When I purchased poser (5), I had one thing in mind. That is to do animations. I have characters (V3, M3), vehicles (Helis, Mechs, Aircrafts) and a few scene props (Dystopia, and another). Now what?

I see tremendous amounts of V3 characters and cloths (Wondering if their is enough of V3 Characters or anything new). We need scenes in the MP with lighting effects to go with it and no more V3. The scenes are not good enough in the MP (Small, tiny), so lately I find myself making stuff (AirBase, MechHanger), when I should be animating or would like to. Not enough talk or chat on animations for Poser5. Their will be a couple new scenes props coming into the MP soon by StoneMason (Which I need). But wondering where will it take me. Today I went and tried my best to start animating (Forget what I have been making (AirBase, MechHanger), and when I went to do a walk cycle for a V3 character, I find a male character do the solving for me. I had to load up V3 "Cr2" to replace in the walk cycle window. Then having difficulty with walk (Hips, head, arms, etc). Wondering how in the world am I goint to start this. Their is no walk cycle or a scripts to download for walking, sitting from a standing/walking position. Then when I do have a good enough cycle, I have other problems ahead of me. Lighting, scenes, props.

The outfits I need are not in the Marketplace anywhere (Flightsuit for example. Their are other, unable to think right now), although I am subbing with other products "Uzilite: MOS Liberator" to make up for a flightsuit.

The wishlist forum to me is sorta of a waste, to the point I bring up an Idea, I am pushed to a product that I have to substitude with. Sometimes I sit and wonder, what am I spending my money on, when I am not getting anything done or anywhere.

Last night sitting at home here resting. Me thinking about poser (5). Been thinking what my wife said a few months ago, when she was having problems with a DVD player we have. Using the Remote Control for the DVD, she got very upset and said. "Technology is suppose to make our lives easier. Why do I find it complicated and stressfull. With all these features and buttons?" Then at a christmas party she won a DVD player. I hook it up on the weekend, and she looks at the manual. And points out in the manual "Good quality hook up, Best quality hook up, and normal hookup." She shakes her head, and says. "Look at this...what is the difference?" When you hook it up on your tv, the results are the same, that I see. After that, I think about poser5, how much stress it has put on me over the months since I had it. The memory leaks, lighting, how much I spent for stuff to use in Poser, and the list can go on. Do not expect things to be easy. I just do not expect difficulty as well.

Message edited on: 01/19/2005 12:28

As Martin Hash, publisher of Animation Master once said, "Animation is hard." (And that's coming from a phd who had Catmull as his advisor) There's just no getting around that. There's a lot to learn in particular if you want to do character animation. At least with Poser you can skip the modeling, rigging and texturing :) You might wanna do a google on 'key framing animation' and 'interpolation in animation' to learn the basics. And, of course, read geeps tuts to at least learn the animation pallet and graph. There's not really much to them, but it takes practice to use them effectively. I'd say the two biggest head aches for just about all of us when we animate for the first time is unintentionally created key frames AND inadvertant omission of key frames where you need them. Both will result in odd behavior that can make you wanna throw your comp out the window in frustration trying to untangle it :) Once you get your head around it you'll be able to look at 'odd behaviour' in one of your animations and untangle it without too much difficulty in most cases.

Well as long as were complaining I might as well put in my two cents worth. I have bought Cinema 4D (Mac) only to find out I cannot export my textures unless I have a certain plug-in which isn't made for the mac. There are about 4 models at Daz I wanted to buy but I am holding off because I won't be able to import their textures from Poser to Cinema 4D and back because I found out I cannot import Poser or Daz models into Cinema 4D without a certain import plug-in which is aslo only available for PC. As an artist I was hoping to spend more time creating, but have found I am being more of a problem solver and programmer. I lay in bed at night and come up with these great ideas for 3D scenes only to realize they will never become a reality because the technology gets in the way. Honestly, I am eyeing that pencil and drawing pad over there with increased interest lately.

