This is a render of Victoria 4.2:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2157914

The problem is that I'm struggling to get past a very basic render. How can I produce something like this:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1974425&user_id=61047&member&np

I would like to find out what I need to spend money on and what books and specific tutorials are useful. I'm not really looking for tutorials on how to use Poser. I just want to improve the quality of models and renders.

I have Poser Pro 2010.

Any words of wisdom is well appreciated.

Rush over the Bagginsbill's site, download VSS (free) and learn how to use it.

The VSS home page is here.

Laurie

also grab his envirosphere.

Quote - also grab his envirosphere.

Which is here....lol.

Laurie

and get the left handed skyhook in yellow........

You'll also need a better texture set and lighting.  To keep with the bagginsbill theme that's forming here, you could check out his Soft Studio Lighting tutorial scene.  It's available here:

http://sites.google.com/site/bagginsbill/free-stuff/tutorial-scenes

And be patient. It won't be long until you'll be rendering like the pro's.  And keep posting questions here at the forum.  It's a quick way to get help.

You shouldn't assume that everything you see in the galleries here is a pure Poser render either, most are not, and some are heavily postworked.

I found the Geek at play and the Lynda .com tutorials to be very handy in getting to know A LITTLE about each room

I wrote a lot in your other thread so I won't go into it here again--for the most part.

Just don't go out and buy textures, there are beautiful ones here (see your other post).

Get the V4.2 morphs ++ from DAZ, with those you can make 1000s of different faces and body shapes.

Hair, try those from Poser 6's Jessie (they all work just fine on all vickies and Poser figures).

and about lighting, YEP, lighting is about 75% of a good rendering IMVVHO.  I would start out  with three, one your infinite light, one your IBL, and one point light.  The point light is used for fill and perhaps back lighting and turn off shadows on all but your infinite lighting---for now!.  Other shadows are used inside of buildings because of more than one light.  Outside, in the daytime, we have only one (okay if you have a mirror, you could have another very, very faint one) here on Earth.  Jan

Lighting depends a lot on your scene and what you are trying to achieve. For portrait or pinup work I would try a basic 3 light setup with spotlights. One is a main light, one a side fill and one a back light. Its the same setup a photographer would use. 

Skin textures are important, so find a nice one or use bills vss system.  There are a few free skin textures that are better than the Daz sample texture.

A simpler to use and more configurable solution to more realistic skin is here:

http://market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=71922

I use it in almost every render I do. It's almost infinitely configurable via a simple, slider interface.

in addition, get some hdri somewhere, learn how to use d3d FFrender script, and have on hand maxwell render, lux render, carrara, vue, max, maya, lightwave, c4d or similar, in case poser render is slow, crashes or looks bad. YMMV.

And use raytracing.

Quote - And use raytracing.

OMG Yes!

Use good quality texture maps. Perhaps most important of all is your lighting, look for Poser lighting tutorials, also study photographic lighting. Also learn to use a paint program like Paint Shop Pro, Photo Shop, or Gimp. Post-work can play an important part, it can be used to change the contrast, gamma, clarity, sharpness, colour cast, and other variables. Also the joints in Poser figures are far from perfect, and often need some attention in post-work, smudge, smooth, and clone brushes are useful for that. I suspect that fygomatic does quite a lot of post-work on his images.

I don't use Poser as much as other apps, but there are a couple of things that are important for good renders regardless whether you use Poser, DS, or Maya. Like others have said;

Lighting, lighting, lighting - that is the most important thing. Without good lighing the best modeling, textures, and posing work in the world will look bad.

Morphs++ and a good texture set for V4

Save your money until you understand Poser little bit more know what you really want to do with it - Only buy stuff that you WILL use. I'm sure there are some great products out there to help you on your way, but it's easy to buy more than you need.

Oh, did I mention lighting?? You can find a lot of help here by searching the old threads, and by asking new questions. I'm still fairly uncomfortable with the lighing in Poser, but I can say from experience if you keep learning ang trying, ramain patient, eventually you will get the results you desire.

Good Luck!!!!

