Well, what can I say about myself. Let's start with the basics. I am very fit, I work out every day, so I manage to keep my polygon count at about 10 000 polygons. Compared to Dork (24 000) and Mike and Simon (60 000+), you can see that I am a bit of an action man. I specialize in animation work, so therefore great care has been taken to make sure that I animate well, and accept motion files in many formats. I work with most Poser motion files, pz2 and BVH, and I accept most Poser pose files with very little tweaking.

Because I am so very, very low polygon, I suffer a bit in some of the extreme poses, but in this thread you will see me in various poses and can judge for yourself.

In some experiments, the guys at Vanishing Point have managed to load and animate 100 copies of me in one scene, and to render this on a normal Pentium IV PC with 2 GIG RAM.

Ok, one more thing, all the pictures in this thread are WIP pictures, and are rendered in Poser 7, Firefly engine, with displacement enabled, and one pure white light with raytracing. So there is no postwork, fancy lighting tricks, or cover ups. What you see is what you get.

Attached Link: http://www.youtube.com/user/VanishingPointVideo

At this link you can see some early WIP tests of me with the Poser Talk designer.

Now, some people will be asking all sorts of questions, so I am going to try and answer some before they are asked.

1. No, I don't work with any other textures made for other models.

But, I will have a very different licence to other figures. The textures that ship with me will have a licence to allow texture makers to use them as a base for new textures. For example, I don't expect texture makers to make new displacement maps for me for every new texture, so the displacement maps will be able to be included with any new texture. There will be a few restrictions on what you can do with my textures, but in general, you will be able to use them as a base for any new texture.

1. Yes, I accept poses for most other figures, but obviously, some tweaking may be neccesary for some extreme poses. My joints are slightly different to most other Poser figures, and designed to work mainly with motion files.

I work in the Poser walk designer, and files for that are included with the base figure. There are also quite a few motion and pose packs being made for me.

There will be a few free packs of Poses and motion files which will be available as well, just to get people started on using me. I have a few advanced controls for animation, but I will wait for the final release before I go into those, but I think they are quite cool. Some advanced controls for my hands, neck, shoulders, etc. Hopefully these will get rid of some of the legacy Poser problems when it comes to posing figures.

Attached Link: Panko

1. While I can use conforming clothes with no problems, the most innovative thing about me is that in my licence, clothes makers will have the rights to model clothes directly onto my body, and then use my standard rig. In effect, new clothes makers will not be creating clothes for me, but rather entirely new standalone figures. This figure, for example, will be the first clothed figure released. People can buy the US Paratrooper, and use him in scenes, without needing to buy my naked base figure at all.

Right, so now you are confused, lol, so let me explain. I am a digital actor, and I am required to play many roles. So, for example, in my role as a US Paratrooper, you don't need a naked figure, so you would buy the paratrooper, who comes with guns, hats, helmets, gear, pouches, etc. The paratrooper will use my normal face textures, but his body texture is totally new, so the texture maps for the paratrooper stay at the same amount of texture information. If someone makes a new face texture for the naked me, it will also work on the paratrooper me.

So, if you buy the paratrooper me, you will just load me, fully dressed, with gear and weapons already attached. No need to conform clothes to me, add guns or gear, etc. This makes me very easy to use.

Some people have questioned the wisdom of this approach, but seeing as it will be the same price to buy a conforming set of clothes and gear, as to buy a stand alone version of a fully dressed figure, it doesn't really make much difference.

PS In case anyone was wondering, my gear, weapons, hats and helmets are being made by the incredibly talented Panko. Yes, that's the man, the guy who made the Vietcong and Vietnam products for the millinium figures, and the same guy who has made all those wonderful weapon packs.

Included with my base figure will also be some hair fit files to make the standard hair included with Poser work on me, and there are plans to release an entire product that will make hundreds of hairstyles fit me. Damn, I hate being bald, but at least it makes it easier to change my appearance.

Well, I have been told by Helgard that this is the reason most Poser figures fail. Well, I have an entire team of sixteen people working on me, making clothes, textures, poses, motion files, add-ons, etc, so I am not too worried. I will be cheap enough, and because I will have a very wide ranging licence, it will be easy to make add-ons for me. There are also plans, I hear, to release a pack of base clothing models with permisions to use them as bases for making more clothes. That should help a bit. There are about 16 outfits in production for me, ranging from military to casual, sci-fi to pirate outfits, and some really bizzarre things that I hope I never have to wear in public.

The people working on me include some of the finest names in Poser, JHoagland, Panko, DC Studios, most of the team from Vanishing Point, and some suprise people, but I won't spoil the suprise till their stuff is available. I must maintain some air of mystery, lol, you know, the strong silent type is sometimes called for.

1. Mrs Parker??????

Well, I must admit my disappointment at this. Mrs Parker does not exist. But apparently Helgard found some girl called Valerie Petrov, a 3D model who was brought to the US from Russia by some unscrupulous exploiters, who made her work in the, um, adult 3D industry. He saved her, and has offered her a job working at Vanishing Point as a 3D model, but I won't presume to speak for her, so you will have to wait until she feels confident enough to come and tell you all about herself.

