The textures will come in, but shading will not, and there are not many 1 to 1 corelations between Poser's shading and other applications.  I have set of C4D materials in my freebies that does some basic shading, be sure to review the readme if you try it out.  Although, I should point out Cinema 4D includes Bodypaint, one of the best texturing suites in the world.

Thanks for the input, I'm beginning to rethink about the Programs I get, at least the order that I buy them. I remember when I first bought Poser 4. I started seeing all the high end Programs out there, then and was amazed how great things looked and then saw the price tag and about fainted you might say.

But once you get your feet wet and should I say, Kinda know what you are doing, and the direction your headed, all of a sudden it's not a hobby, and you see way to make money doing what you love doing. Once I get my Cinama program I will download your textures and take a peak. I have a good computer know, but around January, I will be upgrading to a much more powerfull computer.

I dread loading all the gigabites of models, Programs, and Movies I am finishing. I bet I may have more models than DAZ has. Now I will be making what ever I need unless I find something that won't be time effective to make compared to the price. Usually that is not the case, If I have something  I need that is unique, I had to make it my self. It will be good to use a more stable program for these projects.

Quote - I managed to get my figure's arm to go down without too much distortion. The arm still can't go straight up without breaking which was a concern until I tried to do that myself--not humanly possible. I’m hoping there will be another way to get there before I'm through... One thing I never actually used before and wonder about are these extensions that become visible when you call up the joint editor. Put your cursor over the ends and the ‘target’ icon appears and you can reposition them. How is this actually used when rigging? Could someone explain the intended purpose?

A great deal of your final rigging adjustments will be with the joint editor. You can also move the center around to get better bending and poly group use. Remember to try to put the joint in the position of an actual human bend. Also for the shoulder problems you can try a third bone for the shoulder- arm bend, it helps to break up the bend sometimes not always, but sometimes.

One mor thing I wanted to add.  Much of the up movement of the arm-shoulder is in the collar, the whole shoulder shifts up with the collar part of the pecs and the lats with it. Same thing with the arm-shoulder forward and backwards. Also experiment with the rotations on your center points, because not every bone bends vertically or horizontally to their starting position, sometimes they need a little twist or side movement to their bends. Especially the thigh if you've ever watched a football kicker or experimented yourself you will notice the leg twists slightly to the side with the movement, and this can be simulated with ofsetting the Y-Z rotation on your thigh bone center.

Also for the shoulder problems you can try a third bone for the shoulder- arm bend, it helps to break up the bend sometimes not always, but sometimes. Thanks. I was wondering how that third bone would be used and you've answered my unvoiced questions concerning this. I might try that eventually. Is lifelike inverse kinematics still possible with a three-bone chain, I wonder…? My original shoulder parts didn’t have enough polygons and were causing sharp edges to appear when the arm bent downward. This looked ok when rendering with ‘smooth polygons’ but it looked like hell in the actual geometry so I subdivided sections of the original model and corrected this. I keep going back to the modeler to re-define the part boundaries. I’ve come up with a good collar/shoulder definition at this point, with sufficient polygons for bending. 'got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues and you know it don't come easy...'

Quote - Also for the shoulder problems you can try a third bone for the shoulder- arm bend, it helps to break up the bend sometimes not always, but sometimes. Thanks. I was wondering how that third bone would be used and you've answered my unvoiced questions concerning this. I might try that eventually. Is lifelike inverse kinematics still possible with a three-bone chain, I wonder…? My original shoulder parts didn’t have enough polygons and were causing sharp edges to appear when the arm bent downward. This looked ok when rendering with ‘smooth polygons’ but it looked like hell in the actual geometry so I subdivided sections of the original model and corrected this. I keep going back to the modeler and re-defining the part boundaries. I’ve come up with a good collar/shoulder definition at this point, with sufficient polygons for bending. 'got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues and you know it don't come easy...'

Yes IK works fine with the third shoulder bone, but BVH files and animation files made for a figure without a third shoulder bone will not use the extra bone so you have to go through them and add it in.  Part boundaries are indeed more important than many people think, even the shape of the part grouping effects how the part deforms as it bends.

Keep going and it gets clearer and more understandable as you go.

cheers.

I know I've been gone to long.

I've been with in the depths of my insane mine to find the face of Atomic Hell.

A journey I would not care to take again.

I've modeled, drawn faces to no end.

