Why is it that there are so many nude pictures in the gallery? The obvious answer is because most people seem to like to create nude pictures. But it seems kinda pathetic to me. I go look in the gallery and like more than half of the pictures are nude ones. And the most viewed pictures are nude female ones! Is the purpose of poser and bryce for creating provocative female forms? Perhaps partially, but why is it that most people can't think of a scene more complex than a nude woman lying on a beach or something? Or want to create something else? Bryce and Poser has so much potential yet most of the talent I see displayed here is focused on naked women. I mean it's nice and everything but I sense a sort of obsession with it, which is cool in real-life :-), but when you're trying to create something on the computer, there's so many more possibilities than that. OK, that's just my opinion, try not to hate me for it...

People create what they are moved to create. Many artists are driven by their libido, it's nothing new. -JH.

Here's my take on it, and it jives a little with what Allerleirauh said - tweaking the Poser male is a pain in the butt for me. Hey, Metacreations people, get a girlie on your staff and she'll be able to fix what y'all did wrong, he's ugly! The only Poser male that I've seen whose face I thought was incredible is the one that JKeller put on his Jacketman/Trenchcoat Man. I love the smirks that David Hulbert did for the females, any chance of you doing some for the male figure, Dave? He's got just about as goofy a smile as I've ever seen. Or have I been outta the loop for so long that there's already a morph made for that? hides her face in shame :) WG

I for one would love to see more pictures done without nudity. I am looking to do a Joan of Arc image and she's gonna be fully clothed. No nude pop out parts!

Hi Folks! I think an interesting question is being raised here. I suspect that the majority of active Poser users are males, which may explain somewhat why the female form seems to be the commonly rendered image. But I suspect that a lot of also to do with the challenge of creating a photorealistically beautiful woman on a computer. The myriad of variations possible in body types, hair (cranial as well as pubic), skin tones (tanned and natural), breasts and even genitals (though not permitted at the site) make for a much more compelling session at one's computer than can be had with generating males images. For the last month I've been having a field day creating experimental texture maps for Traveler's Cotton Panties and Clive's Bra objects--and hopefully I'll be able to post a few of the images I've created using them before the end of the year. In short, I think the woman figures are just more fun to render--although I do object to the nudity when it seems gratuitous in context to an overall scene. Just my 2 cents and then some. Peter (Dr. Zik)

As to the 3d sculptors being male, I think that is largely true. I was at Zygote about 6 months ago and almost all of the employees are male. There was a woman who was doing the texture maps and the receptionist/bookkeeper, but I think all the others I saw were male. They were hiring the last I heard, but you'd probably have to move to Provo Utah.

hey, thanks for the responses... I agree that creating custom figures takes skill and if I were to create nude person, I'd much rather create a womaan than a man... But the real thing I'm wondering about is that there's no story that goes with many of the pics. Most simply show a woman and that's it. The challenge and difficulty of modelling of a custom person is not something I dispute, but the complexity I'm talking about is more of the scene itself. Such as atmosphere, mood, surrounding objects, etc... Pictures are supposed to tell a story, but what I see in the gallery are mostly plain images of a single woman, with little interaction with the environment and no story or character profile. When I DO see nice pics that have an setting, they seem to get many less viewings than simple naked ones... that's what's I've wondered about. I hope more people do scenes where different figures interact with each other in a supporting environment... Anyways, that's all I have about this subject. Thanks for listening.

Most of the great artist of the past use the naked body for their work. I don't find this pathetic. I find pathetic all people that thinks that who makes a naked body image is a man or a woman with sexual disease. If you think that anything regarding the sphere of sexual attraction in art is dirty maybe the problem is in you. This my opinion. Al

This thread is going the way of all that mention the use naked women here...no one seems the read the post and get the point. I don't take DarkHound's message to be a rant against naked women...he's trying to get everyone to go further and improve their art. This is equivalent to saying in a Bryce Forum that all the images just show pretty landscapes and have no story...why not add a few people to make it interesting! There's nothing wrong with naked women (or men), but why not have them actually doing something to make it more interesting to the viewer...THIS is the challenge presented to the Forum!

