Hi, Having just dipped my toe in the water and being a raw newbie, can someone please explain a couple of things to me...? 1. What's posette? 2. What's the differences between ordinary clothing props and conforming clothes? When using ordinary clothes props do you have to bend the figure about and then bend the clothes into the same position?

1. Posette is another name for the the P4 Nude Woman that comes standard with Poser 4+ 2. clothing props are non-jointed objects that are usually smart-propped (also called parented) to a figure. they are good for accessories and rigid pieces like armor sections. conforming clothes are other figures that "conform" to the parent they were made for, so you have Posette clothes, victoria clothes and so forth. If a prop clothing item is parented, it will move with the figure.

Thanks :o) Sorry if my questions seemed stupid!

The only stupid questions are the ones you don't ask :) Here are a couple a links that will no doubt help you along the way in discovering Poser. http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&FAQ=Y http://www.renderosity.com/tut.ez?Sectionid=12356 http://www.ronknights.com/ http://www.fallencity.net/lore/index.php

markdevox, since these guys answered you more than adequately, I'll just say again the only stupid questions are those you don't ask. We were all newbies once, and we all relied on other people in this community to help us figure things out. :O)

You know, at lot of these newbie questions deal with terms and names, and where to find major products or freebies. Is there a tutorial with just term definitions and common nicknames for Poser yet? When I started, I went crazy trying to figure out who the heck Mike was, and the Dork is about as cryptic as you can get. Not to mention all the variations. If there isn't one, I can build it, if people will look it over and add to the things I've missed. Give me something to do while I'm waiting for my excellent beta testers to rip my latest version apart (grin).

