Secrets of Figure Creation with Poser 5 [Paperback]

Yes, it's true: this is simply the best book on software I ever had (and read). It's so complete and well written that I hope the Author will come back soon with other interesting things about Poser. At the beginning I was a little worry: what are all this numbers?!?! Then... When I began to work to create something mine... Well... A very little treasure for all those people who are interest in learn more and more. The only thing, sometimes text is a little hard (I mean... not for real beginners) or short in explanation... But with the software in front of you, it's perfect. A great book. Please, excuse me for my english (that is not perfect).

I make no bones (!) about it; my only regret was not buying this book sooner, and the folks I spend my time talking about Poser esoterica have the same reaction. But it isn't for everyone. If there is a flaw in this book, it is with the title.

First off, it covers Poser, period. Unlike many tutorials and CDs and other learning assets it doesn't restrict itself to "How to use Poser5 with these specific Poser utilities on a Win ME platform." This book concentrates on the Poser side, and tells you not what button to push on a third-party utility, but what is happening inside Poser. It is written by a geek, for the geek; for people who want to know what happens inside, and why it works, not just how to fake it with a $60 tool they bought at DAZ.

The bigger problem in the title is that apparently some reviewers were mislead by it. The majority of the Poser user base are dial-twisters. There are mysteries a-plenty in the Face Room, in creating characters, in the cross-compatibilities of a bewildering array of base figures and characters. This book has nothing to do with that subject. This is also not a book about modelling, figure or otherwise. This is about how to rig a mesh within the often arcane and even partially broken morass of Poser 3+. A very specialized task, but one fraught with unexpected difficulties.

If you've never created so much as a prop, you shouldn't start here. Everything is in the book -- add the tutorials on the CD and you can definately pick it up -- but it is gonna be a steep learning curve. But if you are a user who has figured out how to make a prop from scratch, customize a figure, you've opened up a cr2 once or twice already, and you are comfortable poking around the technical insides of things...this is the book.

For those technical users... We have a line-by-line dissection of the cr2, the format of ERC master and slave right there for easy reference, the best explanation of joint params I've seen yet, information on what is in an EasyPose figure, four different ways to deal with the sitting-skirt problem, the right format for unimbedding geometry... If you are building third-party materials for Poser; clothing, properties, new figures, this book should be at your fingertips while you work. And it makes a good read. It can help so much, when you are struggling to figure out why the dial sensitivity on your new morph keeps resetting, that others have been there and share your pain.

Here is how you can tell if this is the right book for you. Ask yourself three questions:

1) How much time have I spent reading tutorials about Poser 5 from online sources like DAZ and Renderosity, even though they aren't very good and are written for a different version of Poser?

2) How much time have I spent editing raw .cr2 files in a text editor to make my figure come out right?

3) How much time have I spent building characters in another 3-D application, then attempting to import them into Poser?

Sum up all three times. If the total is less than 100 hours, you won't have much of a chance at this book. If the total is greater than 500 hours, this book will likely have some useful information that you can use to good advantage. Between 100 and 500 hours, be prepared for a difficult read.

The Poser 5 community is infested with a curious blindness. Imagine you unwrapped your brand new Home Nuclear Power Plant and the user manual contained information like "The backcheck feedwater solenoid control can be used to trigger the backcheck feedwater solenoid." You might wonder what the backcheck feedwater solenoid did, and when it should be triggered, but such information was omitted from the manual. You probably even guessed (correctly) that the backcheck feedwater solenoid control had something to do with the backcheck feedwater solenoid, so the information that was provided was of almost no value. The Poser 5 manual looks exactly like this, which is why many people are looking for an alternate source of information on the program.

"Secrets of Figure Creation" contains additional information, much of it of considerable value. Here you might learn something akin to: "triggering the backcheck feedwater solenoid at frequent intervals will help the reverse cyclic pump maintain optimum pressure." You still don't know exactly what the backcheck feedwater solenoid is, and may not have any idea about the reverse cyclic pump, but hey, any step forward is progress, right?

The author of this book has clearly mastered Poser. My guess is that the author learned so long ago that she has forgotten how hard the first 595 steps in the process are, and is trying to help everyone on those last 5 steps.

People who have invested heavily in Poser will likely find this an invaluable treatment. Beginners won't learn what they want. Most novices will probably not be able to follow the book, either. Unfortunately, as of this moment, there are no viable alternatives for beginners or novices. My best advice is to check out the tutorials at DAZ and Renderosity. At least they're free!