After seeing the 2 videos linked here, Dead Fantasy 1 and 2...

http://montyoum.gametrailers.com/gamepad/?action=viewblog&id=173883

http://montyoum.gametrailers.com/gamepad/?action=viewblog&id=270168

After watching this, I quickly came to realize that an old project I had in the back of my mind for a long time may now actually be feasible, and started doing some research on the software. But technical info on Poser is very limited, aside from the fact that it can do realistic animations with lifelike figures.

I have attempted to contact the creator directly, but I imagine it may be a very long time before he will ever respond to my queries, if ever. My message is probably the 10000th one asking the same questions. So, I turn to those who actually own the program and have explored all of its inner-workings. With the videos linked above in mind, these are the questions I have...

1. It has been stated in the FAQ for the films that they were done in Poser, but I'm taking a wild guess, assuming that's only for the animation portion. But then, it's been a long time since I've layed my fingers on Poser (the last time being College long ago, where just about the only thing it was good for was making kinemation to export to a different 3D program), so perhaps its come a much longer way than I thought since then. Is Poser the actual "final" renderer where everything (characters, 'interactive scenery', background) was brought together before going into post-production? Or is much less of what is seen actually rendered in Poser? And by that I mean besides the obvious things, like the obvious particle effects from Particle Illusion, and whatever post-production "cutting room floor" program was used. The answer to this one may very easily answer the other questions I have, because they're based on the assumption that in the FAQ, Monty Oum literally meant he used nothing but Poser.

2. Destroyable Objects: Is Poser capable of punching holes, and breaking structures apart, as seen in the videos in numerous places? Or are the objects "already broken" just waiting to be animated to fly apart at the appropriate time?

3. In a number of situations, characters are seen moving about on one object, leaping to a different one, and then proceeding to walk on that object, all the while the objects are spinning on three axes. Other examples include characters swinging from chains, or even each other. Is this all being done in Poser or is there something much more complex at work here?

4. There are a few things that simply look like something more 3D than 'Particle Illusion', and look rather advanced for Poser, such as the tornado, the "ice fog", Ayane's purple blade which not only extends, but appears to leave a planar trail behind it when its swung (rather than a particle trail), and the time spells (the clock animation, not the characters moving fast/slow). Particularly I'm interested in the possibility of planar effects, because my project requires the appearance of a massive energy beam of sorts which turns and twists through the air, leaving a trail behind it, almost like a ribbon or a flag in the wind.

Is there anyone out there who can answer some or all of these questions?

I'm no expert on this sort of stuff, and have certainly not done anything like it. My thoughts from what I know of Poser 6 are as follows. They should be taken with a grain of salt.

Final render could probably have been done in Poser, though I imagine there are better applications to do the render.

Q: 2. Destroyable Objects: Is Poser capable of punching holes, and breaking structures apart, as seen in the videos in numerous places?

A: Whilst it's possible to these things to some extent with multi-part props and figures, and moving, morphing, hiding, or scaling parts. I feel that the real answer is no, it is not practicable to the extent seen in the animations.

Q: 3. In a number of situations, characters are seen moving about on one object, leaping to a different one, and then proceeding to walk on that object, all the while the objects are spinning on three axes. Other examples include characters swinging from chains, or even each other. Is this all being done in Poser or is there something much more complex at work here?

A: Yes, all this is possible in Poser.

Q: 4. There are a few things that simply look like something more 3D than 'Particle Illusion', and look rather advanced for Poser...

A: A lot can be achieved in terms of sparks and flashes, by attaching an animated graphic to a transparency mapped plain. The plain could use 'Point At' to keep it pointing at the camera if necessary. Some stuff may have been added as postwork.

I am really blown away be the animations! Obviously a tremendous amount of work has gone into them. I can believe they were done in Poser, but it is stretching credibility a bit.

I'm sure someone more familiar with Poser animation than me, will reply soon and give you  better answers than I can.

This was posted a little while back and then also people were doubtful that it was all done in poser. Though the author does make that claim, he hasn't shown any 'proof' of his WIPs, he only shows rendered footage in the process of being edited together.

