted an ethnic morph for P4 which improved on the base African character packaged with Poser 4 Pro Pack 
!"
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& I hope I'll be able to make realistic textures like some of my more talented & experienced counterparts.
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I don't like that name, the figure needs a better name).
