Poser is a single-threaded 3D rendering software package for the posing, animating, and rendering of 3D poly-mesh human and animal figures. it is published by Bondware and supported by Renderosity, a graphic 3D art content store. Poser allows the user to load figures, props, lighting, and cameras for both still and animated renderings.
Using a subset of the Alias object (OBJ) file format and a text-based markup for content files, Poser comes with a library of pre-rigged human, animal, robotic, and cartoon figures. The package also includes poses, hairpieces, props, textures, hand gestures, and facial expressions. As Poser itself does not allow for original modeling of objects, a large community market of artists has emerged, in which Poser content is created and sold through various third party channels.
Poser is available in multiple languages including English, Japanese, German, and French. Poser is available for both Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. While Poser's interface has evolved since the product's introduction in 1995, the current Poser Pro 13 preserves many of the application's original interface elements in order to not alienate the legacy users from the newer versions.
Renderosity offers a selection of ready-to-use content to add to Poser's included runtime library of base content, including body and hand poses, materials, props, facial expressions, hairpieces, lights, cameras, and a Reyes-based render engine called Firefly, which supports nodes for the creation of complex materials. Furthermore, it provides import of sound, image, and video files, motion capture data and 3D content for the creation of scenes or the addition of new library items. Poser exports content in many 3D formats. Poser is capable of material editing, facial photo matching, dynamic hair, dynamic cloth and new figure rigging. Online content is also available. Python enables third-party developers to create additional features ranging from custom libraries, rendering engine control panels, metadata editors and utility scripts.
Poser is used to create original images ranging from human figures, human renderings of medical and industrial design illustrations, editorial illustrations, informational graphics, graphic novel illustrations, comics, and more.
Poser contains many animation capabilities and is regularly employed by broadcast professionals including animation staff at Fox Bones, Colbert Report and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, as well as in industry applications, such as in the animated instructions for automated checkout machines at Albertsons, Save-On stores and Wal-Mart, films including Star Trek fan-film, Star Trek: Aurora,[3]The Misty Green Sky,[4] and The Exigency.[5] Poser characters and animations were used for early computer games from 'buddies' game creators ("Desert Rifle" games and "Cake shop" from Qi and ELEFUN(TM) game developers).[citation needed] The software was also used in the eighth, ninth, and tenth seasons of Red vs. Blue, as well as the first three seasons of RWBY.[6]
Standard Poser characters have been extensively used by European and US-based documentary production teams to graphically render the human body or virtual actors in digital scenes.[citation needed]Humanoids printed in several science and technology magazines around the US are often Poser-rendered and post-worked models.[citation needed]
A film animated entirely on Poser, titled The Exigency, took thirteen years to produce and was released on December 14, 2019.[7][8]
Poser is packaged with ready-to-use 3D content that allows new users to get started without needing to purchase additional content. Items are stored in Poser's drag-and-drop-enabled Library and are organized by type and name, e.g. People/Ryan2. Users can save customized figures or objects into the Library in order to reuse those items at a later point in time. The Library also supports adding in additional "Runtimes" which are collections of content that legacy users have assembled from third party providers.
The Library includes a configurable, keyword-based Search function that locates content in the Library or connected Runtimes. Content can also be added to the Library's Favorites for quick access.
The Library is set up with categories that each include collections of similar content items:
Character
Pre-rigged figures including anatomically accurate humans, mannikins, animals, insects, dinosaurs, cartoon characters, human anatomies such as skeletons, and musculature and mechanical figures such as vehicles.
Pose
Animated and static poses for human and animals covering day-to-day activities, dancing, walking, standing, and sitting, as well as action and sport poses.
Face
Includes full and partial facial expressions.
Hair
Includes prop-based transparency-mapped hairpieces, dynamic hairpieces, and hair props such as mustaches or sideburns.
Hand
Hand poses of various types such as action poses and gestures, signals, counting, and American Sign Language.
Props
Includes primitives such as spheres and cylinders, clothing items grouped by character, scene props, furniture, rooms, vehicles, plants, and cartoon elements.
Lights
Includes animated or static pre-set lights consisting of spotlights, infinite lights, point lights, diffuse IBL lights.
Cameras
Includes animated or static cameras.
