First of all, I want to thank everyone involved for directig me to some cool wheehchairs so I can comeplete my Diversity at Work animation. I especially want to thank Ziggie for his excellent product from his Ziggie's Poser Emporium. I did what he said I should do. Scale the chair to match the adult figure, added the pose, and tweaked and animate the dude rolling along. The programmer creating the course was very impressed. (The thread to this was a while back though.) Thanks again! Now have a request of a different nature. For my work I will be expected to create corporate images of figures in a office environment. I have added the Poser office on my wish list of course. But does anyone created facial expresssion poses of figures that are naturally smiling. It is a bit of a trick in Poser 5 and would help if someone already made this. But please! (I just know I am going to get flamed for this!) I am not looking for "Catch me! Kiss me!" expressions. This is for work and it is about co-workers. Ahem. :/

There are expression packs for most of DAZ's figures, not sure about the P5 crew. However, why not create your own? It's not difficult.

Well! I tried and was somewhat satisfied with the results. However it really does not look that natural. I get something that is either a grimace or a toothless smile. I remeber someone in another thread metining this very thing. Any the reply is it is something you got to play with. Will keep trying.

It might have been me. I was noting how much more natural Elle's smile is (i.e. Elle by neftis) than the DAZ characters. Sometimes the DAZ characters look like they are gritting their teeth.

just some tips for 'better looking' smiles...

1. memorize your camera setting and save your lights so you won't need to tweak with em after doing the following:
2. switch to a face cam and set the light to a neutral level, pan the cam to obtain a 3/4 frontal view, maybe with a slight negative pitch (looking from up to down)
3. now find the dials to 'open mouth' or 'part lips': infact, before working on the smile, it's better to adjust the teeth! Play with those dials until you can see the teeth clearly enough (possibly maintaining the mouth within human limits...). If needed, pan the camera to try various pov.
4. Find the teeth dials, play with them, try to move those teeth up, down, inside and out to achieve a more 'human' and pleasing look. If there are no dials you'll have to use magnets...
5. When satisfied turn back the lips dials (open and part/disclose) and start to play with the smile.
6. IMPORTANT! remember that for a smile a lot of facial muscles are involved (can't remember how many but quite a lot!) - so after the lips, you'll have to tweak the cheeks, the nose (this in minor ways) and the eyes (unless you want to obtain a 'lunatic' type of grin).
7. Finally, try to get all out of the straight geometric pattern. Tilt, bend and rotate the head 1 or 2 degrees. Pose the eyeballs to compensate and look at the camera or at the wanted subject). You will notice how more natural an off-straight look is, compared to the 'square' starting position.
8. even a minor detail, like a bended finger, can change greatly the realism of a pose... so try all, and be careful to not overdo!

Happy rendering!

Message edited on: 08/20/2004 04:20

Thanks, stemardue. That's all good advice ! :)

Yes! That is very good advice. Thanks stemardu! I am going to save his comments in a text file. Also proves my point that getting a spontanious natural smile would involve a lot more that just moving a couple of settings. One thing I would also try to set is the way the lower eyelids would go up when someone smiles. I also adjust the head at several angles like tilting the head to one side. I hope someone will come up with a expression pack for the Poser 5 people.