Originally developed as a way for artists to visualize figures and props for flat, 2D digital artwork, Poser 4.0 has morphed into a complete 3D modeling and animation package.
Though you shouldn’t expect to sit down with Poser 4.0 and crank out the next Toy Story in an evening, it will give you a relatively inexpensive good start. Its animation tools for manipulating models as well as camera and lighting placements have bulked up, allowing more user control and flexibility. Poser also plays nicely with MetaCreations’ current 3D modeling products, such as Canoma ...
It sports an impressive array of industry-standard and cross-platform import and export filters. These additions and improvements finally bring Poser into the realm of other high-quality digital animation tools such as the Unix and PC workhorses, Alias Wavefront and 3D Studio Max.
One of the most interesting new features this version introduces is the ability to import motion capture files and apply their paths to any Poser model (both of which abound on the second CD) to provide animations that are truer to life. However, creating your own motion capture paths is prohibitively expensive; even most Hollywood special effects shops rely upon outside companies for motion capture services. This leaves the hobbyist and small-time animator at a serious disadvantage, making it difficult to expand the usefulness of this feature in homegrown Poser animations.
A big complaint for serious digital video freaks is the lack of some basic tools to make the generated output usable in other media projects. For compositing Poser animations into video, an alpha channel would be highly useful, but Poser lacks such a feature. To do professional work you must fake a blue or green screen and remove the background in a video and compositing tool such as Adobe After Effects. You can import video from an external file, but the tools for editing and synchronizing animations are a bit confusing. They are also not very well developed, excluding standard tools such as time code sequencing and camera tracking path importation.
One of the few other bummers about Poser is its “unique” interface (and that’s putting it kindly), which MetaCreations first developed for similar programs such as Bryce and Kai’s Power Tools. It’s extremely confusing for beginning users, and even after training and practice, it’s hard to get really precise control. With the increased complexity that Poser has inherited, the control palettes and menus reflect a relatively haphazard addition of features. Poser supplies a quick reference card, but it sports an additional column for “hidden” keyboard shortcuts — when combined with the regular ones, these would require close to 40 fingers to use.
Poser 4.0 is not without some real pluses. It has an excellent array of models (humans and animals alike) and comes with templates to apply texture and bump maps easily. The inverse kinematics model used for positioning an animation is above average for an application like this, but could do with some collision detection and better surface deformation models. Another bonus is the ability to substitute props for body parts, which can lead to interesting results, like a pirate hook in place of a hand, or a Guernsey cow’s head to produce a docile Minotaur. This serves another purpose by allowing users to import 3D models designed in other programs and use them as props that can interact easily with Poser characters.
Poser 4.0 suffers a bit from feature-itis, having more bells and whistles than the average user may actually need. However, with a bit of time and some planning, you can create some really worthwhile output, usable in various types of projects. If MetaCreations could speed up Poser’s rendering engine, making it comparable to Infini-D or Strata Studio, the package would be a complete 3D tool. Until then, it’s better to export your Poser 4.0 creations and finish them in a different application. Poser 4.0 is a step in the right direction, and with a bit more work MetaCreations could help the Mac dominate the 3D modeling world again.
Koran, David A. (November 1999). Poser 4.0 MacAddict. (pgs. 68-69).
Curious labs
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2014-04-14 / 
7a429a71c7a8fdd291a991f7ffa5ae0df6133438 / 
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poser_4.0.3.sit
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
SheepShaver
