hi guys im thinking of opening up a store here at renderosity. I have my first object almost ready. I just need to get the textures completed. (some of the textures in the pic arent my own)

Id like to know what you think of the object and wheteher or not you would either consider buying the object or think others might buy it.

the item is a notice board and will be a poser ready prop

My Gallery

Looks like it could be a useful item, it would prolly go in my wish list but purchasing would be a decision based on what I need at any given point, what I have to spend at any given time and how much the item costs in relation to it's usefulness!!

Hope that gives you a bit to go on, it really is very nicely done and I can see it being useful as a scene filler!

I would use it as scene filler but ther has been downward movement in Poser content prices and I wouldn't want to pay more for it than I would for a full scene. I'm afraid that I would only buy it a $5 or $6 as a time saver. I certainly want as much scene clutter as possible for real world everyday type scenes so I don't want to discorage you. It is a nice lively piece although I question the scaling of the cork surface and the maping on the frame. I would love any real world stuff like this you would make but for me it would need to be "affordably" priced.

the main point I see, is the cork texture is way to low a resolution.... you need to up that seriously.

Quote - hi guys im thinking of opening up a store here at renderosity. I have my first object almost ready.

'k... halt right there. You might want to build a couple of free items first, just to gauge your skill level and its reception by the public at large. After a week or so, check the galleries to see if the thing is being put to use - and if so, how much and in what way? Simply rushing onto the site then plonking down for-sale items is a bit too common these days, and the RMP tends to show it IMHO. Not to mention that doing this too often leads to dissapointment for the new vendor. I just checked your image after writing the above para. Here's some simple criticisms you may wish to follow (or not - up to you): * the textures. Please fix them on the board... the tex files look a bit too low-rez for the cork and frame, esp. for the close-up image. The good news is, you can use a high-resolution noise shader / displacement map for the cork and just a plain brown color with some minor variations for its tex file. For the wood you're going to have to use a higher resolution image, or at least un-blur it. The paper textures are fine, with the possible exception of the bear on the calendar... it seems a bit stretched vertically. * paper meshes are fine, as is the underlying board. * this is IMHO a fairly simple mesh to build... what would compel folks to pay money for it? Not saying it to hurt your feelings, but hopefully to avoid hurting them later on. This would make a great free item, but not-so-hot for a sale item. HTH, /P

Cool, thanks for your comments guys. Im glad overall you like my item.

I do have a few free items  which have been recieved quite well.
I also will definately be creating higher resolution textures for the noticeboard if i end up selling it. I am in the process of doing that right now.

Also the price would most probably be $5. and i am thinking of maybe including some other item in the package which might make it a little bit more value for your money!

Well. You took that with composure :) I would definately apreciate that kind of clutter and $5 sounds fine esp. with some other "mess".  What drives me nuts is trying to make a Poser render of a domestic or work space not inhabited exclusively by millionairs with personal maids in 24 hour attendance... the CGI problem is no wear, no clutter, no garbage, no stuff just laying around just these pristine "luxury" environments. I spend more time then I want to trying to make clutter for my scenes. I will support you with more bucks for some real Real World clutter. I have always wanted a nice bedroom or living room or kitchen in a shared apartment as a Poser scene.

To try and gage your sales, you need to take a look at what your competition is offering, what quality and at what price.
One of more popular ones is faveral, and his bric-a-brac packages, AFAIK
Take a look at this one for example: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=30140&vendor=faveral

Hope that gives you some food for thought :)

Quote - I will support you with more bucks for some real Real World clutter. I have always wanted a nice bedroom or living room or kitchen in a shared apartment as a Poser scene.

Crumpled up paper, cigarette butts, banana peel, half eaten chocolate, socks and shoes on the floor, dirty dishes, tablecloth a kitty just skidded over, doggie bed with a dog impression in it, towel on the ground on the way to the bathroom, half empty glasses of orange juice, last years schoolbooks, dirty dishes, playstation games on the ground, dog got into the trash again...

It's a good thing it's illegal to strangle teenagers... ;)

Quote - * this is IMHO a fairly simple mesh to build... what would compel folks to pay money for it?

