I am thinking of getting one of SA's creatures, however, I've heard some very funny stories about them not working quite right in Poser - a lot of joint poke through, some weird hierachies (separate mouth bone on a humanoid) and just plain odd limb joints making them a pain to animate. Can anyone post their experiences of these models?

Also I noticed something very funny on their website "Please refrain from discussing our models on other communities such as Renderosity as it makes it very hard to track the messages"  I can't understand any reason why a studio would actyually want people NOT to talk about their product on a forum they don't control, unless maybe perhaps it's true about the models having some problems? Any comments?

They are sold via EFrontier's content paradise, I won't link directy as Im not a free advertising service but look for "Sanctum Art" and "Phenotype" and also directly from their own website. In which case Google will find it very easily with those three words. They are sci-fi aliens, similar to stuff you might see in Giger, Doom or Halo.

[edit] add - daz sold these very briefly. wonder why they stopped. anyway, they look cool. and im considering getting one!

Sandy

It's a risky business asking about them models, people who talk about them without owning them tend to disappear in mysterious circumstances.

Quote -
Also I noticed something very funny on their website "Please refrain from discussing our models on other communities such as Renderosity as it makes it very hard to track the messages"  I can't understand any reason why a studio would actyually want people NOT to talk about their product on a forum they don't control, unless maybe perhaps it's true about the models having some problems? Any comments?

SA once made it quite clear that Poser is not their primary market. They do not do request, nor take suggestions. they probably posted that to minimize the effort they would have to put into supporting their products.

Quote - SA once made it quite clear that Poser is not their primary market. They do not do request, nor take suggestions. they probably posted that to minimize the effort they would have to put into supporting their products.

They also did it so it's easier to keep track of who owns their figures, and more importantly who doesn't. If you know what I mean ;)

I have them. Never used them for animation, but I like them for images. Never noticed any poke through issues, but then again, I haven't used them a lot. Maybe 4 images total.

I don't really like that company's attitude. It's closed and unfriendly, and I just know form the comments above there;s going to be problems with the figures, and they don;t seem to care to support or fix them. I'll take the money elsewhere.

i have quite a bit of SA content i got before they closed their store at Daz
i think they have some of the best built items around and very very detailed and i am looking to get GRIM and the PIT BULL if my $ ever get right i am quite sure if you have any problems with any of their content and you email them at their site they will assist i do have two of their aliens as far as animating them i will check but some may not bend in normal humanoid fashion so that may be why you can't import standard motion you would have to key frame the animation. but some do and i have done short animation with what i feel is success. as far as "poke through" poke through what??

As it is stated on their site, sanctumart products are not the everydays products that we will find on the poser market. Their models are very different !!!! I have never got any problems concerning the comunications. I always did get reply from them when  I asked some informations. I think everything depend on what kind of questions poeple are asking to them...
Now concerning the figures, I have almost all their porducts, and I never had problem, the figures are perfectly jointed and skinned !!!!! Just the fact that the figures are very seriously made requires poeple with good knowledge in poser to animate and poses them. The only issue is in rendering, because the texture are in very high resolution poser can sometimes  freeze. And the solution is simple, just to resize the textures to lower resolution.

Quote - tend to disappear in mysterious circumstances.

Specially when aliens are involved.

I am still not convicned. I am deeply suspicious of a company that discourages open talk about its products. If the product worked fine and they wanted to sell it, they wouldn't (in my opinion) have that attitude. I can't think of a single massmarket product that the manufacturers do NOT want discussed ... I'll give them a miss.

You always are welcome to discuss my products.

Quote - You always are welcome to discuss my products.

Have you got any? innocent looking grin

Been meaning to ask you Kawecki, what's that thing you're using as your avatar?

He's flipping everyone the finger. 

It's taken someone long enough to notice.

Muahahahah muahahaha muahahaha

Who me? I'm innocent I tells ye!

One thing to consider with the Phenotypes, is that you get no morphs beyond mouth and eyelid movements, meaning you'd have to create your own if you wanted one to be fatter or skinnier than the others.

Me, I prefer at least some way to easy vary the body shape of even a monster, because not all are going to have the exact same body.

The SA attitude about their products seems to be that if they can't find your purchase info (say, because you registered on a new site under a different username and posted a picture with their product in it), is that you're a thief, who's obtained their product illegally, and they will treat you thus unless you provide purchase info.