Everthing the other folks said.  However, if you are looking to get 'Hayden' or any of the other 'realistic' faces of real people, you should go to DeviantArt and read the short description by Fygomatic concerning his technique of modeling and texturing.  It is in the comments section of his gallery.  Then you will need the two elements you cannot buy (at least I cannot--time and talent).

I think the guy is amazing.

hi

I can tell you how I do it, still learning too.

1. Poser is about virtual photography, so I spend quite some time studying just that. Books on lighting, camera-work, framing, and I still spend time on the photographs in the Rendo galleries. Stroll the net, visit professional gallery sites from fashion to indoor studios to playboy. Not for the interviews, but for the lighting.

2. walk the tutorials in CGArena, CGSociety, 3DTotal, check the e-magazines: free CGArena, cheap 3d Creative, etc. Use the magazine summaries (like on my www.artbeeweb.nl site) and more to launch you in any direction.

3. take one step at a time. Go for proper lighting, camera and posing first (take the Rianeli photos for example), then extend to mild clothing (take the Fand photos). Then learn materials (Bagginsbill is King) then warp yourself into Hair and Cloth Dynamics. 

4. post your work, explicitely ask for constructive comments in your text, and thank the ones giving it. The issue is: everyone except yourself can post in your gallery-entry only once. So it might be handy to post in the gallery, and open a threat in the Crtitiques Forum as well. there you can have dialogues and so.

Welcome to the club.

I wasn't expecting advice this good so quickly.

I have used some of the advice and produced and uploaded a new image:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2158222

Thank you all so much.

If you want to create something like that, learn how to use photoshop.

or there's Paint-Net (free) which is a reasonable Photoshop clone.

I see you have lots of advice already, but I'm going to add mine.

You have just started out using Poser, and to be honest, it will be months and months, maybe years before you produce anything of that quality using Poser.  Yes, it's a huge learning curve to get beyond the basics in Poser.

And as someone else mentioned, just because the application mentioned in a gallery upload states "Poser" it doesn't mean that the whole image was done inside Poser and then uploaded.  A good percentage are post worked inside a graphic program first, and then uploaded.  The fact that it says Poser really means nothing because when you upload you are required to pick ONE application that you used in the image.

Poser is really a step process.  There are the basics such as loading a figure, adding clothing, adding a premade pose, premade lights and pressing "render".  Anyone can do that.

Set some goals of elements you want to learn: IE: shadows, lights, reflections, posing, placement, expressions........etc

Then make it your mission with each image you create to add at least one of those elements, and to pay extra attention to that single one element that you are trying to master. 

Don't overwhelm yourself by trying to learn everything at once, because you will just get frustrated.

Learn in layers. Scenes are built from a series of elements that come together as a whole.  Think of these elements as layers.

Concentrate on one element and work hard on learning that one, even though the other elements may not be up to your vision. They will be in time :)

Once you are comfortable with that one element and have a good feel and are getting decent results that you are relatively happy with, with that one element, then work hard on a second element, while still incorporating that first element into it.

For example when I was learning lights, I spend months and months making images and concentrating on nothing but my lighting. I still used relections and the material room etc, but my efforts went into working on the lighting in my scene.  As a result I'm pretty comfortable making my own lights now. No near a master, but I am adequate enough with lights that I can usually get what I want from lighting in my scene.

Once you dealve into the material room and cloth room, those are even higher learning curves because they are entirely separate "rooms" with their own dynamics.  Not too many people "master" the material room. I know of only a handful in the Poser community that I consider to be "gurus" of that room. Bagginsbill being at the top of the list. He's been studying that room for years and I don't think there is anything that he can't accomplish because he knows it inside out.

I can't wait to see your furture images and watch you grow. 

Another tip.  Never delete an image from your gallery. Use the first ones as a guage to your growth.  This time next year you'll be uploading master pieces!!

Here is my 2cents:

You do not really need to buy anything at the beginning.

Just use V4.2, the basic lights (start with one, you will see how it can be great!).

The most important thing is to not use the preset renders Poser is proposing. They simply sucks!

You can try to re-render the same image you have posted simply changing the Renders parameters:

• Use Raytracing

• Use displacement maps

• increase pixel samples

This options will help to have better definition of details, such us skin and shadows.

It is important to know that the standard skin of V4.2 is not high definition, so it will never seems like real skin.. but it can be good to start.

Learn how to position lights, and how to use them at best. There are lot of tuts here around bout lights.

Sometimes I find useful to set the Texture filter off. This is good specially with hairs. To do this you have to use a phyton which is included in Poser (file - run phyton) under the runtime folder (search for it, is called TextureFilter.py).

I am far to be a pro.. but I think that you can really improve from the beginning with some small tips.

Ciao!

Thanks for the responses.

Quote - Don't overwhelm yourself by trying to learn everything at once, because you will just get frustrated.

Acadia, that was how I have been feeling from when I got Poser a few months ago until yesterday. Looking at the comments, lighting and improving on photomanipulation seem to be 2 good areas to focus on first.

Where could we buy the above characters by fygomatic?

for closeups of the face set the focal length of the camera to over 80 ie  maybe 110

Quote - Where could we buy the above characters by fygomatic?

I don't believe he sells them. There may be some issues there with permissions and what not since his characters look so damn much like the real person....hehe.

Laurie

If you want to make pictures that are similliar to Fygomatics work, then I think photoshop tutorials is the thing you are looking for. I think Fygomatics work is based more on photoshop skills than on poser knowledge.  Nothing wrong with that, in my opinnion, it's the end results that matter and clearly fygomatic's end results are impressive.

  Wow, it's a good thing I noticed this thread earlier.

Terrymcg: My stuff is based more on photoshop? Here's some examples of my raw render from multiple angles. And people from the DAZ forum can probably recall me posting other examples last year.

http://excalibur.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1966112
http://fygomatic.deviantart.com/art/purple-summer-168581993

   I spent years learning to model, texture and refine my workflow. My chararacters often take monthes. I'll be damned if someone is going to try and minimize that out of ignorance.

@fygomatic: Where could we buy your character?

Try posting @ Deviantart.

imagination304: Thanks, I'm not selling my characters at the moment though.**
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Quote - imagination304: Thanks, I'm not selling my characters at the moment though.**
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Shame! They are very beautiful!

Quote - imagination304: Thanks, I'm not selling my characters at the moment though.**
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but please please please think about it in the future fygo, we are all envious of your talent (well I certainly am! ) :D

Quote - > Quote - imagination304: Thanks, I'm not selling my characters at the moment though.**

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but please please please think about it in the future fygo, we are all envious of your talent (well I certainly am! ) :D

 

It's always a slippery slope with celebrities since most have their likeness copyrighted ;o).

Laurie

Quote - It's always a slippery slope with celebrities since most have their likeness copyrighted ;o). Laurie

I've seen lots of celeb lookilikies in the RMP/DAZ. Angelina and seven of nine characters spring to mind.  I suppose you have to be careful as some would use it in certain art genres, which the celeb wouldn't appreciate.

You've come to the right place for answers. If you have specific questions, I reccommend putting them in the titles of your threads and you'll see helpful answers come pouring in.

Here is a handy lighting reference for lighting and colors:

http://www.castironflamingo.com/tutorial/lightreference/index.html

Laurie

Quote -   Wow, it's a good thing I noticed this thread earlier.

Terrymcg: My stuff is based more on photoshop? Here's some examples of my raw render from multiple angles. And people from the DAZ forum can probably recall me posting other examples last year.

http://excalibur.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1966112
http://fygomatic.deviantart.com/art/purple-summer-168581993

   I spent years learning to model, texture and refine my workflow. My chararacters often take monthes. I'll be damned if someone is going to try and minimize that out of ignorance.

My sincere apologies. I really meant no offence.  I was looking at how you did the hair and the backgrounds and came to the conclusion that a lot of work was done in photoshop.  Plus the postwork as well.  Don't you need photoshop skills as well to do the textures, that you do?

The only thing I meant was that, if someone wanted  to create artwork similliar to yours, then they needed to master other applications as well and have other skills as well.

I really didn't mean to belittle your work in any way.

Thanks for the comments guys!
Terrymcg: Thanks, no problem. Part of the confusion was when people refer to my "work", they're usually referring to my characters. I see what you're saying now and agree.