Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&Form.ShowMessage=1839126

I'm trying this, and at first glance it looks like a cinche. But it's not :( ... at least for me.

I've looked at Dr. Geep's tutorial, but it's of no help. It assumes you have some kind of knowledge in the material room and tells you to do things, but doesn't say HOW to do them.

I managed to get my one sided squar into the material room.

I managed to find the Image_map window in the nodes/2D images area and even managed to find the background I want to use.

Now what?

How do I get the background on the square? I assume I have to "plug" the image_map window into something, but what? The tutorial doesn't cover that part.

I've tried the help stuff in the material room, and if it mentions it, it's not very clear and I missed it.

Oh yeah, forgot, the tutorial mentions increasing the size of the square once the background is applied, but again it doesn't say how to do that. How do you increase the size to "100%" as indicated in the tutorial?

Message edited on: 07/08/2005 04:55

The 2d image map node should be plugged into the Diffuse Colour node (i think it's the diffuse one - the top one, anyway). Incidentally, did you have to post this thread 4 times? ;) I get email alerts on new threads...

Message edited on: 07/08/2005 05:03

Thanks :)

Sorry about that. I had made a post, but then I figured something out, and then I wanted to edit, but it was too late, so I figured if I was going to make a new post, I may as well consolidate it into one post instead. I am grateful for your help.

Message edited on: 07/08/2005 05:12

Yes, plug the Image Map node into the Diffuse_Color channel. Once there, you should see the image applied in that preview sphere. To adjust the size of the square, go to the Pose Room. I find the Main Camera my best friend for this situation. Select the square, and open your Parameter Dials from the Window menu (if it isn't up already.) Once you have the dials, adjust the X and Y Scale dials to increase the size. (You are going to want to either manually adjust the Y Tran dial to bring the square back to the right level (instead of dropping through the ground.) I haven't tried just Drop To Floor, but I assume that should work too. At some point, the square should fill your full preview window. When you get to that point, you probably won't see your figure anymore. No problem, just adjust the Z Trans dial to move it behind you. That's it! Instant background. My opinion is this is a better solution than just using the background color. You get much more control over your background. One thing to keep in mind. If you cast shadows they will cast on this background like a wall. Another thing to keep in mind, if you use depth of field, you will need to keep that in mind as well. What I do is place the center point of my distance guide just into the background itself. If you do not know where to find it, it is at: Display-->Guides-->Focus Distance Guide. Hope this helps!

Ok, I managed to get the background image on the square. It's 1024x768 so I changed the X and Y scale in the Dial Parameters to those numbers.

I went back to the pose room.

I added a figure..I need to add 3. I have them already created and saved in the library in the poses that I want, it's just a matter of adding them to the scene and placing them in their positions that I want.

Only I am having trouble with that.

I added one figure, a warrior to the scene, but I can't seem to get him placed in perspective to the size of the background. When I use the 4 hands at the top of the pose window to move him back, the whole scene including the background moves back. When I use the Z Trans dial to move him back, he sinks into the background. When I move the background back, he becomes enormous when compared to the background.

When I try scaling him down in size using the "scale" dial, he shrinks in size, but his clothes and props don't. When I saved my figures, I saved them as "whole groups", so I could adjust clothing colours and poses once in the scene if needed. How do I manipulate the figures so that they are in different positions, representing distance, while keeping the background in perspective behind them?

Incidently, I tried doing all of this in PSP, but the figures looked like they were "on top" of the background instead of integrated into it like the effect you get with Poser, which is why I am trying to do all this in poser despite a looming deadline of this afternoon. LOL

Message edited on: 07/08/2005 05:37

Message edited on: 07/08/2005 05:40

BTW, if I want to have shadows in the scene, but not on the backdrop square, what should I do?

Just checking back before heading off for a short sleep....

Re: scaling figures If you scale a figure it's best to scale the Body. Any smart props on the figure should scale with it but conformed clothing and props don't. You'll have to select the Body again for each conformer and do the same scaling. Here are some scaling poses I had made a while ago to save time, just apply them to the figure and all its conformers as well. "scaling poses" Oh, and if you're using P6 there's always the mini me python script. Just run it and everything in the scene will be made into one object that will retain all materials and write an mtl file both of which will be in your Poser directory with the name yowza (you can later rename). Everything shrinks to approximately one third in size. This is a good solution if you've got all the scene elements set up as you like and before bringing in the background you can do that. Naturally since this is now one .obj you can just scale as you like. The downside is that you have to be absolutely finished with your posing as now you won't be able to change anything. And finally, a third solution to setting up scenes is to parent EVERYTHING to a simple prop - I use the poser ball - and then any changes made to that ball will affect everything. The quickest and most effective way to do this is to open your Hierarchy window and then drag and drop everything on the ball prop. Again, smart props will follow the figure they're parented to so you'll only have to do this with figures and any unparented props like scene elements. I've found this the best way to work with the RDNA Microcosm as well and besides the scaling issues this also helps in positioning your entire scene since by rotating the ball the whole scene can be manipulated. Hope this helps :)

If you don't want shadows or lighting to affect the background use ambient node instead of diffuse. I don't use P5 or P6, but in PP I set ambient to white and diffuse to black to stop shadows from appearing on the backdrop.

cheers miked123 :b

Making guesses: If the square moves with your figure, it is probably parented to the figure. Go to the hierarchy window and unclick it. Better yet, do some of the neat things Kalypso suggested- I'm writing all of that down (except the script- I'm on P5). If your square is for a far away background, I'd probably add it last. It's easier to fool with the size of the square in proportion to your characters, than vice-versa. The main problem you might have is getting your image to the correct scale. That will take trial and error. In the material room, on that box for the texture map plugged into the square: U-Scale and V-Scale make the image smaller or larger on the square (working like X and Y scales, where 1.0 = 100 %), and U-Offset and V-Offset change the positioning of the image on the square. If you want it to tile, the way I do it is plug a tile node into the diffuse first, then plug an image into the tile mode. Change the tile and color borders to white. I hope that's helpful to you. I'm not exactly sure I understand what you're trying to do, but I think I have a grasp.

There's a few things I see here which might be worth checking. First, scale. The single-sided square at 100% scale is, give or take a bit, about ten inches square. The scale figures have nothing to do with the number of pixels, but the proportions of the square should match those of the image you want to put on it. Second, if you don't want shadows on the background, use Ambient Color rather than Diffuse Color. Third, remember to rotate the square to face the camera.

man, things must have changed after P4..I just use
File|Import|Background picture. Maybe this is to do the flooring? I've done that (once), it stretches the jpg pic to whatever dimensions you made the square. But then, I'm kinda slow on the uptake at times..;)

The reason is that import background does not work too well if you are rendering images larger than the workspace. Poser first scales the image to fit the workspace then recales it up to fit the rendered image size, thus losing the resolution of the original image. If you make a square prop, that problem is avoided.

ah..;)

I'll have to try that square trick again another time. I've frustrated myself to the point that I'm ready to throw my computer out of the window, LOL After seeing Pakled's post, I tried to import the background again, and this time changed the size of the window to the same size as the image, and the image isn't distorted and blurry like it was. It will do for this scene, but I still want to learn how to do that square technique eventually. I just don't have the time nor the patience right now to play with it anymore at this time.