Vincent - I'm definitely looking forward to your release :)

This character is cool as hell. I love the face.

What are his material zones called? I ask, because I have this free new shader system that's supposed to work on any figure. If there are unusual zone names, I'll include them in the shader rules so he works right out of the box.

By the way, with some good skin shader tech, you can cut those color maps down to 512x512 without anybody caring. The little skin imperfections can be procedural. From a distance they do nothing anyway.

Material zones

Eyelash - contains one transmap

Mouth
Head
Nostril

These three all use the same maps, a 2048 x 2048 diffuse, bump, specular and displacement map. The only differences are that the Mouth has a higher specularity to appear wet, and the nostril is just darkened to avoid nostril glow.

The hands are also on these maps.

Body - a 2048 x 2048 diffuse, specular, bump and displacement map

eyeL
eyeR

These use the same map, a 512 x 512 pixel map.

Cornea - uses a procedural transparent texture. It is mapped so that reflection maps will work on it as well.

All textures were made in ZBrush, from photos of real people, with some hand painting by myself and Panko.

Bagginsbill, send me your e-mail on here, and I will send you the figure as soon as he is out of beta testing.

Because there are no seperate zones for lips, eyebrows, etc, I am not so sure about how possible or practical procedural textures are.

Ahh - you mostly picked names my software already understands. It should work already, but for one item.

Mouth is an ambiguous one. Might I suggest InnerMouth if that is what it is. I have a shader set up for gum/tongue/inside cheek.

No Teeth? Really need a teeth zone. It's a very different shader what with the translucence and subsurface scattering.

I did not mean 100% procedural. I still use color maps and mask images for lips and such, even when there is a lip zone because otherwise the edge is too hard. You can't just slap some red on a lip zone and expect it to look real. So I don't much care that figures have lip zones. It is mostly a waste of time. Same with nostril. Ain't no use to put a dark color on the nostril zone.

Figures should have one face zone, and come with a lip MASK, and a nostril MASK - an image identifying where in the face these features are. Then I use the masks in the shader to drive different behavior over the lips or nostrils, such as glossiness, or increased bump.

Ok, this is your area of expertize, so I will send you the figure, and you can tell me what else you will need.

If you think I should change material from Mouth to Innermouth (yes, that is what it is), there is still time, let me know how important this is.

The teeth are on the same map as the face, and I use the specular map for adding brightness and highlights. It is not possible to make a separate zone for teeth, as the detail on this is mostly displacement and bump, and not separate polygons.

Quote - Ok, this is your area of expertize, so I will send you the figure, and you can tell me what else you will need.

If you think I should change material from Mouth to Innermouth (yes, that is what it is), there is still time, let me know how important this is.

The teeth are on the same map as the face, and I use the specular map for adding brightness and highlights. It is not possible to make a separate zone for teeth, as the detail on this is mostly displacement and bump, and not separate polygons.

Really - that's interesting. The teeth are a displacement of the inner mouth polygons? That's ok I guess. The teeth need a very different shader that the tongue and gums, so if they're not separate polygons, I'll have to get tricky with masks. Still its possible.

Very promising looking... Actor :)

Very interesting !!

I assume he will work happily inside of DAZ Studio version 2+ ?

Infinity,

I have no idea. Does DAZ Studio support displacement and specular maps?

I work in Poser, and have never installed DAZ|Studio, so I have no idea how it works or what is required.

Not very much the DAZ Studio expert myself, but yes, I believe displacements and specular maps will work with DS versions 2 up.

Materials in D|S are very different - to get the best settings you would have to have separate studio material settings.

wow,

This product and the proposed range of add-ons sounds excellent. Its a long time since I have been excited at the arrival of a new figure.

I can just imagine my pirate ship manned by twenty or so of these guys. This sort of innovation is long overdue in my opinion.

SK.

Yes, D/S does indeed support displacement and specularity maps.

This fella is really impressive.  He'd be perfect for battle scenes, or as swordman 10 suggested, a fully manned ship.

 Hey Vincent,
fantastic idea, and I fully support the idea of fully dressed versions of you.  Will be great for time saving!!!!
I don't suppose you know of any high poly figures lurking in the VP workshops?  I am thinking DAZ will soon have to watch out.  Maybe V4 and M3 will have rivals soon too.
Love esther

I assume it's in the market place now as you're advertising in this forum?

pdblake - no, it is not in the marketplace yet, anywhere, we are still beta testing. It will be released here and at all other sites at the same time.

estherau - there are no plans for high poly figures at all. The plans are for a range of about 200 low poly fully dressed standalone figures based on this model and on Valerie Petrov.

swordsman and mariach - well, the pirate figures we are working on will be perfect for what you want. We are making sailors, not the captain type figures, so expect a lot of peglegs, hook hands, miserable scum of the sea figures, lol.

Once the figure is released we will see about a DAZ|Studio version, although this is not part of our plans.

Sweeeeet! ^o^

Helgard - can I post pictures!?! Wait till you see this guy with a shader on him.

Wow.

Bagginsbill, you are free to post pictures, etc. As long as everyone understands this is still a WIP, and there are improvements and work being done on him everyday, so what they see here is not what the final product will be.

