Most of my freestuff items (just about all of 'em) are in the Misc .obj category because they're pretty much usable by any program and saved in .obj format. As a simple experiment, I placed another in the Bryce downloads. It did a little bit better than most objects as downloads go, but not much. (Initial downloads seemed faster, and then hit a plateau.) Then, just for the heck of it - I placed another download in the Poser mesh objects category. (Nothing significantly better than any of my other models.) And it got a lot more hits than anything else, including the Misc items that have been there for a good while. So is it me, or is the Misc. Obj. category of freestuff somewhat neglected by those hunting for freebies? Also it seems that some of the categories are superficial. As the actual file format may be compatable with more than one rendering/modeling program, yet it's lumped under only one category. In some ways this might make finding a freebie trickier.

Most Poser people just look in the Poser category. And Brycers look mostly in Bryce, and often in Poser, methinks

this site is geared towards Poser, not that we don't get our due, but everything Poser is more looked at, picked over, etc (considering that a goodly portion of all Poser stuff has to be imported to do a good render..;) I don't bother with categories, I just go through 'what's new' (Harry wants to know what's new..;) and take according to what I need..but a lot more folks here are just focused on the package they have.

don't know Rhino..but the 'i's have it..intrude, inset, and extrude..all right, that's not an 'i'..;) I use it to bring out or create details..works fairly well. just adding surfaces can help out a lot. good luck.

It's not just freebies -- market models have to be placed in a category tied to a specific application. I tend to save models in obj format, and upload to the Wavefront category purely because that has obj as its native format, but they aren't specifically Wavefront at all. I think there really should be a general, non-specific 3D model category in the MP (if there is I haven't found it). Also maybe the Poser brigade should be a little more adventurous :) Mick.

...don't Poser people expect their models to be rigged, boned etc. for Poser? m.

The miscellaneous (Misc.) category is as non-specific as I could think of, as far as not being tied into a particular program goes... If I upload a .obj file I think it should show up under all programs that can load/import an .obj file. As it is now - you either post under one program or repost many times to cover different programs (dunno whether Renderosity likes that. Hmmm...) Same should be true with other common formats like .3ds or .vrml. Dunno if the Renderosity admin would like to tinker with that, but it might be worth consideration. (Right now, afaik an .obj can be placed in: Poser, mesh object; Bryce, objects; Carrara/RDS, models; Gaming, general; Lightwave, objects; Misc., .obj; Mojoworld, objects; Rhino, main?; Vue, objects. Quite a bit of territory to cover. Similar situation with .3ds.) There are some program specific categories that do make sense, as file formats are inherent only to one program. CR2 for Poser, and .obp for Bryce (should really have two categories for B4 or B5), or .max for 3DS max, etc.

I think some don't mind rigging it for themselves, Your Pearceratorness. I have Poser, Bryce and Max (as of last year) and I much prefer a clean object file I can rig myself than a cr2 that doesnt work all too well. But thats just me :-) Anton started a thread in the Poser forum about some new categories, and Kev said he'd mention it to the higher ups. If we added our two cents to that, maybe there'd be a possibility of some reshuffling - making it easier for files and d/l's to be sorted or classified ? ~S

Rhino can export OBJ, but cannot natively import it. That requires a freeware proggy called obj23dm.exe

" I think some don't mind rigging it for themselves, Your Pearceratorness" Hi C :) The thing is, I don't know or use Poser, except for sticking the occasional Poser 3 (which I got free off a cover disk) dork figure in a pic to give some scale, so I don't really know what would be expected if I put up obj models as Poser models; I would have thought that if they were specifically listed as that, users would assume that they were ready for instant loading into Poser, with all associated handles, material settings and whatnot or whatever. There does, I think, need to be some generalisation of the model categories. Mick.

Here's an idea... Suggest in the Forum News and Team Contact forum, or whatever it's called now, that the Freestuff category drop-down box be replaced with a checklist. That way, stuff like properly scaled OBJ files can be put in several categories, not just Misc, without having to put them in every single category separately.

Good idea Valandar. Never thought of scaling things for different programs though, I usually do that after importing. Also, does anyone think it would be good to classify things by what they're models of? Something like .obj -> natural -> flora -> trees, or maybe .3ds -> man made -> vehicles -> aircraft... Something of that nature... It seems logical enough.

I gather that Poser will handle some .obj files that other programs will not. And does a few other things differently. There's probably some info out on the web, but three aspects come to mind. 1: Poser meshes don't require all faces to be triangular. 2: Poser tends to smooth edges, though later versions can switch this off for an object, so Poser meshes might be made with with a few features to limit the smoothing. 3: Poser uses a different scale. I suppose every rendering program has some little quirks in how they handle a mesh.