Greetings to all of you!

Actually noobs have WAY more knowledge about this than me so I dont deserve such a glorious title. I however am a sub basement level of noob. You will see what I mean should you decide to read on. Warning! The following may question your sanity, ruin your breakfast and maybe even make you sick or depressed. Reader's discretion is advised. Thank you.

I bought Poser 8 like a year ago and by this time installed and uninstalled it 4 times i think. Because I couldnt make any heads or tails to it, I still don't. Thats why I decided its been awhile now and it is ok to ask for help. Again. It said EASILY create 3d character art.  Well...farting against tornado to make it change its direction is easy. Taking over Omaha Beach on D DAY single handedly is easy. I apologise for the strong language :)

I somehow managed to learn a few basic from Daz3 studio and came up with a few pics that are attached and just by looking at them you will be able to see the problem I ran into.  The picture of a woman sitting on a bench I used Hot Uniforms Secretary and stockings from V4 Lace Lingerie Set something. I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how to fix those holes. Is it because the stocking are meant for V4 but I used V4.2? Next 2 pictures speak for them self. Cecile Hair for V4, Pretty 3d Flora Lingerie and 6 pumps for V4 were used. Everything was installed in the proper Runtime. You can see stocking poking out of the shoes. And the last picture is almost the same(shirt appears to be too small :P) but on this one I used Lewanna Hair. But the problem I have with this hair is if you look at her head you can see it through her hair. No way I can fix all of this.

As you can see your help is mich needed and appreaciated. I dont wanna see this as 200 bucks wasted.

My apologies to all who read this. Hope your sanity is as it should be :)(blah the pics are not in order as described above)

The V4 figure and it's peculiar ways of dealing with poke-through are from Daz, not the Poser makers. If it's less easy/obvious to use than Poser promises, you're blaming the wrong vendor.

V4 is a complicated figure with some extra and unique steps needed for conforming clothing - steps called "Magnetizing". Now maybe you did magentize the clothing, but if you didn't, then we start there. Perchance, did you skip reading the instructions that came with V4 and also those that came with the clothing? If so, maybe they have something to say on this topic.

The transparency of the hair in preview is, perhaps, intentional. Not knowing how that product is configured, I'm guessing that it renders just fine. Step 1 in working with 3D is realizing that the preview has limitations in the interest of speed for posing, and also has some deliberate features that may seem not perfectly sane. Did you render it?

Stockings poking through shoes means you have to adjust something. Arguably this is perhaps the fault of the stocking vendor, since I'm guessing that the stocking is not actually very tight against the foot.

Quite a few shoes made for Poser/Daz figures are modeled with a lot of extra space around the toes for this reason, but I think they look stupid - Minnie Mouse shoes.

Looks like the shoes you have there are nice and realistically shaped, but if you stop to think about what that means, you'll see the problem. The natural toe positions without shoes on are not correct with shoes on. And the real-life gap between leather and skin, where the stocking goes, is incredibly tiny and shaped like the interior of the shoe.

The foot and stocking vendors can supply morphs to change those shapes, or quite often the shoe vendor will supply one for the figure. But the shoe vendor cannot anticipate every stocking you might choose, and the technology of morphing requires that they actually have the product in order to develop a morph for it.

Shoe vendors can also supply magnets to deform foot parts.

Have you looked into whether the shoe vendor gave you foot poses, morphs, and/or magnets to deal with this? How about the stocking vendor? Are there any "readmes" that need reading? If you did read them but didn't understand or recognize the importance of something, tell us that part and we can help.

If no toe-fit tools came with the products you bought, you have to make your own. This is where you would need to use the main tool you bought - Poser; it has magnets and the morphing tool for you to make custom deformations as needed.

It's unfortunate that you read the word "easy" as meaning that CG is easy. It isn't easy at all. However, it is a lot easier with Poser than the way movie studios do it - which usually involves writing specialized programs. Hahah!

Easy is relative.

Yes there's a lot of things you can do quick and easy... once you get the basics down and understand what you are doing.  As bill pointed out, first thing to do with some of your problems is to see if there are any morphs to help you and to use the conform clothing feature.  Sometimes you can conform clothing to a figure, but with poser sometimes you have to manually enter in the morph numbers in the right area (due to a cross talk problem).

Oh and a note about morphs (like boob morphs), not all vendors supply the morphs that you use.  So you'll either have to get a 3rd party tool or play around with things.

...this is one more reason I prefer Dynamic clothing over conforming. But we don't wanna make your brain explode....just yet...    :o)

I hate working with dynamic clothing.  Some people can make it look nice, I can't nor do I have the patients for it.

After magnetise clothing I would check if the clothing has the same breast morphs as the figure.  If they are standard Daz v4 morphs the clothing should have them too but sometimes they dont and then your screwed. 