Helgard: I think you should remove the nostril darkening or offer a map that doesn't have it. It's messing up my nice AO shadow. It doesn't quite line up right.

Otherwise, awesome job on the color map and displacement map.

Please click for full size. Rendo-resizing is messing the picture up.

Let me get this straight: I should remove the material Nostril, and just make that part of the Head material, and not try to darken it in any way?

I had it like this originally, but I got some feedback from testers about nostril glow. Will be quick and easy to change it back.

By the way, that looks truly awesome. My images are plain renders, one white light, no AO or IBL or anything fancy. I want people to see exactly what they are getting, so it is great to see images that are more elaborate than mine.

Quote - Let me get this straight: I should remove the material Nostril, and just make that part of the Head material, and not try to darken it in any way?

I had it like this originally, but I got some feedback from testers about nostril glow. Will be quick and easy to change it back.

Well I'm not sure you want to remove it completely. Baked in anti nostril glow is ok for some uses. I'm investigating it right now - it may be that its just not lined up right is all.

I'm afraid I rushed right into a long render at high quality for this, so I'm not sure what you did versus what I did. I'll go back to your default character and check the color map alignment carefully.

Another issue. I know he's not for up-close work, but the displacement map restricts itself to only a few levels of gray, instead of using the full black to white. I know people think thats what to do, but as a result we've got only a few different levels on the forehead. The outcome is there are terraces on the displacement.

A displacement map done really well actually should use the full dynamic range from black to white. Then you set the total amount of displacement using the numerical value. Because your dynamic range is so low, I put the numeric value high so I could get more interesting variations.

I really like using the displacement, because it creates more high-res detailing on the figure without raising the poly count. You did a good job with it. I especially like the tension lines on cheeks.

There's also some mysterious blackness on teh edge of the lower eyelids. That could be my AO going nutty. I'll test without AO.

Click for full size.

From far away its fine. From mid distance, I can see some strangeness.

Up close, the hard edge is just wrong.

This is your call, as I totally understand his purpose is not closeups.

Look back at my first render, though, even there it shows some issues.

I know its not compressed much now, at 446K it is pretty big.

But sometime in the past, this was compressed down to less than 50K.

Click for full size zoomed view. Notice the squares.

On my WIP figure, I am still working with the original .BMP texture files. I will replace those textures with the proper ones, I see that somewhere we must have compressed too much on the jpg files.

Even with the color map as is, your fix for nostril glow is not right.

OK, I have mailed you a new version, no Nostril material zone, and the displacement dynamic range increased by 200%, displacement value dropped to 30% of what it was.

Helgard

PS Any other ideas for fixing nostril glow?

PS Only the head map has the new displacement, I haven't done the body yet.

I don't think he looks bad for close up work.  I really like the attached earlobes (as I have them IRL).   The only thing that kind of bothers me is that when I saw him at first glance I almost thought he looked like one of the G2 men with better shoulders.  I think that it's mainly due to the eyebrows on the textures and the high cheekbones made a slight resemblance to Simon.  Your figure looks WAY better though.  Is there a way that you could make a variation of the texture with the eyebrows not arched so high?

Keep up the excellent work :)

PapaBlueMartin, the eyebrows are totally texture based, diffuse, specular, bump and displacement. On the texture maps that will be available for people to use as the base for new textures, these have been removed, as well as some of the blemishes, so it will be very easy for even the average texture artists to add new eyebrows, and small details, to give Vincent a totally new look. We hope to have one or two other face textures ready as freebies by the time of release.

The people who worked on the original base mesh, DC Studios, have never even heard of Poser, lol, they were ZBrush users that we roped in, specifically because we didn't want people grounded in Poser and it's conventions, we wanted new blood and a new approach, so any similarity to any other Poser figures will be purely co-incedental. The figure was modified quite a bit from their original base mesh, to compensate for some of Poser's shortcomings, we had to almost redo the hands from scratch because they weren't working right. One of the great things about Vincent was that we spent a lot of time and research on "body mass", making sure that movements of the limbs will move the correct polygon masses to simulate more realistically the movement of muscle mass groups on the model. I will put up a video tommorow to demonstrate this concept better.

Vincent is in the studio now doing some Capoera, will see what he comes up with tommorow.

I know the similarity is coincidental - it's just something I saw at first glance.  I'm definitely looking forward to the body mass video.   Is this sort of like the skin/muscle type stretching Pixar uses?

Ok let me play devils advocate here because i KNOW someone besides me is thinking the same thing. "Will he be anatomically correct when he's done?"

Oh snap!

Well, there may be two add-ons for poor vincent, one a prop and one a figure, to make him feel more masculine. These will be low poly, and meant for more the Michaelangelo "David" type of statue renders than for the more adult style uses that some perverts will want to put Vincent through, lol.

I just want to make it clear that I am an action hero, not an adult movie star. I am very uncomfortable with nude scenes, to say the truth.

I am not against nudity, just against people exploiting me because I can't say no. I am not a 3D sex object, I am a serious actor. Hope to win a 3D oscar one.