Poser 9 by Smith Micro Software Inc.

Easily Create 3D Character Art and Animation

Poser 9 is the world's easiest way to create amazing art and animation with 3D characters. Poser's simple to learn tools and included characters let you focus on making art. Poser comes with over 3 gigabyte of ready-to-pose humans and animals, textures, props and 3D scene elements. In the Face Room, customize Poser characters from facial photographs. Add dynamic hair and clothing. Dress Poser's virtual stage with props, lights and cameras to build 3D scenes. Animate and render scenes into photorealistic images and video for web, print, and film projects. Graphic artists, illustrators and animators all get creative with Poser!

Poser makes it easy to create gorgeous 3D art by dragging and dropping scenes elements and characters into position on a virtual stage. Add lights, cameras and render images and animation. View larger. Poser 9 provides robust OpenGL real time previews with ambient occlusion, soft shadows, and normal mapping making scene creation easier than ever before. View larger. Poser's 3D figures can automatically talk in sync to an imported sound file using the included TalkDesigner. View larger. With over 3 GB of included content you can get started building scenes immediately. Simply drag props, lights, cameras, figures and clothing from the library directly into the 3D work space. View larger. Transform your 3Dscenes into images and animation using Poser's powerful FireFly rendering engine with support for Raytraced Indirect Lighting, Ambient Occlusion, Depth of Field, Motion Blur and Subsurface Scattering. View larger. Poser puts the most powerful controls right at your fingertips. With a right click, access the most important settings for every scene element. View larger. Subsurface Scattering, new to Poser 9, provides translucency for hyper-realistic human skin. View larger. Subsurface Scattering permits light to pass through the surface of skin for brilliantly lifelike images. View larger. Many stone, plastic and wax surfaces come to life with the use of Subsurface Scattering. Apply this effect to any object with the click of a single Wacro in the material room. View larger.

Poser includes fully rigged, posable and textured 3D figures that can be infinitely customized with imported facial photographs, built in morph targets and ethnic texture sets. Image by Daniel Gabriel Scott Murray. View larger.

Poser figures are anatomically accurate, and can be clothed with a full collection of hair styles applied to them. View larger.

The Poser FireFly engine is perfect for rendering your scenes into images, and with our improved blurred reflections in version 9, realism has never been better. View larger.

Poser is perfect for creating fantastic worlds that are only limited by your imagination. Image by Christel Dall. View larger.

Add new characters to Poser to create cartoons, comics, sci-fi and fantasy images and animation. Image by Eric VanDycke. View larger.

For amazing science fiction images with characters like robots, there's no better way to create than Poser. Image by Brian Romero. View larger.

Need to recreate historic scenes? Poser is the right choice. Image by Brian Romero. View larger.

Poser is used by numerous artists to create fantasy images for graphic novels and story illustration. Image by Paul Francis. View larger.

For medical and scientific illustration, Poser includes accurate human skeletons and fully detailed human figures. Image by Stefan Werner. View larger.

Poser 9 includes more features than ever before:

Real-time OpenGL Scene Preview

With Poser 9's OpenGL improvements, you'll see accurate, real-time previews of Spot, Point, Infinite and IBL (Image Based Lights) Lights, Shadows, with Screen Space Ambient Occlusion, Normal Maps and Back Facing Polygons. The Light Properties control allows the user to toggle specific lights to preview in the scene, with accumulated brightness for each selected light. MIP Map support improves performance when previewing large textures. Our OpenGL hardware improvements preview textures more efficiently, with reliable onscreen display of lights, shadows, and color, for smarter, quicker interactive scene creation.

Subsurface Scattering

Skin, wax, and marble are just some of the materials that are translucent when struck by light. To recreate this subtle yet crucial effect when rendering these materials in Poser, we've incorporated a set of easy to configure Subsurface Scattering Material Nodes. New Nodes include Subsurface Skin, Custom Scatter, and basic Scatter. The Scatter Node includes a number of optimized pre-sets for Skin, Marble, Milk, Fruit and Vegetables. With Poser's new Subsurface Material nodes, you'll transform your scenes into rendered masterpieces with lifelike translucent surfaces.

Rendering Performance Improvements

Poser's FireFly Rendering Engine keeps getting better with numerous improvements in reflections, transparencies, depth of field and 3D motion blur quality, netting visibly smoother results without significantly impacting render times. We've invested time in Indirect Lighting (IDL) which now can be combined with Ambient Occlusion (AO), and is faster when rendering transparency. We've also enabled Light Emitting Objects which are invisible in final renderings yet contribute indirect illumination to the scene. In addition to our new Subsurface Scattering Nodes, we've included a new Custom Scatter Node to support effects such as bioluminescent skin.