Also refer to this 'note' by him:

Quote - This movie and many of my others, wouldn’t be possible without the under appreciated genius that is game modding. In this case finding the final fantasy models were made available by a guy out there who I get the feeling would rather remain anonymous. Let’s call him mister Y. Though I found these models and tools on a modding forum, it was Mr. Y that made it possible. And because it’s my nature to want to credit the source, I sought him out and got a very good impression that Mr. Y is VERY cautious about legalities and issues regarding model hacking. I tried several times to sum up the courage to tell him of my project, but also in my nature is being strongly influenced by words. If he had object I would have probably not been able to finish this.

Which kinda gives the game away a bit i think. ie as many people suspect, the guy actually uses extracted game models and animations and then renders them out either in poser or as machinama. With this he then mixes and matches custom work from poser. But he only gives credit to poser since extracting game content like that is not exactly legal.

Quote - This was posted a little while back and then also people were doubtful that it was all done in poser. Though the author does make that claim, he hasn't shown any 'proof' of his WIPs, he only shows rendered footage in the process of being edited together.

Also refer to this 'note' by him:

Quote - This movie and many of my others, wouldn’t be possible without the under appreciated genius that is game modding. In this case finding the final fantasy models were made available by a guy out there who I get the feeling would rather remain anonymous. Let’s call him mister Y. Though I found these models and tools on a modding forum, it was Mr. Y that made it possible. And because it’s my nature to want to credit the source, I sought him out and got a very good impression that Mr. Y is VERY cautious about legalities and issues regarding model hacking. I tried several times to sum up the courage to tell him of my project, but also in my nature is being strongly influenced by words. If he had object I would have probably not been able to finish this.

Which kinda gives the game away a bit i think. ie as many people suspect, the guy actually uses extracted game models and animations and then renders them out either in poser or as machinama. With this he then mixes and matches custom work from poser. But he only gives credit to poser since extracting game content like that is not exactly legal.

Aye, I did read that on his page, but took it at face value in what he credits Mr. Y for, which is only for the Final Fantasy models. And while I suppose its possible the animations were extracted from the games, I find the chance of the character renders being machinima to be unlikely. In my opinion it would be far too difficult to match up the home-cooked renders with the machinima, particularly with lining up the camera angles. In Mr. Oum's animations, the camera is almost NEVER standing still, so to get the landscape to move in synch with the machinima would be next to impossible without a way to get the camera's position data from a "game" into a renderer.

Also I think that fighter-game style animations, in Poser actually wouldn't be very difficult to produce, because of Poser's ability to store predefined motion sequences, and morph a figure's movements between them. In fact if one were to try and recreate something like, say... a 3D mortal kombat fight between 2 characters, once you have the animations for all the moves predefined, the animation timeline would actually look relatively simple.

If he's using animation straight from the game though, he's certainly not ONLY doing that, as there are many attack moves shown in the videos that I'm certain did not come from the games. The fact that these characters are fully fighting on three axes instead of the usual two that most fighter games allow, demands even more manual work.

*>> Q: 2. Destroyable Objects: Is Poser capable of punching holes, and breaking structures apart, as seen in the videos in numerous places?

A: Whilst it's possible to these things to some extent with multi-part props and figures, and moving, morphing, hiding, or scaling parts. I feel that the real answer is no, it is not practicable to the extent seen in the animations.*

Actually, Les, yes, it is possible, but it's dependent on a low of pre-planning and the model mesh used... just like with the Big Boys. You have to design the wall with the pre-knowledge of what it's going to look like when it's in pieces, and then work backwards from there. It gets far trickier in Poser, because of the program's limitation, but it is possible.

Edited to add:

Sheessh. Just watched the animations in question. Not only has he ripped off the Final Fantasy look and feel (those costumes in the first one are taken directly from the FF franchise, with only very minor modification), but it's about as original as a NVIAT render.

I can only suggest from this point that yours is far more original than his, because his work, no matter how long he stayed with it, will always be seen in the shadow of the game he's so blatantly copying.

To answer the rest of your questions...

The other issues you mention can all be addressed in Poser, but -- as with the destruction technique mentioned above -- it requires planning, planning, planning. Storyboard everything so you know in advance where you're going, especially with choreography this complex. And remember: just because it looks like theyre walking on something doesnt mean they actually are.

