Curious Labs Inc. has begun shipping Poser 5, the new version of their 3D-character animation tool for artists and animators. Unfortunately, the release is for Windows only, but a Mac version is promised this fall.
Poser 5 features a “FireFly Renderer,” a hybrid micro-polygon and Ray Trace render engine with subdivision surface rendering of polygons. The folks at Curious Labs said that it enables: render-time polygon smoothing; displacement mapping; 3D motion blur; depth of field; procedural textures ; Shader Trees with material nodes; ray traced refraction and reflection; Dynamic Hair with growth, styling and physics controls; Dynamic Cloth with physics and parameter-controlled attributes; photo-based facial mapping, with a database of scanned 3D human heads and textures; a Morph Putty tool for interactive sculpting, and direct manipulation of facial expressions; hierarchical Parameters Palette with parameter grouping functionality; and hierarchical libraries with support for multiple runtime folders.
Poser 5 will also feature all new 3D human figures with fully articulated hands and feet, featuring photorealistic texture maps and facial morphs from Runtime DNA, Collision Detection, and a Content Paradise portal for in-Poser 5 access to online content resources. The estimated street price is US$349.