Ok, now that I've had some sleep and food and some Tylenol, I'm back trying to figure this out, LOL Here is what I've been doing, but without success. I add the image to a square in the material room and then go to the pose room. I add my first figure (I need 3 which will be various sizes and in various positions from close up to far away. IE: warrior fighting a large dragon, with another figure not far off in the distance). Now this is where I have trouble.... I want to push the warrior back so he's not so big, so I do that with the Z axis dial. Next I do the same with the background so that it's behind my warrior. Now the background doesn't fill up the pose window. Next I bring in My dragon, which looks larger than the background now, even though I pushed it back a bit using Z axis. When I bring in my third figure and push it back to the point in the distance where it looks perspectively smaller to the dragon and warrior, I have to also push the background square back behind that 3rd figure. Now here is the problem. Medium sized warrior Large size dragon (about 2.5 times the size of the warrior) Small to medium sized figure in the background Teensy weensy background square way off in the distance. The idea of using the square was so I could add light to the background AND the figures, but the background ends up so much smaller than the figures. What I wanted to do was to be able to use the X, Y and Z axis on the figures and position them in the pose window so that they were in specific locations "in" the background, but how do you do that with a background square that ends up being just a small square with a picture on it, way off in the distance behind the figures?

Why not just resize the background square? You might need to make it 10 times larger (or more) but that should work.

I'm not sure if this will work. But it sounds like you need to keep the square background prop at the same location all the time. To do that. You could try building your scene from the back->forward. Rendering as you go. Then putting that render as your background prop texture each time. Open and scale down the farthest figure in the scene. Position it in the scene. Render it. Then delete the figure and replace the texure on the background square with that new render. Then do the same thing with the next character forward. Working your way to the front of the image like building in layers. I've never tried it myself. So I don't know if that will work for your project. -ScottA

This is a crude depiction of what I end up with. Because the background ends up so far behind, I can't position the figures in the places on the background that I want them to be in. If I import the background so that it fills up the entire pose window, I can position the figures as I want them, but I can't apply lighting to the figures AND the background, and since I don't know how to make my own lights, I use ready made ones, so in order for it to look "put together", I have to apply those same ready made lights to the background too.

Yes, what xantor said is the answer. You will need to adjust the X and Y scale of the image once you have it in the place it will be for the final render. The background square is like any other object, if you move it back in the scene, it appears smaller. Keep in mind, poser doesn't know you mean it to be a backdrop, so it treats it like it would any other object. Hope this helps!

Making your own lights is no biggie at all. Go to your light controls. You will see something like a snowflake on the right hand side. Click it. That creates a light. Then you can click on the color underneath the sphere, and change it. Then you can adjust its position via the parameter dials. I was intimidated by lights, but someone made a suggestion to me, and I started playing with them. I am actually teaching myself magnets now, at the suggestion of another member. It's funny how you can be intimidated by something like Poser. Hope this helps!

Quote - Why not just resize the background square?

Thanks, I'll give that a try. I've never done anything like this before, this is the first time I've tried assembling a whole scene in poser, so it's totally new to me. I have zero clue about what I'm doing, LOL This may seem simple to many of you, but it's hard and highly ambitious for me considering all I've done in poser is dress up single figures and render them without a background and offer them to the PSP community as tubes.

Thanks Lou, but I think I'll save learning lights as a project all it's own. I'm having a hard enough time trying to work with a simple square pixel, LOL,

I tried a tutorial on Magnets, and it didn't go well at all. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to learning programs without a step by step guide. I learn programs best by being told, step 1 - do this; step 2 - do this; step 3 - do this...etc. I've been using Poser for over a year now, and haven't advanced very far in it at all because I find most tutorials too complicated to work my way through, and even many of the "beginner" tutorials confuse me and makes me feel completely stupid, largely because they leave out steps and take for granted that you "know" how to do something so they skip over it. I don't like to feel stupid so end up going back to what I do know... rendering "tubes" for the graphic community.

It's very hard for me to come here and post asking questions that are so basic to some people, knowing that many will be shaking their heads and thinking to themselves "she's an idiot" :( But I do, hoping that there are those who remember what it was like to be totally new to Poser and how intimidating it is :)

Message edited on: 07/09/2005 20:05

Oh come now. I'll be honest with you, there hasn't been one Poser-related posting I have seen yet that I shook my head and thought a poster was an idiot. We are all always learning. Sure, there are some here that blow me away, but I am sure there are things they are still learning too. If we stop asking questions, how do we continue to learn, and therefore grow? If you want someone to help you with this without the whole forum thing, and you have either MS Messenger or Yahoo (prefered since it's already open) send me a rosity IM. I'll get in touch with you. I just returned to the Poser game a couple of months ago, and I have asked for help, and been fortunate enough to recieve it, so I want to return it whenever I can. Don't be afraid to ask!

Quote - If we stop asking questions, how do we continue to learn, and therefore grow?

It's a personal failing on my part. I don't like not knowing stuff and I don't like struggling to learn or understand something. Thank you for the offer, I do appreciate that. I think I'll stick with the public forum for now. I'm sure I'm not the only one finding this stuff hard to learn, and there might be some members who are afraid to post and ask, so maybe they can learn vicariously from my struggles and postings.