The high quality of the character animation makes me think nearly all of that animation was ripped from the games, it's way too complex for one person to have done by hand in any amount of time - and if so that sucks a lot of the coolness out of it :/

I imagine the animators at Square and Team Ninja ought to be pretty proud of themselves, the fighting animations are very cool.

At least part of the animations can be calculated instead of keyframed. Especially the breaking objects would be prime candidates for physics simulation, which is available for Poser.

Nah I'm talking about all the martial arts animation, no way one guy in his basement did all that. 

When it comes to what's possible in Poser - actually, I think it is possible to do a movie like that in Poser.
But not just by yourself in a couple of months. Modeling the environment,  making all those martial arts sequences, it could be done, but it takes a LOT of time.
The interaction between the characters is always the hardest to pose or animate. While the reaction to a punch or a kick can be automated by ragdoll physics, the moves themselves cannot, and a block or evasion, that's TOUGH.
So - while it can be done, it's definitely not a one man job. And the animation tools of Poser are a long way from those in the professional animation packages used to make the game animations.

On the other hand, I remember a short movie (about 15 minutes), made in 3DS Max by one single artist. Took him two years. No fast action, but some very good expression work on the two characters (a young woman and a baby). One single environment, very detailed (an old stone bridge spanning a creek in a mountain forest).
I wish I could remenber the name of the artist or the title of the movie. It was one of the very best CG movies I have ever seen.

Quote - And while I suppose its possible the animations were extracted from the games, I find the chance of the character renders being machinima to be unlikely. In my opinion it would be far too difficult to match up the home-cooked renders with the machinima, particularly with lining up the camera angles.

Try looking at that animation again (get the HD version) and you wil find that the guy uses a lot of fast cuts. Which are a perfect way to cover up any differences in quality/cam angles. Also notice that the renders are very basic with simple shadows and lighting etc which would make it easy to match the look. Oh and see how the shadows keep toggling on and off in various cuts, even though they are supposedly from the same cam angle and how the quality of the clothes keeps changing from a low poly version that intersects the body parts to a nice smooth flowing high quality one.

All of that suggests to me that the only place he's using poser is in the close-up and mid shots of the characters and for renders where he couldn't find premade animations.

Quote - If he's using animation straight from the game though, he's certainly not ONLY doing that, as there are many attack moves shown in the videos that I'm certain did not come from the games. The fact that these characters are fully fighting on three axes instead of the usual two that most fighter games allow, demands even more manual work.

If you've played any of the games the characters are from, you would instantly recognize the animations. The way Yuna runs with her arms flailing, the way the characters draw their weapons, the way the girls from DoA punch and kick are all exactly like the games. I'm not saying he's done no manual work, but it's far easier to rotate an animation around an axis, then it is to actually do them in the first place. The guy is great at planning all this stuff and a genius compositor/editor. But his animations are highly suspect.

The one thing that I have that concerns me is Ayane when she's moving the energy staff thing around... She doesn't have that in the DOA games (pretty much just a hand-to-hand fighting game), so the animation had to have come from -somewhere-. Another game? Maybe... I dunno, though.

As a side-note, I wasn't even aware that animation data could be ripped just as easily as the model data. I'd tried my hand at this sort of thing with some other games of mine (just for personal use and the "just to see if I could" sort of thing..) and it usually seemed that only the models/textures/sounds were the types of data that could be readily extracted. I just like looking at 3d models from games just to see how they were put together. Kinda funny looking at models from Xbox or PS2 games, because they look so great in-game, but they're amazingly low-poly. Goes to show just how much influence a good texture can go.. o.o

somewhat off topic, but somewhat related one of the "EVILS" of animating in Poser is that YOU DO NOT have to make your own content. If you work in Lightwave for example and yourself make all the models and rig them I think you would be more likely to spend a great deal of time with that project to make an animation. But since AWESOME Poser content is often being released it is very easy to get distracted from your current project in Poser and go OFF SUBJECT when you see a new COOL outfit or figure that you MUST HAVE!! lol o.o; (please note i did not say animating in poser is evil or that you must create your own content. im just making an observation from my personal experience)

Animating in Poser is certainly possible although rendering takes quit some time . This can be reduced if you composite scenes.  If I were trying a big project I would look at something like Lightwave , bacause of the ability to script movement and a faster renderer.

