Then one Poser figure could be imported and Vue will grow different posed figures from it and "plant" them in a scene as background characters to populate a city sidewalk/street for example.

I just was thinking about this while "air-brushing" a Poser figure onto my scene as an eco.

too complex I think :( Poser is a pig of a system, horribly complex, hence all the hassles we get

I love fantasy not Real Life art, so if they chos enot ot use Poser, and a more stable Ccustom system. would they make sets of all kinds of fantasy/historic clothes and armour for these figures? no use to me otherwise.
or what if someone else wants 1920s New York? 1960s Uganda or Paris? contemporary for Arc-Viz?

see the problem? the idea DOES have merit though :) but to implement it???

certianly post it to E-On's Feedback centre! hey if you don't ask you for what you want, can never complain about them not giving what you want since they won't know! ;)

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/support/FeedbackCenter.php?JavaScriptOK=1296308551&FromPage=15

Would be fun, though, huge left arm, no right arm, three gnarly legs....Solidgrowth style!

I use Poser people as an eco system all the time in animations. I used the low res ones available for an animation of 100s of thousands of soldiers running by, 5 different soldier types and 3 sub animations, although the soldiers look too similar due to laziness up front building the ecosystem.

When I was still dabbling with Carrara, I noticed that if I created 3-5 variations of the same tree and added decent sized variations of size to the replicator, the end result did look very similar to Vue tree populations.

Another hint that the minimum number of variations is low is that XFrog sells plant packs in which usually you have 3 different generated plants (to have more you need to own XFrog program and generate more of them using the .xfr-s files).

I remember that Chipp Walter's MetaPeeps package contained just 6 metapeeps and it worked quite well for mass scenes.

The message is that probably a few variations are sufficient to create the illusion of infinite variety (unless you can examine in detail the generated items).

and use procedural effects on materials, to generate enough visual variance at little resource cost ;)

hence why I keep banging on about using dirt maps: easy way to take two or more models and greatly alter their causal appearance AND realism :)

Quote - The message is that probably a few variations are sufficient to create the illusion of infinite variety (unless you can examine in detail the generated items).

True.  This would be for just objects in the background.  No close-ups.  Hips and shoulders (maybe even elbows and kness, too) would have a range of movement relative to the person object loaded into the eco.  So people in crowds don't all have the same exact pose.  From far away this will look good enough for stills.  Vue 11 would have animation and wind effects (Marilyn Monroe's dress) for human-growth objects.

vue crowds would be an awesome eco. cornucopia should sell it.e g audiences in a stadium.

Love esther

A figure that is grown in a running pose could be eco'd as a group of runners.  Each figure with its own range setting for legs and arms for a running pose.  Same with walking pose, and sitting pose.  For sitting crowds, some gould be leaning back some, forward, one leg crossed, ankles crossed, legs straight, arms at lap, arms in pockets, one arm on bench back, etc.  I'm talking about background, very small objects in a scene.  Close-ups would show that hands are not actually touching or may be going through another arm or thigh.  I guess there'd be a female figure or male figure to choose from/  The eco adjusts the age and "race" (hate that word, CG should have a better name for skin color, but skin color is too obvious a solution for a name, but takes away any importance from those that only see themselves by their own skin color, blah blah).

Vue 11 would need ragdoll physics for these meta people to simulate rest positions and better reactions while being sucked into a spaceship overhead.

gosh I liked that idea up until the part about the spaceship.  Seriously - you should put your idea to eon.  I think that is a great idea!!!!! I don't think rag doll physics would be absolutely necessary, especially for distant audiences.

Love esther

Vue 12 would use ragdoll.  Vue 11 would just use limp.  Arms, legs, and neck pivots are all set to the same rotation to suggest falling up or falling down (and sideways).  Then eco them in a meta cloud/tornado. :)

E-on does not listen to me.  Never has.  I'm just a customer.  We can't even build our own solid growth plants.  Have to hack existing ones.

well it wouldn't hurt to tell them your idea.

they never  listened to me either.

Love esther