More then once I want to say to heck with it Diamond and Chromes enough.

Or this so so face will do for Atomic Hell face.

As I watched the days on the calendar pass buy with no results.

This is a real ruff draft but thought it was kool.

Now I know where I am going with this we'll get some where.

http://64.234.196.28/Atomic_Hell_C_003.jpg

So how is every body else progress doing ?

Quote - I know I've been gone to long.

I've been with in the depths of my insane mine to find the face of Atomic Hell.

A journey I would not care to take again.

 

I've modeled, drawn faces to no end.

More then once I want to say to heck with it Diamond and Chromes enough.

Or this so so face will do for Atomic Hell face.

As I watched the days on the calendar pass buy with no results.

 

This is a real ruff draft but thought it was kool.

Now I know where I am going with this we'll get some where.

http://64.234.196.28/Atomic_Hell_C_003.jpg

 

So how is every body else progress doing ?

RorrKonn,  That looks great! sinister. 

I don't know where everyone went, they just dissappered.  I am still slowly chugging away.  I will post some progress soon.  :)

Quote - I managed to get my figure's arm to go down without too much distortion. The arm still can't go straight up without breaking which was a concern until I tried to do that myself--not humanly possible.

Just a small tip. Before you declare ANYTHING humanly impossible. Watch an episode of Cirque Du Soliel! Just because your body or mine won't bend that way, doesn't mean someone who's really REALLY limber can't. Food for thought.

Quote - I wish my model could bend like a contortionist. The arms have been a huge problem for me. At this point the rig almost does what I need, but the stretching is pretty intense in the armpit area and the back is deforming a bit oddly when the arm goes straight up. The joint position that was best for bringing the arm down causes the shoulder to almost disappear when it bends upward (unless you do most of the movement with the collar and the second shoulder part.) I might end up settling for ‘good enough’ but I know this could be better and there’s no deadline.

That's the way I feel too they get done when they get done.  Besides the more we keep trying the more we learn.  :)

Hi, I have heard the term "ghosting" several times now in relation to body groups and rigging. Is "ghosting the same thing as body handles? If they are different how so?

http://64.234.196.28/Atomic_Hell_C_008.jpg

Me, personally, if I do not set my self a dead line,it never gets done,ever.

So I half to set my self dead lines.

Problem is I have never made Poser characters before not a clue about Poser rigs never even rigs a Chain in Poser before.

And I am doing this project in my spar time so I only have limited hours a week to work on it.

So I don't have a clue as to what dead line to set.

Atomic Hell's Modeled Dead Line 09.15.08

Atomic Hell's Map Dead Line 11.01.08 going to be heck to map.

Atomic Hell's Textures  Dead Line 12.01.08

Atomic Hell's Rigs not a clue.

Just an update.  This is the UV layout for the body on the muscleman. They look good to me, as few seams as possible, the feet will be sewn on at the bottome of the legs.  Hows it look?

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/media/folder_9/file_411413.jpg

**Interesting. Seam in back, on the inseam, where the arms meet at the collar and at the ankles?

When you say "sewn on", do you mean they'll be part of this template? And I may be wrong, but it looks as though you have the muscles and the abs already incorporated? Very interesting. Wonder how that will look textured.
**

Yes, I UVed the model with all his muscles and huge body, the reason is because It is much easier on the UV's when you go from big to small (they don't get stretched that way whereas if you go from a regular sized body and morph it into  a huge muscled figure it stretches the texture all to hell)  But the muscles are also built in to the model with alot of edge looping, this allows for a much greater ability to get well defined morphs. I have been learning   I was convinced to go that way because several people told me it was much better and they advised that that is why they beleive M2 is still the best figure for morphing, after considering their arguments and the reasoning behind it I am a believer in edgelooping all the major muscles.

But these UV layout is very flat and further all the seams line up at right angles so you dont get twisting in the wrap around on the legs and arms, The only drawback is that some areas cover a little more texture space in relationship to the rest of the body, for instance the back of the knees, and the small of the back.  So the detail in those areas gets shrunk slightly smaller than say the front of the thighs or the calves.  Make any sense? I don't know how that effects doing the textures but it seams to me it would be much easier to make a texture that has some areas that require slightly larger detail, than it would be to have to deal with the warping near the seams that I see in most models.

I'm only guessing though.

@Unicornst:

Forgott to answer your question about the feet.  Yes the feet are part of this template I just have to rework them a little bit and sew them on the legs.

