Made an experiment with "Spline Modeling" in 3DSMAX to see how it affects things in Poser. Spline extrusions need retopologizing since they don't generate topology on the extruded side. I have tried a new thing to deal with that in 3DSMAX.
1. Extrude the spline to make it 3D.
2. Subdivide it using Delaunay triangulation, adjusting size so there are at least 2 polys width on the narrower parts.
3. Apply Retopology modifier to rebuilt the shape with proper edge flow, adjusting feature size to a minimal poly count.
The result is one the bottom left (low poly). I have also exported a high poly subdivided version (upper left). This is how they render in Poser without subdivision (left), and then with subdivision (right side).
The high poly version has preserved the shape better, but there was a trick to achieve that. Still in 3DSMAX, I have creased all the hard edges before subdividing, so they are preserved. Poser does not respect edge creasing, so the subdivision part needs to be done in MAX.
Depending on the results you want (sharp or rounded), we should pre-apply the subdivision in MAX beforehand. If you don't care if the model becomes rounded up in Poser when subdivided, then the low poly version should do, and there is no need to crease the hard edges.
I have wasted some time creasing hard edges in the past for not knowing Poser will not respect it. As a comparison, we can subdivide the low poly version in MAX and it will not "melt" if the hard edges are creased. Since Poser doesn't understand that, we have to chamfer the edges to force hard edges to remain hard, which significantly increases poly count, and can be challenging to keep good topology.
So the method above could be a reasonable alternative, where I crease hard edges and subdivide in MAX, so I don't have to chamfer them all. The results are not perfect, but are pretty decent considering it's many times faster to make. ^^
