Ok, let me elaborate on the idea.

Just using the scale dial idea is not always advisable.

Lets say for instance we have the BattleStar Galactica (which will be available for Poser soon), and you want to do an animation of 20 Viper fighters being launched. You could just scale the existing Viper down to scale, but think of the amount of polygons you would have then.

So you would need an outside shell low polygon Viper for that scene, and switch to a full sized 1/1 Poser scale for the close up shots with the pilot.

Does scale matter?

The reason we are trying to decide on a scale , is so that when ten different people are all modelling 10 different ships from Star Trek, when they are used together in a scene the user doesn't have to try and figure out how much to scale each of the ten models so that it looks realistic.

For still renders this is not so much of a problem. You want the Battlestar Galactica as a backdrop for Vicky, then render it and use that as a background picture. But what if you wanted to animate the Battlestar Galactica fighting it out with a Ceylon Deathstar, and both models where made by two different people, using different scales, do you want to search the net for scale comparisons each time and work out with the scaling tool how much to reduce/enlarge each model.

For medium distance scenes, like the Death Star trench in Star Wars, you have a different problem. The trench in the movie is 3km long. Imagine trying to model and animate on that scale, but you can't use 1/100 because you would lose too much detail on the fighters, so if the modeller made the trench in 1/10, and you just scaled your fighters and pilots down, then that would be easier. But then we would have to agree that medium scale models like the Rebel Base on Hoth, or the Trench on the Death Star, or the Colonist Complex in Aliens, are 1/10 when modelled, so that the user knows what to scale his ships, vehicles and characters to. Imagine trying to do the attack on Hoth, with AT-AT and AT-ST's, and snowspeeders, etc, on normal Poser scale. Imagine the size of the landscape prop. It would be much easier to do the scene in 1/10 scale, switching to 1/1 for close-ups of characters, cockpit interiors, etc.

The reason we should decide on scale now is that we are preparing many models for release, and many people will start doing their own conversions once we start, so we need to make sure we are all working towards the same usable goal, and not make it too hard on the user to make realistic and believable renders and animations.

Within the next six months there are going to be about 100 spaceship models for Poser, with docking bays, space stations, moons, planets, surface scenes, etc. Unless someone wants to run and maintain a website with the scale percentages for each of these ships and scenes, we should just decide on the scale now and save everyone a lot of long term frustration.

My suggestion is just that when you make a model, you include on your thumb and readme what scale you have used, so the other people know what to scale their models to if they want to use them together.

With the Sulaco I will be releasing a 1/100 scale dropship, low poly, with flight wings extended. With the colonist complex, I am releasing a 1/10 scale medium poly Dropship (with folding wings) and APC for long shots, and then if people wnat to do close up scenes, they can use the forthcoming Sci-Fi construction kit for Aliens and the normal scale models to make those scenes. If it all works, there is no reason why we can't eventually have the same for Star Wars, BattleStar Galactica, etc.

caravaggio - when I have finished the Aliens series I am going to launch an idea for a Poser Sci-Fi universe with all original ships, vehicles, characters, scenes, etc. Then people can make ships, uniforms, etc for this universe that they can sell without having to worry about copyright from movies. The Aliens project was a test run for this idea, and this idea will be launched in July with a 200 page website of schematics and pictures detailing this SciFi universe. This universe will combine many elements of all the existing SciFi universes, but is original enough to avoid copyright issues. I don't want to say too much about this now, but the website is complete and has taken me a year to do. All will be revealed in July. (cue dramatic music here, lol)