I hope you like!

Cath P.S forgot to add that I used translucence node for the wings.

Message edited on: 03/24/2005 15:32

Very cool...I can't wait to see the animation :)

zowie!

This is really exciting stuff as I have started experimenting with using Photos in my animation.

blink how does that work exactly ???

Great stuff, Cath. I used a similar technique for a test animation I did, which is currently in the Animation Outlet, using Poser 5. However, Poser 6 now makes the process much easier and faster. We no longer need to rig a light dome of 40+ lights using HDRShop and Lightgen, we can use IBL and AO. Plus shadowcatcher is really a must for work like this. Again, it looks awesome.

I really liked the ambient occlusion feature in Blender and am very much looking forward to it in Poser. I'm sure there are differences, but it's an awesome render option.

Hi Cath, this looks awesome. I'm stoked to see that you figured animated IBL out. Movies are perfectly suitable for animated IBL. However, that's not where it ends. You can drive an Image Based Light with any animated shader tree in Poser, even if it is fully procedural.

NOW I understand why that's such a useful feature! I can't wait to see what you, or Little Dragon pulls off now!

Actually, I'm just working on a parody of an iPod commercial right now, but that shadow catcher material would certainly be helpful.

Thanks for the look at P6 and its new features. Don't know how far you've taken or will take this. It seems it has given you a good beginning but take a look at the black levels of the chairs and table to the right, the lack of such blacks makes the creature look like it doesn't fit. In fact he almost dissappears because of it. I can see that you don't have any cast shadows on the floor yet so maybe you plan to do more. As I said, it looks like it gives you a good beginning.

Hi and thanks for the nice comments! I just learn this while I show you my ideas .. I try this feature for the first day so be not so hard deci6el to me :) it is not perfection but well as for poser it is success for myself and my eyes telling me the same ;) don't forget about the time...... , the sand in The MUMMY RETURN was more bad that this above example so it warm my heart UP... I think that the color gamma is excellent, he "disappears" because he match the rest of the scene and that was also my intention, that is still image, the animation look different give more power to the eyes.. the shadows are visible more in action because the distance between the figure and the rest is to high, the shadows and AO was created to get and match the rest of the scene.. do you see other shadows on the floor that are deep? no... only the soft shadows of the figure..when the figure get close to the wall the shadow get deeper so is nature of the shadows,the figure skin include the same gamma color as the dark chair so this is correct too and any changes will give to much attention to the figure that have to match the rest of the scene and be a ONE and only one thing that give the attention is the movement what we can't see here...yet... and don't forget we talk about Poser and my first day using this features.. with the days and months we get more smart with and create for sure the perfect "hoping for" scenes.. for now Poser6 is my favorite toy again! unexpected! but true! Little_Dragon my poser animation specialist! the shadow catcher work for me the same way as the other node by stewer.. now you can only click on the props and make them cast shadows only.. that is just so simple in place of creating all the nodes... the ground in poser catch the shadows self as a standard so that is fine too.. I try to figure now how I can get the shadows on the background image and if this is possible and I just test it right now.. other I have to create a square for the background to catch the shadows.. using the automatic click feature from the material room maxxxmodelz I go to see what you did for test! uli_k : I try to plug in the movie under the light but it will not allow me so I create IBL AO and later I plugin the movie under the Image Map node and that was working well the right way... I use this for a short fragments 255-300 frames only but with top effect.. I want that the figure get the light from right direction.. I use also Mat node before HSV and set the colors value down other the IBL change the colors of the textures to much... that are very sensitive settings and here is not a standard to use with.. every work need special attention that why our work is always unique.. The Idea to use the movie as a IBL come to me after I saw one of the feature of making the Mummy return.. the best part of the DVD :) and much inspirations for Poser6.. I will try to make a virtual effect on the real human face video with a 3D parts that match together.. that will a great challenge for sure with IBL AO.. a new doors of Poser are just open and that is so exciting to learn more everyday!!! and forgive me but I am to excited about to stay calm.. Cath

Cath, if you are using the Wacro to set the IBL - that one is limited to image maps. Is that what you mean by "...will not allow me..."? Besides using the Wacro, you can always attach a movie node by hand to the Color channel of the Light root node (in both the simple and the advanced view). Keep up the good work...