Because not everyone is a modeler.  And even those who are don't always want to take the time & effort to model & texture something like this for themselves.  It might be more cost effective to buy it for a low price instead.  So everyone wins -- the vendor & the customer.

Nice prop!

I'd pretty much echo penguinisto's comments. I think added value is what would compel people to buy this. In addition to the tex issues you might consider adding some alternative textures - for example, the one over my desk has a black plastic frame with some sort of gray and black fleck board. I've got one at work with no frame and a blue fabric cover. You could probably find lots of other examples on the net.

I'd like to see some means of hanging the thing from the wall, also with regard to the modelling the frame could really use lightly bevelled edges to catch the light. They look very sharp at the moment. Maybe also an option to add dents and scratches via a disp map so it looks sort of worn and beat up? It's this kind of detail which would make people buy it IMHO.

ISTR there is already a freebie similar to this. will try to recall who did it.

Yes, I've seen message board props done before.  But I wouldn't let that discourage me from doing it again, if I so desired.  If one person created a message board prop for Poser -- and that fact then excluded anyone else from doing so: all message boards used in Poser scenes would look exactly alike.

Something else to consider.. the calendar, flow cart and reciept images most likely are copyrighted items. You have to sign a statement here at Rendo that you are the copyright holder of the entire content in order to sell it here.

Make your own calendar in word or a web based calendar program, and use your own photo for it's artwork.

Same with trhe photo on the board.. may sure it's not from the web, but was taken yourself.

In these days of selling an entire rigged and morphable figure, even sellign it for $5 might be too much for many people. I sell successfully over at daz, and there are so many items released here, my products here were buried quickly, moved to clearance, and were removed already! 

And in many cases a product you put up for sale might not even make you back the time you invest in it, unless it becomes extremely popular.

You could possibly sell it off to Daz as a Freebie of the week, or maybe a platinum club item though.

I'd have to echo Peng here, but go a little further. Your freestuff shows you've still got a long way to go before being store ready. Same with the pinboard. The textures need to be thrown out and new, hi-res ones need to be made. The modelling is very simplistic. Consider looking into displacement for the cork. Make other options like suggested above ... the blue boards are made from low pile carpet and are usually frameless. Can the frame be made invisible and the board still look good? Perhaps a frame with a bit of routing (shaped edging) along the edges?

Consider modelling & texturing for at least another 12 months before thinking of the store. Do you want to introduce your talent as lacklustre? Or would you rather explode onto the scene with an awesome piece that everyone 'has' to have? Reputation is KEY in this industry. Look at a modeller like Stonemason. People buy his stuff purely because he made it, so they know it's top quality.

I hope I've not offended you. When someone asks for an opinion I assume they want all opinions, not just the one they want to hear.
I was told these things a long time ago, and I honestly believe I make good money from this now because I listened and honed my skills before entering into the marketing side of Poser.

Attached Link: http://mystic-nights.com/directory/index.php

You might want to consider offering it through a place like http://www.sharecg.com They are supposed to offer some kind of profit sharing for the freebies you offer. Even with reworked textures, I honestly would never buy something like this by itself. I'll admit that as a modeler I don't represent your average Poser user, but this is a very simple model so you're basically just selling your textures.

I actually think it is good enough to sell if you do indeed fix the cork board texture.  You can always find free stuff that can match your own work, but what makes yours different is the quality.  I feel you have good detail.  I would not sell it by itself, I think a good sale would be to offer a couple of props together in the same subject matter.

Good job.  Sharen

Darn! I keep hitting some key that deletes my post! Parkinsons!

Not everyone has the the time to model all the things they need in a render, that is why there are so darned many dial up characters in the the market place made with Vendor Resource textures... a lot of Poser products are about time saving as much as sharing a little bit of the vendor's vision.

I think your design and conception are very nice. Your creating non-copyright-infringing textures is also valued added. I think there are those textures that need further work but the way the paper is really dimensional and has subtle folds or relates to the mesh beneath it  is very nice and sets this apart from a simple assemblage of textured primitives. Maybe a full desk clutter set would be  worth $5 or even $8 to people doing commercial work at least. Certainly for my own personal work I want all the mess I can affordably pull together.

