I'm curious as to what everyone's work flow is like, as I'm sure my methods could use some improvement. If your working on a product that's rather large, how do you tackle it? My work flow goes something like this; 1. Model Everything 2. UV Map 3. Texture 4. Run it through Phi Builder 5. Change Cr2 to my liking 6. Create Mat Files Creating files for Poser is so tidious. Especially for the Mat Pose section - I find that the Mat Poses usually take the longest to do when you have multiple figures/textures for your product. For instance there's a project I work on every now and then that has six figures. These figures will have four texture themes all together. Each figure has anywhere from 3-5 maps...I have to make MAT files for P4, PP, AND P5.....I find myself getting discouraged when I get to the MAT file stage...

1. Get and idea and don't sleep or eat until I've modelled it :) 2. UV map it all. 3. Import into Poser and do final fits on character using magnets. 4. Build cr2/s from existing cr2/s which are generally based upon the original figure. 5. Load into Poser and make sure cr2 is working correctly. Make any jcm coverup morphs (collars up/down) with magnets. 6. Make rsr's and pngs. 7. Open cr2/s in EditPad and remove all 'conformingTarget' line and change figure numbers to :1. 8. Package. If I make textures for an item, it's the very last thing I'll do.

1. Model something. 2) Pull it into Poser, apply P5 materials and make a pretty picture. 3) Go to bed and forget I did it. 4) A few weeks later, remember my brilliant idea. 5) Take a nap. 6) Build the .cr2 file for the object. Get disgusted by my first object and redo it from scratch. Rebuild the .cr2 and make another pretty picture. 7) Take a trip to Indiana (I try to save those for Lent). 8) Remember I was working on something. Open 4 or 5 different versions of the object file before deciding which one I really wanted (I save a lot, under different names). 9) Redo the .cr2. Build morphs for muscles, and specialty morphs. Apply P5 materials and make a pretty picture and post it. 10) Take all the feedback and start over again. 11) P5 materials and another pretty picture. 12) Convert all the P5 materials to P4 textures whereever possible. Make some other stricly P4 textures. 13) Package and send to the beta testers. 14) Get word back from teh beta testers. Delete everything and start over. This time doing it right. Repeat steps 11 through 13. 15) Everyone likes it. I need money because Quim has released a new texture or PoserPro's has new clothing, or rDNA has practically anything, or Daz released a new morph set. Package and send to the store. 16) The store has problems with my promo shots (usually because of background color). Redo them. Resubmit. 17) Wait until it goes on sale. By that time the entry sale on the item(s) I want is over, and I pay full price. Most people do better than I do. Now you know why it takes me so long to finally release a product.

Turbulent. I am trying to rationalize my work flow but I'm too much a tweaker. One thing I've been working on lately is roughing in the UVmapping as I model. I just did a bow this way and it made it much smoother to map (as in, I built it as a rod, cylinder-mapped it, THEN bent it into a bow). Planning for UVs definately makes sense. But mapping too early can cut you off from useful tools. Another crunch I run into is re version numbers and work files. My current system left me completely lost multiple times as I tried to track down the most recent version.

Well I'm just a texturist ..so most of the time I get things after the mapping and poserising has been dealt with. These days Steve sends me some thing .. I check its mapping. May send back for changes ..or change it myself. Make template (all hail uvmapper pro and color coded labels! yay!) then off to photoshop. Make layers for each part on the map, add my sig, put the template on top to check against. Choose surface source images from my massive collection of tiled images, photos and licensed images. set up first version. check in uvmapper, adjust my mental picture of item. Add weathering layers if needed. Make between 3 -20 different versions with both simple surfacesource changes, and also design element changes ranging from simple to horribly complex. (like turning a mideastern bazaar into a cathedral) try all saved out textures on item in poser. Delete about 1/4. Adjust about half the remainder for fit/location/seamissue/stretching. spend the next day packing for poser, making rsrs, pngs and mats and preview renders. zip and upload to PW. usually a 2 to three day process, about 8-10 hours a day. I average 2 to 3 products a week. More for just texture sets, less of I'm doing something more fiddly like characters or facebuilding sets or ... the NYC apartment took me a whopping three days to texture because I had to stop and go shoot pictures halfway through one day to get the right kind of brick. frankly the packing and additional files making is the worst part .. its BORING. But people like MAT files and object previews in the library for some reason :) I'd say my workflow is painfully streamlined .. kind of has to be to keep up with Steve :) Lyrra

Well, combination of a massive layered PhotoShop file, GraphicConverter batch processing, and a set of folders functioning as stations in the assembly line made my last set of thumbs and MATs a little easier to deal with. I guess if I had a truly nasty number of identical operations to do I might invest the time in writing a script for them. I think the big trick in all of this is catching problems before you've gone a couple stages past them. It is NOT fun to touch up a UVmap after you've already built a bunch of textures. Or to make a change to a mesh after all the morphs have been generated!

1. Model 2. Save the obj file 3. Import the obj into poser and do a test render from all angles "BEFORE" you find out at the very end that you have degenerate facets, mistakes or odd angled meshes. 4. uvmap 5. phi build 6. rig for poser 7. texture and test render as you progress on your textures, you find a lot of mistakes this way. that's about how it is for me. davo