Materials
Includes simple and complex node-based materials.
Scenes
Full Poser scenes including a Factory, Crime Scene Lab, and a modern Apartment.
Poser was created by artist and programmer Larry Weinberg as a digital replacement for artist's mannequins. Versions 1.0 and 2.0 were published by Fractal Design. In 1997, Fractal Design was acquired by MetaCreations, and Poser's interface was redesigned by MetaCreations' Phil Clevenger for release as Poser 3 in 1998. This interface has remained as the basis for all subsequent versions. In 1999, MetaCreations sold Poser to egi.sys AG, which established the subsidiary Curious Labs, with Larry Weinberg as CEO to handle Poser development and publication. Curious Labs and Poser were sold to e-frontier, in 2003. In November 2007, Smith Micro Software acquired Poser as well as Anime Studio (now called Moho). Smith Micro Software also acquired the English language distribution rights to Manga Studio (now called Clip Studio Paint), from e-Frontier. The latest "stable" versions of Poser were released in September 2019, as Poser 12 is currently in open beta. Poser 11 introduced many new features, including better rigging capabilities.
Early versions of Poser were bundled with fully clothed humanoid figures specifically designed for Poser. As the program evolved, add-on packages of human figures were sold by the manufacturer of Poser, and eventually, third-party companies began creating figures which work with Poser. As clothing became separate from the humanoid figure, collections of 3D garments were created for specific models which conform to the shape and pose of the Poser figure. 'Poses' for figures were packaged and sold by the software vendor and by third parties. 'Morphs', allowing customization of body or face shape or other features, were also sold. Different skin textures, frequently combined with settings for morph technology, are marketed to allow one base model to be customized into many different 'characters'. Similarly 'texture' packages allow one garment to take on many different appearances, an animal to represent different breeds of the same species or a vehicle to show many different color schemes.
On July 2, 2009, Smith Micro Software announced the creation of a new platform for distribution of assets for use in Poser called Content Paradise.
On November 9, 2018, Smith Micro Software announced the closure of Content Paradise on December 3, 2018, the content moved to Renderosity.
On June 20, 2019, Smith Micro Software announced they sold the product line of its Poser software to Bondware, Inc., owner of the popular online marketplace, Renderosity.com, and longtime Smith Micro resale partner.
Streamlined menus (We removed broken links and added links to the official forums, support, and the Renderosity community.)
Rebranded from Smith Micro to Bondware
New licensing management
New Help PDFs
Streamlined internal and external content search (Now you can easily search Renderosity for new content from within the program.)
Refactored minimum basic runtime to improve performance (We reduced folder depth and removed redundant files.)
21-day free trial feature added
Restored HDRI rendering option for Firefly
Control props for Figure grouped under Props listing
La Femme is the new default figure
8+ gigs of new content, including Superfly lights by Blackhearted; HiveWire3D's Dawn, Dusk and Baby Luna figures; HiveWire3D's Gorilla for Dusk; and HiveWire3D's Horse; and the original toon figure Maisie
Updated SuperFly render engine utilizing the latest open-source Cycles engine. GPU renders of complex scenes benchmark at under half the time required for the same scene on Poser 12.
New Post FX options for rendered images include denoise, exposure, saturation, gamma, brightness, contrast, bloom, blur, and pixelate.
Updated animation rendering system for better productivity in rendering movie sequences.
GPU rendering on remote nodes with Queue Manager allows the creation of a powerful render farm on your local network
New app launcher with Recent and Start-Up scene templates
Updated Walk Designer and Talk Designer for better compatibility with all figure types and support of imported libraries.
Improved adaptive sampling for faster renders.
Improved Intel Open Image Denoise (OIDN) that uses AI to denoise SuperFly renders.
HDRI environment rendering for SuperFly.
Enhanced shadow catcher and included HDRI environments enable realistic 360-degree VR-like environments inside Poser
Improved morph and weight map copying system makes creating clothing easier.
Improved included content delivery using Poser's content library. One-click installation of included and store assets. Over 25 GB of updated and re-organized content from Poser versions over the years.
The Mac version includes an update with Metal GPU support and M1/M2 support through Rosetta.