With all this kind of thing I say do it without any expectation of financial return, just make something you are proud of... just make sure it is the best it can you can make it. Be dedicated. If money follows that is a nice bonus. Maybe you will have helped out a couple people in making an image they want to make.

My only problem with weak things going to market is if they are dishonest in their promotion, someone not trying their best and then trying to hide the weaknesses or shoddiness to make a sale, but so long as the promotion is really "what you see is what you get" then no one gets hurt. They don't want it? They won't buy it. 

Quote -
Because not everyone is a modeler.

Don't even have to model it. Here's how:

In Poser, bring in a cube, scale it, build a texture or two and a displacement map, and there's your board. Add a few flat sheets with some (existing or otherwise) textures for it and some mild wave/magnet action on each (a Poser feature) -- or you can just use the freebie supermorph sheet that TrekkieGirl posted for P4 a couple of years back instead of the default square, and there's your papers.

I just described a 20-30 minute effort (ab't 15 minutes for a fully savvy and undistracted Poser user who knows P-Shop or GIMP well enough) that can be saved as a prop and opened later.

Note that I'm not trying to put the guy (girl?) down. I like that someone is interested in modeling stuff, and he/she has a good head start in the right direction.

What I am trying to do OTOH is to ask him/her to stop and think about value.

If it were clothing, hair, or other tougher-to-make items, or if it were a part of a larger set (either a room or as part of a sort of clutter kit), then sure - we'd be getting somewhere. But just a single item that prolly has lots of freebie equivalents (if one knows where to look), or can be made in very short order w/o so much as double-clicking the icon to a modeling app?

I'm not claiming to be any better - I'm only stating it from a business viewpoint.

/P

I agree.. also it looks like the board was flat uv mapped, not even unwrapped, so you couldn't texture it properly.. note the wood grain texture running stretching along the side of the board borders.

Successful commercial releases have to offer unique creative talent across the board (no pun intended), from modelling, to textureing, to rigging, to uv mapping for best use.

Can the stickied parts have the tack fall out, and the note drift down? Can they be rearranged with a few dial twists for a different appearance? Does the board have poser rigging, so notes can be easily hidden, or relocated?

A board could be a static prop, OR it could actually have a lot of features build in.

A good example, is the freebie cashew I did for someone last year over at Rawart.... I could have just made it a statci massaged sphere, but as a joke, I uv unqwrapped it, and rigged it up with scaling and translation built in, and even tossed in a few morphs as well!

The trick to a reall good product release is not to just offer the basic possibility, but to go above and beyond, and offer as many features as possible, and include unique features.

I would expect n something like this:

smart prop additional notes

smartprop tacks, and mat poses for many tack colors including clear

a good selection of varied textures available for posted items.. and a complete calendar set for calendar months

Retrodevil,
I think it's commendable that you took the trouble to ask for opinions on this, quality in the marketplace would improve immediately if more new vendors followed your example.

Some knowledgable folks have given good advice so far, I'd just like to add my pet peeve, and that is efficiency. As we know Poser doesn't handle big scenes easily, every item we add to a scene worsens the problem, high polygon counts and large texture files are the enemy.

I downloaded your freebie models to check out the meshes and the textures and there's room for improvement in both areas. The mesh on your Small T is denser than it needs to be (and quite a bit denser than Vicky's corresponding bodyparts). Most of that density isn't contributing anything to the product. You could optimise the mesh a lot, either cutting out unnecessary polygons or rearranging the polys to give some thickening at edges, better creases etc.

On the helmet there's an area of incredibly dense mesh on the 'cheeks', all it is doing is increase render times with no benefit. You could rearrange the mesh to better define the shape of the visor opening.

The textures are HUGE, they'll gobble up RAM with NO benefit to the final image. As a rule of thumb when deciding on texture sizes, think about the largest size the textured surface (eg: helmet or notice-board) is likely to be in a typical finished render. So if a large-ish render is, say 1600 pixels high and the object might take up half of that height in a close-up shot, that's 800 pixels. There's no benefit in applying a texture bigger than 800 pixels high to it, it'll just be downsampled at render time. If the textures are intentionally blurry (eg: your helmet), then they definitely don't need to be so big. If you think closer-in shots might be called for, then make sure the mesh stands up to close scrutiny (if the mesh shows crappy facetting up close there's clearly no value in high-res textures on it).

