Ok I can't really be a newbie because I've been using Poser far too long. But I feel like one. I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of what I can learn in Poser. I can Pose, use dynamic clothes, make dynamic hair and render an image. I know nothing about IDL, VSS, Matmatica, Luxrenderer, and Python. I’ve attempted to learn some of these things but quickly got confused and overwhelmed and gave up. (More like ran screaming from the room) Can someone recommend a good topic to start with (which is the easiest to learn?) and a very simple tutorial or other instructions for it that are good for someone how gets confused with “… for dummies” instructions?

How about making and rigging your own model for use in Poser?

You can get a free 3D app (Wings and Blender are two examples), or you can make something from the Poser primitives (Doc Geep has a tutorial about this).

If you make non organic (ie mechanincal/robotic) models, rigging them is dead easy.

In any case, learning to use a modelling app is extremely useful for customizing existing models and making morphs for characters.

BTW, your type shows up as black on a dark blue background. I had to highlight it all to make it legible.

VSS and IDL is easy.  I'd be happy to help with VSS if you want.  First try to get as far with it as you can, then you can ask here for advice when you get stuck.

You don't have to be a BillBaggin's to not be a newbie. Poser, as an app, is much deeper than many users realize. It can be just a load and render make art program or it can be a dip your toes into the deep waters of programming via it's python interface. It can be a nice animation program (This one alone can take you light years into Posing and BVH Motions) or it can be the first taste of modeling Crack with it's group editor and ability to build objects with primitives.

You the user decides just how deeply you wish to dive. I reccommend having your own oxygen tank!

Problem is: for a lot of things (like the mat room) there are so few tutorials. About the best place is on here, in the forums. I've started a Tips -n- Tricks thingie, but it's getting unwieldy...

VSS and matmatic are not essential features of Poser though they may be useful.

Luxrender ditto.

Python is very useful for quickly doing repetative tasks and you can learn a lot by just looking at scripts. any file ending in .py is just a text file that you can open in wordpad (or other editor) The .pyc are compiled python and you cant look at those. www.python.org is where you will find the python documentation. The poser methods manual is available in the program folder as a pdf file.

Quote - VSS and matmatic are not essential features of Poser though they may be useful.

Luxrender ditto.

Python is very useful for quickly doing repetative tasks and you can learn a lot by just looking at scripts. any file ending in .py is just a text file that you can open in wordpad (or other editor) The .pyc are compiled python and you cant look at those. www.python.org is where you will find the python documentation. The poser methods manual is available in the program folder as a pdf file.

Python can do so much more than just "Batch Tasking"! Just look at Wardrobe Wizard, OBJ2CR2 and the PuppetMaster series of Pose transfering. 

I know I'll never know as much as Bagginsbill or some of the other poser gurus, I'm hust not satisfied with paint by numbers. I got into this to make quality work. I've been around long enough to know that some of these add ons are needed to do that. I've never wanted a make art button. 

Based on responses I need to learn python before matmatica. Do I also need it for vss? All i've done with that is synchronyze it and copy and paste it to new materials that it did sync to. Is there a better place to start with it than that huge thread?

ps sorry about the black text I don't know what happened there. It wasn't intended.

There is the Nodes for Dummies discussion that isn't anywhere near as long. Decent intro to the mat room. BB has a word document on the essentials on VSS. But seriously, you can get a lot of your questions answered by first reading the bit of documentation that comes with VSS, and then, having a play. Don'tr try to understand the shader too much: just those things you can alter/modify.

Redphantom, from what you can already do, you are not a newbie. Poser has enough features to allow us to specialise. Making dynamic hair is already a specialised skill that many users don't ever acquire. Decide where you want to go next - perhaps you want to make clothes, or learn to make skin textures, or refine your posing skills. At least you won't exhaust the capabilities of the program any time soon! I find that having a project that I care about is very motivating to keep me going in learning new stuff. I am re-doing my company website with Poser images, and working with DPHoadley on a story. When I need to do something that I am not able to do, I have a reason to learn something new. Right now I am figuring out how to make monochrome images that will print well. I can't find a tutorial for that, so I am exploring. That's the fun of it.

There is not a question of being expert on Poser, it is about becoming a fulltime CG creator. For instance I much rather tinker with vray than battle with Firefly. I also have to learn render in Vue ( to render my plants) so two(2) render environments should be enough for anyone.

To become a CG artist you need to master several applications. Easy to prove just look att the outside world and study the CV of the people working in the industry. No one master Vue as much as Nick Pellegrino for instance but he is not a CG professional. Neither is any Poser expert to my knowledge. If you decide to learn EVERYTHING about a particular program you never make it.

step 1 in not being a newbie: find locations of pertinent threads discussing vss/idl et al.,  go to one of those threads (whilst poser 8 or later is open and running), then attempt the procedures described therein, no matter how boring or confusing.  if difficult to understand, request clarification.  asking these experts general questions is not productive IMVHO.

three things newbies won't do: - read the manual (not totally bad)

• read bagginsbill's threads with poser 8 or later open and running
• ask specific questions about specific procedure. 

