Poser

I attended SigGraph last month, just a one-day, exhibit-hall-only visit, but it was the first time I'd been to one in years.  While there, I picked up a copy of Poser 7 from the Smith Micro booth.  I've been trying to draw characters in somewhat more interesting poses than just "standing there looking cool," and I'd been wanting to pick up a pose reference book.  I figured that Poser would do the job for me, and be more versatile since I could create any pose I wanted, and view it from any angle.

And it's been all that, though I haven't been drawing much lately for other reasons.  Thing is, when I bought it, they gave me a coupon code for a free 6 month passport on their web store, Content Paradise, along with a sampler CD-ROM of stuff available from there.  The stuff (including a fully posable M1-A1 Abrams tank) is cool enough I decide to give the site a shot.  I download the major freebee packages, including three male figures and one female.  Looking around at the stuff starts giving me ideas of characters, settings, and plots.  I find an anime-esque girl named Terai Yuki and a texture pack for her, and that suggests a character to me--a sort of female version of L or Near from Death Note (one of my favorite manga series) only instead of tracking down a killer notebook, they're looking for terrorists who are using supernatural means in their attacks.  There's a lot of spy and action/adventure stuff on the site--commando outfits, vehicles, guns, etc.

So, what started out as a universal pose reference thing for me has morphed into this addictive character-creation and visual story telling program.  I picked up a few scenery packs, including a really cool industrial area with pipes and factory-type buildings (I'm a sucker for industrial imagery)--just the sort of place for our heroes to infiltrate--or blow up.  I also got a stealth outfit for my infiltrator and blower-upper, who I've named Rydlie.  I've created some action poses, including a hanging-from-a-wall pose that I've been trying to draw (unsuccessfully) for a while.  This is a really fun program.

Thing is, my main character, the Terai Yuki variant that I've named Kiya (it's amazing how you can throw together clothing and texture options, maybe tweak face and body geometry a bit, and a character materializes, complete with name) only has one outfit.  The default Terai Yuki minidress totally fits the way I envision the character, but she really needs more variety.  I went through the Content Paradise clothes list looking for outfits, but I mostly just find morphs for existing outfits that don't seem to be present there.  I google a bit, and I discover that these are available for sale from a totally different website, called Renderosity.  Curious, I decide to poke around to see what they've got there--in particular if there's any outfits or accessories for the other characters I have.  

I find very few, but a whole lot of other characters listed that I saw products refer to on the Content Paradise site, but never actually found for sale there.  I just figured that they were older versions of the Poser men, women, and children, that they no longer bothered selling because they'd been replaced with newer, better ones.  There was a bit of content for these on CP, but not a lot.  Renderosity was chock full of such content, much of it very cool.  But these figures weren't for sale there either.

More googling turned up Daz3D as the makers of these figures.  And they had yet another web store, with these figures and more.  I knew there was a Poser community out there, but I had no idea it was this huge, with at least three large, well stocked web stores.  I'm wondering what I got myself into.

I also noticed some patterns to these stores.  Content Paradise obviously focuses on the e Frontier/Smith Micro figures and content for these, but seems to have more real-world stuff.  There are cop and firefighter outfits, office and factory scenes, business equipment like laptops and cell phones, and that sort of thing.  Also a lot of military vehicles, such as the Abrams tank I mentioned earlier.  This was suggesting some relatively realistic stories, albeit with some fantastic elements (and thus, the Death Note esque storyline).  Renderosity has more SF and fantasy stuff, including some really cool looking cyberpunk sets, and some very revealing fantasy outfits for the (Daz) women, which look like something out of Boris Vallejo (or in some cases, Masamune Shirow) painting.  And I like SF and fantasy too.  Now I don't know what to do!

The funny thing is, I find all of this appealing in more or less the same way I find RPGs appealing.  I don't play RPGs to fight, or to loot, or even to socialize (though I enjoy all of these) but mostly to create imaginary people in imaginary places.  I think the whole Poser thing is appealing because it lets me do the same sort of thing.

Sigh, now I've got one more drug in my life :)