I have been a long time fan of Poser. So now I upgraded from Poser Pro 2014, which I have reviewed in this forum. For a complete overview of Poser, see my earlier reviews. One of the biggest features of Poser Pro 11 that I must comment on is the improved subdivision surfaces. Now, older Poser figures (such as Poser 4 and 5 figures) and DAZ Studio figures will subdivide correctly allowing greater possibilities. Before in earlier versions of Poser older figures would subdivide, but would often have defects. The improved subdivision now also allows you to create morph targets for the subdivided versions of the figures which means you have much more detail in creating morph targets. If for example you want to create small spikes on the skin of a figure, you can subdivide the figure to the resolution you want and create a spike morph for the figure on that level of subdivision. And the subdivision will sort of work even on lower levels of sub D but obviously you will want to use the morph for the level it was created for since of course, the lower levels may not morph correctly.
Morph targets can now be created as separate files without the need to export original geometry as well. These are good for creating what are called injection files for morph targets for Poser and DAZ figures. Exporting the actual geometry, as you may know, is a big no-no if you intend to sell anything you create in Poser or DAZ. You can now more easily create morph targets and sell the morphs without exporting or selling any original copyrighted geometry.
The Superfly engine is the other great improvement in Poser Pro 11. This is a cycles style render engine which allows you to create even more realistic renders than ever before. The engine is a type of ray tracing engine that utilizes your computer video card. It really is quite a different render engine. For those of you familiar with DAZ Studio 3D this is Poser's equivalent of the NVIDIA Iray engine. But don't worry, for those of you who love the old Firefly render engine, that still remains and that still gives great renders. But Superfly handles such things as caustics, volumetrics, and ambient lighting and occlusion better than the Firefly engine does. But user beware, a different render engine gives different render results. Some textures and procedural shaders don't work the same way in the new engine, so you will have to adapt textures and procedural shaders for use with the Superfly engine. In fact the texture or materials room in Poser now has a node setup to support both render engines. For example glass and transparency shaders work differently in both Superfly and Firefly engines. And this is because the render engines use different lighting models and thus give different render results. So for any project, you will have to decide which render engine you will use for that project. If you intend to use both, then you will have to make sure your textures, shaders, and lighting setup will work with both render engines to give similar results. In which case, you might want to save two versions of your Poser project, one using the Firefly and the other using Superfly, that way you can set up textures and lighting for each of the renders to get the best results you want.
Poser Pro 11 also introduces yet two new figures to play with. Paul and Pauline are the two newest additions to the Poser lineup of human figures. This in addition to all the other figures Rex and Roxie of Poser 10/Pro 2014, Allyson and Ryan (and ethnic variants) in Poser 9/Pro 2012, and Jesse, James, Ben, Kate, Creech, the Project Human figures, and so on. And of course, any 3D app that supports .cr2 files such as DAZ Studio will work in Poser as well, so all your Genesis figures will work, Victoria and Michael will work in Poser as well. So if you like DAZ figures, but like Poser working environment better you can certainly have the freedom to do that, and vice versa, Poser figures in standard .cr2 format work well in DAZ too.
The morph sculpting tool for example is one reason why you might want to use Victoria or Michael in Poser. You can create sculpted morph targets for your DAZ figure and then reimport the morphed figure back into DAZ. I made children figures out of Poser 4 male and female adult figures, by adjusting their body proportions (using the figure proportion tool and the scale dials) and then sculpted the bodies to make the figures childlike and they worked beautifully in both Poser and DAZ.
The possibilities are nearly endless.
***** Update 01/03/2018 *******
Poser Pro is now up to Poser Pro 11.1
One of the big new things to come with Version of 11.1 is the introduction of new ethnic Paul and Pauline figures. Like the Allyson and Ryan figures of Poser 8 or 9, Version 11.1 now sports African, East Asian, and Hispanic variants of their Paul and Pauline figures, and they also include a few more morph targets to introduce variety into the figures. But don't worry, if you like the original Paul and Pauline, these are still included and of course, the new Paul and Pauline figures are fully morphable where you can sculpt your own morph targets and make your own texture maps and the like for the figures.
Amazon Customer
BigSmiler