Such things can be morphed to 0% scale as well as translated into the body by the 'hiding morph'... that works very well since they would render only as a pixel dot even if they fall somehow outside the body.

Quote - Such things can be morphed to 0% scale as well as translated into the body by the 'hiding morph'... that works very well since they would render only as a pixel dot even if they fall somehow outside the body.

Yep, that's how I would do it. It's just that if someone makes a really wild morph that affects those parts as well - say a monster morph that morphs the brows together with the head - there's a small chance that it will break the hiding morph. Not that it's a big concern of mine. I'm just mentioning it so I can link to it later and say I told you so. :tongue2:

i'd be fine with a mat zone, myself.  that said, does anyone know if something completely transparent still slows down raytraced lights?

Quote - i'd be fine with a mat zone, myself.  that said, does anyone know if something completely transparent still slows down raytraced lights?

That's a good point. Transparency means more work for the renderer, unless it's clever enough to see that the transparent part is actually completely invisible. In certain situations - you know, if someone does renders for foot and forehead fetishist, for example  - it might save a significant amount of time to hide that geometry inside the figure instead.

It's a trade off - if the geometry is morphed to some location that won't be rendered, the morph data takes up memory, and any textures will still have to be loaded and will still add to render time.  Depending on how complex the model/texture is and how big the morph is, and how complex the scene lighting is, I suspect sometimes it will be faster with one method, sometimes faster with the other.

but the morph data for a single morph for a single body part is what, a few hundred kb?  very minimal.  add transparency to a scene with one raytraced light, and i've seen render time on small test images go from minutes to hours.  it's why i test without hair when i can. 

i don't know if the renderer cares what how the transparency is controlled, or if it's just a matter of what percentage of the screen the transparent object takes up.  but in general,   the moment i introduce transparency into my renders, it can take me days just to make tweaks because of how long tests take to do test renders.

Please forgive me my limited understanding of al this ut when I want to reduce render time in the old oser4 I make the item invisible in either the heirarchy editor or selecting an item from within Poser (either a prop or body part) and making it invisible. Wouldn't that make the render time less and solve the problem in other versions and render/lighting modes too? Obviously if I make something invisible, say upper eyebrows or a pubic hair prop that is incorporated in the figure I see no reason to add textures/bump or transmapping either....making the file to be processed a bit smaller.

hat would be cooler is say I were doing a figure like a centaur that needs to be constructed from two figures and obviously the lower half of the human and the upper neck and head of the horse need to be made invisibe, it would be great if I could also not have to texture the whole of both characters.
What is that called when you can selectively texture body parts of a character? Wouldn't that also reduce the size of the file to be rendered? That is one of the things I wish the figures were created from the box to be capable of doing. I have a few MAT poses I think whereby I can create black or laced gloves or stockings on a figure by texturing it and clicking the MAT pose and those arts of the figure get a different texture. If I change my mind I can go back and retexture those body parts with the original texture or, make them invisible.

1. if you could select the toe cap as a body part to make it invisible, it would have to be a whole different body part rigged to follow the toes.  i'm not sure you'd save any resources like that.

2. if you're just concerned with using stocking MAT poses, you can just apply a MAT pose to make stockings work. on any figure with UV mapping. because the creator of the MAT pose can define what it does, including referencing scripts and using masks and working with the .  but if you're talking about making MAT poses yourself, and on most figures, there's a material zone for the legs that sort of suffices. that's what Bluebeard used to do, as far as i can tell.  personally, i feel the masking method not only gives you the control you need, it gives allows the artist to have the skin under the stockings match the skin everywhere else.  that said, i have no clue how to create a script like that, or call it from a material.  i just know people have.

