Hi. I've been reading the forum for a long time, but I've been holding off posting until I had something to say. Actually, I have something to ask. I've been working for quite a while in Poser 4 Pro Pack (Mac) on Indiana Jones (and Marion, but that's not important right now). The head texture is based on a photo of Harrison Ford; the body texture is a slightly modified version of Kane. I'm pretty happy with how things have come out so far, but I can't seem to get the part of Indy's head that's under his chin to match up with the Kane texture of the upper neck. I'd rather not do post work if possible (there's none here so far). Any suggestions/comments? Thanks in advance. -Mike

That's pretty darn good, but Ford has a bit more upper iip...not in volume, but it needs to protrude more...this looks like he's sucking it in... Wisconsin Scarab and the Temple of Booty

Hmm...hadn't noticed that before, but you're definitely right. Thanks for the tip. -Mike

Wow, Scarab, you're good! :-) I had the LipUpRound setting at -0.100; I never would have noticed that. I changed it to 0.050 and increased the LipUpStylized to 0.5 from 0.1. I think it is a little closer now. What do you think? -Mike

That's looking pretty damned good! Might I suggest changing the camera focus to 100mm or so for a less fish-eye render? It also helps to bring out the texture detail, which I can't see much of here. The texture itself needs work, it looks like you might've been forced to use a low-res source photo, as the detail is mostly kinda blurry (such as the chin scar) and the lips are not lip colored. Just some pointers. -WTB

Hi, William. Thanks for the praise, and the tips.

Actually, the focus is at 105mm already - can I go much further without distorting it in the other direction? I'm still a little new at the whole focal length thing.

You are right about the low-res source photo, though. I've spent a long time looking for one that's full face and hi-res, but he seems to have this rather annoying habit of posing off-center :-) If you know offhand of anywhere that might have a large, clear photo of him, I'd really love to hear about it; it would probably make integration of the head texture into the Kane neck texture easier too.

The scar is a little more visible in the Tiff file I originally had; I "squashed" it considerably for the Web. But again, a hi-res photo would definitely help.

I don't know of any hi-res photos that would be useful. One more thing, you've gotta break his nose. HF's nose is silly crooked. -WTB

Oh, well. I'll keep looking, I guess.

I have been thinking about the nose too, actually. I've actually tried a few different crooked ones, but I still haven't quite nailed it. This one's kind of the "basic" nose I riff off of - very slightly crooked, but not really noticeable on its own.

This is interesting. Just as an experiment, I kicked up the focal length to 175mm. I think some things may be a little better, but others may be a little worse. What do you think?

Best I can do:

http://www.ktca.org/goodall/images/harrisonford_large.jpg (2.2MB, 1193x1758)

The next Indiana Jones film is scheduled for release in Summer 2005. Sean Connery will have a cameo. Karen Allen and Kate Capshaw will make appearances, also.

Attached Link: http://www.harrisonfordmedia.com/pictures/index_hf.html

No pictures as large as the one LD found, but some offer a bit more clarity... Eyeshape needs a little more work his eyes aren't symetrical at all...brows need a bit more work, not as wide and much thicker...His eyes are darker too... Nose is deffinatelly not crooked enough...hehe...and his nose seems a bit longer...but it could be a matter of focal length... Lips look great but need color...something off about the chin... Overall its a good likeness just needs some tweaking here and there... As for matching up the textures, unless you make a larger head map you might try lowering the res on the body map...or, grab the neck from your head map and put it in appropriate areas of body map then scale it to fit...this should make the transition between the two a little smoother...

Looks pretty good. I did a version of him real quick for a pic a few years ago. Was just a goofy render but wanted to have fun. It is here http://ghostofmacbeth.digitalartsites.com/Indy.html I have the actual morph I used available if you want to look at it http://ghostofmacbeth.digitalartsites.com/Poser.html It is the tough one. Later

Silverleif and Little Dragon: Thanks for the links.

I completely agree about the eyes and needing to make the nose more crooked. The eyes looked better at a "basic" focal length, but I need to tweak them now. The nose is a little long too. I've tried making it shorter, but even a little difference seems to throw the whole head out of whack. Maybe that will change once I have the right amount of crookedness.

And you're right about the chin, too. I'm pretty sure the actual chin is right, but the texture has some weird distortions in it that make the chin look wrong.

Ghost of Macbeth: that's really very cool. I had seen a link to your pic in an earlier thread when I started working on mine, but the link didn't work for some reason. I always wondered what yours looked like. How'd you create his bag? I made a pretty good one by using magnets to deform Crowfoot's bag, but yours is closer in some ways than what I've come up with...

Thank you all for your help. I've admired your stuff from afar for quite a while, and it's great to be able to get feedback from you. I'm still relatively new at this - even if I am starting to get a little obsessed! :-) Looks like I have some more woodshedding to do. I kind of expected that, but now I have some idea of what to work on. I'll keep you posted if you'd like. -Mike

Think that bag is one of the ones from Crowfoot or the site he had on WWII. Pretty sure it was the WWII site (which closed down a while ago unfortunately). There is also a chance it was from the leather rogue armor for Mike that is in the store but I really think it is the Crowfoot stuff :). The figure was pretty much just a quick and dirty morph for Mike 1. Fedora came with poser, the other clothes are just the normal mike set fom Daz. But I am glad you like. Take care and have fun with it :)

Ghost: Thanks; I definitely am having fun! I'd heard about Crowfoot's WWII site closing. I think I managed to get _a_ bag that was designed by him, though - maybe it was a different bag. After what I've done to it with the magnets, it's pretty unrecognizable anyway :-)

I'm using the Poser fedora and (mostly) Mike's Clothing Pak clothes too, though I heavily altered the dress shirt and created a leather jacket texture from some photos of an actual A-2 jacket. Indy's slacks (not visible here, obviously) are Mike's Picnic Pants from Poserworld; they're nice because they come with a belt that with a little modification is just perfect for Indy.

