Hi all, 

Ive been interested in 3D graphics for some time now, and as i came across this site and saw some of the masterpieces you lot draw i was myself drawn in, parden the pun.

I looked at some of the programes you all use and the Poser seems popular so i went out and got Poser 7......here is where i think i have tried to run before i can even put my shoes on let alone walk !!!!

I can see there is MUCH to learn just in using the program but alot of reading will make some sense of that i hope, my question is simple compared to that....

I can see that some of the Hi Res art that is produced is trully stunning, take the Poser women for instance, some nudity is trully realistic, hair, skin etc....wow.

Can i achieve results like this with just the Poser 7 program or is this result due to more indepth drawing aids ?

I made a simple pose of a nude woman, changing facial expression and body parts is quite straight forward but still doesnt look like the results i find here.

I have so so much to learn, like hair (aarrgghh) and clothes but i hope with your guidence and help i can slowly and i mean slowly start to create.

Thank you for reading and any advice is much appreciated, please keep it in "baby talk" so to speak as i need to learn the lingo too ;)

Thanks again,

Vale

Welcome to your new obsession and to here of course!

The first thing I'd say is don't be fooled by what you see in the galleries here, not much of it is "pure" Poser, most peeps here use other apps and postwork in most of their images, i.e. alterations to all sorts of parameters and brush work in other apps like Photoshop etc.
There are of course some who don't but IMO not many!
I always pose in Poser but render in Vue6Inf and always postwork to some extent my images!

As to help, there are numerous tutorials here and elsewhere to get you started, once you're more confident you might want to buy one of the books from the RMP [Rendo Market Place].

The best thing is to just paly with it, have fun and don't get down if it doesn't happen! Hell I've been at it for nearly 4 years and still learn something new each day!

A lot of the realism you see on some renders here is down to a combo of using excellent textures on the figures and good lighting techniques and sometimes , though not always, some excellently done postwork in Photoshop or PSP. There are some who have done very good renders with the base G2 figures and textures that poser ships with however most folk buy further content ( figures, textures, clothes, hair etc) in the marketplace here,or at Daz, Rdna etc. Many also buy light sets, pre-made pose sets though I personally find it more fun and challenging to make my own of those and also changing or making my own clothes and character textures in Photoshop ( not very good char. textutes so far I admit but a learning curve and fun ) For female figures Victoria3 and Victoria4 and Aiko3 (base figures all at Daz) seem to me to be the most oft used though there are others that have their champions ... everyone has their own preferences for various reasons. Welcome to Poser and enjoy !

Wow, thanks so much for a quick reply.

I can see i have much to play with and too many questions to ask at the mo.

I will endevour to experiment but will always ask here too.

How do get into this Daz, and is it straight forward to get other figures ?

Jeez, does anyone want to invite me round to show how its done hahahaha i'll bring the beer ;)

Thanks again peeps,

L8r

Vale

Attached Link: http://http://www.daz3d.com/

Welcome, Vale!

As Fixer says...Welcome to a new Obsession!

It is a fascinating, varied & versatile world here. It appeals to many people for so many different reasons.

Some are into fae, some fantasy, some anime & some animation....Me, I am into ultra-realism.

It is a vast world you will pick up on through varied links.

Explore, wander and wonder.......but don't get discouraged.....It will take time, patience, determination, lots of questions & experimentation to learn.

Klutz. :0)

two words; Doc Geep. He's done about 70-80 (I dunno, how many does the house building one count as?..;) tutorials from basics to pretty far up there. Look for Poser University, it's usually a link in his postings. I've used a couple, and they're pretty helpful.

Daz 3d also has many tutorials in their site. Also, go through freebies there (Freepository), to pick up some good deals. Check freebies here, and anywhere you find 'em. 