When deciding on mesh density (how many polygons you should budget for a particular part of your model) you should look at its importance in the overall scene. Make every edge and every polygon count. For example the push-pins on your notice-board should ideally be no more than about 30 polys each (I don't know what they are currently) because in most renders they'll show up as no more than 3 or 4 coloured pixels. Using a few extra polys to bevel the frame will really improve the render, whereas extra polys in the pins would be largely wasted.

This may sound anal but I think it's worth cultivating an attitude to enonomy of means early on. In some items like realistic hair props high poly counts and big textures are unavoidable, so we all need to avoid bloat wherever we can, particularly in 'background' stuff.  When you get into making more complicated props and scenes that attitude can make the difference between a useful product and an unusable resource hog.

Quote - quality in the marketplace would improve immediately if more new vendors followed your example.

Amen!

obm890, has very good points. It is worth studying his mesh. He has the greatest mesh effiency combine with perfect realism that I can think of... truely briliant work. My favorite modeler.

I have not looked at your mesh RetroDevil but I can say I think the mesh detail is justified for things like the modeling of the paper in your piece above but that there is no reason to have excess where it is not contributing. I  still have not made an open newspaper on the floor prop with the right balance of mesh  economy and detail.

I have always wanted to know who uses all that mesh on the back of figures heads, or eyeballs for that matter! I do find I often use lower resolution figures than I would like because the props in a scene are not memory economical.

Something that I've started doing to accomodate those whom like close-up renders, and those making scenes with a lot of items is to make my meshes in two different levels of detail.

Low level of detail (low polygon count) for far away shots, and a higher level of detail for closeups.

Usually it's really not that much work to create the two levels of detail, especially when using smoothing levels in the modeller I use (hexagon). 

Same can be done with textures. Create a high resolution original, then make a reduced resolution version, to go with lower polycount meshes.

Conniekat8 makes an excellent point in regards to low polygon count for far away shots etc.  Really good point.  Same goes for textures.  Sharen

If ya want to make $$$ selling Poser stuff make sexy morphs and cloths for the girls.

RorrKonn
http://www.Atomic-3D.com

"If ya want to make $$$ selling Poser stuff make sexy morphs and cloths for the girls."

Truer words were never spoken.. LOL!

High poly.low poly.. Pft! With computer advancements moving at the rate they have for the last few years, it won't matter much onger what we through at poser. Affordable Quad cores are right around the corner.

There's no money in Poser content because the markets are flooded with super quality items for dirt cheap. Too many promotional give aways. The future market is unclear too because of new programs with added features.
 
Honestly, my opinion here for what it's worth. Do something not everybodys doing with let's say Poser 6 or 7 in the material room. Figure out how to make nodes for a figures skin say for an example; so that it has color and depth when rendered. Create products based on the newer features using techiques the old programs can't use. As far as models-there is many pro's out there to even try to compete, but some of them don't know how to use the material room of P6 and 7as good as they need too now. Then you can couple that knowledge with surfacing for your models and do textures with nodes that make everyone green with envy except your model when it's rendered.  Green or gray that is.

Making quality sexy stuff for the girls is tuff too. Lots of competition in that area and also it feeds the guy markets who like playing with the sexy dolls and then there's girls who wish they looked as good but maybe don't but they can pretend in Poser. This must be the reason and can only be why there are no resources for the men models. The poser girls would rather look at themselves(female figures) then make sexy men characters and clothing. I think there are more women using poser than men actually, yet few resources for men. So why such a large market for sexy chick stuff? Because the ladies like it too! Just an observation. :)

Thanks for the comments momodot  :)

Gareee wrote:

Quote - High poly.low poly.. Pft! With computer advancements moving at the rate they have for the last few years, it won't matter much onger what we through at poser. Affordable Quad cores are right around the corner.