To all: As you can see, I've taken some of your advice. Indy's nose is broken (and moved up slightly), and I've switched to coleus's free Rusty eyes for Mike. And the lips are a little more lip colored. I tried doing some stuff with the eyebrows too, but they're giving me some problems.

Oh, yeah, and I found a new photo for the head tex (I think)! It'll take me a while to work it up, but I think it'll be an improvement, hopefully a major one. We'll see...

Thanks again, everyone. -Mike

It is getting better :o) But the head is too round as it is. HF has a longer face. It's not much. It's almost there :o)

Ernyoka: you know, I think you're right. I spent a long time making the face short enough - HF's face is a lot shorter than the standard Michael face - but now I think I may have gone a bit too far. Thanks. -Mike

I created an Indy-style cartoon character early last year, but this thread inspired me to try something more realistic.

Unfortunately, this is as far as I got before Poser went into vapour-lock.

Too bad about the vapour-lock. Even at this stage, I'm impressed.Please keep at it - a little "competition" should be fun! :-) -Mike

Hmm. Here's an odd thing. I realized last night that I'd been using the Lo res version of Mike for Indy throughout. I wondered whether the original texture would look better on standard Mike 2. I think it does. But when I applied the Indy face file from Mike 2 Lo res to Mike 2 Hi res, I got all kinds of weird distortions on the face itself (i.e. not the texture), especially around the eyes. Anybody know why and/or what I can do about it? Thanks in advance for any suggestions. -Mike

I haven't installed lo-res Mike yet, so I can't check this, but lo-res Victoria has a unique head morph enabled by default (HdVictoriaLo); regular Victoria has no corresponding morph. Lo-res Mike might have something similar. I used the photo from the link provided above as a texture, by the way. That was a screen capture from preview mode; it looked better, rendered.

Little Dragon: interesting. That would certainly explain the distortions. I pretty much decided to stick with the lo res Mike one anyway (since even the lo res file's getting a little big right now), but I thought it was kind of strange that you couldn't cross morph from one to the other. Anyone know if it works from hi res Mike to lo res Mike? Not pressing for this project, obviously, but it could come in handy for other stuff... -Mike

Well, let's see. I'm about 1/2 way through doing the new texture. Thought I'd post a progress report. I added some hair - Koz's MM Hair #5, I think - to approximate Empire Strikes Back era HF, or possibly Mosquito Coast era. It's not the hair I intend to use for the final one, in all likelihood, but I got tired of looking at a hatless and bald HF while I worked :-) Anyway, like I said, much more work to be done, including smoothing and otherwise cleaning up what I've already done (and obviously changing the color balance). Still, what do you think so far? -Mike

I'm impressed!

Thanks! Now if only I actually knew what I was doing...;-) -Mike

OK, here goes. It's probably not 100% yet, but I'll take it for now. What do you think? -Mike

Almost forgot: here's a full body shot. Gun and gunbelt are Questor's freebies from DAZ. One of these days I'll probably have to get Ajax's Easy Pose whip... -Mike

Hey! That's pretty close :o) Good job. Where's the clothes from? I like that jacket.

Thanks! The jacket's basically the standard Mike's Clothing Pak dress shirt. I altered it some (used a lot of relaxing and negative tapering) and made the texture myself based on some photos of an actual A-2 bomber jacket. Maybe it'll be my first Free stuff contribution :-)

I did a lot of background research on the clothes at http://www.indygear.com . They're mostly for people who (unlike me) actually want to dress like Indy, but they're also a great source of information about tiny details that help to "make" the look.

Other clothes: shoes from Mike's Clothing pak 1, texture from the Creed leather collection. Slacks are Mike's Picnic Pants from Poserworld, with a cavalry twill texture for the belt and a basic gold reflection map on the buckle. Shirt's another Mike's dress shirt, with a texture from one of the Creed fabric collections. Hat's the basic Fedora, of course, with a texture and bump map by me, though I stole (but modified!) part of the ribbon tex from another Poserworld hat. I could give you more detailed settings for individual items if you'd like. -Mike

OK. Don't know whether anyone is still following this one, but just in case... I wasn't sure what was missing from the texture, but then I figured it out: his stubble! I've cleaned up the head tex a little bit too. Anything else you can think of that I'm missing? -Mike

And for those who might want one, here's the new full body shot...-Mike

You'be done a great job there :o) Now all you need is the whip - there ARE some free ones around.

Thanks! Actually, I did get Ajax's Easy Pose one. It looks amazing, but I'm driving myself crazy trying to figure out how to coil it for mounting on Indy's gunbelt! Any suggestions?

BTW, I just posted the bomber jacket texture in Free Stuff. Grab it while you can if you want it - I think my host may have restrictions about bandwidth use.

Thanks again :-) -Mike