There is a lot of mocap(motion capture) around , some of it free . Look for good quality fight moves with some worse animation connecting them .

Quote - After seeing the 2 videos linked here, Dead Fantasy 1 and 2...

http://montyoum.gametrailers.com/gamepad/?action=viewblog&id=173883

http://montyoum.gametrailers.com/gamepad/?action=viewblog&id=270168

After watching this, I quickly came to realize that an old project I had in the back of my mind for a long time may now actually be feasible, and started doing some research on the software. But technical info on Poser is very limited, aside from the fact that it can do realistic animations with lifelike figures.

I have attempted to contact the creator directly, but I imagine it may be a very long time before he will ever respond to my queries, if ever. My message is probably the 10000th one asking the same questions. So, I turn to those who actually own the program and have explored all of its inner-workings. With the videos linked above in mind, these are the questions I have...

1. It has been stated in the FAQ for the films that they were done in Poser, but I'm taking a wild guess, assuming that's only for the animation portion. But then, it's been a long time since I've layed my fingers on Poser (the last time being College long ago, where just about the only thing it was good for was making kinemation to export to a different 3D program), so perhaps its come a much longer way than I thought since then. Is Poser the actual "final" renderer where everything (characters, 'interactive scenery', background) was brought together before going into post-production? Or is much less of what is seen actually rendered in Poser? And by that I mean besides the obvious things, like the obvious particle effects from Particle Illusion, and whatever post-production "cutting room floor" program was used. The answer to this one may very easily answer the other questions I have, because they're based on the assumption that in the FAQ, Monty Oum literally meant he used nothing but Poser.

2. Destroyable Objects: Is Poser capable of punching holes, and breaking structures apart, as seen in the videos in numerous places? Or are the objects "already broken" just waiting to be animated to fly apart at the appropriate time?

3. In a number of situations, characters are seen moving about on one object, leaping to a different one, and then proceeding to walk on that object, all the while the objects are spinning on three axes. Other examples include characters swinging from chains, or even each other. Is this all being done in Poser or is there something much more complex at work here?

4. There are a few things that simply look like something more 3D than 'Particle Illusion', and look rather advanced for Poser, such as the tornado, the "ice fog", Ayane's purple blade which not only extends, but appears to leave a planar trail behind it when its swung (rather than a particle trail), and the time spells (the clock animation, not the characters moving fast/slow). Particularly I'm interested in the possibility of planar effects, because my project requires the appearance of a massive energy beam of sorts which turns and twists through the air, leaving a trail behind it, almost like a ribbon or a flag in the wind.

Is there anyone out there who can answer some or all of these questions?

I'm not what you consider an expert but I have used Poser as part of my workflow for about seven years now.

Can Poser do the things you're asking about?  Alone, no.  With the help of third party apps/plugins, postwork and a good post production editor?  Yes.

Blowing up objects can be done with a python scrpit.  Ockham wrote and exploder script years ago and PhilC has one on his site. 

Walking, jumping, spinning balls can be done with Posers own animation tools.  If you need to add soft body mechanics there's PoserPhysics. 

3D particles can be done using Particles by Poseworks.  It uses sprites and or 3D objects and they can be animated.  The tornadoe and ice fog effect are doable with this plugin although it takes a lot of tweaking and time.   I don't know about the planar effect but it can to 3D particle trails that are animatable. 

Attached Link: movie with credits

Attached Link: Star Trek Aurora

As far as animating characters in Poser, you can compose the animations in Poser, but it's way to slow to render in, not to mention limited in creating environments. You're much better off rendering in a program with a faster renderer--I compose my animations in Poser, and render in Cinema 4D. (As happens, I just updated my website with a page describing my animation workflow--check it out on the Production page--maybe that will be helpful.)

As for using pre-made Poser content, you can actually alter and customize a lot of Poser content--in fact, offhand, I can't think if a single item in my movie where I didn't do something to change it--usually the textures, which never seem to be quite right for what I want.