Attached Link: http://www.3dknockouts.com/videos/diane2.mov

Here's the quicktime version, Cath. Nothing major really (a very short clip). It's just that I used a photo background with light extracted from the HDRI using lightgen. About 40 lights in Poser 5.

Now, with P6, we'll be able to do this kind of thing much easier, as you have illustrated above. Message edited on: 03/24/2005 20:20

Excellent Cath, Before you make a movie, you probably want to have shadow catcher turned on. GWeb

oh it was my mistake... I was thinking about the environment map : shere_map that I can't plug into the light :( because it will do the job better for still scenes and I don't have to use HDRI shop.. so I can't plug in any Lighting nodes under Light color diffuse :( thanks!!

Maxxx I looked at the movie you made. I like the hair shading, it look alot better than P5. Do P6 have softbody dynamics?

maxxxmodelz : amazing short animation!! I love it! the movement and light is great! and it don't looks like a poser!... excellent! thanks for sharing!! you will have much pleasure with Poser6 for sure :) I do

"I like the hair shading, it look alot better than P5. Do P6 have softbody dynamics?" Thanks. P6 doesn't have soft body dynamics. The hair movement in that clip was done strictly with morphs in P5. Took over 8 hours to render if I recall correctly. So I expect P6 would do as good a job in less time with AO and "true" IBL. "you will have much pleasure with Poser6 for sure :) I do" Yes, I'm having a great time with it so far. I'm loving the tests you're doing! Keep em coming. ;-)

Yeah me too!!!!!!! Cath, you already know I think you're awesome! LOL

Maxx, great animation :)

Headline in the Wall Street Journal.... "Cannon, Olypmus and Nikon Declare Unexpected Performance in Second Quarter, Cite Sales of Digital SLRs Driven By Previously Unknown Factor, 'Poser IBL'. Cath, my dear, your are finer than the very sands of the desert and we love it when your heart warm up. ::::: Opera :::::

Whoa, Mec4D, you ask for "go easy" perhaps you could reply with same. 1. I opened with "Thanks" 2. Quickly followed with admitting I didn't know what stage you were in but implied you might be taking it further. 3. said it was a good beginning and repeated at end. Don't see anything "hard" in that. I did make a comment about the black levels but it was without emotion. I did consider the soft shadows on the other couches but stand by my comment. There is credibility in considering what it will look like in motion. As this is a still picture I could only judge how the still looks. I could go on but I don't want to offend. I'm used to people shouting out their opinions in dailies on shows like The Mummy so I don't really think of opinions as hurtful. And I stand by the "Thanks" for letting me get a look at the new Poser 6. good luck with it.

Hey... I answered you without hard feelings but try to give you the idea of my vision in this work! I don't take this offensive in any way so we get us wrong my dear.. I thank you for the comments... :) here above you get you next chance to comments and all comments welcome... if the world was so perfect with everything we do we don't need any forums more and support agents.. ;) nobody is perfect! What I like well in a hard comments is always a little hope and solution to do this better.. so the comments help a lot self if they are negative....

Dear Catherine: the only "hard" comment I have is "do we have to wait so long for your fine male textures?". Your textures are what got me interested in Poser in the first place.