Weight Map Rigging

High-end professional 3D applications like 3ds Max and Maya have set the standard for vertex Weight Map Rigging, and now both Poser provides the most open vertex Weight Mapping support available. Weight Map Rigging offers several benefits including smoother bending folds and bulges with vertex by vertex control over every bend or bulge. Weight Maps can be added to any joint bend, to twist and scaling channels and can be used to control bulges. Plus Poser takes the standard of Weight Map Rigging several steps further with support for Hybrid Joint Rigging (combining traditional Poser Sphere/Capsule Zones with Weight Maps), using either single mesh geometry or traditionally grouped geometry, and enables Weight Maps or zones to affect any number of body parts beyond the current joint. Poser's new Weight Map Rigging provides a platform that will support third party figures that use Weight Mapping, by expanding the open, well documented and easily editable Poser PZ3 file format, to encourage creativity and user driven enhancements to Poser figures.

Grouping Objects

Need a way to move, scale or hide a bunch of objects in a Poser scene, at the same time? Now you can simply add any number of scene elements, from figures and props to lights, into a Grouping Object. They can be moved, rotated, scaled and animated or even hidden and revealed. Create multiple Grouping Objects to hold different areas of a scene, or related props and figures. Adding selected scene elements into any Grouping Object is easy using our powerful new Context Menu controls. This significant new feature will change how you manage your scenes, providing you plenty of control over whole groups of objects in that scene.

Expanded Context Menus

Sometimes, it's the simple things that make the biggest difference. Poser's expanded Context Menus will vastly improve interaction and scene creation, and change the way you work with Poser forever. Six unique Context Menus have been developed for Figures, Actors, Objects, Lights, Cameras and Backgrounds to provide quick access to the most useful menu operations including selecting, toggling IK on/off, copying symmetry in poses, pointing lights, conforming clothing, setting parenting, changing light types, and even hiding/revealing all items in a Grouping Object. Once you start using Poser's new Context Menus, you'll enjoy working and playing with Poser all over again.

Full Scene Category in Library

In the past, if you wanted to re-use a Poser scene with that perfect environment settings, lights, cameras, props and dependencies and even render settings, you had to build it, save it, then find and import it. With the new Scene Category in the Library you simply add that full Poser scene with lights, cameras, all props and figures in place, and with all dependencies right into the Library. From there your new scenes can be dragged directly from the Library into the Poser workspace. For Poser content developers this new feature will enable you to deliver fully constructed scenes with dependencies and optimal render settings that require less user support and are far easier to use.

Multi-select Drag and Drop Library Support

When we introduced Drag and Drop support in Poser's Library, our users found it so much easier to apply materials, or conform clothing, or drop a pose right onto a figure. With the Library's new Multi-select feature, you'll be able to select several items of clothing and drag them right onto a figure and auto-conform them in one step. But it gets even better when working with multiple categories of items in your Favorites; Multi-select a hairstyle, several clothing items and a pose all at once, then click and drag them right onto your target figure. Poser will automatically apply the items. It doesn't get much easier. Within the Library, you'll be able to drag and drop items from folder to folder making it easy to reorganize your Content.

Morphing Tool Tablet Support

If you own a Wacom pressure sensitive tablet, Poser is going to make you a very happy camper. We've engineered Wacom tablet support into the Morph Tool so you can have much finer control when creating morphs. Vary brush strength with pressure for any brush size you've set. The Morph Tool is powerful, but with tablet support, it's gotten even better. The new 'Flatten' option for Morphing Tool Create mode moves points toward a “best fit” plane determined by the affected vertices.

Constraint Channels and Constraint Objects

For our animators that have been looking for a way to animate a ball being throw or caught, we've introduced Constraint Channels and Objects. Basically, the Constraint Object is an animatable handle for an object that will allow you to parent it to a figure's hand as it winds up for the throw, and then have the object leave the hand and fly through the air as if it's being thrown. Constraints are a simple to use feature that will permit all kinds of cool animation effects.

Light Emitting Objects

We changed the face of rendering in Poser when we introduced Indirect Lighting (IDL). Poser users quickly discovered that, with high ambient values to cast light that with a few tweaks, they could open up a huge array of lighting effects. Now you can create Light Emitters; toggle off visibility in rendering for objects, yet still enable them to cast light. Build light domes, environment domes and large area lights to cast ambient light without being rendered in the scene. Combined with our new Poser Scene Library category, this feature will be a great way to deliver a fully lit IDL environment.

Frame Selected Object

In complex scenes it can be a little challenging to keep your camera focused on an area that you're working on using Poser's original camera controls. To help out, we've introduced the Frame Selected Object Camera. With the click of a button, your current camera will zoom in on the selected object, allowing you take a closer look at exactly where you're working on. This makes it easier to navigate in and out of your deep scenes and saves you time when creating them.

Orbit Selected Object Mode

Poser also includes a new mode as a companion feature to the new Frame Selected Object Camera. Simply toggle on the Orbit Selected mode and your current camera will rotate around the center point of the currently selected object. This makes it easier to focus on a selected element, and view it from every direction by spinning Camera trackball controls.

Faster Dynamic Hair

Our engineers spent time under the hood to speed up Dynamic Hair. Now Poser's powerful Dynamic Hair calculates collisions faster and renders it faster as well.

Pre-render Texture Caching

We've heard your requests for faster pre-render texture handling and delivered two new methods that will save time the minute you press that Render Now button. Poser now preprocesses all scene textures in the background making use of your multicore processor, in prep for that first render, and can cache those textures session to session if you desire. Choose between traditional and the new Crisp' texture filtering options.

Python 2.7 Support

Poser keeps improving and so does Python. We now provide Python 2.7 support to take full advantage of improvements to the scripting language.

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Support

Poser 9 is now fully Cocoa based and supported on Apple's latest OS X 10.7 Lion.

Why use Poser 9?

Creating 3D illustrations that include people or digital characters is time-consuming and hard.

Designers and artists want to create art and animations with 3D characters, without having to create those 3D characters from scratch. We don't blame you! That's why Poser and Poser Pro come with everything you need to quickly add life to your project.

Poser lets you focus on the story you want to tell by freeing you from having to build the actors and props in your story. Quickly customize and pose your characters on the stage, set up the scene with props, backgrounds and architectural elements to support that story and then create your final 3D art and animations.

Getting the right lighting effects on figures and objects is difficult.

We changed the face of rendering in Poser when we introduced Indirect Lighting (IDL). And it became obvious when Poser users discovered that IDL enabled objects with high ambient values to cast light that with a few tweaks we could open up a huge array of lighting effects. Now you can create Light Emitters; toggle off visibility in rendering for objects, yet still enable them to cast light. Build light domes, environment domes and large area lights to cast ambient light without being rendered in the scene. Combined with our new Poser Scene Library category, this feature will be a great way to deliver a fully lit IDL environment.

Poser 9's improved Firefly render engine now supports Indirect Lighting with Irradiance Caching for Global Illumination effects and even supports rendering with Ambient Occlusion. New Shader nodes enable Subsurface Scattering for luminescent skin tones and Custom Scattering for bioluminescent effects. Poser's physically correct light fall-off produces more photo-real final renderings.

Skin, wax, and marble are just some of the materials that are translucent when struck by light. To recreate this subtle yet crucial effect when rendering these materials in Poser, we've incorporated a set of easy to configure Subsurface Scattering Material Nodes. New Nodes include Subsurface Skin, Custom Scatter, and basic Scatter. The Scatter Node includes a number of optimized pre-sets for Skin, Marble, Milk, Fruit and Vegetables. With Poser's new Subsurface Material nodes, you'll transform your scenes into rendered masterpieces with lifelike translucent surfaces.

Putting actual people into dangerous, inaccessible or imaginary places to serve as a model for digital image or video creation isn't possible or practical.

Take crime scene recreation for example: you need an imaginary 3D world where you can place all the suspects, victims, weapons, explosions, and more and play out their interactions without anyone getting hurt. In fact, Poser Pro is a critical tool used by the production crew for the television drama Bones. They use it weekly to pose and animate their re-enactments–check out this video straight from one of their episodes.

Industrial and architectural designers, medical illustrators, product engineers and graphic artists often need virtual humans to interact with a design, to convey a sense of scale or draw attention to a feature in a designed product. Poser lets you work with 3D actors in scenes that would be impossible to duplicate in the real world. Historic scenes, imaginary or fantasy scenes, sci-fi and superhero scenes are easy to create in Poser, so you can let your imagination run wild and build exactly the world you want, and populate that world with 3D characters.

At your fingers tips is a huge library of included ready-to-pose and easy-to-customize characters with clothing and props that will fit into almost any scene you can imagine. Customize those figures with poses, expressions and face room morphs and set-up cameras and lights to support any perspective, point of view or lighting condition.