In any case--good luck!--Tim

Quote - I haven't played these games, but isn't this just Machinima, where they take the meshes from the games--sometimes modified--and use the canned game engine moves to move the characters around and have them interact?

As far as animating characters in Poser, you can compose the animations in Poser, but it's way to slow to render in, not to mention limited in creating environments. You're much better off rendering in a program with a faster renderer--I compose my animations in Poser, and render in Cinema 4D. (As happens, I just updated my website with a page describing my animation workflow--check it out on the Production page--maybe that will be helpful.)

As for using pre-made Poser content, you can actually alter and customize a lot of Poser content--in fact, offhand, I can't think if a single item in my movie where I didn't do something to change it--usually the textures, which never seem to be quite right for what I want.

In any case--good luck!--Tim

Awesome video Tim. When the real definition of the name about Kara sunk in, I felt really sorry for her.

Tim: wow. I've only watched Part 1, but that's a beautiful piece of work. Very subtle expressions and great movement.

Attached Link: "This Wonderful Life" by Liam Kemp

@svdl:
See link

Very Awesom samples, thanks for the link Joe I seem to remember seeing something about the Pixar animators, that it took one animator about a week to produce 1 minute of animation keyframing. Thats just the keyframing, not counting render times. O.O (crap! whats in the box !?)

I'm going to have to at least partially agree with ghonma and say I seriously doubt very much of this was produced in Poser.  While I agree most of it is possible, I just don't see it as practical.

I think that Poser was given credit to avoid issues with game hacking.

Still, I know a bit of some of the games (I played FF8 way back when) and I know that he has modified and added a lot of personal touches.  I just think he's claiming Poser to cover his butt.

I must be an action junkie, though, because as silly and pointless as they were, I found myself all reved up and sucked in.   lol.

tvining's Star Trek Aurora is some of the most inspiring Poser - related animation I've seen, btw.

Quote - SeanMartin: Sheessh. Just watched the animations in question. Not only has he ripped off the Final Fantasy look and feel (those costumes in the first one are taken directly from the FF franchise, with only very minor modification), but it's about as original as a NVIAT render.

I can only suggest from this point that yours is far more original than his, because his work, no matter how long he stayed with it, will always be seen in the shadow of the game he's so blatantly copying.

Well, I think a number of people are getting the wrong idea of what this video is. It's meant to be a fanfic of sorts, and is in no way trying to hide the fact that its ripped off of the games. I don't think he was trying to fool anyone into thinking it was an original concept, though the way its being presented is very new. Millions of gaming fans have dreamed of doing these sort of "what if W from game X and Y from game Z came together and had a fight, but beyond doing it in text or really lame flash animations with character frames cut out of screen captures. I suspect we're going to be seeing a LOT of videos like this floating around the popular sites in the future.

As for my project, it is based off an existing franchise (albeit a rather old one that is all but forgotten), however, I don't think there's a single thing in it that won't have to be built from scratch. The only exceptions would be A. animation sequences that already exist and can be purchased/downloaded, and B. Making figures by modifying existing ones.

Quote - Ghonma: Try looking at that animation again (get the HD version) and you wil find that the guy uses a lot of fast cuts. Which are a perfect way to cover up any differences in quality/cam angles. Also notice that the renders are very basic with simple shadows and lighting etc which would make it easy to match the look. Oh and see how the shadows keep toggling on and off in various cuts, even though they are supposedly from the same cam angle and how the quality of the clothes keeps changing from a low poly version that intersects the body parts to a nice smooth flowing high quality one.

All of that suggests to me that the only place he's using poser is in the close-up and mid shots of the characters and for renders where he couldn't find premade animations.

Would that necessarily mean different sources of rendering? Or could he simply be cutting down on the LoD for wide and high-action shots to save on rendering time? Watching the videos again, this time in something that can play it back one frame at a time, there are tons of mistakes (fists passing through heads, feet through the floor, etc) but at normal speed, it all happens so fast that it's nearly impossible to spot. The characters also don't often react to being hit. It seems the only time anyone really scores a hit that we can easily notice, is when the impact sends someone flying backward 20 feet.

So it's not hard to fathom cutting down on the render detail in places and letting the action itself get the center of attention, especially on a crappy laptop, like what he said this stuff was being rendered on. I'd probably do the same thing if it turned out that it took me a full day to render 3 seconds of animation.

