My stars, this is an active thread. Sorry it took so long to answer your question, SaintFox. Actually, Brisbane is well to the south of all the horrendous cyclone region, so all we got were hideously humid days, the kind where you break into a profound sweat just coming up with a new idea. Not sure if odf is experiencing the same thing where he is: think he's further south.

I'll go ahead and download this anyway, despite the fact your problem appears to be resolved, and thank you for the link. Like I was telling that dear sweet artist bella, the best things in life are free. Seeing how much one can do with what's on offer here in the forums, one wonders what the attraction of the MP is... mind you, I'm a happy little shopper there, so something must be attracting me there! :biggrin:

LOL - I couldn't resist - I will do my best to upload the first 18 poses somewhen today and hope you don't mind if you indeed find things that may need small adjustments

My WIP is avaliable to download.   I posted it to ShareCG http://sharecg.com/v/48400/gallery/Poser/Bikini-Top-for-Antonia  I think it will be available here in the Free Stuff section soon because of pending approval.  

This conforming clothing contains almost all matching morphs and JCM's of Antonia 1.0 Beta!  In addition, I'm experimenting the way of attaching another figure within the figure.  The bow knots at the back of the bikini top are coming from the posable bow knot I posted few week ago.  

@BluEcho, your mapping is amazing!  Clothing without the need of modelling, great!

Quote - My stars, this is an active thread. Sorry it took so long to answer your question, SaintFox. Actually, Brisbane is well to the south of all the horrendous cyclone region, so all we got were hideously humid days, the kind where you break into a profound sweat just coming up with a new idea. Not sure if odf is experiencing the same thing where he is: think he's further south.

I'll go ahead and download this anyway, despite the fact your problem appears to be resolved, and thank you for the link. Like I was telling that dear sweet artist bella, the best things in life are free. Seeing how much one can do with what's on offer here in the forums, one wonders what the attraction of the MP is... mind you, I'm a happy little shopper there, so something must be attracting me there! :biggrin:

just only migrated to P7 directly from Poser 4 so don't know any of the more sophisticated tools specially for lighting and rendering, (still rendering with Poser 4 render engine, go figure!).

cyberscape, have you started some 2nd skins for Antonia yet?

I'd like to see some more by someone besides me...lol.

**Cage, I like that set you've done...cute.
**

Attached Link: Morphs for Bent Actors

LOL! A great pose (and perhaps a hint to the clothing creators).

shante,

Buttocks compressed morphs are a good idea, though perhaps something that could be done as an add on. In my experience buttocks sitting morphs are not easy, as it is necessary to morph the hip2 in a bent position. I thought I knew how to do this, but when I tried, it did not work as I expected. I asked advice in the Poser Technical Forum, but could not understand the only response I got (see link above). Perhaps someone from this thread can give me a clue. I will probably have another go at some stage, but as the moment am working on a hair conversion for Antonia.

I nevr learned to use or create magnets in all the years I have been playing with first Poser 4 and now Poser 7. It seems it could just be a simple magnet created to apply the needed "squush to the tush"!

I remember being excited when I learned more advanced versions of Poser had collision options. Does applying collision when posing characters do the same thing? You would think it would...though of corse I have no real freaking clue!......   :)

Quote - It seems it could just be a simple magnet created to apply the needed "squush to the tush"!

It may be possible to do it with magnets, but that is not easy either. To be able to see what you are doing, you need to work on the hip2 when it is bent at the thighs. The problem is that a magnet does not know that the hip2 has been bent, so the lines of force work as if the hip2 were in the unbent shape. The result is that the bent part of the hip moves in a different direction to the unbent part. I find this seriously mind bending, and can't achieve usable results in this way.  

It's a bit hard to explain, but if you try it you will see what I mean.

The only viable option as I see it, is to export the bent geometry, morph it, load the morph into the figure, then apply another morph to unbend it. That's what I tried doing, but I obviously did something wrong.

:)

Les, I may be a poser dweebe but I do understand the principals of what you speak....just don't know how to put them into practice.

And yese, it certainly sounds fiercely complex....too complex for me to want to tackle even if you give me the morphs!   LOL

Whatever solution is developed it has to be so simple a 3rd grader can do it....because that is about the level I have spiraled down to with regards to Poser!   :)

Quote -
The only viable option as I see it, is to export the bent geometry, morph it, load the morph into the figure, then apply another morph to unbend it. That's what I tried doing, but I obviously did something wrong.

