If smithmicro was a professional company they would have training dvd's available that would teach the following.

1) Explanation of splines and 3-4 PROFESSIONAL working examples of each in a professional level environment.

1. Best techniques on how to PROFESSIONALY modify animations that you import (BVH files).

3) In depth PROFESSIONAL explanation on animation layers and how to use them in a professional environment.

4) How to use the walk & talk designer in a complex scene involving walking, meeting with another figure, shaking hands, throwing a ball back and forth and finally two characters walking off the screen.

5) How to make an animation and if you don't like it, how to delete what you made without hurting other animations.  

6) How many keyframes to add and when?! Sometimes I think I'm adding too many keyframes for other body parts that aren't even moving and I don't understand why it's happening. Once again a lack of training material.

7) How to get smooth transition between two very different animations.  For example walking towards a chair, stopping, looking at the chair, saying something with the talk designer, then sitting down on the chair, then burping.  Smith Micro has robbed it's customers of this knowledge & technique.

8) How to render on a limited budget without access to a render farm.  What firefly settings to use? How big should the scene be?

Any dumb ass can make an animation of figure's knee bending.  Or just a basic 1-2 motion of someone flapping their arms up & down like an idiot.  Or someone jumping up & down trying to fly.

I made an animation of a girl giving a blowjob to a male figure and it looks damn good. BUt the problem is it's such a basic sequence and I don't quite understand each of the splines yet since there is a HEAVY lack of examples/videos of someone explaining them.  

Now I want to make the scene even more complex and learning on my own is such a waste of time compared to me paying for some professional level training to bring me up to speed faster.

I need to understand the mechanics and then the art can shine through.

Some people pride themselves on "Just figure it out yourself"... F that, I want to pay someone to hold my hand because time is valuable. 

I have $250.00 allocated to this but there is absolutely no professional level training dvd's.  I remember having to learn how to unwrap UV's in 3d studio max.  $200.00, 4 dvd's and 2 days later I've got near perfect checkerboxes :P  Had I tried to learn that crap on my own i would of been doomed.

Poser cough PRO cough, has recently been released, but is there any documentation explaining how to make a complex animation? NO.... WTF.. People learn better by making a visual connection. Animation is visual, the best way to learn it is to visually see someone doing it.

It's easy to get good at a very basic concept.  But to bring 30 basic concepts together into a complex scene takes experience.  That is why someone experienced should make a DVD and sell it.  Don't teach people something stupid like bending knees.  Teach them something epic & professional.  Teach how to bring every element of poser animation together into a glorious animation sequence.

Ok thanks for listening to me vent.  LOL

Calm down dude. Its just people are usually using poser for one shot renders, not on full animation because it is easier. Be careful on the words or someone might get offended.

Are you planning to make a professional movie or something? Seems like you are really decided on this. Do you live here in the US?

 I doubt that many professionals would be willing to spend time animating in Poser.

‘Pro’ and ‘Platinum’ are just terms that merchants are fond of using when they try to sell a more expensive version of something.  

Of course, a true professional wouldn’t need training material to learn to animate. 

I wonder why you don't just learn to animate in 3d Studio Max? It’s vastly better than Poser and has superior training material available. If you're addicted to Poser content, Cinema 4d and it’s 3rd party Poser plugin might be the way to go. 

Quote -  I doubt that many professionals would be willing to spend time animating in Poser.

‘Pro’ and ‘Platinum’ are just terms that merchants are fond of using when they try to sell a more expensive version of something.  

Of course, a true professional wouldn’t need training material to learn to animate. 

I wonder why you don't just learn to animate in 3d Studio Max? It’s vastly better than Poser and has superior training material available. If you're addicted to Poser content, Cinema 4d and it’s 3rd party Poser plugin might be the way to go. 

Hmmmm, you know you're right.  Now that there is poserfusion or whatever it's called.  I could just take the beautiful 3d figures/props that poser has and use them in 3dsmax. 

Quote - Calm down dude. Its just people are usually using poser for one shot renders, not on full animation because it is easier. Be careful on the words or someone might get offended.

Are you planning to make a professional movie or something? Seems like you are really decided on this. Do you live here in the US?

Sorry bout that, I was going to edit it but then it was too late.  I was pissed earlier. But I think the other guy has the right idea. Poserfusion & 3dsmax seems like the best plan.

Hilarious!!!

So let me get this right...smith micro is incompetant because YOU are too lazy to learn how to animate yourself, and want to be spoon fed everything on a silver platter?

Good luck with that max learning.. no one's going to spoon feed you there either.

Learning animation techniques takes years to master. Having worked for Disney feature animation, I think I'm qualified to make that statement.

How about Smith Micro starts making posts here about YOUR incompetance as a user?

Yesterday you bashed them because of crap beta software, and THEN found out it was YOUR firewall causing the issue.

Notice a trend at all? All your poser pro issues seems to lay at your own doorstep, not thiers.

I helped you yesterday, bu with your piss poor attitude, it'll be a long time before I try to assist you again.

Clear case of PEBKAC

Quote -  I doubt that many professionals would be willing to spend time animating in Poser.

‘Pro’ and ‘Platinum’ are just terms that merchants are fond of using when they try to sell a more expensive version of something.  

Of course, a true professional wouldn’t need training material to learn to animate. 

I wonder why you don't just learn to animate in 3d Studio Max? It’s vastly better than Poser and has superior training material available. If you're addicted to Poser content, Cinema 4d and it’s 3rd party Poser plugin might be the way to go. 

I agree, a true professional wouldnt need training sence they have already been trained. But noone starts out as a professional and must have had some training,classes,learning material,help online. I have to agree with that guy,software makers should be providing better learning material for there products, but he really has to kick the anger

If smithmicro was a professional company they would have training dvd's available that would teach the following.

could you point me to the DVD's made by Autodesk for Max? or for Maya? or by Maxon for Cinema? or my Newtek for Lightwave? all the DVD's etc I've found have always been from 3rd parties you see...  (I've just been to Autodesk's website, Maxon's and Newtek's... and no mention of tutorial DVD's being sold by these obviously amatuer companies.......)

o.k., zan, thx fr the input on the animation training dvd. we'll add it to the list of questions for SM:

1. when are youse guys gonna start selling yer VTC for poser 8 animation?
2. how many DVDs wouldja hafta sell to make a profit?
3. to whom are ya gonna sell poser, and will the sale be complete before apr. 2009?
   trying to answer all those questions may well be enuff to make them move their arms up and down in frustration, I tell ya!
   

try
www.amazon.com/s/qid=1220723437/ref=a9_sc_1

3 pages of books on animation

 Also, I blame Ford for not teaching me how to drive.

i sometimes think the world is out to get me...
but we're all in the same boat and we learn here and over at geep's place and wherever else.  you just gotta be patient and do every tut you come across.
i've been working on animation too, but just cyclic stuff for now.
if you're having to add keys to the parts you don't want to move, you may be getting overshoot from the spline.  try to use linear splines when you can.  you can key originally curved, then mark a few spots on the curve and switch to linear and get more control.
o and that inverse kinematics is good to get going but might be better off trashed as you approach the final animation, cause ik rekeys every time the animation is run, so it'll always look different and throw issues.  (i understand character studio keys one way and keeps it, but i haven't used it) really messes up cloth dynamics too, so if you're going that route don't even run the cloth 'till ik is off and off for good.  turn it on once, new keys everywhere.
geep had a nice description of the splines working.

i don't know how to pull off the shaking hands easily.  i tried that once by reparenting the hand.  that was not successful.  i would just say at this point that's gonna be one of those "key every other frame" deals.

#7 sounds pretty easy.  you can just use break spline as you switch from one maneuver to another to keep overshoot down and animate in chunks.

trying to render quality animation for us is still yucky when a single frame can take several minutes to many more.  you gotta compromise there.  if you go toonish  you can render much faster.  if you're going for realism, better get the renderfarm.

o yeah and for #2 the easiest way to do that is to open the splines and just delete mucho frames from the animation, anything that is not a peak, lull, or zero.  then you can tweak it from there with much less stuff in the way.  but be careful...again, if you have curved splines, you'll get crazy new overshoots, so go linear at this point again. before deleting splines

**PROFESSIONAL.....

**Let me give you the official definition of a professional.

1. A person following a profession, especially a learned profession.

2. One who earns a living in a given or implied occupation
3. A skilled practitioner; an expert.

As soon as Smith Micro gives in to your demands, the whole profesional is gone.

Poser is geared at the hobbyist. They don't pay for this kind of training, they rather figure out stuff while they go along. Poser Pro is geared at the professionals, they don't need need this kind of training, since they've been properly trained already, otherwise they're not professionals.

In other words what lacks in your opinion Smith Micro will never supply, they already have a hard time selling poser to even consider this kind of stuff that caters to a very small market.

