Games like Unreal Tournament can provide much more than a way to blow your online buddies to smithereens, they're also a surprisingly good source for 3D environments. By playing UT in Spectator mode with no bots and no HUD, you're free to fly around the hundreds upon hundreds of user-made maps available and capture background images for use in Poser. You will need to adjust lighting to fit the scene, and it would probably be a good idea to enable Vanishing Lines (so that your Poser camera angle matches that of the UT screen), but with some post-render work, I've found the results to be quite satisfactory. For outdoor scenes, Terragen, Bryce, and Vue renders are still far superior, but the many gothic, industrial, military, and futuristic levels available might make indoor scenes a bit easier to put together. Unreal Tournament comes with it's own map editor as well, which I've wondered what would be like in the hands of those on this forum. The editor doesn't appear to be overly difficult for anyone with 3D modeling experience (although I've never actually used it; Allie would know better than I), and I recall hearing that certain 3D object files can be imported into the editor (again, don't take my word for it). Perhaps levels could be made specifically for use as backgrounds, with custom textures and architecture (with no botpathing or item placement necessary). :) Just a thought as always. My intention was to use these simply as backgrounds, but knowing the ingenuity of the members here, I figured I'd share this with everyone in the hopes someone could expand on it. Take care! SnowS Hoping his pictures are worth 1001 words

Snow, Good ideas keep on coming to you don't they? =) Thanks for the tip! Marque

Another example. Not bad. :)

these pics are excelent, do you have a link to the game these came from? i have an idea i want to try. how did you capture these excelent pics?

JAFO, they came from Unreal Tournament, a game similar to Doom, Quake 3, Goldeneye, and other first-person shooters. Visit planetunreal.com for just about all the info you could want on it. There is an excellent free demo available too. I captured the pics just using the Printscreen key during the game, then minimizing the game, pasting the pic into an editor, and then returning to the game to capture another...very primitive, I know. : They turn out EXTREMELY dark that way though, so I had to mess with Photoshop Levels to lighten them up. Thanks a lot Marque! I hope my ideas help others to create better things...I'm more of a thinker than a do-er. :) SnowS

I've always thought that's a great idea, SnowSultan, and I've been doing that myself with regular Unreal and Quake 2. I just use the screen captures as 2D Poser Backgrounds. I never tried posting anything with that technique here, because I wasn't sure how it would be recieved, as if it was somehow cheating or unethical. (?) Is using a 3D game for 2D backgrounds really any less worthy than using Bryce? I'm not sure. Not if a person textured or designed their own levels, as you suggest. I know that some people design player characters in 3D Studio, but wasn't aware you could import anything into the games. A poser character imported into Unreal Tournament would be wild. I would think you could only do that in a simple, limited way, without things like transparent hair. I'm surprised that you seem to be the first one who has thought of this.

These look great for environments. I don't know though if used who you would have to credit, but this reminds me of a great texture site for skinners of these games. http://www.graphtallica.com/ You'll find many textures used in games like this and other useful links so even if you don't have the game you can make something similar. Hmmm, hey SnowSultan, you just gave me an idea :)

After seeing this post I remember an article on PlanetQuake a long time ago concerning custom mod making for quake. I went there just now and you can open the .pk3 (the file that holds all the info concerning Quake3), using WinZip, and extract the textures. Simply right click the file and select "open with" and then choose winzip. There are some really detailed paintings that look very relistic. Much better than in the game itself, which looks very good! I would think that to use these would be ok, if you actually own the game, and only used them for your own personal non-profit work. After all they allow people to make maps/levels using these same textures. Correct me if I am wrong please. later, Don

I use game engine systems all the time for backgrounds. Its a good idea. Tribes is good for outdoor stuff like fields, rolling hills and deserts. Plus Tribes has a built in editor that lets you place building and such. the buildings aren't so hot but you can remove them, change the sky, fog etc for a good outdoor render. Not as good as bryce but great for a quicky render. I've also been collecting Unreal and Quake 3 mods just for their layouts and mazes for backgrounds.

FYI: Monolith Studios (Shogo Mobile Armor)is currently developing a set of director type video utilities for their Lithtech engine to easily drop in a game level set type environment. You have the advantages of a real time 3D engine with FULL CAMERA scripting control, and someone please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe it will have render to disk software included so you can dump your scripted scenes to an .avi file which would then give you a quickly animated set background for composite Poser characters. Or, if you have the talent, you could build your own low poly characters and use them as actors in a real time 3D engine. See the following website for more information on "Machinima", and many many movies that were made using the Quake, Unreal, Lithtech, and Half-Life engines. Co(V)(V)union

These are really awesome SnowSultan, what type of copyright issues would there be though? Now, if we can just get someone to make a packet of background pictures and post them! (hint, hint)

As far as copyright questions go, I doubt there would be any problem at all as long as they're for personal/non-profit use. I'd just be sure to check the readme for any user-made map you take pictures from, and give the creator credit for his or her map (these pics were taken from default UT maps, BTW). Pendarian, the only problem with making backgrounds like this for others to use is that is forces you to adjust your Poser creation to fit the background's camera angle, instead of the other way round. If you don't mind doing that though, I'll try to post a few more. :) Thanks to all for your comments. SnowS