Attached Link: http://www.fallencity.net

Here's the Poser FAQ on my site. I have a bunch of tutorials that might be of help. Please let me know what else should be added or changed. (I just noticed I need to add .lwo to the list of files supported by Poser.): Common Poser Questions: Embarrased to ask a simple question? Did you RTFM, but not UTFM (Understand The Frickin' Manual?) Don't worry, here are some common Poser questions so you can sound like a Poser Pro. GENERAL Q. What are Posette, Dork, Vicki, Millie, Mike, and/or Michael? A. Posette is another name for the default female figure that comes in Poser 4. Dork is the name for the default male figure. Vicki (Vicky) and Millie are the Victoria figure (originally called the Millenium Woman, hence Millie) available for sale at Daz3D. Mike/Michael is the Millienium Man - Vicki's male counterpart. Q. What file formats does Poser accept? A. Poser will import Wavefront Object models (.obj) and 3D Studio Max models (.3ds). If you have a model in another format, you will need to convert it before Poser can read it. There are several utilities out there that can translate from one format to another. Please understand - just because Poser accepts the model that does not mean the object can be posed. It can be placed - rotated, scaled, and positioned within the scene, but without creating a .cr2 file, the object can not be Posed. (E.g. a car would not have the doors able to open, the windows rolled down, etc.) There are tutorials for making objects Poseable available. Check out Renderosity's and 3D Commune's tutorial lists. Q. Poser won't load an .obj file that I bought/downloaded! What am I doing wrong? A. Poser takes .obj files and creates a "cheat" file called an .rsr file. Sometimes, the .rsr isn't created properly, or gets corrupted. Just delete the .rsr file (it will be in the same directory as your .obj file) and try to reload the object again. If that doesn't help, delete the .rsr and redownload/reinstall the .obj file. This works about 99% of the time. If it doesn't work, chances are the .obj file itself is bad and you'll need to contact the creator of the file. (Very rare.) Q. Okay, I downloaded/bought something and haven't a clue where to save it to. Now what? A. Read the readme file. No readme? Time to go spelunking! Go to wherever you installed Poser. Open up the Runtime folder. From here: Camera sets (.cm2 + .rsr) --> Librariescamera(whatever folder you want) Characters (.cr2 + .rsr) --> Librariescharacter(whatever folder you want) Face Expressions (.fc2 + rsr) --> Librariesface(whatever folder you want) Hair (.hr2 + .rsr) --> Librarieshair(whatever folder you want) Hand Poses Only (.hd2 + rsr) --> Librarieshand(whatever folder you want) Lights (.lt2 + .rsr) --> Librarieslight(whatever folder you want) Pose files and MAT files (.pz2) --> LibrariesPose(whatever folder you want) Props (.pp2 + .rsr) --> LibrariesProps(whatever folder you want) New: James Bell was kind enough to donate a graphical version of this list. Please go to the File Location page for more information. Note: If you have Poser Pro Pack, you will end up with .png files as well as .rsr files after you open the item for the first time. Any items you create and save will be .png instead of .rsr. If you want to share your creations with others, you might want to convert the .png files to .rsr files. (Available at Renderosity in the Free Stuff area by harper.) Q. What is a MAT file? A. A MAT file is short for MATerial file. It was a neat trick that someone discovered which can apply all the textures and colors to a figure without changing anything else. Commonly it is created with a .pz2 extension and is saved in the Poses directory. Some people save it with .cm2 and save it in the camera section. (There's usually a lot more poses than camera settings.) I have some tutorials about making MAT files. Q. What is the difference between Poser and Poser Pro Pack (PPP)? A. Poser is the posing and rendering program. Poser Pro Pack is an add-on feature that makes it easier to take models created in other programs and make them Poseable. PPP also allows people to take their Poser scenes and put them in Lightwave or 3D Studio Max for rendering. You can use Poser without PPP, but PPP does no good without Poser. Both are made by Curious Labs. RENDERING Q. What is the difference between a texture map, a transparency map, a reflection map, and a bump map? A. Texture - the colors on an object. Transparency - the areas that let light through. Bump - the raised areas on an object. Reflection - the reflected picture. Suppose you had a sword with a leather hilt and a very shiny blade. Texture map: The color of the hilt is determined by the texture map. The graininess of the leather would be created with either a bump map or the texture map. (If there is just a bit of graininess, you might as well do highlights and shadows on the texture map itself. If there are major raised areas and depressions, you'd use a bump map.) Transparency map: If the blade is supposed to be serrated, you might use a transparency map to hide bits of the sword edge to create the serrated look. (White means visible, Black means hidden. Gray will give a semi-transparent effect.) People use transmaps all the time to turn a solid shirt into a lacy construct by hiding bits of the shirt, creating a lacy effect. You can shorten skirts by turning the bottom of the skirt transparent with a transparency map. Bump map: As I said earlier, if the hilt is very bumpy, you might use the bump map to create the bumps. Another possibility is to use a bump map to create runes on the sword. Why do this? Because the more detail in the model itself, the more polygons. More polygons = larger file size = program gets really slow or crashes. Bump maps fake extra detail. Reflection map: if the blade is very shiny, it will show what is around it - like a mirror. A reflection map is just a picture of what reflects off of the surface. (Think of all the car commercials where you see the shiny chrome. If you look carefully at the chrome, you'll see the background reflected by the chrome.) Q. What is anti-aliasing? A. Anti-aliasing blends the jagged edges seen in renders. You'd use it when you are satisfied with your picture and want a final, extra-smooth picture. Many of the newer hair models don't look right unless they're anti-aliased, but boy, do they look good after that final render! TEXTURES Q. Argh! How do I set Vicki's eyebrows? (Especially Vicki 2!) A. EyeBrows: Set to the same color as the rest of the SkinHead. Minimum Transparency to 0. Maximum Transparency to 0. No Transparency Map. UpperEyebrows: Set to the Object color you want. (For best results, set the ambient to Black.) Minimum Transparency to 0. Maximum Transparency to 100. Load a Vicki Eyebrow Transparency Map. Q. Why won't my Posette (Dork) texture fit Vicky (Michael)? A. Posette and Dork use a single texture map for the entire figure. Vicky and Michael use 2 texture maps - one for the face, one for the body. The program is looking for the texturing information in different places for the different models. With work and patience, you can copy and paste (and re-size) the textures to work for other models. Note: there is a version of Posette called Posevic which remapped the Posette model so she can use Victoria textures. It can be found at Renderosity along with instructions on how to use it. HAIR Q. How do I make hair models and textures? A. Go to Kozaburo's Digital Babes site and read his tutorial. He is considered one of the best hair modelers for Poser, and not only does he reveal his secrets, but he has several free hair models! (Warning: he makes it look very easy!) Q. Why is my Poser hair showing up as black polka dots? A. Don't panic. The good hair models use transparency maps. Until you render the hair, it will show up as dots to indicate there is a transparency map. If it is really driving you crazy, change the transparency sliders to say 0 until you are ready to render the scene. Q. Can I use hair made for one model on other models? A. Yep. You will need to play with the scaling a bit, and move the hair around, especially on the Z Trans, but I've never had one yet that didn't work on any human model. (Putting hair on the snake model just didn't turn out too well.) MORPHS Q. What is a morph and how do I use it? A. Morphs are like plastic surgery. They are alterations to the model. (Guess what the most popular morphs are. Female breast morphs!) When you load a morph, you get a dial that will calculate the difference between the original model and the modified model. The higher the value, the closer the figure will be to the changed model. Loading a morph is easy. Click on the body part to be changed, such as the face. Click on Object: Load Morph Target, then point to the location of the morph on your computer. Give the morph dial a distinctive name. Spin the dial to see how it looks. Note: You can only use the morph for the figure it was created for. You can not use Victoria's morphs on Posette. (And don't even try Victoria's morphs on the Dork. That's just wrong!) There are sites with tutorials for creating morphs, such as Traveler's Morph World 3.0.

Attached Link: http://www.ronknights.com/

hmm..I've long noticed that the Poser forum has a *lot* more people thinking they're stupid..it does try one's patience. As long as it's not about warez, stealing props, slamming other people, etc., it's not a stupid question. Feel free to ask. Check the FAQ in the masthead (title of the forum), for file locations, try the Tutorials section, check around for Poser sites (most have a tutorial, newbies especially should go to Ron Knights' site, which has beacoup tutorials for the beginner)

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/tut.ez?Sectionid=12356

Don't forget about SnowSultans 10 tips for beginners tutorial. A definite "must-read" (over and over for me *lol*). Welcome to Renderosity markdevox, and Poser. Jane.