HI,

I'm trying to use several figures in a scene. I have a good computer, but it struggles.

Are there any tricks?

Will it help to use the same figure/character several times instead in different figures/characters?

Is it possible to copy and paste a figure to another place in a scene?

Any suggestions? Thanks!

Helmer

Try working in outline and cartoon w/line preview as much as possible, maybe? Use smooth shadded unless you really need to see the textures for what you are doing. Try using (UGH!) "bounding box tracking".

If the figures are not touching can you pose one then save to the library, do the next and save, and then load them all only when you want to render. If there are shadows I think there need to be all the figures in the scene at once.

There are some "morph stripping" scripts but they may only be for Millenium 3 figures. I sometimes make my character and then pose it in the default be zeroing the x, y, and z translation on the hip and body and using the "zero figure" button on the Joint Paremeter window. I export it to my special "MyPeople" folder in geometries and take a .cr2 from which I have removed all but the essential morphs using MorphManager (free) and change the 2 .obj lines to point to the figure in my folder using EditPade Lite (free).

figureResFile :Runtime:Geometries:newMaleCasHi:newMaleCasHi.obj

becomes...

figureResFile :Runtime:Geometries:MyPeople:MyNewGuy01.obj

If you are using P6 you will need to re-save your figure with compression turned off in preferences so MorphManager and EditPad can open it.

More often I work with a stripped .cr2 or a Reduced Resoulution version if it is possible and then once it is posed I replace it with the full character with the single checkmark and so far they have always taken the pose with only the need for a little tweeking in the hands and feet -- don't forget those hand cameras! And the "AUX" camera seems to work really well for zooming into details to see if things are "going through" each other etc.

Also you can make a back-up of your textures and then use Irfanview (free) to sample them down to a much smaller size... I have found even 512x512 or whatever works without degrading my screen resolution renders. 1024x1024 would probably work even for 300dpi image I think maybe.

Use as few lights as possible until you are ready to render -- even there I seldom use more than four, esp. with IBL and point lights but I guess there is a tradion of using vast amounts of lights.

The key maybe is to think of each time you move a camera,light, prop or figure Poser is doing a series of rough realtime render.... you want those render to be as light as possible.

I would love to here any other tips or if mine are messed up somehow.

Use lo-res figures where you can in the mid or background, I've found the V3 and M3 RR figures particularly useful for this. I'll have my main characters using the full V3, M3 whatever in the front of the scene and then the RR figures in mid or back!

OR

You might want to look at using the AZL crowd kit, that's pretty useful for background peoples or so I'm told, I dont't have it but it has been on my wishlist!

Use Morph Manager 4 to create a morphless figure
"Load File" => in the "File of type" window choose "Pose Files" => load an empty pose (or any pose, it does not matter)
Click again the top left button and load your figure
Now the 3rd top left button says "More Options"
Choose "Delete all morph targets from file"
Save under a new name

Use morph injection technology to import only one useful morph
If your figure has no injection channel, you can edit one by hand or use MM4 or use one of several free python scripts to add some to your morphless figure.
You can use Stalle's Poser Little Helper to create injectors from your custom morph

Desactivate shadows untill the final render

Render each character in position. Remove the background in photoshop. Use each render as a texture on a primitive square. Rearrange the squares in  the scene.

Hope it helps

Adavyss, is it true that one can avoid the need for DAZ type injection morphs by using the Poser 6 .pmd? And Stahlratte posted a blank .pz2 file on the forum here that you could load up as a injection file using MorphManager.

Hi everybody,

Thanks for all the useful comments!

Momodot, what do you mean by "I replace it with the full character with the single checkmark"? Do you mean that you edit the pz3 file and change the filename to the customized obj file?
Adavyss, I understand that I can load say all the V3 head and body morphs, use the MOR for a character, spawn a single morph using Poser, and in the future just inject that one morph using a simple readscript command. Is the point of the blank pose file, Morph Manager and Poser's Little Helper to also remove the built-in Morphs and get a small, one-morph figure?

Thanks!

Helmer

IMHO, it's the hi-res textures on the characters and props that cause the problems. A good person to ask is SVDL. He puts a lot of people in scenes, but he renders the scenes in layers and then puts them together in Photoshop.

Hi.

Sorry to be confusing.

There are three different things I do:

1. I pose my scene with DAZ Reduced Resolution figures (for $30 I got M3RR, V3RR and a ton oof other stuff). I even have RR figures from which all the morphs are stripped with MorphManager. When I have my scene set up I replace each RR figure with the appropriate standard figure. E.G. my stripped V3 RR figure is replaced by the fully morphed V3 character I have made by selecting the latter and adding the former by clicking the single as opposed to the double checkmark icon at the bottom of the libraries fly-out.

2. I create a character on say V3 (but I do this also with V2 and M2 figures)  and then with EVERYTHING zeroed on the figure but the morph I export the geometry to my custom character folder in Geometries. Next I have a stripped down .cr2 for that figure and I open it in EditPad Lite (which is free and doesn't choke even on 70MB .cr2 files) and find the two geometrie calls by searching for the text string ".obj". I change the geometry path to point to my new geometry as shown in the post above. So far I never have trouble with these figures if the figure pose is zeroed properly before I export the geometry.

