Looks nice Questor-looks like we can turn our poser people into "Sims" heh. Nice work though, as always from you

Well this is overwhelming...such a huge project....looks great too. Sharen

Hehe, I'd forgotten about that rather hateful game, thanks GraphicFoxx... :) Good point though. The p4 family have cars, clothes, toys but only a very few places to put them that are "legal"... What a terrifying thought, The Poser Sims... eeek. I wonder if I should stop this project now before it's too late. It is a large project Sharon, you're not wrong. I intend making a set of furniture for each of the rooms as well, but for obvious reasons they'll be released seperately. I have doubts that my taste in furniture matches that of many other people. smirk

I appreciate your work very much, Q. I love to see it in the freestuff. Willy

Yes, that is an incredible project! Reminds me of some of Mos huge freebies (space vessels).

Hey Questor! Great looking project! And the idea of making soooo modular is wonderful. Should make it really useful. Thanks in advance for your effort!

Ohhhh Questor, this is great! Love the fact that we wont have to have the second floor attached if we don't need it! All I can say is Thank you! It's wonderful :)

Very interesting design. Congtats.

Fantastic concept, and looks to be a highly versatile prop. Many thanks, and look forward to seeing it.

Good Gawd Pete, This is awesome. Great work Tom

Hey questor, How are you? When I saw the thread title, I panicked for a sec. Thought you'd run with my project and got it out first. LOL. But I see it's very different. Whew! It look really cool and I can just imagine the amount of work involved for all of you. 'The p4 family have cars, clothes, toys but only a very few places to put them that are "legal"...' I couldn't agree more. So the more environments available, the better. Don't work too hard over christmas! mac

that is really awesome. JOut of interest, how long does it take to produce something like that? you must really love modeling

Thanks everyone. Chuck: I must have missed those. I have the city blocks but don't recall a spaceship. Sounds like I missed something impressive. Shogakusha: Thanks. Long time no see, how are you? Pokeydots: The logic there is to conserve memory. I know what it's like having a low ram system and trying to load the millenium couple along with a full scale prop, so my intention from the beginning was to build the house on a room by room basis. For obvious reasons the garage and store will be two pieces - hall and garage but that's the largest. Nothing could be worse than having to load the second story just for a ceiling. The living area is the only possible exception to this in that it is a two storey room. I'm not sure at this time whether to leave that as a large room, or give two options on it. One large room, and one as two rooms (upper and lower). Still fiddling with that idea. Maclean: Hehe, Sorry to scare you old chap. But don't worry I wouldn't intentionally take off after one of your projects. I enjoy what you do far too much. If this particular project proves popular then I'll be looking at making others in a similar fashion. I have the plans laid out for a number of properties including a shopping mall, factory and hotel. We'll see whether they're worth doing. :) DaveSo: So far it's taken 10 days to get to the above condition. That's laying the plan, raising the walls and partitions, making doors, windows, stairs, rails, bannisters and the arches/collumns. A day has been spent modelling and placing the lights and a day cutting the mesh into room segments. This is the second week of development so far and there's still some basic work to do before I export this into Poser and map it. At that point the two ladies mentioned above get the thing for texturing and I start work on other items like furnishings. The kitchen will come fully equipped as will the bathrooms. Other rooms will have basic furniture made for them. I figure at the end of the project there'll be between 4 and 6 weeks of work in it just for me and however long it takes the girls to texture it. And yes, I love modelling. It keeps me off the streets and being a danger to the general public, keeps my computer busy (justifying the cost of the thing) and gives me a great deal of pleasure when a project grows and completes.

The man starts jonesing if he's not modeling something ;) lol

Who would be interested in some kind of interface between one of the various 3D home modeling packages and DazStudio (if it could be done, which is a Very, Very, VERY BIG IF) OR some kind of house/ room/ floorplan/ dungeon/ temple/ interior/ exterior generator for DazStudio that might operate like one of the 2D/3D home design tools? This is a requirement that I thought that there was some community interest in but I am not sure how much interest. I would love to hear any feedback on the utility of such a widget or what you might like it to look or operate like. BEFORE ANYONE TAKES OFF WITH THIS ( too late..... ) the above are purely theoretical questions at this point. There are no immediate plans to add such a capability to DazStudio. BTW, think the house looks really cool. When I saw it the first thing that came into my head was "Miss Scarlet, in the hallway, with the wrench." :-)

Hehe... Colonel Mustard, in the living room, with the pipe. :) I think a generator would be better than an interface with another software package. First, the interface assumes that people have that package or even want to spend the money to purchase the pack. If some sort of basic generator could be developed for Daz Studio that would probably be better as the thing could be used dynamically to create a scene within the render view rather than switching out to something else and switching back again to test. In the end though, it very much depends on which would be the easiest to develop and integrate. From what I've seen so far, most of the home CAD packs for 3d home design are extremely basic and aren't really satisfactory in the end result. Simplicity of creation and quick view results being the intended result. I'd vote for a dedicated generator.