Your uv map looks good and should please the Poser crowd. Keeping the uv islands separate and packed as closely as possible might allow for a higher resolution texture by eliminating some of the blank spaces between uv islands, but it drives some people nuts to not be able to easily create their custom textures in a 2d image program.

If you have a good 3d paint utility, the seams really aren't an issue. 

To wander from the topic of uvs for a bit, I discovered recently that falloff zones aren’t necessary and are actually harmful when rigging some of the parts. This was particularly true for the ‘front and back’ bends of the waist parts on my model, as well as the movements of the arms below the shoulders--haven’t gotten to the legs yet, but I expect to find similar issues there. The trick is to pull the red and green extensions representing the outer and inner effects until the geometry looks as good as it can in the intended position.  

I probably should have known this already, but there’s something about rigging a human type that pushes one to discover better ways of doing things.

Cool! I can think of at least two super mutants that he ressembles.

I wonder what an extreme morph like that would do to the hand rig in Poser? 

I tried it as a morph at first but it kept going out of the fall off zones.  So I've turned it into a separate figure.

**PAT! You changed your avatar! And you're not even wearing a cowboy hat. But what did you do to Jane? lol

phantom...I like your thinking on this model.
**

***PAT! You changed your avatar! And you're not even wearing a cowboy hat. But what did you do to Jane? lol

phantom...I like your thinking on this model.**

She had an accident!  She can now lift well over 100 tons and probably beat the snot out of the Freak. lol.

Quote - ***PAT! You changed your avatar! And you're not even wearing a cowboy hat. But what did you do to Jane? lol

phantom...I like your thinking on this model.**

She had an accident!  She can now lift well over 100 tons and probably beat the snot out of the Freak. lol.

That's a classic, the incredible she hulk!  I like that idea.

It was patorak that turned me on to the idea for incorporating these muscles and bulk into the UV's btw,  I don't know if it's exactly what he was explaining for anti stretch in the UV's but the idea is much the same. I have learned lots from the people here at Rendo.

*That's a classic, the incredible she hulk!  I like that idea.

We've been thinking of a line of superheros for awhile.  Just didn't know which direction to take;  Daz derivatives or original figures.

Quote - *
*We've been thinking of a line of superheros for awhile.  Just didn't know which direction to take;  Daz derivatives or original figures.

either would be cool, I'm partial to all new figures myself. But the Daz figures already have alot of support so figures made for them would probably be welcomed more readily.

*either would be cool, I'm partial to all new figures myself. But the Daz figures already have alot of support so figures made for them would probably be welcomed more readily.

The others agree,  but I'm gun shy of derivatives.

Quote - *
*The others agree,  but I'm gun shy of derivatives.

Ya, trouble going that way, but there seems to be trouble no matter which way. I would like to see a new line though.  Did ya finish Janes chopper?

Still trying to find a decent engine blueprint.

I'd like to see a new line too,  but expanded to include video games and high end apps.

The High Polycount meshes you all make are killer but I'll leave HP's to you all.

I'm sticking to my Low Polycount anime / game meshes,for now.

I'll have them in Poser format also but I would not expect them to be very popular in Poser.

Me and my x wife broke up a while back every time I go to model a female I miss my blue print,LOL.

Quote - The High Polycount meshes you all make are killer but I'll leave HP's to you all.

I'm sticking to my Low Polycount anime / game meshes,for now.

I'll have them in Poser format also but I would not expect them to be very popular in Poser.

 

Me and my x wife broke up a while back every time I go to model a female I miss my blue print,LOL.

 
I like the low poly models too, I want to get into that cause I'd like to do some stuff for second life or maybe the new Microsoft world.

You're doing great BTW. Good, different, new, stuff!

I know what you mean about the X, working from real life models in the flesh is the best, nothing else really comes close to being able to see and work from something in real 3D space.

I prefer live models too.  A lot of picture refs are distorted.

not bad... the legs feel a bit long but it's still pretty great stuff. 

Thanks!  'Bout how much do you think I should shorten 'em?  I still don't know what I'm going to do for the rocky hide,  too.

Patorak, are you using modelsheets?

What's modelsheets?

That would be a good thing to do - use Model Sheets. I'm not sure if you can still find it but a long time back Marvel released the guide to the Marvel Universe (or something like that), where they had turn arounds of every character. You can sometimes find these floating on the net also. 