There are no stupid questions although READ THE MANUAL always applies ;)

Thank you all for the info. And of course I read manuals. I must inform you though that english is not my native language so if there's a detailed explanation on morphing or magnetizing I probably wouldnt understand  some things. So yea, I am screwed as you said, lol.

there's a screen in render settings/preview to mitigate the hair trans display in those preview scenes. personally my fave of the 3 previews was the lingerie shot.  it's worth the money IMVHO, but it takes 1.5 yrs to learn how to use poser 8 and later, if no prior experience with earlier versions.

Believe me, it will take me 10 years to learn to use the basics in Poser.  And yes, no prior experience with earlier versions.  Btw when I click on Render all I get is a black screen.

when loading poser, default scene will be those three lites, shadow-mapped, lowest-quality render settings, ground as shadow-catcher.  loading v4 into that should render quickly to produce what looks like poser 4 render.  either you've got a bug or you changed/added something/some setting.  try starting poser, adding some figure other than your v4, and see if it renders black.  with shadow-mapped lites and no ray-tracing, document window may go black while calculating shadow-maps.

I don't understand why beginners jump to trying to deal with clothes and hair.

If you get a black render and don't know why, you are moving too fast.

You should be comfortable with your tools, the way soldiers know how to take apart and reassemble a rifle while blindfolded.

In Poser, this means that you should be able to load a sphere and a box, and be able to light these objects from front, side, and behind, with shadows of various types, without reading a manual. Until you can do that, you have little chance of getting a figure to behave. You should know how an infinite light works, spot light, point light, and IBL. You should be able to look at a render done with only one light and tell me what kind of light it was.

Then render a naked figure in lots of different light. Save the images. Look at them again after a week and realize how you were messing things up.

Etc.

I think Poser is easy, but I wasn't very good with it for the first year. I have used it for about 5000 hours now and I know what I'm doing. I thought I knew what I was doing after only about 1000 hours, but I was wrong.

I'm about to head to bed, so I'll answer this in more depth tomorrow (Monday) evening after work.

However, I will let you know that most clothing for a figure is made for the base figure without morphs. In other words, Vicky right out of the box.

If you morph her body using dials or a character add-on, the clothing will no longer fit because you have altered the body shape.

There are ways to fix this:

1. Turn the appropriate dials for the body part of the clothing in question;

2. Hide body parts that are covered by the clothing;

3. Get a program such as:

• The tailor
• Wardrobe Wizard
• Morphing Clothes
• And I think Netherworks has/had a clothing converting program too.

The program that I use is Wardrobe Wizard,.  I also have "The Tailor" but Wardrobe Wizard is my choice for getting clothing to fit a morphed up figure.

He he, I also believed the blurb about easily creating 3d graphics. You are doing pretty well so far. Keep at it and follow the good advice above.

My advice? Start out using the default Poser figures that come with the program itself. Learn the in's and outs of Poser before moving on to advanced figures like V4.2 with all her magnetising and deformer issues. They're much simpler to mess about with. Oh and cropping your uploaded forum images will go a long way towards not breaking the forum format and causing scrolling issues.

Quote - I don't understand why beginners jump to trying to deal with clothes and hair.

Easy to understand, BB. If a noob sees a programme advertised as easy, he or she won't naturally think: "oh, I but I do need to get my head around proper lighting and materials, first." Noobs launch into this programme with that "Easy" bit as a motivator and just want to dress their figures and render. And are invariably disappointed and frustrated.

We're looking at workflow, here. In DS (which I cut my teeth on) a lot of that stuff is set up a bit differently, and perhaps allows someone without doing much reading or studying to at least have the load - conform - pose - render workflow work for them. You can't leverage your experience with DS... totally different workflow!

They would quail at my current workflow.

Not that my workflow is so sophisticated, but the honeymoon phase has evaporated ages ago, and I know to create decent renders in Poser involves a LOT of reading ( on here, tutorials, the manual - when all else fails :biggrin: ) and slow steps and playing extensively with each aspect of the scene until one gets a grasp of it. Sheesh, I'm still playing with your IDL scene, BB... (messing with different things just to see when the different components do). None of these images I end up rendering these days will ever end up in my so-called gallery: a gallery is for art, and these are studies... light studies:

Click image for a larger (2 meg) version.

My focus would be to get your head around this programme and get your $200 bucks out of it. The more time you spend with it, the more you will realise that $200 for all it can do and all the directions you can go with it is really quite reasonable. No, it's not easy, but then, nothing worthwhile is.

I find that using Ralf Sessler's scripts - have a look here, many are free - is straightforward and deals with most issues of this kind. The 'Copy Values' one is very handy.

My advice: RTFM. 

Just recently on another site, I went round and round with a new user about conforming shoes to Kate.  Even after I walked the newbie through conforming the correct shoes (including what folders they were located in), she tried conforming Posette's shoes to Kate.

I doubt she even read my answer all the way through.  Her solution, buy the V4 bundle.  Someone else told her it was easier to use than that Poser stuff.

And of course the myths put out in by...