I'm not saying that none of the animations aren't ripped from the games (though as someone else said, I didn't think that was nearly as practical as ripping models), but just debating whether or not the renders took place in Poser or some bizarre game emulator.

Quote - Daymond42: The one thing that I have that concerns me is Ayane when she's moving the energy staff thing around... She doesn't have that in the DOA games (pretty much just a hand-to-hand fighting game), so the animation had to have come from -somewhere-. Another game? Maybe... I dunno, though.

I had the same thoughts about that weapon.

Would it really be that easy to mix and match animations from one game and apply them to a character ripped from another? I don't think there's much of a standard for kinemation (and that's if the game even stores its character animations that way), so I'd think the odds of just inserting a skeleton from one game character into one from another game would have a very high chance of failure. From what I understand, some animation for poser figures can't even be used universally among all of them (and I mean besides the obvious, with things like animals)

It's not whether it would be easy to mix the animations from games X and Y (and actually imo it would, because likely they are convertable to a single format, or already in the same format) - it's how difficult it would be to do all that animation by hand.  Eight characters in an extensive high-speed fight sequence - are you serious? 
October 10, 2007 to May 24, 2008 - you think one guy did all that by hand in that short a time?  if so, why did Team Ninja require a stunt team and seven (!!!) different motion capture studios for the production of DOA4?  They should have hired this one guy to take care of all that for them, I'm sure he would've been a lot cheaper!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0795367/companycredits

Quote - It's not whether it would be easy to mix the animations from games X and Y (and actually imo it would, because likely they are convertable to a single format, or already in the same format) - it's how difficult it would be to do all that animation by hand.  Eight characters in an extensive high-speed fight sequence - are you serious?

Is it actually of the same quality that DoA has though? Most gamers I've talked to say the video's animations are terrible by comparison.

I haven't played DoA recently (and it was version 3 that I played) to compare them myself. If I had the game with me at the moment, I'd screen capture an attack move from it and put it right against one of the ones seen in the video and see how closely they resemble each other.

I definately recognized some of the more trademark DoA moves, but the more basic punches and kicks I have no clue about. And there's no telling how much of the animation sequences are being shared among the all characters. At least once or twice I noticed an FF character using a DoA attack.

Quote - At least once or twice I noticed an FF character using a DoA attack.

That should tell you for certain then that he's found a way to rip the game animation from both games into a single format.

Quote - That should tell you for certain then that he's found a way to rip the game animation from both games into a single format.

Or, in fairness, that he's simply used the one game move as inspiraiton and manually keyframed it for the other character. I know next to naff all about the modding and ripping scene, so am not about to wade in on the technical details - but I'm nto sure that this 'proves' anything one way or another - except that he must have done SOME work here, and it's not just a completel rip from the games edited together by himself.

JonTheCelt

Okay, I'll back up a bit and just say it's terribly, terribly, terribly unlikely that he manually keyframed any of the martial arts animation, instead of absolutely certain.

That's better, pjz99... :P

JonTheCelt

I'm not going to take anything away from the guy who put those animations together.  Whatever tricks he used, he used them to great effect.

I don't think anyone here is attacking him.

The important question is not if this is possible in Poser, either.  The important question that any animator who might tackle said project should ask is: "What is the quickest and easiest way to achieve this vision?"

The quickest and easiest way is through mocaps (and in a game 'fanfic' if they can be ripped from the game, what better source?) and through using a game engine that will render everything (including particle effects) on the fly.

Plain old fact of the matter is that this would take a lot less time using the techniques of "machinema"  then it would doing it in Poser (even using the best of the Poser cheats).

This would require creating 2D animations in advance  (for effects like the time clock power) and adding effects afterwards with something like After Effects to achieve glow trails.

Breakables require modelling skills.

Really, this requires such a rounded skill set that it is amazing that we don't know who this person is.  I know a lot of talented Poser users.  I don't think anyone has achieved that level of mastery without dropping into a forum or two in the past few years.

In short, Starvoyager, you can achieve a lot of great things in Poser, but look towards things like tvining's Star Trek to see what is realistically achievable.