Does anyone know of a website that has step by step
instructions on how to create and print a comic book?
I have a Mac OS X with Poser 4, Bryce, and Photoshop
elements 2.0. I've been struggling with this for a couple
months but my results are dismal. I've got the book
"3D Comic Design" but it just doesn't give enough
information. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks for your time.

It's tuff to find an all-encompassing tutorial or site that covers comic making specifically. You kind of have to to either get snippets here and there or get lucky and make friends with artists who have the time and kindness to show you some tricks. There's a 'Comic Corner' forum here at Rendie. There's also a site for comics artists called animotions.com Many of the same great comics artists hand around both places Maybe you could ask this question at those forums also. If you're not bothered about 'adult' sites, I've found comicbabecentral forum to be one of the best sites to get beginner advice on Poser-related comics. What specific areas do you need help with?

Sorry, hands and brain are running at different speeds. I meant "Many of the same great artists HANG around both places" also, that's comicbabecentral.com , then click on 'public forums' fin flammed

3rd replie's a charm I forgot, try www.blambot.com and go to their links where there's a whole list of comics-related sites good luck

well there are several issues in making a comic using digital tools. Some of the issues are the same in any media, of course. 1) Story. Get a decent story. Write it out, with dialgue if possible. This is the part where you start to think about your panels ... the traditional 3x3 works fairly well, with some breaks in that format here and there 2) think about your characters, and how to make them recognizable, what speaking and movement traits. Think about background characters. Think about fonts. 3) plan out your pages.. just draw on paper what goes in what panel 4) Now we get to the digital end of things. build your sets, especially anything that will be reused. Build characters, including background figures. Collect props. (since Bryce is such a stinker about Poser materials, once you have a figure setupoin Bryce the way you like, save all the materials out separately for fast aplication later) 5) at this point its a matter of building and rendering each scene as you have it marked out on a panel. Load set, pose characters, light, get a good camera angle, then render. 6) Layout .. well you can use Photoshop but I'd recomend a vector package like Quark, Illustrator or CorelDraw. That way text balloons and images are separate objects and its easir to move stuff. AT any rate, this is where you make a large page (11x14) and lay out your images, text balloons, and text. oh and I want to recomend the excellent book 'Panel Discussions' which I got at Amazon.com .... very educational hope that helps some :) Lyrra

Thanks for the great information. Blambot has several good articles

Now maybe i can finish my thanks to you all. Like I said Blambot is a very good reference. I tried to get on comicbabecentral forums but couldn't. Animotions is my next stop.
Lyrra, you stated Bryce has problems with Poser materials, is it possible to make the Backgrounds in Bryce and then import them to Poser? i've had good success creating characters in Poser, but when I try to export them to Photoshop, I lose some of the resolution and it looks like it isn't "anti-aliased" (i hope this make sense).

I also looked into Illustrator but $399 is too much for my budget. Are there older versions of illustrator that are good enough for comics creation? (ithink I'll check Ebay) And it's funny you mention Panel Discussions book because I had just seen an ad for it and was considering buying it. I'm sold now. Thanks again to both of you for your help.

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

If you go to the "Comics Corner" forum, and click on "Digital Comics Resources," just below the logo, they have a ton of useful resource sites for comic-making listed. Also, if you do get Illustrator, you might be interested in my tutorial on making speech balloons in Illustrator. It's available here (click on "tutorials" at the top of the page), or at the CastleDev site (www.CastleDevGroup.com). Good luck, Lynn Grant Castle Development Group

