[CHERYLSOFT] [COMPUTING]
[PAGE 2] [SAMPLE IMAGES]
About ten years ago, while toiling away on my Atari 520ST, I had a thought. What if there were a computer program that could draw realistic human beings automatically? Not just draw them, but pose them, make them tall or short, fat or slim. For the time being, it was only a dream.
I kept dreaming until 1996 when Fractal Design released Poser 1. Needless to say, I was one of the first to snap it up.
The first version of Poser was insanely great, but still quite limited. The models were not all that realistic looking. The skeleton view, to the disappointment of many, could not be rendered. The only way to achieve animation of any sort was through brute force: render a cell, move some parts, render another cell, and so on.
Poser 2 was a vast improvement over Poser 1. The models looked more realistic, but still not quite perfect (they made great starting points to trace over in other apps, though). The skeletons could be rendered. Best of all, it included native animation support.
However, the animation was a "close, but no cigar" kind of feature because it pointed out what Poser couldn't do (at least not yet). While you could animate just about any pose, you were essentially on your own when it came to creating the poses involved in the animation sequence. You could use the puppet-like animation samples, but trying to create your own moves - particularly getting a figure to walk - proved exceptionally frustrating. Have you ever looked at your feet in the mirror, racking your brain on the motions they went through as you walked, jogged, or ran? With Poser 2, you almost had to.
Another feature pointed out a shortcoming. With more detailed figures, one was tempted to use the figures "as is" in artwork. The problem there was the frozen, blank expressions on their faces. And, with more detailed hands, one was tempted to make use of different hand positions in animations. However, since hands were not genuinely posable, they would suddenly snap into their new positions at inopportune times.
Poser 2 allowed users to create people with either more or less modesty than in Poser 1: Clothed figures were added (more on this later) and the male nude model could be rendered, as the manual puts it, as "anatomically correct."
I knew there was something more that could be done with Poser. The new Poser 3 delivers, but this isn't the end of the road yet.