Ah, well there's a nice mature attitude: "My new beanbag chair prop takes up more memory and CPU resources than 5 Vicky 3 characters, but who cares? It runs okay on my quad core. After you've bought it you'll find you have to upgrade your machine so you can use it in your scenes."

Affordable quad cores require new motherboards which probably require new RAM and power supplies and cases and perhaps video cards, not so affordable to a lot of Poser users.

The person who made the sports car prop (included in the e-frontier casino stuff) took that attitude, it crashes scenes for a lot of people. And you're advocating that approach to modelling?

Connie, just package it with a push-up bra ;)

Quote - Thanks for the comments momodot  :)

Gareee wrote:

Quote - High poly.low poly.. Pft! With computer advancements moving at the rate they have for the last few years, it won't matter much onger what we through at poser. Affordable Quad cores are right around the corner.

Ah, well there's a nice mature attitude: "My new beanbag chair prop takes up more memory and CPU resources than 5 Vicky 3 characters, but who cares? It runs okay on my quad core. After you've bought it you'll find you have to upgrade your machine so you can use it in your scenes."

Affordable quad cores require new motherboards which probably require new RAM and power supplies and cases and perhaps video cards, not so affordable to a lot of Poser users.

The person who made the sports car prop (included in the e-frontier casino stuff) took that attitude, it crashes scenes for a lot of people. And you're advocating that approach to modelling?

Ya can look at it two ways.. you can develop content practically for current systems, or you can try to accomodate older systems.

Look at any of my items.. I'm as poly stingy as possible, and instead of doing a buttload of poses, I build economic ERC into figures so you can easily make up your own. And 2 years from now, the average speed of systems in use will be 30-40% faster. That pretty much happens every 2 years.

But I''m sorry.. if someone can afford 1000+ a year in poser content, then they sure as hell can also afford a new system every other year as well... and $1000 will get you one hell of a decent  system, if you shop well.

Everyone bitches about high poly meshes, but the REAL poser killers are piles and piles of high res textures. take a look at the amount of ram a mesh takes up, and then take a look at how much the textures up.. like 80% of the total!

Thing if, if you want the best appearances, you want bump maps, displacement maps, specular maps, and color maps, plain and simple. Every time new fetures become available, they really raise the bar on what "base" system should probably be used.. that's just plain fact.

Yeah sometimes with older systems you can gte by for a while, but if you don;t regularly upgrade your computer componants, you just get left behind in the dust.

With any other 3d software platform, people regularly upgrade whenever they can.. but the poserverse is well known for trying ti run win 95, and using the oldest base mesh possible and trying tio get by without taking advantage of any of the new tech available.. and then of course complaining because things either don't render as nice as other applications, or the render slows down because it IS doing it'd job, delivering all the new eye candy.

Since the OP hasn't even bother to respond, I have a feeling the comments have fallen on deaf ears anyway.

I've seen very few new content creators trying to kick out the BEST possible content. Everyone things making poser stuff is "easy" and will make them a quick buck, but in fact, doing quality work and implimenting all the possible bells n whistles you can IS hard work.

Legacy creators still keep pushing the boundries, like Anton, Stonemason and the like.

And sometimes ya just gotta add some additional polys to accomodate morphs, or advanced features, or just to improve rendering appearance.

So hate me if I wanna develop the best possible looking content, with the most features I can pile into it. Hate me if I'm forgetting Joe Blow trying to run P7 on an old win 98 system.

The future of poser and it's content NEED to push the boundries, and not be shackled by people trying to run advanced features on underpowered systems. be as efficient as possible when developing, but also keep an eye toward the future, and that will make your content have longer legs, and not needing an update a year or two down the road.

I really agree with Gareee here.  You see this alot in gamer forums too.  People who get angry that the game graphics got updated therefore they need a new video card.  Technology moves forward, the future is the place to be.

I wonder how the world would have fared had Edison invented a more neato candle instead of a lightbulb due to how many people couldn't afford electricity at the time.

This is also coming from one of the poor people.  I wont be able to upgrade my system for at least another 3-4 years.  I'll have to make due. 