...you might wanna take a look at this thread, LMcLean: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&Form.ShowMessage=2078832

See..this is a good example. When I wrote about something, hoping someone would agree and will help start something, I was guided else where. Like why do I come to renderosity? To spend more cash? Make pics? We need to start chatting about Animations. I/We need help and examples. Help each other. Not say..please go here => Go wear yourself out now. I am exhausted already. Animation will not be easy like I wrote. Dr.Geeps tutors do help me on a start and they are great. So, I did my google search. Now, I have more cookies on my Hard drive Now, I am in for a Woman walk cycle (The one in poser5 her knees shake like she is wobbling. I play with the scales, and doesn't help), Mech Walk cycle for poser 5 (Working on now, but can use some hints). Can we work together on this? Please? I need clouds in the sky so my F-16 can fly through them. How can I do this? Making clouds?

...I feel your pain. Animation is a pain in the butt. If it makes you feel any better it's not uncommon to read on other boards about professionals who have spent months creating, say, a two minute animation that amounts to nothing Disney would ever pick up ;) Sorry, but after rereading my post closely I'm afraid it's pretty accurate (

it sounds to me like you would do better using a different program. when poser 5 came out, so many people were having problems with it that i didn't get it. i saved up for a few more months and purchased lightwave. and, i certainly am glad, glad, glad, that i did. i can make my own skies, clouds, models, textures...all of it...uniquely mine. lw animates, too. you might want to invest in bryce. that will do all the basic terrains, clouds, backgrounds, etc. that you sound like you need. i was really frustrated with poser, myself. and, i was rendering everything in bryce, anyway. poser is very, very time consuming....i can build a whole model in less time than i can put together a poser render i like well enough to upload to the gallery.

I've said it again -- 3d is not yet a matured tool. When you go to oil paints you are working with tools that have been refined, packaged, bug-checked -- millions of operators have figured out what works in a canvas and you can get them sized and stretched for you in convenient sizes. Same for pigments; thousands of years in findng what natural pigments work well, blend well, with now modern professional formulations of the most useful and lots of rules of thumb about how to use them. When you set down to paint, you spend the smaller part of your time learning the peculiarities of the tools; most of you time is spent with the greater artistic issues of perspective, color balance, composition, anatomy, etc. Well, in a way 3d as we have come to know it gives with one hand what it takes away with the other. 3d offers to automate much of the perspective and lighting issues (ever plotted shadows by hand for a canvas?), and even takes a whack at the anatomy. In return we have a tool set that is still in development; standards and commonalities are still arising, the equivalent of the grumbacher starter set hasn't arrived yet, and no-one has yet figured out how to make a brush that doesn't shed bristles all over the page and sometimes snaps in mid-stroke; or paint that doesn't seperate before you can paint it, or a clean white oxide that doesn't produce muddy greenish gray when you mix it. We are spending much of our energy and what should be our creative time doing things that are not themselves creative. Of course this is a given in all art; most of the time I spend lighting the stage, for instance, is either staring at lists of numbers or carrying twenty-pound lights up ricketty ladders. What makes 3d more annoying than most -- to a great many of us -- is that the grunt work of 3d is complicated where it doesn't need to be, unpredictable and lacking in overall structure, and so poorly documented that each of us becomes a 17th-century painter grinding burnt sticks and clays in a pestle and wondering what will come out.

...wow. "i can build a whole model in less time than i can put together a poser render i like well enough to upload to the gallery." Robo2010 has already bumped his head on the harsh fact that animation is a major pain in the butt. You're taking him in a misleading direction by saying the above and by saying, "it sounds to me like you would do better using a different program". Lightwave is no substitute for Poser, and vice versa. The apps serve completely different functions. Neither can substitute for the other. Are you suggesting he build a better model/morphs than V3 in Lightwave, then rig it, then texture it, and then, finally, animate,light and whatever else and render it? If he can do that then Disney will hire him right now.

When ever I watch the cartoon with my son "Reboot". I say to myself that the characters look like they been made in a program like Poser3 (I do not know what program was used). And think of the computers that were used then. Now we have Poser 5, and high end PC's, thinking why is it such a problem for such a scene (Little), and two characters in a scene in Poser 5?