Quote -
hat would be cooler is say I were doing a figure like a centaur that needs to be constructed from two figures and obviously the lower half of the human and the upper neck and head of the horse need to be made invisibe, it would be great if I could also not have to texture the whole of both characters.
What is that called when you can selectively texture body parts of a character? Wouldn't that also reduce the size of the file to be rendered? That is one of the things I wish the figures were created from the box to be capable of doing.

oh, and all figures are made so you can selectively texture. they all have more than one material zone.  some have more than others.

but no, it wouldn't necessarily change the load on your resources.  for instance, on every Vicky, the lips and face have been in the same map.  you could apply a texture just to the her face and not her lips.  but your texture file would include the lips anyway, so you're just not making good use of what you have.

if an area had a separate material zone and a separate UV map (like the Vicky's head and torso), then you could apply a texture to one area and not another and save resources.

I think that was what I meant. Minimizing the texture and selective working with just the MAT Zones you wil have in the final render. Why texture the legs and fee, arms and nhands when all you need is to do a render of a upper body/portrait. If these were able to be more selectively textured using these MAT Zones wouldn't that reduce the file size/render times?

again, only if they had separate maps and you're using P6 or lower.  so on V4, where the arms and legs and hands have separate maps, yes.  on V3 where the whole body had one map, if lots of different material zones for arms and legs, no.

for P7 and up, it wouldn't matter.  it only works with the pieces of the texture it needs at the resolution it needs, or something like that.  that's why they got rid of the max texture size feature.

oh i see. thanks for clarifying this. but you could also remap for separate zones even figures like V3 to forthat couldn't you?

well, you could, but why? that wouldn't be very valuable.  you wouldn't be able to use any of your existing textures for that figure anymore.  texture-wise, it would be a whole new independent figure with all of that Vicky's drawbacks.  and it would be time consuming.

Quote - > Quote - Hi ODF

Nice progress on Antonia. Will the toecaps be parts that can be switched off? and perhaps the brow as well.

Actually, I might leave that one as an exercise for the beta testers. :biggrin:

More seriously, at least two ways of hiding these parts come to mind.

The brows and the toecaps each have their own material group, which can be made completely transparent and hence invisible in renders. I imagine the final figure will come with a default material setup file that will make the toecaps invisible and use either a procedural or a hand-painted transmap on the brows.

If that's not enough, there's always the possibility to make some quick morphs to hide the brows within the head and the toecaps within the foot. The way this interacts with custom morphs will not be completely foolproof. If someone comes up with, say, a morph that turns the feet into hooves, there's a chance the hidden toecap geometry will resurface. But I guess that's not too serious a problem.

Speaking of caps: it just occurred to me that I could make a genital cap in much the same way as the toecaps. That could work well with - possibly see-through - second skin underwear and have the additional advantage of providing a slightly more modest default presentation of the base mesh. Anyone interested?

Thanks. Just wondering. I think it would be cool to have them as parts you could tick invisible/visible. I don't think the Transparency will make that much a difference to render time.
I think you only see a big jump when you introduce transmaps for things such as layered hair.
Also even the high-rez Antonia is fairly low poly so I don't think it will be an issue at all. My main concern there would be for making morphs as you suggested. Could you make the toecaps conforming? I don't really see any reason why not to but I guess there is one.

Quote - [
I think you only see a big jump when you introduce transmaps for things such as layered hair.

depends on what you mean by "like." every time i've added had transparency in my raytraced shadow renders, it's sent my render time through the roof for that area.  from transparent cloth to eyelashes.  but maybe i've only used things that are some how similar.

Quote - Could you make the toecaps conforming? I don't really see any reason why not to but I guess there is one.

I think bagginsbill explained it nicely near the middle of page 24. If the toecaps are part of the mesh and share its grouping, then they inherit all the bending automatically. Also, it's much more likely that morph makers will support them than if they were a separate conforming figure.

The one drawback of course is that now the toecap is neither a figure nor an actor, only a material zone. So Poser doesn't just give us a neat box to check for invisibility. I think for the final figure I'll just support both ways, transparency and morphing, to hide them.