Actually games today are developed for cuting edge hardware, and in a lot of cases, run better on systems being released 6 moths after them.

A great example is Bioshock.. simply jaw dropping graphics in some cases better looking then poer renders, but it's targetted really for systems being purchased for christmas.

Heck some game machines now have more power then what some people are trying to run poser on.. LOL!

Believe me, I HATE having to buy a new system every 2 years.. because I ALSO have to get one for the wife as well. But I've been replacing computers now every 2 years for about 15 years now, and that's just what ya end up needing to do. I look at how many hours I use something, and even wiht buying systems this often, I always feel we well got outr money's worth from them.

And they are NOT uber expensive.. my wife's dual core athlon system with a 380 gig hd and all the bells n whistles cost under $500.

Quote - And 2 years from now, the average speed of systems in use will be 30-40% faster. That pretty much happens every 2 years.

Sure, but then a new Vicky gets released every 2 years and she uses 50-60% more resources than the old one and pfffft... there goes much of your performance gain from your fancy new hardware.

Quote - Everyone bitches about high poly meshes, but the REAL poser killers are piles and piles of high res textures. take a look at the amount of ram a mesh takes up, and then take a look at how much the textures up.. like 80% of the total!

Absolutely right, but the poly count hits your render times and your dynamics, so it's still an issue.

Quote - With any other 3d software platform, people regularly upgrade whenever they can.. but the poserverse is well known for trying ti run win 95, and using the oldest base mesh possible and trying tio get by without taking advantage of any of the new tech available..

Yep, but then the 'other 3D platform' folks are generally on a different budget altogether, running much more expensive software and buying models from Dosch Designs, textures from Evermotion and Arroway etc, not waiting for a discount voucher so they can finally grab the $12 item they've had on their wishlist forever.

Quote - I've seen very few new content creators trying to kick out the BEST possible content. Everyone things making poser stuff is "easy" and will make them a quick buck, but in fact, doing quality work and implimenting all the possible bells n whistles you can IS hard work.
...
And sometimes ya just gotta add some additional polys to accomodate morphs, or advanced features, or just to improve rendering appearance.

So hate me if I wanna develop the best possible looking content, with the most features I can pile into it. Hate me if I'm forgetting Joe Blow trying to run P7 on an old win 98 system.

Don't get me wrong, I'm advocating EFFICIENT meshes and textures, not low poly for its own sake. By all means add more edges if they have a purpose (to sharpen a crease, to bevel an edge, to make something bend or morph better, to make displacements more efficient etc). But by the same token, take out edges that clearly aren't serving a useful purpose. If it's efficient it can look great in any render and still work on Joe Blow's clunker, but it takes more work to do it efficiently. Easy to model something, whack the subdivide key twice and call it a 'detailed mesh', then plop it in the middle of a 4096x4096 texture and call it 'high res'. That's what I see happening a lot,  Vicky 3 herself was the worst offender.

Quote - Honestly, my opinion here for what it's worth. Do something not everybodys doing with let's say Poser 6 or 7 in the material room. Figure out how to make nodes for a figures skin say for an example; so that it has color and depth when rendered. Create products based on the newer features using techiques the old programs can't use. As far as models-there is many pro's out there to even try to compete, but some of them don't know how to use the material room of P6 and 7as good as they need too now. Then you can couple that knowledge with surfacing for your models and do textures with nodes that make everyone green with envy except your model when it's rendered.  Green or gray that is.

I have texture nodes like that in couple of my freebies (dynamic and conforming ones), courtesy of the RDNA's node cult genius, BagginsBill.  And they're not even on skimpy sexy clothing. :tt2: 

Quote - High poly.low poly.. Pft! With computer advancements moving at the rate they have for the last few years, it won't matter much onger what we through at poser. Affordable Quad cores are right around the corner.

Sorta true. If it were up to me personally, I wouldn't be highly concerned about polycount (as long as I don't drive it up into milions, needlessy). However, there seems to be a fair amount of concern about polycount in the marketplace.

I'm not really sure if that's because of a kneejerk reactions from people hearing about minding your polycount (and the old days) or if there are a LOT of people actually experiencing polycount related issues.

