**Conniekat8 & operaguy
The collada route will not give you the results for what operaguy is after,
if i understand well operaguy whants to have a fully "editable" rig ?
Collada gives you not the bones but helpers !! 
The envelope weighting is baked and only useable if your willing to weight by vertex ,
which is a nightmare with poser meshes.
Loading morphs with collada is very "heavy" because the morph is bassicly a deformed mesh and you bring MAX to its knees.
JCM in MAX is bassicly the skinmorph modifier with works much better than JCM's because you can model the morph the way you want it to deform.
The dvd paul made on this subject is a must have in my opinion and saves you hiring a rigger because i think that although it may look intimidating the proces is very straightforward with the right tools.

**

Attached Link: http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/shop/itemdetails/-/?item=3320&cat=&_m=d

klozen, connie and i have re-communicated; we are not trying to get a automatic rig out of a Collada transfer: the helpers you describe will be discarded. The point is to get the mesh, the morphs and the texture maps over.

She made the point about the morphs being a massive task, also. That will be handled (i hope) by preshaping in PoserPro so the shaping morphs are not brought over, and then judiciously selecting the expression morphs to go over.

I will look into the subject of skinmorph modifier

What "dvd paul made"? Can you give me a link or more info so I can find it?

Thanks for your comments

::::: Opera :::::

http://store.cgsociety.org/product/000369/

oh yes,.....i just did not recognize the name and make the connection. thanks. My partner will be here in a few hours and we will perform triage on all these options. That DVD is high up on the list, and his scripts.

Please keep the info coming.

I am on a similar path as you and find your research invaluable.

Have you looked at any 3rd party rigging solutions... like puppetshop or CAT ?

no i have not jeff. thanks for the links. will investigate and put them on the list of possibilities.

right away i need to see if they are CharacterStudio, because that's what I want.

bandolin,
Quantitatively there are more free and for-sale items for V3 than V4, but not by much. And the stream of V3 items has slowed. Moreover, the quality of models keeps going up, and those provided for V4 are, as a broad generalization, of higher quality. That's just my opinion.

However, my choice of V4 is based largly on body shape; I can't get good arms and shoulders on V3 or Jessie or Miki. The attached render is and example of why I like V4; you can't get great human upper torso/arms/shoulders/neck with other models. By 'content available' I was referring to morphs and skin textures.

::::: Opera :::::

Rendered in PoserPro
Raytrace soft shadows
Strand hair
Dynamic dress by pjz  (newly added to freestuff)

Click for full resolution.

Let me add one more to your list:

Automatron

And for interested parties, here's a lengthy thread about 3rd party character rigging tools:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-441066.html

http://www.zygote.com/

These two renders are not to claim spcimen status, only to show why V4 is in that window for me....

jeff, thanks for the additional links.

Our research and investigations have begun. Might be 24-48 hours before we show any results.

::::: Opera :::::

Automatron looks very promising...anybody try it yet?

Quote - I viewed your gallery BTW and I like your stuff. Especially the worm under water, but I think you could have added to the atmosphere by adding caustics along with the DOF that is already there. I just wish you would post more of your artwork.

Ah my gallery is just silly stuff i do in my free time, kinda like digital doodles. Even the city scene was mostly a test to see how heavy a scene I could handle. I agree about the caustics though and if i get time i'll rework that render, thanks for the suggestions.

Quote - You say that UV mapping a 60K poly figure is not much work depending on the UV tools? I've used quite a few different methods and unwrapping that dense a figure has never been lickety-split, although I must admit I haven't used XSI, which I believe is your software of choice.

So as not to derail, i'll start a new thread with my method.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2748594

That's pretty a impressive technique.  OG if you can get Max to do this it is definitely worth a look.

*"if you can get Max to do this it is definitely worth a look"

3dsmax can do that via the Projection modifier.

I've had some good success at using Collada with DAZ|Studio,I've got several different resolutions of V4 in max,though my needs are not nearly as advanced as Operaguys but  for a basic rig it's the fastest way to go,
I think Wahooneys 'Rigging Army Knife' tools include a bones to biped script.

ghonma, I just have to say your city scene is awesome, imaginative and amazing. It makes me want to run out and buy XSI. I wouldn’t have seen it at all if it wasn’t for this thread. 

(We now return to the regularly scheduled topic.)

Good morning everyone.

Having stirred myself up for this project, we have decided to insert a pause for this holiday weekend. Evan has a diversion to get out of the way and I have decided to spend the next four days finishing the first of the short films that constitute this project. Having the first film in the can will also be an excellent aid to "Max-izing" it as well, because the style, demands and mood will have been made tangible..

I will watch this thread over the weekend and interact with any discussion, but we are not going to resume the BiPed/V4 work until Tuesday of next week.

Thanks for all the responses.

::::: Opera :::::

Another resource:

The following fully rigged model:  http://www.axyz-design.com/axyz-design-3d-humans-characters-metropolyhd-rigged-cwom0001.php

is available for free in 3Dworld issue #108

Might be useful for comparison purposes.

That's a good link and a good idea. I'm currently using this model

http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3ds-max-4-women-characters-woman/415294

as my comparison. The texture is nothing but a placeholder (no detail at all!) but the CharacterStudio rig works great.

If my path were to become a texture and facial morph creator, I'd just go with this model and/or others like it. If I can get V4 to behave like this model, I'll be happy.

::::: Opera :::::

P.S. Workweek over, revving up PoserPro and going deep on my scene.

dont forget there's a bunch of rigged example models that come with Max..you might be blowing money on those turbosquid models when you already have what you need in the tutorials & scenes folder.

btw,if your using PoserPro then you like this script,depending on how clean you want your mesh
http://www.scriptspot.com/files/IN_tools-detriangulator.mcr.txt

it doesn't add or take away verts so shouldn't affect any morphs

Stoney,
What exactly does this script do?
What does it do to triangles???

if you use PoserFusion to send a mesh to max then that mesh will be triangulated,,if you run that script on a triangulated mesh it removes all those extra edges & gives you a clean quad based mesh again.
there's not really anything wrong with having a triangulated mesh,it'll still render & animate the same,for me I just prefer the clean look of a model as it was originaly made.

idealy they should have made triangulation as an option on export with Poserfusion

Oh yes please, that would be me wanting that little diddy!
Can you send to
darkedge@sbcglobal.net

Thanks!

we played with the Max-included models and several free and very low cost ($10) ones, and learned a lot. I really felt I was headed away from V4 and other PoserDazDom models, so I wanted to obtain a first-class rigged model to see how it would behave.

But the texture on this expensive thing was a joke, and we felt the UV map was too. So, we are giving the V4+resources paradigm its moment; if failure, I'll be looking for ways to get variety on Max-purpose-built rigs......or hey, maybe we'll put on our pjz.

::::: Opera :::::

darkedge..I've got a couple more features to add but I'll keep your adress on hand & send a copy when ready,if anyone else wants it email 3dsmorrell@gmail.com  (these scripts are specific to my workflow & wont suit everyone)

Opera...I'm totaly biased here but I think using V4 is a good idea,particularly as it's a final model that comes in several different resolutions & a seemingly endless supply of 3rd party add-ons,
idealy you should have an understanding of modeling so when things do go wrong you'll know why & how to fix the problem.
And while you've said your quite happy to work the hi-res mesh I'd seriously look into using one of the low-res versions & letting a skin wrap drive the final hi-res mesh
skinwrap workflow:
http://download.autodesk.com/media/MNE/qt/skinwrap_300k.mov

btw,Maxxmodels has done a lot of work in getting Poser figures into Max,I'm sure he'd have some good advice

Cheers
Stefan

Thanks Stefan (hold for render you'll like I'm about to post in about 15 min or check it out another time)

If I go get the lo res V4 cage(s)......I am picking up that the morphs won't apply.....so be it.

But will this vast resource of beautiful skin maps still work with the 17K V4?

I've been in close contact with Greg (maxxmodels) and he normally would be one of my gurus on this, but he is buried in work right now. I'm still hoping to lure him into this thread, especially after I post this first film.

::::: Opera :::::

This is NOT the set for this week's scene. However, I've been holding it quite a while because I have a script for a story, and this is the location. No martial arts, however; it is a love story.

Early Stonemason!