Thing is...ooooo....thing is, I think it's the torso more than the legs themselves that are throwing me off when I look at him.  Ben's fairly wide and his torso is actually the largest part of him but in your model it looks more like the legs/thighs are and I think that's because the torso is lacking the mass my brain is expecting.  It's hard to give you more than that without images to back it up but take a look at  John Buscema's version of him or his brother Sal's version. That's the thing about the Thing (see what I did there?) everyone has their own take on him. The one constant though is his width, even in the terrible first film and the two recent ones, he was fairly wide, so I think that's the one constant.

Still, have a look at him if you haven't yet and see what you think. It could be my own artistic taste is trying to impose itself here and I wouldn't want that.

Model Sheets are guides for artists so that every time they draw a character the character always looks the same or "on model". Usually they are a series of turn arounds, profile images of the character in question. Some also include emotional and characterization guides with them (facial expressions, body language, etc.).  One of the best collections of model sheets in a book related to film I've seen was in Disney's Aladdin: The making of an animated film. They showed the wide gamut of model sheets used for the characters, including color guides and silhouette.  

Anyway, in the case of Benjamin J. Grimm here, you may have to make due with referencing paneled comics. Not the best choice but as I said, I'm not sure that guide book exists anymore outside of conventions. 

If you ever need to look for the Marvel Handbook (that's what it was called!) it came in two flavors. The first - a simple collection of pages in standard comic form with a single image representing the character. Fairly useless beyond an informational tool.

The second form - the more recent one - was a series of looseleaf pages, each with a turn around of the character in question (front, side, back views) and a bio.  Broken up by alphabet.  A great source for superhero body types but also extremely hard to find.

:/  crap. I have one for the Hulk (well...the Hulk at that time) but not for Ben.

I use them often. I also do 2D animation as well as 3D so I found Model Sheets a important tool of both trades.

In Modo you use the backdrop Item and load the image to it. It is nothing but an image panel, most modeling apps have them called one thing or another. Using 2 crossed and lined up for front and side view. drop transparancy. Use them to model around.

Google Model sheets / what ever character or just model sheets and you will find lots.

http://anime-model-sheets.com  is a good place for that sort of thing (if you're into anime or giant robots).  Anyway, it's a great model as is and with the right textures, it would really look awesome.

That's one of the ones I have bookmarked amoung many others. LOL. I have been collecting model sheets for a few years now.

I wanted to mention that googleing "blueprints" gets you lots of stuff like planes, trains and automobiles. LOL Also buildings and machinery and much more. It all can be used the same as model sheets.

Even in the movies the Thing looks scrawny compared to the comics.

cause there using real humans that just ant 5 heads wide.

it's been decades but marvel used to go something like all there characters is 8 heads tall.

1 head_ head

3 heads_ torso

4_head_legs

= 8 heads tall

over there decades i've seen the books pages scanded on the web.

spidys 3 heads wide

the Thing,hulks like 5 heads wide.

beast 4 heads wide.

a head is 5 eyes wide 7 eyes tall.

a real humans 6 feet tall is only 6 heads tall.

villains eyes where a bit large.

ya can goggle fantastic 4 the Thing or get fanatic 4 comics collect drawing of the comic Thing make your own model sheets.

*Anyway, in the case of Benjamin J. Grimm here, you may have to make due with referencing paneled comics. Not the best choice but as I said, I'm not sure that guide book exists anymore outside of conventions. 

I agree.  As for the model sheets there have been so...many styles of the Thing over the years it's hard to choose from.  The head I modeled after Jack Kirby's Thing...well the first 25 issues of FF.  The body style from the latest cartoon.  BTW My favorite version of the Thing is Joe Sinnott's and George Perez's.  Actually Joe Inked later Kirby,  Buscema's and Perez's.  So maybe it Joe's style we should be going after?

Now,  Thing is...I need a slight cut v in the chest so the collars blend right when they move.  So that will remain the same.  The waist too...if you notice it's a lot wider than the freaks and I'm happy with the twist and bend.  The legs...first i'll shorten the shins,  then check the bending and go from there.

The big question...would the model as is now be a good start for the Hulk?  Because well The Hulk vs The Thing is a classic battle. 

Yes, this would make a good start. You'd want to go taller and maybe add a few more digits to his hands and feet. Wires for the Thing's chest please? I'll see what I can point out to help you get that shape you need.