Just thought I'd let you all know I am working on a tutorial for Ivy Generator  and if anyone cares, you can see my first moch up. It was intended to be the final, but after wards i found some strange things that were  going wrong and had to do with the Ivy Gen program, so I will be putting out a  newer version later this week to replace this one or maybe add to it?

In any case, it's something to help some of those out there get going in a good 
direction and hopefully give some a better understanding of how to create vines 
that you actually want, and not just vines that do what ever they want! LOL

Here's the link to the 75meg Zipped file, it's a Divx AVI:
http://www.md-arts.com/tut/Ivy_Gen_Tut_01.zip

Basically, everything is in there, except that now I know I need to point out, that sometimes 
your objects may??? export out either on a different axis then it shows in the Ivy Gen program,
or, you end up with something like a Mirrored vines object in which case, simply mirror 
it in your favorite 3D program and use that version instead.
It may export with both of these things wrong too.

Just a heads up, thats all.
And of course, make sure that your polygons are all trippled (triangles).

Here was my first test with the program, I'll get an image posted soon of what is in the tutorial.
Anyway, enjoy and I'll let you all know as soon as I get the newer, final version 
of this tutorial posted, which should be a little later this week.

.............................md :)

Thanks for this ... I've been a little frustrated with the program so I'll definitely give this a go later.

Thanks a bunch for this :)

No probs :)

And btw, one of the things that I didn't realize was so important that I left out, will be in the next version.
But, just so you know, that part deals with how to keep your file sizes down for your Ivy.
basically, use the very first slider to adjust how your ivy is layed out on your object.
What this basically does, is that it will really make the size of the ivy mor spread out, 
not so much it's real size, which the term implies.
The actual size of the vines and ivy leafs are done with the bottom controls.
The first control is more of a tool for spreading things out, or you could put it 
that it's making les segments per size of your object that it's being applied to, 
thus the smaller file sizes in the final exported Ivy.

Make sense?

Don't crank it up too much with that first slider, a little at a time will work, like a half inch 
or less and just experiment with that, as each object will always very with this control greatly.

Hope this little extra info also adds to what you know? :)

OK, thanx again and like I say, I'll be getting the new version out latr on this week.
This whole week is real busy, but I'll try my best to fit it in there somewhere LOL

And I guess some might not know where to find this cool program, so here's the link:
http://graphics.uni-konstanz.de/~luft/ivy_generator/

Oh, and I reoranized the ReadMe file too, so now it makes better sense.
You can download it as well if you like, here:
http://www.md-arts.com/tut/IvyManual.zip

.........................md :)

Great info - going to print this page out :) Thanks again for going to the trouble of putting this together - well done :)

Thank you much and you are very welcome too!
And I can't wait to get a more polished version put out :)

And glad you enjoyed it too, I really worked hard to get the info layed out so that people 
have an understanding of how to "use" the controls, and not just move them around 
aimlessly hoping that they might end up with something they might like LOL

Knowing how a control tool will actuall affect things is always a big step in getting those results that are wanted.

............md :)

Say, if any of you here work with any Poser stuff and also want to follow whats going 
on with that subject, since I soon found out there are completely new and different 
issues pertaining to Poser and Ivy Gen, you can check that out here:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2695940&page=1

I go into some other sollutions on some problems people had in that area.
And you can see my very first ever Poser scene I've ever made there too LOL
All just to show that Ivy Gen can and does work with Poser LOL

Hope that also helps out a bit? :)

..................md :)

Hey Mark! After all my years with Vue and Poser, I've never rendered anything in Poser. Looks like you beat me to it. Oh yeah... and thanks for the ivy gen tut!

Heh, heh LOL
Yeah, I never had to render anything in Poser either, other then just messin around to see 
what something looked like before I exported the thing out to use in Vue or what ever else.

But I was sort of drawn into the whole deal, really I didn't have much choice in the matter.
People in the Poser forum were ruinning into some issues, things I hadn't thought about cuz 
I wasn't aware of some of the problems that you can have with Poser and exporting and some
other things and I sort of felt like I had no choice but to "prove" taht this could be done and done
with out the use of any other 3D program, since for a lot of people, Poser is all they have, so I
"had to" work through all of it and that included making a real scene, 
which I knew absolutely nothing about either LOL
As you can see though, after over 6 hours of learning, some (a lot) trial and error and a ton
more reading, (well, some reading) I managed to get an actual scene made and put out! LOL

I have to say, I was pleasantly supprised too that it turned out as good as it did?
I really didn't see or even look at Poser as anything other then just a 
posing program which is all I bought it for in the first place.

Now, I can go back to the Vue scene that I was supposed to finish that goes along with that tutorial.
Cuz I already have most of that built, I just needed to work out the problems with that Ivy Gen
program and Vue and other issues of things sometimes coming out backwards or insideout 
or mirrored or on a different axis then what you see while working in the Ivy Gen program 
and finally figured out most of the problems and the deal with all of those issues, 
so I will be adding though tips into the final addendum.
Most of which are that Ivy Gen sometimes exports things wrong, plain and simple LOL
But, there are a few other things that can help somewhat, but even with those, 
a lot of the answers are hit and miss types of answers, but what can you do? :)

I'm mostly taking the rest of today off though, and that'll give me some away from the 
puter time to gather up my thoughts again and get back to this stuff in the next 
few days, if and when I actually have a few seconds of spare time LOL

Thanx too and I really hope you enjoy my tutorial and of course to you and anyone else, 
feel free to critique or comment, make suggestions or request, I'm open to anything? :)

.....................md :)

**Ok, I cant download the tut....???...arrgggg

Or the new manual...???...ughhh **

And I like the program...

Michael

Hmm, did you try it again?
cuz i just went and made sure things are all ok and checked my FTP and all things are still good for downloading :)

I'm in the middle of installing all my software at the moment, as I had to get a new hard 
drive installed, but the files aren't on my system anyway, they are on the server and are all good.

But, my point being, I'll try and help you any way I can, if you still can't download things, but they should be working fine.

The only thing I can think of is maybe you tried at a bad time when they might of been doing some maintinance or something?

Let me know how it goes, ok?
Always feel free to email me if you need to.

....................md :)

Too bad for us dialup users that the file is 75 mb's that would take a while to upload does it come in a lite version (joking) thanks for your efforts.

LOL, yeah, sorry `bout the size, I really do try to keep them down.
But for this particular tutorial, there really just wasn't no real way to shorten it anymore then I already had done, cuz it was a lot bigger, but I cut out a few scenes in the thing to try and shorten it a little, so it's at it's barest minimum right now.
And I really wanted those other scenes in there too, cuz I shoed a few other things to look for, but figured I had enough of the most important details in it in the shortened version, so I went with that.

I have had I think one other person request a "lite" version too, but I realized I really couldn't make one, not and still keep the same sort of info that is in this tutorial that is LOL

Hope you can get the tutorial downloaded though, maybe start it when you go to bed and by morning you'll wake up with the thing all nice and finished? :)

I lived on dialup for sooo many years though, that I know your pain LOL
I had to get cabel for a few jobs though, and once that happened I couldn't go back to dialup, even though I was too poor to afford the cable LOL
So, now I keep it and am a VERY happy camper and screw the cost LOL

Anyway, I hope you can down it and all and also, enjoy!

......................md :)