I, personally, have to start with a 'story' unless I'm just creating textures (clothing-I haven't tried any figure textures). My 'Just Flew In' incorporated poser animals with a poser female (clothed) figure set in a Bryce environment I created. I've also done one with a woman and ants-viewed from the ant's viewpoint down beside an ice cream cone. I've done several 'singer' pics-one with a man and a woman, piano, etc.--called the 'Jazz Singer'. I'm a novice Poser/Brycer, but I don't find the clothing difficult at all and, as I say, am one person who has to start with a 'story' to get any creative juices going--unless I'm just seeing what will happen when I 'try this, try that' or am showing off some clothing textures. I have absolutely nothing against nudity, but I have to agree that a good image (and certainly not saying that mine are 'good') needs to have some 'content'. Diane B

I think the whole point is that the theme of naked women is redundant, over-used. "Been there, done that." People want variety, not repetition. After a while, you've seen one picture in this particular theme, you've seen them all. My point on the male figure is, and always has been, that he's NOT ugly, it's merely the texture maps being used. I've made some really gorgeous male Poser guys, and it's all in the texture maps. Blank out the male figure to stark white and look at his face. He has a beautiful facial structure. The cartoonish texture maps that come with MetaCreations is what makes him ugly. So stop insulting the poor Poser guy by calling him a dork because he really isn't. Everyone is so obsessed with creating the perfect woman that Poser guy has been left out. Poser gal would be a dork, too, if she had on the wrong texture map. Nuff said! Melanie

By the way, if you would like to see an example of some of my great Poser guys, check out the gallery in my web site at http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Atrium/8165 I've used photographs of real faces in the texture maps and that makes all the difference. Also, the hair makes the man. The dorky hair MC supplies with Poser for the male figure is pretty sad. Melanie

you're correct in that too, Melanie. I personally find the Poser guy not ugly at all. I haven't tried any texture maps for him yet but have worked with others' maps, morphed him a bit and he's okay. Your maps look great and I hope others will create and share some of these. When I get back in 10 days or so I am going to try your tips for creating some maps for him, but so far I haven't come across any frontal face images of any men other than some teeny ones in some catalogs. Where, pray tell, do you find yours? Diane B

Fox is currently working on T-Map for the guy atm. (and all the test renders I've seen so far is putting it the best I've ever seen for a male. He's spending alot of time matching the seams and getting rid of 'em totally.) Anyways, he said the best place he found for full frontal pics of males, is gay sites. Ali

Diane, I've been using celebrity pictures. Whenever I run across one on the Internet or in a magazine or wherever, I just grab it and try it. The full frontal pics are hard to find, but when I run into them, I go for it. I have one of Tim Curry (complete with beard), Brendan Fraser, Richard Chamberlain, Michael T. Weiss, and Stone Phillips, and these all work pretty well. I don't particularly care if they end up looking like that particular celebrity, I just want the realistic shapes to the eyebrows, lips, etc., as well as the little flaws like facial lines, creases on the forehead and under the eyes. It works! Ali, I don't have any problem with the eyebrows at all. The texture map covers up the ones on the figure and the orinal ones don't even show. Melanie

There is a morph on Morph World for making the brows thinner and I'm hoping Traveler will make a 'smooth brow' like the one for the women--which works extremely well. Melanie, I'll look for these. I don't care either if they look like whoever, I just want to create a good looking texture. I'll be gone for 10 days now so won't have a chance to look for any or try some, but am looking forward to trying it out soon. Diane

Traveler has made a smooth brow morph for the Poser guy. I don't know if he has posted it yet or not. http://www.darksouls.com/traveler

Wyrwulf, couldn't find the smooth brow morph yet. I have all the male face paks-in fact, just dl'd the last one when I got his newsletter this past week. I was hoping he had posted the smooth brow, but guess I'll have to wait. Diane B

Back to the issue at hand... regarding female nudes... I don't think that an artistic image has to have a story. Part of the challenge is making an image that evokes a response from the viewer and causes THE VIEWER to create the context. There are many world famous photographers who are known for their nudes... and the images are often "bodyscapes" with no inherent environmental context. Light, shadow, texture and pose can tell the story. Drawing a parallel... I once photographed a "landscape" that had no land in it. It is a photograph of a sunrise over water. The "arctic seasmoke" made the water all but invisible. The only physical object is a small sillhouette of a boat in the lower foreground. Other than that, there is a complete lack of physicality to the photograph. It is nothing but color and texture. One would think that it would not be successsful as a photograph, but it has been published nationally and has sold many prints. My point is that, done right, images (including nudes) can evoke a sense of story without physical, environmental context. I have seen Poser images that succeed in this way... as well as many that do not. -ScottK

Right again, Scott. I guess I'm meaning 'content' but said 'story'. My own work (non-computer graphics) is all about color, light, pattern and I hope to evoke a response, but there's no 'story', but-- hopefully-- 'content'. I have to admit that, being a new Poser/Bryce user, I'm still learning the 'tools', let alone being able to do something substantial with them yet. Diane B