No, that simply can't work. To flatten an unbent thigh, you need to move vertices in the z-direction. To flatten a thigh bent 90 degrees, you have to move vertices in the y-direction. But adding or subtracting another morph does not change the direction your vertices move in in your flattening morph.

ETA: colorcurvature made a tool called PoserMorphLoader for exactly this kind of thing, but it seems to have disappeared from the MarketPlace. You may have to contact him. The only other tool I know of that can do this is MorphLoaderPro for DAZ Studio. Otherwise, you'll have to do the morph on the unbent figure and hope that it looks correct after the bend. Or maybe you could convince Poser to apply the morph after the bend, which should also solve your problem. I seem to remember that that's how the morph brush is supposed to work, but I've never tried it myself.

colorcurvature.com is still online but unfortunatly is under construction. But I found a link to the manual of PoserMorphLoader, as it calls colorcurvature.com directly it should be legal to post it here:

PoserMorphLoader Manual

If someone feels the link is not okay please let me know and I will delete it.

Is the function of the morph you want to create, Les, comparable to the armpit fix that corvas offers in the MP? Maybe he is the right person to ask? When I said that this should not be too hard to do I thought of a far less clever solution, nothing that reacts on bendung or so. Just a morph that can be loaded when the figure sits and that can be dialed until you have a halfway convincing illusion of pressure. But first it looks as if I was completely clueless and then your idea is far, far more elegant and useful.

@Shante: So you upgraded from 4 to 7, huh?! Wow, I can imagine how you will feel when you explore the possibilities, drape your first dynamic clothing, play with light and materials. I am sure that you will have fun and lots of Wow-moments!!

unfortunately my mind has difficulty embracing "the new" anything let alone "wow moments"!

If I could I would be perfectly content continuing working in Poser 4 but forced obsolescence took choice away from me. So, I will probably continue working with simple P4 lighting strategy as well as render engine for a while.

Quote - No, that simply can't work. To flatten an unbent thigh, you need to move vertices in the z-direction. To flatten a thigh bent 90 degrees, you have to move vertices in the y-direction. But adding or subtracting another morph does not change the direction your vertices move in in your flattening morph.

So I was trying to do the impossible! It makes sense when I hear you explain it, but I could not get my head round what was happening at the time.

Quote - ... maybe you could convince Poser to apply the morph after the bend...

There is a thought. I suspect that placing the morph at the bottom of the channel stack might achieve that. I will test that idea. Easy enough to hack a cr2, but makes distribution a problem, unless you would be willing to put three or four blank morph channels at the bottom of hip2, and perhaps a couple in each thigh. But I suspect you may not want start making unnecessary modifications to the cr2 at this late stage.

Quote - Easy enough to hack a cr2, but makes distribution a problem, unless you would be willing to put three or four blank morph channels at the bottom of hip2, and perhaps a couple in each thigh. But I suspect you may not want start making unnecessary modifications to the cr2 at this late stage.

It would require you to distribute the hacked cr2, but that's not really a problem with Antonia, at least not as long as there aren't several add-ons in circulation that all require different hacks on the cr2. But if and when that happens, it'll be soon enough to deal with that problem.

May general take at this point is to sit back and see what people come up with in terms of enhancements for Antonia, and incorporate the most useful and/or popular ones in an upcoming version.

Quote - cyberscape, have you started some 2nd skins for Antonia yet?

I'd like to see some more by someone besides me...lol.

**Cage, I like that set you've done...cute.
**

Funny you should mention... I'm working on a few ideas right now. Nothing ready for sneak peeks yet, though. May have a few things ready by Monday (crosses fingers).

Great work on the shorts set, Blu! Displacements can add SO much to a 2nd skin!

@shante: Don't stay with the stoneage-version when you have something so far better, please! I know that this is a big leap but anyway: Once you get used to it you will see how your renders improve. And as for the lights: See the banner in my signature? Click it and get yourself some free lights that will work perfect with P7 plus a tutorial (follow the freebies-button on the start page).

Yes, displacement maps can add a lot to textures and I've just recently learned to do them a little.

