Quote - Why so MANY? It's not an elephant's trunk, is it?

:scared: It can't pick up coconuts from the ground can it?  If so...he might be to much man for normal people!:laugh:

Damn good thing I didn't have a mouthful of soda on this one. ROFLMAO

Phantom, this is absolutely amazing work. Brad has come a long way since I last saw your work with him.

May he live long and prosper. :)

Thanks for all the kind comments.

DP, I will definitely do that. And no low rez at this time, I have one very similar that is about half the poly's of this one, but much has changed in the meantime. However I can easily remove poly's from this one once the UVs are done and preserve the UV's.

Hi Cage, The differences are much in the mesh but I have refined the rig as well. The past ones were basically ideas I was working on with many different rigs in various states of completion, each with a particular thing or part I liked and saved. What I have done with this final one is to take all those things and tranfer the best to this single rig (transfering JP's etc) And worked out a mesh that reacts the way I wanted.

Good idea pjz99, momodot. I think that is the best idea for the gens. I will try the render with the smoothing on and see what it does.

Hi masha, good to see you. I will still put out something lower rez.

Hi Believable3D, thanks, yes he has, I have just been quietly working on him. Surprising to me how much he has progressed over time. I almost gave up if not for some people behind the scens who pushed me. Which brings me to a topic I wished to raise.

I want to publically thank Antonio Rodriguez, for his support from the start while I have an audience who may listen. Recently there has been some mean spirited attempts to portray all of his web sites as "Gay porn oriented" which can do alot of damage financially to a fledgling site. Brad is hosted at PoserAddicts2, and neither PoserAddicts or Digital Males are "Gay porn oriented" Both sites are family friendly sites much the same as this one. Now, not to say that I am against gay porn or the gay community, I certainly am not. But I wished to set the record straight where I have the oportunity. Antonio has given me alot of support over the years and pushed me to continue.

Brad will be offered free, and I will sell other things for him, morphs etc

Well tonight I am going to work on the hands, scaling etc. I will post some progress pics in a bit.

Cheers,
Mike..

 They are SUPPOSED to be GAY PORN SITES?!?!?!?

I had no idea. I am SO out of the loop........:laugh:  Sometimes my own level of ignorance surprises even me.

THAT is hard to do, too!:lol:

"Brad will be offered free, and I will sell other things for him, morphs etc"

As of course will be my remap of him.
dph

In the first pic: you need to make sure your center is aligned along the axis of the finger so it sits square with the finger. In this case it's the X axis (the length ) of the finger. once that is done set up the Xscaling of the finger.

In the second Pic:  full scale the finger and for the first joint set up your falloff zones so it scales smoothly into the hand without effecting the other fingers. adjust the x scaling again to get smooth even spacing of the poly's.

In the third pic make sure that your knuckles involved in bending still have closely spaced polys and adjust the centers again for correct bend placement (shouldn't be much.)

In the fourth pic: you see that even with very large scaled fingers you can still get decent bends maybe a small JCM is apropriate for the scaled joints.

Now with the fingers set up individually you can also scale the fingers independently of the hand. Cool? 

cheers,
Mike.

 All hail the alien fingers! Now you can give the finger and mean it!:laugh:  Very cool stuff.

This looks very good, so much better then most other figures bend. Great work, Phantom.

Quote - Finger scaling..............Yuk touchy stuff.  With the fingers if you want to scale them individually and not just with the propagating scale of the hand you need to set up the smooth scaling for the finger segments.

In the first pic: you need to make sure your center is aligned along the axis of the finger so it sits square with the finger. In this case it's the X axis (the length ) of the finger. once that is done set up the Xscaling of the finger.

In the second Pic:  full scale the finger and for the first joint set up your falloff zones so it scales smoothly into the hand without effecting the other fingers. adjust the x scaling again to get smooth even spacing of the poly's.

In the third pic make sure that your knuckles involved in bending still have closely spaced polys and adjust the centers again for correct bend placement (shouldn't be much.)