To accomodate the market, seems easy enough to offer couple different levels of detail. Especially when most of my models start with simple shapes first, then get more detailed.

Quote - Connie, just package it with a push-up bra ;)

ROFL!

Garee, I agree with you about up to date systems, however, even with an up to date system, it is possible to use up resources rather fast if one is not watchful of thing that fall under the comon sense of 3D-ing.  

What falls under common sense?  Using appropriate levels of detail and textures for what the artist is intending to illustrate. 
If I want to make a landscape scene with a large grouping of buildings as a backdrop, the last thing I'm going to want to use are some highly detailed finely textured buildings. I'll probably use lower polygon versions.  See, not every piece of clothing and prop in a scene will be in the center of focus.

So, even with super fast machines, there's still a lot of use for low polycount, and to be mindful of polyconts.

I think most of peoples concerns come from that standpoint, rather then due to old systems. But of they have an old system, so what. A good merchant tries to accomodate their customers, rather then tell them to get a new computer or be judgemental of their decision to not upgrade as often as you think is necessary.

"A good merchant tries to accomodate their customers, rather then tell them to get a new computer or be judgemental of their decision to not upgrade as often as you think is necessary."

Very true.. and all of my product catalog  falls into the efficientcy catagory. Polycount though in most cases, is probably the smallest impact on resources out of everything.

Granted, as ya said, you don't want a million poly model, but there almost seems to be a fanatical obsession with lower and lower polycount content "being JUST as good as the high poly count stuff", and in many cases, that's just not true. Look at the amazing creature morphs in V4, and then look at Posette, who some are touting as "Just as good if not better!" then V4. Try to even pull off a fraction of the v4 creature morphs, and ya just cannot do it.

Like everything else, a balance needs to be found, and you learn that by doing... you can't just pick that up from a forum post or two.

Gotta agree with Conniekat8 on the poly count issue. One of my biggest complaints about Poser content is that I need a 72000 polygon figure under a 90000 polygon suit of armor, and I don't get to see a single polygon of that 72000 poly guy!!! Make is a stand alone figure. More graphic and processing power brings higher demands for the content you provide, but there is NEVER enough power, and the demand change the laws of good compesition. Which means that resloution has an effective "need" cap. You need so much resolution, anything more is a waist. If Poser 8 Or D|S 2.0 support normal mapping, low polygon stuff will really start to command. Why would you want to waist a processor pushing around 1 M3 in the background when you can push around 30 of my "Reslo" figures and use the same mapping. There is always a better place to use those resources. Better landscapes, physics, AI!!! Even HD res is only 1920 x 1080. Projected Film is ONLY 2K x 2k. IMAZX is 8K by 8K!!!! If your object is more detailed that those resolutions can show, what are you doing besides wiasting processor time and memory. The video game industry didn't embrace normal mapping for fun. They did it save model resources.

Yep Yep :)
One thing about polycount though, I don't tend to take that phrase literally, unless I know I'm taling to someone with whom I have experience in knowing they are at least intermediate modeller.
In most conversations (on a poser forum) I tend to see it as almost a catch-all phrase, as Level of Detail (I prefer to call it level of detail)
This includes polycount, and texture sizes and how many are used on Image maps, and number of nodes on a procedural texture, lighting quality and rendering settings, using transparencies, reflections, refraction etc...  All of the resource hogging elements.

I think polycount got sort of a bad rep because when new modellers get into organics, and leave the smoothing level at, I dunno 5 or 6, the polycount grows exponentially.