Well..for myself personally, I like to render the artwork and the figures. I cannot model, I can't create my own clothes..I can't create my own props. so I have to use what is out there. Therefore, once I start to deviate even a little from the norm, I run into numerous problems. As long as I take a model of a poser woman, or man, and decide I want it to be more muscular, or taller..or shorter..and then try to conform clothes to that..and pose it..it becomes next to impossible to work with. That is the single most frustrating thing in Poser, to actually USE the clothes the way clothes shoudl eb use, and to use Conform to figure likewise. I think if the conform to figure for a piece of clothing, sees that part X,Y and Z are scaled etc. then the clothing should scale proportionately..but that doesn't happen. So, its a fact that modelling, posing, and rendering naked models, male or female..is easier. Also, there are numerous props, textures, hair etc. available for the female models. I simply can't find this variety for the male models..so whether I want to or not, I have to use the female models (since again I can't create my own meshes). Also, I import my posed Figures into Bryce to render. Have you ever checked how difficult it is to bring a figure with conformed clothing into Bryce?? So again..it is the ease with which the nude models can be rendered and manipulated. I'm sure if using clothing was easier, then people would use clothes more on their models. The second reason I believe, is that naked women interest us. They interest both men and women, more so than naked men :) Women look at htem sometimes to criticise smirk or to dream they look like that. Men view them because its..stimulating. Simple human nature and drives. The images I've done and posted, for the most part, involve clothed women, which is why I know how hard it is to clothed the figures :))

astewart, are you using B4? I haven't had trouble importing clothed figures-its a little tedious sometimes, but not hard. If you haven't yet, look at Spike's tutorial on his page-don't have the URL right now, but he participates in this forum and you can ask or find it in the tutorial section, I would think.

hee hee ooh I've read the tutorial, and I've done that more or less for a few models..but again..its not straight forward. I still affirm that there should be a BRYCE option in the export section of Poser.. or a Poser Import in Bryce. Why the heck this wasn't included for easy work between the two programs is beyond me :)

Spike's tutorial is here: http://www.mindspring.com/~zonefive/ However: the biggest difficulty is in the selection of parts to texture. For those who seem to have no problem with Bryce 4 automatically loading textures - well, it's no problem. Bryce 4 does not seem to load the Poser textures automatically for me (not for lack of trying). It applies the colors from the .mat file, but never asks for the location of the texture file and never applies it. I don't know if this is a bug affecting the mac platform, or if it's something else... and I haven't yet had a chance to download the patch to see if that corrects the problem. -ScottK

I don't use the figure as textured anyhow. I reassign textures-often the same ones, but I can adjust them in the material lab. I select the pieces/parts by using cntrl/click and holding down shift as I select until I get all the ones I want-then I assign them a color and a name. From that point, its easy to keep tweaking them. Sometimes I decide that the figure texture isn't what I want after I spray render and I can then choose another-or other ones for the clothing too. And--you can apply transmaps for eyelashes and such this way. It IS a bit tedious, but once you sort of get the hang of selecting this way, it doesn't take too much time. Diane B

Yup..but wouldn't it be great if you could set up the groups in Poser..and then export to bryce with those groups? :) What I did for the Jolie Fairy figure, was to select the things aroudn the main figure..like the wings, the antennae and the hair, and group those seperately. I was saved by the fact that although the texture map made a Clothed female figure, the figure itself didn't have some sort of seperate clothing added ontop it :) So I just locked the wings and such in Bryce, then did a big rectangle select..and VOILA! I had the Jolie figure itself, arms, legs, head etc. and could manipulate the textures that way. But..again ..its time consuming..and what I mean is that it doesn't have to be time consuming like that, with a bit of coding on Metacreations part. Face it, the majority of people on this Forum who render stuff in Bryce, go from a Poser figure, arranging props clothing etc..and textures and coloring..then Export TO Bryce..for the final rendering. Since this is such a common task for the artists who use thier product..I seriously think that Metacreations should consider adding some Bryce specific functionality to the export functions in Poser4 :)

Hmmmmm...maybe all the Bryce trouble is because it's a Landscape program? A real 3D program could make all these troubles disappear. (sorry, HAD to say that...non-Bryce user) Foxhollow (who really thinks all you Bryce users do an amazing job extending the program's intended use!)

Really? Is it that much easier to import clothed figures from Poser into say..3D Studio Max? I would think that you run into the same problems with selecting meshes and creating your own groups..and then adding textures individually in 3D STudio, that you would in Bryce. Someone correct me if I'm wrong :) And most people do use Bryce as a landscape program..to add terrains etc and an environment in which to place thier Poser models..:)

In Max it's very easy to select pieces of a mesh and separate them if desired. I have most things already textured in Poser and import clothes as a single mesh..then just apply the same texture, bump, transparancy maps...whatever. meshes can also be brought in in pieces...the same ones Poser uses..collar, shoulder, etc. Most all full 3D applications can do this easily, as that's what their meant to do. I didn't mean to be scarcastic about Bryce, but it's a specialized program and it's functions are designed for it's specific intention...not as a general 3D editor.

I agree with everyone:)