I am doing a animation as I write, testing. But I am unable to put two characters in a scene before I start getting memory leakage. Why such a problem. I spent alot on Poser5, and due to the price of Poser5 itself I only could afford. Trying to gain a skill in the home. Now, I wish I could turn back time, and have spent my money else where on another program. Since I have Poser and version 5. It is the only one I can use for now and make the best of it, until I make it rich again. And animations is what I want to do. And I would think here at renderosity their would be alot of tips and tricks in animations for poser. Their isn't any. Only one tutorial from Dr.Geep. I do not see any in the Tutorial section. Only how to make pics.

Message edited on: 01/19/2005 17:14

...animation requires an awful lot of patience. It's not easy. It's very time consuming. Go to the Maya forums to see what the people who do it for a living have to say. Poser, at a hundred fifty bucks or so is a spectacular bargain to be able to get your feet wet in animation with photorealistic figures. If you know of an app that does it better for less money let me know and I'll buy their stock. I don't believe there are any answers that will make you happy.

Yeah, I agree with ya Tunesy. Animations is not easy and I do not expect it to be. Although I my Poser5 box it is written "3D Character Animation and figure design made easy...."

Umm..I think I got the wrong box.

How long has P5 been out? Why does it lack on animation tips and tricks here and other places? I/We sure could use some from the pros here. Then animating wouldn't be such a pain. How about animations, walking up the stairs or down... Anyone?

Message edited on: 01/19/2005 18:09

Hehe. Well. I agree with you there, Robo. Advertizing hype is just that, advertizing hype. My business is one where we deal with people face to face on very big ticket price tags. If I said things like what we read in cg software ads I'd be run outta town, but in the 3d cg world everybody seems to hype their hopelessly complex software as "easy to use" )) I started a thread on animation tips for you and a few other people, Robo. Take a look. Bear in mind that it's not a cure all. Just helps get ya going.

Thanks.. Tunesy. We need to get started. And when I find something while learning (Making) I will put up a tutorial myself.

"How about animations, walking up the stairs or down... Anyone?" In short, if you want to keyframe it manually, use IK. Position your character at the bottom of the stairs. Move the slider along the timeline (or use the graph display) to a frame corresponding with your FPS (frames per second), then position one foot on the first step (the rest of the leg should follow accordingly, ie.: "Inverse Kinematics"). Move the hips up into position as needed. Move the slider again (basic keyframe animating), position the other foot on the next stair. Keyframe the hips again. Go to the next appropriate frame, and do it all over again. Once that basic overall motion it complete, then go back to frame 1 and begin animating the "secondary" motions for the arms, head, and torso as necessary. That's it in a small nutshell. :-)

Thanks maxxxmodelz. Thinking about IK to help with animations. I was thinking about making a tutorial on walking up the Stairs. Like a few steps up. Should help. :-) Will work on it, and learn at same time.

...that's the way IK should work (Max's description), but I've had a terrible time getting Poser to agree with that theory ( You'll learn a lot while you beat your head against that wall, though ))

I think at least some of the problem with IK in Poser is in the way the joints are set up on the models. Unlike other apps, which often use a much more sophisticated means of rigging characters, Poser uses rather primitive falloff zone joints which don't really provide superior control over the way body parts bend or move in the hierarchy. I imagine this can affect the way IK behaves as well.

In Poser when I set IK at frame 1 and then go to, say, frame 30 and move a foot, etc, the response has been erratic. It seems buggy to me, but I just might not have a good handle on Posers IK implementation. In any case, it's not hard to work around.

I use Poser4 for my animations and they comeout great. For a V3 walk, you might try to find a V3 walk script maybe in the freestuff area under utilites? V3 is in itself a pain in the butt. She's so stand alone that getting her to do anything in Poser is difficult. I've never had any problems in animating characters in Poser4. I even made them run, sit etc in a scene. ;)