I'm not that familiar with Poser 3 (I use 4), but I'm sure the concepts and file-management are the same.
Poser comes pre-loaded with some basic characters. There are others you can purchase or download form various sites around the web. Consider a figure to be a blank slate. You can not only download a whole figure, but you can apply textures and morphs to the figures in Poser to begin with, and then save that creation as a new figure. Take my character Sara for instance...she is based in the P4 female, but heavily modified. First off, I resculpted her features to give her a face that I liked. I did the same with her body, painstakingly making her what I wanted her to be. She is further augmented by "Morphs" and "Textures".
Simply put, a texture is exactly what it sound like. Within the Poser program you can apply a texture file to a basic figure or prop. The must be compatible textures. For instance, you can use the basic "jeans" figure and conform it to a character. Then you can apply a "texture" that is basically a .jpg of a denim pattern or such. When applied, it conforms to the figure and gets rid of the "clay" look and replaces it with something that really looks like denim in the final render. There are skin textures as well out there. Sara's body is a combination of several textures, each applied to the parts of the body I wanted. Her skin is from one texture, her make-up from another, her nails from yet another...so on and so forth.
"Morphs" are files that allow a certain body part or prop part to change in a specific way. For instance...the Poser figures come with crappy looking stomachs. I loaded a file called "Cutebelly" from a website into the dials for the abdomen control of the character. Now, I can adjust that parameter to smooth out the belly and get rid of that washboard look and make it softer. You can apply morphs to almost anything.
Poser has little you can use right out of the box. It gives you the pallette, you supply the paint. Once you start learning what you can do, there are things you can create that you never thought possible, though. My "Immobilizer" device was created out of nothing more than the prop types provided by Poser. I used Cylinders, toruses, boxes and balls and adjusted thier parameters until the pouzzle fit together. It's a lot of fine work, but you can do amazing things with patience. After it was built, I applied colors where I wanted them and textures where they were needed. A little chrome here, a little reflective silver there.
People have a misconception that Poser will do it all for you. It's not as easy at it looks, ask any of us who use this program exclusively. It's only a tool. You still need an artistic eye and a desire to really work at it. It's like chess...easy to learn, impossible to master. You can buy a set of colored pens, but you still have to draw the picture, get it?
My suggestion is to read the .pdf files that make up the instructions as you come across things you need to know. Poser has a very helpful set of instructions, but you really need to study them to get everything out of the program. I'd suggest learning about applying textures and morphs first. Then study the rendering process.
A few tips:
Learn how using "Inverse Kinematics" (from the pull-down menu marked "figure") can affect your poses. Kinematics lets you move the body in relation to a hand, foot or the hip. With it on, the body will move to adjust accordingly if you were to bend the hip forward. With it off, you can move individual parts without affecting the others.
Learn how to properly unzip download files and put them in the right places. I spent a lot of time searching all over for the texture files to a prop after I downloaded it, only to find that I didn't put everything in the right place. The instructions will show you the difference between .pz3, .rsr and .cdf files and what they represent.
Use the dials on the right to pose your figures rather than the top menu. It's much easier and more precise. You can also type in the specific parameters if you need to be very specific, just double-click over the parameter you want to adjust.
Play with moving things along the Y,X and Z axes. You are working in 3 dimensions and you have to look at it differently than 2 dimensional drawing.
Here's a few sites you can visit that have free downloads. There are a lot out there where you can purchase high-quality props and figures, but there are a ton of freebies on the net. When Poser users create something neat, they often post them on boards simliar to ours for the rest of the community. I have a few of my own props floating out there.
http://www.thralldom.org/
http://www.aleknest.com/
http://www.3dcommune.com/
Check your search engines as well, there's a lot of stuff out there. Simply put, if you're going to get into Poser, it can be a lot of fun, but be prepared to learn a ton of new things.