Quote - The SA attitude about their products seems to be that if they can't find your purchase info (say, because you registered on a new site under a different username and posted a picture with their product in it), is that you're a thief, who's obtained their product illegally, and they will treat you thus unless you provide purchase info.

That would prove a problem for me if I ever bought their figures as I have a few different names scattered about the internet.

I dont have any of the Phenotype models but I did get VAP Grim. I was a little put off by the price, but after I got it I was very impressed! I think its probably the most detailed high quality model Ive ever bought I recall seeing a thread here about people panicing that he was taking his stuff down from DAZ and everyone was trying to get the money to get the items before they dissappeared.

There is a huge thread over at Poser Pros concerning SA called "Do I look shady to you?"  A most unpleasant incident, the upshot of which is some people, including myself, have become wary to the point of not buying and/or not using models of theirs. The items were legitimately purchased but not at their site -- I got mine from Daz  -- and they demanded somebody's proof of purchase with no good reason or even good manners. You can read the whole story at PP ... which makes me think this "do not discuss our models in other forums" policy of theirs is how they want to deal with all the well deserved criticism they got for practically calling people thieves without any evidence of the sort.

I have a bunch of their stuff, it all was very expensive, but for me I considered it well worth it.  But from a pure customer point of view their products have some issues:

1.  They aren't designed to be Poser user friendly.  They don't have morphs that you might want to adjust figures to look different.  They lack animation controls(especially face morphs)  you would want if you were using it for any real animation.  All those dozens of little features that most Poser merchants consider standard about figures and how to support (so to maximize other artists ability to use the product) are mostly lacking on SA products.  Features are almost always about polygons and not rigging/controls.

1. They are extremely high polygon and high texture models and Poser really doesn't handle them well.  I still remember trying to get my 2 gig workstation to render a short animation of a couple of figures about to fight in the middle of the big SA RDL7 stage (which is no longer available).  I was using the standard textures (they also sold a high-res pack that I skipped).  In the end in order to render the animation I had to down-sample all of the textures by 4 to make a set that Poser 4 pro could work with.  And oddly enough you really couldn't tell I did it, way over kill.

1. They aren't cheap and since leaving Daz they have only gotten worse, at least Daz had specials and sales that would include them from time to time.

1. On forums their public "representative" is not very pleasant.  They don't appear to care if you have bought their products and are happy to remind you that you really aren't important to them.

1. They seem to attack artists that have used their products if they can't seem to find a record of you buying them.  This is actually new, since they have no records of who bought their stuff at Daz (Daz doesn't give out that info), but starting with the Grim armor they do know who bought it and have used that info to justify attacking artists.  The whole mess on PoserPros is the most public example, but I have no doubt their have been others.  Of course make no mistake, every kid using stolen Poser models has their stuff, I certainly can see how that would get on their nerves.  I doubt their sales are all that high really, mainly because they are way over priced for the market.  And there is no market for the high end package versions they are selling.

In the end it kind of boils down to what are you looking for?  If you need a merchant that cares about their products and customers and is trying to make good stuff for good people, SA may not be the company for you.  On the other hand if your looking for extremely well modeled sci-fi equipment and characters that happen to fit into SA's failed movie/game project and don't need a lot of hand holding as far as using them, SA products really are top-notch.

I wish they would take a look at some other Poser merchants products (like figures from Netherworks) and work a bit on making their models more Poser artist friendly (morphs, controls and riggings).  I wish they would never again post or reply in a public forum and only post announcements and adverting.  I realize they don't care about me, but I don't need them to rub it in my face every time they do talk.  But most of all I wish they would release more stuff, because I do really enjoy their products, despite all their flaws.

I suppose I should also mention that yes, I am using the Grim armor as my current forum avatar so whatever I've said may have a huge bias, though I'm pretty sure I'm not a plant.  Maybe. :-)

I'm tempted to bump this thread every week, until SA starts behaving itself :-)

I could spend the whole day naming merchants who care about their customers & put 1000% into their work but it would take me mere seconds to name merchants who are the opposite simply because there's so few of them that survive the first complaints.

Quote - There is a huge thread over at Poser Pros concerning SA called "Do I look shady to you?"