Quote - If smithmicro was a professional company they would have training dvd's available that would teach the following.

could you point me to the DVD's made by Autodesk for Max? or for Maya? or by Maxon for Cinema? or my Newtek for Lightwave? all the DVD's etc I've found have always been from 3rd parties you see...  (I've just been to Autodesk's website, Maxon's and Newtek's... and no mention of tutorial DVD's being sold by these obviously amatuer companies.......)

Not sure about the other companies but Maxon does have a video training series, though its downloadable online videos rather than DVD's  http://www.cineversity.com/  and Luxology has an excellent series of pay for download video tutorials for Modo.

Though I do have to agree that its not really Smithmicro's responsibility to provide aftermarket training materials, thats not what makes a product professional.

*but Maxon does have a video training series, though its downloadable online videos rather than DVD's  http://www.cineversity.com/

• which are not easily found from their website... I know cos I went to look before making my post above....*

Honestly, animation in poser is the easiest in the world of 3d.

Quote - Honestly, animation in poser is the easiest in the world of 3d.

yep ,a few of my recent ANIMATIONS IN POSER

wow! you keyframed all of that?

So you like the Daz Studio animator better than the Poser animation? Hovering on getting the one for Studio.
Thanks

Read the daz studio animation plugin threads at daz.. doesn't seem many people like them at ALL.... lots of missing features.

Amazon.com: The Animator's Survival Kit

Quote - I made an animation of a girl giving a blowjob to a male figure and it looks damn good.

Well,if you need a professional to teach you how to do a BJ, phone 0800-....

ROFL!! ;)
Sorry couldn't resist !! :lol:

This is out of control...  X(

zanz, see if wolf will tell ya how he did those vids.  that would be at least as good as getting
a professional VTC for $250 IMVHO.

Quote - So let me get this right...smith micro is incompetant because YOU are too lazy to learn how to animate yourself, and want to be spoon fed everything on a silver platter?

Good luck with that max learning.. no one's going to spoon feed you there either.

Learning animation techniques takes years to master. Having worked for Disney feature animation, I think I'm qualified to make that statement.

How about Smith Micro starts making posts here about YOUR incompetance as a user?

Yesterday you bashed them because of crap beta software, and THEN found out it was YOUR firewall causing the issue.

Notice a trend at all? All your poser pro issues seems to lay at your own doorstep, not thiers.

I helped you yesterday, bu with your piss poor attitude, it'll be a long time before I try to assist you again.

Smith Micro Mistake
What company would be stupid enough to mix network check's with a background renderer? I can understand the queue manager doing vital network checks. But there is no need for FFRender64.exe to stop working just because it can't check the network.  A good programmer would include an "Else" command to ensure the renderer does it's primary job if a network check fails.

Quote - > Quote - I made an animation of a girl giving a blowjob to a male figure and it looks damn good.

Well,if you need a professional to teach you how to do a BJ, phone 0800-....

ROFL!! ;)
Sorry couldn't resist !! :lol:

 

lol :P

Quote - Smith Micro Mistake
What company would be stupid enough to mix network check's with a background renderer?

The external renderer uses network sockets to communicate with the GUI.
This is a tried and trusted cross platform way of doing IPC.

See the P7 ReadMe under the heading "Network Connections" for details.

Quote - > Quote - Smith Micro Mistake

What company would be stupid enough to mix network check's with a background renderer?

The external renderer uses network sockets to communicate with the GUI.
This is a tried and trusted cross platform way of doing IPC.

See the P7 ReadMe under the heading "Network Connections" for details.

Sounds like a hack instead of normal programming practice. 

Quote - Sounds like a hack instead of normal programming practice.

24 years of Unix programming history would suggest that you have no idea how normal this is.

Firewalling off the local loopback interface is what's stupid.

Sounds like you are a clueless noob to me who doesn't know the difference between proper programming, and his own system's settings.

Some people pride themselves on "Just figure it out yourself"... F that, I want to pay someone to hold my hand because time is valuable.

Oh, I'm just sure it is.

It's not so much "figure it out yourself" as it is learn by experience. One of the first lessons in 3D animation is a figure lifting a heavy object. Know why? Because it's something that teaches external physics, body motion, and expression, all in one package. Beginning animation students spend weeks learning how to do just that one little motion; it's usually their first exam. And everyone does it differently because everyone sees that action in a different way. But it's how the individual student interprets it and then executes it that demonstrates how well s/he understands what animation is all about in the first place.