Working with the Beta Version of Antonia is great and by testing all my other textures I found a few errors with the ones I've uploaded so as time permits, I'll update them and re-upload to the site.

Mostly it is just calls for maps that were renamed and I forgot to edit my pz2 or mc6 files to match...sigh.

...and now, as I had so much fun, I go and start another set.

While trying and adjusting one pose after the other I recognized that there is a problem if you combine a slight swing and a "massive" bend on the shin (like you have it for kneeling poses). Even low values for swing cause a pretty heavy crease, the effect starts to be obvious if you use values of 5 and more. As said: I am unsure if this is really important and most of all if it's not too late. But I wanted to post two renders anyway so that you can look yourself.

Beside of this: I am still amazed how good the legs and knees look if you bend them this way!!

@SaintFox: Thanks for this! If I manage to fix the problem, I'll have to check back with PhilC, because I promised him there wouldn't be any changes in the body. But there's a good chance that it can't be fixed by simply adjusting the JPs, anyway, and I won't add any new JCMs at this point.

Besides, real skin often creases and wrinkles in extreme bends, so how can we expect Antonia's to always be perfectly smooth? Also, more than the tiniest amount of side-side on the shins and lower arms for fine-tuning a pose is usually not the best idea, and you should probably try to twist the thigh instead. (Ideally, we'd have all the rotation axes perfectly oriented so that every bend is exactly the way it should be. But that's very tough to achieve in Poser.)

I could be wrong, but I don't think real shins swing. I think that when we see a real shin "swing", this is actually due to the thigh twisting. However I think you will find that Antonia reacts much better if you replace the shin swing with some thigh twist. If thigh rotation fixes the problem, I don't see much need to change the shin JPs.

I actually like to use about 1.8° inward swing on Antonia's shins as a default. They look a bit splayed out at zero rotation to my eyes, but that is probably just personal taste.

Of course you are right, Lesbentley. While I am able to sit on the floor with my shins beside my thighs (I hope you have an idea what mean) this is "made" by a mix of thigh and shin twisting. The swing morph is something I use with very small amounts to finetune the legs when they are slightly crossed. And yes - with the right light the crease looks natural, it can be fixed with few postwork and of course you can fix it with using twist instead.I even use some of the creases willingly, see the render with the hands stuffed under the arms. I think that the tiny crease above the armpit looks very realistic.

As already said: I didn't want to point out disturbing things (as more as I just read the name PhilC!!) but this MAY be a point for any later version.

You might be able to fine tune without using swing if you turn on IK and adjust the thigh parameters.  (Or this might end up causing swing.  Not sure.  :unsure:)

Some swing is necessary in the forearm, one should note, in order to un-bend the joint.  The "Attention" pose includes forearm swing.  And forearms, like shins, don't bend along that axis in real life.  If they do, it's an ouchie.  :lol:  Or some unusual variety of double-jointedness, maybe.  :unsure:

A bit of swing (or use of another anatomically incorrect bending parameter) to adjust a pose is useful, assuming the joint is set up to be able to handle it well.  I hope the shin swing can be cleaned up a bit with minimal fuss.

And PhilC is working on WW support!  :woot:  I was afraid that had gotten lost in the shuffle.

Quote - Some swing is necessary in the forearm, one should note, in order to un-bend the joint.

That is true, unfortunately. To get the arm perfectly straight, one has to use the swing. I apologize for the inconvenience.

ETA: That said, real arms do not tend to be perfectly straight, so one might argue that the "Attention" pose would be just as realistic, or even more so, without the swing applied.

I know, I know, the elbow has a sharp crease but as I like what I have so far I keep it with odf: Real people have creases (and I don't want to "enhanceworse" the result).

When I select an actor, I see all the JCM dials in that actor. As I am unlikely to want to adjust these dials, they are just taking up valuable space in the parameters palette, and making it harder to find dials that I do want to use.

So I made a pose file to put all the JCM dials in collapsed groups (see image above).

CAUTION! Grouping poses are destructive. This means that they will overwrite any existing grouping information in the figure. If you apply the above file to the original Antonia figure, that should not matter because the grouping pose contains all the default grouping. However if you have changed the grouping, or applied a pose that changes the grouping, this file will undo your changes or added grouping. Note thet collapsed groups do not work for Poser versions prior to P6.

Forgive me this curiosity and going OT here, but if I recall wasn't Antonia at some point redone with flat chest to make adding morps easier?

If so why can't a "REAL and SERIOUS" male version be created from that mesh similar to what was done with the male V2, Male V3 and the Male V4 iterations?

Obviously some of the male versions from those models look a bit "sissy" IMHO but some I have seen are really nice. Especially I think from the V3 and V4 unimesh constructs.

If so much care has been placed in the Antonia Mesh, (which it has!), couldn't a male version be built up from that instead of reinventing the whole thing?

If muscular and proportion sizing to accomodate the male to femle size differences are redone it should work....no!?

Looking at the image I posted of the grouping, I did a double-take, and wondered if I had made some error, but apparently not. Why does the chest have a "JCM-MouthOpen"???

Surely any influence the mouth opening has on the chest is so small that it can be ignored. Or am I missing the point?

Quote - If so much care has been placed in the Antonia Mesh, (which it has!), couldn't a male version be built up from that instead of reinventing the whole thing?

I expect a male version could be made based on the Antonia mesh. I don't see any reason why not. Though whether odf, or anyone else with the required skills, would be interested in doing that I have no idea. Antonia being under the creative commons licence, there is nothing to stop anyone who wanted to undertake that project.

@lesbentley: Good catch! I wonder how this happened, since those channels should be hidden. Does P6 sometimes (or always) not observe the 'hidden' flag? I have to admit I've only tested with PP2010 lately, since in order to run P6 or earlier, I'd have to fire up a virtual machine (and I don't have P7).

I think having the dial space cluttered with slave channels one does not normally want or need to see can be considered a bug, so I'm considering including your improved grouping into Antonia 1.0.0. If you have any further insights on the hidden flag and when it does or does not work, let me know.

As for the 'JCM-MouthOpen' in the chest, you have to remember that the chest actor includes the lower half of the neck. That's a bit unfortunate, but because of the strictly hierarchical way Poser does bending, the neck actor has to be separated from the collar actors by at least one row of polygons (and remember that one row in the low-poly version translates to two rows in the high-poly one). Also, bends of the collars can only influence the chest as their parent actor, but not the neck, so in order to get them rigged properly pre-JCMs, I had to include some additional polys into the chest actor. Now, if the mouth is opened, the neck  needs to deform accordingly, but since half of Antonia's neck is actually 'chest', you get that somehow surprising channel there.

Quote - > Quote - If so much care has been placed in the Antonia Mesh, (which it has!), couldn't a male version be built up from that instead of reinventing the whole thing?

I expect a male version could be made based on the Antonia mesh. I don't see any reason why not. Though whether odf, or anyone else with the required skills, would be interested in doing that I have no idea. Antonia being under the creative commons licence, there is nothing to stop anyone who wanted to undertake that project.

Obviously, there are some limits. There's no muscle definition built into the mesh, so unless someone's very good with displacement maps, you just won't get that from Antonia. Also, building male genitals directly from the existing mesh might be a bit of a challenge. Other than that, I  see no reason why a male shape couldn't be done, either.

Body proportions are a different matter. I did my best to make scaling work well in Antonia, but there are some problems that I simply wasn't able to solve. Have a look at the 'Bulky' pose that comes with Antonia. It looks pretty decent at first, but when certain limbs are bent, ridges appear. Maybe this could be fixed with special SCMs (scale-controlled morphs) or other tricks, but I felt I did not know enough of Poser's internals to follow that road.

Re the "JCM-MouthOpen". I guess Antonia's neck actor does end a lot higher up than in most figures, I was forgetting that, so perhaps there is a point in the morph. Guess I should put my brain in to gear before I open my mouth! :blushing:

Quote - Does P6 sometimes (or always) not observe the 'hidden' flag?

P6 and previous will unhide any morph channel that contains deltas, or to be more correct, reading the deltas cancels the hidden flag. If a hidden flag is placed after the deltas, the dial will remain hidden. However there is a catch to that strategy, any save and reload, ether as pz3 or cr2, will put the flag back in the original place above the deltas.

I was not aware that this bug had been fixed in later versions of Poser, as I'm still using P6.

I am running version 7 of Poser and this is a screen capture of the parameter dials on Toni.

It doesn't show a parameter dial for just the jcms, they are shown just like these image indicate.