Hey Questor, I'm doing well. Still lurking about. I commend your dedication to a project. I still can't complete one. I start, I get dostracted, I start somethinge else }-) The way of my world. All in all thogh, I'm still having fun with Poser, so I guess that's all that matters, neh?

Great work Questor!

Questor, Interesting how parallel ideas develop independently :-). It sounds like you, mac, & myself have all been working on similar projects simultaneously. I'm just putting the finishing touches on a poser ready warehouse complex for the modelling challenge at alt.binaries.3d.poser (it will be posted there Sunday night) My question though is what sort of poly counts are you getting for each segment, (or for that matter, the whole house)? I'm constantly wrestling with the dilemna of detail vs model size so I'm always interested in what other talented modellers are doing & how they do it :-)

No idea at the moment Cooler, the thing is still Rhino nurbs surfaces and shapes. I'll be converting to poly's over the weekend which is when I'll have a better idea of the size. I shouldn't think the house itself (except maybe the handrails) will be that heavy as it's essentially a bunch of square shapes. Hopefully that'll keep the count down. Obviously the lights and other toys that'll be made will bring the count up somewhat. I don't know what package you use for modelling, but one thing I like about Rhino is the ability to have extremely fine level control over polycounts. Obviously though, the lower the count, the less definition is retained in the detail. That's another reason why I tried to keep as much of the house as simple in shape as possible. Gives me room to play with bolt on detailing. :) I'll get back to you once I've converted this and see how the poly count went.

I think it was Prof. Plum in the study with a candelstick :-)

I didn't realise Lightwave could work in layers, that's nice to know - in case I ever fall into enough money to buy that one. :) Currently in Rhino I have 12 layers comprising the house parts and 3 (so far) which are the various fittings that are complete, another layer for the curves in case I have to rebuild any parts and one with the millenium couple on it for scaling. That's one thing I do miss in Rhino, the ability to work with clean applied textures, but I can live with that for what it does offer. :) That warehouse is looking very cool. I started one last year sometime but was building it from the inside out for a series of alien images to go with the props and characters I'd built for that but one thing and another kind of killed that entire project.I might have to nag at you for a copy of that model when it's released, unfortunately I haven't got newsgroup access so the poser n/g is out of reach. Nice work as usual Cooler.

anytime you want it just let me know. I finished the office cubicle tonight & am working on a conference room now so if you want to wait for the total package I anticipate having it all up in freestuff at 3D Commune sometime next week.

Splendid. I'll wait for the whole package. :) Thanks. I suppose I'll have to take a look at an industrial park and start building some other parts to go with that warehouse. :)

Fantastic work!

Lightwave can use a lot more than 10 layers at once btw. Doug

Wow. Questor you're committed...

Gosh,I wonder how posette suddenly got all this money to buy such a great house!

Hey John, Nice to see you're still dropping in to pick peoples brains. The only 'architectural modelling' app I have is the freebie version of Floorplan3D which outputs monlothic DFX files, which need a lot of work for texturing. People seem to use a very disparate variety of modelling apps so I agree with Questor; it would probably be a mistake to aim for one specific tie-in. Best, I think, to implement such a thing as a plug-in, just make sure that your touted 'open SDK' is up to the task. I've had a 'environment/set generating' module for Poser Python on the drawing board for a long time, with a few smart feaures like object/polygon intersections and splitting to simulate CSGs (possibly dynamic, so don't forget those frame/worldspace callbacks), imported floorplan generation, semi-random layout, lighting generation and vertex displacement mapping for primitives (I was interested to see if I could use a fractal displacement on an inverted sphere to create a convincing cave space). If you're thinking along similar lines, then a bit of healthy competition wouldn't hurt, although I'm cooking a few other thing up first, so you may have a good head start. Something along similar, but simpler, lines could make a good early freebie to help 'condition' new Studio users to the concept of marketplace plugins. A few quick questions while you're here (no need to answer if there's an NDA issue): CSGs? Implicit Surfaces? Volumetrics? Patches/Splines/NURBS? Shaders? Command Line Interface (esp. to support batch rendering, ie, open doc, render and save image/animation, close app - this would also help you a lot in automating a test suite for the renderer)? Option to open as default a randomly posed vicky (naked) in a temple with a sword (this would be a great time saver)? And one for LD: Omni Lights? Bill

Who 3D: Committed? Heh, I should be. :) Mesh Magick: She blackmailed Mike after finding out that he's actually Stephanie in drag. :) Williamshell: Hey, no hijacking the thread. LOL Honestly though, you might get a faster answer mailing John directly or someone else at Daz, they've been pretty good about answering my emails and questions on the studio. Omni Lights... ooohhh drooolllll. That's a big "PLEASE". :) No comment about the rest, except that yes, an "instant art" button would be rather useful. Espcially if it randomly selected textures (by date of installation) and used vacant blank staring expression with some sort of store manikin pose. Be brilliant if that could be integrated.

I belive it, I saw her, She's that ugly figure in poser 5 right? I think Daz needs to get the cosmetic operating room ready for her, the same O.R. they used on Mike and Vicky.

Oh no, Stephanie is the skinny assed muscular thing from Daz with the hairy chest and beard. That alien creature from Poser 5 that looks like it got hit by a Mack is Judy... But yeah, Daz definitely need to get some sort of cosmetic surgery set up. If only to save the sanity of the poor souls who have to face it. :)

Sorry about the 'hijacking'. One thing that is clear is that for most users no 'environment modelling' functionality, even with smart coding is ever going to replace the craftsmanship of the experts. Now if we Studio could combine batch rendering with 'make art' (NVIATWAS) functionality to create a slide show, it could be marketed as an executive screensaver ;-) Whoops, still hijacking, I'm afraid. -- Bill (who's sitting in an office that probably was randomly designed by an extremely unimaginative piece of software).

Very cool house, but what about potential lighting problems when converting to Poser? I've downloaded a number of rooms and they seem to have problems with the Poser lights... you have to tweak the settings until the lights are "inside" the room so the whole scene isn't black.

Williamshell: No probs on the hijacking, I do it often enough myself so I shouldn't moan. :) Interesting idea you have there, batch rendering with an instant art button. Now that could be a big hit. :) John Render. Unfortunately there are no easy ways around the lighting problem inside Poser. The lights in that software are inherently broken although CL insist they aren't. It is possible to get interior scenes lit by making ceilings and walls transparent (especially ones that aren't in the scene) and copious amounts of work with spotlights. Until Poser grows up and uses a more logical and realistic lighting system I'm afraid that there's never going to be a firm way around it. The hassle involved with creating a single room light is laughable in comparison to other applications but - what can you do? Some lights will be supplied with this model, but in the end it's very much the responsibility of the user as to what lighting they want present in the scene, as anything I set up will be ok maybe for basic renders but I can't reasonably provide lights for all possible camera angles. Like anything of this nature, it's either stay with simple backdrop images, single wall interiors that you rotate around the scene allowing full light access, or as you say "tweak the settings". It's been a personal gripe of mine for years but I am but a small voice and CL did state that they weren't touching the lights because there was nothing wrong with them. I guess they didn't realise they'd left the 18th century - or didn't have a clue how to program omni lighting. shrug I don't know their reasons and can only guess (cynically) at what they are. I guess in many ways there was little point in fixing Poser's lighting system because most people export out to another application for renders anyway. Bryce, Vue and Cinema are relatively cheap and offer far superior lighting capabilities. My usual intention with models of this nature is to give people something that they can use to "set" a scene. If they intend using the provided model lights then it really is advisable to export the whole thing to something like Bryce, Vue or Cinema or whatever your preferred application is because a: you'll get a better end image b: other applications have more realistic lighting systems c: the render engines are invariably far superior d: most other applications handle textures and fine level placement better. For myself Poser is the start of an image, the initial set for character placement, I have never yet finished an image inside Poser, or rendered one there except for preview other than a challenge piece at 3DArena - and that was my first. Hopefully the seperate materials for the walls, ceiling, floor etc in this model will allow (through transparency, hiding or removal) an easier access for poser lights and prevent the all black or too dark nature of interior scenes in Poser.

