Heck, I don't know "web site coding," but I have a good tool (Dreamweaver) to handle the drudgery for me. I also have a very simple approach to web sites: no flash in the pan stuff, no introductory screens, etc. Just go to the site and get the job done. Poser is a great program, but obviously there are some areas that are enhanced with other software. PBooost, CorrectReference Pro, P3DO Explorer, MAT Pose Edit, Tailor, UV Mapper, are some very good examples of great Poser utilities. And there are others that aren't so great. The DAZ Poser tools might be excellent, but many of us won't know unless we hear good reviews from others.

And I have Poser, doesn't mean I can design. Some great tools have crappy websites--most programmers aren't great at UI design but the point is moot. Wait 'til you get your reviews or he redesigns his website. I'll leave you folks to it.

Attached Link: http://www.pcbos.nl/3D.htm

Hi everybody, I'm glad the discussion is getting serious again :-) About the P5 functions: yes, POSETools can write real P5 mat Files, and you can apply them with either a doubleclick, or apply parts of them - to anthing, props included- via the pz2 Analyzer. The fact that the P4 and P5 Versions have as much the same capabilities as possible has taken me many, many hours of work and testing. It sure hasn't come easy. The difference between the two is that the P5 Version has extra, Poser 5 specific functions, which Poser 4 simply cannot have. I'm sorry some of you don't seem to like the website, but I suppose there is also the question of different tastes out there:-) The site should be approachable with more or less any browser, but it turns out that Win XP Sp2 can make for some difficulty. I will check it out once I have the WinXP SP2 running. But to those of you who didnt like the site: sorry. Another thing: yes, of course the program is pretty complex- don't forget it does a multitude of VERY difficult things. But this is why each module has a number of tutorials. In principle, if you take the trouble to keep the tutorial next to the module, and do the steps that are described in there, you should be able to write/read your first multiple poses / mats in something like five minutes. Cheers, Paul Christiaan

I'd gamble that my script is quite a bit simpler than what Paul has written. Basically, it writes a temporary poser file from the object in Poser and then loads that and takes out the parts that aren't needed in a MAT file then resaves it. You might be thinking... why write a temporary file first? Well, the problem is that Poser Python is incomplete. It will not write settings like multiply through object color, multiply through highlight and so forth using only Python commands. The reason that you have to use the material room and click on each material first is because that it appears that Poser 5 writes node information "on the fly" as it opens each material - I mean this specifically in regards to opening a P4/PP created object or figure in P5. In the cr2, that node information is not natively present, so P5 builds it. It may create that information when doing a Firefly render - I haven't investigated that - but it doesn't build node information upon loading a P4/PP file. Case in point - if you use the script on an object that has 6 materials and you only click on 3 of them in the material room before running the script, guess which 3 don't get node information written (remember it's writing a full poser libary file then parsing that into what it needs). Now, if Paul has done this in a more clever or complete fashion within Poser, I think his scripts would be definately merit a closer look :) MAT Pose Edit is also another possibility to look at as it does provide batch conversions from P4 to P5 MAT files - though I'm sure by it's very nature that it isn't perfect. Nothing "automated" is always going to get things right - maybe even a good bit of the time, but not always :)

Attached Link: http://www.pcbos.nl/3D.htm

Hi Netherworks,

you're right, P5 handles materials in a pretty involved way!

If you use P4 MAts, things will get even more complicated than usual. It took me many, many hours of hard work to find a way around this; you might like to take a look at the Tutorials page of the POSETools for a way of converting P4 into REAL P5. A new update is on it's way to deal better with especially this problem- many Users still have their old P4 Figures- myself included. Very interesting stuff though!

I was intrigued by your Firefly remark, so I checked the Firefly angle out with the Figures I used in development of the Tools- gave me a good comparison. From what I've seen, I deduce that it Firefly DOES simulate the nodes as if they were P5- but, and this won't surprise you: you won't get any extra out of this.

The only way to create Materials that make use of all the new nodes in P5, is to go into the Material Room itself.In dealing with P4 Mats, the PoseTools, like Firefly, analyse the model and then create a P5 file from the result of that study. This "making an analogy" works pretty well for about 95% of the time, except that the POSETools may sometimes decide it would be better if a "Gradient Bump" became a real P5 bump file (for instance, when a very high value is set there, which is better expressed in P5: as I'm sure you've noticed, P5 bumps are about 15 times more powerful in changing looks than the standard P4 bump implementation); and the User may not agree with the decision. But for writing math nodes and so on, your Figure or Prop must have proper P5 mat. If it does have one, POSETools will write the real P5, and not try to figure one out.

By the way, I think it's a pretty cool that your MAT Pose Edit provides a batch conversion, now WHY didn't I think of that?:-) Good on ye mate!

Cheers,

Paul Christiaan

I agree about the material differences, then if you get into displacement mapping, there are even more options there too :D Something else I also noticed recently... Ambient color can vary greatly between P4/PP and P5 - and not Firefly rendering - I noticed this with the legacy renderer. I needed to simulate candlelight for a project and my solution made use of flooding the ambient channel a bit. What worked perfectly in PP needed adjustment in P5.