Wanted to get your good opinions on the best order to do things in Poser. Don't know if it matters, but I am using Poser 6, it's my first poser version. Is there any "best" order in setting up your scene? Ex: load figure .. pose figure... clothes on.. props loaded.. background scene added.. add your lights..etc.. What order do you do things? Fuzzy~

I tend to do lights last and because i work in public spaces i tend to load clothing then figures. everything else is free form. I may build a set and then add figures or i may put together figures then build a set around them. I've also put together figures, saved them to the library, built a set and inserted the preset figures into a set. I did this because that scene had a lot of stuff in it and i knew if i tried to put all the parts into one file and try to adjust/setup everything my computer would be too slow for me to work with.

I tend to do the same thing as Tyger

For me it's the following order: 1. Load figure; 2. Pick character addon IE: morphs and skin texture; 3. Pick hair; 4. Pick hair texture (if I am wanting to change it); 5. Pick clothing; 6. Pick clothing textures; 7. Apply pose; 8. Tweak pose and clothing as needed; 9. If body morphs aren't allowing me to fit my morphing clothing well IE: boobs too big, I go and remove the morphs and try a different one (I have Wardrobe Wizard and use it on everything but my morphing clothing); 10. If I don't like the hair with the outfit, I go back and change the hair and hair texture; 11. Lights However when I'm working with dynamic clothing, my routine is a little different.

It depends what the focus is. Whatever the focal point is, usually a figure, that get's loaded first. The one thing I do different than some of the other suggestions is that clothing and characters get added late in the game. I've learned, from drawing, that it's best to layout a scene first before putting too much detail into any element of the scene. It helps to avoid false starts and putting too much work into an element that's not working well. Adding clothing too early starts clogging Poser and slowing everything down. For me, it's best to get all the major elemeents of a scene in place, establish the angle and camera placement for the scene, get the poses fairly close to final, start working the lighting, and then finally add clothing and hair in the final tweaking stages. There might be a few renders at during this set up phase to see how things are starting to look so that major adjustments can be fixed during the layout stage. Then it's matter of fine tuning everything, finishing up poses and reworking lighting and going back and forth between rendering and adjusting elements in the image.

Most of the time I work with characters I've already textured and clothed and saved to my folder, since I use recurring characters for a lot of my pics. So most of the time I load the character, then the scene/props, then pose. Lights? You can move the lights? Seriously I do a lot of my lightning in postwork. I'm starting to get a grasp of Poser's lights, but only just. And that's after 6 years with the program

I work on the characters first, then save them, unless I already have a saved character in the library. If there are multiple figures I'll pose them in an empty scene, then save the poses. Then I start a new scene, load in the scene elements, props and so forth and save it. Next, I add and adjust the lights. Save the lights, save the scene. Last, I'll add the figures. A lot of my pictures are composited from several renders but I need to at least create a mockup of the whole image befire I render anything. From early on using Poser, I learned that the best thing to do is save as much as possible, as often as possible. That way, if anything happens, I can recreate the scene with the minimum of fuss.

Get 2 large antagonists mad at each other, the grab beer and slowly back..oh..you mean a Poser scene..;)
Step 1 (the hardest)..think of something to make
Step 2- model various scenery, props, etc, in Wings. Assign texture groups. Step 3- import into Bryce, assign materials to texture groups, check lighting colors and angles, then save a pic of the result as background
Step 4- set up poser character, search (often fruitlessly for matching clothing and hair, poses, and textures if I have 'em
Step 5- import background
Step 6- match lighting angles and colors with background pic..hide feet (if necessary..;)
Save pic, bring into Gimp, make thumbnail, and post the 2 here..;)

Quote - "I'm starting to get a grasp of Poser's lights, but only just. And that's after 6 years with the program "

Getting the lights just right are the most frustrating aspect of using Poser because, at least in P5, the lighting in the preview window barely represents the lighting, with shadows, in the final render. I'd say that half my time is spent getting the lighting right after I've got everything else in the scene arranged the way I want. It becomes a render-fix-render process that takes hours, sometimes a whole day to finally get something I'm happy with.