::::: Opera :::::

Quote - Click for full resolution
Rendered in PoserPro with raytrace soft shadows.

Early Stonemason!
:

wow there's an ancient model :..I bet the materials need a good amount of tweaking for poser pro too...it was made I think for the original poser pro(the one after poser4)

btw which render engine are you planning to use in 3dsmax?..just curious

Depends on the style of the story....this current one is "stylized glowing noir". Others are bright sun. Evan, my right hand guy, is getting good in MentalRay. Greg encourages me to go to VRay, but that's another $1000.  With some of the simpler stylized sets, scanline will be plenty. Lot's of Adobe in this project: it is not photorealism.

On your set, installer was flabbergasted, had to install to an old Poser folder and move things over. Also, when you show it where one texture is, it is not smart enough to find the others in the same folder!

No tweaking of any files in 2D, and this is just default simple shader.

:: og ::

OG, V4 was originally designed as the 17k model, and then subdivided when she was "Poser-ised". So yes, skin maps will work. I also believe other people have used Morph Manager to transfer the V4 morphs to the 17k version. That might help when working on Max.

Really.

I was given to believe that the V4 morphs simply can not be made to work with the 17K; that they cannot be moved over in any way, because they are mapped to the subdivided full V4 mesh. If it IS true that both the texture maps and morphs can be utilized on the low res, we will definitely go the 17K route into Max.

Can anyone else comment about the morph applicability? I'll have Evan check when he resumes work on the project Tuesday.

::::: Opera :::::

The LOD 17K can use all morphs that regular V4 can use.
But morphmanager won't do.
It's a bit more complicated than that to transfer them.

Well there you go. Obviously the "Alice" morph can be transfered.

Well this is an interesting development!

:: og ::

Once the script has analyzed V4.2 and the 17k LOD, you can transfer any morph over in a few seconds.

Just note that several of V4.2's face "morphs" are just ERC dial settings, so you first have to spawn an actual morph target that you can transfer.

A friend also used the Morphing Clothes program for the bodymorphs and was quite satisfied with the results.

Hurrah for 17K and thanks for the info and link Joe.

Joe, is it a simple click to transfer V4.2's rigging to the 17K LOD in Setup or do you have to name groups, etc. first and get the rig to fit? And when you do the new CR2, do you change just the two lines pointing at the obj (someone else suggested that over at DAZ site forum) or is there more involved? I think you mentioned in another thread something about a clean CR2... where do I find that or does Poser generate it automatically?

TIA!

Quote -
max doesn't work with bodyparts like poser, so for any little morph you have to have the entire mesh loaded. Putting all of those morphs into Max at once is a pretty good way to choke it up, so you'll have to be judicious about what you put in. But, you can still have a 'fully loaded' startup master saved.

There's workarounds to this.  Such as putting all your necessary morphs into a "dummy" .max file, and merging the ones you need into the actual scene (morpher modifier) as needed.  Kinda like using Injection Deltas in Poser.

Quote - If your biped is expertly rigged, with good joint parameters and falloff zones, you may not need poser's JCM's or figure out how to mimic magnets. I'm not even sure if Max supports the concept of JCM's. I don't have any rigging advice, since I never seriosly ventured in that direction with max.

JCM's are basically the same thing as "Skin Morph" modifier in Max, so yes, Max supports that concept.  You can research Skin Morph in the Max manual if you want further info regarding it's functionality.  In fact, you can take that concept a few steps further using the Reaction Manager in 3dsmax, and have morphs control other actions in the scene, or each other.

Quote - I'm very curious though, what it is that Max will offer that Cararra won't, for what you're needing, is it the cloth sims?

For character animation, there's a lot that Max can do that Carrara won't.  Aside from pure rendering optimizations (which one may or may not utilize), there's things like morph-driven textures (allowing you to do such things as change to a custom bump map automatically when certain morphs are dialed in), adding to the realism of expressions, etc.  I could go on if you like.

@ksanderson: The SetUp room can't handle V4.2's multiple ERC layers, so just save the 17kLOD object somewhere in your runtime and edit a V4.2 cr2 to point to it.
No need to rename bodyparts or groups as they are named exactly the same.
No need to edit the rigging as V4.2 and the Lod are shaped EXACTLY the same.