Thanks BluEcho! So it looks like the problem still existed in P7. Which Antonia version is that BluEcho?

I guess Antonia's neck actor does end a lot higher up than in most figures

While working with poses I had the same impression and if we both guess right it has a big advantage. The part of the neck that is already part of the chest makes the neck act more natural. In fact the lowest part of the human neck is not as bendable as the upper part. The fact that the lowest part is more stiff as we are used for it for instance on V3 or now on Miki 3 prevents us from neckposes that look almost curled up.

...or is this just me who hopelessly fell in love with this figure and now sees everything through rose colored glasses? :laugh:*

BluEcho,

Whoops, I must not be quite with it today. That's Toni, and you said so. Do you still see JCM dials if you use Antonia?

Who's Toni?

Quote - Who's Toni?

Yes, who is it? At first I thought it was the male version by Believable3D, but isn't that called "Antonio"? I'm just getting more and more confused as this day goes on, perhaps I should go back to bed. Perhaps things will make more sense  tomorrow.  :blink:

I think that BlueEcho does the same I do. If working with Antonia is easy and she behaves well I call her Toni ("Good girl, Toni!") - if not you will hear "An-to-ni-a!! You curled up your foot again while you shouldn't!! And what's that y-rotate in you fingertip? Hm? Antonia?".

LOL, perhaps you are right SaintFox, but I notice that it says "Toni" at the top of the parameters palette for the Body. So if that's the case, she has also changed the figure name. I'm sure BluEcho will enlighten us soon.

Saintfox is right, Toni is Antonia's nickname...lol.

And I used the latest, Beta, version.

I usually change the name  or she shows up as James (or is it Simon).

This is so strange!! I use 1.0.0-beta1 here... and I have an Antonia in the parameter window. I think I have to go to bed before I see white mice running over my monitor

By the way: I created (and create) all thumbnails for the poses without clothes as there are only few so far and the beachvolleball set does not work with extreme poses (or this version of Antonia). And, of course, the effect of the poses is far better visible on a nude figure. I used "tasteful" rotations as far as possible. But meanwhile I have doubts: Will this give me problems if an underaged downloads the set?

Quote - Saintfox is right, Toni is Antonia's nickname...lol.

And I used the latest, Beta, version.

Thanks for the information BluEcho. So it looks like what I said still stands, the dial for a targetGeom channel containing deltas will be unhidden, even in P7. Odf, reading between the lines, I take it that this definitely does not happen in P8?

Quote -
Thanks for the information BluEcho. So it looks like what I said still stands, the dial for a targetGeom channel containing deltas will be unhidden, even in P7. Odf, reading between the lines, I take it that this definitely does not happen in P8?

I'm pretty sure it doesn't, but let me get back to you after work.

@BluEcho

Quote - I usually change the name  or she shows up as James (or is it Simon).

That's very strange, I have never herd of a figure displaying the wrong name before. In the cr2, the figure name is set by the first line of of the 'figure' section. The only ways I know of that it can get changed are if a different name is typed in manually, or if a pose is applied that contains a figure section with a different name. MAT poses, and mc6 files always contain a figure section, but in the normal course of events, that figure section does not contain a 'name' line.

@SaintFox

Quote - Will this give me problems if an underaged downloads the set?

I should not think so. I'm told that if you go the the Vatican City, you can see a large statue of David with all his interesting bit's on public display. However the server that hosts your files might have a policy on nudity, and the  religious right might throw the odd rotten tomato at you. But I don't think you are doing anything against western European law, or in any way unethical.

@lesbentley: I was wondering if BluEcho had James (or Simon, respectively) loaded as her default figure when starting up Poser, and was loading Antonia via 'replace figure'.

Quote - @BluEcho

Quote - I usually change the name  or she shows up as James (or is it Simon).

That's very strange, I have never herd of a figure displaying the wrong name before. In the cr2, the figure name is set by the first line of of the 'figure' section. The only ways I know of that it can get changed are if a different name is typed in manually, or if a pose is applied that contains a figure section with a different name. MAT poses, and mc6 files always contain a figure section, but in the normal course of events, that figure section does not contain a 'name' line.

Poser has ALWAYS retained the name of the default figure if you load a new figure using the "Change Figure" button on the library. This is why I always delete the default figure when I install a new version of Poser and set the Preferred State to an empty window with no figure.