All images from Poser 7 Revealed: The e frontier Official Guide by Kelly L. Murdock.

This is the next in a new series of excerpts from the Thomson Course Technology book Poser 7 Revealed: The e frontier Official Guide. In the next few months, VFXWorld readers will develop the skills needed to create, render and animate scenes and projects using the amazing tools offered by Poser 7. We will offer step-by-step tutorials for each task, followed by projects that allow readers to apply each new skill.

What You'll Do
In this lesson, you learn how to use Poser with other 3D packages.

The mechanism for using Poser content with other 3D packages is to import and export the content. There are several 3D formats that Poser supports, including 3ds, DXF, LWO and OBJ. You can learn more about these formats in Chapter 4, "Working with Files and Accessing Content Paradise."

Creating Models in 3ds Max for Use in Poser
Although Poser supports the 3ds format, it actually isn't the best format to use when exchanging files between 3ds Max and Poser. The 3ds format pre-dates 3ds Max and is the format used when 3d Studio was a DOS version. Current installations of 3ds Max uses the .MAX file format and Autodesk is moving toward the Filmbox (FBX) format, but sadly Poser doesn't support either of these formats.

[Figure 1] 3ds Max's OBJ Exporter.

The best available format for moving data between 3ds Max and Poser is the Wavefront OBJ format. The OBJ format splits the geometry information into a separate file from the material textures. OBJ materials are saved as separate MTL files. The OBJ Exporter in 3ds Max, shown in Figure 1, includes options to separate the model into groups by objects or materials. If the model has any maps, you'll need to enable the Texture Coordinates option. Smooth Groups can also be exported. However, if you want to save the materials, you'll need to export them separately using the Wavefront Material format. If both the OBJ and the MTL files are contained in the same folder when they're imported into Poser, the materials will show up in Poser.

Creating Models in Maya for Use in Poser
Maya uses its own file format for saving its content using the Maya Binary (MB) extension, but it can also export its 3D content using several different 3D formats. However, the short list available in the default version of Maya doesn't include any formats that are in common with Poser. Maya does support importing content into Maya using the Wavefront OBJ format. Like 3ds Max, Maya is a strong supporter of the Filmbox (FBX) format.

Even though there aren't any common formats between Maya and Poser, the extensible design of Maya makes it easy to install plug-in modules. A plug-in for exporting Maya content using the OBJ format is available, but you'll need to make it active. The name of the Maya plug-in is objExport.cpp. You can make it active using the Window, Settings/Preferences, Plug-in Manager menu command. Other plug-ins that allow Maya content to be exported as other formats such as LWO are common on the Web. Once these scripts are installed, you'll be able to export Maya content to Poser.

If you can find the right script, the best format for exporting content to and from Maya is also the Wavefront OBJ format, but you need to make sure that your models are converted to polygons before exporting them.

Although Maya can work with NURBS and Subdivision Surfaces, only polygons can be imported into Poser.

Creating Models in Other 3D Packages for Use in Poser
Two other popular 3D modeling packages include LightWave and SOFTIMAGE| XSI. LightWave can export content to the OBJ and LWO formats, but the LWO format obviously works the best. The best format for content in Softimage XSI is also the OBJ format.

For all other 3D packages, look first for the OBJ format and if it isn't available, try the 3DS or LWO formats, but try to avoid using the DXF format. This format is older and unstable for most products, except for CAD packages such as AutoCAD.