Any opinions so far on that genital cap I  suggested? Who'd use it, who'd hate it? It seems logical to do the same thing there as with the toecaps, but if everyone will just ignore it, I might as well not bother.

Quote - Any opinions so far on that genital cap I  suggested? Who'd use it, who'd hate it? It seems logical to do the same thing there as with the toecaps, but if everyone will just ignore it, I might as well not bother.

The toecaps would be semi-transparent  for stockings, so I can see the utility of them-quite a good idea for those who need them.  However, I guess that I'm not sure what advantage the genital cap  would have over a smooth genital morph, except perhaps to make see-through second skin panties.

Or am I just not imaginative enough? 

Quote - However, I guess that I'm not sure what advantage the genital cap  would have over a smooth genital morph, except perhaps to make see-through second skin panties.

Pretty much that. From what I've seen in my 8 years on this site, I imagine lacy see-through panties will be more sought-after than sexy see-through toecap patterns.

Also, there's some fairly dense geometry in her genitals, so a good smoothing morph might be tedious to make. The cap would have far fewer polygons.

Saving the trouble of making a smoothing morph is actually my favourite argument for the toecaps. The see-through aspect is a nice extra, but I doubt there will be many renders where it makes a big difference. But maybe I'm too unimaginative and people will come up with all kinds of clever applications, such as second-skin sandals.

I'm eagerly waiting for her to be ready!!!

Quote - Just for giggles, I thought I'd share a screenhot of the mesh viewer I'm working on. Eventually, I'm planning to turn that into a toolbox that will allow me to use all the mesh manipulation code I've written over the last few months in a more interactive fashion (and add more stuff that's really hard to control when you're not seeing what you're doing).

I find it incredibly impressive one person can not only conceptualize a figure drawing from the creative side of the brain as well as write code to create applications drawing from the other side of the brain. I am so damn jealous my brain seems so addled in comparison!  :(

/drool She looks so good. Thank you for making her obj available in your file locker my computer is coming this week and I am itching to download her and start making trying to her things in hexagon.

Made the face texture with photo references, used bagginsbill's VSS prop and three lights.
One white, one medium flesh color and one dark flesh color light and rendered with shadows on.

Now I want to work on her body texture, this one is just a flood fill to match face color.

oops, sorry about that, exceeded the size limit for the image.
Edited and here it is.

That looks gorgeous, BluEcho. I almost didn't recognize her. A texture can really make a difference.

The irises seem a tad too bright to me, though. Maybe dial down the specular?

I did some cleaning up on the .cr2 today, so hopefully I'll be able to put it up as a preview soon.

so, just making sure - the version that is in your homepage is the final texture template? i'm currently working on other things, but once i have the time i'd love to try and create a texture for her.

btw, BluEcho, really nice! i love the skin. the eyebrows are a bit off, though.

Quote - so, just making sure - the version that is in your homepage is the final texture template? i'm currently working on other things, but once i have the time i'd love to try and create a texture for her.

The overall layout will definitely stay as it is. If really good reasons for moving a seam a poly or two here or there turn up, I might still do that, though. The best bet is for everyone to keep me posted on their plans and progress and to check back with me before doing any time-consuming detail work. If I know you're working on a texture, I'll definitely not change anything without consulting you.

That tex really looks good, BluEcho! (Though the eyes don't have the realism the rest does.. not just the iris, the whole pupil.) Is the hair postworked, or did you manage to scale something to fit?

odf, is there a nose size morph? As I'm looking at this, it looks to me like the nose is a bit big in relation to the size of the face.

i like the first image better, though it seems to lose a bot of the detail of the texture. a bump map might solve this. anyway, very nice.

odf - i'll let you know when i start working on a texture. :) thanks.

Loving playing with antonia in hex can't wait till she is poser/carrara ready =) here is a little outfit I am started making her.
p.s. sorry for the bad lighting I haven't installed an image editing program yet just got the compy yesterday =)

Also wouldn't it be great if Antonia was the new P8 woman?
Since she introduces many innovations she would be the perfect new official poser girl!

marketing, marketing, marketing!