Questor, Boy, you're fast! I've been working on mine, on and off, for 9 months now. The damned Help file alone took me 3 weeks, and I spend entire days just working with the cr2s or uv mapping. LOL. Mind you, some of my posable figures have 50+ body parts and 100s of morphs. Cooler, The warehouse loks great. I'm working in max and I've now got lo-poly models down to a fine art. But I think I'm still around the 30 meg (unzipped) mark for this pack. Groan....! I haven't done a final count because there are so many pieces, so many still to do and so many texs/templates, etc. Quick question for you both. Are you leaving normals in or not? mac

The best way IMO to to illuminate an enclosed space is to disable shadow casting by the walls, they can still receive shadows. The only problem is if you want to combine this with a direct light source that specifically gives the impression of light shining through a window. Creating a specific, off camera, 'window' mask for the sunlight may be the best way to do this. In defense of CL, shadow mapping for omni lights is somewhat more complex (and resource hungry) than shadowmapping simple directional lights, but it would have been nice, nevertheless, to have been given the option. Bill

maclean, Since I design my models for use in Poser I strip the normals out in UV mapper, because Poser doesn't use them. That generally saves me anywhere from 10-50% in model filesize with no appreciable drop in quality. btw, just for the sake of comparison the main warehouse building shown weighs in at 6453 polys :-)

I tend to agree with Cooler on this, I strip the normals out using UVMapper. In all honesty I've not found any problems importing that stripped object into Cinema or Bryce with the normals missing so it's never really something I've considered a problem, and it does save size. Poser re-inserts normals when you export a scene using one of it's filters so again it's not really an issue that many users will come up against. Williamshell: Yes, omni lights do increase render times and shadow map calculation and they are more complex in nature as a result of the "light" emitting from them. It also would require a ray-trace engine to render properly (I think), something which poser has lacked until now. Unfortunately, even with an upgraded render engine they still didn't "fix" the lighting model they use. I personally consider that rather tragic. Having said that. Creating a dozen or so spots to represent a single standing lamp creates a similar delay in shadow map calculation. Add more than one lamp into a scene and the calculation increases exponentially. So in that respect it wouldn't have hurt so much. Also in defence of CL, Poser was never really designed as a render engine nor for the purposes to which it's found itself applied to. It was and is a basic humanoid positioning program that's a prelude to the application of other artistic mediums to finish. I still think they missed the boat in so many ways, but in other ways it's understandable.

Just wanted to check what you both did. I always strip the normals out (it's one of the things that DAZ require of their brokers anyway), and yes, it makes a difference in file size. I've just heard a few people mutter that it give them problems in other apps, so I wondered if either of you had had probs. Just to know. mac

Ah - I have been doing a search and have come across this old thread. Hopefully it's not so old that no one will reply!

I am in the process of creating some room 'figures' for Poser and am trying to work out the best method of getting some feedback before I release any products. Examples of some of the geometry I have created can be found in my gallery and an example obj model created a while ago can be downloaded from my freestuff area.

Now, I would really welcome some feedback on what I have done / am doing. However, placing something in the freestuff area results in loads of downloads but no feedback - which is great for others, but not so helpful for me when I want to know what's good / bad / missing. Given this, I have decided that a better idea is to give some free examples to a few users who are prepared to give me some feedback in return.

Out of interest, the geometry for the rooms is created in a Poser compatible format automatically by my own room modelling and creation tool. I have spent a few years working hard to make the rooms as realistic and detailed as possible and also, more recently, working at overcoming the limitations of Poser's render engine (arrgh!). The advantage of all this hard work is that I can now create detailed, Poser compatible rooms very quickly (within the limits of the engine). However, I need help to learn what people want, what is good about the output and what is bad. (Unfortunately, the software is very user unfriendly and can therefore only be used by me - but the results are what most people would be interested in)

Finally, I agree with the other comments made here. Lighting scenes in Poser is not easy. The lights and shadows are hard to control - however, I suspect many people pose stuff it Poser and then render elsewhere.

Comments / ideas appreciated.

Regards,

Max

Nothing's too old. Nothing is ever too old :) Glad to see you're pushing on with your efforts, though teh Gothic image doesn't (IMHO) add much to an understanding of what your utility can produce. As I can't currently promise any reasonable turn-around on responses (I have nothing I can think of that I WANT to set indoors) I'll look forward to seeing what others come up with :) Cheers, Cliff

Thanks for the comments Cliff. You're right, the gothic image doesn't really show what kind of things can be produced - it's also a bit too dark to see what's going on! I'll try to create some other examples over the next few days and then post some screenshots (or links to them). I did try to post a response to my earlier thread on improving room renders (in this forum and the technical forum), but the browser munched it and I didn't feel up to typing it all in again at the time! Thanks again, Max