One thing you'll run into quick (especially if you want to put some clothes or hair on your render there..;) the magic word *'for'

FOR means (usually) while this looks nice, if you don't have the original item this goes with, it won't do you much good. I have CDs full of things for Boris, V2, Anime Doll, etc., that I can't use because I didn't get those models..;)

Get the Daz Characters first (Vickie, Mike, Hiro, Aiko), because they're free. I think there even used to be a site that had them all together.  You can play with them, and see how you like Poser. If it's your thing, you can start raiding the piggy bank when you're more comfortable with it (well, that's me, but you can do whatever ya like..;)

Free programs you can use to substitute, alter, or make backgrounds with are the Gimp (free, Photoshop-like), Terragen (landscapes, but no plants, etc), Bryce 5 (should be a link in the Bryce forum. Same landscapes, but trees, some modeling, and beacoup textures...;),  Wings 3d, Anim8tor, Blender, etc., etc., etc., (thousands of free modeling programs, but I'd nold off on that until you get to the 'I want to make my own character'...which is step number 879, and the program is step 4...;)

Ask questions. There are no stupid questions (aside from 'where do I get warez') here, if I had a nickel for evey time someone said 'stupid question', I could afford P7..;) so don't be afraid, we're mostly harmless.

Time to cut this off before they think someone else wrote it...;) but she'd put in more links..;)

aarrgghh hahahah jeez peeps, you speak a different lingo :)

A massive THANKS to you all, i will keep reffering back to this thread to pick out words to explore....Boris, V2, Anime Doll,Terragen,beacoup textures and  'where do I get warez'..????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

hahaha, i will keep a sense of humor as i think i will need it to keep me sane ;)

Thanks again and be assured, i will be back, and back and...................

Regards,

Vale

Welcome :)  If you are just getting into Poser you will want to check out the following threads for "newbie" information.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3126522&ebot_calc_page#message_3126522

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3128011&ebot_calc_page#message_3128011

Don't get discouraged if your images don't turn out to be like most that you see in the gallery :) Most people do some post work on their images (using a graphic program), before they upload them to the gallery. Some people do more post work than others and their images end up looking more like a digital painting than a poser render.  The choice is up to you though.  I do a bit of post work sometimes, but usually I try to stretch my learning these days in order to do as much as possible in Poser.

I found a link to get the 4 characters advised by pakled, its 69mb and is a zip file.

What do i do with it, should it direct itself to the poser program or will i have to move the files somewhere within once unziped ????
 
your all too kind for your help.

Vale 

Oh boy, just getting into Poser hey! Please, don't do it. It's like a drug. I wish I'd never started, I need my daily fix. Are there any Poser patches? :scared:

My only advice is time & patience. You'll learn as you go along, it's all trial & error. Never be afraid to ask for certain advice here even if it seems an obvious question, there's always someone here with an answer. 

You don't have to be crazy to use Poser, but it helps!

Quote - I found a link to get the 4 characters advised by pakled, its 69mb and is a zip file.

What do i do with it, should it direct itself to the poser program or will i have to move the files somewhere within once unziped ????
 
your all too kind for your help.

Vale 

I covered that in the first link I gave you.  Never just unzip or install anything directly to your runtime. Not everyone puts everything into a proper runtime folder structure. 

Always unzip or install to a separate folder. I have one on my desktop that I use. Then browse through the folder to have a look at the structure of where things are going and make sure that it's in "proper runtime structure" so that when you move it to the runtime, they get into the proper folders. See this thread for ideas on organizing your runtime files:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3128011&ebot_calc_page#message_3128011

Welcome, Vale :)

First of all, I'd second what Acadia said.

I use an external runtime (meaning it's not in the Poser folder) as do most of the old timers here. :)
The Daz stuff installs into the right place, but a lot of the free stuff doesn't, so if you unzip something, I'd suggest making (at the very least) a "PoserExtracts" folder and install things into there.
You can add this folder in Poser (you can add any runtime folder to your library) and try things out, without messing up your poser install.

Now, as for realism... that takes a little time. :) You can get some very good results with high end textures and figures, but as with everything worthwhile... good things take time. And practice. And good lighting... and... and...and... :)

When you come to do a final render, don't forget to push your render settings of the Firefly renderer from Draft to a higher setting, or it won't look the way you expect it. (Draft looks fuzzy and unsharp)

I'd recommend joining the Platinum Club at Daz for at least a month and pick up the cheaper goodies that way to get you started. Don't overdo it to start with, get a good texture and perhaps play with that for a while until you are more comfortable. :)

Welcome Vale,

Well just like you, I am also a Poser noob.
I just started a few weeks ago, and I can say that it learns pretty fast.
In my galery you find my first real Poser art, the one with the girl.
I only added the background and the katana into it in Photoshop. But the girl is straight rendered and used from Poser.
I even already made a first rough animation.