well there are good points and bad point to working purely in Bryce OR purely in Poser. Bryce and Poser do not always play well together ..getting the models setup for Bryce can be a serious PITA. With a comic involved, that would mean setting them up for each panel render ..time and annoyance factor. VUE is similar to look and feel as Bryce, and the Mover program for it makes importing Poser models virtually seamless. I would recomend Vue or Bryce if you are doing many outside shots. Bryce does have a simpler to use lighting setup than Poser (not hard), and procedural materials which Poser 4 lacks. You can render out Bryce skies and backgrounds and use them in Poser in various ways, or composite in Photoshop. I'd recomend looking at the DAZ Cyclorama, or RDNA Cyclodrop. RDNA also has many other great landscaping tools for Poser which combined with good background scenes can make for great images. It is possible to work entirely inside Poser4, but it does have its limitations. It is faster for comics work, as you can move the figures and render a new panel without having to set everything up again. However, Poser4 does not have environental effects like fog or haze, and the Poser lighting system is, shall we say, less than user friendly. However there are enough well made light sets out there, both free and commercial, that you can skip dealing with it if you find a set that works for you. The last issue with working purely inside Poser4 is that it lacks true reflections and procedural materials. Poser 5 does have those capabilities, as well as volumetric lighting ... but is VERY slow and many people have had issues working with it. As for your Photoshop problems - you want to render in New Window, not onscreen, that way you will be able to specify the image size in terms of pixels or inches. Under 'Render Options' choose 'new window' and then choose the size you want. You can render from that window, or from the main screen. Either way, a new window will open and your image will eventually render there. Save that as your picture, and you will see the difference in Photoshop immediatly. DON'T use Poser's jpg format .. its lousy. Save as a TIF, which also saves with Alpha channel, which can make certain things easier in Pshop As for the layout, what you're doing is really simple. You need to set up a page template, possibly add page numbers, and add text boxes and text. If you were feeling odd you could make it in as common a program as Powerpoint. Really .. I've done it lol (don't ask) my .. I'm lecturing today grin

I use Macromedia Fireworks 3 for laying out pages and adding text and fx. It works great for this. It has layers and vector-based graphics. Although FW3 was intended as a web-graphics tool, it is also a great comic-art tool. As for formats, I save as .psd - very versatile format.

Nobody's specifically mentioned where R'osity's forum is, yet. You've probably found it, but if not, it's in the drop-down tab named "Topic Forums" on the right of this page. I've looked into Bryce vs. Vue quite extensively myself, and it's no contest. I plan to save up for the latter. Try the demo version on Vue's site (http://www.e-onsoftware.com/). As a supplement to some good points already made, Lyrra wrote: "Under 'Render Options' choose 'new window' and then choose the size you want...." You can also specify resolution. If you're not aware of it, anything less than 300 dpi will print terribly. 350 dpi is better, and if you plan to enlarge later, render at 600 dpi (if your computer can manage it without crashing -- save first). "DON'T use Poser's jpg format .. its lousy. Save as a TIF, which also saves with Alpha channel, which can make certain things easier in Pshop" If you're rendering to the current window, then click File>Export Image... the result is a billion times better than "Save As." If you're rendering to a new window, "Save As" works better. But TIF is still preferred if you plan to print your work. Hm. I wasn't aware of the forum at ComicBabeCentral. And I consider myself a perv and a comic artist? Pheh! First impression: looks very promising. Take care; Chas

I wrote: "... If you're rendering to a new window, "Save As" works better..." That just made my paragraph confusing. It should read, "... If you're rendering to a new window, "Save As" functions properly..." It's about the same as "Export Image" from the current window. Why there's a difference in quality is completely beyond me. Chas

Adobe Illustrator! Great program, high pricetag... steep learning curve if you've never used a vector art program. As mentioned there's some forums at www.animotions.com Or try looking in the comic gallery here at Renderosity... when you find a style you like, try asking the artist how they did it. Doug

Chas, rendering at 300 dpi or 600 dpi doesn't make any difference at all. Only the pixel size counts. DPI is just a number that sits in the file and can be changed in most any image editor. The reason for differences in how you save an image has to do with Poser inverting the alpha channel sometimes. The image itself is not affected. I do something weird when I save images after I've rendered to a new window. Because Poser has focus problems sometimes, I'm never sure exactly which image it will save so I click the rendered window closed (yep..don't faint) Then Poser asks if I want to save first and I click the save button on the dialog. Heh. Thanks for all the super info, Lyrra! Makes me want to try it!