Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL


Subject: How did I....

pdxjims opened this issue on Oct 05, 2003 ยท 9 posts


mickmca posted Mon, 06 October 2003 at 7:10 AM

Not to rain on the parade, but asking for centaur figures that look "realistic" is kinda, well, unrealistic. After all, of the various mythical beasties, the centaur is unique in that it violates skeletal structure. The human pelvis has to somehow blend with the horse shoulder and collarbone, and you end up with two torsos. What's more, the horse head is replaced by 100-150 pounds of meat and bone with a multiplier of flexibility and too many vertebrae. "Real" centaurs look to me as if the guy part is about to fall on its face, because the center of gravity for the torso is too far forward on the horse shoulders. To create a "real" centaur, you have to decide whether the joint is a hip with an elaborate tail sticking out behind (in other words, the front legs are the guy legs) or a collar with a complicated head attached. In static one-off art (The Battle with the Centaurs), this is not such a big problem, because you just solve the balance and engineering issues "one centaur at a time." But the bones and joints have to be generalized and malleable in a Poser fig. The cartoon solution (with a bow to Disney) is easy compared to the "realistic" problems. I'll be curious to see what someone comes up with.