Cath, thanks for the tip...I'm still waiting for my P6 box set, but you've given me a great place to begin. Take care :) Jeremy

nemesis10 ... it is coming my dear! I am back for doing things for Poser again 100%.. the free Poser6 casual male will finished today so you can play with until the new big textures are done.. :) Thanks Jeremy! if you get your " BOX" everything will looks much more clear I guess.. Cath

GAHHHH! I'm dying here! Why did I get the box version! ;_;

Here's my hard comment. Would rather see a human figure in these types of tests. :O)

maybe in the animation James will come along to slay the dragon. Cath, IMO that is a perfectly convincing blend. I fully believe the figure is in the room reflecting the same light. ::::: Opera :::::

I'm a complete newbie when it comes to IBL. Now I wonder, would it be possible to create a natural landscape in Vue or Bryce, render that, and use the image for IBL in P6? That would be very cool. In my opinion Poser is better at rendering skin, especially in closeups, but Vue or Bryce are far superior to Poser when it comes to environments. I'd like to combine the strengths of those programs...

You could, but if you have vue, and it's superior rendering engine, wouldn't it be better to move your poser content to vue, rather then the other way around?? As far as bryce is concerned, it's hard to speculate whaen renderer changes we'll see in the new version daz should be releasing soon...

I dunno, with Poser's skin shaders, SSS, and the fact that AO is faster than Vue's (admittedly excellent) IBL I could see some real benefit to rendering in P6. In Vue 4 at least you can only export terrains, not plants. I think the pro/infinate versions can export plants as meshes too. But Vue can handle MUCH larger scenes than Poser so I'd stick to Vue for rendering major outside shots.

Poser and Vue: Yes, I often render in Vue (I've got Vue5Infinite and it's fantastic!), especially multiple character scenes. Try rendering 15 human figures plus a complex environment in Poser - no way! I was thinking about using a background image in Poser and a matching image for Poser IBL. I'd create these images in Vue.

"I dunno, with Poser's skin shaders, SSS, and the fact that AO is faster than Vue's (admittedly excellent) IBL I could see some real benefit to rendering in P6." This is absolutely true. For example, I also own 3dsmax with Vray rendering engine (one of the fastest true GI renderers on the market). However, in some animation tests I've run just recently, using IBL and AO (with optimized settings) in P6 rendered in almost half the time that Vray did, using pre-calculated true HDRI/GI. Also, there was minimal to no noticable flicker with the P6 animation, but the Vray animation had noticable flicker, which would have required higher settings and even longer render times. The output of the Vray was admittedly slightly better (despite the flicker) due mostly to the use of actual high dynamic range images, but the difference was minimal and could be adjusted in Combustion or AfterEffects with ease. Overall, rendertime was far more favorable for P6. BTW, this was a test of the same exact PZ3 animation, one hosted in Max via Bodystudio plugin, and one in P6, on the same machine, using comparable materials. Max still has it's benefits over Poser 6, of course: like a much more flexible G-buffer output, but I'm definitely impressed with P6, and will use it much more often for animation now.

"I was thinking about using a background image in Poser and a matching image for Poser IBL. I'd create these images in Vue." That's how I'd do it. And for animation I'd render an Oversized image in Vue, which when combined with an oversized render of just the characters in Poser. (it won't take that much longer to render than at video resolution.) You can create a kind of "Pan Cel" as in the 2D animation which you can Move around and scale down to simulate camera movement in your compositing software of choice. (In my case, Mirage) You could even do it with a short loop of plants swaying in the breeze for the Vue part. This would take much less time than doing the whole thing "in camera" in Vue, plus you get the benefits of both renderers, and the ability to tweak elements seperately in post. :)

Absolutely fantastic, Cath! :] Fish

I made some test renders also with the plans etc.. it looks so cool in Poser6, I use Vue5 and all the HDRI but first the rendering time was so slow and making compositions of 2d and 3d was better in Poser6 and I got faster the effect I want.. Vue5 is beautiful to render the scenes outside door. FishNose : thanks my dear! :) it is time to put the pics together, Poser6 finished just the rendering after 7 hours for the dragon above.. 200 frames max quality.. res 640-480 Cath

That render time's not bad at all.

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