And you want to skip past because "time is valuable".

Sorry, bud, but if you're not interested in learning the basics and spending the time to learn them properly, then all the DVDs in the world aint gonna help. You might as well just get some mocap files and use those and be done with it.

Still think I'm full of it? Go to your local bookstore and look at all the tapes and CDs that purport to teach you a foreign language. I dont know anyone who mastered a language using those. Like every other skill on the planet, these things take time and study -- and it doesnt sound like you want to invest in either.

Just my 0.02. No doubt worth every penny.

It's all Microsoft's fault...

Poser is sort of a red-headed stepchild that gets passed from company to company
after each one has milked all the profit out of it they think they can get.  So I doubt
any company is going to go through all the trouble of spending the money to hire a
staff to make training materials for a Poser feature that maybe 10% of the Poser
users use.  They are probably just breaking even on the product as it is, especially
considering all the warez versions that pop up within days of a version release.

There are a few tutorials on their website.  That's probably all we are going to get
from them.

http://my.smithmicro.com/tutorials/

 I didn't bother to read all the posts here - just the first one. And it was 5 minutes I'll never get back.
Poser is not intended to be a stand-along animation application. Its a Hobby tool. It's not a Professional tool. Yes, it gives some high end concepts, but overall, its for Hobbiests and beginners alike.

If you want to learn Animation, it's not entirely up to the company that makes the software to provide a complete overall training solution for your needs.
Thats called "College" or "University".
If you can't afford to pay to learn animation from the ground up, then you really cannot complain too much about the program you are using.

>> Poser is not intended to be a stand-along animation application.

Here, I have to disagree. And simply on anecdotal evidence, but anyway...

Some years ago, at this CG conference in San Francisco, I learned about this guy who, at the age of 45, decided to chuck a reasonably good career in real estate and become a CG animator. His wife told him, fine, you have three years, and that's it. He knew nothing about any of the programs available.

So he started working with this pathetically small PC computer and, of all things, V-Ray. He bought the books and attended classes (where even his teachers treated him as an indulgent joke because of his age and resources). At the end of two years, he'd learned enough to start putting together a calling card animation. At the end of the three years, he sent copies of the animation out to every company he ever wanted to work for, then went back to his job as a realtor... because he'd promised his wife he would.

A few months pass, and he's thinking, okay, it was a three-year experience that went nowhere, but at least I gave it a shot. The he gets a call from, of all people, Industrial Light and Magic: they were working on this film called The Mummy and needed animators and would he be interested?

Of course he was. They knew they'd have to train him, but since they use proprietary software, that was no big deal. Now he's on staff with them, happy as the proverbial clam.

True story, I swear.

Point is, he worked his butt off in those three years. He used low-end software and a 33 mHz computer. But he learned his craft from the gounrd up. And that dogged determination saw him through.

(Someone cue the inspiration music, okay?)

So here's the thing. Any priogram can be used for professional results, even Poser. We've seen what's possible in still images; why should we think animation would be any different? If you work with the program and are patient and diligent enough, you can probably get some great stuff out of it. No, it wont be Final Fantasy level, but that just means knowing your limitations and acting accordingly.

(Bring music to stirring finish and end.)

 I agree Sean, on most points. But the individual you are talking about is one of how many that succeeded with such a limited repetoire? For every person that has a success story, such as this discussion on what can be done with Poser etc, there are thousands who are living a pipe dream.

But at the same time, he did go out and get an eduction. Someone with an education can make fantastic results out of nearly anything, if they put their mind to it. And that I applaud. I did a similar thing when it came to film, and my luck has held out so far. But they are few in that category.

The original poster here is crying because Smith-Micro don't supply training DVD's on how to do what he want's the program to do. Adobe does not supply a manual explaining how to accomplish everything you dream of with Photoshop. But he expects such a feat from SM. If he went out and got a true education, rather than depended on people spoon feeding him what he wants, he wouldn't be crying.

No argument there, not one bit.

The tutorials you need are free here

http://www.philc.net/tutorialsIndex.htm

about 6 itemsfrom the top of the page, explanations of splines, keyframe interpolation, modifying .bvh files (sorry to let wolf359's cat out of the bag, the first of the animations in his sequence was a recent freebie .bvh motion capture: kata for The Freak)

More mocap based animations can be seen here;
http://www.youtube.com/user/VJflickeringlight