Okay, as many of you know I'm making Samurai Armour for Mike 3. I'm getting close to being done in many ways, and I while this decision could wait until the last minute -- even after testing, I'd rather get it out of the way. The names for the asian armour parts: I have three options. 1) Accurate japanese names (transliterated of course)     For instance, 'waidate no kusazuri', 'kote', 'hoshikabuto no hachi' 2) Western equivalent names     For instance, 'quisse', 'paldron', 'helmet' 3) D&D Oriental Adventures names (which more people will know because it's in D&D)     For instance, 'haidate', 'kote', 'kabuto' Which should I go with?

By the way, no pictures, or anything, so don't anyone start shit. Fact is I need people's opinions since this will be mostly for the people who give their opinions, I'd imagine.

ah crap..was gonna wax eloquent on paldrons, greaves, articulated plates..dangit..;) I dunno..

I'd prefer the Japanese names (only because I know them:)). But I think the D&D versions might work best. Can't wait to see the armour!

BTW, what I meant in #2 as I realised it might not be clear: yes the subject is something that's going to be for sale, but no this is not a promo. Amon, there's another glimpse with a test texture (testing a theory and it worked) in the PS forum.

To someone not familar with the terms thay are all confusing. On the other hand "arm thingy," "Shin dohicky" and "sruff you put on top your head so yuo do not get hit" just do not sound right. I was working on some samuri stuff- I was not quite at teh piont you are are before I gave up. I say stick with the orginal names, and give instiction on how to change the name in poser. or maybe add a CR2 with english terms (You may even be able to rename them with injection files)

Oh, well, the body part names are standard Poser names... 'lShldr', 'rCollar', 'lButtock', 'hip', etc. Each of the pieces of armour will load up as a seperate conformer. Right now I have domaru, waidate, lKote, rKote, lKoteGlove, rKoteGlove, lSuneAte, rSuneAte, lSode, rSode, and 'Trouser Legs' as my working names for CR2s, and have yet to model the kabuto, horo, and tabi/tsuranuki. In some cases, if I do end up going with 'D&D names', I have to default to real names, because Oriental Adventures doesn't even mention shoes (tabi/tsuranuki) or yukake (hand protectors, what my CR2 calls KoteGloves right now, which is just so it sorts easier instead of all the way at the botom of my rather full WIP directory). On the other hand, Occidental equivalents are easy, with those two being sabatons and gauntlets, of course B^)

Don't give them the names of western armor pieces... because they may protect the same part of the body, but do so differently. Looking at a "paldron" or "quisse" and seeing oriental pieces would make my brain spin. In lieu of 16 guage steel, there would be little bronze plates or wicker(?) mats! Even as a fairly pacifistic American, I know many of the names for all sorts of armor: I am a fantasy artist, I have friends in the SCA, and I have several books on Japan. There is a model of Date Masumara (sp) available. What are the pieces called by the neo-Japanese sites? Anyway, I'd recommend going with the traditional names, especially since you are trying for an authentic look. Carolly

Yes, traditional names (although I'd suggest not going so traditional that you label them in Kanji or saomething). Western equivalents wouldn't seem right, and how many more people would know the D&D versions anyway? You could, however, include a separate image with an armoured figure and labels pointing to each of the relevant parts, for those unfamiliar with the terms who, like me, sometimes find thumbnails a little too small to be entirely sure what they're showing.

Here is a suggestion :) Can you also include a fron and back view of the final Armor - with all the parts named [you know the images with little arrows to certain parts] This would help everyone to make sure they are clicking on the correct armor part - think of it as an "Armor guideline!" ladynimue

As you can guess, go with the traditional Japanese names. Japanese armor varies significantly from Western armor. Kuroyume

Go with the traditional names. I won't know what in the world they mean at first, but I will learn... Those who know Western names for armor had to learn them at some point... It'll be Edutainment...

I'd say go with original names. But also include a graphic showing what each part is. I don't know what all the names are, but I'd find out. Would probably sound better in the end, too.

Traditional in romanji would be best, hey? if nothing else it may teach a little 8 )

Romanji is more traditional than kanji, Wizzard? I wouldn't really know, it was my mum learned Japanese, not me, and she only learned to write in kanji. Thank you! Always nice to learn something new. :)

I believe Romanji means standard transliteration, right? Actually, I just got a helluva idea. I'm going to go with shortened traditional names (i.e., 'waidate', not 'waidate no kusazuri', so it fits in PPP), and then ON the thumbnail I'm going to write the other names along with the thumbnail (though very small-ly)

Kanji is the ideographic symbology "imported" from China. Furigana is Kanji with hiragana superscript. Hiragana are phonetics for native words. Katakana are phonetics for borrowed/foreign words. Romaji is a conversion of the hiragana/katakana to English alphabet for those that can't read the above formats. That'll be all for today. You are dismissed... ;)

Go with the shorter traditional names .. if the piece is modeled accurately, you might as well name it accurately. (and make the historian types happy) Poeple who don't know what the widgets are will figure it out eventually :) Frankly I've always marveled that silk and bamboo makes effective armour against those swords ...

haigan, no romanji as in arabic lettering as opposed to kanji, hiragana or katakana.. as most Poser programmes will choke horridly on the characters. perhaps I should clarify...: Use the traditional names for the armour parts... typing them in teh arabic form known as romanji, then people can learn the traditional names for teh various pieces... Cheers

Arabic? I think you probably mean Roman. Like these here letters you're reading. I haven't done a lot of market research in this area, admittedly, but I think the Poser user base that speaks Arabic or Farsi is significantly less B^) (You're probably thinking 'Arabic' because of the numbers we usually use, which are Arabic (1,2,3,4,5) rather than Roman (I, II, III, IV, V) because we do our math in base 10 and find zeros useful.) Anybody want to give me Hiragana versions to put on the thumbnail images with the other names? Babelfish translated 'Kabuto' as 'Kabuto', rather than 'wbg', so apparently when you say something in Romanji it doesn't comprehend it.

If 'wbg' looks like 'w9bg' you can't see the Hiragana; to do so youmust set your encoding to Japanese Auto-select (under the view->encoding menu in IE).

I did the "Auto-Select" thing and now I have squares and letters instead of funny little "f"s and letters...

Try just choosing straight Japanese. I don't have the auto-select option, and choosing Japanese worked fine.