90% of Poser users use only 10% of Poser functions. Most plugins and applications are not necessery and you can obtain the same effects with Poser tools only. I do not know why you need python? All scripts only improve basic Poser tools.

If you want to create your own material you must know math. I know that advanced skin testures looks great, but ... most remders are naked or seminaked female warriors. They are interesting for men and they see only 16 colors - like Windows 3.11 Most guys notice detailed nipple texture rather then VSS shader ;)

Don't bother to learn all the arcane inner working of Poser but only what you need for your personal workflow. With Marvelous Designer I can do clothing for Poser figures both Dynamic and Conforming. Anything else I don't need from Poser, except how to pose of course. Poser is quite dated, most of the documentatiion are several years old.  The future is spelled messiah and Quidam. Spending your time with those applications rather will be benefical for you in the long run.

shrug  Some people don't need/want more than Poser to fulfill their personal artistic needs.  Sure, we all have wild dreams of one day being discovered by ILM or Pixar (it's happened, don't laugh), and in reality, we know that the chances of it happening are miniscule.  

You can get beautiful work without being technically proficient in the same way that you can be technically proficient in the software and churn out garbage.  The key is to be open to learning, and get better as you go along, rather than being stuck with the same old thing.  That includes being open to the fact that what's in front of you may be all you need.  

No one else can tell you what you need to do to get better, only what THEY have done to get better.  

There are many ways to work with CG not only for ILM or Pixar. Archtectural visualization, adverticing, in the fashion industry or as illustrator and thousands of other opportunities. Who wants to be an employee anyhow? It is not so difficult to get something to do if you have the skill.  Sepiasiren has just get her first commission! And even I - a beginner has had one request from a 'event' company that offered mock travels to Mount Everest. They wanted a short animation about crossing a bridge over an abyss in Nepal. Had I had the skill I would have made a lot of money! So don't let JenX discourage you. BTW the two people who got the job in the end were picked from the people here at Renderosity.

The more advanced things in poser such as the material room, set up room, hair room are completely beyond me.  So far as the cloth room goes, I can do the basics for dynamic clothing.  In Poser 6 I can do lights to a degree where I can usually get what I want for lighting in my scene.  I have Poser Pro 2010 and from what I understand the lights in there are completely different. I haven't installed it yet, so I haven't tried them out.

I've been using Poser since about spring 2004 and I've accepted that I'll never be a master of anything in Poser.

I've tried my hand at texturing, but I can't wrap my head around trying to match up created designs for waist belts, dress straps, patterns etc on flat patterns so that everything is lined up nicely when applied inside Poser.  Trial and error is just too tedious for me and I find texturing more a lesson in frustration than enjoyable.

I love to build and construct things, but the interface of the modeling programs I've looked at could just as well be the control panel of a 747 for all the sense they make to me. Again, trial and error style learning doesn't work for me.

So my "getting over being a newbie" involved working on my image composition / placement / effects.  And once I get some motivation to create again, I'll keep on working on that.  My next goal is to work on making my images "softer" so that they don't look so hard and like "cut and paste" efforts IE: load this, place it here, load that, place it there....render.  And I think that only comes with learning how to do more post work to incorporate detail and some type of style into the image.

The way I learn is this:

1.  I want to create something.  It would be so cool to be able to do "this" or "that" but I don't know how.

2.  Learn how.

3.  Boom! I learned something and I move on.

It's that desire to gain a new skill that is what keeps me interested and focused on learning something new.  Otherwise, I would lose interest and can't focus on learning a darn thing.  By the way, I haven't learned Python either.  Why?  Because I haven't ran into a need to learn it to be able to do "this" or "that".  If someone shows me something cool / useful they can do with it, then I would be interested in learning it.

Attached Link: THE FELLOWS

Quote -  So don't let JenX discourage you. 

 

Um, how was my post discouraging?  

ha-ha-ha-, i am here since ? ? ?

And feel stupid every day. . . . . . . (or older)

Poser is one of those things, You never get the complete picture.....
Or you would have to be playing each and every day for at least 24 hrs, and then there is the night.

But, then,

Before Poser , I had a life, :-)
Before Internet, I had a life, :-)

Bit by bit you will learn new stuff and find the use/need for new tools... you will get them and... tada! you will be again a newbie!

If you look at real artists (e.g. the matte painters with Hollywood blockbusters on their resume) you will see that none of them is an instructor for some product: they did not master one product, they mastered the workflow among them and many things not related to programs, like e.g. composition or color harmony.

IDL with raytracing is gonna be easiest thing for newbie to learn, hence would be good start IMVHO, as it's what distinguishes poser 4 from current versions.  search this forum, keyword IDL, user bagginsbill.  skip all the text if desired and go straight to screenshots. if screenshots confusing, read text in adjoining msgs.

"Before Poser , I had a life, :-)
Before Internet, I had a life, :-)"

Internet you are my passion! That which I had with TV was not serious!

Quote - I know I'll never know as much as Bagginsbill or some of the other poser gurus, I'm hust not satisfied with paint by numbers. I got into this to make quality work. I've been around long enough to know that some of these add ons are needed to do that. I've never wanted a make art button. 

Based on responses I need to learn python before matmatica. Do I also need it for vss? All i've done with that is synchronyze it and copy and paste it to new materials that it did sync to. Is there a better place to start with it than that huge thread?

 

ps sorry about the black text I don't know what happened there. It wasn't intended.

There is no need to learn Python to use VSS.  When you Synchronize you're using Python scripts that bagginsbill created and there is no need to alter the script.  The key to using VSS is understanding how it works.  Another thing to keep in mind is that the current versions of VSS are WIP.  That's why you need to go into the material room to change things.  If and when bagginsbill releases the Pro version it will have a proper GUI and there'll be no need to go into the material room.

Basically, all you need to do is load the VSS prop and hit Synchronize to apply the VSS shaders.

I can give you a rundown of the settings for VSS but I'm far from being a pro when it comes to VSS.  I don't like doing too much work in the material room and I don't fully understand all the basic settings.  

I use Inches in Poser so all the numbers below are based on inches. 

To change the properties of the skin shader, select the VSS prop and go into the material room.  Select Template Skin from the material list.  The only nodes you need to change are the ones on the far left.  They all begin with PM:.

PM:Gamma is for setting the Gamma level.  If you have Poser Pro and you render with Gamma correction, set this to 1.  If not, try anything between 1.3 - 2.2.  2.2 is the most common (don't ask me why).  If you have IDL you might try lower values.

PM:Bump is just to control the Bump value.  It's set to 0.3 as a default.  Just increase or decrease as needed for the textures you're using each time.

PM:Shine is my favorite.  This controls the specular system.  Higher values create stronger but also narrower speculars.  Try setting this to 1 and hit synchronize.  The results from this vary greatly based on the specular maps on the figure.

PM:Shine Spread and PM:Shine Level.  These are controlled by PM:Shine and I don't change these often but these are basically like Specular Value and Highlight Size from the main Posersurface node.

PM:Diffuse Reflectivity.  Don't really know what this one does :)  Sometimes when I find the skin to dull or flat I increase this number.

PM:SSS.  Controls the fake SSS.  If you're using IDL you should drop this to 0.3 or lower.

PM:SSS Falloff is always set to 1.  I have no idea what this does.

PM:Boost.  This boosts all the settings in the shader system (I think).   Use with care I suppose.

Anytime you change any of these values you need to hit Synchronize again.

Maybe you know all this already but next step is to look at the Apply Rules material and the Shader Rules material.  To change these you need to use the Designer that comes with VSS.

I have to sleep now (it's 5:30 in the morning:)  Was this helpful to you?  I'd be glad to answer any of your questions or continue with the rest. Just let me know.

Jenx:

* Sure, we all have wild dreams of one day being discovered by ILM or Pixar (it's happened, don't laugh), ....*

Actually, it has happened.   ;}}

One thing is sure, it won't happen to JenX! ;))

Quote - Jenx:

* Sure, we all have wild dreams of one day being discovered by ILM or Pixar (it's happened, don't laugh), ....*

Actually, it has happened.   ;}}

That's actually what I was saying.  It's happened, right in this community.  AgentSmith, the old Bryce Mod, worked on Avatar.  There are dozens of artists who post in the galleries daily who ALSO work for DC/Marvel.  So, yeah, it's happened.  I said "don't laugh", because, frankly, it's not so far fetched.  

I love it on these forums when people take what I say and twist it.  Makes me glad I stay here!

Quote - One thing is sure, it won't happen to JenX! ;))

Since it's not my goal in life, I'm not expecting it.  I love how warm and accepting you are, Vintorix.  Not my fault you misinterpret everything people say.

Quote - Jenx:

* Sure, we all have wild dreams of one day being discovered by ILM or Pixar (it's happened, don't laugh), ....*

Actually, it has happened.   ;}}

Some people need to learn to flippin' READ what they qoute! Seriously? You can't see that what you said isn't exactly what she said? Seriously?!? :rolleyes: