Poser (software)
| Poser | |
|---|---|
| Basic data
|
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| developer | Bondware Inc. |
| Publishing year | 1995 |
| Current version | 11.2 (09/26/2019) |
| operating system | Windows , Mac OS X |
| category | 3D graphics software |
| License | Proprietary |
| German speaking | Yes |
| www.posersoftware.com | |
Poser is a 3D graphics software offered by Bondware Inc. that primarily enables the positioning and three-dimensional design of people. Poser is used by 3D artists for realistic design and animation of human and animal characters. The installation of the newer versions is linked to the installation of Adobe Flash . In June 2019 Poser was sold to Bondware Inc.
Development history
Poser was developed by artist and programmer Larry Weinberg . The software was originally intended to replace the mannequins known by artists . The first version was distributed by Fractal Design in 1995.
| version | release date | Distributors | 64-bit | Extensions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | 1994 | Fractal design | No |
|
| 2.0 | 1996 | Fractal design | No |
|
| 3.0 | 1998 | MetaCreations | No |
|
| 4.0 | 1999 | MetaCreations | No |
|
| 4.0.3 | 1999 | Curious Labs | No |
|
| Per pack | 2000 | Curious Labs | No |
|
| 5.0 | 2003 | Curious Labs | No |
|
| 6.0 | 2005 | Curious Labs | No |
|
| 7.0 | 2006 | Curious Labs | No |
|
| Poser Pro | 2008 | Smith Micro Software | YES |
|
| 8.0 | 2009 | Smith Micro Software | No |
|
| Poser Pro 2010 | March 2010 | Smith Micro Software | YES |
|
| Debut | February 2011 | Smith Micro Software | No |
|
| 9.0 | September 2011 | Smith Micro Software | No |
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| Poser Pro 2012 | September 2011 | Smith Micro Software | YES |
|
| Poser Pro 2014 | May 2013 | Smith Micro Software | YES |
|
| Poser 11.2 | September 2019 | Bondware Inc. | YES |
|
Version 4
Version 4 of Poser already had an advanced rendering engine and offered a variety of options for manipulating the standard figures; you could give your models clothes, hair and other accessories.
Up to version 4 Poser was distributed by the company Metacreations , version 5 was in the hands of Curious Labs, who had already made a name for themselves with Creature Creator in the field of character creation .
Version 5
With this version it was now possible to carry out physical simulations . There was now a physically correct collision behavior . You could animate several thousand "real" polygon hairs, let your clothes blow in the wind or fold them due to gravity .
Also new was the use of complex materials instead of simple textures that can be created and edited using a material editor. For example, the realism of figures could be increased drastically with bump maps .
Another innovation was the photorealistic ray tracing renderer Firefly.
However, all of this went hand in hand with considerable computational effort, which at the time of publication sometimes overwhelmed current PCs with a clock rate of over 2 GHz ; especially if you used the preset amount of hair (usually over 5000). Despite the great advantages of this version, the rendering engine was many times slower than that of other 3D graphics software . For this reason it was possible to use the old Poser 4 engine for rendering preview images and the like, and only switch to the new Firefly engine for the final output.
In September 2006, the full version of Poser 5 was offered as a free download promotion for a week. Producer e-frontier was surprised by the onslaught - the web servers could only be accessed intermittently.
Version 6
Poser 6 uses the same rendering engine as the previous version with some additions such as "Ambient Occlusion" (influence of the environment or ambient light on rendered objects) and "Image Based Light", which means that images can be used as a light source.
Unlike the previous versions, version 6 uses OpenGL for preview, which brings significant performance gains. This measure should avoid a high consumption of resources as in the previous version.
Furthermore, the Python script language, which has been firmly integrated since version “Poser 4 ProPack” with Poser version 6, enables access to the materials available since version 5 , which also allow procedural shaders.
In September 2006, e-frontier released the characters James, Koji and Kelvin in the "Generation 2" version. The aim of the upgrade was to adapt the realism of the figures even more to the human model, both in terms of malleability and textures and movement sequences.
Version 6 does not yet support multiprocessors and no more than 2 GB of RAM .
Version 7
Version 7 was officially announced on October 12, 2006. E-Frontier only gradually announced the new functions as part of an advertising campaign. In addition to two new, high-resolution figures, the most important innovations included updated motion capture "Talk Designer" data, a tool for lip synchronization, a morph tool for direct distortion of the figure polygons, improved animation options, "Animation Layers" for non-linear animations, advanced features Undo / Redo, multithreading when rendering and HDRI support. Delivery finally began on December 20, 2006. From summer 2007 a German version of version 7 was also available. For the first time after Poser 4, this was a so-called “hybrid”, that is, Windows and Macintosh CDs were contained in one package. The manufacturer again offered a "Special Edition" with additional material for publication. This was available from all German sales partners until the end of September 2007.
Version 8
Version 8 of the program was available from August 2009. The libraries were increased again for the upgrade. New functions were a “dependent parameters tool” for generating body morphs and more complex intervention options for controlling natural movements.
User groups
Poser has a large community with a large number of galleries online. Since Poser does not offer the possibility to create your own figures from scratch, there is a trade in finished 3D models for use in Poser.
Thanks to the genitals that can be activated on request , graphics and animations from the areas of erotic and pornography are a focus of the Poser community. In addition, Poser is also used in science fiction and fantasy representations as well as in the scientific field.
See also
Web links
- SmithMicro - manufacturer of Poser
- Poser story told by developer Larry Weinberg
Individual evidence
- ^ Smith Micro announces sale of its Poser® software .
- ↑ Poser 11.2 .
- ^ Curious Labs in the English language Wikipedia
- ↑ Free Poser offer paralyzes servers at heise.de
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated August 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