The original V4 morphs won't work anymore of course, so you have to delete them, either with a cr2 editor or MorphManager.
Then resave that "empty" cr2 to a folder in your runtime.

Then let the Cage/Spanki script analyze V4.2 and the Lod geometries, inject the morphs you want transferred into V4.2, and then transfer them over to the empty Lod cr2.

If you want the fully automatic functionality of the original V4.2  you'd also have to transfer/convert the various JCM morphs and put them into th exact same position as they were in the original V4.2 (with the exact name), so that the ERC will still work.

Given how complex V4.2's cr2 is, that can be pretty complicated and error prone.

Instead I simply deleted all the JCM morphs as well as all the JSM magnets, and just added a few morphbrush morphs to fix the joints where necessary.
A lot simpler, a lot more efficient, and a lot more flexible than the original rig.

Quote -

Quote - I'm very curious though, what it is that Max will offer that Cararra won't, for what you're needing, is it the cloth sims?

For character animation, there's a lot that Max can do that Carrara won't.  Aside from pure rendering optimizations (which one may or may not utilize), there's things like morph-driven textures (allowing you to do such things as change to a custom bump map automatically when certain morphs are dialed in), adding to the realism of expressions, etc.  I could go on if you like.

While all of the above is true, before you go on thinking I'm clueles about max, I need to clarify that my question to Operaguy was within the scope of specific items that he was interested in, and not a comparison of Max Vs. Cararra. Operaguy is interested in non-photorealistic animations made with use of poser content, and not full featured use of Max's abilities, AFAIK. So, within scope of his interests, I was curious where Cararra fell short.

Thank you for the detailed response, Joe. I can't wait to try this over the weekend!

Kevin

Connie is right and her question was appropriate.

Quote -
While all of the above is true, before you go on thinking I'm clueles about max, I need to clarify that my question to Operaguy was within the scope of specific items that he was interested in, and not a comparison of Max Vs. Cararra. Operaguy is interested in non-photorealistic animations made with use of poser content, and not full featured use of Max's abilities, AFAIK. So, within scope of his interests, I was curious where Cararra fell short.

Fair enough regarding your carrara comparison.  I didn't necessarily think you were clueless about max, but I've learned that when dealing with Poser enthusiasts, you do come to find  a lot of dissemination of  misinformation regarding higher-end applications.  Many Poser users seem to assume that only Poser can do certain things, or do certain things more efficiently than higher-end applications, which is usually untrue when you get down to it.  Conforming clothing is one example that I see mentioned a lot.  People tend to think that only poser has this kind of thing, and all clothing in high end apps is dynamic.  Strange.

Quote - > Quote -

While all of the above is true, before you go on thinking I'm clueles about max, I need to clarify that my question to Operaguy was within the scope of specific items that he was interested in, and not a comparison of Max Vs. Cararra. Operaguy is interested in non-photorealistic animations made with use of poser content, and not full featured use of Max's abilities, AFAIK. So, within scope of his interests, I was curious where Cararra fell short.

Fair enough regarding your carrara comparison.  I didn't necessarily think you were clueless about max, but I've learned that when dealing with Poser enthusiasts, you do come to find  a lot of dissemination of  misinformation regarding higher-end applications.  Many Poser users seem to assume that only Poser can do certain things, or do certain things more efficiently than higher-end applications, which is usually untrue when you get down to it.  Conforming clothing is one example that I see mentioned a lot.  People tend to think that only poser has this kind of thing, and all clothing in high end apps is dynamic.  Strange.

I've seen a lot of poser enthusiasts complain that high-enders don't take them seriously... Some of them actually think that poser does more then max???   :blink:   I think I need to go pinch myself!

I saw your comment about max and JCM type morphs. I have to preface this with a stement that most of my max experience is architectural and engineering modeling, and I never rigged a character. (I do poser clothing rigging when I have to because I like modeling clothes for Poser content)

Anyway, just conceptually, do max JCM's work similar as Poser? I always thought that the technique would be a lot more advanced then a JCM concept and that transfering a poser JCM which is created to correct poser's wonky rigging would be pretty useless in max, since the rigging would be different.  Am I totally off in thinking this?