Testing to see if this host site allows remote linking. I can see it, but I'm logged in and cookied up. Is it visible to anyone else?

yes.. WOW!

Yeah, I can see it.

Attached Link: http://www.ourmedia.org/

www.ourmedia.org

They're the people who brought us the Wayback Machine. This week they started a new site, where the public can publish their digital media. Bandwidth is a real problem these days, for musicians, videographers, etc., who want to publish online. (One "This Land" or "Numa Numa Dance" can nuke your Web site for the month or run up hundreds of dollars in extra bandwidth charges.) OurMedia.org is offering free bandwidth. Like the Wayback Machine, the plan is for it to be done as a public service, as a nonprofit organization.

I tried signing up yesterday. It's not suited for someone who wants to create their own Web site (though you get a free blog), but it's adequate for someone who just needs a place to upload their photos, art, text, sounds or video. The only rules are no porn, and no copyright violation.

Speaking of copyright, when you upload an item, you're required to specify a license. You can choose traditional copyright, which is discouraged, or any of a variety of Creative Commons licenses (with more in the works). As a test, I uploaded a couple of pieces of art. I gave them a Creative Commons license that allows redistribution as long as I am credited, but does not allow commercial use or modification. There are a bunch of others - that allow modification, as long as you credit the original author, that allow commercial use as long it's not modified, Linux-style licenses, public domain, etc.

Not sure if you could host free stuff there. It's media oriented, with categories of Image, Video, Sound, and Text. It looks like they planning to accommodate other types of files eventually, but only those four are "live" now.

Another drawback is it takes awhile before the stuff you upload becomes visible. Anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. However, they say that will be fixed soon.

Oh, credits for the image: it's V3, wearing the DAZ harem top and svdl's dynamic skirt, with Kirwyn's dynamic Genesis Hair II.

I can see the Image fine, What size did you render it, and how many fps. Very Nice Dynamic effects. Was that in Poser 5 or Poser 6. The only flaw I see is her feet sceem to slide across the floor while spinning, and her upper body sceems just a little stiff. Getting a person to spin correctly is difficult if you use poses and have IK on. I had a simular spinning motion using poses, One pose I used from my pose files was looking one way and the other pose was looking the oposite from the pose files.
I tried every way I could, but when she was put into motion her feet mangled up and was a pain to correct (Note I spun the body and matched her foots location with a little foot prop I use so her feet don't move from it's location). I tried memory dots when I had the girl set up in position I wanted to no avail. I also spun the girl around to the correct position with out IK. but every thing I did didn't work. Even with the memory dots she came up in the wrong direction when I used the pose dot without IK on.
I can see your concentration is getting the hair and dress effect to push it to really move. Did that really bog you computer down? I here dynamic hair and clothing do that.
I'm waiting for Poser 6. I'm not completely happy with poser 5. I don't like their Charatures. But Poser 6 Charactures look really good, a good change of pace to Vicky3 and Mike3 which I like very much.
A real good job over all.

I'm very much a newbie when it comes to animation. I usually only use animation for dynamic cloth and hair. It was only DAZ's recent animated emoticon contest that got me to try animating a figure. This was a very quick 'n dirty job. You'll laugh when you hear how I created the motions. IK is off, because I'm used to stills, and the first thing I always do is turn IK off. I just took a half-dozen or so dance poses from DAZ's "Lone Dancer" pack, and applied them every five or ten frames. (That's why she looks a bit stiff, I expect. The Lone Dancer poses are for ballroom-style dancing.)

I rendered it at 388 x 445. I think it's 30 fps. It didn't really bog my machine down. The cloth took a bit of time, the hair was very fast (about a minute for 100 frames). (Kirwyn's Genesis Hair makes animating dynamic hair amazingly fast and easy.)

There's a larger version here:

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze78spq/dancer.gif

It was done in Poser 5. I'm waiting for my P6 box. And looking forward to checking out the new Cloth and Hair Rooms. Supposedly, they are even faster in P6.

Nice job! Marque

Excellent!! Put her on roller skates, roller blades, or ice skates!! I love the hair flow.

Randy, you are really getting the dynamic hair to work. Super animation. I am hoping the new P6 lighting is going to contribute to solution for dynamic hair, because everything I see seems to have false reflection on the hair, shinier than the surroundings, etc. ::::: Opera :::::

This is cool! Thanks for sharing this info. Good animation too, that hair is really something.

Some of it is probably the materials used. That isn't the color the hair comes in with; I brightened it up some. I like the super-glossy "Pantene" look, and I think a lot of others, do, too. Among other things, it tends to hide strands a bit, so the hair looks less wiry. Will have to try for a more realistic look sometime.

Excellent Animation...How many megs is it?

WOW, that is amazing!!! I can't believe how that hair moves!

Message edited on: 03/26/2005 23:32

You are striking a good medium, though. Yes the Pantene shine is there but it is more believable than the other default dynamic hair i've seen. Can you respond to this general question? Would it be possible for an animator to move in closer with the camera and trnasition even a little more away from sheen, but still get dense, non-wiry hair that moves naturally? I guess this would be achieved by more strands. Of course I realize the render time would go up, possibly way up, but if that were a price one is willing to pay, can the idea be effective? Thanks for your opinion ::::: Opera :::::

Stunning piece of animation!

I can see it and all I have to say is ,"WOW!" You obviously have a much higher end PC than I do. It would take days for me to render that--if it didn't crash.

Opera - I honestly don't know. As I said, I'm a newbie animator. You can increase the number of strands very easily (no need to even run the simulation again). But to change the texture...I'm not sure how to do that. Easily, I mean. Obviously, you could frame by frame it.

Pigfish...you don't need a high-end computer to do animations like this. You just need strategy. Simulations run much faster if the model is low-res. The hair sim was done using a low-res proxy. (I used Kirwyn's "Genesis Hair" proxy, but you can parent primitives to the figure and use those as collision objects instead.) The hair itself is also very low-res (a low-res skullcap is crucial). It took about a minute. Without the low-res hair and proxy figure, my computer would have crashed.

And another note on OurMedia.org...they offer two ways to upload files. One is to upload through their Web site. The other is to download a small app, install it, and use that to upload media. The latter works much better for uploading large files. Anything over a couple of Mb, you should probably use the app.

And don't worry about ads or spyware. It's clean.

wow! twice! 1. Cool hair effects. 2. Free space with direct linking???? (although we leaches are bound to kill that one...)

Yes, it's free web space with direct linking. So far as I know, no limits on file size or bandwidth, either.

Perhaps we leeches will kill it. It's still in alpha-testing. But they seem prepared to handle a JibJab.com-like load. And they've managed to keep the Wayback Machine going for years. (That site that tries to archive every page on the web, several times a year.)

They do warn that if bandwidth becomes a problem, they will delete files protected by traditional copyright. They prefer a Creative Commons license, that at least allows redistribution. (They point out that under traditional copyright, it's illegal to even look at stuff on the Web, since you are making a copy.)