Poser's specially designed figures are commonly known as Poser Figures, Poser Models, Poser Content, Digital Actors, or Digital Puppets. Early versions of Poser were bundled with fully clothed humanoid figures specifically designed for the then-current version of Poser. Next, add-on packages of human figures were sold by the manufacturer of Poser. Soon, third party companies began creating figures which work with Poser. As clothing became separate from the humanoid figure, collections of 3D garments were created for specific models which conform to the shape and pose of the Poser figure. 'Poses' for figures were packaged and sold by the software vendor and by third parties. 'Morphs' allowing customization of body or face shape or other features are also for sale. Skin textures, frequently combined with settings for morph technology, are marketed to allow one base model to be customized into many 'characters'; similar 'texture' packages allow one garment to take on many appearances, an animal to represent different breeds of the same species, or a vehicle to show many colour schemes.
Each major release of Poser has come with a new generation of figures for use with the tool, however separate figures rapidly became available as the content market developed. Notably Zygote (later Daz 3D) made a Poser model of a young woman, higher-resolution than Posette, and called her "the Millennium Girl". Poser users often colloquially shortened this name to "Millie".[14] Zygote, disliking this name,[citation needed] officially named her Victoria, which is often colloquially shortened to Vicky. Victoria then became the initial member of a large family of figures which has developed across multiple generations of technology. After they merged with Gizmoz in late 2009, Daz 3D released all[citation needed] their Poser figures as free downloads, but withdrew the free versions of their pre-Genesis figures when Genesis was released.
Because Poser figures are very inexpensive and useful for commercial illustrators, an entire cottage industry has developed to create and market Poser figures and other content. The market is a combination of several large distributors, who often also develop products, and of individual artists who often use one or more of the larger distributors to handle the sale of their products. Both the distributors and individual artists are involved in the creation of Poser figures, clothing, poses, morphs, textures and characters.
Rather than unconnected single figures, Poser figures are now generally produced as families of models linked by technology generation and creator. Certain add-on products, most often poses and skin textures, but including some clothing models, may be usable across more than one model within a family, but in general are not usable across different generations of the same model. Examples of notable families of models are:
This collapsible table contains a long list of Poser characters. Click on "show" to show it.
Exhaustive list of Poser characters
Family
Category
Designer
Names
Notes
Distributor
Poser 11.1
Realistic Human
Smith Micro Software
Paul 2 (male), Pauline 2 (female)
Included with Poser
Poser 11
Realistic Human
Smith Micro Software
Paul (male), Pauline (female)
Paul released in content update 1
Included with Poser
Poser 10
Realistic Human
Smith Micro Software
Rex (male), Roxie (female)
Included with Poser
Poser 9
Realistic Human
Smith Micro Software
Ryan 2 (male), Alyson 2 (female)
Weight-mapped update of Poser 8 figures.
Included with Poser
Miki 4
Realistic human
Smith Micro Software
Miki 4
Weight-mapped update of Miki 3.
Content Paradise
Miki 3
Realistic human
eFrontier
Miki 3
Content Paradise
G2
Realistic human
eFrontier
James G2, Jessi G2, Koji G2, Kelvin G2, Simon G2, Sydney G2, Olivia G2
G2 male figures were partially cross-compatible, as were the G2 females.
Content Paradise
Dawn
Realistic human
HiveWire
Dawn
Weight-mapped female figure for Poser 9 and DazStudio 4.5
HiveWire store
Dusk
Realistic human
HiveWire
Dusk
Weight-mapped male figure for Poser 9 and DazStudio 4.5
Often mistakenly included within the G2 family. She was created by eFrontier and represents a similar (but earlier) generation of technology, but is an upgraded version of Miki 1.0
Content Paradise
Miki 1.0
Realistic human
eFrontier
Miki 1.0
Content Paradise
Koji
Realistic human
eFrontier
Koji
Content Paradise
Poser 8
Realistic human
eFrontier
Ryan (man), Alyson (woman)
Content Paradise
Poser 7
Realistic human
eFrontier
Simon G2 (man), Sydney G2 (woman), Ben 2 (child), Kate 2 (child)
Included in Poser 7. The adult figures are the G2 figures listed above.