No problem at all. By no means take what I am saying to mean I think this is easy. It's a personal failing on my part. I don't like not knowing stuff and I don't like struggling to learn or understand something. I don't see how that could be a failing. Failing is never trying. I agree on the forum thing though. I have learned more from "eavesdropping" on other people's questions than actually asking them myself. Now to get back on target. Have you adjusted the z-trans of the square? If so, good. The next thing to do is to change the x-scale, and the y-scale. If you notice the square drop through the floor, adjust the y-trans until you get the bottom of the square to the floor. (Drop to floor may work too, I never tried it.) Hope this helps!

Here's a completely different approach I gleaned from, "I want to push the warrior back so he's not so big..." Maybe I missed something but have you tried zooming out the camera?

Whichever method you use, either moving stuff around or moving the camera, you will have to scale up your background square. Think big, after all, the world outside is pretty big. :)

Quote - Maybe I missed something but have you tried zooming out the camera?

No, I haven't. Whatever the camera does, it's always at default in my poser. I never touch the camera stuff. Like I said, I may have had Poser for a year, but all I've done is use things at default and use ready made poses, lights, textures, morphs, clothes, hair etc, and then render without a background. Putting this image on a square was my first venture into the material room where I actually got something to work.

Quote - If you notice the square drop through the floor, adjust the y-trans until you get the bottom of the square to the floor. (Drop to floor may work too, I never tried it.)

Floor? I don't have a floor. It's one grey window and that's it. I've seen people posting images where they have a tiled floor or something that the figure is standing on, I don't have anything like that in my Poser window.

If you want a floor, you either have to make the Ground Plane visible, or add in a floor prop.

When I said floor, I was referring to the Ground Plane. Sorry, I should use proper terms when posting. I have abad habit of doing that in conversation too. I use words that make sense to me, and people around me are like "Huh?" Bad habit. Basically, my meaning was that, when you scale that square, on the Y-axis, it will probably begin to go "through" the ground plane. On render it will look silly, since it will appear either that background is "cut off" or the model will seem to be floating. I still don't know whether you have got this work so try this as an experiment. Open a new scene. Remove any figures in it so that there is nothing in the scene at all. Now add the one sided square, then add your image to it in the Mat Room. Now come back to the Pose Room. Make sure you are on your Main Camera. The square should still be its default size. Open your Parameter dials, if they are not already there. (Window-->Paramater Dials OR SHIFT+CTRL+N) Now, adjust the Z-Trans dial in the negative direction. It should move backward in the scene, and appear as though it is shrinking. As part of the experiment, move it back pretty far, so that it is barely visible. Then, go to the scale dials, and adjust the Y-axis dial. Make it some large number. At this point you may still not see it, since it may just be a thin line in the back. However, you should now scale up the x-axis. Now it should come into view. Once you can see the whole image in the scene, go back to the z-trans dial. Adjust it back on the postive side. It should start moving back toward you. While it does, it is going to start becoming bigger than the scene's window. Move it back toward you about half as far as it was from you. Now, readjust the x-axis and y-axis on the scale dials, so that it fits in your scene again parfectly. After doing this exercise, you should have a good feeling of how to adjust the backdrop. Post a message and let me know if this works. If not, maybe I'll put togather a quick tut on the subject, if I have time. I think this should work for you though. Hope this helps!

Just a small point to add: if you want to resize the background square, you only need to use the "scale" dial. This re-sizes everything by the same amount in all 3 directions, but since the square prop is only a flat plane, the z direction has no effect. So using the scale dial resizes in X and Y (only) simultaneously. Cheers, Diolma

Point well taken Diolma. The reason I suggest doing them on the separate axes is because if your scene is rectangular, in either direction, you get a distorted image if you scale all at once, but yes, your way is perfectly valid.

Thank you, I will try that. My scene is rectangle actually... 1024x768 actually. My laptop is tied up with a render. I'm rendering this scene using the import background because I need to get it done. But I will revisit it again once the render is done and try your method. Thank you for the detailed walk through :) I'll let you know how it goes.

OK, I've just been trying a few experiments.... (mainly addressed to work-flow, ease of use...) Load your square (NB: It MUST be the 1-sided squere, not the 2-sided one. The 2-sided one introduces artefacts into the render). Scale it to the exact same size as the picture. Enter the Materials room and apply the picture to it. Ensure that there are no specular effects applied: set specular to pure black, and (belt'n'braces), set specular value to 0. Exit mat room. Move the square back as far as it needs to go (and probably twice as far in your situation, to avoid shadows falling on the background). Use the "scale" dial to increase the size of the square equally, so that it fills as much of the background as necessary. Render to check (not necessary, but advised...) Save. (save early and save often - under different names...when Poser hangs/crashes, which it does with alarming frequency, these backups can be a god-send). Add the rest of your stuff.. and see what happens. A small but possibly significant point: I found that the P4 renderer did a much better job of re-sizing the picture than firefly; firefly blurred the pic, whilst the P4 renderer was sharp. Of course, depending on the circumstances, this can be a good or bad thing.. Cheers, Diolma (if this appears twice, blame 'rosity..)

Or try it in a simple way: Make a render with your background prop and the lights and use the result as background image. BTW this will speed up the render of your scene. Good luck Ulli