I broke down and bought the S.A RDL7 bundle. I just couldn't help myself, it's just so...awe inspiring. It's like a whole new world to explore for me as I'm not normally into sci-fi so much. This will have to change if I'm to get my money's worth, lol. Anyway, that said, I am finding it near impossible to navigate within the scene. I've found that I am going to have to build and render in pieces to get any movement at all from my machine, but even then the task is daunting. What kind of cameras, settings and angles should I be using? My memories of photography class are cloudy at best.

I go through the same thing with some of Transpond's sets, some of them are unbelievably huge! lol I usually start out with the cam set at 35 which helps me to see more and maneuver around the sets until I find a pov that I like. Then I increase it to say 70 or 100 when I find something I like. Hope this helps...

There is an SA RDL7 freebie over at DAZ but unfortunately it's for PC members only. It has 32 camera and 25 character presets to help with moving around that monster (believe me, after succumbing as you did and purchasing it, I was as lost as you were). The freebie was created by Crescent, if you're not a member you may be able to convince them to make it wider freebie.

Lucky me! I am a PC member >^_^< I'll have to check it out. Must be new :) :) :)

Ok I have been looking around DAZ for this freebie, but I can not find it What am I missing?

It's not in the members only forum. It's in the Commons of the DAZ forums.

gagggh my mistake, and apologies (

None necessary. I was really getting frustrated and you pointed me
in the right direction. thank you. >^_^

Try the aux camera. It works like a camera mounted on a turret. The main camera always revolves around the world center. Another trick I use is to create a simple sphere prop and call it CENTER (so I can see it easier in the heir editor). Place it at about the center of the world so the floor is alingned such that if you dropped the sphere to the floor the world floor would match. Then make all world set objects children of the sphere. Now, instead of moving the camera, just move the CENTER and place the whole world around the camera. Works way better than trying to move the camera through the world. Just hide the prop when you're done moving. Also you can move the entire set to something like y=10000 to set up all your figures without the set slowing down your preview. When ready just move the sphere back down to y=0. Also use the ctrl-8 shaded poly preview mode instead of textured preview. After a bit, poser will just drag trying to keep up with previews.

Cool! Thanks for the tip >^_^

Mason, I won't presume to disagree with you outright, but are you sure about that statement? 'Try the aux camera. It works like a camera mounted on a turret' Aren't you thinking of the Dolly cam? The Main and Aux cams both rotate around the world center. Here's what I do. Figure out where the center of the scene is. Go to the Dolly cam and use DollyZ (plus X and Y, if necessary) to position the cam at the center. You're now looking at the scene from the pivotal point and can use Yaw to rotate around it. Focal length can be set low, like 20 -30mm to get your bearings, then increase it. mac

Mac- You maybe right. I do get those confused.

Wouldn't it be nice if Poser would let us create new cameras the way we can create new lights, etc? I find myself wishing for that feature CONSTANTLY!!! Anyway, try to make the best use of the cameras you have. For big scenes I'll pick a camera or two (usually aux and top) and zooom them out far enough until it encompasses the entire scene. If nothing else it helps you get your bearings. It's also very useful to get your props and figures oriented in space. Then if dolly or main are being upity as far as positioning, I'll select a figure in the general area I want to capture and use it's posing camera to get the shot. Sometimes you can use "point at" with the cameras to good effect also. But sometimes you just have to slug it out with main or dolly and twitch the dials. Unzipped

Attached Link: http://www.fallencity.net/treasures/poser/Cres-SARDL7-poses.zip

Actually, you can add more cameras... Do a search for "more cameras" in freestuff or lesbentley :-) Marco

Yep, it's possible to add extra cameras, but you need to do a fair bit of hacking. What's probably easier, is to turn cameras into props and just add them when you need them. I have a few prop cameras I made. Again, it's slightly involved, but not desperately difficult. Les did a lot of stuff in that area, so he's probably uploaded some of them. mac PS Cres - I didn't find out about the dolly from RTFM. I found out about it in here. I mean, I don't mind manuals, but who can read that thing? It must be one of the worst ever. LOL

PS On the subject on cameras, just a reminder of something that people never seem to know or remember. If you're not happy with the default choice of cameras in the poser icon, you can change them. Look at the very top of the camera icon-thing, where there are 2 hands and a head (left-hand, right-hand and face cams). In the menu under the document window, select the new camera you want to add, then alt-click any one of the 3 on the icon, and your selected camera will replace it. Since I use Main and Aux all the time, and (of course), there's no kb shortcut for Aux, I use the icon shortcut instead. mac

If you're not happy with the default choice of cameras in the poser icon, you can change them. maclean - anyone tell you lately how wonderful you are?!?

I didn't know that either mac and I've read the manual! lol many thanks for that juicy tidbit.

Ultimately, the problem is that Poser was never designed with large scene handling in mind, and the interface is intrinsically hostile to the manipulation of anything very elaborate. The lack of properly-functioning orthogonal views is particularly trying. Possibly Poser 6 will sort these things out, but I had hoped that Poser 5 would.

You're 100% correct Phantast. Sometimes we forget that Poser's roots were simple figure posing - not a complete scene creation and rendering application. So we're still suffering from that legacy I suppose. I filled out that questionaire from Curious Labs, but it still seems like they're not asking the right questions - none of this was addressed. So we'll see... Unzipped

'maclean - anyone tell you lately how wonderful you are?!?' No, but I tell myself several times a day, so it's OK. LOL. Glad to be of help. mac