She certainly is better than the P6 gals and as for being more realistically shaped, she outshines V3 and V4.
Smith-Micro should jump in and make a deal with odf.  :)

But if they did, we would not get to play with her until we purchased P8...ugh.

Compare the arm and leg length, only one I know who's arms and legs are as long in comparison to their body (like the mil gals) is my grand daughter who is only 11 at present.
And that is not actually normal according to the doctor, it's a trait of Marfin's disease, like Abe Lincoln.

Antonia has a more realistic body proportion than any of the Mil-females.

Victoria's arm length has always been an issue for me.  every time i try to put her arms over her head, there's an ungodly amount of space between her head, forearm and upper arm. i usually base poses like that on images. so the errors end up really glaring, and i end up frustrated.

Just curious where should the tips of the fingers when at the sides, come to in a normal man woman child?

is that the only issue? 

it's hard to guess, because all the Victorias are so far from realistic shapes and proportions, but assuming they aren't deliberately making their arms too long, maybe the issue is how long they are in a T-pose isn't the same as where they end up with hands on head.

My wife claims that most people are as tall as the distance from finger tip to finger tip when they stand with their arms stretched straight out. If that is true you could place a figure in a square template to check proportion for arm length. I have noticed that for the most part head and trunk size is the same person to person and people are taller or shorter based on the length of their thighs and shins. I have not figured out how arm length fits into it but it does seem to me that most people's arm length is such that when they put their arms down straight their wrist or palm is in line with their groin...

 momodot— your wife is pretty close. I was within an inch (height vs. arm span) when I measured.

Couldn't a figure be included as part of Poser without it being restricted to poser? After all, the Project Human models (free) come stock with the Poser 7 content, and the included Vanishing Point figures (not free) are also available separately.

Quote - Loving playing with antonia in hex can't wait till she is poser/carrara ready =) here is a little outfit I am started making her.

That looks stunning, aella. Love the style.

Does Carrara work with Poser figures directly or would it take extra work to convert her?

I'm a bit lazy at the moment, but I hope I'll have the .cr2 cleaned up soon so I can upload a first preview/alpha-test of phantom3D's rig. Incidentally, can someone recommend a good hierarchical editor for Poser files? I've been using a normal text editor, but it's always hard to tell where I am. Free or cheap would be good. Something that works with wine or natively on Linux even better.

Quote - She certainly is better than the P6 gals and as for being more realistically shaped, she outshines V3 and V4.
Smith-Micro should jump in and make a deal with odf.  :)

I assure you, I'm not going to make any deals. Well, unless someone offered to buy the mesh as is for 100,000 dollars without asking for any extra work. Something like that. :biggrin: But they'd have to be fast, because once I officially release it under the Creative Commons Attribution license, that's that. They could still pay me, but they wouldn't be able to buy any exclusive rights.

But of course Smith Micro would be able to ship her with P8. Once she's released, they wouldn't even have to ask me.

 Duh! (smacks forehead) "Shoulda had a V8." If it's under the CCA anyone could package it.

So when's P8 coming out, or are we just planning ahead? ;)

I will certainly use Antonia when she's done.

Quote - My wife claims that most people are as tall as the distance from finger tip to finger tip when they stand with their arms stretched straight out. If that is true you could place a figure in a square template to check proportion for arm length. I have noticed that for the most part head and trunk size is the same person to person and people are taller or shorter based on the length of their thighs and shins. I have not figured out how arm length fits into it but it does seem to me that most people's arm length is such that when they put their arms down straight their wrist or palm is in line with their groin...