Wrong thread name, but search on Sanctum Arts. It's a long thread. Early on, some people were wondering if the email, apparently from Sanctum Arts, was genuine.

http://poserpros.daz3d.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=54287&highlight=sanctum+arts

Hey, msorrels, I've long been thinking about getting the Grim armor.  How is it for loading onto the characers?  It has so many great little bits and pieces, do they have a decent start and conform in Poser like I've come to expect, or does it require a bit more work to get everything in place?

Yeah, i can see SA being a bit fearful, at first glance, they do have some of the finest looking stuff around.  When i look at the Grim armor, for example, I can see it being totally worth the cash.  Not many merchants make things so detail as to include  "interior" textures.  A Grim Helmet would look real rolling on the floor, you can see the padding inside.  To me, this is pretty sweet.

there are cr2's with almost all the armor preloaded, one for Vicky3 and one for M3. Or you can load them individually as you like.

The armor fits ok and comes in enough pieces you really are forced into using it completely.  You can pick parts you like and get a good mix of styles.  The only bad part is that loading it all by hand takes forever.  They do have the pre-rigged characters that help there though.

There are some poke though issues, though almost all can be solved by turing off body parts(gloves and inside thighs are the worst poke through issues).  In fact the gloves pretty require you hide the hands.   One thing I don't hink the promotional stuff shows is how a lot of the suit is armor pieces that are aren't that tight fitting.  The armor parts are much loser that the bodysuit with a good amount of room.  The shoulder pads do have issues with not fallowing the arms (I think it's by design) which makes some poses harder (you have to tweak the shoulder pads by hand).  And there are no morphs at all really.

And yes, close ups of the gear do look fairly real but it's not quite perfect.

I wonder if there's a way to automate it? apart from using the fully loaded cr2, maybe a python script with a list that you can choose the bits you want & have load it all for you.

Quote - > Quote - There is a huge thread over at Poser Pros concerning SA called "Do I look shady to you?"

Wrong thread name, but search on Sanctum Arts. It's a long thread. Early on, some people were wondering if the email, apparently from Sanctum Arts, was genuine.

In my defense, I can only say it was awhile ago I read it. Anyway, it's a big thread and as it turned out, the email was indeed genuine. Er, last I heard anyway. Might go check it out again & see if there's been any new developments.

Thanks Jerr3d and msorrels.  Lots to think about, but at least I now know what I have to consider.  It sounds like this armour is quite usable for still images where you can cheat things and do postwork, but that i might be very difficult to use in animation.

I decided a while ago not to buy anything from them. If someone thinks I stole something the burden is on them to prove it. I don't feel it's necessary to drag out my receipts whenever asked, but be sure I will have them to show the judge and then it will be up to them to pay the court costs.   8^)
Had one company threaten to sue me...still waiting. They say I owe them $1200, but the letter I have shows the account paid in full and canceled by me. They've been threatening me for about 5 years now, think they'd either do it or call it a day...lol

Last time I checked, this was still America. And unless we all shout 'fire', or something slanderous, etc. , we can pretty much talk about anything we want. I cannot imagine anyone presuming the legal authority to say you cannot talk about this or that company or its products. Just tell that to a newspaper, or Consumer Reviews magazine.

I own a few of there products, there nice models, but too overdone for poser. the Howler is my favourite item, I loaded it up into Polytrans and reduced the extreme poly count, then a reduced the textures a little in size. its actually usable now.

If they ever ask me to prove my purchase, I'd tell em to shove it up there candy A%$. I didnt buy any of it from them, I purchased through DAZ and here, and therefore I do not have to answer to them LOL.

I am never going to touch there products again though, worst support in the world.

I am sure glad I never waisted my money on them. A Armor suit that costing there price tag should fit like a glove and have no issues to animate.

I'm biased (being one of the subjects of SA's ill-conceived receipt-checking policy) but I'd urge anybody thinking about spending their money on SA's Grim to go over to Xurge3D and check out their stuff. They have similar style sci-fi armors, but you can get like 4 or 5 items for the price of the SA Grim. Plus Xurge seems to have half-off sales and other specials pretty regular.

Yep, Xurge was my first and then third choice (I delayed to ponder the Grim Armour).  I also like the Xurge variety.  Their armour is no where near as detailed, though, but with some home made textures (I'd be re-texturing a lot of the Grim Armour for my purposes anyway) and some nice homemade bump and displacement maps, plus pulling some extras out of various other products, I think I can put something together that will work nicely.