Well as the others say, just ask questions here, this is a great community with a bunch of very helpfull and realy nice people.
Soon you will join the ranks of the poserholics =)

You will catch up fast on the lingo. I admit that some of it still sounds as mumbojumbo to me, but once you get the hang of it its quit straight forward.

I also started to learn to use Blender to make my own props (items you can use).
The freebee's are realy great, but I just like to make my own items. And later on (when I become decent at it ;-)) I hope I can donate some free items to the community.

And check out the free stuff here, you can search for poser items specific if you want.
Check for what caracter it is and if you have that character, the OBJ (wavefront) files you can use as props.
My personal favourit to work with is Jessi. She is a tough girl to work with but her body type is perfect for my next character
Only down side is, its hard to find decent cloth etc for her. Something to dive into later =)

Personaly I would say, fidle around with other programs as well, like Blender, paintshop etc so you can make your own items and textures. But ofcourse thats a personal thing.

Well if you have any questions, feel free to contact me in the forum or with site mail.
Its alway's a good feeling that you have some one who strugles in the same proces ;-)

Somebody call?

[links below to Dr Geep Studios and Poser University]

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

BTW, you can get spectacular results with just Poser but it takes time and patience.

In fact, I strongly recommend you try to squeeze the best from Poser before going on to other methods, unless you have the money to spalsh out on another rendering app.   If you learn as much about Poser as possible, you'll learn to avoid a lot of common pitfalls and enhance your capabilities much more than if you rely solely Photoshop to cure the shortcomings.

Attached Link: Waiting

I very rarely render outside of Poser and I regularly don't have to do any postwork.
The attached image - for instance - was done in Poser 7 and there is zero postwork (if you don't count the frame/signature addition) on the actual image.
While it's not photorealistic, it's not a bad image, either (even if I say so lol)

sorry about the confusion. Let's see (lotsa scrolling here)
Boris - a male figure, based on another. I don't remember which one. 

Anime Doll - female figure, based on Maya doll.  Should be able to get through Studio Maya.

Terragen - a landscape-making program from Planetside. Free program, Doc Geep uses it in a 'background tutorial', available on his site. It's where I started in 3d art. 

beacoup textures - just means 'many' in French or Cajun French...;) a lot of textures.

Warez - not the city across from El Paso..;) A way to load your system with destructive viruses, in the vain hope of getting illegal programs. Don't do it.   'sides, they take a dim view of it here, believe it's a hangin' offence, podner..;)
 
2 words - open source, remember them if you ever need software..;) Sites like Sourceforge, NoNags, etc., have all the stuff you could need.

By all means, try Poser by itself first, until you get in the swing of things. I'll do things like model props or buildings, drag them into a landscape program, make that a background, and *then
*start the Poser machine...;) But I've been doing it (wrong, probably) for 6 years..;)

Ask questions, no problems doing that.

My advice would be to forget the hair room etc for now, there are lots of free prop and figure hairs that you can use and dynamic hair imo would be the last thing you'd need to learn. 

From my experience, the things that made a difference to me are:

1. learning about all the settings in the render options, what they do and how they affect your finished work
2. camera settings 
3. lighting
4. lighting
5. lighting
6. ... you get the idea =P

If you have some dynamic clothes, the cloth room is fun to play around in too and isn't too hard to get to grips with.

After all that / simultaneously learn the photoediting program of your choice - photoshop or whatever. I think there is at least one freebie one out there that people use - Gimp??

Then think about other programs.

My tuppence worth :D

1. Shaders!

Lighting is really important, yes yes yes.

Poser has some shortcomings, but its shader system (material room/nodes), is very powerful and capable and is my favorite feature. Whatever texture files you start with, you will make them look even better by adjusting how the surface "reacts to light". The texture files will only determine the basic color that you see, but the shader will give it that last bit of realism, especially in animations.

Anton Kisiel has done us all a favor. Whenever he saw a good thread on material room techniques, he wrote a response saying "AKMaterialRoomBookmark"

So if you use this forum's search page and type akmaterialroombookmark in the search field, you'll find a vast treasure trove of information about shaders.

Quote -

So if you use this forum's search page and type akmaterialroombookmark in the search field, you'll find a vast treasure trove of information about shaders.

Or you can just look at here where I have amassed everything "material room" into one thread:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2722867