Hi, I need to design human characters for my current project, but I have to say my modeling skills aren't quite good enough to create a human from scratch with any sort of accuracy :), so I'm looking to use something along the lines of Poser to ease the process. I'm not sure exactly how well Poser is suited to developing characters for video games though, the examples on the website seem extremely high-poly - I just can't afford 20,000 triangles per game character... Plus the project's 3D engine is DX-based, and so logically uses the .X model format. As far as I know, Poser can't export to .X directly, but it shouldn't be a problem to export to 3DS and then convert to X. Basically, is Poser particularly suited to creating humanoid models for video games? If anyone could give an opinion, or suggest another method then I'd be very grateful. Thanks :)

Poser is not intended for designing characters for games. It's more of a integrated playground for hobbiests to render scenes with people in them.

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Original post by SiCrane Poser is not intended for designing characters for games. It's more of a integrated playground for hobbiests to render scenes with people in them.

that and you can't legally use poser for any game content.
i would recommend looking for a character modeler in the help want section, look for one that both has past work to display, shows he can rig (because those who can rig generally model the mesh correctly for deformation), and make sure his art style fits yours. doing this should allow you to get some good charcters for your game.

yep maybe the best way to get exactly what you want is to work with an artist, because even if you do find a way to generate a nice character it still needs rigged and animated.

That said, if you are still looking to just grab a quick character there are some options. rocketbox do a set of 100 plain human characters you can buy, its not cheap but you get a lot for your money: http://www.complete-characters.com/
however it might be overkill for you, and they are premade not generated. (They do come rigged)

for heads, you could look at facegen (http://www.facegen.com/modeller.htm)
edit: you could check out turbosquid too for a large range of premade content ( http://www.turbosquid.com/ )

I'm currently using Facegen for my game demo, and its phenomonal.

Though you'll need someone to model hair and whatnot, as well as someone to paint normal maps for each detail map, if you're going that route.
The big benefit of Facegen is that each face you create is already set up for facial deformation... if you don't need facial deformation, it'll be overkill, and won't look as good (since some of the modelling and texturing leaves something to be desired, since its maximized for maximum range of faces.