Ok, if you guys are new to Poser than maybe I understand. Metacreations owned Poser 4.0 They bailed and Curious Labs took over. They are in the process of not only putting an update together that is due out this fall, but they will (from what I hear) be putting out Poser 5.0 You guys really need to do some research on other programs. Marque

Attached Link: http://www.zalstudios.com

A guy I work with (we're the local ISP) told me he saw some program that used real, human, motion, capture models that translated perfectly over the mesh, and the inverse kinematics were superb. Unfortunately, he forgets the name of the program, or how much it retails for.

Have you exported Poser to Bryce??

Attached Link: http://zalstudios.com

OH, and by the way, I'm not bashing Poser. I think for the price, it's a pretty kewl app. I use it all the time. I just may have made the newbie error of expecting waaay too much from it after I played with Bryce4 and was awestruck at the way it handled textures and stuff. I see now that Poser doesn't seem to be designed for that awe-inspiring type of finish straight out of the box. I should know better, because we also build machines at my job, and I realize a real revenue earner in the tech field is "Upgrades, big ones, and often..." mea culpa

For some reason, my post ended up above the one I was replying to.

Attached Link: http://www.zalstudios.com

Probably because I deleted the incomplete post I had made. I have exported to Bryce and it does okay, but you can't make the poser figure actually animate well inside the scene, you have to move him around in front of a prerendered movie screen background in Poser. Whatever, I don't want to seem like I'm bashing....(must...control......unrealistic.....expectations.....aaarrrgh!)

{Probably because I deleted the incomplete post I had made. I have exported to Bryce and it does okay, but you can't make the poser figure actually animate well inside the scene, you have to move him around in front of a prerendered movie screen background in Poser.} Not always (though, if you want to do a tribute to the old Marvel Comics inspired cartoons of the sixties, this is the best way to do it!). Supposedly (I say supposedly because I've never gotten it to work, but I've heard a lot of people claim they did) you can create an AVI in Bryce and use it as a backdrop for a Poser animation; you might be able to get some good results using this. It would be REALLY nice if the two played together a bit more easily, though... :-)

Zal Considering the price of artists' mannequins and live models; as an art tool designed for capturing poses, Poser is (and was, at $99 for the original Poser 1) an incredible bargain. At this point in development, the ability to import props, scenes, textures and morphs (as with the ability to animate, and apply transparencies to those objects) makes it an amazingly flexible piece of software. I get the impression that a lot of people want the software to do EVERYTHING. Should you really expect Poser to do much more than a pencil or paintbrush if you don't spend the time mastering the tools. My only item for a Poser 5 wishlist is the ability to use 3rd party plug-ins for those users who don't want to bother reading the manual or browsing the forums for existing answers to common problems (joints, eyes, etc. have been covered in these forums--with several excellent alternatives and workarounds for the problems you mentioned in your earlier posts). Keeping Poser flexible and inexpensive is my most major concern. I've always been curious about the logic of folks who keep comparing Poser with Bryce. From an artist's point of view, it strikes me that capturing the human form is MUCH more complicated than capturing a landscape.

Attached Link: http://www.zalstudios.com

Yes, I've done AVI like that. I have a capture card too, and I've done some martial arts moves and put myself in AVI in the background so that I could make the Poser figure follow my every action, because I can't get motion-capture equipment at the moment. It works really well, and I would suggest to anyone with a video camera to get an inexpensive video capture card that allows them to make AVI video to do this if it helps. Just replace yourself doing the action with another AVI or backdrop when you're done. But try making your Poser character interact with Bryce terrains, eeeek! (Can you say David Copperfield?) Pose on, Dudes

{But try making your Poser character interact with Bryce terrains, eeeek! (Can you say David Copperfield?)} Yeah, I guess blue-screening is the way to go (make multiple renders/animations of each "active" element in the scene, with a neutral color blocking everything else, and then composite the whole in a video editor).

Oh, and when I'm comparing with Bryce, I'm just wondering if it's possible to have the figure transparent/translucent, etc. and able to move around like Poser figures can now for under $1000, or if it's just too cost/time prohibitive. If the code is done in C++ or Visual Basic or whatever, someone had given me the basic idea of how to go in and rearrange texture values. Just having smooth joints and clothing fit without a lot of holes would be probably enough reason to buy Poser5.

Why are you lame? Are you not listening to people? I wonder what you will do when people start slamming your little project. You have been placed on lamer alert and are from this point on being ignored. Thank goodness I can uncheck the box to email me when someone replies. Marque