Kludgey. Being forty years old I am from the old days of computing. I started with key punch jobs. In those days efficiency was a virtue simply because it was considered elegant, demonstrating intellectual clarity or finesse, austere, virtuoso, it was less buggy... I still have a library of old apps running under 500Kb that kick butt on some 80Mb bloat wear of today meant to do the same work... all the same features as far as I can tell but a hell of a lot more stable. I still think that someone with good design sense could make a great 20K figure with judicious mesh distribution given render smoothing. I still think there should be new posing proxies and geometry switching so that you could use nice mesh in the mid ground without maxing out your resources. But I think some people get a charge out of ineconomy for its own sake. I'll buy a good bottle of scotch for $150 bucks but there is no way I pay $1.50 for a can of coke. It is a kind of old fashioned attitude I guess. I can run Miki fine but every time I do I think of all the folks I know from Renderosity who live in places where a machine that can just isn't feasible, that includes some people in the USA. I can't think of them as jerks just because they can't afford a two thousand dollar computer every two years. Yeah a vendor doesn't owe the pensioner in Romania top of the line content but he also doesn't need to denigrate the guy. Funny thing is the best vendors like Batlab have excellent mesh efficiency and even better prices than these guys selling poorly textured mesh bloated crap for three times the price and making me feel bad about not having their idea of money. This is a hobby software, me and what like two dozen other people ever made money doing commercial work with it? Bloat serves the interest of the lazy designer and the software/hardware corporate establishment but it doesn't impress a pitiful old user like me... if you want to justify bloat to me it needs to be by demonstrated performance not a statement of principal... I could be driving a Hummer that got 9 miles to the gallon but that wouldn't make me feel I was a better person than somebody driving a car that got thirty miles to the gallon.

:biggrin:

"if you want to justify bloat to me it needs to be by demonstrated performance not a statement of principal"

Bloat in of itself isn't good, but it's an objective thing.

Again, I refer to the V4 creature morphs. Without the mesh density, you simply could NOT accomplish them. That's not bloat, though some people refer to V4 as a bloated figures modeling way beyond poser needs.

Even models like Koshini are far over 20k in poly count. 20k  was great 4 years ago, but just doesn't cut it if you want a really versitle figure.

I'd say 50-80k is abotu right for a well modeled and detail human type figure. Obviously, for toon figures, or less realistic figures you can get away with less, but I know Digital I's T-rex is over 100,000 polys, and when i was morphing him, I kept wishing he had more to work with.

As far as things like armor over a figure, that's where things like RR v3 come in great.. you can;t see the figure anyway, so just use it as a skeleton for the armor to wear to.

But thats also clever planning on the end user's side. A knowledgable user would use a rr figure under armor,  and strip all the material maps off it completely to conserve memory.

There ARE excellent uses for low res figures, but there is an equal use for higher denisty mesh based figures as well.

Quote -
Id like to know what you think of the object and wheteher or not you would either consider buying the object or think others might buy it.

something else I dont think anyones mentioned here..as well as offering a better resolution texture, you should maybe uv map the sides of the frame,if your looking to have this in a store then the lack of uv's on the side would stop it being accepted, what you've got now is a single row of pixels being stretched across the side,

the paper stuff looks good,nice to see the folds & curves modeled in the paper
keep at it

Cheers
Stefan

hey guys, thanks again for all of your advice. I never expected to get this many responses!

I have definately took your comments into consideraion and some of them i have already done.

I now have each peice of the board seperate from each other so you could place each piece where you like. I have also created my own textures and i will be reducing the size of the files.

I have also started UV mapping the board to get rid of the stretching. As well as making a start on creating different MAT poses for the components

So all in all i will be improving this item alot. with your help.

Thanks

Re: The whole "who cares it's progress!" argument: That's why many of y'all are stuck with Windows Vista - programmers taking the same attitude that you should simply buy more hardware to compensate for their lack of skill and propensity for bloat. Mind, this is not to be confused with actual progress, but with the attitude that no one should give a crap ab't polycount because, well, we should all go out and buy quad-cores anyway. Yuck; I'll continue with optimizing and squeezing out extra cycles/polys wherever and whenever I can, thanks much... be it in code or in mesh. /P

Vista is a poor example, becase there's really not a lot of progress in it. I got it free last year, and am still running xp pro, because many things still have issues with it.

That said, Directx 10 is an improvement over dx9, but the only reason 10 wasn''t made available for xp, was as a 'carrot" to make gamers want to upgrade/sidegrade to vista.

A good examples though are the new improvements added to zbrush 3, Modo, and Vue6 Infinite this summer.. all have some outstanding new features, and they work best on more powerful systems, and both don't fare quite so well on older systems.