3. I spawn a morph target for each body part that has been changed to create a character. I open the the charater in one window of MorphManager and delete all but the expression morphs and save this as a "figure lite". Then I open my figure with the character morphs and move over just the morphs for my custom character to the "lite" .cr2 and save that to my library as my character to use in my scene.

I think these procedures should be standard operations of the Poser software and the DAZ figures... I can't imagine why they are not built in! I know of several 2D programs that permit you to work with low resolution "proxys" and apply the opporations on the full resolution image when everything has been worked out. This is much more difficult than being able to spin up a character on Victoria 3 Reduced Resolution and have that create a pose that will make the same character by injection on the standard V3 which would then spawn the morphs and "REM" the un-needed channels. I geometry switch for low to high resolution for the head, hands, and body would be viable to if we have to use that god aweful injection system!
I am trying to figure out if I can use PMD calls to get around the INJ system. I hate it so much I keep a V3 saved fully loaded and spawn my characters using the geometry method above.

@ momodot
Sorry for the late answer, the ebots are down (at least for me)

"Adavyss, is it true that one can avoid the need for DAZ type injection morphs by using the Poser 6 .pmd?"

Well... yes and no. The general idea is the same, but it has been IMO badly designed.
First pmd files are not text files, they are binary files. You cannot edit them.
They only work in P6.
They are big files. If you want to make custom morph sets, you end up with a lot of big files.

The only interest I see to pdm files is if you use multiple same characters in a scene. They will all use the same pmd file. It can be interesting.

I tried hard and tested pmd files a lot. I reached the conclusion they were not worth using: too heavy, not versatile enough, too limited.
If you want a recommandation, forget about pmd files, you'll save a lot of time and frustration.
Injection technology is still the best for morph management.

@ **aslaksen
**You never mentioned you are using V3 so I gave you a general procedure.

"Adavyss, I understand that I can load say all the V3 head and body morphs, use the MOR for a character, spawn a single morph using Poser"
Yes, you can do that. Once the morph is spawned, you can remove the injectors and save you new character. But once the morph is spawned, it is inbeded in the cr2, it's not an injector. Every time you create a new character, you have to save a new cr2. You will kickly end up with a lot of heavy files.

"and in the future just inject that one morph using a simple readscript command"
Sorry I don't understand what you mean.
Once you have loaded the morphs and created your character, you need to convert your new geometry into an injector. You can do it by hand, but it's far easier an quicker to use Poser's Little Helper (in case of a partial morph - head+neck for exemple) or the Spawn Character python script by sdvl (in case of full body morphs). Then you always use the same cr2 (V3 without morphs), you just change the injector.

Attached Link: http://market.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2632044&page=1

@ **momodot I don't know why you dislike injection technology so much, but you should give a try to** the Spawn Character python script by sdvl**.  You create your character as usual, you launch the script and you end up with 2 nice little injectors (INJ+REM). It could save you a lot of time and maybe cure your aversion of injection technology.**

Hi Adavyss,

Thanks for all your useful explanations. I'm still a newbie, so I really appreciate it.!

So is the point that if I spawn a morph from inside Poser it becomes part of the cr2, but if I use SVDL's script or PLH or MM, I can create an external morph that I can inject?  I hadn't thought about that.

I use V3, Aiko and Miki, so I appreciate your general answer.

What is the relationship between PLH and MM? Are they somewhat similar?

I'm not sure if I understand what you meant about using Morph Manager 4 to create a morphless figure. Is that to remove any built-in morphs and just use one injection file to load into a morphless figure?

Thanks!

Helmer

"So is the point that if I spawn a morph from inside Poser it becomes part of the cr2, but if I use SVDL's script or PLH or MM, I can create an external morph that I can inject?"

Exactly. The easiest way is to use SVDL's script. You create your character, you dont need to spawn the morph, just launch the script and you end up with 2 nice little injectors (INJ+REM). The Spawn Character python script by sdvl is fully fonctional but sdvl is working on an improved version which gonna be  a gem. Give it a try, it's really worth it.
Warning, there is no injection channels  in Aiko, morphs  are embeded, so you have to create a morphless figure (with MM4) and create the injection channels to be able to use injection technology.
As far as Miki is concerned, I don't know.

 "What is the relationship between PLH and MM? Are they somewhat similar?"
MM4 is dealing with morph management and PLH is designed to create injectors from an obj (you create your character, you export the morphed bodyparts or the whole figure as a  .obj file and PLH create the 2 injectors [INJ+REM] in DAZ format or standard format.) 2 different things really.

"I'm not sure if I understand what you meant about using Morph Manager 4 to create a morphless figure. Is that to remove any built-in morphs and just use one injection file to load into a morphless figure?"
Exactly. V3/M3...you can remove all the morphs with the REM injectors. Posette has morphs embeded in the cr2. If you want to have a light cr2 to speed renders up, you must remove these morphs data from the cr2.

Hi Adavyss,

Great! Thanks!

I'll try it out!

Helmer

Hi guys,

Just a quick follow-up.

I recently came across Binary Morph Converter
http://market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=45173

It sounds to me like using it to create pmd files for V3 would be useful when having several V3 figures. Have anybody tried it?

Thanks!

Helmer