Hi, I need to populate a theatre set that I am working on with aprox 1000 people. I was wondering if there is a way of creating the people in poser with some kind of script or automation scheme that could generate random people (ex: change shirt/shirt color/hair style/hairstyle color etc.) does poser have it's own version of a scripting language like max has maxscript? I would hate to think that the only way is to create each character by hand!! thanks! R

Poser uses Python. But I'm not sure if it can do what you want.

And 1000 people??? And their clothes? Poser is going to choke. It's made to handle only a few characters at a time.

In the Marketplace, there are several "crowd kits" for sale. Basically, these are transparent planes with Poser people in various clothes and poses rendered on them. They are to fill a background with people, without choking Poser. Maybe one of those would help you. They have various themes, from contemporary parties to medieval villagers.

randym77 thanks for the info, I am doing the rendering in max nor poser and the characters need to be 3d because there will be an animated camera that will fly around the theatre. if python is built into poser then maybe it would be possible? I wonder if anyone has tried this?

There are a few Python gurus, like Ockam, who hang out here. Maybe they'll weigh in later. (It's really early in the morning, here in the U.S.) Also, you might try posting your question to the "Poser Python Scripting" forum.

Oh, and what version of Poser are you using? I think Python is built into Poser 5 and Poser Pro Pack, but not Poser 4.

There are not many 3d apps that will let you animate 1000 figures in, unless they are very low resolution.

Providing your system can handle the geometry, I would not create the figures in Poser if you're going to be using another app like 3dsMax anyway.

As long as these are going to be background characters, I would start with only 20-50 low-res P4 figures in Poser. Then bring them into the 3ds scene and then INSTANCE those 20 figures as many times as you need to get the crowd you're looking for. You'll never be able to handle 1000 figures in Poser itself without major problems. 3dsMax should be able to handle the geometry if you instance the 20 low-res figures you've imported multiple times in the scene. I've seen scenes consisting of millions of polys in Max, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Message edited on: 08/07/2004 08:00

I used about 30 people in my Gallery picture of the Tiger. Two Brave ladies. I did use Poser 2 low res characters for the background. and set a slightly different pose on some.

"no compositing, no postwork, straight poser 4 render :-)"

Very cool. Care to share the details about how you set it up, etc.?

I have to assume this isn't an animated scene, since 22 min per frame would be far too much rendertime when you consider it usually takes 24-30 frames to make up just one second of animation. ;-) Message edited on: 08/07/2004 12:04

maxxmodelz, I'm in the process of recreating an old 600 seat vaudeville theater in 3d & I needed a crowd to fill the seats. So what I did was model my own lo-rez people (sub 600 polys each) in blocks of 10 (1 row). For the poser render I imported 10 rows in lwo, adjusted the Y/Z axis & then exported as obj. 10 blocks like that arranged with Posette in the foreground, and there you go... 1,000 + 1 :-)

I remember a coupla years ago there was an advert at the top (back when I paid attention to such things..;) for a 'crowd maker'. Bantam 3d has a 'scatter' program that will make random crowds of objects..though animation..I havent' even got morphs done yet..;) good luck.

cooler: Impressive. I knew someone would try and do this when I saw it earlier, too.

"For the poser render I imported 10 rows in lwo, adjusted the Y/Z axis & then exported as obj. 10 blocks like that arranged with Posette in the foreground, and there you go... 1,000 + 1 :-)"

Awesome. Great meathod. Message edited on: 08/07/2004 13:14

thanks to everyone for your sugestions. The ideal way to do this is to use python to script poser to create 1000 randomly generated people in sitting position (changing hair style, colors, clothing etc.) and then export them to max. in max I will be doing the animation and rendering.

for the scene I am working on the crowd needs to be 3D but they don't need to be animated. just the camera will be animated.

I think I am close to finding a solution. when I do I will post images and methods here.

Message edited on: 08/07/2004 15:23

Ronin, I'm still not sure why you have to make all 1000 people in Poser. If you're just going to bring them into max afterwards. 50 different characters in Poser can easily translate to 1000 people in Max using Max's powerful instancing duplication meathods. You can texture all 50 differently in Poser, then when you duplicate those 50 multiple times in Max, it will give the illusion of a vast audience. Hosting all 1000 people in Poser first, then exporting them all seems to be overkill.

maxxxmodelz, I should have been clearer, I wasn't thinking I could generate 1000 people in poser, I was thinking of generating a few at a time or one at a time depending or I something like that. I know poser was not built to handle that much geometry. my approach now is to export 10 or 15 basic people out of poser to max, then run a script in max which I am writing now which will take care of the random distribution and assigning them random features. this is the easiest approach I think. thanks for your input

You're welcome, Ronin. That script sounds cool. Quite useful I'm sure. Will you have a commercial copy of it for sale after you complete your project? I'm sure it would come in handy to many people who use max. hint hint ;-) Good luck on the project!