In the fourth pic: you see that even with very large scaled fingers you can still get decent bends maybe a small JCM is apropriate for the scaled joints.

Now with the fingers set up individually you can also scale the fingers independently of the hand. Cool? 

cheers,
Mike.

I'll be very interested to see if you can get a semi realistic thumb motion going. I don't know any figures out there that are rigged anywhere close to  human movement in the thumb department.

The more I see your rig jobs the more I think that  Other figure makes should just pay you to rig their figures lol.

Well straightened up the center for the leg a bit worked out the crease a little better. I start setting up scaling for the hip- abdomen- chest tomorrow. Ugh lots of contrary things happening all in the same spots. 

A Pic of the leg crease.:  Almost normal looking, maybe just a small JCM and it should be good.

 That is really impressive looking for NO JCMs!  Hellfire. Most figures can't get that good WITH JCMs!

Thumb 1(on MY hand) comes off my hand at about 12-22 degrees in a relative Y axis and the Thumb 2 joint is ROTATED from that in a relative Z axis of about  between 35 and 45 degrees.

That makes it different than any othe joint set-ups on the body When the "Thumb Bend ERC" is used in the real world (so to speak!)  the tip of the thumb should come down right over the center of the palm.  NO poser figure I am aware of has EVER done that!

If you do this, I might faint.  I'd be REALLY impressed. It might not be possible, but I don't accept it any more than you might take it at face value. :laugh:

Is there anything in the rigging/UV mapping that might make it difficult for clothing or other content creators?
What about hands-on in the pose room - any quirks that will call for a different approach when posing Brad?
Just thinking out loud.

Great work Mike!

carodan:  I dont think so, but I have never really made any clothes. There are two separate rigs for the same figure and you can pick the one you want to use. They both use the same geometry and even the same JP's. But one of them is very much like Antonias rig (my favorite) the other is more conventional and very much like the new P8 figures. I put out an example of this "plain" rig with the extra ab actor some 8 months or so ago. Anyway I have continued to develop both rigs. But I don't see any problems for clothing. I am sure I will have no trouble making clothes for him.  :)

As for posing, yes they do pose differently as they must and should, considering figures of the past have never worked to my sastisfaction I chose not to make the same mistakes.  :biggrin:

Hi Les. Thanks. You remember some months back  Iasked for advice on the building of the mouth?**  **well thanks to you,  ockham and others Brad has a great working mouth.  :)

There will need to be a JCM morph still for the lips to deform properly with the open mouth but It all works like a charm.

Pic 1: Open mouth you can see where there will need to be a JCM.
Pic2: same side. Do you think the chin needs to fall back more? I think maybe.
pic3: jaw side to side.
pic4: Jaw twist though I dont think the human jaw actually does that but hey could be used for a monster.:biggrin: 

pic1 Jaw scale
pic2 same from side.
pic3 The mouth still works perfectly  even when scaled.
pic4: Withe all the various scaling option you will be able to create some pretty interesting characters without ever touching a morph.

carodan: as to posing, put it this way, he can do all of James poses with very little adjustment.

Only issue I have with the mouth, is its rigged inaccurately. The jaw actually is hinged and rotates open. You have it translating down to open, something used in the Mummy movies for that "huge open mouth" look.

Odds are, your centerpoint is fine. Try using the rotation instead of just translation.. the results might be more what you were shooting for.

You can keep the translation for exaggerated effects, like in the mummy movies.

Yes.

I find with most figures currently, you can't get the mouth open very wide. But doing it this way gets it open wide, but it doesn't look real due to the factor Gareee mentioned.

I'm still amazed at those joints though. You just get better and better.

What do you think, better befor or better now? Somewhere in between?.

Like I said I still need a JCM for the lips to deform properly. I want to get the center right first :)

I understand the jaw to be a little more complicated than a basic hinge, but in any case, your hinge center is wrong.

The hinge center point is in line with the ear-nose line, not the teeth/jaw line. Move the center up to the cheek bone, and the back teeth will separate more.

http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.aspx?Id=1486

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporomandibular_joint

The problem I'm seeing, Phantom is that the sides of the wide open mouth are a long vertical stretch. I don't think I've ever seen an IRL mouth do that.

I think thats what he meant by needing a jcm for the lips.

BB is right as well.. Phantom, look at a picture of a skull, and see where the jow bone meets up with the skull... thats about where you want your jaw center to be located.

If you have the daz skeletons, they are very well rigged, anatomically.

Oooh! @%@%$***** You are right! Absolutely, what was I thinking. :)  I dont have the Daz skeletons, I've just been wingin it. Thanks for the links. I'll try that position. Bet it works better.  :)

Outstanding work Phantom, really, really well done.

Hi  BloodRoseDesign thank you.

Well after looking at those links and watching-feeling my own jaw, I see the jaw isnt really fast attached to anywhere.  The ** Temporomandibular Joint** actually slides forward while the
** Mandible** (or corner of it) slides back so the pivot point, if there is one, will be in between those two.
Or perhaps more accurately twin rotation points in use at different times.

I'm not sure how to do that in P4-7 perhaps with a double bone and joint limits. with one bone taking over after the first stops.

In P8 this could very easily be achieved with the DP. Perhaps some erc in P4-7 may achieve the same effect. Or just say to hell with it and place a single joint somewhere inbetween the two, maybe a little inaccurate but certainly much less complicated.

 well I seem to remember you did that with a hip joint in your early experiments with this and it looked quite good.
Love esther

Hi Esther :)

Yes, but in this case setting up poly groups (body groups) for something like that would be an absolute nightmare. Dang wish Poser had weight mapping.......:)

How could I miss this thread until now? No fair!

Mike, this is very impressive. I am jealous at your skills. Brad will be an amazing figure, and when he's ready, I think I he and Antonia will have to take some excursions to regions of the web I'd rather not mention here. :sneaky:

Hi odf :)
Missed ya.

I have been thinking for Antonia :) I have a second rig for Brad (he basically has two rigs.) It is a trimmed down version of the Antonia rig, which he also uses. More conventional and uses the same JP's and body parts as the one with hip handle except just straight rigging. I want to make one for Antonia. It's just an extra Cr2 that uses the same geometry.

I had an idea too since the second rig is alot like the new P8 rigs, with a few body parts renamed it could likely use many of the P8 figure pose files. Well, just thinking.

Yes Antonia and Brad :) Brad is pretty high poly :( I could never get a decent low poly obj for him that worked the way I wanted. I dont know how you do that odf, figuring out where to put those 5 edge points is the worst. and what extra poly's you need and which you dont. So I'll try it backwards lol. I am going to try removing poly's from this obj and check it as I go  to see which ones adversely effect the deformation, and which ones are ok to take out.

cheers,
Mike.

If you could generate a lo-poly version for me to use for only remapping him, which could then be regenerated into the full poly version, that too would be OK by me.  The lo-poly doesn't have to deform for me to map it, just so long as it'd usable for generating am M3 style UV for the regular full figure.
dph

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What's your modeler Mike? I'm sorry if you've said before. I haven't gotten round to reading the entire thread yet ;o).

BTW, nice work :o).

Laurie

 There IS one other important thing to consider in a low poly figure--CLOTHES! You don't NEED a lot of muscle definition when the figure is clothed! So when clothes are on, figure where the polys WILL NOT be seen first.

The gens can just be shape of the hip. Chest and feet would be second, then legs and upper arms.  Face and hands could still have a good poly count, but you can really eliminate polys where the sun doesn't shine. Literally.

When making figures, it seems to me, that you modelers forget that the figure you're working on in MOST renders will be clothed! It's nice to have good looking figures, but they will end up clothed most of the time.

No clothes use also means little figure use.  Does this make sense?

JOELGLAINE:  Well thats true, but Brad has no clothes, so I think he may need to pimp himself out in the porn business for awhile to get a hold. :scared:

But I have gobs and gobs of meshes, many low poly. (literally hundreds of them) This one is 15K complete with teeth and gens.

Going by the Poser standards of the day, I'd say 15k was low poly ;o).

Laurie

 oh don't take too many polys out of the high poly version - he loks so good and I love his muscle definition.
Love esther

Looking at the 1st render, from the density of the mesh, I'd say that he's almost as 'bloated' V4.  The 15K looks reasonable.  When you're ready, send me an email: dphoadley2@yahoo.com
dph

 bloating is okay.  I'm saving for a 64 bit puter and poser pro 2010 will be entirely 64 bit when it comes out.
Love esther

High poly-low poly....................advantages and disadvantages for both.  People want gads of dialable morphs and versatility. (one of the biggest complaints about non daz figures remember?) And they want low resource intensive figures (this usually equates to low poly in peoples minds)

Well folks, you cant have both. If you want gads of morphs, you need the poly's to do it.  And displacement maps are not a replacement for morphs by the way, and take at least as much if not more in resources as a decent morph or two. And they are not pick and choose dialable, sorry.

If you want a small resource imprint, fast figure that you can get many of them in a scene, if thats most important, then low poly's for you. There will be limited things you can do with it, but many you cannot do with high poly.

And so the advent of seperate versions of the same figure. One high poly, one low poly, trying to sastisfy everyone. An impossibility in my veiw. The low poly people will want all the bells and whistles of the high poly figure, and the high poly people will want all the advantages of a low resource figure. They'll tear you to shreds and eat you alive no matter which way you go. (metaphorically I hope :) 

I will explain why I am putting out a high poly figure first. Number one, he has nothing to start out with but what ever I can make. Well, I do know of one area of 3D where all he needs is to look good  naked, have plenty of morphs, and some good textures. :)

Two, he is a male figure with limited appeal to niche groups even in the afor mentioned area of 3D. So I dont ever expect many to  support him. I am gratefull for what I can get. Low poly or high poly, few people want or will support a male figure. And dont point to Apollo, people supported Anton, not Apollo, and I am no Anton, no charisma you see.

So anyone who cant live with  a 60-70K figure is going to be dissapointed, but there it is. As I have said though I will develop a much lower versionof the same mesh, maybe backwards but the same result.

cheers,
Mike.

 quote:- "they'll tear you to shreds and eat you alive"  
I promise not to.  I am really excited about this figure. I'm sure he'll get support.
Love esther

I actually agree with you Mike. You have those who say displacement maps are the way to go. Yep, they can look very, very good. But they look better if they themselves are high rez. Put a few of those on your figure and you're taxing your resources like you would if the figure had a higher poly count.

I see the arguments from both sides. There's great importance in a good texture. There's also the same importance in a good mesh. It's a very delicate dance to balance them both ;o). I like denser meshes simply because they look better - the same reason I like a higher resolution texture. But then again, when I do an image, it's not normally of a crowd of people either ;o). There's always gonna be those folks who do images with either crowds or animation where a denser mesh isn't really optimal. Unfortunately, that means two meshes to suit everyone. But as the saying says, you can't please all of the people all of the time. That's where I say you shouldn't try. Do what you wanna do and if others like it, they'll follow ;o).

Laurie

 Please yourself first and then worry about other people. YOU have to be true to YOUR vision. If you aren't happy...life is too short to worry about what other people do or don't think.

That's my 2 centavos on it.

What do you think of this. The shoulder twist? Usually in this pose the collar is all twisted, and I checked and my collar does not twist much at all if any, it's all in the arm and shoulder.  So I did away with collar twist since I have set up my shoulder to handle that bend instead of the collar.

I think it looks more natural. What do you think?  

Looks like I need to reposition the ankle center too.