Content Paradise
Poser 6
Realistic human
eFrontier
James (man), Jessi (woman), Ben (child), Kate (child)
Included in Poser 6. The Poser 6 James and Jessi are distinct figures from the G2 James and Jessi; the G2 figures are a later generation of technology.
Content Paradise
Poser 5
Realistic human
eFrontier
Don (man), Judy (woman), Will (child), Penny (child).
included in Poser 5
Content Paradise
Poser 4
Realistic human
eFrontier
High-Resolution Man, High Resolution Woman.
Included in Poser 4. The names Dork and Posette remained in unofficial use.
Content Paradise
Poser 3
Realistic human
eFrontier
High-Resolution Man, High Resolution Woman.
Included in Poser 3. Over time the unofficial names 'Dork' and 'Posette' were adopted by the user community.
Content Paradise
Poser 2
Realistic human
eFrontier
Names not yet given to figures
Included in Poser 2
Content Paradise
Poser 1
Realistic human
eFrontier
Names not yet given to figures
Included in Poser 1
Content Paradise
Genesis 3 (Generation 7)
Primarily realistic human
DAZ originals
Core Figures: Genesis 3 Male; Genesis 3 Female
Weight-mapped figure with posable facial expressions and toes.
DAZ store
Genesis 2 (Generation 6)
Primarily realistic human
DAZ originals
Core Figures: Genesis 2 Male; Genesis 2 Female
Weight-mapped figure, usable in Poser with the DSON plugin available form DAZ3D. Restores the male/female split that was removed in the Genesis figure.
DAZ store
Genesis (Generation 5)
Primarily realistic human
DAZ originals
Core Figures: Genesis
Weight-mapped figure, usable in Poser with the DSON plugin available form DAZ3D. Morphable into male, female, and humanoid characters.
DAZ store
Millennium Figures (Generation 4)
Primarily realistic human
DAZ originals
Core Figures: Victoria 4, Michael 4, Kids 4; Morphs of Victoria 4: Aiko 4, Girl 4, She Freak 4; Stephanie 4; Morphs of Michael 4: Hiro 4, Freak 4
These morphs are injectable. This makes it easier to make clothing usable across multiple figures. The Kids 4 figure represents a pre-teen child and it has been stated that no specific teenage figure is under development, with the adult figures meant to be morphable into teens.
DAZ store
Millennium Figures (Generation 3)
Primarily realistic human
DAZ originals
Victoria 3, Michael 3, Aiko 3, Hiro 3, Stephanie Petite 3, David 3, the Girl, She Freak 2, Millennium Kids - Young Teens (aka Luke & Laura), Millennium Kids- Preschoolers (aka Matt & Maddie), Millenium Baby 3.0, Troll.
'The Girl', a stylized female figure, was developed by Kim Goossens in conjunction with Daz, but is marketed as and technologically indistinguishable from the other third generation Millennium figures.
DAZ store
Millennium Figures (Generation 2)
Primarily realistic human
DAZ originals
Victoria 2, Michael 2, Aiko 1, Stephanie 1, Millennium Girls, Millennium Boys, Millennium Baby.
These Victoria and Michael figures keep the mesh shapes of Generation 1, but add morphs and are an unusual case of some add-on compatibility being maintained across generations.
Sal A. Manda, The Heavies Rhino, 3D Universe Toon Baby, Toon Croc, Toon Squirrel, Toon Dragon, Toon Penguin, Eggbert the toon Duckling, Jacko Lantern
DAZ store
Staci
Cartoon human
3D Universe
DAZ Store
Gumdrops
Stylized human children
Littlefox
DAZ Store
Project Human
Open-source realistic human
Sixus1
Project Human Male (PHM)/Project Human Female (PHF), HIM
Sixus1, Content Paradise
HER
Stylized human
Pascal Blanche
Though often mistakenly included in the Open Source Project Human family, HER is the poserized (by Sixus1) version of a figure by Pascal Blanche, who has given permission to distribute this version of the figure free of charge.
^Hoagland, John. "Terms & Definitions". JCH Digital Designs. Retrieved 16 June 2017. Also called "Millenium Woman" or "Millie", this new Poser female model was developed by Zygote, Inc. and then further developed (and sold) by Daz Studios.