Yep your wife is right. If you've ever studied Leonardo Davinci's drawings ( who studied human cadavers, so he knew a thing or two about proportions of the human body ) the "wing span" ( finger tip to finger tip in a t-pose) of a person is generally identical or very close to to a persons height. Not always because it can vary from person to person but generally it's a good guide. In some art books I have looked at a typical male is 7.5 to 8  heads tall. and the typical female is 7 to 7.5  heads tall. But for some reason it looks strange in 3d.  Personally I think 7 heads for males and 6.5 for females "looks" more accurate. A lot of 3d figures ( female figures in particular ) exaggerate this by making the hips too high and the shoulders too narrow. It has the effect of making the limbs look much longer than they should be. There's an interesting study by ( IIRC ) some german researchers I stumbled across about human proportions and beauty. The ideal female that most people choose was in between barbie like proportions and the classic 50's era hourglass. The article went on to explain that the ideal woman in medieval time was pretty much the opposite of the 21st century ideal. You can compare Botticelli's birth of Venus to todays Playboy bunnies and supermodels to get the idea. I think marketing has alot to do with what is considered beautiful nowadays.

Anyway I think OFD's proportions for Antonia are spot on and it's nice to see a figure moving away from your typical barbie look. The barbie look can be achieved easier if you want that look through morphs and or scaling and IMO is easier achieved if the proportions are correct in the first place.

Lol. Ok I just checked Antonia in Orthoginal views and it appears she's about 8.5 heads tall. I checked a few other figures and most of them ranged between 9 to 10 heads tall. Strange 8.5 is too tall but she looks right. 9 to 10 is definitely too tall.

It's probably too late to change the basic proportions drastically, but I was planning to build full scaling support into the .cr2. So it should be quite possible to scale the hips and legs down in Poser to obtain more realistic proportions.

I always have to chuckle a bit when people point out how realistic and "normal" she looks when in fact she's still very, very idealized in comparison to an actual person.

It's an illusion of perception caused by either the cameras or the human eye.  The human brain is the determiner of what is acceptable or not in human forms back in the hind-brain.  That is the reason that most human figures in CGI is immediately perceivable as false or defective humans.  It's a survival mechanism, that is VERY hard to fool.

So it looks for idealized mates, as well as defectives. People who are tall and well built and symmetrical are more desirable than people who are skinny or malproportioned .  That's just how the human brain appears to work.

Antonia is idealized, but to our minds as being more real than other proportions due to our hind-brains tricking us into believing it.  It's weird, it's strange, but it IS just an illusion that artists have been using since the Hellenistic Greeks stumbled on to it.

Well, I guess the difference is that the ideal human shape used to be something that lived pretty firmly in our heads. An abstract concept that we compared our potential mates - or more generally our fellow humans - with. But now, thanks to CGI and hardcore photoshopping, we see those ideals wherever we look. And I'm a bit concerned that we're starting to perceive the ideal as the real thing and the actual people around us as flawed.

actually, i've heard that Leonardo had to do a lot of faking to make his diagrams the way he wanted them.  he was more interested in mathematical ideals than pure reality.  this shows in a lot of Renaissance work in general.  i had a course once on visual art and perception, and they showed how lots of things we think of as "correct" in terms of perspective are actually egregiously wrong, but a convention in visual art.  and that a lot of correct stuff will look wrong just because certain POVs are generally avoided in media.

if i had to count heads, i'd do it on a photo reference, not based on an art book or an artist's diagrams.  a first generation copy is always better than the third or fourth.  but then, i think it's much better to acheive realism through being specific and not guessing at "averages," because i think that we (as your average modern citizens) spend much more time looking at manipulated images (and postworked people)  than reality and don't have a strong innate notion of average.

In the above example, her arms are not straight out but bent a bit and that makes a wee difference.
If she were posed arms straight her height/wingspan would seem more equal.
She isn't overly idealized and that is what I like about her.

.

I agree on the bent arms.

As for heads high, that's a much more varying standard of measurement, as people of very different heights generally have head sizes that are very close to the same size.

If anything, Antonia's head may be marginally too small in relation to her body, rather than her being overly tall. But once she's got hair, that will be even less noticeable, too.