"Users expect a difficult learning-curve with most design applications. This, combined with high costs and large time commitments, keeps most from trying 3D design," said Dan Farr, President and Co-Founder of DAZ Productions. "With the free version of DAZ|Studio, users will experience the beauty of 'load and render,' allowing them to create stunning 3D imagery in just two mouse clicks. The cost is nothing, images render in seconds instead of minutes, and users can expand their experience with affordable upgrades."

The DAZ|Studio offer includes pre-configured 3D scenes, complete with a poseable character, accessories and environments. These scenes can easily be manipulated in an intuitive interface--character poses, shape morphs, model textures, lighting and more can all be customized in just a few mouse clicks. More advanced users can also create scenes from scratch using any of almost three thousand DAZ products available online, including the brand-new 3D Starter Bundle for under $100. The bundle includes a comprehensive set of products designed for the first-time 3D artist including Bryce, the most widely distributed 3D landscape program.

Above taken from this press release

Thursday, September 23, 2004
DAZ Productions Offers Digital Art to the Masses with Launch of Free 3D Content and Software
'Load and Render' Imaging in DAZ|Studio Allows First-Time 3D Designers to Create Art in Just Two Mouse Clicks

I apologise for a late reply. Switched to a new ISP so I had no internet for most of the day.

I understand a LOT of reading is involved here. And yes, I do read the f*cking manual if thats what you meant by RTFM, icprncss2. Maybe some of you are bothered by the fact that you spent 1000s of hours reading and here I am trying to skip that part and look for quick solution on forums. Well I am definitely not trying to skip ahead because i would get stuck again. And believe me, it's not my habit to bug people on forums.

The pics I posted above are my first steps into getting to know Poser. So I started with V4 and not spheres and boxes.

Thank you, BagginsBill. I am getting to know how lights work :) I also know why render "didnt" work. Looks pretty sweet :))

Thanks for the advice SteveJax, I must admit sometimes I wish to speed things up which is bad idea especially with Poser. Acadia and Cspear thank you for the links, that will be very helpful!

RobynsVeil, I know DS and Poser are different. I also have Daz3 free version which is where I learned about Runtime which gave me headaches from hell before. But sometimes reading is just not enough. See things how they work in practice helps even more. And the pic you posted is a work of art, its really beautiful :D

Once again thank you all for helpful hints and links. I do not wish to spam this forum ;)

No need to appologise for asking questions here. We all had to start somewhere. Unfortunately some folks would rather snipe than answer a question or give advice.

I can also understand wanting to rush headfirst into the hard stuff like V4, especially since she's one of the most popular figures out there. Still, just for learning purposes, I'd start with the stock characters first. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Most of us don't bite.

Helvegar

What I stated was not aimed at you.  Sorry if it sounded as if it did. 

It's ok, dont worry about it Icprncss2 ;)

I know, Steve. Since I never used Poser before V4 to me it felt like a base figure, thats why I started with her. Perhaps anyone here knows where in this forum it explains about magnetizing? I googled about it but I didnt come up with anything good.

To magnetize the clothing:

Load V4.

Load the clothing item or items and conform.

Go to the pose folder and find the magnetize poses.

Select the first clothing figure.  Apply the magnetize to V4 pose.  This should magnetize the clothing item.

If you have more than one conformer, select the second one.  Apply the magnetized to V4_2 pose.  This magnetizes the second clothing item.

Continue on with each conformer, applying the magnetize to V4_(#) to each one separately. 

I don't know what you do if you get past 9 conforming items. 

I gave up on the magnetize poses as too much of a pain.  I do the conforming, pose and then use the morph brush to fix poke through. 

I'm not exactly sure but I think the magnetizing pose adds magnets to the clothing item the same as are attached to V4.  It supposed to make the clothing conform better and eliminate poke through.

Magnetizing clothing is unique to V4 - it's not a Poser thing so you won't find anything about it in any Poser manuals.

And I'm pretty sure the instructions icprncss2 gave are not accurate. I believe you use the same Magnetize to all items belonging to the first V4 figure in the scene. If you have two V4 figures, you use the second magnetize for all the items worn by the second V4. If you have 3 V4 figures, you use the 3rd magnetize for all the items worn by the third figure.

I don't know why they wrote these add-ons this way. I would have used a Python script and looked at the conform data to see what cloth goes with what figure, and copy/apply the magnets correctly automatically. But Daz did not hire me to work on that so what I'd do is not helpful.

Bill's right on that.  I never bothered with them.

Here's the link to the wiki

http://artzone.daz3d.com/wiki/doku.php/azproduct/4783

The info about magnetizing is under the Production Notes heading.

I seeeeee, so thats what I could not find anything on magnetizing in Poser manuals. Thanks for telling me that! I didnt have the time to try what Icprncss or you BagginsBill but when I do I will let you know if it worked. As for Python itself I have aboslutely no damn clue about it. I'm sure I will find some tutorial

Thanks for the wiki link, much appreciated yall put up with me :)

Ok so I tried to magnetize as you both explained but it worked only once. After that no matter what I did I coulndt magentize any part of clothing. It just didnt work anymore. For me this will be a hard one to figure out.