Oh thank you for your varied responses! I see there is no "right" way, but many possiblities. I sure am glad I'm not the only one that has light issues. I find those the hardest, and am glad to do them last!

Step 1: set up the environment, including basic textures. Step 2: load the main figures. Step 3: pose the main figures. Step 4: setup lighting and camera angles. Step 5: test render. Steps 3-5 are iterated often (dozens of times). Step 6: tweak textures, test render Step 7: add clothing and hair. Tweak textures, test render. Step 8: final render at higher resolution and quality settings. Step 9: save out as .psd Step 10: save for Web in Photoshop, create thumbnail, post.

Seems I'm doing things arse about face, but I am now setting up my figures and lighting first. Because I'm very thingy about correct lighting of figures, I get this right and then proceed to set up my scene. Nothing worse than making a great scene and then f***ing about for hours trying to get the lighting right. Just got to make sure none of your scenary interferes with the lighting you've set up.

To me adding lights first to a blank scene and then trying to make everything you add to it match, is backwards, hehe

I add lights to figures in a blank scene. Needs some tweeking at the end of course.

Figure Pose Backround texture on the figure, hair clothes lights Render fix light Render fix lights add another figure pose clothes hair The pose usually dicates what is going in the rest of the render, but when I'm doing a story I already know what I want and whatever my Runtime opens up to is what I'll use first

Out of curiosity, do most people use Poser as a single sheet and do all the work there. Hoping not to sound too basic, but you can create separate pages with the Animator - much like adding Sheets in Excel - and have totally separate conditions to create a story. I usually go 10 to 25 pages. Even without a story, you can easily copy Page 1 to 2 and change all of the elements without disturbing 1 to check different render conditions, and the number of pages is really unlimited. I've had as many as 100 if only to store unused or test scenes. From this standpoint the original story line is created with the basic textures and attire and then it develops - Pages can be shuffled about so that adding in front or between scenes is easy. This all may be obvious but I've not really heard it mentioned.

nwmione: using the animation slider to create multiple scenes at once is a very good idea, on the condition that the scene does not require an animation of itself.

I often use dynamic cloth, sometimes dynamic hair, and that requires an animation. The final scene is usually at frame 20 or 30. So the animation slider trick is out.

Load figure

Apply Mats

Set lights

Pose

Add clothes

Pick Render Settings

Render

1. Load figure and add head/body morphs, then add clothes, hair, accessories, etc.  and then finally choose a pose.  I usually spend a lot of time at this point making minor adjustments to the pose, and the clothing if needed.

2. Set up initial lights.

3. Begin adding props and a set/scene, then experiment with rotating the scene and trying out different camera angles until I've got something I'm happy with.

during all of this I render repeatedly with the P4 engine to check my progress and make sure everything is looking right, and also save VERY frequently

1. Turn volume on for atmospherics and then spend several hours adjusting the settings for the lights and atmosphere, adding new lights, respositioning them, etc.  The majority of this time is spent waiting for the scene to render in Firefly after each adjustment.  sigh

2. Once I've got it just right I then try to render at a larger resolution and higher dpi.

Until recently I've not run into any problems, but in the last couple of weeks I've had to add  few more steps.

1. Poser refuses to render.  I spend several minutes cussing, and by this time I'm too tired to screw with it and just close Poser out and go to bed.

2. The next day (when I'm in a better mood) I spend a few hours tweaking and testing the render options until I can finally get the bloody thing to render completely.

3. Save and bring it into PSP for minor touch-ups, enhance the lighting and adjust colour, maybe play with some scripts, add title and signature, make a thumbnail, etc.

4. Type up my credits list (that gets saved in the same folder as my new pic for future reference) and then head on over to R'osity to upload it to my gallery.  Once that's done, I breath a sigh of relief and take a break for a few days before starting the process all over again.  :rolleyes: